what it's like at aureole.

Aureole was one of the Strip restaurants on my "can't believe I haven't eaten there" list until this week. That list is getting smaller all the time. I am lucky, but also fatter.


Years ago I wrote a column about wine with Aureole sommelier William Sherer. It was an educational experience, and the lesson learned was how fun it can be to indulge in the expert's recommendations and try new things. The wine program at Aureole is one of the best and biggest in the country, and so we were honored to dine there and let Sherer do his thing. The meal started with canapes: a crispy, creamy chicken croquette; a slab of horseradish-accented country pate on toast; a perfect, delicate fig tart; tuna tartare in a crisp pastry cylinder; and in the center of the tic-tac-toe-type plate, a chunk of spicy, earthy merguez sausage. We foolishly ordered cocktails and finished them with this opening dish.


Then, ricotta ravioli with smoked salmon, baby artichokes, sugar snap peas and lemon thyme, an entire universe of cheesy-smokey-sharp tastes, and a salad of rosso bruno tomatoes, burrata, radish, arugula pesto and walnut tuille. The salad looked like a painting and was a study in clean, fresh flavors. The kitchen did not allow us to rest with those as our first courses, firing away with Hudson Valley foie gras with rhubarb and strawberry sorbet, a perfect contrast of rich to tang, and an off-menu dish, seared scallop over a creamy risotto with great big shards of black truffle.


On to the mains: a blue cheese-crusted beef tenderloin with macaire potatoes, onion jam and asparagus, and roasted Mediterranean sea bass with fennel quinoa and romesco sauce. Sherer hyped that romesco up, and it paid off, thanks in part to his masterful pairing with Borgo Del Tiglio Collio Rosso, a rich red deep and wide enough to cover that sharp sauce and buttery fish. On the side, there was a decadent sweet corn succotash with a hint of bacon, and an even more indulgent spinach au gratin.


Dessert was never-ending. Pre-dessert was a charming selection of sorbets (pictured) augmented by Sherer's choice of Tintero Moscato d'Asti Sori Gramella, a brisk, sparkly, dry white. Actual dessert was creme brulee with two sublime macarons riding along, just for fun, and a trio of Meyer lemon creations: a classic tart, warm lemon pudding cake, and a creamy lemon-olive gelato. Then came a plate of warm-from-the-oven madeleines, which soaked up coffee. We were then placed in a cushiony wheelbarrow and toured through into Chef Vincent Pouessel's kitchen. He's a very friendly guy who has lasted much longer -- 8 years -- than so many great chefs in so many big money kitchens. Overall, it was one of the greatest meals of all time, made more meaningful in a restaurant that has been around long enough to lose some of the Vegas spotlight. But it really hasn't lost a thing; there's no falling off at Aureole.

an open letter to the mexican restaurant getting ready to open across the street.

Dear Mi Tierra Mexican Restaurant:

Thank you, thank you, thank you for planning to open a Mexican restaurant just a few steps away from my house. Thank you for taking over a pretty nice, pretty large space that has been empty for years in my neighborhood. Thank you for bringing another restaurant option to my nearest shopping center, which only contains a pub, a pizza shop, a noodle shop, a Subway and a Carl's Jr. I am not sure when you are planning to open, but your sign says "Coming Soon" and so I have to believe that is true. I appreciate your hard work and wish you the best of luck. I just have one simple request:

Please, please don't be shitty.

I generally don't subscribe to the widespread belief that there is no good Mexican food in Las Vegas. I think the best stuff can be found in little hole-in-the-wall taco shops and big, fancy, boundary-pushing restaurants on the Strip. In between, there are plenty of generic, family-style Mexican restaurants with chips and salsa and margaritas and enchiladas with lots of yellow cheese melted on top. These are, at best, okay. And these are the restaurants -- while popular -- that build on that belief that Vegas doesn't have high quality Mexican grub.

If that's what you're gonna be, Mi Tierra, I'll take it. Because out here in the northwest end of the valley, we don't have much Mexican food at all. A few significant good restaurants have opened up in recent years in the blocks surrounding your new business. We've got solid Italian food at Parma by Chef Marc and Thai food at Nittaya's. And we've got neighborhood standards that are some of the best in town, like the Bagel Cafe and Marche Bacchus. But we need good Mexican food. The best that could still be considered kinda nearby is Frank & Fina's Cocina, but we have to drive up to the Beltway and way out to West Flamingo for that stuff.

I love Frank & Fina's, and I don't expect you to outdo it. Just please, don't suck. Be as reliable as Ricardo's, a longtime Vegas family favorite on Decatur and Flamingo. Be as friendly as Vega's Cafe, another spot with a deep local history, unfortunately shuttered within the last year. Be at least as interesting as Galerias, the slightly eccentric restaurant your space used to be, where they served some authentic and just plain strange chile rellenos. Make fresh salsa, please. And guacamole. Cold beer. No yellow cheese would be nice.

I really want you to be good, Mi Tierra, so I can walk across the street after work and drink too many Modelos and eat a nice plate of chile verde and then stumble home and be happy. I want another reason to love my neighborhood. If you are good, I promise to tell everybody. Thanks, and again, best of luck.

best of the best? the strip's top dining destinations.

First thing's first: this lovely image here is the badass benedict at ZoozaCrackers, the deli inside Wynn Las Vegas. Forget about an English muffin. This sucker is built on an authentic, savory potato latke, stacked with house-made pastrami and corned beef, then Swiss cheese, poached egg and Russian dressing. If you are skilled enough to get a bite with each component, it's a pretty amazing mouthful. It's just one of the specialty dishes at Zooza, one of the more overlooked restaurants at Wynn, and it's absolutely delicious. Even in a pair of resorts with spectacular brunch offerings, it's hard to imagine a better midmorning nosh than this satisfying benny.

So I'm thinking about (and eating at) Wynn and Encore lately, because there's been a lot of change 'round here, and a lot of talk that the dining at these two beautiful Strip resorts are slipping. The closure of Alex Stratta's restaurant Alex is the catalyst for this theory, but there have been other developments. Combined with the big foodie impact of the Cosmopolitan's opening in December, these changes have me returning to one of the great debates of the Vegas Strip: Which resort has the best restaurants? It's definitely a loaded question, but it's still fun to think about. And I don't think it's fair to limit this question to single hotels, because Wynn and Encore are the same, Venetian and Palazzo are the same, and CityCenter is essentially a single destination. So I'm grouping things together where they make sense.

