Five Vegas restaurants on my dining to-do list

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Braided nigiri at Kabuto. Photo by Beverly Poppe for Las Vegas Weekly

 

One of my favorite extracurricular activities is eating—in odd ethnic corners, from the windows of food trucks, at local classics or pretty much anywhere else that serves dishes prepared with care and skill. 

And in Vegas, there are always new places to explore. Here are five at the top of my dining to-do list:

1. Kabuto Widely deemed the new standard in local sushi, this Chinatown hole-in-the-wall is known for serving fresh fish imported twice weekly from Tokyo. It’s 18 seats, damn pricey and, from what I hear, worth every penny. Here’s what Jim Begley had to say about it in the Weekly.

2. Goto Pares Atbp This Filipino restaurants popped up recently on E. Charleston and claims to serve authentic street food. What do I know about it? Not much. But I’m damn curious to give it a try and see what they have going.

3. Naked City Pizza It’s way past time I get to this pizza/sandwich shop from Chris Palmeri, where Buffalo-style pizza is the name of the game. I don’t plan on waiting til the fall to get in there, but if the Pats beat the Bills during their first game of the season, dinner’s on Chris!

4. DW Bistro I’m a brunch junkie and I hear this off-Strip favorite does it right, with challah French toast, Mexican-style pork and eggs and breakfast sandwiches. Yes please. 

5. Chocolate & Spice Casino vet Megan Romano’s newish Westside bakery should really be towards the top of this list, but until Tovin’s done with his low saturated fat diet, I’m holding off on heading her way. Why visit a bakery if you can’t partake in all the buttery, chocolaty, flaky pastry goodness?

Bathe me in colors bright

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The post-run paint powder party at the Las Vegas Color Run.

I knew I was going to like the Color Run from the first moment I clicked on its website.

Here was a race focused on fun over speed. A race in which you come dressed normally and leave in costume. A race in which every kilometer brings a veritable paint bath and the finish line party is a giant rainbow hurricane set to a party rock beat. If clubs involved paint fights, I would go clubbing way more often.

You can read more about the Color Run in the quick story I wrote up for the Weekly. (No point in rehashing all that.)  But I’ll summarize it this way: Three miles have never gone by faster. If every race ended in a massive paint powder dance party, well, I would have no unstained white T-shirts, and I would spend a lot more time running. (I’m even contemplating how to borrow the color fight concept for our next big party … Clean up would suck.)

But enough of me. I’ll let these amateurish iPhone photos do the talking. Just imagine how cool this would look with a real camera.

Pre-race crowd. Not a cult.

Pre-Color Run. No, this is not a cult.

Chris Bitonti shows off his new look after a good paint-bombing.

Protective eyewear

The Color Run crew.

I drank this …

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Mmm. I love unidentified alcohol infused with snakes and served with a ladle.

There have been a few moments in my life during which I’ve considered that if I died at that exact instant (or shortly thereafter) no one would feel very bad for me.

I imagine myself reading the story about the American studying abroad who decides to hitchhike home from the bars at 3 a.m. and ends up dead in a ditch. “What an idiot,” I’d say. And then I’d realize: That idiot is me.

Generally, this kind of realization—wow! I’m doing something pretty foolish—does nothing to deter me from continuing. I keep hitchhiking/talking to strangers/eating weird food/running through strange villages without a cellphone … or a map, and things work out just fine. Which is what I was banking on when our guide offered me a shot from this glass jug somewhere in the Mekong Delta in Vietnam.

The liquid was rice wine and marinating in the jar were a variety of snakes and a raven, wings-spread, with a snake clasped in its beak. Drinking bird/snake-infused wine has never been on my bucket list, especially on islands miles from the nearest stomach pump, but when our guide started ladling out shots (and when I looked at my fellow travelers and realized we were all about to drink this), I took a deep breath and down the hatch! It, of course, tasted like shit. Or rather, rubbing alcohol with a hint of serpent. But yeah, I survived.

