This groove-filled spaceship of awesome Asian cuisine inside the otherwise predictable Palazzo has got serious personality. And, as we know, personality goes a long way. Watch us explicate the merits of this well-worthy noodle joint on KLAS in his latest segment of Restaurant of the Week.
Click below to see the man, the gourmand, the myth….and a guy who talks too much with his hands….(with his second favorite food gal-Denise Valdez.)
He was once the best chef in Vegas. Back when Laurent Tourondel was top toque at Caesar’s Palace (and presiding over the last days of the Palace Court Restaurant from 1996-1998), Vegas had never seen anything like his refined take on French cuisine. Classically trained at Troisgros in Roanne, France, he also experienced immense critical success at the ill-fated Cello in New York, before devoting himself to the more prosaic concerns of building a restaurant empire.
Now he’s two days from opening a 200 seat hamburger restaurant right off the Mirage Casino-in the space formerly home to the famed white tigers of Siegfried and Roy fame – one of whom once tried to make its own burger out of Roy’s face. We’re guessing the cuisine will be a bit less refined than Tourondel’s peekytoe crab soup en gelee (Yup…Nuthin’ gets past EATingLV.com!), but from our sneak peek and taste test of yesterday, the burgers will take you straight back to the classic California Googie diner burgers of the 1950’s, albeit with substantially better beef.
Here’s a preview of the space, and a good look at what goes on in the final hours before the launch of an $8,000,000 burger joint!
Yes, I know what you’re thinking: three whole months is an awfully long time to keep up a blog; poor John must just be exhausted; and how am I to get through the week without his witty, insightful and erudite commentaries on the Las Vegas restaurant scene? Well I really don’t know what to say other than seek professional help, take up a non-food related hobby, and holster those credit and debit cards until I get back.
The good news is that, while I’m away, I’ll be bestowing the munificence of mind and spirit that you have come to take for granted on the rest of the world, as I assume my rightful throne (for one episode at least), on the judges stand of Iron Chef America-beginning its seventh season this fall (air dates TBA).
As popular as ICA is, I must confess I remain true to the Japanese original-a show that reveled in badly- dubbed wackiness and its breathless emulsification of haute cusine into high camp.
For a blast from the past, click here to listen to my original “review” of the original Japanese Iron Chef for Nevada Public Radio.* Number Two Son of Food Man (Hugh Alexander Curtas D.O.B. 10-15-84) and the culturally babe-i-licious Ginger Bruner (D.O.B. unknown) supplied the other voices.
*Important historical footnote: Our spoof of the show aired on January 4, 2001, nine days before Saturday Night Live ran a similar (and far inferior) skit….although the mini shark’s head pizzas whipped up by Charlie Sheen looked mighty tasty.