[Strip, Las Vegas, NV] Bazaar Meats

Regional Dining Discussions Los Angeles, SoCal, Vegas
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I had an amazing meal at Bazaar Meat, Jose Andrés’ place at SLS hotel. I’ve been reading about Andrés for years, starting in LA with The Bazaar, then with the extremely successful é by José Andrés and I finally got to visit Bazaar Meat, his version of a steakhouse. It was my first experience with gastronomy cuisine, life changing is all I can say. The food was sublime and it opened my eyes to how food can be about an experience as well as satiation.

Being a single diner, I ate at Bar Centro, which is not as formal as their dining area. They have happy hour from 5:30 to 7:00 (5:30 on the dot) but the prices were almost the same, the only discount were the cocktails. Cocktails range $16-20, but during happy hour they are $8. I got the La Invencible (bols Genever, Amontillado sherry, PX sherry, bitters). It was dry and not very good on its own, but perfect with the tapas. Next time, I’d go with their house red, $8, which gets good reviews.

The photo below is the Cotton Candy Foie Gras with crispy amaranth ($8) with the previously mentioned La Invencible. The cotton candy has a piece of foie gras in the center.

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Next I had Andre’s version of Bagels and Lox ($6), a dill cream cheese topped with salmon roe in a crispy shell. It was a delightful bit, oozing with umami. I like how his tapas are not bread centric.

Following the Lox, I ate The Reuben (corned beef, sauerkraut, Thousand Island, Swiss crema) served on air bread. It was my favorite dish of the night. The air bread isn’t like bread, but more like a pastry shell, so your bite rewards you with a lovely cheese mixture and salty beef with tangy sauerkraut. You hardly taste the bread, which for me was a good thing. It was the perfect appetizer paired with the harsh cocktail.

Lastly I got the oysters and the Croquetas de Jamon, (creamy bechamel). Oysters were fresh and Croquetas were tasty but I wasn’t blown away by either dishes. For the croquetas, I was hoping for a more pure jamon flavor (which in hindsight was naive of me, as the dish is pretty much fried bechamel sauce). Yet, what would a Spanish-influenced restaurant be without this classic tapa?

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Overall, it was a superb dining experience, one of the best meals of my life and I am now a convert to the culinary world of gastronomy. I can’t wait to come back and eat in the formal dining area and try their meat dishes.

They also have an impressive wine selection.

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Good on you. He’s been building a tasty empire since we last looked when we were commuting to D.C. where Zaytina, Jaleo, and even Oyamel charmed us and guests.

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What is “gastronomy cuisine” ? Or do you mean “molecular gastronomy”/“modernist cuisine” ?

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I haven’t tried é yet, his flagship restaurant, but it’s on my radar. I just need to win the lotto. :slight_smile:

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Not sure how that definition fits cotton candy foie gras.
Maybe representing Las Vegas culture?
:smiley:

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How it represents gastronomy?

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I know the definition of gastronomy but what is gastronomy cuisine ? Andres is well known for his impact in molecular gastronomy

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This is strange, this is similar to the conversation I was having with my husband, my editor, he was hung up on the word molecular gastronomy too, except he said that Bazaar Meat, at least in my review, was not molecular gastronomy, so we changed it to gastronomy. But you can find dishes that are molecular gastronomy at Bazaar Meats, but I agree that the restaurant’s focus is not molecular gastronomy cuisine.

As to answer your question what is gastronomy cuisine?

Straight from the website I linked, I couldn’t describe it better.

Are you asking me because you think it’s redundant?

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Actually the air bread is one of the better known molecular gastronomy dishes from Andres. (to a certain degree also the foie gras cotton candy - both are often served in his other restaurants). Every restaurant is doing by definition gastronomy so saying gastronomy cuisine is describing every restaurant - I would describe his restaurants (or at least many of his dishes) as Modernist Cuisine as it’s covered by Myhrvold’s good definition.

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I would say the Ferran Adrià Olives, Modern & Traditional is molecular gastronomy. But the croquetas are traditional, and imo, not much different than any other high-end tapas restaurant.

You have a point with his air bread, I’m assuming it’s called that as to be a carrier for the meat and cheese, but it’s suppose to taste like air.

Bazaar Meats has more of a focus on traditional cuts of meats, traditionally prepared, moreso than his other outposts in town. Here is a link to the menu.

I disagree that many of his dishes are Modernist Cuisine.

I’m not being pedantic, I love geeky discussions about food and words. :slight_smile:

And I think it’s humorous because “molecular gastronomy” was the phrase that my husband had a problem with, but it’s what you happened to focus on. I’m just marveling at the odds of that.

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I’m confused because what you have just quoted above leaves out the first part of the sentence:

“Gastronomy is the study of the relationship between food and culture, the art of preparing and serving rich or delicate and appetizing food, the cooking styles of particular regions, and the science of good eating.”

If you develop new dishes or new versions of traditional dishes based on these gastronomical studies that’s what’s usually called molecular/modern cuisine. The meal you describe seems to fit solidly into that practice.

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Where is this from? If this is true, then going back to @honkman argument that every restaurant that utilizes scientific method is molecular/modern cuisine? I guess by definition, you can say that, but I disagree that it is Modernist Cuisine, that was popularized by Ferran Adrià, that is “technological advances in equipment and various natural gums and hydrocolloids produced by the commercial food processing industry.”

The other part of “modernist” cuisine is that it’s avant garde. While arguments can be made that combining cotton candy with foie gras is avante garde, turning sugar into a cotton-like texture has been around for decades.

On the other hand, look at his menu at e,

That is clearly “modernist” cuisine in the school of Ferran Adrià, the menu makes a taco out of meat shell, turns sangria into a jelly, there is the iconic foam, the dessert is air chocolate truffles.

I have read Myhrvold’s Modernist cuisine and it covers everything from BBQ to sous vide to consomme. If any restaurant that employs those techniques is “modernist” then 90% are modernist and the term is made useless.

I mean, Burger King adds rice flour to its french fries to make them crispier, does that make them modernist? How about Oreos being the perfect ratio of carbs to crunchy so that it’s addictive? Halo top ice cream, anyone?

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Modernist Cuisine goes far beyond what you seem to associate with Adria. And yes, that is one of the arguments from Myhrvold that many restaurants are actually using modernist cuisine techniques (because it is becoming more mainstream). (And a lot of modernist cuisine techniques and ingredients often originated out of research labs of big food corporations, including fast food chains). Modernist cuisine doesn’t have to be avantgarde but using tools, ingredients and technique which are associated with this part of gastronomy

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Then “gastronomy” is clearly an even more useless term:

“[Etymologically, the word “gastronomy” is derived from Ancient Greek γαστήρ, gastḗr, “stomach”, and νόμος, nómos, “laws that govern”, and therefore literally means “the art or law of regulating the stomach”. The term is purposely all-encompassing: it subsumes all of cooking technique, nutritional facts, food science, and everything that has to do with palatability plus applications of taste and smell as human ingestion of foodstuffs goes]”

Meaning, as honkman said, all restaurants (and all home cooks, I’d add) are practicing gastronomy. Now if Jose Andres says that what he is serving is gastronomy cuisine then what the hell - it’s his place and he can call his food whatever he wants. At e he calls it avant-garde:

“Tucked away in a small private room adjacent to Jaleo’s bustling bar and paella grill, é by José Andrés offers a clever and creative tasting menu of Spanish avant-garde dishes.”

That might be the best term since it avoids being associated with any one person’s work.

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This is absolute nonsense. That post is the most confusing thing I’ve read on the forum. I’m not even going to decipher the gibberish to try to reply.

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I, in regular conversation, do not associate Modernist Cuisine with Adria, but in the case of this review, I did not think “molecular” gastronomy is the correct description of the restaurant, so I purposefully did not describe it that way.

This thread has turned into all sorts of nonsense, but if you want to create another thread about what is a “Modernist Cuisine” restaurant, I would think that would be more appropriate.

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The overall problem is that you said you visited Bazaar Meats but just ate some HH dishes from Bar Centro which hardly had much to do what Bazaar Meats as a restaurant stands for but mainly picked dishes which are well known through Andres other modernist cuisine restaurants. It’s very similar when people say they cooked a particular recipe from a well known chef but changed five different ingredients and two techniques amd afterwards complain that it didn’r resemble what they had in the restaurant. In some ways you haven’t really visited Bazaar Meats yet.

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Now that’s some I can agree with. Unfortunately Bar Centro is not a separate entity on its own, therefore I cannot review it on its own. But I’ll agree that I did not get the full scope of Bazaar Meat as a restaurant.

And if that was your original point of your discussion, you should’ve just come out and said so.