What makes a great dining destination in Vegas terms? You must offer a diversity. Every casino has a top-notch steakhouse, but what about French and Asian food? Got Mexican? There must be great casual munchies as well as amazing high-end stuff, and the highest of the high-end needs to be a once-in-a-lifetime culinary experience. This is Vegas; it's all or nothing. Quantity of good restaurants is not as important as quality of those restaurants.

And so with lots of "research" and a belly full of Wynn pastrami, I say behold: The Top 6 Dining Destinations on the Las Vegas Strip, according to me. Enjoy. Seriously, go enjoy. (Note: Sure, we can argue about this if you want.)

6. Cosmopolitan. Notable dining: Blue Ribbon, China Poblano, Comme Ca, D.O.C.G., Estiatorio Milos, Jaleo, Scarpetta, STK.

5. Wynn/Encore. Notable: Bartolotta, Country Club, Sinatra, Society Cafe, Stratta, SW Steakhouse, Tableau, Wazuzu, Wing Lei.

4. MGM Grand. Notable: Craftsteak, Fiamma, Joel Robuchon, L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon, Nobhill Tavern, Seablue, Shibuya.

3. CityCenter. Notable: American Fish, Bar Masa, Jean Georges Steakhouse, Julian Serrano, Lemongrass, Mozen Bistro, Sage, Sirio, Social House, Twist.

2. Caesars Palace/Forum Shops. Notable: Beijing Noodle No. 9, Bradley Ogden, Joe's Stone Crab, Mesa Grill, Payard, Rao's, Restaurant Guy Savoy, Spago.

1. Bellagio. Notable: Circo, Jasmine, Le Cirque, Michael Mina, Noodles, Picasso, Prime Steakhouse, Sensi, Yellowtail.

what i learned on my summer vacation.

I’m a bit of a shut-in. I haven’t been anywhere. I’ve lived in Oregon as a kid, in Reno as a student, and spent a lot of time in Southern California; briefly glimpsed Dallas, Seattle, San Francisco, Minnesota and Colorado. Went to Mexico once. That’s it. I’ve tried to figure out how my perceptions are altered or restricted by a life spent in Las Vegas without a lot of comparison. It’s hard to assess because, hey, I don’t know anything else.

Staying in Vegas may have some negative impact or produce some inefficiency in my development as a writer-human, but there’s at least one awesome upside: when I do go somewhere, I'm wide open. It’s like outer space travel. If it isn’t my beloved dry desert, my brain and body don’t know how to react. Super-cold temperatures inspire fear. Inches of snow might be a natural disaster. Sky-high mountains, thick rows of forest green, rivers and oceans are fantastic things straight out of the movies. Maybe I’m being a little dramatic.

In July, I was in Chicago for the first time ever. I crashed with and was guided around the city by family, a couple of jazz musicians/personal trainers. Seems like a perfectly normal dual vocation for people who live in Chicago. We walked a lot. We didn’t drive much. We rode a train. That was some outer space shit; in fact, moving from the subterranean airport corridor straight to the train made me feel kinda Total Recallish. We saw some touristy stuff and some art museum stuff, a really old and beautiful church, and some amazing, never-ending cityscapes. We ate deep dish pizza, great burgers from Kuma’s Corner, and jicama salad and duck enchiladas at Frontera. I fell in love, with a bar. It was five days and it went by too fast. But it was long enough to see a city, a real one, and long enough to gain a bit of that perspective I’ve been missing. And I return refreshed, with a healthy dose of appreciation for what we’ve got here that you just can’t find anywhere else. It’s also very easy to see what we don’t have in Vegas, but exploring this issue through comparison is a slippery and senseless slope.

There’s a lot of discussion going on these days about the state of Vegas, the culture and community of this place, and where we are headed. Our backbreaking shift from ultra-growth mode to cover-up-and-hide recession fuels the conversation, and conceals the fact that despite its size and population, this city is an adolescent. So Vegas cannot be legitimately compared to New York or L.A. or this crazy Chicago place I just discovered, or even to metropolitan areas with closer population like Houston or Philadelphia. We are just a baby, or maybe more appropriately, a whiny preteen.

One publication I write for recently did a package called What Las Vegas Really Needs. All the usual suspects were rolled out: A pro sports team. Cultural and economical diversity. Walkable, urban areas full of retail, restaurants, museums and fun shit. Public art. Public transportation that actually works and makes sense for the region. (A Vegas L-train would totally be like Total Recall.) In a demonstration of egotastical laziness, I declined to contribute to this package of articles. I didn’t want to beat a deaditorial horse. And I was disappointed, but not at all surprised, to see the vast majority of these suggestions are less What We Need and more Ways Vegas Could Be More Like Other Cities. That’s the way the collective Vegas brain operates because almost all of us are from some other place, and what we really want is all the convenience and sunshine of Vegas with the best amenities from back home. All we want is everything. I don’t think that’s right. I don’t think that’s fair. If you spend a lot of time wishing for these kind of things We Need, I think you should ask yourself why you want so much out of Vegas, which has done nothing but entertain you and make your life easy. Hasn’t it given you enough? I think so.

I’m going to go see more places. I don’t want to be such a shut-in. Other cities may expose the shortcomings of my home, or they might make me love Vegas more, but those are just instinctual, superficial reactions and they don’t mean anything. A larger understanding, a wider perspective … that’s the plan. My Vegas is going to grow up to be whatever it wants to be. There might not be a consciousness, a spirit or soul of this city that’s driving its development, steering growth and change, and that’s fine with me, too. Maybe Vegas doesn’t want. Did you ever consider that?

ah damn, rosemary's?

Before I started writing about food, I wrote about music. I wrote reviews of concerts and new albums and interviewed whoever was coming through town, people like Morris Day and Rob Halford and John Legend, and guitar players or bass players from rock bands whose lead singers didn't want to talk. It was fun, but my favorite part was listening to the music and then writing about it. (This was back in the old days when there were things called CDs.) Just as in writing about restaurants, I did not particularly enjoy being a critic of music, of someone's self-expression, of their art. But that's the job.

Listening to lots of new CDs created a clear-cut divide for me. There were only two kinds of records: those intended to be art and those intended to make money. The age-old struggle. And of course, the real truth is that most were a blend of both.

