My first visit to Vegas was solely for gambling with college buddies. Our finest meal was at P.F. Chang’s. Make your own lettuce cups!

I’ve been for a few software conferences. Buffets of cold cuts abound during the day, but I occasionally struck a free meal at Joe’s Stone Crabs or Il Mulino. Mind you, there are amazing chilled crab claws with tangy mustard sauce at Joe’s, and Il Mulino offers wonderful langoustines and an impossibly crisp veal Milanesa, but I was only scratching the cutting board when it came to this town.

Though it’s nearly impossible to find a restaurant which doesn’t reek of schtick, that doesn’t plaster the celebrity chef name all over the decor, once you shrug off the cloak of shill, you realize some of the top cuisine in the country brews in Vegas.

Think about it. Las Vegas has everything the culinary biosphere needs to survive, which in turn attracts some of the chefs from around the country who desire to learn in kitchens practically devoid of a budget. Vegas has plenty of space, desirable locale, famous people, investors, and most importantly – people willing to part with the green on a scale which is scary and foreign.

For example, a generous (to understate it) friend ordered a $900 bottle of Champagne off the list at Michael Mina’s Stripsteak on our second evening. The sommelier cooly looked off across the restaurant, ”I just sold one to a table over there; that’s the last bottle of that.” There are few places in the world where this is ‘normal’.

The trip was fantastic, though it’s almost embarrassing how well we ate. Almost. So now I share my photos with the internet. May they influence and guide you on your next trip to the greasy LV. (Or incite you will jealousy and rage. Whatever.) Click the name of each restaurant below for the full Flickr set.  

Our first meal was at L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon (website), the French “Chef of the Century’s” workshop style (open kitchen, bar seating) restaurant of which there are a few outposts worldwide. We opted to select three menu items each and share, rather than tackle the full tasting menu. While I wouldn’t put it in my top meals of all time or any outrageous claim like that (and it is priced as if it should be), it was fantastic. Some real home runs (like the wondrous scallop with uni below), stunning wines, and a cool ambience/view of the kitchen. Though my ass and back hurt the entire time in their simple bar seats.

Desserts were of note. The white chocolate, a perfect sphere which melts open as hot raspberry liquid is poured over, was a crowd pleaser. We of course tried Robuchon’s famous mashed potatoes (more butter than potato, too much for me really), and the guilt-laden and well-sized foie gras and Kobe sliders were so damn satisfying; just the right size too. I highly recommend L’Atelier. It’s just a fun spot, some great food, and with impeccable service.

Still full after a few hours of restless sleep (a theme which developed), our lunch the next day was at Lotus of Siam (website), which I’ll dub the “Thai, Riesling-Heavy Bern’s“. Meaning, the wine list is great, relatively cheap, and the place is a lot of fun.

I told one of the blackjack dealers about Lotus, and explained the riesling list. She wrinkled her nose and expressed her displeasure for the varietal. More for me. I guess she probably won’t try these crispy shrimp, with fried shrimp shell “chips” either.

Oh, dinner again so soon? Let’s hit up Stripsteak (website), Michael Mina’s take on the “classic” steak house featuring slow butter poached steaks and riffs on favorites like red onion rings with tomato powder. But what better way to start than Iranian caviar and all the fixin’s? Look how marvelous and perfectly delineated each of those little Osetra eggs are!

My steak was an 8oz, $67 cut off the Wagyu ribeye – a cross section slice of the primal so the steak is comprised of only the tender, fatty cap. Sinfully rich, this buttery beauty was the best steak I never want to have again. It was so rich, one person in our party could only finish half of hers. Four ounces.

Day 3. “Oh my god we have to eat dumplings now”, I think to myself as I wipe the meat sweats from my brow while walking into the impressive Cosmopolitan to dine at China Poblano (website), the subversive amalgamation of Chinese and Mexican from famed chef Jose Andres. Walk in and notice the ladies on your left making the dim sum. But glance to the right and see the short Hispanic women cooking thin corn tortillas on a flat top. It’s so, um, authentic?

