The Venetian is quite possibly the most ridiculous of Las Vegas’ super resorts. Featuring over 7,000 suites, 120,000 square feet of gambling space and a five acre pool deck, this larger than life paean to the City of Bridges turns history into opulence like an art-loving dictator. After we had parked beneath the superstructure of the miniature city, it took us almost half an hour to wend our way through a shopping mall, a casino, another shopping mall, and the main lobby of the Venetian Hotel. Once there, an elevator ride carried us up the final leg of the longest road to brunch I’ve ever taken.

Stowed into a spacious corner above the Venetian lobby, the illustrious Thomas Keller’s Bouchon Bistro is worth the journey. After wading through a sea of poshlost’ posing as elegance, we stumbled into a restaurant that bathes comfortably in the true essence of the word. The atmosphere is refined and ornate enough to be classy, yet open and bustling enough to feel casual. Tables and booths bask in the sun, and the bar offers New Belgium 1554 on tap.

While I am a champion of breakfast, I’ve become skeptical of the brunch ritual: Overpriced eggs, the perennial lack of grits and the placebo-like worship of an idyllic atmosphere have been the foundation for too many late morning outings to convince me that I should pay more than $6 for anything short of incredible. Fortunately, our parting meal at Bouchon was incredible in all the right ways. This became clear when the first complimentary baguette was laid before us, dressed only with a white cloth napkin. I broke off a piece, adorned it with butter and apricot jam, and greeted the morning with the sweet, hypnotic crunch of perfectly toasted French bread, finally understanding firsthand what an old friend once told me about the joy of eating a fresh baguette with breakfast every morning during his tenure in the city of Lyon. Under other circumstances, I would have happily made a meal of these baguettes, but my appetite had been piqued and the menu was open.

We began with a dish of sugar and cinammon beignets. Delicately crisp and crumbly on the outside, ethereally weightless on the inside, Bouchon’s rendition of this brunch classic was as skillfully executed as its baguette. By hiding its mastery of textures and flavors in an innocently plain morsel of bread, it was as if Bouchon was deliberately highlighting the irony of its own existence behind the inflated facades of the Venetian. Likewise, the breakfast Americaine, complete with fresh squeezed orange juice, French pastry and pomme frites, made no effort to hide the fact that it was in fact nothing more than a well cooked breakfast. All of this grace still wasn’t enough to justify the platter’s $22 price tag, but for a fraction of that cost I did have a taste of its highlight: Bouchon’s country sausage, which was roasted to a level of flavor that dwarfed the peak of the Stratosphere.

My other selection was Bouchon’s bread pudding style French toast. Distinguished immediately by its artful construction, this dish selfishly robbed the rest of our entrees of their humble charms. Each rich, porous, buttery layer concealed near-melted slices of baked apple and thin blankets of custard, all married within a deep ribbon of sweet maple syrup and topped with impeccably shaped cuts of fresh apple and a dash of powdered sugar. Put romantically, it was an ivory tower of brioche peering over a land of indentured breakfast rolls. Of course, every tower of Babel must eventually fall, and I was happy to devour my elaborate edifice of a meal before its fragile folds could collapse of natural causes on my plate. If the Venezia Tower were made of brioche, I’d do the same for it as well.

There are many reasons why I could never live in Las Vegas. The staggering hubris of the Venetian is one of them. The warm weekend brunch at Bouchon is not. Nothing short of a robotic Michael Jackson will convince me to renegotiate these terms. Having affirmed this lesson in understatement, I said farewell to the bookhouse boys and drove off into the midday Nevada sun.

Bouchon Bistro
3355 Las Vegas Blvd. South
The Venetian Resort, Venezia Tower
Las Vegas, NV 89109
702.414.6200

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

PICARD: A lot has changed in three hundred years. People are no longer obsessed with the accumulation of “things”. We have eliminated hunger, want, the need for possessions. We have grown out of our infancy.

RALPH: You’ve got it wrong. It’s never been about “possessions” – it’s about power.

PICARD: Power to do what?

The fact that Star Trek: The Experience, a testament to Gene Roddenberry’s most idealistic vision of humanity’s potential, stands in the epicenter of humanity’s most quintessentially defacing behavior makes it one of the more compelling curiosities of the Las Vegas Strip. Outside, Starfleet’s insignia, an elegant symbol of the human race’s ongoing quest for truth, knowledge and self-improvement, towers below the Hilton marquee. Inside, our technological and cultural development is elaborately recounted in a museum of future history, where television panels intermittently replay anthologies of Star Trek’s most ambitious imaginations of an evolved species. Guests are beamed into the 24th century, brought face to face with the Borg Queen, and reminded by Starfleet’s finest that each of us holds an opportunity to build a better future.

Shortly thereafter, a costumed employee delivers a pointed reminder to visit the Promenade for the best Star Trek merchandise this side of the Alpha Quadrant. There, two and a half gift shops are filled to the brink with the greatest collection of franchise merchandise I have ever convinced myself to buy. The irony of paying hard-earned money for exaggerated recreations of an unattained evolution is outclassed only by my warp speed consumption and the happiness that ensues. At the end of it all, we fork over a sum of $50 for each of us to take home a photograph of the bookhouse boys on the bridge of the USS Enterprise D, a decidedly material keepsake of the future we can only dream of realizing.

