Best of Las Vegas -- Las Vegas Review Journal

R-J readers remain loyal to some favorite restaurants

By HEIDI KNAPP RINELLA
REVIEW-JOURNAL

Dining out in Las Vegas was a lot simpler 20 years ago -- fewer options, fewer locations, fewer decisions.

But who would really want to return to those days? Today we have an ever-broadening diversity of ethnic restaurants, with Italian and Chinese paving the way for Indian, Thai, Vietnamese, Cuban and others.

The influx of celebrity chefs also has broadened dining-out options for tourist and resident alike. The ueberchefs have helped recast the light that the world long has shone on Las Vegas and raised the standards of restaurants around them by helping to acclimate customers to ever-more-sophisticated food choices. That new sophistication even has spilled over into the world of the buffets; 20 years ago, who'd have expected to find sirloin of elk on a Las Vegas buffet table?

It's fitting that the Eat & Drink categories of the Best of Las Vegas readers' poll have paralleled the local culinary revolution. Like dining out in Las Vegas, the Best of Las Vegas awards were a lot simpler a couple of decades ago than they are today.

The awards began with just eight categories in 1982: best hamburger (Wendy's), pizza (Godfather's), cheesecake (Bernie's Bagel), bakery (French Bakery), gourmet restaurant (Andre's), buffet (Sands), draft beer (Four Kegs) and cocktail (Peppermill).

Andre's French Restaurant and the Peppermill Inn Restaurant are favorites to this day. Others, such as the Sands, remain but memories.

Freed's Bakery cropped up repeatedly as the poll progressed, starting in 1988.

Joni Freed, co-owner of the bakery with her mother, Esther, said the business -- begun by her parents in Las Vegas in 1959 -- has endured because it has a consistency customers can count on.

"It's a family-owned business," Freed said, now in its third generation with the coming-of-age of Freed's son. "We have wonderful staff. We're using the same recipes that we started with, very good ingredients. We have six people on our production staff that have been with us between 20 and 25 years."

Part of the attraction, Freed knows, is familiarity, as it is with many Best of Las Vegas categories.

"We have customers who come from Ann Road" to Freed's at 4780 S. Eastern Ave., "to pick up a birthday cake," she said. "And then weddings; we're doing 4,500 weddings a year."

Ironically, Freed's late father, Milton, wasn't a baker when he founded the business, but a musician who performed on the Strip. He simply hired good help, Freed said, and told them, "please me and you'll please my customers."

"He always took great pleasure in being in Best of Las Vegas," Freed said. "It's nice when you get the recognition."

More and more types of dining establishments were recognized in the Best of Las Vegas readers' poll as the years passed. Added in 1983 were Chinese (Golden Wok), Mexican (Ricardo's), Italian (Two Guys From Italy), seafood (Red Lobster) and steak special (Binion's Horseshoe).

Ricardo's has kept a strong hold on the Mexican food category, winning every year except 1997, when Chevys Mexican Restaurant took the prize. Two Guys From Italy and The Vineyard, both now history, dominated the Italian category in the early years, but the Olive Garden has ruled since 1988.

To discover the finer points of burgers, the category was divided in two in 1984 with fast-food and restaurant hamburgers (Wendy's remained the top chain and Huey's Saloon took the other prize). We went back to one burger in 1989.

We did the same thing with pizza, adding franchise and nonfranchise pizzas in 1988 (winners being Pizza Hut and Metro Pizza respectively). That lasted only a year.

Supermarkets were added in 1987, with the winner being a Vons store at Decatur Boulevard and Meadows Lane. That experiment ended in 1989, with Smith's Food and Drug King the winner (we stopped asking for a specific store).

The Asian category has had numerous incarnations, starting as Chinese, splitting into Chinese and Japanese, coming under an Oriental umbrella, becoming Asian and, in 2001, Chinese, Japanese and Thai.

Additional ethnic restaurants have joined the poll as well, such as Greek (1999, Mediterranean Cafe & Market), Indian (1999, Shalimar Fine Indian Cuisine) and an all-encompassing "other" (1990, Alpine Village). We've been saluting French restaurants since 1994, when Andre's took the prize.

And, of course, Best of Las Vegas was not about to ignore fads, witness the Best Wraps category in 1998 (Wendy's) and 1999 (New York Burrito).

The all-time high for categories in Eat & Drink was 51 in 1999, when the division was swelled by such narrow categories as cheese steak sandwich (Straight from Philly Steakout), juice bar (Zuka Juice), chicken wings (Hooters) and rotisserie chicken (Kenny Rogers Roasters).

This year, it has 44 categories. Reflecting current trends, they include such things as wine selection (Grape Street) and late-night dining (Ruth's Chris Steak House).

But, as always, Las Vegas continues to re-invent itself. The trends that will be reflected in Best of Las Vegas next year are anybody's guess.

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