Clam Chowder

Anthem Center at Anthem Sun City isn’t where one would expect to find a dude who damned near won the title of Next Food Network Star, but then, Vic Moea—also known as Vic Vegas—always has a surprise or two up the sleeves of his chef’s coat.

Vic, like his partner—the restaurant’s owner, Scott Soulliere—hails from Staten Island, which has its own quirky character much in the way better-known boroughs such as the Bronx and Brooklyn do. I first met him at Rumor, where he cooked up a storm at that boutique hotel’s restaurant, Addiction, impressing me with oddball sandwiches and several creative dishes, a few of which grace the lunch menu at his new restaurant, Vic’s New American Cuisine. And he has a long résumé—15 years on the Las Vegas food scene—thus the chops and personality to make this attempt. But does the concept actually work?

The jury is still out. At first blush, Anthem Center is a huge undefined space that serves as both a community center for the complex’s senior residents, and a recreational facility. You’ll see retirement-age people participating in various activities before you find the restaurant, which is located on the left, after you cross the lobby.

Vic’s is a two-level affair offering one of the Valley’s best Strip views—and what else?—a golf course. The room faces northwest, with floor-to-ceiling windows, industrial carpeting and white tablecloths, a pleasant but lounge-lizard-like room that could use a shot of soul. Happily, Vic’s cooking provides a good dose of that, in part thanks to the assistance of talented chef Jason Tepper, a constant presence in the kitchen.

Maybe Vic’s mother told him not to play with his food, because he does that a lot here. Meatloaf spring rolls have a tasty filling wrapped in a wonton skin, served with a delicious pan gravy and ketchup aioli. I love something he calls Uncle Joe’s fried corn, served loose with a duo of tangy butters in a large side dish.

So as you’ve guessed, this isn’t light fare, and I’m wondering if the older folks who crowd this place can eat this stuff. Take the pastrami potato sliders, for example, one of three slider choices on the appetizer menu (merciful heavens, will there never be a respite?!),with a soft potato roll and Havarti cheese enrobing the grilled meat. “Mozzarella and Caroza” [sic], or “mozzarella in carrozza” in Italian (carrozza is Italian for “carriage”), is rounds of crusty bread rolled in egg wash and breadcrumbs, the cheese oozing out of the middle when the spheres are cut open. The idea is to slather them with Vic’s thick, sweet marinara sauce—a total gut bomb.

Soups and salads show the chef’s rampant creativity. His seafood chowder is more like a corn chowder with half the creatures of the sea—among them lobster, shrimp, mussels and seared scallops—dotted artfully inside the bowl. Watermelon salad makes use of fresh mozzarella, adding watercress and the novelty of toasted pistachios to a tangy vinaigrette. I won’t yell too loud about the excess dressing on my Caesar, a nicely nuanced suspension.

The chef also works for the giant U.S. Foods as their corporate executive chef, which supplies most of our restaurants in one way or another. This means you’re not going to get many boutique products, as we might expect to find in more exclusive Strip venues. So expect the salmon to be the Atlantic variety, not wild caught, and the lamb to be from Australia, not Sonoma County, California, or Colorado.

Rak-o-Lamb

Rak-o-lamb, an herb-crusted rack, is done extremely well, however, and even the house-made mint vinaigrette is a winner. It reminds me of an Argentine chimichurri, thick and grainy, and is far more inviting than the artificial-looking mint jelly some chefs still insist on using.

Vic’s pan-seared scallops with risotto are especially good, and so is the spaghetti and meatballs—a giant meatball smeared with ricotta, Staten Island-style. Some rave about his caramel-apple pork chop, but for me, it’s overly sweet and heavy, like many items here.

If you must have dessert then, the Belgian waffle sundae is the best choice. I’ll leave Nuttabutta—orange soda-battered Nutter Butters with a Chambord-Welch’s grape juice reduction—for our friends on the Food Network. “Vic Vegas.” Who could forget the name?

Vic’s New American Cuisine

In Anthem Center, 2450 Hampton Rd., Henderson, 522-7200. Lunch 10:30-3 daily; dinner 4-10 p.m. Sun-Thu, 4-11 p.m. Fri-Sat. Dinner for two, $49-$85.

Max’s menu picks

Uncle Joe’s fried corn, $7.

Seafood chowder, $12.

Spaghetti and Meatball, $16.

