The List 2021 – Vegas on the Rebound

Image(A toast to sanity restored!)

These are the times that try men’s appetites.

And by “try men’s appetites” I mean tempt them unmercifully.

After the trying times of 2020, it seems like nothing but sunshine and rainbows in our culinary world these days. With venue after venue opening (or reopening) to eager mouths and hungry souls.

Downtown is exploding (in a good way), the Strip is awakening like a slumbering giant (or an unstuck freighter?), and the ‘burbs are getting better than ever. Even Tivoli Village has become a destination.

Circa has pumped new life into Fremont Street; Oscar’s now serves the best cheeseburger in town, and we’ve even found a brunch we don’t hate. (High praise indeed!)

For grins and giggles we’ve decided this year to officially keep count of every restaurant in which we eat. In years past we never kept a running total, but generally we averaged around 500/year…for 20+ years.

Covid put an end to that streak — turning us into a soporific shell of our former self.  A somnambulant supper slacker, if you will.

But things have turned around in a big way: It took us all of 2020 to make it to 100 restaurants. This year we did it in a little more than three months.

These are thumbnails of where we’ve been, and why we think you should go there. They are mere sketches, pithy positive platitudes of pontification for your palate’s pleasure, and probably as paired down and word-penurious as our prolific personality can parse.

In other words, they’re short and upbeat and we’ve tried to keep the negativity in check.

And like we at #BeingJohnCurtas always say: you get what you pay for on this website.

So, without further ado, here it is….

THE LIST 2021

THE HEAVYWEIGHTS

Bazaar Meat

Image(Meat me at Bazaar)

It’s been almost a decade since I steaked out the great meat emporiums of the Big Apple, but I’d bet my sweet tenderloin none of them can hold a candle to this pinnacle of prime.

Cipriani

Image(Or as I call it: Friday)

Almost every Friday you’ll find me here at lunch. When someone else puts out a midday repast this elegant, you’ll find me there, too.

Costa di Mare

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As stunning as ever. As expensive as ever. Our splashiest seafood venue is worth a splurge, so don’t complain about the soaking. (You get what you pay for, and ingredients this good, and cooking this precise, are both trés chere. Ivo Angelov, Mark LoRusso and Daniela Santos have this place tuned tauter than the mizzenmast on a ship-of-the-line.

CUT

There are two great steakhouses in Las Vegas and this is one of them. The quality of the meat between CUT and Bazaar is a toss-up (although they source their beef from different purveyors with different philosophies), but on any given night I’d give CUT the edge for the restless inventiveness of Matthew Hurley’s cooking.

Edge Steakhouse

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A real sleeper in the Westgate Hotel. Neither the hotel nor the Yelper clientele quite seem aware of just how great Steve Young’s food is, but if I were forced to rate Vegas steakhouses right now, it would be a strong #3.

Estiatorio Milos

The best Greek restaurant in Las Vegas that isn’t Elia Authentic Greek Taverna. Simply incredible seafood in a stunning new location.

Kaiseki Yuzu

Image(Itadakimasu, Kaoru-san and Mayumi-san.)

Japanese food so authentic you’ll want to start acting like Toshiro Mifune.

Oscar’s Steakhouse –

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(Umani bombs away!)

Ben Jenkins has this place on a roll. His double-cheeseburger (above) belongs on a pedestal of prime.

Raku –

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Image(Hokkaido uni)

Still the best izakaya in the West. Fight me.

NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK

Ada’s Wine Bar –

Image(Shrimply the toast of the town)

Eclectic list; small menu; fabulous food  by Jackson Stamper; al fresco setting. So good I’ll even brave the depressing empty-ugliness of Tivoli Village to go there.

Big Dan’s Chinese Noodles –

Image(Long noodles = long life)

Inside the SF Market on Spring Mountain Road are Biangbiang noodles so good they’ll scare the Shaanxi into you.

Barry’s Prime Steakhouse –

Barry’s will forever be a war with itself over whether it wants to be a serious steakhouse or a hangout for the rich and beautiful. Celebrities and good food go together like hockey and high tea, but if that’s the way they want to market themselves, who am I to argue?

