Tag: brunch

BOTECO Bucks the Odds

When Standard & Poor closed, my (already low) opinion of Green Valley plunged even further. For years I’ve called GV the land of $400,000 homes and $40,000 cars where no one wants to spend more than forty bucks on dinner. Just weeks before S&P shuttered, this little jewel box opened in a giant strip mall that houses at least two dozen other food options. Boteco is so small and so obscure — wedged between something called the “Beach Hut Deli” and a pet food store — that you can be parked right in front of it and miss it. But miss it you should not do, not if you want to taste Spanish-styled, chef-driven, Robuchon-inspired food the likes of which this backwater probably can’t appreciate.

But appreciate it you should. Because if you’re reading these words, you are obviously a person in search of good taste, and tastes don’t get much better than what chef Rachel LaGloahec is putting on these plate. This is not complicated food, a la Sparrow + Wolf, nor is it the “too hip for the room” cooking that failed down the street. These are the musings of a confident young chef, who has obviously been well-trained, and who hits her marks with every beat.

Take her weekend brunch for instance. Everyone knows I hate brunch. And I hate it because most brunch menus are about as inspiring as a Mitch McConnell press conference. LaGloahec got me interested from the first bite of her house-vodka-cured salmon:

…and spices things up further with Tacos da Moda — scrambled eggs with strips of steak and Spanish chorizo, ready to be rolled into some house-made corn tortillas — as beautiful a breakfast concoction as one can construct. Don’t miss the Dutch Baby-style pancakes, either —  served with a strawberry coulis and champagne zabaglione —  her trio of Botequito sliders dripping with melted onions and smoked Gouda on a brioche bun that’s a wonder unto itself. If that’s not enough to get you out of your brunch rut, the trio of prosecco “flights” — bellini, cassis, and limoncello — is a lip-smacking steal at $12.

At dinner, there are only twelve things on the menu, but those sliders, an avocado crunch salad and a Singapore Chilli Crab dip are a delight, and the kind of food that’s unknown this far from the Strip.  There’s even a poutine on the menu for the calorie-challenged, fabulous Spanish ham, good oysters, and escargot croquetas and braised beef with Piedmontese rice for ectomorphs in need of a good rib-sticking. This is a mix and match menu that’s made for fun. Boteco means “meeting place” for friends and family, and if you and yours are looking for a place to congregate, you won’t find any better in this neck of the culinary desert.

BOTECO

9500 S. Eastern Ave. #170

Las Vegas, NV 89123

702.790.2323

http://botecolv.com/

 

In Praise of EAT.

Is it the pancakes?

The hash?

The hash before and after you break the perfectly poached yolk?

The Stumptown cold brew?

Or is it something else? Something else that makes us fall in love with the food at EAT. every time we eat here?

Well, it’s all of those things and more.

It’s the unexpected kick of a kick-ass posole:

…and the freshness of the bread and the care of the cooks. It’s the lickety-split service staff and the Black Bean Veggie Chili and the truffled egg sandwich and the Huevos Montulenos — the latter bathed in some incendiary chili sauces that will light you up.

They also do a very respectable chilaquiles, and probably the best eggs Benedict you’ll find outside of a hotel.

Most of all, though, what we always fall for are the pancakes and the hash. Now that Glutton and Du-par’s have closed, there’s no where else to get good buttermilk flapjacks, and if you’re a fan of big, chunky, salty corned beef (and let’s face it who isn’t?), you’ll think you’ve died and gone to hash heaven.

There’s been a lot of stuff written about all the failures of the Downtown Project (and believe me, there have been a LOT of failures), but one of the few smart things it did was to form a partnership with Natalie Young and let her concoct the tastiest breakfast-lunch nook in all of Vegas.

Downtown or otherwise.

P.S. For those of you too timid to brave the wilds of DTLV, a new location is set to open this summer at 1910 Village Center Circle, smack dab in the middle of the  Land of the White Range Rover, aka Summerlin.

EAT.

707 Carson Street

Las Vegas, NV 89101

702.534.1515

http://eatdtlv.com/

I Hate Breakfast

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/570b78b6859fd0f69a317eb4/t/57edfe6720099ef0aecb59f5/1475215061242/

I hate Breakfast.

Breakfast is a waste of time and calories.

I hate even the idea of breakfast.

Breakfast is good for only one thing: thinking about lunch.

Everything about breakfast sucks.

For one: it comes too early in the day. I mean, who wants to eat a lot of food when they’re barely awake? How well do your olfactories function, or your mandibles munch, when you’re barely ambulatory?

Secondly (and this is, by far, the most important thing): Who wants to eat when you’re not even hungry? I’ve never bought, for once second, that whole “break the fast” stuff that my mom tried to shovel down my throat. No one, and I mean NO ONE, is all that hungry when first they awaken. If you’re a fully-functioning, non-hung-over adult who is rising and shining at the break of dawn, there are only three things you want to do: 1) go back to sleep; 2) relieve yourself and then enjoy a warm or slightly cool beverage; or 3) sit on the iron throne and relieve yourself further of whatever you enjoyed the night before.

The only other thing people want to do in the mornings is watch or read the news — which (next to #3 above) is just about the most unappetizing thing on earth.

No matter how you slice it, consuming food in close proximity to any of these things is the last thing on your mind.

But year after year, from the time you’re a wee one until you’re so old you’re having trouble taking a wee wee, some authoritative voice is constantly shoving the idea of breakfast down your throat even though you don’t want it.

The only thing I hate worse than breakfast is brunch.

Brunch is inexcusable on many levels.

For one, brunch is never about the food. Brunch food is, by definition, even worse than breakfast food –nothing but carbs, fat and sugar, and ten times more of it than you might consume on your own during the week. Brunch is someone’s stupid idea of a weekend, daylight happy hour for people too bad at drinking to do it after dark like a real booze-abuser.

Brunch is populated by three things I loathe: drunk women in groups, bad omelets, and cheap champagne.

Women in groups are the worst — any time you see a group of “fun-loving gals” whooping it up with mimosas in their hands, you know you’re at brunch somewhere, eating one of the 400 different ways a chef can throw eggs and bread together and overcharge for it. It is a scientific fact: the more women you see living it up in a restaurant, the worse the food.

The only thing worse than brunch is brunch with music.

Brunch should be illegal.

Next week: If you insist, I’ll have a couple of brunch recommendations for you.