On the road…

Just outside of Las Vegas, on the way to the Hoover Dam, lies this charming little hamlet, which deserves a stop on it’s own because it is really quite lovely. However, the reason the Critic stopped here on his way to the Dam, is because the concierge at the Palace said “stop at the Coffee Cup; it’s great”.

These are the kind of local, insider tips a food addict like the Critic loves and appreciates, so not stopping was not even an option.

It’s a diner, it’s on the main street in Boulder City and it’s reeaal casual. No uniforms, no “hi I’m Madison and I’ll be your server”, no maitre’d, no celebrity chef photo hanging outside. It’s great! Finally, the real thing!

The Critic had the Chicken Fried Steak with eggs and hash browns. Huge, somewhat greasy and extremely satisfying!

Breakfast for two here will run you about $20 or less and is a welcome break from the crowds, the plastic and the blinking, flashing lights of Las Vegas.

On the road…

Do you like Thai? The Critic likes Thai.

In Las Vegas, hidden in an ugly shopping center on Sahara called (it’s an original name no doubt) Commercial Center, is Lotus of Siam.

Lotus of Siam, if you do some digging on the internet, has a lot of fans! The accolades and magazine and major newspaper write-ups can be read in their entirety while you are waiting for a table, since they are posted in their tiny waiting room, where you will wait for a table as your nose starts to send urgent messages to your stomach as a result of the aromas emanating from the kitchen. “Best Thai Restaurant in North America” says one such article. Oh yeah, you say which magazine said that? Gourmet magazine that’s who.

The Critic does not know if it is the best in North America or Las Vegas (or even Sahara Blvd for that matter) but it is extremely good and highly recommended. A meal here will be better, more satisfying and much more delicious than someplace on the strip or in one of the hotels.

The Critic usually orders more or less the same things: the Pad Thai, which, if you are familiar with, is a complex mixture of flavors and textures when done right and a mass of peanut-y goo when screwed up. Here it’s the former. Also there is the soup, whose name once again escapes me, but it has lemon grass, coconut milk, shitaake mushrooms, ginger and is served in a pot to share with whomever is lucky enough to be sitting across from you.

Crispy duck is a must – there are three kinds, one is a little simple with Thai basil; another features a curry sauce and a third features…. something else. They are all delicious, having tried them on previous occasions, but the favorite has got to be the sauce-less one. It is such a flavor explosion in your mouth, if you include a basil leaf or two in your bite of duck, that you will think you have died and gone to heaven.

On this occasion the Critic asked for a recommendation and the waitress suggested crab salad. This was some kind of crab meat, lightly dusted and then quickly deep fried and served on a mixture of fresh salad greens that had a sweetish dressing on them. The taste of this dish was very light, fresh and delicate; have this one before the duck, definitely.

No room for dessert as usual, and the bill, with a beer or two, usually comes to under 60 dollars for two people. For that kind of money on the strip, you might get a main course for one.

Go there if you love Thai.

On the Road…

The Water Street Café is another Vancouver restaurant that has been around for a long time, and while not part of a chain as far the Critic can tell, it has survived and maintained a stellar reputation as a great place for lunch or dinner.

It’s located on Water Street, an original name for a street that ran along the edge of the… water, in historic Gastown. After living in Mexico and particularly the Yucatan for the last 20 years, the Critic always smiles when coming across anything ‘historic’ in the Vancouver area. The whole damn country is only about 100 plus years old!

There is a small but delectable menu, a decent wine list, good service and the room itself is casually elegant. The fact that it is located right in front of Gastown’s main attraction, an old steam clock that blows strains of the national anthem (the Canadian one of course) every fifteen minutes and then a whole chorus on the hour, makes for good people watching while sipping on your wine. Watch the Japanese tourists jostling for position in front of the steaming, whistling clock to get their souvenir photograph. Great stuff.

Try the oysters (pictured above) pan fried and then served in this indescribably delicious sauce that will have you dragging the remains of your bread, trying to get all the gravy, because, like Ricardo Montalban used to say, it’s good to the last drop.

A tradition for the Critic and the MidiCritic (not to be confused with the MiniCritic) the other dish always ordered is the Penne with BC smoked salmon in a light creamy sauce. Again, absolutely fantastic.

The MidiCritic always orders the same dish, the details of which usually escape the Critic’s Alzheimer’s-deluded/diluted mind. However, thanks to editing capabilities and occasional flashes of short-term memory, one can come back and edit, right? There it is right in the photo for crying out loud. It’s homemade gnocchi stuffed with cheese and served in a pumpkin squash sauce and it is again, excellent.

