How’s this for a Vegas story? Businessman travels for years and sends pictures of the food he’s eating on the road back to his wife. She creates her own versions at home, building up an impressive collection of recipes. When it’s time to retire, the two decide to use their knowledge and love of food and open a restaurant.
The tale belongs to Joe and Elise Garson. Along with other family members and managing partner Paul Kim, they’re putting out some serious rotisserie-roasted meats at Karved, on Maryland Parkway just north of Flamingo. Plates can be ordered with either chicken or beef tri-tip, but the move here is the combination ($14-$15). The chicken slants West Coast, courtesy of a killer garlic sauce, and the slow-roasted bird and tangy sauce combines for a bite as good as LA’s Zankou Chicken, which built an empire on a similar sauce. You can taste the care that went into the creation of all the sauces on the Karved menu, but the garlic sauce went through an eight-month development period to get it just right.
Proteins can also be assembled into a sandwich. The tri-tip ($11) is tender and tasty, served with arugula and onion marmalade, plus that garlic sauce. An excellent porchetta ($12) is dressed with a lemon caper sauce—a succulent loin joined by little bits of skin cracklins on a sturdy roll for one of the more memorable sandwiches in town.
Karved 3957 S. Maryland Parkway, 702-452-0275. Daily, 11 a.m.-8 p.m.
