Red Square

In high school I had a civics instructor, Mr. Pflueger, who accused me of succumbing to "a better-Red-than-dead triteness" in my essays. I didn't mind, because he gave me a passing grade even though I missed more than half the assignments and knew that he meant what he said as a compliment. Besides, he did me a favor in the long run: Today, when I drink vodka shots at Red Square at Mandalay Bay, I understand completely what he meant.

Red Square is a swanky, Leningrad-themed joint presided over by a headless statue of the man himself. It is festooned with reproductions of propaganda art and has neutral brown walls and high ceilings. Imagine a czar's palace that was appropriated by the Party, then re-appropriated by a group of post-Gorby entrepreneurs and set up with the wickedest selection of vodkas you'll ever have the pleasure of sampling.

Run wild, comrade. Try the hard-core Russian firewaters such as Yubilev and Red Army or just stick with the standard, buy-'em-anywhere shooters such as Ketel One and Stolichnaya -- either way, you're in for a unique taste experience. The drink menu is as deep as the Baltic Sea, and if you sit at the bar -- essentially one long sheet of ice -- you can enjoy them all at the proper temperature. Get me: I'm Doctor Zhivago, baby! I'm glasnostatsic!

There are a few caveats. The servers can be as cold and aloof as the drinks on their tray, and those drinks will set you back a Moscow mile -- try $8 per shot. Martinis run about the same. Prices like that would have busted the Soviet Union years before Gorbachev did. But these are quibbles. In its way, Red Square is more stable than the USSR ever was, and I probably don't have to tell you that it's a hell of a lot more fun.

By the by, if you'd like to visit with Lenin's head and ask him what he thinks of the whole affair, it's frozen inside a block of ice inside the "vodka locker," a walk-in freezer containing much of the bar's stock; you can visit with him if you plan to drink some of the expensive stuff. I don't even have to wonder what Mr. Pflueger would have made of that.

Red Square is the 2004 Las Vegas Weekly Readers' Choice for Martini.

Las Vegas Weekly's 2004 Nightie Awards named Red Square Best Dining with a Scene.

-- Review by Geoff Carter