When ELV lies around his humble abode thinking of things he loathes, many things come to mind, including:

- cupcakes,

- country music,

- people who are intolerant of other cultures,

- the Dutch,

- the novels of Jane Austen,

- men who wear shorts in public, and

- reality TV.

But most of all, he thinks about how much he hates sandwich shops.

Especially sandwich shops that want to franchise themselves selling “wraps,” “fresh made ingredients,” “pastas,” and “wholesome” this or that…when anyone with a sixth grade education knows everything is purchased from U. S. Foods or Sysco — and is packaged in such a way to get secretaries, soccer moms, hipsters and the biker crowd to mindlessly pay for pre-packaged dreck because they think they’re eating “light” and “healthy.”

Sandwich shops are loathsome creatures deserving opprobrium on a universal scale — fattening frauds masquerading as healthy alternatives to overeating.  We’ve had so many bad experiences over the years that when we see the words “salads, pastas and wraps” we get a case of the heebie jeebies.

You want a good sandwich? Make it at home. You want slimy meat and stale baked goods? Go to any place advertising “soups, salads, sandwiches and wraps.”

Case in point: Rachel’s Kitchen. Perennially packed with the iPod and Bluetooth crowd, chattering and clicking away while robotically ingesting sandwich “creations” with all of the soul of a spreadsheet. This is food as fuel and nothing else, and on that level it does the job the way all sandwich shops do — by combining pre-made provisions in familiar ways at cheap prices to appeal to customers who think about food the same way they do about washing their clothes. Sandwich shops depend on this “food is only fuel” crowd to fill their coffers, and daily besmirch a holy creation.

Case in point #2: Rachel’s unsmoked,  “smoked” pressed turkey sandwich — one bite of which told us all we needed to know about this filling station of a lunch spot.

Case in point #3: One chipped tooth on our hard-as-a-rock chocolate chip* cookie — which told us all we needed to know about this franchise-seller.

You have been warned.

RACHEL’S KITCHEN

3330 South Hualapai Dr.

Las Vegas, NV 89117

702.459.6789

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

* Giving new meaning to the name.

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.

[Show as slideshow]

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…

[Show as slideshow]

…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)

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

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!

◄ Back

Next ►

Picture 1 of 1

…the Dover sole — filleted into four, plump slabs of divine seafood, garnished with a dab of mustard sauce on the side — is $48.

At Eiffel Tower Restaurant in Las Vegas (Nevada, not New Mexico):

…..the Dover sole — filleted into four, plump slabs of divine seafood, garnished with a piquant lemon sauce — is $69.

At La Grenouille, you have those flowers (and 50 years of tradition); at ETR, you have that view…..

You make the call!

Let’s start with a mega-cool pub, The Hopping Pig in San Diego:

[Show as slideshow]

…a groovy-cool, simple space featuring 24 beers on draft, and about 50 by the bottle. From the narrow room to the concrete floor to the natural paneling, it looks like it would be right at home next door to The Beat or Le Thai. Nothing too complicated, just a great place to drink quality brewskis and not be accosted by a cocktail shill or a gin-blossomed egotist.

Then, how about a tasty, hand-formed Umami Burger served in a teeny tiny spot on La Brea that’s gotten raves from the L. A. press:

[Show as slideshow]

…. instead of the mega-stupid Heart Attack Grill that accosts our good sense and our good taste every day?

Finally, wash it all down with a cask-aged Negroni:

◄ Back

Next ►

Picture 1 of 1

Gin, vermouth and Campari aged 6 weeks in oak

…..instead of a yard (or a guitar) of pumpkin-boysenberry-martinis?

ELV posts this solely as a public service to the entrepreneurs, hipsters, hipster entrepreneurs, real estate moguls, hipster/entrepreneurial/real estate moguls, and hipster/restaurateur/entrepreneurial/real estate moguls who are constantly looking at Fremont Street and thinking: “I wonder what would work down here?”

What would work is what works in other urban settings…not gimmicks…just good, simple stuff served in an inviting place. (Umami Burger looks like it took fifty bucks to design, but those burgers – made in a tiny kitchen in the back – are goooood.)

It doesn’t take a genius to figure this out but it does take a little looking outside the box….for something other than a tired old formula, a stupid gimmick, or a franchise.

