Las Vegas Strip Archives — Page 2 of 7

Steer and Loathing in Las Vegas

June 22, 2023June 22, 2023

Any freak…can walk into the Circus-Circus and suddenly appear in the sky over downtown Las Vegas twelve times the size of God, howling anything that comes into his head. No, this is not a good town for psychedelic drugs.

There I was, standing at the entrance, of my own free will, and not on drugs. But they would’ve helped.

Had I lost a bet? Gotten waylaid on my way to CUT? What possible confluence of forces could’ve driven me to such an etiolated place when I’m surrounded by properties brimming with boffo beef?

Was I suffering from sentimentality. In such a malaise that my eternal quest for excellence was enervated?

The answer is more prosaic: I accepted a free-lance assignment to write about Vegas’s most iconic restaurants. And they don’t come much more well-known than THE Steakhouse at Circus Circus.

Thus did I voluntarily enter the one hotel on the Las Vegas Strip which is as appealing as a Wal-mart on payday, bumping elbows with strollers, snot-nosed monsters, and insundry trailer park refugees looking for a good time on the cheap. The one hotel that would cause nary a tear to be shed if it imploded tomorrow.

Counterintuitively, it may be because the Circus Circus is so shitty that this place thrives. For forty years patrons have come, seeking refuge from the surroundings — a dark enclave from the fear of cacophony and loathing of kiddies cavorting mere feet outside the entrance.

(Never give a sucker an even steak)

A little bit of this town goes a very long way. After five days in Vegas you feel like you’ve been here for five years.

If restaurants age in dog years, then THE Steakhouse at Circus Circus is 287 years old. All things considered, like yours truly, it looks pretty good for its age….at least when the lights are low.

When TSACC first opened in 1982 it was quite a sight. There was a meat locker beside the hostess stand when you could salivate over your sirloins. Then and now it was mostly for show, but at least hinted at dry-aging the beef — twenty years before most American steakhouses picked up the chant. Those were heady days to be sure, and tastier times lay ahead, but this was as good as it got in the early 80s and we were thrilled by it.

There was madness in any direction, at any hour. You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning.

Back then the possibilities for Vegas seemed endless, but it was still a cow town in more ways than one, and this brawny, plush restaurant hinted at a new era of steakhouse sophistication. The cozy bar, hanging beef, green leather booths, and birdbath-sized martini glasses were a revelation. As was an elevated wood-fueled fire pit where you could watch the steak chefs work their magic over spitting flames and smoke, while the smell of sweet/musky mesquite perfumed the beef and the room.

The dark, clubby, masculine vibe has remained intact and aged well and least when compared to most Eighties’ decors. (When it comes to good taste in design, THE Steakhouse is to Hugo’s Cellar what a filet is to a stale cheeseburger.)

No sympathy for the Devil, keep that in mind. Buy the ticket, take the ride.

It’s been at least five years since our last visit, and experience has taught us that these joints don’t change, but game we were, so gird our loins we did, paid the freight and took the ride.

Unsteady doesn’t describe the half of it.

Fear and loathing in las vegas gifs - fortunevica

Then and now, entrees came with soup, salad and sides, making them seem a relative bargain when compared to a la carte everything, which is now the template for all but the hoariest of emporiums. Back in the day, a forty buck steak could get to a hundy in a hurry when you factored in a complete meal. Now, the meat alone will set you back that much.

(We have a beef with prices that steak the bank)

Nostalgia is one thing, but sentimentality served with gouge is another. Yours truly considers himself practically impervious to price tag trauma these days, but those frozen lobster tails got our attention. As did $42 for four shrimp, and a “seafood sensation” of crab legs, oysters and shrimp that will set you back 183 clams.

While we’re at it, riddle me this: Where in this town would one go to eat an onion soup not tasting of onions? Topped with cheese so cheap it is not fit for a grade school lunchbox? Or a bean soup bereft of beans? (See below.)

(Cornstarch Circus)

Answer: A once venerated, long-in-the-tooth, union-staffed casino eatery which has been coasting on reputation for decades. Who else would have the crust to charge $178 for two lobster tails when one can be had, a la carte, for 78?

