Let us Now ♨️ Braise Famous Chefs
If you want a bracing rejoinder to Strip Dining Inc., food critic John Curtas tops his newest rundown of places you should be eating with an acerbic take on Las Vegas Boulevard’s waning culinary mojo. So I asked him about that perennial dining topic, celebrity chefs.
From the standpoint of 2023, what's the worst thing to come out of the celebrity chef era?
“The worst thing has been the institutionalization of mediocrity through the excessive licensing of absentee chefs — a concept now being exploited by the Martha Stewarts and line cooks of the world whose claim to fame is ‘Guy’s Grocery Games.’”
And the best?
“The best thing about Las Vegas’ celebrity chef era (1994-2014) was that it put us on the world’s gastronomic map. You can draw a straight line from Wolfgang Puck to Emeril Lagasse to Le Cirque to Joel Robuchon and Guy Savoy … the chefs who brought world-class cooking here and set a standard that raised all boats.”
Related: For more alternatives to Strip dining, try these hidden gems in Chinatown. [City Cast Las Vegas]
Korean Dishes Beyond BBQ
Say hello to City Cast Las Vegas lead producer Sonja Cho Swanson, who’s here to preview today’s episode (🎧). Take it away, Sonja!
Korean food isn’t all grilled meat — in fact, Korean cuisine has traditionally been very vegetable- and seafood-forward (the country is a peninsula surrounded on three sides by ocean, after all). So here are some dishes to try at restaurants around the Valley for some BBQ-alternatives.
Sashimi Day (Desert Inn & Decatur)
Hwae is a kind of raw seafood often translated as “sashimi,” though it’s slightly different, and you’ll also get Korean seasonings like a vinegared gochujang as your dipping sauce here. At Sashimi Day, you can go all out with a $100 multicourse meal for two that includes octopus, conch, scallops, and bluefin tuna. Or opt for simpler, single bowls of albap or hwaedeopbap (basically rice bowls with either fish roe or sashimi toppings) for about $15 each.
Mr. Tofu (Spring Mountain and Arville)
This is one of my mom’s favorite places because it has a wide selection of fresh banchan, or small side dishes that come with your meal. The star of the menu is soondubu, a silky-soft tofu stew that arrives bubbling hot — crack the raw egg they give you into it and watch it cook in the stew right before your eyes.
Soyo Korean Restaurant (Rainbow and Robindale)
There’s a whole category of Korean food just for drinking called anju. Soyo builds its menu around such anju, which they call “tapas,” including a variety of savory pancakes. The seafood pancake is loaded with shrimp, squid, and scallions, and the kimchi pancake is a spicy, funky delight.
One note I make on the podcast: Finding dishes at Korean restaurants that are completely vegetarian can be tricky. Even kimchi is often made with fish sauce. So call ahead to double check.