And while we’re at it, whaddya think the over-under is on how fast the “broads” portion of the Oscar’s Beef, Booze & Broads equation gets deep-sixed?

Or how quickly these “concierges” (really just drink shills) move from being quality babes to low-rent strippers?

Or how often you’ll see hizzoner on the premises once the hoopla dies down?

Or his checks start bouncing?

ELV doesn’t wish for anything downtown to fail…but this concept is so tacky that we don’t think anyone, least of all the nickel-beer crowd (or the hipsters) will buy it. And when it tanks, it’ll be another black eye for Fremont Street. (sigh)

PS: Why is ELV posting an anti-golf rant on his restaurant website? Because he’s ELV that’s why! Where the unexpected can always be expected!

THE HATERS GUIDE TO GOLF

By Seymour Dubsdread

Eldrick “Tiger” Woods

Why don’t you take some of your money and buy yourself a personality?

The biggest jerk in sports, by the length of a three-shot par 5. Mike Lupica once wrote: “Most professional jocks are assholes pretending to be nice guys.” Woods doesn’t even pretend. But you’ll never hear this from the flacks and whores in the golf media — who are so far up Woods’ ass they couldn’t see daylight from the 7^th tee at Pebble Beach at high noon. Woods is such a sullen, surly dick, he could make Ben Hogan look like Chi Chi Rodriguez. He doesn’t tip (just ask anyone in Vegas), because he “doesn’t carry cash.” Really Eldrick? Really? Methinks a few dozen call girls would testify otherwise. He’s an asshole to anyone and everyone who isn’t either sucking his cock or lining his pockets, and the worst interview since Lou Reed (another amoral douche, we might add). Hapless announcer looking like a Christian staring at a lion: “Gosh Tiger, your 74 today puts you on the cut bubble, what happened out there?” Woods: “I didn’t hit it too good (followed by silent glare).” Meanwhile, back in the booth, some producer is creaming in his pants because they actually got 30 seconds with Tiger Woods! Woods has done more to hurt the game of golf than polyester pants. Forget his love of Vegas skanks. Hell, that was the only thing that ever humanized him for some of us. What he’s systematically done since 1997 is demoralize and de-humanize a sport that needs all the personality it can get. Fuck you Tiger Woods. Fuck your golf game, your surliness, and your-bought-and-paid-for-soul. And the next time some sycophantic, dickwad announcer says what a “great job” Earl “Where’s The Money?” Woods did in raising him, someone needs to stick a belly putter up the guy’s rectum (or pry his jaws off of Tiger’s cock). Who gives a fuck? How wrong could you be cocksucker??? Give him the fucking trophy when he wins, or revel in schadenfreude when he fucks up, then go talk to someone else with something to say. Like Woodie Austin. Or Paul Goydos.

The Masters

White people like exclusivity. Rich, southern white people really like exclusivity. White, rich golfers love exclusivity so much they’ll enslave themselves to an unattainable country club.

“Watching the Masters on CBS is like attending church service. Announcers speak in hushed, pious tones, as if to convince us that something of great meaning and historical importance is taking place. What we are actually watching is grown men hitting little balls with sticks.” – Tom Gilmore

The Bland Leading the Bland

Golf has always been a sport for tight-asses, but Tim Finchem makes David Stern look like Lenny Bruce.

Do you remember when golfers had personalities? How about ambition? How about something to say other than “I overcooked that cut-fade on the 14^th.”? Neither do we. Golf is now so controlled by corporate and p.r. interests, no one wants to upset the gravy train by actually acting like a human being. In this respect Tim “The Tiny Bureaucrat” Finchem has done his job. He’s turned a hundred and fifty of the world’s best players into automatons who do nothing but hit golf balls and try to act humble whenever they’re getting paid $32,000 for last place in the Poulan Fat Cat Weedeater Open. Rich white people generally love it when other rich white people are being paid extraordinary sums for doing nothing of consequence, so no one complains, but the interview tent at any professional golf championship is about as interesting as a Monday night Mormon social (hello Johnny Miller!). At least Johnny will call a spade a spade during a tournament (although we doubt he’s ever seen one on a golf course).

The Golf Channel

A different way to practice your stroke.

To truly appreciate all that is loathsome about the modern game of golf, you have to watch the Golf Channel. It’s a 24 hour blowjob to a sport in need of a spanking.

