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Sunday, October 15, 2000 By Woodene Merriman, Post-Gazette Dining Critic
I'll bet we're the only passengers on this flight who are going to Las Vegas to eat," His Honor said as the crowded flight took off from Pittsburgh International Airport.
He may have been right. But more and more, Las Vegas is getting to be a fine dining town. Watch out, New Orleans, San Francisco and, yes, New York City. The foodies are raving about Las Vegas.
Emeril, Wolfgang, Joachim, Charlie and friends have opened new restaurants in this fantasy land. Food magazines from Bon Appetit to Food and Wine have been telling us all about it with mouth-watering descriptions of the great food served in this new Las Vegas.
So when a donation to WQED earned us three free nights at a hotel, we chose New York New York, the hotel with a roller coaster, in Las Vegas. Then we went online, got a rock-bottom price on round-trip tickets, and we were off. Our savings, we decided, would finance our dinners at restaurants we'd been wanting to try.
In four days, we couldn't hit them all, but we made a big dent in our wish list.
Lotus of Siam
When Jonathan Gold of Gourmet magazine called this the Single Best Thai Restaurant in North America, we immediately called for reservations. With a recommendation like that, the place would be jammed. When we arrived, only three other tables were occupied.
I tried to keep my pages torn from Gourmet out of sight, but the waiter noticed them. Business is up 98 percent because of that article, he said. (We can't help wondering what it was before.)
We put the menu aside and asked for the Northern menu, which has the restaurant's specialties from the Chiang Mai area. Finally, we made the best move of the evening. "Would you select our dinner for us?" we asked the waiter.
It came in three wonderful courses. First, nam kas tod, an appetizer of crunchy rice, fried peanuts, green onion, chili, ginger and a most unusual "sour sausage" made of raw cured pork tossed with lime juice. With the different textures and tastes, it seems to explode in your mouth.
On the platter, too, was a wedge of raw cabbage and a sprig of the herb pennywort. "Good for your insides," said Bill Chutima, the restaurant owner, who had walked over to explain what we were eating.
Second course was sua rong hai, or charbroiled beef sliced, layered on a bed of cabbage and served with a spicy dipping sauce. It was so tender we didn't even need our knives.
Third course: tom yum kung yai, a hot and sour soup made with a shrimp as big as a lobster. It came from San Pedro, Calif., Chutima said. It was so big, it had to be cut into large pieces to fit into the serving dish, and it was delicious.
For dessert, we took the advice of a pretty young Thai waitress and ordered nondairy coconut ice cream with sticky rice.
"That's a strange combination," H.H. said.
"That's what I thought the first time I tried peanut butter and jelly," Chutima replied. Actually, it tastes a lot like rice pudding.
The owner's wife, Saipin Chutima, granddaughter and student of one of the most famous chefs of Chiang Mai, is chef here.
Lotus of Siam (702-735-3033) is at 953 E. Sahara Ave., in the Commercial Center of Las Vegas. The restaurant is small, plain and even a little dated. It's an $11 cab ride to get there but well worth it. Besides, our dinner, including a bottle of wine, was only $70.
The staff knew nothing about us, except that we were a couple from Pittsburgh interested in trying their food. When we left, one waiter went to the cab with us, held the door open, and said, "Oh, yes, the Pittsburgh Steelers."
Aureole
The best dinner we had in Las Vegas was at Aureole in the Mandalay Bay hotel. This is the classy Charlie Palmer restaurant with "wine angels" who float up and down a four-story wine tower on pulleys to get your bottle. If you choose one of the red wines stored there, that is.
Aureole boasts 12,000 bottles; the whites are in a cooler, and some reds are stored elsewhere.
At first we were taken to a table where I couldn't see the wine angel. When I asked if we could sit at a table where we could watch, the maitre d' graciously agreed. And that was before H.H. had slipped him a $10 bill. Money is the common denominator in Las Vegas, restaurants included.
Aureole has a contemporary menu. You can order an eight-course tasting menu for $95, with appropriate wines for each course for $45, and a signed copy of Palmer's "Great American Food" cookbook for another $35.
We peasants had the three-course $55 menu instead. That was oysters with shallot mignonette and caraway crisps for H.H. and a risotto with duck confit, sweet peas and veal jus for me as a first course. The main course was herb-steamed halibut fillet with lobster pan sauce, braised greens, halved pear tomatoes and chive essence, one of Aureole's best-known dishes. It had much more flavor than other steamed fish I've had, because it's marinated first in oil and herbs, according to the waiter.
For dessert, H.H. had a big bowl of fresh raspberries and strawberries with chantilly cream, and I overindulged with a warm chocolate peanut butter torte with a liquid center, served with caramel pecan ice cream and peanut brittle. The food, service and ambiance -- including the floating wine angel -- were outstanding.
Aureole (702-632-7401) suggests that men wear jackets, something of a rarity in this casually dressed city.
Pinot Brasserie
If we had a disappointment at the table in Las Vegas, this was it. The oven-roasted lamb chops with herb persillade were a little tough, and so was the rotisserie pork loin with butternut squash ravioli, asparagus and pesto beurre blanc.
We ordered wrong, and after a series of fine meals, we were sated, so perhaps we were being too critical.
Pinot Brasserie (702-735-8888), one of several fine restaurants in the Venetian, is the creation of Joachim Splichal, a James Beard Foundation award-winning chef and his wife, Christine, and features Franco-California cuisine. They duplicated their Los Angeles Pinot restaurant here.
Our endive salad had caramelized walnuts, Roquefort cheese, pears and a champagne vinaigrette, and was excellent. We loved the contrast of the sweet, crunchy nuts with the cheese and the bitter endive. The bread was so good we ate it all (another mistake).
We liked the look of the place, much like a French bistro. The service was friendly but slow. And after listening to the young woman next to us, dining with her boyfriend and parents, talking all the while with someone else on the cell phone, we had enough and skipped dessert. For one salad and two entrees, the total was $69.
The menu changes every two to three weeks at Pinot Brasserie. Looking back, I wish we had ordered seafood -- perhaps the Pinot Prestige shellfish platter for two, with Maine lobster, crab, assorted oysters, poached shrimp, raw clams and chilled steamed mussels ($55).
Splichal and his wife aren't at the restaurant, of course, any more than Emeril Lagasse and Wolfgang Puck are at all their restaurants. But I think it's time Splichal came and checked it out.
That's three dinners. Where else did we eat? At the Bellagio buffet, for one. It's a big, big, big buffet, known for variety, top quality and, especially, shrimp. As fast as they bring it out, it's gone. At $13.95, it's a great lunch.
At Le Cafe Ile St. Louis near the Eiffel Tower in the Paris hotel, we lunched on a cold fruits de mer salad and felt almost as if we were in the real Paris. In the Excalibur hotel, we watched Krispy Kreme doughnuts being made, and, naturally, we ate one. At Nathan's Coney Island all-you-can-eat breakfast for $6.95 in the New York New York, we ate cold pancakes and vowed never to return. At Lenotre in the Paris hotel, we breakfasted on flaky croissants as only the French can make them, and vowed -- when we return -- always to have breakfast there.
And didn't we ever make it to the other tables -- the gaming tables? Yes. While waiting for me to come out of the restroom at the Venetian, H.H. put a $5 bill in a slot machine. Lights all over the machine were lit when I arrived, and H.H. was looking puzzled. Finally, he punched the "collect" button, and nickels started pouring out.
Alas, before we walked away, he had put them all back.
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