There is much to love about Boa Steakhouse, the award-winning eatery located on the top floor of the Forum Shops at Caesars Palace. The food is excellent, the service is superb, the cocktails are worth a visit all on their own, and the atmosphere -- with a gorgeously decorated interior and an outdoor dining patio overlooking the Strip -- is first rate.

But, as with most high-end restaurants on the Strip, you'll have to pay dearly for the privilege of eating here. Whether or not it's worth it depends on your budget.

Let's start with the room. Done in cool and swank colors and furnishings, the place most resembles those super-trendy ultra-lounges that are popping up everywhere. Everything feels low to the ground, with cushy booths ringing the dining room done in dark wood tones, gray and eye-popping red. It's a success from a visual perspective and a welcome relief from most upscale restaurants, which make you feel like you should have dressed up a little, even if you already did.

There are a couple of windows looking out toward the Strip, but you really need to move outdoors to the small dining patio for the full effect. You'll get a terrific view of all of Caesars Palace, with places like Imperial Palace, Flamingo and Barbary Coast across the street.

Start your experience with one of the signature cocktails. I sampled the BOA Fusion, a mix of Montecristo rum, fresh pineapple, vanilla beans and cinnamon and was in heaven. I'm not much of a mixed cocktail drinker (I'm more of a beer and shots kind of guy), but this was fantastic, strong enough to let you know you're drinking booze but not so strong that you're drunk before the appetizers arrive. The other drinks on the specialties list were equally special, including one that mimicked the popular Italian dessert of strawberries with vinegar and cracked pepper. It sounds wrong, but if it is then cocktails shouldn't be right.

The menu is not going to win any awards for experimentation -- this is, after all, a steakhouse -- so you'll find lots of seafood-based appetizers, the de rigueur onion soup and Caesar salads, plenty of steaks and chops (mostly beef, but a couple of veal and poultry items thrown in for good measure) and a lot of seafood entrees. It's nothing you haven't seen at a dozen other steakhouses, but there are a couple of noteworthy originals.

Although not on the main menu, ask if you can get the chef's special version of nachos, homemade potato chips made daily from Yukon gold spuds covered with melted cheeses and accompanied by a subtle salsa-style dipping sauce. They were delicious and my party and I scrubbed the plate clean.

Other starters worth mentioning are the goat cheese "beignet," an oven-roasted ratatouille with basil evo, and the BLT salad. Yes, you heard me, a BLT salad -- applewood-smoked bacon over lettuce, tomato and avocado, with a creamy bacon dressing.

For entrees, my dining companions and I went in three very distinct directions. One sampled the jumbo prawns, done scampi style with white wine, garlic, lemon, parsley and butter. Longtime readers will know I'm not much of a seafood fan, but I tasted them and declared them "not bad," while the person who actually ordered them had a couple of eyes-rolling-back-in-her-head moments, so they were judged very successful.

We also brought on the roasted free-range chicken, which was a succulent delight. Roasted chicken is one of those dishes that seems easy but is actually easy to mess up, often winding up dry, but this one had juiciness to spare and was done to a perfect golden, crispy brown on the outside.

Finally, if you're eating at a steakhouse, you gotta have a steak, so we ordered the petite filet mignon. On it's own it was probably only good, but one of the unique twists offered at BOA is that you get to specify a rub, a sauce or a mustard with any selection. Options include peppercorn, blackened, bleu cheese, herbed butter and foie gras butter rubs and crusts; cabernet, Worchestershire, bearnaise, chimichurri, creamy horseradish, or caramel soy and ginger dipping sauces; or whole grain, Dijon, horseradish or violette mustard.

You get to choose one for free, but being the important food critic guy that I am, the chef very kindly sent out all of them for us to sample. It was obviously a bit overwhelming, and after a while I kind of lost track of what I was tasting. But I can say for sure that the cabernet and peppercorn were runaway hits and the caramel soy and ginger was what I will refer to as an acquired taste that I didn't acquire. The bottom line is that this is a fun way to spruce up a meal of what would otherwise be just a boring hunk of cow.

Desserts showed some flair, with standards such as cheesecake mixed in with more adventurous fare, including cinnamon sugar doughnut holes with a trio of warm dipping sauces; "s'mores all grown up," a combination of Kahlua chocolate cake, marshmallow sauce, and dulche de leche ice cream; cappuccino semifreddo with warm cookies; and more.

Throughout the meal service was impeccable, and it was not just because I was there to review the restaurant. I pay attention to stuff like this, and the luxury-level attention to detail was evident at every table in the room. You'll feel pampered and special here.

Then, of course, we get back to those prices. We were eating light that night, so our bill included two of the specialty cocktails, one soup and a house salad, the entrees (which fell on the lower end of the scale), tax and tip and came to roughly $220 for the three of us. If you're doing it right, figure about $100 per person on average, which is a heck of a lot of money to spend for dinner -- but not in this town anymore.

The restaurant is open for lunch, and you can often get less extravagant versions of the same things (plus sandwiches, pasta and more) for less money, so if the place sounds good but the prices are out of your reach, that is a good alternative.

Of the high-priced restaurants in Las Vegas, this one is definitely one of my favorites, so if you've got the money to throw around I highly recommend BOA. There are other successful and significantly cheaper steakhouses in the city, but for a special night out you'd have a hard time doing better.

BOA Steakhouse
The Forum Shops at Caesars Palace
3500 Las Vegas Blvd. S.
Las Vegas, NV 89109
Hours
Sun. through Thursday, noon to 10 p.m.
Fri. and Sat., noon to midnight

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