A Casbah That Rocks

On paper, the new Aladdin hotel must have seemed like a sure thing, a belly-dancing fantasy made flesh and concrete. After all, why settle for Paris, Venice or the Strip’s other faux-Continental fare when you can abandon yourself to the perfumed pleasures of the Middle East? Better yet, a fairy-tale Middle East where every wish is as good as a command?

The Aladdin, which opened Aug. 18, fulfills its hedonistic mission in many ways. During a recent weekend romp, my wife and I splashed in the capacious rooftop pool, dined like sultans at two of its better restaurants and parted with hard-earned greenbacks faster than you can say “Shazzam!”

Primed for some sensual self-indulgence, Marla and I set out on our magic carpet ride (OK, a ’97 Saturn) over the pre-Halloween weekend. Dodging thunderstorms and freeway jams, we arrived in Vegas feeling like Bedouins after a trip across the Sahara.

As burly and bulky as a circus strongman, the 2,600-room Aladdin has muscled its way onto a 34-acre lot next to the equally imposing Paris. While the entrance to Paris is plainly marked by its ersatz Arc de Triomphe, the Aladdin’s subterranean garage is harder to spot than Al Gore’s punch hole on a Palm Beach ballot. We missed the well-camouflaged driveway--or maybe forgot to say “Open, sesame!”--and had to circle the block to find our way to the valet pull-up, where a cheerful attendant spirited us into the hotel.

Lobbies never have been Las Vegas’ strong suit. They’re utilitarian spaces intended to herd human masses toward the gaming tables. Alas, the Aladdin’s lobby, with its one meager ottoman to accommodate guests waiting to check in, is no exception. The space also hints at the hotel’s disorienting layout. Designed to evoke the colorful chaos of a Middle Eastern bazaar, the floor plan is somewhat, well, bizarre.

Certainly, the architects deserve some credit for originality. They have envisioned the casino as a series of stacked, interlocking levels, a veritable souk, with arched doorways and cutaway views that let you spy on the action below, like Ali Baba surveying the cave of the 40 thieves. But the skewed sight lines and poorly marked signage, with its curving arrows pointing hither and yon, make you feel as though you’ve stumbled into an M.C. Escher drawing with no exits.

From the lobby, you enter the casino by ascending a grandiose curving staircase. Blaring pop-rock from the “My Sharona” era alerts you that the Aladdin isn’t taking its “Arabian Nights” theme too literally. Not that anyone expects to hear qawwali tunes while cranking a slot machine. But during our two-day stay we would find the piped-in top-40 drone maddeningly hard to escape. It follows you onto the sidewalk in front of the hotel, surrounds you at the roulette wheel, blasts you like ice water when you’re making goo-goo eyes over a romantic dinner.

After finally locating the elevators, we headed up to our 16th-floor room ($239 plus tax per night for a Friday and Saturday; midweek rates drop as low as $69, but you may have to ask for the special over the phone; the hotel’s Web site doesn’t always show it).

Decked out in creamy marzipan greens and golds, the room was resort-quality comfortable, if not much in keeping with the Arabian theme. The king bed was luxurious, the two phones (one cordless) convenient, and the bathroom faucets, shaped like magic lamps, amusing. The TV offered no fewer than four channels in Arabic and one Chinese.

We had decided to start our weekend early, and on this Friday afternoon we wanted to dip into one of the two sixth-floor outdoor pools but were told they were closed because of lightning storms.

Unperturbed, we sampled the shops of Desert Passage, a $300-million complex adjacent to the $1.1-billion Aladdin. This glorified indoor mall, which unfolds under a trompe l’oeil ceiling of a dusky sky, offers a fairly predictable lineup of gourmet comestibles (Godiva chocolates) and boutique fashions (Hugo Boss et al.). We enjoyed browsing for a few minutes before lunch.

Bicycle-powered rickshaws whizzed weary shoppers past us as we ambled toward Bice Grill.