The music critic days are long gone and now that I've been doing this food thing for a few years, I see those same classifications in the Vegas restaurant world. Some joints, you can tell as soon as you walk in that it's all about pushing out product, satisfying customers, turning over tables and stacking cash. This is the case with the vast majority of restaurants on the Strip, franchises, and pretty much everybody else. Nothing wrong with that; this is business. But a few of our city's eateries exist for something more, or at least they inject enough affection into the experience to make it feel like they love what they're doing, they love to cook your food, they love to send you off with delicious memories. Once upon a time there was one of these in every casino, a loss-leading, mind-blowing dining room selling tourists a once-in-a-lifetime epicurean experience. There's a few left. Alex at Wynn was one. It's probably more likely you'll find art-over-commerce eats off the Strip, in the neighborhoods, where the pressure to make a million dollars isn't weighing on the kitchen every day. This phenomenon occurs most commonly when a talented chef moves in from another town to work the Strip, decides to make his or her home in Vegas, and ends up opening a great neighborhood restaurant where he or she can really cook his or her own food. This is how we got Firefly. This is how we got Todd's Unique Dining. This is how we got Rosemary's.

Earlier this week, it was announced Rosemary's had closed for good. It opened in the spring of 1999 on the west side of the valley, near the Lakes and Summerlin neighborhoods. That was the same time I came back home to Vegas after college. It took me a while to make my first trip to Rosemary's, even though it was nearby, because it seemed too fancy and too expensive for a 20-something. But over the last 12 years I've had some truly great meals there, and even more stops at the bar for a light dinner, incredible snacks and lots of cocktails. Chefs and owners Michael and Wendy Jordan have been as beloved in the local dining community as their jewel of a restaurant, mostly because their cuisine -- warm, modern American with a kiss of Southern influence, nodding to Emeril Lagasse who brought them to Las Vegas -- was reliable and delicious and really set a new standard for neighborhood dining in the area. I don't think it's a stretch to say that for its entire tenure, Rosemary's was considered the best restaurant in Las Vegas off the Strip. If you believe food can be art, this was the place.

hook me up with a good pan roast.

I spent a chunk of years working for the Las Vegas Review-Journal, which is located on the northwest edge of what is considered to be downtown. For some of those same years, I lived in the northwest part of the valley. Much of my time then was commuting on Rancho Drive, back and forth, passing Texas Station a few times every day. So I've eaten a lot of meals there, in one of Station Casinos' most humble properties. Lots of Fatburgers and Rubio's fish tacos, and not so much cafe and buffet food. (It should be noted, however, that Texas' steakhouse, Austin's, is pretty decent. Recently, it began serving a fun little happy hour menu from its A-5 bar, stuff like sliders and salads and fried shishito peppers.)


But most of my Texas Station lunches were at the Texas Star Oyster Bar, murdering many bowls of blisfully orange, seafood-laden pan roast. It had been a long time, years maybe, since I ate this lunch here. It's still pretty good, but it could have been fired up a bit. A pan roast is a weird, semi-Cajun seafood bisque, full of spices (paprika makes it orange), a little sherry and a lot of cream prepared in a steam cooker. At Texas, you can order it with shrimp, crab or oysters, or a combination of all of the above. Definitely get the combination. There is some white fish in there, too, and you have the option of white rice or pasta to soak up this rich, thick, fishy, totally-overdoing-it broth. It's also best to order it spicy, like I did, although it won't come hot enough. The thing about this dish is that it's huge. There's a reason you only ever get lobster bisque in a tiny little cup. This is a mighty big bowl of creamy, savory warmth, and yet I always eat at all. I love pan roast. What can I say?


There's other more pedestrian food at this oyster bar besides the raw stuff: fried seafood, sandwiches, salads. What kept me coming back, besides proximity and convenience, was the fact that there just aren't many oyster bars or seafood houses of this type anymore. It's kind of a played-out, throwback restaurant concept. There's only one southern seafood house I can think of in town -- Lola's downtown at the Holsum Lofts. Buzio's restaurant in the Rio used to serve a good pan roast, but that place has seen many menu changes and is more of a New England seafood spot now. In fact, most of the seafood restaurants in Vegas are closer to steakhouses with some fish on the menu. In fact, I can't think of an oyster bar anywhere in this town that's not inside a casino. I guess that makes me a tourist. Huh.

lunch at estiatorio milos.

As I said to some colleagues while I was eating this lunch at Milos, it's getting difficult to find new, fresh food to write about in Las Vegas outside of The Cosmopolitan. The local economy is still moving slowly and fewer restaurants are opening these days, so that's part of it. The fact that we're not going to have a giant resort opening with tons of new eateries inside it anytime soon is another part. But really, it's all about the fact that Cosmo totally hit the nail on the head in terms of what's hot in the food world right now and how to present it. The hotel's glitzy steakhouse STK is murdering it, everybody's still buzzing about the secret pizza shop, the wild China Poblano and the spaghetti at Scarpetta, and now, six months after opening, locals and steady Vegas visitors are discovering more good eats as they sample the "deep cuts" of Cosmo's culinary repertoire.

The 2011 Lunch Menu at Estiatorio Milos, priced at $20.11 for three courses, has been raved about by every local food writer and even some out-of-towners. It's an incredible deal considering the ingredients alone, as this restaurant -- transplanted from Montreal and set to open its fifth location later this year in Miami -- is known for flying in the freshest fish from the Mediterranean. The goal is to change the American perception of Greek food, and after one meal, it's safe to say this cuisine is unlike almost anything else you can get in Vegas. I think of it as the Greek answer to Bartolotta Ristorante di Mare at Wynn, another fantastic restaurant that spends a lot on jet fuel transporting goodies to the desert. The difference is Bartolotta has never done lunch, and the beautiful, wide open, tranquil room at Milos is much less imposing. It's a great place to eat, and noon is a great place to do it. I'm happy to join the local chorus in claiming this is the best lunch deal in Vegas. Here's a little look; now go get your own.

To start, the hortopita: delicate housemade phyllo stuffed with wild greens and aged feta cheese, served with salumi and the thickest, best Greek yogurt ever.

Then the fish: lavraki, or sea bass, served pretty much whole. This is much more food than it appears to be, especially since you're going to want every bite. The fatty, crispy skin parts are unreasonably delicious.

