And the ethnic parade marches on.
Last week, I was in ethnic food nirvana at two unheralded gems, one Middle Eastern, the other Japanese. No one needs to eat the same cuisine twice in a month in this town.
Don't let the modest storefront appearance of the Olive Mediterranean Grill and Hookah Bar deceive you. This food, a compendium of Lebanese and Syrian fare, is the equal of any restaurant representing the genre here.
Nicholas and Jay Sayegh, formerly of the short-lived but sorely missed Sidewalk Mediterranean Grill in Henderson, are doing the cooking, and the experience shows. The menu is composed of mazza, or Lebanese appetizers; and fresh salads and amazing sandwiches and wraps, most of which have a Middle-Eastern taste profile. At the moment, because of the small kitchen, there are no kabobs but the brothers will soon expand the place and a larger dish selection is on the agenda.
For now, it's a pleasant space with sponge-painted walls, basic tables and chairs, and a small row of shelves in back for hookahs, flavored tobaccos and other Levantine stuff. The generously portioned and low-priced apps come with warm pita bread or pita chips; unctuous meatless grape leaves rolled around a savory rice stuffing; baba ghannouj; fava beans (the quintessential Middle-Eastern breakfast) mashed with garlic and olive oil; and the best humus around, which can be had topped with pine nuts and warm beef.
Salads range from a classic, mildly sour tabbouleh, that green mix of finely minced parsley, tomatoes, lemon and olive oil tossed with bulgur wheat; to a near-perfect salad of tomatoes, cucumbers, red onion and parsley, cut nicely into bite-sized cubes and served in an enormous stainless-steel bowl.
The best way to order a sandwich is panini style, pressed in a hot grill so the bread is crisp on both sides and the filling is piping hot. Falafel is the standard; orbs of fried, spiced, garbanzo-bean flour eaten sauced with tahini, a ground sesame sauce. But shawarma, spiced chicken or beef wrapped in fresh pita, is fairly unbeatable, eaten with a liberal dose of the house garlic sauce.
For dessert, there are fingers of walnut and pistachio baklava, and cups of muddy Turkish coffee, a traditional way to end a meal in Lebanon or Syria. When they do expand, I'll be one of the first people in the door.
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Across from the UNLV campus, and in culinary terms, across the world, is East Boy, a hole-in-the-wall café that specializes in bento, Japanese lunch boxes. It is part of a chain that is called merely East in California, and interestingly, West in Japanese, too cool for school, if you ask me.
Before you get started here, it's good to know that this place is almost entirely devoid of atmosphere, other than those infernal ceramic kittens; that the food is cooked to order behind a counter; and that there is a reverse-osmosis watercooler to pour your water from. Use it liberally. The free use of salt makes Japanese cuisine one of the saltiest on the planet.
Bento vary from the simple korokke bento, simply vegetable croquettes, rice, pickles and a few other condiments; to the granddaddy of them all here, the East bento, stocked with salmon, shrimp and vegetable tempura, chicken teriyaki, gyoza dumplings, hijiki seaweed and several other goodies—a meal big enough to share, especially for poor students.
The Japanese version of curry rice—a thick, brown paste that you have to be a native to love—is another great tummy-stuffer, served in the bowl or slightly larger box, with the requisite choice of toppings: croquettes, a breaded chicken cutlet, or fried shrimp. These are the everyday foods of the Japanese, by the way, when they are not eating at a burger joint. Sushi? Fuggeddaboudit.
Not that they don't have it. Sushi comes in roll form here, a good bang for the buck, and while not at the gourmet level, it's perfectly serviceable. I tried a spicy salmon roll and found it to be just fine, a steal at $3.71. This may not be the ideal summer dish, but there are also udon noodles in soup, another quintessentially Japanese meal relying on starch. Udon are thick strands of wheat-flour noodles, generally eaten in a salty broth with a choice of toppings.
You won't leave hungry, nor broke, for that matter.