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.

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.

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.

me vs. buzz; buzz kills.

We all love barbecue, no? It's very American. It's a reliable meal of equal parts tasty, nostalgic and fun, and it's relatively easy and fun to cook, too. In fact, even though most of us are merely grilling burgers or steaks over our backyard propoane robo-cookers, we all think we are barbecue masters.

I'm no different. For years I've been making the best baby back ribs I've ever tasted, tender pork awesomeness with a sweet-and-spicy hickory/hoisin sauce, even though I can accept the truth that since there is no smoke involved in my process, I'm pretty much faking it. More recently, I've experimented with a cute little smokebox in my propane grill, which has had some decent results. The first try was a pretty damn good brisket, cooked low and slow for about five hours, super tender and smoky tasting with a savory peppered crust, but maybe a bit dry. Weeks ago, I dropped the first cookout of '11 on my surprisingly growing group of friends and went to town on the ribs, some chopped pork for sandwiches, grilled chicken and a first attempt at pigstrami (pictured). It's kinda hard to fuck up pork, but this was definitely a success: a top loin with a good amount of fat, overnight dry-brined with black and Szechuan peppercorns, garlic, crushed red pepper, mustard seed, lots of cracked coriander seed, and other traditional pastrami seasonings. We smoked it with applewood chips for a long time, and it came out juicy and nice. Next time we'll use a liquid brine, or maybe just make some more time for those great flavors to set in.

But it only took a few days for that backyard pride to dissipate. You see, no matter what crazy rubs and sauces you like, no matter how much smoke and fire you keep burning, you're not a barbecue master unless you are. All it takes is a visit to a true master's domain to bring some humility. And so it was when I visited the new, second location of my favorite Vegas 'cue joint, Buzz BBQ, for some brisket (pictured). It's simply no contest. These guys serve it up serious - superthick slabs of meaty perfection, deeply imbedded with hickory smoke, fat melting between slices, ultimately juicy and soft. The sauce comes on the side at Buzz and they have a solid spicy version, but you don't need it with the brisket. Actually, you don't need it with the chicken or the ribs, either, but it's good with pulled pork or chicken and hey, why not dip the great fried catfish in it? Buzz has great sandwiches, too, like the Pig Twister, with pulled pork plus Andouille sausage, or the Texas Tornado, which adds some of this supreme brisket to that meaty mix.

Because barbecue is so regional and is rooted in historic areas (like the South and Texas) and not so much on the west coast (like Vegas), the restaurants that serve this wonderful cuisine in our city don't get much credit. Also, barbecue may be fun and easy at home, but it doesn't necessarily translate well into the restaurant biz due to time consuming preparation and a short window  for optimal service. But there are a small handful of stores that have been doing it right for years now here in the desert, and with its recent expansion, let's add Buzz to that bunch. They deserve it, for the brisket if nothing else.

pin kaow.

Stop for a moment and think about the wonderful comfort of the neighborhood restaurant. You know which one I mean: It doubles as a place you'll go for a special occasion and the place you can't wait to get to when your Friday shift is over. The service is either good or it's great, but it doesn't really matter because they know you here. It's your place. The stuff they cook at your neighborhood restaurant probably isn't your favorite type of cuisine, but there are a few dishes that are so good, it's as if they're cooking just for you, just to your palate's specifications. Or maybe they are cooking just for you, maybe the guys in the back know exactly how you want it and they're happy to reward your loyalty. Because you eat at your neighborhood restaurant at least once a week, and if it's only once a month, you'll feel like you haven't been in ages. The restaurant will miss you. And like an ex that may still have some sort of magic spell on your emotions, this restaurant will be your constant comparison, your frame of reference when you venture away from home and try things new and different. That was excellent, you'll tell your husband or wife after a great adventure of a meal, but I still like the Whatever at My Neighborhood Restaurant. You will think this, you will say this, and then you'll think of me, because I wrote that terrible ex metaphor you just read. And you might be a little uncomfortable because now you ARE thinking of your ex while discussing dinner with your spouse. Oops. Whatever.

The point is: your attachment to the good food in your immediate area is a strong connection. Great neighborhood dining can be a substantial block in the wall of community. And if you don't live here, there's a chance you don't realize that Las Vegas really is like any other place, and we have neighborhoods, and we have great neighborhood restaurants. Of course, we don't all choose the good ones to be our go-to spot. In fact, sometimes we don't choose at all. Perhaps it's a combination of circumstances that allows the restaurant to choose us. And I'm not gonna get all judgy; it's perfectly fine if your spot is PF Chang's or a sports bar with great chicken wings or a greasy little pizza joint. We work with what we have. Not all neighborhoods have as many tasty destinations as mine. I am lucky. And my neighborhood restaurant is called Pin Kaow.

There are three different Pin Kaow restaurants in the Vegas valley, which is great news, because that means I can share my favorite northwest neighborhood grub with people who live in the southwest and southeast. It can be ours. The original restaurant, which is just off U.S. Highway 95 at Lake Mead Boulevard, opened in 2001. I do not know the name of the family that runs these places, nor do I need to. I don't know who cooks, and it doesn't matter. There are really only two things you need to know about Pin Kaow:

1. The food is really fucking good.
2. It's Thai food.

First, let's explore why I love to eat here so much. The menu is pretty traditional, and it has been called authentic. (The atmosphere also is traditional and very pretty, with lots of lacquered wood and tables big enough for family dining.) It's open every day and serves pretty much every Thai dish you've heard of, with a bit of familiar Chinese mixed in for those folks who are, sadly, missing out on the spicy and sweet treasures of southeast Asian food. There are chef's specials that change with the seasons and focus on seafood, dishes like clams sauteed with chilis, bell peppers, onions and basil, or deep fried prawns in a deep tamarind sauce. Pin Kaow does the basics very well: creamy coconut and lemongrass soups, a way-above average Pad Thai, and spicy salads like larb and Crying Tiger Beef drenched in fresh lime juice and fish sauce. It's so steady here.

