Effective July 23, Switch in Encore will be closing.
When it opened five years ago, the p.r. wags couldn’t wait to tell ELV that its signature (insert one: stupid, tacky, declassé, ridiculous, overwrought, wasteful, useless, bizarre, distracting, nouveau riche, unappetizing) moving walls cost Steve “Mr. Macau” Wynn $40 mil.
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A recent lunch for two at Otto consisted of the following:
– small octopus salad
– grilled radicchio with smoked mozz
– gnocco fritto (fried dough strips)
– short rib ravioli
– tagliatelle with ham and Spring peas
– ice cream dessert
To make an expensive, disappointing story short, the radicchio was billed as grilled, but tasted so strongly of kerosene that all nuance (not to mention flavor) was obliterated. (Side note: ELV loathes the chemically-odoriferous scents left on food from gas grills, and wonders why chefs even bother.) The gnocco fritto were as tasty (and about as complex) as something you’d get at a county fair, and the two pasta dishes were seriously flawed.
It is quite affecting to observe how much the olive tree is to the country people. Its fruit supplies them with food medicine and light; its leaves, winter fodder for the goats and sheep; it is their shelter from the heat and its branches an roots supple them with firewood. the olive tree is the peasant’s all-in-all. – Fredrika Bremer
The whole Mediterranean, the sculpture, the palms, the gold bead, the bearded heroes,, the wine, the ideas, the ships, the moonlight, the winged gorgons, the bronze men, the philosophers — all of it seems to rise in the sour, pungent smell of these black olives between the teeth. A taste older than meat, older than wine. A taste as old as cold water. – Lawrence Durrell