MARCHE BACCHUS is Decadent, Diabolical and Delicious.

The staff at ELV has never been good at math. That’s why charts and graphs like this one usually frighten and confuse us:

Wine – Vintage – Strip Restaurant Price – MB Restaurant Price

Cloudy Bay Sauvignon Blanc 2007 $75.00 $38.99
Caymus Conundrum 2006 $70.00 $36.99
Dalla Valle Cabernet Sauvignon 1997 $550.00 $204.99
Duckhorn Merlot 2005 $120.00 $65.99
Philippe de Rothschild Rojo Chile 2004 $60.00 $23.99
Finca Luzon Merlot, Jumilla 2003 $30.00 $18.99
Gaja Barbaresco Costa Russi 2000 $795.00 $390.99
George “Nuptial Vineyard” Pinot Noir 2005 $225.00 $89.99
Harlan Estate Cabernet Sauvignon 2003 $950.00 $634.99
Jordan Cabernet Sauvignon 2003 $110.00 $58.99
Joseph Phelps Insignia 2004 $405.00 $229.99
Row Eleven Pinot Noir 2006 $56.00 $26.99
Shafer “Red Shoulder” Chardonnay 2004 $110.00 $59.99
Stanley Lambert August Shiraz 2004 $59.00 $26.99
Veuve Cliquot Yellow Label NV $110.00 $60.99
Williams & Selyem Pinot Noir 2005 $175.00 $82.99

But even our numeracy-deficient brains can detect a bargain when we see one. And it doesn’t take a mathematical genius like this to decipher that serious wine drinkers (or casual wine drinkers, or first time wine drinkers) can’t do better than the prices at Marche Bacchus. I would even submit that the “Strip” prices quoted above are unduly modest, and that you can easily spend more on those bottles of wine at certain restaurants up and down LVBlvd. So.

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KLAS TV (CBS) Channel 8 Restaurant(s) of the Week – Summertime is bargain time

Like most of the hoi polloi, the staff at ELV usually finds itself hunkering down with a bag of Cheetos and a cooler of PBR when the mercurey starts topping the century mark around here. Which is really a shame, since every restaurant from Guy Savoy on down starts slashing prices in July and August as shameless inducements to get us to alight from our palatial desert abodes into the super-cooled, oxygenated air of major Strip restaurants – whose prices we (usually) love to hate.

And with revenues down in all F&B outlets (Food and Beverage for you non-Vegas rubes out there) up and down the Boulevard of Broken Dreams, this is the hottest time to dine in more ways than one.

Postrio is featuring a $45 tasting menu with a carafe of (decent) wine for two. I get it wrong on the video, but let’s face it: Who the hell watches TV at 6:45 AM anyway except shut ins, The Food Gal, and stipppers coming home from work?*

Spago has a six course tasting menu of Eric Klein’s tasty Alsace-goes-Californian cuisine for $65/per – a whopping 35% discount for the same grub served the other 10 months of the year. The co-joined fraternal restaurant twins Sushi-Roku/Boa Steakhouse – at the other end of the Forum Shops- simplify things by discounting their entire menus 20% until Labor Day.

And if you’re still stuck in Caesars with a hankerin’ for some down-home vittles like Mom used to make, the aforementioned Guy Savoy features a $90 three-course menu (more like 5 courses with an amuse here and a chef’s treat there), that is French perfection personified, and fully 50% less than you’ll pay the rest of the year.

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*Answer: Drug dealers still at work.

The Palazzo Restaurants – Part One

Now that it’s been open for 6 months, and I’ve eaten in every restaurant there at least twice, I thought I’d give you a quick rundown of what’s worth eating in, and what’s not, in the Palazzo.

 
It couldn’t be a worse time to open a bunch of fancy food emporiums – what with the recession….er….uh….I mean: economic downturn and all – but you have to give the Venetian/Palazzo credit(?) for flying in the face of eating out adversity and asking Charlie Trotter, Wolfgang Puck, Mario Batali and Emeril Lagasse to strut their high priced stuff for Sheldon Adelson’s conventioneers – who aren’t spending quite as freely as they were when these places were on the drawing boards.

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