“Crush” – Dave Matthews Band: The Restaurant

Ah, the dulcet tones, the violin solo, the sweet as hell music video of some Utopian jazz club.  I was very excited to see the new joint in the MGM (taking over the Nob Hill spot) is named after my favorite song from one of my favorite bands, Dave Matthews Band (I call them DMB).  “Crush” is a totally great song with good music in it, but will this tapas/wine bar be worth the square footage?

It’s a venture of Michael and Jenna Morton (of La Cave, La Comida, and the Morton Steakhouse Group [but only via familiar relation, not business]), but an interesting one.  The space itself is unusually cozy.  I was thinking it would be all bistro seats and techno music.  Yes friends, I am glad to tell you there is a semi-casual restaurant that isn’t pumping out Teen Disney or geriatric-core rock, but rather simple and soft jazz piano covers.

The interior here is cool, but cool in that way where you make a normal space and put a ton of vintage laboratory equipment in it to make it “hip”.  Like all darkened tapas/wine bars, it has already started to attract every lady over 30, probably by way of some kind of pheromone or emitting an extremely low frequency.

The menu, in a very uncharacteristic move for such concepts, is actually NOT a giant unfocused mess!  Twenty-three items are tapas (seven of which are pizzas, just thin enough to skirt the entree category), eight are “full-size” dishes.  More on the suspicious quotations around that term later in the article.

Some items, like the hamachi or the kale salad, are a bit phoned-in or could have benefited from some simple tweaks or additions.  These sour notes only punctuate an otherwise very unique menu.  The executive chef, William DeMarco, has taken the next logical step from his La Cave style with pizzas that leave his own flat breads in the dust.  The Thai coconut curry shrimp pizza, with asparagus and smoked bacon, is complexly spiced and surprisingly creative.

Continue reading ““Crush” – Dave Matthews Band: The Restaurant”

Fear and Loathing with Lost Vegans

For those of you that don’t know, I have taken a position at Las Vegas CityLife, doing basically what I do here. Part and parcel to the difference of “dead trees and ink” style journalism is a word limit, but this fella has got an engine in him that knows no word limits. Here is the unabridged 900-word version of my account on a small vegan food fest. The 600-ish word version is linked below on the CityLife page. Enjoy!

Your pal,
Mitchell Wilburn


http://lasvegascitylife.com/sections/eat-drink/crawl/food-critic-amongst-vegans.html

When I rolled in to the red stone brutalist Clark County Library and passed the various
gaggles of early readers and free WiFi abusers, I considered the great possibility of harm
that would come to me if I was found out. The particular face of a political cartoon style
vegan – OWS-issue homemade riot gear, canteen of “50 serving a day” kale smoothie,
gender studies degree from U.C. Santa Cruz – is a character I would think memorizes
the face of anyone extolling the virtues of corn vs. grain govage foie gras. My beef
gravy flavored can of mace still hadn’t come from www.vegan-defence.co.uk, so I went
relatively unarmed.

Continue reading “Fear and Loathing with Lost Vegans”

Cochon 555: Number of the FEAST

There’s something happening this Sunday.  Something that hasn’t happened here in 2 years.  Something I’ve mentioned several times in the past because of the great impression it left me the last time it was here.  I’m talking about COCHON 555, BABY.

Let's all do this... to ourselves!

As a little background, Cochon is a touring show, part education on the virtues of the most delicious of animals (besides the giant tortoise, apparently), and allowing chefs to REALLY show off. Continue reading “Cochon 555: Number of the FEAST”