As I've said in previous posts about dining experiences in Las Vegas, it's difficult to get a large group of 10 or more people to get into a good restaurant during the annual CES trade show. Given that it was a Friday night, I was having a helluva time finding a place that would be able to get us in before 9 p.m. I finally decided to try an old stand-by, the Tillerman restaurant on East Flamingo (see map). Surprisingly, they said they would be able to get us in.
The Tillerman is one of the "old school" supper clubs that have been on the Las Vegas valley landscape for a number of years. Since they first opened in 1980, the Tillerman has been one of the favorite places for local residents to dine in Las Vegas. And while I've eaten there two or three times previously, I hadn't been there for quite sometime until we were out in Vegas for CES this past January.
There were 12 of us who ended up at the Tillerman for a 7:30 reservation. For a Friday night right in the middle of CES, we were very surprised it wasn't more busy than it was. I'm guessing the restaurant was possibly three-quarters full. There have been times in the past that I've waited up to two hours to eat at the Tillerman. But we noticed that a lot of restaurants were able to get larger groups in with little to no problems at this year's CES.
We ended up being seated right away at a large rectangular table in the main dining area. There are four main dining areas in the Tillerman, including a mezzanine that overlooks part of the restaurant. The main room has a high ceiling and features a number of indoor trees to give it more of a cozy, outdoor feel to the place.
The menu at the Tillerman is massive and varied. While they're well known for their steaks and fresh seafood, they also offer pasta dishes, chops and chicken. And they're pretty proud of their food at the Tillerman. It's not cheap. I don't remember it being all that expensive, but I've begun to notice that a lot of the old time restaurants in Las Vegas have raised their prices - some of them tremendously - over the past few years.
For example - an 8 oz. center cut filet is $49 bucks at the Tillerman. An Asian style Chilean sea bass is $42 bucks. A 10 oz. Flat Iron steak with seafood ravioli is just a shade under $40 bucks. And that doesn't include the side dishes such as baked potatoes, rice, Bearnaise sauce and sauteed mushrooms that range in price from $4 to $7. There were a number of surprised exclamations from the guys in our group over the pricing. And remember, we tend to eat a little more upscale when we're together as a group.
And the wine list is also sort of expensive, but they had a great selection of wines. Since some of us were going to eat seafood, I initially ordered up a bottle of white and a bottle of red. The white wine was the Ferrari-Carano Fume Blanc wine, a wonderful dry white wine that is one of my favorite whites. The red we got was the Paraduxx blend that is from the Duckhorn winery that I like so well. It was a great tasting and very interesting red that everyone seemed to like. But the Tillerman wanted about $45 bucks for the Ferrari-Carano wine - a wine that you can easily find in stores for around $15 bucks a bottle. And the Paraduxx - while somewhat expensive in stores at around $40 to $45 bucks - was priced at $115 at the Tillerman. We knew it was going to be a pretty expensive bill to get out of the Tillerman.
In addition to the choices on the menu, the Tillerman offered some specials that evening. I went pretty basic, however, in my choice. For my main entree, I went with the 10 oz. "baseball-cut" sirloin steak with a side of broccoli in a hollandaise sauce with a side of peppercorn sauce for the steak. That, alone, was $49 bucks for the whole shebang.
But along with the main entree, they brought out a couple of "lazy Susan" salad bowl servers and placed them on our table. You served yourself the lettuce, toppings such as cherry tomatoes, croutons, and small veggies; and a selection of homemade dressings including a very good creamy bleu cheese. It was plentiful and good.
Along the way, our waiter was efficient, but rather stiff. I would have liked to have someone with a little more personality waiting on us, but he did his job well, staying on top of our needs which can be pretty tough with a large table.
Our dinners showed up and my steak was good. It wasn't outstanding, but it was good. It was cooked to a perfect medium-rare, and I enjoyed dipping a few pieces into the peppercorn sauce to give the meat a little more zip to the taste. The broccoli was perfectly cooked and the hollandaise sauce wasn't as heavy as I expected it to be, which was fine with me.
As we finished up our meal, the bill was brought to the table. With tip included into the bill, it came to just under $1200 bucks. No one - and I mean, no one - wanted to sign the tab. Not only was it nearly $1200 bucks, but we didn't think it was worth $1200 bucks. It was good - don't get me wrong - but we'd all had more fabulous meals with spending a lot less money. Finally, I was the one who took the bill and presented my company credit card for the meal. It was pretty tough to sign the charge slip and even more tough to write it up in my expense report about six weeks later.
The Tillerman is very good, but - man - is it expensive. In my opinion, it's not worth the money we paid to eat there. Sure, the service was good, the food was good, the wine was good, it was a comfortable atmosphere and we were able to get out of there in under two hours. But that's a lot of money spent for the level of food we got.
(Update - I found this article that talked about the closing of the long time Las Vegas iconic restaurant in February of 2011. A new owner who sunk a lot of money into the renovation of Tillerman couldn't make a go of the place. Coupled with the recession and a horrific monthly lease she had to pay on the property, she couldn't make a go of the place. Too bad. It was a place that helped those realize what the old Las Vegas was like before all the mega hotels/casinos and the 4 and 5 star restaurants came to town.)
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