The curries are impeccable, thick, rich and well balanced. We particularly dig on Masaman curry with potatoes and crushed peanuts, and red curry to which you can add, of course, your choice of tofu, chicken, beef, pork or shrimp. There's also a special duck curry with tomato, pineapple, basil and chili. Also, don't skip the fried rice dishes, which include standard stuff like combo meat or pineapple, and better stuff like chili fried rice with egg and broccoli or, again, duck fried rice with Chinese broccoli and tomato. For dessert, all you'll need is sweet rice with mango, if it's in season, or coconut ice cream if it isn't.

I am stuck on a few dishes at Pin Kaow, just as hard as I am stuck on the restaurant itself. I cannot seem to stop myself from ordering Chinese broccoli with crispy pork, a super-simple dish of stir-fried vegetables in a chili-laden, garlic brown sauce with mighty chunks of pork belly. Each bite of pig falls somewhere between sauce-absorbing meatiness and a full-blown cracklin, and even though I order the dish with medium heat, it always comes out with the perfect amount of forehead sweat inducing power. This is my food, one of my favorite dishes anywhere. In a close second is the soft shell crab salad, which I hope finds a home on the permanent menu. Just typing about this stuff right now has increased the odds of my dining here tonight by 50 to 60 percent.

Now let's discuss point number two. If you're going to claim any Thai restaurant in Las Vegas is a good one, it's going to be compared to the infamous Lotus of Siam. Years ago, L.A. writer Jonathan Gold wrote in Gourmet magazine that Lotus, a relatively small, family-run restaurant in the aging, eclectic Commercial Center on Sahara Avenue just east of the Strip, is the best Thai restaurant in North America. Vegas visitors picked up on the tip and have made Lotus one of the most popular off-Strip restaurants in the city. Locals love it too, including local critics, and so this unassuming spot has become regarded as the be all and the end all of Thai cuisine in Las Vegas. (Recently, chef/owner Saipin Chutima and her team did what once seemed impossible and expanded their Vegas brand to New York City. But within months, they pulled out of the new restaurant, and continue to operate in Vegas.)

So does Lotus live up this reputation, built on word of mouth and hype from a few critics? I've eaten there a handful of times, and the food is amazing. There are specialties from the chef's native Northern Thailand and other delicious, hard-to-find dishes that aren't on the menu at my beloved Pin Kaow. I'm probably the only active restaurant writer in Vegas that would choose Pin Kaow over Lotus. But it's an easy decision, and this is why: I know Lotus is tremendous. I love great Thai food, and there it is, and it's not inconvenient to go there. And yet I don't. It's been more than a year since I made the quick trip across Las Vegas Boulevard. And why would I? I've got my favorite Thai spot, it's completely delicious, and it's right down the street. It's Pin Kaow. Behold the power of the neighborhood restaurant.

attack of the asian burgers!

There are those who would say Las Vegas has no signature food item to call its own, nothing to compare to the Philly cheesesteak, the Chicago dog, the slice of New York pizza, etc. (Nevermind the fact that we have all of those.) To those doubters I offer this: the gourmet burger is all Vegas, baby. Sure, it may not have been invented here, but that doesn't matter. We've got the greatest burgers from across the country, from California's In-N-Out to Illinois' Steak 'n Shake, and that's just the beginning. Almost every hotel-casino on the Strip has its very own upscale burger joint, from Hubert Keller's Burger Bar to Kerry Simon's KGB at Harrah's. Americans never seem to get sick of eating burgers, and Vegas is the most American city you could ever hope to visit. So take that.

But ... I do get sick of eating burgers. I didn't even want to try all the new cowdisc emporiums popping up all over the place. In fact, I was completely burger'd out, until something magical happened ... something Asian happened ... something new was born. The first time I tried an Asian-flavored burger, it was disappointing. The attempt: combine a Vietnamese banh mi sandwich with a hamburger. The flavors were muddled and messy, and it didn't come close to working.

Then I tried Bachi Burger, and despite the previous banh mi letdown, I took a risk and ordered this version from a very interesting menu. Despite a lot of positive buzz about this small-but-hip neighborhood restaurant, I wasn't expecting much. But I was blown away by the flavor explosion of Bachi's banh mi burger, a super-meaty patty of beef, pork and shrimp with a sweet-and-sour tang. The bun is slightly sweet, those necessary pickled veggies and fresh jalapenos are served on the side so you can add as much as you need, and there's even a slice of porky pate to bring some extra authenticity. It's beyond juicy, and really represents the flavors of this Vietnamese standby without sacrificing beefy goodness. And Bachi's menu is full of other Asian-inspired burgers, like the Ronin, which has a fried egg, Japanese coleslaw and miso sauce.

With these awesome new options, I was back to loving burgers, as long as they were Asian. So it was okay, again, to go to some new, fancy, Strip casino's burger place, like Holsteins in the Cosmopolitan, as long as I could order something awesome like the Rising Sun: teriyaki-glazed Kobe beef with threads of fried yam, furikake, spicy mayo and tempura avocado. Holsteins also appears to have mastered the subtle art of infusing Asian flavors into our iconic American sandwich without fucking up what we love most in a burger -- big beef in every bite.

But this blog entry is a PUNCH OFF! and you know what that means ... there was to be a winner. There has to be a king crowned in this Vegas Asian burger battle, and I don't think it gets any better than Fukuburger. Now, keep in mind that when you're eating from a food truck, you can't let hipness be a factor. It's fun to order from a truck, hang with the homies in the parking lot and eat outside, but none of that stuff changes the fact that Fukuburgers are delicious. The number one, standard Fuku is a good starting spot for this menu, with lettuce, tomato, onion, pickled ginger, American cheese and special sauce. The ginger, contrasting nicely with the miso and other flavors in the beef, throws everything into another world of flavor. I also deeply love Fuku's version of loco moco, that Hawaiian gutbuster of a burger over rice with a savory brown gravy. But definitely do not miss the Tamago burger (pictured), with a perfect, oozy fried egg, crispy onions, a little teriyaki and a little furikake with the special sauce. The egg brings a potent richness, and the combination really brings out the fact that Fuku cooks their meat perfectly. It's juicy with a great burn on the outside and pink on the inside, exactly the way a burger is meant to be. That's why these guys are one of the top food trucks in the burgeoning Vegas scene. But wheels or no, Fukuburgers can go head-to-head with the best in the city.

shh. nittaya's secret kitchen.

