Dining

This hefty rib-eye will catch your eye: It is 20 ounces, bone-in and wet-aged. And the chef has the right touch—it’ll be one of the most tender steaks you have ever tasted. The sauces are excellent here, too, and there are some great wine pairings. $49, Monte Carlo, 730-6700.

To watch Social House barista Jonah Vongdala toil over the intricate designs in his silken latte foams is to watch a craftsman at work. But while the 26-year-old self-proclaimed coffee fanatic from Hawaii is perfectly at home in the driver’s seat of Social House’s La Marzocco—“the Bentley of espresso machines,” he calls it—the real horsepower comes from the Bonmac Hikari siphon coffee system, one of six of the Japanese imports operating in the U.S. and the first in Nevada.

Fusion restaurants have become a way of life, and if you have any doubts, check out Match, a cosmopolitan tapas bar and Korean barbecue. At first, the concept seems a little goofy. But strangely enough, it works.

Even in the dog days of summer, the food scene here is as lively as it is during the peak tourism season. François Payard, the pastry and chocolate genius who has a venue at Caesars Palace, recently unveiled a dinner menu in his tiny, wedding-cake-like dining room, and it’s killer. Payard Pâtisserie & Bistro has been open for breakfast and lunch since it opened, and it reopens for dinner in early September.