Answer: The same place confident enough in its clueless reviews) to charge $95 for a unseasoned porterhouse of dubious pedigree, served looking like it was hacked into portions with a butter knife:

(Past its prime)

“It’s like someone bought a supermarket steak and threw it on a grill and decided to charge 100 bucks for it.”- the quote of the evening.

Looking around the room one has to ask: Who, exactly, is gullible enough to pay these prices for dated, bland food in such a crummy hotel…for four decades?

We asked ourselves this throughout the meal, but kept eating. As disappointing as the meal was…we would be fools not to ride this strange torpedo all the way out to the end.

We had no choice. We were in too deep. It was either finish the meal or shoot the pasties off the nipples of a ten-foot bull-dyke and win a cotton-candy goat.

Fear And GIF - Fear And Loathing - Discover & Share GIFs | Fear and loathing, Fear, Cool gifs

So we plowed through, guided by a waiter who was professional, fast and friendly, and who even took the time to guide us to better deals on some side dishes and salads (it gets confusing when factoring in what comes with what).

Along the same lines, the wine list is priced for the clientele, not fools like the person typing these words, with lots of bottles well under a Benjamin.

And we found some things to like, like the baked crab cake ($27) that had it all over the gummy, bready one we had had the previous night at Vic & Anthony’s, and two salads (blue cheese wedge, and fresh spinach with (not-so) hot bacon dressing) which were decent enough to justify the $18 price tag. And the lamb chops ($78/two) made up for in taste what they lacked in presentation.

(Getting crabby at Circus Circus)

But when the final tally came ($640, including tax, tip and drinks) , we couldn’t defend it. The steak was just too plain and pathetic and so not-in-the-same-league as dozens of better ones on and off the Strip.

So now…years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark—that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.

The high water mark for 80s Vegas steaks was THE Steakhouse, which is the last time the moniker fit. Today it limps along — a once-proud restaurant stuck in a ground chuck of a hostelry from which there is no escape. Time has passed it by but no one has bothered to tell the chefs or the customers — a shared, convenient lie serving both sides, since neither seems to care. Walking into the ass end of the hotel to get there, it feels as if the whole infrastructure, casino, and customers are just waiting to be plowed under.

Old elephants limp off to the hills to die; old Americans go out to the highway and drive themselves to death with huge cars.

In 1983, we marveled at the operation, even if, or maybe because, it was surrounded by the most peculiar hotel in town. Las Vegas has always been a bizarre place. It will never go out of style because it was never in style. No matter how much it has been corporatized, standardized, and lobotomized, it remains a place of gargantuan, tacky hotels stuffed with people driving themselves to death by throwing hard-earned cash at unreachable dreams and mindless diversions.

THE Steakhouse was always a pleasant diversion. It may never have been in style, but it was always more stylish than the fleabag hotel surrounding it. Such was its strength. But the years rob us of vigor, and in old age, the penumbra of despair cannot be shed. Like all washed-up restaurants, it will continue opening the doors, night after night, overcharging for its goods and hoping nobody notices.

We noticed.

The List – February 2023

February 16, 2023June 21, 2023

(When influencers attack!)

If you have an appetite for life, stay hungry.

Such has been my mantra for 50 years. Half a century of searching for the best things to shove down the ole pie hole.

And apparently, I’m not done yet. Our new podcast — Eat. Talk. Repeat. (w/ Sam Mirejovsky and Ashley Watkins) — is keeping me busy most weeks, searching for good meals and food topics of interest. As long as someone is listening, I’ll still be flapping my gums.

Who am I kidding? I’d still be gasbagging away even if no one was around to hear me. At this point, I’m having fun eating what I want where I want when I want, and not being controlled by the dictates of putting out a guidebook (although that was a blast while it lasted), or paid-for writing gigs. Being on podcasts and not having to actually produce one is more fun than shooting monkeys in a barrel. Color me happy as a clam in linguine.

Along the same lines, I am determined to champion the great food of our Chinatown as long as I can pick up a chopstick. To that end, I’ve started an Asian Lunch Bunch with a few writers, influencers, and other Asian aficionados to figure out ways to help the best places along and around Spring Mountain Road, many of which do not have the savvy or wherewithal to do much marketing on their own. Suffice to say, when we invade, the food photogs are out in force (see pic at top of page).

