Dine and drink well in Vegas while never setting foot on The Strip
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LAS VEGAS -- The recommendations I received for Rosemary's Restaurant all emphasized that it's located in a strip mall.
Never mind that most of Las Vegas resembles a mall of some sort -- from the malls of gaming and celebrity-chef dining on The Strip to mom-and-pop restaurants like Rosemary's, which is tucked behind a Marie Calendar's on a dusty avenue 10 miles from the Las Vegas Boulevard action that most tourists come here for.
But Rosemary's feeds as many tourists as locals, said chef/owner Michael Jordan.
"You know foodies -- they will travel a country mile on foot if that means finding a good meal," Jordan said. "A lot of serious diners pass through this town."
I passed through Las Vegas in mid-October, hungry to enjoy breakfast, lunch and dinner off The Strip and outside casinos. Rosemary's Restaurant was my first and last stop. In between, I dined locally -- at down-home rib restaurants, a fancy French place, a classic Vegas steakhouse and a burger joint.
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HOME SWEET VEGAS
When Jordan arrived in Las Vegas in 1996 to open Emeril Lagasse's Fish House at the MGM Grand, you could count the number of celebrity chefs on the tines of a fork. Wolfgang Puck had Spago at Caesars Palace. Andre Rochat had Andre's in the Monte Carlo Resort and Casino. Now virtually every big hotel on The Strip has a celebrity-chef restaurant, from Bobby Flay's Mesa Grill to Tom Colicchio's Craftsteak to Thomas Keller's Bouchon.
"It would be nice if they branched out and came off The Strip," Jordan said. "It's still pretty much a grass-roots thing for us here. On The Strip, they can do between $10 million and $20 million in revenue a year. I just don't know if you're going to do that kind of revenue locally. Go where the bread is buttered, you know."
After running Emeril's Fish House for two years, Jordan and his wife, Wendy, branched out to the suburban, strip-mall fringe of West Sahara Avenue in 1999. After opening a second restaurant, a short-lived venture in the Rio hotel that suffered when convention business nose-dived, Jordan is focused on Rosemary's.
"Wendy and I decided it was an untapped market," Jordan said. "Locals were just begging for some great restaurants. Since we were living here, we wanted to be a part of it and not just be a part of the tourist side but also support the local side as well."
Jordan has a loose definition of local. He sources many of his greens from farmers in Pahrump, 60 miles away and 10 degrees cooler in the mountains west of Las Vegas, and gets other vegetables from farmers in southern Utah and from distributors in Los Angeles.
"To be honest, we're in a desert here," Jordan said. "It's being trucked in from L.A., one of the best food markets in the country. We're only hours removed from what L.A. restaurants get. We're actually pretty fortunate to be where we're at."
Jordan calls his French-influenced, American bistro menu "the story of our lives." Jordan was born in Iowa. He and wife lived in the French Quarter in New Orleans, where they worked at Lagasse's New Orleans Restaurant for five years. Jordan's menu incorporates some Creole and even Midwestern touches, like hearty potato bread. The restaurant is named after Jordan's mother, Rosemary.
Rosemary's dining room is upscale-casual, with white linen on tables and colorful art on the walls. Service was polished and attentive, at both lunch and dinner.
Rosemary's menu (entrees $15-18 lunch, $29-$42 dinner) is remarkable in its flexibility. Diners can build their own three-course prix-fixe meals ($28 lunch, $50 dinner). Want two appetizers and one entree? Done. One entree and two desserts? You've got it. Or go for one appetizer, one entree and one dessert, although I don't recommend Rosemary's desserts.
I couldn't resist buttery, intensely red carpaccio -- thin slices of raw beef dressed with blue cheese and a salad of arugula and Granny Smith apples. Squash soup reflected Jordan's Southern touch: It was as sweet as sorghum, and I could manage to eat only a few spoonfuls, although it was delicious. Twice-baked Parmesan souffle with roasted chanterelles and garlic cream was dreamy. The grainy edge of cheese offset the souffle's fluffiness.
Duck confit was stunning: a thick leg preserved in duck fat, served atop crisp lentils. A glimmering layer of fat peeked out beneath the leg's crispy skin. The meat was dark brown, tender and lightly gamey.
For dinner, I was drawn to the $105 tasting menu paired with beers at every course ($120 with wine, $70 without beverages). The light fruitiness of French-Canadian Blanche de Chambly eased the creaminess of salmon tartare, as well as the salty edge of the paddlefish caviar that accompanied the first course.
Saison Dupont, a French farmhouse ale, evened the sweetness of proscuitto-wrapped figs stuffed with goat cheese.
