Category: Openings

ARIA Hotel Announces Celebrity Chef Lineup

YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST……

Undaunted by the latest….er…uh… economic downturn, CityCenter, the joint venture between MGM-Mirage and a bunch of really rich dudes from Dubai, has announced the first lineup of chefs and restaurants to go into ARIA — the largest of the uber-swanky hotels being constructed there. ARIA will have over 4,000 rooms on 61 floors, and plans to have the following lineup of super swanky chefs and restaurants in its environs (these are, for the most part, as interesting a lineup as we could hope for in our already celebrity-drenched food scene):

Making his Las Vegas debut, Chef Masayoshi Takayama, Chef/owner of Masa and Bar Masa in New York, and a chef who has set the standard for greatness in Japanese cuisine (at least in America), will open Bar Masa, a restaurant divided into two different spaces offering different styles of service and cuisine. In the more casual space, guests will be invited to order from an a la carte menu featuring Chef Masa’s style of modern Japanese cuisine, much like Bar Masa in the Time Warner Center in New York — the only Masa that ELV and mere mortals can afford. The second space, Shaboo, will provide guests with an exclusive (read: much more expensive) dining experience. In spite of the expense, and in spite of the fact that Chef Masa is now franchising himself, ELV is most excited about his coming to the High Mojave Desert.

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BLT BURGER – Opening Party

Since ELV is a close FOLT (Friend Of Laurent Tourondel), he can be no more objective about the BLT restaurants than he is about The Official Number One and Number Two Sons of ELV. Therefore, please consider all comments within that context, and enjoy these tasty snaps of both last week’s opening party and some of our recommended menu items. Between the NBA greats attending the party (Bill Walton, Doc Rivers, P. J. Carlesimo, et al) and a bevy of attractive females of the opposite persuasion, ELV’s head was on a swivel the entire night. Whenever The Food Gal asked who we were staring at (which occurred with annoying regularity), we found it most convenient to say “Bill Walton” as he was so hard to miss. ELV highly recommends attending parties with lots of famous basketball players should you ever wish to do some serious girl-watching.

BLT BURGER

In the Mirage Hotel and Casino

3400 Las Vegas Blvd. South

Las Vegas, NV 89109

702.792.7888

www.BLTRESTAURANTS.COM

NOODLE EXCHANGE

Kevin and Carrie Wu’s eateries in the Gold Coast are about the only things that can get us into that hotel. But get us there they do, with not only the best dim sum in town (Ping Pang Pong), but now with Noodle Exchange, his open-kitchen riff on the stuff that Marco Polo made famous.

NE is small — around 65 seats — but even in peak times the made-to-order noodle dishes come out fast and furious, so you won’t wait long. The menu covers most of Asia (excepting Vietnamese pho) with classic renditions of Chinese recipes like Peking Duck, Dan Dan noodles and seafood in lettuce cups, as well as variations on Japanese ramen and even Singapore-inspired noodles. But Asian pasta is only half of the story here. Its hot and sour soup is both (something rarer than you’d think), and The Food Gal was ecstatic over the fresh fruit infused green tea and the superior sorbets that ended the meal.

Prices are amazingly low — the duck is 1/4 what you’d pay on the Strip — and the freshness and snap of the stir-fries, and the treasures within the bento boxes, explains why you’re the only gaijin in the joint.

NOODLE EXCHANGE

In the Gold Coast Hotel and Casino

4000 W. Flamingo Road

702.367.7111

open 3 p.m. to midnight daily

http://www.goldcoastcasino.com/dining/noodle-exchange