Let’s accentuate the positive first, shall we?

The buns are nice, fresh, soft, slightly sweet and squishy, just the way they’re supposed to be.

They don’t put sesame seeds on them — another big plus.

They use good meat and season it properly.

That meat is cooked to medium (the way “the kitchen suggests it”) which is too much for us, but just fine for most folks.

Those burgers (9 oz.) are neither too big nor too small…and they’re priced right: $9. As one of our dining companions remarked: “It is a good burger, not life changing, but very nice for the price.”

We even liked the bbq pork sliders with their dousing in sauce and plenty-wet chipotle slaw. They won’t win any awards but are fun and filling as bar food goes. Even the arancini impressed; it being as light and tasty as any you’ll find in a decent Italian restaurant…even if they do incorporate truffle oil…something we’ll forgive in a burger joint.

The staff seems to be on its game, and has been from the get go, and after several trips here (two where we were “made,” one where we weren’t), we feel confident we can endorse the service as top notch.

Liquid refreshments of the adult variety are compelling and well priced. Trappist ales on tap share billing with $18 half bottles of Qupe syrah — both of which go splendidly with the food. (The Tobin James full bottle of cabernet sauvignon ($43) is also a relative bargain.)

Before you get to all of those goodies (including milkshakes made and garnished with an entire Hostess cupcake…yikes!) you’ll have to navigate the problematical floor plan. The design achieves what can only be called negative feng shui by mixing more metaphors than this website.  The hostess stand and foyer have the look of a fancy restaurant, behind which sits a milk shake bar of sorts that tries (and fails) to evoke a retro-50s soda fountain vibe. It fails mainly because it sits catty-corner to a real bar — the two of them bisecting the two dining areas. The effect creates an immediate sense of schizophrenia that challenges the patron: Am I in a groovy-cool, wholesome throwback diner, or an adult burger joint with serious beer and wine pretensions? Sitting in either space, you can feel the designer’s dilemma as they tried to combine the two concepts…and ended up flopping at both. None of this distracts from the food, but at times you wish it would.

The main culprits are the “Baltimore” fries, the signature “Double Helix Stuffed” burger, and steamed meatballs that were so unappetizing we couldn’t bring ourselves to post the picture of the grey blobs as they appeared. The fries, if left alone, are decent enough, but someone had the idea of covering them in both brown gravy and an extremely salty cheese sauce. The effect is to take a decent fried potato and turn it into a sloppy mess with zero visual appeal, and no tasteful one we can think of — unless gloppy brown sauce and over-salted cheese is your thing. The nachos were also a disaster — again suffering the indignity of a smothering cheese sauce (this time with black truffles!) — adding insult to injury with kalamata olives thrown in for those with a sodium chloride deficiency.

Finally, there is that signature burger. It tries to duplicate the success of the famous Daniel Boulud stuffed burger (sans foie gras), at half the size and price. Ours resembled a withered, grainy, brown baseball, with all the chew-a-bility of one left out in the sandlot too long. The braised short rib stuffing was akin to beef mush punctuated with un-masticate-able chunks o’ meat that would give shoe leather a run for its money. It is a disaster of a “signature” menu item, and should be deep-sixed as quickly as possible, lest it end up “signing” the death warrant for this place. — something we’ve told the management face to face.

There is good food at  Bottles & Burgers, you just have to look for it. Once the cooks stop gunking things up, and pare down the menu, and quit trying to copy a chef whose talents are far beyond their pay grade, this place could become a neighborhood institution. We’re rooting for it, but right now we can’t quite root for the food.

BOTTLES & BURGERS by Double Helix

In Tivoli Village

450 South Rampart Boulevard #120

Las Vegas, NV 89145

702.431.5453

www.tivolivillage.doublehelixwine.com

Others enjoy meatless Mondays.

But around the ELV household, all-Asian Sundays reign supreme.

There’s never been any exact decision to do this, it just seems it’s worked out that way so many Sundays in a row that we now take eating Asian for granted on the last day of the week.

