raku at last.

Aburiya Raku is one of the most talked about restaurants in Las Vegas. It has been hailed by critics, chefs and food and bev pros, and the common diner alike and may be considered the best restaurant in Chinatown. What is most fascinating to me about Raku, which was opened quietly in 2008 by chef Mitsuo Endo, is how it has managed to develop such a powerful following in spite of its location and the type of restaurant it is.

By location, I'm not merely referencing the fact that Raku is small and stashed in the back of a tiny, quiet strip mall on Spring Mountain Road. I'm talking about its location in Las Vegas, a young city without a huge population of foodies craving exotic cuisine. Raku is an izakaya, a Japanese pub and snack bar, and there are few of these establishments in Vegas. That's a generic description for the type of restaurant Raku is. The experience at Raku is compellingly different from anything else you'll find in Vegas, completely at odds with what most local diners (and probably tourists, too) understand as Japanese cuisine. That is why the buzz surrounding the place is interesting to me; I imagine many people -- including the drunken out-of-towners who sat near us on our recent first visit to Raku -- who have read or heard about the restaurant show up with excitement, expecting some sort of easy-access Asian tapas bar, and are perplexed by what they find. After my first meal at Raku, I am perplexed. Unless you are experienced with this type of food, it is a challenging restaurant.

Many bloggers and writers have offered their take on exactly how to dine at Raku, since the normal menu has about 75 different items. Most are small portions of intricately prepared, affordably priced food. There are daily specials exhibited on a chalkboard your server brings to your table. Since I'm still a Raku rookie, I am unable to offer such advice, but we did try quite a few different dishes. The restaurant's homemade tofu is a treasure. The simple, cold version has a creamy, almost cheese-like texture, delicous with soy, bonito flakes and Raku's green tea salt. Even better is the fried version, with a slightly crispy outside in a small bowl of amazing dashi with a bit of salmon roe on top. This was my favorite dish.

In in effort to fully Raku myself and get outside the comfort zone, I sampled the poached egg with roe and sea urchin (pictured), one of several dishes on the menu that fit that "challenging" label. The slimy texture of these collected components is not for everyone, and the egg was so soft that I'm not sure if it added or subtracted from the dish. The explosive flavors of urchin and roe were nicely complemented by tiny mushrooms and okra. Very interesting, to say the least. A simple dish of green tea soba noodles also was augmented by this soft egg and roe combo.

The name of the restaurant reflects its specialty of charcoal grilling, and we tried quite a few different skewers of meat and vegetables imparted with a very deep smokiness. Bacon and smoke always go together well and you can order just about anything wrapped in bacon; sweet cherry tomatoes and asparagus were delicious. Great grilled meats we sampled included duck with balsamic soy sauce, American Kobe beef filet with wasabi and skirt steak with garlic, and salmon.

The setting is intimate, the menu is puzzling, the service is polite and the food is --like it or not -- otherworldly. After getting past an intial shock to the system, I am looking forward to tasting the oden hot pot (which you can construct using various ingredients such as fish cake, boiled egg, seaweed and fried bean curd), a mini foi gras bowl, and some of those chalkboard specials.

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.

a whole new world.

All of a sudden, Vegas is flush with new Mexican restaurants. On the Strip, it's a market driven solution: A quaint taco shop called El Segundo sits strong on the corner of Las Vegas Boulevard and Fashion Show Drive, where the tapas joint Cafe Babareeba was doing brisk business just weeks ago. In high traffic areas like this one, and the Mandalay Place walkway between resorts Luxor and Mandalay Bay where the infamous Hussong's Cantina opened a few months back, a familiar concept focused on tacos and burritos, chips and salsa and margaritas is bound to do better. Tourist tastes are still middle-of-the-road, and the less exotic the better.

But off the Strip, it's a different story. Downtown, hiding in the World Market Center furniture superspace, right across from the massive, just underway Symphony Park development, here is Mundo. It comes to us from the same folks that operated La Madonna, a southwest valley "avant garde" Mexican restaurant that had a following but ultimately didn't last long. As evidenced from the creativity displayed here (up top we've got a great appetizer, smoked chile-crusted swordfish skewers with a jicama salad, and underneath is carnitas in black bean broth, which left me satisfied for almost an entire day), it couldn't have been the food that spelled La Madonna's demise. Mundo's chef is working very similarly to what is being done at our most upscale and innovative Mexican restaurants on the Strip, places like Border Grill in Mandalay Bay. Another stunning opener is the poblano chile corn soup, creamy smooth and full of bright cumin. There is quite a bit of seafood and quite a bit of beef on the menu of entrees, including avocado leaf crusted sea scallops with cheesy risotto, a shrimp tamale, a skirt steak with chimichurri, and a peppercorn and red chile crusted filet mignon floating on some killer sauces: smoked chile and asada tomatillo.

