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.

eddie d's does it right.

Update: Eddie D's has relocated to the southwest part of town.

Just make me a sandwich.

After all the decadent holiday eating, all the cookies, pies and sweets, all the expensive restaurant meals, there remains a substantial craving for something basic, something simple and satisfying. It's a sandwich. Meat, cheese and veggies matched up magically and piled inside a crusty, chewy roll. Is that so much to ask for? Not at Eddie D's Famous Italian Sandwiches, a new deli in northwest Vegas. The place is operated by a family of Jersey transplants. There's a deli case that contains all the imported ham, pepperoni, pastrami, dry cured capacola (they get all their meat from Thumann's) and other goodies you could want to take home, plus the family's own homemade meatballs, pasta, chicken or eggplant cutlets ... you want it, they got it.

And they know how to handle a sandwich. A regular is a choice of two meats (ham, turkey, corned beef, roast beef, Genoa salami, pepperoni, pastrami, soppressata, proscuitto, hot or sweet capacola), American, Provolone or Swiss cheese on a hard or soft roll, or white, rye or wheat bread, with your choice of hot or mild mustard, mayo, oil and vinegar, marinated tomatoes, onions, lettuce and hot or sweet peppers. That's a regular sandwich!

Pictured here is the slow cooked roast pork sandwich, shoulder meat cooked forever and seasoned slightly with provolone cheese on a hard roll. The roll sucks up all those savory-sweet juices, and by the last few bites it was something like a pork French dip; sandwich bliss. Other hot sandwiches include roast beef, a decent Philly cheese, chicken fried steak with sauteed onions or those tender, delicious meatballs. The menu also includes a selection of signature sandwiches named for Sopranos characters: the Furio is a flavor-packed pile of capacola, salami and an incredibly sharp Provolone, the Dante has prosciutto, fresh mozzarella and sweet roasted peppers. Long live the neighborhood deli.

locals don't go to the strip.

This is flank steak, fried eggs and oyster mushrooms on a roll from 'Wichcraft in MGM Grand. It's pretty awesome. This is the same luscious beef they're dishing up at Craftsteak just a few steps away, and it's not even the best sandwich at 'Wichcraft. But it is further proof that the best friendly little neighborhood gourmet sandwich shop in town just happens to be on the Strip.

Let's extrapolate that last sentence.

I'm asked often, by those new to Las Vegas, just visiting or contemplating the city from afar, how much time I spend on the Strip. The answer is: not as much as I'd like. Living in Vegas and keeping to the suburban cityscape is an interesting concept to outsiders, especially when they learn how common it is. You can have a perfectly normal life here. I don't have to go to the Strip if I don't want to. Locals say things like this all the time, with an odd amount of pride. Not me.

Don't misunderstand. There are great benefits here that have nothing to do with tourism and the wondrous amenities the industry provides, with convenience at or near the top of the list. But if you take the Strip out of Vegas, where does that leave us? Phoenix? That glimmering four miles on Las Vegas Boulevard contains some of the best hotels, entertainment, food and shopping in the world. Why wouldn't you go there as much as you can?

For my part, I can't get enough of the Strip and its insane restaurant offerings. It's more difficult to find great food sprinkled around the Vegas Valley because everything is so spread out, and rarely do you find a true jewel in the neighborhood. The impossibly dense concentration of fantastic dining on the Strip can't be replicated anywhere else in the world, and even the majority of older or lesser known restaurants are above average at worst. Any local who doesn't take advantage of these offerings is simply missing the point. Come on ... it's not that far. It's not cheap but there's something for every wallet, and these days there is tremendous value to be found. Just walk through one of the big casinos and marvel at all the affordable, limited-time prix fixe menus. If it all feels too fancy for you, hit a mid-level joint like TI or New York-New York; the food and fun is still better than the Chili's around the corner from your house. Get in your car, valet it, and act like someone who's in Vegas, for fuck's sake.

I've lived here for years, but I still understand that for those of you who don't, Vegas is a dream. For most of the people who call this place home, it's unrealistic, overwhelming or just too strange to attempt to live in that dream. But for others, it's too powerful to ignore. What a waste, to have total access to an experience so many others clamor for, travel for, save their shrinking paychecks for, an experience you can customize to your own personal perfection, but you just let that experience pass you by on a daily basis. Why fight gravity?

I'd like to point out that this blog entry was once about a sandwich.

home again: bagel cafe, grape street.

So I moved. It'd be easy to see, if you keep track of which restaurants I write or rave about, that I've been partial to the west side of Las Vegas. That's because it's been my home for the better part of the last 22 years. I think I get down to eat on the Strip as much as any other local, and I'm up for a jaunt out to Henderson, the south end or any other distance if there's great food to be found. But like any other suburban eater, I'm more likely to be found in my neighborhood. For the last three-plus years, that's been the northwest suburb of Centennial Hills, where I discovered some great places to eat: Indian Curry Bowl, Vega's Cafe, Retro Bakery, Sushi Loca, and the Charcoal Room, to name a handful. There really is outstanding dining to be found in every corner of the Las Vegas Valley.

But now I'm back home again, the neighborhood I more or less grew up in: the very tip of Summerlin, right along the Pueblo Park. Sure, it's not far from my previous location, just a few minutes on U.S. Highway 95. But it offers a certain comfort to me, a familiarity, and there are even more delicious restaurants nearby. Probably the best closest joint is the beloved French bistro Marche Bacchus, and I have to admit I have not been there recently. It won't be long before I return. But I have already paid a visit to two other long-popular destinations.

