Valentino Las Vegas

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Okay, so last weekend I went to Vegas with my sister. It was awesome. We flew and stayed at the Luxor for $200 pp. :-) The best part though, was my Dad gave me the thumbs up to use the Amex at Valentino to treat ourselves to a delicious dinner sans parents. I was super excited to go, bc my parents said the food was even better than the Valentino in Santa Monica (as if that's even possible), and the chef won a James Beard Award. So, it was a bit of an adventure getting there. I thought it was at the Bellagio (all those WOP names sound the same) but it was in fact at the Venetian. So we had to huff it, and Sis was in hot shoes (I of course, was not) so her feet were on fire, and we were late, and apparently Daddy didn't make the reservation. Whatev, it was Monday night (albeit Memorial Day) and there was plenty of room. Now, I saved the menu (okay, STOLE the menu) but now I can't find it, so you'll all have to rely on my memory of this delicious meal.

It was surreal actually looking at the menu, since I've never seen one (Piero, the owner, just brings out lots of plates). Sis and I decided to get the tasting menu that didn't have escargot (gross!) and fois gras (Sis likes it, but I don't think it's worth the calories).

So, first course was 3 tastes of appetizers. One was this shrimp on top of shredded marinated asparagus. Ohmigod. It was the perfect shrimp. The outside was crispy, but the inside was plump and juicy. Then there was duck, which was OK, but Sis didn't like it. It had some demiglace sauce. Then there was a lobster morsel on some beet salad. Ohhhh... this lobster was tender succulent juciness. I wish I got to eat the whole thing, not just a morsel.

Next was pasta course. Sis liked this course the best. There was a lobster cannelloni. The filling was good, but the stripped (black and white fresh pasta) outer wrapping was a little too firm. Then there was fresh garganelli (weird homemade pasta things) with a fresh tomato sauce, and some delicious cheese which I can't remember the name of. Must have been French. ;-) Then, we had the best gnocchi EVER. (Even better than Trilussa back in the day). It was stuffed with quail sausage, and was AMAZING. Sis doesn't even dig sausage and she was slobbering over it. I love sausage, and I love gnocchi done right, so this was perfect. The gnocchi was tender, the sausage juicy... MMMM.

Then, the meat course. There was this nasy kobe beef roll with pinenuts and pancetta. It was gross. The kobe beef was tough and stringy, and kind of looked like shaved roast beef. The pancetta was overcooked, and with the pinenuts it was just gross. (And kobe is normally AMAZING!) But then there was this piece of pork in a simple demiglace, and I don't know what part of the pig this little slice of heaven came from, but it was delish. Kind of fatty, but tender, juicy, and flavorful. Then, we had the most delicious piece of squab I have ever had. In fact, it was one of the best peices of meat I've ever had (almost as good as the kobe beef I had at Rocca delle Macie in 96). The squab just melted in my mouth, and had the outside was perfectly seared so it was crispy but retained all the juices. It was topped with fois gras, and Sis refuses to eat squab, because it's really pigeon (and as I was eating mine, she was making cooing noises. Quite amusing acutally. It did not deter me from my pigeon feast. I told her if sewer rat tasted like lobster I'd eat it too.) So we did a little trade, squab for fois gras. I think I got the better deal. She of course made me take a bite of the fois gras. It just tasted like pureed liver. Oh yeah, that's what it is. And for $100 and 1000 calories, it's NOT WORTH IT. And don't you feel bad for the little force-fed goosies? Nah, me neither.

On to dessert. MMMM. I am a big dessert person. Unfortunately most places don't have a pastry chef, and just order their stuff from Bindi. Just bc something has a lot of sugar and fat in it doesn't mean it tastes good. Okay, it tastes GOOD, but it could be amazing with just a little more effort. So I love dessert, but I'm picky. I'm also a bit of a baker myself, so I am entitled to a bit of snobbery. So I was not dissappointed when we got our dessert course. There was this praline semifreddo croccante (which frankly I think was hazlenut, but whatev) which was amazing. It was ice-cream esque, flavorful, creamy without being too rich, crunchy... mmmm. Then there was this orange muffin thing which was kind of weird, but it rocked when I dipped it in some vanilla sauce. Then there was this panna cotta. O. M. G. I love panna cotta. (It's sort of like a custard, but it's made with gelatin so it's not as high in fat). Mmm.... it had shaved vanilla particles, and it was CREAMY, and cool melty goodness in my mouth. Then there was pricky pear sorbet (wtf?) which was good, but I'm not into sorbet. Not caloric enough probably.
Then I finished off our bottle of Masi Campofiorin, and proceeded to make bank playing Pai Gao.

LOL, there was this old white dude sitting next to me at the table, who said to me, "I think Pai Gao means screwed in Japanese." I said, "it's Chinese, asshole." Okay, I didn't call him an asshole. But still.