But that’s not the real sin of the Golf Channel. What makes it so loathsome isn’t its 30 minute commercials pretending to be travel shows like GolfNow, or fake competition shows like Big Break. What makes it so despicable is the false hope it gives that you might actually find an attractive woman on a golf course. Lauren Thompson? In a foursome? Are you fucking kidding me? Win McMurry… actually playing golf? When monkeys fly out of my butt. The next venal sin of Golf Channel is foisting the faux folksy David Feherty on those unfamiliar with his greasy-haired, forced fabulist persona. Hey David, iron your fucking clothes and wash your fucking hair and maybe I’ll pretend to listen to you when I’m not practicing my stroke to freeze frames of Lauren and Win.

Brandel Chamblee

I hate you Brandel Chamblee. I hate your perfect fucking hair, your perfect fucking suits and the fact that your fucking neckties cost more than my car payment. You probably have a perfect fucking wife and a perfect fucking house right next to some perfect fucking golf course where you can roll out of bed and shoot a 72 from the tips any day of the week. And I’m not buying that soft, lilting fucking Southern gentlemen act either. Deep down you’re a Tiger Woods douchebag…you just never won enough tournaments to be able to act like one. Most of all I hate you because you get paid to do nothing all day but sit on your well-fed, Southern frat boy ass, and talk about golf all day before going home and eating some perfect, fucking fried chicken before making love to your perfect fucking wife. Go to hell Brandel Chamblee, and get off my fucking television screen!

Frank Nobilo

It’s kind of hard to hate an Italian with an English accent, so we’ll give the Nob-ster a pass…for now. Plus, it’s pretty obvious he loathes Chamblee as much as we do…and would ram a gap wedge down his throat if he could get away with it…so go in peace Frank.

The Presidents Cup/FedEx Cup

The only cup that counts is the Ryder.

The Presidents Cup is a made-for-TV, slickly packaged whore of a ginned up team competition that only exists because the PGA overlords couldn’t stand the fact that the Ryder Cup is: 1) Better; 2) More competitive; 3) Not controlled by them; and 4) Doesn’t pay them anything.

The Fed-X Cup is nothing more than a ginned up, rich-getting-richer event that exists only so Tim Finchem can roll around naked in a swimming pool of cash that banks and expensive car companies throw at him in hopes people will watch their commercials for a month after the real season actually comes to an end for the best players (with the PGA). If you look up “playing with the house’s money” in the dictionary, you’ll see a picture of an asshole (Woods) or a guy who needs to grow some hair (Furyk) holding the FedEx cup (just another tacky trophy, really) and with a slightly quizzical look on their face wondering how they’re going to spend the millions they just won for playing in tournaments no one but a greedy little huckster gives a shit about.

Lee Trevino said that pressure in golf isn’t putting for a major championship, but putting for a $20 nassau with five bucks in your pocket, You want to make these bullshit events interesting? Make these spoiled brats put their own money on the line. You want to know why American players get their asses handed to them by the Europeans every two years? Because real competition is still the stock in trade of the European tour. While Tiger and Phil and their cronies are flying around in their corporate jets — filming commercials and playing for obscene money being thrown at them by Big Pharm, bailed out banks and overpriced car companies — guys with names you’ve never heard of are honing their skills on tougher courses in tough competition across the pond. You want to see pressure golf? Watch the Ryder Cup, where no money changes hands, and pride and the respect of your peers is all you’re playing for. Don’t believe me? Ask Mark Calcavecchia. Better yet, walk up to him and whisper “1991 Ryder Cup” in his ear. Can you think of a single, memorable President’s/FedEx Cup event, victory or collapse? The prosecution rests. Both “cups” are such meretricious sport-fucks, I wouldn’t watch either of them if Win and Lauren announced them in bikinis while massaging their breasts.

Bald guys

Grow a pair and some hair.

Whassup with all the follicle-challenged players? Stewart Cink, Steve Stricker, Matt Kuchar, Jonathon Byrd, Jim Furyk, Thomas Bjorn, et al…With their caps on, they look like athletes; take ‘em off and you’d swear you’re watching the Arthritis Open. The Golf Channel has their own bald dude (Tim Rosaforte) just to make sure the Sun City crowd doesn’t feel left out. You make a gazillion dollars a year for fuck’s sake. Go buy yourself some fucking hair.