Rak-o-lamb, $39.

Belgian waffle sundae, $9.

Despite all of the current emphasis on design and super designers, a few designs have remained fundamentally the same; one of these is the reading lamp. In this case, less IS more:  the best reading lamps are still relatively simple in design:  a lamp with adjustable reflector mounted on a pole, allowing further adjustment by height.  Reading lamps must also be minimal in design, an unobtrusive object based upon functionality and placement within the living space.

table version

The Funiculi Lighting Family was designed by Lluis Porqueras for Marset of Spain. A funiculus is simply a stalk, and is used primarily to describe neuronal fibers. Funicular movement goes up and down- exactly how a simple, yet elegant reading lamp should adjust.  Originally designed in 1979, the lamp is attached to its pole by means of clips, and is easily adjustable.  The shade rotates 360 degrees, while the base is covered in rubber for protection of the floor.  Over the past 30+ years two additional designs have been added to the family, that of a desk lamp and a wall version, both with similar functionality.

wall

As with most of the collections from Marset available in the US, the Funiculi are UL Listed. Currently only the floor lamp is available for quick (1-4 week) delivery from Spain. Inquire at tradesales(at)unicahome.com for information concerning other versions. Funiculi is available here.

The Story

Born in 1930, Lluis Porqueras has been designing lighting since the 1970s.

“In the late 70′s, I had a lamp firm, Vapor. The things it made were very simple: although the industrial process included 25 operations, the end result was one of absolute simplicity; what interested me was pruning, pruning, and pruning again to leave nothing but the essence of a useful product.”

“Over time, I realized that I was a very bad businessman. Fortunately, Marset took an interest in what we were doing at Vapor and much of our catalog became part of their collection. Moreover, my former colleague, Joan Gaspar, a good friend of mine, became the creative manager at Marset. Now, 30 years later, Marset has decided to re-release Funiculi. We have all had the ubiquitous desk light with a flexible arm. It was a rounded object, with a very simple shade covering the typical Edison light bulb. It occurred to me to free this shade and give it more features and mobility. I added a curved stem and clips to allow it to be raised and lowered. Hence the name Funiculi, from the ‘funicular’ action of moving up and down, like the funicular railways of Tibidabo or Montjuic in Barcelona.”

“I have always believed that the light in a room must go with a shadow, that there should be contrasts with points of light. This is what creates well-being, calm; your home must be a refuge from the aggressive outdoors in the city. Lights are lit for several hours a day, and the rest of the time they must maintain a certain discretion so that they do not bother you when they are off, and only become noticeable when they are on… like glowworms.  Fashion does not interest me, and I have never made fashionable lights because the soon go out of fashion.  I have always made lamps I liked.”

Porqueras has also worked for Targetti creating a lighting series. In addition to creating lights for Vapor, he has also collaborated with companies such as Mobles 114 and Santa&Cole, also available at Unicahome.

The hanging Claris lamp and the Finisterre street marker, designed in conjunction with Joan Gaspar, stand out amongst his many designs.

Joan Gaspar and Lluis Porqueras discuss the Funiculi Lighting Family below:

Reprinted with permission from Seven Weekly Las Vegas. Check out Seven Magazine by picking a copy up at Unicahome and other fine venues in our fair Village of Las Vegas. Find out what is new and notable in Las Vegas online here.

Even longtime residents have trouble finding Highland Drive. If you’re driving north on Interstate 15, exit at Spring Mountain Road and bear right. If you’re driving south, though, you’d better know how to use your GPS.

But the ongoing search for the Highland Drive exit has recently been incentivized by the presence of our city’s finest barbecue joint, Rolling Smoke. This modest spot is run by two brothers from Arkansas, John and Trey Holland. They use hickory and other hardwoods, the way Prince does a guitar. This ’cue is the “Girl With a Pearl Earring” of meat—it’s poetry in blue smoke, a carnivore’s wet dream.

Am I being hyperbolic? Sure, but I’ve also been waiting for great ’cue since I moved here in the late ’90s. Oh, there have been a few bright spots: Both the Salt Lick in Red Rock Resort and Rub BBQ in the Rio showed initial promise. But both restaurants—outposts of renowned barbecues in other cities—were faded copies of the originals, and neither lasted long.

