The importance of overwhelming.

I guess I’m kind of a reluctant gastronome. Though I’ve dined in many of the most exclusive, expensive restaurants on the Vegas Strip, it can still be a little intimidating to sit down in a place like Restaurant Guy Savoy at Caesars Palace. Even though “once-in-a-lifetime experience” seems like a fair way to describe having dinner there – especially if you’re sampling the new 13-course Innovation-Inspiration menu and wine pairing – I’ve always tried to avoid that description because, hey, it’s just food, right?

It’s not just food. It’s an experience, a very important one. After nine courses, while working my way through several unbelievable cheeses, the master himself, Guy Savoy, spoke in French to a local writer and explained exactly why these insane experiences are so important. Las Vegas has become an essential dining destination in the world, and our category is “Decadence.” No other place in the world can match the sheer density of acclaimed fine dining available on the Strip, and Restaurant Guy Savoy is certainly in the top tier. Experiences like these, and having so many of them, sets Vegas apart.

Blah blah … how was the food? Incredible. Much has been and will be made of the desserts, some of which have their own trolley, and the bread and cheese carts, but let’s focus on the heart of this menu (which costs $350 per head, by the way). There are five core dishes, plates that would be entrees if you could order them a la carte, and all are peerless in presentation and creativity. In the order served:

“Marinated-Grilled” Hamachi, Aged Sherry Vinegar, Radish Gelee, Eggplant Puree. A tiny brick of the cleanest tasting hamachi ever, a still pond of vegetably Jell-O, dotted with flowers that taste like food. Seriously, one tasted like an oyster. Sort of.

Salmon Iceberg. Wonderful strips of raw salmon “cooked” on dry ice, a delicious science experiment that yielded an entirely new texture with fatty, fishy flavor, served with bok choy and a zesty broth.

Seared Dices of Foie Gras with Horseradish, “Braised-Grilled” Celery Stalk Serpentines, Potato Chips Bouillon. The second-best foie dish I’ve ever tasted, which is saying something because everybody is feeding me immense amounts lately, which is ironic, right? The texture was smooth and creamy, the horseradish was a unique accompaniment, and the broth tasted exactly like very good, earthy potato chips. Impressive and fun.

Lobster Bordelaise, Raw and Cooked Hearts of Palm. A devastating version of a classic. The senior critic at the table for this media dinner raved on about this sauce, which had unbelievable depth. Hard to describe … it tasted like a planet.

Wagyu, Cannellini Bean Puree, Saffron and Marjoram Crust, Sponge Cake. The obligatory beef course may have been my least favorite, even though it was absolutely luscious beef. The winner on the plate was the saffron sponge cake, which deserves its own bakery concept. I will invest in that.

Public House to the rescue.

I want to write about how bustling, creative gastropubs are the new Vegas restaurant trend, how hip new joints are popping up all over the Strip with a focus on interesting beverage programs and refined-yet-approachable, deliciously satisfying food.

But that’s not really true. If you want to do some trendspotting on the Strip, accept the alarming reality that beach-themed, vaguely Latin party bars are proliferating at an incredible rate. Just in time for Cinco De Mayo, one of Mexico’s largest restaurant companies (Grupo Anderson’s) has opened Señor Frog’s at Treasure Island and Carlos ‘n Charlie’s at the Flamingo. (Consider that TI already has Kahunaville, and Flamingo already has Margaritaville.) Cabo Wabo Cantina is at Planet Hollywood. Dick’s Last Resort is at Excalibur. We could go on.

I’m not sure Vegas knows what a gastropub is. Does P.J. Clarke’s count? Todd English P.U.B. at CityCenter? Some of our neighborhood pubs aspire to upscale grub status, places like Off The Strip, Born And Raised, or Republic Kitchen. What seems to define a gastropub – as opposed to a bar and grill – is the fact that people are constantly talking about how freaking good the food is. None of these places seem to be generating that type of heat. We have no Father’s Office. We have no Spotted Pig. What we do have, even though it seems to be going unnoticed, is Public House.

Public House is the ambitious, delicious restaurant that Chef Anthony Meidenbauer probably wanted his Holsteins (in the Cosmopolitan) to be. Burgers sell big, so Holsteins is probably raking it in. Public House, opened late in 2011, is quietly serving unbelievably good food to match its impressive booze list: among the hundreds of beers available, I’ve already found some new favorites like Deschutes Obsidian Stout, Firestone Double Jack, Uinta Labyrinth Black Ale (that one will kick your ass), and Jolly Pumpkin Bam Noire. That’s not even mentioning drafts, flights or blends, or the wonderfully different cask beer, unpasteurized, unfiltered, and served a bit warmer than what you’re familiar with. Sounds weird, but goes great with food.

