Hello Mr. and Mrs. America and all the ships at sea.

A raft of information has made its way to ELV’s desk in the past week about the following places (and persons) who are either foundering, adrift, or ready to launch:

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Here is the link for last week’s KNPR-State Of Nevada’s Food Talk featuring interviews with:

Bon Appetit Editor Barbara Fairchild;

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Since the Las Vegas Weekly can only print a couple of snaps of food with every article, here are a few more of our meal at Union Restaurant and Bar and Jean Georges Steakhouse for your precautionary, palate perusal:

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Continue reading after the jump if you’d like to read the review(s) in a different format.

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We don’t know what’s more impressive: the fact that Emmy Award-winning Denise Valdez squeezed four restaurants (and chefs) into segment lasting less than two minutes, or that she captured uber-absentee chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten right here in our humble burg. (We guarantee he wasn’t here for long.)

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It has the best location of any restaurant in town. Smack in the middle of restaurant row in the Venetian, where every guest, gambler and conventioneer at this mega-plex walks by it at least twice a day.

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So here’s what happened last night (recounted through the wooly head of someone who tried to drink all the Au Bon Climat in the house):

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We wish we had found Alice “You mean you don’t have a custom-made, wood-burning-oven in your home?” Waters’ talk at the Black Mountain Institute interesting and inspiring.

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ELV and his staff were at Rao’s last week, not eating, but rather to observe the shooting of an episode of a television show featuring a certain celebrity chef and Rao’s Carla Pellegrino.

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We”ve had it. We are done. Finished. Fin. Finito. Kaput. Over and out. Die ende. Sfarsit (Romanian). Wakas (Tagalog) and isigcino (Zulu) with Mesa Grill.

And no matter how many of you tell us how “awesome” or “interesting” or “tasty” it is, we’re never believing you again.

Because you are wrong.

Because we’ve now eaten there at least ten times and never had anything (except the excellent burger and the cornbread pudding) that was the least bit spicy, intriguing, or compelling from a foodie-point-of-view.

And the “spicy” chicken hash was the last straw…containing as it did, minimal “spiciness” and being bereft of chicken.

We know this because we picked through all those potatoes in the hash whilst furiously fishing for flotsam flecks of fowl flesh and infuriatingly finding figments of fugaciously few.

The difference between youse guys and ELV is: we at ELV feel it’s our duty to go back to places that have disappointed us, whenever a friend or colleague (or perhaps just someone with a strong opinion) tells they “really like” a place that we don’t.

So back and back we’ve gone, again and again, hoping against hope that Boy Meets Grill Boy will show us something.

Anything.

And what we always get is a bunch of tepid, uninspired, barely “spicy” “creations” that are bland or boring or both.

If you really want interestingly spiced food, at a fraction of the price, we suggest going to Los Antojos…or Los Molcajetes, or Salvadoreno Cafe, or Border Grill, or Frank and Fina’s, or….or….

Or if you just want to bask in the absentee aura of a Food Network God, and pay $70 for lunch (no booze) like we did last week, keep your trap shut the next time we’re around each other.

Or until Bobby finds some inspiration.

But don’t hold your breath.

MESA GRILL

In Caesars Palace Hotel and Casino

3570 Las Vegas Blvd. South

Las Vegas, NV 89109

877.346.4642

http://www.mesagrill.com/lasvegas/

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Nothing about this place is as great as its reputation.

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