Aureole Las Vegas

I know it’s been longer than a month, but it’s been a hectic month. I could give you the laundry list of excuses, work, baby, etc., but I will just say this… I am not perfect, but I will try to do better. I know what you are thinking, "Wow, it must be really hard to go to a fancy dinner once a month,” but surprisingly, when life happens, it is hard to find time to go. Not that that has discouraged me, I am back and ready to give you the scoop on Charlie Palmer’s second go round of Aureole in Las Vegas.


First, I will give you a little background on Charlie Palmer. Mr. Palmer was one of my favorite judges on Top Chef Las Vegas (season 6) because when he came on, it was the first time I ever saw a judge really put contestants in their place. Michael, who was so cocky last season, (for good reason, he won) was totally silenced and moody when Charlie Palmer showed up as a judge. I don’t know if it was because he was intimidated from the supposed favoritism showed to his brother, but I have never seen such arrogant people immediately silenced by intimidation. This was what first made me want to learn more about this man. I remember Googling him the night I watched the episode.

Charlie Palmer’s style is called “progressive American” which he describes as a combination of “rambunctious flavors and unexpected combinations with a deep and lasting infusion of classical French cuisine.” Palmer was influenced by his childhood experiences working in his family's vegetable garden, and since then has been an advocate of farm over factory food. In 1988, he made a landmark commitment to creating dishes featuring regional American ingredients at his restaurant Aureole open in Manhattan, New York.

Over the years, Palmer has opened thirteen restaurants across the country. He has also started opening wine shops and boutique hotels. Just from experiencing his restaurant, you can tell, Charlie Palmer is very into wine. He also hosts a charity event every year called "Pigs and Pinot," where chefs pair the two ingredients in diffrent ways.  Other accolades include: two James Beard Awards, and one Michelin Star awarded for both of his Aureole locations in New York and Las Vegas for 2007-2010.

I started out the night in a bad mood. Parking was awful. It took us twenty minutes to get from the entrance of the hotel to the parking garage. I guess they had a lot of events going on at Mandaly Bay. We ended up giving up, and parking across the way at the Luxor Hotel instead. It’s not a bad idea if you have an event to go to at Mandalay Bay. It was a short jaunt over to Mandalay, and saved us the time of searching for a spot for twenty more minutes in their enormous parking garage. Once we were inside, my mood improved slightly, except for having to dodge tourists, theatre goers, and wedding parties, to get to the entrance of the restaurant. You can see from the picture just how busy it was in front of the restaurant. The entrance of the restaurant was instantly calming. There is a hostess at the opening who directs you either to an elevator or to a set of stairs in which you descend down into the belly of the restaurant. The stair option, which we opted for, takes you on a journey around a giant glass tower filled with wine. You wind down the giant wine tower in which women dressed in black spandex outfits, (think Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible except with more cleavage) are hooked to wires and ascend and descend the tower getting various bottles of wine. The staircase wraps around the tower about three times, so you get to inspect the enormous wine collection from every angle, and the wine angels as well (wink wink).

The hosts greeted us immediately upon descending, and we had only a short wait before they lead us to our table. We were seated in the middle of a bench style seating arrangement. There were couples on either side of us. I was a little disappointed in not having a view of the wine tower,( I was on the bench facing away from the tower), but the ambiance was relaxing with light wood and opaque glass everywhere. We were greeted by our waiter and given our choice of water. We opted for Lake Mead’s finest, as we were more concerned with the wine. This is where you can tell,( if the giant wine tower didn’t tip you off before), that Charlie Palmer is really into wine. The waiter brings out an electronic tablet, and launches into a ten minute speech about how to use the thing to find the wine you want. You can search by region, type, price, bottle, glass, foot size of the women who stomped the grapes, etc. We spent the first twenty minutes just playing with the thing. The bottles ranged from $35 to $6,000, which was the most expensive one we could find, but I am sure that we missed some categories. This tablet was like the wine connoisseur’s Xbox 360.

We opted for a 1997 Wittmann Westhofner Steingrube Riesling Trocken, from Germany. It was a dry Riesling and went very well with our tasting menu. I have to admit, that the best part was picking it out. We had fun just playing with the tablet, putting several thousand dollar bottles on the list then taking them off again. Once we finally ordered our bottle, the waitress came around with several different bread rolls. I opted for the soft pretzel roll with kosher salt, and my guest picked the wheat baguette. The pretzel roll was the favorite, and he asked the waitress when she came around again for a pretzel roll as well. They were soft, salty, and crunchy at the same time, it was and very good.

