Capital Nourishment – Dining Around D.C.

Image(Perhaps you’ve heard of him?)

The District of Columbia has neither the history of Boston, the sexiness of New York, nor the cache of Charleston. It is a manufactured city, born of compromise, and possessed (as JFK once remarked) of Northern charm and Southern efficiency. It is an industry town where politics and media converge both to dominate the culture and take themselves way too seriously.

When it comes to restaurants, it may not be in New York’s league (or even Los Angeles’s), but I like to think of it as a large, provincial city with an inferiority complex, always trying to compete gastronomically with the big boys. Sort of like Chicago with better seafood.

My own relationship with Washington D.C. goes way back and is a fraught one. Despite despising politics, I have been strangely drawn here for decades. So much so that I’m just as comfortable noshing around Georgetown, the Penn Quarter, or Dupont Circle as I am navigating the Las Vegas Strip. The obligatory family museum visits when I was growing up led to interning for a Senator on Capitol Hill in 1971, where a big dose of Vietnam War debates inoculated me forever from the disease of partisan politics.

Thankfully it didn’t blunt my appetite for the town, which I think deserves to be more famous for its restaurants than it is.

When I’m in the District (every year for the past ten), I lean towards the tried and true. There’s a whole contemporary food scene with gastro-pubs aplenty, but when I’m there, I enjoy sliding into restaurants that fit like a well-worn blazer, run by decorated veterans who have honed their craft, like José Andrés and Fabio Trabocchi.

Oyamel Cocina Mexicana - Eater DC(Let’s taco about how great Oyamel is)

If you hang around the Penn Quarter, you can eat very well and never leave the Andrés orbit. Our last trip found us popping into Oyamel for some exemplary tacos (above) and mouth-searing aquachile before we hit the National Gallery. Across the street is the amazing Asian-Peruvian mashup of China Chilcano  (the $70 Peruvian tasting menu is a steal) and down the same block you’ll find the original Jaleo, which, despite its age (circa 1993), remains one of the best Spanish restaurants in America.

Having eaten in all three multiple times, I can confidently state you can close your eyes and point on the menu and still be seduced by whatever shows up on your plate  – whether it’s a soothing huitlacoche quesadilla, a bracing Peruvian ceviche, or the liquified olives “Ferran Adrià.” A remarkable triple threat of authentic, in-your-face-flavors mixed with enough panache to keep us coming back for decades now.

The most popular of all is  Zaytinya — Andrés’ take on Greek, Turkish and Lebanese food, just a couple of blocks north from where it all started. All of his restaurants are busy, but despite Zaytinya’s size, age (circa 2002), outdoor seating, and multi-levels, it has become one of the toughest tables in town. One bite of the hommus ma lahm (with ground lamb and pine nuts), soujouk pide (spicy sausage flat bread), kebab platter or smoked lamb shoulder will tell you why. When they open a branch in Vegas later this year, you can expect it to be mobbed as well.

OUR TEAM — Fabio Trabocchi Restaurants(Fabio-lous chef)

I’ve never had a bad meal in a Fabio Trabocchi restaurant; indeed, I’ve never had a bad bite. He’s one of the best working chefs in America, and you could plan your D C. visit around each of his eateries and be assured of dining on cooking as polished as any in the country.

Fiola – DC is his flagship, and takes a back seat to no Italian, and        features menus  both traditional “La Tradizione” ($225) and more inventive Il Viaggio (“The Journey” $285). During the week (Tuesdays-Wednesday-Thursday), you can order a la carte and be assured that whatever appears (from the Pappa al Pomodoro to the mixed seafood pasta to the langoustine with stracciatella and limone) will compete with the best version you have ever had, both visually and in the mouth. The wine list is a dream (and full of trophy bottles, natch), and the waiters all look as good as the food. It’s sad that it isn’t open for lunch anymore, but snare a seat at the bar and you’ll see a parade of D.C.’s finest flock in for the unforgettable food.

RESTAURANTS — Fabio Trabocchi Restaurants

Moving to less formal waters, Trabocchi’s Fiola Mare (Italian seafood) sits right on the Potomac in Georgetown and wheels the catch of the day by every table for the discriminating to choose, while Del Mar (above) is located directly south of the The Mall at the District Wharf) is an eyeball-popping ode to jamon, tapas, sobrassada, and Spanish seafood. (Historical footnote: this completely gentrified, now-bustling multi-use riverfront was where we learned to gorge on Eastern Shore seafood back in the early 1970s, at the long-defunct Hogate’s.)

ABOUT OUR MENUS — Del Mar Restaurant

Del Mar practically assaults your senses with its primary colors, seafood motif, and endless array of fish and shellfish, both cooked and raw, and its jamon and paella presentations are José worthy. Both chefs now cast a wide net over the D.C. restaurant scene, and over two decades have done as much anyone to bring our nation’s capital into the big leagues of destination restaurants.