Rolling Smoke has been open nearly a year with little fanfare, and just gets better as the months roll by. There are lines nearly every day at lunch, and the small parking lot is filled to overflow. Don’t come here if you’re in a hurry—this cooking is low and slow, and the kitchen is in no mood to compromise.

It’s a small place, with stainless-steel tables, walls fashioned from unfinished wooden crates and linen-lined basket light fixtures. There is a complex, mild sauce in squeeze bottles on your table, along with the mandatory roll of paper towels. Rip a few off. You are going to need them. This is meaty, messy ’cue, slathered with sauce. It took me a few visits to realize that there was a spicier variety available, and now I’m hooked on it. My learning curve is slow. I must have eaten here five times before I thought to ask them not to chop up the brisket in my sandwich. I like it so much better sliced.

Actually, all the meats here are tender, smoky and full-flavored. The beef rib is huge, crusty and almost medieval. Baby backs are fall-off-the-bone tender. First I poo-poo’d the hot link when I found out it was merely a beef link from Larry’s Great Western Meats, a nearby butcher. But after eating it a few times in that spicy sauce, I couldn’t get enough of the stuff.

One of my friends is nuts about the Outlaw Burger, a half-pound of ground chuck combined with four ounces of slow-smoked, chopped brisket, gooey American cheese, fried onion straws, lettuce and tomato on a yeasty bun. It might be great, but for me, it’s overkill.

Besides, if I ate one, I wouldn’t have enough room for the outstanding side dishes. Jalapeño-studded cornbread—a thick square that comes topped with a golf-ball-size glob of melting butter—isn’t cloyingly sweet, like what you’d get at a Marie Callender’s, but rich, mealy and satisfying.

Kickin Baked Beans are gloppy, half-liquid, sneaky spicy and extraordinarily complex. They might be too spicy for the uninitiated palate, but for me, it’s love at first bite. I also managed to taste the jalapeño cole slaw and bacon potato salad, both beyond reproach, and a crusty peach cobbler for dessert.

If you get lost trying to find it, just roll down the window and let the smoke guide you.

Rollin Smoke BarbeQue

3185 S. Highland Dr., 836-3621. Open 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Mon-Thu, 10 a.m.-1:30 a.m. Fri-Sat. Lunch for two, $$15-33.

You have until Saturday evening to experience the original menu at Michael Mina’s Nobhill at the MGM Grand, before it closes its doors forever. It would be well worth your time to do so.

The restaurant was originally conceived as a San Francisco style palace serving some of Fog City’s best known dishes, such as Green Goddess salad, which was invented in the Bay Area, crab Louis, made with Dungeness crab, natch, and cioppino. The first two are being served this week only. If you want cioppino, my advice would be to head for a place called Tadich Grill in San Francisco’s Embarcardero, which opened in the 1840’s.

Nobhill never lived up to bean counter expectations, despite the presence of private booths, a swell bar, and beautifully designed dining room. Many dishes on the original menu were slowly phased out until only a few remained. The bar was more successful. One of the drinks I always fancied there, a sugar rimmed creation they called the Cable Car, a riff on the Sidecar, made it from start to finish.

So I stopped in to relive the past and thoroughly enjoyed my dinner. I tried two starters, Gilroy garlic soup, a puree as green as Kermit the Frog with loads of cumin and a runny egg smack in the middle of a large ravioli-forgive the grammatical intrusion- and then a Green Goddess salad with dressing composed of green herbs and a mayonnaise-like suspension, topped with house made potato croutons. The soup was slightly forgettable though interesting. The salad will be sorely missed.

Then a friend and I shared a dish called Liberty Farms Duck Raviolis, which turned out to be false advertising, and nonetheless delicious. The ravioli had a polenta like stuffing tinged with cheese. The duck, magret, or breast, sautéed rare, came on the side, with a rich sauce based on foie gras.

One of the main courses were also a tad misleading, though also tasty enough to win a heart or two. Roasted Breast of Petaluma Chicken in a puff pastry crust with foie gras is really what the French call a vol au vent, a round puff pastry, with the foie on top. On the dish, the chicken comes on the side.

The other main course, however, kills it. Roasted Rack of Hop Sang Pork, a California farm product, is amazing, one enormous chop, and two perfectly glazed, incredibly soft and tender ribs, the meat falling away from the bone. Blue Lake green beans are a nice touch on the side.

