It is again time to single out the best dishes of the past calendar year, and as every year, variety and eclecticism emerge as their salient characteristics. We stray from the usual top-10 format this year. There are so many, we're doing a top-20 instead. So without further ado, here they are.
1. Simmered beef pancake roll, $4.95 at Shanghai Noon, 3943 Spring Mountain Road. Picture a crisp flatbread smeared with plum sauce, layered with beef, rolled up, and cut into bite-sized pieces. Presto! A Chinese snack for the ages.
2. Sopes, $1.95, at Fausto's, 2654 W. Horizon Ridge Pkwy., Henderson. The greatest meal deal in town may be the sopes here: fat, round corn cakes, griddled until spectacularly crisp, topped with a choice of meat, and piled up with lettuce, cheese and sour cream.
3. Malhwa, $6.50 at Pita Place, 3429 S. Jones Blvd. Malhwa is a Yemeni-Israeli bread that is incredibly laborious to make. It's rolled in several layers with butter before being griddled, and is served with boiled egg and tomato puree jazzed up with houk, a fiery red-pepper paste.
4. Pan de campo, $7 at Roadrunner Bistro, 9820 W. Flamingo Road. The Cowboy Chef, Grady Spears of Fort Worth, Texas, invented this wondrous treat, a corn tortilla griddled to crispness, and then topped with bacon, goat cheese, tomatillo salsa and chopped green onions.
5. Go Raw house salad, $6.50 (half) and $11 (full) at the Go Raw Café, 2910 Lake East Drive. Get on the raw food bandwagon with this textural mélange of mixed greens, shredded carrots, bell pepper, tiny, flavorful tomatoes, sprouts, avocado, onions, nuts and seeds, all tossed with a creamy flaxseed oil dressing.
6. Coconut soft-serve ice cream sundae, $9 at Bradley Ogden, inside Caesars Palace. Bradley Ogden does an amazing homemade soft-serve, more of a custard, plus three sauces, sliced banana, and gobs of real whipped cream. A quantum banana split.
7. Meze platter, $24 at NM Café, inside Neiman Marcus at Fashion Show Mall. Nine Middle Eastern appetizers arranged in squares like a tic-tac-toe board, is a feast for two that includes homemade lamb sausages, hummus, tabbouleh and many surprises.
8. Deep-fried quail, $1.95 at Purple Dot Café, 3400 S. Jones Blvd. Nowhere but here, at this futuristic Hong Kong-style coffee shop, can a delicious fried bird be had for a price like this, accompanied by a tiny heap of spiced salt.
9. Soft shell crab in green curry aioli with black vinegar, $12.75 at Café Wasabi, 7365 W. Sahara Ave. Creative chef Rick Giffen is the driving force here, and a force with the underappreciated soft shell crab, here softly pan-fried, then sauced.
10. Homemade granola, $5 at Canyon Ranch, inside the Venetian. Watch the sweaty mesomorphs working out while eating this ambrosial delight, loaded with hazelnuts, cashews, dried cranberries and other goodies.
11. Pizza patate, $11.95 (lunch only) at Ventano, 191 Arroyo Grande, Henderson. Chef Arnaud Briand does a masterful, thin-crusted pizza with potatoes, rosemary, sun-dried tomatoes and Gorgonzola cheese. That's not to mention the killer baked clams, a number of old Vegas classics and great desserts.
12. Pho dac biet, $6 at Pho Kim Long, 4023 Spring Mountain Road. The search for a great bowl of pho, a large bowl of chewy, long rice noodles and various cuts of beef, in an intense broth made by steeping bones and marrow for days, officially ends here.
13. Beef brisket platter, $8.95 at Barbecue Masters, 1450 W. Horizon Ridge Pkwy. John Charles is a master of smoky, hickory infused 'cue, and his best meat may be his brisket, soft and crumbly with a blackened crust, from the butt end of the steer.
14. Egg drop soup, $1.50 at Ichiza, 4355 Spring Mountain Road. Egg drop soup may sound Chinese, but one spoonful of this Japanese pub dish reveals more egg, less cornstarch, and the penetrating perfumes of the soup's base, a Japanese dashi, or broth based on dried mushrooms and seaweed. It's a wonderful change.
15. Boudin balls, $3.95 at La Louisanne, 3655 S. Durango Road. Boudin balls are the real thing, not sausages where the filling oozes out of the casing the minute it is pierced, but rather fried balls of pork butt and rice, with the secret ingredient, chicken livers, added for dimension.
16. Merguez spicy lamb sausage, $8 at Firefly Bistro, 900 Paradise Road. This is our only real tapas bar, serving the bar dishes of Spain, and my favorite here is a spicy lamb sausage, two to an order, that comes with a tomato-pepper confit and grilled bread, a meal unto itself.
17. Imported cold cuts, $3.75 each at Caffe Giorgio, inside Mandalay Place. Chef Luciano Pellegrini imports various cold cuts from his native Italy, and several are without peer, especially the roast pork loin, called porchetta, and the thin-sliced speck, a smoked ham.
18. Ostiones en escabeche, $14 per dozen at Bonito Michoacan, 3715 S. Decatur Blvd. This Mexican restaurant serves a platter of oysters on the shell that have been cooked in olive oil and white wine, and then embellished with onion, pepper, garlic and cilantro. Wow!
19. Bone-in rib eye, $27.95 at House of Lords, inside the Sahara. The best steak I had this year was a beautifully charred, completely great, bone-in rib eye at this refurbished, classic, American steak house. Compared to other Strip steak joints, the price is right, too.
20. Ayam bakar, $8.95 at A Taste of Indonesia, 5700 Spring Mountain Road. My favorite entrée at our only Indonesian restaurant is ayam bakar—grilled chicken on the bone, redolent of coriander, chili and exotic spices.