Simon left Prime to work in tandem with restaurant consultant Elizabeth Blau, former restaurant exec at MGM Mirage. Together, they make an unbeatable team. Simon Kitchen and Bar is a casual, stylish room with equally stylish placement. It's directly across the hall from another defining Vegas restaurant, Nobu. The two restaurants give the Hard Rock and the casino's risk-taking owner, Peter Morton, a reaal one-two punch. Now the question is, do X'ers and Y'ers know good food when they see it? the early returns say yes.

The concept fits the Hard Rock like a glove. The noise level is high, but who comes to the Hard Rock for quiet anyway? Instead of table cloths and similarly conventional appointments, the restaurant uses wooden tables, designer chairs and a clever juxtaposition of light and space complemented by an open kitchen and a safari themed Peter Beard photo collage on a rear wall.

The restaurant was conceived as a high-octane supper club for the young and hip, the type of room where, in the chef's words, "I would want to invite my friends." This sounds suspiciously like PR, until you experience an evening here. Simon patrols the dining room while eyeballing the chefs, but just as often, is seen schmoozing relentlessly, eliciting rock star adoration, on occasion from actual rock stars(the Rolling Stones enjoyed Thankgiving dinner here).

He can do this because he has an ace in the hole, former MGM Grand Executive Chef Kim Canteenwalla. K.C. is usually seen stationed front of the kitchen, watching each dish as it comes up to be served. This is the equivalent of having a virtuoso violinists playing the role of concertmaster in a symphony orchestra. It makes everyone perform better and Simon knows it.

Simon conceived this food, but talented chef de cuisine Josh Thompson is the man actually cooking. They like to call their food "classic American," but there are touches of Europe, Asia and your local county fair in these dishes—a group of crowd pleasers that touches almost evry sensibility.

First courses, for instance, are daring, such as the dish Simon has dubbed colossal crab cake. This fat orb of back-fin crab meat, egg and a dusting of flour and spice stands on it's own as the best crab cake this side of the Chesapeake Bay. But the chef has paired it with winsome young papaya Asian slaw, which adds a mysterious dimension of Vietnamese cuisine to an already killer dish.

Faultless bluefin tuna tartare is dressed with lemongrass and chive, more influence of Southeast Asia. Seared carpaccio and tartare comes with a dollop of horseradish cr�me and organic watercress, intensifiers for the sashimi-grade beef that Simon favors.

There is no letdown in the salad section. Tuscan salad resonates more as a Greek salad, dominated by arugula, Kalamata olives, tomatoes and garlic. But a sprinkle of mozzarella cheese and a handful of fat, rich, polenta croutons acheive a richness that almost seems like sacrilege in a salad. Proscuitto and a seasonal melon, a heavenly pairing, is ramped up by the saltiness of Point Reyes blue, a boutique cheese from northern California. Classic Caesar has a muscular dressing and a crisp disc of cooked Parmesan cheese big enough to play Frisbee with.

From there it's clear sailing into the entr�es, prime meats and impossibly rich side dishes, from a quoit-like stack of buttermilk onion rings to a mac-n-cheese that is completely delicious.

My favorite dish is the pound and a half Maine lobster split-grilled, and then jammed with a stuffing of lobster meat, bread crumbs and butter, a New England treat that rarely appears west of the Mississippi. The best fish is probably salmon cooked tandoori style, rubbed with spice and charred at high heat.

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