Food

Joel Robuchon Tasting Menu Experience – MGM Grand, Las Vegas

October 13, 2022 / Comments Off on Joel Robuchon Tasting Menu Experience – MGM Grand, Las Vegas

Another Vegas restaurant post, but this one is special because it’s my Joel Robuchon review! Definitely the most expensive tasting menu I’ve experienced, but each part was delicious and beautiful. It was unfortunate that I start to feel quite full after the rich cheese mousse course, but I managed to eat all courses and enjoyed the majority of the components. 

The menu in front of the restaurant. There are several options of tasting menus. The ones here advertised contain how you can choose appetizers, mains, dessert, etc. Fancy!

Which Tasting Menu to Choose?

There were several types of tasting menus, and each plate is rather small. There were some items where there’s a high supplement cost, which is why we went with the signature since there were some of the fancier stuff there plus many other things. Let’s get ready for a photo heavy post here. Check the image captions for descriptions and my thoughts!

The atmosphere was definitely elegant. Formal dress. The decor here matched the vibe, and piano music was playing. Definitely different compared to the regular MGM Grand entrance. I was told there is a secret entrance, the mansion one, where staying at the mansion is invite-only and costs thousands a night.
A table setting. Ours looked similar, but smaller since we were a party of 2. Nice purple, black, white theme here.
The tasting menu. OMG, so exciting since each dish is a work of art!
Bread cart! This looked soooo amazing, definitely the best bread service and experience we’ve experienced, and they all tasted great as well. They gave an explanation of the breads and we each chose which ones we wanted to try. They’d go heat it up and bring us our bread. We tried practically all the rolls - croissant, cheese, saffron, bacon, and so much more. I forgot to ask to try the milk bread roll!
The first round of my breads selection - a couple cheese breads and a mini croissant. All were really good. I really liked the mini croissant and the cheese bread on top the best. They also brought out a cart with butter that they cut/scooped/carved for us, as well as an amazing olive oil. So good. I could have filled up on bread, but nope… if I do a smaller tasting menu if I ever go back, I’d definitely eat a lot more bread!
1st Course - Le caviar Imperial - Ossetian caviar served atop of lobster in a crustacean gelee dotted with cauliflower purée. Work of art right here! So much time gets spent dotting each dot here. The gelee was so nice and rich in umami flavor. Caviar was good and the lobster below was good as well. One of my top 3 courses for sure.
2nd Course - La Tomate - Tomato candies invigorated with gazpacho and lemon virgin oil.
So many types of tomatoes and they tasted different from one another. This one also had the gelee-like stuff on the bottom and it was so rich in flavor as well. Refreshing. They recommended eating the bigger tomato in one bite, and OMG best thing! It was like eating a bowl of pasta since it tasted like amazing tomato sauce. Yum. Can I have another one?
This one has olives and such on there. I normally don’t like olives, but this one was pretty good when it’s mixed in. The first part of the tomato dish was better in my opinion, but this did tomato justice too.
3rd Course - Le Mais - Delicate corn cream with foie gras and gingerbread guile.
Best foie gras I’ve had. So much better than the one from my prior blog post. So smooth, really wished there was more. The corn was amazing as well. There were popcorn bits which I could have done without, but overall, the dish was fantastic. The gingerbread portion sounded odd, but it worked really well with this dish.
The corn fritter! Seems a bit out of place in a restaurant like this, but it works. Eat it along side with the other corn plate, and wipe fingers with the separate wipe in a small bowl. Not sure how they got the fritter to be so perfect. It was really good.
4th Course - Le Zephyr au Fromage - Heavenly cheese soufflé served with spinach coulis. This was the richest course as it was very cheesy. This one filled me up, but the white truffles on top were amazing. Well dispersed flavors throughout this dish. I wished this came much later since it was a bit difficult finishing this one and I think I would have enjoyed the later courses a lot more if it weren’t for the heaviness of this dish.
5th Course - La Laitue - Lettuce veloute, scallion flan and ricotta tortellini. This was so refreshing after the cheese mousse and white truffles. I wished I got.a photo before the green was poured in. There were goodies all in here, including an amazing piece of pasta. Definitely one of the lightest dishes for the night.
6th Course - Le Hamard Lobster simmered in saffron broth, roasted chestnuts and parsley cappuccino. WOW, so much rich lobster. It was super concentrated. I don’t consider myself having a shellfish allergy, but there are times when I do react a little bit, and I did just a tiny bit. Not bad or anything, just a sensitivity. Worth it. Super rich and light at the same time. Amazing pieces of lobster and all the veggie stuff in here. The broth is just so unbelievable as it was the most flavorful broth I’ve had.
7th Course - Le Bar - Five spiced pan-fried sea bass with stewed turnip and verjus sauce. This was my least favorite dish. I’d like my fish to be more tender as mine tasted a bit like those traditional Chinese dinner fishes, which I wasn’t fond of. The crispy skin was nice and the various salts and stuff brought the dish up for me a bit.
8th Course - La Canette - Spit-roasted duck with acacia honey, coriander, and seared fig. Also comes with a side of Joel Robuchon’s famous potatoes!
How this looks like a face creeps me out, but the duck was really good. The figs were also flavorful, but they were topped with candied ginger or something rather sweet and gingery. I couldn’t really eat that without feeling uncomfortable so I left as much of that fig topping on the plate. The figs themselves were good though. Duck is spectacular!
Joel’s potatoes!!! Super smooth with buttery rich potato flavor. The scoop was amazing and it complimented the duck dish so well. Such a great time for these potatoes. Special potatoes too.

