The List – January 2020

Image(Happy New Year!)

For years I’ve maintained that to do this job correctly, you have to be a little touched, a lot obsessive, and slightly manic about where you eat.

It’s also like being a porn star: something that sounds like a good idea (to dudes anyway) until you have to do it daily, on command.

And like being a porn star, most guys think they could do it, but they can’t.

Let’s go through my month (a very light one by my standards) and see if you could keep up, eating-wise. Keep in mind these dishes are just the highlights — every meal contained much more to eat, some things of which I nibbled at, other parts I devoured wholesale.

It started with a smiley face on a croque Madame on January 1st at Marche Bacchus (top of page).

Then, in rapid succession, over the course of the month, we devoured…

Esther’s Kitchen

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We grow weary of telling you how great Esther’s is….but we will never get tired of James Trees’ cacio e pepe (above).

DE Thai Kitchen

Image(Kanom jeen namya pu AKA fish curry with noodles)

Not to take anything away from our wealth of Thai options downtown, but the food at the teeny tiny DE Thai Kitchen is the best of the bunch. When the fish-crab curry (above) is on the menu, get it.

Kaiseki Yuzu

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Sure the kaiseki menu is expensive (starting at $100/pp), but the small bites/sake bar up front (above) is quite the deal for food this refined, and a good introduction to Japanese food the way it tastes in Japan.

New York Bagel and Bakery

No better bagels in our humble burg.

ShangHai Taste

Image(Through these doors lie dumpling delights)

Screw those over-hyped Chinese chains (Tim Ho Wan, Din Tai Fung), Jimmy Li’s xiao long bao are the bomb and made with love, not on an assembly line.

Serrano’s Mexican Food

Image(This salsa lit me up from my head tomatoes)

There is nothing remarkable about Serrano’s.…except the service and the spot-on Mexican food. It’s also one of the spiffiest holes-in-the-walls you will encounter, with not a grimy corner in site. A real hidden gem in an unlikely location.

Sage

Image(Egg-cellent caviar; unbliniably good pancakes)

We pop into Sage every other year just to make sure it hasn’t lost its fastball. It hasn’t lost its fastball. In fact it may be throwing more heat than ever. New chef Thomas Griese is seeing to that.

Hiroyoshi

Image(I’m urchin you to try this uni)

Every time I eat at Hiroyoshi, I kick myself for not eating here more often. Simply marvelous sushi at more than reasonable prices for what you get. The uni 3-ways will have you dropping your chopsticks in appreciation.

Estiatorio Milos

Image(These prawns give great head)

These Carabineros deep water prawns may be $30 a piece, but sucking sherry out of one of their detached craniums is the best cephalothorax you can get on the Strip.

Moon Palace

Image(This Double is damn Tasty)

Everyone knows David Chang hates me. And I’m no fan of his warmed over, quasi-Korean concepts at Momofuku, either. But I’m willing to give his new joints a fair shot, and Moon Palace (located across the hall from the spanking new Majordomo), is a mini-burger empire whose time has come. Delicious from the first bite, and probably the apotheosis of the American slider.

Eiffel Tower Restaurant

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Sometimes, we go visit an old favorite hoping for the best but expecting less. Despite the great view and good service, this place is become way too touristy for any serious gastronome. The lunch menu was mainly sandwiches; the torchon of foie gras wasn’t as finely-tuned as it should have been, and the burger not worth the pain-in-the-ass trek it takes to get there from the parking lot. Methinks me and The Food Gal® have eaten our last meal here.

18bin

Image(Well kiss my biscuits)

Fingers are crossed that Louisiana native Jen Landry (above) can put this place on the culinary map. The menu seems promising, and the gal has a way with biscuits. If only the physical layout of the joint weren’t so shitty.

Graffiti Bao

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We liked Graffiti Bao, but didn’t love it enough to ever again travel to the far southwest to eat its bread-y, doughy dumplings. It didn’t help that each of the fillings (Szechuan beef, kung pao chicken and barbecue pork were almost indistinguishable in taste. Our Chinese-Korean dining companion was also put off by the burrata offering on the menu (with garlic-chili sauce and scallion pancake!) — a combination that makes as much sense as kimchi on a pizza. “White people trying too hard to be hip Asians,” she sniffed. And she’s probably right.