But man does not live by celebrity chefs alone, and D.C. remains the American capital of French bistros, even if their numbers have diminished over the years. One needn’t look hard in the NW quadrant to find Gallic gastronomy faithful to the haute bourgeois cooking of Paris. Here it is at its imported best, with more venues ready to provide satiety when cravings strike for ris de veau, steak au poivre, and moules marinière. Three old favorites are Bistrot Du Coin a few blocks from Dupont Circle (where the champagne list is legendary for selection and modest prices), Le Diplomate (a perfect facsimile of a Parisian brasserie, legendary for being packed at brunch), and the jewel box which is  Bistrot Lepic in upper Georgetown. Their menus are about as trendy  as boeuf bourguignon, but when you step through the doors, the warm embrace of wine-infused cooking permeates the room, the food, and your soul.

Image(Where the love affair began)

The oldest of the bunch — La Chaumière —  features a menu straight from 1976 and is none the worse for it. It had been forty-six years since we first ducked into the white, timbered dining room, and tucked into a Quenelle de Brochet Sauce Homard:

Image(Gefilte fish with a French education)

….and with one bite we were transported to that imaginary French farmhouse of our youth. When you cut your teeth on a certain type of cuisine you never forget it, and dishes like those dumplings, torchon de foie gras, Dover sole and crême caramel are what made me fall in love with food in the first place.

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As comforting as all of these are, even a nostalgic old soul occasionally looks for something new. Which is how, at the urging of a Filipino foodie friend we happened upon the Purple Patch in a not-exactly-tourist-friendly part of town.

To say we were skeptical at first is an understatement. Filipino has always been the Rodney Dangerfield of Asian cuisines. Fried, heavy and greasy, and dominated by flavors neither complex nor refined. To be fair, it is not a single culture, but more like a melange of regional foods (from over 7,000 separate islands) which are usually about as subtle as a  Manny Paquiao  right cross.

None of which applies to what Filipino-American chef Patrice Cleary is whipping up these days in the rapidly gentrifying Mt. Pleasant neighborhood — invoking  precise levels of seasoning and technique not normally associated with this cuisine.

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One taste of her vegetable slaw, papaya salad with cured pork (below), crisp, addictive lumpia, or hauntingly savory mushroom pancit announces that you have left the land of steam tables and greasy fried fish, and entered a new realm of sticky-rich lechon, lightly-fried tofu, and ginger-infused sweet-sour snapper, which command attention for their careful cooking, vivid flavors and balanced textures.

The restaurant itself is a confusing hoot: a tri-level maze of warrens, pockets, and hallways carved out of a Mt. Pleasant townhouse. I wasn’t sure we were in the same building when I took my seat in a subterranean skinny cavern of a space. None of which mattered once the platters of the shockingly fresh food start appearing.

Image(Atchara Papaya and Tocino Salad)

These recipes can hold their own with any Asian cuisine (again something not normally said of the Philippines), and were much brighter and lighter than anything I’ve ever tasted with this moniker attached to it.

It is something of a shame that a Las Vegan must travel 2000 miles east to find such a culinary celebration of this culture. Especially since Vegas is crawling with Filipinos: If all the them  exited tomorrow, there wouldn’t be a nurse left in Clark County.

But travel here we have, twice now, to what might be the best Filipino restaurant in America. An opinion our old friend, Washington Post critic Tom Sietsema (@tomsietsema) probably agrees with, since he named Purple Patch his Restaurant of the Year 2023.

Mabuhay!

Image(We love to Tagalog with Patrice Cleary)

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Washington D.C. has come a long way since my days of dining at Kinkead’s (closed 2012), Citronelle (2012), Galileo (2006), Jean-Louis (1996), Duke Zeibert’s (1994),, and Sans Souci (1983). The power lunch crowd probably eats at their desks these days, and of-the-moment restaurants  (like Rose’s Luxury or The Dabney) are informal, chef-driven and aimed more at the Instagram crowd than the movers and shakers who once defined the dining scene.

While I have nothing against locavore-obsessed chefs and open-hearth cooking, much of the D.C. restaurant landscape now feels like any other big city  — where you can get everything from top-grade sushi to fabulous pizza to various world cuisines.  (West African or Laotian anyone?).

In 2024, you can dine as well in Washington as anywhere in America, but in the newer joints, you will feel like you’re eating anywhere in America.

Which is why I gravitate to time-worn bistros and old-school chefs. Give me classic Spanish, Italian seafood, or a French bistro any day (or an occasional envelope-pushing Filipino), and I am one happy Boomer, who still remembers the way we were, strolling the mean streets of Georgetown, in 1978.