It’s been nine years since I did a survey of every place along SMR. In 2014, there were 112 eateries up and down the three miles between Valley View and Rainbow. I’d venture the number has almost doubled since then. Shanghai Plaza alone has almost twenty restaurants in it, and several other strip malls have popped up in the past few years — each studded with eateries from all over the Pacific Rim.

If there’s a food scene for which Las Vegas should be famous in the 2020’s, it should be this one. The Strip (with a few exceptions) has become more boring than a Donny and Marie concert. It’ll be interesting to see what Fontainbleau brings to the party, but when Martha Stewart, Peter Luger (a 136 year old brand) and the Voltaggio Brothers (whoever they are) are the best you can do, you’re just milking the old cows for all they’re worth. And as much as we love Vetri Cucina, Balla, Cipriani, and Brezza (and have had nice experiences at Amalfi by Bobby Flay and RPM), if one more Italian opens to a bunch of forced fanfare, I’m gonna commit seppuku with a splintered chopstick.

As usual, every place listed has been visited by me recently (and by recently I mean the last six weeks), and all places come highly recommended unless otherwise noted.

THE LIST

Vetri Cucina –

Best Italian in town. Don’t even think about arguing with me about this.

Need proof? Here ya go:

Osteria Fiorella –

(Pistachio > pineapple on pizza)

Sorta like Vetri-lite, but still damn tasty at a friendlier price point, with outdoor seating and the same great cocktails and wine. The weird-looking pizza above (mortadella/capicola with pistachios) raised an eyebrow when ordered but then sent a shiver down our spine when we tasted it. Marc Vetri’s food will do that to you.

Sparrow + Wolf –

(Don’t try this at home)

Brian Howard’s food can astonish, and it can confuse, but it’s always damn tasty, vividly composed and never boring. Witness the gnocchi with sweetbreads above — garnished and sauced to a fare thee well.

The Daily Bread –

(You dough’nt want to miss this)

Go early. go often, for the best artisanal baked goods you’ll ever taste next to a fake lake.

Chengdu Taste –

(Not-as-innocent-as-they-look lamb skewers)

The best of Szechuan, tucked away behind Spring Mountain Road and impossible to get into at dinner. Pro tip: Go early for lunch — like around 11:30.

Pro tip #2: Bring a crowd. This food is best enjoyed family-style with 3-6 folks at a table.

Pro tip #3: Bring a firehose (see below).

(Asbestos-lined palate required)

Sen of Japan –

(Oh, the salad days of ‘o7)

(Uni’d to try this omakase)

A granddaddy among our sushi mainstays. Still brings the goods and always comforting, always welcoming, even if it doesn’t compete (or try to match) the higher end Japanese joints opening up everywhere these days. The $100 omakase is a steal.

Marché Bacchus –

(Bradley O. has his work cut out for him)

Bradley Ogden has taken the helm of one of the toughest gigs in town. He’s not ready to retire and has a kitchen expansion (sorely needed) and menu upgrade in mind. Restaurants are like sharks: they have to constantly move forward or die. If Ogden can pull it off, he’ll have a Great White on his hands.

PublicUs –

(Salmon-chanted breakfast toast)

First-class coffee; house-baked savories and sweets; incredible bread; never a misstep for nine straight years. And me and The Food Gal® come here, all. the. time. PublicUs is a downtown phenomenon: a major success in a location that defines the term “challenging.” But its customers know quality when they taste it and this place never fails to deliver the goods.

Pro tip: Breakfast is faster than lunch, but both can be maddeningly slow at peak times (they make everything to order and slowness is the price you pay). Go early or go elsewhere if you’re in a hurry. Or show up Sunday mornings at 7:00 am like we do and be the first in line.

ShangHai Taste –

(Las Vegas Fill-ing up)

We don’t get into “Who has the best xiao long bao?” debates. Soup dumplings are like sex: the worst we ever had was still pretty good. (Funny how women never agree with this statement.) That said, these are the best, and Jimmy and Jeng Li are two of Chinatown’s treasures.

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We temporarily interrupt this food blog bloviation for a….Nusr-Et v. Yukon Pizza BURGER THROWDOWN!

How do you take your burgers? Thick and juicy and dripping with onion jam:

(Be my burger bae?)