Mullets

It takes a lifetime of practice to look this bad.

The only thing worse than a bunch of 35 year old guys who look 60 when they remove their hats, is a bunch of 40 year olds trying to look like 20 year olds….in 1993! Mickelson, Watson, Snedeker, Mahan….I’m talking to you. Get a fucking haircut fer chrissakes. Those languid locks aren’t getting you laid anymore and they sure don’t help you win tournaments. And while you’re at it, get some fashion sense. Phil in white pants looks like something Ahab should be hunting. And someone needs to tell Bubba “Sling Blade” Watson, he looks like an escapee from a mental hospital with his buttoned-up shirts.

“Play it as it lies” is one of the fundamental dictates of golf.  The other is “Wear it if it clashes.” – Henry Beard, Golfing, 1985

Koreans

The gals from Seoul have none.

Who gives two shits if Shi Hyun Ahn is higher on the money list than Hee-Won Han? Or if Meena Lee just outplayed Seon Hwa Lee? And why in chrissakes is everyone named Park or Pak or Kim? Jeong Jang…or is it Soo Yun Kang(?) could shoot a goddamned 64 every fucking round and no one outside of a ten mile radius of Seoul would give a bulgogi. You know what Koreans are good at? Barbecuing fucking meat, that’s what. Stick to your kalbi and leave my white girls alone! Fucking kimchee eaters. They’re the worst thing for golf since….

Northern Ireland

What the fuck is going on here?

You know who three of the world’s top golfers are? A pint-sized, jug-eared country bumpkin who’s done nothing but hit a little white ball for his entire life; a short fat dude who looks like a overstuffed banger mashed into his undersized sweaters; and an even fatter dude who looked like he was 55 on his 26^th birthday. Dumbo Rory McIroy probably gets more ginger tail in a week than a host of Jerzy guids gets in a month in Ocean City, so we’ll give him that, but Graeme McDowell doesn’t even know how to spell his first name, and Darren Clarke looks like he ought to be repairing your muffler. Know where they all come from? A fart of a country on the north shore of the Emerald Isle, heretofore better known for car bombs and the world’s worst cooking. What the fuck is going on here? Golf is such a screwed up sport, for all we know its next superstar is being hatched in Kyrgystan.

Infeasibly Long Courses/Equipment Controversies

Like a nuclear arms race, equipment/course escalation is leading to mutually assured destruction.

The average driving distance on tour is now 291 yards. When Slammin’ Sammy Snead played, his 275 yarders were considered bombs. Twenty years ago, only a handful of pros ever hit it past 300. Drivers now have heads on them the size of shovels that weigh less than a ping pong ball. The juiced balls and trampoline-like club surfaces that are supposed to make the game more fun for the average player have instead been exploited by the best players to bring former tough courses to their knees and make for tracks that are longer than Melville. Hence, in a classic case of the law of unintended consequences, what started out to make something easier (for the 15 handicapper) has ended up making everything harder for everyone but the best players — who now hit eight iron second shots to 500 yard par 4s without breaking a sweat. Instead of concentrating on making golf playable to all – instead of just the pros — golf’s governing bodies spend endless hours and millions of dollars fretting and fighting over square grooves and other nonsense. Memo to the USGA: No one but about 200 spoiled millionaires (and their toadies) gives a flying fuck about what the grooves are like on their fucking pitching wedge. Memo to Tim Finchem: No one gives a shit about your Land of the Giants, TPC courses and other tracks built to “test” the pros. You want to test the pros? Make them hit actual shots…not just  balls-out bombing it down the fairway and then short-ironing into greens more accepting than a Tiger-whore’s vagina.

Golf Myths

Golf is“good for business.” You know how much business gets conducted on golf courses in America? Zero, zilch, not a penny or a deal…ever. Do you have any idea how many tax write-offs of country club memberships and golf rounds occur because of this lie? Incalculable. The big lie that golf is good for business has been perpetrated for decades (pretty much the whole 20^th Century) by businessmen, lawyers, doctors, accountants and other fat cats who want to get out of their office while getting their office to pay for it.

