As Dorothy Parker once said of another’s writer’s work: “It was written without fear and without research.”

The story’s title read: VEGAS: 10 Strip restaurants to skip, and contained all the thoughtfulness you would expect from a newspaper prone to headlines like this:

The authors — David Landsel and Andy Wang — purport to tell tourists what famous eateries they should avoid in our humble burg. In no particular order, the authors toss rotten tomatoes at: Guy Savoy, Bouchon, Rao’s, all Wolfgang Puck restaurants, Picasso, Restaurant Charlie, Wazuzu, Beso, Tao, and anything and everything at Mandalay Bay(?).

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It is the interplay of black and white that makes Southern food distinctive, the interplay of Western European and West African and Native American traditions. - John T. Edge

Having just completed a week’s stay in northern Georgia (the Atlanta/Athens area) ELV thought he’d share a few tasty snaps of his three most worthwhile meals there. While the Deep South ain’t exactly at the top of the charts when it comes to adventuresome dining, the whole cotton-pickin’ kit-n-kaboodle is much closer to the agriculture that sustains it than we are in our humble burg, and from the down home (Weaver D’s) to cutting edge porcine perfection (Holeman & Finch Public House), the cooks know what they’re doing with the raw ingredients that surround them.

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It may be a bit early to be thinking about your plans for Mother’s Day 2010, but if you’re Brad Ogden, Paul Bartolotta or Rick “Fishboy” Moonen, Christmas time is the right time to promote their restaurants, their hotels, and Las Vegas’s biggest and best culinary event.

And there’s no better place to do so on the food-friendliest network (CBS) morning news show, where these uber-chefs got a full ten minutes to strut their (and Vegas’s) stuff (an eternity in TV time).

Harry Smith and his gang gave the nod to Moonen’s salmon with fennel with blood oranges, but we at ELV thought the schoolboy bickering (Ogden to Bartolotta: “You need help with that?” Bartolotta to Ogden (dripping with sarcasm): I’m sure (yours) will be okay…”) made the segment worth watching.

So bicker on boys!

It’s a lot more fun than watching Rachel Ray make a Velveeta cheese pie with Triscuit cracker crust.

Watch CBS News Videos Online

Love him or hate him (and we love the guy), what John Mariani says about restaurants carries a lot of weight. That’s why his annual Best New Restaurants story in Esquire is eagerly anticipated each year, and is a big deal in the world of American chefs and restaurants.

We were sworn to secrecy, so didn’t post this until someone else did.

Here they are, and congratulations to Kim Canteenwalla’s SOCIETY for being the only Las Vegas restaurant to gain this recognition.

RESTAURANT OF THE YEAR:

The Bazaar, Los Angeles – The Bazaar is chef Jose Andres’s masterpiece, where he has poured everything he knows about tapas into a menu that marries regional culinary traditions with his formidable creativity. Here you can choose from two dozen traditional tapas, including piquillo peppers stuffed with goat cheese and codfish croquettes with an aioli sweetened with honey, but there’s an even wider selection of fresh inventions that elevates the honored tradition of bar snacks to new heights: liquefied mozzarella with brussels-sprout leaves and the most intense cherry tomato you’ve ever popped in your mouth.

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What would we be if we couldn’t be a restaurant critic?

Well, I suppose I could, uh, work in a shop of some kind, or…or do, uh freelance, uh, selling some sort of, uh product you know…

A salesman, like maybe in a, uh, haberdasher…

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…or maybe like a, uh, um…a chapeau shop or something.

You know like: “Would you….what size do you wear sir?” And then you would answer me. “‘Uh, seven and a quarter.’”

“I think we have that.”

See, something like that I could do.

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Basically, we ate oysters. Lot’s of them. Everyday.

‘Cuz we was staying only a few miles from the town of Oysterville, WA and it just seemed like the right thing to do.

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Portland is about as different from Vegas as a place can get.

It is a bizarre confluence of grunge meets cutting edge.

With so many people walking around in shades of brown and gray it looks like a human mushroom farm.

But they have really groovy public transportation.

And an art and culture scene.

But the ratio of bums to pedestrians seems like about 1 to 1.

And the people are so f*cking politically correct that every time we sneezed, we looked around to see who we were offending.

But micro-brews are everywhere.

As are Burgundian-style pinot noirs.

And it’s Will-AM-ette, dammit.

This area is probably the most fertile, locavore-friendly, micro-climate-rich, top-to-bottom cornucopia of food, seafood, fish, shellfish, meats, cheeses, vegetables and herbs anywhere in America — including California and the east coast.

Even if it is a short growing season.

But all that urban planning, and liberal correctness, and hipster-meets-urbanite vibe left us feeling more than a bit constrained.

And claustrophobic.

So after three days of walking the city and eating and drinking ourselves silly, all we can say is this:

Basically…

…Portland has a lot to offer…

…but what it needs…

…more than anything else…

…is more cowbell.

Once we are safely ensconced in the bosom of hearth and home that is our humble burg, we shall post a more thorough list of places that pleased our palate in the Pacific Northwest (with commentary). But for now, here they are:

Voodoo Doughnut
Bijou Cafe
Deschute’s Brewery
Oregon Wines on Broadway
Mother’s Bistro
Wildwood
Jake’s
Le Pigeon
Heathman Hotel
Dan & Louis’ Oyster Bar

Not bad for two days, eh?

We at ELV and our staff have been going at it hammer and tongs for some time now.

Yeah, we’ve been a little edgy.

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The first time I ever ate at Wolfgang Puck’s Chinois was in the summer of 1984. It was at the original on Main Street in Santa Monica, and I recall driving past the front door, looking for the address, and seeing a telephone pole right in front of it with its street light off.

On closer examination, that telephone pole turned out to be Kareem Abdul-Jabbar waiting for his car. (more…)