….or are you more of a griddled, smashburger kinda person?

(Smashing)

However you grind it, these two beauts will take your breath away. Nusr-et’s at $32 is a wonder of barely-held-together, fatty wagyu, slicked with fat and dripping with beefy intensity. Yukon’s double-burger ($14) took me straight back the Steak ‘N Shake steakburgers of my youth, and with its house-made pickles, American cheese, grilled onions and sweet/tangy sauce is the last word in ground Maillard-reactive meat umami.

We’ve pitted these two meat patties against each other in our head for weeks, and can’t decide on a winner. Nusr-et is open for lunch and is always empty, so your burger will get special attention if you’re the only one in the joint. Yukon is open for service continu (as the Frogs say) every day but Monday and Tuesday, and has been a hit from the jump, so you’ll have to either call ahead or elbow your way in. Good luck solving this delicious connundrum.

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Yukon Pizza –

(A crust above)

Best dim sum? Top burger? Pizza wars? Who cares? The only thing that counts is quality, and Yukon has it in spades. The tiny space (seating about a dozen, tops) has been crowded every moment since it opened with pizza hounds who know a properly blistered and charred cornicione when they taste one. Between the pies and the burger, I’m going to have trouble keeping The Food Gal® away from this place.

Those Guys Pies –

Come for the pizza; stay for the cheesesteak. Actually, there’s no staying at The Lakes location — it’s take-out only.

Consumer warning: the “Pizza Margherita” should renamed Pizza Garlicrita — best eaten alone or far away from any sentient human beings.

Manizza’s Pizza –

Ash Watkins said this pizza ranked 37th in the United States on Yelp’s list of “Best Pizzas in America” (#eyeroll), so we had to trek out to the southwest to taste for ourselves. Yelp rankings always smack of paid-for advertising, and this joint is obviously playing the game. It’s a decent facsimile of a deck oven New York slice and that’s about it. (#Yelpsucks)

Prime Steakhouse –

What doesn’t suck is this grand dame — still, after 25 years, the prettiest steakhouse in America. The menu’s barely changed in that time, and the tuna tartare is way too cold and the mixed “Greek” salad not that great and the crab cake too deep fried…but we still hold it dear to our hearts…mainly because the steaks and the sauces (and the Parmesan-crusted chicken) still tickle our fancy:

Jamon Jamon Tapas –

We’re sad about Chef Rafael moving his hard-to-find ode to Spanish cuisine all the way to Henderson, but we’ll be happy for him if he finds a more appreciative audience out there. His food is an exquisite rendering of the best of Spain, with paellas like you won’t find anywhere not named Jaleo. He plans on moving at the end of April, so get your jamon Iberico fix in now before he disappears into the wilds of Boulder Highway.

Weera Thai (3 locations) –

The new one on south Rainbow is stunning (above). The slightly older one in Chinatown is a smaller version and the perfect venue to tuck into some roast duck pad Thai or pumpkin red curry. The original on west Sahara is no less popular, and between the three of them, you’re never too far from some incendiary Khua Kling, bone broth soup, or a ginormous pork shank:

Balla –

If Vetri Cucina tops them all these days, Shawn McClain’s Balla is running a close second. It’s menu isn’t quite as adventurous and the setting is not as dramatic, but it’s easier to get to, the short wine list is a knockout, and everything from the artichokes to the bomboloni (above) tastes like they were imported from Rome. The wood-fired veal Milanese and lamb tartare are not to be missed. This old beet hater even found something to like for McClain’s beets — dripping with agrodolce (a sweet/sour dressing) and festooned with mint and hazelnuts.

After two visits, we can’t wait for a third.

Main Street Provisions –

Patrick Munster is killing it with a gutsy menu that fits downtown like a hipster’s fedora.

Toscana Ristorante & Bar –

(Come to Pappa al pomodoro)

There are so many great Italians in town right now, hauling one’s ass to the far reaches of whatever they’re calling the Monte Carlo these days to eat makes about as much sense as putting your paycheck on double-aughts at roulette. Regardless, haul our sizeable arse we did to Eataly for a San Marzano tomato tasting that confirmed why I stopped going to press events ten years ago.