While we had a couple of very, very poor dumpling dishes, and I found the Mexican dishes to be stronger overall, I could eat the Sichuan lamb dumplings all day.

And the twenty vegetable fried rice was a show stopper for both vegetarian and flesh-sinners alike.

Even for me, the squishy beef tendon with kumamoto oyster taco was too much, but it’s a flavor I won’t soon forget.

Phew, one more dinner. Oh we’re early? Let’s have a snack and some killer Spanish white wine next door at Julian Serrano (website). I loved the fava beans, but they weren’t nearly as picturesque as the black rice with squid below. All four of the dishes were quite well done, great for sharing, classic Spanish flavors, too bad we moved on to…

Sage (website). Expectations were high. Numerous awards were on display, and people had really talked up this place in the super cool Aria hotel. I was into day four of perma-full so I just ordered a few appetizers. This big eye tuna below had a lot going on. Anchovies, orbs and powders of “stuff”, and olives and baby artichokes and probably a bunch of other things that didn’t work together. It was just too much. I couldn’t taste the fish. I found the flavors and textures to be weird and distracting. I’m all for experimentation but this was a miss. By the end of the dish I was wondering if Bar Masa (next door) would bring me a few pieces of nigiri to right my raw fish ship.

Next up was venison carpaccio (not photographed). Again, they dumped all sorts of shit all over it, including large lumps of pureed pears which may as well have been apple sauce. Pass.

Last up, a farm egg with a smoked potato puree and truffles. The flavors were good but I didn’t like the texture of the grainy potato, and the truffles were weak. They loved the truffles at Sage, I saw it on a number of dishes. But they weren’t super fragrant or flavorful; all hat and no cattle. Once you have sampled awesome white alba truffles it’s tough to go back. Oh, excuse me, didn’t mean to hit your face with my snob.

*photos from Sage and Julian Serrano by @atl_legend

And finally (are you still reading? really?) we had brunch at Mesa Grill (website) before departing back to Atlanta. It was brunch, so no need to be hyper critical, but it hit the spot. Sauces, eggs, tortillas, and cheese abound. What’s not to like? The Mesa Grill burger was actually damn good. Though that didn’t stop us from getting some In-And-Out burgers for the ride to the airport.

I went to the doctor after I got home for a shoulder injury, where they weigh me at the start of each visit. Yep, gained six pounds.

So this is fantastic. A restaurant in Atlanta featuring dishes with punny rap names? I hope this is real. Personal favorites include the Wu Tang Clams and Snoop Doggy Corn Dogs, which of course is “4 fresh fried corndoggs that ain’t leavin til six in the mornin. So what you wanna do?”.

On another note, I’ve been eating Las Vegas for the last 48 hours and it’s nuts here. So much good food. You know the fatty cap side of a ribeye steak which many people love? In Vegas, for $60 and a little piece of your soul, they’ll make you a Kobe ribeye steak that is a cross cut of JUST THAT PIECE. Ridiculous.

I have some friends that have introduced me to Bryan’s Fine Foods, a purveyor of excellent beef, run by a Mr. Bryan Flannery. This introduction could be considered a fortunate food find, or perhaps a curse.

Because the beef is probably the highest quality steak I’ve ever encountered. So unsurprisingly, by weight, it is the most expensive beef I’ve ever purchased. I’m talking ground beef that is $10 a pound, hangers that are $20 a lb, and get ready, Prime New York strips steaks that come in at a whopping $56 a pound. Not including shipping. Insane, right?

It is, and I don’t plan on buying this beef often (can’t afford to really), but damn it’s a nice treat a few times a year. The steak is far superior to the beef in Atlanta’s finest steak houses – they couldn’t charge what it would take to make a profit on this beef. And once you consider a restaurant’s markup on the food and wine, it’s still cheaper to stay home and pay this seemingly outrageous price.

