Don’t be cloistered — have some oysters

Max Jacobson

Wednesday, May 31, 2000 | 9:15 a.m.

No less a literary personage than Jonathan Swift was once quoted as saying that it was "a bold man that first ate an oyster."

Since then, happily, our love affair with the briny little mollusks has deepened considerably. And today our hometown has blossomed into one of the best inland spots anywhere to experience the oyster's complex glories.

The oyster bar is a mainstay of several Las Vegas restaurants, including Emeril's New Orleans Fish House in the MGM, McCormick and Schmick's seafood restaurant in the Howard Hughes Center and Buzio's in the Rio Suite. (Palace Station's oyster bar and Nobu at the Hard Rock are also good places to eat an oyster in this town.)

When you take a seat at one of the long counters in these restaurants, keep your eye on the unsung hero of the evening, the shucker. At Emeril's, it's a cheerful man named Margarito Ramirez. He is a native of Zacatecas, Mexico, and he performs this microsurgery in around four seconds. Watching his fingers fly is almost as much fun as eating an oyster. Almost.

On busy evenings Margarito shucks more than 60 dozen oysters, not to mention clams. "Clams are harder to shuck than oysters," he says, "because they don't have a hinge, and oysters do."

The oyster varieties might be Steamboats, Tottens, Galveston Bays or Pacific Orchards, all of which are fresh, salty and delicious when brought to the customer on a bed of ice. A paper tag under the pile of his oysters shows when the oysters were harvested. The tags are kept on file at the restaurant for 90 days after they are purchased.

As he works, he demonstrates his smooth technique. The typical oyster knife you see these days has a thick white plastic handle, and a flat blade with a pointed edge. He takes the pointy end of the oyster, inserts the blade and then twists, to open the shell. He then quickly runs the blade through the two points in the shell where the muscle binds the oyster to it, effectively allowing it to slide free inside the shell.

The next step is the controversial one. He then gives the oyster a quick rinse in a bath of ice water, to remove small pieces of shell. In the process, some would say, some of the flavor from the oyster liquor is also lost.

Tasting them is ample reward, though. The Totten is the clear favorite, fresh and sweet, and the Pacific Orchard is also briny, plump and firm. The Galveston Bay suffers from a slightly metallic finish. The Steamboat is big and plump, and stands alone just fine, although the horseradish-laced cocktail sauce served here is terrific.

Moving on to McCormick and Schmick's, the experience changes considerably. This restaurant doesn't have as flashy an oyster counter as Emeril's, but instead a rather clinical stainless steel counter with around eight high black-topped stools.

Executive Chef Joseph Gonzales rotates between several restaurants in this chain and he explains that because of oyster farming, cold water oysters from the extreme North and modern shipping methods, one no longer has to abide by the time-worn adage about shellfish only being safe to eat during "months with R's."

"When the water gets warm," Gonzales says, "the oysters go into a spawning cycle and the proteins in the oyster become milky, making them less appealing. So during the summer, we get oysters from Chile, New Zealand and other places in the Southern hemisphere, as well as ones from the far North, such as Chefs Creek oysters from northern British Columbia."

Gonzales is kind enough to a reporter behind the bar to practice shucking. He cracks out a pair of rubber gloves, and begins the lesson.

First he places a Fanny Bay oyster (from British Columbia) on a moist towel, with the pointy end facing his right hand. "The trick," he says, inserting the knife, is not to shred the muscle when you separate it from the shell." He then hands me the knife, and the inevitable happens. The oyster is ripped to shreds. It takes a little more practice until the reporter gets it right, but the speed factor will need a little work.

The chef then explains that some varieties, usually ones with brittle shells such as the Coromandel oyster (also Canadian), are the hardest to shuck. He also says that the philosophy is a bit different at McCormick and Schmick's. "We don't always rinse our oysters for serving," he says. "Washing the oyster after shucking loses a lot of the essential flavor. We daub out the sand with a towel for our regular customers."

A pro such as Gonzales considers oyster shucking an art. When he is at full throttle he can shuck as many as 20 oysters in a minute. The restaurant also serves more than 60 dozen on a busy evening. At the moment you will find Chefs Creeks, California Hog Islands, New Zealand Coromandels and a few others.

Over at Buzio's, a pleasant restaurant that faces the Rio's pool area, the staff is cross-trained so that everyone working the line at the oyster bar can shuck. That's why Hippolito (Polo) Hernandez, a young Mexican-born chef, is modest about calling himself head shucker here.

When spotted, he is splitting lobsters before the shift and he, too, is more than happy to demonstrate his flawless technique. "Sometimes you have to look around for the hole," he says. He then proceeds to shuck a few oysters at lightning speed, rinsing out the sand with just a light splash of water before serving. "Most of our customers ask to have them washed," he says.

The ones served, delicate Malpeques from Canada, and fat Bluepoints from Maine, are fine, presented simply with wrapped lemon wedges, cocktail sauce and grated horseradish. Buzio's also has stainless steel roasting pans for preparing oyster pan roasts, a delicious option.

No matter how you slice it, er, shuck it, you are in for a treat.