Burgundy Cafe & Bakery –

Image(Missing: a mime)

Our French bakery scene is starting to resemble the Left Bank. To Cafe Breizh, Delices Gourmands, and the newly opened Le Cafe Du Vegas, you can add this gem on West Sahara, built from the floor boards to the mille feuille by Chef Florent Cheveau. Straight outta Paris it is, with pastries so Parisian they ought to come with a mime and an organ grinder.

D’Agostino’s –

Donny Thompson’s makeover of Cafe Chloe is still in mid-stream — waiting for the old regulars to either die off or seek their pre-chewed pasta at some other insipid Italian. There’s lots to love here (Tablecloths! Better wines! True Bolognese!), but also some red sauce holdovers on the menu which are best forgotten. Let Brandi guide you and you’ll eat damn well…especially if you start with the antipasto salad.

8East –

Image(We’re very picanha about our steaks)

Fremont Street’s most fascinating food. Asian-fusion filtered through Dan Coughlin’s American-Thai sensibilities. Open for lunch and dinner. So good it ought to be featured on the Circa Hotel marquee. Get the appetizers — all of them — and that picanha steak (above). On second thought, get the whole menu…except the lobster fried rice. It’s good but not worth the tariff.

Good Pie –

Too many pizzas! That’s what I complain to Vincent Rotolo about: his menu is too damn big. Too many toppings. Too many crusts. Too many options. On the other hand, we have yet to have a bad bite here so I should probably just keep my (pizza) pie hole shut.

Johnny C’s Diner –

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A real, old-fashioned diner, tweaked with just enough cheffy accents to keep the snobs satisfied. Avocado toast may be to savories what cupcakes are to sweets, but Johnny Church’s version is to others what a symphony is to a square dance.

Letty’s –

Image(Toasted Oaxacan cheese-wrapped quesataco at Letty’s)

The best tacos downtown. Don’t even think of arguing with me about this.

Main Street Provisions –

Image(Wagyu eating anywhere but Main Street Provisions?)

They took the ham steak off the menu, and for this I can never forgive them. But they kept the polenta hummus, gonzo babaganoush, the fry bread and the best veggies this side of Sparrow + Wolf, so all is forgiven. P.S. We love the short wine list and the cocktails too.

Osteria Fiorella –

Three previous Italians in this space have all fallen flatter than stale focaccia. Marc Vetri’s troops made it a raging success right out of the chute. I actually enjoyed my brunch there, even if the whole time I was dreaming about dinner.

Pizza Forte –

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Mimmo Ferraro is casting pearls before swine by bringing legitimate, big city pizza to unworthy college kids at UNLV who probably think Little Caesars is an upgrade from Domino’s. They won’t appreciate his cheesy, crusty, New York-inspired pies. But we do, Mimmo, we do.

Rainbow Kitchen –

Image(Dungeness love crab?)

Holy har gow, Batman! The dim sum here is spectacular! And a dumpling or three above its competition. This place had the misfortune to open one month before Covid hit (late January last year), and had been limping along since last summer. Now that restrictions have loosened, it has become Number 1 on every shu mai researcher’s list. A well-heeled Chinese clientele has taken to it like hoisin to spare ribs. Killer deals on Dungeness crabs (above) and lobsters, too. Very Cantonese, but also quite welcoming to gwailo. No carts, you order off a menu, much as you do in the nicer dim sum palaces of Hong Kong. “All of our food stays fresher that way,” says owner Bill Chiang, and he’s right.

Robata En –

Ramir de Castro returns! Bringing his unique brand of Japanese fusion to Spring Mountain Road. Like many of the newbies on this list, he’s had a brutal go of it for the past year, waiting to open, then opening with all kinds of restrictions. If you liked him at Yonaka (where he first made his mark), you’ll love his updated takes on tsukune, kaarage and such. I was always puzzled about why Yonaka threw in the towel after an awesome start, loyal fan base, and plenty of publicity, but whatever the reason, he’s back and Chinatown is richer for it.

Saginaw’s –

Image(Better than…?)

Sex is great, but have you tried “Derek’s Favorite” roast beef and salami sandwich?

YUGA KOREAN –

A pleasant surprise right next door to the Village Theaters on West Sahara. Friendly service. Easy to love Korean ‘cue.

Yu-Or-Mi Sushi –

Is it top-drawer, drop-your-chopsticks sushi of the Kame, YUI, or Kabuto persuasion? No, but it’s a damn site better than most neighborhood spots, with some interesting sakes and Japanese beers.