There’s a great burger on the menu, and a no frills steak with fries. But there are so many dishes that set Public House apart. Some of them are expected and designed to fulfill simple cravings, like Welsh rarebit, an iceberg and bacon salad with buttermilk dressing, shrimp cocktail, or mussels with beer, bacon and creme fraiche. For lunch, there are sandwiches of roast pork and manchego cheese on baguette, or chicken with a slice of smoked ham, provolone, and beer mustard on a pretzel roll. Then there is an army of small plates, packed with flavors and textures that make it impossible to choose just one or two to wash down with your many beers. Sharp-tasting, brightly colored house made pickles. Crispy fried oysters dropped back in their shells with cider gastrique. Foie gras with rhubarb compote and toasted brioche. Killer charcuterie: fatty sopresatta, country pate, or luscious duck rilletes. There are big plates, too, like buttermilk fried quail, sticky and rich, served with a crisp mini-waffle, greens braised with bacon, and a maple reduction made with Moose Drool Brown Ale. Everybody does some funny little chicken and waffles now; this is the one.

Most impressive are recent menu additions; after a few months in its hidden Venetian location, adjacent to the convention ballrooms and Blue Man Group theater, it’d be a safe move to add some more burgers or steaks or anything to inch toward the lowest common denominator eater. Nope. Meidenbauer is sticking to his guns, offering crispy frog legs with brown butter and lemon, roasted bone marrow with bacon marmalade, and tender grilled octopus with fingerling potatoes. This place is unrelentingly delicious.

Does this sound like snobby food? It’s not. It’s just elevated. That’s what makes a gastropub something different from bar food. Nothing wrong with the regular stuff; you can get your fill of it at Señor Frog’s or P.J. Clarke’s. The Strip needs lots of those bars to feed and fill lots of visitors. But the continuing evolution of Vegas requires a few more like Public House, even if we have to fight through the Venetian to get it.

Downtown Vegas, food, hype.

The downtown hype is out of control. These are not the words of a hater. I’ve been working full-time from downtown Las Vegas offices for about 13 years now, spending lots of time wandering the aging casinos of Fremont Street, driving around number-name streets looking for new lunch spots, and exploring art galleries, furniture stores and forgotten neighborhoods. I’ve come to know it well, though there are a handful of native historians downtown who truly know it all, remember everything, and are happy to share the wisdom. I appreciate that, because lately all anyone can talk or write about is all the exciting change coming to the area. There’s no doubt things are happening downtown, but that change has been developing for a long time.

Positivity is always welcome, and new ideas can spark an old neighborhood in need of some fresh energy. But maybe we can take it easy with all the “community building” and “culture bringing” stuff. Downtown is the original Vegas, iconic and rich. Are we really considering the concept that anyone from anywhere could arrive here, plant a flag, and “bring culture” to a city neighborhood that’s “never had it before?” It’s laughable.

Again, not hating on anything. I’m just as excited as anyone to see how things will develop and what downtown Vegas will be in five or ten years. I’m impatient, too; I want it to happen now. If there’s anything downtown needs most, it’s more and better places to eat. Business and cultural developments appear to be headed in the right direction, but I need some lunch. On Fremont East, Le Thai is a great little spot, and in the Arts District, Bar+Bistro is an undeniable highlight. But I want more, and if downtown makes good on its promise to become a more populated urban area, lots of good food is a must.

There are some interesting eats on the horizon. Slice, a healthy ingredient-driven gourmet pizza joint in New York City, is slated to slide into the ground-level retail space in the Ogden, the residential tower recently taken over by Zappos Inc. as the company prepares to move into the now-vacant City Hall. (Zappos’ Downtown Project is planning to spend millions to build new restaurants and bars, among other businesses, in the immediate area. Time will tell.) Even more promising, local chefs and restaurateurs are looking to expand downtown, such as the terrific southwest neighborhood restaurant DW Bistro.

Jolene Mannina, who I interviewed for a recent story about food trucks, is one of those locals looking to bring something exciting downtown, and she’s got the perfect idea. Her years of living in Vegas, working front-of-the-house on and around the Strip, and entrepreneurial adventures as operator of the former food truck Sloppi Jo’s could culminate in an awesome restaurant. She is hunting for the right location. “I only want to do it downtown because the concept I want to bring will fit best here,” she said over drinks at Mob Bar on Third Street. She lives downtown, too. “It’s funny because what everyone thinks I’m doing is not what I’m doing. I started working on this concept six years ago, and I started looking downtown six years ago. But now, for what I want to do, the time is right here. And I’m ready.”

