Category: Las Vegas

Summertime Blues – Top 10 Things We Love to Hate

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I was going to do my usual “My Summer Sucks” post about how much I loathe July and August in Las Vegas, but since the whole world is turning into a listicle, I thought the coward’s way out was easier. Of course we call this a “Top Ten” list because, 1)  that is the most eye-catching title for those infected with Tik Tok brain; and, 2) because these days most adults under 40 can’t count above that number.

Regardless, we’ve thrown in a few extras for your dissection, derision, discussion and delectation…

So here they are, my Top 10(?) Love/Hate lists of the Summer of ’23:

THE HATE LIST (General Opprobrium Division)

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(Ambient loathing, on an Herculean scale, of things that make us want to swallow a hot coal whenever they come into our field of vision.)

1. Politics

2. Grown men who wear baseball caps backwards

3. Anyone who thinks Adam Sandler is funny

4. The U.S. Women’s Soccer Team

5. Pharmaceutical ads

6. Barbra Streisand

7. Any movie/TV show where they shoehorn a polyamorous, multicultural, trisexual relationship into the plot because they think the viewers are too stupid to notice they’re being patronized

8. Awards shows

9. Any country music made after 1977

10. Sports betting

11. The for-profit American medical system

Of course these are just the tip of the iceberg. Time and space does not allow for the hundreds of other grievances which conspire to ruin our good nature every day. To hear them, you’ll have to tune into our podcast: Eat. Talk. Repeat. every Friday for whatever “Pet Peeve of the Week” has appeared with enough frequency to hinder our appetite for life.

THE HATE LIST (Culinary Division)

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(Don’t get me started about…)

1. People who use coffee shops as offices

2. Women who eat with their tits

3. Chefs with flamethrowers

4. Caviar bumps

Image(I sentence thee to death roe)

5. Summer truffles

6. Natural wine

7. Tweezer food

8. Picky eaters

9. Chicken Parm

10. Dogs in restaurants

11. Music in restaurants

12. Eardrum-piercing restaurants

14. Restaurants flaunting “charity work” as a disguise for advertising

16. J. Kenji López-Alt

17. Culinary awards (unless I’m bestowing them)

18. Cooking competition shows (unless I’m appearing in them)

19. Influencers who refer to mignonette sauce as “minuet sauce” and have either never heard of Wolfgang Puck, or are taken unawares by anyone having such a first name. (“His real name is Wolfgang?” — at the 25:33 and 56:00 minute mark of this Las Vegas Fill podcast if you are interested.)

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And if I see one more video of a gargantuan lobster tail being hauled through a wheelbarrow of butter, I’m going to stick a fork in my eye.

20.  Smoked cocktails

21. QR Code menus

21. Fat people in tight clothes

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But let us not dwell on negativity, nor lead ourselves into tempestuousness, but rather, deliver you from evil and days hotter than doughnut grease at a fat man convention.

In other words, let us find what little solace we can among the simple pleasures and tender mercies of everyday life by accentuating the positive…

THE LOVE LIST (Culinary Division)

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1. Chef-owned restaurants

2. French pastries made by French persons

3. Jewish delis owned by Jews

4. Cheese shops

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5. Tablecloths and cotton napery

6. Menus on chalkboards

7. Old restaurants

8. Eating seafood within a few miles of an ocean

9. The writings of Joseph Wechsberg, A. J. Liebling, M.F.K. Fisher, Seymour Britchky, Calvin Trillin, Jacques Pepin, Alan Richman, John Mariani, Marina O’Loughlin, Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, Waverly Root…just to name a few

10. The uncompromising excellence of Japanese restaurants run by Japanese

11. Barbecue in the Deep South cooked by guys named Virgil, Leroy or Sonny eaten at picnic tables off paper plates with paper towels while meat juices drip off your chin and fat congeals in your blood while your fingers get so stained with bbq soot they smell like fatback ribs for a week

THE LOVE LIST (Everyday Life Edition)

