Category: EATING LAS VEGAS – The 50 Essential Restaurants

BLUE RIBBON Re-booted

When Bruce and Eric Bromberg (pictured above) shuttered Blue Ribbon last year (after six years at The Cosmopolitan), few shed a tear for its demise. It was an attractive, if disjointed restaurant that always seemed in the throes of an identity crisis. Was it a lounge? A sushi bar? Two different sushi bars? Who knew and who cared? By trying to combine their two iconic New York City restaurants (their gutsy American bistro, and the separate Blue Ribbon Fish), the Brombergs achieved the confusing result of making the whole lesser than the sum of its parts. Not that it wasn’t good (the Brom-boys don’t know how to do “not good”), it just wasn’t focused.

Now they’ve re-opened, ditched the fish, and gotten back to what they do best – which is cooking the most ethereal, eclectic, American comfort food on the planet.

Blue Ribbon started twenty-five years ago in lower Manhattan. It practically invented the whole upscale American food thing (popularizing everything from bone marrow to fried catfish) and was known for the best burger in the business until Daniel Boulud came along with his foie gras-stuffed version, and got everyone on the burger bandwagon. Elevating simple food has always been the mission statement here, and artistic cooking for unfussy gourmands is what has made BR a critic’s (and chef’s) darling since Bill Clinton was President. Now, with its re-boot, BR has gotten back to basics, and we couldn’t be happier about it. Gone is the sushi, the dark lounge-y bar has been replaced with a bright, front-and-center friendly one, and the menu is back where it’s supposed to be: chock full of the specialties that made the Bromberg’s famous.

No one disdains something-for-everyone menus more than yours truly, but in these hands you can just close your eyes and point. Mazoh ball soup? They’ve got you covered? Fried oysters? Leeks vinaigrette? You won’t find better versions anywhere on Las Vegas Boulevard. Duroc pork ribs come sweetly glazed with their own mini-hibachi, the clam soup would make a Mainer proud, and the country pâté deserves to be in the charcuterie hall of fame.

The red (sea) trout with spätzle is also a thing of beauty, and the burger (pictured at top) is every bit as good as I remembered it….from 1993. We only tried one dessert, but they had us at “chocolate chip bread pudding.”

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American bistro cooking is everywhere these days, but the Brombergs did it first and they still do it better than anyone. There are certain restaurants that just belong in Las Vegas, and the new Blue Ribbon – which is really the old Blue Ribbon I’ve known and loved – is one of them.

BLUE RIBBON

The Cosmopolitan Hotel and Casino

702-736-0808

https://www.cosmopolitanlasvegas.com/restaurants/blue-ribbon

CHICA En Fuego

Something-for-everyone cooking has defeated more than one Las Vegas chef. Feeding tourists means trying to please everyone, and catering to everyone  means you’re aimed at no one. Restaurants that specialize in something-for-everyone cooking have usually thrown in the towel before the bell has rung, e.g. the now-defunct Daniel Boulud Brasserie. That’s because customers who demand all-over-the-map cooking couldn’t care less about on-the-plate excellence of what they’re eating.

Welcome to Las Vegas — the world’s capital of something-for-everyone restaurants. Reading a Las Vegas menu is like being stuck in an endless loop of pasta, pizzas, wings, Caesar salads, shrimp, steak, pork, chicken and salmon. If you’re lucky, you might find another fish, and if you’re really lucky, you might be treated to every pork bellied, bone marrow-ed cliche in the book. Every Vegas menu, at its core, is composed of the the same basic appetizers, vegetables and proteins. Only around the edges do things get interesting, and it’s up to the intrepid gourmand to hunt for the nuggets of deliciousness buried in the same old same old stew.

At the just-opened Chica, those nuggets are everywhere, and you don’t even have to look that hard to find them.

At first glance, you might be excused for thinking that Chica’s menu is a fount of cliches in its own right. Your glance quickly picks up the mandatory guacamole, tacos, calamari, quesadilla, Caesar and ceviche that you’ve seen hundreds of times before. Turn to page two and you find the mandatory chicken, shrimp, steak and fish. Your heart will at first sink, thinking it’s in another by-the-numbers Mexican tourist joint. But then you remember something. What you remember is that Mike Minor is the kitchen. With that, your spirits begin to soar, and to your delight, the flights of fancy will continue on the wings of (almost) every bite coming out of his pan-Latin kitchen.

To be clear, Chica is not a “Mike Minor” restaurant. Nor is it a Mexican restaurant. It is a “Lorena Garcia” restaurant, and Garcia (a Venezuelan by birth) is all about introducing you to the glories of empanadas, amarillo, choclo, and all sorts of interesting spices. Minor is simply the chef tasked with executing Garcia’s vision from far away Florida.

