“It’s a major award! I won it!” – The Old Man (Darren McGavin) to his neighbor in A Christmas Story
It’s that time of year again Food For Thought fans…Time for the News 88.9 FM KNPR-Nevada Public Radio MAJOR RESTAURANT AWARDS….
Continue reading “Major Restaurant Awards 2008 – on News 88.9 FM KNPR – Nevada Public Radio”
Allow us to ruminate, instead of masticate, on mussels for a moment.
Mussels appear up and down the Atlantic coast, from North Carolina to Newfoundland, but have become a major cash crop of Prince Edward Island in the Canadian Maritime Provinces. On restaurant menus their provenance is usually announced with the term PEI, signifying to most folks anyway, a superior product.
There’s nothing wrong with PEI’s (Mytilus edulis, also known as blue or Atlantic mussels), as Eating Las Vegas finds them preferable in taste and texture to the unsightly and grainy New Zealand Green Lips that show up from time to time — but neither compares with the west coast Penn Cove mussel. Penn Coves (Mytilus trossulus) are also known as Pacific or Foolish* mussels and to our tastebuds, are the sweetest, silkiest, briniest and freshest expression of this bivalve. Increasingly, these are being farmed between Northern California and Southern Alaska, and these cold water environs contribute to their superior taste.
November is peak mussel season….and one kitchen that knows how to tantalizingly treat a trossulus is Spago. If you’re a PEI fan, there’s no better place to appreciate them than sitting on the patio of Marche Bacchus on an autumn evening, and polishing off a dozen or so whilst sipping a cool, crisp Sancerre. Both restaurants steam them according to the classic French recipe with shallots, garlic, white wine and parsley — leaving behind a nice bowl of boullion for sufficient bread sopping.
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* Probably so named because of the large clusters they form on rocks, causing them to foolishly wash away and into the hands of predators.
Yeah, it was just another day and night at the office for ELV, as he traipsed his way across our unassuming village’s better addresses, seeking the best in food and drink. And this is what he came up with in one weekend:
A Fish:
Postrio’s new design is a winner, and the re-designed menu (and smaller, less expensive, more eclectic wine list) should garner raves as well. Here was our modest loup de mer (“wolf of the sea”), grilled to a fare-the-well (by Chef Mark Sandoval) and filet’d tableside with the grace worthy of a Michelin 3-star.
A Steak:
We’ve known Chef Sean Roe since the early 90’s….when he first showed us around Emeril’s Fish House in the MGM. He’s still hard at the stoves, and now does a wonderful job keeping Delmonico near the top of our steakhouse food chain. This beauty was a bone-in rib-eye, dry aged (although not nearly enough to suit ELV), and as full of beef flavor as a carnivore could want. It was the perfect amuse bouche for ELV before he ventured into the netherworld of the Venetian Convention Center — to spend an evening listening to political speeches (and pushing rubber chicken around his plate) whilst pretending to care who was going to win this pesky election thing (that has been distracting us from our food and wine habit for much too long).
And A Choucroute:
After premium fish and a prime steak, sometimes a little pork is called for. That’s when Eric Klein’s choucroute garni at Spago really fills the bill. Choucroute garni stands for the spiced sauerkraut underneath the sausages, bacon, pork belly, chops and potatoes that “garnish” the fermented vegetable. Leave it to the Alsatians to “decorate” their veggies with two pounds of pork products….but the result is just delicious if you ask us…and surprisingly light and digestible.