Like every other buzzed-about downtown Vegas destination, Mundo boasts a cocky hipness that can sometimes be a restaurant's undoing. But they back up any attitude with superior cuisine, putting their own unique twists on the concept of unique twists on traditional flavors. If you make the rounds downtown, you've already eaten here. If you're out in the 'burbs, this is worth the trip. If you're coming into town and looking for a cool joint with delicious, contemporary food beyond your hotel, check out Mundo.

sammy's l.a. pastrami & burgers (and dogs).

Hip, sleek, innovative food trucks are all the rage in L.A. these days, slinging everything from dim sum to Korean tacos to decadent desserts at their faithful following. It sounds like a gourmet roach coach concept, and that sounds like fun to me. Sadly, the trend just doesn't exist (yet) in Vegas. We would love to see an army of shiny, feisty hot dog carts along the Strip, but that's probably not going to happen. That doesn't mean there's no street food in Vegas, it just means our version doesn't come from wheeled carts or other mobile deliciousness.

Sammy's is probably the closest thing we've got. It started out a few years ago as a drive-through hot dog stand near the corner of Flamingo Road and Decatur Boulevard, serving dirty water-style Sabretts topped with pretty much anything you could think of. They're still doing just that, but the menu has morphed to include massive burger and sandwich creations like: the pastrami burger, a quarter pound of beef plus a half-pound of decent pastrami, provolone, mustard and pickles; and the very popular chipotle burger, with a fried egg, bacon, fries on the sandwich, cheese and spicy ketchup. There are still lots of dogs at the original location but a second, slightly larger shop on East Tropicana Avenue specializes in these burgers, gyros, Philly cheesesteaks and other artery-clogging fare. A lot of people stop by just for the fries, garlicky shoestring suckers, and there is a selection of frightening "fry plates" to choose from. If you dare, go for the Three Squares - a pound of fries with a half-pound each of pastrami and grilled ribeye steak, chili, cheddar cheese, grilled onions, bacon, onions and jalapenos, topped with three fried eggs. Or you could just walk into the traffic on Tropicana because that'd be a quicker, less painful way to die.

Unhealthy as it may be, we like this place, and not just because they have a quote from MenuVegas hanging on the wall. The dogs and burgers are solid and the creative toppings usually work out, the whole menu is reasonably priced and the custard shakes are pretty good. It seems like everyone is into foodie nostalgia, which explains the popularity of Sammy's and the TV show crews that have paid the place a visit or are about to.

INTERVIEW: Jet Tila

Jet Tila is was executive chef at Encore's Wazuzu.

How did you become part of the Wynn-Encore stable of restaurants? Were you recruited, or how did it happen?
Jet Tila: I think it was 2007 and I was just doing my thing in L.A., teaching, moonlighting at different restaurants there, and I was doing a lot of consulting in those days. I got a cold call from Elizabeth Blau, and she was telling me I was on their radar. They wanted to do Pan-Asian at Encore. It was such a cold call that I really thought someone was messing with me. But I played it cool, I was going along with it. I wrote a menu concept and sent my resume and they called back and said, "Let's do a tasting." So now I know this is for real, so let's do it. The whole time I knew in my bones they were not going to hire me. I don't have the normal pedigree. I didn't spend 20 years at any restaurant. I've had a varied career so far: I was at the L.A. Times, I've been in management, I was at Bon Appetit. I've really kinda tailored my career to have fun and do these different things. I'm not a restaurant dog. So we did the tasting. It was like nine courses in 45 minutes, and everybody was there. I came in for two days with one day for prep, and I cooked my ass off. I was working out of Richard Chen's kitchen at Wing Lei and he was just an amazing resource and inspiration. So they told me to stay a little longer and I thought this might be for real. And I flew back to L.A. with a contract in hand. In my opinion, I think coming into it, I was not necessarily what they were looking for. It was more a matter of just leaving it all here. This was my one shot, and I wasn't really nervous because I didn't think they would hire me. I was able to just relax and cook.


