Asia gets a face-lift and transforms into Ming’s Table

By Ken White

Harrah’s popular Chinese restaurant, Asia, has been transformed into Ming’s Table.

But, other than the name change, a d cor makeover and a tweaked menu, diners may not know the difference between the two.

“Our intent was to make Ming’s Table a little less intimidating for diners, more casual,” says Tim Bowen, director of culinary operations at Harrah’s Las Vegas, 3475 Las Vegas Blvd. South.

The room chef is the same — Winston Chung — and even the number of seats is

maintained — 90.

“The food here before was great, and it’s still great,” Bowen says. “We put a

few things on the menu with a broader appeal. But the same things are selling

as before.”

Ming’s Table also offers diners a Chinese menu containing more items of an

authentic nature, such as bird’s nest with seafood soup ($60 per ounce),

jellyfish with pork sausage ($24.99); and live giant clam sashimi ($48 per pound).

Those items are aimed more at the resort’s high-end Chinese players, Bowen

says.

Ming’s Table is open from 11:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. Sundays through Thursdays and

11:30 a.m. to 2 a.m. Fridays and Saturdays.

Starters: Vegetable spring rolls with sweet and sour sauce ($5.99); crab

Rangoon with crab meat and cream cheese in a crispy won ton shell ($6.99); roast

pork with Asian barbecue sauce ($6.99); wok-fried pot stickers ($7.99); minced

chicken lettuce wraps ($7.99); tempura fried rock shrimp with sweet and sour

and tempura sauces ($8.99); and tempura soft-shell crab with sweet and sour and

tempura sauces ($8.99).

Soups: Chinese vegetarian soup ($4.99); cream of corn soup with minced

chicken ($4.99); Hong Kong won ton soup with pork- and shrimp-stuffed won ton,

sliced chicken, barbecued pork, straw mushrooms and bok choy ($5.99); and noodle

soup with a choice of beef, chicken, roast pork, fish cake or won ton ($8.99).

Entrees: Shark’s fin soup with crab meat ($28); Peking duck ($58); walnut

shrimp ($22); sliced abalone ($48); steamed live spotted prawns with garlic paste

(seasonal price); whole live Dungeness crab (seasonal price); pad Thai

($12.99); supreme lo mein with chicken, beef and shrimp ($12.99); green pepper steak

($12.99); Mongolian beef ($12.99); beef and broccoli ($12.99); kung pao

chicken ($11.99); ginger chicken with broccoli ($10.99); roast duck ($13.99);

braised pork with baby eggplant ($11.99); pork chop with Mandarin sauce ($11.99);

kung pao shrimp and scallops ($13.99); Szechwan ocean shrimp ($13.99); steamed

salmon with ginger soy sauce ($13.99); barbecued pork fried rice ($9.99).

Extras: Yang chow fried rice with roast pork, shrimp, lettuce, spring onion

and egg ($10.99); Buddha’s vegetarian feast ($5.99); and ma pao tofu with

braised pickled vegetables, spring onions and tofu ($5.99).

Desserts: Mandarin orange cheesecake, fresh fruit plate, fried banana with

vanilla bean ice cream and a selection of house made ice creams and sorbets

($5.99 each).

reviewjournal.com — Living - APPETIZERS

—————-

Buffet Review: Gold Coast Ports O’Call

By Rick Garman

As even the formerly inexpensive buffets on The Strip get more and more

pricey, with the average dinner check running around $20, there’s little choice but

to head elsewhere for the kind of high-quality, low-cost buffet that you used

to be able to get on Las Vegas Blvd. Luckily, you don’t have to go very far.

The Gold Coast is located on Flamingo Road, about a mile and a half west of

the intersection where you’ll find Bellagio and Caesars Palace. You know where

The Rio and The Palms are? Gold Coast is right there too, operating in relative

obscurity in the shadow of its higher priced neighbors.

Walk inside and you’ll find all of the ingredients of a successful locals’

style casino – low-limit gaming, low-cost rooms, and lots of affordable

restaurants including the Ports O’Call Buffet.

Done with a subtle ships at sea theme, the buffet has several “regions,”

each themed to a different cuisine from around the globe. There’s Mexican,

Chinese, Italian, American, and salads. I’m not sure what country salads are

supposed to represent, but let’s not get crazy with the details here.

A big seafood section (love those shrimp and crab legs), a carving section,

and a fully-stocked dessert station round out the offerings.

There’s nothing you can find here that you can’t find at another buffet.

People looking for adventurous food choices will be disappointed, but it has all

of the traditional elements and a couple of perks. For instance the carving

station offers up full rotisserie chickens, not just a hunk carved off to go

with your mashed potatoes.

Being the big, fat, giant pig that I am, I sampled a little bit of everything

– from pizza to potstickers, beef fajitas to lamb chops. Everything I tasted

was fresh, flavorful, warm when it was supposed to be and cool when it wasn’t.

Again, the food won’t win any epicurean awards anytime soon but it’s all

solid, hearty, and well-prepared.

Granted you can get solid, hearty, and well-prepared food at almost any

buffet, but that’s where we have to start comparing prices. Breakfast at a

comparable Strip buffet is around $10. Here it’s $6.45. Lunch on The Strip will run

you $12-15. At Ports O’Call it’s $7.45. Dinners and Sunday brunches are often

over $20 a mile away but at the Gold Coast you’ll pay $12-17, the latter for

their all-you-can-eat seafood night.

Heck, even their all-you-can-eat steak night is only $13. That’s a dollar

cheaper than the breakfast buffet at Bellagio.

The service is neighborhood casino friendly and efficient. Our server had two

drinks for every person waiting by the time we got back to our table.

The moral of the story is, if you’re in the mood for a good buffet but don’t

want to pay a fortune for it, head for the coast. The Gold Coast, that is.

Ports O’Call Buffet

Gold Coast Hotel & Casino

4000 W. Flamingo Rd.

702-367-7111

Hotel Website

Mon-Sat breakfast 7-10am, lunch 11am-3pm, Sun brunch 8am-3pm, nightly dinner

4-10pm

Breakfast $6.45, Lunch $7.45, Brunch 11.95, Dinner $11.95-16.95

http://www.vegas4visitors.com/column/05_05_23.htm

———–

Pink’s Pales to LA

By Mac Jacobson

The entire world may come to Vegas, but unless you happen to be invited to a

Vegas magazine party, have a friend in the NBA staying at the Palms, or show

up at the latest hot poker tournament, celebrity sightings are random.

It’s different in Hollywood, especially at 2 a.m., if you are willing to get

in line at Pink’s, LA’s most famous hot-dog stand. One evening, I ran into

Cameron Diaz on an elevator in the El Royale Apartments, and a few hours later,

saw her lining up for a dog. Jay Leno has been known to pull up on his

motorcycle. Hell, I even saw Orson Welles waiting for a hot dog once upon a time.

In LA, a city not exactly known for its regional cuisine, Pink’s is a

treasured institution, a way of life. A man named Paul Pink borrowed $50 and started

the business with a pushcart back in the Depression, and just after the war,

moved to the present location on La Brea and Melrose avenues. They’ve been

doing a landslide business ever since.

Now you can eat the famous Pink’s 10-inch stretch, all-beef Hoffy dog, or one

of the spicy Polish dogs in various incarnations in the Zanzibar Café in the

Aladdin. I suspect this new development has some tie-in with the fact that

Planet Hollywood is taking over ownership of the place.

The Zanzibar Café was already one of the most eclectic eateries in town,

boasting a huge menu of dishes from all over the planet, everything from pad Thai

to Louisiana crab cakes and flat-iron steak, from opulent breakfasts to

sumptuous desserts.

The sign above the entrance trumpets “The Year Of The Dog” and the Pink’s

logo. And now you can eat, say, a gut bomb like the Huell Howser—a two-hot-dog

sandwich that includes chili, cheese and onions—24/7, which makes the Pepcid AC

folks happy indeed.

Zanzibar Café is one of those large, sprawling casino cafeteria spaces such

as ones that house buffets or major coffee shops. Walls are painted with big

desert murals depicting village life in the Arab world—camels, minarets, lots of

sand—and booths are commodious enough, I guess.

The two pages of Pink’s are in the dead middle of Zanzibar’s encyclopedic,

spiral-notebook format menu. A pale pink color makes them hard to miss, but also

hard to read. One page is taken up with a short history of the business,

while the other is essentially a list of the two hot dogs offered here, in their

various forms.

This amounts to what is, essentially, a short list of what is available at

the LA stand, minus the turkey dog, red onions and a few other tricks played by

the original. There are, of course, the items that really count: the 10-inch

Hoffy, the homemade chili, the sauerkraut and the gooey melted cheese, but a

few items are missing, too.

Heinz yellow mustard on all the tables is a poor substitute for the brown

deli mustard I like to eat with a Pink’s hot dog. And the pastrami on pastrami

burrito, a cardiologist’s nightmare that I will describe shortly, lacks that

certain je ne sais quoi.

But by and large, the sandwiches taste exactly as they do in Hollywood, with

one key component missing. Spicy Polish, for example, is simply a world-class

sausage, and has a real bite. Have it with grilled onions and it becomes the

Harry Potter dog, though I do not know why.

And the 10-incher is available in various forms, but the quintessential way

to eat it is as the chili cheese dog, where you get a nice ladle full of Pink’s

mild, meaty, delicious chili; a gooey cheese that even your mother doesn’t

want you to eat; and the dog.

I sacrificed my body to science and ordered, at 10 a.m., the pastrami

burrito: a flour tortilla wrapped around two hot dogs, Swiss cheese, grilled

pastrami, chili and onions. Hey, it’s like G. Gordon Liddy famously said, “Whatever

doesn’t kill me, makes me stronger.”

With the sausages, you get average fries, unevenly cooked frozen potatoes

that don’t make much of an impression, or for 95 cents extra, the café’s vastly

superior onion rings, a much better choice. It’s all pretty good, but as I

intimated before, minus a key element.

That is simply the camaraderie and atmosphere of standing at an LA hot-dog

stand, with the weirdos, painted Valley girls, industry wannabees and

zoot-suiters. Like it or not, the scene is as big a part of the Pink’s experience as

what is between the buns, and that is just something that cannot be reproduced.

I didn’t see a single celebrity, either.

http://www.lasvegasweekly.com/2005/05/19/taste.html

————–

RESTAURANT REVIEW: Gaylord India Restaurant

Money Is an Object: The food at Gaylord India Restaurant is excellent, but it

comes with a side order of sticker shock.

By Heidi Knapp Rinella

Gaylord India Restaurant is one of the most elegant rooms in town, with

crystal and etched-glass accents, rich colors and an island-of-serenity feeling,

tucked away in a quiet corner of the Rio away from the hubbub of the casino and

the added cacophony of the “bevertainers.”

The food is equal to the task of matching that elegance. The menu is nicely

varied, a mix of dishes you’ve seen and probably sampled if you’ve visited even

one Indian restaurant in this country, plus a few that would probably be

unfamiliar.

There’s a lot to like about Gaylord, but that doesn’t mean it’s not without

flaws. And those would include service.

Our waiter was actually quite personable. He didn’t have an attitude problem

– something we’ve begun to encounter again lately, after a welcome respite we

thought had been born of training and enlightenment but might just have been

because of dumb luck — but he did have a bit of a communication problem.

There was, for example, the matter of the cocktail menu.

Gaylord’s menu lists a number of specialty cocktails. My eye was instantly

drawn to the Pimm’s Cup. With its damn-the-heat refreshing flavor and elegant

nature that stems from its British Colonial roots, a Pimm’s Cup is perfect for

an Indian restaurant — especially an elegant one — but nearly impossible to

find these days in any spot, Indian or not, owing in large part to the fact

that hardly any bars are moved to stock its obscure principal ingredient, Pimm’s

No. 1.

So ordered two of them we did. And, as you might expect, we were rather

surprised to learn that our waiter had no earthly idea what we were talking about,

despite the Pimm’s Cup’s prominent spot among a short list of specialty

drinks. We explained. We pointed to the menu. He nodded and was off — only to

return and tell us that they didn’t have it. Aw, sheesh.

Things didn’t get a whole lot better after that. He was always earnest, but

nearly always had a difficult time understanding just what we were asking for.

We spent a lot of time pointing at the menu. While we did, though, we snacked

on some excellent papadum, crackerlike flatbread that was flecked with whole

cumin seed, and which owed its success in large part to the feisty cilantro and

mellow tamarind sauces that accompanied it.

One of the things readers have commented to me about Gaylord is what they

perceive as sticker shock. That may be the case — Indian restaurants have a

well-deserved reputation as bargain spots where one can fill up on a lot for a

little — but I would defend it. Gaylord is in a casino, where the overhead is

understandably higher than it would be in a Sahara Avenue strip center. And the

elegance of this room and, communication problems notwithstanding, generally

genteel service raises it a few notches. Still, we had a quibble or two.

As in the Rogan Josh ($23.95), which is, as the menu notes, “the classic lamb

curry.” The curry itself was lovely — the meat as tender as it gets, the

complex flavor of the seasonings so myriad-faceted as to bring us different

flavors with each bite. But as we were ordering, our waiter asked, “would you like

rice with that?” Sounded good to us, but we were a little surprised, when we

got the bill, to note the $6.95 charge for it. It was decent enough rice,

basmati with a sprinkling of peas, although lacking even the subtlety of the

saffron the menu promised.

Overall, though, the food was excellent. The Pudina Paratha ($6.25) tandoori

bread was sprinkled with mint instead of stuffed with it, as the menu noted,

but this quibble didn’t affect its lovely flavor and excellent, flaky-chewy

texture.

Tandoori chicken ($17.95) was just spicy enough, tender and moist and, we

thought, one of the best bargains on the menu. Kheer, ($6.50) nut-studded rice

pudding, was satisfyingly creamy.

We had a little bit of sticker shock on the assorted vegetable hors

d’oeuvres, though. For $13.95 we expected a good-sized plate of the promised pakoras,

samosas and papadums, but alas, a baby-bear version arrived. No papadums,

either, although we thoroughly enjoyed the single samosa (sort of like a turnover)

and several pakoras (which are akin to fritters).

So yeah, dinner at Gaylord India will cost you more than a stop at a

mom-and-pop. The service will no doubt depend on which server you’re assigned, but

you’ll be served top-quality food in a serene, elegant environment. The value

judgment is yours.

reviewjournal.com — Neon: RESTAURANT REVIEW: Gaylord India Restaurant

———–

The Hole truth

Battista’s fills a local void with casual, family-style Italian

BY AL MANCINI

Landmark or tourist trap? That’s a question I’ve been asking myself about

Battista’s Hole in the Wall for the past few years.

I’d heard dozens of frequent Las Vegas visitors rave about the place. Most of

them, however, were old-school tourists from middle America who’d been coming

to Las Vegas for so long that they may very well have known Bugsy Siegel –

which left me suspicious that they might value familiarity in a restaurant more

than quality. So every time I passed the place, just a block east of the

Strip on Audrie and across Flamingo Road from Bally’s, I would briefly resolve to

check it out sometime. But with new restaurants opening here in the valley

faster than I can visit them, and countless obscure ethnic establishments begging

to be discovered, Battista’s never made it to the top of my to-do list until

a week or so ago.

My first impression was that Battista’s is the kind of Italian restaurant I

remember from my youth. It’s a dark, casual place with large red-leather

booths. The décor consists primarily of Chianti bottles and autographed celebrity

pictures, and the menu is printed on the walls. Grated parmesan cheese sits in a

shaker on every table, and wine is poured from a bottle or carafe into small,

plain, shotglass-looking glasses.

It’s the kind of restaurant you definitely want to visit with a large group,

and I was glad that I’d managed to assemble one.

The menu is similarly casual and familiar. The vast majority of items are

Italian basics: pastas, veal, chicken and steak. Cioppino ($34.95) is about as

exotic as it gets.

Given the casual, “family-style” feel of the place, first-time visitors may

very well be taken aback by the prices. Plain old spaghetti with your choice of

sauce is priced at $18.95. Most of the other pastas, which include ravioli,

lasagna, manicotti, cannelloni and fettucini with seafood sauce, will set you

back $20.95. Chicken dishes or steak pizzaiola come in at $24.95, and the three

veal choices are two bucks more than that.

Seafood dishes start at $28.95, while a filet mignon or New York strip steak

will set you back $34.95. Even a simple side order of Italian sausage or

meatballs costs $7.50.

A closer look at the menu, however, makes those prices a lot more palatable.

Every meal includes minestrone soup or a salad, garlic bread, a side dish of

pasta, homemade cappuccino and house wine.

