Category: Reviews

CARLITO’S BURRITOS

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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

www.carlitosburritos.com

SCARPETTA – First Look

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Some newspapers and ‘zines rush to be the first to review a restaurant. Some websites pride themselves on being able to show you what a restaurant will look like weeks before it starts cooking, and some critics (and bloggers) love to be the first to crow about having eaten there first.

But only Eating Las Vegas has the temerity, the gall, the guts and the gumption to review a restaurant 6 months before it opens!

Continue reading “SCARPETTA – First Look”

Ryan Hardy at LE CIRQUE

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Having now met Ryan Hardy twice in the same week — here and in New York (where he was one of the nominees for a Best Chef Southwest award) — we at ELV thought you’d like to see some tasty snaps from our meal last week at Le Cirque in the Bellagio (that most New York of all Vegas restaurants), where Hardy cooked a special dinner based upon the superb ingredients he sources at The Little Nell in Aspen (Colorado, not Alabama).

Hardy flew in many provisions for this meal for about fifty lucky souls, including his house-made charcuterie that (we had to admit) was as good or better than anything we’ve had from Salumi or Fra’ Mani. Our staff now considers it the quintessence of cured meat. Just as good were his marinated sardines, dappled with a Rendevous salad of organic root vegetables and herbs, and an odd-looking but phenomenal octopus risotto, dressed with a lemon confit and paper thin shavings of octopus carpaccio.

The capper was a Four Story Hill Farm veal loin alongside a crispy squab breast, sharing space with some fine-grained Anson Mills grits and fresh morels and fava beans. ELV generally hates fava beans (and all chefs inexplicably love them), but even we were forced to agree that they brought a lot to the party on this plate.

Along with a bevy of beautiful wines personally chosen by Little Nell Master Sommelier Jonathan Pullis, the meal was enough to inspire us to venture to that land of the rich white people — to see what else Hardy and crew are capable of cooking up.

MONTAGNA @ The Little Nell

675 Durant Ave.

Aspen, CO 81611

970.920.4600

http://www.thelittlenell.com/TLN/restaurants/montagna-restaurant.aspx

LE CIRQUE

In the Bellagio Hotel and Casino

3600 Las Vegas Blvd. South

Las Vegas, NV 89109

702.693.7223

www.lecirque.com