Resorts, restaurants look to experts for unique diet requests

He is not a doctor, nor a nutritionist. But he is treated like one at times. Tapan Bose, owner of Mantra Masala, a healthful Indian cuisine restaurant in the southwest valley, is also the person some valley resorts go to when figuring out the many unique dietary and cuisine requests of their guests.

Bose recently helped Mandalay Bay Executive Chef Susan Wolfla cater an 11,000-person banquet for Indian hotel owners and executives at her resort. It wasn't an easy task, even for Bose and his culinary and cultural expertise.

There are many different types of cuisine coming out of India and simply knowing the difference between Punjabi in northern India or the prized vegetarian dishes coming out of his native eastern, or West Bengal, region was not enough. Bose had to broaden and generalize recipes and offer a little something for everyone at the same time, knowing full well some guests wouldn't be happy.

Cooking is personal, he said. It involves peoples' tastes and their egos. And there was probably no shortage of the latter in the room that night.

But the restaurateur is a steady hand, and with more than 40 years in the business, he has seen his share of fickle customers. He has an accepting ecumenical presence that has carried him to the top of his game locally. He brings a balanced heart and mind to meet some of the most discriminating tastes on the planet.

Bose's restaurant has survived the recession not only by making tasty food with a healthy twist for locals, but by help gaming giant MGM Resorts International find ways to please vegans, the gluten-sensitive, diabetics, Jain followers and others with even more individualized diet needs.

Bose also provides Indian dishes for some of MGM's resorts in addition to his on-call presence for hotel guests. It's not a position you necessarily study to become, he admits, but instead are called to do after years of dedication and meticulous research and dabbling among a variety of cultures, faiths and walks of life.

"When I started my restaurant, I'm not a doctor. I'm not a dietician. With all this obesity in the world, I just wanted to create something that would bring people joy, some love," he said.

Wolfla, who is the first female chef at a major Strip resort, is happy to have Bose as a resource. Her culinary requests are never ordinary. She has brought in a rabbi to assure Kosher practices for banquets. She has called on experts from Islamic institutions to help with Halal meals, whose particulars with regards to humane treatment of animals during slaughter can seem impossible to master.

But with the help of others, she can. These unique requests can seem daunting, but it's all in the preparation, the culinary pro said.

"If you put the work in up front, then it's a piece of cake. It all falls into place," she added.

Diet talk

At first, diet crazes centered on fats and calories. Then carbohydrates and sugars took center stage as far as obesity-spurring evils. Then it seems dieting became synonymous with allergies and food sensitivities. Enter celiac disease and overall gluten sensitivity as the next major phase in dietary questioning and links to poor health and obesity.

This is all not to mention a growing occurrence of food allergies in general. Soy, wheat, nuts, shellfish, you name it, have all been scrutinized. According a 2008 report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 15 million people have food allergies, or roughly five percent of the adult population in the United States.

Wolfla's team tracks the major food allergens, including beef, soybeans, wheat, eggs, shellfish, peanuts, dairy and some others. About six years ago the resort established its "Table Talk" document that shows the levels of these allergens in a particular a la cart food item at a banquet or in other areas of the resort's food preparation division. These are training document for servers and managers, Wolfla said.

The chef also serves as an adviser to the Art Institute's culinary program, and is mandating food allergies be taught in the core curriculum. The standards in place at her facility came about as a result of customer requests, and she believes future culinary pros will need to be on their game for the constant changes in the multi-billion-dollar health and diet industries.

Chef or nutritionist?

Wolfla is not alone in wanting to make sure those entering the profession are well-versed on topics such as gluten sensitivity and food allergies. Chef Ward Daughters, a certified executive chef at Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts in Las Vegas, has been teaching for the past five years and has worked in the local industry for 20 years. The local chapter of Le Cordon Bleu's 12-month program graduates between 200 to 400 students annually, and all of the students must take a nutrition class, he said.

"Very few doctors have to take a class in nutrition. But chefs have to know it," he added. "Hippocrates said, 'Let food be thy medicine.' … Students need to be aware of what the public needs."

In his five years of teaching, Daughters said the nutrition classes have been a constant evolution.

"When I got into this five years ago, they weren't teaching much about vegetarian and gluten-free foods," he said. "It was more about glycogen count and sugars."

Daughters also requires students to watch the film "Food Inc.," a very unflattering look inside the corporate food industry.

"The chefs of the future need to understand where our food is coming from," he added.

One of the biggest hurdles facing the gluten-free food craze is that consumers want the same taste as the original product with gluten in it, but that can't be replicated without the original ingredient, Daughters said.

"The substitute is not the original. Wheat meat is not meat. Bean meat is not going to taste like meat. It's just not going to happen," he added.

Despite the food sensitivities hitting the culinary radar, vegetarian and vegan dishes are becoming the dominant request, most chefs admit. Daughters has visiting chefs put on special classes at the school to familiarize students with vegetarian and vegan dishes.

As far as overall healthy cuisine goes, more and more chefs are taking on careers at specialty stores or restaurants, Daughters said. He gives the example of a few recent graduates getting jobs with Whole Foods as chefs. Some have gone to Disney World, where there is an emphasis at some food outlets on vegetarian and vegan cuisine as well.

In the future, he wouldn't be surprised to see other students taking their specialty skills culled in school and applying it to new restaurants or food companies specializing in a particular dietary arena.

Personal commitment

Joseph Romano, corporate executive chef for Golden Gaming, has been cooking professionally for 20 years. Romano exercises regularly and works to stay fit. It is this personal trait that has helped him stay in tune with the many dietary changes, allergies and unique needs in his field.

But what helped Romano bring a more sensitized view to the topic of dietary concerns was when a good friend's child was found to have a gluten allergy some six years ago.

"The desserts, the breads, none of it. She couldn't have it," he said.

For years, Romano was prepared for the guest who simply asked for healthier options. Heart Healthy, Heart Smart, sugar and calorie watching have been the name of the game for a long time for restaurant operators. The PT's or Sierra Gold menus typically have 10 salads on them and plenty of ways to trim fat, cut calories and avoid carbohydrates, he said. He was educating customers on which salads were surprisingly healthier than others.

"Even if you think of a balsamic vinaigrette dressing you may think it's healthy. But if you look at it, it's about 65 calories per tablespoon. The average person puts about 2.5 ounces of dressing on their salad. That's an additional 300 calories," he explained.

Now with gluten sensitivity on the rise, the education Romano offers his staff is a little different. He has experimented with a gluten-free pizza dough that he says is pretty good. And navigating customers to gluten-free options didn't require a menu overhaul.

It's all about an educated server or manager steering patrons toward lean meats, fruit and vegetables and having the kitchen flexibility to mix and match items on the menu when needed. Golden Gaming also offers GGU, or Golden Gaming University, which has classes for staff to learn about unique diet requests and how to handle them.

In addition to studying and teaching Romano tries to walk in his customers' shoes a bit. He purposely eats two to three vegan meals a week to get different ideas for the menu. Even though most of the Golden Gaming customers are regulars who are looking to splurge with a burger or fried option, he too is seeing more and more requests for vegetarian and vegan dishes.

"You have to be a little more savvy with the health industry. You can't be closing an eye to these things at all," he said.