OLD RELIABLES

China Mama –

Image(The Mamas of China Mama)

Our best Chinese restaurant. Period.

DE Thai Kitchen –

Small but mighty. Small but incendiary menu. The Kua Gling (spicy southern Thai dry curry) separates the men from the boys in the Thai spice brigade.

E-jo Korean –

Image(E-jo banchan, I say, before I do.)

It had been ages since we ate here. One of the first Korean restaurant locations in town that’s still going strong. (Back in the day, there were several in Commercial Center, but all have gone to that great banchan in the sky.) Modest but satisfying, and filled with fellow Korean travelers chattering away in their native tongue the day we visited.

Elia Authentic Greek Taverna –

Jammed every night it’s open, with good reason. Beautiful Greek food even my yia yia would approve of.

Ferraro’s –

Former Chef of the Year Francesco di Caudo was a Covid casualty — which tells me means they’re going back to basics at our oldest and best Italian. But the basics here have always been solid, and the wine list remains an Ital oenophile’s dream come true — now with some beautiful discounts on some of its best bottles.

Kung Fu Thai-Chinese –

There is something delightfully old school about this institution on Valley View at Spring Mountain Road. Most of it is standard issue, but sometimes a body just wants to getta big dish of beef chow mein.

Los Antojos –

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Image(Tacos, tacos, y mas tacos!)

Hadn’t been in almost a decade, even though it was in the early editions of EATING LAS VEGAS – The 50 Essential Restaurant (Max Jacobson was a huge fan). I was alone. Ordered a couple of things. Sat down. Removed the mask; fiddled with the phone. Within minutes the manager came over, dropped his mask to reveal and ear-to-ear grin and shook my hand. Then he pointed to various notices, articles, and awards on the wall (from Saveur magazine to Food Network) and thanked me for all the national recognition they received after our first book came out in 2010. Made my fucking day. P.S. The food is still great (as it has been since 1995), at this ultimate Mexican hole-in-the-wall.

Nakamura-Ya –

Image(I’m urchin you to try this uni linguine)

Japan goes Italian with some creamy, seafood-packed pastas. The real deal that’s also a real deal.

Ohlala French Bistro –

French resilience should never be underestimated. Another mainstay that came through Covid smelling like a rosé.

Orchid’s Garden –

Not the best dim sum by a long shot, but a lot better than it used to be.

Partage –

The Three Musketeers — Vincent, Yuri and Nicolas — have created a following for all things French….in the middle of Chinatown. Their new wine store venture — French Cellar by Partage — has quickly become the in-spot for Burgundian imbibing.  Incroyable!

PublicUs –

This place is so crowded nobody goes there anymore.

The Black Sheep –

Jamie Tran is on this season’s Top Chef. Go Jamie Go! And go you should to hear neighborhood powerhouse that’s soon to be one tough ticket, until she expands, which we hope happens soon.

7th & Carson –

The Irish breakfast is worth a trip all by itself.

Sparrow + Wolf –

Image(Endless pastabilities)

Brian Howard’s seasonal menus are things of beauty. Blink and you’ll miss them. Therefore, we suggest you hit S+W seasonally, if not more often, if you want to thoroughly examine what our most restless chef is rustling up.

Windy City Dogs –

A thing of beauty.

The Italian beef didn’t wow us; the Chicago dogs did.

Yi Mei Champion Deli –

Weird Taiwanese spot tucked deep into a Spring Mountain strip mall. No one speaks much English, service is spotty, decor is mid-century-someone’s-warehouse, but some of the soups will save you a ticket to Taipei.

JURY STILL OUT

Flock & Fowl –

Will be changing its name and concept soon. Good bar food is tough to find, and better-than-average bar vittles is what they’ll be shooting for here. We’re rooting for it.

Milpa

Image(Everything but the location bowls me over)

Beautiful, fresh-ground tortillas, nice tacos, local sourcing, and hard-working chefs with a great idea in the wrong place.

Steve’s Pig Pickins BBQ –

Good ‘cue. Terrible location. We shall see.

NEVER AGAIN

Hugo’s Cellar –

Read this and weep.

Mint Indian Bistro –

Vegas once boasted a host of outstanding Indian eats….or at least a half-dozen addresses of acceptable sub-continent alimentation. What the hell happened?