Spanish Inquisition, Part Dos – Madrid

Image(Dinner at 7? What are we, savages?)

If Barcelona was a failed first date that makes you question whether there will be a second, Madrid was an inscrutable beauty who revealed just enough of herself to leave you lusting for more. One week was hardly enough time to get to know her seductive neighborhoods, and hidden delights, and as with her rival city, we barely scratched the surface of her culinary wonders. But, as we do with most large cities when first we experience them, we sought out the new and the old, the better to get a sense of the restaurant scene. But before we dove into the Spanish new wave, we thought it best to start with a sense of history. And aside from Botin (the oldest restaurant in the world, which we will get to), dining in Madrid doesn’t get more historical than at Horcher.

Gustav Horcher started catering to the carriage trade in Berlin in 1904, but a small disagreement between Germany and the entire western world caused him to re-locate to Madrid in 1942. During this little dust-up, Nazis used Spain as a playground, and Horcher became their favorite canteen, retaining its cache (and customers) from its Berlin days, and staying afloat partly due to the largess of the Nazi High Command. After they were Nuremberg-ed, it remained a haunt of the rich and famous, despite the ghosts of some of its more infamous patrons continuing to haunt the premises.

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Not being one to let a little Hermann Göering get between me and some jugged hare, appointments were made for our first dinner in Madrid, and it was a doozy.

A meal as irrepressibly old school as Horcher was just the antidote to the inventive gastropubs and formulaic Catalan food of Barcelona.  Walking in felt like entering a time capsule. The thick linens, baroque place settings, and decor straight from the days of “continental cuisine” felt almost like a stage setting for women in Lillian Russell bustles and men in muttonchops.

The surroundings may have been dripping with old money vibes, but the  tuxedo-ed staff was a mix of old salts and eager youngsters, and from gueridons to the duck presses, you knew you were about to be as coddled as a Faberge egg. Those staff were warm and welcoming, everyone with a twinkle in their eye; and the menu couldn’t have been any less modern if it had a tassel attached to it.

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Terrine of goose foie gras kicked things off, as did some “Russian style” marinated salmon. From there it was on to two soups, each superb: a sherry consommé and Consommé “Don Victor” — the latter utilizing a press to extract every bit of beef juices from a couple of roasted cuts.

Artichoke hearts were suffused with mushrooms and lobster, and our main courses ran the gamut from beef Stroganoff in Pommery mustard sauce, to the Horcher hamburger (which single-handedly revives the glories of the “Hamburg” steak) to my “Hare a la Royale” — this version being thick rounds of rabbit sausage, so enriched by blood and wine they should’ve been served with their own tax return.

The pommes soufflé were flawless and the baumkuchen (resembling a small tree of layered pancakes, sliced and served mit shlag), was a showstopper — every bite a study in old world richness matching the setting.

One must be cautious in overpraising Horcher. Its style is about as hip as a pillbox hat, and the menu more geared to the stolid appetites of a German trencherman than to those seeking pointless pointillisms or culinary cartwheels. There are no chef visions at work here, and zero tweezers in use. Only classic recipes rendered with care and top-shelf ingredients. Horcher has been doing the same thing so long it would be easy to dismiss it as a culinary relic, but when the food is this toothsome, the service this precise, and the setting this elegant, you would be denying yourself one of the great restaurant experiences in the world.

It’s also a relative bargain, our dinner came to $447.00/couple including three bottles of wine from a list with plenty of great Spanish selections for under a hundred euros.

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Horcher was just down the street from our palatial digs (Hotel Wellington) — perched between the tony Salamanca neighborhood and the museum district, was the perfect jumping off point to stroll the city from the El Retiro Park to the Plaza Mayor. It was also convenient to the far trendier Calle del Dr. Castelo, where the joints were jumping (and crowds spilling onto the streets) late into the evening, which is how we found ourselves shivering on an outside table at La Castela late one night to see what the cool kids were noshing on these days.

Image(You…lookin’ at me?)

 We were freezing, but still wowed by the attentiveness to detail in the dishes flying forth from the kitchen to an eager gaggle of customers waiting patiently for the cooks to catch up with them. Keep in mind, entering these cacophonous tabernas at peak times (which seems to be the millisecond they open their doors until well after midnight, is like trying to order food in a rugby scrum on the floor of a stock exchange. Catching someone’s eye and begging seems to be the way to order, and woe to the tourist who doesn’t know exactly what they want they moment they get their seat.