Take yesterday, for example. We just happened to be cruising down West Flamingo when the sign in front of the Palms Hotel said “Cathay House,” beckoning us like a juicy dumpling waiting to be slurped and savored.

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So, in we went, and what we found was rather strange. We say “rather strange” because the Cathay House is actually a forlorn little circular room in the back of the 24 hour coffee shop. You pretty much have to know is there or you’ll miss it.

In fact, that’s just what happened to us. We asked for a table at the hostess stand (right next to a sign that says “Cathay House” and were promptly seated at a counter in front of a bunch of television screens. Upon being handed the menu we saw it contained the usual coffee house fare — omelets, burgers, sandwiches — and started looking around. Only then did we notice the back room  — with no hostess stand of its own, mind you — where we wandered and waited until a person of vaguely Asian persuasion came up to us. We were then led to one of ten tables in the room and commenced the immediate satisfaction of ordering and eating the dim sum way.

How was the dim sum ELV, you ask?

Not that bad, but not that good either. And certainly not worth trying to find inside a hotel that’s hiding it.

So, consider our first Asian foray of this past Sunday and mild disappointment.

While we still digesting dumplings (not in the same league as China Mama’s or Beijing Noodle #9’s, BTW), we thought a movie might lift our spirits. Unfortunately, the one we chose — Red Tails — was every bit as tepid as the tofu and shrimp.

For the uninformed, there is a good movie about the Tuskegee Airmen, and it was made by HBO in 1996. If you want to learn about them, rent it through Netflix. If you want a typical George Lucas CGI-heavy production with corny dialogue, little or no character development and over-the-top, incredible (as used in the truest sense of the word), cartoon-y action sequences, they’ll gladly take your money at the Brendan Theaters. If such mindless drivel is your thing, then you are bound to enjoy an Aryan supremacist, with a scar no less, snarling: “Die you stupid Africans!” — which ELV is absolutely sure the German pilots were shouting –  as he hurls through the air at 400 mph, with a hail of .50 caliber bullets flying around him.

But we digress.

Such a disappointing movie making can make a feller mighty hungry, so we trundled down to Pho Old Saigon, which used to be Pho Thai Binh, for some Vietnamese noodles…

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…which were drearily the same as all other Vietnamese noodles we’ve ever had. And which means putting the same old same old in the same space makes no sense whatsoever. ELV has no idea why certain Asian locations specialize in one restaurant going out of business and then another, serving the exact same food, takes over the space. But it seems to happen with shocking regularity up, down, and around Spring Mountain Road.

This incarnation has the same decor and  menu (note: all Vietnamese restaurants have the exact same menu), and a similar, if not identical, helpful staff. The food is tasty in that exact same way all goi cuon is fresh and all pho noodle soups are loaded with too many noodles and too many items and the whole enterprise looks and tastes and feels exactly like the identical restaurant that wasn’t even there a year and apparently failed before making way for another identical spot of almost to-the-ingredient duplication of the exact same food to take its place in hopes that it will succeed with the exact same formula that didn’t work for the other guys.

Got that?

Well, we don’t, and want to know what the hell is going on?

Why does one place think it can succeed where others have clearly failed with the same friggin’ food??

And why the f*ck do they hide the f*cking dim sum (even dim sum as mediocre as this) inside a f*cking coffee shop???

It’s enough to make you want to go out and machine gun some scarfaced Nazi.

Both meals came to around $30.

CATHAY HOUSE

Hidden inside the Palms Hotel and Casino

4321 West Flamingo Road

Las Vegas, NV 89146

PHO OLD SAIGON

4631 West Spring Mountain Road

Las Vegas, NV 89103

702.413.6666 (It even has the same phone # as Pho Thai Binh)

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Those who doubt Vietnamese places have identical menus/preparations/lack of imagination, click here to hear Ira Glass’ humorous take on the similarity and inscrutability of Asian menu wars. Many thanks to loyal readers Rudy and Emmanuel for backing us up on this!

