Appetizers include Turtle Soup au Sherry at $7.50; Shrimp Remoulade at $9.50. The Pan Roasted Gulf Oysters, with half a dozen hot, plump oysters and chunks of tender artichoke broiled in a double-cream sauce, is decadent and delicious at $9.75.

Entrees include the Louisiana Pecan Crusted Gulf Fish, a huge, tender and juicy slab of grouper with a crisp, vinegary green salad served atop a crushed corn cream sauce topped with spiced pecans, at $27.50.

Desserts include Bananas Foster, French Quarter Beignets and Molten Chocolate Cake, all at $7.50.

The wine list is traditional, well-organized. It has a small list of wines by the glass for $7 to $9. Wines by the bottle are nicely arranged on the list, from the lightest to the fullest. Whites are listed in such helpful categories as "oaky" or "full body, less oak;" reds into such categories as "light" or "formidable." Nothing cutting-edge here. Just big portions of satisfying traditional Créole food. As Martha Stewart would say: It's a good thing.

* Anasazi of Santa Fe Restaurant, in the Desert Passage at the Aladdin Hotel and Casino, 3663 Las Vegas Boulevard South, 702-836-0989.

Chef Randall Warder has brought his award-winning Anasazi Restaurant from Santa Fe to Las Vegas, working here with chef Paul Vigil. They call the cuisine a combination of Native American and American Cowboy Cooking, but Gabby Hayes never rustled up any vittles like these for Roy Rogers and posse.

The room evokes an old Mexican hacienda, with wood beams, slate floors, luminaries lining the faux roof under a ceiling painted the midnight blue of a desert sky at night.

Appetizers include Diablo Shrimp with Griddled Corn Cakes at $14 and Lime-Glazed Lobster Fajitas with Papaya-Cucumber Salsa and Corn Tortillas at $15. The Rosemary Skewered Scallops and Foie Gras Nacho with Eggplant-Goat Cheese Roll and Smoked Tomato Sauce, at $14, is two huge scallops perfectly grilled, redolent with rosemary, with the unexpected combination of a small, tender slice of foie gras atop a corn chip -- chi-chi on a shingle, if you will, but delicious in its creamy, smoky tomato sauce.

Entrees include Habanero-Merlot Glazed Tuna Mignon with Cowboy Beans and Seared Spinach at $30. The Dry-Aged Rib Eye Steak with Western Steak Sauce, Sour Cream Baked Potato and Buttermilk Onion Rings, at $36, would satisfy a whole herd of cowboys. The steak is huge, a full 16 ounces of nicely grilled if not thoroughly trimmed beef; the mammoth potato is laden with sour cream laced with cheddar, chives and bacon. Straight-forward, satisfying.

The medium-size wine list offers a good range of prices for wines, both by the glass and by the bottle. A glass of 1999 Ferrari-Carano Fumé Blanc is $8; a glass of 1999 Sterling Winery Lake Pinot Noir is $11. Several wines from California, France and Alsace are $20 a bottle -- or there's the 1989 Krug Clos du Mesnil Champagne for $650.

Desserts include Margarita Pie at $8.50; Warm Chocolate Truffle Cake with Vanilla Ice Cream and Cream Sauce at $9.

* Piero Selvaggio's Valentino and P.S. Italian Grill, in the Venetian Hotel & Casino, 3355 Las Vegas Boulevard South, 702-414-3000.

Veteran restaurateur Piero Selvaggio, well-known for his Los Angeles restaurants, Primi and Posto and the award-winning Valentino in Santa Monica, has opened a fine-dining restaurant here also called Valentino, combined with a sidewalk café and an informal restaurant called P.S. Italian Grill.