Many thanks to all for the splendid comments on my Pet Peeve (truffle) post — all of them full of information, passion and insight. It warms the cockles of ELV’s heart to get such a conversation going (which is what this site is really about, after all).

The vitriol of some always amazes and disappoints us, but we’re big boys at Eating Las Vegas, and short of outright profanity or slander, we can take whatever gets dished our way. (We don’t even mind profane libel if it’s done with irony or wit, but, sadly, there never seems to be a sense of humor among those who wish to insult us.)

Now for the point of this post.

What’s really going on in our restaurant world is this: inferior truffles from Italy, Spain, Burgundy(?), Australia, Oregon, Eastern Tennessee, Upper Michigan and other places around the globe are being cultivated by ambitious folks who see a marketing opportunity akin to Pablo Escobar exploiting America’s nasal passages in 1977.

Some of these black truffles are tuber melanosporum and some are not. NONE of them have the pungency of the true Perigord truffles, harvested in the dead of winter, and cooked to such sublime effect in classical French cuisine.

But there are not enough of those little buggers to go around, and the demand is so great (and high end restaurants can charge those infamous supplements for their usage), that an entire supply system has been established by ambitious types seeking to exploit an opportunity.

Truffle Farmer (thinking to himself): “By crackey there’s something I can grow under all these oak trees that’ll fetch me hundreds of dollars a pound. Plow up the corn field, Ma, and let’s start injecting mold into them thar roots.”

Truffle Dealer (thinking to himself): “I can sell these babies to credulous young chefs (and an even more naive public), especially in Vegas, and make beaucoup bucks.”

Las Vegas Restaurateur (thinking to himself): “Geez Louise! I can shave these tubers to a fare thee well all over the joint and get anywhere from $25-$50 a customer for doing so…way after the actual season (for the good ones) is over. Those hayseeds will never know the difference.”

Chef (thinking to himself): “Well, they look like truffles, and they sorta smell like truffles, and there aren’t enough of them to actually cook with, so lets shave them raw on stuff and make money that way — even if they bring precious little to the party.” (Another example: last night at Sage, where Shawn McClain — someone whose food we otherwise adore — puts a shaving of tasteless, raw ones atop his poached organic farm egg.)

The difference between ELV and others who have such strong opinions on this subject (save a few – thank you Rod Schiffman, David Ross et al…) is that we’re not selling anything.

Shaved, raw, black truffles in March are akin to sliced tomatoes in January, and no matter what a truffle dealer or chef tries to convince us of, the ones they’re foisting upon unsuspecting customers and recipes aren’t worth the taste or your money.

If you’d like an education in this ectomycorrhizal ingredient, we recommend you peruse the Art of Eating issues no. 73 and 74, Winter 2006 — for the true lowdown on this lowdown fungus. It a ‘zine that anyone who reads (and comments) on Eating Las Vegas should subscribe to.

Finally, a note to you more sensitive types out there. Just because we don’t like something that a chef or restaurant does (like this little truffle imbroglio) doesn’t mean we don’t continue to hold them in the highest regard. But they are selling a product, and we are first and foremost a consumer advocate, offering advice as to where best (and what best) to spend your money on for that product. When a restaurant, even one we love, is charging real money for something that doesn’t taste that good, we consider it our duty (and in some oblique way a favor to them) to call them on it.

We must now depart to meet Steve Dolinsky (Channel 7 in Chicago’s Hungry Hound) for another marathon day of restaurant hopping…

Have a nice day.

;-}

Just like Johnny LaRue, ELV has always loved French restaurants for the food, the wine, the women and the can can.

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Pet Peeve time.

When did every upscale Strip restaurant decide it was a good idea to shave raw black truffles on top of things?

Black truffles — the good melanosporum ones from the Perigord region of France — are best when cooked in dishes.

White truffles release their full bouquet when raw. Black when cooked (being less pungent, black needs heat to fully release its aroma).

A shaving of black truffles might impress Mr. and Mrs. Fannypacker from Bumfudge, Utah, but it does nothing for ELV or his staff.

And it doesn’t add much to a dish, except pretension.

And it really didn’t add anything to an otherwise excellent Alsatian tart flambee.

They don’t do this in France, and they shouldn’t do it here. But we swear to god we’ve had the big black truffle shower bestowed upon us at least ten times in the last few months…all to zero effect, except that the restaurant staff(s) (at Jean-George Steakhouse, Sirio, and Sage just to name a few) thought they were impressing us.

But they were only impressing two things upon us: 1) they’re getting inferior truffles cheap; and 2) they think ELV was born yesterday.

Memo to all pretentious restaurants on the Las Vegas Strip: Stop shaving raw black truffles entirely, or learn how to use them for taste, not affectation.

Of course, actually incorporating them into a recipe coming off a kitchen line would be time consuming and very expensive. It’s so much easier to show off by selectively bringing them to certain, anointed tables and making an elaborate presentation of something that, in the end, brings precious little to the party.

Btw: the staff at Spago (whom we otherwise hold in great respect) told us the truffles were from Burgundy(?), which further made us doubt the tuber’s authenticity and functionality. It did smell of truffle, but not enough to make a difference when tasted raw on anything.

Btw #2: The choucroute and the lamb gyro (made with a freshly butchered lamb from Pahrump (Nevada, not France), were both drop dead delicious.

Off The Strip is not the sort of place prickly critics get excited about. The food is unchallenging to a fault—skewing heavily towards Italian—and is filled with cliché after cliché lifted straight from the Macaroni Grill/Maggiano’s playbook.

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ELV ain’t no arch-ee-teck, but no matter how many times we walk past this sculpture (…usually on our way to Brasserie Puck or Mastro’s Ocean Club):

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…we stop and look at it…

…and it never gets old.

And it makes us think.

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With all due respect, those who diss the food at Lotus (with the exception of Jet Tila), don’t know what they’re talking about. And even Jet doesn’t put it down…he simply doesn’t find it as extraordinary as some of us do.

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Super Green Cuisine Dinner Event
Monday, March 29 at 6:00 p.m.

Chef Rick Moonen and Slow Food Las Vegas Chapter are proud to announce that Chef Moonen will present a Super Green Cuisine dinner event featuring seafood selections from the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s “Super Green List”. Read the rest of this entry →

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If you have just one dish to order at Bouchon, and don’t feel like tackling the superb chicken or beef, and are tired of salmon, and are over the oysters (all of which are excellent), the truite Grenobloise — pan roasted rainbow trout with lemon, capers, cauliflower, new potatoes and beurre noisette — is just the thing to order.

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Does anyone but ELV remember Nicky Blair’s? Ole Nicky was quite the SoCal restaurateur — known for catering to the celebs and high-rollers in LaLa land — when he brought his cheesy vibe to Paradise Road in the mid-90’s. For a couple of years the place was hopping with every nouveau riche, Gucci-clad developer, conventioneer and big shot wannabe in town.

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(Update: Effective March 1,  Silk Road  is no longer open for dinner.)

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If you follow us on Facebook or Twitter, you may have seen that yesterday we had one of the all time worst corned beef hashes known to man. The particular abomination came to us via Mr. Lucky’s — the 24/7 restaurant in the Hard Rock Hotel that used to be known for some pretty spectacular coffee-shop/diner food.

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