Beijing Noodle No. 9 — Restaurant in Paradise

After eating here, there's really only one question on my mind: "How is Mr. Chow's still open?"

I ate at both Chinese restaurants located in the Caesar's back to back, one night after the other, and Beijing Noodle No. 9 beats Mr. Chow's handily on price and taste.

I admit, the service and spectacle at Mr. Chow's is what you're paying for. You're paying for the 'ambiance' (abtract ceiling artwork that moves, flowers on your table that are taken away once you begin eating, and an abundance of white tableclothes), the ever-present waiter on your shoulder, and the bizarre interruption in your meal that is the noodle making session announced by a gong and a bellowing service team.

"But what about fine dining!" people whine. Fair enough, some value service and spectacle more highly than other. Even so, I would still argue that there are better Chinese fine-dining locations on the Strip.

Nonetheless, I don't want someone to hold my hand through a prix-fixe menu. I want to be fed hot food quickly at a reasonable price so I can go back to gambling like a degenerate. This is what Beijing Noodle accomplishes.

The apps came out hot and fast. Slippery red chili wontons hummed with garlic and left a pleasant, lingering level of spice in my mouth. The pork bun dough was like a cloud, and the meat filling had actual flavor.

The noodles, given the restaurant's namesake, are obviously the star of the night. As a poor college student who was in Vegas gambling for dinner, I ordered one of the cheaper options, the Zha Jiang Mian. The sweet paste sauce probably sounds strange to most, but imagine the savory thrill you get when you eat bacon with maple syrup. The sauce operates on the same delicious wavelength.

Other diners with me ordered the Singapore noodles and the General Tso's Chicken. The shrimp in the noodles were tender and faintly spiced with curry powder, and the chicken was freshly fried and tossed in a sauce that was the perfect amount of salt and spice.

I've read some complaints about the price of Beijing Noodle. Perhaps these diners are suffering from a bout of cognitive dissonance? Yes, a bowl of noodles costing $15-25 would be nuts in LA or NY.

But Beijing Noodle is operating in the context of Vegas glitz and glam, where coffee and a donut from Dunkin' costs $17, and I have to say - the portion sizes at Beijing Noodle aren't lacking.

Finally, while we sat at the bar for want of a table, the service was still top-notch. My water glass seemed to be constantly full, and our orders were taken efficiently. To say that the service lacked charm is inaccurate as well, I found myself ordering a batch of egg custard buns despite protestations of fullness.

I was worried about the cost of the buns, having been hazed by Mr. Chow's exorbitant prices the night before. There was little reason to worry - the price of feeding 4 at Beijing Noodle was $160 including tip, a fraction of the $375 spent at Mr. Chow's to feed a party of 3. Spend your comps wisely at Caesars and go to...

On August 17th around 2pm, I was in the Caesars Palace Hotel enjoying the day with my daughter to celebrate her 24th birthday. While in the hotel, she saw this restaurant and wanted to try it for dinner so we stopped by to see if they take reservations and was told by the 2 young ladies at the front desk that they don't take same day reservations. We said ok and walked away.

I then told my daughter to go on "Open Table" and see if they had any open reservations for today around 6pm. There were like 10+ open times for this evening so we selected 6pm. At this point, we didn't understand why they felt the need to be dishonest with us. We continued to walk around and then decided to leave the hotel and head outside. In order to leave, we had to walk by the restaurant again and saw two ladies at the front desk asking the same question we did but they were told "no reservations needed" simply come back anytime you want and we will seat you.

WOW, we were shocked to hear that so after the two ladies walked away from the desk, we stopped them and asked them if what we heard was accurate and they confirmed that no reservation was needed and they could come back and be seated anytime.

Note, my daughter and I are black, the other two ladies who didn't need a reservation were white. After we told them what happen, they told us we shouldn't eat there. I told my daughter we could still eat there if she wanted and she said "NO WAY - NEVER"!!! The look on my daughter's face was heart breaking. She was so surprised and hurt that this restaurant didn't want her there and needed to lie in order to make sure we didn't.

If you are a minority, this restaurant is NOT the place for you. Can't believe with everything going on right now, this type of behavior is still happening.

We will NEVER EVER EAT AT...

Overall 2/5: Cute and clean inside, definitely elevated dining; but the food just wasn't good. Would definitely opt for somewhere else, just because pricing was pretty steep and not worth it.

Food 2/5: We ordered the shanghai noodle, beef chow fun, soup dumplings, pork and cabbage dumplings, and the steamed pork bbq buns. The singapore noodles were dry, didn't have much flavor, and were salty at the same time. The beef chow fun barely had any noodles in it; it was mostly bean sprouts. I've definitely had better. The shrimp on the singapore noodles were definitely not the kind you would expect looking at the prices of everything. I would barely call what we had soup dumplings. They were drink and the skin was so tough and thick. The pork and cabbage dumplings were the same story unfortunately. The best thing we had were the steam pork bbq buns, and even still they lacked flavor. They were very flaky and nice though.

Service 3/5: Our server was pretty honest with us about how long the food would take up front. He was able to time everything nicely for us. Our waters were constantly refilled, but towards the end we made eye contact several times and he didn't bring the check. We had flagged him down and still it took awhile for him to bring it. We made it very clear that we were done by stacking the plates together, but still it was a good while before we could get his attention.

Environment 3/5: Definitely very pretty inside. They had cool goldfish tanks and beautiful designed interior. We loved the color scheme of all the set up and everything. Definitely more about aesthetics of the place than quality and taste of the food.

Wouldn't recommend, we only went just because it was close by and located where we...