Aquaknox, The Venetian

Aquaknox ... The Last Supper (4/24/08)

You find us on our final evening in Vegas. Tonight we're going to do our best to sweep the seas clean by dining at a seafood restaurant by the name of Aquaknox. I tried very hard to provide us with as much variety as possible during our five day glutton-fest and Aquaknox was a nod to the seafood fiend that dwells within us both. This choice was a bit of a food gamble, however, because I couldn't find a review of the damn place anywhere I looked. I had to rely on my own judgement (very scary indeed) and hope that the food was at least as good in person as it looked on the menu. The pressure was on as far as I was concerned because Jay's aunt and uncle were joining us for dinner and the last thing I wanted to do was be responsible for selecting the restaurant which would deliver the suckiest meal in recent memory for any and / or all of us.

Aquaknox is located in the lower level of the Venetian ... nowhere near the canal shops. If you know where Delmonicos is then you also know where Aquaknox is because they're next door neighbors. In passing I just have to say that Emeril's Delmonico menu sounded pretty damn tasty and we may just have to pay them a visit on our next as yet undetermined trip to Sin City!

We made it!


The restaurant's decor was calm, cool, and contemporary... various shades of blue reminiscent of the ocean from whence our dinners would be plucked were accented with silver and warm wood. They also had a really spectacular water-encased walk in wine cellar that we tried to photograph but as you've probably guessed by now ... it didn't turn out so well. But take my word ... it was waaaay cool!

The only quibble I had with the seating arrangement was that I thought the table was a bit small for a four-topper. Of course, now that I think about it, if we hadn't ordered enough food for a party twice our size maybe that wouldn't have been an issue.

The book of yummies...

I love this menu ... simple and elegant and full of budget-busting taste treats!

To whet our appetites the wait staff brought us ridiculously long breadsticks with some salmon mousse for dipping while we considered our many dining choices. I'm not a big fan of salmon mousse, most likely from watching too much Monty Python in my formative years, but in the spirit of adventurous dining I decided to give it another chance. At first I thought the mousse might be too peppery but it turned out to be the breadsticks, which is a real shame because I sure wanted to gnaw on some bread before the real food showed up but all I could taste was black pepper. Actually, if you look closely at the picture below you can see the dark, peppery flecks.

Baked Pick-Up-Sticks!

It was ... the salmon mousse.


To start, Jay and I ordered a seafood appetizer which we shared around the table. This was quite tasty but I wish I'd realized that they were going to cover the food with their respective sauces because then I would have requested that they be served on the side instead. The shrimp was covered with traditional cocktail sauce which was fine and the lobster was dripping with a mustard-ey sauce which was actually pretty tasty, but the sweet, succulent crab was ruined by being slathered in something that tasted of nothing but mayonnaise ... which I loathe.

Seafood Trio: A tasting of Sweet Shrimp, Lobster, and Jumbo Lump Crab Cocktails (pictured below left-to-right are the crab lumps, teeny shrimps, and Larry the lobster).

Two out of three's not bad, I guess


Jay is a salad man, so for his first course he chose this:

Sweet Shrimp and Crab Salad: Asian Greens, Cantaloupe, Avocado, and Sesame Citrus Vinaigrette

A heapin, healthy plate of stuff ... lots of stuff


Jason said this was excellent and the portion size was quite large for a salad - if it had been much larger it would have served perfectly as an entree. And they didn't skimp on the shrimp or the crab; it seemed like every bite he took yielded shrimpie or crabbie goodness.

The aunt and uncle also ordered salad and both chose the same thing, which they pronounced very tasty and refreshing:

Butter Lettuce & Herb Salad with Champagne Vinaigrette

The rabbits at our house would be in heaven if they could eat this


And I ... I chose the path less traveled. While I'm not a big lobster lovah, I have been known to enjoy a lobster bisque now and then. I try to wait to order them until we're dining at a fairly decent seafood place so that I don't set myself up for immediate disappointment. And this, my friends, was worth the wait. I was rewarded with a bowl of the creamiest, most delicate bisque it's been my pleasure to eat in a long, long time. OK, maybe that dollop of creme fraiche could have been larger and maybe they could have been a tadpole more generous with the caviar, but overall, this was just a tremendous offering and I'd order it again in a heartbeat.

Lobster Bisque: Creme Fraiche, Caviar, and Lobster Medallions

That's not a squid swimming in my bisque, is it?


