As Dorothy Parker once said of another’s writer’s work: “It was written without fear and without research.”
The story’s title read: VEGAS: 10 Strip restaurants to skip, and contained all the thoughtfulness you would expect from a newspaper prone to headlines like this:
The authors — David Landsel and Andy Wang — purport to tell tourists what famous eateries they should avoid in our humble burg. In no particular order, the authors toss rotten tomatoes at: Guy Savoy, Bouchon, Rao’s, all Wolfgang Puck restaurants, Picasso, Restaurant Charlie, Wazuzu, Beso, Tao, and anything and everything at Mandalay Bay(?).
We won’t argue with Beso and Tao (two restaurants that are decidedly not about the food). In fact, the only thing worse than a Todd English restaurant is a Todd English restaurant that’s gone Hollywood.
But in the interest of fairness, we’ll admit that Bouchon has had service problems over the years. And we can understand how a narrow-minded New Yawker might be offended by the very idea of a Vegas Rao’s, but we think their objection to Savoy, Picasso, RC and everything at Mandalay Bay is more about the style of these places (big, flashy, and famous) rather than about anything they actually tasted.
And we can’t argue with their assessment of Encore’s restaurants, because we said basically the same thing a year ago. And as much as we like Jet Tila, our objections to Strip pricing for Asian eats is well documented.
So the piece may be hyperbolic and mean-spirited, but certain points are well made. Their dissing of Trotter, Savoy, Keller, Serrano and Puck was more like a drive-by Yelp-ing, and we’d bet real money Landsel and Wang didn’t actually eat at any of Puck’s joints. If they actually did eat at Savoy, Trotter, Bouchon or Picasso and didn’t like them, they know nothing about food.
Meh, does anyone with an IQ over 55 take anything in that rag seriously? As much as I think Puck’s empire is mostly a bunch of nicely appointed Applebee’s and Olive Garden’s, even I can’t say all his places are bad. Postrio is excellent. And, if you don’t at least appreciate the fun of Burger Bar at Mandalay Bay, you may not even be capable of thought. I won’t even start on the elegance of Hubert Keller’s other joint there.
This is simply a case of unabashed Vegas bashing by writers from possibly the best food city in the world. Do they really need to knock us down a peg when we have so far to go?
Thank you, Mr. ELV. That was the laziest attempt at “journalism” I’ve seen at that paper since… Oh, it’s The NY Post? Oh yes, that explains it. :-p
Again, as I said last night, a few of these restaurants do deserve to be panned for subpar food. However, I even have to put those reviews in doubt because they needlessly picked on perfectly good restaurants and trashed them for things like “being in Mandalay Bay” and “not being in New York”. Give me a break!
And btw, I don’t even fully agree with the Encore criticism. Society wasn’t even mentioned (it should have been commended for its good grub), and I’m even willing to give Switch another try now with Rene Lenger running the show there. (I tried his grub at the November Whole Foods event, and it tasted quite good.)
I remember my last meal at Bouchon fondly. The food – much celebrated- was good. Not stand out good. In fact, looking back I’d say that the kitchen was resting on laurels and accolades past.
But what I remember most about the dinner was the server; A sulky, self important superstar in waiting. He was more interested in looking at his reflection in the window than in showing any enthusiasm for the menu. He’d disappear for stretches, then show up all feather dustery and ask in an oh so insincere way: “Is everything OK?” Then leave before getting an answer. Central casting couldn’t have sent a more disinterested waiter.
The bill came to $450 or so for the four of us. A couple of bottles of wine…
To this day it still gives me a warm fuzzy to smugly reflect on how I left him a dollar tip. I bet he hasn’t forgotten either.
Everything at the Mandalay Bay?? Everything?
Burger Bar? Border Grill too?
Wow, that’s a broad diss for sure. Broad and without merit.
What do New Yorkers know about Mexican food anyway? About as much as running a bank considering the state of affairs in this country..haha.
Clearly they have no palate for a burger either. Stick with street dogs and pizza and let the experts here in Vegas handle the rest…ok?
Please. Even the pidgeons avoid the Post.