Bagel Cafe is quite simply the best deli-style restaurant in Vegas. This is the place for huge, homemade bagels, in every flavor variety you could think of and topped with every flavor of cream cheese imaginable; terrific, soul-satisfying matzoh ball soup; super-stacked deli sandwiches; gigantic fresh salads; and my personal favorite, monstrous fish platters with fresh, colorful vegetables. This morning I went overboard (pictured) with a plate stocked with dill shrimp salad, baked smoked salmon salad, coleslaw and potato salad, and an array of juicy red tomatoes, cucumbers, homemade pickles, olives and red onion to top my toasted sesame bagel with scallion cream cheese. It's easy to see (and taste) why the Bagel Cafe is packed for lunch during the week and all morning long on the weekends; it's truly a Vegas favorite. I also like to drool over the fresh pastries and cookies in the case up front.

Grape Street Cafe is almost as popular, a friendly neighborhood wine bar serving a lot of salads, some steak and seafood, pasta and pizza to a very Summerlin crowd. (What I mean by this: middle aged white people.) The wine selection is extensive and there's usually a seat at the bar if you're looking to do some sampling, but they stay pretty busy for dinner. A light dinner last night consisted of crostini, crisp toast with gorgonzola, goat cheese and roasted peppers; a pizza margherita and a tasty flank steak salad that could have been vastly improved by using any lettuce other than iceberg. I've never had a bad appetizer or dessert at Grape Street, and the kitchen handles fish well, too. The prices could be a bit lower, but it's not a bad deal for a reliably good meal from a diverse menu and a great bunch of bottles to choose from.

weiss deli.

When dining in one of those old-school delicatessens where they name sandwiches after people, my strategy is to go with the sandwich with the coolest name. Thus, my first visit to Weiss Deli, the 3-year-old family-operated joint at Sunset and Green Valley Parkway in Henderson, was highlighted by this gargantuan named Sol Rubin. Brisket, tongue, kosher salami, coleslaw and horseradish sauce. Wow.

Triple deckered on rye with potato salad, this meat skyscraper was so stuffed that after my first slab was gone, I had to deconstruct the next piece to individually sample each animal. The brisket was best, slightly fatty and complemented wonderfully by the creamy horseradish. The salami was the next layer, and it's kosher so think more bologna-ish than the oily Italian salami you're used to. Tasty, though. The tongue was crazy but good: salty, chewy, odd. A tongue and coleslaw sandwich might be fine by itself. Upon further review of the menu, I wish I'd ordered Ceily's Stack, two latkes stuffed with brisket topped with cheese and brown sauce. Damn.

I did manage to fit in a bowl of chicken noodle matzoh ball soup. It was full of tiny noodles, carrots, celery and maybe the biggest matzoh these gentile eyes have seen. Very satisfying, but overall not beating out the west side's Bagel Cafe for my favorite chicken soup. Just not as much flavor, and not as much chicken.

I should be ashamed of myself for not trying Weiss Deli until now. It's been on the list forever. It's also on a stretch of Sunset that contains some other great eating destinations: Layers bakery, Todd's Unique Dining, Bangkok Orchid (Thai) and the Olive (Mediterranean). This is not a newer section of Green Valley/Henderson, but it's pretty strong. Weiss, a small, kinda plain but friendly dining room with ten booths and a half-dozen tables, also serves homemade bagels, hashes, more breakfast (the Kosher Nostra omelet has salami, bologna, onions, tomatoes and muenster), burgers, salads and tons of other sandwiches.

canter's deli vs. capriotti's.

The best deli in Vegas probably doesn't exist yet. There are plenty of sandwich shops, and there are deli-style restaurants. There are a few that would probably fit into most people's definition of a true deli, places like the Bagel Cafe near Summerlin and Weiss Deli in Henderson. But I think that one day soon, someone will open a real neighborhood deli somewhere in the Vegas suburbs and it will be the shit. I might not wait for someone else to do it.


When it opened in 2003 in the Treasure Island, Canter's Deli should have filled the void. Even though it was in a Strip casino, it has the reputation of the beloved Canter's name, and it had the terrible example set by Carnegie Deli in the Mirage to avoid. But now, after five years and a renovation or two, the little space next to the TI sportsbook is only slightly more palatable than the wasteful, offensive, tourist trap hellhole of Carnegie. The dining area has no sign of the charm of the famed Fairfax eatery in L.A. There are still not enough great lunch spots on the Strip, which is why I've returned to Canter's several times. But my last visit resulted in a good turkey sandwich, a large but forgettable order of fries, wilted pickles and the feeling that I've been had. And for that, I shelled out almost $20. I understand I'm on the Strip, but come on ... it's a turkey sandwich. It's not The Turkey Sandwich. The corned beef is good here. The pastrami is good. The food at Canter's is just good, and that's not enough. I'm done with this place.


So instead, I've been getting my sandwich fix from the shop most Vegas people swear by: Capriotti's. I'd like to agree with most of these locals and claim this is our city's homegrown sandwich spot, but despite the fact there are about 22 of these joints sprinkled around the valley, these guys actually started out in Delaware. And I'd like to name my favorite item on the menu, the Capastrami (pictured: pastrami, melted swiss, cole slow with a lot of Russian dressing on a soft hoagie roll), as Vegas' own sandwich. But Capriotti's started out making sandwiches with their own roasted turkeys, so they kind of specialize in that instead. The Bobbie, basically Thanksgiving on a roll, is probably the most popular item. All extraneous information aside, Capriotti's serves great food and the service is friendly.


But it's not a deli.