Category: Letter of the Week

Letter(s) of the Week – Objecting to ELV’s Objectifying

The key to a successful restaurant is dressing girls in degrading clothes. – Michael O’Donoghue

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King Hotpants recently wrote us with this somewhat miffed missive:

Dear ELV,

I guess I shouldn’t be disappointed that a critic in a town famous for its objectification of women has a regular feature that objectifies women. But I am.

Mr. Curtas, I challenge you to rise above this kind of crass sexualization and focus on food.

To which ELV responded somewhat harshly:

Dear King Hotpants,

We constantly get compliments (mostly from men, admittedly) about our Hot Hostess Watch feature. We have also, on occasion, featured Hot Hosts and Hot (male) Bartenders.

Anyone thinks ELV uses HHW to “objectify” women, ought to speak to his ex-wives. Now THEY have some stories to tell.

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Letter of the Week…and Happy Thanksgiving to Our Troops

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ELV note: On Thanksgiving Eve, I often contemplate all of the things I am thankful for in my topsy turvy life. The pluses seem to steadily outstrip the minuses as I grow older (Maturity, you say? ELV? I hardly think so.), but just when my enthusiasm for food writing is at an all-time low, this missive shows up to remind me why I started doing it in the first place. Merci beaucoup to you, Command Sergeant Major Gardner, for the compliments, caring enough to write, and most of all for defending our country.

Dear Sir,

I am a dedicated fan and user of your website. In fact, I recently planned my first trip to Las Vegas on information that I found from your postings. This information enabled me to plan and execute a great 25th wedding anniversary for I and my wife. Thanks for what you do.

I would like to further add some amateur observations from our visit to your great city.

1. We stayed at the Bellagio. Outstanding service! Outstanding hotel! Our reason for staying there was simple. All of the great restaurants that are there have been discussed from time to time on your site. Plus it was central to most of what we wanted to see on our first visit. Thanks for your recommendations and I would recommend the hotel and its’ restaurants to anyone.

2. Le Cirque. This is where we celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary. I, being a not so informed restaurant visitor, came armed with your insight. It was dead on. The place lived up to every expectation that we had. And then some. We were very fortunate to have met someone who apparently eats there quite often. I apologize for not getting his entire name, but his first name was Ted and his wife’s name was Kitty. He was a former Marine and that is how our conversation started as I am in the Army. He had also brought in his own bottle of red wine which he shared with us. (Even though we had a very nice white wine already poured because we were having the fish dishes). Apparently he paid extra to have the bottle brought in.

The evening experience went very well. I now know what right looks like and the staff at Le Cirque had no idea who I was or what I do. They treated us like we were their most important customers for the evening when we clearly were not. As the evening came to a close I was prepared to accept the large bill that I knew was coming. Sir, whoever Ted is, he must be loaded. He paid for our meal. I was speechless. And you know, the staff seemed very happy that our experience ended this way. They were just as pleased as we were. Perhaps in your travels you have met this Ted. I hope you have. I am better for meeting him and had the greatest anniversary ever.

Well here is the “So what”. I was serving a tour of duty in Afghanistan when my wife and I started planning my mid tour leave. Because of your insightful website our decision to go to Las Vegas was sealed. Since then and because of our successful first time experience we have started making plans for our next visit. I have been through Las Vegas on a few lay overs but have not been able to take the wife. We are excited about our next visit and the food and wine we are sure to enjoy. Thanks again for getting us off on the right foot in our march to success. And by the way, we dressed correctly for Le Cirque.
With much respect,

W. Lew Gardner
CSM, USA
Who Dares Wins!


Comments (Questions) of the Week

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Regarding a Properly-Cooked Sausage

From The Reverend Chad Kroeger: Hey Choad.* Would you happen to have any good classic or unusual sausage recipes for a fellow foodie? Cooking sausage, not dry stuff like salami and shit. There’s all kinds on Google but hard to filter through 350,000,000 Nothing says lovin like getting real tanked and making sausages for yo peeps.

ELV responds: We could steer you to any number of cookbooks, but wethinks it better to give you our default sausage-sauteeing recipe — one that works for any uncured sausage — everything from andouille to Italian to Johnsonville brats.

ELV update: Since we completely misunderstood the question — thinking Rev Chad was looking to cook not make sausage, we suggest you read our answer for informational purposes only (after the jump), or skip directly to the oyster and blogging questions beneath it (which are much more entertaining).

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