We’re not saying Vannessa Garcia is the best pastry chef in town (there’s a lot of stiff competition), but her deconstructed desserts at Restaurant Charlie blew us away as few have done lately. Some may not care for the scattered, haphazard construction, but they’re just indicative of the youth movement (and rebellion) against the strictures and formality that have hamstrung this genre for too long.
ELV thinks the depth of pastry talent in this town beats any city in America. Ask yourself: When’s the last time you had anything but a drop dead delicious dessert in any top-shelf Vegas restaurant?
Vannessa tells us she is self-taught — or at least on-the-job-taught — but no matter where her training comes from, she has a way with flavors and combinations that are both homey and avant-garde — not an easy trick to pull off.
In other food news: This is the time of year the staff at Eating Las Vegas pulls in its nominations for the restaurant awards it hands out on KNPR and KLAS in about six weeks. If you have any suggestions or nominations, now is the time to let us know.
And we’re not saying Vannessa is a lock for Pastry Chef of the Year, but she’s definitely the early favorite.
RESTAURANT AWARD CATEGORIES for 2008:
Restaurant of the Year
Chef of the Year
Pastry Chef of the Year
Neighborhood Restaurant of the Year
Ethnic Restaurant of the Year
Sommelier of the Year
Excellence in Management and Service
Cocktail Bar of the Year
(plus a few other catagories we make up as we go along….)
This hostess is so tres chaudthat we were speechless after meeting her….and thus unable to catch her name.
How hot is she? Well let’s just say that Charlie Trotter could be cooking crappy cacciucco, bad buridda, and boring brodetto, and we’d still drop by, if only to be led to our seat by this personification of pisces perfection — who could make even a limp, salty old dog feel like a pesce di spina in no time.
This is how Eating Las Vegas would present its restaurant reviews if it had the time, the money, a professional photographer, a videographer, an audio technician, a production faciltity, an editor and the backing of the New YorkTimes. Stylish, concise and informative, it is probably the future of restaurant criticism in America and on the Web.
October 31, 2008By: John Curtas Category: Wine, Zines
The staff at ELV is always begging us not to post too many things in one day. But this article in today’s SLATE by Mike Steinberger (one of our favorite wine columnists) makes the argument (or more accurately, the forecast), that the recession will cause restaurants to lower their outrageous markups on wine. So it was too timely and (hopefully) prescient to pass up.
And guess where he mentions as having some of the greatest gouges? Yup, our humble hamlet.
Presaging this article, we spent last week tooling around LV restaurants with Alan Richman (the ex-husband of Lettie Teague quoted in the article), and all we heard from The Hitman was how unfair and crazy the pricing on our lists were. To quote him directly: “Something’s gotta give with the outrageous prices all these restaurants charge for wine.” To be fair, he was referring not just to our top shelf spots, but those across the country who think they can continue to get away with 300% markups on a non-perishable product.
But let’s face it: The high-end restaurants of Las Vegas are the worst offenders; and the GQ columnist, and his ex-wife the Food and Wine wine columnist, and every wine pro in America knows they are.
Here’s a link to Lettie’s article….and let’s hope they’re all correct in their predictions…and that the recession restores some sanity to this system.
Sometimes you’re just in the mood for something basic and uncomplicated, wouldn’t you agree? No fancy plate stylings or exotic garnishes, just a bowl of good old spaghetti and clams (aka pasta alle vongole),
and boy can Mimmo Ferraro’s fill that bill. This may be the best version of this Italian-American classic we’ve had since we visited Umberto’s Clam House in NYC’s Little Italy years ago, to see where Crazy Joey Gallo bought the farm.
As we were double-booked for lunch (a common occurrence for ELV), we then hightailed in to Caesars to Mesa Grill to chow down on a Bobby Flay Cuban burger — that was tastier than anything we’ve had there in a long time.
Equally surprising: good grilled mahi-mahi tacos, a quesadilla more agressively spiced than we remember the food being here, and a cornbread pudding dessert that had three grown men fighting for the last bite.