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1. Cafe-sitting in France

2. Arrested Development/Reno 911 – the two funniest TV shows of the past 20 years

3. People who refuse to apologize just because they said something that offended somebody

4. Walking for miles in great cities where there’s always something to look at.

5. Walking for miles along a beach where there’s nothing to look at but the water and sand

6. Hitting golf balls

7. Talking to my kids

8. Traveling with my wife

9. Parties at my house

10. A fine meal with close friends in a good restaurant in a foreign city

11. Jimmy Carter

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Summertime in Vegas is the inversion of winter in Wisconsin: the weather is too nasty to do much outdoors, so the best we/you can do is hunker down for a few months until the heat breaks for good, usually in late-September.

Until then, the sidewalks are too hot to touch, there’s nothing good on TV, all the good sports are over, and hotels are overrun with bargain-hunting tourists dragging little no-neck monsters up and down the Strip in search of yard-long margaritas and cut-rate entertainment.

August is pretty much a shitty month everywhere, but particularly so in the dustiest, driest, least green place in America. Summertime might be glorious in other parts of the world — where people flock to pursuits al fresco — but here it is something to endure or escape.

Take us home, Eddie:

THE END

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Steer and Loathing in Las Vegas

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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.

Image(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.

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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.

Image(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.)

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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:

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“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.

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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.

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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.

Late-Stage Las Vegas + The List

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Writers take their muses wherever they find them. The inspiration for this post came from James Reza — longtime Las Vegan, once my editor; now a thoughtful observer of all things Vegas — in a tweet about the possibility of the Oakland Athletics moving to town:

Which got me to thinking about “late-stage” culinary Las Vegas.

Just where are we now? And what do we have to look forward to?

The Strip — long the economic and creative engine of all things gastronomic in town — has faded into a hangout for Martha Stewart fans and Voltaggio Brothers cash grabs. (For what is a “one-year year culinary residency” but a way to monetize an  unusable space (the two-story vacated Aureole cavern) with the unimaginative (“Retro”) from the unimpressive (who?). We couldn’t be less interested if they were serving spaghetti Os and fake Parmesan, which, of course, they will be.

These places will make money of course, but they won’t leave a mark. Swapping an Old Navy for a Gap in a tired old mall is not the same as bringing Neiman-Marcus and Nordstrom’s to town in the first place.

“I am so done with the Strip,” exclaimed another muse for this article. The speaker of those words wasn’t some local jamoke who hates being charged for parking. He has been a fixture on Las Vegas Boulevard South for decades — opening multiple restaurants in hotels going back to the Nineties. Now he envisions a future for his company opening smaller venues for locals who appreciate them — something unthinkable a decade ago.

Strip-quality food coming to neighborhoods is nothing new: You can trace its roots from Other Mama’s premium seafood to our upscale sushi parlors and to the prime cuts now available at 138 Degrees (Henderson) and Harlo (Summerlin). With this quality comes Strip-level pricing, but from where we’re sitting, no one in the carriage trade seems to be balking at $100/pp check minimums.

Chinatown (where a 75 seat restaurant is considered huge) continues to explode, while the southwest seems to be attracting chefs and concepts like eggs to Bearnaise.

All of which bodes well for locals, and marginalizes whatever is happening on the Strip, at least for those of us who used to be in awe of the restaurant revolution that took place there for twenty years.

Will we trundle up to Caesars to see the new Peter Luger when it opens? Sure, if only to compare it to the New York original. (If things run true to form, the menu will be laughably short, the wine list absurdly brief, and the staff comically rude.)

But Luger and the Voltaggios and even Martha Stewart — the octogenarian queen of brand-whoring — pretty much signal that the celebrity chef restaurant has run its course. And if they weren’t enough to convince me, then septuagenarian Martin Yan’s bad joke of a licensing deal should do the trick…and demonstrates how deeply we are scraping the bottom of the celebrity chef barrel.