Despite our acute awareness of the fourth wall, the wondrous illusion of The Experience manages to maintain its structural integrity. That is, until we make our way to the recreation of Quark’s bar and Restaurant, Deep Space Nine‘s marker for the idea that the economy of waste is indeed a constant of any universe. We are greeted by Rog’l, the spitting image of a Ferengi restaurateur, and left to muse over the hilariously, almost self-deprecatingly thematic menu choices. Three of Six, an uncharacteristically engaging and tourist friendly Borg drone, chats up a group of visitors at the bar, offering to pose for a photograph with his newfound friends.

We decide to break our fast with pints of intergalactic beer, all of which are quite refreshing, if a bit inoffensive. The Klingon Blood Draft, a washed out imitation of a German Märzen, goes down nicely but lacks the round, mellow body of the real thing. The amber hued Dominion Lager is clean and crisp, but similarly devoid of any memorable flavor or texture. The Romulan Ale, a beautiful glass of fanboy nectar, easily outshines both of its flanks, offering a perfectly accessible balance of floral hops, malty sweetness and green food coloring. By the time we finish our first glasses, lunch has arrived.

Sadly, it seems Rog’l has gotten the best of us (as any Ferengi should), passing off some of the most poorly replicated dishes in this sector as the homemade Federation favorites. Picard’s Pockets, a glorified cross of a Jack-in-the-Box pita and a New York gyro, manages to ramp up the arrangement of both while retaining the quality of neither. The French Dip sandwich, a curt nod to a 20th century Earth staple, sheds some light on the 20th century phrase, “I’m so hungry, I could eat at Arby’s!” The Petrokian Sausage Jambalaya, constituting its own personal insult to the honor of the Sisko family, successfully assembles all of the human race’s most historically popular meats in a joyless mess of synthesized satiation. The Class-H taco pizza, adorned with ground beef, lettuce, tomato and quacamole, actually isn’t half bad, but maybe that’s the Romulan at the table speaking up.

The biggest reality check at Quark’s Bar, however, is the Borg Sphere, a ten shot monstrosity of a novelty drink served in a steaming glass orb. Disillusioned by our lackluster meal, we place our order for assimilation, hoping that an absurdly gaudy daycap will rejuvenate our spirits. True to its namesake, the mechanically conceived, over-sweetened blend of cheap alcohol and synthetic mixers does nothing of the sort. It tastes like a combination of Sprite, your college roommate’s plastic jug of vodka, and a 25th century in which all the cultural nuances of Earth’s libations have been successfully downloaded and destroyed by the cybernetic mind of the Collective. As we drain the last drops of lifeless liquor from our orb, a Klingon warrior laughs and orders another round of blood wine for the wedding reception next door.

Hours later, we find ourselves once again sprawled across the hotel room, sipping on the finest bourbon I have ever tasted and throwing away another $11.99 so we can drunkenly criticize bad pornography with a real time example on the television. I look out the window and over the construction site of Las Vegas’ next citadel, a vice of ambition seeking its place among the desert stars. Tracing the outlines of scaffolding and spires, illuminated by the peripheral glow of the Strip and offset by the soundtrack of Super Naturals Vol. 5, I know that the evolution of humanity into a more noble species will not take place in my lifetime. While the mass production of tasteless, overpriced replicator-grade meals has already been perfected and grandiose feats of architectural oneupmanship can be brought to fruition with the wave of a contract, the experience of a civilization freed of primal needs and resolutely united under the banner of exploration is one that, for now, can only be realized in the throes of a weekend getaway.

RALPH: And then what will happen to us? There’s no trace of my money. My office is gone. What will I do? How will I live?

PICARD (amused): This is the twenty-fourth century. Those material needs no longer exist.

RALPH: Then what’s the challenge?

PICARD: To improve yourself… enrich yourself. Enjoy it, Mister Offenhouse.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

When I stepped out of the car in Vegas at high noon, I had another kind of sensory overload in mind. For months the bookhouse boys and I had been planning a sojourn to two of the city’s lesser known hallmarks, and our hotel reservations placed us within walking distance of the primary target: the best Thai restaurant in North America. Since every member of the crew was fatigued either from a four hour drive or a 5:00 am flight, we spent an hour sprawled across our hotel rooms before making a trek through paved desert winds to a stuccoed oasis of curried delight.

Tucked into a gargantuan plot of faceless asphalt in the northeast corner of the Vegas Strip area, Lotus of Siam has been attracting Thai food pilgrims for years. The calm that ensconces the nondescript strip mall building and the unassuming decor within provide a stark contrast to the unceasing, unblinking movement of Las Vegas Boulevard. Like every great Thai restaurant I’ve had the pleasure of visiting, Lotus of Siam makes no attempt to distract its diners from the brilliance of its food. There is the confusing exception of a middling lunch buffet in the center of the dining room, but I suppose anyone who walks through these doors worried more about the buck than the bang deserves all the steam trays this city has to offer.