Image(Not seen: me waving frantically)

Somehow we managed to corral a waiter,  and the plates that finally appeared were pretty nifty….such as this asparagus/bean stew (lower left) which was so dense with flavor it missed not a thing by containing no meat:

Image(Bean there, done that)

Others also held our attention: teeth-testing chicharrónes (bottom center), croquetas bursting with béchamel (not pictured), the mandatory anchovies, the best clams of the trip, and an octopus paella (top row right) which were just the rib-sticking ticket on a blustery night.

All of it enjoyed in an atmosphere resembling a subway car at rush hour. La Castela convinced us that Spaniards must love crowds the way a Swede loves solitude, since jostling to get served seems to be their favorite indoor sport.

Our late night snack, which ended up being at least six courses plus wine, ended up costing $80/pp.

Image(Spaniards enjoying lunch, at dinnertime)

By the time we got to lunch at La Maquina Jorge Juan we were firmly acclimated to the Spanish gustatory customs — which, in winter, treats the midday meal as something to enjoy as the sun is going down. So it was late one afternoon when we whisked to a corner table in a restaurant packed tighter than a conserva tin, and started eating around 3:00 pm.

Unlike most of our other destinations, there was no advanced planning for this meal; we were simply hungry and it was right in front of us and looked good. And boy was it. La Maquina is part of a local chain of “The Machine” restaurants specializing in fresh seafood, and we were happy we stumbled upon the crispiest pan con tomate of the trip:

Image(This delighted me from my head tomatoes)

Among other things like extraordinary olives and anchovies, spicy sobrassada chunks,  gorgeous, fork-tender artichokes, those langoustines (below), and a snowy halibut fillet quivering between slightly underdone and perfection. It was our most unexpected meal of the trip, and serendipitously one of the best.

Image(p.m. not a.m.)

All served by a harried staff who nevertheless were friendly, helpful and on their game. As a side note, over two weeks of eating in Spain, in establishments ancient and trendy, large and small, cheap and wallet-bending, we didn’t have bad service, anywhere.

When the dust settled, the damage was $191/couple, the tariff mainly increased by those scrumptious, fresh-from-the-sea Norway lobsters.

 

As you can tell from these travelogues, when we are in any gastronomic capital, we tend to toggle between trendy restaurants and those dripping with tradition. Which is why we booked it later to that night  to Botin  since it can lay claim to being the oldest continuously operating restaurant in the world.

Botin’s cooks have been slinging roast pork and lamb at customers from the same antiquated ovens since before the United States was even a twinkle in Ben Franklin’s eye.

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The food is very simple and mostly pretty good. The star of the show — roast suckling pig — comes out as crispy and meltingly soft as you’d expect from some place that’s been doing it for three-hundred years. But the bread is pretty basic (the Spanish have nothing on the French when it comes to baking); the tripe stew was gloppy, gummy and bland; and the roast lamb more bones than meat. The garlic and egg soup and scrambled eggs (Revuelto de la Casa) were nothing to shout about, either, and as we repeatedly found in España, salt, pepper and spice seem to be anathema to these kitchens.

In retrospect, we had a ton of fun, the wine was reasonable, the servers were great, and a bucket list check-mark was dutifully applied. But I wouldn’t return for the food.

Our bill (with sherry and two bottles of wine) came to $165/couple.

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After dining among the ghosts of Goya and Hemingway, it was time for a youth movement. And a tasting menu (something we swore to avoid on this trip). Which is how we ended up sampling ten courses of Canary Island-inspired cuisine at Gofio – an envelope of a space tucked into a narrow street (C. de Lope de Vega) in the Barrio de Las Letras (Literary Quarter) neighborhood, a few blocks west of the Prado.

Image(From the sardine can school of restaurant design)

The room is tiny (see above); and the food as modern as the streets are ancient. A succession of small plates,  each highlighting a series of flavors central to the islands’ identity, frame the chef’s philosophy. But to Chef Safe Cruz’s credit, most things worked, contrivances were few, and the meal proceeded seamlessly from one course to the next.

One website described the menu as envelope-pushing. There certainly was a fair amount of twee this, gelled that, and platings where perhaps an excess of punctiliousness was employed. But the progression held your attention, which is often the failing of many of these meals in less skillful hands..

Gofio stands for the stone-ground flour used in tortillas on the island(s), but we didn’t see a lot of that, or carbs for that matter. That said, most of our dinner was a delight.  But if you’re looking for a course-by-course dissection of the meal, with dishes described in granular detail, you’ve come to the wrong place. (Besides: by the time you read this, everything will have changed. To a bite, though, everything clicked, the flavors were suitably bite-sized, compelling and vivid.)

Image(So. Many. Small. Bites.)

And the Canary Island wines were a revelation: a white Malvasia Volcania — aromatic, bracing and citrusy — a perfect foil for the small bites of seafood, while the red — a Taganan Tinto blend — was elegant and ripe, putting one in mind of a slightly herbaceous Central Coast Pinot Noir .

