Enoteca San Marco; The Venetian, Las Vegas

Why did Jay and Bendy Cross Las Vegas Boulevard? Formaggi ... Edam Up, Yum; They're Gouda!!!

It is no mean feat to plan a seven-day pilgrimage to a mecca of fine dining - it's a perilous high-wire balancing act that must take into consideration Jay's "I'll try anything once" adventurous palate along with my more cautious "I hope this doesn't make my colon explode" approach to dining. Add to that the singular necessity of visiting at least one establishment daily in order to satisfy my artisan cheese cravings and, well .... you begin to understand how daunting a task I had set for myself. And the first day of our trip wasn't going to allow many cheese chances, which is how I backed into a reservation at Enoteca San Marco, an Italian restaurant located on the Venetian's indoor piazza that is owned in partnership by Mario Batali and Joe Bastianich.

Now, to be totally honest, I could give two squirts of the ol' cheese cloth that Mario Batali is in some way, shape, or form involved with this restaurant. He seems like a decent enough guy based on what I've seen of him on Iron Chef America, but he's always reminded me of a very hairy, large orange with legs and I don't like oranges. But from what I understand Mario doesn't really like food bloggers, so I guess we're even!

Anyhoo, this restaurant is located on the third floor of the Venetian hotel in the Canal shopping area. You'll know you've made it to the right place when you spot Enoteca's meat and cheese curing tower rising above everything else in the area. During lunch the restaurant primarily utilizes "outdoor" seating and then in the evenings they open up the more formal and very dark dining room. There is definitely some charm to eating out on the piazza, but I also think it gets really annoying really fast when every thirty minutes or so a wandering troupe of heavily made-up street performers delivers a shrieking operetta performance in Dolby stereo. Not only did my eardrums feel like they were going to start spouting blood, but the singing made conversation impossible during the ten minute show. And we were interested in conversation because we were sharing the meal with our friend Catherine and her parents, who I must say were just about the coolest parental unit we've come across in a long, long time!

It's like night and day!


You can banish me to the meat and cheese tower whenever you like!


An outdoor bar is better than no bar at all.


The first order of business after we were seated was to order some drinks. I don't recall the name of Catherine's drink but she picked the clear winner and seemed to enjoy it quite a bit.

Catherine's mystery martini


Now I do I remember the name of the drink I chose and I can also recall just how truly bad it tasted. I should have known better when I saw that grapefruit juice was part of the mix, but I thought the prosecco would offset it and I wanted to try some new drinks while on vacation. Sadly, I ended up with a very bitter, almost unpalatable drink and I'm going on record right now for those of you who may see it on the drink menu and be tempted like I was: DO NOT ORDER THE MASERATI!!

Even on my worst days I'm not this bitter ...


Jay, as is often the case, was the more intelligent of the two of us when it came to alcohol and he stuck with wine - a nice, hearty red that paired well with our cheese and meat platters.

The big draw for me was Enoteca's "build your own cheese plate" appetizer option: three cheeses for $14; five cheeses for $17; and seven cheeses for $21. It goes without saying that we selected the seven-cheese option and then had to choose from among the following: Burrata; Ricotta; Caprino; Mozzarella; Robiola Bosina; Scimudin; Asiago; Baita Friuli; Toma Brusca; Pecorino; and Parmigiano Reggiano. Once we'd placed our order the serving team came back with these little yummies to enhance our cheesie enjoyment - fresh honey, tart cherries in syrup, and pickled, peppered apricots.

Dip, or don't dip ... it's immaterial to me!


The bad thing about not having a receipt is that I'm not sure about all the cheeses we selected. A shameful lapse of foresight on our part, but there's nothing I can do about it now, so let's play a guessing game! In the picture below there is Robiola, Parmigiano, Pecorino, Asiago, Caprino, Burrata, and a mystery cheese that looked and felt like a wad of sticky silicone caulk. There wasn't much in the way of new cheesees for us other than the Caprino, which was a tangy, young goat cheese, and the silicone wad, which reminded me of a high school science experiment gone horribly wrong. My personal favorites were the parmigiano (needed some aged balsamic) and the robiola (needed some fresh bread).

