Vegas gets ‘Bubble-Licious’ during UNLVino week

Wine and champagne lovers get a treat this week. UNLVino starts today when acclaimed chef Daniel Boulud receives a “Champagne award” during Bubble-Licious.

Bubble-Licious runs from 7 to 10 p.m. at The Venetian/Palazzo ($125-$150). Friday night’s Sake Fever costs $100-$125 at Red Rock Resort’s pool and features “Top Chef” winner Mei Lin. And Saturday’s Grand Tasting fetches $125-$150 at Paris Las Vegas. (Tickets: UNLVino.com).

I took this opportunity to ask Boulud (chef of dB Brasserie at The Venetian) a few choice questions:

1. Do all these ego-healthy celebrity chefs in Las Vegas get along with each other?

“We genuinely like each other beyond the business,” Boulud said, sounding convincing.

2. What do star chefs talk about when they’re hanging out?

“We talk about places we go. We talk about food we’ve had. We talk about dirty jokes, ha-ha,” he said and laughed, obviously.

They don’t care about competition during get-togethers, he said.

“We talk about funny things happening in our business, who is doing what with who,” he said. “There’s a lot of gossip to do, but I’m not a gossiper, so I’m just listening sometimes.”

3. I told Boulud I waited tables in New Orleans, when I was a kid, and the dirtiest jokes I ever heard were from cooks.

“Absolutely,” Boulud said, and then he told me the dirtiest food joke I have ever heard about a chop salad.

“The joke among the cooks was. …” he said, but I can’t even tell you the next sentence of that story in this newspaper.

4. I also remember when pretty women walked through kitchens I worked in, male workers would yell out “hot pie” to get all of the people in the kitchen to look at them. Has he heard that phrase?

“Oh sure,” he said: “ ‘Hot pie, pickup!’ ”

5. Generally speaking, what is the chef-word-of-mouth on the Vegas restaurant scene?

“It’s probably the (hub) in the world where the best chefs from all over the world (work),” he said.

And: “There’s a whole clientele in Vegas who only care about following chefs on TV,” such as Gordon Ramsay.

6. What’s a “Champagne award”?

It’s the Dom Perignon Award of Excellence. And Boulud is very honored to receive it from UNLVino, especially since UNLV graduates are working in big jobs in Vegas and around the world.

7. I told him I always wonder where all of Las Vegas’ zillions of cooks come from.

“Many of them come from all over the country, of course. But many of them have had residence (in Vegas) for a long time.”

Contact Doug Elfman at delfman@reviewjournal.com. He blogs at reviewjournal.com/elfman. Find him on Twitter: @VegasAnonymous.