For dessert, Karidopita Me Pagoto. It was described as nutty cake with a little bit of ice cream, but it's actually a moist, fluffy brick of the stuff that makes baklava so awesome. It's beyond rich and seemingly impossible to finish. Especially after all that amazing fish.

back to raku. oh, now i get it.

Let's get simple. There are three places to eat in Las Vegas. There's the Strip, there's your neighborhood, and there's Chinatown. For most of us, the Strip is for special occasions. (If you're just visiting Vegas, that's pretty special, right?) Your neighborhood is where you dine most of the time. It's normal for humans to do this. And unless it happens to be your neighborhood (or if you're one of the food obsessed), Chinatown is an occasional culinary adventure, for the more adventurous. That's all there is to it, really.

And now let's accept the fact that Strip dining, as dynamic as it is, can get old fast. It's too much sometimes. And your neighborhood can get boring, even faster. Chinatown doesn't have those problems. It's never too much, and it's never boring. It's the sweet spot every time.

So now let's return to one of the undeniable highlights of Las Vegas Chinatown, Raku. After my virgin visit, I accepted this place is something different, and can be a puzzling experience. But now I am compelled to recommend that you return to Raku often and find your own experience there. It will be rewarding. The high-fallutin' foodie folk will tell you this is just pure, authentic, clean Japanese pub food, but forget those people. Those are not normal people. There are challenging things on this menu, but you don't have to try them. There are just as many simple, delicious plates as there is crazy shit. It is inevitable that you will find something you love. For my lovely yet fearful wife, it was crispy asparagus okaki, perfect vegetable bliss (pic right). For me, it was everything else. But what really blew me away was something I would normally stay away from, an ingredient I only pretend to enjoy when it's mixed in and drowned out by lots of other ingredients and flavors. The beef tendon from the robata grill doesn't look like much, but after an evening of trying just about everything, tons of tastes subtle and powerful, it's the one bite that I can't get out of my head. First the lingering cloud from the charcoal grill hits you as you get ready to chomp, and then it's overwhelming. Distinctly beefy, but also salty, smokey, rich and buttery. And the texture attacks, spreading itself around without asking permission, but just go with it. This is not going to sound appetizing, but it's like The Blob from the old cheesy movies (I prefer the Kevin Dillon version), only a tiny version that tastes awesome and only wants to take over your mouth, not the whole city. It's simply a rendition of a dish that I've never experienced, and now it's the only way I want to eat tendon ever again. And there are so many other things at Raku that are just as great.

Kobe beef skirt with garlic.

More beef? Okay.

Back to the robata skewers, here's pork cheek, fatty, firm and delicious.

Peace in a bowl. Cold green tea soba noodles with a poached egg.

Amazing pork belly, great slabs of it in Raku's astonishing dashi with a little Chinese mustard. Wow.

And here's that beef tendon. Told ya it doesn't look like much. I'll have yours if you don't want it, sucker.

last lunch at venetian/palazzo.

For someone who eats out as much as I do (way too much), I have surprising few regular dining companions. And now I have lost one. My friend and former colleague Lauren has run off to New York, and it's a big loss for lunching. She finished up her Vegas era working for the Venetian and Palazzo resorts, which meant that we did some serious work on the many restaurants in these two big, beautiful Strip properties.


We made some mistakes, just a few. We went to First Food & Bar and Grand Lux Cafe a few times too many, getting stuck in mediocrity. We didn't go to Bouchon enough, but that's not our fault; only recently has the place been open for a proper lunch. We had decent lunches at restaurants that should be visited at dinner, like Valentino and Pinot Brasserie. Wolfgang Puck's Postrio is okay, but straight across from it, Mario Batali's Enoteca Otto is better, with some of the best pizza and pasta around. And, to my surprise, the lasagna at Zeffirino is outstanding, as is pretty much everything at the quiet Zine Noodles & Dim Sum.

The last lunch was last week, and we closed our run at Emeril Lagasse's Table 10. This place is hidden in the second story shops in Palazzo, above the casino, between a closed space that used to be Woo pan-Asian and the genre-bending SushiSamba. If this sounds confusing, that's because it is. Many of the restaurants at Palazzo have struggled due to strange placement (see Restaurant Charlie, as in Trotter).


Table 10, despite the big name chef on the marquee, also has been somewhat forgotten, but that may be changing. The menu, described as a New Orleans eatery with market fresh ingredients, has taken a prominent turn toward the market. There's a nice little frisee salad with a poached farm egg, smoked bacon, parmesan reggiano and red wine vinaigrette with a mini brioche on the side (above pic). There are "snacks" on the lunch menu including candied North Country farm bacon, fried Great Lakes smelt with lemon mayo, and veal cheeks with wild mushrooms and fava beans. Sure, there is some heavy stuff, like these amazing Kurobuta baby back rotisserie ribs (pic) and a killer ribeye sandwich with grilled portobello and horseradish, but there's also seared tuna with a farro salad and some simple po-boy sandwiches. At dinner, there's Colorado beef and lamb, suckling pig porchetta from Iowa and Hawaiian snapper. Don't do like we did and eat way too much meat. Save room for dessert, since Emeril's spots always do sweets right: banana cream pie, coconut cheesecake, or a chocolate flourless cake with a Kona coffee milkshake.


You can't really eat your way through all the restaurants in these huge, bajillion-dollar hotel casinos. There are just too many great choices, and once you find some food you love and go back for more, that's one more missed opportunity, one more tally for the still-have-to-try-it list. It's a tough job, take it from me. I probably won't be dining frequently in the Venetian or Palazzo now that Lauren's gone, but I will return to Table 10. It's worth it.

top of the strip.

So the Sahara closed. Yesterday. And yes, it is a bit sad. Few of us like to see a piece of Vegas history shut down. The part I don’t like to watch is when locals and visitors alike lament a classic casino going down even though they haven’t patronized the place in ages. You want something to live? Help keep it alive.

I don’t have a strong connection to the Sahara, mostly because there hasn’t been an interesting restaurant there in the last 10 years. (Although the Nascar Cafe did manage to score a visit from TV’s Man vs. Food.) Besides the casino's ownership, which has been at least a little misleading, we can attribute the closing to the fact that other planned North Strip properties -- Echelon, Fontainebleau, MGM’s barely planned project at Sahara Avenue and Las Vegas Boulevard -- never materialized, and therefore it remained isolated from all the action. And now there is a different casino that sits alone on that island, the misunderstood spot on the boulevard between the Strip and Downtown.

