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2.27.2009

buzz bbq.


Meat for meat, Buzz BBQ is my pick for best in Vegas. The brisket is maybe the best I've ever tasted, rich and meaty and smoked forever. Pulled pork, andouille sausage and the pork spareribs are all phenomenal. And the spicy sauce they serve on the side for you to drown your meats in, if you like, is the perfect complement. Slow Smokin' is the tagline at this northwest Vegas restaurant, and they mean it, hickory cooking the shit out of everything. The chicken is pretty special, too, with skin blackened from the thick smoke and tender, juicy meat spilling out.

Buzz is a restaurant that doesn't pay much attention to its side dishes, which is unfortunate but nothing near a deal killer. See, you're going to be piling so much meat in your face, you're not going to want any mac 'n cheese or potato salad anyway. A fine and balanced restaurant it ain't, but I have yet to find a local barbecue pit that can hang with these meats.

Buzz BBQ originally opened in a small spot on West Ann Road that used to be a tiny coffee and dessert shop. It has since moved to a 120-mouth building a few blocks south, on Craig Road just off U.S. Highway 95, and adequately renovated what used to be a bland neighborhood Italian restaurant. The place is now comfy, kinda quiet, splashed with some flatscreens so you can watch the game, and essentially the perfect place for a family dinner. It's also the perfect place to order a bunch of takeout and pass it off as your own next time you want to host a barbecue. Go ahead. Impress your friends.

2.25.2009

hachi.

If I was creating the website for the Japanese restaurant Hachi at Red Rock Resort, I would call it ilovehachi.com too, because I love it. And this is after one meal. Love.

I had heard the cuisine of chef Linda Rodriguez was outstanding from several sources, but I was skeptical as I entered the fancy, modern dining room. After all, this is a non-steakhouse in a Station Casino, a setting typically reserved for mediocrity. Still, I have been excited to try it here, especially after we took over the Red Rock for a weekend in December but were unable to pry ourselves away from Cabo Mexican restaurant, T-Bones Steakhouse and the LBS burger joint.

And now I have a new favorite.

It looks and feels cool enough to be in any Strip hotel. I particularly like the warm, soothing colors and wall of Murakami eyeballs in the back of the dining room, which is much larger and comfortable than it appears from the casino entrance. But the setting means nothing compared to the food, which set a new standard for neighborhood dining with each arriving dish. I began with an unnecessary order of edamame and miso and followed it with a signature appetizer, crispy spicy shrimp, which sounds like something you could get anywhere. And you can. But here it actually succeeds in being super crispy, thanks to an invisible layer of tempura, and spicy enough. And there's plenty of shrimp in this $15 dish. The spicy kabocha coconut soup, however, is not spicy, nor does it need to be. It's a perfectly smooth and balanced blend of coconut and the pumpkinish kabocha, punctuated by salty, toasted pumpkin seeds. Speaking of pumpkin, there was a piece of it in the vegetable tempura plate, along with asparagus, broccoli, avocado, zucchini and shiitake mushroom.

Wifey, being anti-fish, chose a special of medallions of beef, tender and largely portioned. I couldn't decide and I didn't want to get full on sushi rolls, so I split between two more small plates and couldn't have been more pleased. Braised short ribs with a roasted apple puree was everything you expect short ribs to be, so soft that the breeze from floating a fork over the top collapsed the dense square of meat into shredded deliciousness. And most impressive of all was the sashimi sampler, four types of fish, each of them reminding me what this is supposed to be about: paper-thin shards of fluke laced with yuzu and topped with a single cilantro leaf and a dot of the most intense sriracha ever; Barely seared salmon belly; yellowtail with jalapeno in chili ponzu; tuna in a warm bacon vinaigrette with actual bacon and onions floating about. Sublime is the word that comes to mind. And we closed it all out with crispy, chewy, green tea and chocolate beignets with a caramel sauce that tasted of strawberries. Wifey: "It tastes like what's left over in your dish after eating a banana split."

Now that I've discovered Hachi, I may help keep Station Casinos from declaring bankruptcy. Only thing is, the food here is a fraction of the cost of the big boys on the Strip. And so far, it's better.

2.23.2009

rosemary's.

Update: Rosemary's has closed.

