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And a bloody pulpit, starting w/ a bit of a curmudgeonly
rant:
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Of the 7-8 times I've been to LasVegas, I've always been disappointed w/
the quality of food for such a large city. Before, I'd been to both the
CoyoteCafe outpost and Wolfgang Puck's pizza place in the MGMGrand and
found them pretty disappointing. The Il Forniao in Providence, R.I.
is one of the USofA's great Italian restaurants. The Il Forniao outpost
in LasVegas at NewYorkNewYork is a..... fraud!! The Pappa al Pomodoro (Italian
Tomatoe/Bread soup) is supposed to have the bread added towards the end,
so that it has some texture in the soup. This version obviously had the
bread hanging out there in the soup for its entire lifetime (no telling
how long THAT was) with a texture near to Gerber's strained tomatoes. The
Endive/Frisee Salad w/ Roasted Walnuts: the walnuts had never seen an oven
in their life, obviously straight from the package. But the greens WERE
fresh & crisp. The Calzone: the Mozarella tasted like the same stringy/flavorless
stuff that PizzaHut uses; the mushrooms appeared to be canned button mushrooms
w/ no texture nor flavor (hey... portabellos are not THAT rare!);
and the "proscuitto"..... chopped ham!! (Jeez, gimmee a break!). The pizzas
and calzones are supposedly done in a wood-fired oven. When I walked in
into a nearly full restaurant, there were a few burning sticks in
the back of the oven.... but nothing cooking in the oven itself.
Same story when I left. The calzone I had had absolutely NO flavor that
I get from other restaurant's wood-fired oven pizzas. So... the "wood-fired"
oven is probably fired by gas and there apparently only for show and antmosphere
is my guess. The Ciabiatta bread WAS good & had great texture.... but
not coming from the wood-fired oven. The wine list was decent, but just
that; nothing that really jazzed me. Next night, at Pardise (Grill?),
another Italian restaurant. OssoBuco on Risotto: probably was a veal shank,
but a big slice cooked exactly like my Mom's Swiss Steak (sorry,
Mom.... hope you're not on the 'Net tonight!!), not a compliment. The waiter
told me Risotto is Italian for "rice" and used the "finest" aborio rice.
It was pretty long-grained for aborio and had clearly been cooked in water
and then molded into a cup & dumped on the plate..... nothing like
any risotto I've ever made. The tiramisu (which the waiter assured me was
a classic Italian dessert that stood for "give Me a Lift"... got that one
right, at least) was merely whipped cream atwixt sponge cake slices....
definitely NO mascarpone and no espresso, or even stale coffee, that I
could see. Sad! The visit wasn't a total loss. I had two really good meals
at the Gordon Biersch Brewery.... pretty decent beer and basic, pretty
interesting pub-type fair... not "gourmet", but at least honest.... a commodity
that appears extremely scarce in LasVegas restaurants. The menu at the
LV Spago looked fairly interesting; so perhaps I'll try that when I'm out
there in early January. But it seems like the thing to do is that an important
food personage opens a version of his/her famous restaurant in LasVegas
and, like many other LasVegas "things"; it's all smoke &
mirrors & silicone!! It would seem that it wouldn't be THAT difficult
to have a simple basic trattoria/bistro like Oliveto or Prima or Fringale
or Bistro 315 in LasVegas.... unless, of course, canned button mushrooms
are ALL that's available there!! Surely there are enough people in LasVegas
that truly know what GOOD food is? End of tiresome rant! Sorry, had to
get it off my chest.
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The Qupe Bien Nacido Hillside Estates I thought were pretty outstanding;
big rich extracted & gamey. A few people whose palates I highly
respect simply do not like this wine at all. Go figure!!
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The Alban Reva '95 was pretty stunning Syrah; is starting to show some
development now. The '96 Reva is out & around & worth scarfing
up some at a great price ($21). The Lorraine Syrah '96 has just been released
and, though I've not tasted it yet, I fully expect it to be equally stunning.
At a reasonable price of $28.00
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This was a pretty terrific showing of Calif Rhones. Especially after a
bunch of them had spent a bunch of hours being cuffed around & abused
by SouthWest Airlines baggage handlers a few days before.
TomHill
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