Since ELV seems destined never to pay for a bite of food at Old Homestead, he approaches this “review” of it with caution, as should you.

This is hardly something new around the ELV offices, as our non-anonymity is now ubiquitous (we even get busted in Chinatown these days). So it is among other critics (in Vegas and elsewhere) as well, but it still gives us pause before we launch into telling you what we really think of a place, since it’s obvious to both of us that the experience we’re writing about will not exactly be yours.

Truth be told, it is that experience differential that bothers us more than the receipt of free stuff. We always offer to pay, can afford to pay, and really want to pay for the meals at the restaurants we review. But certain restaurants and owners are insistent (charmingly so), and more often than not on the Strip, we don’t pay anything except a hefty tip.

Does this quasi-bribe cause us to conflate or constrict our criticism? In subtle and maybe subconscious ways perhaps, but we like to think at this point in our career that everyone involved knows we will come, taste, and let our opinions rip regardless of whether we threw down for the full cost of a meal.

Does this mean that we’ve developed a certain immunity to the cost-value of what we’re eating? Yes. Were we to actually pay the $300 or so for all of the above food, we might be a bit more prickly about whether we got our money’s worth. But most big-city critics don’t pay with their own money either, so, in their own way, they’re immune to the bite of the tariff as well.  (Our buddy Tom Sietsema pays with a Washington Post credit card – most impressive)

Does being recognized and getting free food mean we’re getting anything better than you will? Not really. A busy restaurant has no time to hand-tailor a dish or a plate “just for the critic,” although it’s a fair bet the top toque in the kitchen will take a few extra seconds to make sure the plating is perfect. Overall though, the food we’re getting is the same ingredients and recipes you will get (albeit with more truffles). With that in mind, we have a clear conscience about posting our opinions, and telling the staff in the restaurants exactly what we think of a dish. It seems we’re doing this more and more these days — much to the Food Gal’s consternation — as most meals have a table-side conversation with the chef or manager where they ask what we thought and we call ‘em as we see ‘em.

“You were pretty rough on him about that sauce,” she’ll whisper sotto voce.

“Maybe…but it was nothing more than a bland, over-salted demi-glaze,” we’ll shoot back, fuming. “Calling it a sauce Perigourdine is blasphemy.”

Are we over-compensating a bit? Flexing our critic’s muscle just to show we can’t be bought? Again, maybe, but we also think we’ve built up enough street cred over the past 17 years to have the chefs respect our opinions, and want to hear them on the spot, rather than reading them a week later. They also know how much respect we have for them (well, most of them anyway), and when we criticize, even harshly, it’s just another form of tough love.

Service, of course, is something else entirely. We know we’re getting VIP attention, appreciate it, but also know how we are treated in no way reflects how the general public is. It’s the reason we rarely, if ever, mention service in our reviews.

By the way, the food at Old Homestead is fucking fantastic.*

OLD HOMESTEAD STEAK HOUSE

In Caesars Palace Hotel and Casino

3570 Las Vegas Boulevard South

Las Vegas, NV 89109

702.731.7560

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* Except for the “Thick Cut” smoked bacon, which is salty, tough and $5/slice…which ELV didn’t pay.

New York-style cheese at Dom DeMarco's

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$12

Slipping into the comfy chairs at Dom DeMarco’s, ELV was anticipating an argument over ordering, but luckily, great minds (and pizza palates) think alike.

“Let’s get the New York-style cheese,” said the Pizza Geek. “That way there’s no place to hide.”

“Fine with me,” replied the Burger Maven.

“And one without cheese, perhaps the Bianca (whipped ricotta, mozz, Grana Padano cheese, chopped garlic and basil),” we begged (thinking we’d be in for a fight).

“Let’s do it,” came the chorus, and within minutes, we were discussing the minutiae of what makes a great pie.

“Isn’t tossing the dough in the air a bad thing?” asked the Burger Maven.