Rosemary's has been tagged with that condescending Best Restaurant Off the Strip label forever, and chefs Michael and Wendy Jordan (pic'd) are fine with that because they are really nice people. Rosemary's actually is one of the best restaurants in Vegas no matter the location. I hadn't been there for probably a couple years until a few nights ago, when we stopped for an impromptu dinner at the bar.

The service from our somewhat hyper bartender was fine, and the food and drink was terrific. We guzzled a few Duvels, smart considering Rosemary's has an outstanding selection of beers and the menu even lists pairings for each dish with beer and wine. Potato rolls and honey-glazed, white chocolate bread greeted us up front, along with an amuse bouche of whitefish salad on a crisp little cracker. The wifey couldn't decide what to eat so she picked an interesting assortment of small plates (parmesan risotto cakes and mozzarella stuffed eggplant), a wilted spinach salad with a monstrous goat cheese cake and a side of (oh baby) white cheddar grits. She loved the grits the most. The risotto cakes were pleasing, reminiscent of deep fried mac and cheese, while the eggplant was a little undercooked and overkilled with the smoky mozzarella cheese.

I stuck with my standard appetizer order here, Hugo's Texas BBQ Shrimp with Maytag blue cheese slaw. This has been one of my all-time favorite dishes in Vegas, but it was off a little this time. The shrimp seemed smaller than I remember, and the barbecue sauce -- in my mind a rich, almost mole-ish substance, a little sweet, a little spicy -- wasn't barbecuey at all. It was more peanut-chocolate, a little thick and syrupy, not really sweet or hot. Weird. It was still a great dish, just tuned differently. Any skittering feeling of disappointment was washed away by a perfectly moist roasted tomato and bacon-crusted swordfish, served atop mushroom and wax bean salad. The tang of the tomato rode the fish well; it was a completely new taste. Also, those grits are really, really good. More restaurants need to serve grits.
Dessert: espresso, a tiny espresso cup full of creme brulee, and an unordered gift from the kitchen -- bourbon balls, peanut butter buckeyes, and lemon squares. Awesome across the board, as things go at Rosemary's.


2.16.2009

bradley ogden.

Visiting friends (including these two again) and family celebrations were the excuses used to blow big cash for a fancy Valentine's Day dinner out, and my party of eight selected Bradley Ogden at Caesars Palace. By the looks of the casino and Strip traffic, the V-Day weekend may have been a much-needed boost for Vegas. I feel fine with my own contribution to the economy, evidenced by my gleeful snatch of the bill to see if we broke into four digits.

Bradley Ogden is considered by most as one of the top overall rooms in the city and as this was my first meal at the nearly six-year old restaurant -- Ogden's first outside California -- expectations were high. Incredibly high. Some of this excitement was built around the rare opportunity, for me, to go out plus 7, paving the way for a truly comprehensive experience. Lucking into this opportunity, I didn't disappoint, and neither did the restaurant. Mr. Ogden himself even strolled out of the kitchen to visit several tables (but not ours) during the almost four hours we were there, which is always nice to see when you're on the Strip and every restaurant has a big name on the wall but not necessarily in the kitchen.

In a word, outstanding.

A couple bottles of Melville Pinot Noir (which was Californian, people, not Oregonian like you thought) and too many $8 bottles of Voss accompanied farmers market green and Caesar salads, twice baked Maytag blue cheese souffle, squash soup, butter poached Alaskan king crab with Fuji apples, seared Sonoma foie gras, roasted chicken, scallops, pork loin, roasted sturgeon and bison. Everything was great and everyone was happy. The service was comfortably slow (until we tried to pay, then it became uncomfortably slow) and the staff was friendly and warm.

There were highlights, and they were very, very high. At least a couple of our almost vegetarians were completely turned by the South Dakota bison, which was plated as two small tenderloin filets on a dense potato pave, granola and a currant-red wine sauce. This was perfection: moist, lean, slightly smokey to stay in touch with the cowboyishness of the meat, and so delicious that we will wonder for a while why people eat beef. The foie gras, too, with a whimsical peanut butter and jelly accompaniment, was mind blowing. My chosen entree, the Duroc pork loin, was good enough (I'm still adjusting to piggy done on the rare side) but the top tastes on this plate came from the braised cabbage underneath and the spiced apples and bacon on top. I'm not complaining, because the Caesar was strong and the crab was fucking amazing. And there was a lot of crab on the dish, huge sweet chunks among strands of apple and a foam that tasted of creamsicle. Seriously. Ogden's crew also amuse bouched us with a little lobster and citrus, talked us into desserts of ice cream, rich cheesecake with berries and coconut flan, and threw in another something sweet with creamy shots of the best butterscotch pudding ever.