Nittaya's Secret Kitchen is, I believe, poised to become the next great neighborhood restaurant in Vegas. I believe this because the food is really good, but here are some other reasons:

1. Thai food is still pretty hot right now. We all agree there is very good Thai food to be found in Las Vegas. And this chef is cooking her native cuisine, and she's already been operating two more straight-ahead Thai-Chinese restaurants, so we know she knows what she's doing.

2. Nittaya's is on the corner of Lake Mead and Rampart. This neighborhood and the people in it are getting a little older, but there are still plenty of folks nearby that will get behind a restaurant with great, unique food.

3. The owners of Nittaya's have very wisely placed the word "tapas" on their menu and signage. It doesn't really matter if these tasty small plates are tapas or if they're not. It only matters if they're tasty. They are.

The "world famous" spinach salad (pictured) already has been written and talked about, partly because they push it so hard at Nittaya's and partly because it's delicious. Individual spinach leaves are fried tempura-style until crispy and piled on a plate with what is basically a larb salad, ground chicken, veggies and cashews in a spicy lime dressing. Stack some of this tangy goodness on these crazy, crunchy greens and you've got yourself a signature dish. But the truth is, of the many dishes I've sampled at Nittaya's, this is one of the least inspiring. And it's really good.

Nittaya's lettuce wraps are the best version I've tasted, and curry puffs are another great appetizer, a flavorful explosion wrapped inside a delicate pastry. While you're eating fried green things, try the panko-breaded avocado. The two other salad options I've enjoyed both blow the fun spinach dish away: beef flank steak salad, which also incorporates that spicy lime dressing over seared beef and fresh garden veggies, and the must-have ginger chicken salad, tender meat, red onions, cilantro and peanuts absolutely drenched in ginger. It's a mouth shocker, and very addictive.

Next time I dine here, I need to get at the entrees section. The wonderful curries and rice dishes have prevented me from sampling these main plates. (I did enjoy a simple plate of grilled chicken thighs with a sweet chili sauce, and some decent spicy catfish.) The green curry, full of basil, was impressive, until we got to the red stuff, spicy and coconut creamy. The pineapple fried rice here is served in a half-pineapple, only adding to the sweetness. It's great, but I also like the spicy basil and green curry fried rice, the latter of which is stacked with Chinese broccoli, onions and egg and takes on a new texture thanks to the coconut in the curry.

Nittaya's is a small place, and it will need to grow. A chef who is doing these things is cooking for herself, to have fun, and to building something. The neighborhood will appreciate that, and they will keep coming back. Different is good, and we could use some more of that around here.

our spanish dynasty.

(Update: Firefly has closed its downtown location.)

Is it completely unnecessary to write about one of the most popular restaurants in Las Vegas? Yes, probably. But perhaps the continuing development of Firefly, which opened its third location in the Summerlin area in October, is more significant than it seems.

Actually, it seems like a pretty big deal. The new restaurant, on West Sahara Avenue in a building formerly occupied by the Tex-Mex chain Z-Tejas, has been packed from the moment the doors were unlocked. Why? Because those of us that live out in the westside suburbs have been making the trip to the original Firefly on Paradise (pic top) for years. Until now, there have been no Spanish tapas restaurants in the well-populated and hungry Summerlin neighborhoods. When chef/owner John Simmons and his crew opened a second location in the Plaza downtown last year, it could have been a risky move. But it wasn't, because Vegas' small but loyal population of downtown hipsters was already in love with the original Paradise location for its tasty and cheap small bites and refreshing sangria. Consider the fact that the struggling Plaza temporarily shuttered its hotel operations earlier this year, and yet Firefly continues to draw patrons to the west end of Fremont Street, and you can see the powerful pull this food has on Vegas.

What's most impressive about Firefly's success is its humble origins. Today, this cuisine is one of the major trends in American eating. There are maybe a dozen Spanish tapas joints around town, and many, many more that use the shared small plate concept as the foundation for experimentation. Julian Serrano in Aria is easily one of the most popular restaurants in CityCenter and even earned a shout-out in Esquire's annual best new restaurant piece, and it's a matter of weeks before superfamous chef Jose Andres opens the Vegas version of his award-winning Jaleo tapas bar in the new Cosmopolitan. And while those two probably will be the best in town, Firefly's three spots will be tied for third. I have eaten at all three Fireflys and from restaurant to restaurant, the consistency is uncanny. Those perfect, crispy chicken croquetas and addictive bacon-wrapped dates are as good as you want them to be, whether you're gazing through the glass bubble downtown or laughing at the drunken cougars in Summerlin.

There are only a handful of Vegas restaurants -- ones actually born in this city and not imported -- as universally beloved as Firefly. One of them is Lotus of Siam, the much-hyped Thai eatery which also expanded recently -- to New York City. If you never thought you'd see the day Las Vegas -- transient, cultureless, dying Las Vegas, they say -- would send some culinary representation to the greatest restaurant city in the world, you're not alone. But it has happened, even if it seemed like a longshot. When Simmons opened his original Firefly in 2003 near the Hard Rock Hotel, nobody in Vegas had ever heard of tapas. Now we can't get enough. That seemed like a longshot, too, but turns out Firefly was ahead of its time. Aren't you glad we caught up?

the red rock resort belongs to me.

Food is important to most everyone, but we all create our own connections to the experience of eating. Few of the most memorable meals of my life have been break-the-bank, once-in-a-lifetime gourmet adventures. Those are usually enjoyable. But the combination of the right environment, the right food and the right company makes for a powerful memory, and in my experience it’s been near impossible to engineer such a situation.

