Congrats to Sage for getting top billing in today’s Media Gallery at The Daily Beast, featuring the hottest new restaurants in America.
To square this circle, we at ELV suggest you click on the link above, then click on the link at The Daily Beast back to Eating Las Vegas.
That way, you will fully appreciate the supercalifragilisticexpealidocious nature of this monumental occurrence in the blogosphere.
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Have you been to Bachi Burger? Is the question every semi-foodie, foodie-wannabe, and psuedo-hipster-foodie has asked ELV in the past few weeks.
And after one meal there, we’ve decided that’s just who this place is aimed at.
‘Cuz it sure ain’t aimed at people who love great hamburgers.
Unless you define a good burger as one that’s packed so tightly you’d swear it just came out of a freezer, is overcooked to death, and under seasoned to boot.
“Oh, but you’ve gotta try the Banh Mi burger,” they all told me. “It’s fabulous!”
It is if your definition of fabulous is, an overcooked mishmash of beef and pork, that’s once again way too dense and dry, and garnished with a piece of Vietnamese shrimp ball and a smattering of pickled vegetables.
“And you’ve gotta get the duck buns….Wow! They’re the best!” was yet another refrain we’ve heard from eaters who are apparently so starved for something that’s not a five dollar foot long, they’ll go ga-ga over the saltiest pieces of duck breast we’ve had in a coon’s age.
How salty were our Peking duck buns?
They were so salty:
– We’ll never be in danger of drowning again.
– Deer were lining up at the back door for a lick.
– The Mclhenny Company wants to mine them for Tabasco Sauce.
– The Dead Sea is jealous.
– Frito-Lay wants the recipe.
– Mormons are making pilgrimages here.
You get the picture.
Our guess is the enthusiasm over Bachi Burger is because it’s not a chain and it’s something new.
But finely ground, tightly packed, overcooked meat does not a great burger make.
Nor do lame imitations of Momofuku-type steamed bun sandwiches.
On the plus side, the burger buns were soft, sweet, eggy and fresh, and were, in retrospect, the best thing about the sandwiches.
It’s all very depressing to ELV, because, once again, some chef or restaurateur (cf. Lola’s, Carlito’s Burritos) strikes out with a good idea, and then can’t execute it, either because they’re undercapitalized, understaffed, or just plain too un-talented to pull it off.
Or maybe they will pull it off. Because people here are so starved for something different they’ll overlook the poor execution.
Or maybe that execution will improve.
Hope springs eternal.
BACHI BURGER
470 East Windmill Suite #100
Las Vegas, NV 89123
702.242.2244
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Geez Louise! We wish we liked this place more.
So we’ll give it another chance even though:
* The green chile had no tang and no heat;
* The posole was strangely hominy-challenged (and barely infused with pork), and a shade of dark red we’ve never seen in a New Mexican diner (FYI: Our screen saver on our home computer is a bowl 0f posole from Duran’s Central Pharmacy in ABQ, NM, so we at ELV knows us our posole.);
* That same pork and corn stew hardly registered on the Scoville scale;
* We thought you couldn’t mess up a sopaipilla, but this version was bready, pasty and thick (more like Navajo fry bread), which is okay, but it wasn’t in the same league as El Sombrero’s.
Pity.
Because no one gets a jones for New Mexican food like ELV.
So we asked the folks who recommended Carlito’s to us and were told they’ve been multiple times, and sometimes the food has that kick of authenticity and sometimes it doesn’t.
As with Lola’s, we suspect corner-cutting and a shaky staff are to blame.
But we could feel the love with one bite of our carne adovada — packed with flavor (and some serious heat), and an indication that someone here is familiar with the real enchilada.
So we shall return, the next time we get off a plane after three days of top drawer French and Italian food in the Big Apple.
Driving across town for a bite probably won’t be on the program.
CARLITO’S BURRITOS
3345 East Patrick Lane #105
Las Vegas, NV 89120
702.547.3592