Please cheese me!


Jay ordered a crock of mixed, marinated olives ... oh, the horror!! I don't eat olives but Jay liked them; he said they were "good and pitt-ey."

Bowl of bleh...


And to round things off, he also ordered the Grande Carne Tasting platter, which was a plate of five sliced, cured meats: Prosciutto di Parma, Mortadella, Cotto, Salumi, and Testa.

There is no cure!!


I wasn't crazy about most of these ... too salty for my taste, although the prosciutto was quite good. Jay said it was alright - about what you'd expect for cured meat and worth ordering once but not good enough for a repeat performance.

We'd like to pay Enoteca another visit some day and order some of their pasta dishes, which looked quite appealing. They also had some darn fine homemade gelato - Catherine ordered a dish of cinnamon oatmeal gelato and it was unbelievably tasty. Overall I was pleased with the restaurant; we received good service, the menu offered a nice variety of Italian dishes, and they provided a satisfying cheese plate that would hold up well against the parade of fromage to come during the rest of our vacation.

Retro Bakery, Las Vegas

Oh, Sweet Mystery of Life at Last We've Found You ...

Jay and I are not big cupcake eaters. We do enjoy a tasty cupcake now and then, but it's not our sweet treat of choice and I certainly had no intention of ordering any for the man's birthday while we were in Vegas. And then one of our internet friendies sent me a link to this bakery ... not only has she partaken of their cupcakey goodness but she knows the people who own the bakery ... and she swore upside down and inside out that we'd never had a cupcake like the ones they make at Retro Bakery.

Initially I was skeptical, but then photo after delicious photo of their cupcakes appeared before me along with the most drool-inducing product descriptions I've ever read: Salted Caramel Crunch; Chocolate Fountain; Coffee and Donuts. That's all it took - I was on the phone, credit card in hand, faster than you can say sugar high with a side order of tooth decay.

I ordered one dozen cupcakes to celebrate Jay's birthday and satisfy my gut worm: Peanut Butter Cup (2); Chocolate Fountain (2); Cookies & Milk (2); Coffee & Donuts (2); Maple Bacon (2); Salted Caramel Crunch (1); and Chocolate Covered Banana (1). We paid $30 for the dozen plus another $20 for the delivery fee and while that initially might seem like a steep price for cupcakes, my friends I'm here to tell you that these were worth every every cent. The cakes were moist and tasty, and the buttercream - dreamy, calorie-laden, artery-clogging buttercream - was light and sweet with incredible flavor. To sum it up allow me to quote my dearest hubba, "these cupcakes tasted exactly like what they were supposed to taste like."

Who are you calling cupcake?


Although Jay's birthday treat was delivered to our hotel late on Thursday afternoon, we didn't bust into them immediately because we were leaving for the Bradley Ogden signature dinner over at Sleazer's Palace. Friday morning, once we had our coffee in hand, we started on the cupcake love. They were everything we'd been told they would be and more!

Coffee and Donuts


This was a wonderful choice to start the morning: vanilla cupcake dipped in donut glaze and topped with coffee flavored buttercream. The cupcake was like a dense cake donut that had been coated with sweet glaze, but it was the buttercream that took this from really good to nirvana. It was sheer creamy, coffee-infused joy and I wish I was eating one right now!

Chocolate Covered Banana


The chocolate banana cupcake was specifically for Jay. I've said it before and I will say it again: the only way I enjoy bananas for dessert is when they are doused with rum, set on fiyah, and called Foster. Jay really enjoyed this one which was a deep chocolate cupcake topped with banana flavored butter cream and then dipped in dark chocolate ganache; he said it was like eating dark chocolate banana cream pie.

Cookies & Milk


My second choice for the morning was cookies and milk: a luscious chocolate chip cupcake covered in vanilla buttercream topped off with a chockie-chip cookie that would melt Cookie Monster's furry blue heart. Like the others, this cupcake was incredibly moist and flavorful. The cookie was the happy surprise with this selection - slightly doughy and bursting with chips, it was just plain delicious!