The Goodwich

Image(Move over Babe Ruth…and pastrami on rye)

The Patty (pictured above) deserves to be in the Sandwich Hall of Fame. It takes a while to melt all of that gooey cheese into the chopped beef, but the wait is always worth it.

Suzuya Patisserie & Cafe

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On South Buffalo,  a mini-micro-climate of hip Asian-fusion eats has sprung to life, with Suzuya, Graffiti Bao and Fukuburger all located within a stone’s throw of each other. Each space (like its surrounding shopping center) is spanking new, with all the polished, antiseptic charm of a mall food court. This seems to bother the patrons not at all, as from the get-go, Suzuya has been packed with customers both Asian and non-, in numbers that would’ve overwhelmed its original cracker-box location, a few miles west. Suzuya’s pastries are very French, but also a la Française as filtered through Japanese sensibilities, meaning: more delicate and less sweet. From the crowds we’ve observed, there seems to be a pent-up demand for this Sino-Franco fusion, as there should be.

Soyo Korean Barstaurant

Image(Who knew everything but the kitchen sink could be so tasty?)

Korean food baffles me. It’s intense, over-the-top, ingredient-heavy, starchy, spicy, gut-busting and soul-warming all in one. Korean food after a Japanese meal is like a NFL team lining up next to the Bolshoi Ballet. I love it but I don’t claim to understand it. If you want to do both, Soyo is a good place to start.

PublicUs

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I love croissants like a bear loves honey. Like a Pelosi loves impeachments; like a Trump loves beauty pageants. The ones at PublicUs might be the best in town. If not, they’re certainly in the top three.

Yum Cha

Image(Shrimply mouth-watering)

Our new go-to for dim sum. Not in Chinatown, but a real find on W. Tropicana with great prices, an open kitchen, a picture menu (great for dim sum beginners) and very attentive service.

Cornish Pasty Co.

(Belly bombs away!)

If you look up “stick to your ribs” in a dictionary, you’ll see a picture of a Cornish pasty.

El Dorado Cantina

That Ass Though Jennifer Lopez GIF - ThatAssThough JenniferLopez Shakira GIFs(Some buns get a rise out of us)

We spent $83 on Mexican food here. For 3 tacos, and bowl of soup, and appetizer and a beer. For eighty-three bucks I want mariachi music. Or Shakira shaking her ass in my face.  Never again.

Cipriani

Image(Baked, Béchamel’d, and beautiful)

I eat at Cipriani so often they ought to name a booth after me. I could eat its baked tagliolini with ham (above) every day of the week and never get tired of it. Like everything here, it is stunningly simple Italian food served by real pros who never miss a beat.  If you want to see what a great Italian ristorante looks like, this is the place. But don’t say I didn’t warn you about the gelato. You’ll be hooked from the first bite.

That’s 21 restaurants in 31 days — barely breaking a sweat by my standards.

Remember, I’m plowing all this ground so you don’t have to (kind of like a porn star). My continuing mission is to guide you to only the best of the best, so you will know where best to spend your dining out dollars.

We at Being John Curtas hope these posts are helpful to achieve these goals. But if any of this causes you menu envy, try to remember this German word to help you over your green-eyed hunger hurdles:

Futterneid is a compound noun which is made up of the words ‘food’ and ‘jealousy’. The German word ‘Futter’ translates as ‘animal feed’ or ‘fodder’, but is also used colloquially to describe human food. Futterneid translates into English literally  as ‘food jealousy’, but the more idiomatic ‘food envy’ is a better translation.

The word describes the highly relatable feeling when you simply order food at a restaurant wrong, and then have to suffer through the rest of the meal watching someone else eating something that looks and smells much better than what you have.

Examples:

Er war gestern abend wegen des Futterneids so mürrisch.

He was so grumpy yesterday evening because he was envious of the food.

Danke schoen to @thelocalGermany for giving us a word that is now an essential part of our eating vocabulary.

Prost!

