Charlie Trotter

I’m glad I didn’t have a reservation at Restaurant Charlie when I was in town last weekend.  As I retweeted a post from Las Vegas Food Critic John Curtas, Charlie Trotter (pictured) decided to close his eponymous restaurant at the Palazzo Thursday night, after just two years of operation.

“We just no longer had the traffic to justify the offering in the Palazzo property,” Rochelle Smith Trotter, Mr. Trotter’s wife and publicist told Crain’s ChicagoBusiness. “It was really a function of, can we sustain it and how long can we sustain it for?”

It didn’t help to go into Vegas at the beginning of a recession, but the restaurant’s location beneath an escalator in a fancy shopping mall didn’t help either.  Oddly enough, David Burke closed his namesake restaurant on the same day in the adjacent Venetian.  ”There were just too many high-end restaurants opening in Vegas at the same time,” Curtas said.  ”This closing is no surprise to me.” Read the rest of this entry →

Chicagoans are stressed lately. March Madness brackets, looming tax forms and a healthy St. Patrick’s Day hangover can leave the city in need of some serious comfort food. Whether that comfort food is Chinese, Greek or just a new twist on American favorites, this upcoming week offers plenty of options to indulge.

• The second Chinatown Dining Tour, hosted by the Chicago Chinatown Chamber of Commerce, will take place on Wednesday, March 24. Featuring more than 15 participating restaurants, the tour will provide a wide variety of tasty dishes from the neighborhood. Tickets are $20 in advance, $25 the day of the tour and can be purchased at www.chicagochinatown.org. Call (312) 326-5320 for more details.

• In honor of Greek Independence Day, Athena restaurant in Greek Town is celebrating with 25% off all dine-in food orders. Read the rest of this entry →

Plate of feijoada and acarajé (on far left) from Sinhá

It was really love at first bite for me.  The first time I did a story at Sinhá, the Brazilian gem of a restaurant on the West Side, I was treated to a feast beyond anything I had ever had in my eating experience.  The restaurant is only open on Sundays, for starters.  Owner Jorgina Pereira has a catering business during the week, but on Sundays, she opens her narrow brick home on Adams Street, almost directly across from the United Center, for two seatings of a magnificent Brazilian buffet.  The best time to go is when it’s warm out, so you can sit in her charming backyard.  But frankly, I would go any week if I knew she was making acarajé.   Read the rest of this entry →

Pajama Party Brunch at Simon in Vegas (photo by Steve Dolinsky)

Aspen has the Food & Wine Classic, South Beach just had its own Wine & Food event, and we all know Chicago Gourmet’s weekend is slated for mid-September.  In Vegas, they’ve been running Vegas Uncork’d the last few years, and this year is no different.  Read the rest of this entry →

Pata negra with grilled bread at Julian Serrano (photo by Steve Dolinsky)

Our final meal of the night was right next door to Bar Masa.  Julian Serrano is Spanish, and yet up until now, he’s only been known for his fine-dining Picasso at The Bellagio.  This new project in the Aria was supposed to be a homecoming for him.  There is the requisite patatas bravas (roasted potatoes coated in garlicky aioli) and charred green peppers; the luscious pata negra ham (finished on acorns before slaughter) with the grilled bread.  There is also an impressive list of wines to accompany them, as there are on just about every menu in Vegas; Bill Wirtz would have loved to run the liquor distribution here I bet.  So by this time of the night, I’m getting a little sleepy, and after sampling at least two (or was it three) different sakes at Bar Masa, I’m getting a little confused.  I think in the video I say this is our third dinner of the night.  That would be wrong.  It was definitely number four.  Thank God I know how to pace myself.

Ngiri sushi from Bar Masa (photo by Steve Dolinsky)

Dinner number three takes us to the new Aria hotel again, where Bar Masa is tucked between Sage and Julian Serrano.  I’ve been dying to try this place, ever since I read Frank Bruni’s review in the New York Times five years ago, talking about how Masa at the Time Warner Center was sooo worth the $400-$500 price tag.  The Bar is a bit more casual, and from what I’ve heard, in New York, it’s a tiny thing.  In Vegas, it looks like an airport hangar, with the tables spaced far apart and the menu reaching for stratospheric prices.  One highlight from the “chilled” section of menu, right after salads: ohmi beef sashimi with garlic soy…$89.  WTF?  Does that come with a massage?  I think it’s so-named because after you order it and try it, you say to yourself, “oh my, how in the world did I ever decide to order that?”