Suggesting a kind of Beverly Hills version of Rick’s Cafe Americain in “Casablanca,” Bice is meant to exude a sort of 1930s expatriate charm, with moody lighting and murals of glamorous couples enjoying stylish repasts. Marla’s $11.75 chef salad came with a nice variety of lean meats, while my $8 chopped salad, complemented with clam chowder ($6.50), came with toast points spread with a tasty olive paste.

Our favorite part of the Desert Passage turned out to be the Flying Carpet Bar on the “rooftop” of Fat Anthony’s restaurant, in the Alacazam food court. Seated at one of the Flying Carpet’s small round tables, with fake minarets meeting your gaze and pedestrian chatter rising from the “street” below, you can pretend you’re a character in a Graham Greene novel, awaiting a clandestine rendezvous in a Third World back alley.

After more window-shopping we had just enough time to get back to our room and spruce up before taking a 20-minute stroll up the Strip to see Cirque du Soleil’s innovative “Mystere” at Treasure Island. After 1 1/2 hours of this magic, we were in a good mind-set to be dazzled by Tremezzo, the nouveau-Italian restaurant on Aladdin’s second floor.

Tremezzo was a treat. We found the atmosphere low-key and sophisticated, the wait staff attentive and the food first-rate.

The $29 New York sirloin, perfectly cooked medium-rare, passed muster with Marla, who grew up in the buckle of the Midwestern farm belt and considers herself an authority on the edible parts of cows. I settled on sauteed halibut with sweet, tender scallops and thin asparagus over polenta ($26). Both our salads were fine (hers Caesar, mine mozzarella and tomato), and my $11 glass of Croce Chianti capped a memorable meal.

The skies cleared Saturday morning, and the pool was open. We spent the a.m. hours swimming laps; brunched at Zanzibar, the hotel’s reasonably priced 24-hour cafe; and used the afternoon to visit the shops at Venice.

We had high expectations for dinner at Elements, another of Aladdin’s upscale eateries. In some ways it is too much a Tremezzo clone: same zigzagging blue stemware, same dish patterns, same copper-colored cream pots.

But the entrees were decidedly distinctive: a beautifully breaded rack of lamb ($34) for Marla, pepper-crusted ahi tuna for me ($28). A perfectly glazed creme bru^lee went well with Baileys.

Feeling all dressed up with no particular place to go, we decided to take a cab downtown. That’s where the enjoyably cheesy, unapologetically crass Old Vegas of nickel slots and Elvis impersonators survives. Wandering the outdoor pedestrian mall, gawking at the neon cowboy and staring into smoke-filled blackjack saloons where the customers sport jeans and NFL jerseys instead of Gucci and Prada, it was easy to wonder whether the New Vegas, with its pricey, international pretensions, might be missing the point.

On that semi-wistful note, we left Vegas Sunday morning, pleased with our stay at the Aladdin but unsure we would want to return. Though not without allure, the Aladdin offers nothing special to see or do that can’t be seen and done elsewhere in this fantasy world. As Vegas’ high-rolling owners keep upping the financial stakes, it may be hard to sell tourists on anything less than total magic--now that the genie, so to speak, is already out of the bottle.

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Budget for Two

Aladdin, two nights: $521.00

Lunch, Bice: 29.45

Dinner, Tremezzo: 130.47

Brunch, Zanzibar Cafe: 28.56

Dinner, Elements: 150.48

Snacks: 6.11

Admission, “Mystere”: 165.00

Cab fares: 40.00

Gas: 40.00

FINAL TAB: $1,111.07

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Aladdin Resort & Casino, 3667 Las Vegas Blvd. S., Las Vegas, NV 89109; telephone (877) 333-9474 or (702) 785-5555, Internet https://www.aladdincasino.com. For restaurant reservations (recommended for Tremezzo and Elements), call (702) 785-9000.

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Reed Johnson writes for the Southern California Living section of The Times.