Before dinner, I was explaining to one of these good friends that my recent dilemma, as a developing Vegas epicurean, is highly recommended restaurants that simply cannot meet the expectations that grow and grow with each new fantastic meal. That wasn't a problem at Bradley Ogden. To walk into a high-priced restaurant on the Strip and automatically expect the best meal of your life, well, maybe that's foolish. But this was one of the best, even if the company had a lot to do with it.

2.09.2009

battle of the chiles verde.

In my not-so-humble opinion, the measure of a Mexican restaurant is its take on chile verde. Chile verde is a Mexican-American stew usually consisting of tender pork and a combination of tomatillos, jalapenos and other peppers that give it a green hue and a moderate spice. Sometimes it's garlicky. Sometimes it has potatoes. Sometimes it's chunky and sometimes it's smooth. It's one of my favorite dishes yet I refuse to cook it because my dad's recipe was the best I've ever had, and I don't want to disgrace those memories by fucking it up.


Anyways, now that there are a handful of solid Mexican restaurants around my Northwest Vegas headquarters, I took it upon myself to find out which makes the better dish. First up, my reliable family taco joint, Vega's Cafe. The menu here is traditional and basic, but they do basic so well, from the homemade tortillas to the chili rellenos to the tacos papas. The Calderon family's version of chile verde is unlike any I've had before: super spicy with plenty of fresh vegetables. And since they don't do pork here (yes, it's a problem), I sampled this dish with tender shredded chicken. The green sauce was well seasoned with a little tangy zip, but the peppers and onions interspersed throughout seemed to be only lightly cooked. It was a unique experience, crisp, and I had to drink quite a bit of beer to cool off. Everything I've eaten at Vega's is comfy and likable, but this is not the chile verde I had in mind.


A little bit closer is what they dish up at Camacho's Cantina, the franchise inside Aliante Station. Seems like a commercialized, time-tested menu like this one wouldn't include such a rich chile verde, with plenty of red onions and cilantro mixed in. But it does. And it's good. A return trip here on Taco Tuesday also was a pleasant surprise, when for a few hours in the bar, little street tacos of carnitas, carne asada or chicken were a dollar each.


The most recently opened Mexican restaurant in the neighborhood is Lindo Michoacan, the third installment of a Vegas franchise. Many Mexicans tout Michoacan as the best food in Vegas. While I've been to all three locations and had pleasing meals at each, and while the menu is expansive and includes homestyle favorites like birria and tongue and seafood and everything, I'm not convinced Michoacan is head and shoulders above other local favorites. The chile verde here is mighty tasty; the chunks of pork are the biggest and best among the restaurants I'm blabbering about here. But the sauce had a little too much lime, the acidity taking away from the hearty stewness that chile verde is supposed to be, and it didn't have enough veggies. Dad's had the pork, yes, but it also had strips of simmered jalapenos and other peppers that would burn your fucking face off if you didn't have a flour tortilla and some ice water at the ready.

2.05.2009

cut. (but mainly, super delicious piggy.)


I've developed an obsession with the piggy lately.

I've been incorporating pork into my order every place I go. I bought uncured back bacon one night at Fresh & Easy, brought it home and cooked some up for no reason. This developing addiction culminated with my recent David Chang-inspired creation of the Chinese Taco. (A five-pound pork shoulder was seared in sesame oil, then slow cooked overnight in Asahi beer, char siu sauce, garlic and onions. The meat was fork shredded and then simmered again in the reduced cooking sauce. I didn't make it this way officially yet, but the taco is a fried flour tortilla stuffed with this super piggy, a generous squirt of sriracha, and a crispy Asian cabbage salad in a sesame dressing. Seriously. Somebody finance me.)

I don't know if this constant porkature is going to have lasting effects, but I'm glad to still be in the throes of swinyness because it helped me to make a delicious decision last night. Having dinner at CUT in Palazzo, knowing I'm obligated to have a steak there, my first course was up in the air. So many amazing options here: bone marrow flan, warm veal tongue with marinated artichokes, crab and lobster cocktail, or oxtail bouillon with bone marrow dumplings (Does Wolfgang Puck love marrow as much as I love piggy?). I sighed and ordered maple glazed pork belly in an orange, Asiany dressing, followed by a bone-in New York sirloin. The wifey started with a butter lettuce salad with avocado, bleu cheese and a subtle champagne vinaigrette, and on the back, Indian-spiced Kobe shortribs.