But I’ve done it, at least once. It was a Friday night in December. After a day of drinking and grazing on snacks at home, it was time for a late supper at T-bones Chophouse, a swanky if unfortunately named steakhouse at the Red Rock Resort. We began at the bar, slurping martinis and chewing on pretzel bread as friends began to arrive. I ordered dinner: the signature chopped salad, a shrimp cocktail, a petite filet mignon and garlic mashed potatoes. More friends arrived, and we slid from the shiny bar top to a group of high tables in the restaurant’s lounge area, setting up between the long double-sided bar and tall glass doors that lead to a beautiful patio overlooking the resort’s pool.

More arrived, soon we were all drunk, and our group had officially taken over T-bones. This was a gathering of our closest people, siblings, friends from out of town, friends stretching beyond a decade. It was the night before we got married. Drinks were flowing freely and there was an easy happiness floating around, and I seemed to be the only one eating. Somehow that made everything taste better. I took down the chopped salad after my almost-wife munched a couple bites before deciding to focus on liquid nourishment. The shrimp cocktail was quite fine and delivered in a block of oddly shaped ice; my brother examined it after stealing a shrimp and ended up breaking the thing. I continued to share, forking a tender bite of beef into the mouth of almost-wife’s best friend from back home in Colorado. She requested another, this time with a little more of the peppery red wine reduction sauce. I was happy to help. I was happy to be surrounded by my favorite people in one of my favorite places, and enjoy a simple, classic steakhouse meal. That doesn’t mean this restaurant is average, and definitely not mediocre. T-bones is one of the better steak joints in Vegas, which may be hard to believe considering there are so many, and so many expensive ones on the Strip. But know the food is almost always the same at these places, and a little extra luxury, creativity and convenience goes a long way. I’ve also had a terrific Scottish salmon at T-bones, and we returned for an anniversary dinner and feasted on a supreme foie gras appetizer, another steak with a gorgonzola crust, au gratin potatoes and some of the best short ribs I’ve ever had.

The Red Rock Resort is my favorite hotel-casino in Las Vegas, and I’m not alone on this one. A great steakhouse is just the beginning of a solid, occasionally spectacular restaurant lineup. The hotel rooms, casino design, bars, pools and lounge spaces are equal to or greater than what we see at the big properties on Las Vegas Boulevard, and the whole place has a casual, easy-access feel that creates exactly the kind of comfort I desire. It feels like it’s too nice, yet welcoming. When I check in at the Red Rock for a completely unnecessary fake vacation weekend, when I waddle into the fancy, central, rose-red Lucky Bar in tacky green-and-white swimming shorts and order a gin-and-soda, when I cap off the night before my wedding with a 3 a.m. stroll to the food court for a Fatburger with my almost-wife and two best friends from high school, I feel like I’m a bum who hit Megabucks. I feel like some bozo who lucked into some really sweet surroundings. And really, feeling like that is my objective. I don’t know if that’s the exact vibe the guys at Station Casinos were going for when they spent a billion dollars building this place, but that’s what they got. And I’m happy about it, and grateful.

Red Rock opened in the spring of 2006. It cost around $925 million. It resides in the heart of Summerlin, one of the country’s biggest master-planned communities and, up until this whole shitty economy stuff, the fastest growing suburban neighborhood anywhere. Red Rock marked Station Casinos’ next step up from the Green Valley Ranch Resort, another upscale neighborhood casino in another suburban community on the east side, in the city of Henderson. GVR opened with much excitement at the end of 2001, considered as the evolution of the neighborhood or off-Strip casino. (George Maloof’s Palms, famous for attracting celebrities, also opened that year and also was considered part of this new wave of hip joints beyond our most famous street.) Before the Green Valley resort, Station Casinos had upgraded and expanded its brand with the Texas Station (1995 in North Las Vegas), Sunset Station (1997 in Henderson) and Santa Fe Station (acquired in 2000 in northwest Vegas), all shiny, fancy casino-hotels with family-friendly amenities such as bowling lanes, food courts and movie theaters. These places became one-stop entertainment destinations for the thousands of families who had flooded the valley since the mid-1980s, places where the younger set could have fun while the adults would gamble. Their huge success built Station into a dynasty, a gaming company that would spar with and eventually overtake the other locals, Boyd and Coast, and join the conversation with the heavy hitters on the Strip. And when things were going great, brothers Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta, leaders of the Station family, decided to do something kinda crazy and build a new flagship, something that would rival those big dogs, only it would be way out west, in the shadows of the brilliant Red Rock Canyon. It would have a much more modern design, with rich colors borrowed from those vaulted desert mountains, chandeliers with millions of crystals, miles of onyx lining the walls, gold-leafed ceilings, and a shitload of other fancy stuff. It would have a giant casino with plenty of machines and tables, a massive sportsbook, and an intimidatingly cool high limit room. It would have awesome accommodations, unique penthouse suites, convention spaces, swimming pools, nightclubs, a movie theater and the nicest bowling lanes in Vegas. It would be the kind of place the Fertittas themselves would hang at, and so it was.

I’d like to write there will never be another place like the Red Rock Resort, that because of the recession that will forever change the way Las Vegas works, no one will ever spend many millions of dollars to build a supercasino in our neighborhoods. But it has happened. The $600 million Aliante Station opened in 2008 in an even more distant community, and at the southernmost tip of town, the billion-dollar M Resort came to life in 2009. In my world, those places don’t matter, because the Red Rock is mine. I grew up on the west side of the valley, I ran around the suburbs of Summerlin, and when I made my post-college return to Vegas in 1999, my ‘hood was still without a truly great place to play tourist, eat, drink and party. There were casinos: the Suncoast, and what is now the JW Marriott resort, living uneasily next to each other just off Summerlin Parkway. Both are an ill fit, a little low-rent. Then Red Rock came along and blew everything else away.

When the Station guys started thinking this over, design came first and food came second, and that’s right on the money. All those little (expensive) touches add up to create that too-nice vibe, and the details are everywhere. These are nicest movie theaters around. This is the nicest spa. These are the nicest bathrooms. This is the nicest hotel lobby around, especially because they don’t build hotel lobbies like this anymore, with grand circling staircases and a 30-foot-tall crystal chandelier hanging above the tiny lobby bar.

