Vegas has gone up yet another notch in my books. After the initial shock of day 1, Vegas has found its way surely to my heart through a guaranteed passage: via the stomach. Like all Hong children, I'm deeply obsessed with food. So when Vegas offers me stellar food on one long strip of restaurants, it's easy to overlook the neon grandeur and focus on epicurean rendezvous.
The Forum at Caesar's Palace (which my friend Neal insisted I go see) is the west coast home to Vosges Chocolates -- designer chocolate. The company is based in Chicago and Katrina Markoff, the owner and founder, has won repeated acclaim for her unusual flavorings and stunning designs. I've been reading about Vosges for several years now -- I just never saw any sense in ordering chocolate taste untried. Godiva Chocolate is a mere hack compared to Vosges (and owned by Purina -- yes, as in bow wow and meow Purina -- to boot!*). As is perfectly trendy now, everything is organic, all natural, etc. But it's the combination of flavors that shocks and swoons. I tried their Black Pearl truffle (dark chocolate, wasabi, Japanese ginger and sesame seeds), the Alexis (dark chocolate, Cabernet/Syrah and sweet curry) and another dark chocolate truffle with balsamic vinegar and Italian hazelnut chocolates. The girl behind the counter kept staring at me since I only took one bite of each until I explained that I was picking and choosing my calories and since I wasn't bowled over by either of the last two flavors I saw no sense in eating the rest.
Their most popular flavor is a truffle called "Naga," which is milk chocolate, coconut flakes and curry. Yes, curry. Sounds revolting at first - until you taste it. I'm not a fan of milk chocolate under the best of circumstances but then you bite into the Naga -- and the creamy richness of coconut milk curls around your tongue, chased by a lavish punch of curry. I ate the whole thing. It's odd, it's gorgeous, it's a one ounce paean to hedonism. Perfectly apt for Caesar's Palace.
Eating the Naga makes me keenly aware that there are such things as food gods. It's also, as Tony Bourdain notes after eating at one of the rare Michelin three star restaurants (Arzak) in A Chef's Tour, depressing as hell, because not in my wildest dreams could I ever come up with something so unique. How do you put flavors like this together and know they're going to work? How did Gary Scarborough of The Food Studio come up with a lemon basil parfait that stands out as one of the best pairings to hit my taste buds in the last two decades?
The most exotic chocolate I've ever made are my Marco Polo truffles. Marco Polo is my favorite blend of tea, from the Mariage Freres tea house in Paris. I'd tasted Earl Grey truffles before so thought, ah, I'll put together my favorite tea and my favorite chocolate. Truffles are notoriously easy to make. It's chocolate, cream and butter. Don't use Hersheys. Find and buy Valrhona chocolate or another 50%-70% cocoa chocolate. Find and use European butter like Plugra which is 80% butterfat as opposed to Land o' Lakes which is mainly water. If you're going to eat truffles, don't stoop to plebian calorie counting. Make your calories worthwhile -- pick what you're going to eat and make sure it's worth every bite. Otherwise, don't waste your time. You can use your favorite (loose) tea with this recipe.
Bring 2/3 cup of heavy cream and 3 T unsalted butter to boil. Remove from heat and add 3 T of loose tea to the cream. Allow to steep for 10 minutes. Strain flavored cream and discard tea leaves. Reheat cream over low heat but do not allow to boil. Stir hot cream over 6 oz chopped Valrhona or other high quality bittersweet chocolate in glass or non-reactive bowl. Stir well, making sure chocolate is melted and incorporated. Refrigerate 2-4 hours, until the ganache (fancy word for chocolate + cream) hardens. Put surgical gloves on. Using a melon baller or a spoon, scoop 1 ounce of ganache and roll into a ball between your hands. Work quickly: the heat from your hands will melt the chocolate. Place the ganache on a parchment lined jelly roll sheet. Melt 1/2 cup of Valrhona chocolate. Dip the ganache into the melted chocolate, making sure to cover completely. Place chocolate on a wire rack and allow excess chocolate to drip onto parchment sheet. Refrigerate for 2 hours, until chocolate shell hardens. Alternatively, swirl the ganache in a bowl of cocoa powder. Serve with tea or coffee. This is a really really rich dessert. A little goes a long way. One or two should do you fine.
I "fasted" last night on bread from the Bouchon bakery (they gave me a to go bag of bread Monday night), and water. I attempted to steal a chunk of Boursin cheese from an industry mixer last night, but carrying it back to my room proved difficult -- it looked like I had a really wet snot rag in hand. And confessing that I took a chunk of cheese from a networking event has probably branded me Weirdo Par Excellence. So I discarded it and subsisted on a baguette that had been made from a levain started four years ago and hot tea. Our per diem allowance is $38. My boss pulled me aside before my trip and admonished, "Now I don't want to be seeing meals from Le Cirque on your expense form!" I said, "Would I do that?" He said, "YES!" So I promised him I wouldn't exceed my collective daily ratio. Having blown two days of my daily quotient at Bouchon Monday night, it was perfectly fitting to eat bread and water last night. But man, fasting never tasted so much like Paris. Maybe I should actually go to Paris -- or rather, the Paris hotel. My friend Anna tells me there's a great crepe place and they have Nutella crepes to die for (confidentially: I despise Nutella).
Happily, I'm at parity today where the expense report is concerned. Even better, I've been invited to dinner by several colleagues and will try to pin the bill on them. I wonder where I should eat tonight?
*Note: I made a mistake. Godiva is owned by Campbell Soup, not Ralston Purina. I'm not sure which is worse.
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