For those not in the know, Garcia is one of those Food Network stars who seemingly came out of nowhere to suddenly become a household name among those who can’t get enough of “Guy’s Grocery Games.” (JEALOUS? YOU BET!) Hers is not a Mexican sensibility; hers is a cuisine informed by her heritage. You’re going to get Latino cuisine here, and South American food, and food that reminds you of Mexican food but that is decidedly not Mexican food. And for that, all we can say is, “praise the lord and pass the arepas!”

Besides bringing this South American spin to Latino cuisine, the smartest thing Garcia did was to install Minor in the kitchen. As top toque at Border Grill for years, he knows a thing or two about executing a menu conceived by ground-breaking female chefs. He also knows how to excel at elotes:

Serenade you with ceviche:

And cajole you with churros:

Those churros are the handiwork of Sara Steele (another Strip veteran) and between the two of them, they are laying out a menu that is sock-blowing-off scrumptious.

That ceviche (big chunks of firm fish in a perfectly balanced tigre de leche) might be the best version we’ve had that was either 1) not in Mexico, or 2) not at Rick Bayless’s Topolobampo. Just as good, if not better, was the best cephalopod we’ve seen this century.

Spoon tender and spiced in all the right ways, it put even certain Greek versions in town to shame.

Everyone knows we hate brunch, but, truth be told, this Latin-infused take on everything from chicken and waffles to corn pancakes stopped us in our tracks. And by “stopped us in our tracks” I mean licking our plates and finishing every bite.

About the only dishes that didn’t deliver were the chewy chicken chicharrones (we were expecting crispy skin, we got dried out meat), and mushroom quesadillas that delivered a lot of ‘shrooms, but were lacking in the promised huitlacoche and bleu cheese flavors.

No biggie when you consider how strong the rest of the menu is. From the watercress Caesar:

….to the porchetta with crispy yucca hash:

….this is a menu full of eye-opening surprises.  Something-for-everyone South American food hasn’t been done before in the High Mojave Desert — at least not to this degree of distinction. It’s time to spread your Latino wings, and Garcia and Minor are just the right flight instructors.

One meal of ELV’s meals was comped; another (for two) came to $140 + a $30 tip, including a couple of stellar “mocktails.”

CHICA

Venetian Hotel and Casino

702.805. 8472

https://www.venetian.com/restaurants/chica.html

 

EATT GOURMET BISTRO Hits Its Stride

When Eatt Gourmet Bistro opened its doors a year ago, I was less than confident in its chances for success.

The location on west Sahara had been the graveyard of a number of places — ranging from health food to barbecue — and the name it began with (“Eatt Healthy Food”), did not inspire appetite or optimism.

What the place had in spades though, was the assurance of its owners. The three of them (chefs Yuri Szarzeweski and Vincent Pellerin, along with manager Nicolas Kalpokdjian) exuded the confidence of youngsters who didn’t know what they were getting into. To be frank, even after a couple of fabulous meals here, I was worried about them. What impressed me early on was their technical proficiency with some pretty high-flying recipes. What concerned me was a certain timidity about the seasonings, and the fact that they were perhaps too good for the ‘burbs — it being a well-known fact that most of our citizens who eat out are hunting for familiar food at bargain prices. And to be blunt about it: familiar this food is not.

There’s nothing ordinary about gorgeous cantaloupe “roses” accented with balsamic crisps:

…or octopi carpaccio of uncommon awesomeness:

And let’s face it: medallions of glazed pork in a pea puree, are a tough sell even a half mile off the Strip:

The suburbs of Las Vegas have never seen anything like a supple duck breast atop a silky corn puree, dotted with fresh blueberries, baby corn and popcorn (yes, popcorn) — a dish that sounds a bit odd, looks a bit strange, and tastes more than wonderful:

Seasonal eating is something to which most neighborhood joints only give lip service. At Eatt, you get not one seasonable soup but two:

…a cold asparagus, and a gazpacho, both so vibrant with veggies you’re tempted to order a second bowl and forget about the rest of your meal altogether. The seasonal vibe carries through the entire summer menu, from the martini glass of king crab through to the beautifully composed burrata with cubed tomatoes and pesto. Everything being more aggressively (dare we say confidently?) seasoned and presented than it was when they first opened.

One thing that hasn’t changed a bit are Pellerin’s desserts. It would be hard to improve upon perfection, and top to bottom, they’re just about perfect.

This is sophisticated food to be sure — the most refined cooking, by far, anywhere outside of a major hotel. In many ways it reminds me of a more casual, slightly less refined version of Twist by Pierre Gagnaire. Clean, precise, inventive French food, on west Sahara at Buffalo, that the crowds are now responding to. Who would’ve thunk it?

Cold