Before that, what was your previous Vegas experience like?
It was from being a child and coming here with my family. I was one of the arcade kids who would get dropped off while the parents go to the casino. My dad was a big player in the '80s. Later on, like everyone else, I came out a couple times a year to party my ass off. As far as restaurants go, like most people, I think you see a lot of big names but never really felt like it was the exact same experience you'd get from those names in other cities, like in New York. Very few people really cook their asses off all the time, and now I understand more why. The numbers here are just crushing. Sometimes you have to tailor your approach in fine dining, and this is one of those places. You can be working in a great Michelin restaurant doing 80 a night, and then here you're doing 200 to 300. It's crazy. And you don't really understand it, the different approach, until you see it.


Traditionally, Asian restaurants on the Strip have been Chinese or sushi, and then more recently we've seen this all-encompassing Pan-Asian label a lot. With that in mind, how did you develop the menu and concept for Wazuzu?
I cook like what I lived in L.A. I'm a Chinese kid by blood, growing up in Thai restaurants, and I'm a total blend of the San Gabriel valley where I was born. There you've got Chinatown in the west, Thai-town, where I really grew up, and Little Tokyo. All of them are inspirations and part of my life experience. My angle on Pan-Asian is a little different. I've got these three cores that I'm super comfortable doing, and that has translated into some dishes you're not going to see anywhere on the Strip. Where are you going to see Nasi Goreng (a Malaysian fried rice dish) on the Strip? At the end of the day, I feel like I know Asian people and they want it hot and dirty, and they want it authentic and clean. This is not the place for fusion. I think that approach is dead or dying.


You've blogged about restaurant critics and would-be critics, and one of the reactions to Wazuzu and other ethnic restaurants on the Strip is that there is a certain amount of watering down that has to be done to the cuisine in order to appeal to the masses. Yet you seem like a purist. Do you feel like you have to compromise your cooking?
I think my heart is pure. But you really have to respect guys like Mr. Wynn who are going to give a kid a few million dollars to play with in terms of restaurants. It's a bigger problem I have with reviewers sometimes. At the end of the day, our bosses know their market. If I cook the first menu I wrote for this restaurant, 40 percent of the dishes are going to get returned. It's a little too foreign, a little too weird. I think I'm one of the few white coats who has seen it from both sides, and I sympathize with both sides of this ballgame. Chefs need to understand that writers need something to write about. Writers need to understand it's not easy to build a restaurant. We spend all that money, and we have to recoup that. Now, we see it's coming to a point in time where we, the chefs and restaurants, have a voice, and that's on the internet. Back in the day, critics would throw something out there, and the restaurants would never have the chance to respond.  But going back to the food, I think I'm as authentic as I can be for my property. I'm definitely somebody who fights for my food. There is integrity in my food, and if you're an honest and traveled diner, you can pick apart my menu and say, "I get it." If you're just going to do a snapshot review, you can pick apart anybody. And as far as working with managers, there's always this line where you're going to push and pull with each other. They're giving me a voice so even when they reign me in, I can understand why. I wanted to do stuff like little suckling pigs here. Everyone raves about Momofuku, and I naively wanted to create something like that. But that doesn't work here. That can't work when you have more of a captive audience instead of regulars. 

You still write, you blog, you pop up in a lot of articles and at events, and you have become pretty active in the restaurant community in Las Vegas in a short time. How important is that to developing your restaurant and your brand?
There is some calculation there. I feel like anyone who is good at what they do understands that it's important in this day and age to embrace technology and good marketing and public relations. It is genuine, for me, but I'm not going to lie and say I'm cool like that. I'll take advantage of any outlet possible to get my food out there, but I'm not going to be a jerk about it. I want to know who's who in my community and I try to stay plugged in to what's going on.


You've written a little about local places you like. Do you get to eat out a lot? And what are your Vegas favorites so far?
I'm like you. Most writers are genuine adventurers. Unfortunately I live in the culinary wasteland of Las Vegas known as Henderson. I mean, I love it where I live, but outside of Grimaldi's, Settebello and a few others, there's not a lot. Chinatown is amazing. In some ways it's bigger than the area I grew up in. It's vast, and it's going to take a long time to really get through it. My short list is Krung Thai, Raku is another one, KJ Kitchen for Cantonese, HK Harbor is another one. For Indian, I do Origin India. The naan bread there is some of the best I've had. It's always such a personal thing, what's good or bad. Pho So 1 is dope. I really don't get to eat on the Strip so much. Like so many in the corporate chef world, I'm taking a cut and eating on the Strip is so expensive. So that's my short list for now.

all i can eat.