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You probably have to be over fifty to remember Yan from his  “Yan Can Cook” PBS days. Perhaps once he could, but no longer. Now he’s prostituting his brand like a pint-sized Martha Stewart, keeping accountants happy and his rice bowl full at our expense. I doubt any of the low-rollers in this charm-free dining space even know who Yan was, except in a “this guy used to be famous” kind of way. Regardless, he’s been reduced to going through the motions to cash in on a faded name and the cynicism behind the whole enterprise is palpable.

Here is my Instagram rant on the matter and we’ll leave it at that.

As an official old-timer, it is easy to get depressed about the direction in which Vegas is heading. F1! NFL! Super Bowls and Baseball! Late-stage Vegas has morphed before our eyes from a town of gambling, food, and music into the mega-event capital of America. Las Vegas used to be about wicked fun and excess….then it was food and shopping. Its future will be all about advertising.

The idea of a big hotel opening with a lounge and a showroom and six good restaurants now seems as quaint as a flip phone.  Old time casino table games don’t count anymore, anymore than washed up brands still trying to cash in.

Perhaps the Fountainebleau will kick start a new dawn in Vegas dining. Hope springs eternal. And there are still many, many legacy restaurants occupying a special place in our hearts (Milos, Jaleo, Robuchon, Delmonico, Savoy, Bazaar Meat…) plus a few new ones which rate a return (Balla, Viva!, Brezza….)…but lord help me if I ever step foot in The Horseshoe again. (True fact: You can put lipstick on a pig and it will always be Bally’s.)

Soooo….long story short, after the Yan disaster, I needed a series of superb experiences to inspire me to post yet another promiscuous purview of my palate pursuits….so here it is, for the umpteenth time in a row, THE LIST: the places in Las Vegas you should be eating in and why. Put another way: the places I’ve been eating and why they give me hope for the future of Las Vegas.

As usual, all venues come highly recommended unless otherwise noted:

1228 Main

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Image(One banana-mint blueberry martini comin’ up!)

How can we be so jazzed about a restaurant before it opens? Easy peasy when it has the pedigree of this one. The folks who brought you Spago, CUT, Lupo, et al are about to change the downtown game in ways unimaginable a half-decade ago: three meals a day; an on premise bakery; world-class desserts; Cal-Ital-French menu (like the one that made Wolfgang Puck famous); remarkable coffee; casual lunches and serious dinners — this will be like nothing Main Street has ever seen.

To be clear: This is not a Wolfgang Puck restaurant, but he is an investor, and his major league kitchen talent is behind the project. We expect this rising tide to raise all boats, and finally turn Main Street into the dining destination it was destined to become. (East Fremont must be watching and weeping.)

Opening at the end of the month. Now if we could only remember the address…

Further good news arrived in the form of Bradley Ogden’s ongoing overhaul of Marché Bacchus‘s kitchen, and a single bite of his steakburger gave me hope for the future:

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Bouchon is still the place to go for vichyssoise, boudin blanc and Le Cirque-worthy crème brûlée:

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…not to mention sweetbreads. Bouchon is also the only place we know of in Vegas, with the cojones to serve them. You know these glands gotta be good if we head there directly after spending two weeks in France. In business almost twenty years now, Bouchon has endured because its food is….wait for it…thymus:

Image(Sweet puns are what I was bred for)

Caveat: As much as we love the Big B, its ‘ersters were unimpressive, in size and selection. We’ve always called them best in town, but that crown has been usurped by another slurper — Water Grill — where even late in the season, the bivalves were clearly bigger, better, and fresher:

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Since we’re in a seafood mood, when the hankerin’ for fish and chips arises, the malt-battered ones at 7th & Carson are coronation-worthy:

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And don’t sleep on the incroyable desserts at Osteria Fiorella:

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As long as we’re remembering superior succulence over the past three monts, this “Secreto Pork” at Edo Gastro Tapas & Wine stands out:

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…as do the life-affirming/health-giving properties of Khoury’s Mediterranean practically perfect puffy pita:

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Naxos Taverna restored my faith in off-Strip casino eating …by bringing Milos-quality seafood to the ‘burbs. Gorgeous swimmers, pretty room, beautiful apps, and finally, a restaurant with a chef (Mark Andelbradt) who knows how to cook a f**king artichoke:

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The restorative powers of Szechuan cuisine are well known, but be advised: at Chengdu Taste , they must be sampled with a fire hose in tow:

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When it comes to breakfast, The Daily Bread stands apart. It’s fresh-baked goods are shockingly good, and this banana cream croissant was the definition of scrumptious:

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Did someone say “Conchinita Pibil?”After three weeks in France, the one thing we craved was the spark of good Mexican, and Leticia’s Cocina & Cantina always fills the bill.