Salted Caramel Crunch


A little cupcake goes a long way, so we had more than enough to hold us through our stay. In the picture above you see the Salted Caramel Crunch which was my personal favorite of all the cupcakes we tried. Jay and I split this treat one afternoon and it was wonderful - a sticky, decadent dark chocolate pillow of joy topped with caramel flavored buttercream and then drizzled with caramel and sea salt. It was so good that it rendered us incoherent. All we could do was lick our fingers and nod approvingly at each other while saying, "Nom ... ummmm .... oooooh ... yum ... burp!"

Chocolate Fountain


As the weekend was nearing its end we were celebrating Jay's upcoming 40th with Frank and Fran - we had brought our remaining cupcakes to share with them and finally took a bite out of the chocolate fountain cupcake, which I like to call death by chocolate. It needs no detailed exposition - chocolate cupcake, chocolate buttercream, and chocolate ganache pretty well sums it up, don't you think?

Maple Bacon


We also tried the maple bacon and here I have to admit that I just wasn't crazy about the flavor combination, which surprised me because I normally love bacon when it's married with something sweet. It ended up being saltier than I expected and I just didn't care for it. Jay seemed to like it a little more than I did, but also agreed that the other cupcakes were much better.

I'm somewhat embarrassed to admit that we neglected to try the peanut butter cup, which is a horrifying and inexcusable lapse of food love on our part. We adore peanut butter and chocolate combinations and I am positive that Jay and I would have been really pleased with a chocolate cupcake topped with peanut butter flavored buttercream, but we were stuffed full of birthday cake and just couldn't eat another bite. We left them behind where I'm sure they found a good home.

You could do a lot worse than to place an order with Retro Bakery the next time you're in Vegas, whether you have a reason to celebrate or not. They provided great service along with a wonderful product that was as fun as it was delicious. I've included a link to their website so that you can check them out in greater detail should the spirit move you. And a special thanks to Kelli who made the recommendation in the first place and was absolutely correct - best cupcakes evah!

Retro Bakery:
http://www.retrobakerylv.com/about.html

Stripsteak; Mandalay Bay, Las Vegas

And Now a Reading from the Stripsteak Scotch Bible ... Tonight's Lesson: Blended Scotch is Crap.

I could bore you with all kinds of reasons as to why we ended up at Stripsteak on Friday evening: it was in the same hotel as the restaurant we had dinner reservations at (true, dat); we were meeting a friend for drinks in their lounge (we do have some friends); the sweet siren song of Michael Mina's duck fat fries floated down Las Vegas Boulevard and we were helpless before it (resistance is futile); but the truth of the matter is we went to the restaurant primarily for scotch. Stripsteak doesn't just have a selection of single malt scotch to choose from ... it has a Scotch Bible.

Yeah; that's right ... a Scotch Bible with fifty pages of featured single malt joy ranging in price from reasonable to downright obscene. Once I passed this nugget of information along to my hubba it was a foregone conclusion that we would find a way to visit Stripsteak so that he could worship at the altar of the West Highlands ... or the Lowlands ... or Speyside.

To document our pilgrimage we first snapped the obligatory self-portrait ... don't you just love that Vegas strip view behind us? Our room at the Encore was amazing, but I will wax long-winded about that in another post.

Scotch questing is a serious business ...


Given the distance from the Encore to Mandalay Bay, we nabbed a taxi and enjoyed a wild ride around the backside of the Strip to avoid the rapidly building traffic jam. In short order we found the restaurant, grabbed a table in the lounge, and proceeded to place an order for those fries so many people had been raving about. And not just any fries, but Duck Fat Fries ... a seasoned trio cooked up in a vat of duck fat! From left to right in the picture below we had Paprika seasoned fries with barbecue dipping sauce, Truffled fries with truffled dipping sauce, and Herbed fries with disgusting, vile, ketchup.

Triumvirate of Tasty Taters!