But I don’t think the Stratosphere is in trouble. First of all, exactly how would you go about imploding that thing? But seriously, the Strat just dropped a bunch of money into remodeling the rooms, and the casino already was in much better shape than the dilapidated Sahara. Most importantly for us, and people like us, it does have an interesting restaurant. Actually, calling Top of the World interesting is kinda stupid. It's truly unique, 800 feet above the desert floor, and dinner or lunch up here will provide you with unparalleled views of Vegas while munching on exquisite eats. I went for the first time recently. I knew the cuisine was much improved under the kitchen command of chefs Rick Giffen and Claude Gaty, but I just imagined the experience to be ultra-cheesy and inconvenient. Actually, it was an easy stroll through a nice casino, a quick straight shot up in a tiny elevator, and some of the best service I've received in a fine dining destination in the city.

I love that you can go to lunch here. So many big ticket restaurants on the Strip skip the mid-day meal, and this stunning environment seems to scream dinner only. Nope. Even better, the lunchtime menu is fun, not just a defused version of dinner. There are beef tenderloin "carne asada" tacos, excellent crab cakes, and a Vietnamese banh mi-style grilled chicken sandwich (Gaty is a classic French chef with a love for southeast Asia, which is why this baby lands on this menu.). Dinner will get spendy, yes, but prices are comparable to other fantastic dining rooms down the street and frankly, those dining rooms are not as fantastic. Obviously. I recommend the Tower Trio Combination appetizer, one of the most big-time Vegas dishes ever: seared foie gras, one of those meaty crab cakes, and a huge seared scallop. It's pretty heavy, but this is a special occasion kinda joint, so go ahead and splurge. Save room for a kickass ribeye with horseradish crust, and a sublime rack of Colorado lamb with natural jus and a seasoning blend that boggles the mind. There are a lot of options up on the Top, all approachable French-American fusion.

When I sat for dinner, my view peered right down on top of the Sahara. It takes about 80 minutes to revolve all the way around and see all of Vegas, and so I made another turn past the now-closed icon during an amazing meal. I wish the Sahara was still open, but it isn't. That doesn't mean the North Strip is forever dead. This circular motion continues.

INTERVIEW: Alexandra Epstein

Alex Epstein is assistant general manager at the El Cortez Hotel and Casino in downtown Las Vegas.


Downtown redevelopment is characterized by a mix of old and new, vintage Vegas and the thought that new Vegas is old Vegas. The El Cortez is so well positioned for that growth. Do you feel that way?
Yes. I think we embody that whole idea. We have been around for 70 years, this is our 70th anniversary, and we are experiencing a surge, a growth in our demographic. I think that says something, a testament that old Vegas is new again. I think people want to be around here and be part of the changes that are happening. The concept of what we want downtown to be is also not a new concept. Any city that's been around for a while has a cultural core that is their downtown, and now there is this demand for that here. We want Vegas to be an institutionalized city, an actual city that has some history and culture to it, and think there is a demand now to build that into this idea.


Is it difficult to celebrate the history of a place like the El Cortez and yet still appeal to a new, different audience?
I think a big part of looking forward is celebrating that culture and that past. I think it goes hand in hand. Any city's cultural core is forward thinking but celebrates its past, and Vegas just has a different past to celebrate. We have the Mob Museum coming in, we have the Neon Museum, we have Las Vegas' original casinos here, and those things just happen to be our past and our history, and the "cultural class" likes to celebrate that. They like it, and they get it, and they don't really want to escape from that. So I don't think those two concepts are warring with each other. I think it grows quite naturally together.


The El Cortez has been growing and renovating for a while now, huh?
It's a 70-year-old building so we have to do a lot to keep it up. But there really has been a big push in the past five years to renovate. Between our Jackie Gaughan Parkway, our porte cochere, and our Cabana Suites, there has been a lot going on, and quite a strong push in conjunction with the East Fremont development.


Have other organizations and businesses sought out El Cortez as a partner in these downtown developments are have you been more active?
It's been a mix of both. There have been people that have approached us, like the Cornthwaites with the idea of Emergency Arts in that building, and we worked together to make it happen. It's been a great collaboration and a great product we've been able to come out with. Other people have approached us, too, but it's just a very collaborative neighborhood in general. We work together with others like the Ogden across the street. We have welcome packets for their new tenants. We also go out and approach others, like we did with our design competition. We approached World Market Center to work together to do something for the Cabana Suites. So it's a give-and-take.


The restaurants at the El Cortez are pretty classic, your coffee shop and your steakhouse, The Flame.
It's pretty standard but the quality is definitely above standard. You don't really know until you come to the El Cortez what a gem it is. We could put more into marketing our food, and we are actually renovating our steakhouse now, but the food is actually outstanding. We have a great food and beverage director, and we are a family of foodies. This is a family business and we are all about food. We wouldn't want to not be able to eat here.


The coffee shop is really a Vegas institution that seems to be disappearing, and the El Cortez version is one spot that is kinda keeping that old school thing alive.
Our waiters and servers know all of our customers by name, there's that familiarity there. And the quality is there. I will stand by this: our matzoh ball soup is the best in Las Vegas. A lot of people say "Is it as good as Bagel Cafe?" I tell them it's better. And we have a Chinese kitchen, which is kind of a strange and random thing, but it's very popular. Everything at the steakhouse is fresh, never frozen, all of our fish and meat is flown in fresh. The steakhouse really is a gem, too. The service is great, we have a really great wine list with extremely reasonable prices, and that's something we've got a reputation for. Our specials do really well. The stone crab, when it's in season, we fly it in and serve it every week and we usually sell out. For our anniversary, we are putting together a vintage menu, with menu items you can't find anymore like oysters rockefeller. It's really old school stuff. You can ask for the vintage menu now even though we're not advertising it yet. And we're open to suggestions, too. We really researched it. We went to UNLV and looked at all these old menus and then went through all these rounds of tasting to see what we did and didn't want to do. It was pretty extensive.


On East Fremont, there are so many great bars now, and it's really a great crowd down there. But food-wise, there still isn't a lot right around the neighborhood that this group can find.
Not yet. We have great food at The Beat. And Le Thai is going to be a great Thai place when it opens across the street. But we definitely need some more variety. This is going to be a part of town where people come for a great night, for food and drinks, and it just makes sense.


