No shortage of raw seafood in the desert

Max Jacobson

Wednesday, Dec. 6, 2000 | 9:51 a.m.

The oyster bar, or raw seafood bar, is a fixture on the East Coast and in the Gulf states. These places, where piles of iced fresh mollusks are shucked to order, exist in force here as well.

The quality and variety one encounters can be a real surprise.

Emeril's New Orleans Fish House

MGM Grand

Hotel Bar

A special menu is served at this 15-seat, curved, wooden bar adjacent to the main restaurant, and also in a comely courtyard area with seating for another 25 customers. All the wines, drinks and desserts you can get in the restaurant are available here. But the menu from the main dining room is not served.

That shouldn't be a problem. If the variety of warm- and cold-water fresh oysters such as Galveston Bay and Pacific Orchards, expertly shucked, do not appease you, then the creamy lobster bisque, spicy peel-and-eat boiled shrimp or sumptuous seafood gumbo surely will. As oyster bars go, this is an extensive menu, and includes several hot entrees.

One is a delicious clams Casino made with Little Necks, Cajun bread crumbs and hunks of smoky bacon. Another is Louisiana crab cakes served with a Creole tartar sauce. Baker Karen Thompson makes the bread for her huge po' boy sandwiches with Essence of Emeril, a heady spice mixture. The oyster po' boy is especially terrific.

This is also the only seafood bar in town where you have the bonus of Emeril's outrageous desserts. Don't miss the ultra-rich white chocolate pistachio bread pudding, or Emeril's banana cream pie, one for the ages.

Josef's Brasserie

Desert Passage

Seafood bar open from 11:30 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. daily

Josef's is a Belle Epoque, Parisian style bistro with a long, stainless steel bar next to a huge pile of iced seafood. When you dine at the bar, the waiters lay a cloth napkin on top of the metal, and bring a side dish of spiced Kalamata olives. It's a luxurious way to start.

Just as in Paris, you can go the gaudy route by ordering the huge grand plateau, $90, a two-tiered metal tray with enough fresh seafood for eight or more. The tray is loaded with oysters, clams, mussels, snow crab, Maine lobster and whatever else the chefs have fresh.

But you can also go small, by ordering a half dozen oysters for $13.95, one quarter of a Dungeness crab for $8, or a small dish of clams and mussels, $14. Whatever you order, you'll get a nice homemade cocktail sauce, some fresh grated horseradish and plenty of lemon wedges.

Chef owner Joseph Keller favors cold water oysters and mussels from places like Prince Edward Island and Puget Sound. His may also be the only place in Las Vegas where you can wash the seafood down with a glass of Krug Grand Cuvee, for $29. Yes, that is steep. Well, what do you expect when you are drinking one of the world's most exclusive champagnes?

Costa Del Sol Oyster Bar

Sunset Station

Open 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Sunday-Thursday, 11 a.m.-11 p.m. Friday-Saturday

Everything you eat in this grotto-like hideaway -- joined at the hip to a sit down seafood restaurant-is prepared to order. The U-shaped bar is topped with black marble, and the chefs are lightning quick, because they have to be. On a busy day, this place does more than 400 covers.

The prices here tell the story. Oysters on the shell, generally Goldenseals from Louisiana, are only $13.99 a dozen, and $15.99 gets you a full pound of peel-and-eat shrimp. A variety of seafood pastas and specialty soups are made here, including a huge bouillabaisse, shrimp, mussels, crab, clams, fish and tomatoes, in a rich saffron-laced broth.

One of the nice things about this bar is a selection of eccentric hot sauce with such names as Ass Kickin' Roasted Garlic Sauce and Tabasco Habanero, with which to embellish your seafoods. Ask one of the chefs, especially a young man named Ben Talamantes, to make you an order of his terrific dirty rice, available upon request.

Big Al's Oyster Bar

The Orleans

Bar open from 11 a.m.-midnight, daily

The best time to go to Big Al's might be lunch, which ends at 3 p.m., since the prices are much lower for essentially the same menu that is served evenings.

There is a 14-seat bar and several small tables along the bar's perimeter. Clams and oysters sit on an enormous pile of ice behind a row of 10 roasting pans, the vessels in which jambalaya, the rich, meaty house gumbo and various pan roasts are prepared.

Lunch might be a tad early for one of these good oyster shooters, but the Bayou Bloody Mary Shooter, a fresh oyster in a shot glass with Skye vodka, tomato juice and Tabasco, is a real eye-opener.

Portions are humongous, and the gumbo, based on a thick roux and chock full of shrimp, chicken and sausage, is surely too much for the average person at lunch. Try the unusual etouffee, crawfish tails smothered in a chunky sauce poured over a heap of white rice. Both shrimp boil and crawfish boil are served with potatoes and corn, a huge amount of seafood for $14.95.

Buzio's

The Rio

Bar open from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. daily

One of the best reasons to eat at this bustling, poolside restaurant's oyster bar is that this may be the only one in town where you can order from the adjacent restaurant's entire menu, which is quite impressive and includes several fresh catches of the day.

The bar's specialties are the fresh shellfish, of course, which include Fanny Bay and Bluepoint oysters, Little Neck clams and Dungeness crab. But also favored here are pan roasts, either oysters, shrimp, crab or any combination thereof, prepared in enormous iron kettles by the able chefs, while you watch.

Pan roasts are unreasonably rich, from a recipe that includes butter, cream, white wine, tomatoes and spices, and they serve as the perfect companion to the excellent sourdough and cracker breads in the restaurant's bread basket.

Both the cold seafood cocktails and the Louie style salads are excellent, and the chefs prepare one of the city's best cioppinos, an Italian-inspired seafood stew. The only misstep is the Boston clam chowder, a pasty bowl of white starch that cloys after a single spoonful.

Well, nobody's perfect.