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bartolimu
Nov 25, 2002


Bentai posted:

I wish the history event would drop some hints on what kind of items to expect. It’s lot of dosh for a big question mark.

Your wish is their command. Sarah Lohman posted the menu on her IG account, including many of the original sources. My comments in []:

quote:

Stationary table - appetizers
Shrimp Cocktail
Classic: classic style with lemon and horseradish driven cocktail sauce
Modern: cilantro-lime marinated shrimp with cherry tomato, cucumber, and serrano chiles [so...ceviche?]

Fondue
served with cubed sourdough and pumpernickel
Classic: Swiss, Gruyere, Sherry (Stardust and House of Lords)
Modern: Smokey Jack and Gouda with chipotle
[part of me hopes very much they do these in the cascading chocolate fountain things because I find the idea of a bunch of hoity-toity museum patrons (plus me) gathering around what is basically the trashiest part of a Sizzler buffet, oohing and ahhing about it, intensely amusing]

Passed Dishes
Endive cups filled with hearts of palm, celery, fennel and mustard vinaigrette (The Barbara Streisand Menu at The Hilton International) [this is totally gonna taste like a 1960s Better Homes and Gardens cookbook and I am here for it]

Mini Avocado Toast - Toasted sourdough, avocado mousse with EVOO and sea salt, topped with jumbo lump blue crab meat and green goddess (puree of parsley, tarragon, mint and chives) (Noshorium) [true green goddess contains anchovy and I am skeptical of this suggested ingredient list]

Chicken Liver and Bacon Mousse on toasted rye, finished with green onion and shaved egg (Riviera) [gonna alternate this one and the endive cups for maximum nostalgia party energy, though IMO pate never goes out of fashion]

Ribs
Classic: Aku-Aku Style with Hawaiian Pineapple glaze (Stardust)
Modern: St. Louis style - dry rub, slow cooked, brushed with spicy St. Louis style bbq sauce [kind of a shame they didn't go to one of the many excellent modern BBQ spots in Vegas for an A/B compare, but I'm not gonna complain about Chef Munster e: Chef Garcia making me ribs]

Desserts
Cream puffs filled with vanilla cream (The Crystal Room at The Desert Inn)
Black Forest Cake Bites with Fabbri Cherries (Noshorium)
[two good classic choices here, and both highly portable. solid choices.]

Cocktails

Old Fashioned
Classic: bourbon, simple, angostura - stirred and served on the rocks
Modern: "New Fashioned" - rye, amaro, spiced demerara - stirred and served with an orange flag over ice

Mai Tai
Classic: Mai Tai - rum, curacao, orgeat, lime - shaken and served over ice
Modern: "Whi-Tai" - whiskey, curacao, orgeat, lime - shaken and served over ice, then floated with Cruzan black strap rum [guardedly optimistic about the whiskey variant; guardedly pessimistic they'll have proper ice or a good rum pick for the classic]

Pina Colada
Classic: white rum, coconut, pineapple, lime - shaken until frothy, strained and served up
Modern "Coco Colada": dark rum, coconut water, pineapple, orange - shaken, strained, and serve up [the orange is weird here but I'll reserve judgment until I try it]

The IG post also says "the food & alcohol is all you can eat!" which seems pretty dangerous and I look forward to getting into trouble. I think they underestimate my capacity for shrimp cocktail.

e: the event website now says Chef Adrian Garcia will be preparing everything, so apparently we don't get a final round of Munster before he leaves.

bartolimu fucked around with this message at 21:10 on Sep 27, 2023

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Doom Rooster
Sep 3, 2008

Pillbug
Just wanted to say thanks again for the food recs earlier this month. Wife and I had a BLAST, and ate extremely well.

Another great set of pies at Yukon, pretty sure that we liked the breakfast pizza at Red Dwarf, but got pretty blasted on tiki drinks. Solid brunch at Bouchon, and thanks to the premium wine pairing, had the most expensive meal of our lives at Partage.

Partage was very, very excellent. We normally don’t go crazy for tasting menus, because a lot of them are more focused on being interesting than being good. Every course except the little starter ravioli was both interesting, and super delicious.

Mr. Wiggles
Dec 1, 2003

We are all drinking from the highball glass of ideology.
Any trip with a scale from dwarf to Partage is a good trip.

ogopogo
Jul 16, 2006
Remember: no matter where you go, there you are.

Mr. Wiggles posted:

Any trip with a scale from dwarf to Partage is a good trip.