If you are interested in the idea of eating three meals in one day at the Rio's Carnival World Buffet, then you are in luck, because you can read this and you can watch this.

INTERVIEW: Jean Paul Labadie

Jean Paul Labadie iswas executive chef at Marche Bacchus in Summerlin.

You were born and raised in Puerto Rico. You have a Spanish and Italian background, but you're known for cooking French food. How does that diversity influence your style?

Jean Paul Labadie: I was born in Puerto Rico and spent my first 19 years there on the island. My grandparents on my mom's side are Spanish, and then my great grandparents, one is French and one is Italian. They all cooked a lot, but especially the French side of the family, and that's how I got stuck with a French name. But of course I studied French technique in school, and then when you're in America, nothing is sacred. You take it and turn it and put your own twist on it. But there is a lot of diversity in my background and even though we are a French bistro, we offer these different things. There are some Asian items on the menu, because those tend to be a little lighter. Sometimes the French menu can get a little heavy, especially these days when so many are trying to eat healthy. But all the chefs here grew up differently, and we have those influences on the menu.

You spent many years working for Emeril Lagasse's company, under him in New Orleans and then here in Las Vegas at Emeril's in MGM Grand and Table 10 at Palazzo. What was it like working with such a big name?

Most of my family has been in New Orleans for forty years, so I was always in and out of the city. After I went to school and started cooking, I figured, my family is there, I've got a spare bedroom there and it would be a great place to work. I was lucky to get hired at Emeril's right away. This was before he was on TV. He was still in the restaurant, in the kitchen all the time, and I learned a lot from him. Then when it was time to open in Vegas, because I am bilingual in English and Spanish, they took me. But yes, I was with Emeril before he became what he is now, and that was a cool thing for us. We saw this chef that was so great, to come from Commander's (Palace) and opening his own places, and then doing all this other stuff, TV and more. We saw it all happen before our eyes. He went to just this awesome chef to an owner of an empire he created all on his own. Him and his partners, they did it from the ground up, and he's still one of the hardest working people ever. He always led by example. He was always in the kitchen, always telling us what he was doing. He was a great teacher.

What made you want to leave the big restaurant scene on the Strip to come to Marche Bacchus?
When you work with someone like Emeril, you have to agree, it's the Emeril show. No matter how good you are, it's still his show. And I agreed with it. I enjoyed running his restaurant. That was great at that point and I was able to develop my own system under his. After 14 years -- and I'm not comparing myself to Emeril in any way -- I thought I have the skills now and it's time to do something myself, to market my own name. It was just time for me to do my own thing. This allows me that focus, to focus on Jean Paul.


What are the differences between running a restaurant on the Strip and doing it in the neighborhood?
People tell me all the time, "Oh you must be so relaxed now than on the Strip, it must be so much easier." But really, it's not. On the Strip you have so much volume, and you are just taking care of your name, but there you don't see the same people every week or even every month. At a local restaurant, you really have to bring your A game every single day. On the Strip, a high roller might come in and spend a bunch of money and you'll never see him again. You don't have that luxury in a neighborhood restaurant. The kitchen is much larger there and it's easier to work, and you're staff is much larger. Here, it's just you and your sous chef, really. You can't delegate too much. The buck stops with you. And you don't have the luxuries of the Strip, you don't have an office. You're doing your paperwork on the kitchen counter. There are just a lot of things you have to do on the fly and be more hands on. Sometimes on the strip, as an executive chef, you become more of a manager and you're not on the line so often. Here I'm on the line four or five nights a week, on top of doing all that other cool stuff.


