Mika (my 9-yo daughter) had been asking me to take her to the Rainforest Cafe for months. We’ve been to the one in San Francisco a couple of times, and she loves it. However, the Rainforest Cafe is not just out of the way, all the way in SF, but it’s also ridiculously expensive – and the food isn’t even very good. However, I knew she was going to find out that there was a Rainforest Cafe in Vegas (as it was at one of the hotels we were staying at), and she’d demand we go there, so I made plans to do so. My plans basically consisted on going elsewhere for dinner, and just having dessert at RC. They sort of worked – Mike, Camila and I had burgers at In-n-out and then a dessert at RC, but Mika insisted in having dinner there as well.
The Rainforest Cafe in Vegas is located at the MGM Grand hotel. It’s a pretty small affair, in particularly in comparison to the one in San Francisco, and, IMHO, not nearly as cool. The fact that you can see the people walking in and out of the hotel from your table (or at least, from the table we were seated at), really detracts from the experience. There are relatively few animatronic animals, and they are static most of the time, but they’re pretty cool when they move. I did like the rain effect behind me. Mika liked it well enough.
Food at the Rainforest Cafe in Las Vegas is even more outrageously expensive than at other RCs. Most entrees are in the high 20’s, and even children’s meals are $10, and all they include is a drink (not dessert). You can get a coupon for a free appetizer with the purchase of one entree in several of the coupon books you find in Las Vegas, and when we went the first time there was a man downstairs (by the entrance from the self parking lot) handing out coupons for one free child’s meal with the purchase of an adult entree. Still, the food is super overpriced. On the plus side, the adult portions seem to be quite large and may be large enough to share.
Mika had the fettucini alfredo, and she was happy enough with her dish. No complains there, but really, she’s happy with the Budget Gourmet’s version of this dish, so she’s not picky.
We all shared the “volcano” ($15), a dessert consisting of three long brownie balls, surrounding two scoops of vanilla ice cream and covered with chocolate fudge. There is a glitter stick on top to suggest an explosion. I’ve had it before, but I had forgotten just how bad this very expensive dessert is. The brownies are way too dry, the fudge is way too sweet, and there isn’t enough vanilla ice cream for the amount of brownies available. There were four of us eating this dessert, but we couldn’t finish it. Actually, we didn’t want to either. I know I’ll have to return to the Rainforest Cafe (though hopefully not to the Las Vegas one), I hope to remember to order something other than the Volcano.
On the plus side, service was very good by our very cordial and cheerful waitress. She didn’t seem to mind at all that we were ordering so little food, and was very pleasant to us and the kids.
Rainforest Cafe
MGM Grand Hotel & Casino
3799 Las Vegas Boulevard South
Las Vegas, NV
(702) 891-8580
http://www.mgmgrand.com/restaurants/rainforest-cafe.aspx
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