When Steven A. Shaw comes to town, and asks yours truly to whisk him from venue to venue, in a nine hour Asian eating orgy — well, the invitation is just too good to resist.
Read on after the jump if you wish (and to see the tasty snaps), or click here to hear ELV expound on this profound event in the stentorian tones for which he is known, on News 88.9 FM KNPR – Nevada Public Radio.
Mark LoRusso deserves to be a show horse. Not that he’s a showy or flashy guy. Far from it. He’s one of those humble, workaholic chefs who prefers to let his cuisine do the talking. As the Chef de Cuisine of Michael Mina’s Aqua (now Michael Mina), he was that kitchen’s secret weapon, and a guy whose reputation among fellow chefs was exalted long before the public had ever heard of him.
His work at Tableau in the Wynn from 2005-2007 earned him Chef of the Year honors in ’07 from KNPR, and when he’s on his game (which is just about every day and night) the guy is the Tiger Woods of kitchen consistency. Unfortunately, what he’s being asked to do at Botero is the equivalent of chaining a thoroughbred to a milk wagon — and then asking it to make deliveries at 50 miles an hour. Thus has the show horse become a work horse, and because of it, the results are mixed.
If IBO makes it, it’ll be a miracle. The place is too big, overbuilt by half, too fancy for the food and frustratingly difficult to find the front door of. The cooking didn’t exactly knock our socks off either.
Continue reading “IBO TURKISH & MEDITERRANEAN RESTAURANT & BAR (Whew!)”