Marche Bacchus always has been known for its lakeside views and wine program, and now in the last year since you've been there, the cuisine is earning a reputation of its own. What was your strategy in enhancing this restaurant?
It was a challenge, especially with the lunch menu. It has been very popular over the years and everyone knows it. They said, the regulars just want to come in and have a lobster croissant. People said don't touch that sandwich. It was just, let's have a bottle of Riesling by the lake with a lobster croissant. But on the other hand, you have to give something new a chance, be patient with me. Some things we kept, and others not. But the main thing was going back to the basics. Now we are roasting our own bones, makeing our own stocks, soups and sauces. That wasn't done here before, and it's a tough challenge to take on. Sometimes you don't want to mess with the equation. If it worked well, why change it, right? But why would I want to come in and do the same thing that was done before? Everyone here understood that, and now the menu is more complicated. You know, our tuna dish takes four pans to complete it. Our salmon, before it took three and now it takes six different spacs on the line to work on. These are the little details, but that's what we are doing: coming in and breaking it down, the traditional French style, and rebuilding it. One thing we completely re-did was the onion soup. We're just taking more time with it, really caramelizing the onions, cooking it down 45 minutes to an hour. I guess, with things like that, we really complicated our lives a lot. But it's definitely better for our guests.


You've been cooking in Las Vegas for quite some time now. How have you seen the restaurant scene change over the years?
It's funny because when I first came here, it was just Emeril and Wolfgang (Puck). We were the only two celebrity restaurants in the city so we were always busy. Now you have all the Food Network names here and the competition on the Strip went nuts in just two or three years. We really had to re-invent the wheel every year just to compete. And that translated into the neighborhoods. In Summerlin, it used to be just Rosemary's. When that place opened, people went crazy because now you have a Strip-quality restaurant in the neighborhood, and then other places started popping up. Now we have places like Vintner Grill, Nora's and others and the competition in our neighborhood is almost as strong as it is on the Strip. And we've got that locals factor so you have to do all you can because when people have extra money to spend, they want to know they're spending it well when they go out to eat. They want to know the food will come well prepared and it's not going to be a crapshoot. We are still a little off the beaten path, and I think people still think of chains first when they decide to go out. But there are a lot of people coming back to us now because they forgot about Marche for a while and they are curious about visiting again.


You have lived in the area for a few years. Where do you and your family like to eat?
It varies a lot. If I'm not cooking for or taking care of the family, or eating at home after work, we like to go to the late night places. You know, you are tasting all through work, all night, but you never sit down to have dinner or a glass of wine. We eat sushi often after hours. Sushi Mon is one of my favorites. For something different we might go to Sedona. They have a nice bar area and a nice menu. And then of course you have places like Kona Grill with its crazy happy hours.


What is coming up at Marche Bacchus?
Well we are about to change a lot in the next week or so, the first week of March, for spring. We won't change the whole menu, but we'll do about three items in each category, appetizers, salads and entrees. The weather is going to nice very soon and of course we have that great view of the lake. Those tables are going to fill up fast so it's definitely time to start making reservations.

archi's thai.

"Here's the thing you need to know about Thai food in Las Vegas: Even at its most middling, it beats the hell out of most of the junk they're serving up on Manhattan’s Ninth Avenue. Archi’s isn't the best Thai joint in town, but it's one of the most pleasant."

This is from the New York Post last week. Not that we need out-of-towners to tell us there is terrific Thai food in Vegas, but at the very least, this is proof that our city's reputation for southeast Asian fare has grown beyond our physical borders. And I agree that Archi's isn't the best Thai joint in town, but it might be top five, so far.

I write "so far" because I eat a lot of Thai food, but not necessarily because I want to. I love it, but not more than I enjoy Vietnamese food or a great deli or a perfect slice of pizza. It's wifey. It is difficult to be an ever-wandering, culinarily curious restaurant writer when your first pick of dining companions only ever wants to get Thai food. Though it is delicious, we eat at our neighborhood joint twice as much as we go anywhere else. This woman actually came home one day and complained to me, like it was my fault, that her co-worker had tasted the goods at Aria's Lemongrass (the first Thai restaurant on the Strip) before she did. So yeah, it's something of an obsession.

That same co-worker helped wifey discover Archi's, a casual restaurant with three locations in Las Vegas. Other local eateries specializing in this cuisine often have extensive menus with a lot of Chinese dishes leaking in, but Archi's is a bit more authentic, sticking to its own style and flavors. My first go-round included Tom Kha soup with a refreshing lime flavor balancing the smoothness of coconut milk, a mild but tasty yellow curry with potatoes, onions and carrots, and the big winner: a forehead-sweat inducing Pad Kapow, spicy basil ground chicken with zucchini, bell peppers, garlic and chili. I actually ate most of it, even though wifey placed the order. That should teach her.

saturday at society.

