Getting Smashed with Class – Cocktails and Cuisine at Encore

[imagebrowser id=698]

When you put master mixologists Steve Olson, Tony Abou-Ganim and Patricia Richards together at the same time, you can pretty much be assured that the good booze will be flowing.

Combine their talents with Italian nibbles from Theo Schoenegger and James Benson, and you have the booziest, funnest, and tastiest sippin’ seminar….ever.

It all took place beside the Encore pool and was packed with devotees of the cult of the cocktail. Surprisingly, the afternoon soiree was a remarkably sober affair for all the top shelf hooch being hand-crafted to a fare thee well.

Maybe that’s because Abou-Ganim’s acolytes are more interested in flavor, ingredients and technique than intoxication.

ELV of course, was only there to lap up the libations and plow through the potent potables.

And as you can see, the result of seven spectacular drinks before 5 PM wasn’t a pretty sight.

ELV Clarifies, Chews on Shoe

As the worst President in the history of America once said: Let me make this perfectly clear: Eating Las Vegas has enormous respect for the job Heidi Knapp Rinella does at the Review Journal. She is a good writer who is stuck with editors who are stuck in 1982.

We thought our little piece of satirical conversation posted yesterday made that clear.

If it didn’t, we are sorry.

We are also sorry not to have recognized the enormous, colossal, prodigious and Herculean effort that our good buddy Norm! undertook in giving constant coverage to the Vegas Uncork’d events last weekend. Our dig at the lack of food and restaurant coverage was in no way intended as a swipe at him or his super-charged social media-making, that brought immense attention to the festivities.

It was, however, a pointed dig at the consistent lack of interest the R-J Editorial Staff takes in anything related to one of the few world class things Vegas has to be proud of (besides an imploded housing market, valet parking and computerized slot machines).

If anyone took it any other way, we regret the misunderstanding.

As someone (we think it was us) once said: As a satirist, ELV is a great restaurant critic.

SCARPETTA – First Look

[imagebrowser id=697]

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”