The first Flannery product I purchased is the hanger steak pictured above (photo by Rowdyfood.com). Dollar for dollar, I think this the best value in the Flannery arsenal. The hangers used to be knows as the “butcher’s tenderloin” due to the fact that they weren’t very marketable and the butcher often kept this wonderful cut for themselves, but are more sought after these days. Still, they don’t command the crazy prices of tenderloin, ribeye, strip steak, and the like. Based on a tip from The Legend, I used a marinade of olive oil, soy sauce, lime juice, confit garlic cloves, and sriracha. Did you know that by definition a marinade should include an acid? The acid helps the meat absorb the flavor, though you are limited in the time you should marinade as the acid “cooks” the beef like a ceviche, and the exterior of the beef could become mushy if you marinade for too long (2+ days depending on the amount of acid).

Anyways, the hanger is easy to cook and packs intense steak flavor with a high surface crust to inner steak bite ratio (know what I mean?); it was as good as any prime steak I’ve had in a restaurant in Atlanta, for half the price.

Next up (and sorry, this post is long) is Bryan’s “Flat Out Crazy” burger blend. 25% Wagyu shortrib, 25% Wagyu chuck, 25% Choice shortrib, and 25% prime brisket fat blend. The burger comes in at a whopping 26% fat. Check out the color of the beef. Insane!

I’ve tried cooking these burgers a few ways. First, I made a medium sized, well formed patty seasoned with salt and pepper.

Not too bad looking, and on Publix buns, which are not too shabby either.

This one was pan cooked for only a couple of minutes each side. It’s definitely closer to raw than medium rare. It was mushy and barely warm in the center, which is a little rarer than I prefer. It was easy to taste that this was high quality beef though.

The next time I wanted to go for a looser texture, so I crumbled the beef, and seasoned while it was crumbled.

Then I pushed the beef together to create as loose of a patty as possible, and cooked it in the oven at 275F. It looked like this, kinda gross looking, huh?

Meanwhile I heated a small cast iron skillet as hot as it would go, and seared for a minute on each side.

The burger actually overcooked, I really need an oven thermometer that I can leave in the beef with an external display. I just purchased one from Thermoworks for about $20. The great part is, this burger is so fatty, it’s forgiving at medium/medium-well temperatures. It’s still plenty juicy, as you can see from the plate below. The biggest downside is also that this burger is so fatty – after each burger my mouth felt like it had a lining of butter in it for a few hours. I wouldn’t buy this blend again, but I’m definitely interested in making my own blend on the Flannery burger page.

Here’s another pan cooked attempt, more Publix rolls, this time French.

I got a slightly better result this time, it’s medium rare in very center, but closer to medium well on the edges.

Finally, I cooked the NY strip the other night. I let the steak rest at room temp for thirty minutes, seasoned with salt and pepper, and seared it in cast iron with duck fat on high for about 3 minutes each side. Then I flipped it again, one minute each side. Finally, I finished it in the oven at 325 for 10 minutes. I checked it after 5 minutes in the oven and the center was at 98F. When I checked it again in another five minutes, the damn thing was at almost 140F, which is medium. Shit. I’m big enough to admit that I overcooked this steak, but thankfully only slightly, and it tasted fantastic. The fat has so much flavor, and isn’t the least bit chewy. It basically melted into the amazing tasting beef, which I topped with fried thyme and roasted garlic and shallot.

The Key West space has been much improved, creating a more open feeling in the front dining room. The bar in the back looks nice too and has a few tables in the surrounding area. In general, I like it more than the old location.

The menu is the same as far as I can tell. I ordered a steak with chimichurri for $12. The flank steak had deep knife scores across the width, relaxing the connective tissue and allowing the seasonings to penetrate the tougher cut of meat. It was served over a bed of fries, but also came with two sides. It was served with a scallion and garlic heavy chimichurri sauce that was too oily and just ok. I prefer more cilantro and parsley. For $12 I thought it an oustanding value, and I really enjoyed the steak.

I’m hesitant to post this god awful picture, but here ya go.