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SUSHI KAME Arrives on Scene

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There are two cuisines we crave after one of our forays to France: Mexican and sushi. So it’s no coincidence we’ve been stuffing our pie hole with tacos and raw fish for the last week.

Good tacos are easier to find (especially downtown), but when it comes to Japanese, the pickings are slimmer. We’re always on the prowl for a place to add to our rotation. (Keep in mind we’re super-picky about the quality of sushi/sashimi we eat, as you should be. If you’re one of those AYCE bargain hunters, stop reading right now, and go check yourself for tapeworms.)

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So imagine our delight when  Sushi Kame (officially called Sushi Kame Omakase & Kaiseki) opened a few months ago at a location that’s not way up near Summerlin (its old home where great food is as rare as good taste).

The new Kame is right on the cusp of Chinatown, on the ground floor of a new condo complex near Valley View. And since it’s now in a neighborhood we like rather than loathe, we stopped in for a few exploratory bites.

What we found was impressive, accessible, and eye-popping — a welcome addition to the Japanese offerings along this increasingly crowded avenue, especially when the seats at Yui and Kabuto are full.

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This Kame is quite an operation. A hostess stand greets you right inside the door, a large, well-stocked bar hugs the left side of the space, while an even larger sushi bar beckons ahead. Plenty of tables line the bifurcated room, and to the far right (behind a dramatic window) lies the kaiseki room (above), where reservation-only omakase meals (starting at $200/pp) are served.

We’re not ready to take that plunge (the size of my restaurant bills from Paris has the Food Gal® contemplating some sort of 12-step gastronomy withdrawal program for me), but what we found at the sushi bar when we let the chefs strut their stuff was most impressive.

Just say omakase, and what you get for $100/pp will blow right past 95% of the neighborhood joints in town.

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Sushi is as much about the rice as it is about the fish, and this was the real deal — soft-yet-firm, perfumed, kernels (possessing both a whiff of vinegar and umami). so perfectly cooked you can count them in your mouth.

I’m not ready to pronounce the knife work the equal of its two rivals, but having a quality alternative to these edomae sushi icons, a mile closer to the Strip (and our house), is a nice problem to have.

SUSHI KAME

3616 W. Spring Mountain Road #103

Las Vegas, NV 89102

702.665.5731

For Kaiseki reservations call:

702.771.0122

 

The Ten Commandments of Chinatown

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1. Thou shalt not revolve thy sushi.*

2. Thou shalt not eat all-thy-can-eat anything.*

3. Thou shalt not bear false ramen/pho/noodle witness.*

4. Thou shalt not boba.*

5. Thou shalt not worship any other culinary gods before me.*

6. Thou shalt not take the name of Asian cuisines in vain.*

7. Honor thy father and mother, but do not trust their Korean steakhouse recommendations.*

8. Like all good Jews, honor thy Sabbath by eating Chinese.*

9. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s plate, nor his wife, nor his manservant unless they appear to be ordering better than you.*

10. Thou shalt not commit adultery…unless she is on really good terms with a great sushi chef.*

>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<

* 1 – Revolving sushi restaurants have taken over Chinatown faster than the Japanese captured Singapore. They are “loads of fun for the whole family!” — in other words, exactly the opposite of what sushi is about. If you enjoy whooping it up while eating robotic, franchised fish off a conveyor belt, have at it. Sushi should be serious business. As eating any raw food should be.

* 2 – It’s simple economics, pilgrim. One price anything (AYCE, standardized sushi, Korean BBQ, etc.) is incentivized to provide you with the most food at the lowest cost to the restaurant. Translation: You’re getting the absolute bottom of the barrel of ingredients, artfully repackaged, to convince your gullible self that you’re getting something good, when you’re not. When you don’t pay by the piece (for a steak, salad or sashimi) you’re playing the restaurant’s game, not your own.

* 3 – Asian noodles are cheap eats, and starchy shops are propagating faster than lamian strands. Every strip mall in Chinatown now has at least a couple.  The new Shanghai Plaza (top of the page) is going to end up with, like, six of them. Most are adequate, some are terrible. (Think of them like street tacos, if street tacos came with a half-gallon of steaming broth.)

