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Category: Chefs
Costas Spiliadis is going to change the way you think about Greek Food
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As you know, ELV and his staff are more than a little disdainful about Greek restaurant food. From coast to coast, it is relentlessly mediocre, boring and trite….and almost always tastes the same. Whether you’re in a Greek diner in Connecticut, or another hackneyed, blue and white-decorated “classic” restaurant, it’s a lead-pipe cinch you’re going to get the same twenty recipes overcooked exactly the same way. (Greek restaurants never met an overcooked piece of fish or meat they didn’t love.)
The reason for this is because, like Indian and Mexican food, the cooks of these cuisines have been, by and large, from the lower socio-economic stratum of their home countries. They came to America to survive and prosper, but not necessarily to create or strictly follow the tenants of the cuisine they remember. In such a way did the doner kebab become that hideous gyro meat featured in Greek joints from Bangor to Malibu, and sorry souvlakis the food Americans most associate with the birthplace of Western civilization.
All of this is about to change. The minute it opens in the Cosmo on December, 15th, Estiatorio Milos will be the best Greek restaurant in Las Vegas, and probably the second best Greek restaurant in the country….right behind the original Milos in Manhattan…and most probably the third best Greek restaurant on the North American continent…. right behind the New York location and the original in Montreal.
Our interview with Spiliadis will appear in next week’s Las Vegas Weekly, but in the meantime, we thought you’d like to see where a couple of Greek gods (with loads of major hair) had lunch when the aforesaid interview was taking place. Why at MOzen, of course…where we chowed down on Indian (dots, not feathers) food, of course.
Turns out Costas is something of a connoisseur of Indian food, and like ELV, considers the tandoori, butter chicken and assorted other highly spiced fare at MOzen to be some of the best he’s ever eaten. It all went down beautifully with one of the great food-focused conversations we’ve ever had, and ended with a tiny sampling of Gianni Santin’s pristine desserts — that were so good we almost forgot about how great Greek food is about to get around here.
ESTIATORIO MILOS
In The Cosmopolitan Hotel and Casino
3708 Las Vegas, Blvd. South
Las Vegas, NV 89109
702.698.7930
www.estiatoriomilos.com
Eat This Now – Roasted Beet and Goat Cheese Salad at SAGE
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Everyone who knows ELV knows he hates beets.
Because they taste like dirt.
Unless they’re pickled.
In which case they taste like pickled dirt.
Another reason we hate beets is because they’re actually quite pretty and look like they might actually taste a lot better than they do.
So beets both lie to you and taste nasty…in other words, they’re a double whammy of awfulness. Sort of the American Idol and Jersey Shore of edible eats.
But chefs love beets.
And they really love beets this time of year.
They love them because they are cheap and plentiful.
And they’re cheap and plentiful because they taste like dirt.
But you know what? Being a critic and all, we feel a certain moral obligation to constantly try whatever hideous beet concoction chefs are throwing at us. As a result, we order beets all the time. Even though we hate them.
And it was by following this moral obligation that we encountered Shawn McClain’s very beet-y but beauteous salad at SAGE some time ago.
And we actually like it.
Sort of.
Just thought you’d like to know.