Why is it that we describe desserts as "sinful" and "decadent"? Is it some remnant of the Calvinism that once ruled much of Europe, an ethic that essentially decried any form of pleasure? As far as I'm concerned, it beats a dead ass, but I know I'm a dessert fiend, and that if there is any truth to those prior assessments, desserts are a perfect fit for Sin City.
Matter of fact, we may have more pure dessert talent here than any other place on the planet. The last two years, Vegas chefs have won the World Pastry Championship, and virtually every Strip casino has a dessert master, from the Hilton's pastillage (sugar art) expert Stanton Ho to the award-winning pastry genius and chocolate master Jean-Phillippe Maury at Bellagio.
That said, it's not easy to winnow down a list of my 10 favorite desserts in town, so I'm forced to omit many of my favorites, from the root beer float at Michael Mina to anything by Wolfgang Puck Fine Dining Group's resident maestro, the Basque Flash, Christophe Ithurriz.
But I can tell you what I do not like in a dessert. Who, for instance, invented the flourless chocolate cake trend, where you get an undercooked, bundt-shaped concoction that oozes brown sludge when you prod it? I happen to like flour, thank you, without which there would be no a) pie crust, b) shortcake or c) puff pastry. And I positively cannot abide the tendency of new restaurants to call their desserts "cobblers" when a cobbler specifically has a biscuit-like top crust. What the offenders are serving is usually a crisp, identified by an unspeakable oatmeal and brown-sugar topping. I like my oatmeal for breakfast, thank you.
A great dessert should be made from top-quality ingredients, such as fresh fruit, butter, and chocolate with a high cocoa content. It should not be the size of your child's Flexible Flyer, or have goo running down the sides of the vessel it is served in.
If these restrictions strike you as curmudgeonly, well, you know where you can stick that cookie the size of a 33-rpm record, don't you, pallie!
So, without further argument, here are 10 desserts that will make gaining weight seem worth it.
America has long had a love affair with frozen custard—essentially ice cream with egg in the mix—and, indeed, many regions of this country have stands with fanatical devotees, from Virginia's Frozen Dairy Bar and St. Louis' Ted Drewes, to Luv-It, a local favorite that few tourists even visit, despite our extreme heat and its close proximity to the Strip.
All the flavors here are delicious. But the ne plus ultra at Luv-It is the Western Sundae, the stand's impeccable vanilla custard topped with a thin layer of hot fudge and several salted pecans. This dessert has the four major food groups—sugar, starch, salt and grease. Believe me, you could live on a lot less. $5.00. Luv-It Frozen Custard, 504 E. Oakey Blvd., 384-6452.
New York uber-chef Tom Colicchio has garnered enthusiastic raves for his galaxy of Big Apple restaurants, the upmarket Gramercy Tavern and Craft, and more casual entries like Craftbar and 'Wichcraft, a sandwich concept he describes as "Craft between two pieces of bread." (Sand'wich, get it!)
In late July, a 'Wichcraft opened at the MGM Grand, a kid sister to the chef's Craftsteak just down the hall. They serve creative sandwich fare on a variety of homemade breads, but what impressed me more was their whoopie pie, a heart-stopping dessert sandwich of two huge half-domes of fluffy, intense chocolate cake filled with rich fluffy butter cream, more like whipped cream than whipped cream itself. I ate the entire thing, and I had to lie down all afternoon. It was that good. $2.95. 'Wichcraft, Inside MGM Grand, 891-1111.
Asian cuisines are not celebrated for their desserts the way European cuisines are, but then, Asia, especially the more tropical countries, has glorious fruits like mangosteen, pomelo, durian, papaya, lychee and the mango, which make for a lighter, more refreshing and certainly healthier end to the meal.
At Lotus of Siam, our best Thai restaurant, chef Saipin Chutima makes a classic Thai dessert in which many fruits can be featured, essentially cylinders of glutinous rice, which is sweeter to begin with, topped with slivers of fresh mango and a rich coconut cream. The dessert is at once sumptuous and seductive—and, biochemically, a perfect, cooling finish to spicy Thai cooking. $9.50. Lotus of Siam, 953 E. Sahara Ave., 735-3033.
The classic American dessert bananas Foster was invented at Brennan's Restaurant in New Orleans, owned by the same family that owns Commander's Palace, and while the dish has often been imitated, it has never, to my knowledge, been surpassed. A regular customer named Foster used to order the dish to his specifications, and eventually, it became part of the American idiom.
The dessert is disarmingly simple: butter melted in a pan table side, with brown sugar added to form a smooth paste, and crème de Banana, a banana liqueur. When the concoction is simmering, bananas are added and coated with the sauce. Next, 151-proof rum is added and flamed, and finally a sprinkling of cinnamon to make the sauce spark. When the bananas are done, the whole mixture is ladled over vanilla-bean ice cream. The finished product manages to be hot and cold at the same time, a real crowd-pleaser. $7.50. Commander's Palace, inside Desert Passage, 892-8272.