Appetizers and Mains

The sea bass and the duck dishes were considered as mains, but the duck was the main main course. The other preceding ones were considered appetizers. We looked at the other tasting menus and there were options to choose these appetizers and mains, or go with some other stuff not offered on this main tasting menu. After the duck, it comes so many desserts. Definitely dessert heavy here!

9th Course - La Fraise - Harry’s berries compote, coconut tapioca, basil oil and lime. YUMMM!!! They plated this one with another dessert (see header photo), and there was strawberry sorbet on this one instead of the compote? Anyways, it was really delicious that I wanted more. I liked it much more than the other pre-dessert.
10th Course - La Myrtille - Blueberry confit, Kalamansi mousse, Tayberry sauce. I would have enjoyed this one a lot more if it was cold. Flavors were good, and I felt bad cracking this to eat it, but it must be done. Good mousse inside, but I’d prefer it to be colder.
11th Course - Le Chocolat - Cherry mousse with chocolate cream and Kirsch chantilly like “Black Forest.” Wow, this was just way too beautiful to eat. It felt like breaking into Toad’s house or something. This was so cute. Everything on the white plate was edible. Chocolate galore here. The Kirsch was super evident within some bites. I wished I wasn’t so full at this point to enjoy this delicious and beautiful thing more.
Sweets cart! So after 2 pre desserts and one main dessert, we get 6 or 7 more sweets!
Various sweets here. I got to choose a handful of things, including a passion fruit marshmallow lollipop and 6 other mini things. Pistachio, fruit jellies, opera cake, bon bone, and so much more. Not as great as the other desserts, but super pretty. I wished we had an option to take these to go instead. They preselected the other party’s since they were allergic to certain nuts and gave him the ones without those nuts. There were some combos such as strawberry peanut butter bon bon, so that’s def a no no for him.

What About Drinks?

We were given a wine menu and that was extremely extensive. Such a big menu! We didn’t want to drink much so we each ordered a glass of red wine and sipped that throughout our meal. I like cocktails, but they didn’t offer us a cocktail menu. We weren’t sure if they had cocktails, but we thought they offered it to someone else, so who knows… maybe I’l check on Yelp or something. 

Ordered a cappuccino to enjoy with my sweets. So interesting how the cappuccino and the espresso are the same price! This was really good that it made other cappuccinos I’ve had taste not as good haha.
The painful part - the check!! Yup, all that cost this much. Once a while splurge here. Wished I could afford to eat like this everyday. Notice how it says Joel Robuchon at the Mansions, and not the MGM Grand. Hmmm.. we are not special enough to get shown the “secret” entrance or exit.

Overall Thoughts / Would I Go Back?

TBH I was so uncomfortably full after all this food, but I think a mixture of things caused that feeling. It was really pricey, but worth it for a one time experience kind of thing since I love tasting menus and checking out new restaurants and what they have to offer. My taste buds were so happy, especially with the first several courses. I liked the “appetizers” more than the “mains.” Desserts were delicious, but there were so many sweets within the main tasting menu. The tasting menu is worth it to try a variety of stuff since to supplement the more premium appetizers or mains in the smaller tasting menus, it could cost as much as the main tasting menu. I’d go back, but probably not anytime soon. I’d try some other stuff, or the tasting again if the menu looked different than the day I tried. 

They give a small “gift” on your way out. We got a banana bread and a copy of our menu. So nice. I heard they’d give different things at times, such as a chocolate bar or something. As much as I’d love a bottle of their olive oil, I wouldn’t be able to take that back on the plane, so banana bread is good. I wished we got to take home the sweets cart stuff too!
The banana bread! We were too full to eat it the same night, so we shared some with some of my friends the next day. Pretty good banana bread. It had some tea-infused flavors too. Fluffy, good texture. Best bread ever? Nah, but that’s probably because banana bread isn’t my thing. Love the purple theme continues here too though.

Thanks for reading/looking at photos of my Joel Robuchon review! Amazing tasting menu, so many desserts. Wish I’d go back very soon because the food is really good!

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