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For the record: the tomatoes were great (see the pappa al pomodoro above) and the restaurant perfectly fine, but putting out 100+ plates of the same, tepid food at the same time is no way to deliver pasta…or rice. Risotto waits for no one, and is almost impossible to serve at volume. Most of the crowd didn’t notice the gumminess though — they were just happy to be eating for free.

Raku –

(Spring Mountain superstars)

For my money, Raku is Las Vegas’s greatest restaurant — a chopstick-dropping combination of precise cooking, authentic recipes, pristine ingredients, and unwavering consistency…for fifteen years. Strictly for Japanese fanatics, though. Raku is not the place to ooh and aah over enormous slabs of A-5, or tuna the size of a canoe. Everything is about subtlety and precision here. If you don’t like your fish with eyeballs, look elsewhere. I’ve never had a bad meal at Raku; I’ve never even had a bad bite. If there is such a thing as an exquisite izakaya, this is it.

We broke the story on social media a couple of weeks ago about Mitsuo Endo taking over the convenience store fifty feet away from Raku’s front door, and turning it into a “members only” omakase restaurant with only eight seats. We intend to be a member.

Serrano’s Mexican Food –

Everyone should have a default Mexican hole-in-the-wall and this one is ours. Nothing super special, just solid renditions of chilaquiles and a nice Mexican pizza (above).

Mg Patisserie –

…where Michael Gillet runs the cutest little French pastry shop in all of Vegas — hand-crafting the best of France all by his lonesome in a spot which is too good for its location.

Yen Viet Kitchen –

Vietnamese food tastes maddeningly the same to us, no matter what the restaurant. Or so we thought, until we took one sip of the cleanest, clearest, most intensely rich broth in our Bún Bò Hué (above) we’ve encountered up and down SMR. Shockingly good, and the perfect antidote to the same old same old pho parlor. P.S. the Banh xeo (a huge crispy turmeric rice flour pancake) was a show-stopper as well. As are the soups. All of them.

Carson Kitchen

We hit CK at the very end of last year to give its new menu a spin. There wasn’t a clinker in the bunch as we plowed through grilled oysters (above), roasted cauliflower, wild boar tacos, and a crispy, deeply succulent sandwich most foul which we called “Kentucky Fried Duck.” A new expansion has opened an outdoor patio in the back of the restaurant, but we think a seat at the six-person bar is still the way to go. CK has always been too industrial (and too loud) for our tastes, but there’s no denying the talent in the kitchen. This new menu reminds us of why it was love at first bite, almost nine years ago.

Esther’s Kitchen –

(Our usual at EK)

“That place is so crowded no one goes there anymore,” is our favorite saying about this place. Can you believe it’s been five years since James Trees started the Arts District culinary revolution? People who says it’s lost its fastball don’t know what they’re talking about. The can get slammed, putting both the kitchen and bar in the weeds, but when the drinks and dishes show up, all is forgiven.

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And now for something completely different. | Monty Python | Know Your Meme

For the umpteenth time in the past four decades, I tried to find something to like about Filipino food. Hungry as hell one day last month, I scurried over to some rando roach coach near City Hall and walked away with this pork belly sisig:

…hoping against hope to find some appealingly porky rice with which to sate my hunger. What I found was some sour, off-tasting melange of chopped veg and protein bits which seriously detracted from a fine slice of crisp, fatty belly. The thick, dull lumpia didn’t help the cause, nor did waiting almost 20 minutes for my order…when I was the only one in line. At this point, I’ve concluded most food found in the Philippines was conceived on a dare, and the reason Filipinos are so skinny is they never overeat, for good reason. Or maybe to get the good stuff you have to go to someone’s home. Either way, include me out.

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Let’s end on a high note, shall we? Rather than dwell on Filipino food fails, let us celebrate the best service staff in Las Vegas, and some squid:

Cipriani –

(The Dream Team)

Everyone knows the service at Cipriani is the tits….but we wouldn’t be there multiple times a month if it weren’t for dishes like this:

https://twitter.com/eatinglasvegas/status/1620236917131587590?s=20&t=bl5sbwFOZ7WH3Cafm1U65A

Squid ink risotto (Risotto al Nero di Seppia), may not be everyone’s cup of cephalopod, but it’s as faithful to the flavors of Venice as a gondola.