For dinner, we decided to go with Charlie Palmer’s signature parallel tasting menu. This is where the chef takes an ingredient and prepares them two ways and serves them side by side. The benefit to this option is you get to try more things than you would just ordering off the regular menu. The downside is if you choose this option, everyone at your table must do it as well. Not a great selection for a large group as it is $85 per person, but for just two it was perfect. There is also a wine pairing you can choose which adds $55 more per person, and they give you a different wine with each of your four courses.

The first course the secret ingredient was Dungeness crab. They prepared it two ways; the first was a Dungeness Crab and Ahi Tuna Mille Feuillet with a coconut/lime froth. The crab and tuna were so fresh and the coconut froth was amazing, it brought out the sweetness of the crab and enhanced the Ahi perfectly. The second was a seared Dungeness crab cake with papaya salsa and Yuzu aioli. I remember commenting on how fresh it tasted the crab cake was light and not too oily. The salsa and Yuzu made a strange but tasty combination with the cake. Both my dining partner and I both agreed that the Mille Feuillet was by far our favorites.  I really liked that they served them side by side so you could try a little of one, then the other and compare the flavors. It was a very pleasurable menu.

 
The second course the special ingredient was salmon. The dish at the top was a house made salmon Angelotti with wilted pea tendrils and olive tomato emulsion. It was fresh pasta rolled with smoked salmon and a nice light tomato sauce. It was pasta was light and very fresh. The salmon flavor was present but not overpowering. The dish at the bottom was an olive oil poached wild king salmon with citrus braised fennel and sambal buerre blanc. The salmon was very nicely poached and the olive oil flavor came through agreeably. The Fennel was delicious paired with the salmon and the sauce was great, almost a curry undertone to the buerre blanc. I kept going back and forth between which one I liked best, I loved the salmon and braised fennel from the second dish, but the pasta in the first was extremely good. I think the salmon flavor came through more on the second dish.

Between the second and third course our waiter came up and asked us if we wanted coffee with our desserts? I looked at him puzzled, and asked if it was a four course menu? Yes, he replied. Well we only have had two courses…he went back to his computer puzzled, then came back to us apologized and said our third course was coming up. This is where the service starts to get really bad. Not that it was amazing from the beginning, our wine came way after our first course, and our water glasses were not getting filled, but after the second course the service deteriorated. Knowing that this restaurant has one Michelin star, and that service is part of getting the star awarded, I was a little put off at the way we were treated. I had to ask for more water several times, and after our meal was finished, we were not even asked if we wanted anything else, or given the check for probably half hour after you would expect to. I know sometimes you have to ask for the check, but they were not even around to ask for it. Regardless the food was good, but I just wanted to point that out, especially when there is two waiters per table. Maybe the waiters were having an off night.

When the third course came the secret ingredients were mushrooms and potatoes. The dish on the left was Seared diver sea scallop with Yukon gold potato gnocchi, morel mushrooms, and fava beans. (insert slurping sound). The gnocchi was amazing, salty and crunch and soft all at the same time. It paired wonderfully with the scallop which was well seared and had great flavor. I love the shape as well as the flavor of morel mushrooms so I was very happy to see them on the menu. The dish on the right was Japanese pepper- Wagyu Beef strip loin with grilled abalone mushrooms and sweet potato fries. The abalone mushrooms were the star of this dish, they actually look like abalone (hence the name). The beef was well cooked and tender but was not well seasoned. The sweet potato fries were good, not spectacular. I would defiantly say that the scallop dish was my favorite. Other things that I really liked, which most of the time are overlooked, are the plates. Each plate was separated for the pairing, but fit the shape of the food and showed off the aesthetics of the meal perfectly. The inside of the restaurant  followed the plates. It had a lot of details that really made you feel relaxed and at ease. They modern dining room had an elegant but not overly stuffy feel. The interior overall had a well thought out and tranquil quality.

Fourth course, dessert. Because we ordered the parallel menu, I did not have a choice of dessert, because you know, if I had my choice, it would have been something chocolate! I suffered through this non-chocolate pairing nonetheless. The parallel ingredients were blueberry and lemon. We started with a blueberry meyer lemon financier, this was paired with a lemon mascarpone semifreddo with a blueberry lemon verbena sorbet. Maybe it was because it was not chocolate, but this was my least favorite course of the night. The financier (which is like a flat  blueberry muffin) was a little dry and I could not taste the lemon flavor at all. The mascarpone semifreddo was my favorite on the plate, but hard to eat because it was so frozen that you could not get a fork or spoon into it, and when you did, it broke apart and went careening across the table. (We both did it, so it was not just my clumsiness). Lastly, the sorbet was way too sour, it made us both do the sour face thing. The pastry chefs also gave us a complimentary dish of deserts, which we shared and agreed that there was nothing spectacular, dry chocolate cookie, and  wafer crispy things. By this time I was getting annoyed with the lack of service, so the dinner seemed to go downhill.
 

