Tag: Wynn Hotel and Casino

Eat This Now – Lunch at COUNTRY CLUB GRILL

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To where does one repair for lunch after drinking extremely rare, vintage champagnes all morning? Why, to a table for one at the very same Country Club Grill where he started quaffing the over-the-top wines at 10:00 am, of course!

There, Chef Carlos Guia soothed our buzz with a Creole-crusted slices of yellowfin tuna with shaved vegetables over a sesame-ginger emulsion, followed by one of Vegas’ most definitive crab cakes served with a sauce ravigote (the name means “invigorate”), that is sort of like a remoulade with more serious intentions. Accompanying everything was what remains one of Vegas’ best bread baskets. Chefs may come and go at the Wynn/Encore, but the in-house bakery here still puts out some mighty toothsome carbohydrates.

FYI: Guia is one of the coordinating chefs of this years TASTE OF THE NATION event being held next Thursday at the Rain Nightclub in the Palms Casino Resort. Tickets are $75, and the lineup of restaurants — from American Fish to Wazuzu — is plenty impressive and a mighty tasty way to fill your belly and assuage your conscience, while you’re helping fight the hunger that continues to grip our nation.

“No Kid Hungry” is TOTN’s slogan, and by buying a ticket, you’ll be doing your small part to make sure some child in Nevada has enough to eat.

Be there or be Three Square!

COUNTRY CLUB GRILL

At the Wynn Hotel and Casino

3131 Las Vegas Blvd. South

Las Vegas, NV 89109

702.770.3317

www.wynnlasvegas.com

ALEX Closes – The Enemy of Great is Good

Le mieux est l’ennemi du bien. (The best is the enemy of the good.) – Voltaire

There are passion restaurants and there are money restaurants. ALEX — the jewel in the supposed crown of the Wynn hotel — was supposed to be both, but was unceremoniously shut down on short (ten days) notice, despite being the very embodiment of the former, but (apparently) failing as the latter. What really went on behind the scenes leading up to its untimely demise will probably never be known, but the shudder has been felt by the entire Vegas food world (that now extends around the globe), and provides the perfect catalyst to review, and speculate about, what has happened to dining in restaurants, in Las Vegas, over the past seventeen years.

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Letter of the Week – Au Revoir to ALEX and All That

ELV note: The following comes from our Facebook exchange with Eric Gladstone about the whys and wherefores of ALEX‘s closing in the Wynn tomorrow night, and what it means for Las Vegas’ dining scene. Consider it a supplement to Gladstone’s article this week in the Las Vegas Weekly about the demise of this short lived (May 2005-January 2011) grande dame.

Dear ELV,

The patron who would best appreciate Restaurant Alex is not the patron Wynn/Encore is looking to attract anymore. Unless he’s bringing his 20-something son or daughter along, with access to the credit card [Speaking of the credit card, they might want to note that—specials aside–.fine dining price points certainly haven’t gone anywhere—Lakeside Grill’s entrées average in the $50 range. Perhaps linen suppliers are the most endangered species in the equation.] It’s hard to recall any example in modern Las Vegas history of a property changing its customer focus so dramatically.

Continue reading “Letter of the Week – Au Revoir to ALEX and All That”