On the Road (and Guest Post): Las Vegas, Part 6

Heather's note: As summer comes to a close, Sarah and Cary offer their final installment of their food adventures in Las Vegas. You can start with the beginning of the series here.

Our final stop during our tour of Vegas was none other than the Vegas location of Chef Thomas Keller’s Bouchon. Bouchon is a typical French Bistro offering delicious takes on simple country food, presented splendidly. We found out Chef Keller had restaurant in Vegas simply with the realization that the French Laundry wasn’t too far away, and that it was conceivable that a Chef of his stature might have opened a restaurant in Vegas during the building boom of the past few years. Luckily, a quick check of his website proved us right, and this meal turned out to be a pleasure.

The meal started simply, with fresh pistachios and fresh baked bread. Tasty, and a good start, plus the butter wasn’t your typical store bought butter, but a creamy, tangy, European butter that rarely shows itself on US tables.

Being that we knew we were going to indulge ourselves later on, we chose a sampling of 3 cheeses, which I think included a goats milk cheese, a cow’s milk (tangy and pungent with a little hint of cheddar), and something similar to parmesan, but much more intense.

We also thought we’d try the French onion soup, which proved to be a bit of an adventure, as neither of us are huge fans of onions, but we thought, if we ever try it, this is the place. Nevertheless, while the aroma and the crusty gruyere cheese on top were delicious, the bread mixed in the broth and the overwhelming power of the onions were a little too much for both of us. Either way, we’re both glad we can say we gave it a try.

After that, it was on to the main courses. My dish consisted of the cap end of a rib eye, seasoned very simply, and then cooked in Sous-Vide method, which yielded an immensely concentrated and pure beef flavor, along with a tenderness you can almost cut with your fork. The steak was placed on a concoction of rice and red beans that had been cooked to an almost risotto-like consistency, with a smattering of morel mushrooms and baby corn for texture. In all, this dish was phenomenal and not something you’d find at most fine dining restaurants, with the seamless melding of taste, texture, and presentation, it was a treat.

Sarah’s dish was equally delicious, with what, if I remember correctly, was roast lamb and various veggies, which were extremely tender and flavorful. I guess I don’t remember so much of hers since I was obviously concentrating on my own dish.

We were finally ready for dessert and had lots of choices. Sarah ended up choosing a take on bananas foster, shown below, while I got 3 mini molten chocolate cakes topped with homemade ice cream.

Once again, I was mostly focused on mine, so I can’t say much for Sarah’s except that it was good. My dish on the other hand, featured a scoop of homemade vanilla, peanut butter, and mint ice cream on top of mini brownies, each of which contained a little dollop of still molten chocolate. Not overly sweet, but each part of the dessert featured its main ingredient subtly and simply, with no one flavor ever overwhelming the rest.

In all, treating ourselves to a meal like this isn’t something that happens very often, but when you do, you want to do your homework. By doing a little searching online, and following a few celebrity chefs, blogs, and reading from a newspaper outside of your hometown, you’ll find some amazing places to eat. Whether they’re fine dining places like Bouchon, or burger joints like In-N-Out, anywhere you go you can turn a great sight-seeing adventure into an adventure for your other senses. Hopefully you’ve gotten a little bit out of our adventures, and maybe, down the road, we’ll get to tell you about some other places we try.