Chef has own idea of moderation

Foodies are overeating all weekend at a feast called Vegas Uncork'd, starring celebrity chefs such as Todd English -- who devours so much cuisine, sometimes he vomits.

English figures he consumed at least 5,000 calories Monday night alone. It was Cinco de Mayo, so he started with tequila, dined at Charlie Trotter's new restaurant, moved on to more food and booze at Wolfgang Puck's Cut, then drank Sassicaia wine at Carnevino. All that was topped off with a rib-eye steak for two.

"Of course, that's the killer," English says, as if it were only the steak that stabbed him in the heart. "I think I developed a second stomach."

English, who owns Olives at Bellagio, was just nominated for a daytime Emmy for cooking on TV, and he serves famous people regularly, from Sheryl Crow to "Posh and Becks" (the Beckhams). But English, tall and trim, consumes more than they do.

"I make myself puke sometimes," he says. "You feel so sick from eating. The first time I ate Kobe in Tokyo ... it was amazing. I ate like half of it, a 12-ounce steak. I got sick from that. Too rich."

He and some chums once indulged in a mad food bender in Europe, eating eight-course meals at a series of top-rated gourmet restaurants in one day.

"It was 12 hours around a dining room table. It was Roman, hedonistic, barbarian."

He didn't stop at Overeaters Anonymous on the way out.

"No. We should have," he jokes.

There's nothing edible he wouldn't munch.

"I eat everything," he says. "I was in northern Thailand, and we ate crispy bamboo worms, beehives with larva in them, roasted. It was horrible, like, bitter. I couldn't believe they eat this stuff. I spit it out."

English's food oddities can't be good for his health. But he says he works out every day. Running. Lifting weights. Sometimes, he yogacizes. "My cholesterol is pretty good. It's 160."

Yet, he vows "moderation" is his key. Really? This is moderation?

Doug Elfman's column appears on Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays. Contact him at 383-0391 or e-mail him at delfman@reviewjournal.com. He also blogs at review journal.com/elfman.