So as someone who is here a lot, and has been to other cities, and as someone who is a foodie, what would you like to see down here?
All kinds of things. I lived in New York for four years and Los Angeles for a year and was very proactive in seeking out great food in those cities. There's a place in L.A. with all different kinds of bratwursts and all different kinds of beer, and really good fries, and that's all it is. In the back is picnic seating, kind of a like a beer garden, with a DJ in back. I thought something like that could work great in downtown Vegas. Any kind of gastropub would be great. But I think we should leave the real high-end stuff to the Strip. A great pizza place, like Settebello, I would love to have that down here. More outdoor cafe-type places would be great, since we have perfect walking areas down here. There are so many things that we could do.


I don't think anyone thinks of downtown as being a great food neighborhood in Las Vegas, and I think the reputation of the El Cortez is more about its history than its restaurants. But what you have done is pave the way for some very significant food and beverage developments downtown, specifically allowing one building your company owns to become Emergency Arts, which houses The Beat Coffeehouse, and also allowing your space to host the Vegas Streats festival every month.
It was a very lucky thing how that worked out. It just made perfect sense. There was no reason for us not to be doing it. We has the perfect space to let these food trucks do what they do. I think Vegas Streats is huge for downtown Vegas. In my mind, it goes beyond just food, because to me food is the most important part of culture. But it's really just about how people live, and food is such a big part of that, so it makes sense for downtown to be where people recognize that it doesn't have to be fancy food to be good. Vegas Streats has exposed thousands of people to really talented chefs and cooks, and if they associate they can come down here and have this great experience with food trucks and really cool old hotels and great bars, that's what we're trying to do -- change people's perspectives.


I'm sure you have a lot of ideas how to change and grow Vegas Streats, but do you think the following is already there?
Yes. The first one, we had so many people we just didn't know what to do with them. We didn't advertise anything and there was no press coverage, so it was all social media and word of mouth. And everybody was asking, when's the next one? The second time we had a lot of questions, a lot of press, a lot of emails after. And now different vendors and artists want to be involved, so we don't know what to expect looking ahead. But we plan on keeping it up, and this is something that downtown really needs. Everyone is working hard down here and really good food is the next direction.


You are a real Las Vegan and you know your way around town. Where else do you like to eat?
I love Sen of Japan and Raku and Monta for Japanese, those are all classics. For Italian, we're big fans of Cafe Chloe on Flamingo and Buffalo. It's been around for a while, and the chef has been here forever. It's Chef Piero, from the original Piero's. It's all homestyle cooking, the portions are huge, the pasta is piping hot when it comes out, there's a lot of garlic and it's just great. And the people are great. It's my favorite Italian place in Las Vegas. I do think the best pizza in the city is at Settebello. I also really like Nittaya's, which is a new place in Summerlin. Every time I've gone there I've had a good meal.


Are you one of the rare Vegas locals who actually eats on the Strip frequently?
I do. You can't hate it just because it's on the Strip. I definitely appreciate everything there is to enjoy on the Strip. We have the best restaurants in the world. To not take advantage of that would be insanity.


Your Strip favorites?
I've enjoyed everything I've had at Cosmopolitan. They do a great job at Milos, Holsteins, STK, Scarpetta.  We go to Wynn a lot. We just had a really good meal at Lakeside Grill. We love SW Steakhouse. Bartolotta, obviously, is amazing. Those are all just really pricey ones, special nights out. There are so many great places.

las gorditas.

I feel like this is overkill, because lately I've been writing a lot about the restaurants in my neighborhood and how impressive they've become. So I guess I should get in the car and drive across town and find some hidden treasure on the east side of Vegas or somewhere in the suburbs of Henderson to share with you. I'll work on it. Until then, look what else I found just down the street!


Actually, Las Gorditas is not just close to me. There are four of these restaurants in a few different neighborhoods, so you can claim one as your own. These are very simple little Mexican joints, as casual as the cheapest taco shop you've ever wandered into, hoping for tasty authentic treats. The food is simple, too, and very good. The tacos are small, perfect bites, wrapped in two tiny corn tortillas, filled with your choice of meat and covered in cilantro, onions and "guacamole sauce." Do I have a problem recommending tacos with "guacamole sauce?" No. No I don't. There are burritos, quesadillas, and other familiar items, but as you have guessed, the gorditas are in the spotlight.


A Taco Bell gordita is not really a gordita. It's supposed to be a soft, flat disc of fried or griddle-cooked masa, essentially a thicker, freshly made tortilla, stuffed with lots of different things. I've made them at home in a slightly different form known as arepas in Venezuela and Columbia, but it's basically the same dish. It's not far from a Salvadoran pupusa, which is usually thicker and completely sealed up, masa enveloping the filling. These gorditas are open at one end for something of a sandwich effect. In fact, I had a red pork gordita recently at China Poblano in the Cosmopolitan hotel, and it was listed on the menu as a sandwich. And the popular hole in the wall Los Antojos serves very tasty, if much more greasy gorditas, deep fried for a rich, kinda cornbread effect. Here at the Las Gorditas, they are not greasy. The flavor is clean and there's a nice chew through the corny goodness. I tried gorditas with chicken mole, tender cactus in a tomato-chile red sauce, chicken simmered in a green chile sauce, and melty cheese and refried beans. All of them were tasty, satisfying soul food snacks, and I estimate I could eat about a dozen before giving up. Maybe not that many, but they sure are good and easy. That's how I like my Mexican food.

a brief and charming history of marche bacchus.

UPDATE: Jean-Paul Labadie is no longer chef at Marche Bacchus.

Once upon a time in a place with the charmingly oxymoronic name of Desert Shores, there was a small, charming French cafe called Marche Bacchus. It was once a tiny market and sandwich shop in a nondescript little village of a shopping center, until a charming French couple, Gregoire and Agathe Verge, molded it into a very cool wine shop and bistro. The food was pretty good, the wine selection was fun and affordable, and the people in the neighborhood fell in love. They would come and enjoy the view of the man-made lake from the charming patio, and munch on fresh baguette with brie, slurp onion soup and devour sweet lobster salad tucked into buttery croissants. It was determined that Marche Bacchus was a neighborhood jewel, a hidden treasure in the Las Vegas dining landscape.


