Comfort Food, a la Mainland

It’s rare that the Dark Knight and I find ourselves craving dishes day after day. Boba, perhaps. Lasagna, certainly. A new addition to our list: shrimp toast.

Despite our dissatisfaction with Table 10, we decided to give the eateries at Palazzo another try, this time heading to Mainland for a culinary tour of Asia.

On our first visit, we tried the shrimp toast, grilled pork chop over chilled vermicelli noodles, kimchee fried rice, and duck wontons. The shrimp toast was everything I had been craving for the past five years (no one makes shrimp toast in LA, apparently): deep-fried goodness and sweet, delectable shrimp dipped in a medium-spiced kewpie mayonnaise.


The Dark Knight’s pork chop, though expectedly more expensive than its local mom-and-pop counterparts, was thoroughly seasoned and cooked until just done. The juicy meat and pickled veggies left the Dark Knight sated and happy.

My duck wontons carried more star anise flavor than I enjoyed, but the kimchee fried rice created a nice balance against the heaviness.

We also tried their alcoholic milkshakes—vodka and lychee for the Dark Knight, soju and rose petals for me. After first sips that left us reeling from the heavy alcohol content, the rest of the drinks smoothed out. Finally, by the end of the meal, we were slurping the last dregs of our shakes. My drink, made with the ubiquitous Korean alcohol, had a floral aroma from beginning to end of each mouthful. Not too sweet, the intensity of the rose petal infusion was a lovely final taste at the end of my meal. The Dark Knight’s drink tasted just like a non-alcoholic lychee shake, save for that initial sip. Both milkshakes capped off a mostly-wonderful meal.

The next day, we met for lunch at Mainland again, the taste of shrimp toast still lingering on our palates. This time, we enjoyed the toast we’ve been obsessing about, the steamed beef dumplings, and crispy vegetable wontons.

The shrimp toast did not disappoint, and we wolfed it down immediately.

The beef dumplings, tender wrappers filled with pine nuts and grilled steak pieces, surprised us both with the flavor combination. Dipping the succulent bites in a spicy peanut sauce, the Dark Knight and I swooned over the plate between sips of warm sake.

To ensure that we received a serving of vegetables, I ordered the crispy vegetable wontons—deep-fried purses stuffed with shiitake mushrooms, pea sprouts, leeks, and spinach. This modern take on a classic dim sum dish was nicely executed.

And so balance has been restored to the universe: one terrible Palazzo restaurant, two nearly perfect experiences at another. Delish!

Table 10...and a half

No. No, no, no, no, no. The Dark Knight and I tried so hard to like Emeril Lagasse’s latest offering at Palazzo in Las Vegas, Table 10. But we couldn’t. There are so many things wrong here: billed as a New Orleans-inspired fine dining restaurant, we expected food that would bring our tastebuds back to the glory days of NOLA cuisine; barring the NOLA experience, we wanted delicious food; given Emeril’s long history of successful establishments, we thought it wouldn’t be too much to ask to have a normal table on a fairly vacant night. Foiled on all counts.

This isn’t to say that everything was horrible. Quite the contrary—when the food was good, it was pretty good. My starter of seafood and andouille sausage gumbo with white rice was tasty in all the right ways, though perhaps a bit too spicy for my taste.

My main course, fennel-cured salmon over lightly dressed arugula and mandolined cucumbers, was refreshing and wonderful. The Dark Knight’s dessert of sorbet, including pear, blackberry, and strawberry, was great. And my white chocolate-filled malasadas, those balls of fried dough so central to Hawaiian cuisine, were deep-fried perfection.

But that’s the problem. The one dish on the menu that was overtly NOLA was just…fine. Our favorite dish was Hawaiian (by way of Portugese) in nature, a severe departure from the publicized intent of Table 10.

The Dark Knight’s starter, escargot in a gravy-like butter sauce over a crouton round was barely edible. “Flavorless, rabbit turd-looking mess,” said the Dark Knight as I reached across the table to try it. I nodded in agreement.

We dismissed that dish as an example of a recipe gone awry. But when the Dark Knight’s entrée arrived, we realized that this was going to be a strange night. On the menu, roasted salmon over chorizo and tomatoes sounds pretty good. On the plate, however, it’s downright awful. The salmon, slightly overcooked, arrived atop a mushy mélange of tortilla chunks and chorizo cubes, tossed in a chunky tomato sauce. The sauce itself was rather bland, lending a sameness of flavor to every bite. Given that most NOLA food is not only highly seasoned, but rarely employs tortillas, this plate gave us pause. What was this? We wondered.

Dessert seemed to have come from a completely different kitchen. The sorbets were delightful in their vibrant fruitiness. My malasadas were warm, dusted in cinnamon-sugar, and pleasantly crisp on the outside. The interior was uniformly soft and moist, fluffy with just the right amount of chewiness. The accompanying crème anglaise was nothing to write home about, but it sufficed.

The real star of the show was my drink, an absinthe concoction with fruit juice and blueberries. The licorice flavor of the absinthe was front and center, but nicely balanced by the sweetness of the fruit. Every sip was a search for treasure—the treasure being bits of muddled blueberries. Garnished with a sprig of mint, the aroma was enticing and clean.

Earlier, I noted that the layout of the restaurant is questionable. The reason I bring it up at all is that it is a physical manifestation of all that is wrong at Table 10. The Dark Knight’s half of the table was in one dining room—hardwood floors, a glass wall showcasing an enormous wine collection—while my half of the table was in what appeared to be a walkway. The two spaces were defined by a curtain that, when drawn, would have cut the table in half. A visual cue to diners at our table, and the matching one next to us, that there are indeed two worlds here: the one with inconsistent food, and the one with delicious drinks.

I try not to write about negative experiences on this blog, but this is one instance in which I feel it’s important to alert my (laughably few) readers to the disappointment that is Table 10. After all, no one should have to suffer the way the Dark Knight and I have.