The Water Street Café is a great place for lunch or dinner. Highly recommended.

On the Road…

The Keg has been a Vancouver institution for over 20 years and it is encouraging to see a Vancouver restaurant chain that has lasted this long and is still doing well.

On one occasion, after work on a payday, the Critic and several co-workers of the now defunct-Sheraton Villa Inn in Burnaby visited the Keg and spent practically the whole paycheck on dinner, shots, and wine… the days of youth and irresponsibility!

The Critic hadn’t visited the Keg for the same amount of time and it was a pleasant surprise to find the food still good, the ambiance friendly and a little more sophisticated than the rustic Canadiana of yore and the food was just as the Critic remembered it.

Mushrooms Neptune are STILL on the menu, as are the scallops wrapped in bacon, a perennial Keg favorite and classic. Stuffed with cream cheese and seafood, the mushroom caps are good in that comfort food kind of way and the scallops are tender morsels with the bacon giving them the needed kick, flavor wise. The Spinach and Crab dip was also tasty, again featuring cream cheese and the baked Goat Cheese was excellent, served with a cooked salsa that had just a little bit of picante.

Also (the Critic was accompanied by the MiniCritic) the Caesar Salad was ordered and a French Onion soup. The salad was so good that the MiniCritic, who detests salads, devoured half of it in record time – would that the Trotters could try it! The soup was hot, savory and covered in crouton and swiss cheese.

Good food, albeit a little heavy on the cheesy-creamy-thick side, with decent service and relaxed surroundings including several fireplaces along with a glass of Merlot made for a pleasant cool Vancouver evening.

On the Road…

If you have a layover at the airport in Houston, as the Critic did just a little while ago, of any considerable time, one option besides sitting around in those uncomfortable chairs with your eyes glazed over is to have a meal at Pappadeaux, the seafood restaurant owned by the Pappas people who also run a great steakhouse and a Greek restaurant as well if the Critic is not mistaken.

The service is fine, in that chirpy I’m Ricardo and I’ll be your server today kind of way and the food while expensive is very good especially when one considers the myriad and mediocre fast food options available.

The Critic had the Blackened Redfish which came smothered with a shrimpy creamy sauce and was absolutely delicious and a very large portion too. Coconut shrimp were simply alright – you can get better at La Pigua in Campeche or Merida and the lobster bisque was satisfyingly rich but you wouldnt write home about it anytime soon.

There was no room for dessert, although they all looked delicious.

A good way to spend an hour or more in a pleasant setting enjoying some good food before getting on the plane and having to eat a tasteless microwaved sandwich, if you are lucky enough to get even that these days.

In response to the long comment on the Carreta Cubana II post, the Casual Restaurant Critic thinks it may be pertinent to answer this in ‘post’ form.

Service in Merida’s restaurants is alright; it’s just not professional in the gran mayoria de los casos and often a result of no one training anyone – there is no waiter’s training program anywhere that the Critic is aware of. Too often personnel is hired with only minimum requirements: that they live close by, that they have a white shirt or something similar. Niggling details like not sticking your arm and the inevitable armpit in front of a restaurant patron while serving a plate (with the inevitable whiff of BO – really a horrible thing to have happen to you – or their Mennen Speed Stick – equally disagreeable) are rarely passed on to service personnel.

How do locals handle it? Well, in many cases people are not particularly concerned and have become accustomed to lackluster service. Merida is not Barcelona or Manhattan, so the dining options as well as the patrons do not have that level of sophistication or neuroses. Go with the flow is definitely the way to go.

To the Casual Restaurant Critic it is part of the charm of living in the Yucatan. You don’t expect professional Smith and Wollensky service for the most part. (You do however expect professional service at Joe’s Stone Crab and when they treat you like crap you let ’em have it and they try to make nice). Here waiters try, and usually do, a passable job. What is most upsetting to the admittedly neurotic foreigner is when hundreds of thousand of real dollars are invested in lighting, landscaping, architecture, menu printing, table linens, glassware, cutlery, kitchen equipment and advertising; and the owner hires a mediocre manager who hires even more mediocre service staff, some apparently culled from the garden staff, who have absolutely NO knowledge of gastronomy, what a Caesar salad might be, the difference between a salad and a dinner fork, white and red wine glasses, etc etc. And they don’t train them either! That is unforgivable, in those particular cases.

As a foreigner thinking of moving to Mexico, one should definitely go with the flow, reduce expectations and learn to relax. It’s not that important in the general scheme of things. And certainly not worth getting one’s panties in a bunch.