Golf is fun. Golf isn’t fun. It’s hard. Real hard. You have to play it all the time to get good enough to actually enjoy it, and even then you will run up against your physical limitations no matter how much you play or practice. Truer words were never spoken than: “Golf is like a love affair. It’s no fun if you don’t take it seriously and it’ll break your heart if you do.” Don’t ever make the mistake of thinking golf is fun. You want fun, play softball.

Magazines and TV shows will improve your game. Never, in the history of the world, has anyone’s golf game been improved by watching or reading something. The only way to get even passably good at golf is to play it…a lot….and get lessons from a PGA pro.

If I played a lot, I could go on Tour. Wrong again, dillweed. You hear this a lot from low handicappers, club champions, and everyday hustlers around good courses. There’s a reason they’re playing in the member-guest and our good friend Woody Austin (176^th on the money list) gets to play for million dollar purses. And the reason is: Woody, or Alex Prugh (189^th) or Billy Mayfair (139^th) or anyone of around 1,000 players in the world hit it better, stronger, longer and more consistently than you arrogant bastards do. That, and they see a golf course like Michelangelo did a block of marble…as something to be carved up. The rest of us are ecstatic when we string a few pars or a couple of birdies together; the pros expect such things, or better, on every fucking hole.

You can learn something from watching the pros. Watching Peter Kostis dissect the swing of a 6’4” loose-limbed string beans like Dustin Johnson and Nick Watney can tell me volumes about how I should approach my tee-to-green game, right? Sure dumbass. Just like having an architect describe a building will help me design my own home. Peter Kostis and his goddamned Biz Hub camera need to be shoved up Gary McCord’s ass.

The author has been following the PGA Tour since 1966. He also once shared a smoke with Tom Watson, and played a pro-am round with Raymond Floyd — who didn’t bother speaking or looking at anyone for four straight hours.

No game designed to be played with the aid of personal servants by right-handed men who can’t even bring along their dogs can be entirely good for the soul. – Bruce McCall, “The Case Against Golf,” Esquire

Yeah, after each of my downhill putts. – Homero Blancas, asked if he had any uphill putts

(Re-printed with permission)

Mr. John Unwin

President

The Cosmopolitan Hotel and Casino

3708 Las Vegas Blvd. South

Las Vegas, NV 89109

Dear John,

It is with great distress I write this. I consider you a friend and colleague, and you know I hold your food and beverage bona fides in the highest regard.

You also know how much I love what you have done with The Cosmopolitan — turning it from an almost financial disaster to the most talked about hotel in town…and maybe the country. The murderer’s row of restaurants you and your team assembled on the third floor puts any aggregation of great eats to shame — save for the Time Warner Center in New York City. Foodies from far and wide have flocked there, the national food press has been effusive in its praise, and, most importantly, you have developed a strong following of locals who consider dining there one of the great amenities of living in Las Vegas.

One of the small reasons people have been so excited about your food and beverage venues is because of the ease of ingress. The access that Costas Spiliadis, Scott Conant, and you, among others, bragged to me about a year ago when touting how easy it would be for locals to come, park in the convenient underground garage, and zip up to the third floor to bar hop, table hop, restaurant hop, nightclub or whatever. And how right you were. Your parking garage has been a breeze to navigate, a joy to park in, and within steps of an elevator to take you wherever you need to be in your fabulous hotel.

That is, until a couple of weeks ago.

What I discovered then and confirmed today was that someone in your hotel convinced someone to block direct entrance to the third floor from the garage (the one all the locals use to get into your hotel), in order to route everyone through the casino before they can eat or drink. If you park your car and take the elevator, it now only goes to the first (casino) floor, where they must then wander past banks of slots (and the Chandelier Bar) before they find their way to the escalators taking them to the second and third floors. (If anyone is foolish enough to actually try to find the elevator bank to take them up a couple of floors, they’re in for a wild goose chase/hike of the first order.)

As I write this, I’ve just received an official statement from the hotel telling me the change was made to “optimize circulation in the hotel.” Which is casino-speak for “get people to gamble more.”

To which I can only say: What is this, 1965? What are you trying to become, some kind of grind joint? How much does that traffic really mean to your bottom line, and what’s the sense in confusing and inconveniencing people who have made your restaurant floor so wildly popular?