My favorite dish and pairing was the third course: crispy striped bass served with a hash of andouille sausage, rock shrimp and fingerling potatoes, and Creole brown-butter sauce. The beer was one I hadn't experienced before: Gavruche, a spicy and malty amber-red ale from France that stood up to every flavor on the plate.
Celebrator Dopplebock's malty horns rammed through the heaviness of roasted rack of lamb with kalamata olive mashed potatoes.
The dessert beer -- Lindemans' intensely fruity peach lambic -- was better than the dessert, a boring sampler of cheesecakes and lava cake. For all that it does right, Rosemary's fails on desserts. Lemon ice-box pie and coconut bread pudding had the same gummy texture and consistency. Only the creme brulee was good.
• Rosemary's Restaurant
8125 W. Sahara Ave., Las Vegas; 1-702-869-2251;
VEGAS OF YORE
Pardon Pamplemousse's appearance from the street. Pamplemousse is, indeed, a romantic French restaurant, and not a massage parlor as its garish pink sign suggests.
Three decades before celebrity chefs Guy Savoy, Joel Robuchon and Daniel Boulud brought $60 bowls of soup and triple-digit tasting menus to Las Vegas hotels, Georges La Forge planted his French fine-dining flag in the desert, in a low-slung stucco house a few blocks off The Strip.
Pamplemousse still touts Old Las Vegas' salad days. Fettuccine a la Georges, I was told, was created in honor of Frank Sinatra, featuring cream sauce and prosciutto. The remainder of chef Jean-David Groff-Daudet's menu is tres French (mussels steamed in white wine, frog legs, escargot, filet mignon, rack of lamb) -- and recited from memory by waiters who wear coats and ties.
I ordered duck two ways: slices of ruby-red breast and a leg of confit. The confit was lean and meaty, but slightly dry. The breast, however, was tender as filet mignon.
Ambiance is romantic and cozy, with a pink grapefruit hue providing intimate lighting (Pamplemousse means grapefruit in French). Service was polished, beginning with a basket of fresh crudits (broccoli, cauliflower, endive, carrots) and right on through to the genteel piercing of the Valhrona chocolate souffl, gingerly filled with house-made vanilla ice cream and luscious whipped cream.
Pamplemousse serves lunch and dinner daily.
Heading west from Pamplemousse and crossing The Strip, you'll encounter another Las Vegas icon: 49-year-old Golden Steer Steakhouse. Look for the golden steer statue perched on a pole in the parking lot. Once inside, you won't have to look for the nameplates adorning the well-worn leather banquettes. Tuxedoed waiters will point out the banquettes belong to Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr.
(All three are dead; no wonder their tables were empty the night I visited, dining at Mayor Oscar Goodman's table, with a view of Elvis Presley's table. Others are named for race driver Mario Andretti, whose wines Golden Steer serves, and actor Clint Eastwood.)
Golden Steer touts prime beef. I was curious about prime sirloin, at $32 the least-expensive steak on the menu. Sirloin is not known for being a particularly marbled cut of meat. My waiter offered to eat it himself (Vegas waiter humor!) or get me another one if I wasn't satisfied. I was satisfied: I tasted the confirmation that high-grade sirloin isn't as good as lower-grade T-bone.
Golden Steer's prime rib, on the other hand, was a hunk of heaven. Ordered medium-rare, it was pink, juicy, meaty and easily cut with a table knife (Golden Steer provided steak knifes; I was just testing.) An 18-ounce cut was $35.
• Pamplemousse Le Restaurant
400 E. Sahara Ave., Las Vegas; 1-702-733-2066
• Golden Steer Steakhouse
308 W. Sahara Ave., Las Vegas; 1-702-384-4470
DESERT BARBECUE
The best barbecue anywhere is worth any drive. Starting from The Strip, drive about 10 miles southeast of Las Vegas to Henderson, where Lucille's Smokehouse Bar-B-Que heats up The District, an urban shopping and dining village in the middle of desert suburbia. (Williams Sonoma, Pottery Barn and a couple of casinos reside in The District if you want to spend or lose money.)
Lucille's menu is as large as the crowds here. The Southern California-based chain serves Southern American food in an upscale down-home atmosphere. In addition to ribs, brisket and barbecued chicken, there's fried chicken, gumbo and catfish. (I could only dream of tasting Lucille's pork salad.)
Slathered in sassy molasses sauce, St. Louis ribs ($20.99 half rack, $23.99 full rack) smoked up crusty and charry on the outside, pink and tender inside. Meat fell away from the bones like juicy jerky.
