Vegas Journal: (Slightly) Off-Strip

While staying on the Las Vegas strip, we took a one-night jaunt off strip, back to the real world for Thai food and custard.


Lotus of Siam

There may be no more universally heralded restaurant in Vegas than Lotus of Siam. Praised by Jonathan Gold as the best Thai restaurant in North America as well as the best restaurant between the coasts, this Sahara Avenue strip mall Thai spot is a regular pilgrimage for visiting foodies.

Lotus of Siam is only slightly off strip. If you take the Las Vegas Monorail to the last stop, you get off right at Sahara and it's just about a mile walk east to Lotus of Siam.

If you frequent LA's great Thai restaurants in Thaitown or North Hollywood, you will immediately see a couple of differences from what you are used to. First, Lotus of Siam is the first Thai restaurant I've been to in a while that is mostly patronized by non-Thai people, or at least that was the case the night I was there. Second, they have an extensive wine list, focusing on German Rieslings. The crisp, sweetness of Rieslings, it turns out, are perfect for the spicy Thai flavors.

Now, I am sorry to disappoint, but I don't feel I can do justice to Lotus of Siam. Usually, to review a Thai restaurant, I would order at least five or six dishes, but our party was two people without a refrigerator in our hotel room to take food back to, so we were limited in our ordering.

Because of our limitations around quantity, we opened the extensive menu and skipped directly to the Northern Thai section, reputed to be home to the best dishes. The two dishes we picked from that menu were very good. The Northern Larb, a pork larb, similar to other larb's I've had but without lime, was excellent. The sourness of a traditional pork larb was replaced by a deeply, rich, meaty flavor, the type of flavor that appeals to your most basic flesh-eating instincts; I sopped up the juice with my sticky rice. The second main dish was a red curry with vermicelli and coagulated pork blood. It was very good, with deep, earthy flavors of pork and blood and some good spice. We also got a fried catfish salad from the regular menu; there were nice bites of fried catfish, but the salad was less interesting than the other dishes and didn't really come together as a whole.

While all the dishes were very good, I wasn't struck by lightening, as I sort of expected since this is the best Thai restaurant in the world, etc., etc. But as I said, I don't want to judge on this limited exposure to the menu; mostly, I want to go back and try more, especially some of the sausage dishes.

Lotus of Siam
953 E. Sahara Ave. Suite A5
Las Vegas, NV 89104
(702)735-3033


Luv-It Frozen Custard

For dessert, we meandered northeast to Luv-It Frozen Custard, a little stand just off Las Vegas Boulevard in the seedy area north of the strip. Luv-It has a variety of custard flavors and toppings. I ordered a Western: vanilla custard with hot fudge, caramel and pecans. This was good custard. Creamy without being slick, a nice vanilla flavor with no chemical aftertaste. Good frozen custard is hard to find in Southern California, so I was very happy to have this treat. Both the smooth, luscious flavor and the stand-around-eating-it ambiance brought me back to my days of eating Ted Drew's in St. Louis. Good times, good custard, and a perfect off-strip dessert after the spicy Thai food.


Luv-It Frozen Custard
505 E. Oakey Blvd.
Las Vegas, NV 89104
(702) 384-6452

Whiskey Wednesday: Vegas Whiskey at Craftsteak

While I report on my Las Vegas food adventures, I wanted to give a shout out to the best whiskey bar I found on my trip. On a great tip from my colleagues at the LA Whisk(e)y Society, I headed to Tom Colicchio's Craftsteak at the MGM Grand. (You can read about the Society's decadent whiskey paired meal here).

Craftsteak has and excellent list of single malts, divided by region, as well as a very impressive selection of American whiskeys. The bartenders are helpful and will even let you nose the bottle prior to making your decision. The whiskey menu is quite varied, but includes some great deals; I found a 16 year old cask strength Mortlach bottled by James MacArthur's Old Master's for only $17.

There is also a lovely glass case of extremely rare and expensive whiskies, including some distilled in the 1930s, and while I didn't partake, they were fun to look at.

So if you're in Vegas and wanting some fine whiskey, head to Craftsteak, and I hear the food isn't bad either.

Vegas Journal: The Lion, the Witch and Joel Robuchon

Deep in the heart of the MGM Grand, right off the casino floor, not far from the lion habitat housing actual lions, lies one of only two Michelin three star restaurants west of the Hudson River (the other being, of course, the French Laundry). To walk through the large doorway is akin to entering a new dimension. The sights, sounds and smoke of the casino are gone, and you are now in a more tranquil world.

