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ELV, accompanied by his staff, dropped into Aureole the other night to check out its snazzy new wine lounge/patio (and to make sure Master Sommelier/Wine Director William (call me Willi) Sherer stills knows his albarinos from his amontillados.

He does, of course, but what we ended up talking about the most was cheese. Seastack/Cirrus/Ford Farmhouse/Ubriaco/Marieke gouda/Iceberg Blue, to be specific — the six farmstead cheeses featured on the lounge menu, along with sixteen wines, hand-picked by Sherer expressly for their affinage affinity for exquisitely curdled milk.

Most of the wines are gently priced (by Strip standards anyway) at far less than $20/glass (most are in the $15 range), and in keeping with his reputation as a wine educator par excellence, Sherer includes brief-but-to-the-point tasting notes for each wine on the menu.

Somewhat surprising to us, he got just as excited about describing the sea saltiness of Seattle’s Seasmoke cheese, as he did bragging about the brininess of his Iberian albarino, which btw, complimented each other completely.

Willi Sherer – sommelier, wine maker, cheese cutter…the man can do it all.

AUREOLE

In the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino

3950 Las Vegas Blvd. South

Las Vegas, NV 89109

702.632.7401

http://www.aureolelv.com/

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Take a tiny space, formerly occupied by a failed “continental” restaurant, add an outdoor patio and some nice furnishings, spice it up with a wine bar, mix in some high falutin’ Thai food, and whaddya got? Nittaya’s Secret Kitchen.

Open just a couple of weeks, Nittaya’s might be the best new restaurant to open in Summerlin since Nora’s started pouring wine.

For our first meal, we stuck to basics — todd munn (whitefish cakes), stuffed chicken wings, new coconut fish curry and a simple beef/green bean stir fry, and were most impressed by the snap of flavors, and freshness of everything tried.

Those fish cakes are a litmus test for any Thai restaurant. They usually range from slightly spongy to the consistency of an extremely over-done hamburger. These were small, soft, pillows of non-greasy fish cake — delicious and addictive.

Likewise the angel wings — stuffed chicken wings — were fried to a crispy fare-thee-well in fresh, hot oil, and were just what fried food aspires to: crunchy giving way to moist savoriness.

Every dish followed this pattern of being the best of its type we’ve had in quite awhile. The “World Famous Spinach Salad” consisted of lightly battered spinach leaves (again fried perfectly), surrounding a bowl of minced chicken larb for them to be dipped in. Another addictive hit.

As was the rich, fresh coconut curry — a whole roasted coconut containing a thick, seafood stew, and the simple beef and bean spicy stir fry — again, nothing fancy but all of it done perfectly — with a brightness of flavor you won’t find in the numerous by-the-numbers Thai restaurants around town.

Many thanks to uber-foodie-and-pointless-wines-guy Evan Powell for giving us the heads up on this potential jewel in our Thai restaurant crown.

If Evan keeps suggesting such tasty finds to ELV, sometime in the future, we might just let him cavort with our staff.

Our meal for two with no booze came to $68.

NITTAYA’S SECRET KITCHEN

2110 North Rampart Blvd. Suite # 110

Las Vegas, NV 89128

702.360.8885

http://www.nittayassecretkitchen.com/

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If ever there was a restaurant ELV was prepared not to like, it was Nu Sanctuary Lounge.

Why, you ask? Because of the following:

> It’s in a shopping mall;

> It’s in Town Square, ELV’s least favorite shopping mall in town*;

> It’s next to a movie theatre (generally a sure sign of sub-standard sustenance);

> It has a contrived, tells-yu-nuthing-name;

> It calls itself a lounge when it’s really a restaurant;

> It has a something for everyone menu filled with everything from pierogis to pizzas;

> It hypes its hookahs — another sure sign of mediocrity (see for example, Mediterranean, Paymon’s);

> It has a funny, non-restaurant name and it’s in a shopping mall for chrissakes!

In other words, Nu Sanctuary had about seven strikes against it before we set foot in the joint.

But we love it. No, we really do. (more…)

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Habib’s, the venerable Persian place — formerly located inside the (formerly nice, now downtrodden) shopping center at the northeast corner of Decatur and Sahara — has moved catty corner across the boulevard to the old Red Robin building on the southwest corner.

Habib has done a complete renovation of the space, relocated his market there as well, and put in a nice bar, and lots of spiffy booths and tables.

How in the @#$%^^% he’s gonna fill the joint is anybody’s guess.

His tabouli is still first rate — bright and lemony — as are the chelo koobideh kebabs — good ground filet and onions, seasoned just so. But his borani was just a mush of eggplant with nothing else to accent it, and our bread (all of it) was stale.

As in dry, and cracker-like. Without freshness. Totally, utterly lacking in moisture.

Whassup with that Habib?

We at ELV want to send many caravans of customers to your doors. And wish you a thousand hookahs of good luck in your new endeavor. But paltry pita puts ELV to peckish palavering.

Still, we’ll return once Habib gets his sea legs(?).

Because his tabouli is terrific, and because anyone can have an off day.

HABIB’S

2575 South Decatur Ave.

Las Vegas, NV 89102

702.870.0860

http://www.habibspersiancuisine.com/index.html

ELV has learned that local restaurateurs Block 16 — the folks behind LBS Burger Joint at the Red Rock Casino are bringing another ground beef concept to the Cosmopolitan Hotel and Casino, when it opens on December 15.

Called Holstein, Chef Anthony Meidenbauer promises us the concepts will be new, the ingredients all-natural, ultra-fresh and organic, and in his words, there will be an emphasis “…(on) better burgers and (bringing) a funky, homegrown attitude to The Strip.”

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Does one meal a review make? Sadly, it does for too many restaurant writers, but ELV has always prided himself on visiting multiple times before writing a positive review, and at least three before getting medieval on someone’s ass

But there are exceptions.

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Monta – The Raku of Noodle Soups

Less is more when it comes to restaurant menus. A restaurant specializing in a certain cuisine (or even a single dish or two) is always better than a place trying to be all things to all people. For years I’ve chanted this mantra, and advised, cajoled and screamed at chefs to cut their menus in half (it doesn’t really matter which half) if they want to improve their cooking and streamline their operations. In America though, nothing seduces like excess, so this truism usually falls on deaf ears.

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Match is a restaurant that defies description and that we should hate for that very reason. Amazingly, like Al “Mad Man” Mancini, we find ourselves liking it.

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ELV has now eaten the entire menu at Monta.

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