Category: Chefs

The Return of Carla Pellegrino and BRATALIAN

http://www.reviewjournal.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/media/web1_carlapellegrino_7154325.jpg?itok=_HiGrMwV

Carla Pellegrino is a force of nature.  She is half Brazilian, half Italian and all about food as a metaphor for love. Anyone who’s ever spent even five minutes with her knows that she wears her heart on her sleeve, and that her heart is also in the kitchen. These days, after a two year absence to Miami, both her sleeves and her soul are cooking up a storm at Bratalian – a Neapolitan gem of a restaurant that has returned from the brink and, once again, gives everyone in the neighborhood a reason to go out to eat.

Within weeks of coming back to town last summer, after her south Florida sojourn, Carla learned that her restaurant had been wrecked by a truck driving through its front window. (Luckily, it was closed at the time.) What she hoped would be a few weeks of repairs turned into two and half months, and it wasn’t until late October that Henderson could once again taste the best Italian food ever to grace its borders.

Since coming to Las Vegas in 2009 (to open Rao’s in Caesars Palace with her then-husband Frank Pellegrino) Carla has enriched our culinary scene, and swum against the tide of boring, corporate restaurants  that line Eastern Boulevard – places serving  food that tastes like it was cooked up by a bunch of accountants.  She is a hands-on, classically trained chef whose stunning good looks belie a passion for food and a finely-tuned palate.  From your first bites – be they of a textbook-perfect Caprese salad or gorgeous tortellini en brodo – you will know that you are no longer in franchise-land.  Her spaghetti al’aglio, olio & peperocino (with garlic, peppers and oil) is a study in the art of pasta minimalism, and just one of many that will have you dropping your fork in appreciation.

Protein lovers will have no complaints either, as the hot and sweet sausages and veal scallopini alla saltimbocca take a back seat to no one’s. Saltimbocca means “jump in the mouth” and that’s exactly what this thinly pounded veal chop does, dripping as it is with sage, prosciutto and melted mozzarella. When it’s on the menu, don’t miss the baked lobster “oreganata” – a split beauty of a crustacean beast, packed with oregano-scented stuffing. Look around the quaint space and you can almost imagine that you’re dining in a tucked-away trattoria in Naples (replete with laundry hanging from the ceiling). Close your eyes and you’ll taste Italian food the way it’s supposed to be: made with love, respect, and good groceries.

Welcome back, Carla!

BRATALIAN

10740 South Eastern Ave. #155

Henderson, NV 89052

702.454.0104

http://www.bratalian.com/

 

The List

(Because meatballs, at Standard & Pour)

As we’re about to go full throttle through this holiday season, we at ELV thought you’d like to know where we’ve been eating, and where you should take those pesky relatives when they’re looking for something to do. As usual, all places come highly recommended unless otherwise noted.

THE LIST

Gordon Ramsay Steak – Face it, the best cheeseburgers spring forth from superb steakhouses. This is one of the best in the business. The cheeseburger and the steakhouse:

Twist by Pierre Gagnaire – Gagnaire’s food never fails to astonish. Top toque Frédéric Don is doing his master proud. The only thing that ruined my meal here on Election Night was the results…of the election, not the meal. ;-)

CUT – Industry veteran Nicole Erle turns out the tastiest desserts of any steakhouse in town (which is really saying something).

OhLaLa French Bistro – Opened barely a month, not even the mighty ELV can get a table here — that’s how good (and small) it is. Our steak tartare was a properly seasoned slab of Gay* Paree. In fact, it was a dead ringer (in taste and texture) for one we enjoyed at Le Train Bleu eight years ago (although a quarter the size) The fries are out of this world:

….and we can’t wait to try the rest of the menu.

Bardot Brasserie – Can a Vegas brunch be any better? No it can’t:

Carson Kitchen – I wish the restaurant was bigger; I wish the menu was bigger. On the other hand, everything here is always perfect, so maybe I don’t.

