First night in Vegas, compulsively installed myself at
the sushi bar of Shintaro in the Bellagio. Had excellent
sushi. Watched a guy flinch imperceptibly when informed
his Toro sashimi would be $90. He did enjoy it. The
Itamae presented me and the Toro guy each with a lagniappe
of a 4-ounce portion of endangered Chilean sea bass lightly
seasoned and seared. I left stuffed and happy, as usual.

Next day before lunch, I grabbed a great, fresh Guinness
at Fado, the Irish bar in Green Valley Ranch (which is
otherwise just another off-strip casino, albeit a much
cleaner, strip-looking one; kind of reminds me of the
Excalibur inside for some reason). GVR is the resort
that's featured on TV in "American Casino".

For lunch I drove up to the Venetian in anticipation of
another taste of Emeril's fantastic gumbo at Delmonico.
Unfortunately, only the Pork and Beef gumbo was on the
menu, so it lacked the andouille flavor that gumbo demands.
Without it, it's just stew. I smelled the file', but
didn't taste it much, either. Disappointing. But then,
mid-day, mid-week, mid-August, I should have expected
mediocrity, though I've never had anything like a mediocre
experience with Emeril's staff's food before.

Rather a late dinner at Olive's. I thought I was going
to eat light because of the hour, but the menu laughed
and offered me a Prosciutto di Parma appetizer with melon
(watermelon for a change) and an unripened cheese (I forget
exactly what; feta or gorgonzola but very mild like cream
cheese) that was fried crispy on the outside and creamy
soft on the inside. The watermelon didn't match as well
as a cantaloupe would have, otherwise the dish was very
good. The menu also forced me to order Duck Three Ways.
And boy did it ever deliver. A huge slab of duck breast
done perfectly medium with crispy skin still on. A duck
leg (claimed to have been a confit) that was bigger
than it looked. And a medallion of duck foie gras on
a medallion of what I think was sweet potato but was
sweeter and fruitier than I think sweet potatoes can be.
I eventually had to force myself to finish all of this,
even with a second glass of Du Mol pinot noir (at $23 a
pour). Maybe I should have avoided the bread and tapenade
(three kinds of bread, two tapenades: one green olives with
orange zest and mint, perfecto, and one black olives with
garlic and capers and something I forget, and the two of
them make me want to start experimenting with tapenades...)

And then it was Thursday. I woke late and somehow managed
to find myself down at Mandalay Bay, and noticed the menu
at the House of Blues had gumbo. Self, I says to myself.
Self, if you don't try it now, when are you gonna try it?
My self needs to get some psychic powers, because the HOB's
gumbo is basically stewed tomatoes with boiled chicken and
some bland-ass sausage in it. I spotted a bottle of one
of the house's signature hot sauces (this one basically
a Tabasco with a little carageenan or guar gum in it)
and poured a little on a plate to taste it. And tried
it again. The bartender happened by and I gestured to the
bottle and asked "you got any hot sauce back there because
this one ain't." He disappeared and returned within a
minute with a ramekin in which were one charred jalapeno
and one unadulterated habanero. I ignored the J and
extracted the H. Carefully, with one of those wide steak
knives that restaurants must have professionally dulled for
insurance purposes, I sliced off slivers from the convex
surfaces of the little orange menace. The first several
were fine. Mild heat, pepper-fruity flavor. One was so
un-spicy as to taste exactly like a bell pepper. Then I
sliced off one and looked and it had about a quarter of
a square cm of white membrane on its inner side. Nah,
I said, and laid it aside.

I also ordered the BBQ ribs, because, well, my self was
still making the decisions based on when-are-you-ever-gonna
rationales. Besides, I'd heard they're supposed to
be pretty good. And they could have been. Very nice
pork meat. Excellent sauce (the first Tennessee sauce I
think I really like. But their cooking method: 4 hours in
a roaster. What a waste of meat and sauce. Mealy, chewy,
dry, all the things that most insult the rotund lateral
extent of a pig's carcass. I can't believe there's no way
they can manage to put these in a smoker and cook them
for a proper 9-12 hours. The emission would only draw
people into the resort. And with a world-class method,
that world-class meat and world-class sauce would make
for a world-class rib experience.

