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Andiron, Las Vegas (NV), USA

7/8/2017

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Words by Paul Oswell

In between telling me how great he is at Kung Fu, my portly, middle-aged cab driver who I totally don't believe is telling me how all none of the buildings we’re driving past existed a few years ago.

We’re driving out to Summerlin, about a 25 minute drive from the Las Vegas proper, and as the massage parlours and wedding chapels give way to strip malls, it’s beginning to feel more and more like suburbia.

After a week being bounced around in the joy-compulsory hustle of the mega-casinos and the neon-lit, ersatz hedonism of The Strip, it’s no bad thing, let me tell you. Oh, give me a home where the families just back from Timmy’s high school soccer game roam, just for an evening, PLEASE.

That said, we don’t need to go full Olive Garden just because we’re leaving the thick of things. The outer reaches of Las Vegas can still deliver interesting dining experiences and best of all, you don’t have to be elbow-wrestling with dozens of other people in an overhyped outpost of some famous chef’s brand, either.

On paper, Andiron is basically a steakhouse in a small retail/business park. If that doesn’t set your pulse racing, then fair enough, but look beyond that prosaic description, peep the kind of awards it’s bringing home (Eater’s Las Vegas Restaurant of the year AND chef of the year in 2015) and then check your preconceptions with your kung fu taxi driver, people.

Under the semi-domed ceilings, the largish dining room nods at you with understated class, whites and subtle greens providing a comforting sensory retreat after the jarring crassness of pretty much all the casino restaurants. A semi-transparent bar proves a natural break between the drinking and dining areas, and there’s space enough between the tables to not have to watch what you say too much.

My friend and I lined up some seafood starters and a fish/steak mains combo to get at least some taste of life beyond the beef list, leaving our server to suggest a wine that would thread the eye of that tricky culinary needle, which they did with aplomb (a nice, light red that somehow held its own despite the diverse claims on its flavour).

First out, the tuna poke and grilled octopus. I think the best way to classify them is by the amount of time they physically existed on the table as food, which would be “very little”, not due to small portions but to obvious irresistibility. Octopus especially is easy to do very badly, but the delicacy on display here was noteworthy.

For mains, my friend went with the perky, all-round crowd pleaser of the steak world, the classic, wholesome homecoming cut, the New York Strip. I, pescatarian philistine that I obviously am, went with the Grilled Branzino, simply because I had never heard of it before and I like adventure. Turns out it’s a delicious European Sea Bass with mild white flesh, but in good hands here, it elevates itself from that tepid description.

The NY Strip is no slouch either, and is reassuringly tender, with lovely melted fats and unapologetic juiciness. We throw in a side of Jalapeno Bacon Churros because why not and I kind of want to come back and just sit and eat two orders of those. And by ‘kind of’, I mean ‘ definitely’.

Dessert is a blur of their deconstructed Snickers (a delight) and some top notch tawny port and as we finish up, it’s good to know that the people that actually live in Vegas have places like this to eat at, where they don’t have to pay over the odds to cram into a noisy adult crèche.

It’s even better to discover these places as a visitor, and as long as you don’t get too rowdy, I don’t think they mind you being here. Just act like a respectful local and they won’t get too aggro. And if they do, I have the number of this taxi driver who’s great at Kung Fu. 

ANDIRON WEBSITE

BACK TO EAT AND DRINK
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Pizza Rock, Las Vegas, NV.

24/7/2017

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Oh wow, remember Planet Hollywood? What an ill-conceived adventure in negative glamour THAT was. They opened over 100 of these monstrosities, now there are only NINE worldwide all in the usual tourist traps apart from Goa. YES, GOA. PLANET HOLLYWOOD GOA. I’m weirdly for it just because it’s so unlikely.

Anyway. Theme restaurants are a strange beast. Such a fine line between homage and the kind of wanton plundering that results in a tired menu that still somehow charges $35 for a burger to nonplussed spoiled children.

So it’s with some reservation that I approach Pizza Rock, though to be fair, when I mentioned I was going, even locals were giving it the nod of approval, which took the edge off my nerves somewhat.  I mean, I wasn’t NERVOUS. Worst comes to worst: I have some bad pizza and walk away. It’s not a night in Mosul or having to perform an emergency tracheotomy on a toddler or something.

First up, the branch I went to was in the throbbing heart of Fremont (old Vegas for those not up to speed) and I was damn pleased about it, having grown tired of The Strip after about 4.3 hours. Anyway, it was a busy Saturday lunchtime, and as such I had to snake past the lines at the obviously popular counter up front selling take away pies and slices. A good sign already.

As the name suggests, and as it will soon become clear if you’re not paying attention, it’s a music-themed restaurant. That music being rock music, to be completely crystal. “Ugh, I’m leaving for somewhere authentic,” I hear you say. BUT WAIT. What if I told you that the menu is designed by Tony Gemignani, a 12-time world pizza champion and essentially the Pele of pizza? What’s that? You’ll at least sit down and get a taste just out of curiosity? Well, alright then. Good choice.