Seriously!

And thank you, glad y’all enjoyed the pizzas.

bartolimu
Nov 25, 2002


I'm going to post my thoughts on the run up to Vegas Unstripped, primarily so I can do a postmortem followup to see whether I'm being too negative.

Background: last year, one of my friends was working for Feast of Friends, the company that runs Unstripped. Between tidbits I heard from them and things I heard from chef friends, it became pretty clear to me that FoF did a kind of lovely job of setting up the event. In fact, it almost didn't happen at all - according to several sources, they didn't apply for the street closure permit until days before the event (possibly the day before, I don't remember). They'd planned to take up a full block of Main Street, and instead had to settle for a half block plus the use of a luckily-available parking lot. Things weren't exactly cramped, but I wouldn't call the space ample. And the setup was wonky in that the booze stations were right next to the music stage. It was impossible to communicate with the bartenders because the stage speakers were pointed directly at a building 50 feet from the stage and the resulting back-and-forth noise overload was undoubtedly above safe limits. Participating chefs didn't get nearly as much communication and support from FoF as they expected, and a few of them I talked to were hesitant to participate again because of it. Despite all of this, the chefs and their food were brilliant. I posted afterwards I hoped FoF had learned a few things from the event and would make refinements.

I'm not at all certain that's the case in the final run-up to this year's Unstripped.

Details about the event location were sent to attendees today. Yeah, a major street party finally let us know where to show up the day before the event. The email says they're on California between Casino Center and Main. That space is maybe half the size of last year's area. I'm not at all certain how they'll fit in a supposed 27 chef stations (the sales pitch, btw, said "30+ chefs") and four booze spots. And they don't plan to take up the sidewalks - the email specifically says we have in/out privileges and encourages us to visit the businesses on California because they'll (probably) be open.

I'm hoping they plan to run the event down the alleyway next to Esther's Kitchen, maybe even wrapping around into their parking lot where the first Unstripped took place. But I'm not sure that can happen without cutting off the sidewalk. If not, they're going to be very hard pressed to fit in what they say they have.

But they may not have that much. I ran into James Trees last weekend at Liquid Diet and said I was looking forward to seeing him at Unstripped. "I'd better be there," he said, "otherwise who will be?" Cryptic, but concerning to me given the size of the announced venue. And then there's the bar squad - my sources at Jammyland say they're doing the after party, but they're not sure they'll be at the event. Unstripped still lists them on the website as pouring at the event.

And of course, there's the entry situation. The first tickets sold - with an advance notice for previous attendees - were First Entry tickets. The implication was they'd be selling a certain number of tickets for entry every 15 minutes to ease crowding. Whether they kept that plan or not I don't know, but there are only two admission times - First Entry, and 15 minutes after.

It's all a lot of vague signs and inferences on my part, I know. But given what I know of Feast of Friends, I'm very concerned for this year's Unstripped. And future ones. Fingers crossed. Hope to see some of y'all there so we can experience the whatever-it-is together. At least we know the after party will be great.

bartolimu fucked around with this message at 19:34 on Oct 13, 2023

Mr. Wiggles
Dec 1, 2003

We are all drinking from the highball glass of ideology.
Wild. I've had fun at this before, but this year I'm too involved with Renfair to make it. If you get in, have a booze for me and I'll look forward to the after action report.

Carillon
May 9, 2014






We're going tomorrow as well, I hope it's at least a fun time. There's a lot to look forward to so I hope it can deliver decently!

ogopogo
Jul 16, 2006
Remember: no matter where you go, there you are.

bartolimu posted:

I'm going to post my thoughts on the run up to Vegas Unstripped, primarily so I can do a postmortem followup to see whether I'm being too negative.

Background: last year, one of my friends was working for Feast of Friends, the company that runs Unstripped. Between tidbits I heard from them and things I heard from chef friends, it became pretty clear to me that FoF did a kind of lovely job of setting up the event. In fact, it almost didn't happen at all - according to several sources, they didn't apply for the street closure permit until days before the event (possibly the day before, I don't remember). They'd planned to take up a full block of Main Street, and instead had to settle for a half block plus the use of a luckily-available parking lot. Things weren't exactly cramped, but I wouldn't call the space ample. And the setup was wonky in that the booze stations were right next to the music stage. It was impossible to communicate with the bartenders because the stage speakers were pointed directly at a building 50 feet from the stage and the resulting back-and-forth noise overload was undoubtedly above safe limits. Participating chefs didn't get nearly as much communication and support from FoF as they expected, and a few of them I talked to were hesitant to participate again because of it. Despite all of this, the chefs and their food were brilliant. I posted afterwards I hoped FoF had learned a few things from the event and would make refinements.

