Tag: ALEX

ALEX Closes – The Enemy of Great is Good

Le mieux est l’ennemi du bien. (The best is the enemy of the good.) – Voltaire

There are passion restaurants and there are money restaurants. ALEX — the jewel in the supposed crown of the Wynn hotel — was supposed to be both, but was unceremoniously shut down on short (ten days) notice, despite being the very embodiment of the former, but (apparently) failing as the latter. What really went on behind the scenes leading up to its untimely demise will probably never be known, but the shudder has been felt by the entire Vegas food world (that now extends around the globe), and provides the perfect catalyst to review, and speculate about, what has happened to dining in restaurants, in Las Vegas, over the past seventeen years.

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Envious Eating at ALEX

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The point of this post is not to review the food of a recent over-the-top meal at ALEX. The reason behind the posting of these tasty snaps has nothing to do with recipe or technique analysis. There will be no vivisection of the vittles, nor any probing of the food/wine pairings.

No, the point of this post is to make you jealous.

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Speaking of Cheese – ALEX’s Cart is So Good We Camembert It

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In kase you haven’t noticed, the American cheese revolution is in full swing, an established fact, and now as much a part of our culinary landscape as heirloom tomatoes and California cabernets. In less than three decades — roughly the time since ELV grad-jee-ATED from learnin’ legal stuff gooder in law school, the selections of cheeses in the hinterlands of America has gone from Kraft Parmesan dust in a cardboard can and rubbery mozzarella to all sorts of mass-produced-but-still-very-good varieties to scores of artisanal products from maniac cheese makers that turn out products approaching the best Europe has to offer. (And when ELV says “maniac” he means it. God bless cheese makers, especially the perfectionists that make the ethereal stuff, but most of them are weirder than a curling match.)

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