I sit in a booth to the side of a largish, open plan-ish dining room, and Nirvana is playing and the first thing you notice (perhaps) is that there aren’t a million ridiculous rock artefacts crammed onto the walls and the décor is understated, if you ignore the huge truck with a yellow flame motif in the middle of things and since I’m not facing it, that’s very easy to do.

The staff are on their game from the whistle, even though there are tens of tourists needing things. One such tourist deigns it OK to wander over to my table and ask, apropos of nothing, “Hey buddy, where’s the best seafood buffet in town?” and I don’t know and feel sad I can’t help him but pleased I don’t say something sarcastic about Google.

The menu is a delight in two ways. First of all, it’s designed like a gatefold sleeve LP (ask your dad) which to me is a reassuringly visceral reminder of my vinyl-loving teenage years, when you weren’t a hipster just because you had a record player, you were just a normal person.

Secondly, when you open it up, it’s like a mini-encyclopaedia of pizza. There’s every kind: New York, Neopolitan, Roman, Californian, Chicagoan, Sicilian…you’re not going to be disappointed with the choice, is what I’m saying. DETROIT! I didn’t even know Detroit HAD a style of pizza!

I really wanted to try the limited edition (only 23 made daily) Sausage and Stout pizza but it was for two people and even my gluttony doesn’t stretch to eating that for lunch and dinner for the next two days. I went with a classic Italian Diavola, and was talked into some Calabrese-style (for which read: spicy) calamari and a chop salad, which was a BEHEMOTH that I actually did end up eating for two more days.

As much as I was ready to tolerate this place as another lazy nod at a theme, the trappings are the least interesting thing about Pizza Rock. The freshness, specificity and innovation behind the ingredients is as impressive as any artisanal joint in your town’s hippest neighbourhood, and this holds for their cocktail and beer programme, too.

What can I say? For those about to Rock, I salute you. If only I could work out why that guy thought I would know about seafood buffets. Oh, well. GREAT PLACE WOULD ROCK AGAIN.  

Pizza Rock currently have five locations and you can find out more at the  
PIZZA ROCK WEBSITE
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Review: Johnny Sanchez, New Orleans

24/11/2015

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“Wait, what?”

“No, I’m serious. It really is.”

“This is a Mexican restaurant…by…John Besh? How is that even possible and why would we want to go there?”

I’m trying to cut some slack given my friend’s cynicism here. I don’t think many people in the city realise that the first half of this year-old restaurant’s name comes from its most revered gastronomic son. Chef Besh has so marinated his own reputation in the local flavours of Louisiana that there’s an understandable leap of faith involved here.

“It’s not just him. The Sanchez part is Aaron Sanchez. He’s kind of an expert.”

“Oh.”

“He’s on TV.”

“OH. OK. Well, I’m intrigued.”

Headway made, not that I default to describing chefs by their televisual credits, but Sanchez’s appearances on Chopped and more don’t hurt. I guess we’re going to give these two hugely acclaimed, panoramically-skilled chefs a chance, then.

New Orleans isn’t a town built on great Mexican food. Sure, there are a couple of cheerful burrito-mongers for quick fixes but nobody has really donned a glittery mask and wrestled with some of the more technical regional intricacies before this Besh-Sanchez tag team hopped into the ring.

The dining room is cavernous and colourful, all Day of the Dead iconography and modernist chandeliers. It strikes an immediate balance between formal and fiesta, and is big enough to provide some much-needed breathing space between the post-convention business drones and the cocktail-slurping bachelorette parties.

Not that we’re averse to cocktails, the mezcals and tamarinds of the drinks menu luring us in from the get-go. I’ve always been fond of the assured friendliness of the servers and staff at Besh joints, and even though the formality here is a notch lower, their sincerity and knowledge are equally reassuring.

It goes without saying that guacamole and chips are ordered as we look at the menu. The weird silence as this happens turns out to be a serious allergy to avocado on the part of my dining companion so that turns into a side order of EpiPens and an instruction to keep the bowl well onto my side of the table.

Even a quick look at the menu sees the culinary sparring and trading of ideas that has taken place between Johnny and Sanchez. Blue crab and shrimp come out punching from Louisiana, landing perfectly on the tostadas and tomatillos respectively.

We take on a haul of tacos, also representing both sides well, with crispy P&J oysters as well as barbecued beef and a carne asada with some delightful pickled jalapenos.

There are some nice home touches – a signature Besh move but taken up by Sanchez in his Mama’s epazote rice and we order the street corn as it was a dish that my date’s father would make when she was young. No restaurant food ever occupies the same emotional space as family-made versions, but it passes muster for her and I’m totally sold.

A notably quirky quesadilla with wild mushrooms and chicken enchiladas that remain memorable for the right reasons due to the meat being slow-cooked round off our food choices, as much as we could eat losing out very slightly to as much as we wanted to eat. 
More news on a rematch in the near future, I’m hoping.

