Tag: Caesars Palace Hotel and Casino

Letter of the Week – Hardly Charmed by MR. CHOW

http://www.personalchefapproach.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Peking-Duck-1.jpg(Many remain skeptical of the price-to-value benefit of this bird)

ELV note: When he isn’t saving children’s lives, Dr. Mark is a frequent visitor to Vegas and one of our “regs.” He’s also one of those food lovers who eats to live and lives to eat, so his thoughtful opinions are always welcome, even if they happen to disagree with our own, infallible, unimpeachable, invariable finicality. To say he was less than impressed with Mr. Chow is an understatement. To say  that the Mr. Chow Peking Duck Experience might be a tad heavy on the wallet, the waistline and the pretension is something he and I might be able to agree upon. Next time he’s in town, we will have to get a group and go peek in on this Peking duck together. In the meantime, read and decide for yourself.

Dear ELV,

Sometimes, things turn out just as you expect. Sometimes, they can even be far, far worse. I met up with an old friend in town on a recent Friday night. Of course, we were pondering that most important question: Where should we have dinner?

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CHOW Time

Hating Mr. Chow is practically a right of passage for most food writers.

This is understandable because the food at Mr. Chow has always been pretty much beside the point. Because Mr. Chow, for the uninitiated among you, has always been about the scene. But it’s also about a certain slice of social history, and the “exaggerated elegance” (Frank Bruni’s words) of Chinese cuisine. But most of all, Mr. Chow is about status. But that is about to change, at least in Vegas. Allow us to explain.

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Holiday Dining My Way

ELV note: We’ve been as busy as a beaver this fall — writing for a various ‘zines and trying to finish the copy for the fourth edition of EATING LAS VEGAS – The 50 Essential Restaurants. Oh yes, and we also took a two-week trip to Germany and Alsace (that we’ll be writing about as soon as the book gets done), and we got engaged to be married AND we’ve been trying to keep up with our day job — saving the taxpayers’ money at the City of Las Vegas. As a result, our nights have been shorter and our ELV posts have been fewer. So, with all that in mind, we thought this would be a good time to post our recently published article in VEGAS magazine, highlighting our ideas for where to best have a bacchanalian blowout over the holidays. Read on, happy holidays, and we’ll resume more regular postings once all this hubbub subsides.

Upscale Egg Salad at Le Cirque Las Vegas(Le Cirque puts its spin on egg salad)

Dining in Las Vegas is extravagant any time of year, but during the holidays, our temples of gastronomic delight really pull out all the stops—and stoppers.

In Las Vegas, creating a holiday environment all year-round is our specialty. But during our winter holidays (when, granted, you might have to look for snow in the Bellagio Conservatory rather than outside), the city’s best restaurants stage the ultimate in over-the-top dining—featuring très luxe products from around the globe brought in to satisfy gourmands looking to dress up, dine out, and drink it all in, the Vegas way.

http://www.trbimg.com/img-54b885e9/turbine/la-trb-las-vegas-joel-robuchon-new-menu-20150115

As the French invented both the modern restaurant and Champagne, you can be assured a holiday meal at Joël Robuchon (MGM Grand, 702-891-7925) will be second to none. James Beard Award–winning Executive Chef Claude Le-Tohic (pictured above with the man himself) is a truffle snob of the best kind, and by Christmas Day, his menu is usually festooned with the finest black truffles. “After about mid-December, the white truffles start declining in quality,” he explains. “That’s when we start using truffes noires, which are much better when cooked. Many of our customers request them over the holidays.” Thus can you find these gorgeous fungi adorning everything from a mousseline served with a semi-soft boiled egg with Comté cheese to a white onion tart with smoked bacon that proves the rest of the world has nothing on the French when it comes to crafting an umami bomb.

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