BORDER GRILL

It may seem incongruous to some, but it’s pretty much a given that the two best Mexican restaurants In America are Topolobampo in Chicago (founded by chef/owner Rick Bayless — a guy from Oklahoma) and the Border Grill in Santa Monica (owned by a couple of gringo-white, California gals named Susan Feniger and Mary Sue Milliken). Why more chefs/restaurateurs don’t try to duplicate the passion for authenticity found in these two places is a puzzlement to ELV, but we’re just glad someone in America has brought faithful renditions of this marvelous cuisine north of the border.

Added non-food-related bonus: Thanks to a groovy re-design by assemblageStudio, you can now enjoy all this organic, true-to-its-roots food amongst rammed earth subsoil paneling (whatever the hell that is.) ELV is no arch-i-teck, but assemblageStudio’s Eric Strain (an Official Friend of ELV) is, and if he tells us this textured decor method (?) dates to the days of the Anasazi, we believe him and assume this must be a good thing.

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Sushi Jumps The Shark – on News 88.9 FM KNPR – Nevada Public Radio

SUSHI: WE HARDLY KNEW YEE (Part One)

Sushi jumped the shark a long time ago. It maintained a slice of its dignity throughout the ‘90’s, but by the turn of the century it crossed the pizza line, never to return to what it is supposed to be. I remember being amused the first time I saw sushi rolls (maki-zushi) in Trader Joe’s ten years ago, just as I recall being horrified when they became staples in the isles of Costco and Wal-Mart around 2005.

To hear me expound on this phenomenon on KNPR- Nevada Public Radio (rather than read the incisive and witty prose for which ELV is known)….click here.

Like pizza, sushi, in its native and best form, is about the combination of a few, pristine ingredients into something far greater than the sum of its parts. And like the cheap cheese, doughy, over laden bread concoction that pizza has become, sushi in America is now so far removed from whence it came that it can’t even remember its roots, much less try to respect them. And like pizza, the entire cult of raw fish has become so twisted that it no longer matters whether it’s any good or not.

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PIN KAOW THAI RESTAURANT

Pin Kaow isn’t our favorite Thai in town. In fact, it probably doesn’t even make our top five. But it’s been around for fifteen+ years and is very popular with Northwesterners and other Summerlin-like folk on that side of town. They recently opened two other branches — at South Rainbow and Robindale, and Eastern at I-215 — with identical menus, so we dropped in for the first time in a long time. FYI: Back in the day, when ELV was young, virile, voted Democratic, and often mistaken for any one of these guys, we were regulars.

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