Umami Yo Mama

We don’t have central heating in our house. The weather in Southern California isn’t what you’d call extreme. Still, occasionally in winter, it can get a little nippy. I have an electric mattress heater, which works better than an electric blanket. On cold nights, it’s indescribably wonderful to slip into a toasty warm bed.

That’s what the trip to Las Vegas last week was like: familiar, comfortable and all in all happy-making.

While the food was mostly terrific, you’ve read about most of it before so I wasn’t going to do my usual thing. But we’ve only been back for two days and I’ve already had requests. I give. Put on a bib and here we go. Remember, this is just mine, not Robert’s:

The first night we walked over to Craftsteak. A pile of perfect asparagus and a selection of wild mushrooms accompanied my salmon with garlic cream and chanterelles. Dessert was a butterscotch mousse with slivers of salted chocolate, pecan praline cookies and espresso-chocolate sorbet. Breakfast at Bouchon the next morning started with a basket of the most delicious pastry. Then eggs, of course, and spinach sautéed in butter with whole garlic cloves and tiny geometrically-perfect bits of shallot, sliced tomato and fresh multigrain toast with butter from Vermont. There was so much food we didn’t eat again until a late lunch slash early dinner at Hussong’s Cantina. I loved the fiery guacamole, though the tuna tacos were only okay. Make that mediocre. Nah, they were edible.

After a gratuitous 6:15 a.m. wake up call we were back at Bouchon the next morning. That was when I had the basted egg revelation, but only after an even bigger basket of pastry. Almond brioche, muffin, cheese Danish, pecan sticky bun – luckily by this time we were hitting our stride for eating so we went to Max Brenner’s for chocolate. I had thick Italian dark hot chocolate and a double espresso in an ingenious little cup designed to hold two pieces of chocolate, which I dipped in the hot chocolate then ate. Dinner was at Sage. You’ve heard about the kusshi oysters with Tabasco sorbet and piquillo peppers before. They’re still phenomenal. The butternut squash and pear soup was epiphanic, the carrot and garlic ravioli with wild mushrooms was even better. When the waiter asked how everything was, I told him in all honesty, “I wish I could give some of this to everyone I like.” Then I ordered two desserts (just for me, Robert had his own): caramelized quince clafouti -- which I’ve usually seen spelled with an s, but who am I to argue with something so yummy? -- with vanilla/cognac ice cream, and warm apple fennel strudel with brown butter ice cream. The chef kindly sent out tiny cups of white chocolate and black pepper soup to finish us off.

More, more, more breakfast, so much so that there wasn’t room for lunch but we made up for it with an early dinner on the top floor of our hotel, at Mix. The sea bream daurade with lemon and a mimosa garnish was lovely, as were the seared diver scallops. We asked them to leave the ham off of the mac & cheese, the gruyere melted in glamorous oozy strings that dripped creamy béchamel. Dessert was an apple and quince tatin with green apple sorbet and a frozen crunchy creamy thing – I have no idea what it was, just call it cold deliciousness in a crust. We went downstairs to Fleur for our absinthe after dinner.

Our last day there began with fresh, hot beignets served with Nutella and strawberry jam. It’s sad to think I won’t have basted eggs for three months. Pout. For lunch we went back to Fleur to see the gang and have truffled onion soup and tuna tacos and green gazpacho and burrata and tiramisu and gingerbread ice cream with gingerbread and toffee coffee ice cream with toffee and brownie lollipops decorated with edible gold.

That’s about it. We had such a good time, we even stopped at Whiskey Pete’s in Primm, just to make it last a tiny bit longer. Now it’s back to protein powder, veggies and grains until it starts all over again in 91 days, knock on wood.