Marche Bacchus – Go for brunch; get the crab Benedict:

Yuzu Japanese Kitchen – Just go. Now. And try to remember that you’re not in Tokyo:

Standard & Pour – I love this place almost as much as I hate Green Valley.

Strip Steak – I love the food here almost as much as I hate the decor.

B&B Ristorante – Expect a major renovation after the first of the year. The food needs none. Except that friggin’ garbanzo bean amuse bouche. They’ve even toned the music down a skosh, so bravo all around to Brett Uniss and Nicole Brisson!

Raku –Izakayas don’t get any better in America.

Eggslut – The best thing about this place is the name. Are the overloaded egg sandwiches good? Yes. Are they worth waiting in line for? No.

Ocha Thai – Family-run Thai since 1989. Recently facelifted. Go a couple of times and they’ll treat you like one of the family:

Delices Gourmands French Bakery & Cafe – Best. Bread. Period. The pastries are no slouches, either.

Magal Korean BBQ – Love the food; hate the noise level. Koreans must enjoy screaming at each other over their haejangguk. Or something:

https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4049/4272648065_a76b90a50c_z.jpg?zz=1

Cornish Pasty Co. – I don’t get pasties. I don’t get them and I don’t like them. Too one-dimensional and doughy for me. That being said, if you like these cousins-of-a-pierogi-empanada, you’ll be in hog heaven, and if you don’t, there’s lots of great beers on tap to console you.

 Border Grill – The Too Hot Tamales never miss a salsa beat.

Turmeric Flavors of India – I want this place to be a huge success. The food is updated, interesting Indian. Those two things might not be compatible:

Izakaya Go – I’ve had my last bad meal here. The menu is too long, the food too uneven, and the fish too flabby.

Le Pho – If I ate every meal here, instead of indulging at most of the other delicious joints on this page, my cholesterol would be cut in half and the Food Gal® would quit nagging me.

PublicUs – New chef (Justin Bannon), new head barista (Marilou Galindo), same old toothsome bread, sandwiches, and concupiscent coffee.

Libertine Social – These “modern fried” eggs aren’t fried at all, but they’re fantastic, as is everything about this joint:

LS is a tough place to leave from sober (that’s how good the cocktails are), and this double-double burger is a perfect way to help you avoid a hangover:

 Evel Pie – A slice of the Big Apple streets comes to downtown. I was prepared to hate this place, but one bite in took me straight back to deck oven heaven in lower Manhattan (New York, not Kansas):

EATT Healthy Food – Because everything tastes better under a pistachio dome:

Don’t you agree?

_____________________________________________________

*as in joyful, frolicsome, and full of whimsy.

Letters of the Week – Whassup With All the Eggs?

 IBrakeForFilipinoFood writes:

Whassup with all the eggs on stuff? Is there any food that is not fried-egg appropriate?

The fried egg phenomenon seems have been born from an unholy alliance between three of the most dreaded forces in feeding people for money: the need to enrich a dish, the mandate to do it easily and cheaply, and the requirement that your culinary creation be cool at all costs. From our exhaustive research that has yet to be done, we at ELV have determined that the first egg on top of a non-egg-related food was first dreamed up by Spanish chef Esteban Ovum, who, after being expelled from El Bulli in 1999 (for refusing to try to recreate the Last Supper using only a pint of agar-agar, 12 grains of rice and an immersion circulator) , decided that instead of wasting his time trying to make things look like eggs that are not eggs, he would rather just slap a real egg on everything: fries, burgers, big-ass ravioli, you name it. He did this to worldwide acclaim, and before you could say “Nathan Myhrvold,” every chef in the world was following suit. These days, every chef’s motto is: When in doubt, put an egg on it. As for your second question, as of this writing we would have to say that the only food that is no longer egg-appropriate is the martini.

