Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Are You Game?

Dining in Vegas makes a Bay Area transplant feel like a spoiled brat. Eating out in this town, I am suddenly more grateful for local produce from California's fertile soil. Even in the "upscale" restaurants of Vegas the food lacks. Why? Not necessarily because the chefs are inept or because the menus are off, but the taste of flown in, pales in comparison to farm fresh. I didn't realize just how much until we discovered Tender, a new Steakhouse at the Luxor Las Vegas. It's a good thing this town's culture is centered around cocktails or else they might not have any. K.C. Fazel's wild game trio, a nightly special, is made up of boar, venison and antelope meats. I couldn't tell you what the meats taste like because they were all slathered in a barbeque sauce that masked the true essence of the game. Texture wise these dishes were all wrong. The antelope is extremely fatty, and feels like chewing chunks of lard. The venison though tough, is tasty. The sauce goes well with the saltiness of the meat. If I didn't already know I was eating boar I might mistake it for a beef steak, it's not very gamey. Overall, very disappointed in the trio. My initial excitement about the dish was reduced like pan gravy at first bite. DISGUSTING. 3900 Las Vegas Blvd. South, (702) 262-4852

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Tomato-Tomahto

Sorry to have gone all MIA, but sometimes you've got to make like Casper and get ghost. Where did I disappear to? Las Vegas, known to some as Lost Wages where fortunes are sometimes made, but mostly lost. Nevertheless, while off the radar Disgusting or Delicious stays on my mind and without further a do I present to you a potato chip unlike any other. I discovered Zapp's Creole Tomato Potato chips in an AmPm on Las Vegas Boulevard while making a booze run for the room. (Well, actually a mixer run; we had plenty of booze). Spiced with a hint of Tabasco, the chips are thick cut and incredibly crunchy as chips should be, but a bit greasy. They taste exactly like salt & vinegar chips but dipped in tomato sauce. The Tabasco flavor is barely there, as these chips are not at all spicy. I feel duped. I got excited at the sight of tabasco. Envisioning it on chips had me daydreaming in the middle of AmPm. But, once I got these back to my hotel room I, like so many ladies in Vegas, was let down. Not disgusting because I love salt and vinegar chips but definitely not what I was expecting. False advertising to the max, but still good so don't trip, potato chip. 3873 S Las Vegas Blvd, (702) 736-1682