I'm not at all certain that's the case in the final run-up to this year's Unstripped.

Details about the event location were sent to attendees today. Yeah, a major street party finally let us know where to show up the day before the event. The email says they're on California between Casino Center and Main. That space is maybe half the size of last year's area. I'm not at all certain how they'll fit in a supposed 27 chef stations (the sales pitch, btw, said "30+ chefs") and four booze spots. And they don't plan to take up the sidewalks - the email specifically says we have in/out privileges and encourages us to visit the businesses on California because they'll (probably) be open.

I'm hoping they plan to run the event down the alleyway next to Esther's Kitchen, maybe even wrapping around into their parking lot where the first Unstripped took place. But I'm not sure that can happen without cutting off the sidewalk. If not, they're going to be very hard pressed to fit in what they say they have.

But they may not have that much. I ran into James Trees last weekend at Liquid Diet and said I was looking forward to seeing him at Unstripped. "I'd better be there," he said, "otherwise who will be?" Cryptic, but concerning to me given the size of the announced venue. And then there's the bar squad - my sources at Jammyland say they're doing the after party, but they're not sure they'll be at the event. Unstripped still lists them on the website as pouring at the event.

And of course, there's the entry situation. The first tickets sold - with an advance notice for previous attendees - were First Entry tickets. The implication was they'd be selling a certain number of tickets for entry every 15 minutes to ease crowding. Whether they kept that plan or not I don't know, but there are only two admission times - First Entry, and 15 minutes after.

It's all a lot of vague signs and inferences on my part, I know. But given what I know of Feast of Friends, I'm very concerned for this year's Unstripped. And future ones. Fingers crossed. Hope to see some of y'all there so we can experience the whatever-it-is together. At least we know the after party will be great.

I was curious how FoF would handle this years UnStripped, we’ve heard things through our grapevines as well about the mismanagement of things. We’re fairly certain the dude who runs it doesn’t like us at all so we never get any invite to run a booth or anything, lol. It’s such a great event and idea when done properly, it sucks to hear that it’s got the same feeling and setup this year :/

Liquid Diet has been so good, glad to see Brett and Patrick settling in and crushing it. We’re talking with them about doing a pizza pop up on their patio sometime soon, do a little cocktail and pizza pairing…

ogopogo fucked around with this message at 04:33 on Oct 14, 2023

bartolimu
Nov 25, 2002


ogopogo posted:

I was curious how FoF would handle this years UnStripped, we’ve heard things through our grapevines as well about the mismanagement of things. We’re fairly certain the dude who runs it doesn’t like us at all so we never get any invite to run a booth or anything, lol. It’s such a great event and idea when done properly, it sucks to hear that it’s got the same feeling and setup this year :/

It sucks that they don't invite you. Yukon is absolutely a highlight of off-Strip dining, and from the neighborhood to boot.

quote:

Liquid Diet has been so good, glad to see Brett and Patrick settling in and crushing it. We’re talking with them about doing a pizza pop up on their patio sometime soon, do a little cocktail and pizza pairing…

That's extremely exciting. Can't wait to see what you all come up with! I'll be there for sure.

My thoughts on Unstripped, as it happened:

Check-in starting an hour early was a very smart move by whoever was in charge of access control. Most of us were ready to go when they opened the gates, which was a bit before 7:00. I appreciated that, compared to last Unstripped where we all waited for 15-20 minutes after supposed opening time for the media and social media pass folks to get all their pretty photos before letting us in.

As feared, the space seemed a little cramped. During the busiest time it wasn't quite shoulder to shoulder, but at a lot of booths there was barely enough space for the lines forming. Previous years' fun of talking to the chefs or at least stopping to tell them how good the food was couldn't really happen.

Food quality was overall great. Highlights:
Gina Marinelli's goat pasta dish
Jawgogi's loving incredible Korean fried frog legs
James Trees personally blowtorching every dish of food leaving his station
Calabash African Kitchen - especially the rice dish (very obviously the ancestor of jambalaya, and delicious in its own right), which I waited in line for fifteen minutes to try. Worth.
Yaqui Zen Kitchen's vegan oyster mushroom taco, which eclipsed the Soul Belly BBQ taco for best taco of the whole thing
The absolute madman whose name I forget who made a liver mousse, pate en croute, AND a pate de campagne and stopped to clap when I took one of each. Twice.