We are not normally fry people ... and by that I simply mean that unless we're having a burger or a dawg you will not find us eating french fries for the sake of eating french fries. But I must go on record as stating that these are the best fries I have ever eaten; they were perfectly cooked - lightly crisp on the outside and hot and pulpy on the inside with just the right amount of subtle seasoning. I would even go so far as to say that to eat these fries with another food item would detract from their amazing flavor and lessen their overall impact.

They did however, taste great with booze! Which leads me to the Scotch Bible and Jay's subsequent Sermon on the Malt. It took some time for Jay to find the the right book, chapter, and verse but once he did ... the words poured forth with brilliant simplicity. "Let not your single-malt barrels intermingle, lest they become unclean; for blended scotch is crap and an offense to mine eyes."

The Book of Glenrothes; Chapter 1991


Let us pray ... for good scotch!


Jay's selection was the Glenrothes, Vintage 1991 ... a new scotch to us both. According to the tasting notes this scotch has a palate of vanilla, honey, and fudge. Vanilla and honey I can agree with, but fudge? I don't think so and neither does Jay. However, despite the fudging on the fudge, Jay said this was a fine single-malt with a smooth finish and he looks forward to adding it to our already groaning liquor cabinet as soon as we've financially recovered from this trip.

Glenrothes ... and the largest ice cube known to man


I decided to bypass the scotch, which I usually prefer to drink after dinner, and instead ordered a Harlaw: Highland Park 15-Year, Domaine de Canton, Fresh Lemon, and Pomme Lambic served short with an orange slice. I liked this a lot ... still got some scotch along with some ginger-flavored cognac and the result was a refreshing, tasty beverage that paired quite well with our fries.

Har-Dee-Har-Har!


Catherine ordered a Pear Sidecar - Hangar One Spiced Pear, Hennessy VS, Belle de Brillet, Cointreau, and Fresh Lemon served with a Cinnamon Sugar rim and an orange peel. She was kind enough to let me taste this and it was good! If we'd stayed for another round of drinks I would have been tempted to order one of these.

Pear Sidecar


We parted company not long thereafter - Catherine to join her parents for dinner at Aureole and Jay and I to the casino to kill some time playing penny slots before our dinner at Fleur de Lys. Stripsteak was a great place to stop for a snack and a beverage, and while their restaurant menu doesn't do much to tempt Jay and me (meat, meat, meat, and meat), those fries were just as amazing as everyone said they were - and at only $8 for the trio, it's one of the most affordable and tasty snackeroos on the Strip. Give the 'taters a try the next time you're in Vegas, Precious!!

Society Cafe; The Encore, Las Vegas

First, Second, and Third Breakfast at Society Cafe - Come for the Food and Stay for the Drinks!

Perhaps I suffer from food-related obsessive compulsive disorder; perhaps I'm the most anal vacation planner you've never met; perhaps I'm just really, really hungry.

Note to reader: if you guessed "all of the above," congratulations! I would buy you a drink to celebrate your accomplishment but we spent our life savings on this trip in anticipation of the worldwide cataclysm forecast for December 21, 2012. Like I said ... we plan ahead.

But knowing that we were going to be getting up at 4AM (also referred to as the deep, dark, buttcrack of stupid) to catch a 6:30AM flight out of Stinktown for Vegas meant that I also knew Jay and I were going to be incoherent with hunger by the time we reached the Encore to check in for a week of shameless gluttony. So I did my research well in advance of our travel dates and decided that the Society Cafe - with their fancy-schmancy bloody mary selections, monster sticky buns, and wee baby quiches - was the perfect place for us to stoke our vacation engines. Jay's aunt and uncle, who had been kind enough to meet us at the airport and provide taxi service, joined us for breakfast and we spent a lovely morning with them over some mighty fine food.

We started with the most important part of any morning vacation meal: booze! Jason ordered the Society Bloody Mary which is also known as a Cajun Bloody Mary; it wasn't nearly as spicy as he expected it to be but had wonderful flavor. The big, fat shrimpie that garnished his glass was coated with a Cajun spice blend that lent a bit of a kick to the drink when least expected.

