Category: Events

Culinary Luminaries Loom Large Over Vegas

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Nowhere on earth but Las Vegas has the economic and tourism horsepower to gather the likes of Joel Robuchon, Guy Savoy, Masa Takayama, Alain Ducasse, and Pierre Gagnaire — Michelin 3-star chefs all — in one place at one time for a photo op and press event like the one above.

But there they were last Thursday afternoon at miX at the top of THE Hotel in the Mandalay Bay to meet, kibbitz and be photographed by the press corps for the beginning of Vegas Uncork’d.

This year Ducasse saber’d the champagne for the official kickoff, ELV actually shook hands with Bobby Flay*, and Oscar Goodman finally admitted that food in general (and gourmet restaurants in particular) are something unique and wonderful about our humble burg — that even lasagna-lovin’, gin-swilling, populist politicians need to pay attention to.

As usual, the event got minimal-to-no coverage from the Review Journal — which seems to take some kind of perverse pride in ignoring the world-wide impact these chefs and restaurants have had on our town.

Pity.

For them, not the rest of us.

Because they don’t know what they’re missing.

* Not exactly a warm, I’ve missed you so bro-type of handshake, more like a “…we need to turn you around about my restaurant…” sort of greeting, followed by a “…okay dude, I’ll give it another chance…” pressing of the flesh.

ELV Brutally Attacked as Chefs Kickoff Uncork’d at Three Square!

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For all of the fun Vegas Uncork’d is for a local foodie, we would be remiss in our duties to our community and this most worthwhile charity, if we didn’t recognize its good works, and the donation of time and effort a number of notable local chefs made to help make sandwiches for the hungry as a kickoff for last week’s Vegas Uncork’d Presented by Bon Appetit.

It was all going soooo smoothly until David Werly, that heretofore amiable Alsatian, started channeling Andre Rochat (or perhaps Paymon) and brutally attacked ELV by attempting to strangle him, whilst a gaggle of gourmet talent stood by and…well…let’s just say they didn’t exactly LEAP to our defense.

Thank god Three Square Executive Director Julie “The Hammer” Murray was there to restore order and save our life.

And it was all because ELV tried to show Shawn McClain, Jean-Philippe Maury, Issac Carter, Martin Heierling and Rob Moore how to make a simple sandwich, but they just wouldn’t listen!

Geez Louise! We were just trying to help…

The good news is: no matter how…choke choke sniff sniff….bad the experience was, ELV is man enough not to go all Perez Hilton over it.

And he supposes a few meals at Le Cirque will be just the thing to soothe his shattered nerves.

A Religious Experience at RESTAURANT DANIEL

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It was, in a word, sublime. Perhaps the most ethereal restaurant experience we’ve ever had. Five grown men (including America’s greatest French chef) at one of the world’s greatest restaurants working their collective tails off for our culinary pleasure. Look up “once in a lifetime” in the foodie dictionary, and the pressed duck at Restaurant Daniel in New York City will be the picture beside the definition.

Alan Richman named this preparation one of his Top Five Dishes of the Year in January’s GQ, and he affectionately refers to the preparation as “muscular cuisine” instead of molecular — because, in fact, it takes a bit of elbow grease to squeeze all of those juices out of the heart, lungs, bones and carcass of the royal fowl that’s been freshly killed for your dinner. (This dish and the event surrounding it must be arranged in advance.)

Daniel Boulud told us that he rescued two presses from the estate of a Cleveland, Ohio gourmand who had bequeathed them to his daughter — who didn’t want them to end up as doorstops somewhere. As soon as Daniel heard about the presses, he knew he had to have them. He also knew a revival of this classic dish was just what his renovated restaurant needed for a bit of showmanship to go with its always superlative French food. (From what we can gather, any and all duck presses ever made are now antiques. No one makes them anymore and besides La Tour d’Argent in Gay* Paree, no one else makes this exalted dish either.)

Part of the awesomeness of the event comes from watching the entire room come to a halt as everyone gapes and stares at the performance. We were initially hesitant to whip out the old Nikon in such a swanky joint, but as soon as we did, a couple of well-heeled folks on the far side of seventy were right beside us, snapping away.

How did it taste? The meat was heavy with the taste of duck, only slightly gamy, not greasy or oily, and rich beyond belief. The sauce of course is the real star — an intense reduction (to say the least), deep purple-black-red in color, thickened with duck liver and finished with wine and eau de vie, and possessing a dimension of ducky-ness heretofore untasted by these buds. French food is about nothing as much as the extraction and intensification of flavors, and canard a la presse stands as Exhibit A, proving the point.

It is the closest we at ELV have ever come to a religious experience over food. You are at one with the duck that gave its life for yours; you are tasting all of it, and a communion of souls seems to take place as you pray and give thanks to the creature for allowing you such pleasure.

Barbaric you say? Maybe, but if god hadn’t wanted us to eat animals, she wouldn’t have made them taste so good.

* As in: fine, showy, frolicsome, mirthful, and given to pleasure.

RESTAURANT DANIEL

60 East 65th Street

New York, NY 10021

212.288.0033

www.danielnyc.com