Best dish of the night, though, goes to Gio Mauro's octopus and tripe salad. Mind-bendingly delicious, and when I got a change to talk to him later it gave some insight into his creative process. "Why does this dish work?" he said. "It's because the octopus and the tripe have the same texture, but wildly different flavors. It's like having two kinds of gummy bears." And yeah, that was a dish with two difficult proteins, wonderful preparations, dressed with just enough stuff to bring them together. Absolutely phenomenal. The other dish at his station was his bread with toppings, including cacciocavallo cheese hanging over a wood fire, scraped off raclette-style. It was a cool visual and of course his bread is always amazing.

Event security was unobtrusive and the crowd seemed mostly fine. Staffing in general seemed sufficient, though the trash cans filled up awfully quickly in some areas and were too widely spaced. We managed, though.

The booze stations were far enough from the stage that we could actually talk to each other, and that was nice. I'm not sure what the prep instructions were, but I think every bar ran out of product before the end. Jammyland ran out of both cocktails after an hour and a half. Which was a shame, I was feeling under the weather and needed more Tropical Medicine. Thankfully, I was able to get some at the after party.

We had a few last-minute drops from the program. Lotus of Siam didn't show, and they were on the list as of Wednesday. John Arena was the only guy serving pizza, and honestly it was a disappointing bite - one of the few at the whole show. The list on the website now has been trimmed down to 23 chefs, and that sounds like the number we had in the end. It's too bad, but I'm not sure another seven cooking stations would've fit in the area. Don't get me wrong - there was definitely enough food for me to emulate Mr. Creosote, but more variety and more chefs highlighted would have been nice. Hopefully the event was successful enough to come back next year - maybe with a larger space and more chefs participating. Maybe with Yukon there to show John Arena how to do a food fest pizza properly.

It wasn't perfect. But if they go again next year I'll definitely buy a ticket. The after party at Jammyland was chill and fun, and we ended the night hanging out at Liquid Diet for way too long. Solid A arts district experience for sure.

Mr. Wiggles
Dec 1, 2003

We are all drinking from the highball glass of ideology.
A good report, and I'm glad it went better than expected.

G-Mawwwwwww
Jan 31, 2003

My LPth are Hot Garbage
Biscuit Hider
Real tempted to do one of the chefs table options at monzu now. Have any of yall been?

bartolimu
Nov 25, 2002


G-Mawwwwwww posted:

Real tempted to do one of the chefs table options at monzu now. Have any of yall been?

I haven't been, but my instinct is to absolutely trust Gio to make it a magical experience.

bartolimu
Nov 25, 2002


Short notice, but the Vegas Pizza Fest is happening this Saturday. This year's chef list includes Brett Geiger of Izzy's Pizza Bus - that bus left town last year, and to my knowledge this is the first time he's been back to serve pizzas in Vegas. Izzy's Detroit style is excellent, second (IMO) only to Red Dwarf's, so it's nice to see this brief return. Almost all of the really essential Vegas pizza spots are serving, including Yukon (ogopogo & co.), Old School/Monzu (Gio Mauro), Settebello (my favorite Neapolitan in town), Metro, Pizza Rock, Evel Pie, etc. Tickets at this point are kind of expensive, but it's a pretty great time in my opinion. If you've got the cash I recommend springing for VIP - first of all for the hour early access, during which you can easily fill up, and second because James Trees is serving food from ALL of his restaurants in the VIP room, including the "first preview" of La Boheme, which is going to take Esther's current spot when the build-out next door finishes. Tickets at https://vegaspizzafest.com/.

Slightly longer notice: The Silver Stamp won a nationwide contest with Entrepreneur Magazine as the Best Mom and Pop Business in the US. To celebrate, they're having a Guest Appreciation Party on Sunday, November 12th from 1-4pm. Of note, this will be an :siren:open draft bar:siren: event. Expect crowds, but do come down to enjoy!

Gatts
Jan 2, 2001

Goodnight Moon

Nap Ghost
Going to Vegas again. Will check out the Fountainbleau Casino/Hotel and if I eat there will report out.

G-Mawwwwwww
Jan 31, 2003

My LPth are Hot Garbage
Biscuit Hider
I went to HaSalon my last trip. I went mainly because the menu was so terribly written I had to experience it.