That’ll do it for the first quarter of the year. As bullish as we are about Vegas’s restaurant future, it won’t truly be “back” until the great Strip dining palaces are open more than 3 nights a week. Fingers are crossed; breath is being held.

In the meantime, find someone who covers more territory than I do, and I’ll buy them dinner at Restaurant Guy Savoy.

If you’re interested, here are the restaurant meals I’ve had since January 1st of this year, in order:

  1. Jack Pots – Circa
  2. Cipriani
  3. Saginaw’s
  4. D’Agostino’s
  5. PublicUs
  6. Vegas Test Kitchen
  7. Cipriani
  8. The Tap House
  9. DE Thai Kitchen
  10. PublicUs
  11. Hugo’s Cellar
  12. Cornish Pasty
  13. Goodwich
  14. Yu-Or-Mi Sushi
  15. Cipriani
  16. Orchid’s Garden
  17. Financier – Winter Park, Florida
  18. Hamilton’s – Winter Park, Florida
  19. Boca – Winter Park, Florida
  20. Croissant Gourmet – Winter Park, Florida
  21. Bosphorous Turkish – Winter Park, Florida
  22. Rocco’s – Winter Park, Florida
  23. Financier – Winter Park, Florida
  24. FARM – Bluffton, South Carolina
  25. Skylight Inn – Ayden, South Carolina
  26. Sam Jones BBQ – Ayden, South Carolina
  27. Rodney Scott BBQ – Charleston, South Carolina
  28. Lewis BBQ – Charleston, South Carolina
  29. Waffle House – Somewhere in Georgia (Birthday Breakfast!) Image
  30. China Mama
  31. Main Street Provisions
  32. Cipriani
  33. Oscar’s Steakhouse
  34. Yi Mei Champion Deli
  35. Kaiseki Yuzu
  36. E-jo Korean
  37. Ferraro’s
  38. Robata En
  39. Cipriani
  40. Yu-Or-Mi Sushi
  41. Barry’s Prime
  42. Cipriani
  43. Johnny C’s Diner
  44. Good Pie
  45. Good Pie
  46. Cipriani
  47. Oscar’s Steakhouse
  48. YUGA Korean BBQ
  49. Steve’s Pig Pickins BBQ
  50. 8East
  51. 7th & Carson
  52. Elia Authentic Greek Taverna
  53. Saginaw’s
  54. Yu-Or-Mi Sushi
  55. Milpas
  56. Cipriani
  57. Burgundy Bakery & Cafe
  58. Bazaar Meat
  59. Windy City Dogs
  60. 7th & Carson
  61. Kung Fu Thai-Chinese
  62. Raku
  63. Main Street Provisions
  64. Yu-Or-Mi Sushi
  65. Esther’s Kitchen
  66. Cipriani
  67. Big Dan Chinese Noodles
  68. Ohlala French Bistro
  69. Saginaw’s
  70. Osteria Fiorella
  71. 8East
  72. Saginaw’s
  73. Edge Steakhouse
  74. Cipriani
  75. Big Dan Chinese Noodles
  76. Estiatorio Milos
  77. Letty’s
  78. Partage
  79. Los Antojos
  80. Del Taco (Yes, Del Taco.)
  81. Yum Cha Dim Sum
  82. Mint Indian Bistro
  83. Osteria Fiorella (Brunch!)
  84. Milos
  85. Nakamura-Ya
  86. Papa Noodle
  87. Los Antojos
  88. Saginaw’s
  89. Cipriani
  90. Costa di Mare
  91. Flock & Fowl
  92. Good Pie
  93. Sparrow+Wolf
  94. The Black Sheep
  95. Main Street Provisions
  96. Cipriani
  97. Pizza Forte
  98. Ada’s Wine Bar
  99. CUT
  100. Cipriani
  101. Rainbow Kitchen
  102. Letty’s
  103. Milos
  104. Main Street Provisions
  105. Cipriani

Image(Big Dan Shaanxi Noodle Shop)

Why I Live Where I Live

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My House:

It was never supposed to last this long.

What started as a mild flirtation with Vegas has turned out to be the longest commitment of my life.

What brought me here was a woman (the second Mrs. Curtas), what’s kept me here has been my house.

Before buying this property, my transience was legendary.