Latest Wait What GIFs | Gfycat

Regardless of mixed metaphors, the fact remains that the Big C puts out the best lunch in Vegas. You find me a better one and I’ll come to your restaurant three times a month, too.

At my age, I’m too old to eat in mediocre restaurants anymore, and at my age, can you blame me?

Cheers!

(Luxury looks good on me, even if I can’t afford it)

52 Things I Know I Know…and Some I Wish I Didn’t Know

August 11, 2022August 25, 2022

(Wagyu coming soon to an Outback near you)

1) I know that Main Street Provisions ought to be my favorite restaurant but isn’t, and this makes me sad. There, I said it.

2) I know the only seafood worth eating on the regular is at Japanese restaurants.

3) I know that chicken parm in any guise sucks donkey dicks and anyone who says otherwise is a prole-pandering know-nothing who touts it simply for clicks from hicks who get their licks and their kicks from endless breadsticks.

4) I know that anyone who stands in line to eat food standing up is a fool.

5) Enough with the hot honey already.

6) When it comes to French bistros, Bouchon has it all over Mon Ami Gabi (which hasn’t changed its menu since Bill Clinton was President).

7) The days of the $15 cocktail are deader than Siegfried & Roy.

8) I don’t care how good you think Din Tai Fung is. It’s a chain and isn’t worth the indignity of trying to dine there. Aria parking bullshit, lines, reservations, and selfie walls…screw that noise. It’s goddamn dim sum, not haute cuisine. BONUS NEGATIVITY ALERT! It’s also full of white girls and FOMO Instagrammers…but I repeat myself.

9) I know that the best murder’s row of restaurants these days is at Resorts World. With better marketing, it could be to the 2020s what the Bellagio was to the early aughts.

10) Prepare yourselves for bread and butter charges (à la 1965). With accountants now running things on the Strip, the nickel and dime-ing will soon creep into your bill faster than a $78 bottle of water:

(Lap dances much cheaper)

11) The better the hotel, the better the restaurants. (Exception: the Sahara – a meh of a hotel housing one of America’s greatest steakhouses: Bazaar Meat.)

12) This whole kaiseki thing must be stopped before it gets out of hand. What was once special (A-5 wagyu, o-toro, uni...) has become so over-hyped and commonplace that it will soon be overrun by the sushi-bro crowd — dudes who didn’t know their unagi from their anago four years ago — douchenozzles who ten years ago were throwing down five-hundy on vodka in hopes of getting laid. Now they’re invading our better sushi bars and harshing my mellow. F**k sushi bros with a splintered chopstick.

(I am not your bro, bro)

13) Money (the pursuit thereof) and marketing ruins everything in food.

14) There is absolutely no reason to go to the Strip for Japanese anymore.

15) If you want great sushi the way it was meant to be (sliced by dedicated chefs without pretension) head to Sushi Hiroyoshi on west Charleston, or Sushi Hiro on south Eastern, or the granddaddy of our Vegas scene, Yui Edomae Sushi. The first will remind you of a Shibuya hole-in-the wall, the latter two may have the best selection of fish in town. Kabuto is so crowded, no one goes there anymore.

16) I know I am rediscovering my passion for home cooking, and still retain some skillz taught to me by the master teachers of the late 20th Century: Julia Child, James Beard, Craig Claiborne, Pierre Franey, Marcella Hazan (in person) Jacques Pepin (ditto), and others. In gleaning through old cookbooks, I also remembered how terrible most chef cookbooks are (exception(s): Wolfgang Puck and Jamie Oliver – whose books are remarkably straightforward, tasty and easy to follow). Famous restaurant cookbooks are even worse. This little veal roast (from Featherblade Craft Butchery, natch) with a tarragon-mustard sauce was whipped up in about an hour:

(Boy’z got skillz)

(Just say no to sauce dots and smudges)

17) I am so over pizza it isn’t even funny. Wanna go get a pizza?

18) I wish Japaneiro were closer to my house.

19) I wish Jamon Jamon had more customers.

20) I know the boom in Spanish food (in Vegas) has reached peak tapas. Probably in the rest of the U.S. as well.

21) You officially have my permission to stop caring about the restaurants in the Bellagio.