The aesthetic of Joel Robuchon is unique, far different than any American restaurant I've visited. It is as if the designer was a pre-teen girl. The centerpiece of the room is a gigantic chandelier hanging much lower than seems wise. There are pink and white flowers everywhere, and each table includes a bird cage containing pink birds and butterflies made of feathers. The decor caused me to wonder whether they used the same designer as the American Girl Cafe.

There are a variety of tasting menus offered, starting at $109, but this may be the only time I ever set foot in a real Michelin three star, and it's a very special occasion, so we opted for the 16 course tasting menu for around $400 per person (and that's without wine!).

Robuchon makes ample use of carts and the first presentation was the bread cart, a massive, elaborately decorated cabinet housing what must have been twenty or more different breads. There were baguettes, focaccias, rustic country breads, flavored breads, soft buns. It went on and on. We sampled a selection throughout the meal. All were excellent. The rustic country baguette is all you would want it to be, deeply crusty, light and airy. The bacon bread tasted of smoky bacon with thick cut pieces studded throughout. Various cheese breads were also very good.

Then came the parade of courses. As with everything at Robuchon, there was an attention to presentation beyond anything I'd seen before. Each plate was a work of art (I'm not talking about the food here, but the actual dishware). There were props and accessories and spiral wires that wrapped around each bowl and saucer. An asparagus dish came with a glass framed picture of asparagus, a seafood plate included a starfish and piece of coral on the tray, and on it went.

Much of the food was very good, but in general, while the experience was exciting, the food was not better that at other great restaurants; in fact, it was a bit hit and miss.

Many dishes blended French technique with Asian flavors to good effect. One of my favorites was a starter of tender uni in a carrot mousse topped with a chilled, beef consomme. Interplay of textures, as evidenced in this dish (soft uni, smooth carrot puree, and gelatinous consomme) was another motif that we saw throughout the meal. A roasted lobster ravioli in a foie gras foam was hard not to love.

Another very successful plate was a trio of asparagus dishes - a savory pana cotta, a lightly scrambled egg with asparagus presented in a thin "toast" and an asparagus flan with morels.

The main course dishes were weaker, particularly around texture. Foie gras with bamboo shoots wrapped in green cabbage was a bit too mushy, and a veal chop, while tasty, was very tough.

Mid-way through the meal, I was shocked to see the man himself, Joel Robuchon, clad in black shirt, making his way through the dining room greeting what I can only assume were VIPs and studiously ignoring the rest of us who were merely ponying up several weeks' pay for a meal. It never occurred to me that Robuchon, who has restaurants in six countries over three continents, would actually be in the restaurant while I was dining there.

For some inexplicable reason, the tasting menu does not include a cheese service, although a cheese cart was in evidence, so we moved directly into dessert. Dessert at Robuchon successfully combined the qualities that were sometimes lacking in the main part of the meal: consistency, originality and the wow factor.

I'm generally a chocolate guy, and while there was a fine chocolate mousse, the best dessert was la verveine, a tangerine cream with candied kumquats and a lemon verbena sorbet.

And then came the candy cart. The end of service candy cart is a thing of children's dreams. A massive cart filled with dozens of candies: chocolates, caramels, jellies, marshmallows, cookies and even lollipops. The server then fills plates and plates based on your request. I was tempted to order "one of each" but I reined myself in. The chocolates were rich and tasty, especially the chocolate macaron, but everything was quite good. If I was left with one strong sentiment from the meal, it's that I want a candy cart. Yes, after each meal, I want some guy to wheel in a candy cart and serve me rich, delicate sweets to my order. Now that would be living.

We finished our candy and coffee, and then we were done. The portions were small, so I was certainly satisfied, but not stuffed. We set out past the flowers and bird cages, through the doors to the hustle and bustle, the ring and the bling of a Vegas casino. I looked back, half expecting the entrance of Robuchon to have disappeared, like the door to Narnia, another strange, mystical place that lives by a different set of rules.

Vegas Baby: My Birthday Journal and a Fabulous Steak

So, I had a birthday recently, one ending in a zero. To celebrate, I spent a long weekend in Las Vegas, eating my way through the strip and environs. I hadn't been to Vegas for a few years, but in this town, things change so much that a few years can seem like a lifetime. I'll begin my series of reports on Sin City dining with one of the best meals I had on my trip: Carnevino(at the Palazzo).

Mario Batali's Italian steakhouse Carnevino was a tour de force of a meal from start to finish. I mean, how can you not love a place that serves its bread not only with butter but with a little tub of lardo. Yes lardo, pork fat, whipped up and seasoned with rosemary and salt. It had the texture of a very creamy butter and the taste of a rosemary butter with an underlying porkiness. The stuff was addictive. It made me want to lick out the tub, to take it home with me or to buy a brick of manteca and try to make it myself.