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Speaking of sparks, the contrast of rich and sharp is the elemental appeal of good Thai, and Lamoon had us over the moon with its comfy build-out (in an old Dairy Queen!) and a luscious duck khao soi:

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Everything we tried was a head-turner, both in presentation and taste. Just the palate resuscitator we needed after weeks of organ meats and stinky cheeses. Nice wine list, too, as befits the Bank and Bon Atcharawan brand.

In a more traditional vein, we returned to Cipriani for the pasta, but stayed for the gelato:

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One of the ways we keep our girlish figure is by walking to Cipriani for lunch on Fridays. This is not an option at  Hola Mexican Cocina+Cantina  which serves these fabulous blue corn grilled fish tacos at the far reaches of the southwest valley:

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Truth be truth, Hola is so far from the palatial Curtas abode:

(Landscaping is my passion)

…that it took a Sherpa guide, Two Conestoga wagons, and a degree in dead reckoning to find it. But the payoff was in those tortillas and even the spicy fideo — which got our attention more than any Mexican side dish in recent memory.

Closer to home is Patrick Munster’s brilliant steak tartare at Main Street Provisions:

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Anything and everything at Anima by Edo:

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Yes, that’s two mentions of Oscar Amador Edo’s food…which, as our hottest local chef running two of our hottest restaurants, he deserves.

Now, for the home stretch, some old reliables and newcomers which rang our chimes over the past few months:

Yukon Pizza is simply fabulous no matter how you slice it:

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Sea Salt Live Sashimi …is delicious, but not as pristine as Japanese, and definitely not for the squeamish. Pro tip: bring your favorite Korean to help you navigate the menu which is not exactly limited:

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Any pie at Good Pie always floats our boat:

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Nobody fries chicken like the Koreans, and no Korean in Vegas fries it like Ssoju Korean Pub:

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Soulbelly BBQ’s beef brisket taco are life-affirming…for everyone but the steer:

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And let us not forsake the bread and dips at Esther’s Kitchen:

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All of these meals restored my faith in humanity….at least as it relates to my taste buds. They also got me to thinking…

What will late-stage Vegas be? I expect the Strip to get dumber and locals to get smarter. Chef-driven restaurants are so 2010. “Name” chefs are gradually being replaced with corporate restaurant concepts like the ones that brought Tao, RPM, and Mott 32 to our shores(?). Next up will be the LPM Restaurants bringing “music, art, people and bonhomie [and] outrageous harmony in the room” — when it takes over the old Milos space in The Cosmo. More and more, new joints will prioritize a party vibe over the food, and the sports-loving crowds will eat it up. The restaurant-cum-nightclub is here to stay, and will make me long for the days when I thought the music at B&B Ristorante was a little too loud.

The Strip hotels once aimed high and hit their target, and brought world renown to our restaurant scene in the process. But the visionaries who changed that game are long gone, replaced by executives who view Vegas as one gigantic advertising platform masquerading as a sports bar, shoveling $100 steaks into the gaping maws of fanboys and show-offs.

With this change went any hope that the Strip’s restaurant scene will ever again be taken seriously, at least in my lifetime. It’s no coincidence that we have three finalists for James Beard Award this year and each of them — Oscar Amador Edo, Kaoru Azuechi, and Garagiste Wine Bar — plies their trade miles from Las Vegas Boulevard.

And miles from LVBlvd is where, with a few exceptions, you’ll find me these days. Because if there’s one thing I don’t want with my meals, it’s “music, art and outrageous harmony.”