Restaurants like this is rely on so much plating and technique, you leave slightly dazzled but also dazed: What did I have? That seafood soup (bottom center above) was intense, but what was the seasoning? Oh yes, remember course number four….was that the little pasta in a dashi-like broth? The skirt steak draped with crispy jamon (bottom right) was fabulous, especially with that dusting of what was it? And what were those mojo sauces came with the raw tuna?  Where did they come from again? And what was that orange jelly made of? And so it goes.

Slowly but surely, you lose the plot on everything from the sauces to whatever was in that exquisite little dumpling.

So it goes, for a couple of hours and then you’re done with nothing but a blurred memory of tastes which lose their uniqueness in the blizzard of flavors before and after they hit the table. Of course you loved those starters (the crunch, the freshness, what was that?) but four plates later, who remembers them? Tastes memories quickly fade when faced with savories in rapid succession.

Do people eat like this anywhere but precious, Michelin-chasing restaurants aimed at bored gastronomes and award whores? This is chefs cooking for chefs, like jazz musicians playing for each other. In Spain, in 2024, it remains in full flower, and if you insist on eating slightly exotic food in tiny portions, Gofio is the way to go.

There are two tasting menus (95 and 125 euros_ and we opted for the larger one, which, for cooking this precise of ingredients this special, is a flat-out steal. Not to sound like a broken record, but the wines were a bargain, also, and the kids running the joint were a treat.

Image(“Oh no, there’s a Boomer approaching!”)

Arima Basque Soul is one of those taverns catering to an in-the-know clientele in a trendy neighborhood (Chamberi) jammed with bars and restaurants, all of which are far too hip for silver-haired Boomers simply looking for a good plate of grub. Its owner is from San Sebastián and the inventive tapas are firmly rooted in the Basque catechism which holds there is not limit to what you can do with small bites of finger food.

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A long, narrow bar leads past a wall of pickled vegetables to a modern, spotless back room with a giant photo mural of an elderly lady overseeing the proceedings at only five tables.  We didn’t order the txuleta (T-bone) steak and probably should have, but the small bites we did get (charred, piquant piquillo peppers, Beasain black pudding, and some intriguing anchovies served with a green chili emulsion and olive oil beads (below), which is basically a de-constructed “Gilda” — the ubiquitous olive-pepper-anchovy pintxos named after a Rita Hayworth movie  – wherein she plays a character who is by turns salty, spicy and sassy.

Concluding with some beautifully aged Manchego, hauntingly subtle cheesecake) were probably the closest you can get in Madrid to a San Sebastián tapas crawl.

Image(Deconstructing Rita)

It was also where more reverse sticker shock over sherry occurred: when what we thought was a glass of expensive manzanilla resulted in the entire bottle being placed on the table. As we were waving to our well-meaning waiter, it slowly dawned upon our non-Madrileño brains that the price (around 25 euros) was for the whole bottle. And with that, we had no choice but to congratulate ourselves and polish off the whole thing.

That’s the thing about Madrid; Everything was delicious and quite the bargain. I won’t concede gastronomic supremacy to Spain over France and Italy, though, since it cannot compete with Italy’s breadth of ingredients or France’s depth of technique. But there is no doubt that the gourmet revolution of the past thirty years has taken firm hold here, and Madrid is a playground of traditional tabernas holding their own with cutting edge cooking.

When I  mentioned this to several fellow gastronauts (who bought into “Spain is the next big thing” gastronomic mantra of twenty years ago) they were quick to point out to me that “You didn’t go to the right places” and “Wait til you get to San Sebastián.”

Fair enough, but from where I stood, as wonderful as they are, you can’t build a great culinary legacy on anchovies, ham, potatoes, bread, Manchego and Tempranillo.  Perhaps the Basques will change my mind. In the meantime, there are no real losers here, and the delectable debate will rage on.

Viva España!

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The List – 2022

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We eat out a whole lot less than we used to.

But you’d never know it from this list.

We’re down to 5-6 restaurants a week (barely breaking a sweat compared to the old days), and sadly finding less and less to write about.

The infantilizing of food writing has not escaped our attention. The written word is an endangered species, and if it’s not in video or podcast form, few are interested in reading about restaurants anymore. Twenty years ago, I was considered an oddball for obsessively snapping pictures of my food. Fifteen years ago (when this website was conceived), I was still an outlier. Now, even high school kids take pictures of their tacos and rate them on social media.

With this in mind, for once, I’m not going to bore you with a bunch of words. Gleaning through my meals of these past five months, I discovered a number of tasty snaps (and a few videos) that should make you salivate more than prose ever could (which is, I suppose, the whole point of today’s ubiquitous food photography).

