Category: Chefs

EMERIL the Unforgiven

http://www.nytimes.com/images/blogs/tvdecoder/posts/1107/emeril.jpg

I’ll never forget the day the music died. The day the magic left. The day I realized that great food, restaurants and chefs in Vegas was just a big p.r. game, being played to the hilt by our big hotels. The day I realized that it was no longer about the food, it was all about celebrities shilling for that food.

Unfortunately, it was Emeril Lagasse — the man who put the “celebrity” in “chef” — who taught me that lesson. For it was Emeril who first seduced and then disappointed me, and therein lies a cautionary tale that I have yet to tell until now.

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Gen-san Dreams of Sushi

Eating Las Vegas doesn’t like to brag (well, actually, we do like to brag), but we foretold our current sushi revolution over three years ago.

That’s when Kabuto opened up next door to Raku and, almost overnight, validated our prediction that down-market, mayonnaise-laden, all-you-can eat sushi bars were about to become the Long John Silver’s of uncooked fish.

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CARBONE Q and A or, Is Vegas Ready for a $64 Veal Parm?

ELV note: We recently engaged in an e-mail chat with one of our loyal readers and thought you, another loyal reader, might be interested in the discussion.

Dear ELV,

My spouse and I love your Web site. It seems like the only place a dedicated foodie can go to get honest, infallible, unimpeachable, and incisive analysis of the Vegas food scene. Since we don’t live in your town (and only come to visit about once a year), we depend on you to tell us where to best spend our dining out dollars. With that in mind, we have a trip upcoming over the holidays and wanted to know your thoughts about Carbone…

We have many thoughts about Carbone.

So you’ve been? (By “you” of course, I’m referring to “you” in the imperial, imperious third person, as “you” are wont to do…)

Yes, WE have been there once, last week.

I heard it was expensive…

You heard right.

Is it worth it?

It depends….

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