Many other Mina originals are being served through Saturday evening; cheese fondue, that terrific crab Louis salad, beef Wellington, Mina’s famous lobster pie, which you can still get at his eponymous Bellagio restaurant, and which will be on the menu at his new gastropub at the MGM Grand, slated to open in July on the site of the old Seablue.

What the brass at MGM will do with this space, I cannot yet say. Their energies are concentrated on the soon to open colossus Hakkasan, the London-based Chinese restaurant and nightclub which is transforming the front of the casino.

For reservations at Nobhill, call 891-1111.

OK, I’m lazy. Here’s a press release.

SAN FRANCISCO – March 27, 2013 – As we anticipate the warm days and cool spring nights,OpenTable (NASDAQ: OPEN), the world’s leading provider of online restaurant reservations, is pleased to announce the 2013 Diners’ Choice Award winners for Top 100 Hot Spot Restaurants in the United States. These awards reflect the combined opinions of more than 5 million reviews submitted by verified OpenTable diners for more than 15,000 restaurants in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

Winning restaurants are scattered throughout 21 states.  California topped the list, taking 26 places on the list of winners.  Florida follows with 18 winning restaurants.  New York has its share of fashionable honorees, claiming 14 spots on the list. For the second year in a row, Illinois accounts for 11 winners, followed again by Nevada with seven standouts. Georgia and Texas restaurants earned three places apiece, while Arizona, Louisiana, Maryland, and Tennessee each boast two. Colorado, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina are also represented. Cuisines at the winning restaurants are as eclectic as the list itself. American, Asian, Greek, Italian, Japanese, and Mexican fares are represented, as are pizza, sushi, and tapas, among others.

“This year’s winning restaurants have all the ingredients diners need to spice up any evening, whether it’s a midweek meal or a destination celebration,” said Caroline Potter, OpenTable Chief Dining Officer. “Beyond cool crowds, daring drink lists, and inventive menus, these hot spots are cultivating a sexy see-and-be-seen ambience that will make for a night to remember.”

The Diners’ Choice Awards for the Top 100 Hot Spot Restaurants is generated from more than 5 million reviews collected from verified OpenTable diners between March 1, 2012 and February 28, 2013.  All restaurants with a minimum “overall” score and number of qualifying reviews were included for consideration.  Qualifying restaurants were then scored and sorted according to the percentage of qualifying reviews for which “hot spot” was selected as a special feature.

Based on this methodology, the following restaurants, listed in alphabetical order, comprise the top 100 hot spot restaurants in the U.S. according to OpenTable diners.  The complete list may also be viewed athttp://www.opentable.com/hotspots.
2013 Diners’ Choice Award Winners for Top 100 Hot Spot Restaurants in the U.S.

Ada Street – Chicago, Illinois

B.B. King’s Blues Club – Memphis, Tennessee

Bâoli Miami – Miami Beach, Florida

Bavettes – Chicago, Illinois

The Bazaar by José Andrés – Los Angeles, California

The Bazaar by José Andrés at SLS Hotel South Beach – Miami Beach, Florida

Beauty and Essex – New York, New York

Bestia – Los Angeles, California

BOA Steakhouse – West Hollywood, California

The Boarding House – Chicago, Illinois

Buccan – Palm Beach, Florida

Buddakan – New York, New York

Buddah Sky Bar – Delray Beach, Florida

Campo – Reno, Nevada

Catch – New York, New York

Cavo – Astoria, New York   —-> KT sez: a nightclub wmuch /better chow that you expect, but…?

Chambers Eat + Drink – San Francisco, California

Chino Latino – Minneapolis, Minnesota

Cleo-SBE – Los Angeles, California

Del Frisco’s Double Eagle Steak House – Chicago, Illinois

Del Frisco’s Grille – Dallas, Texas

Departure Restaurant and Lounge – Portland, Oregon

do Restaurant at the View – Atlanta, Georgia

El Vez – Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Firefly Tapas Kitchen Bar – Henderson, Nevada   