Given my experience at Batali's Osteria Mozza, we expected the pasta appetizer to be good, and it was. We opted for the cannelloni, stuffed with braised rabbit, spring garlic and lemon zest and topped with cheese. The pasta was Batali-perfect and the stuffing was a delightful fusion of sour, salt and garlic.

But beef is the thing here, BBL Beef to be specific. BBL is still sort of a mystery to me. As far as I can discern, it stands for Belgian Blue Lefaivre, which appears to be a proprietary breed; a hybrid between a particularly lean breed and a fattier cow which is both lean and well marbled, if that seeming contradiction makes sense. The menu states that BBL is "often beyond regular USDA prime standards for marbling and flavor and is hormone and antibiotic free."

Whatever the stuff is though, it's tasty. We ordered our favorite cut, the porterhouse, which was stunning. The beef tasted like no other I've had. The marbling, evident in the bone left on the plate (all steaks are carved tableside) was more similar to that of Wagyu steak than any other steak I've had in the US. The flavor was much more beefy, almost gamey, than a standard cut. This was one of the best steaks I've had, ever, and I like steak. And yes, I picked up the bone and tore the last bits of meat from it caveman style, to the amusement of surrounding tables. I'm sorry, but if you're going to give me the bone on a plate, I'm going to eat it.

Dessert was also excellent. Caramel date fritters, were warm and perfectly fried. The date and caramel, which you might think would be an excessively sweet combination, came together perfectly, the date puree adding some texture to the burnt sugar of the caramel.

My only complaint of the meal was that one of the sides we ordered, a fregula pasta (a sort of large couscous) with fava beans and pecorino romano, was too salty. The pecorino, cut into little balls and mixed in with the fregula, overwhelmed with their saltiness and there were too few favas in the dish to make an impression.

The more I eat at Batali restaurants, the more impressed I am that this seemingly class-clown type of a guy with a television, restaurant and cook book empire is still putting out food of this quality. This was a meal that was worth a pilgrimage. If you are a steak lover, you need to check out Carnevino.

Whiskey Wednesday: Balblair Comes to LA

Last Thursday, the good people from the Balblair distillery sponsored a party at the Edison, downtown, to kick off the introduction of Balblair to the US market. Balblair is an Eastern Highlands distillery. Unlike most Scotches, which release whiskies with general age statements (e.g. aged 12 years), the Balblair has opted for vintages. As with wines, their whiskies are identified by the year of production. While a few other distilleries are doing this (most notably The Glenrothes), it is still fairly unusual in the world of distillery bottled Scotch. The first two expressions coming to the US market are the 1991 and the 1997 vintages. Both were bottled in 2009 so the 1991 is 18 years old and the 1997 is 12 years old.

Balblair is owned by Inver House distillers, which is in turn owned by Thai Beverage (ThaiBev). Inver House owns the excellent Old Pulteney, but until recently, many of their whiskies were not available in the US market. Within the past few months though, they have released Balblair, Speyburn and anCnoc (distilled at Knockdhu). I'm always glad to see new releases on the US market, so kudos to Inver House for opening up the market.

The Edison party was very nice; it's hard to beat sipping whisky and munching hors d'oeuvres among the turbines and other strange electronics that make up the Edison's renowned steampunk aesthetic. There was also a bowl of dark chocolate bars, and as it turns out, Balblair pairs very well with high cacao chocolate.

Balblair was offering tastes of both malts. It's hard to do formal tasting notes in this type of setting, but I did get a good impression of both of the expressions being offered, which have very different characters. The 1997 is a floral, perfumy malt; lighter and younger tasting. The 1991, in contrast, has big malt flavors; it's very straightforward, very drinkable and should appeal to those who like the pure taste of malt, uninfluenced by sherry or peat. Both of the Balblairs clock in at 43% alcohol and are aged in ex-Bourbon casks. The 1997 will retail for $64.99, and the 1991 will retail for $129.99. They are available at specialty spirits shops.

FTC Disclaimer: The Balblair event offered whisky samples and a bottle to each attendee free of charge.

Bouchon: It's Kellerific!

As is my tradition, when a glamorous new restaurant opens, I try to wait until the hype has died down, the celebrity chef has gone back to his home restaurant and the reservations are available. Using that measure, it was time to try Bouchon, the Beverly Hills outpost of Thomas Keller's bistro that opened last fall.

I've never been to a Keller restaurant, so this was my first exposure to the cuisine of one of the most highly regarded chefs in the world. No pressure though.

We went for charcuterie and pate for appetizers, all of which pleased. There is little nicer than a jar of pure foie gras terrine. I like that it was served unadorned, without jellies, glazes, nuts or berries; it was just a jar of Sonoma foie gras, some toast strips and sea salt, leaving nothing to cover the pure, silky taste of the terrine.