Lovespinktacos asks:

I live in Minnesota, where all the Mexican food tastes like it was made by a guy named Sven, because it is! Because of this, my standards are admittedly low, and I loves me some good fast food tacos when I can get them. I just heard a giant Taco Bell opened in Vegas. Is it worth a trip there when I come to Las Vegas next year? By the way, my wife’s name is Gunnilda, no jokes please.

From your wife’s name ending in a vowel, I can only assume that you come from southern Minnesota, meaning: you both may have a passing acquaintance with food that actually tastes good. Then again, surströmming. To your question, yes, there is a big shiny new Taco Bell Cantina on the Strip that serves booze, stays open 24 hours, and has “exclusive souvenirs” as well as…wait for it… bikinis! Because who isn’t thinking “two piece, anal floss swimwear” when you’re enjoying a tasty, 3,000 calorie volcano quesarito? Our staff is quite excited about these developments. Then again, other things our staff gets excited about are: the proliferation of ginormous drug stores up and down the Las Vegas Strip, gargling with razor blades, and dating bartenders named Blake.

NotSoTinyTim:

If you had to be marooned on a desert island, who would you rather be stuck with: Julia Child in her prime, Anthony Bourdain or Giada? My buddies and I say it’s no contest. And by no contest we mean Giada’s cans. Your thoughts?

Tough one. Bourdain is a lousy cook, and his constant yammering would drive you crazy, but he would come in handy fighting off natives (or at least boring them to death) while he pranced around pontificating like he was the first one ever to un-shell a coconut. Giada’s sweet and sexy and all (especially with a team of makeup artists at her disposal), but that accent might start wearing thin after a day or two, and her size (and those breasticles) would definitely be a liability when it came to basic survival skills (hauling logs, hand-catching fish, shutting up Bourdain, etc). Plus, her cooking skills might be seriously limited without the benefit of Daddy’s money, a weekly mani-pedi and the Po Valley at her disposal. After the initial thrill of some (no doubt forced) celebrity sex wore off, we would probably revert to one of those Lina Wertmuller movies  — her the spoiled rich girl, me in charge of whipping her into shape while demeaning her pampered upbringing (JEALOUS? YOU BET!) and trying to overlook how hairy she had become. No, it’s really a no brainer because Julia (at any age between 40-70 would be a joy to be around. She’d have the size (6’2″) to out-manly me at any chore (TRUE!), and we could spend days, years even, perfecting our ballontine de volaille de farci au boursin et aux tomates séchées and sauce gribiche together. Pure bliss.

DefenstrationNation inquires:

How annoyed do you get that, despite publishing five books on the subject, writing this blog for eight years, and being extremely active on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, friends and family still ask you where they should eat?

Let’s put it this way: I’m a patient man. (I’m not, but for purposes of this topic I have been very.) For twenty-one years I have scoured all of Las Vegas and reported on where to get good things to eat. I’ve been on the radio; I’ve been on TV. I’m still on TV almost every Friday on KSNV Channel 3’s Wake Up With the Wagners morning news show. If you don’t catch me there you can follow me on social media, where I post something multiple times a day about where I’ve eaten and what I liked or didn’t like about it. The easiest way to find my opinions is by coming to this site, going to the Google box on the bottom right side of the front page, type in a restaurant’s name, and then read everything I’ve written about it over the past nine years. Earlier this year we published the fourth edition of EATING LAS VEGAS – The 50 Essential Restaurants. In less than a week the fifth, 2017 edition will be published by Huntington Press. The book  also contains a 100+ pages of carefully curated opinions about where and what to eat out in the ‘burbs. It costs less than single cocktail does on the Strip. And is available on Amazon. In short, there is no shortage of information available (in a variety of formats) that will tell you what I think about a restaurant and why.

So, how annoyed am I when someone who knows me, and knows (or should know) I do all of these things, asks me, “What Italian places do you like?” or “Why do you like  this one and not that one?”

How annoyed do I get, you ask? About as annoyed as this song is annoying: