1. It doesn’t matter which food and drink festival it is. From Vegas Uncork’d to LuckyRice to last night’s Sake Fever at Red Rock Resort—part of the annual UNLVino fundraising event—one thing is certain: If Raku has a booth, that’s where the longest lines will be.
2. Top Chef Season 12 champ Mei Lin popped up at Sake Fever, knocking out a secret cooking demo from inside a cabana near the back of the Red Rock’s beautiful pool. She served up devastatingly delicious congee with black garlic and a 65-degree egg, a crispy pork pâté egg roll, kalbi-style New York strip with spicy kimchi and a luscious, tangy cheesecake ribbon for dessert. How did she manage to do all this with a makeshift outdoor kitchen setup? She’s used to it. “This is exactly like Top Chef,” she said. (Lin will be at tonight’s Grand Tasting and tickets are still available.)
3. Wandering around and tasting lots of different kinds of sake is not the same as tasting lots of different beers or wines. There is plenty of variation within the world of this fermented rice beverage, and plenty of awesome, descriptive names like “Heaven of Tipsy Delight” and “Demon Slayer.” And it’s a good thing sake has relatively low alcohol content because it goes down so smooth and clean. It was a refreshing and educational experience ... but my highlight was closing out the tasting with a couple drams of 12-year-old Hibiki, one of my favorite whiskeys.
4. The only food booth that could touch Raku was the one by Naked Fish, the local sushi joint and sister restaurant of Kyara Japanese Tapas. There, sushi chefs went to work carving a gigantic bluefin tuna, plating thick tiles of the raw fish as fast as they could to keep up with the hungry crowd’s demands. I ate mine with my fingers, no wasabi, no soy. Just right.
5. UNLV’s Don Snyder was honored at Sake Fever with the Dom Pérignon Award of Excellence, and you really couldn’t find a more generous or essential community contributor to bestow with an award. Chef Daniel Boulud received an award at UNLVino’s kickoff event Bubble-Licious at Venetian on April 16, and chef Steve Martorano will receive one at the Grand Tasting.