ELV note: This is just too funny not to post. Merci beaucoup to FFF (Favorite Foodie Friend) Scott Abramowitz for putting us on to this. The Onion rocks!
Celebrity Chef Ted Allen Cooks His Favorite Pretentious Foodie Bullshit Meal
BTW: ELV loves some kind of stupid something or other with his expensive fish. And don’t forget the pureed baby turnips!
ELV note: The following article/review was posted today on the Las Vegas Weekly website, and will appear in print tomorrow. Click here to read it in its on-line format (slightly edited from how it appears below) , or continue below.
JUST DUCKY
Photo: Beverly Poppe
Thai restaurants in America too often come in a one-size-fits-all formula. One Panang curry or pad prik king can taste pretty much like any other, most curries all come from the same cans, and if you’ve had one larb you’ve had them all. Most Thai restaurateurs don’t deviate from these formulas – in fact they depend on them – because they know it is this familiarity that helps them capture the customers who crave the sweet-savory-spicy trifecta of flavors for which this cuisine is famous. (more…)
If you saw Al Mancini’s review of Cafe de Japon in CityLife last week, you read his tepid, if generally positive review of this unique Japanese cafe. Al is not known for for his superlatives (especially when it comes to Asian cuisines he has no interest in learning about), so ELV thought he’d ladle on a few.
Here’s what the p.r. invitation said:
Las Vegas is known for its casinos and nightlife, but the culinary scene is quickly becoming the rising star on The Strip.
Adam Rapoport, the new celebrity editor-in-chief at Bon Appétit, is visiting Las Vegas Wednesday, October 26, to meet with people like yourself and discuss Vegas Uncork’d 2012. Here are some things that Adam can speak about that would be a good fit for your readers:
Why Las Vegas is an important place in today’s epicurean landscape
ELV note: The following article appears in this month’s issue of VEGAS magazine. Click here to read it in its original format, or continue reading below…and try not to start salivating for a superior steak.
How Nicole Brisson Handles the Manliest Meat in the World
When you ask to see the chef in most steakhouses, a big, brawny guy appears looking like he knows his way around a side of beef. Not so at Mario Batali’s Carnevino. Instead, a pint-size female walks out looking no bigger than a filet mignon. Nicole Brisson is 5-foot-2 and has talents and responsibilities that make her unique in the world of porterhouses and prime. As executive chef, she supervises the cooking and the (almost all male) staff of 120 employees at what may be the best steakhouse in America—serving what are certainly the oldest aged steaks anywhere, along with authentic eats given the weighty Batali/Bastianich seal of approval. It doesn’t get more exalted than that in the steak or Italian food world.
John Arena makes a pizza with the ease of someone tying their shoe. He can teach, talk, toss and transform a few simple ingredients into something other-worldly to eat, in about the time it’s takes you to read these first few paragraphs.
At the drop of a hat, he’ll also tell you all about extended dough fermentation*, and how you can detect quality in the practice of pizza professionals by the bubbles on the cooked crust. (Long fermentation of the sourdough = bubbly crust = crispy/soft/yeasty/tang to the bite.)
He’s also one of our great restaurant philosophers on the theory and practice of successful operations — especially as concerns whether a place needs to grow and change with the times, or stick to doing a few things well. (He is more in the latter camp, while ELV swings both ways, depending on how the economic winds are blowing.) More young whippersnappers should pay attention to his advice and his operation — still going strong for over thirty years.
Arena, like Pizza Bianco’s Chris Bianco (and many others) thinks the type of oven isn’t as important as the care and feeding of what goes into it. Here is a recent essay of his for www.pizzaquest.com on the importance (or not) of your heat source for baking your pies. In his opinion, it all comes down to different strokes for different pizzaiolos:
HEATING THINGS UP
By John Arena
Lately, like many of us across the country I’ve been thinking about heat. Now, I’m no stranger to intense heat. I’ve been working in front of a pizza oven for over 40 years and I live in Las Vegas where one day last week the temperature topped out at 119 degrees. So, let’s just say heat is a big part of my life.
The opposite of love isn’t hate, it’s indifference.
This is a photo of the current edition of Bon Appétit magazine. ELV finally got around to leafing through it yesterday and was struck by one thing: the complete absence of a single restaurant or chef from Las Vegas.
Two recent stories in the national food press have given ELV pause.
Both concern the attitudes and arrogance of “hot” restaurants when it comes to serving the public.
One, called Rogue 24 in Washington, D. C. serves 24-course “journey” menus (taking over three hours) and requires its patrons to sign a two-page contract.
The second concerns a service nightmare endured by Alan Richman at a hot New York hipster hangout, which led to a laughable, illogical allegation by the restaurant that he had harassed a waitress by firmly patting her ass during his visit. (ELV will believe Richman goes around swatting waitresses’ asses when he sees Michelle Obama in a porn film.)
ELV note: The following review appears in today’s Las Vegas Weekly, and can be accessed on its website by clicking here, if you want to read it in its original, on-line format. Our staff suggests doing so…but also suggests scrolling down this page to indulge your eyes in some of our tasty snaps.
Daniel Boulud recently closed his two Vancouver restaurants. Gordon Ramsay has opened and closed outlets from Prague to Los Angeles in the past five years, and some wonder if the whole “celebrity chef” thing has suffered from a surfeit of sensationalism (or “fabulous fatigue” as the New York Times dubbed it). Our friend and colleague Steve Dolinsky weighs in with thoughts on these and other chef/restaurant phenomena (and quite a bit of discussion about the Vegas restaurant scene) in this article in the Montreal Globe and Mail (where Ramsay recently opened to (what sounds like) a collective shrug).
Restaurant reviews, quips, picks and pans-with some seriously salivating history-from the man who eats his way through Sin City every day.
