Tim T.
Yelp
While it's great to walk the 'Historic Water Street' corridor on a nice day or night, unfortunately there's just nothing interesting, let-alone exciting, about The Pass. On a recent weekend afternoon, I met up with a friend there to check it out & have a late lunch at their cafe, called Emilia's Cafe. There's also an Italian restaurant in the casino, and we decided we'd try that in the future.
Yes, there are plenty of slot machines & some table games were in operation. For better or worse (better, in the long-run for society) it seemed like most people had other things to do besides sit around & gamble on a beautiful Sunday afternoon, and there were no more than about 25 customers in the place. My friend had gotten there about 30 minutes before me & done some gambling, losing about $100, as-is what usually tends to happen in such situations. We were quickly seated in Emilia's Cafe, and perused the fairly extensive (yet typical casino cafe food) on the menu. Drinks were served quickly, by a friendly waitress.
We decided to share an order of nachos, and my friend ordered the ribeye steak with horseradish sauce -- kind of his 'go-to' order at such places, meanwhile, as a vegetarian, there were only two entree choices for me to chose from -- a grilled cheese sandwich, and I forget what the other item was.
If you think about it, nachos are a pretty easy item, and pretty hard to screw-up -- a mountain of chips with LOTS of melted cheese atop, and then maybe some meat/chili, salsa, guacamole & sour cream. I think most of us basically visualize the same thing when we think of them. We were underwhelmed when we were served a flat aluminum cooking tray with a mostly flat layer of chips, some melted cheese atop, and then almost as an after-thought because they knew they didn't put enough real-cheese on them, they poured some "Cheez Whiz" cheese dip onto the cooking tray, which also helped hide all the 'open-space' on the tray which indicated how small the appetizer was. The chili/meat came in a separate bowl per-request (again, I'm a vegetarian) for my friend. Salsa, Guacamole & Sour Cream were each in tiny, shot-glass sized containers -- not enough, even for the rather paltry-sized nachos. Being hungry, we ate the nachos, & while they did not taste bad, it was the worst order of them I'd ever had.
I've been a vegetarian for well over half my life now but long-ago, I did eat steaks & stuff, and I do occasionally watch the 'reality TV' kitchen shows like Top Chef, Hell's Kitchen, etc. as well as go out to eat with friends that order steaks, so even *I* observed that the ribeye my friend was served looked pretty bad! We completely understood exactly where we were and what the pricing was (the overall feel of the property constantly reminds you of this...) -- there was no confusion thinking we were at Hugo's Cellar, or that a day earlier, the Emilia's Cafe chef was fighting with Jose Andres over that exact cut of meat at some butcher shop. The ribeye just looked sad, but as a longtime vegetarian, I'm not qualified to judge. So I was vindicated when my life-long carnivore friend kind of expressed the same thing, agreeing with me that the most appetizing thing on his plate was the side of french fries. The side of horseradish sauce for his ribeye was "still being made, and would be out soon," said the waitress (the horseradish sauce was ordered at the same time the steak was, about 20 min earlier).
My grilled cheese with fries tasted good. I'd hoped for the sandwich it to be a little larger based on the price, but **the key about The Pass is that the place is completely unremarkable,** and the only people entering it with hopes should be the many homeless people that normally hang-out in the area on Water Street, as they try to come-inside this Summer & escape the heat.
The horseradish sauce finally showed-up at our table about 10-15 minutes after the ribeye steak that it was requested with & for had been served. By then, my friend had eaten about 1/3rd of it and decided to enjoy the french-fries instead, and that he'd feed the remaining ribeye to his dogs.
Total bill came to about $54. We paid it and departed. The only thing memorable & pleasant about the day was wandering up & down Water Street for a while.
Other than the nice location on Water Street, there's just nothing interesting, unusual or otherwise compelling about The Pass. After my underwhelming experience at their cafe, I don't have an interest in trying their Italian restaurant -- I know where I can go for both good & great Italian food, and have no reason to expect great Italian food there at The Pass. My only interest in it now is to see how long the Italian restaurant lasts as-is, before either lowering prices or being "Closed for Remodeling."
I do wish the owners of The Pass success! I am a fan of Water Street, but...