As soon as we sat down, our waiter brought my party of five a carafe each of

red and white wine, which was about as good as you’d expect free wine to be

but decent enough to keep us drinking it throughout the meal. That was followed

by soup for me, which was pretty basic, as were my companions’ salads. My

entrée of linguine with chopped clams ($24.95) was delicious and huge. I finished

less than half of it and had plenty leftover to take home for lunch the

following day. Nearly all of the other dishes I sampled were also basic and good.

The sole exception was an order of chicken alfredo, which featured a thick, rich

white sauce that was closer to carbonara than alfredo (not a bad thing in and

of itself, although the person who ordered it wasn’t happy).

All of that was followed up with a sweet cup of cappuccino that tasted more

like hot chocolate than coffee (once again fine with me, although purists might

not appreciate it).

Overall, it was a decent meal — but nothing to rave about.

More importantly, however, Battista’s Hole in the Wall is the kind of place

where a group of people can get together in a comfortable surrounding and

slowly get drunk and get a little loud while they eat some basic and familiar food.

So is it a tourist trap or a landmark? Probably a little of both. But given

the tab of a mere $150 for a party of five — generous tip included — there

are worse places to get together with your friends.

Battista’s Hole in the Wall

4041 Audrie St.

702-732-1424

http://www.lvcitylife.com/articles/2005/01/20/dining_out/dining.txt

———-

Carnegie Deli a lesson in East Coast attitude.

By Muriel Stevens

It was a kick having lunch at Carnegie Deli in the Mirage with Sanford

“Sandy” Levine recently. Carnegie Deli is the kind of deli I grew up with in

Philadelphia. Unless you’ve lived in New York, where Carnegie Deli is a legend, or in

Philadelphia, where wannabe Carnegie delis are almost as good, the wry deli

humor can be a shock to someone who just wants a sandwich.

Levine is the business maven for New York’s Carnegie Deli and its related

businesses. He is the consummate deli operator, wit and all. Ask him what the

“MBS” on his business card stands for.

According to Levine, with such a large menu (almost as large as the New York

menu), he had hoped to hire some experienced counter people who were familiar

with specialized deli foods. They were in short supply. So Levine, Vice

President of Food and Beverage Bart Mahoney and the Mirage chefs put their heads

together — and it worked.

Many of the foods, including the famous house-made corned beef and pastrami,

the tasty real deli rye bread, homemade potato knishes and the crispy

half-done pickles, are shipped in from Carnegie’s huge commissary plant in New York.

Portions are large. There’s no way to eat a Carnegie pastrami or corned beef

sandwich in ladylike fashion. Packed with meat, my pastrami sandwich had to be

cut in half and then in quarters before I could eat it with a modicum of

manners. The whole-grain house mustard is a zesty addition to any sandwich.

A Brown’s cream soda (diet, of course) was a tasty accompaniment. The

desserts are decadently divine. The size is madness. One slice of the Hershey’s 5th

Avenue Bavarian Chocolate Cream Pie could easily satisfy three to four

fressers.

This deadly concoction included in the thick chocolate frosting big chunks of

a 5th Avenue bar. Who thinks up these tantalizing towers of toothsome diet

busters? The famous cheesecake still holds its own. The number of whole

cheesecakes that have been sold during the few weeks Carnegie Deli has been open is

remarkable.

Breakfast is served all day. I don’t know if I’ll ever eat my way through the

wide array of hot and cold sandwiches, salads, soups, burgers, hot platters,

chicken in the pot and much more. There’s still some tweaking going on and

Levine said more dishes will soon be added.

Brian Ward, the general manager, handles the dining room with grace and

style. The international staff, most of whom had never heard of stuffed derma

before working at the deli, are so accommodating that it shouldn’t be long before

they’re hawking the Woody Allen Broadway Danny Rose combination sandwich that

must be at least 6 inches tall. Wooden skewers replace the usual toothpicks to

keep it all together.

Carnegie Deli hours are 7 a.m. to 2 a.m. Expect a short wait during prime

times.

Adam Tihany’s deli design is right on. It looks like a deli, it smells like a

deli and is another winner in the designer’s boffo restaurant portfolio.

Las Vegas SUN: Columnist Muriel Stevens

————-

Busy chef takes time to open Mesa Grill at Caesars.

By Ken White

Bobby Flay may very well be America’s busiest chef.

