Free Caesars Diamond Dinner Review: Mr. Chow and Hell’s Kitchen

Background:

For my one night Vegas Trip in August to utilize me and my dad’s Caesars Diamond Celebration Dinner Credit, we needed to find some restaurants to use our credits at. Having previously used the credit at Bacchanal Buffet and Old Homestead Steakhouse, we wanted to try something new. We would have one dinner, and one lunch (Funny how it’s called Celebration Dinner, but you can use it for lunch as well). We decided on Mr. Chow for dinner as we’ve always heard about it being famous, and thought the credit would be a good use here (looks like we will hit up Nobu next year). For lunch, there weren’t many options, as most of the more upscale restaurants only open for dinner. After much research, Hell’s Kitchen looked like the best option for lunch.

I obtained Caesars Diamond when I linked my Wyndham Diamond to Caesars over two years ago. Previously, Wyndham Rewards had status matches to its Diamond level, and I used my Hilton Diamond to obtain that. The benefit years from Caesars and Wyndham are mismatched, so one could match from one to the other each year, and with COVID, statuses were extended. Currently, Wyndham isn’t offering status matches at this time.

List of Restaurants for the Diamond Celebration Dinner:

 

Using the Credits:

It’s a bit ambiguous whether you can use your 2020 and 2021 celebration dinners in one setting or not. I still had my 2020 credit that I didn’t use, and Caesars Rewards extended the validity until 1/31/22. Before going, I read some forums online stating that you could use both your 2020 and 2021 dinners in one setting, and one of my friends confirmed that. I was super stoked as we would have $200 each so $400 total between my dad and I. Thankfully, that was the case for us when we went but technically the Caesars Rewards website states that:

The 2021 Celebration Dinner will be added only after you redeem the 2020 Celebration Dinner. The Celebration Dinner can take 7-10 business days to be added to account once the 2020 Celebration Dinner is redeemed.

When I went to pick up my new rewards card at the Caesars Rewards desk, the representative who helped us actually stated something different than online. She said I could only use 1 per person per meal but that my 2021 would be available immediately, meaning that I could use $100 at Mr. Chow for dinner, and then my other $100 at Hell’s Kitchen for lunch the next day and my dad could do the same. This wouldn’t have been bad either, but it seems easier to just use one person’s all at once. At Mr. Chow and Hell’s Kitchen, we just gave the Diamond card to the server, and I just asked them to use the two on my card for one meal, and the two on my dad’s card for the other meal and we had no issues there. So we got to use $200 for each restaurant! We ended up just mainly paying the gratuity for each meal.

Dinner: Mr. Chow

I have heard much about Michael Chow and his upscale Chinese restaurants across the world from Miami, Vegas, Beverly Hills, New York and the original in London. I decided to give the Vegas one a go with the Celebration Dinner. Reservations for the restaurant were pretty easy to come by, and I made them about two months in advance.

You enter on the casino floor, and then are whisked away in an elevator to the restaurant.

The tables in the main dining room seemed a bit too close together, so we requested a table a bit more spaced out and thankfully they placed along the edge, with more space and no one ended sitting next to us.

The table had a cool light in the middle, which illuminated the menu. We opted for the set course meal where you get 2 items from the First Course list and 2 on the Of Course List. We chose the Salt and Pepper Prawns and the off the menu Spare Ribs for the first course, and the Steamed Sea Bass and Fresh Live Lobster for our main courses. You also get to choose a vegetable of your choice and we picked the String Beans with XO Sauce, and for choice of rice we opted for the steamed white rice, but in hindsight we probably should have chosen the Shrimp Fried Rice. Our set course menu was $94 per person.

There’s an extensive drink menu, and I opted for the 50/50 Cocktail ($21) that had Grey Goose, Saint Germain, lime juice and pear nectar which was not bad but a bit bland.

The Salt and Pepper Prawns were pretty good; they were quite authentic with the whole shrimp shell intact. The spare ribs could have been better as they were a bit too saucy.

My favorite dish was the Sea Bass. Perfectly cooked, no bones, with a nice ginger and soy sauce. The lobster was solid, but nothing special to rave about. Plenty of Chinese restaurants banquet style can make the lobster similar to the one here at Mr. Chow.

It’s a bit disheartening when a Chinese restaurant, and an upscale one at that, cannot make good white rice. Sadly, the white rice at Mr. Chow was a bit too hard and felt undercooked.

I would say the lowest point of the meal was with the string beans. First, it was way too soggy and had no crunch to it. Additionally, XO Sauce was a bit too heavy on the black bean.

We were way too full for dessert, but they have this adorable (tacky?) dessert cart that comes out to show you what they are offering. They had fruit, and a coconut cake, chocolate mousse and another cake that I forgot.

My favorite part about the restaurant is definitely the ambiance. First, they had a chef put on a quick show on how they make the famous Mr. Chow noodles. The chef demonstrates in front of the whole restaurant his method which was pretty cool. Additionally, there’s this sculpture in the middle of the restaurant called “The Moon” that moves/rotates every 20 minutes or so and the lights change. Quite a nice atmosphere.

The Verdict for Mr. Chow

An elegant ambiance with good quality food, but it seemed not special enough to justify the high dollar sign. I might try it again in the future, but probably only for a special event or occasion.

Lunch: Gordon Ramsay’s Hell’s Kitchen

On the list of Caesars Celebration Dinner restaurants, the only one that was upscale and serving lunch was Hell’s Kitchen. Oh boy was it hard to get a reservation. Two months in advance, for a Monday in August I could not find any reservations available. I called the restaurant, and they said that none were available, and to keep checking. The first person I talked to two months out said they took limited walk ins, so I could try that if I couldn’t find a reservation. I set up an alert on OpenTable to notify me if any reservations opened up. For a month, nothing happened. I decided to try calling again- and this time I was told there was nothing available AND that they weren’t taking walk ins anymore. Cries!

Thankfully, about a week before my trip I got a notification from OpenTable that an 11am slot opened up. I quickly went into the app and reserved it. PHEW! I was so happy.

So moral of the story- get your reservations in early!

The restaurant opens right at 11am, and we got a great seat next to the windows with a great view of Caesars Palace and the Strip.

The area we sat in was nicely spaced out, compared to the center of the restaurant.

For appetizers, we started with a Shrimp Cocktail, Pan Seared Scallops and Heirloom Tomato Burrata Salad.

The shrimp cocktail was a bit on the small side, but tasted great. I really liked the gin cocktail sauce as well.

The scallops were good, and I enjoyed the corn puree and bacon bits. Yet, the scallops were really small, it seems like they cut 5 layers out of a large scallop to be honest lol.

This was probably the most disappointing appetizer as it was quite bland and pricey for quite literally tomatoes.

For our Main entrees, we both opted for Steak.

The New York was pretty good, and it even came with some maitake mushrooms and shishito peppers on the side which was a nice compliment.

Additionally, the Filet was great. I would say the steak at Old Homestead inside Caesars is a bit better, but Hell’s Kitchen was still a good option.

With our three appetizers and two steaks, we decided to pass on dessert as we were full for lunch. Maybe next time haha.

The Verdict: Gordon Ramsay’s Hell’s Kitchen

Overall, I loved the views from our seat and the food was pretty solid! I would definitely return on a future visit.

In Conclusion:

I love the Celebration Dinner that comes with Caesars Diamond as it allows me to try famous restaurants and spend way less! I was also really happy that I was able to use all of my credits from 2020 and 2021 in one trip.

 

What restaurants have you used your Caesars Diamond Celebration Dinner at? How were your experiences? Comment below!

 

Cheers,

Ty

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