Thursday, Feb. 5, 2009 | midnight
Greetings Vegas epicures.
By now, many of you have made the trip over to the new Aliante Station Casino, to try their new restaurants. MRKT Sea & Land, which specializes in steak and seafood, will be in this space next week. But today, the spotlight is on Pips, an Italian restaurant belonging to wine guru Rino Armeni, featuring incredible cooking from chef Gerald Chin.
CIA grad Chin is an alum of Bradley Ogden at Caesars Palace, a restaurant that already has graduated several top chefs, like Adam Sobel, now at RM Seafood, from their stoves.
Recipes are partly from Chin and partly from Armeni's mother in Italy, and all are terrific and terrific surprises to boot.
'Tria combines fresh cut and fried pasta squares — what a concept — with meltingly ripe cherry tomatoes and pungent parmesan cheese. Polpette, Italian for meatballs, have a mozzarella cheese stuffing and are paired with crisp potatoes laced with rosemary. Wow!
The resort also has an Original Pancake House, a TGI Friday's and a Feast Buffet.
Feel like a burger? Celebrity chef Laurent Tourondel has opened his latest incarnation of what is fast becoming a Vegas institution, the upscale burger joint. BLT Burger at the Mirage is simply amazing, and not only for its take-offs on the humble hamburger. Must tries here include spiked milk shakes in flavors such as the Night Rider, made with Oreo cookies and Kahlua chocolate liqueur, and fried dill pickles, accompanied by a Ranch chili paprika dipping sauce.
About those burgers. Choose between Angus beef, freshly ground turkey, even tandoori lamb, not to mention salmon and a veggie burger modeled on falafel. Toppings like fried egg, bacon, homemade chili or portobello mushroom make the possibilities limitless. Call 791-7111 for more information.
Freed's Bakery, which relocated a while back to 9555 S. Eastern Ave., has traditional Jewish pastries, and big deal cakes. We can't resist the chocolate chip Danishes here, but they are so dense, they probably wouldn't float in the Dead Sea.
Finally, if you're heading up to Zion National Park, you'll be hungry after that day on the train. So by all means stop in St. George, and grab dinner at Gun Barrel, a steak and game house that began life in Jackson, Wyo. The wild west atmo is a prelude to a slew of items you won't find in Vegas, including elk steak, bison prime rib and a venison sausage. The address is 1091 N. Bluff St., and the phone number is 435-852-0550.
Max Jacobson is the principal food columnist in the Las Vegas Weekly, and a Food and Wine Journalist for Vegas Magazine. He can be reached at 702-990-2454 or [email protected].
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