text: Nobu Vegas, much like other Vegas Strip satellite restaurants = meh.\n\nI can't give it 2 stars, because the food is too good for that. Not great, like a real Nobu, but good. When you factor in the cost (2 of us spent over $400), it comes nowhere near what its name would imply.\n\n\nDECOR\nThe decor is trying too hard, pulling in all directions. There are individually cool elements, like the river rock wall, or the exploded hashi ceiling. But there are at least 5 different themes like this all smashed together. Complete contrast to japanese design principles of linear minimalism. Must be the Vegas factor.\n\n\nFOOD\nStarted out pretty good, with a Toro-Caviar dish. Great mix of flavors and a unique sauce. Everything after that, including the sushi, was was just good. A beef tenderloin dish came out steaming hot, but with little flavor and essentially raw asparagus and enoki still clumped together on top, like it just got unwrapped from the plastic pkg. I've eaten better in strip mall Japanese (many of these are surprisingly good!). I'm not a Japanese food expert/snob, but I've lived in Japan, worked in Japanese restaurants and cook a lot of Japanese dishes at home. Then again, so do millions of Japanese people, and they're not all snobs or experts. But I know how to compare Japanese-inspired food experiences. I also realize there is a fusion element going on at Nobu, but that is done much better at places like Sea Saw in Scottsdale. Overall = disappointing.\n\n\nOTHER FACTORS I'M NOT COUNTING IN MY EVALUATION\n(but worth noting for lols)\n\nTHOR\nOur waiter was absolutely unintelligible. We nicknamed him Thor. He looked like a Norwegian model from a 1976 Playgirl. Very nice guy, but we just pretended to understand what he said. Every time he walked away, we both said: \"You catch any of that??? Me neither!\" No complaints on the service, just glad the menu was available to point at.\n\nBLIND DATE VEGAS\nThe table next to us was fookin hilarious. It was the most awkward blind date I've ever witnessed, not on TV. We kept looking around for cameras, because we swore this was a setup for a show. It is a crime that this was not captured on video. This middle-aged blowhard had this girl,  who had to be 20 years younger (NTTAWWT), held captive while he ranted about his boat and his travels and his companies (plural!) that he coudln't talk about because of his work with the NSA. He'd have to kill the whole restaurant if he told us. And he WAS talking to the whole restaurant. He insisted on feeding her from his chopsticks, for every bite. He kept asking for her review of the date, during the date. EPIC DEFEAT. He let us all know that he had to ask the universe for the right person to meet. The girl seemed to politely disagree with the universe. Bless her heart. She was a trooper.\n\nAlso, his chopstick skills were so good because he was \"raised in Japan\", but when she wanted him to speak Japanese, somehow that got by his experience of being raised there.\n\n\nso...\n\nNobu, meh.\n\nThor, enjoy Valhalla.\n\nBlind Date, see ya on the uncensored DVD.