Review of Eating Las Vegas

Title:

Eating Las Vegas: The 50 Essential Restaurants

Author:

John Curtas, Max Jacobson, Al Mancini

Publisher:

Huntington Press

Date:

2010

ISBN:

978-1-935396-39-0

Pages:

149

Price:

$12.95

Reviewed by Nick Christenson, npc@jetcafe.org

June 2, 2011

Fifteen years ago, the food scene is Las Vegas was pretty dismal. While there were a few bright spots, most of what passed for gourmet food in this town were upscale steak-and-potatoes joints, more designed to part high rollers with their comp dollars than provide fine cuisine, and most of the rest weren't even that good. Times have changed a great deal since those dark days.

Enter our three intrepid food critics, who recently have found plenty to write about. They decided to come together in order to decide on the 50 best restaurants in town. After many arguments, some of which play out in the pages of the book, the authors arrive at their list and provide their arguments for and against their selections.

First, the book is small, basically pocket sized. Personally, I don't think it needs to be this small, and if by expanding it, I were to get more content at a similar price, I'd be all for that. The paper is very high quality and glossy, allowing the book to present high quality, albeit small, photos of the interiors of the featured restaurants as well as some snapshots of their various specialties.

All of this is nice, but the success or failure of the book will hinge entirely on how good the recommendations are. People can and will quibble about the inclusion and exclusion of certain restaurants from the list. That's just the nature of things. However, I think that at the least most serious eaters in this town would rank a lot of the restaurants featured in Eating Las Vegas in their top 50 as well.

That said, while I appreciate that the Strip's finest dining establishments are going to be heavily represented, for my money I think they're over-represented. By my count all of the top 10 and 35 of the top 50 are on the Strip with two more at the near-Strip Palms. Again, by my count, 11 of the 50 are French. There's nothing "essential" anywhere closer to downtown than the Stratosphere? I won't argue that Henderson is largely a cultural wasteland, but there's only one "essential" place to eat in the whole city? I can't help but feel that this distribution is a little skewed toward a particular taste.

There are disagreements among the authors, but these are usually mentioned in the appropriate restaurant description. Further, as one reads through the book it becomes apparent what each author is looking for in a dining establishment. This allows alert readers to calibrate their preferences with those represented in the book. So, if you tend to prefer your restaurants come with Michelin stars, then when John Curtas and Max Jacobson disagree, you can at least feel somewhat confident that you're more likely to side with Curtas, for example.

When writing this book, the authors agreed that any one of them could have veto power to keep any restaurant off the "top 50" list. Some of the more passionate arguments, both pro and con, are presented in their own section toward the end of the book. This is also useful as I tend to learn more about a restaurant from the authors dissension than from their consensus. They also include "Additional Recommendations" for many popular restaurant categories. Some of these are well represented by the "essential 50", some less so.

This section brings me to my biggest criticism of the book itself, such as it is. Eating Las Vegas is small in format and weighs in at just 150 pages. At least one of the authors couldn't have listed what is especially good about each of these additional recommendations? Moreover, I'd like to hear the reasons why Metro Pizza, Sinatra, Hachi, and Yi Mei weren't ranked high enough to be included in the essential list.

Still, that's a small complaint. The question is not whether the authors got it right, it's do they provide interesting suggestions about where to eat in Las Vegas, and are their reasons informative? I have to say unequivocally, yes. Eating Las Vegas represents the most efficient route to get up to speed on the Las Vegas food scene. It's more comprehensive, more current, and more authoritative than any other source. I imagine most who purchase this book will find it invaluable, and I recommend it.

Capsule:

Eating Las Vegas is the most comprehensive, current, and authoritative list of the "must dine" restaurants in Las Vegas. Of course I have my quibbles about the list, and it's a little too focused on Strip casino French restaurants for my tastes, but it serves as a great guide to the best this city has to offer. Foodies and gastronomes of all stripes who read this book will receive a great start to their education on the Las Vegas food scene.