Payard Patisserie and Bistro

Caesars Palace

702.731.7292

The most common questions I get asked about this second job of mine as a world famous restaurant critic are: how does one become a restaurant critic? How many times a week do you eat out? And finally: why aren’t you the size of sperm whale? Well the answers are: It’s a long story, 10 times a week, and I have the metabolism of a hummingbird. I’m hardly svelte, but I like to say I’m not as fat as I could be nor as thin as I should be, and one of the ways I keep from looking like a building with feet is by avoiding (or at least minimizing) my intake of sweets, pastries, cakes and desserts. And that was pretty easy for me, until Francois Payard came to town.

Click here to listen to my current review of Payard Patisserie and Bistro.

Because one of the first things The Food Gal and I do whenever we travel to New York, is to hop a cab to Lexington Avenue on the upper East Side, and immediately tuck ourselves into a tiny table at Payard’s for a generous sampling of superlative pastries. We’ve done this for years, because for years it’s pretty well been acknowledged that Payard is the best pastry chef in America. And as long as he stayed in New York, I could indulge myself with his croissants, pain du chocolat, madeleines, financiers, macaroons or whatever tasty cakes struck my fancy. …because I was only there for a few days and could go nuts without serious waistline consequences. The Food Gal of course never has this problem, because she’s never hungry for the stuff like I am, preferring instead to pick off my plate….which just means that I have to order twice as much.

Unfortunately, for the past 8 months or so, I’ve become vexed, tortured, tempted and tormented, ever since Payard diabolically moved into Caesars Palace and brought all of his French delicacies with him. He even went so far as to hire Gregory Gorreau, the immensely talented pastry chef from MIX, to be his Executive Chef, to further plague and confound my best laid dietary plans.

WORST of all, they decided to open a charming bistro along side their pastry shop….that provokes me morning, noon and night with the best omelette in town, the best quiche in town, the best croque monsieur in town, and a chocolate nutella banana crepe that will make you weep. They also do a pretty spectacular hamburger, and the eggs benedict are nothing to shake a baguette at either. And when you’re done swooning over all of those, there are those pastries and chocolates in the shop next door, calling to you like a siren song of forbidden delights.

Lash me to the mast please! It’s just not right I tell you!…..The best breakfast in town, a stunning lunch and dinner, and the best sweets and baked goods on this side of the Atlantic….something needs to be done about that perfidious Payard, and his henchman Gorreau….because they constantly remind me that I can resist anything except temptation.

They said it couldn’t be done food fans….But after nine months on the air locally, our Restaurant of the Week segment, seen every Friday morning on the KLAS TV morning news, is now available for worldwideweb viewing. See for yourself why, after thirteen years on KNPR, it was often said that I have a face made for radio!

Many thanks to Denise Valdez, Natalie Cullen, Caroline Bleakley, and uber-webmaster Anthony Curtas for making this event possible. No longer will some of you be forced out of bed at an un-godly hour just to get your weekly dose of The Food Man.

Mezzo popped up out of nowhere a few months back (because let’s face it: north Rancho Road is the middle of restaurant nowhere), and has become an overnight sensation. That’s because it signals the return of Marcus Ritz,
chef extraordinaire, and for years the man behind the stoves at Marc’s on Buffalo at Lake Mead. That Marc’s is still Marc’s but it isn’t Marc’s if you get our drift. Mezzo is Marc’s, from the bone-in double cut pork chop “Chico,” to fresh pasta with Tuscan cream sauce, and a $15, kick ass chicken marsala, this place is seriously good at criminally cheap prices. Marc even does his own house-made sausage and deep-fried pizze dough with powdered sugar (for the Italian street fair lover in all of us).

Mezzo Bistro Italiano

4275 N. Rancho Rd.

Las Vegas, NV

702.944.8880

No one was happier than yours truly when ex-Commander’s Palace chef Carlos Guia landed at Louis’s Low Country Cuisine restaurant in the Town Square Shopping Center on the south Strip. Guia carries out Louis Osteen’s Pawley’s Island cuisine to perfection, and South Carolinian Osteen seems to be always around to keep things that way. The food is more subtle and less spicy than the Cajun and Creole firecracker dishes Guia whipped up at Commander’s, but no less satisfying. Outdoor dining, a great bourbon bar (at Louis’s less formal Fish Camp next door), gumbo from heaven, roasted oysters, sea trout with Carolina peanut sauce that’ll make you think the salt air is just over the horizon…..there’s no reason to eat anywhere else on the South Strip