And when I got back to Hanoi, I bought small bottles of snake/scorpion wine for all my friends. So far no one’s had a sip. Wimps.

This is Tovin (and Samba)

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G’damn it’s been a while since I touched this site. I’m a slacker. So much so that I’m actually posting a blog here instead of starting to clean my apartment, which I’ve been desperately needing to do. Oy.

But while I’m avoiding manual labor, I figured it was about time I give Tovin his blog debut. These photos date back to this fall in Santa Cruz, California, right after we adopted our fabulous lab/border collie/muttface, Samba. At this point, we were probably still calling her Puppy X. Which is a pretty good dog name, until people start cooing and asking what your adorable puppy is called. Er, uh, she doesn’t have a name yet.

We went to the vet today and Samba (aka La Bamba, Sams, Sambabamba, SushiSamba, SambaRock) has put on nine pounds in the last two months. She’s also finally mange-free. Woo hoo! No more baldy dog and no more bacon-flavored liquid medicine. We took her to the dog park to celebrate where she did this fake-out fetch thing where she chases the toy, sniffs it and then immediately gets distracted and wanders off leaving us to fetch whatever object we’ve been tossing around the park. She’s an urban pup. Way better at parking lot fetch.

A cover is not a condiment (except when it is)

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The cover of a magazine is incredibly important. It sets the tone for the entire issue, advertises what’s inside and entices readers to buy it, grab it off a rack and read it with rapt attention. It’s far more than an attractive facade for the content within—a cover isn’t a condiment, its a whole meal by itself. And as much as it might pain a writer/editor like me to admit it, the cover is, in fact, the most important page in the whole damn book. Which is why I’ve started paying a lot of attention to them since becoming the editor of the Weekly last August. Also, when they’re well done, they’re pretty freaking awesome.

Our art director, Ryan Olbrysh, knocks out killer covers week after week that are often featured by the blogs that track the coolest examples in the industry give them a little extra love. Check out some of the best of the best on Nas Capas and Cover Junkie, which breaks its honorees down into categories like typographic, sexiest, controversial and, of course, Kate Moss.

One of my recent favorites might be better described as messy. The August 7 issue of the New York Times magazine featured a portrait of New York restaurateur Danny Meyer done in, well, condiments. And that’s exactly what a good cover is all about: a surprising, tempting statement that makes you want to read what’s inside … or at least know how they managed all that mustard.

Vegas, Baby!

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You’d be amazed how long this little experiment in light writing took us. But on July 4, post-fireworks and ever so slightly buzzed on cold beer and too much bbq, it really seemed like the only thing to do with a massive pile of sparklers that would lose much of their luster by July 5. Despite not having a tripod, we actually managed to do a reasonable rendition of this classic Vegas motto—at least, once we got Mike to stop making his Gs backwards.

Want to try your hand at a light writing photo? Check out these easy directions from DIY Photography or browse Vimeo’s dedicated light writing channel for some serious inspiration. The one that uses an iPad to create 3D light painted animation is especially awesome.

And, because my friends like to show Las Vegas Weekly some love, here’s our unsuccessful attempt at a cover image spelling out the Weekly flag. Note: It helps to get all the sparklers lit at the same time.

 

Some place I call home

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Dad with burnt caramel and goat cheese brownie ice cream cones from Toscanini's.

When I get a few days with my parents (it only happens three or four times a year), the conversation always turns earnest fairly quickly. So I wasn’t much surprised when my mom laid down this question during a casual radiator-seat chat last Friday: “These days, where do you feel the most comfortable?”

It’s something I’ve thought about myself recently—the curious concept of home and what it means when you’ve lived somewhere long enough to have just the twitching beginning of roots, but the people you love the most are still miles and miles away. Is home where the heart is? Where the boyfriend is? Or where the sweet red couch I bought on Craigslist is? And when those are three different places, is anywhere really home?