“It depends,” was Pizza Geek’s lawyerly reply. “What you’re looking to do is extend the dough, not flatten it. You want it gently stretched. Settebello, for example, uses a very delicate dough that needs to be very carefully handled.”

Not to be outdone in overt food nerdiness, ELV felt compelled to chime in: “It’s that beautiful, long-fermented, dough with its charred crust that makes Settebello’s pies so addictive. Why, just the other day I was discussing the merits of Tipo OO Italian flour with…”

“Hold on,” interrupted the Pizza Geek, “don’t hold an un-charred crust against a pizza around here. Until a few years, on the West Coast, if customers saw any color or char on their crust, they’d have a fit.”

True enough that. Just then, as ELV was all set to start expounding on acidity in heirloom tomatoes, and the plight of migrant farm workers, our pies arrived. We all agreed the qualities of a great cheese and tomato pizza start with a beautiful texture to the cooked dough, sweet, freshness in the tomatoes (yes, canned San Marzano’s can be “fresh,” as long as the sauce tastes newly made), and finally, a nice, high butterfat content in the cheese. None of us was overwhelmed by the crust of the New York-style, but (again) agreed a couple of more minutes in the oven might have made it spectacular.

“They’re hedging their bets,” was the way he put it, implying you could always get a crisper, more complex crust by asking them to leave it in the oven a little longer. “That would make it a whole other (better) experience…char gives the crust a caramelized dimension that everyone’s looking for these days.” ELV and the Burger Maven nodded our heads in somber approval…no doubt looking like a couple of pizza priests blessing the corniccione catechism.

The Burger Maven wanted to know if it was anything like the original Di Fara’s in Brooklyn. “Not even close,” came the Geek’s quick reply. “In Brooklyn, the old man (Dom DeMarco — the real one) makes everything by hand. It is an excruciating process to watch and one of the reason’s there’s always a hour wait for your pizza. He even shreds the cheese individually for each order.”

Now the Geek was on a roll: “There’s a reason all the iconic pizzerias on the East Coast are named after an individual…because each one was made the way Frank Pepe, or Sal or John on Bleecker Street wanted it made,” he continued. “Once you start mass producing them, all of that is lost.”

More somber head nodding….along with muffled groans of disapproval.

The Bianca tended to lift our spirits, however, it being crunchier of crust and perfectly balanced between the tang of the dough, the bite of the garlic, and the umami kick of the good Grana Padano.

“Nice pie,” said the Burger Maven.

More head shaking….this time in unison and with sly smiles on our faces as we licked our chops.

Then it was on to Grimaldi’s.

For those who haven’t been, Grimaldi’s was once the toast of Brooklyn, located right underneath the Brooklyn Bridge, and known for its coal oven pies. After a corporate buy-out (and expansion), it now has multiple locations in the Northeast and Florida, as well as stores throughout Arizona, Texas and Las Vegas. It still bakes in coal-fired, brick ovens, and is, in the Pizza Geek’s words: “…a good, entry-level, coal oven pizza for those wanting something better than the big chains.”

Unfortunately, most of the praise stopped there. All of us found the mozzarella bland and rubbery, the tomato sauce not as sweet or balanced as DeMarco’s, and the corniccione smashed by fingerprints (see the picture above) and burnt rather than nicely charred.

“This white cheese has been formulated for the way it looks, and for the uniform way it melts,” is how the PG put it. “It’s unnaturally white and purchased because it will melt in a predictable way on pizzas designed to be replicated for the mass market.”

A final sin included placing fresh basil on top of the cheese while the pie is cooking where “…it withers and becomes bitter; it should be sprinkled on top after it comes out of the oven or placed beneath the cheese.” So sayeth the Pizza Geek and it’s mighty hard to argue with him.

On the plus side, the tiny blisters on the corniccione demonstrated that the dough had undergone cold fermentation “for probably a couple of days,” according to the Geek-ster, and the service was every bit as cracker jack there (where they had no idea who we were), as it was at DeMarco’s, where they did. The outdoor patio at Grimaldi’s is also quite a pleasant place to nosh on your pie, no matter how mass produced it happens to be.