Lotus of Siam’s humble design, also like that of every great Thai restaurant, betrays the wonderfully shocking flavors of its dishes. One spoonful of head chef Saipin Chutima’s Nam Kao Tod doesn’t begin to do justice to the word. Explained modestly as “minced sour sausage mixed with green onion, fresh chili, ginger, peanuts, crispy rice and lime juice,” this appetizer delivers time-bending ripples of spice, salt and citrus over a constantly changing landscape of fresh ingredients. In seconds the relative stillness of isolation from the Strip is swept aside, replaced by a flood of sensory input that puts the “b” in “subtle.”

A similarly taste bud scattering experience can be found in the restaurant’s rendition of Thum Ka-Noon, a “local” dish made of shredded jackfruit, ground pork, tomato, and a plethora of minced and blended spices from the North of Thailand. The softer texture of this dish makes it a tame counterpart to the fireworks show of the Nam Kao Tod, but the Thum Ka-Noon is no less sophisticated in its parsed delivery of myriad flavor.

Illustrating the diversity of the menu, Lotus of Siam’s northern red curry eschews the coconut milk of central and south Thai dishes for an unforgiving intensity. Without the cushion of the richness and sweetness that is typical of Thai dishes in America, this vegetable heavy blend relies on the freshness of its ingredients and the purity of its spices more than anything else on the table. At a spice level of eight, it attains a steadily blistering burn while retaining the feeling of refreshment that comes with the snap of a good green bean and the muted crunch of a perfectly simmered cabbage leaf.

On a more familiar front, duck curry, a staple gem of Thai restaurants, makes an appearance here to put its understudies to shame. Starting with an exceptionally lean cut of duck and a bold red curry base, Lotus of Siam’s roasted duck curry avoids the twin perils of fatty, self-contented meat and timid, hyper-rich sauce. Chutima cuts the curry with a restrained touch of coconut milk, then spikes the dish with a creative mix of pineapples, bell pepper, cherry tomato, basil and red grapes, doing so in a way that preserves the distinct contribution of each garnish as it adds its note of sweetness to the savory composition.

Outdoing both of these dishes, however, is Lotus of Siam’s Khao Soi, a northern red curry that unapologetically wraps itself deeply in coconut cream. This alfredo-like blend is then folded over a heap of boiled egg noodles, garnished with a sparing amount of onion, lime and cilantro, and topped with a second helping of egg noodles, this time deep fried. Mixing the fried noodles with the rest of the dish before eating unlocks an addictively unpredictable combination of textures, again preventing the diner from settling too easily into any single sensation before the next turn of the palate is reached.

In comparison to the dizzying array of spices that populates the menu, Lotus of Siam’s whole fried catfish turns out to be one of the milder, if more exotically presented, dishes the restaurant has to offer. Plar Dook O-Cha, which arranges the golden brown fish on a bed of cabbage, peanuts, cashews, and thin slices of fresh green apple, turns what could be the fiercest of dinner platters into a surprisingly light piece de resistance. Chunks of catfish break away perfectly from the body, and the almost non-existent seasoning of the meat is complemented perfectly by naturally light touches of fruit, vegetable and nut. Yet another synergistic peak of stimulation is achieved when crunch collapses into tenderness and you’re left to wonder where the untouched constituents of your mouth have been hiding all these years.

We stepped out of Lotus of Siam in a complete daze and headed back toward the Strip. Having ceded complete control of our most primal appetence for the day, we caught a cab heading east to indulge our remaining senses in a feast of entertainment.

The Pinball Hall of Fame has been standing at the corner of Tropicana and Pecos for less than three years. Featuring over 200 games, including modern wonders, drop dead cool classics, and noble experiments, it has already established itself as a bastion of bells and whistles unlike any other in the world. In addition to three full aisles of historic pinball machines, the museum also houses a row of classic arcade games and a classic arcade simulator that includes over twenty games for 25 cents a play. It was at this machine that I finally reached level three of Burger Time. I went on to set the day’s high score for Ms. Pac-Man, cheered on by a rapt six-year old girl who proudly announced my conquest of each level; that is, until she inexplicably realized the absurdity of my mastery of 8-bit timing, cavalierly declared, “I’m never going to be a man!” and stormed off, never to be seen again.

After a few drinks at the sports bar next door, the bookhouse boys and I caught a bus to the bottom of the Strip and strolled along three miles of the most morally contradictory distractions gathered in one place. As we set out from the chivalrous spires of Excalibur and passed a charmingly displaced reconstitution of the Brooklyn Bridge, a row of immigrant workers shoved handfuls of escort trading cards into our hands, promising girls in our hotel room in 20 minutes or less. A young couple passed by, strolling their newborn babe under the eyes in the sky and sipping on $1 frozen margaritas in plastic cups. Every building sported an untold number of faces. Every which way led to an ornately carpeted chamber of vice installed in the graces of family friendly frivolity, and every flat surface surrendered one of its corners to an ashtray. In the twilight city, the devil has lungs to spare, and we had only taken our first deep drag of disorientation.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.