Hope everyone had a nice holiday. I’m still in Greenville, where we’ve had a bit of snow. I’m about to hit the road back to Atlanta, so hopefully it’s not too bad out there on the roads. Though we didn’t wake up to snow on Christmas morning, it contributed to a nice afternoon/evening with family.

One new tradition that my family picked up from my brother’s in-laws is having a country ham. The super salty ham is soaked for a few days in water to remove excess salt, warmed in the oven, then the fat is scored and seared. From then on, the cured ham stays on the counter for days for anyone to slice off a snack; sort of a Christmas yule log, but pork.

Wines and other drinks were had (understatement). This $35 pinot based Grower champagne was a solid value, especially for decent farmer fizz.

My father pulled a few wines with some age, including this Cab Franc from Virginia. Considering it’s 9 years old, only 11% alcohol, and from the East Coast, I was amazed at how well this was drinking. Eye opening.

The Cos D’Estournel Bordeaux may have been my wine of the night though, really good stuff. I don’t invest in Bordeaux much, but having a high caliber one with some age quickly reminds me why these wines are sought after. I love the subtly and balance.

I made pommes anna to go along with dinner. The ingredient list is this: potato, salt, butter. Slice thin, layer, cook in a cast iron skillet for 60-70 minutes then invert the pan. Super easy and the presentation is great.

My mom decided to make Beef Wellington, which she had never tried before, as the main dish of our Christmas dinner. The beef stock, madeira sauce, and the chicken liver pate/duxelles filling were all made from scratch. Helping her out in the kitchen is becoming one of my favorite holiday traditions. With the work that went into this, I was very happy to see that the dish was executed to perfection. As you can see below, it was cooked to exactly the desired temp, the puff pastry stayed crisp, and the rich flavor of the sauce and filling with the beef was a real treat.

The holidays give us a few days to get ambitious in the kitchen, I hope all of you that enjoy cooking got to have some fun with food and family.

A generous friend of mine recently gave me some beef to try, a Flannery filet tip (or tail, the narrow end of the filet). I wish I had taken a picture of the steak before cooking it; the beef had a deep red (almost burgundy) color, and evenly distributed thin lines of marbling. Even the aroma of the raw beef was rich and game-like.

I’m usually a medium-rare kinda of guy, but decided such high quality beef should not be abused. I seared it in a hot grill pan for two minutes a side, so it was just warm in the center.

What do you think? Is that too rare for you?

The flavor was amazing, if not intoxicating. A real treat. Mr. Bryan Flannery will be hearing from me soon. Damnit.

Served with split, cast iron roasted carrots and Logan Turnpike grits.

Back to the story at hand; I wanted to cook a steak dinner for some friends, so I made the excursion to Costco to peruse my options. There was indeed prime strip steaks for $10/lb, but what caught my eye was the whole primal for $7.99/lb. I realize it’s a little more effort to butcher my own steaks, but I considered it a cost savings and a learning experience. It was $79 for almost 10lbs. I strapped that baby in and was on my way.

FYI – They also had prime ribeye primals for a couple of dollars per pound more.

Here it is, ready to be broken down. There are plenty of good videos on YouTube that can show you how to do it. NY Strip is fairly easy.

There was a fair amount of fat, well over a pound, which does cut into the cost savings. But of course, the fat is saved to be rendered.

I ended up with 12 steaks, 6 of which I cooked that night. The others were wrapped tightly and frozen. Individual steak cost – $6.54

I didn’t get any good photos of the prepared steaks that night, because once I get going with the final push in the kitchen, I don’t have a lot of time to snap photos. I did enjoy this aftermath photo though.

The next day I took some leftovers, warmed it up in a pan, sliced it very thin, then topped it with veal demiglace/red wine butter.

I’ve made a few prime burgers out of the frozen steaks. The trimmings (the hard/clean/white fat) can be used for additional fat content in the burger if it’s too lean.

I definitely recommend this purchase. It’s not the best prime beef I’ve had by any means, but you can’t beat this value.