No matter how you slice it, the Pizza Geek is right: the best pizzas are handmade in small operations where the individual pies (and the dough) get serious attention. Once a pizza business expands to the point they’re hiring teenagers to make these things according to some mass-produced formula, quality will always suffer. Grimaldi’s is good enough, but with another minute or so in the oven, DeMarco’s can be great.

Our tab at DeMarco’s came to $58, including drinks and a $10 tip, with the ones at Grimaldi’s being a bit more (the Burger Maven picked up that tab).

DOM DeMARCO’S

9785 West Charleston Blvd.

Las Vegas, NV 89117

702.570.7000

GRIMALDI’S

750 South Rampart Blvd.

Las Vegas, NV 89145

702.479.1351

Who knew the city of Rowland Heights, CA was another bastion of incredible Asian eats? Apparently, it’s known as Little Taipei in the San Gabriel Valley, and from the looks of things, Chinese restaurants are as plentiful as automobiles in this part of the world.

When Mary Shao — partner/founder of our very own China MaMa – asked us to stop by last month on our way to San Diego, we discovered her four month old restaurant was but a five minute detour off the main highway. We also discovered Chinese food of a sort that trumps the versions we’re used to in this neck of the woods.

As we’ve said many times, Chinese food (like Italian, Greek and Mexican) is done so badly so often (and sells anyway), that it’s a revelation to eat authentic renditions of the recipes that made it famous in the first place. We’ve been lucky enough over the past few years to have had an influx of great Chinese food (the real enchilada, not sweet and sour slop for the Asian buffet crowd), at places like J & J Szechuan, Yunnan Garden, Asian BBQ & Noodle et al, but we also know that Southern California is where the densest  collection of Asian emigrés resides — meaning: that’s where you’re most likely to find the most good stuff.

And so we went and so we did. Mary’s menu is similar to China MaMa’s,  but the oddly-named squirrel fish was an even better version than we’ve had in Vegas, and the Zhang Fei sliced beef, a thing of beauty that tops even Beijing Noodle #9’s take on this slowly braised, cold beef classic. Chinese chefs have told us it is the world’s best hangover food, and we’ll take their word for it, but its dense-yet-tender, five-spice savoriness is what kept us digging for bite after bite.

As with China MaMa, the presentations alone will have you dropping your chopsticks in appreciation, and if you want to taste perfectly blanched and stir-fried bok choy, incendiary ma po dofu, or pork-stuffed eggplant from another planet, this is the place.

Take it from ELV’s staff, a meal here makes the drive to San Diego all the more fun…and much tastier than the Asian food you’ll find down there.

GOLDEN SPOON RESTAURANT

18347 Colima Road

Rowland Heights, CA 91748

(626) 581-8951

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To read what the Yelp-ers say about all this Shanghai/Szechuan sumptuousness, click here.

Very spicy stir-fried intestines with green pepper

Simply offal.

And simply wonderful.

And simply eight bucks.

At the newly opened Hong Kong Garden Seafood and BBQ on South Jones (in the space formerly occupied by Kan’s Hong Kong Cuisine).

HONG KONG GARDEN SEAFOOD AND BBQ

3407 South Jones Blvd.

Las Vegas, NV 89146

702.878.8838

THAI ME DOWNTOWN

The beef curry is just one of many tasty reasons to sit next to Tony Hsieh at Le Thai.

Photo: Beverly Poppe

Two restaurants opened in downtown Las Vegas at the end of last year, and in a number of subtle and not so subtle ways, each is charting the landscape for what downtown diners can expect in the future.