Overall, I thought the dinner was very good, but again not what I expected from a Michelin stared restaurant. The first two courses were marvelous. The second two, while good, were not spectacular. The services would be the thing that could be improved. Especially when spending this much money on your meal, you expect to be taken care of very well. The strength of this restaurant would have to be the ambiance and decor. They went above and beyond the normal restaurant and have just the right amount of kitschy-ness (wine tablet, and wine tower) that a Vegas restaurant needs to compete with the other thousands of restaurants, but did not go so far as to be tacky (i.e. giant frog with a cowboy hat).  Still have not decided where to go next month. This will have to be a suprise, until next time...
~ Wanna-Be-Foodie...AKA Lady Foie Gras

Isn't Michelin the tire guy?

Isn’t Michelin the tire guy?

Yes, it is.

I had always thought that Michelin was just the people who made tires, and it wasn’t until I heard it repeatedly referenced on shows like Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations, and Top Chef, did I finally look it up, to see who this Michelin person was and why he gave out stars. Turns out Michelin the French company who makes tires in the United States also had a big business of confidential reviews of restaurants and hotels. According to the 2009 Michelin Guide, their aim is “ongoing commitment to proving travel and mobility, we do everything possible to make vacations and eating out a pleasure.” Makes sense, a tire company would want you to take road trips right?


The thing that makes Michelin better, in my opinion, than the ZAGAT, or reading a restaurant review from a critic is the anonymity of the review. A restaurant chef can see Gael Green (how could you not recognize her with those crazy hats) or James Oseland and give them the best seat in the house and make sure their food is perfect. ZAGAT guide is based on people writing in their reviews, so one persons standard can be different from another. Michelin takes great steps to make sure that their reviewers are anonymous and remain anonymous. This ensures that a regular Joe Schmoe will get the same service as those fancy restaurant reviewers. The other thing that makes Michelin very reputable is that they are independent. They choose restaurants to review not based on the Benjamin slipped to them in a letter, but made for the benefit of “the reader alone.” “Decisions are discussed by the inspectors and the editor with the most important decided at the global level.” Inclusion in the guide is also free of charge; no one pays to have their review written. As quoted from their website,

“Michelin has been in the business of evaluating and recommending restaurants and hotels for over a century. We employ full-time professional inspectors who anonymously visit restaurants and hotels, and evaluate them on a range of criteria. Our evaluation process has been honed over time to identify consistently high-quality establishments to suit a range of budgets and across a range of styles and cuisines. If our inspectors are impressed by a restaurant or hotel, they visit the establishment again. And again. It is this sort of obsessive research that makes the MICHELIN Guide such a reliable source of recommendations. No matter what the occasion, we think you'll find that the MICHELIN Guide will help you make the perfect choice.”

Other benefits include the fact that the selection ranges from low to high price range so it’s not just the super fancy restaurants and hotels that end up in the guide. They update every year, (usually, see* below), so you don’t go to a place to find out that the chef changed and the food is now horrible, and they are consistent. Michelin uses the same criteria in Paris that they do in New York. They also classify a restaurant for comfort, (which includes service and décor), and for food quality, (which are where the stars come in to play). The classifications for “comfort” range from, one-little spoon and fork which represents quite comfortable, two little spoons and forks represents comfortable, three-very comfortable, four-top class comfortable, five-luxury in the traditional style. The stars which are the things all chefs want, range from one star which means “very good cuisine in its category” two-excellent cuisine, worth a detour, and three which is the top honor of “exceptional cuisine worth a special journey.”



*For my project I will be working out of the 2009 Las Vegas restaurant and hotels edition. Because of the recession, Michelin decided to only come out with an edition for Las Vegas every two years, but New York and San Francisco still have yearly editions. There are actually more than twelve Michelin rated restaurants in Las Vegas, but for this project, I decided to pick twelve making it a one year project. There are actually thirteen- one-Michelin star restaurants, three-two star restaurants and only one-three star restaurants in Las Vegas, the amazing Joel Robuchon. (Who is actually on the list twice, one for Joel Robuchon with three stars, and one for L’Atelier de Joel Robuchon which received one star, both located in the MGM Grand.) The first one was actually picked for me by my wonderful boyfriend. For our anniversary, we went to Daniel Boulud Brasserie at the Wynn resort. The review will be coming soon….