This piggy was so good. Crispy, salty perfection in one bite, buttery melting fattiness in the next, kissed sweetly by the maple glaze. It was the super food version of getting a little syrup on your bacon at IHOP. A tiny toss of greens in the middle and a slight spice in the orange sauce brought it all together. It could have been dinner by itself.

Overall, dinner at CUT was great. The salad was good, but not better than the crispy parmesan-dusted breadsticks, warm Gruyere mini-biscuits and selection of tasty breads that started us off. Dinner in the bar has its privileges, and here it apparently results in unordered, awesome snacks. The steak was just fine, 20 ounces for $54 described as Illinois corn fed and aged 21 days. Great char on the outside, perfectly cooked medium rare, served with a selection of mustards. Best steak ever? No. But maybe that would be the 8-ounce, $160 of true Japanese Wagyu ribeye on the menu. Maybe when I get my tax return. The shortribs, however, were outstanding, tender and strongly spiced and served atop some smooth puree of spicy pumpkin and gram masala. At any other restaurant, one that hasn't quickly become one of Vegas' most esteemed beef joints, this would be the standout.

But for now, even at one of the best steakhouses on the steak-crazy Strip, the piggy is the star of the show.

2.01.2009

INTERVIEW: Linda Rodriguez


Linda Rodriguez is executive chef at Hachi, the modern Japanese restaurant at the Red Rock Resort.


When the Red Rock Resort opened in 2006, Hachi was not part of the restaurant lineup. It took a little while longer to finish the restaurant up. How did that work?
Linda Rodriguez: Actually it was about a year before everything was set up, just a year. It was still dirt and sand when Red Rock was opened They just couldn’t find a chef to create a restaurant in time. But for me it was a good deal that it wasn’t opened by somebody else, that it was fresh and built right in front of our eyes. It gave us time to really prepare for training and staffing and menu development.


And this was your first adventure to Vegas from New York?
Yes, I came from New York. I had been living there almost 20 years. I was born in the Philippines and both my mom and dad are from there. I came to the States when I was seven years old. We traveled around, stayed in California a little while, and then my dad was stationed in Japan for three years. Then we came back to Florida, and from there I sort of headed out and worked in a lot of restaurants, from there to Louisiana. I was in New Orleans a little while, and it was there I started cooking. My experience before then was waiting tables, bartending. Not until Louisiana, where I worked for a classical French restaurant in Baton Rouge, did I get in the kitchen. There was a lady chef there who kinda inspired me. We got really close, she let me in her kitchen, and I started training there. She really pushed me to go to school, to go to CIA in New York. So drove all the way from the South up to New York and went to school. On weekends I would go to New York City since it was just a couple hours train ride away, and I really tried to knock on doors of really nice restaurants in New York and try to work for free. I saw a lot of exposure doing that. After school I had to go back to the city. I thought, why not stay? It was so vibrant, the food capital, and I moved in with a friend in the city and eventually found my place. I worked in a few places. My first paying job was at River Cafe in Brooklyn, under the Brooklyn Bridge. And after a couple years I heard about this Japanese restaurant coming called Nobu. Nobody knew it at the time. But I was able to get my foot in the door and I got a job at Nobu. Ever since that, I've been doing Japanese, ever since. And that gave me the opportunity travel to Europe and open Nobu in London in the Metropolitan Hotel. It was an awesome experience, and that’s where I met my husband. After London, I came back to New York and thought I'd stay with Nobu, but I ended up getting hunted down for my first executive chef job at BondSt. I was there for nine years. I also had the opportunity to go to Mexico City for two years and open a restaurant from the owners of Bond St.


You really have been all over, and worked in some of the most intense restaurant cities in the world. Has that experience made it easy or difficult to develop your own style?
It has helped me to cultivate my style a lot. With my classical French training and experience at a classical school, with working in Baton Rouge with a really great lady chef, and with my Asian background -- she was French Vietnamese, also, so she was cooking classical French in the restaurant but at lunchtime cooking Vietnamese, Chinese, Cajun, Indian -- it has given me this great base. Everything else came with that. I was very fortunate to have someone that really took me under her wing. A lot of what I do comes from her.