One is yet another steakhouse (yawn) aimed at feeding those who want to bask in the mobbed-up aura of our ex-mayor, while the other is a feisty little Thai restaurant that simply wants to serve you good food. Oscar’s exhibits all the imagination of a Tony Soprano hit (iceberg wedge anyone?), while Le Thai puts forth aggressive (and authentic) versions of fiery food priced right. Oscar Goodman’s namesake trades on kitsch like “Vinnie’s lobster bisque” – and presumes we know who “Vinnie” was and that he knew something about soup – while chef/owner Dan Coughlin is content to churn out a killer nine dollar pad Thai that sells like hotcakes. Placed at opposite ends of Fremont Street, these two are in a figurative tug of war over the future of the new/old Vegas, and if and how they succeed will tell us a lot about what eating out will be like in this area in the next ten years.

The Thai/Irish Coughlin is the scion of the King of Siam restaurant family – operators of several Thai restaurants in the valley for decades. His mixed blood serves him well as he brings a certain youthful (and very American) sensibility to an ethnic cuisine that he (quite literally) has in his bones.

His tom yum (Thai hot and sour soup) and drunken noodles take a back seat to no one’s, and that pad Thai maybe the best version in town. Before you get to them, though, you’ll want to nibble on his succulent chicken wings (both juicy and crispy), while addictively dipping them in his spicy Siracha/ranch dressing, or an order of tangled pork jerky – not as candied and sweet as some versions, but no less appealing for it.

The waterfall sauce (a vinegar-spiked fish sauce) accompanying those sweet bits of pork is as compelling as any dipping sauce you’ve ever had, and like most of the flavors on this menu, is aggressive without being overpowering. Like the aforementioned pad Thai, the fish sauce/vinegar/sugar-based Awesome Noodles are awesomely tossed with big chunks of whatever protein you wish, and the Pad See Ewe (literally: stir-fried with soy sauce) doesn’t skimp on portion size either. That virtually everything on the menu is under ten dollars is remarkable – as is Coughlin’s signature soup: a Thai beef and meatball noodle so full of melt-in-your-mouth meat you’d swear you’re in a slurpy Thai steakhouse.

Chowing down on these specialties takes place in the crowded front room – containing only a few tables and a five seat bar – or the slightly more open outdoor patio in the back. The menu is short and simple, everything is priced to sell, and the whole 50 seat joint has an über-cool vibe that makes you want to return. The size and the immediate popularity of the place, creates something of a challenge for the small service staff, whose demeanor runs the gamut from distracted to overwhelmed. I’ve been in three times and have yet to see a smile on any of their faces.

None of the customers seem to mind, however, and all of them (Tony Hsieh included, who seems to be in every day, giving good meeting) have adopted the place as a de-facto clubhouse. Coughlin is catching the zeitgeist of what downtown threatens to become: a human-scaled environment for those seeking the anti-Strip. He has had the guts to do what no chef or restaurateur could bring themselves to: take a gamble on an area that’s been a pariah to restaurants for two decades. (Oscar’s should be applauded for the same reason, no matter how gimmicky it is) His crowded little establishment is a testament to how starved this area has been for something affordable, tasty and real. You should go, early and often. Not just because it’s downtown, or because the food is so good, but because it’s downtown and the food is so good.

LE THAI

523 East Fremont Street

Las Vegas, NV 89101

702.778.0888

ELV’s comely young assistant was hungry.

“I’m hungry,” she said.

“Let’s go to Nakamura-Ya,” we said.

“But I heard it wasn’t as good as the wafuu pasuta in other cities..from one of your loyal readers,” she responded.

“Well,” ELV replied, “we certainly liked it the last time we were there, and some hearty noodles and tomato/cream sauces might be just the thing on a cold winter’s night. Like Cat Simril Ishikawa said in the comments section: ‘(The Japanese) know what to do with noodles as the French know what to do with fish.’”

“Besides, on his worst night, Nakamura-san is bound to be whipping up something more interesting than your same old, same old Italian.”

And so we went and so it was. We made a mistake by ordering too many specials with cream sauces (ask the helpful staff for guidance, unlike us), but the fried “Jidori” chicken was first rate, as was the tomato farci gratin. No one of our party of five complained about the Kurobuta pork strips either, although there were a few grumblings about the octopus carpaccio being a bit thick and tough (as tentacles are wont to be), the miso carbonara being one dimensional, and the tomato/uni pasta not being worth the $28 tariff.