Nothing says vacation like a suicidal shrimp in tomato juice


As for me, I love a good mimosa and will usually order one any time I see it as menu option. While I'm not crazy about oranges in general, I was intrigued by the idea of a blood orange mimosa so I decided to give it a try. I was pleasantly surprised to taste a drink that was a nice blend of sweet and tart with just the right amount of tiny bubbles to tickle my nose.

Blood Orange Mimosa


One of the fun things I love about Vegas dining is the unexpected little offerings patrons will sometimes receive from the chef. I have to say, however, that we've never been on the receiving end of a breakfast giftie ... until we visited Society Cafe. In this case we were all given a sweet, cool, refreshing apple juice shooter that really hit the spot!

If it's yella, you've got juice there, fella!


My breakfast selection was the restaurant's take on traditional eggs benedict, with the sauce on the side since my intestinal goblin doesn't tolerate much in the way of sauce. It also included some grilled 'maters and herbed 'taters, precious! I have to admit that I was a little taken aback by the size of my eggs benedict since the menu didn't mention that they would be served in miniature, but they were tasty and well prepared so I promptly forgave the chef for using his de-bigulator on my breakfast.

Baby eggs benedict


Fran ordered the Belgian waffle, served with maple syrup, huckleberry compote, and lemon cream. As you can tell from the photo below, it was an enormous waffle; not only did it look and smell delicious, it apparently tasted delicious, too.

Belgian waffles are almost as good as Belgian chocolates!


Frank went with the society omelette (French spelling, please don't wave your spelling sticks at me on this one - haha!) which came with a choice of three fillings but damned if I can remember what he selected. I do recall that he thought it tasted quite good, though, and that's what really matters.

Omelet or Omelette? They're both right!


Jason chose the egg white frittata, made with asparagus, crimini mushrooms, spinach, oven roasted tomatoes, and goat cheese. While an appallingly healthy selection with which to begin our vacation feeding frenzy, Jason said this was a well prepared dish with good flavor. He also ordered a side of plump chicken sausage which he really enjoyed and which brought the bile to the back of my throat due to the cloying sweetness of apple which had apparently been ground up with the chicken. We all like different things, that's what makes life so interesting and amusing, but chicken sausage just strikes me as wrong; it's like a screen door on a submarine or a rubber crutch - it just doesn't work. The only chicken I want for breakfast is the liquid kind that comes right from the egg. And as for morning meats, give me the good stuff from that most magical of all animals: the pig!

Egg white frittata


Chicken sausage

As if the food weren't enough to ensure that we were happy with our dining experience, Society Cafe has a roaming Bloody Mary Cart that circles the restaurant between 10AM - 2PM, Thursday through Sunday. The drink pusher (heh heh heh) will mix your drink table-side and on the right day at the right time he may even have a bottle of bubbly hiding in the ice in order to make certain lucky guests a fresh mimosa!

I'm not easily distracted ... look! A roaming drink cart!!!

Jason and I liked Society Cafe so much and it was so convenient, that we ended up visiting them two more times for breakfast during our stay. While enjoying second breakfast a few days later Jay and I shared the seasonal fruit plate; thank goodness we shared because the portion was huge! It also included a nice variety of fruit: honeydew, cantaloupe, mango, watermelon, pineapple, tangerine, blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, and strawberries.

Tutti-frutti!

On this second go-round I ordered the mini-quiche trio and a side order of beautiful, tasty bacon. The quiches included in my breakfast were a ham and gruyere, a smoked salmon and chive, and an asparagus and goat cheese. It was a given that I would enjoy the ham and cheese quiche - that's always been a favorite of mine. I wanted to like the salmon and chive but there was far too much smoked salmon in the quiche for its size - I'm sure some would say that's generosity on the part of the pastry chef but in my opinion it overpowered what could and should have been a subtle mix of flavors. The asparagus and goat cheese was rather nondescript except for a slightly bitter aftertaste. I will say that the pastry and the egg filling were cooked perfectly - our serving team told us that they were made fresh daily and it definitely showed.