If you’re cashing in your bonus from AIG, you could try the masa toro with caviar for $240 or just a simple grilled maitake mushroom roll with black truffle for a more reasonable $34, but there is so much more to this menu than just sashimi and maki rolls.  Think amadai (snapper) skin that’s been fried until the scales have popped out, making the tiny piece look like a piscine porcupine.  Starters of sea cucumber poached in Genmai-cha tea are common, as are spicy dancing shrimp (shell-on fried prawns) seasoned with spicy salt and lemon.  You could probably navigate a lesser expensive meal if you were careful.  We thought the ngiri and maki were pretty great, but not sure it’s worth the inevitable $150 per person you’re going to drop (which you’ll have to double if you’re drinking premium sake).

The bread cart at L'Atelier de Robuchon (photo by Steve Dolinsky)

Dinner #2 took us to the MGM Hotel & Casino, where chef Joël Robuchon has two restaurants: a seriously upscale salon called Robuchon at The Mansion, which looks like a purple-covered lounge for visiting royalty (they wouldn’t let me take a picture of the dessert cart, which looked as if it had been painted by Seurat), but they did let me shoot some video going into L’Atelier, his “workshop,” or rather, his more casual/hip expression of his food.  You are absolutely paying for the privilege to say you’ve eaten the Master’s food: the king crab on turnip discs with sweet and sour sauce you’ll see in the video runs $25, while the smoked eel and fingerling potato with oscetra caviar (I think I mistakenly refer to it as sevruga) runs a cool $60.

Dessert cart at Guy Savoy in Caesars Palace (photo by Steve Dolinsky)

It wasn’t a dare, I promise.  But I was in Las Vegas this past weekend, and when you pair up with John Curtas (Eating Las Vegas), it’s a little like going down to Bridgeport with one of the Daley boys.  Curtas has not only been to every restaurant of note in town, he’s been to each one twice.  This is no small accomplishment, but again, Vegas doesn’t have near the breadth and depth of dining options we do in Chicago.  In fact, it’s kind of weird how just about all of the major players – the ones you hear about in the national press – tend to co-exist all along or adjacent to The Strip, in a 4.5 mile radius.  I was partly there to visit Sage, Shawn McClain’s new place, tucked into the massive Aria Hotel, which itself is part of the $9 billion dollar City Center complex.  My head was spinning after touring the sleek new Mandarin Oriental, its 23rd story lobby lounge, über cool bar and signature restaurant – Twist – from acclaimed 3-star Michelin French chef Pierre Gagnaire.  I really wanted to just chill out and take in the view; I did it once at the Mandarin in New York City, overlooking Central Park (and have the $140 bill to prove it), but there’s something odd when you’re paying top dollar for dramatic views of the street below, containing more neon and golden arches than I care to see (at least in the daytime).

Vegas is full of dichotomies.   Read the rest of this entry →

Corned Beef Hash from Meli Cafe (photo by Steve Dolinsky)

Steve O’Dolinsky here, reporting on this fine day in Chicago on yet another St. Patrick’s Day.  In the city that dies its river green, we have somehow come to believe the Irish consume prodigious amounts of corned beef and cabbage with their Guinness, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.  The Irish don’t really eat corned beef (unless it’s in a deli, served on rye with mustard).  They tend to lean toward the tougher cuts of mutton/lamb and would most likely eat it with potatoes. But since this is Chicago, and the corned beef is plentiful, I thought we would substitute that cabbage for potatoes; it’s as good a reason as any then, to eat a little corned beef hash today. Read the rest of this entry →

The shepherd's pie from Chief O'Neill's (photo by Steve Dolinsky)

I know we’ve all been partying the past few days, drinking green shakes and beer and calling everyone “O’-something,” but you still need to sit down at some point and fill up.  A Guinness is a given; what is lesser known is the shepherd’s pie.   Read the rest of this entry →