I like all the glitter, bright lights, entertainment, good food and wine. A few weeks ago I visited for four days. I always stay at the Four Queens downtown. I like a small hotel, easy to get in and out. Arrive at the side door, check in and up you go to your room in minutes. You have in and out privileges at the hotel garage.
Hugo's Cellar is a gourmet sleeper in the Four Queens. Very popular with the locals I eat there at least once while visiting. Open only for dinner at 5:30 p.m. the Continental dining room features a Salad Cart table-side so you can create your own salad. Veal Oscar, Herb Crusted Lamb Rack and Roast Duckling Flambe Anise are three of my favorite entrees. Bananas Foster brings back fond memories of New Orleans. Reservations are suggested 385-4011.
Breakfast is great at Binion's Horseshoe across the street from the Four Queens. Jessie is the best waitress in the city, always wait for one of her stations. Breakfast consists of two eggs, a ham steak with bone-in, biscuits, grits and coffee for less than $3. Atmosphere here is real western, like Vegas once was.
For a change of pace I decided to try Saizen Japan Dining and Sushi Bar in the San Remo Hotel. They say that they are the best Japanese food and Sushi this side of the Pacific. A small dining room with a long counter. The chefs work behind the counter in view of the whole room. It is popular. Dinner only from 6 p.m. to midnight. It is the freshest and best for the money. If there is a line, wait, it is worth the time. No reservations.
The Canal Street Grille in the Orleans Hotel is a steak house that features seafood as well as Cajun and Creole specialties. It is a very comfortable room with beautiful carved glass doors and a fireplace aglow in the back of the room. You can choose appetizers right out of the Big Easy such as Oysters Bienville, a Crawfish Bisque enhanced with cognac or succulent crab cakes with whole grain mustard.
If you like Prime Rib, steaks and chops there are many different varieties of sauces and cuts. The baked Red Snapper caught my eye and was delicious with a crawfish stuffing and charon sauce (a Bernaise, tomato flavored). My dining partner chose the Rib eye steak with Blackened gulf shrimp.
The desserts are all old familiar Louisiana recipes. The bread pudding with the traditional whiskey sauce was the best for me. There was a cheesecake that has nothing whatever to do with the Crescent City but the pecan pie was fair and the Bananas Foster was just o.k. Reservations are required, dinner daily from 5 to 11 p.m. Call 365-7111.
Emeril Lagasse is a great showman and an innovative chef that I also call my friend. He and John Folse have done more good things with New Orleans cuisine than any other chef in the culinary history of this country.
Emeril's TV shows are the best on the tube today. He loves food and cooking and he shows how it should be fun and not taken so seriously. Emeril's New Orleans Fish House at the MGM Grand Hotel is superb. The staff (many from Louisiana) is young, have great personalities and they have been trained to perfection. They aren't in your face all the time but they are there when needed.
I started the meal with a bowl of Rabbit Gumbo. It was the worse Gumbo I ever tried to eat. After that bad start it was perfection all the way for four of us. The Caesar Salad and Emeril's House salad were excellent. Large portions with good olive oil and Balsamic vinegar. Pan Fried Louisiana crab cakes served with Creole spiced potato salad and a creole tartar sauce was a dream come true. Seafood pan roast served with two medallions of fresh fish and two jumbo gulf shrimp with traditional seafood Jambalaya and essence spiked butter sauce was a seafood junkie's fix for the year.
The dessert menu is so different from the ordinary you wish you could taste them all. We divided Emeril's banana cream pie with banana crust floating in a caramel sauce with a Hawaiian vintage chocolate pecan pie with warm fudge sauce and homemade vanilla ice cream.
This dinner was the best on this trip to Las Vegas. We flew the new National Airline and highly recommend it. I look forward to a trip later in the year.
Emeril's New Orleans Fish House is open daily for lunch and dinner. Reservations a must at 891-7374.
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