Then the owners decided to move back to France. The people were afraid their charming restaurant would go away. In fact, two of those people loved it so much, they decided to buy it in order to keep it the same. But they didn't do that. Jeff and Rhonda Wyatt actually made it better. They got more wine. They made that charming patio bigger, and installed protective measures so the people in the neighborhood could enjoy being outside even more than seven months out of the year. And they hired a chef (Jean Paul Labadie) with extensive experience at Emeril Lagasse's restaurants and just the right mix of precision and creativity. He kept the lobster croissants, onion soup and great platters of cheese and charcuterie, and added his own spice and flavor with dishes like chicken and sausage gumbo, pan roasted Idaho trout, braised short ribs with blue cheese mashed potatoes, and the big daddy: a seared duck breast with a dressing of foie gras and brioche and brandy-cherry glaze. Whoa. That's more than charming. (And this is the only place in Las Vegas where you can eat duck while making friends with one as he swims by.)


And, happily ever after, we eat this food.

Escargot baked in garlic herb butter.

One of my favorite things anywhere, the Gourmande Bacchus plate: brie and blue and other cheeses, two kinds of pate and other charcuterie, that damn addictive lobster salad, apples, cornichons, olives, yes please. You need more than one basket of bread to knock this out.

Seriously delicious trout.

Bread pudding, apple crisp with ice cream and Grand Marnier flourless chocolate cake.

dinner at payard.

Sometimes you'll read about a Las Vegas casino restaurant and it'll be described as a "hidden gem on the Strip." This sounds like an impossibility; how could something be hidden on Las Vegas Boulevard, one of the biggest, brightest dining spots on the planet? Well, it happens. Sometimes excellence gets lost in the shuffle, and sometimes there's a truly perfect little restaurant quietly cranking out amazing food under multiple layers of casino hype.

Payard Bistro is the epitome of a Strip hidden gem. It is known more as a coffee-and-sweets shop, with a tiny circular dining room perfect for an easy lunch or brunch. Seven months ago, a simple dinner service began. Our meal there last night was one of the best we've ever had on the Strip, bite-for-bite, a clinic on how to do French bistro fare. Enjoy:

Roasted chicken, overwhelmingly juicy with a sublime crispy skin, with fried potatoes and a bit of perserved lemon in the natural jus.

Filet mignon au poivre with buttery potato pave and haricot verts.

Adorable frisee salad with Nueske bacon and poached egg.

Best mac and cheese of all time. OF ALL TIME.

Pont Neuf.

Cheese souffle, all about parmesan. Wifey: "From now on, I have cheese souffle with all my meals."

George V. Chocolate masterpiece, with peanuts.

the best restaurant in downtown las vegas.

Downtown is full of interesting developments these days, not the least of which is tonight's street food festival near the historic El Cortez hotel-casino. But sadly, there still are few outstanding places to eat in our city's original hot spot, particularly on the main drag of Fremont Street. The aging neon casinos are struggling in this still troubled economy, and cutting costs means cutting back on restaurants. (The most notable restaurant to open down here in quite some time, Firefly at the Plaza, may or may not re-open when the casino's renovations are complete. We'll see. Doesn't look good.)


There are still some classic gourmet rooms in the area, including Hugo's Cellar at Four Queens, the Flame at the El Cortez, and the under-appreciated Second Street Grill at the Fremont. And then there's Vic & Anthony's, which easily outpaces anything else downtown. It's not a surprise; the Nugget is by far the best and biggest resort in old Vegas, especially after the recent addition of a new tower of hotel rooms and another seafood-happy restaurant, the Chart House. When Landry's Restaurants honcho Tilman Fertitta bought the joint around six years ago, his first move was to change the existing, decent Nugget steakhouse right off the main lobby into an updated version of Houston's acclaimed Vic & Anthony's. It's a cool room, dark and comfy with a vintage vibe to it. You can call dibs on a live Maine lobster on the way to your table, if you like. Or you can stick to traditional cuts of beef expertly prepared; the filet mignon was one of the tastiest takes ever on this usually boring cut.


My favorite part of the menu here, as it is anytime I visit a great Vegas steakhouse, is the appetizer selection. Here, everything is a winner, but you cannot miss the maple glazed quail, a sticky-sweet-crispy mini-bird that will have you considering a double order, or the all new seared scallops with apple slaw and bacon tabasco vinaigrette. Scallops are another ordinarily dull dish, but the kitchen brings some serious kick here. I'd have been happy with this pretty plate of three large bivalves, the sweet, fruity salad, a bottle of wine, and a healthy slab of badass bread pudding with dulce de leche ice cream. Didn't even need the steak, or the lobster tail. Or the crabcake. Damn, that crabcake was really good, too.


Vic & Anthony's isn't much of a secret. It's hard to hide in the Nugget. But the food here sets the downtown standard and wouldn't be out of place in a hotel on that other famous Vegas boulevard.

INTERVIEW: Anthony Meidenbauer

Anthony Meidenbauer is executive chef and partner with Block 16, which operates Holsteins at The Cosmopolitan, LBS Burger at the Red Rock Resort and Pink's at Planet Hollywood.

Most recently you've opened Holsteins at The Cosmopolitan. Going through this menu, there is a ton of stuff beyond burgers and a lot of fun snacks.
A lot of stuff we do, there's a lot of work that goes into what you put on the table. With the pork belly bun, you think it's just pork in a bun, but it's so flavorful and it takes some time to do it right. It's a Niman Ranch all-natural pork belly and we cure it in Asian flavors, ginger and citrus zest, braise it for four hours, press it, chill it, cut it in pieces and fry it crispy and serve it in a little steamed bun. Super simple, great flavor. We always start the meal out with every table getting popcorn. For example, one has truffle oil and white truffle salt to season as it's popped, and it comes out to every table so you get a little snack. We're trying to be playful and fun.

We do a Philly cheesesteak in a spring roll. It's something everyone knows about, but we take eggroll wrappers, fill them with skirt steak that we char-grill, pepper jack cheese, and then the classic Philly is always served with ketchup - our house ketchup, which we call udder sauce. Another one is the lobster corndog. Again, something everyone knows, but we're using slipper tail lobsters from New Zealand, with a nice sweet flavor, and a roasted jalapeno dijonaise underneath. Who doesn't love fried stuff on a stick? One of our biggest selling appetizers is also something super simple. We call it artichoke guac. It looks like guacamole but it's basically a Middle Eastern version of tortillla chips and guacamole. So we take pita chips toasted with zatari spice, and then serve with hummus fortified with piquillo peppers, three kinds of olives, capers, and a whole bunch of artichokes, puree it and fold it so it looks like guacamole. When you cruise through the menu, you see a lot of familiar things that we've made fun.