As a New Yorker and a frequent visitor to Las Vegas I loved the banter you have all contributed.
I do disagree with the Mandalay Bay bashing, you can’t kill the Restaurant for its location. I can think of a few Restaurants in NYC whose location is not very desirable.
As for Bouchon, the service there has always been off (as is most service in Vegas). But it is off at the Yountville, CA as well (I left a $1 tip there two years ago).I believe the problem is more a result of management and training. The food is still great and will be as long as Keller keeps steering the ship
And Puck – when Wolfgang started putting his name on Airport “to go” food kiosks and the Airline menus, the rest of his food fell to that level. I haven’t had a good meal at one of his places in over two years. I took a group of customers to CUT last week and left disappointed. Every dish just came up short.
The Vegas Restaurant scene has come a long way in the past few years but putting big names on the billboard, doesn’t always produce great results, just ask the NY Mets.
everyone knows the post is a joke, but the problem is all the ‘cut-n-paste’ siting that other blogs and news sites take parts of this article and use them, to the effect where people dont know its from the post (without really looking) even the post gets traction!!!!
but its good too see ELV respond.
FYI: Landsel retweeted this post along with the comment that: “If real money were bet (ELV) would lose.”
Wang was here for 3 days last month. We met him when he was leaving SAGE and being squired around by a p.r. person for Wynn/Encore. There is no way on God’s green earth he or they ate at 10 restaurants (much less 20+) during his visit.
We’re sure he got the big BJ from Bartolotta, Robuchon, et al, but most of the rest of what he/they wrote was based on second/third hand info and gossip.
It’s pretty obvious this is another attempt a shock journalism. I know for a fact Wang had the red carpet rolled out for him when he was around. Eating at every Wynn/Encore restaurant on comps musta been tough. So to balance out the fellated reviews of the others, it’s easy to trash a fellow Asian brother. After doing some research about Wang (aptly named), we took the review with a massive grain of salt…cmon y’all have you seen this tool? I just google photo’d him and had a giggle…big ups to ELV and his readers!
I’ve done some research and Andy Wang is listed as the home section editor for the NY Post. The home section is basically a real estate guide. Landsel is a travel editor. Yet these clowns are writing about food? What a joke.
Not that the Wandsel/Lang duo necessarily need another arrow aimed at their integrity, but it is impossible to pass this one up. The article linked here was one of a three-part series on Las Vegas, which also included “VEGAS: 21 essential off-Strip bars and restaurants”, which was published on January 25th. That list included Cana, at Town Square, which is rather remarkable considering that Cana opened on January 19. While other parts of their series conjure notions of a fish market late in the day, this goes far beyond. Not a knock on Cana; we have been there once and hope they succeed, but to include a place that had been open less than a week in such an article would seem to stretch even the rubber band ethics of the Post to a breaking point.
As late as this is, after thumbing through past articles and stumbling across this one, I had to make a comment.
I’ll agree to whatever it is that anyone said above, only reading half of the other comments.
As far as Bouchon goes, and this probably can count for most other subpar-service-giving “fine dining” Strip eateries as well, the reason(s) for the ridiculous service is this:
Everyone who is serving in front of the house has been working there so long, that they all are pretty much too close of a “family.” They ALL hang out after work as a single ginormous unit, especially including the managers, thus leaving “work time” to merge with the play time.
They take nothing seriously because they all know they can get away with anything when it comes to discipline from their supervisors, which is nearly non-existent due to over-fraternizing. Top that off with suffocating obnoxiousness because of the fact that they work for Thomas Keller, and you’ve got a whole plate of messed up that’s almost past the point of saving them.
Worked there, got over that REAL quickly. =/
I had dinner on Monday evening at the Las Vegas property and would not recommend it. The service was extremely slow and the meal at best disappointing. I ordered halibut and it was overcooked and so dry that it was not eatable. One of my guests ordered the salmon and it was nearly the same case. Given the delay in getting our meals and the expected time it would have taken to have new dishes fired we decided to simply pay the bill and leave. Now they may do well with steaks but in our experience they have a great deal to learn about fish.