I’ve seen every type of hotel room and suite in the building, and I’m perfectly fine with the standard. It’s pretty badass: 42-inch plasma, Bose soundsystem with iPod dock, 15-inch LCD screens in the bathroom, one of the greatest beds of all time, and of course, robes and slippers. The colors are chocolate with some greens, oranges and reds, and your view is either the breathtaking canyon or the distant, shimmering Strip. But the suites get ridiculous, easily setting a new standard away from that Strip. Take a step up and you’ve got a couple 65-inch plasmas, big party-ready bars, private bedrooms, marble bathrooms with huge soaking tubs, all spread over about 2,500 square feet. If you manage to score one of the seven penthouse suites, you are a special person. Private elevator. The black, brown and blue one is called the One 80, because the view affords both the canyon and the Strip. The TV is only 103 inches. The sofa rotates. The green one is called the Canyon. It’s a bit smaller at 4,000 square feet. It has a private massage room. The white one has a pool table and two bedrooms, one of which has its own balcony and jacuzzi. The red one is Cherry, and it has survived the vomiting heathens of Rock of Love with Bret Michaels, season one. The shower is in the middle of the master bedroom, which seems about right. The TVs are not that big, but there is a 20-foot projection screen. The purple one is Lucky. There are more. Why are they here? So the Station guys can throw awesome parties up on the top floor? Unnecessary awesomeness is how you set new standards in Vegas. The centerpiece of it all is the “backyard” area. There is a large round swimming pool with a playful fountain in the middle, several smaller, rectangular pools branching away and a large shaded bar with blackjack tables and sexy cocktail servers. How can I describe a day at the Red Rock pool? It’s like you went to one of the hip hotels on the Strip and they didn’t let any assholes in. Even though marketing has tried to make money and douche it up out here, things have stayed relatively peaceful. Evidence: the Cherry nightclub closed down to make way for the more easygoing cabana club. Good move.

Food may have been ranked second in the grand scheme of things, but Red Rock’s restaurant offerings are definitely first among neighborhood casinos. Besides the exemplary T-bones, you have other standards that are quite serviceable (the Grand Cafe coffee shop, Cabo Mexican restaurant, Terra Rossa Italian restaurant, LBS burger joint, Yard House beer and food depot, and the Feast buffet), you have a miniaturized version of one of Vegas’ best deli-style restaurants right next to the sportsbook (the Bagel Cafe), and you have quite possibly the best casino food court of all time. Here’s the lineup: Fatburger, one of the best hamburger chains of all time; Capriotti’s, Vegas’ favorite sandwich shop gone global; the respectable fish tacos of Rubio’s; and then, you can’t win them all, so Villa Pizza, Panda Express, Ben & Jerry’s, Tropical Smoothie and Starbucks. Very formidable, all next door to the movies, bowling and bingo.

The best restaurant here is Hachi, billed as modern Japanese. It is criminally under looked in the local dining scene, reliably pitch-perfect and therefore more than deserving of my constant affectionate raves. The chef, who was recruited from New York specifically to open an off-Strip pan-Asian concept in Vegas (this is something that has never happened before) is Linda Rodriguez, a very nice lady from the Philippines who just happens to be the first woman to train under Nobu Matsuhisa. She has cooked in Brooklyn, Mexico City, London and Louisiana, and we are lucky to have her, and her partner/husband, Martin Swift. Their restaurant is edgy and awesome. Its main dining room is walled by a Murakami eyeball piece opposite a wispy, peaceful image of cherry blossom trees, and it feels good to eat sushi here. But the menu boasts so much more. Most people know Hachi for its LSD roll, with spicy shrimp and crab, tempura flakes and avocado, or its incredible 38 for Under $8 menu, which offers great small plates like veggie fried rice, spicy kabocha coconut soup, barbecued ribs and kushiyaki meat skewers for low prices. I love the four varieties in the sashimi sampler, especially the fluke tiradito, the perfect little square of braised short ribs on top of roasted apple puree, the kobe beef potstickers, the light, sweet crab salad with cilantro vinaigrette, and the tempura’d pumpkin. Everything is good here, creative, refreshing and delicious.

Hachi is my favorite place to eat at Red Rock, and my favorite place to drink is … still up for grabs. It might be that quiet, throwback lobby bar. Just upstairs, the amber Onyx Bar is a nice little nook, too. It’s exactly the kind of casino bar that is lacking in the other spots in our neighborhood, a comfortable place to sit and pay a few dollars too many for a good stiff drink while trying to talk your way into something you probably shouldn’t do. Maybe the best spot is back at T-bones, out on that nifty patio, sitting on a big circular couch swigging Hendricks muddled with cucumber and lime and making fun of the Summerlin cougars and their shiny-shirted husbands/male mistresses. It’s very nice out here, when things cool down at night and they’ve closed the pool for the day, and you could drink a little too much and start thinking about how nice it’d be to have a room tonight. It’s happened. When I visit the Red Rock now, and do stuff like this, I start thinking about living here. Permanent room service in my Presidential Suite … yeah, I don’t need the penthouse, I’ll stick to the one with his-and-hers bathrooms and just a 42-inch plasma behind the bar. That’s where I’ll have my final nightcap each evening, after my penultimate whisky in the lobby. Bagel Cafe for breakfast, then I’ll hit the pool. On a Tuesday. Fantasies are fun, but the reality is: this joint is 6 miles from my house, it’s one of the biggest and beautifullest resorts in Vegas, and it’s far more accessible than anything on the Strip. These are the reasons why it’s mine.

the definitive vegas pizza.

One of my earliest Vegas food memories is munching on two slices of New York-style Verrazano Pizza, a tiny shop on North Rainbow Boulevard. It's pretty straight-ahead pizza, wide slices of cheesy, thin-crust goodness. The place was mostly oven, always hot as hell with a frequently broken soda machine, but located conveniently within a quick bike ride for an 11-year-old trying hard to get acclimated to desert life. There had been plenty of pizza before Verrazano, and even more after, but that slice was genre-defining. So it goes with childhood, no?

