I'm sitting at a communal table at Wynn Las Vegas' Red 8, savoring several varieties of dim sum, Chinese pastries traditionally consumed with tea.
Red 8 is Wynn's casual Asian restaurant, where Malaysian Chef Hisham Johari does a sort of Asian greatest-hits menu, and a special dim-sum menu on weekends. I choose to sit at the communal table because a) I am alone, b) there is a huge line to get in on this Saturday afternoon, and c) because I want to observe tourists eating.
My tablemates are slurping up noodles and a few more common Chinese dishes—barbecued pork and vegetable fried-rice being two—and I can't help wish they knew more about Asian cuisine, because they are missing the boat.
Finally, one of the guys sitting across from me, who has been discussing baseball with his friends, and calling me Boss, can't take it anymore. "What the hell are you eating?" he asks, as I pull a lotus leaf. "This is a sticky rice dumpling, stuffed with ground chicken, mushrooms and Chinese sausage," I tell him, as I drizzle some hot chili sauce on it and dig in. He shrugs, and simply looks away.
That corroborates what I already suspected. Many of Red 8's specialty dishes are just too Asian for the mainstream: Hainanese chicken rice, pork-knuckle noodle, Nyonya meehoon wok-fried rice vermicelli in spicy shrimp paste, water spinach, various congees.
It's not that non-Asians wouldn't like these dishes, because I bet they would. It's just that people tend to avoid things they are unfamiliar with, and Red 8's menu is chockablock with authentic Asian dishes generally not found in restaurants catering to non-Asians.
Wynn Las Vegas deserves a lot of credit for putting out such a cutting-edge menu, and Chef Johari is just the man to bring it off. Despite the casual setting, Red 8 doesn't lack for elegance. The restaurant is housed in a suite of small rooms anchored by four enormous red columns. (Red is considered the color of prosperity in Asia and 8 is widely viewed as a lucky number.)
Tables have polished stone surfaces and stunning, red-leather place mats. The walls are paneled in wood with brass inlays, and tasseled red lanterns hang over booths, giving the restaurant a 1930s Shanghai, art-deco flair.
The menu is such that it's possible to eat for a modest sum or spend quite a bit. If you choose appetizers like Oriental green-onion pancake; crisp, savory flatbread; or shiu mai, steamed pork dumplings served three to an order, prices are reasonable. Order chili crab or braised abalone with seasonal greens, though, and things get pricey in a hurry.
I prefer to take the middle road, start with a couple of apps, do a noodle plate and rice dish, and have a few vegetables for good measure. What Johari does best are the dishes from his native Malaysia.
Chicken and beef satays—grilled, spiced meat on skewers—are great, served with a chunky peanut sauce. Penang char kway teow—rice noodles tossed about in a wok with sweet, black soy sauce and a choice of meats—is addictively good.
Several rice plates are filling and delicious, as well. Hainanese chicken rice is steamed chicken hacked into bite-sized pieces, served with a toothsome, oily rice redolent of chicken broth, and a minced garlic sauce, and it's a real meal. Mandarin beef stew is a stick-to-the-ribs riff on a Western dish but with Asian spices.
Don't miss the Asian vegetables: water spinach sautéed with preserved bean curd, or long, green snow-pea shoots wok-fried simply with garlic and oil. I wasn't happy when I saw that the chef's Nyonya chili crab isn't Dungeness crab, but rather deep-fried soft-shell crab—until I tasted it and the sweet chili sauce won me over. Time permitting, a steamed live fish dressed with ginger and scallions is hard to beat.
The weekend dim sum menu has almost 30 choices, all prepared, as Chinese restaurant protocol dictates, in a special separate kitchen. Steamed pork spare ribs are fatty and fine, flecked with salty black bean. Deep-fried sweet-rice balls, a.k.a. ham sui gok, are chewy on the outside and crunchy on the inside, thanks to a minced pork and mushroom filling.
One of the best of the non-pastry dim sum is sesame shrimp: lightly battered and rolled in white sesame seeds. Sweet pastries include a baked egg custard and a steamed bun with sweet cream filling. The most indulgent choice has to be the shark's fin dumpling in soup, with a juicy center that spills out when the skin is prodded.
Service is a plus here, thanks to charming general manager Chaichi Kuo, formerly of Pearl and Shibuya in the MGM Grand, and her assistant, Oz Chan. When the hotel opened in late April, it was easy to procure a table here, but word gets around fast and now Red 8 is red hot.
Too bad they don't serve dim sum seven days a week.