So how did you end up in Vegas at the Red Rock?
I was in New York. I was getting calls from Vegas all the time, headhunters. Usually I'd hang up. But I drew interest in this one because it's not on the Strip. We were thinking of doing our own place in Brooklyn. But it was really expensive. So we thought, let’s talk to Station Casinos. We had no idea what Station was. We talked to them, and they agreed to fly us over to check on the property in Summerlin and see Vegas. Last time I was in Vegas I was really young, and it was just desert. I didn’t remember much of what it was. It has grown so much, and it's especially beautiful over here. And it sure beats New York weather. We saw the property and talked to all the people, checked everything out, did research, and decided to take a chance.


What made you want to stay away from the Strip?
I'm just so used to local clientele. I've never been to the Strip, not since I was little. In my mind it was just a place for tourists. I never really knew how big it was over here right now. But, you know ... I wouldn’t work in Disneyland. I didn’t want to be stuck working in that kind of vibe. Finding out Station Casinos was more local, that seemed more attractive. And we have a lot of regulars.


Did Station always want a Japanese restaurant?
It was always going to be Japanese. I told them they were crazy. They wouldn’t listen to me.


Have you tried lots of Japanese and sushi restaurants around town and in your neighborhood?
We've hit them all, just to see how far sushi has gotten in Vegas. The difference is the East Coast is more traditional, while the West Coast is more...


California?
Yeah. and that did change our thoughts about what kind of sushi we were going to do. For a while, we were still feeling it out, but I think finally we're feeling it right now. Traditional is boring. It has to be fun.


So now that you're settled, what are your impressions of the restaurant and food scene in Vegas?
It’s definitely here. Maybe it's five years behind, especially with sushi. It’s weird. I never thought seaweed salad would sell here but it's selling like hotcakes. I didn’t think people would appreciate the different colors and textures, or the different kinds of textures in fish. I really didn't know if they would order it or not. Things are bit more exotic on the fish side at hachi, but we're introducing it slowly. It's not bad. We're trying to educate without being too pushy. In New York, you can put cod sperm in a martini glass and people would order it just to try it out. Here, you have to be more careful, ease it in a little bit, introduce it. Give it a try. It can be frustrating sometimes but I don’t mind it, because in a way we're kind of lifting up the community a little bit.


Where do you like to eat when you get a chance to try something new?
We mostly eat at Chinatown. It's pretty good. Thank god they have a Chinatown here. We found a couple cook places recently that we like in the neighborhood. Nora’s is pretty good. We wanna go back again. Marche Bacchus also is okay. Little by little we are finding places. We’re just simple people, too. We like to go somewhere the food is cooked properly. It doesn’t have to be foo-foo. I think Summerlin is missing a great bistro place. Most of time we eat Asian, Malaysian food, Thai food. Authentic Asian things are here, and for Indian food you can find a couple places that are pretty good.


What do you think is most unique about the Hachi menu right now?
The small plates are working out pretty good. We know we have to bend a little bit with the economy, so we really worked those plates out, the cost and the presentation. It gives people more tastes. You can order vive or six different things instead of just appetizer and entree. We don’t get to go out too much but when we do, when I find a good place, I know I want to try everything. So that's why we're doing the 38 under 8 menu. And we didn’t want to call it tapas. It's just 38 under 8 right now.



Is working in a big, beautiful casino resort everything you thought it would be?
I really had no idea. I was so green. I've never worked in a corporate or casino environment in my life. And I've learned a lot along the way. It's tough to get a light bulb changed. It’s corporate. You can’t just fire people like you used to. "I got to talk to who?" But I've learned a lot about that stuff, how to manage in the corporate world. My husband says I'm good at it but I just try to treat everyone right, go through the process. If I had to do it again I would really pinpoint everything so it wouldn’t be difficult. But so far I enjoy it. I really do. When we took this opportunity in a casino, we thought a lot about taking a risk, or what happens if don’t like it. Really, we are so lucky here because of the economy. If we tried doing it on our own in Brooklyn or New York, we'd be going through hardships like a lot of people. The casino draws people in, and they definitely help with advertising and PR. We are very fortunate to be in a beautiful casino like Red Rock.