Nevertheless, the oddly-named (and odd looking) Kurobuta sausage and kinoko (mushroom) pasta (Japanese soy sauce style!?) disappeared quickly, and everyone raved about the (raw) hirame (summer flounder or fluke) and mizuno salad with its delicate dressing and well-chosen greens. Taken as a whole, the cooking and presentation here is light years beyond your average pasta palace…or even an over-priced, pseudo-sophisticated one…and if you approach these dishes with an open mind, you will be, at the very least, impressed if not dazzled by the creativity behind them.

There’s also a lightness to the dishes you rarely find (even in Italy), along with a more than passable tiramisu, that tastes like it was made minutes earlier, rather than biding its time in the fridge for days.

Is Vegas ready for Japanese-Italian cooking? From the business we’ve seen in this clean, attractive space, it seems yes. These sleek and sp0rty cafes are a welcome addition to our food scene, and just the thing to relieve palate fatigue at highly digestible prices.

ELV’s dinner for five, with plenty of food came to $153 and we left a $35 tip.

NAKAMURA-YA

5040 West Spring Mountain Road

Las Vegas, NV 89146

702.251.0022

(Dinner only)

From the statement facial hair to his official cicerone certification, Public House’s Russell Gardner announces he is the man to see when you’re brooding over what brew to order. He’s now featuring 24 taps and dozens of labels of sudsy esoterica that he will gladly sip and share with you — explaining (both in person and on the menu) how cans (yes, cans) are the preferred vessel for beers and ales not in the keg.

He’s even bringing in cask-conditioned ales from places like Deschutes Brewery in Portland, that are a wonder of richness and subtlety, and about as far away from mass-produced brews as Snooki is from Scarlett….and her Johanssons.

People will have to be conditioned to enjoy the lower fizz-factor and warmer temperatures of cask-conditioned ales (and truth be told, the average  “I like my beer super-cold” American beer drinker won’t be a fan), but once you get used to the idea of how natural beer tasted before mass-marketing machines denuded them of all personality, these unpasteurized brews will be the first thing you request after you sidle up to the bar.

As you’re sidling, look around for the guy with the handlebar ’stache. Give him a wave and he’ll give you one tasty beer education.

PUBLIC HOUSE

In the Venetian Hotel and Casino

3355 Las Vegas Boulevard South

Las Vegas, NV 89109

702.407.5310

Di Fara's special - nothing like the real Di Fara's

The pizza stakes are sufficiently high enough in Vegas these days to subject every new pie to a level of scrutiny unheard of even five years ago.

Such is the reason we’re not ready to pass judgment on DeMarco’s pizza yet.

Some things about it are wonderful: top shelf ingredients, a thick and rich marinara, good cheese, even better sausages, and salads that are dressed lightly like they’re supposed to be.

The crust, however, is a different story entirely. Even on the thin pies, it’s too thick and bread-y, and on the deep-dish ones, it’s a disaster — attaining almost a corn bread consistency with no attendant flavor pay-off.

Of course, ELV loathes any- and everything “deep dish,” but this one has none of the over-the-top, caloric catastrophes that obese mid-westerners seem to crave. It’s almost like they want to offer a deep-dish option without fully committing to the cheesy, overstuffed terribleness of a real one.

Pizza aficionados — and by aficionados we mean true connoisseurs, not every yahoo who loves whatever neighborhood, electric oven, Sysco-dependent dreck gets thrown at them — should stick with the thin (but could be thinner) crust, and appreciate the intense toppings, while holding out hope they learn how to get some flavor into the crust, and some thickness out of it.

While they’re working on these things, you can always enjoy your salads, or the killer meatballs and eggplant Parm, while, of course, looking at Yohana.

DOM DeMARCO’S

9785 West Charleston Blvd.

Las Vegas, NV 89117

702.570.7000