Author: John Curtas

Sushi Jumps The Shark – on News 88.9 FM KNPR – Nevada Public Radio

SUSHI: WE HARDLY KNEW YEE (Part One)

Sushi jumped the shark a long time ago. It maintained a slice of its dignity throughout the ‘90’s, but by the turn of the century it crossed the pizza line, never to return to what it is supposed to be. I remember being amused the first time I saw sushi rolls (maki-zushi) in Trader Joe’s ten years ago, just as I recall being horrified when they became staples in the isles of Costco and Wal-Mart around 2005.

To hear me expound on this phenomenon on KNPR- Nevada Public Radio (rather than read the incisive and witty prose for which ELV is known)….click here.

Like pizza, sushi, in its native and best form, is about the combination of a few, pristine ingredients into something far greater than the sum of its parts. And like the cheap cheese, doughy, over laden bread concoction that pizza has become, sushi in America is now so far removed from whence it came that it can’t even remember its roots, much less try to respect them. And like pizza, the entire cult of raw fish has become so twisted that it no longer matters whether it’s any good or not.

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PIN KAOW THAI RESTAURANT

Pin Kaow isn’t our favorite Thai in town. In fact, it probably doesn’t even make our top five. But it’s been around for fifteen+ years and is very popular with Northwesterners and other Summerlin-like folk on that side of town. They recently opened two other branches — at South Rainbow and Robindale, and Eastern at I-215 — with identical menus, so we dropped in for the first time in a long time. FYI: Back in the day, when ELV was young, virile, voted Democratic, and often mistaken for any one of these guys, we were regulars.

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L’ATELIER DE JOEL ROBUCHON 3rd Anniversary Menu

L’Atelier de Joel Robuchon celebrated its third anniversary in Las Vegas on September 15. It bears remembering that we got our L’Atelier before New York got theirs, and ELV will stack the food of Steve Benjamin and Kamel Guechida up against anything the Big Apple can throw at us. Here is a sample of the Third Anniversary Special Tasting Menu — available throughout the month for $148.00 for eight courses of the food that made Robuchon famous — and that put Las Vegas in the cross-hairs of every gastronome in the world.