Merely walking into Zuma doesn’t provide much of a hint at the sort of food served there.
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The restaurant is old-Vegas elegant, with circular booths interspersed with table lamps throwing a soft glow. The menu is mostly old Vegas, too, with a big selection of steaks with topping and sauce options and two sizes of chilled shellfish platters.
Overall, chef Beni Velazquez and Essence & Herbs have lots to offer, including the potential for better days for Montelago Village.
Over the years, I’ve watched as a lot of local restaurants have met with some success and opened a second, third or even fourth location — and, in a whole lot of cases, ended up scaling back or disappearing altogether. I wondered what would be the case with Lola’s, a downtown spot that specializes in New Orleans cuisine and has more than five years under its sequined belt. And, after visiting the new(ish) Summerlin location, I have high hopes.
Despite what you may have heard, locals do go to the Strip, and they do go downtown. I know because they email me all the time to tell me about their dining experiences in both places, good and bad (though mostly good). And one of the places I hear about most often is Cafe Cortez at the El Cortez.
OK, we get it: Taste of the Town readers love Village Meat & Wine. We already knew that; over the years, the independently owned shop at 5025 S. Eastern Ave. has frequently been recommended by readers to their cohorts searching for fairly obscure items.
Help is on the way for Lana and Len Lacombe, who are almost out of anchovy-stuffed olives for their martinis.
Regular readers of this column know I never repeat the lead item; requests that come in after the first batch usually end up in the “More on …” section toward the end. But this liver and onions thing is just nuts.
Mama Mia! Steve Epstein is looking for Mama Mancini’s Meatballs. Fellow readers Ken Wolt and Stephen Salchenberger reported finding them in the frozen section of separate outlets of Whole Foods Market, which has four stores in the valley.