Obviously, someone (we’re guessing your VP of Gaming Operations) convinced you that making a few thousand (hundred?) hungry and thirsty people wind through the casino for an extra few minutes every night is crucial to improving your daily drop….but I would be shocked if the avid foodies, winos, babes, dudes and hipsters who are eager to eat and drink in your top flight venues are all that interested in being diverted to, or distracted by, games of chance. All you are doing is creating needless annoyance because your casino is jealous of all the traffic your restaurants are generating. More to the point: How many people actually use the parking garage to by-pass the casino floor just to eat? And are their numbers so vast that routing them around the casino will make a difference to your bottom line?

This letter is being written to ask you to reconsider this seemingly small operational change in how your hotel operates. It was this easy access that was sold to locals. Many adopted it immediately and have been enthusiastic supporters of your hotel because of  these not-so-little conveniences that demonstrated there was a sincere effort to cater to our needs. Tourists will always wander around aimlessly in hotels. That’s what they’re here to do. Give them the runaround and they don’t mind. The locals do mind and you’re going to lose them if you treat them like know-nothings who need to be herded around like sheep.

The people who gamble gamble. People who want to eat and drink eat and drink. In your hotel, I’d venture to say the confluence of the two groups less likely than in any other — mainly because your third floor has become a legitimate attraction in its own right. Someone other than a restaurant critic should have told you this. Someone other than me has to have noticed that the accessibility of all of your tasty attractions is part of their appeal. Someone needs to be accountable for damaging your brand — a brand I know you and others have worked mightily and successfully to establish.

Someone needs to be (figuratively) shot.

Sincerely,

ELV

Laudatory lamb

These pecorino-crusted lamb chops from Circo in the Bellagio aren’t cheap ($51), but you get what you pay for. And what you pay for is about the best lamb you can find…anywhere. Properly trimmed, crusted and cooked, they taste of sweet, grass-fed lamb — not of some de-nuded, lamb-like meat product — and are a lamb lover’s dream. ELV has had them at both Circo’s (in New York and Vegas) and can attest to their lip-smacking lamb-ness at both venues.

You wouldn’t know any of this if you researched Circo on Yelp. On Yelp, you get idiotic comments like:

Pecorino and Thyme Crusted Rack of Lamb. Please get rid of this dish!! I don’t know if they just did an exceptionally bad job since it’s a tasting portion, but honestly one of the worst pieces of lamb I’ve had. A regular sized cut of lamb rack with too much fat. Too overdone. Not that much flavor. And coating is waayy too thick. I take a bite and all I taste is fat and coating, no meat. Not good. I’ve had better lamb from Trader Joe’s frozen section…

That’s because Yelp sucks.

Just thought you’d like to know.

OSTERIA DEL CIRCO

In the Bellagio Hotel and Casino

3600 Las Vegas Blvd. South

Las Vegas, NV 89109-4303

702.693.8150

http://www.bellagio.com/restaurants/circo.aspx

Salty meat mush with carbs on carbs with mayo

Is Hawaiian food a bad joke or what?

It’s cheap, we’ll give you that (the above plate came to nine bucks), and  filling (we weren’t hungry for 24 hours), but they don’t know what a green vegetable looks like, and are so in love with salt, shitty meat and carbohydrates, it must give their indoor plumbing fits.

ELV has tried Kahlua pig in a number of spots around town and always found it to be the same — mushy, slightly smoky pig smothered in sodium chloride. So, rather than insult a single restaurant for their version, he thought it best to post a single picture and insult an entire state instead.

That is all.

Tattoos are the mullets of the early aughts. Unlike mullets however, tattoos are there for life. And with a mullet, you can always get a haircut to rid yourself of your bad taste. Also, mullets, as red-neck-y and idiotic as they were, never caused anyone to lose their appetite.

Nose rings are just as bad as tatts, if not worse. They never made much sense to ELV until he heard (read? experienced?) that their function (besides making women look like cattle), was to enhance (as in: provide metallic stimulation during) the act of fellatio or cunnilingus (Eating Las Vegas® note: ELV has always been a cunning linguist….but has no desire to look like a farm animal to prove it.)

But to each his own, we say….until breakfast is involved. Because just as your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins, so does your right to look like shite end when you sit within my sight lines…as I try to enjoy some corned beef hash and crême brûlée french toast to start the day.

Because the last thing ELV wants to think about during breakfast is that girl giving that guy head.

That is all.