Fly Bar & Restaurant – Tampa, Florida

The Food Market – Baltimore, Maryland

FT33 – Dallas, Texas

Gilt Bar – Chicago, Illinois

Girl & the Goat – Chicago, Illinois

Grille One Sixteen – Tampa, Florida

Hakkasan – San Francisco, California

Hendrick’s Tavern – Roslyn, New York

Herringbone – La Jolla, California

Hip Kitty Jazz & Fondue – Claremont, California

Honu Kitchen and Cocktails – Huntington, New York

HUB 51 – Chicago, Illinois

The Hurricane Club – New York, New York

ink. – Los Angeles, California

Juvia – Miami, Florida

Katana – West Hollywood, California

Katsuya-Brentwood-SBE – Brentwood, California

Katsuya-Hollywood-SBE – Los Angeles, California

Lavo – Las Vegas, Nevada

Linger – Denver, Colorado

Lulu California Bistro – Palm Springs, California

The Macintosh – Charleston, South Carolina

Manhattan Beach Post – Manhattan Beach, California

Mateo – Durham, North Carolina

Mercato di Vetro – West Hollywood, California

Miss Lily’s – New York, New York

Monsoon Asian Kitchen & Lounge – Babylon, New York

MUA – Oakland, California

N9NE Steakhouse – Las Vegas, Nevada

Nada – Cincinnati, Ohio

nopa – San Francisco, California

Ouzo Bay – Baltimore, Maryland

Palmilla Cocina Y Tequila – Hermosa Beach, California

Paris Club – Chicago, Illinois

Picca – Los Angeles, California

Playground – Santa Ana, California

Prato – Winter Park, Florida

Provisions – Houston, Texas

Red Ginger – Traverse City, Michigan

Red Lantern – Boston, Massachusetts

Restaurant IPO – Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Rocco’s Tacos & Tequila Bar – Fort Lauderdale, Florida

Rocco’s Tacos & Tequila Bar – West Palm Beach, Florida

RPM Italian – Chicago, Illinois

Searsucker – San Diego, California

Searsucker – Scottsdale, Arizona

Soco – Brooklyn, New York

The Spence – Atlanta, Georgia

The Stanton Social – New York, New York

STK-Los Angeles – West Hollywood, California

STK-Miami – Miami, Florida

STK-NYC-Meatpacking – New York, New York

STK-The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas – Las Vegas, Nevada

Sub Zero Vodka Bar – St. Louis, Missouri

SUGARCANE raw bar grill – Miami, Florida

Sunda – Chicago, Illinois

Sushi POP – Oviedo, Florida

Sushi Roku – Scottsdale, Arizona

SUSHISAMBA dromo – Miami Beach, Florida

SUSHISAMBA strip – Las Vegas, Nevada

Tao – New York, New York

Tao Restaurant and Nightclub – Las Vegas, Nevada   

The Tasting Kitchen – Venice, California

Toku Modern Asian – Manhasset, New York

Trio Restaurant – Palm Springs, California

The Tropicale – Palm Springs, California

Tsunani Shaw Center – Baton Rouge, Louisiana

TWO urban licks – Atlanta, Georgia

Untitled – Chicago, Illinois

Virago – Nashville, Tennessee

Wang’s in the Desert – Palm Springs, California

Wynwood Kitchen and Bar – Miami, Florida

Yardbird Southern Table & Bar – Miami Beach, Florida

YOLO – Fort Lauderdale, Florida

Zuma Japanese Restaurant – Miami, Florida

Diners can also read more about the Diners’ Choice Awards for the Top Hot Spot restaurants in the U.S. by visiting OpenTable Chief Dining Officer Caroline Potter’s “Dining Check” blog.

The German-American Social Club of Las Vegas will be having a Rouladen and Haxen dinner this Saturday at 6 PM.

Haxen is a Bavarian dish that uses the front pig leg, bone-in.  Rouladen is a mix of bacon and onions wrapped in beef.

Price is $10 and $12, respectively.

The German-American Social Club of Las Vegas was founded in 1971 and is located in downtown Las Vegas at 1110 East Lake Mead.  Additional info and reservations at 702-649-8503

Public House is our only true gastropub, a term that has been stillborn for most of the places that claim it. And so it seemed fitting that it was chosen as the venue for a pop-up dinner pitting a series of craft beers against esoteric cocktails created by Mixologist Jeff Josenhans of the US Grant Hotel in San Diego. Some of the cocktails were cockeyed. But in the end, the drinks prevailed, as better pairings for the five-course dinner.