Pate de campagne looked like the traditional country pate, but one bite reveled it to be so much more. It was moist and porky with much more spice than a traditional pate de campagne. It quickly disappeared and was among our favorite dishes.

The Assiette de Charcuterie consisted of a number of salamis and a dry cured ham. All very good, but not as exciting as the pate or as sublime as the foie.

I was thrilled to see boudin noir on the menu. I love a blood sausage, but I haven't seen boudin noir much on LA restaurant menus(morcilla, yes; soondae, yes, but boudin noir, not so much). And this one was divine. A modestly sized sausage, the boudin noir innards which spilled out of the sausage once the casing was severed were moist to the point of melting in your mouth with a few chunks interspersed within. The flavor was deep and pure, spiced well enough but not such that it got in the way of the pure blood sausage flavor. It was served with mashed potatoes and caramelized apples.

As the meal progressed, it became apparent that Bouchon's food aimed to highlight the main ingredient with as little adornment as possible. Sauces were mild, there were no molecular tricks or other gimmicks, and it really was about showcasing great ingredients.

Another great dish was a rack of lamb special. The lamb was rich and tender, but the highlight of the dish was a few slices of a house made merguez sausage, which hit all the right notes, which had all of the requisite merguez spice without losing the taste of the lamb.

We ordered a plethora of desserts, but my favorite was the Ile Flottante, a traditional floating island (meringue in creme anglaise) with the addition of caramel sauce. The meringue was light and airy while also being moist and creamy; it was served in anglaise with caramel poured over it tableside. It was all I could do not to lick the bowl to get all of the sauce out of there.

Other desserts were all very good. The chocolate mousse was thick and rich, pot du creme infused with almond was delightfully subtle, profiteroles came with a hot fudge sauce on the side which was another lap it out of the container situation. The two desserts that were less exciting were the creme caramel, a well executed but fairly typical flan and the restaurant's trademark dessert, chocolate bouchons. Bouchon means cork in French, and the chocolate bouchons are small cork-shaped chocolate cakes topped with chocolate sauce and raspberry sorbet. The sorbet was fantastic with a strong raspberry taste, but the bouchons were just okay.

Bouchon opened last fall to mixed reviews from the food bloggerotti, but count me as a convert. Less is more at Keller's only Southern California outpost which goes for traditional interpretations of bistro dishes that put ingredients first.


Bouchon Bistro (at the Montage Hotel)
235 N Canon Dr.
Beverly Hills, California 90210
(310) 271-9910

Amedei Single Origin Chocolates

Amedei Chocolates are among the best things you can put in your mouth. When I sampled the Italian company's Porcelana bar, it blew me away, so I was very happy to receive a set of their cru series of single origin chocolates to sample. All of Amedei's bars are 70% cacao and contain only cacao, sugar, cocoa butter and vanilla. All of the chocolates are made from trinitario beans, a hybrid, though the Venezuela and Madagascar beans are made from a different strain of trinitario which has a higher percentage of criollo beans in its genetic makeup.


Ecuador

Creamy, pure and dark chocolate case. There is not much to say about this, except that it is wonderfully straight forward dark chocolate; almost text book in its purity.


Grenada

The Grenada has a strong dark, nose which is much milder than most of these. It takes a while for the flavor to kick in. Mid way through the first bite, the sweetness hits, and then the chocolate tones, which are still quite subtle and carries on into the finish. If you are doing a sampling, try this first as the others will overwhelm its subtle flavor.


Jamaica

The Jamaica has a strong chocolate scent. The flavor is rich and deep, with some olive brine and other savory notes. It is very low in acid.


Madagascar

Great, powerful flavors. Deep and dark, some salt and even garlic notes; lots of umami with some burnt qualities on the finish. Lovely and unique.


Trinidad

Very herbal nose with cinnamon scents. Herbal qualities continue on in the flavor, along with some Cognac/liqueur qualities. Another great one with really interesting flavor.


Venezuela

A bit more fruity than the others; smooth and creamy; sweetness comes in mid-palate but with lots of balance. One of my favorites of the lot.


All of these chocolates were excellent. Interestingly, I found them to be more similar to each other than other single origin collections I've sampled, such as Michel Cluizel. or Pralus. Amedei chocolates tend to eschew acidity and go for very pure chocolate flavors. It's a style I like very much, but it means that the distinctions between the different chocolates are more subtle than I've found with other chocolates. Of course, some other chocolates use a wider variety of beans as well, which would likely account for some of the differences.

The Amedei I Cru Sampler is available in several sizes on Chocosphere.com.