The lost meals entries consist of meals that occurred at various times throughout 2012 which, for any number of reasons, escaped my documentation – some due to a cross country move and a new job, some due to the Los Angeles Kings run to the Stanley Cup, and some simply as a result of too much travel. Having enjoyed many of these meals with friends or family and with some of them amongst the year’s very best the reality is that with time my memory has deteriorated and as life moves forward I’ve realized there is little hope to ever “catch up” or document these experiences as well as I’d hope, yet in order to preserve them I present these pictures, notes, and thoughts on the experience.
eat.
Coffee
Beignets – Made to Order with Raspberry Jam and Vanilla Mascarpone
Golden Pancake Short Stack
Fruit Cup
Huevos Motulenos with 2 eggs, red and green chili, black beans, peas, feta, sautéed bananas, corn tortilla
Shrimp and Grits with Ham and two fried eggs
Part of the downtown Las Vegas revitalization, Natalie Young’s “eat.” seemed a great choice for early Saturday breakfast and keeping in mind the total dearth of Las Vegas traffic in the early morning hours it was a mere 10 minute drive from the MGM to the small modern eatery where we would find Chef Young already hard and work and an acoustic musician filling the room with tunes from Pearl Jam and Led Zeppelin as we sat down. Designed as a sort of upscale urban soul food space for locals and featuring a menu both familiar but interesting, all composed of locally sourced fresh ingredients I knew right away that I was going to like eat. and although our server J.D. seemed a bit hung over (or perhaps just socially awkward) the moment food began to arrive my suspicions were confirmed.
Starting first with great coffee, copiously refilled throughout our hour-long visit, and moving straight to shared plates of NOLA-quality beignets, crispy buttermilk pancakes with pure maple syrup, and a plethoric fruit cup it was obvious from first bite that Chef Young is not skimping on ingredient quality and although I favor sweet to savory 95% of the time the meal only got better when we moved onto our main plates; the shrimp snappy and sweet with exceptionally toothsome grits and the truly unique pairing of heat and sweet tossed with peas, feta, and two poached eggs quite unlike anything I’ve had before or since – the Motulenos an absolute must order and the restaurant more than enough reason for local or tourist to get up early and trek off-strip.
Chocolate and Spice
Chocolate Buche Noel
Cherry Scone
Banana Cream Pie
Snowman Old Fashioned Cupcake
Smores Bar
Latte
A former pastry chef for both Charlie Palmer and Charlie Trotter, Megan Romano’s pedigree is well known and with a cookbook already under her belt displaying a wide variety of confections both classic and completely unique I had high expectations for her first solo pastry shop, Chocolate and Spice. Having already enjoyed breakfast at eat. but with plans to spend the rest of the day off strip our stop was somewhat impromptu but arriving just after 10:00am the shelves were still packed and with a latte for my friend we decided to sample a few items, some enjoyed in the shop and some saved for later with only a rubbery (and quite honestly quite unpleasant) s’mores bar and a bit too much frosting (an obvious decorative necessity) on the cupcake marring the experience.
Speaking to the items that shined it should first be noted that the service at Chocolate and Spice is exquisite – a smiling staff of young women working the counter and delivering each individually plated item to tables – and given Megan’s background in cake design the bouche noel and body of the cupcake were both dense, moist, and aromatic – definitely a place worth ordering a cake for a special event or a special person. Moving on past the cakes, Ms. Romano’s scones are much like those served at Keller’s Bouchon – a bit softer than the standard with a crunchy sugar coating and pockets of butter juxtaposing plump, bursting fruit – while the Banana Cream Pie, without a doubt the show stealer of the afternoon took ‘flaky crust’ to a whole new level and married it to bananas, banana pudding, and plenty of light pastry cream with a drizzle of caramel that rivaled Tartine, Susina, and Dahlia Bakery for ‘best ever’ bragging rights.