Louis’s Las Vegas

6599 Las Vegas Blvd. Building P, Suite 210

Las Vegas, NV 89119

702.202.2400

www.louislasvegas.com

One of the coolest things yours truly gets to do every year is vote for the BEST RESTAURANT IN THE WORLD, for RESTAURANT magazine (a British publication). Only 32 voters come from North America, and they must have eaten at every restaurant voted for within the past eighteen months. And you must vote for at least two restaurants that are NOT in your geographical comfort zone. Which is why The Food Gal and I are always hopping planes to Europe and Asia.

The winner this year (for the third year in a row) is El Bulli (The Bulldog), in Roses, Spain. I haven’t made it there (yet), but have eaten at 15 of the top 50, and 29 out of the top 100. Not bad for a sharecropper’s son, eh? ;-}

Click here for full list of The World’s 50 Best Restaurants.

FYI: This year I voted for Pierre Gagnaire (Hong Kong), Dal Pescatore (Cannetto sul’ Oglio, Italy) and Troisgros (Roanne, France), worldwide, and Daniel, Joel Robuchon, and Guy Savoy (in North America).

Click here to read my latest article for The Virtual Gourmet, found at JohnMariani.com, about where the locals dine in Las Vegas. It features 3 top spots that not only offer great value, but are also open for lunch.

As of April 30, 2008 Bryan Ogden will no longer be top toque at Bradley Ogden. As justifiably renowned as pere Bradley is, it is son Bryan who has put and kept this restaurant at or near the top of must try Vegas restaurants for the past five years. His ever changing menus of intricate, but accessible American food has never failed to astonish even the most jaded gourmand, and no matter what spin Caesars Palace tries to put on his leaving, this place will never be quite the same. Now he heads for SoCal to the land of swimming pools, movie stars, big egos and bad manners. We wish him well, and we will miss him.

Click to hear my final tribute to Bryan on KNPR Nevada Public Radio

Read the rest of this entry →

No salad in the history of civilization is more bastardized than the the mighty Caesar-whose true name is a Caesar’s Salad. For a serious taste of this salad’s history, and to taste some serious salad, click on this link to my recent article in Desert Companion about what made (and makes) the original recipe so great.

Read Article Here (pdf)

DJT The Restaurant opens Monday, April 7, 2008 right off the lobby of the Trump International Hotel and right across the street from Nordstrom’s (how con-VEEN-ient!) It’s a small, dark, 65 seat, club-like space-lilliputian by Vegas standards-with a bar that opens onto a good, old fashioned, no-gambling, hotel lobby loaded with enough glitz and “quality babes” to keep Trump knee-deep in apprentices for seasons to come.

Taking no cues from the owner’s hairstyle, menu is simplicity itself, with 10 starters and mains that are mercifully light on introductory prose (chilled sweet pea soup, duck confit, sous vide halibut, et al…), but we’re confident Executive Chef Joe Isidori and Chef d’Cuisine David Varley (late of the ill-fated Company experiment in the Luxor), will make it dazzle if allowed to follow their muse. Having Lucas Riemens (late of Guy Savoy) man the front of the house is a plus as well. No doubt gourmands will line up to taste slices of true pata negra jamon Iberico, but we’re more interested in Mr. Trump’s bibb wedge salad-that has to be more interesting than it sounds.

It’s now April 12, 2008, and I’m still swooning from the fabulous food Chefs Isidori and Varley laid before me and The Food Gal last night. A full article and review will be forthcoming, but in the meantime feast your eyes on some tasty snaps….

We don’t know what’s more offensive about this ode to the Sopranos in the Rio: the glare, the stare, the excessive and unappetizing tats, or the $23 meatball. The egotistical entreaty: “Don’t break my balls.” printed on the menu is a lame, preemptive strike against any Paulie Walnuts wannabe who might complain about the excessive prices, and the highly mediocre Southern Italian food. Single diners aren’t allowed at tables (even when the place is empty, and likely to remain that way for hours), and no one is allowed to drink cocktails in the dining room for fear of corrupting such innovative recipes as chicken parmagiana and veal marsala. That $23 meatball, is no joke either, and whether you are a meatball, or just love them, you’ll find better ones at Rao’s just down the street.