The original pizzerias of Las Vegas were all from New York. There were three: Villa Pizza started in 1976, Verrazano in 1978, and Metro Pizza in 1980. All three grew into multiple locations around the valley, some of which are still operating today, and many more similar and different pizza shops soon followed. For Carmine Vento, the man behind Villa, selling pizza by the slice turned into a mammoth operation, a national franchise he sold in 2000. Vento still works in the restaurant biz in Vegas, licensing his brand to some and operating others (Carmine's Pizza Kitchen). Verrazano is still around in various forms, perhaps adrift in a sea of pizzerias pitching the ubiquitous New York slice. And of course, we've got a new breed of pie in Vegas, gourmet coal-fired pizzas and certified Neapolitan pizzas and all kinds of stuff. I've been eating them. They're all delicious.

But if there's a pizza shop that is truly Vegas' own, it has to be Metro. It's not because this is the best in town, though it certainly needs to be part of that conversation. Metro Pizza is simply tied to this city in a way very few restaurants are, linked to the families and people who work and grow up in Las Vegas, connected to a community and culture that so many claim doesn't exist. I remember trips to Metro's Flamingo-Decatur location, in all its 1980s, teal-pink-and-checkerboard glory. This is the oldest of its five local stores now. This was special occasion pizza when I was in middle school, when delivery from Domino's or Pizza Hut just wouldn't cut it.

But others have deeper, stronger connections. "Vegas was still small in 1980. Back then kids would ride horses to our first shop at Flamingo and Sandhill." Riding horses to pizza! You never thought that would happen in Las Vegas, did you? John Arena, co-owner, co-founder and overall pizza guy, has so many stories like this. "We changed that crazy decor at the Flamingo-Decatur store a while back, but people didn't recognize it anymore. They thought there was a new owner. So we changed it back. We have customers that came to us when they were in high school in 1980, and they're coming in with grandkids now. It's a very unique responsibility, to be here for multiple generations, and to live up to those expectations. If you ate this pizza as a kid, you're expecting a certain level of quality and service when you come back as an adult."

If you haven't figured it out yet, these people keep coming back for reasons other than nostalgia. The love of longtime Las Vegans, though powerful, is not what makes Metro undeniable. It could be that they put bacon on their Hawaiian pizza, or the eggplant calzone that's named after George Steinbrenner, or the fact that one slice of the Skyline stuffed pizza with sausage, onions, peppers, pepperoni, black olives and mushrooms is enough for two tasty meals. But it's not any of those reasons.

Arena, from Brooklyn, loves pizza, and he understands why and how everyone else loves it, too. He's traveled the world learning as much about this perfect food as he can, and he teaches a class about its history at UNLV. "In Las Vegas, you have customers from all over the country, all over the world, and they're not tourists. That's who lives here. You've got all these different people, and all these different opinions about pizza. I call it the Cognitive Theory of Pizza - what you're given as a child shapes your vision. People will say only pizza from Naples is true pizza, but the people of Rome would disagree. Purists say pizza shouldn't have to adapt, but there's a long tradition in Italian food of just that. We realized you could have endless debates depending on the current circumstances of pizza, so what we decided to do is embrace it all and find some common ground. We changed our name to Metro Pizza in 1986 to reflect that philosophy, and try to reflect the great pizzas of many different metropolitan areas, because in Las Vegas, everybody is from somewhere else." Could anything possibly make more sense? So when you order a Modesto or a New Haven off this menu, that's because Arena found something like that in that city, and he thinks you'd like a taste. At the Metro store on Tropicana near UNLV, there's a big map of the Pizza Hall of Fame, different cities with famous pizzerias marked. If you go eat at one of them, and then come back and talk about it, Metro will hook you up. Arena wants you to eat other pizza. He wants to teach you to make your own pizza. And yet you likely will return to eat his pizza. (It's good.)

"When you're putting a pizza on the table, you're not just competing with other pizza places, you're competing with all those childhood memories and all those associations. When it comes to pizza, there's a lot more going on that what's on the plate." I tell Arena about my associations, my slices of Verrazano, and how the mayor of Las Vegas once told me he couldn't find anything close to his back-home stuff so he called Metro and asked them to figure out how he could eat Philly pizza in Vegas. "His favorite pizzeria back home was using a very particular cheese blend, and that was his touchstone pizza. It's just like you, riding your bike to Verrazano. You probably got your first taste of personal freedom along with that pizza. It's the same way everyone's grandma makes the best food they ever had in their life. That's how people feel about pizza, and that's the responsibility I have ... to live up to all of that." I'm glad this pizza guy is taking his responsibilities seriously.

vegas gets mobile tasty.

Fueled by Twitter and persistent word-of-mouth, the gourmet food truck trend has officially arrived in Las Vegas. "Local" cuisine is but one of a million ways Vegas is under the influence of Southern California, and at least two of the street food carts/vehicles I'm about to shout out are directly inspired by the famed Kogi BBQ Korean taco trucks of Los Angeles. Nothing wrong with that.

But this ain't L.A. Even though we've got plenty of transplants in Vegas -- people from every major city and every point in between, really -- there aren't as many hipster foodies dwelling in the desert. This group is growing, no doubt, but Vegas gets knocked for lacking culture and the same criticism can be levied here. It's the only explanation for the notorious dominance of chain restaurants like Olive Garden and P.F. Chang's in the daily newspaper's annual Best of Las Vegas reader poll. So ... can the concept of gourmet roach coach succeed in Las Vegas? Is the populous willing to endure blistering heat, stand outside and munch on mini-burgers and Asian tacos? Does the city have enough ambitious innovators to build an exciting, all-access street food tribe? So far, it's looking good.

It starts with Slidin' Thru (pictured), the slider-slinging crew on patrol all over the valley in a truck emblazoned with colorful illustrations. Its young creator, Ric, blasts out the day's location online, sweats through lunch and dinnertime shifts in the cramped, oven-like environs with a couple of dedicated cooks at his command, and gives plenty of "window love" to his faithful following, which seems to be growing exponentially by the week. They love the attitude, they love the novelty of hunting down the slider truck, and they really love the great grub. Freshly formed Angus beef burgers come in a variety of flavors, like barbecue with crispy onions, bacon, sweet sauce and caramelized jalapeno, or Greek-style with feta cheese, ripe tomato and cucumber dressing. Specials include pulled pork mini-sandwiches or baby French dips, and the sweet potato fries are sprinkled with cinnamon sugar. It's simple, good food, sharply conceptualized, and if this food truck thing does take off in Vegas, you gotta hail Ric as the godfather of it all.