So here are the restaurants where you should be eating, from someone (me) who has actually eaten in them. Some of these recs are accompanied only with a picture (worth a thousand words?) — which, we hope, will supply you with ample reason to give them a go.

But first, a few words about Detroit pizza.

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For the uninitiated, Detroit is the home of a rectangular, reverse-form, pan-baked pie that loads its cheese on the top of the dough (and underneath the other toppings) allowing it to infuse a puffy, foccacia-like crust before a f**ckload of condiments are then applied.

Including pineapple? You betcha by golly.

 

Classic | Pizza Crimes | Know Your Meme(…and then we bake it in a casserole)

Refinement is not exactly its strong suit.

Detroit pizza is nothing new: Northside Nathan’s has been around for over twenty years. But it inexplicably became a “thing” a few years ago and now every foodie worth his fermentation extols the fine points of these belly bombs like they’re parsing the contrapuntal tinklings of Glenn Gould.

I blame the internet…and Instagram…and the legalization of weed. Because if nothing else, DP is perfect stoner food: ideal for dive bars, and temperamentally suited for a crowd that is usually as baked as the crust.

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Scott Weiner — America’s Pizza Geek extraordinaire — knows his pies, and Robby Cunningham’s Detroit rectangles stole a pizza his heart.

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If you insist, and if you’re stoned, Red Dwarf (second pic) and Guerilla Pizza (first pic and above, in the Hard Hat Lounge), are two of the best.

On to real restaurants…

NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK

Anima by EDO

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Genting Palace

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Gorgeous room. Beautiful food. Bring your wallet. And a friend’s wallet.

Marisco’s El Fresco’s

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Mariscos El Fresco’s is brand new, and only days old as I type these words. But we snuck in early and the Mexican seafood by Chef/owner John Sosa and Chef David Serrano is like nothing else being offered in town.

Image(These tacos shrimply put others to shame)

What Elia Authentic Greek Taverna did for soul-satisfying Greek cooking these guys are trying to do with much-maligned Mexican seafood — most of which (this far north) is unmitigated crap out of a freezer bag. Minimal decor, maximum flavor, in a challenging location (Tropicana and Pecos). Fingers are crossed.

Nusr-Et Steakhouse

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Burger. Of. The. Year. (so far)

Rosa Ristorante

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Just like Stacy’s mom, Rob Moore (above) has got in going on…on St. Rose Parkway (of all places) way out in the wilds of Henderson. If this culinary renaissance keeps up in this former godforsaken restaurant wasteland, yours truly is going to run out of neighborhoods to trash.

Viva! by Ray Garcia

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Best. Mexican. In. Vegas. My pictures didn’t do the spectacular food justice, so you’ll have to go and snap some for yourself.

The Pepper Club

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Todd English’s third act in Vegas has impressed even an old cynic like me. They don’t call The Pepper Club a Japanese restaurant but that’s exactly what it is….with some great Korean fried chicken to boot.

Wally’s

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Pluses: Surrounded by a fabulous wine store and first-class French cooking, cheese, charcuterie, salads (above), sandwiches (below) and steaks, and perhaps the best fries on the planet. Open for lunch. Good service.  Great people watching.

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Minuses:  Rodeo Drive-level expense amidst a sea of bargain-basement fanny packers — who take one look at the potential wallet damage and flee faster than a fat man from a fresh vegetable.  Also, the inside seating (hard stools at bare tables) doesn’t match the cooking or the (seated) crowd  — making the whole place feel like a fast casual concept got lost on its way to the Cordon Bleu.

Bottom line: Wally’s, like The Pepper Club downtown and Harlo in Downtown Summerlin, is pushing the price envelope — seeing just far it can take the familiar-yet-FOMO comfort food thing. Inflation or no inflation, Millennials and GenXrs show no signs of voting with their feet, as it is consistently filled with folks who don’t seem to mind paying $32 for a salad.

TURNING JAPANESE

Izakaya Go

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Busier than a bee on a flower farm. Harder to get into than a nun’s habit. But worth it.

Sushi Hiro

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Hiro-san and his cadre of sushi chefs (above) are the best reason to eat in Henderson. Big plus: it’s open for LUNCH!

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Trattoria Nakamura-Ya

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Japanese-Italian food may cause some con-fusion to some, but the results are always lip-smackingly delicious.

Ichiza

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Twenty years on, our first izakaya has held up well, even if it now has loads of competition for the late-night sake-and-sustenance crowd.

IT’S CHINATOWN, JAKE

…and don’t you forget it.

One of these are not technically in Chinatown, but all are very Chinese and extremely worth their chopsticks.

Xiao Long Dumpling

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The new kid on the dumpling block is one of the best.