22) I know Noodlehead is the restaurant you go to when China Mama is packed to the rafters. What it lacks in size and variety it makes up for in (Chinese) pasta punch and tasty skewered fish balls:

(Ballsy)

23) I know that restaurants need to give up their addiction to branzino and find another easy-to-pronounce pisces: Orange Roughy, Chilean sea bass, etc… to sell for the sake of upscale fish fanciers.

24) I know I hate summer truffles and you should too. Summer truffles bring nothing to the party but the name.

25) I know that the minute you see an AYCE sign go up at a restaurant, they are serving the cheapest, shittiest food money can buy.

26) The whole restaurant-cum-nightclub thing (Tao, STK, et al) is so cheugy it hurts. (Look it up.)

27) So is caviar on everything.

28) If you find yourself scratching your head over the weird similarity in menus (roasted Brussels sprouts, fried cauliflower, yellowtail crudo, tuna tartares here, salmon, chicken, steak there, always concluding with a smattering of vegan/vegetarian (to appease those with fear of food)….welcome to the club:

(Chou-fleur is so ten minutes ago)

29) Face it: mezcal sucks. It doesn’t suck as much as natural wine, but it blows as much as Moby Dick.

30) Casa Playa is terrible just like I told you it would be.

31) Viva! by Ray Garcia in Resorts World pretty much kicks every Mexicans’ ass in town.

32) Thankfully, no one is inviting me to whiskey-food pairing dinners anymore. Whiskey and food go together like hot fudge and monkfish.

33) I know I am, in every restaurant I enter, usually the oldest person in the room. Which leads me to ask: What happened to all the Boomers? Are they home sipping supper through a straw? Door Dashing every dinner? Consuming all calories on the couch? We are the generation that put T.G.I. Fridays and its ilk on the map, but we also sowed the seeds, 40 years ago, of the food revolution that brought better cooking to all corners of America. Instead of reaping our just desserts, we’ve become a generation of house-bound retirees consuming pre-chewed food in-between Netflix and Fox News updates. Or even worse: we’re cruising our way to god’s waiting room. I blame the Great Recession of 2008-2012, which legitimized hard surfaces, cheap seating, and military jet afterburner noise levels — all in the name of creating a “party atmosphere” — ALL of which came at the expense of comfort. Covid only made things worse. Now it seems, an entire generation is in hiding…or perhaps just seeking peace and quiet before we’re shown the door:

34) We are more excited about Half-Bird opening than anything on the Strip.

35) Awkward, but those who go to very popular (and entertaining) Twitter feeds like Vital Vegas and Las Vegas Locally for food recommendations always read like people with no taste asking people with no palate to send them to places with no clue. I rest my case.

36) I know that I don’t know what’s going on at Eater Vegas and barely care. Apparently I am still blocked from the Twitter feed, even though the previous (hideous) human in charge is long gone. I’ve asked the current custodian to unblock me because I sincerely want it/her to succeed and do some good for our food scene.

37) I know you shouldn’t sleep on Vic & Anthony’s as your go-to downtown steakhouse. The food is solid, the wine list full of finds, and there’s none of that celebrity-touting bullshit to put up with. (Ed. note: I don’t give a shit how many celebrities eat at your restaurants. Celebrities don’t go to great restaurants; they go to places where they’ll be treated like bigshots. Celebrities and good food go together like lamb and tuna fish. On Strip, don’t forget Delmonico — it is huge but welcoming, and open on weekends (Fri.-Sun.) for lunch, with a great bar and a winning wine list.

38) I know I like the food at Carson Kitchen but hate the atmosphere — beautiful food (like this terrific tempura) served in a cold, impersonal setting which has not improved with age (its or mine):

(Hot food, cold decor)

39) I know I’m back to eating Indian again (dots not feathers), thanks to Mt. Everest India’s Cuisine.

40) I know if there’s a restaurant in the ‘burbs I wish I ate at more often, it is probably Khoury’s:

(Khoury’s knows how to mezze around)

41) I know that I’m still waiting for the menu at Marché Bacchus to be more ambitiously French. But I never tire of going there.

42) Some days I’d give a digit for a decent green chile cheeseburger.

43) I know dipping a bunch of stuff in a hot pot until it all comes out tasting the same is an Asian thing I will never understand. Nor do I wish to.