To hear how tough I’ve been on Mesa Grill in the past, click here. And to read Frank Bruni’s review in the NYTimes (echoing my thoughts of three years earlier), click here.
If you shopped at Whole Foods in the past two months, and let’s face it whohasn’t?, you probably grabbed a Desert Companion magazine as you were leaving. Behind the hot chile pepper cover was an article by you-know-who, on where to find some of our town’s best ethnic (and inexpensive) eats. Here is the PDF of that article for your perusing pleasure.
FYI: You may be hearing big things about RAKU in the coming months…..the national food press has taken notice of our little Japanese gem (thanks to someone who needs no introduction), and universal recognition of its excellence may soon be forthcoming.
October 30, 2008By: John Curtas Category: Miscellaneous
Readers of ELV: The following letter was sent to KNPR - Nevada Public Radio by a listener. Eating Las Vegas thought you might be interested in its contents and our response.
Dear Editor,
I recently read “My almost dinner with Andre”, column, posted at www.eatinglv.com by John Curtas, KNPR’s “Food Critic”.
In it, John Curtas brags about spending $19,000 a year in restaurant tabs.
Let’s look at this figure and break it down some.
- 20% of this amount consists of gratuities, leaving $15,833 in gross
restaurant tab
- 7.75% of this is tax, leaving $14,694 in net restaurant tab
- Divided by 12 months, this makes it $1,224 per month in restaurant tab or, per week, $282.57.
$287.57! That’s just what one expects to spend on an average check for
food and wine, for two people, at the great majority of fine restaurants in town (The kind Mr. Curtas promotes on his website).
One could conclude that Mr. Curtas either eats out only once a week,
hardly the hallmark of any serious food critic’s research standards, or, eats “freebies”
the rest of the days and thus, looses the objectivity required and expected of a true crtic. Which is it?
John Curtas, a Bona Fide Food Critic? Where is Ruth Reichl, I ask? Enough said.
We’re long overdue to feature Paul Bartolotta’s as-fresh-as-it-can-be Italian seafood on KLAS TV’s Restaurant of the Week. Now that the segment has officially been re-named: Dishing and Dining, we thought we’d kick it off by featuring this Italian master and his craft.
Now that you’ve seen ELV espouse the virtues of this magnificent restaurant, go here to hear him praise its pisciform productions in the sonorous tones for which he is known.
FYI: Alan Richman loves to tell people the best (and most affordable) way to experience Paul B’s food is to go here an not order the whole fish. As tempting as that may be, unless you’re celebrating your inheritance (or someone else is picking up the tab), stick with the pastas and a la carte items and you’ll have an incredible meal for less than a house payment.
The good photos are by Erik Kabnik, the rest are by Eating Las Vegas.
As you can see from the pics, Las Vegas’s Best Food Week Ever culminated with an auction to benefit the JBF. Unfortunately for auctioneer you-know-who (along with his plucky sidekick Alan (The Hitman) Richman), there weren’t enough high-rollers in the crowd to make things more beneficial for the Foundation. There were some punters (like Au Bon Climat’s Jim Clendenen — whose bids and contributions were greatly appreciated), but most just sat on their hands, despite ELV’s vociferous entreaties…And we’re not saying the crowd was cheap but:
> After shaking ELV’s hand, most of them counted their fingers;
Sitting on the panel at UNLV at the James Beard Foundation’s Taste America event with Mitchell Davis, Dr. Pat Moreo, Alan (The Hitman) Richman, Jeffery (The Man Who Ate Everything) Steingarten, and Chef Paul Bartolotta, was a thrill for ELV. Even though he tried to act with the insouciance and hyper-critical persona for which he is known, he could barely disguise how happy he was to be in the same company with these leading lights of American gastronomy.
Restaurant reviews, quips, picks and pans-with some seriously salivating history-from the man who eats his way through Sin City every day.