Noodlehead

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When China Mama is packed to the rafters, walk across the street and dandan the day away.

ShangHai Taste

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This is what we meant by “….worth a thousand words.”

Big Wong

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If there’s a better bargain in Chinatown than Big Wong’s Hainanese chicken, or its curry beef, we haven’t found them…or two nicer owners than Wei and Connie:

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Rainbow Kitchen

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Dat sum dim sum and dem sum.

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT…

Salvadoreño

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Because no “best restaurants” list should ever be without a Salvadoran platos tipicos:

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MORE SOUTH OF THE BORDER

La Vecindad

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Our go-to when we’re in the mood for some quick queso fundido fun. After lunch there, we usually traipse around the corner to…

Pasabocas Colombian Bakery

…for a taste of Bogata and buñuelos:

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Letty’s de Leticia’s Cocina

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These deep-fried chicharonnes might be our favorite noontime nosh:

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SEOUL FOOD

Napal Baji

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Unknown to most gringos, there is a mini Korean food boom going on in Chinatown. Some of it is perplexing, and subtle it is not.

Most is flat-out fabulous, even if it represents something like an assault  over the 38th Parallel against your taste buds. Rather than trying to parse all the flavors in these ingredient-heavy recipes, we prefer to let the sensations envelope us like the wisdom of their supreme leader.

If you don’t know Korean food, know your Koreans. We have good friends who know their Jjamppongs from their Gopchang Jeongols, and they always ply us with enough sochu that we don’t care how terrible we sound trying to pronounce these things.

Whatever you do, get the spicy sausage “Army” stew (above) — it’s just the thing to fortify you for your never-ending fight against the Commie menace.

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Q Bistro

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This joint has been around for a while, but is a good place to learn our kimchees and Qs. Our Korean friends swear by it. Beware though: some dishes will blow your head off. Like the Kim Sam Bok (above), that tasted as lethal as it looks.

Moobongri Soondae

Another recent addition to our Korean scene. Short on decor, long on authenticity. But it helps to have someone with you who knows how to cut the kalbi:

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STEAK YOUR CLAIM

We sliced up this subject a couple of months ago, but here are the bovine beauties with whom we continue to have the best beef these days:

Bazaar Meat

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In a town of terrific tartares, José Andrés still makes one of the best. The only thing holding back this restaurant is its location….which we expect to change soon.

Golden Steer

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Since the pandemic lifted, this place has been busier than a whisky concession at an Irish wedding. Reservations are now essential….even in the bar! The days of popping in for a quick drink and  grabbing a steak and Caesar on your way home are deader than Dean Martin.

Brezza

Image(“Risotto for one, coming right up, Mr. C.”)

Not exactly a steakhouse and not exactly not one, either. So we’re putting it here, even thought we’ve pretty much sworn off Italian restaurants (until we go to Sardinia in July). No matter what you call it, whenever Nicole Brisson is making risotto inside a ginormous wheel of Parm, we’re on it like a porker at an acorn farm.

Carversteak

We’ve eaten a LOT of beautiful steaks in the past six months, but the best has been the dry-aged Kansas City strip at Carversteak:

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We’re pretty nuts about Daniel Ontiveros’s mayonnaise-y take on tartare, too.

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Capital Grille

We come for the lunch (and the steak salad), but stay for dessert:

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Harlo Steakhouse and Bar

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Gina Marinelli’s pastas are better here than they are at La Strega. There, I said it.

The desserts are worth a special trip all by themselves:

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SW Steakhouse

Wallet-bending but worth it. The steaks and sides are superb, but Mark LoRusso’s starters and are stars in their own right.

Image(SW recently gave me a boner. Wait, what?)

Joe’s Seafood, Prime Steak & Stone Crab

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I’ve never been quite sure what to call this place. In Miami where it was founded it is Joe’s Stone Crab. Here, it is more of a steak house but seafood gets top billing. Not only that but they also do incredible fried chicken. Color me confused, but always satisfied.

Pro tip: this joint is always packed, so go at an off-hour (late lunch is best) or late at night. (You’ll have to wait until fall for your stone crabs, however.)

Sparrow + Wolf

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S+W isn’t a steakhouse per se, but we think this is the best thing on the menu:

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If Carversteak fed us our best steak of the year (so far), this 32 oz. beauty with American banchan isn’t far behind. All of those small dishes of sharply-focused spice, veggies and texture are perfectly calibrated to mitigate the richness of the beef.

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I may occasionally give Howard grief for criticizing the high-wire act he has going on with some of his food, but there’s no denying the pioneering status of his restaurant, and the revitalization of Chinatown it sparked five years ago.