Beer got off to a bang-up start. The best beer of the evening, a Jolly Pumpkin Bam Biere, made the best impression, a complex, refreshing beer with a perfect blend of hops, malt and lingering flavors. Its competition for the pairing with a greasy, but tasty crispy duck roll was something called the Asian Cowboy Sour, which I thought was a misuse of High West White Whiskey, a glorious product. Josenhans is ingredient happy. The whiskey, a sweet one to begin with, didn’t need all the gussying up with Meyer lemon and agave.

The next course, an octopus salad with Israeli couscous and a strong citrus cast, was matched with a beer called Grimbergen Blonde, a rather weak, insipid brew, and a drink called the Venetian Arrangement, a medicinal drink served in a wine glass that made me think of Robutussin. I’d call this a dead heat, and I didn’t much care for the octopus.

But then the food and the booze took a sharp, upward swing. The dish served, a hearty short rib with pea potato puree, the meat glazed with Black Butte Porter, had a slightly bittersweet finish, and was perfectly braised. The Aect Urbock, supposedly a rauchbeer, but without the properly smoky cast, was no match for it.

Happily, the cocktail, called Sprit Grocer Soiree, was quite interesting, based on Templeton Rye, with a number of sweeteners including maple syrup, plus Fee Bitters and Guinness foam, producing one of the best matches I can recall in a dog’s age.

And everybody loved the cheese course, a trio of boutique cheeses, one Blue, one hard, a third soft. With it, the cocktail, called Three Little Jigs, also won the day, despite having an unimaginable ten ingredients, such as “bruised” parsley, wtf that is, Luxardo cherry, fresh pressed pineapple juice and a base of citrus vodka. The beer, Sierra Nevada Barrel Aged Quad, clashed with it, imho. Hugh Fogel, your host on this site, would have eaten everyone’s cheese had he been given the chance.

A dark chocolate tart topped with nuts and whipped cream was then expected to rise to the occasion against a beer called Speakeasy Double Daddy, a caramel and hay flavored IPA from San Francisco. It did not. I thought the cocktail, Smooth Criminal, delicious, in its sugar rimmed glass. I love sugar rims. Does that make me a bad person?

At any rate, I admire what Public House, and Corporate Chef Anthony Meidenbauer, tries to do. Vegas has one gastropub, anyway, whatever that term means.

The pop-up dinner is being served tonight for $65 per person. Call 414-1000 for more information and to make a reservation.

ed note:   I loved the Jolly Pumpkin Bam- very light with a definite lemon flavor and scent. It paired extremely well with  the duck roll.  I loved it so much, in fact, that I tracked it down to Total Wine & Spirits in Boca Park.  There are 6 bottles left as of last night.

When I was a young man, I was fond of a restaurant called Le Coupe-Chou in Paris. It was located at the foot of a blind alley, had an almost medieval ambiance, and served a spate of southwestern French specialties, most notably goose fat fried potatoes.

But what I really found cool about it was the salle one retreated to for a post-prandial cigar and a snifter of rare Cognac, a spirit also from the southwest of France, distilled from a nasty grape called Ugni Blanc, a grape with a high acid level that renders it poor for winemaking but perfect for distillation.

Our best French restaurants weren’t conceived with such rooms, and indeed, there is a no smoking policy in all of them. Master Chef Guy Savoy, however, has amassed a rare Cognac collection, which he has decided to display, and pour. It’s a truly civilized idea if you like that after dinner digestif, which I do, and the list of Cognacs is quite impressive.

The price range, generally for a 2 oz. snifter, starts at a modest $20 for a Courvoisier Napoleon, and ends at Hine Talent, served in a 1 oz. snifter for $700. This stuff is quite rare, so much so that the house sommelier has only smelled it. It was bottled in ’30, and has an ambrosial aroma, but is anything worth that kind of ticket? Hey, if the casino will pick up the tab, what the hell!

A few of us gathered in the lounge with Chef Savoy, who has just turned a robust sixty, to sample three very different styles of spirit. I should mention that Cognac is classified according to how long it is aged, and the categories are VS, VSOP, XO and Napoleon.

We first sampled Leopold Gourmes Age des Fleurs ($30), a lovely spirit with loads of butterscotch on the palate, and a smooth finish. Next came Kelt XO ($45) with finesse to burn, and a lean demeanor. Finally we sampled some Remy Martin Extra ($65), the best of the three, in my opinion, extremely complex for the price.