Between 1970 (the year I left my parent’s domicile) and 1995 (when I settled here), I estimate I changed residences 22 times. College, law school, children, divorces, moving cross-country three times — things were pretty hectic for 25 years. The longest stretch in a single abode was four years; the shortest were nights spent couch surfing at the houses of sympathetic friends.

Then, one day in June, 1995, my then wife-to-be (the third Mrs. Curtas) stumbled upon an unprepossessing bungalow, smack dab in the middle of town (in old but not really old Las Vegas), and we fell in love at first sight.

With the house at least. Four years later we were splitting the sheets. She moved; I stayed.

It was a bachelor pad/party house for a few years and served all the functions necessary to those pursuits (nothing gets a woman out of her clothes faster than a hot tub), but it fell into disrepair as those exploits faded and the Great Recession took hold. It was nip and tuck for a while whether I could keep it up (insert dirty joke here), but through bailing wire and financial duct tape, things held together.

Now, the final Mrs. C (the long-suffering Food Gal®), has restored its former glory, and I wouldn’t live anywhere else in Las Vegas if you gave me a McMansion on a golf course with a butler.

Image(Feng shui 100, Curb Appeal 0)

As much as I love it, my house has zero curb appeal. There’s barely even a front. All you see from the street is a three-car garage with an iron gate beside it. But as anyone in real estate can tell you, fancy frontage frequently foretells edificial falsity. Or something like that.

The best thing about the place is its shape. Feng shui they call it, and you can’t help but notice the feel-good quality as soon as you walk in the iron gate. That shape is a “U” which wraps around a small rectangular swimming pool — exuding coziness from the get-go.

Most houses have walls; mine has windows. Big ones. Lots of them, some with giant sliding glass doors and some without. More natural light streams in than the Bellagio Conservatory; so much radiance the warmth of the sun is almost all we need to heat the place in winter.

One side of the U is the garage, the other two sides are the “L”-shaped living structure — nothing fancy but laid out for maximum comfort. You feel good when you walk through that iron gate and suddenly see the pool wrapped on three sides by the house. Everyone does. I’ve never had a person come over who didn’t remark how charming the layout is — even at the height of my bachelor revelries when dirty ashtrays, empty bottles, and womens’ underwear strewn about.

Somewhere around 2000 one of those parties ended with my couch — a fully functional living room couch — sitting at the bottom of the pool. Another soirée found some drunken lass spewing chunks all over my master bathroom, after I begged her….BEGGED HER…to stay outside on the lawn if she wasn’t feeling well. Took me three hours and a gallon of Clorox to clean up. Still remember going to court that morning stinking of bleach, no sleep, and middle-aged bachelor despair. Good times.

My house is more masculine than feminine, more Palm Springs than Palm Beach. It feels like it should’ve belonged to someone in the Rat Pack — not Frank or Dino or Sammy, but a minor hanger-on like Joey Bishop. It practically screams for men in Sansabelt slacks and cigarettes to be strolling around, asking the missus (in a beehive of course) when the martinis will be ready.

Image(If hot tubs could talk…)

My Neighborhood:

Like I said, smack dab in the middle of town. Practically its geographic center. Two miles from downtown; 3 miles from the Strip. Five minutes by car to the Sahara Hotel, ten to the Bellagio. Twelve to Chinatown. The only places too far for me to get to are areas (Summerlin, Green Valley) I don’t want to go to anyway.

Being one of Vegas’s older precincts, there are trees aplenty, walk-able streets are right outside my gate, and the neighborhoods don’t look like a stucco farm. I know my neighbors well-enough to knock on their doors and ask for help in an emergency, but not so well that we’re always in each other’s business….which to my mind is exactly how well you should know your neighbors. I’m sure they all think of me as slightly anti-social, which is just fine with me.

Mine is the shittiest house in a fancy neighborhood — surrounded on two sides by two-story structures too big for their lots (very Vegas that), and sheltered on two others by the circular street containing the other eight houses. (“Always buy the lousiest house in a good neighborhood,” my dad used to intone, and that’s exactly what I ended up doing.) Between the unassuming front, and being tucked among more impressive digs, we are sheltered from attention and the wind and that’s just the way I like it.

