My Year of Dining Deliciously

2016 will go down as one of the most eventful years of my life. Getting married took the cake, of course, but publishing two editions of EATING LAS VEGAS – The 50 Essential Restaurants (Huntington Press) was quite the undertaking as well. Factor in trips to Atlanta, Albuquerque/Santa Fe, Los Angeles, Napa Valley, San Francisco, Portland, Oregon, Washington D.C., Tokyo, Austin, Texas, and Rome (Italy, not Georgia) and you have one whale of a rotation around the sun. Through it all, I managed to eat over two hundred meals in local restaurants. Here are the best of the best that I tasted in the past twelve months:

Wine List of the Year – Aureole (see above). Not only is it the broadest and deepest list in town, it’s also back to being on the printed page, making it a joy to peruse. Would that all those damned, dastardly digital lists be consigned to the techie hell from whence they came. Digital wine lists tried to solve a problem that wasn’t there. And people ended up ordering less wine, because they’re so cumbersome to use. A pox, a pox I say, on all digital wine lists. End of rant.

Cocktail Bar of the Year – Libertine Social

Pasta of the Year – (tie) Carbone; Carnevino; Ferraro’s

Burger of the Year – Libertine Social; runner up – Gordon Ramsay Steak

Steak of the Year – (tie) porterhouse at CUT; aged rib eye at Bazaar Meat

Fish Dish of the Year – Scorpina (scorpion fish) at Estiatorio Milos

Sommelier of the Year – Chloe Helfand at Bazaar Meat

Pizza of the Year – Due Forni; runner-up – Evel Pie

Downtown Restaurant of the Year – Le Pho

Chinese Restaurant of the Year – Chengdu Taste

Thai Restaurant of the Year – Ocha Thai

Vietnamese Restaurant of the Year – Pho Annie

Korean Restaurant of the Year – Magal Korean BBQ

Japanese Restaurant of the Year – (tie) Yui Edomae Sushi, Hiroyoshi, Yuzu Japanese Kitchen

Fabulous Frenchies of the Year – Nothing can top the lip-smacking delights that Rosallie Le French Cafe, Delices Gourmands French Bakery and Eatt Healthy Food brought to the ‘burbs.

Dim Sum of the Year – No contest: Pearl Ocean at the brand new Lucky Dragon Hotel and Casino.

Coffee Bar of the Year – The just-opened Vesta Coffee Roasters is giving the term “fresh roasted” a whole new meaning.

Appetizer of the Year – “Ham ‘n Eggs” at ‘e’ by José Andrés

Entrée of the Year – Crispy Lamb Belly with Pomegranates and Peas at Sage
 Desserts of the Year – Whatever Mio Ogasawara is whipping up that night at Sweets Raku
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Meals of the Year – Yuzu Japanese Kitchen; Yui Edomae Sushi; Twist by Pierre Gagnaire; Delmonico; L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon; Bazaar Meat; CUT; Sage; ‘e’ by José Andrés; B&B Ristorante; Yonaka; Strip Steak; Ferraro’s; Carbone; Chengdu Taste; Raku.

Chef of the Year – Steve Benjamin at L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon. No one does it better, or has for as long, as Stevie B.

Restaurant of the Year – Bazaar Meat. Fork–droppingly delicious is how I often describe a dish (or a meal) that knocks me out with its intensity and perfection. I dropped my fork a lot this year at Bazaar Meat.

(Here’s to you José, and to the best damn steakhouse in America)

Merry Christmas to All!

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Santa Claus (me) has been checking his list and checking it twice, and he’s gonna find out who’s been naughty and nice. Actually, he already knows, and since Santa sees all, we thought it time to hand out a few appropriate gifts to a few deserving souls. (And by “deserving souls” we mean those people and places in our local food scene who should get either kudos or scorn for how they’ve behaved in the past year.)

Aria Hotel – a big kiss from Santa and a Nebuchadnezzar of premium champagne for the continued excellence of Sage, Carbone and Bardot Brasserie.

Wynn/Encore – a bag of coal and rotten grapes for the most criminally overpriced wine lists on the Strip.

Downtown Summerlin – a lifetime pass to Penn & Teller for performing the magic act of keeping (what seems like) 58 half-empty restaurants open for the entire year.