Those three rare Cognacs pictured in their art glass bottles are the stuff dreams are made of. Hardy Perfection is 140 years old, and the vines that produced the grapes to distill it don’t exist anymore. The bullet shaped bottle in the center is Hennessey Ellipse, unusual in that it’s 100% French Colombard, usually a blending grape in Cognac. By the way, it is a mere $450 for a 1 oz. pour. And the lovely etched glass bottle is Hine Talent, yours for only $700 an ounce. The Hardy Perfection is practically gone from the Earth. If you drink the last shot, you’ll surely never see it again.

Incidentally, Restaurant Guy Savoy will give the bottle of any of these rare cognacs to the person who orders the last shot. Keep an eye out. As one member of the group said after remarking that she saw a bottle on ebay, you could theoretically order the last shot and make money.

Guy Savoy, at Caesars Palace. Call 731-7110 for reservations.

I visited Caracas in late fall, 1974, and it is a sobering thought that at that time, Hugo Chavez was only 20 years old. I don’t remember much. Slums, laundry hanging from crumbling balconies, and the usual Third World sights and sounds were everywhere. A rickety DeSoto from the Fifties served as a taxi.

But oh, how I remember the street food. I wasn’t expecting the scent of grilled beef and pork ribs to be all around me, but it was, sold at kiosks built up around wooden fires with makeshift grates placed on them for cooking. And then there were the arepas, fat cakes of untreated masa split and stuffed with the filling of your choice. The arepa is a religion in Venezuela. And now, there is a place to eat them here in Vegas.

Viva Las Arepas, formerly the food stand known as I Love Arepas, with the heart symbol subbing for the word love, sits just north of the Stratosphere on Las Vegas Blvd. Owner Felix Arellano would have called in by its original name, but some unscrupulous fellow trademarked the name, and then tried to charge him a fee for using it.

not your mama's chicken soup

Undaunted, Felix, who came to this country with less than a thousand dollars, decided to change the name of his restaurant, which is now one of the true jewels of Downtown eating. Yes, I do love arepas, but I love his parrilla mixta, a grilled meat extravaganza, a whole lot more.

chef felix at the grill

Felix actually recognized me from his days at Piero Selvaggio Valentino. I’m sorry to say I didn’t remember him, but I will now. You’ll want to start a meal here with one of a number of tropical fruit drinks, passion fruit, or even soursop, better known by a name in Spanish, guanabana. Venezuela is tropical, but it’s also a Caribbean country. There are many dishes that are similar to what you’d eat in say, Jamaica, or even Cuba, but they all have a special Venezuelan twist.

We ordered the arepa Perico, a ham, egg and cheese stuffed corn cake. Think South American egg McMuffin. Felix also brought us a shrimp arepa. Wow. The shrimp has a great flavor, and the arepa is especially delicious when doused with guasacoco, sauce based on mayonnaise, but unlike anything you’ve ever tasted.

Felix also sells empanadas and pastelitos, basically turnovers with savory fillings. I love his ground meat and rice pastelito, but the coconut and cheese is interesting, too, and a guava and cheese empanada is as well.

About those meats, anyway. $29.99 gets you a meatfest you won’t believe. Sausages, carne asada, (rib eye steak, marinated and cut into strips, pork ribs on the bone, and his amazing wood fired grilled chicken, at this writing, the best in the city.

stuffed corn griddle cake

You’ll get it with a side dish such as yucca frita, fried pieces of a starchy root, regular French fries (if you insist), or my choice, Felix’s delicious rice and vegetable medley with lots of corn, beans, carrots and greens, cooked into the rice.

pastelito and cheese stick

Viva Las Arepas marinates all the meats overnight, in fact, before finishing them on the wood grill. They are cooked perfectly and seasoned just right. Can we extend the name to say I Heart Viva Las Arepas. I truly do.

At 1616 S. Las Vegas Blvd. 366-9696.

Since 2006, Three Square has served over 1.5 million meals to people in need.

Restaurant week is back upon us. This is a great excuse to get out and enjoy a prix fixe meal at some of the area’s finest restaurants.

Participating restaurants create menus for breakfast, lunch or dinner and select a donation of $4, $5, or $6 for each meal sold. You can search for a restaurant by type of cuisine, location or even meal type and price point. Participating in Restaurant Week is easy. Once you’ve chosen a restaurant, just call to make a reservation!

Additional information is HERE.