It took me almost two years but I finally did it: forced myself to eat in every one of Las Vegas’s venerable establishments. The oldest restaurants in town. Those slices of history that have hung on for decades, bucking trends and stemming tides.
And you know what I found?
They’re all terrible.
Not terrible terrible as in inedibly terrible, but so dated, shopworn and threadbare that there is no appreciable culinary reason to go to any of them.
Besides being a fun read about the birth of a food writer, Fuschia Dunlop’s Shark’s Fin and Sichuan Pepper: A Sweet-Sour Memoir of Eating in China is a great primer on the glories of Szechuan cooking.
An unabashed fan of the Szechuan province (she considers it the ne plus ultra of Chinese cuisine) her book explores everything from the tongue-numbing effect of those mysterious peppercorns, to the Chinese propensity to eat “everything that flies except an airplane, and everything with four legs except the table.”
We’ve been hearing the rumors about China Mama for a couple of years now.
“Not as good as it used to be.”
“Nothing like it once was.”
“Fallen way off.”
“They’re using store bought, frozen xiao long bao, now.”
And on and on it has gone, with most of these reports coming in from our regs, loval readers, and other trusted foodie friends.