FYI: Restaurant Week begins Monday with over 70 local restaurants participating.
Hunger is not something a restaurant critic faces very often. But it’s a very real concern in our community, even though we live in a city that’s had a 19-year run of unprecedented growth and prosperity. Ten and a half percent – that’s over 210,000 people – live below the poverty line here, and over 39% of our students (that’s over 117,000 kids) qualify for and get reduced priced meals in our public schools.
ELV POSTS CORRECTION…
This post raised some hackles, so in the interest of the journalistic integrity for which ELV is known, we must report that the MGM-Mirage officially denies that Alain Ducasse is no longer involved with MIX (although his capacity, we have been told, is solely as a “consultant chef”). Sylvain Portay has told us directly that he is still works at and with the restaurant on Ducasse’s behalf, and we have confirmed this. Our sources stand by their information that Ducasse is (or soon will be) no longer associated with the restaurant. ELV regrets whatever errors were made.
ELV questions exactly when and how Ducasse “consults” on anything there. ELV imagines Ducasse’s average “consultation” goes something like this:
(Telephone rings….)
General Manager of MIX: “Hello, MIX Restaurant in THE Hotel in the Mandalay Bay, may we help you?”
Alain Ducasse: “Thees eez Alain Ducasse.”
GM: “Who?”
AD: “My name eez Alain Ducasse, I am zee most famous and acclaimed French Chef in zee world.”
GM: “I’m sorry Mr. Du….CAT…did you say it was…….?”
AD: “DuCASSE…you pathetic piece of rancid Albanian headcheese! I am zee ne plus ultra de la cuisine Francais!! Zee Michelin men bow before me and kiss zee hem of my garment….”
GM: “I’m sorry Mr. DuKane….but I’ve been here three years and we’ve never met. Would you like a reservation or a table with us this evening?”
AD: “No, I would like my check tout suite!”
GM: “Oh, that Alain Ducasse. It’s in the mail.”
(Click)
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THE ORIGINAL POST:
Alain Ducasse has been bought out of his contract with the China Grill Group and the MGM-Mirage Corp. and will no longer be associated with MIX in the Mandalay Bay. Thus, the world’s most Michelin-starred chef now leaves a town he barely came to in the first place. ELV remembers Ducasse appearing at the opening of MIX six years ago, and for hardly a moment since.* Plans for the restaurant — that received a Michelin star last year — are uncertain.
Continue reading “Au revoir Alain Ducasse; we hardly knew you”
Kevin and Carrie Wu’s eateries in the Gold Coast are about the only things that can get us into that hotel. But get us there they do, with not only the best dim sum in town (Ping Pang Pong), but now with Noodle Exchange, his open-kitchen riff on the stuff that Marco Polo made famous.
NE is small — around 65 seats — but even in peak times the made-to-order noodle dishes come out fast and furious, so you won’t wait long. The menu covers most of Asia (excepting Vietnamese pho) with classic renditions of Chinese recipes like Peking Duck, Dan Dan noodles and seafood in lettuce cups, as well as variations on Japanese ramen and even Singapore-inspired noodles. But Asian pasta is only half of the story here. Its hot and sour soup is both (something rarer than you’d think), and The Food Gal was ecstatic over the fresh fruit infused green tea and the superior sorbets that ended the meal.
Prices are amazingly low — the duck is 1/4 what you’d pay on the Strip — and the freshness and snap of the stir-fries, and the treasures within the bento boxes, explains why you’re the only gaijin in the joint.
NOODLE EXCHANGE
In the Gold Coast Hotel and Casino
4000 W. Flamingo Road
702.367.7111
open 3 p.m. to midnight daily