Burger truck number two is called Fukuburger. The offerings here are full-sized and somewhat Japanese, perhaps because its creators, Colin and Rob, were servers at the most money-makingest Pan-Asian restaurant in the country. These guys may also be bringing that edgy, after-hours vibe from Tao, since they seem to be targeting the late-night crowds and recently set up camp in their big red truck near the Hard Rock Hotel when the Sunday Rehab pool party let out. The burgers are marinated in mirin, sake and yuzu for a unique beefy taste. Toppings can be pickled ginger and daikon, fried eggs, crispy onions, bacon or wasabi mayo.

On the cool and sweet side, Philly's Famous Italian Ice is run by an incredibly friendly couple named Jim and Tanya, and they serve some pretty great treats out of a truck or a cart at various events and gatherings. They've been around a bit longer than these new guys, a couple of years now, but they're moving around more and capitalizing on the splendor of social media. Light, refreshing Italian ice (I like banana, sour apple and pineapple a lot) is not a tough sell in Vegas, as it hits the spot in a way the old ice cream truck never could.

There are more trucks and carts serving up street food (and stuff you don't usually get on the street). There are quite a few burgeoning taco carts sprinkled about. A few hours ago I ate some delicious Korean tacos, flour tortillas stuffed with marinated, grilled pork, kimchi, a crispy and sour Asian slaw and a handful of cilantro, from a six-week old trailer posted up at Lee's Liquor on Lake Mead Boulevard near Buffalo Drive. It's called HanShikTaco, and it's a one-man show. His name is Ron and he's too busy making tacos right now, but soon he'll have a website up and I wouldn't be surprised if there are several red taco trailers all over the place in a matter of months. It's good stuff, and it's really too cheap to be this good, and that's kind of the thing with street food. It's too good to be true. It's 110 degrees out there right now, but I think I can take it for a couple more tacos.

let's just get roberto's.

Everyone eats at Roberto’s.

I started writing about Vegas food and restaurants right around the dawn of the new millennium. It was part of my job as a community reporter to profile new businesses in my area, which at the time was the far western portion of the valley, primarily the gargantuan master planned community of Summerlin. There were many new businesses to profile in those days, and restaurants quickly became my favorite feature. The research required speaking with owners and chefs, discussing their concepts, and trying to see their vision for their businesses. It was vastly interesting, allowing me a quick glimpse beyond the counter and the kitchen and into these microcosms of the off-Strip food and beverage industry. Despite my complete lack of business training, many times I wanted to discourage these entrepreneurs, often families leveraging their collective futures in pursuit of this crazy dream because somebody told them their ribs and chicken are bomb at some backyard barbecue. I wanted to tell them it wouldn’t work, tell them no one would want to eat their food or peruse their massive, overzealous menus. But I didn’t. Frequently I was proven right and the place didn’t last six months, but such is the case in the restaurant industry. It’s a tough gig, and I always rooted for success and survival even though it didn’t happen most of the time. But my puffy, friendly feature stories provided a bit of a boost in their early days and weeks, and sometimes I think a small profile in a weekly newspaper direct mailed to just about everybody in Vegas may have made the difference for some of these restaurants, may have somehow pumped them through that first impossible year. Maybe not.

My first real restaurant review was published in January 2005 in the Las Vegas Mercury, a now defunct altweekly from the same media company where I worked as a reporter. I got to offer my opinions on the Canter’s Deli that had opened in Treasure Island on the Strip, a reasonable facsimile of the iconic L.A. eatery. When I first read it in print, two things became clear: first, it was fitting that my debut as a food writer involved a delicatessen, since my deep love for such establishments trails back to my parents creating a small chain of sandwich shops (The Giant Grinder) in my hometown of Eugene, Oregon, in the early ‘70s; and second, I knew I wanted to do more of this. I knew I would be writing about food now.

But not like everyone else. My interest in this subject is very specific. Vegas is possibly the greatest restaurant city on the planet, but it is far from a great food city. Because of its unnatural origins and design, the fact that 100 years later it is still an oasis of decadence and fun in the middle of an empty, harsh desert, Vegas also is the most unique restaurant city of all. It really is not even a city. It’s a fabrication. It’s one big flashing sign that reads: Come. And so everything you know about this place is somehow part of this unending invitation, and that is why there are so many world-class chefs and restaurateurs with their own stake in Vegas. At some point, if you’re in this business, you’re gonna have to be here. Vegas is too young and too fake to be a classic American city, but in many ways – always changing, always new, bigger, better, more, too much – it is the most American of cities. And as a dining destination, let’s call it a showcase. The best of everything will be distributed from this location, a true one-stop for all your culinary needs. And if this was all you knew, your perspective would be wildly and permanently skewed, like mine. So my interest is in Las Vegas restaurants only. I don’t travel much, but when I do, I don’t eat at that city’s great restaurants in order to compare them to mine. I don’t care. I don’t want a global frame of reference. For my pursuits, there is only Vegas. Of course, this place attracts much more than French culinary legends, TV celebrities, corporate troopers and up-and-coming kitchen stars ready for a big payday. There is life off the Strip. Everyone who has come to Vegas to snatch their own piece of it has settled somewhere away from the neon, and we all gotta eat. There are lots of regular-old-neighborhood joints that do well, some deserving and some capitalizing on the terrible taste of our large middle class. But as far as I can tell, everyone eats at Roberto’s.

There are almost 50 Roberto’s Taco Shops in the valley. That's roughly one for every 40,000 people. Now, I have my own personal Roberto’s Taco Shop and I don’t share it with that many people. In fact, it’s never crowded when I walk in. The cheap, pink booths usually are empty. There are never more than three guys in the kitchen, blasting Ranchera music and not really paying attention to huge crocks on the stove simmering chicken parts. And that’s the way I like it.