It ended up being my favorite meal of the entire year. Everything I had was amazing. The charred beets with horseradish snow was a work of art. The enormous lamb kebab was worth ordering, too. We went with a table of 7 and got out of there for 120/pp.


If you go to fontainebleau, lmk how mother wolf is.

Gatts
Jan 2, 2001

Goodnight Moon

Nap Ghost
Went to Fontainebleau but did not eat there. That being said it is a beautiful and large hotel casino. Tall, high ceilings and a nice classy interior with blue, cream and goldish vibes. The bar areas looked nice. I went to check out the prices at Mother Wolf but it was closed and their menu outside doesn’t have pricing so I dunno how to judge.

Gatts
Jan 2, 2001

Goodnight Moon

Nap Ghost
I am inside the Sphere and whoever decided beer should cost $21 needs to get hosed. A burger is $18 then pay $7 for waffle fries on top of that.

Mr. Wiggles
Dec 1, 2003

We are all drinking from the highball glass of ideology.
Eat first, drink an expensive beer, drink a bunch of other drinks after.

Also, that's just what strip prices are without comps.

Mr. Wiggles fucked around with this message at 07:45 on Dec 30, 2023

G-Mawwwwwww
Jan 31, 2003

My LPth are Hot Garbage
Biscuit Hider
Ogo, I heard about that guy fieri bullshit. I'm sorry dude.

ogopogo
Jul 16, 2006
Remember: no matter where you go, there you are.

G-Mawwwwwww posted:

Ogo, I heard about that guy fieri bullshit. I'm sorry dude.

Thank you my dude. Woof, we didn’t expect the response that we got from our post, lol. There’s a list of things that went wrong, and overall it just hurt a lot of local restaurants that were a part of the event. When we heard there were other activations in town that pulled similar poo poo, we felt like we had to say something.
We understand Vegas, I’ve been here 20 years and have done countless corporate events of every size - we get tourism, hospitality, and what it takes to put on an event of that scale. My wife spent years producing events like this all over the city so it was hard for us to see this one fail so hard. Tons of misinformation, misleading vendors on the realities of the attendance and event, etc. Guy Fieri literally had an entire zone for his restaurants giving out free food all day, not to mention several other massive corporate sponsors handing out free food. No one wanted to pay money for local business vendor food after getting free food, and having to pay a stupid ticket price to get in (it was supposed to be free) it was brutal. These things were never communicated to vendors in regards to free food, ticket prices, and other things.
I’ve never gone “viral” or been a lightning rod for anything, but when someone whose reputation is built around supporting the little man doesn’t realize itself, it’s pretty rough. He puts his name on the banner and touts local businesses, but for the 5 hours we were there, he never once visited the booth of a local vendor. He had an entourage of about 30 people cruising through his own activations for photos.
We shy away from big events like these because of this reason, but figured Guy would be a real opportunity to showcase what we as Las Vegas restaurants can do. Lesson learned, our customers came out for us super strong on Monday, and I hope the other spots around town get as much love as well.

ogopogo fucked around with this message at 02:40 on Feb 14, 2024

Mr. Wiggles
Dec 1, 2003

We are all drinking from the highball glass of ideology.
On the other hand those sausage sandwiches were dope.

The Aardvark
Aug 19, 2013


This weekend will be the first time the wife and I have been to town in a few years, so it'll be exciting to try out some of the places the thread has recommended. First stop will be Yukon since we'll be able to knock out two things to please the toddler after the drive in: a bus ride and pizza. :twisted:

ogopogo
Jul 16, 2006
Remember: no matter where you go, there you are.

The Aardvark posted:

This weekend will be the first time the wife and I have been to town in a few years, so it'll be exciting to try out some of the places the thread has recommended. First stop will be Yukon since we'll be able to knock out two things to please the toddler after the drive in: a bus ride and pizza. :twisted:

Hell yes! A powerful combo.

The Aardvark
Aug 19, 2013


Y-Train is toddler approved. Yall were busy! We got a mini since I decided we're going to the Knights game last minute.

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The Aardvark
Aug 19, 2013


So a bit after!

Lotus of Siam was good? The khao soi was kinda mid but the hor mok was very good.

We will deffo go back to Xiao Long Dumplings, even though we went when there was no chow fun or a beer I wanted. The dumplings and fried chicken in chili pepper were great.

And as always, SkinnyFATS was our departure breakfast and did not disappoint. The toddler got us a free balloon!


The drive in with a toddler was pretty benign, so we'll deffo be back for more good eats!

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