(The X-Pot packs ’em in)

44) Live fire cooking is overdone and overrated and you know it.

45) So is yellowtail crudo.

46) So are chef pop-up dinners.

47) There are still gems aplenty in Chinatown, but it’s in danger of being overrun by corporate Korean and cookie-cutter Vietnamese.

48) I know that the ghosts of Joël Robuchon, Marcella Hazan, and Pierre Troisgros could reappear with whisks in hand and you still couldn’t get me to eat at that sorry, saddle-sore lowbrow bastion of the faux-cowboy crowd known as the Mount Charleston Lodge.

49) Stop eating food in quotes, i.e., some reshaped chemical experiment pretending to be something you remember from childhood — ersatz edibles that aren’t what they call themselves — all done in service of tricking you into eating them. Fake bacon, cheese made of nut paste, “milk” made of soy juice, “chicken” that isn’t chicken, impossible burgers….just how stupid are you? The question answers itself. F**k you and your fraudulent, dumbass, politically correct fake food diet with a lamb shank.

(Vegan “butchers” are a thing, people)

50) For the 10,000th time: tipping is sexist, classist, racist, and elitist. And probably a dozen other ists which I can’t think of right now. If you’re in favor of tipping, you are buttressing the evil confederacy of cheapskate restaurant owners and self-serving servers — neither of whom give a damn about anything but the bottom line in their pocket. As Wendell Berry once said, “Eating is a political act,” and your attitudes about tipping have far-reaching consequences for society. Choose one: Am I a selfish asshole? Or someone who believes in fairness? It’s that simple. You’re welcome.

51) Yu-Or-Mi Sushi has gotten scary good. You heard it here first:

(Spooky sushi)

52) I wish I didn’t know that the foodie explosion of the past forty years is inversely proportional to the sustainability of life on this planet. What we have gained in the knowledge and enjoyment of better food has been devastating to our climate and the species we rely upon for our proteins. And by “we” I mean middle and upper-income Americans, Europeans, and Asians.

Every time you eat a piece of sushi, cheap salmon, free-range filet, or Chick-Fil-A, you are contributing to the unholy union, and devastating effects, of human avarice and appetite. True Beluga caviar does not exist anymore because short-term greed triumphed over long term husbandry. Tuna and who knows how many other fish will be next. Chicken dinners used to be special. Now we raise and kill them by the billions to feed our ever-hungry maws. As a species, we are addicted to cheap eats and advertising, and every living thing on the planet is suffering for it.

I have been fortunate in my life to taste the best meat and poultry money can buy. I’ve eaten oysters straight from the Bay of Mont Saint-Michel and striped bass right off a Nantucket boat. (Once you’ve tasted a proper king salmon, in season, in the Pacific Northwest, you’ll never again order it anywhere else.) I’ve had wild game and elusive birds brought to my table by chefs who bought them that morning from the hunters who claimed them. My fork has torn at the sweet, gamy well-traveled flesh of langoustines and wild turbot, flown 6,000 miles from their source for my amusement. Fromages fit for a king have sated my taste buds, just miles from where they were made. But it is all to end soon and I know it.

Flavorless truffles will soon be as ubiquitous as Portobellos. Japan now makes “scotch” whisky. China is getting into the wine game, and what they produce will be passable, but not as good as those they seek to imitate. Uni from Hokkaido or Santa Barbara used to be a treat reserved for those in the know. Pretty soon someone will figure out how to farm them and they’ll appear at Red Lobster. (Okay, maybe that’s an analogy too far, but you get my point.)

Regardless, in a couple more centuries, humans will have used up the animals that have sustained us for millions of years. Overfishing destroyed the Atlantic cod stocks in half a century, probably never to return. We should be ashamed of ourselves but lust and commerce do not allow for such reflection. We are destined to be vegetarians and vegans (as soon as they figure out a proper food replacement for animal protein), and I’m kinda glad I won’t be around to see it.

So the last thing I know I know is to enjoy the earth’s cornucopia of great taste while we still can. Because soon enough, this dude will be making all the rules:

Bon appétit!

Being John Curtas

Category: Las Vegas Strip

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The List – February 2023

52 Things I Know I Know…and Some I Wish I Didn’t Know

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