Las Vegas expands as kosher food market

Max Jacobson

Wednesday, May 24, 2000 | 9:30 a.m.

Kosher, which is Hebrew for "permitted" or "ritually correct," refers to foods that conform to kashruth -- Jewish dietary law. Now that kosher foods are proliferating in Las Vegas, those who aren't Jewish can easily experience them as well, without having to drive to Los Angeles or Phoenix.

In order to be classified as kosher, meat has to be slaughtered in a specific way, staples such as cookies and breads are made without dairy products and all foods, including frozen ones, have to be produced under rabbinical supervision.

Las Vegas may have been slow out of the gate in the kosher food sweepstakes but it has already overtaken many cities of comparable size in the West. Kosher foods are now available at most of the big supermarket chains. What's more, our city now has three kosher restaurants, each one serving a very different type of cuisine.

A large percentage of our kosher foods, particularly ones from producers such as Rokeach, Manischewitz, Empire and other large companies, are trucked in from Los Angeles by a company called D and A Kosher Foods. They are then distributed to the local supermarket chains. The new Smith's on Rampart and Lake Mead boulevards in Summerlin has a kosher butcher in the store on Wednesday and Sunday afternoons. Come on in those days and you won't get kosher meat any fresher.

Albertson's on Fort Apache Road and Sahara Avenue has the largest selection of kosher foods commercially available in the city, a huge selection. The long freezer case has 12 glass doors stocked with kosher products. In addition there is a staples section, a bakery section and a meat counter all devoted to these foods.

The selection is awesome. You'll find items in the freezer such as ice creams, berry pies, blackout cakes, salmon steaks, burritos, meat-stuffed ravioli and even unrendered chicken fat at $2.19 for eight ounces. What would a traditional Jewish cook do without chicken fat? Fifteen-ounce packages of frozen Tabachnick soups are $1.79.

Over in the staples section there are bagels, challah (braided egg bread) and a 24-ounce rye bread, all from Universal Bakery in North Hollywood, Calif. A nondairy poppy seed cake is $5.49. And in the meat section, where kosher meats are sold Sunday-Friday, you'll find glatt (very) kosher ground chuck ($5.99 per pound), Empire chicken ($2.49 per pound), veal breast and turkey.

One more place to stock up on kosher foods is the Raley's on Rampart and Lake Mead, across the street from the Smith's that does the kosher butchering. Raley's has a fresh kosher meat sign in the front window, a terrific staples section on Aisle 14 A where you find soup mixes, gefilte fish, grape juices imported from Israel and a nice kosher deli section stocked with meats, cheeses, various imported horseradishes and Middle Eastern-style spreads.

Those frozen Tabachnick soups are a dime more than they are at Albertson's, at $1.89 a package. Extra lean ground beef is $4.59 per pound in the meat department and frozen duckling is $4.89 per pound.

Smith's, across the street, has an excellent selection of all types of kosher foods. Smith's Green Valley store has a smaller kosher food selection, limited to one frozen food case and a small selection of staples, but plans are afoot to have a kosher butcher cut meat in that store as well.

If you don't wish to cook kosher yourself, though, three local restaurants can save you the trouble; Jerusalem, Shalom Hunan and Kosher Deli. These are not exactly brilliant restaurants, but all three serve interesting dishes, and the three could not be more different.

Jerusalem, on Vegas Valley Drive, was until recently the only kosher restaurant in the city. Owners Joe and Rachel Halawani are natives of Egypt and Morocco respectively, and the food here has a distinctly Middle Eastern flair.

Rachel, who also doubles as a caterer, cooks almost anything from the Eastern European Jewish repertoire -- roast chicken, gefilte fish, potato kugel or roast brisket of beef, to name just a few items. But come here for the delicious Moroccan cigar-shaped pastries -- phyllo dough rolled around a spiced ground meat filling -- and the excellent Middle Eastern salads she makes.

Rachel's Israeli salad, for example, is composed of diced eggplant laced with cumin and tomato. Eggplant salad, meanwhile, is similar to the Arabic dish called baba ghannouj, a creamy spread made from pureed eggplant, garlic and olive oil. The restaurant does a good felafel and also makes kibbeh -- baked stuffed cylinders of spiced meat. At lunch there is a sweet, rich version of the dish called lokshen kugel, a raisin laced egg noodle pudding.

Perhaps more unusual is Shalom Hunan, a kosher Chinese restaurant with sister establishments in Boston and Los Angeles. This restaurant is on West Flamingo Road and was formerly called Bamboo Garden. The cooking is eccentric, and some things can be delicious.

Take this version of Peking duck, for instance: The duck is crisp-skinned and without a coating of spices that it would have in a more traditional Chinese restaurant. But the bird is terrific, with all excess fat removed, and the rest of the appointments -- plum sauce, pancakes and scallions -- are as they should be.

Pan-fried dumplings are also quite good: pockets of dough stuffed with minced beef in place of the usual fatty minced pork. The dumplings come nicely browned around the edges, served with an order of soy dipping sauce.

General Tso's chicken, a spicy fried chicken dish, doesn't have that unappetizing layer of cornstarch you get in mom-and-pop Chinese restaurants. Kung pao chicken, one of the best dishes in the house, is made with mouth-numbing fagara peppers, sauteed peanuts, bamboo shoots and lots of diced chicken meat.

Everything served here has been authenticated by Rabbi Shea Harlig of the local Chabad House, the same man who supervises the kosher meats sold in our supermarkets.

And let us not leave out Kosher Deli, a somewhat forgettable Glatt Kosher deli just north of the Venetian on the Strip. There is no real reason to eat here and not in one of the casino delis, unless one is a stickler for kosher meats.

But if you do stop in, the corned beef has a pleasant taste to go with a texture that feels as if the meat went through a mulching machine before serving; doughy but not unacceptable potato knishes; a decent chopped liver sandwich and the crowning glory, a Hebrew National grilled hot dog and a soda for only $1.99. Now that is hard to beat, even in a casino.