And now, as if this post wasn’t long enough, here are some wine pictures from that evening. Some incredibly informative descriptors from these bottles are: bubbly, wet, crisp, jammy, earthy, young, acidic, flabby, zingy, value-play, caramel, toast, and austere. You figure out which ones belong with which.

One thing I love about Christmas is our family traditions. For instances, Christmas morning we always follow the same protocol. As soon as we get up and we’re ready to open up gifts, the breakfast egg/sausage/cheese casserole goes in the oven, and we start opening up presents. We set a kitchen timer, and when the alarm goes off, this marks the gift opening interlude. We head to the kitchen for a quick bite, then we go back to the tree and continue with the gifts.

The great thing about these breakfast casseroles are that you can prepare them the night before, so there’s no cooking Christmas morning. It pairs fabulously with mimosas. Here’s a Mexican version from Emeril that I’ve had a few times, and is very good. 

Jumping backwards to Christmas eve dinner, my mom made her baked clams. Butter, breaded clam goodness, I think I could eat a dozen of these as a starter. Even before I loved seafood, these have always been a “mom favorite” of mine.

This year we had a special dish for Christmas Eve – cassoulet. My mom spent days sourcing the ingredients and preparing the duck confit, following the Les Halles method of preparation.

It’s not a cheap dish to prepare from scratch, but if you want to cut down on costs and time, you can order the D’Artagnan kit. It was awesome. Duck fat, pork belly, garlic sausage, and Tarbais white bean goodness.

We paired this with the ‘03 Domaine Bois De Boursan Chateaunuef du Pape. This wine was still extremely astringent, but with tons of fruit, and a looooong finish. I saved a glass and it continued to get a bit smoother and more intriguing as the night went on.

We also sipped on this Windy Oaks Pinot Noir that evening. Pure California Pinot, it had the overt jammy ripeness of a quality California Pinot, but with enough dirt to make it interesting to me.

Over the holiday my parents also soaked a cured country ham over a few days (changing the water multiple times to remove the excess salt), then roasted it to finish it. We were gnawing on this bad boy the entire holiday.

With Christmas day dinner I made the Ad Hoc at Home celery root with melted onions, a dish that I’ve tried twice now. It’s extremely rich (don’t ask how much butter is in it), but it’s a nice accompaniment with red meat, and a welcome change from the normal starch side dishes. I haven’t cooked with celery root until recently, and I love the aromas when it’s cooking. Celery root needs to be added to your repertoire if it isn’t already.

The last few years we’ve done an herb crusted New York strip roast for Christmas dinner. It’s not an inexpensive cut of meat, but it’s super easy and elegant at the center of the table.

With dinner we had a magnum of ‘02 Trespass Cab. Delicious California juice that went perfectly with the New York strip roast.

What are your family cooking traditions for the holidays?

This past weekend I was in Tampa for the ACC Championship game between Georgia Tech and Clemson. Well, that’s a fib. I was in Tampa for the Georgia Tech game, but I’m not sure that I would have driven seven and a half hours each way for a weekend if I didn’t also have a reservation at Bern’s on Friday night.

If you are unfamiliar with Bern’s, here’s the four things you need to know:

• Bern’s has been around since the late 1950’s.
• They have over one million bottles of wine in their cellars.
• Many of these bottles have been mostly untouched since they were purchased on release.
• Bern’s charges a very fair price for their wines

Oh they have food too. In fact, they trim their dry aged prime beef to order, but I’m almost unable to recall what I ate, because I was in a stupor over the juice. We drank some crazy White Burg, a Rhone almost as old as my father, and some Vouvray dessert wine in the Harry Waugh room.

You may be wondering, hey, how many of there were you drinking all these wines? Only two of us, but the trick was that we took wine home, something I’ve only done once prior. I wasn’t exactly sure if this was going to be an option in Florida, because wine laws vary greatly by state. I tried looking it up, and found some info on www.winedoggybag.com, but I’m skeptical of trusting open container law definition by someone who is trying to sell their wares (“no occifer, it’s ok, I read it online”). Once at the restaurant, I was assured that I could take the wine home, and they re-corked and packaged up the partially drank wines for me nicely. And I drove home after our 4 hour marathon meal, safely.