A Starbucks, and a supermarket and the best bagels in Vegas are only a five minute walk from our front door. There’s also a serviceable pizza parlor in the same center, and the UMC emergency room a quarter mile away, if things get out of hand — like they did in 2008 — when some bad oysters had me retching, fainting, and breaking my face (nose and eye socket) twice in one long night. Never was any man happier to be within walking distance of a hospital.

My neighborhood isn’t perfect, but it’s closer to the things I love (good food and wine, downtown, my office, the Strip) and far enough from what I hate (soulless suburban sprawl), to make it as perfect as you can get in Las Vegas.

My City:

Calling my relationship with Vegas “love/hate” is an understatement. You have to make your peace with Las Vegas, I’ve told people hundreds of times over the years. If you don’t, it will eat you up.

Everything Las Vegas doesn’t have — taste, neighborhoods, culture, museums, art, music (show tunes don’t count, neither does whatever the fuck this is), intellectuals, education, people who give a shit, residents who care about something other than money — will drive you crazy if you let it.

What it does have — weather, convenience, friendliness, good jobs, a great airport, proximity to California, some of the greatest restaurants on earth, a burgeoning local food scene, great Asian food out the wazoo — makes living bearable. (The awesome assortment of Asian eats is what we’d miss most if we left town.)

Let’s face it, though, in terms of community, Vegas ranks somewhere between a prison colony and a dormitory — our miles and miles of strip malls and stucco (made possible by politicians who sold their souls to real estate developers decades ago), have sapped and stifled all community spirit from the place. It’s why our schools are so crummy and no one ever feels connected to the place. Heck, even The Food Gal® (born and raised here) doesn’t feel connected to the place.

In Vegas, you co-exist with your neighbors, you don’t really share anything with them. Go to any neighborhood in any season — the number of people who are out walking, sharing, feeling connected to their environs you can count on one hand. Las Vegas is a place to make a good living (until recently) and that’s what it’s always been, and what it remains, 40 years after I moved here.

Image(We heart French bakeries)

So why do I stay? Well, I love my job, and my wife and my house. I love my swimming pool in summer, and walking to work anytime it’s not summer. I love our coffee culture and and the young chefs who DO give a shit and want to make this place a better place to live.

I’m nuts for all the good bread and the few French bakeries you can find around town, and I love going to Chinatown every Sunday — something I’ve been doing since 1995.

I love our Thai restaurants (one of which is the most famous Thai restaurant in America). I love big, fancy, expensive restaurants that are better than any big, fancy restaurants anywhere that isn’t New York or Paris.

As nice as these amenities are, I’ve always hated the fact that there’s nothing organic about our town — it exists solely because of tourist money. The only thing that’s ever grown here are monuments to human greed and stupidity: casinos.

But things have grown better over thirty years. Downtown may have a long way to go but it’s now live-able and walk-able — something unthinkable twenty years ago. There are good bars and great coffee and a dozen good restaurants to choose from. I walk to my haircuts these days, and I buy wine from the a store that would be right at home in a much bigger city.

But our supermarkets are shit, and there’s only two independent bookstores in the entire county, and our movie theaters don’t show anything that isn’t a tent-pole blockbuster.

And we’re still saddled with a single cheese store, no seasons, and a terrible newspaper.

Image(Summer bounty at Intuitive Farmers Market)

God bless the scattering of “farmers markets” around town, but they are so small as to be a drop in the bucket — and you’d better fill your bucket early and fast if you want to get the good stuff.

You have to face facts about Las Vegas: it is, and always will be a tourist town, populated by folks who make a living off of others who come here to solely to drop sizeable amounts of disposable income in our buckets. Gambling is the greatest business in the world, my father used to say, a commercial transaction without a product. We don’t make anything; the only thing we sell is hope.

And hope is in short supply these days.

As gambling has receded as Vegas’s primary source of income, the livability of the town has increased. And it’s become a nicer place to live not because of its parks, or sports or music. We’ve done it with food and drink, like I predicted we would twenty years ago. That’s the good news.

The bad news is figuring out whether we have truly reached peak Vegas, and if our economy is going to remain mired in muck for years to come. Put another way: Is a boom town worth living in if it is no longer booming?

It’s all so exhausting these days. But when I get tired of these contemplations, I can always retire to my humble abode, and thank my lucky stars for a cool pool and the house surrounding it. In Las Vegas, in summer, sometimes that’s all you need.