You're doing so much more than burgers.
For us, the burger joint moniker doesn't fit. We're a burger joint on steroids. It really doesn't fit. It's more like a gastropub, a burger-centric gastropub. We make our own foie gras, we make our own pâté, and we do our vegetables special for that dish. For the duck tacos, we make confit. The idea is to come in with a group, four to six people, to order a few snacks and share, maybe get a burger, and we have desserts made for sharing, too. It's a fun atmosphere. No matter what you order, you have some ideas of stuff you want to order next time you come in. We want people to try everything.

Is Holsteins the natural progression from LBS Burger?
LBS, originally, we wanted to be more expansive with the menu, but where we are at dictated our menu and clientele. Out in the suburbs in Vegas people aren't as exploratory with food as they can be when they come to the Strip. So we stuck with what works best there. When people want to have fun and try different stuff, they come here. If you live here, you don't come to the Strip often. A lot of the stuff is similar, sauces and things like that, because we make them all fresh every day. It definitely was a progression moving forward here at Holsteins, and we are definitely able to explore and do some more fun stuff. The kitchen is three times the size, too, and that's great, so it makes our execution a little easier. An example of something different we're doing here is housemade sausage. We make five different sausages right here. The Greek is a lamb sausage with feta and a bunch of herbs and spices, served in a little hot dog bun with olive relish, some feta cheese and a little chickpea harissa on the side.

As a chef, is it rewarding to have that progression where you are a little more free to experiment?
I think any chef has a surplus of ideas. Every time you go out to eat or read a magazine or see something, you're always thinking how you can take that idea and spin it. Our company has been working on a lot of different little projects for the past three years, but the economy hasn't always allowed everything to happen. Plus we have a great group of chefs that we work with back there, and everything is very collaborative. Everyone comes up with ideas and plans to make things work so we can put great food on the table.

How has it been working at The Cosmopolitan so far, and working with the other restaurant partners?
We all work as partners throughout the property, we have meetings, discuss issues and even though obviously we're not involved in others' menus, we all work together and share constructive criticism to help each other out. It works really well. Everyone in the property has been great. We're all here for the success of the whole property, and everyone needs to be successful for it to work.

The Cosmopolitan has some terrific qualities that set it apart. It feels more intimate because it is small, the way it's laid out. They took a weird plot of land and got real creative with it. One of the most successful things is how the parking is subterranean. Some of these huge casino-resorts, you have to walk 10 or 15 minutes to get to the casino floor or get to anywhere. Here, you can come for the first time and be in the casino or at your restaurant in a minute, and I think that's huge, especially for locals. Locals don't like to walk through the entire casino. And the look and feel of the place is definitely different from anything else, and the technology is really cool.

It seems as if your company and staff have a heads-up on opening in this brand new property, since you already work on the Strip at Planet Hollywood and at a completely different resort company at Red Rock. Does that give you a different perspective on operating?
We definitely have a strategic advantage, hands down. During the opening, a lot of the restaurant partners here that are from out of state had no idea what to expect. We have done as much work as we can to help them out. When you're working in a resort with an odd size and a lot going on, there are a lot of issues, logistically, things like getting products here. But I can just get it from my other properties and bring it over. So that's definitely an advantage.

Where were you before you got together with Block 16?
We've been together for three years. I was at Wynn for three years in room service, and I'm still good friends with a lot of people over there. I've been in town almost 10 years now, and it's still a small town. You see the same people over and over again.

How did your team manage to bring the iconic Pink's hot dogs to Vegas?
Billy Richardson, one of our principals, has been here for many years and has a lot of great relationships with influential people. That gives us opportunities to meet with people and talk about projects. Planet Hollywood was trying to get to Pink's, because for its theme, what could be better than to have a 70-year-old, classic L.A. spot like Pink's right here in Vegas? We got involved, the Pink's family really liked us, and we got to learn all about their culture, where they came from and what they've done, and see their operation. And they wanted that badly. They weren't going to just hand over that brand to anybody. They are starting to expand now that they have a feel for it, but staying mainly in California. So they gave us the greenlight and it's been open for about a year and a half. It's such a great location, and it's the exact same stuff as in L.A. There are people who will say, "Awe, this isn't the same," but the Pink's people have been very, very serious about it so they could share that it's the exact same product. Of course, it's not 70 years old, it's not going to have the same charm and celebrity following as the original, but that's what we are shooting for. But it's absolutely the same food, even if the experience has a Vegas spin on it.

Before Pink's, you opened LBS, which as you said, is a little more of a straight-ahead burger concept. How is LBS different from so many other burger joints?
LBS was our first, our baby. What we do at Holsteins is different, but not any better or worse, just different. But there are a lot of burger places, and they're all the same. They have the same few appetizers, some sort of smothered fries or chips, and a bunch of burgers. We didn't want to be that. We called it a Burger Joint to give you the idea that we're concentrating on the burgers. I try not to say "gourmet" because that word is stuffy, and the place is anything but stuffy. Holsteins is the same way. We get people coming in a suit, and people coming in a jogging suit. Old, young, everybody. Yeah, "gourmet" is kind of a four-letter word to us.

How do you see Holsteins changing and evolving?
We're going to start moving into spring and summer, so some lighter fare. As it gets warmer, people want to eat fresher and lighter, so we're working on those changes. It won't be a complete change. We also plan to roll out a few large plates so people that don't want a burger and don't want just snacks can go with a steak or fried chicken, something like that, which will still fit our theme. I don't think anyone will think of this place as just a burger joint.

In March, there will be a new sportsbook opening in The Cosmopolitan, right next to the entrance to Marquee on the second level. We're going to be serving our food in the sportsbook, so it will continue to get busier and busier. Our lunch crowd keeps coming, it's doing well. The late night is doing well. We stay open until 2 a.m. in the lounge area, and that works well when the club is open. As the club grows, especially in the summertime when the poolclub and dayclub operation gets rolling, it's going to really contribute to what we're doing.