Last year I remember reading that Georgia now allows consumers to remove opened bottles of wine from restaurants, the so called “Merlot to Go” law (aka Senate Bill 55). But I wasn’t sure what the specific rules are for this law.

Section 3-6-4 of Senate bill 55 defines the rules as such:

Notwithstanding any other contrary provision of law, any restaurant which is licensed to sell alcoholic beverages for consumption on the premises may permit a patron to remove one unsealed bottle of wine per patron for consumption off premises, if the patron has purchased a meal and consumed a portion of the bottle of wine which has been purchased on the premises with such meal on the restaurant´s premises. A partially consumed bottle of wine that is to be removed from the premises must be securely resealed by the licensee or its employees before removal from the premises. The partially consumed bottle of wine shall be placed in a bag or other container that is secured in such a manner that it is visibly apparent if the container has been subsequently opened or tampered with, and a dated receipt for the bottle of wine and meal shall be provided by the licensee and attached to the container. If transported in a motor vehicle, the container with the resealed bottle of wine shall be placed in a locked glove compartment, a locked trunk, or the area behind the last upright seat of a motor vehicle that is not equipped with a trunk.

So there you have it, right? Well, maybe.

You’re safest option is calling the venue before you go to make sure they’re comfortable allowing you to take wine home from their restaurant. I called Woodfire Grill today and when I asked the person who answered if I could bring wine home he said, “well…good question”, then promptly got back to me and assured me it would not be a problem.

The best part about bringing your wine home is that you can enjoy them the next day, perhaps they will continue to develop, and you then while you tailgate prior to your sweet, sweet ACC Championship victory.

Go Jackets.

Chimichurri has been on my “to-make” list for a couple of months, so I immediately knew I wanted to do something with that. I found a lot of variety in different recipes, but I ended up going with this recipe because it had some heat and also made use of mint, which is sometimes omitted.

This recipe couldn’t be easier. It took 5 minutes using the food processor, and it is killer stuff. As my eloquent father says, “I think you could put chimichurri on dog shit and it would taste good.”

For the beef, I bought a flank steak and a hangar steak at Whole Foods. The flank steak was $13/lb and the hangar steak was $8/lb, and knowing what I know now, I’ll buy the hangar steak over the flank every time. It’s not as pretty (not the fat line that runs down the middle), but in addition to being much less expensive, it is much thicker with better marbling, making for a much juicier, tender, and overall enjoyable steak.

I used some of the chimichurri + additional olive oil as a marinade for the steaks, but I also rehydrated some ancho chiles (dried poblanos) and seeded and chopped those and threw them into the mix. Who knows if it made any difference, but now I can call these “Ancho Chili Chimichurri Hangar Steaks”, which sounds more impressive. That’s what we’re really going for, right?

I let the meat hang out in the marinade for a couple hours.

Then I moved on to this recipe I found for Indian kabobs. I wanted to find some sort of recipe that I could match up with the spicy yogurt that I used in the Indian BBQ potato recipe, but use the yogurt as a dipping sauce.

I couldn’t find Indian ginger paste, so I ground up a mixture of ginger, garlic, and salt until it was almost a paste. Also, for the green chile paste, I couldn’t find an Indian varietal, so I used Thai green curry paste as a substitute.

There were a lot of onions in the mixture, I would cut the amount down by 25% or so next time. The excess of onions caused a few of the kabobs to fall apart as I tried to form them around the skewers.

The yogurt dipping sauce is as easy as the chimichurri, and man it’s good.

The picture below is very poor, and it isn’t the most elegant looking dish, but don’t let that deter you because these were fantastic. People kept asking me for the recipe, I felt kinda stupid saying that it was just the first recipe that comes up when you Google “Indian kabobs”. The dipping sauce goes well with kabobs, especially since these had a bit of heat on them as I used my crazy hot cayenne.

Broderick took this photo of the hangar steak. I wish my photos captured how good something was as his photos do.