The new sidewalk, Strip-facing café at Caesars Palace had an ace in the hole in the person of Executive Chef Krista Kern, who impressed the brass so much as pastry chef at the hotel's Italian restaurant, Terrazza, that they gave her a restaurant. Kern recently departed for personal reasons. But her desserts, such as artisanal Italian chocolates and an amazing buttermilk panna cotta—a creamy, quivery gelatin from Italy's Piedmont—are all among the best in the city.
The panna cotta, about the size of an 8-ounce yogurt, is served in a berry broth laced with Harry's berries, boutique strawberries from Santa Barbara, plus diced rhubarb, micro-mint greens and a homemade rhubarb sorbet in a tuile cup with flower petals. It redefines, for me at least, a dessert that I thought had been perfect to begin with. Let's hope Kern returns to Vegas soon. $7. Viale, inside Caesars Palace, 731-7110.
Portions at the Claim Jumper are huge, bordering on the obscene, so any measure of portion size at this California-based chain has to be taken with a grain of salt. Bear this in mind when ordering the world's smallest chocolate sundae. Yes, it comes in a cute little glass bowl, and no, it is not as gigantic as, say, the Messy Sundae at Sammy's Woodfire Pizza. But it is terrific.
Credit for this goes to the high quality components: a fine, fatty vanilla ice cream, Helen Grace hot fudge and a superb spiral of whipped cream, shaved almonds and a cherry on top. The tasty, not-cloyingly-sweet fudge is on the bottom in this case, the ice cream is in the middle, and the whipped cream crowns it all.
It may be small here, but three of us shared one happily on a recent visit. $3.50. Claim Jumper, 1100 Fort Apache, 243-8751; 601 N. Green Valley Parkway, 933-0880.
Pastry chef Justin Nilson, the wunderkind behind the oddball, kid-friendly desserts at Simon, is nothing if not playful, exemplified by the cotton candy, nut brittle and other goodies he turns out at this Hard Rock emporium of American comfort foods. He's done desserts like sticky toffee pudding and warm banana bread in the past. But this latest effort, quite literally, takes the cake.
His Junk Food Plate consists of a mock Hostess Cupcake and Snowball, a couple of coconut haystacks and a small chocolate milkshake. The Hostess-style pastries are slightly smaller in scale (and taste better than the originals, thanks to high-quality ingredients and no preservatives), but remain true to them. (The cupcake, for example, has a meringue filling in place of the chemical-rich kreme from the factory.) It's all enough to make you wonder how anyone survives childhood. $8. Simon Kitchen and Bar, inside the Hard Rock, 632-5000.
Desserts at Steve Hanson's Italian restaurant Fiamma are excellent, thanks to the good work of his New York City pastry wizard Elizabeth Katz and her local pastry chef, Vita Stanley.
Here, tried-and-true items like semifreddo are given twists like a liquid-praline center and salted hazelnuts; and ones that could easily be botched, like hot doughnuts, become works of art.
Crochette are tennis-ball-size, crispy amaretti doughnuts, served hot and golden-brown in a wicker basket, with a light dusting of confectioner's sugar. The doughnuts are accompanied by a trio of delicious dipping sauces: pistachio, chocolate and raspberry.
Given the current national obsession with the vastly inferior Krispy Kreme doughnuts, this dessert seems like a license to print money, if the public ever catches wind of it. $8. Fiamma, inside the MGM Grand, 891-1111.
Hugh Reid and his wife came to Las Vegas from Chicago, where he was an insurance agent for more than 20 years; his small family restaurant, which specializes in fried catfish and soul food on Sundays, is the fulfillment of a lifelong dream. It is precisely the Reids' straightforward, homey foods that make this a pleasant place to dine, and nothing exemplifies this more than the apple pie, a double-crusted masterpiece that would make any grandmother swell with pride.
Mrs. Reid wouldn't reveal her recipe, but she implied that her flaky, rich crust contains a mix of butter and shortening, and Mr. Reid allowed that the apples were "probably Granny Smith." In any case, you get a large slice (one-sixth of a pie tin), which I'm guessing has upwards of 800 calories per. If pie isn't your thing, an exemplary chocolate layer cake is also worth the trip. $2.29. Reid's, 2548 Wigwam, 450-7343.
I'm not a fan of bananas, so it amazed me that I included a second dessert based on them. But the banana cream pie served at Emeril's is more than just the best banana cream pie I have ever tasted; it may be the greatest piece of any pie I've ever tasted.
Chef de Cuisine Jean-Paul Labadie explained why. "Cooking this pie takes two days," he said. "First, we make a rich pastry cream, looser than a custard, then we let it slowly cool, and finally we mix it for three hours."
Many home cooks have tried unsuccessfully to do it at home, and believe me, it ain't easy. The crust is Graham crackers mixed with mashed banana. Then, the pastry cream and the sliced bananas are layered onto the crust, crowned with two inches of fresh whipped cream. On top are Hawaiian vintage chocolate shavings and on the side, a delectable homemade caramel sauce. If you aren't impressed by now, go get yourself a nonfat, sugar-free yogurt. $8. Emeril's New Orleans Fish House, inside the MGM Grand, 891-7374.