Friday I would be going home. Could the disappointments
be alleviated by one last attempt to find great food in one
of the world's best concentrations of great food providers?
Happily, and luckily, yes.

Bellagio has ripped out (again) the space that used to
be Sam's American, and installed FIX. I was playing
poker, and got a yen for just a cheeseburger (not really
believing I was going to be overjoyed any more). FIX is
the closest eats to the Bellagio's poker room, and it said
"cheeseburger" on the menu. Voila et. First I tried the
crab cake, something else I'd been wanting for a couple
of days. Real, big lumps of crabmeat, balled up with a
crispy top and creamy binder, served still bubbling in a
cast-iron ramekin. Excellent. And the cheeseburger was
to be no ordinary cheeseburger. Three Kobe beef sliders.
Each about two inches across and nearly an inch thick.
I'd estimate 6-8 oz. of the real Wagyu, for a mere $13 or
something sick like that. But upon tasting it, I realized
that the name was superfluous. See, the point of Kobe
beef is they feed the cows a special diet and massage them
to increase the fat and spread it through the muscle.
But when you grind beef, you can get precisely the same
effect just by adding spare fat to the grind. I.e., grind
up a Kobe sirloin and you'll get exactly the same 80-20
supermarket beef I use in my burgers at home (which are,
still, the best burgers ever made). They also use roma
tomatoes and real kosher garlic pickles, just as I do.
So this "FIX" wasn't just a little comfort food, it was
very much a homesickness cure. I wasn't the slightest bit
homesick, but if I was, this would have been the culinary
ticket. The only real difference was that they used actual
swiss cheese, which I think is too strong for a burger and
doesn't melt right. I use swiss-american process cheese,
which gives that classic taste and mouthfeel to the great
American cheeseburger without being as sweet as plain
american process cheese. Still, the sliders slid fine.
FIX, in addition to having just the food you want when you
want it, was crammed with hot girls and guys all posing for
each other. Very hip crowd. Must be the new-place-to-go
syndrome. Though I think many of them will come back for
the grub, even when the nouvelle glam wears off it.

--Blair
"Voila post."

"Blair P. Houghton" > wrote in message
...
> First night in Vegas, compulsively installed myself at
> the sushi bar of Shintaro in the Bellagio. Had excellent
> sushi. Watched a guy flinch imperceptibly when informed
> his Toro sashimi would be $90. He did enjoy it.

Wow, for that kind of money I'd want to see it cooked right in front of me.


>
> I also ordered the BBQ ribs, because, well, my self was
> still making the decisions based on when-are-you-ever-gonna
> rationales.


Memphis Championship Barbecue. They have three locations and cook them with
hardwood.

Edwin Pawlowski > wrote:
>
>"Blair P. Houghton" > wrote in message
.. .
>> First night in Vegas, compulsively installed myself at
>> the sushi bar of Shintaro in the Bellagio. Had excellent
>> sushi. Watched a guy flinch imperceptibly when informed
>> his Toro sashimi would be $90. He did enjoy it.
>
>Wow, for that kind of money I'd want to see it cooked right in front of me.

Shintaro also does Teppanyaki, so I suppose if you wanted
to elicit screams you could tote your geta back to the
main room and ask for a performance sear.

>> I also ordered the BBQ ribs, because, well, my self was
>> still making the decisions based on when-are-you-ever-gonna
>> rationales.
>
>Memphis Championship Barbecue. They have three locations and cook them with
>hardwood.

Three locations where? Vegas?

And are there any "championship" Texas barbecue joints there?

--Blair
"And do they take poker chips?"

"Blair P. Houghton" > wrote in message
>>Memphis Championship Barbecue. They have three locations and cook them
>>with
>>hardwood.
>
> Three locations where? Vegas?
>
> And are there any "championship" Texas barbecue joints there?
>
> --Blair

Yes, Vegas. One is in one of the Santa Fe Station. One is on E. Warm
Springs Ave, One is on Las Vegas Blvd., but I forget exactly where. They do
have a web page with more info. Owner Mike Mills won a MIM championship
some years back.

Don't know about any Texas style there.
Ed