Author: John Curtas

SIEGEL’S 1941 is Much Better Than It Has to Be

Monday night dining is not a fertile field for the hungry, intrepid gastronaut to explore…much less plow… if he’s downtown. Glutton is closed, as is La Comida,  and there’s only so many platters of finely-tuned fish ‘n chips one dude can put away at the always-reliable Smashed Pig. And ever since Therapy fired their second good chef in less than six months, we’ve decided to give up on it entirely…or at least until management gets its act together.

And don’t even think about a meal at that beyond-stupid sex-toy fondue joint (or The Perch), both of which may not be long for this business cycle. (What’s keeping either of them afloat is anyone’s guess.)

So, with options limited, we wandered in to the El Cortez last night (“wandering” being sort of a euphemism for dodging wheelchairs and various other nearly-dead geriatrics in various stages of one-foot-in-the-grave infirmities) and settled into a four-top at Siegel’s 1941 for some all-purpose dining.

And by “all-purpose dining” we mean a menu that’s so all-over-the-map it would make Magellan dizzy.

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Two Tried and True: JAPANEIRO and SWEETS RAKU

Sometimes, you just want an old reliable.

Or, if not a particularly “old” reliable, a relatively new one that you can trust to deliver the goods as well as the last time you were there.

And when the craving hits for a hunk o’ hunk o’ burnished beef (and you don’t wish to brave the Strip on a weekend’s eve) there’s nothing like Kevin Chong’s menu at Japaneiro (above) — one of the true treasures of local gastronomy.

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Big DONUT BAR Blues

Quality is diametrically opposed to quantity. – Lionel Poilâne

We recently were talking doughnuts with a prominent local chef.

“What’s the best one you ever had?” we asked.

“A little shop in a small town in Texas,” he replied. “All they sold was a small, right-from the fryer yeast doughnut, with a vanilla glaze that melted in your mouth. The line was down the street every day for them.”

“And you?” he shot back at us.

We returned the volley fast without missing a beat: “The Downyflake in Nantucket, Massachusetts. They only did three, small cake doughnuts every morning: plain, sugar and chocolate glazed. So rich, yet so light and tender and soft they practically evaporated in the mouth. Never had anything close before or since.”

And yes, there was a line out the door every day for our ethereal little circles of carbo-sugared bliss on Nantucket, just like there was for the chef’s favorite in Texas.

What was the common denominator(s): size and perfection. The pleasure of eating something human scale, made with love, and with a commitment to quality over quantity.

As you can see above, none of these prerequisites of refinement burden the operation at Donut Bar, where the doughnuts are, first and foremost, big.

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