A couple of glasses of sparkling rose give us a fighting chance of sharing dessert, the only real contender for both of us being the dulce de leche and coconut flan, dispatched with aplomb as we made more server friends and talked about plans to visit another of Besh’s collaborators, Chef Alon Shaya (in his new restaurant, Shaya), as soon as was logistically possible.

We left a dining room that exuded acceptably raucous bonhomie, a feat for its size. This guy Johnny Sanchez knows his Mexican onions alright, and he definitely sounds more of an expert than Aaron Besh.
 
 Johnny Sanchez website 
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Hello, kitty

3/9/2014

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It’s a Sunday afternoon and my friend meets me at the Ratchatewi Sky Train stop. She wants to take me to this novelty café she’d heard about – “It’s meant to be super cute!” she tells me.

I’m not someone who is regularly swayed by public displays of wanton cuteness, but I was going to keep an open mind. As we got to the café, there were some clues as to what lay inside – plastic, manga-style cat models, walls full of child-like doodles and excited squeals coming from inside.

I peeked through the window, and even my jaded, seen-it-all, post-modern, end of times western eyes found it hard not to be completely charmed. Inside the café were these enchanting little creatures, running around, eating from bowls, preening themselves and generally being as adorable as you can imagine. I watched them play and eat and show off their multi-coloured coats and revel in their little toys and accessories. I couldn’t wait to get inside and among them, and a minute later, we were called in to be seated.

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As we walked through the dining room, they shifted and stirred, some of them curling their legs up, squirming around, making way for us to sit down. Some of them were close up to our table, some in far corners...basically everywhere you looked, there was yet another and another, each more outlandishly adorable than the last. It was hard to know where to look. They made the sweetest little noises as their food came out, and I just wanted to take them all home with me, pinch their cute little ears, have them nibble on my fingers, and watch them as they ate their kibble with heartbreaking delicacy.

It’s no wonder they’re so universally loved, with their endearingly aloof air, their loveably quirky behaviour and unknowable ways – awwww, wook at you, sidling up to the table….what’s that you’re trying to say to me? Awwwwww…I don’t know what you want, I REALLY DON’T, but you look as cute as hell trying to tell me. What is it you want, you adorable little creature, you? What is it? Whadda ya waaaaaant? Is it this toy? Is it? Do you want to play? Do you? What’s that? Oh, you want to take my order? Fair enough.
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Yes, there really should be more cafes full of Asian people. I could stay all day just watching them interact and play with cats. Oh yeah, there are cats in this café. I forgot to mention that. They were pretty cool too. Not sure how hygienic that can be, but they served decent coffee, I guess.

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Bed Scuppered Club

22/8/2014

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Shandy Pockets just arrived in Bangkok and rolled up to stay at their perennial base of operations, Aloft Hotel, which is on colourful Soi 11 in Sukhumvit. As well as being a solid Bangkok hotel, it always had the added bonus of looking over the weird space egg that was one of our favourite eating spots, Bed Supper Club. If Apple made restaurants, they would look like this, a none-more-white pod that somehow plopped down in the middle of Bangkok and started serving food and drink in between its avant-garde performance art shows.

Sadly, there's a giant iPod-shaped hole where BSC used to be, it having been demolished in our absence. This makes us sad as we were very much looking forward to eating squid-ink pasta and drinking bellinis while children in shark costumes danced their interpretation of Romeo and Juliet or whatever their next intra-meal show was going to be.

We've been here a number of times, and it's never been the same. For starters, it's all white exterior pervades the inside, too. Two white floors of dining space surround the central 'stage'. The dining spaces are large beds, and you recline to receive your food, so it kind of feels like brunch on the space shuttle. I can't remember there ever being a menu. Things just kind of arrived, delivered by models in utilitarian overalls like they've been forced to work in a space quarry for being too good looking.

As you reclined and ate and spilled almost everything that came along, situationist art happenings began to take place. Artists zip-lined from the ceiling, or silent dancers moved to an unheard beat or costumes were handed out to illustrate various ages of peace. On one occasion, my friend Ariel and I were handed lab coats and headphones as we entered, and we had to sit in absolute silence for about an hour, only being allowed to communicate via pen and paper or making patterns in the dry rice they'd put out. I know, I know, it sounds hipster-level pretentious, but it always felt like there was  a self-regarding humour to it and it was never annoying. If anything, it was worth watching the actual models who would turn up and be baffled by everything happening around them.

It was one of the first places I wrote about as a travel journalist, and never seemed to lose its creativity in the decade I went there. RIP, Bed Supper Club. I'm going to tell myself you just fired up your engines and took off.



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Top Ten Hottest New Restaurants in New Orleans

22/4/2014

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Shandy Pockets recently ate its own weight in southern food and came up with this list of the best new restaurants in New Orleans. It's a hard choice, narrowing down the best culinary experiences in this town of food experts, but you know what? We're troopers, and we care about informing YOU, the reader. We're like martyrs to the cause, and if that cause involves high end restaurants, then it's hardly our fault now, is it?

Here's our list, written for our friends over at Zagat: 10 Hottest Restaurants in New Orleans

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