Evel Pie – tickets to a Yankees’ game for bringing a slice of Little Italy to Las Vegas.

Cory Harwell – an in-house psychiatrist for the sessions he will need after being driven crazy by trying to appeal to the whims of Henderson diners.

El Sombrero/Irma Aguirre – a copy of Hamlet to help them weather the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune that Donald Trump brought to their doorstep.

Bradley Manchester – a bottle of good whiskey to help him drown his sorrows after the sorrowful closing of Glutton.

Golden Steer Steakhouse – Windex, Clorox, a mop, bug-spray, a can of paint and a gift certificate to Coit Carpet Cleaners to finally clean up this ratty looking ode to the Rat Pack.

THE Steakhouse at Circus Circus – the Zsa Zsa Gabor award for hanging in there long after, by all rights, it should be dead.

Carla Pellegrino – the Comeback of the Year award for coming back from Miami, and for coming back from having her restaurant turned into a demolition derby by an errant driver.

Anthony Curtis, Greg Thilmont and Mitchell Wilburn – drinks on me for all the work they put into publishing two editions of EATING LAS VEGAS – The 50 Essential Restaurants this year.

EATT Healthy Food – salt and pepper shakers to brighten up their extraordinary food that is sometimes woefully under-seasoned.

José Andrés – a couple of brass balls for standing up to Donald “Mr. 46%” Trump.

Libertine Social – aspirin to hand out to all of their customers for the wicked hangovers they’re bound to get from all the wicked good cocktails.

The Mixx Grill & Lounge – fire extinguishers for the biggest, fastest, flame-out of any restaurant this year.

“Celebrity Chef” Sam Marvin (and the lamebrains behind F. Pigalle) –  a year’s supply of AA batteries, my old Vivid Video collection, and a case of K-Y to help you use all those decorative butt plugs and dildos left over from the WORST RESTAURANT IDEA IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD.

Ho ho ho to all until next year!

Bah Humbug!

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‘Tis the season to be jolly, isn’t it? The time of year for rejoicing and celebrating; for toasting the year’s ending with reminiscences, good cheer, and hale and hearty fellowship. Am I right?

Nope, not this year. Not by a long shot. Why? Because lovers of good food downtown are in mourning.  Because Bradley Manchester’s Glutton closed its doors for good last night, after just twenty months of operation. Because the number of good places to eat in downtown Las Vegas just got cut in half. Six days before Christmas.

That means Manchester and his small crew of chefs and bartenders and waiters are out of work, less than a week from what is supposed to be the happiest day of the year. The day of the year when gifts are bestowed and glasses are raised in celebration of the year’s past, and in hopes of a prosperous new one.

Not for Glutton, and not for downtown. Because the closing of Glutton portends dire days ahead for the downtown dining scene. Soon enough, a chain restaurant called Eureka! (exclamation point essential) will open in the space once occupied by The Beat coffee shop, and the marketing muscle it will bring to the scene will no doubt further endanger the survival of the small, locally-owned stores like Carson Kitchen, The Smashed Pig, Bõchõ, and La Comida — places that, like Glutton, had  foodies all atwitter just a couple of years ago.

Truth be told, we were never fond of the name, or the logo of Glutton. The name sent all the wrong messages, and the logo looked like some cheap eatery you’d find in a food court. But from our very first bites back on April 10, 2015, we were taken by the place. Manchester’s concept was everything people say they want in a restaurant: intimate, local, chef-driven, and delicious. The size was right, the corner location attractive, and the open kitchen/bar/dining room just the sort of Millennial-friendly space that the post-recession zeitgeist seemed to call for. He also had a solid mixology program as well as what might have been the best burger in town.

Alas, it was not enough. “I strongly stand behind the product we offered. Unfortunately, we just couldn’t get enough consistent business through the doors,” is how Bradley put it when I asked him what went wrong. Sometimes, though, quality isn’t enough. To succeed in the restaurant business, you’ve got to capture people’s imagination, and perhaps that’s where Glutton fell short.

Or perhaps downtown Las Vegas is about to get the (boring, derivative, franchise) restaurants it deserves.