Sides include grits, greens, sweet potatoes, roasted corn and creamy mac and cheese.
Mint juleps are tall, cool and strong, made with your choice of whiskeys (from Jim Beam at $5.75 to Booker's at $10) and plenty of crushed ice.
Despite the name, Memphis Championship Barbecue is a local restaurant. The gal at the 275-seat Rainbow Road location apparently mistook me for a local, too, because she didn't give me any napkins or flatware with my take-out order. Memphis' St. Louis ribs had a firm, meaty and gently smoky bite, but they were cold to the bone, even as I ate them in the parking lot immediately after leaving the restaurant.
Smoked turkey, charbroiled shrimp, fried catfish and more Southern entrees fill out the menu. It was here that I tried deep-fried dill pickles for the first and possibly last time. It was an abuse of perfectly good pickles, if you ask me.
Messy fingers weren't a problem at another local smoker, CJ's Texas Barbecue. That's because the beef ribs, babyback ribs and beef brisket are smoked and served dry. They're sold by the pound ($12.99-$15.99).
You can buy side dishes like beans, slaw and creamed corn. Picnic tables fill the dining room, which the guy behind the counter called "nothing fancy." The same could be said of CJ's hot and sweet sauces.
• Lucille's Smokehouse Bar-B-Que
2245 Village Walk Drive, Henderson; 1-702-257-7427
• Memphis Championship Barbecue
1401 S. Rainbow Road, Las Vegas; 1-702-254-0520;
2250 E. Warm Springs Road, Las Vegas; 1-702-260-6909;
4379 Las Vegas Blvd., North Las Vegas; 1-702-644-0000.
• CJ's Texas Barbecue
7865 W. Sahara Ave., Suites 104-105, Las Vegas; 1-702-233-0190; cjtxbbq.com
KILLER BURGERS
Kilroy's serves killer half-pound burgers. Just take a look at the guy on Kilroy's menu: He's lying on the ground, ecstatic as a giant hamburger is about to land on him. "Yes, yes, yes," he says.
"Mmm, mmm, mmm," I said, biting into the Simply Kilroy burger, char-broiled crusty on the outside and pink-to-the-center, just like the bartender said it would be. It was one of 23 burgers on the menu, right up to and including the Kona bacon burger with mozzarella cheese and mango sauce.
"It's very good food," the bartender said. "It's just big."
Was she ever right. The thick patty in my burger was firm and meaty, with the odd and enjoyable nugget of gristle, and clean ground-beef flavor. The lettuce was romaine, the onions were red and the tomatoes were juicy. And that beautifully rounded toasted bun -- I hadn't seen a dome like that since leaving Tacoma.
I dined at Kilroy's Buffalo Drive location, where pictures of Liz Taylor, Sally Struthers and other burger-loving heavyweight entertainers adorn the lounge.
As for In-N-Out: Having lived, worked and eaten in California, I can taste the Southern California burger chain's Double Doubles from memory. If you can't remember what well-made, old-fashioned stacks of beef, cheese, lettuce, onions, tomato and toasted buns taste like, get into any In-N-Out ASAP.
• Kilroy's
1021 S Buffalo Drive, Las Vegas; 1-702-363-4933
340 S. Grand Canyon Drive, Las Vegas; 1-702-367-3184
• In-N-Out
Eight locations: 2900 W. Sahara Ave., 4888 Dean Martin Drive and 4705 S Maryland Parkway are the closest to The Strip; in-n-out.com
DIM SUM A GO GO
At 11 a.m. both Saturday and Sunday, people waited in line for breakfast at Denny's, a national chain, and Hash House A Go Go, a two-year-old Las Vegas diner that's branched out to Kansas City and San Diego.
I won't speculate why people picked Denny's in a town full of inexpensive breakfast buffets. I'm sure that line at Hash House had something to do with breakfast meatloaf, served with roasted red peppers, fresh spinach and smoked mozzarella.
But I didn't have the time to wait and find out. So I consoled myself with a Chinese breakfast buffet at Orchids Garden, about a mile away from Hash House. Dim sum is served all day, every day, from 10:30 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. There's also a full Chinese menu.
Grazing off passing dim sum carts -- one for seafood, greens and noodles; another for steamed dumplings and braised chicken feet; and one just for sweet tofu with sugar syrup -- my tab for two people was on par with Denny's: $14.20.
• Orchids Garden
5485 W. Sahara Ave., Las Vegas; 1-702-631-3839
• Hash House A Go Go
6800 W. Sahara Ave., Las Vegas; 1-702-804-4646;
First Published December 11, 2007 12:00 am