Mini-quiche!

Sweet, glorious bacon ...

Jason ordered the eggs benedict on our second visit and the only reason I'm posting another picture is just to demonstrate how this item looks when it's served as intended rather than with sauce on the side.

Proper eggs benedict!

Before getting to our third and final breakfast visit, this might be a good time to tell you a little about the decor at Society Cafe. The primary colors are black and white, accented with surprising, playful bursts of lime green and shocking pink. Society provided a casual dining environment that managed to be both elegant and relaxing - I loved the place and thought it was a lot of fun. My only regret is that we didn't give it a try for a different meal!

Entrance from the casino ...

My blood orange mimosa and the hot pink sofa that I lounged against while enjoying breakfast!

Our final breakfast included the Continental which was a selection of three pastries and a serving of fresh fruit along with juice and coffee. The pastries - croissant, cheese danish, and babka - were all very good and fresh. The fruit cup left a lot to be desired because it was comprised primarily of watermelon chunks which still had seeds in them. Shame on the lazy fruit assembler in the kitchen ... if I'd wanted a cup of seedy watermelon I would have ordered that (and for the record I would never order such a thing because I hate watermelon and seeds in my intestinal tract would result in super colon blow), but fruit cup implies a variety of fruity goodness which I did not receive on this day.

Continental breakfast

Jason's breakfast selection was disgustingly healthy again, but in his defense this was the day we were scheduled to have dinner at The Mansion, so I can't really fault him for trying to save room for that 16-course degustation menu that was looming on the horizon. His choice this morning was the organic vanilla yogurt and homemade granola with mixed berries. He really enjoyed this - it's similar to the breakfast he has every morning before leaving for work. I tried the yogurt and found it very good and not overly sweet or sticky-sour as yogurt can sometimes taste.

Yogurt, granola, and berries, oh my!

All in all we were very pleased with Society Cafe. For the most part the food was tasty and well prepared and the service was always good. The location was convenient and the menu options were varied enough that even a sometime picky eater like me could find plenty to choose from. We'd definitely return on a future visit and suggest you give Society a try if the opportunity presents itself - we think you will be pleasantly surprised!

Prelude to Full Belly Achieved

We've finally made it to the month of May! And that means Vegas for Jason's fortieth birthday, baby!

We have our reservations all lined up, and while it's always possible that something could change at the last minute, this is what we have booked... we will be taking plenty of pictures along the way and will be sharing them here with reviews of the events and restaurants we're going to be trying on this visit.

Here's a list to whet your appetites (and ours!):

Enoteca San Marco (Mario Batali)
Bradley Ogden (Vegas Uncorked Signature Dinner)
Cut (Wolfgang Puck - Vegas Uncorked Signature Lunch)
Fleur de Lys (Hubert Keller)
Bouchon (Thomas Keller)
Payard's Patisserie (Vegas Uncorked Afternoon Tea & Dessert Demo)
Eiffel Tower Restaurant (Sunday Brunch)
The Mansion (Joel Robuchon)
House of Blues (breakfast)
Petrossian Lounge (Bellagio - Afternoon Tea)
Dos Caminos (Mexican)
Mesa Grill (Bobby Flay)
Table 10 (Emeril)

We have plans to lounge hop as well and that should include visits to places like Stripsteak, Red Square, Shibuya, Bradley Ogden, Luna Champagne Bar, and some place over at the Aria with an Absinthe Bong!

Can't wait to come back and share all the food and booze love with everyone!

EDITED TO ADD VACATION POST-SCRIPT: well, we ate and drank at almost of all those places. We skipped Bouchon, House of Blues, and Dos Caminos and missed Shibuya due to our hightened interest in the absinthe bong at Aria! Still, that's not a bad result for seven days in Vegas and you can include Julian Serrano, Sage, Daniel Boulud, Double Helix Wine Bar, Lagasse's Stadium, The Lobby Bar (Encore), and Serendipity to the list of reviews. It was a gut-stuffing good time!