Vic & Anthony’s

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The Golden Nugget does not leap to mind when someone says “first-class beef emporium,” but its steakhouse goes t-bone-to-t-bone with the competition on Fremont Street. The old-school, dark, clubby atmosphere is a big plus, as is the professional service, and a wine list full of bargains if you’re willing to break your Cali cab addiction (see above).

It might also have the best crab cake in Vegas (see below):

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NEVER BEEN TO SPAIN?

Jamon Jamon Tapas

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Traditional Spanish in the burbs. Fun decor. Easy parking. Ignore the surroundings, and dig into tapas to beat the band and the best paella that isn’t made at Jaleo (below).

Jaleo

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There is no better paella in America. The open pit alone cost over $1mil and you can’t duplicate its woodsy subtlety and smokiness without moving outdoors. Also open for lunch (which we tend to forget), and has a killer bar and beverage program (which our aging liver doesn’t need). Around for more than twelve years and still one of our gastronomic gems.

TRIED AND TRUE

Cipriani

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DE Thai Kitchen

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Don’t ask me what this is or how to pronounce it. Just take this picture to the restaurant, point to the not-so “secret menu” on the wall, and dive in. Beware, however, of ordering it or anything here “Bangkok hot.”

Saginaw’s

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The world famous 99 cent Vegas shrimp cocktail lives! But now it costs $11. Still a bargain; still worth every penny.

Life’s a Bagel

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The Legends Oyster Bar & Grill

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Your best off-Strip seafood option that doesn’t have a Japanese flag attached to it.

PublicUs

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Our weekend go-to for incredible coffee and fresh-baked pastries. These scones should be illegal:

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Braeswood BBQ

The two best barbecue options in town are within a couple of blocks of each other on Main Street in #DTLV. Both are no-nonsense odes to smoked meat. Don’t even think of arguing with me about Vegas ‘cue until you’ve given each one a test drive.

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Soulbelly BBQ

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Elia Authentic Greek Taverna

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As welcoming as the Greek Isles, blessedly without the unwanted nudity and non-stop bouzouki music.

Bouchon

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I’ll put this $36 chicken up against your $72 steak any day.

Marché Bacchus

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We don’t know for how much longer André Rochat is going to be cooking, but right now, this septuagenarian’s desserts are worth a special trip.

It’s hard for us to carb our enthusiasm for this place. An essential stop on any Italian eating tour of Las Vegas.

Khoury’s

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I have dreams about this mezze platter: visions of endless baskets of nutty-puffy pita bread, stuffed into my eager maw after a slathering of spicy sujuk sauce and a dollop of labne as cool and bracing as a summer salad  — all of it refreshing my spirit as it satisfies my primal appetites. In my dreams, I caress and suckle each bite as if it were my last, kneeling before these treasures, intoxicated by the perfume of garden greens given lusciousness by oils, seeds, fruits and plants squeezed gently, then rapidly from the earth by pulsating soft-yet-turgid fingers, until, after stroke after stoke, then lick upon lick from my avaricious mouth, the cornucopia of sweet, herbaceous and milky tastes ooze forth in an explosion of happy, dribbled satisfaction.

Thanks, I needed that.

Anyone got a cigarette?

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D’Agostino’s

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Just order this linguine with clams and thank me later.

Cafe Breizh

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JUST DESSERTS
How inexcusable of us to end without featuring a few sweets that have sated our cravings for something sugared and syrupy after a surfeit of savory sustenance. Good, house-made desserts (like good bread) are now as common in Las Vegas restaurants (on and off the Strip) as hamachi crudo. Here are a few concupiscent confections of which we are quite fondant (sorry, couldn’t resist one last pun).
Just as we can’t resist this picture of Cipriani’s luscious, multi-layered, insanely rich chocolate cake — here being attacked by a Proper Lunch Bunch attendee who we try to keep away from sharp objects and anything that has to be shared:
Image(Matt Brooks can resist anything but temptation)
Honey toast at Sparrow + Wolf (modeled by Sherri Mirejovsky, who graciously took her modeling fee in sweets):
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Vanilla Panna Cotta with Vanilla Sorbet at Wally’s:
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And finally, all the Catalan creams at Jamon Jamon Tapas:
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That’s all for now folks. These should keep you busy for a while. They aren’t every restaurant I’ve been to since Jan. 1, 2022, but they are the ones that left the deepest impression….and where I think your hard-earned dollars will be best spent.
In the meantime, should you want to follow me on a podcast, tune into the What’s Right with Sam & Ash show every Friday to hear my masticatory musings about the Las Vegas food scene.
Or follow me on Twitter (@eatinglasvegas), where I try to post real-time photos (with commentary), about all of my eatings about town.
Bon appétit!
THE END
Image(It only took thirty years, but I’m finally the official something of something.)