The story behind the Roberto’s dynasty is typical, akin to the tale behind so many enchiladas-beans-and-rice Mexican-American restaurants all over California and the American Southwest. It started in 1964 when Roberto and Dolores Robledo started making and selling tortillas in San Ysidro, a community on the southern tip of San Diego. Things tasted good, people wanted more, and their first taco shop soon opened. I’ve been told the first Roberto’s is the red-and-yellow shack right on Mission Beach, but I kinda doubt it. But I have been to that Roberto’s, and it is good. Today the family-operated company runs these small, casual restaurants in California, Nevada and Florida. You can’t go far in Vegas without seeing Roberto’s, and they are in all kinds of locations: in suburban strip malls, next to video poker-laden neighborhood watering holes, inside gas stations or food courts. Roberto is everywhere. How did this happen? His tacos are outstanding, and cheap.

They are so simple, and probably not the most authentic, but to me: joyous. Corn tortilla, fried into explosive crunchiness, packed with shredded beef, stupid iceberg lettuce and plain old yellow cheddar cheese. That’s it. A couple of bucks for purity. I’m going to hit them up, of course, with some of the red chile salsa, pureed smooth and drizzly, with just enough throat heat to do some damage. I’m going to get some of that stuff in the little plastic cup, and I might pour it down the taco so the hot sauce can mingle with the lettuce and cheese, or I might dip the taco’s meat-filled edge into the hot sauce. For so long, if I could actually choose what I was going to eat at any given lunchtime, if there were no obligations to fulfill or maybe it was a Saturday and I had nothing to do, if I actually asked myself What sounds really good right now?, the answer always was a No. 4 plate. That’s two beef tacos, rice and beans. I have eaten a lot of food, I have tried many things, I have taken many bites wealthy and poor, and I still don’t know if there’s a single one more satisfying than this, the combination of that skull-shaking corn crunch and the tender, savory, meaty mouthful you get from a simple, perfect taco. That’s just me. Maybe I’m nuts. Maybe the fancy amuse bouche at Robuchon is better. I like Roberto’s.

There is more to it than that. Roberto’s is just a small, possibly dirty, not necessarily English-friendly joint if it’s not familiar to you. Return visits with dad are the genesis of all this affection. Like my loyalty to the taco, he used to stick with a few things: taquitos smeared with zingy guacamole and absolutely covered with shredded cheese, a big plate of fresh fried chips with the same toppings, or maybe a couple of saucy tamales, unwrapped from husks and enclosed in the old school styrofoam tray for easy transport. He sent me on more than one late-night mission for tamales, on weekends when I was home from college and he was up too late. It was the worst kept secret in the house. Deep fried goodies, stewed meats and cartoon-sunshine orange enchilada sauce can produce some strong smells, and so he got caught in the act frequently. Besides mangling the Spanish language and likely offending everybody in the kitchen with his goofball gringo routine, the most ridiculous Roberto’s behavior revolved around refried beans. Sometimes, not every time but sometimes, your Roberto’s beans will have a grayish tint to them, scarier than that typical dull brown color. It’s called lard. My dad spent a few years managing an El Torito restaurant in Oregon, where he learned to cook decent Mexican food, and he always fell back on that experience when trying to convince anyone that the best refrieds were full of lard. It’s certainly up for debate. But he loved him some Roberto’s beans, and he proved it every time he’d cook up a Mexican feast for the family. He’d snag a Tupperware container – or in one memorable, embarrassing, ghetto-ass episode, an empty plastic margarine drum – and head up to Roberto’s, and have the guys fill it up with refried beans. I theorize that every time he went on these missions himself, instead of sending one of his five children to do the dirty work, he probably crunched up a three-pack of taquitos in the car on the way home.

I’ve gone through stages … when I shared an apartment on West Desert Inn Road, I frequented the store right next to the Durango Lodge, and I got into eating chicken and rice burritos, monstrous and packed with pickled vegetables, cheese and those lardy beans. There can be slight menu variation from shop to shop, but mostly you’re dealing with tacos (beef, chicken, carne asada, carnitas, adobada or fish), tostadas, burritos (machaca, chorizo, breakfast, or variations of the taco ingredients), enchiladas, tortas, chimichangas, and perhaps something ridiculous like carne asada fries, subbing crinkle cut spuds for chips in a nacho mountain. The breakfast burritos are pretty good, too, if you’re into that sort of thing. The cooks will throw anything lying around into an extra large flour tortilla with scrambled eggs and cheese and feed it to you. And of course, Saturdays and Sundays are for menudo. Of the everyone who eats at Roberto’s, most know that a stomachache may follow. Of the weird newspaper jobs I’ve had, keeping tabs on the Health District’s regular restaurant report is one of the more entertaining, and I should be ashamed to admit that one day, after lunching at Roberto’s on Rancho Drive near Charleston Boulevard (I had a No. 4) I picked up that naughty list and quickly noted the very same restaurant had just been demoted to a C grade. But I’m not ashamed, and I won’t tell you the exact infractions that caused the downgrade. I am never ashamed of Roberto’s.

I’ve moved all around the west side of Vegas and claimed new locations as my own. But now I am back home, in Summerlin, a few minutes from my parents’ former house from which those tamale missions began. It feels good to go back to my first Roberto’s Taco Shop, and it looks exactly the same, resting up against a dry cleaner and a PT’s Pub. I don’t eat this food anywhere near as much as I used to, because I have discovered so many other great things to eat. I’ve even found other sensational tacos that, if judged by a rational mind, would be found superior: those at Los Tacos on East Charleston, which are soft and stuffed with whole pinto beans and guacamole in addition to the usual suspects; the chicken mole tacos at the super tiny, super authentic Mexico City-style Los Antojos on East Sahara Avenue; and the delectable smoked brisket taquitos at Border Grill on the Strip. But I am not a reasonable man. I am an emotional eater, just like dad, full of nostalgia and questionable judgment. And so Roberto’s it is. I will defend this taco.