You know there’s a mini-revolution going on in a neighborhood when a hot, hipster bar (Frankie’s Tiki Room) and a good restaurant open up just blocks away from each other in the same year. That an Asian restaurant opened in a small space in the run-down, time-worn shopping center at the corner of West Charleston and Rancho Rd. is hardly news. (There’s been a number of them come and go in the fifteen years ELV has lived nearby.) That it’s as good as the Mix Zone Cafe, is quite a surprise, however.
Category: Chefs
…And Again.
Doc Sconz’s next-to-last post on his Vegas (eating) vacation, ends with him enjoying himself (sort of) at ALEX at the Wynn. His assessment of the meal isn’t as glowing as you might expect, but, as usual, is accompanied by a number of tasty snaps that had ELV salivating. Unfortunately, we’ll probably never attain his degree of food foto fabulousness, if for no other reason than we’d probably end up looking like this guy….making shooting our food more of a sport than it already is.
His last post, summarizes, we think, the best way to view our strange, sui generis city — if one hopes to take the best from it and filter out the rest.
….And Again….
Part Two of Doc Sconz’s look at the Wynn has him prowling around the baking ovens with Boris Villatte; the second half of the dynamic duo that makes the breads and pastries there so superb.
Villatte is such a master of his metier, we generally throw caution to the wind and ignore the age-old adage: “Don’t fill up on bread.” whenever we’re within a stone’s throw of any Wynn restaurant.
ELV attended a private tasting of Villatte’s work a couple of years ago, along with uber-chefs Philippe Rispoli and Laurent Tourondel. When we questioned them about how (and why) Villatte’s breads are so consistently excellent (and what about his talent makes them so), Tourondel remarked: “It’s his training. It is so tough; he doesn’t know how NOT to make them (so) good.”
And Villatte’s fellow French chefs were as in awe of his creations as we are….