ELV note: Scroll to the 16:13 mark to watch ELV’s meltdown over the perplexing popularity of (yet another) vapid, franchised Italian restaurant, and please bear with our scratchy voice that keeps threatening to heal, but which has plagued us for the past two weeks.
And while we’re at it, we’d love for someone to explain to us why Brio is turning away customers every night…
ELV note: Click here to read this article in its original format, or scroll below to see what Brock, Jim and ELV thought were their top bites of 2011.
On the plate, it was a very good year. In revisiting their best bites of 2011, the Weekly food critics will get you salivating for 2012.
John Curtas
1. Oxtail Bucatini with Oxtail Sauce (Le Cirque, at Bellagio) This Gregory Pugin dish looks like a plain, savory custard but unspools to reveal bucatini strands hiding insanely rich braised oxtail. It’s a meat dish made by angels with a devilish calorie count, and it might be the biggest umami bomb of the year.
2. Roasted Sea Bass over Arugula (Due Forni, 3555 S. Town Center Dr.) Take a talented Italian chef (Carlos Buscaglia) and give him an 800 degree oven and a juicy piece of branzino—in a minute or two he can turn out a crispy, succulent seafood wonder, atop a bed of tangy arugula sprinkled with capers. The best off-Strip seafood dish I had this year.
The Old Homestead is set to open for customers tomorrow night in Caesars Palace, and has been doing the friends and family thing for a couple of days now.
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And when there’s meat around, you can be sure Josh “The Maharaja of Meat” Ozersky will be nearby, testing the grinds, calibrating the cuts, assessing the seasonings and parsing the proteins for presumed perfection.
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When we caught up with him last night, that’s just what he was doing….when he wasn’t marveling over his newest, favorite book:
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We’ll be reporting more on our adventures in eating with Josh….but right now, it’s off to another meat-fest.