When uber-chef Gregory Gorreau wasn’t busy macking on mega-hot hostess/babes Monday night at Studio 54, he accompanied ELV on a food crawl through the MGM.
Needless to say, the joint was jumpin’ and the restaurants were packed.
And while ELV was busy with Carlos Buscaglia’s steak skewers, Matt Seeber’s grilled quail and fennel salad, and Nob Hill’s superlative fondue, he (Gorreau) concentrated on a couple of other things.
‘Cuz French chefs are like that.
Like we said, Portland needs more cowbell…because (among other things) it’s the only place in the whole bleeping country where residents consider it their bleeping legal right to bring their bleeping dogs into a bleeping foodstore.
And they use the Americans with Disabilities Act to get away with it.
Don’t ya just love liberals?
And for the record: ELV loves dogs.
He considers them warm, loving, intelligent and noble creatures that he gets along with about as well as he does with his ex-wives.
It’s dog owners he can’t stand.
And by “the goods” we mean Marco Proccedu.
We’ve been eating Proccedu’s food ever since he was cooking seafood waaaay ahead of the Moonen/Bartolotta fresh fish curve waaaay back in 1999 at Francesco’s at the TI.
His food then was waaaay to hip for the room back, and way too good for the fannypackers that packed that place.
From there he jumped to Bella Luna on West Sahara, where, once again, his talents were too refined for the mouth-breathing, red-sauce-lovin’, early-bird-special-insistin’ hordes who patronized him.
Now, he’s taken over the kitchen at this playground for the hotchickswithdouchebags set, and we can only hope for his sake that they get what this food is all about.
Because what Marco is about, and what his food is about, is a purists’ depiction of simple, direct flavors in the best Italian tradition.
As you know, we at ELV aren’t especially fans of summer truffles (generally tasteless), and disdain truffle oil (a fraud), but somehow, the cheesy, crisp version he put before us made us forget these objections.
Likewise, the generally boring, bland, over-hyped, oversold warhorse that is tuna tartare is made to sing here with a lively green onion vinaigrette, and slices of grapefruit.
You would expect his pastas to be flawless, and with one exception — an overly starchy risotto alla pescatora — they are. The two that more than made up for this small misstep were mushroom-stuffed agnolotti in a brown butter sauce (light beyond belief despite an appearance to the contrary), and strozzapreti con gamberi e zucchine — thick strands of chewy goodness so-named because they could be used to “strangle” greedy priests who would overstay their welcome and eat too much of a host’s food.
Both of these went perfectly with a Nuchese ‘o7 aglianico (a legitimate steal at $54), as did a perfectly grilled wood-fired rib-eye with roasted vegetables with a smattering of rosemary-olive oil-infused-demi-glace.
You’re won’t find a lot of surprises on this menu (and the average Hard Rock customer wouldn’t appreciate them if they showed up and bit them on their tattooed vitello tonnatos), but what you will discover is the precise flavor palette of great Italian cooking. It’s a lot more than we could ever hope for in this hipster hotel, and Proccedu’s presence gives us many reasons to return, even if we have to be surrounded by folks who look like this.
AGO
In the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino
4455 Paradise Road
Las Vegas, NV 89169-6574
702.693.4440