If you see a noodle shop that’s taken over a noodle shop that replaced another noodle shop, chances are you’re getting a pre-packaged product being sold by some Asian restaurant gypsy who’s buying everything in a box.

* 4 – Boba is a bad joke — high-fructose corn syrup candy slushes masquerading as “tea.” All of it comes in powdered form, and now has as much to do with real tea as a double soy caramel whipped latte has to do with Colombian coffee.

Whatever its origins, boba now serves as a pacifier for out-of-control kids and surly Taiwanese teenagers. A grownup drinking boba looks as ridiculous as an adult licking a ginormous pinwheel lollipop at a county fair. Yes, you should be ashamed of yourself.

2019 Eating Las Vegas

* 5 – No other gwailo, gaijin or gringo covers Chinatown like I do. No one else is even close. I wrote the very first article about it for Las Vegas Life magazine back in 1997 (below), and I’ve been going there weekly since 1995. (My office used to be at Desert Inn and Jones, on the cusp of Chinatown, so I used to lunch there almost daily.)

If you have a Chinese friend who knows the cuisine backwards, then by all means, trust them. If you’re a sushi hound who’s sampled the real deal from Tokyo to Manhattan, then go with your gut. But if you’re a novice looking for guidance, climb aboard! Better yet, buy this book. It won’t steer you wrong. If you trust your Asian eats to Eater, or Thrillist, I feel sorry for you. At least Yelpers actually eat at the places they discuss.

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* 6 – Asian cuisines are some of the most sophisticated in the world. Chinese technique is revered by even the French; Japan’s ingredients rival Italy’s for their exquisiteness. No food culture on earth can match Thailand for its combination of sweet, sour, spicy and savory flavors. What Korean food lacks in subtlety it makes up for in fermented deliciousness.

Anyone who thinks eating Asian is “slumming it” has rocks in their head…and driftwood for a palate. Tell that friend of yours who wants to “eat cheap” in Chinatown to shut the fuck up…or get thyself to a conveyor belt.

* 7 – A corollary to my AYCE rant is not to trust anyone who recommends any place that’s a “good deal.” There are a dozen Korean BBQ/steakhouses around town that are “good deals.”  Hot and Juicy Crawfish is a “good deal”…because it fills you up with farm-raised, shit-fed Frankenfish bred in the bubbling warmth of brackish, southeast Asian sewage ponds. Yummmm.

Asian food is like anything else: you get what you pay for. 8 Oz Korean Steakhouse and Hobak have the best meat, not the most cheap meat you can eat. The proliferation of one-price Asian restaurants (mainly Korean and sushi) stands as an insult to the food cultures that popularized them. If you want the “best deals” in Chinatown, go to Yelp…and be sure to keep checking for tapeworms.

* 8 – Jews figured this out around the time they were wandering in the Sinai Desert: Sunday is the best day for Chinese food. The food is just as good as Saturday night and the atmosphere always seems more relaxed.

The two places we like best are China Mama and New Asian BBQ, but Mian, and Shang Artisan Noodle are close behind. That old reliable Orchids Garden has also made a comeback and is great for dim sum.

* 9 – There are only two ways to become an expert in Asian food: go to Asia and pay attention, or eat it all the time and ask questions. (Getting answers to your questions is actually easier over here than it is over there.) Don’t be shy. Asians certainly aren’t. If you see a plate pass by and it looks interesting, ask your server what it is. If the server’s English is marginal, ask the person who sat you (they’re usually the most multi-lingual person on the staff).

The language barrier has fallen considerably since I started covering Chinatown in the 90s. Picture menus are also much more common, making ordering a breeze. Covet those plates you see passing by, I say! Ask your neighbors what they’re having. You’ll be in for a world of pleasant surprises.

* 10 – Asian food is not for the timid. As with adultery, there are risks involved, the most common being: you might discover something you actually like better than what you’re used to. There is a world of textures and tastes from Asia springing from a refinement of raw materials (rice, salt, wheat, soybeans, poultry, fish, etc.) that took place a millennia before Europeans discovered the plow. So take the plunge…because as with a passionate mistress, you might find you can’t stay away.

And if you’re lucky enough to find someone who can say omakase and mean it, please let your spouse down gently.