Friday, November 01, 2002
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

RESTAURANT REVIEW: Style and Substance

Notwithstanding the ultrahip decor, rumjungle plies patrons with wonderful food and service

Affectations certainly are abundant at rumjungle. There's that lowercase "r," for starters, and the wall of fire on the exterior, the walls of water within. It all screams "look at me" and we certainly oblige; rumjungle is best known as a late-night spot for the glitterati who glide in while the hoi polloi are corralled by the velvet rope.

But if you're not blinded by the light of the hip, you'll learn from the menu posted outside that there's a restaurant behind all that fire. We don't know why rumjungle and Mandalay Bay haven't made more of that fact, but there you are; it remains one of the best-kept secrets in town.

And one of the best restaurants.

Surprised? So were we. When a place pays this much attention to its look and its club scene, the restaurant -- the part that's serving food, anyway -- usually suffers. But we guess rumjungle's owners, the China Grill Management Group, must be like a mother with 10 children: There's enough extra love (and energy), that it turns out there's plenty to go around.

Rumjungle's raison d'etre is the Fire Pit ($37.50) or rodizio -- a South American-inspired style of cooking that's especially beloved by carnivores. It involves a fleet of servers who move from table to table (to those who have ordered this option, anyway), slicing a variety of meats, one at a time, off large swordlike skewers onto the customer's plate.

Rumjungle takes it up a notch, however. First, there are nine courses involved in the Fire Pit, in addition to side dishes. And second, great attention has been given to seasonings and other ancillary flavorings. Some of these are extremely successful, some less so, but it all adds up to a positive adventure for the customer.

Surprisingly (because this style usually is dominated by beef) the poultry courses were among the best of the bunch. Huli Huli chicken with pineapple-rum teriyaki sauce was impossibly juicy; bacon-wrapped chicken was succulent and accompanied by a sauce characterized by the adventures-in-paradise flavor of guava and the smokiness of chipotle; and marinated turkey tenderloin was accompanied by an exotic mango-habanero-mustard glaze, though the turkey was a little dry.

Jamaican jerk-spiced pork and pineapple with tamarind sauce was just excellent, the meat tender, the accompanying slab of grilled fresh pineapple juicy, the flavor of the tamarind a worthy foil for both. The mole-marinated sirloin of Angus beef was a little on the dry side but possessed of a subtle earthiness, and the ancho chili-pine nut pesto added plenty of interest. Spanish chorizo and vegetables with sherry vinegar-honey reduction and marinated sirloin of lamb with mint mojo drizzle would've stood out by themselves, though they were tame in comparison with the others.

About the only weak points were both fish courses -- an albacore tuna with citrus achiote vinaigrette and Hawaiian ono with garlic and herb olive oil that were both too strongly flavored for these fishes (especially the albacore), which generally indicates errors in handling along the way.

But we're not done with this one yet. It also included side dishes: serviceable Cuban black beans, a Peruvian chopped salad with a sprightly and very interesting mint vinaigrette, some lovely cinnamon-infused rice and crisp-crusted plantains.

Whew. Oh, and dinners also are accompanied by a variety of rolls, and a chimichurri that was about the most brightly flavored I've tasted.

But of course, this was just one of our entrees. We also had an appetizer -- a blurring-the- ethnic-lines-is-the-heart-of-

fusion plate of duck confit empanadas ($10), in which the flavor of the duck rang through clearly to be complemented by roasted red-pepper cream and a crisp chayote salad.

And last, but definitely not least (and, while not as daunting as the Fire Pit, still ample for most appetites), the Cubano pork shank ($22.95), a sort of Caribbean twist on osso buco, in this case flavored with copious amounts of cumin and served with black beans and a chipotle-spiked boniato mash that made us think of Thanksgiving.

And it goes without saying that the atmosphere was most attractive (and really cool), although the changing-colored lights over our table were a little jarring when they switched from a subdued color such as purple to a bright one such as yellow.

Service? If I were queen, I'd put this guy on retainer, to take him along as my own personal perpetual waiter. There wasn't a question he couldn't answer -- and he really knew his stuff -- and he was personable, polite, patient and -- one more p-word -- prompt.

Dinner at rumjungle is a secret no more. So avoid your aversion to the Strip, and get there. Just do it early in the evening, before they put up the velvet rope.

Las Vegas Review-Journal restaurant reviews are unannounced and done anonymously at Review-Journal expense.