For his dinner entree Jay had to go with his back-up plan because the John Dory, which he really wanted to try after having sampled its delicate delectableness at Victoria and Albert's the previous year, was unavailable. Ya know, I'm starting to feel like a seafood jinx ... last year there wasn't any Copper River Salmon at WDW the one night we tried to order it and now there's no John Dory in Las Vegas. What does a woman have to do to get her hubba some unique and impossible-to-find-in-Stinktown seafood while on vacation???

Thankfully Jason is a flexible diner, and he really enjoyed his alternate choice:

Black Bean Sweet Chili Glazed Grouper: Fragrant Lemongrass Broth, Udon Noodles, Hon Shimeji Mushrooms, Baby Bok Choi, and Cilantro-Wasabi Oil

Awww, look ... it was served with flowers!

Aunt, Uncle, and I all ordered the same thing for dinner: Seared Maine Scallops with Sweet Potato Puree and Mushroom Pancetta Fricasse.

I know that I ordered mine free and clear of any and all 'shrooms, but I'm not sure if the picture coming up is my dinner or someone else's. What I am sure of is that this was a wonderful, generous entree, with all four scallops cooked to silky perfection. Pardon the cliche but they literally melted in my mouth.

Pardon me, is this your dinner or mine?


And then, because I learned my lesson by not ordering cheese plates at certain WDW restaurants last fall (and I've been pining for them ever since) we requested ...

A Cheese Plate!!!

Look! Rabbit Ears!!!

Jay and I like to call this the Little Bunny Foo-Foo Cheese Plate because it looks there's a cracker bunny hiding behind a seed log. But there is a problem and it is this: we don't know what the cheeses are that are on that plate, nor do we know what the accompaniments are because our serving team didn't tell us. The cheeses were tasty, even the one that looks like it might be stinky blue-cheese toe jamb, but they're all a mystery.

Welladay, there's only one thing to do when faced with the prospect of eating anonymous cheese ... order some port! Oh, Grimace would have been proud ... or prouder still if we'd saved the money and gambled with it, but she does enjoy a good port, or even a bad port now that I think about it.

Taylor Fladgate 20-year Port

I love port with cheese - it just works - and this was a damn fine glass of port; large enough to share, too! And as if we didn't have enough liquid on the table, Jay and I decided to order some cappuccino just in time for dessert.

A generous mega-cup of coffee-goodness with chocolate biscotti

This was a most excellent cappy, and didn't even require additional sugaring on my part which is astonishing now that I think about it. I gave my biscotti to the uncle because it had nuts baked into it and I don't believe in tempting the intestinal gods by eating food with nuts. Both he and Jason said the biscotti was good, good, good!

Do I hear a marching band? That must mean that it's time for the dessert parade to begin! The uncle ordered the healthiest sweet treat of the night:

Trio of Sorbet (unidentified but delicious)

Mini frozen fruity ice balls served with a baby pine tree

The aunt ordered creme brulee with an assortment of merry berries (not marion berries ... that's another state).

Did someone take a bite before the picture was snapped???

Jay ordered the Chocolate Bread Pudding with Butterscotch Ice Cream, Raspberry Chantilly, and Chocolate Toffee Sauce. Once I tasted this I sort of wished that I'd ordered it too, it was just that good. Dense, chocolate pudding cake with butterscotch ice cream ... oh, yeah, it was wonderful. I was a little puzzled by the presentation, though. It looked like someone in the kitchen busted a tail-light and stuck it into Jay's dessert for artistic effect.

Are we supposed to eat it or glue it back together?

For my dessert I chose the Chocolate Malt: Fudge Brownie, Milk Chocolate Crunch, Chocolate Mousse, and Chocolate Malt Ice Cream. This was very good, but perhaps a bit too much chocolate ... I felt like it needed some contrasting flavor to really make it pop. What that flavor enhancing flavor was supposed to I don't know, but the taste was just a wee bit flat. Jay's dessert was definitely the better pick of the two.

It was pretty good...

We all agreed that this was a fine, fine meal. Jay's aunt and uncle said they really enjoyed it and planned on coming back, even to the point of bringing some business clients. And Jay and I were very happy to end our Vegas trip on a positive dining note. I was especially pleased that I hadn't chosen anything that had ended up being a momentous disappointment - everything in Vegas is so hyped that I think it's very hard to pick a dining spot that really delivers what it promises. We were fortunate to dine at a number of restaurants with varying cuisine and menu prices - they were all terrific experiences and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend any of them to my food lovin' friends here (well, maybe you can skip the hot dogs).

Jay and I are hoping to head back to Vegas in May 2010 for his 40th birthday ... until then I rely upon you, the hungry audience, to keep us posted on the fine food finds you discover in Sin City so that we'll have some suggestions for our next visit!