a blog by Peter Leonard
We kick off Las Vegas Restaurant Review Week on a real high note: the Nevada outpost of Michael Mina's fantastic San Francisco seafood eatery. Located within the fabled Bellagio -- a hotel I am still too cheap to stay in, but unable to resist for most of my meals -- the restaurant is right off the beautiful flower conservatory, in a space which I believe used to hold Steve Wynn's collection of Impressionist paintings. From a repository of cultural loot for Bugsy Siegel's spiritual heir to Baghdad-by-the-Bay fish shack -- if these walls could talk...
...they would undoubtably complain about the second-rate Rauschenberg, entitled Aquacade, which hangeth upon them like an albatross. Aside from that, the Left Coast roots of the restaurant are clear by the decor - this is an understated space, minimalism inflected by warm color tones -- and a menu only the ruling class can afford. Oh, and two tech guys trying to blow a month's worth of freelance income.
Since we're only in Vegas once a year, we decided to splurge on the $75 tasting menu. (We were also convinced that our prowess at nickel slots would soon recoup any temporary financial setback such an extravagant dinner inflicted upon our wallets. Cruel Fate would soon show us otherwise.) The evening began with a delicate amuse-bouche of vegetable soup, followed by Grilled Hamachi Carpaccio nestled under English Cucumber and Radish Salad, garnished with Tobiko Caviar. The salad was a crisp counterpoint to the soft raw fish hiding underneath, and the accompanying caviar garnish provided a perfectly-balanced dressing for both.
Next up was Dungeness Crab Cake with Tomato and Basil Confit & Aged Balsamic Vinegar. This is one of Aqua's signature dishes, and the tart, fresh confit upon which the crab cake rested was indeed perfectly complementary to the breaded crabmeat. For those of you interested in replicating this recipie at home, click here and scroll down.
The Miso-Glazed Chilean Sea Bass with Mushroom Consommé & Shrimp Ravioli, however, was perhaps the highlight of the meal -- if not the entire trip. Marinated in miso soy sauce for an entire day, the asian flavor permeated the soft fish and gave it a buttery-soft texture. Demonstrating even less of an adherence to customary dining decorum than usual, we were mopping up the miso sauce with bread by the end. I considered "mistakenly" shoving my plate off the table so that they might feel obligated to bring me a fresh serving, but considered the odds of this to be even lower than those in the Pai-Gow High Roller room.
Rounding out the tasting menu was Medallion of Rare Ahi Tuna with Seared Hudson Valley Foie Gras & Pinot Noir Sauce. Here was perhaps the only chink in the armor of the dishes presented that evening. The tuna, while expertly prepared, was at times in danger of being overwhelmed by the thick Pinot Noir flavor from the sauce. On the other hand, the foie gras was perfectly matched by the sauce -- what could have been overpowering flavors managed to mellow eachother and create a unique context for the nearly-raw fish.
Finally, the fabled desert sampler arrived. Normally desert in a seafood restaurant is an afterthought, or worse yet the victim of the kind of knee-jerk fusion which attempts to marry cod liver and powdered sugar -- with legally actionable results. Luckily, Aqua has risen above the chum and delivered a sampling plate worth the considerable risk in social ostracization and bouncer encounters that documentation with a flash-happy digital camera often entails.
The plate itself was filled with what looked like refugees from Dr. Seuss's wastebasket -- but in a good way. Finding a way to split each and every one of these beasties was task in and of itself... several solutions required the knowledge of non-Euclidean geometry.
Off to the side was a Liliputian root beer float, measuring no more than 5" tall and served with a straw made out of chocolate. It's a cliché about high-end restaurants that by cutting their portions by 1/3rd they convince you that the food tastes 3x as good, but there's something about a delicately-prepared miniature that's strangely compelling.
Gilding the lilly, a final set of small cookies and pasteries was delivered -- on what appeared to be a leftover prop from the 3-D Chess Set from Star Trek. It is with a deep sense of shame that I must admit we could not finish the last of these morsels. A last-minute plan -- hatched in the kind of desperation only Vegas can engender -- to ferry home the remaining confections in our pockets foundered upon the realization that the chocolate-based goodies would stand no more of a chance of survival than a ice-sculpture swan in the Valley of Fire.
Seeking a complete water-theme for the evening, we soon decamped for a showing of the Cirque du Soleil's O.