{"id":7089,"date":"2012-12-22T07:04:38","date_gmt":"2012-12-22T14:04:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/endoedibles.ifm.yji.mybluehost.me\/?p=7089"},"modified":"2013-05-12T13:45:04","modified_gmt":"2013-05-12T20:45:04","slug":"lost-meals-eat-and-chocolate-and-spice-bakery-las-vegas-nv","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/endoedibles.com\/?p=7089","title":{"rendered":"[lost meals] eat. and Chocolate and Spice Bakery, Las Vegas NV"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"006

The lost meals entries consist of meals that occurred at various times throughout 2012 which, for any number of reasons, escaped my documentation \u2013 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\u2019s very best the reality is that with time my memory has deteriorated and as life moves forward I\u2019ve realized there is little hope to ever \u201ccatch up\u201d or document these experiences as well as I\u2019d hope, yet in order to preserve them I present these pictures, notes, and thoughts on the experience.<\/p>\n

\"221\"

eat.<\/p>\n

\"006

Coffee<\/p>\n

\"006

Beignets \u2013 Made to Order with Raspberry Jam and Vanilla Mascarpone<\/p>\n

\"006

Golden Pancake Short Stack<\/p>\n

\"006

Fruit Cup<\/p>\n

\"006

Huevos Motulenos with 2 eggs, red and green chili, black beans, peas, feta, saut\u00e9ed bananas, corn tortilla<\/p>\n

\"006

Shrimp and Grits with Ham and two fried eggs<\/p>\n

\"006

Part of the downtown Las Vegas revitalization, Natalie Young\u2019s \u201ceat.\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

\"006

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\u2019ve had before or since \u2013 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.<\/p>\n

\"007

Chocolate and Spice<\/p>\n

\"007

Chocolate Buche Noel<\/p>\n

\"007

Cherry Scone<\/p>\n

\"007

Banana Cream Pie<\/p>\n

\"007

Snowman Old Fashioned Cupcake<\/p>\n

\"007

Smores Bar<\/p>\n

\"007

Latte<\/p>\n

\"007

A former pastry chef for both Charlie Palmer and Charlie Trotter, Megan Romano\u2019s 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\u2019mores bar and a bit too much frosting (an obvious decorative necessity) on the cupcake marring the experience.<\/p>\n

\"007

Speaking to the items that shined it should first be noted that the service at Chocolate and Spice is exquisite \u2013 a smiling staff of young women working the counter and delivering each individually plated item to tables \u2013 and given Megan\u2019s background in cake design the bouche noel and body of the cupcake were both dense, moist, and aromatic \u2013 definitely a place worth ordering a cake for a special event or a special person. Moving on past the cakes, Ms. Romano\u2019s scones are much like those served at Keller\u2019s Bouchon \u2013 a bit softer than the standard with a crunchy sugar coating and pockets of butter juxtaposing plump, bursting fruit \u2013 while the Banana Cream Pie, without a doubt the show stealer of the afternoon took \u2018flaky crust\u2019 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 \u2018best ever\u2019 bragging rights.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The lost meals entries consist of meals that occurred at various times throughout 2012 which, for any number of reasons, escaped my documentation \u2013 some due to a cross country move and a new job, some due to the Los … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,1023,1024,28,11,13,1022,1021,27,21,900,19,32,61,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7089","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-breakfast","category-chocolate-and-spice","category-chocolate-and-spice-bakery","category-coffee","category-cupcakes","category-dessert","category-eat-downtown","category-eat","category-food","category-las-vegas","category-lost-meals","category-nevada","category-pancakes","category-pork","category-vacation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/endoedibles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7089","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/endoedibles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/endoedibles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/endoedibles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/endoedibles.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7089"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/endoedibles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7089\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7115,"href":"https:\/\/endoedibles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7089\/revisions\/7115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/endoedibles.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/endoedibles.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/endoedibles.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}