TABLEAU goes vegan (sort of)
All we at ELV can think about every time we take a bite of, or contemplate, the mandatory vegan menus at each of the Wynn/Encore restaurants is: “I wonder what Steverino’s next girlfriend will do to the food?”
That’s the thing about love, it makes you do strange, out of character things.
Like making every restaurant in the hotel offer a vegan option to guests.
Instead of a good pastrami on rye. Which you still can’t find in a hotel run by guys who should know what one tastes like.
But let’s be fair. All of the Wynn/Encore chefs have busted their humps to impress their bosses’ significant other (and by extension, the boss), and the results at Tableau are darn tasty…even if you’d have to eat everything on the menu to make it through an idle afternoon.
One such chef is David Spero, who has compiled some tasty, herbaceous and healthy items catering to that 0.2-1.3% of the population who enjoy being hungry all the time.
We don’t, but if we were forced to eat this food, we know we could do a lot worse than Spero’s roasted beet salad (in which the beets could’ve been a tad more roasted), with haricot vert and a truffle vinaigrette (that could’ve used a touch more vinegar), or his avocado salad with jicama, tomato and agave-lime dressing (well nigh perfect), or his Napoleon of savory tofu, dressed with a mirepoix-like spicy ratatouille and fried eggplant ( as perfect and tasty as this food probably can get).
The entire vegan menu will run you $71, and we’re guessing within an hour you’re going to want/need to order it again.
So maybe it isn’t just about Steve being smitten.
As for ELV, he will continue to supplement his healthy habits with his unhealthy ones…like Spero’s drop dead delicious turbot with sauteed chanterelles over a pea puree, and a chocolate chip cookie souffle that is so good it should be illegal. Which is what vegans hope to do to a great pastrami on rye…which, we’re guessing, will now never find a home here.
Unless Wynn gets a new girlfriend.
TABLEAU
In the Wynn Hotel and Casino
3131 Las Vegas Blvd. South
Las Vegas, NV 89109
702.770.3331
Restaurant reviews, quips, picks and pans-with some seriously salivating history-from the man who eats his way through Sin City every day.
October 4th, 2010 at 6:15 pm
Nice to see Dave Spero getting some attention for doing some great food. He is a great chef and a class act with a bright future!
October 5th, 2010 at 8:59 am
To his credit, Chef Spero has crafted Vegan dishes that have flavor and texture and I won’t hesitate to order off that menu next time I visit Tableau.
October 6th, 2010 at 9:07 am
The salads certainly look pretty tasty. Would make a nice accompaniment to a piece of meat or seafood.
October 7th, 2010 at 10:46 pm
Let’s see if Mr Curtas would write the same type of condescending review if he HAD to eat a vegan diet for health reasons. I do and believe me, I am not hungry at all. I know that tofu can taste like almost anything – it’s all in the preparation. If you freeze it and then thaw it it gets “meatier” in texture. Tofu itself doesn’t have flavor – the flavor comes from the sauce or marinade. And I’m not talking about those little white blobs floating in the miso soup in Chinese restaurants. So enough of the sneering (“as perfect and tasty as this food probably can get”). If you get white blobs of tofu for your meal in restaurants … that means the chef is thinking INSIDE the box.
As for “every restaurant in the hotel offer[ing] a vegan option to guests” … it’s about freaking time these chefs started thinking about plant-based meals. Anyone can throw a piece of meat on the grill and call it a day. But try devising an entree that’s more than a plate of steamed/grilled veggies… THAT takes talent. And until Steve (or his girlfriend) … frankly none of the chefs had any. Now I can finally eat in those restaurants.
From a business perspective in a poor economy, restaurants and caterers who choose not to market to vegan consumers do so at their own risk. I agree the number of vegans is small compared to those who would be content eating a meal with animal products. But what these *business people* perhaps have not considered is that the vegan community embraces good vegan food (read: NO STEAMED/GRILLED VEGGIE PLATES) with a *huge* amount of referral marketing via blogs and word of mouth. While the community is not large, our impact usually is. Word of mouth is the best advertising in the vegan community.
November 13th, 2010 at 6:33 am
Thank you , I love to read about other vegansas it gives me the strength to continue. I have about a thousand vegetarian feeds in my google reader, but another can’t hurt!! I did manage to find a good lentil recipe here, but I’ll be sure to try yours too. Thanks!