Until recently, the closest most New Yorkers could get to a reservation at Rao’s, the legendary Italian restaurant in East Harlem, was opening a jar of Rao’s brand spaghetti sauce from the grocery. Unless you were among the lucky regulars, a celebrity like Woody Allen or President Clinton, or had managed to snag an invitation from a regular patron, breaking bread or taking part in the singing and conviviality that goes on nightly at Rao’s was simply not in the cards.

To be sure, it’s not impossible to get a reservation — one can try for a date three to four months in advance — but even then landing a table is difficult. Another strategy is to try for a seat at the bar, from which you can wait to see if anything turns up. Or, you can wait for a blizzard or a Northeaster and swoop in on any cancellations, as four fortunate walk-ins were recently able to do. But now restaurant-goers have another option, and one that eliminates the wait: Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas is home to a doppelganger of the New York original, which opened in December.

Rao’s isn’t the first New York restaurant to set up shop in Las Vegas, but it is unique in providing a New York experience that most New Yorkers don’t expect to have within the borders of Manhattan. Rao’s Las Vegas has been designed to resemble the Harlem location with the same dark stained floors, wood paneling, exposed brick walls covered with photographs, pressed tin ceilings, and Rao’s’ signature red bar stools.

“When customers send us pictures they took in Las Vegas,” a coowner of Rao’s and a nephew of the late Vincent Rao, Ron Straci, said, “we’re not sure if they were taken in New York or Las Vegas, that’s how well the designers have captured the essence of Rao’s.”

Although the newer Rao’s has more seats, the intimacy of the original is maintained with two dining rooms, each seating about 44 guests at 10 tables. There is also a large “feast room,” inspired by the annual festival Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, which also aims to promote the interaction between customers that is a hallmark of the Rao’s experience.

Mr. Straci’s nephew, Frank Pellegrino Jr., and Mr. Pellegrino’s wife, Carla, who also serves as the restaurant’s chef, oversee the dayto-day operations of the Las Vegas restaurant. The straightforward southern Neapolitan cuisine is the same, though in Las Vegas they committed the menu to paper and added specials like osso buco.

“The servers still take a great role in helping diners run through the menu verbally, [and] help make decisions just like in New York,” Mr. Pellegrino said.

There are some differences, however; the Las Vegas location takes advantage of the warm climate with a terrace that overlooks the hotel pool and an outdoor bocce court. (Rao’s Las Vegas began serving lunch this month.)

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At the luxurious Ritz-Carlton, in San Juan, Puerto Rico, New Yorkers are likely to find the familiar, albeit in a tropical setting. Between January and March 2006, 50.9% of the hotel’s guests were from the New York area. Not surprising, since the trip to San Juan clocks in at just less than four hours; travelers can bask in the San Juan sunlight on a small stretch of beach, while New York is covered in slush.

Visitors who venture beyond the beachfront property, however, can visit the rain forests, or the pastel colored town of Old San Juan, as well as the thrilling contemporary Museum of Art of Puerto Rico (mapr.org), which features the modern Puerto Rican cuisine of chef Wilo Benet at Pikayo (pikayo.com).

Guests of the Ritz-Carlton, San Juan Hotel, Spa & Casino seem pleased to be surrounded by the familiar and genuinely happy when they discover that a fellow guest of the hotel lives just one town over in Westchester, for instance. Similarly, New Yorkers eagerly welcomed Laurent Tourondel’s BLT Steak to the hotel in December. Any one familiar with the Manhattan restaurant will find consistency in design, atmosphere, service, and above all, the magnificent food. The beef comes from the same high-end source, DeBragga and Spitler.

Ironically, considering its location in the Caribbean, it was difficult at first to get good fish,” Mr. Tourondol said. “But we found some great local companies that fill our orders daily.” Diners can expect the exact menu options in San Juan, along with a few local specials that reflect the locale, including Marlin Ceviche with Pickled Prickly Pear and Citrus and Sea Urchin Soup with Grapefruit and Razor Clams.

The CEO of the Modell’s Sporting Goods store, Mitchell Modell, is a regular who eats at Manhattan’s BLT Steak about once a month. On vacation in San Juan, he was pleased to discover the newly opened BLT Steak. “The consistency is phenomenal,” he said by phone.

Mr. Modell also dined at the Ritz-Carlton’s other fine dining restaurant in San Juan: Il Mulino New York, which opened in San Juan in September, and is among the New York restaurants from which it is notoriously difficult to score a reservation. (Rumor has it that some customers send their limousine drivers to the West Village to make in-person requests.) The food was as excellent as it is in New York, but “I didn’t feel like I was sitting on top of anyone,” he said. “In New York, they squeeze you in like a three-pound bologna in a five-pound bag.”

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In Japan, homesick New Yorkers can re-create the feeling of being beneath the vaulted ceilings of the Grand Central Oyster Bar by dining at the newly opened Tokyo outpost at JR Shinagawa Station (oysterbartokyo.com). Like Rao’s, BLT Steak, and Il Mulino, Tokyo’s Oyster Bar has been carefully designed to recall its predecessor, from the décor to the menu.

At Union Square Tokyo, which opened its doors in late March, the Union Square Café concept of cozy hospitality and seasonal cooking has made its way from one cosmopolitan city to another. The executive chef-partner of Union Square Café, Michael Romano, and the executive chef of Union Square Tokyo, Yoshichika “Yoshi” Matsuda, created the menu. It features several familiar dishes, including the Yellow Fin Tuna Burger and Lamb Chops Scotta Dita, but also new recipes based on local market availability in the Japanese city, such as Red Bean Soup with Lemon and Sherry, and a Caesar Salad with Uni Dressing and Crabmeat Croutons.