The next time you’re hungry for great food writing, ELV suggests you google “Mitchell Davis” and read whatever he’s interested in these days.
We did just that yesterday, and were taken on an eating tour of Tokyo that made us want to ditch everything but our passport and move to the Land of the Rising Sun.
The above picture is of a deep dish sour cream apple pie that Davis said has the Nipponese noshing their hearts out.
There’s no reason that American cooks can’t make a deep dish apple pie that will have people knocking down their door for a slice, but in Vegas they don’t bother. They don’t bother because they (the cooks on the Strip) are too spoiled (by fat numbers and paychecks), to actually try to perfect anything but how to keep the Food and Beverage accountants happy, and those off the Strip are too strapped (for cash and by an ignorant clientele) to take the time to do anything but give the hoi polloi what it wants. (In this regard, ELV is thankful for Megan Romano at Chocolate & Spice, and Mio-san at Sweets Raku — chefs who single-handedly stem the tide of incessant sweet-mediocrity that threatens to underwhelm our collective dessert consciousness.)
Only our waistline prevents us from visiting Megan very often — just as our bank balance keeps us from hopping to Haneda. So, in the meantime, we’ll gaze at that picture of that pie, and dream of great meals that are yet to come, cooked by chefs who worship perfection instead of the bottom line.
CHOCOLATE & SPICE
7293 West Sahara Ave.
Las Vegas, NV 89117
702.527.7772
SWEETS RAKU
5040 Spring Mountain Road
Las Vegas, NV 89146
702.290.7181
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P.S. Here’s Mitchell Davis’s short take on that very Japanese American pie pictured above:
Matsunosuke
D-11 Hill Side Terrace
29-9 Sarugakucho, Shibuya-ku,
Tel 03-5728-3868
English Menu
Craving a slice of American pie to wash down all of that raw fish? Lots of young Japanese women appear to be. They keep this small bakery and café, run by Japanese baker Akiko Hirano, packed. Akiko met a friend from New England when she studied at the Culinary Institute of America who taught her how to make pie. It was a fortuitous encounter, as Akiko has turned her American pies into an empire that includes other cafés, books, and mail order. Matsunosuke is famous for a deep-dish sour cream apple pie, which sells out daily. The chocolate cream pie is pretty delicious, too. Everything is very American, except the staff and the clientele. Nice place for a break while shopping around Daikanyama.
I wish people would comment on the Fukushima contamination of the Pacific and it’s real threat to Japanese Cuisine as well as the potential threat to the Western U.S.
Agree with the lauding of Mitchell Davis. He not only knows great food, he knows how to explain it from both an appreciation and a preparation standpoint.
His book “Kitchen Sense” is pretty much the go-to staple at the ELV IT department kitchen.