Not only does he own Mesa Grill in New York, he serves as resident chef for

the CBS morning news show, and host of “BBQ with Bobby Flay,” “Boy Meets Grill”

and “Hot Off the Grill with Bobby Flay” on the Food Network.

Now he has added his first Mesa Grill restaurant outside New York at Caesars

Palace, 3570 Las Vegas Blvd. South.

Like the original Mesa Grill, his new outpost serves Southwestern cuisine in

a flame-themed atmosphere. Designed by David Rockwell and the Rockwell Group,

the decor features flagstone and teak wood floors, flamed copper on the walls

and flame-patterned carpet.

But the restaurant’s centerpiece is a 20-foot rotisserie with a grill and

quesadilla oven.

There is a separate 48-seat private dining room for parties or meetings. Mesa

Grill seats 190 in its three-tiered dining room. A full menu is served at the

28-seat bar-lounge.

Desserts are created by pastry chef Vicki Wells.

Mesa Grill is open for lunch from 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Monday through Friday.

Brunch is served from 10:30 a.m. to 3 p.m., Saturday and Sunday. Dinner is

served from 5 to 11 p.m. daily.

• Starters: Tiger shrimp and roasted-garlic corn tamale with corn-cilantro

sauce ($15); grilled shrimp and cilantro pesto quesadilla ($14); cotija-crusted

quesadilla with wild mushrooms, cascabel chilies and white bean-white truffle

hummus ($14); Native American fry bread taco with smoked lamb, goat cheese and

almond mole sauce ($14); cornmeal-crusted oysters with mango-Scotch bonnet

hot sauce and American caviar ($16); and spicy tuna tartar with blistered

serrano hot sauce and avocado relish ($14).

• Soups and salads: Roasted corn soup with smoked tomato salsa and cilantro

pesto ($10); grilled sea scallop salad with charred corn, green chilies,

coconut and jalapeño pesto ($16); and romaine salad with Parmesan crisps, hominy

croutons and spicy Caesar dressing ($10).

• Entrees: Ancho chili-honey-glazed salmon with a spicy black-bean sauce and

roasted jalapeño crema ($30); New Mexican spice-rubbed pork tenderloin with

bourbon-ancho chili sauce and sweet potato tamale with crushed pecan butter

($31); 16-spice rotisserie chicken with caramelized mango sauce and

buttermilk-chive mashed potatoes ($28); yellow corn-crusted chili relleno filled with wild

mushrooms and goat cheese, served with a salad of grilled vegetables and white

truffle oil ($23); grilled tuna steak with apricot-mustard-mint glaze, served

with a green chili-toasted pine nut couscous ($35); grilled lamb chops with

preserved jalapeño sauce and sweet potato chipotle gratin ($38); blue

corn-crusted red snapper with warm salsa cruda of sweet cherry tomatoes, green olives,

capers and serrano chilies ($33); coffee spice-rubbed rotisserie filet mignon

with wild mushroom-ancho chili sauce and horseradish potato gratin ($34); aged

buffalo rib-eye with mustard-habanero barbecue sauce and cayenne-sour cream

onion rings ($38); ancho chili-cumin-rubbed pan-roasted rabbit with yellow

tomato-green onion risotto ($33); and crispy whole fried (farm-raised) striped bass

with five-pepper ginger sauce and coconut cashew rice ($34).

• Extras: Southwestern fries, cayenne-sour cream onion rings, sweet potato

gratin with smoked chilies, California flat leaf spinach, buttermilk-chive

mashed potato, and double-baked potato with horseradish, green onions and crme fra”

che ($7 each).

• Desserts: Wild blueberry shortcake with lemon ice cream and blueberry basil

syrup; coconut custard bržlée tart with papaya apricot-tequila sorbet and

mango blackberry compote; warm chocolate and dulce de leche cake with toasted

pecan ice cream; chocolate raspberry Napoleon with roasted banana sorbet and

orange rum syrup; smoked vanilla and roasted pecan flan with coffee caramel and

bourbon molasses cakes; and espresso pine nut toffee ice cream sandwich with

milk chocolate wafers and warm toffee sauce ($12 each).

reviewjournal.com — Living: APPETIZERS

Posted on June 8th, 2005 by MrVegas98
Filed under: Dining Guide