Thank you for reading,

The Wanna-Be Foodie

The where and why of this...

First, I want to explain why I decided to start a blog. Especially since blogging is not such a popular thing anymore, I have always been a late bloomer. I majored in writing. I always wanted to be a writer, but like most English majors, I went into teaching to pay the bills (which sounds so silly, as I write it, but it’s true). "I can teach during the year and write in the summers,” that is what I told myself when I decided to get my teaching certificate. Well, the certificate turned into a master’s in education, and education became my career. Writing seemed to take a back burner during the last six years I have been teaching. Add to that a divorce, a new relationship, and a new baby, and writing was not even a thought for the last six years. I miss it a lot, even though I never thought I would be a successful writer, it’s something that I have always loved to do for myself. It helps me get my head together, clear my mind, and just makes me feel like I have accomplished something. Even if no one reads my writing, it’s therapeutic. I don’t go to shrinks, I have sometimes been known to pour my heart out to my sister or friends over some vodka, but for the most part, I like to write out what I am feeling.


My other love is food and cooking. I love to read cook books; I actually read them cover to cover. I like to think about flavor combinations and how I can change or tweak recipes to make them my own. I love watching the food network. Although most of my friends and boyfriend cannot understand why I love it, they don’t complain when they taste what I cook. I have watched the last six seasons of Top Chef religiously, I almost creamed my pants when they showed Joel Robuchon. I, like Eli Kirshtein, thought he was a unicorn. The thing I love best about food is going to a good restaurant because as much as I love to cook, I love to be cooked for, and waited on even more!

I moved to Las Vegas because they had an abundance of teaching positions, and actually offered bonuses to teachers to move here. Having just gone through a divorce and wanting a change, I decided why not...packed up the truck and moved to the city of lights. Reality set in when I discovered that people here are a lot different than people in the North West. There is a huge focus on body image, there is a huge emphasis on how much you make, and there was a tendency for most men I dated to lie through their teeth. All things I was not so happy about. Just about the time I considered moving back to Washington, the economy crashed. Teaching jobs were non-existent, I was totally upside down in my mortgage, and there was no way I could sell now. I was lucky to have a job at all. It looked like I was stuck in Vegas for awhile. I did not take it so well at first. I am a pessimist by nature and tend to focus on the negative whenever possible. I found myself slipping into a “stuck” feeling and I have never been one to deal with that well. I like to be able to move on a whim, and travel when I want. Being suck made me want to move even more. Then something changed. I met a wonderful man from Alaska, and we started a relationship. He is probably the most opposite from me that is possible. He is a true optimist, always looking at what is good about a situation. Now I am not about to say that he saved me from a world of pessimism, because I have never ever believed in that “man saving the woman” scenario, but he did succeed in helping me change my way of thinking, just a little bit. One thing I have always said is “if you’re not happy change it,” which is one reason I have moved fifteen times in the last ten years. Since I cannot move, and I am stuck here for awhile, I might as well make the most of it.


What is good about living in Las Vegas…not the people (well not all of course, I have some great friends here), not the crowds, not the bars, not the casinos (they are all the same after awhile), not the fact that their are slot machines everywhere, even in the grocery stores, not the bands, (no small bands come to Las Vegas, we only get the Celine Dion or the White Snake reunion bands …but that is another rant), not the scenery..brown, brown, brown…

I know! It’s the food. We have some of the best chefs and restaurants in Las Vegas! I mean where else in the world do you have over twelve Michelin starred restaurants located on one street? The Las Vegas Strip contains so many good restaurants, not to mention the great restaurants located in the rest of the city. I have decided that since I am here for awhile I might as well take advantage of what Las Vegas has to offer. I plan to visit a Michelin Starred restaurant once a month for a year, and you…lucky reader get to hear all about it. (that is if anyone actually reads this) This project will also give me and my boyfriend some much needed adult time together, as we just had a baby (he is almost 5 months). It will also give me a creative outlet, since my most innovative creation has been the song I made up to sing to Alex as I am changing him. (think of the song "Single Ladies" by Beyonce) "All the stinky babies...all the stinky babies...put your legs up oh oh oh... If you smell it then you better put a new diaper on it..." I don't ever want to lose that creative side of myself, even if it is horrible, and hopefully through this project, I can find my writing voice once again.
Any feed back, comments, or criticism are always welcome.
thanks,
~ The Wanna-Be Foodie