The State Fair Funnel Cake is every bit as fun as it sounds-rounds of crisp fried dough are served hanging from a bronze sculpture with a variety of sweet sauces. Speaking of wine, the list at Rare is the most extensive at Encore, with experts to guide you every step of the way and to pour into really cool decanters, as befits a restaurant for high rollers. The steak was dense and especially “beefy,” if that’s a thing, with notes of earthiness and nuttiness that are akin to terroir in wine.

Like most of Rare’s cuts, the cowboy rib-eye was aged in house in a custom-built cabinet designed specifically to control humidity and temperature. We chose to share the bone-in cowboy rib-eye, so we could also feast on sides like chili-roasted Brussels sprouts and Yukon Gold potato purée. Chef Kyle Bradish oversees the most uniquely curated steak program in New England, including exclusive Japanese cuts from Kobe and the Kagoshima prefecture, as well as the best of domestic beef from Snake River Farms, Idaho. My dining companion and I dressed to impress at this elegant BONS-winning steakhouse-white upholstery (with matching stools for purses, natch) and soaring windows looking out on Encore’s alluring grounds add to the quiet sophistication of the space. Or splash out on the wok-charred beef tenderloin-seared with king oyster mushrooms and cooked in an intensely flavorful soy sauce blend, it is luxurious and worth the $68 price tag. Red 8 is the perfect spot to improve your fortunes-red is the lucky color in Chinese culture, and the number eight is said to invite wealth. The duck is very popular-in an average month, the restaurant sells 1,200 of them, and you can even get a duck tasting menu. Chen is a Cantonese cooking specialist who brings with him a constellation of five-star and five-diamond awards, and holds the distinction of helming Wing Lei at Wynn Las Vegas, the only Chinese restaurant in North America ever to have earned a Michelin star.ĭon’t miss the terrific Hong Kong barbeque, or the Peking Duck, which is fanned for about 32 hours to ensure it is perfectly dry before cooking, which translates into a shatteringly crisp skin. Since there were only two of us, the enormous King Crab was out of the question, but that still left a wealth of options-like prawns that were swimming about just a few seconds before executive chef Richard Chen expertly prepared them, advising us to suck on the heads, just like crawfish.

It’s hard to choose where to start at this temple to Chinese food-a plush red-velvet enclave that opens onto the casino floor.

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