Crazy Food Orgy in Las Vegas
Carne Vino is my new favorite restaurant in Vegas. It used to be a toss up between Strip Steak- Michael Mina’s Steak House at Mandalay Bay, and Il Mullino, an Italian joint upstairs in the Forum Shops at Caesar’s Palace… But, now, it’s Carne Vino, a Mario Batali Italian Steak House in the Pallazo connected to the Venetian Hotel. I’ve been here a couple of times and every new time I’m reluctant to go again because I don’t want to ruin the memory of the great meal that I had here the last time…
It started a few months ago when I was in Vegas on a business trip. I came in late and was staying at the Pallazo. I wanted something to eat that wasn’t all-night diner fare. I wandered into the bar and asked if the were still serving. Luckily the kitchen was still open, so, I sat at the bar and ordered a Manhattan and asked for a menu.
The Manhattan was my first clue. Not a lot can go wrong with a Manhattan… Some bourbon, a little sweet vermouth, some bitters, couple of cherries… But wait! those cherries are kinda funny lookin’. They are a deep dark red and a little shriveled, stuck on a skewer without stems. I bite into one, and sickly sweet deliciousness! Apparently they make these in house. They take cherries, pit them, and soak them for a month in sugar and brandy. They are dense and meaty… I asked for a glass of cherries…
The bar menu was limited because it was late and the kitchen staff wanted to go home. So, ordered a few lamb chops, rare, and gnawed on these at the bar. Delicious! I’ve gotta come here again!
So, a month or so later, I’m back in Vegas on another business trip. Sitting at the bar again with my business partner, Steve. It’s early, so, we have the full menu at our disposal… We ordered a porterhouse steak for two. “La Fiorentina”. The steak is huge. It gets wheeled out on a cart with much pomp and circumstance as a member of the kitchen staff separates the New York and the Filet from the bone, slices it into medallions, plates it evenly, and drizzles it with olive oil. At this point in time, it was the best steak that I had ever had… I thought about how good it was for days… it was really THAT good!
So, a month or so later, work takes us back to Vegas. This time, we have to try the dining room. I’m reluctant to go because the last steak was just so good, that my memory would be skewed, or the next one just wouldn’t compete. I hate to destroy a fond memory…
This time, instead of the porterhouse, we opt for the bone-in ribeye for two. This gets wheeled out on a cart with a knife-wielding Chef in tow. It’s slightly charred on the outside, rare + on the inside. Looks and smells delicious. The chef carves this into little medallions and plates it. Again, it is drizzled in olive oil and is NOW the new best steak that I’ve ever had. Marbled, fatty, ribeye deliciousness.
Now we need to fast forward to tonight. We just got into town for the Self Storage trade show at Caesar’s Palace. We are working a deal with an investment banker that we’ve been talking to for a year or so, and meet up with a couple of our long-time partners from the brokerage world.
I started out early at the bar to have a drink with an old friend who just happened to be in Vegas celebrating his birthday with his wife. We have a couple of Manhattans with extra cherries and some bar food… Baked clams with pancetta and fresno chilis, and an order of Jamon Iberico Di Bellota. The clams were ok, but a little to bready for my taste. The Jamon was excellent! Small slices of fatty, dry cured ham that you rolled onto tiny pillows of fried bread. Dense flavor, soft texture, aged, thin slices. Very good!
Then the dinner crew arrived. With our crew, the brokers, and the investment banker, and another guy who has tried to sell us deals in the past but now seems semi-homeless… all get huddled up into a small, three sided room with a table for 8 looking out onto the main dining floor.
It’s a large table, and the waiter seems very friendly and attentive at first, but quickly loses patience and disappears for a while… Seemed like a long while. Upon his return, the well liquored crew gave him a loud cheer and applause that I’m sure was heard on the other side of the restaurant.
Then it started… Let the food orgy begin!
We started with what seemed like one of everything. There was a lobster sashimi plate. I’ve had this before. The first time I had it, I craved it for weeks afterward. They take a whole lobster tail, cut the meat out, and slice it, raw, into medallions. This is plated and drizzled with oil and dusted with some light herbs and spices. Next to it, is a bowl of tempura… the claw meat is lightly battered and fried with a few other tempura coated vegetables and a zucchini blossom that has been stuffed with a lobster pate’, tempura coated, and fried. If you like lobster, and especially, if you like sashimi, you should try this. Excellent! They can also cook the tail, but, this is a must try in its raw and native form.
There was also a plate of homemade pastrami served with a poached duck egg and emerald butter lettuce. It’s just a few small slices of meat, but, dense and delicious. The runny duck egg is interesting and goes well. Then came a plate of house cured meat, a carpaccio over a bed of arugula, a caprese with a huge lump of house made fresh mozzarella that looked more like a pudding than a cheese, a terrine of fois gras, and a handful of other things that I can’t remember.
We ordered a 1.5L bottle of 2007 ZD Carneros Pinot. $275 for the magnum. Good, but, nothing to write Mom about… and just a bit pricy for what it was. The wine list is extensive, but, I really wasn’t in the mood to go hunting and took the waiter’s suggestion with this one.
Next, for our “Segondi”, we had a pasta course (of course). Ravioli filled with beef cheeks and drizzled in 20-year-old balsamic vinegar, black fettucine with crab, jalapenos and chilies, and “spago”- a lamb ragu mixed with spaghetti. Every one of them unique and delicious. The beef cheeks were rich and tender, as you’d expect of an overcooked short rib, with the sweet and complex balsamic drizzled over the top. The squid-ink fettuccine was provocative and delicious with a hit of salt and butter and delicate crab meat with a hint of jalapeno to round it out, and the ragu was just plain, old fashioned comfort food. Pasta with meat sauce.
Then came the meat. There were seven of us, so, we ordered two double porterhouses, a bone-in double ribeye, and… “La Riserva”- a 10-month dry aged bone-in New York… wow… The porterhouse and ribeye were just as I remembered. Flavorful, well prepared, delicious… But, now we have something new! This 10 month old New York Strip is now the best steak that I’ve ever had… It must have started out as a 10 pound piece of meat that was hung until it was down to about 16 ounces… It was dense and packed with dry aged flavor. Bordering on the taste of Bultong, which is a South African type of jerky made by just hanging salted pieces of meat in the sun.
The Chef boned and cut everything at the table and then set the bones onto separate plates to tease us. I grabbed that NY Strip bone and gnawed on it while growling and occasionally striking at anyone that came close to me and the last little pieces of deliciousness that I was trying to extrude from that poor, old, dry aged bone.
For the sides, they brought out some sauteed spinach, some roasted peppers, some sliced heirloom tomatoes… and a vat of mashed potatoes. The potatoes were creamy and fatty, served in a cast iron bowl, with a poached duck egg and a few stips of very thin bacon on top… The bacon and eggs were mixed into the mashed potatoes to make them even more decadent than they could possibly be on their own.
By the time we got past all of this, there was little to no room for desert… a few spiced, roasted dates, and some goat cheese with walnuts and fresh figs and a little espresso to help get it all down.
All in all, it was a great meal! The captain wasn’t the best that I’ve seen, but, he was young and will either move on to another career, or “figure it out”. It definitely didn’t impact the meal, as this was one that I’ll remember for awhile, and once again, be reluctant to try to repeat.
2 Responses to CarneVino