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TRÉS CAZUELAS is the Best Restaurant You Haven’t Been To

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At first glance you might think Trés Cazuelas has the worst location in town.

But what seem to be liabilities are actually assets.  Yes, it’s tucked into a corner of a worn out building that houses the Sand Dollar Lounge and not much else. True, it faces an industrial side street only used by commercial trucks and crafty cab drivers. And of course there is zero bustle and no buzz in the neighborhood. Curb appeal is negligible; pedestrian traffic nil.

But look again, pilgrim. The Strip is only a half-mile east; Chinatown’s food mecca beckons a quarter mile west. Large open windows face that street, and behind them something cozy and comforting this way comes. Parking is a breeze (you pull up right to the front door), and as soon as you step inside, smells of moles, chipotles, and achiote waft over you.

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The place is tiny — no more than 40 seats — but the tables are well set and sturdy, the chairs are comfortable, and the vibe is as if you’ve found the coziest cantina on a Guadalajaran side street.

Fresh-made warm chips and three dips (spicy mayo, pickled onions, and habanero chile-mix, above) greet you, and it takes about three seconds to forget all about the industrial park outside.

Image(Great food while you’re getting your brakes re-lined across the street)

Decisions are easier at lunch than dinner. You can opt for burrito stuffed with al pastor pork or eggs or chicken or one of the usual suspects, or (our choice) head straight for the rotating cast of cazuelas (cauldrons) that change everyday.

Image(I like my food in threes)

Monday finds your cute little trio of bowls filled with tinga de pollo, longaniza en salsa verde, and bistec en chile pasilla, while Wednesday (above) presents fork-tender pork ribs in ancho chile sauce, green mole chicken, and strips of beef amplified by beans, bacon and pepper. You really can’t go wrong with any of these guizados (braised meats), and three of them for $15 is a steal.

And did I mention that the house-made corn tortillas are worth a visit all by themselves?

Image(The best, Jerry. The best!)

Dinner is where this minuscule kitchen punches way above its weight. You will start with guacamole tinged with habanero (above) because it might be the best in town. From there you can’t go wrong with any of the tapas or apps.

We were partial to the garlicky gambas al ajillo, queso fundido, and organic beet carpaccio, but other beauties like a single lamb chop “moruño” (redolent of cumin and coriander), a nice (if small) crabcake, and roasted corn (off the cob) “esquites”, all compete for your attention. The very Spanish papas bravas also do owner Angelo Reyes’ Latin heritage proud, as do his Churrasco Argentino (short rib skewers), and a tart, chunky mahi mahi ceviche.

Image(Positively pulchritudinous paella)

Main dishes are large and mostly meant for sharing — whether you’re getting more of those lamb chops, or diving into a clay pot roasted chicken perfumed by rosemary-garlic sauce, or tucking into more seafood paella (above) than any four-top can handle.

Image(Allium avoiders beware)

A rib eye “Del Torero” (above) is the most expensive thing on the menu ($39), and comes shingled with garlic chips and coated with chimichurri — both announcing the “no prisoners” approach this kitchen takes with its seasonings and spices.

Which is why you come here. Not for some namby-pamby attempt to make Latin cuisine(s) palatable for gueros — these Hispanic dishes strut their stuff, smacking you left and right with garlic, herbs, chilies and spices in full flower.

If Trés Cazuelas has anything in common with its Chinatown neighbors, it is in the honesty and integrity of its cooking. You might as well ask Chengdu Taste to dispense with Szechuan peppercorns as wanting Reyes to dial back the cilantro. This is they way these dishes are supposed to taste, and if you don’t like it, adios muchacho.

The dense flan comes sprinkled with Mexican sea salt, and the coffee, by LaVazza, is excellent as well. The wine list is short, well-chosen and well-priced.

So why haven’t you come here yet, gringo? Because it’s tucked into a next-to-nothing building on a forlorn corner on the cusp of Chinatown? That’s no excuse. If you love pan-Latin cooking the way they’re supposed to be, and can’t resist a great tortilla, and are tired of dumbed-down, warmed-over verdes and pathetic pasillas, then you owe it to yourself to get here pronto.

Lunch for two will run around $30-40; dinner about double that. Despite what the sign says, they no longer serve breakfast.

TRÉS CAZUELAS

3355 W. Spring Mountain Road #35

Las Vegas, NV 89102

702.370.0751