Whatever comes next downtown, with food and everything else, it’s much more likely that success will be sustained if creative, experienced locals are involved, people who know what the neighborhood and its visitors want and need, and who appreciate and respect what downtown Vegas already is and always has been.

My Best of Las Vegas.

The Las Vegas Review-Journal’s annual Best of Las Vegas readers’ poll (and staff picks) should be coming out pretty soon. Local foodies (and critics) always complain about the results of this poll and its tendency to honor lowest-common-denominator dining. So I thought I’d release a pre-emptive strike: my picks for the best food in Vegas, borrowing from some of the BOLV categories. Seems like fun, right? No disclaimers necessary, this list merely reflects how I’d cast my Best of Las Vegas 2012 ballot.

Best Barbecue: Buzz BBQ

Best Brunch: Bouchon

Best Burger: Fukuburger

Best Chinese: Beijing Noodle No. 9

Best Coffee: Grouchy John’s

Best Deli: Bagel Cafe

Best French: Comme Ca and L’Atelier (It’s a tie.)

Best Italian: Sirio

Best Japanese: Raku

Best Mexican: Border Grill

Best New Restaurant: Public House

Best Pizza: Settebello

Best Sandwich: Johnny McGuire’s

Best Seafood: Bartolotta

Best Steak: CUT

Best Taco: Los Tacos

Best Tapas: Jaleo

Best Thai: Pin Kaow

Bradley Ogden at Caesars Palace.

Being a food writer isn’t rocket science. But even though Vegas restaurants may not be the most serious topic, reporting on the business of food should still be done with professionalism and responsibility. Perhaps because it’s only food, or perhaps because it’s Vegas, it may be too common for writers to report on rumors without proper research. I have made this mistake a few times.

In a recent issue of Desert Companion, I made mention in two articles that Bradley Ogden in Caesars Palace would be closing in the first part of 2012. We all know that in the restaurant biz, there’s no telling what will happen next, but the fact is this restaurant — one of my favorites on the Strip — is not scheduled to close. The space in the resort is leased to the restaurant and its operators through 2012. There have been ongoing rumors about BO closing for months, fueled in part by more rumors about celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay finally opening something in Vegas. (Those whispers finally came to light last week when it was announced Ramsay will be opening a steakhouse at Paris Las Vegas, another casino resort under the Caesars flag.)

With constant change in the local food and beverage world, there will always be talk and speculation. And again, nobody knows for sure what comes next. For now, we should be happy that Bradley Ogden the restaurant isn’t going anywhere. When it opened in 2005, it was a revelation, the closest thing to farm-to-table the Strip had seen. In recent years it has become known for its burger, thanks to a shoutout from GQ’s Alan Richman, but don’t do this great restaurant (and yourself) a disservice by visiting just to eat a simple hamburger. Try the baked Maytag blue cheese souffle, roasted Duroc pork loin, seared scallops with roasted celery root, and if they have it, the South Dakota bison tenderloin.

How I picked Comme Ca as Restaurant of the Year

I am grateful to be able to contribute food and restaurant stuff to the pages of Desert Companion, and this month’s issue was an extra big deal because I was granted the opportunity to select some of the winners for the magazine’s annual Restaurant Awards. It seems like an easy task, on the surface, to choose the restaurant of the year, whatever that means. It was very difficult for me. I know it means a lot to the people who work in the restaurants I write about and I take it seriously. Also, I do not consider myself a restaurant critic, and although it frequently comes out this way, my focus is very rarely about identifying “the best” of anything. So this job was actually counterintuitive.

But it was a fun challenge. I chose to define “restaurant of the year” as a combination of the best overall restaurant experience I’ve had this year with what I perceive to be the most relevant dining development. With that criteria, it became a given that it would have to be a restaurant at The Cosmopolitan, because nothing is more relevant in Vegas than what is new, and even for its newness, the restaurants at this casino resort are particularly impressive. Everyone can agree on that. I felt very strongly about this relevance factor; otherwise, it wouldn’t be restaurant of the year but something like “best restaurant,” and Joel Robuchon or Guy Savoy would probably win every year. Maybe.

I like all the restaurants at The Cosmopolitan. Maybe STK is the most financially successful. Maybe Milos is the critical darling of the stable. Maybe the Jose Andres or Scott Conant restaurants are more popular and well-known. But as I wrote in Desert Companion, Comme Ca is the most approachable. In Las Vegas, convenience is always the thing. It is the thing for locals, and it’s certainly the thing for visitors, even though they might be willing to wait in long lines or pay high prices for their Vegas experience. The final straws leading to my choice are the indisputable facts that Comme Ca’s food is consistently really good, and that it’s French. I get tired of eating at steakhouses. I get tired of eating Italian food. But I never get tired of eating French food done well. I don’t think anyone does.