Culinary Confusion dulls KGB at Harrah’s

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OK, the name might be a bit of a stretch — and apparently the source of some confusion, since the resort’s website says it stands for Kerry’s Gourmet Burgers but our receipt said Kerry’s Great Burgers — but the name of Kerry Simon’s new(ish) burger place at Harrah’s and the restaurant’s soft-pedaled Soviet motif are fitting. Because, just like the beleaguered former evil empire, the restaurant has some problems that could threaten its future.

Those started with the hostess podium. The hostess (or host) has the first contact with the guest, and therefore his or her demeanor should be welcoming in the extreme. But after we approached the podium — with no other customers around — we stood for a few minutes totally unacknowledged while the women behind it shuffled menus and seemed to stare off into space, before one finally addressed us with a bright smile. It was sort of odd, because we were sure they saw us, but whatever.

She led us into the restaurant and to a high-top table. We’re not sure why, because we’re not short, but like a lot of people, we find high-top seating uncomfortable. Noticing that the next room not only had regular tables but that a vast number of them were empty, we asked if we couldn’t be seated in there instead. Well … the hostess hesitated. And then, wrinkling her nose, "but it will be a wait, of about five minutes." She waited. OK, we said, and she shepherded us back to the hostess podium, where we stood rather awkwardly until our sentence had been served and a woman dressed in one of KGB’s dominatrix-inspired waitress uniforms led us to the promised land.

More out of curiosity than anything else — surely they didn’t have reservations for all of those empty tables — I asked why we had had to wait. Oh, she said, because our server had just taken drink orders for a large table, and she didn’t want us to sit and wait until she served them. Perfectly acceptable, except that our waitress then approached immediately, at which point we had to ask her to come back in a few while we looked over the drink menu. This is common sense, guys: You should have seated us, given us menus and told us there might be a bit of a wait while our waitress served the large table.

For her part, our server was reasonably helpful and efficient, offering water to go with my beer and bringing extra napkins for what turned out to be kinda messy starters of fried dill pickles ($4) and buffalo chicken rolls ($7). And after a puzzling start, we were on our way with well-executed if unremarkable appetizers. The crisply coated pickles were similar to those served at other places around town, only larger, in fat spears, and the rolls had just enough kick without being overly fiery, with some shredded vegetables to add flavor and textural contrasts and a creamy blue-cheese sauce for dipping. The food on both plates arrived sizzling hot and had been carefully fried so that a minimum of grease remained, but we abandoned them when our burgers arrived before we had finished.

But further snags cropped up with the burgers themselves. A Cobb Burger ($14), ordered medium, was somewhere between rare and medium rare, and a BBQ Bacon Burger ($14), ordered medium-rare, was somewhere between medium and medium-well. Both were otherwise OK, the latter with a barbecue sauce that had a decent depth of flavor, plus crisp bacon and smoked gouda that was all but overwhelmed by the sauce. The former, an amusing riff on the classic Cobb Salad, was tasty with its bacon, blue cheese, avocado and tomato salsa, but while the menu said there’d be red-pepper mayo, what we ended up with were pieces of hot green pepper that looked an awful lot like jalapeno and were kind of incongruous with the Cobb Salad theme.

A Short-Rib Sloppy Joe ($13) was quite nice (I especially liked the pickle chips that added just a bit of sweetness), but not as offbeat as the name would imply.

All of the sandwiches were served with fries, which were hot and crisp.

We had considered one of Simon’s whimsical desserts — some cotton candy, maybe — but our waitress dropped the receipt without asking and we couldn’t seem to flag her down and eventually gave up.

Kerry Simon has shown that he’s a creative chef, and with his interesting takes on classic American food, we had high hopes for KGB, but his talent didn’t show in the menu or the execution.

We liked the Soviet-era murals, oversized-lamp-shade lighting fixtures, rock music and even the waitress uniforms, which were in keeping with a lively, fun vibe, although the head of Stalin they’re not. But like the real KGB, this one may find that the devil is, in the end, in the details.

Las Vegas Review-Journal reviews are done anonymously at Review-Journal expense. Contact Heidi Knapp Rinella at 383-0474 or e-mail her at hrinella@ reviewjournal.com.