My new favorite cocktail garnish: a large, plump shrimp, seasoned with spicy Cajun flavor dust, hanging on the side of the glass.

That's what comes on the Ragin' Cajun Bloody Mary at Society Cafe Encore, and it's a fine breakfast all by itself. It uses Absolut Peppar and has pretty traditional bloody mary flavors, except it substitutes Bayou seasoning for the typical Tabasco tang. It's special. It also goes nicely with the slightly charred tuna sliders with wasabi, shiso and cucumber (pictured). Our Saturday brunch at Kim Canteenwalla's already beloved restaurant (Society Cafe seemed the least significant of five new restaurants when Encore opened a little over a year ago, and yet it was the only Las Vegas representative in Esquire's Best New Restaurants 2009) also involved a bright chopped salad with havarti cheese and white balsamic-tarragon vinaigrette and some fried mac 'n cheese bites with a truffle oil dipping sauce. Overall, delightful. And it was hard to choose with a light egg white frittata, trio of quiche, and lobster roll club sandwich also on the lunch menu. Even more impressive, Society is open for breakfast, lunch and dinner every day, it's nestled into a cozy corner of Encore's casino, and the handsome bar and dining room decor made me feel wealthy. It's the perfect weekend restaurant.

Our Saturday on the Strip also provided a sighting of that new Vegas wildlife species, the pizza boxer. Sure, I'd read about this beast in newspapers and magazines, heard it used over and over as an example of the kind of tourist the city should be getting used to. But to see one in person, in all its glory ... it's exciting. There were two of them, actually, both wearing NFL jerseys (it was a playoff day), holding hands walking past the Hermes store (seriously!), and the male was proudly floating three pizza boxes on his right hand. No sight of a wheeled Igloo cooler full of Miller High Life, though. Still, it was a zoo-like experience. Sorry I didn't take pictures.

All joking aside, I love Encore. It is hard to imagine a more perfectly designed resort. It is an easily navigated square, punctuated on the east by the serene pool and the adjacent Botero restaurant and wide, beautiful Eastside Lounge. (The west end is somewhat blocked off these days for construction of a new venue.) You get a glimpse inside each of the restaurants just by walking by, and there is always a brilliant bar/outstanding cocktail within reach. If Wynn Las Vegas is the culmination of Steve Wynn's casino-creating history, then Encore is the concentration of these lessons into a tighter package, one that melds a casual hipness with the ultra-lux details that make all the difference. I don't care if there's a bunch of bozos watching football in here. It's still great.

your friendly neighborhood mexican cafe.

Update: Vega's Cafe has closed.

The reason I don't like writing traditional restaurant reviews is the obligatory ranking system. If I put a few stars next to this picture of spicy, long-simmered red chile beef, would that make you more or less hungry for it? You just can't summarize the taste of food or the service and atmosphere of a restaurant with a 1-t0-5 or A-to-F rating.

And sometimes I get it wrong. For example, I wrote a review of Vega's Cafe and dropped 3.5 stars on it, out of 5. In retrospect, I wish I would have gone with a good solid 3 stars, which to me would designate a restaurant worth repeated visits. It may not be the best Mexican food in town (the simple menu certainly is not the most innovative) but it's reliable, well-spiced, home-style food, and the restaurant is affordably priced, family-operated and doing good business in a neighborhood that needs all the help it can get. In fact, Vega's and another cozy ethnic eatery, Indian Curry Bowl, are two of the few non-franchise restaurants in the northwest suburb known as Centennial Hills. They're also two of the tastiest joints in the neighborhood.

Vega's makes homemade flour tortillas every day, and pairs them with a fresh take on rellenos, this zesty, slightly sour red chile and a spicy, vegetable laden chile verde. The tacos are simple, crispy perfection, especially if you order them packed with cool guacamole or tender potatoes mixed in with the meat. The family behind the business has been serving Vegas its style of Mexican food for over 30 years, always in some little hole-in-the-wall, but Vega's Cafe is comfortable, casual and inviting. There's even a little bar where you can watch the game with an icy Dos Equis and a couple fish tacos. It's pretty much everything you'd want in  your friendly neighborhood Mexican cafe, and somehow we keep coming back, even if it's not just down the street.