I used to boast about how I felt more me the moment the plane touched down in Boston. I walked faster, absorbed more, felt more alive in the city that I’d grown up in but had left before I had the chance to fully appreciate it as an adult. This time, I exited the plane into an unfamiliar terminal (E) and stumbled to the curb in an all-day travel stupor. I spent most of the weekend in Kendall Square, Cambridge, a neighborhood I’ve never known well and still don’t. I had to use Google Maps to choose a route for my run and even ask for directions while driving friends home. It was the first time that “home” has felt less than, well, homey.

But there were moments of comfort, too, with the people who’ve always made Boston home and the places that hold deep, embedded memories that I forget about until they’re right in front of me again. White Mountain Creamery still smells like sweet, rich, freshly churned ice cream; the North End still vibrates with cranky townies, wide-eyed tourists and the hungry energy of waiters hoping to make a buck. When my mom popped the question, the answer I gave surprised us both: Vegas. Four days later, Boston may not have taken over, but she was definitely back in the race.

Caro Emerald: Big in Amsterdam

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The jazz singer: Caro Emerald

I’m a sucker for a girl with a big voice and a retro sensibility, hence my new obsession with Miss Caro Emerald. She’s a jazz singer from Amsterdam who’s been seriously rocking the Netherlands for the last couple years. Her debut album, Deleted Scenes from the Cutting Room Floor, set a new record after spending a whopping 30 weeks as the top album in the nation. The previous record holder? Michael Jackson’s Thriller.

Even more importantly, her song “Back it Up” is so undeniably danceable it’s a challenge to stay seated while listening to it. Anyway, this chick is amazing. Check her out!

Homestyle by Hannah Frank

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"Moon Ballet" by Hannah Frank

There are certain things that will always remind me of home. Not of Boston, my hometown, but of my parents’ actual, physical house. Perpetually freezing in the winter, cluttered with old New Yorkers, and with a window-side radiator that makes the most excellent seat.

The other thing you should know about my parents’ place is that there is lots of Hannah Frank art on the walls. Hannah Frank was an artist from Glasgow, Scotland who lived from 1908 to 2008. She saw plenty in her day, and created these simple, gorgeous, somewhat haunting black and white drawings. My parents took a liking to them, and over the years, they’ve grown on me too. So when my birthday came around this year about two months after moving into a new apartment with depressingly naked walls, I figured I’d put in a request for a Hannah Frank print.

I picked out “Moon Ballet,” the image at the top of this post. Her stuff’s not for everyone, of course, not much art is. But give it a few minutes and see if it doesn’t grow on you. And if it doesn’t, well, then let’s hope you’re not getting a copy for your birthday, too.

There’s this guy named Marcel …

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Marcel Barel and I at his Lee Canyon Cabin. By Sam Morris

I met Marcel Barel a few weeks ago when I was up at the Las Vegas Ski and Snowboard Resort for a ladies’ day. (Yes, in Vegas even the ski resort has a ladies’ special.) After we spent a few hours boarding, the girls and I retired to the lodge’s bar for wine and snacks and good conversation. At some point during the reception, the gentleman in this photo sidled up to me and almost immediately I realized I was speaking to someone very special. Marcel is, in many ways, the face of the ski resort. He’s worked there for 45 years, ran the ski school for a long time before his daughter, Gabrielle, took over and spends a lot of his time in a cabin just a few minutes away. A cabin without electricity or central heating. Did I mention he’s 79?

Anyway, when I got back down to the Valley I couldn’t stop thinking about the man I’d just met and what an interesting story he had. So, a few weeks later I headed back to the mountain to spend a day getting to know Marcel a little better. The result is “King of the Mountain,” which ran in this week’s issue of Las Vegas Weekly. Enjoy the story, and next time you’re up on the mountain, keep an eye out for a spry skier with tufted eyebrows making his way downhill with visible skill. Say hi; you won’t be disappointed.