More restaurants embrace Asian cuisine

SONYA PADGETT

If you’re like the majority of our readers, you might indulge in PF Chang’s China Bistro when you’re craving Chinese food.

Readers tend to choose it year after year in the Best Chinese Restaurant category.

But if your closest encounter with Asian food is Chang’s chicken noodle soup or lettuce wraps, you’re missing out on one of the valley’s most diverse culinary traditions.

In recent years, locals have had access to a growing number of Asian restaurants that serve increasingly authentic Asian cuisine, everything from the Vietnamese noodle soup pho to the Chinese tradition of dim sum.

We’re not talking egg foo yong and fortune cookies; more like bird’s nest soup (a jellylike broth made from bird saliva), steamed chicken feet, and shabu shabu, or Japanese hot pot.

A growing Asian population, casinos’ marketing focus on Asian gamblers and Las Vegans’ overall willingness to try new things have all contributed to the expansion of authentic Asian cuisine in town, says Ken Wong, general manager of Zine at the Palazzo. The Chinese restaurant recently was named one of the top 10 Chinese restaurants in the country by Chinese Restaurant News.

“It’s actually changing for the better. Authentic Chinese cuisine has taken hold and it’s become more mainstream,” Wong says. “When the PF Chang’s and Panda Express started coming online, they (brought) awareness of Chinese cuisine to the mainstream American.”

Asian tourists and friends have always asked Wong, who has lived in Las Vegas for about six years, where they could get authentic food.

“For three years, I sent them to Chinatown (on Spring Mountain Road),” Wong says.

After a while, he wondered why there wasn’t an authentic Chinese restaurant on the Strip. That was the impetus behind opening Zine two years ago with chef Simon To.

“It’s a little risky because we’re staying away from more mainstream dishes,” such as fried rice, Wong says.

To Westerners, some Asian foods and the ways they are prepared or served seem exotic, Wong says. The Chinese don’t like to waste food so they will use every part of an animal that is edible. That includes a cow’s tongue, stomach and tendons or a chicken’s feet or the rooster’s cockscomb, Wong says. And it’s not just about cooking in a wok; Chinese and Asians in general use a variety of styles, such as steaming, braising or frying.

Visit any dim sum restaurant, such as Zine or Orchids Garden on Sahara Avenue, and you will see dishes such as beef tripe (the lining of a cow’s stomach), chicken feet, buns stuffed with red bean paste or taro root, among others.

Zine serves some dishes that appeal more to the Asian palate than the Western palate, Wong says.

One Chinese delicacy called braised abalone is a shellfish that has been sun-dried. The bird’s nest soup is eaten hot, cold, sweet or spicy. It’s made by boiling the branches of a bird’s nest to remove the saliva holding the nest together, Wong says. It’s then made into soup.

Then there are dishes that have wide appeal but haven’t had a presence in Las Vegas until recently. Noodles, a major part of the Asian diet, can be found in a variety of forms, such as the dishes at Caesars Palace Beijing Noodle No. 9. The authenticity of the cuisine was so important that Caesars sponsored two noodle masters from China, getting the visas and moving them to Las Vegas, says Gary Selesner, president of Caesars.

Several restaurants along Spring Mountain Road are dedicated to pho, the Vietnamese beef and noodle soup. It is dressed up with items such as basil, bean sprouts and other vegetables.

And, of course, there’s sushi. Sushi bars are everywhere in the valley.

Wazuzu in Encore serves dishes from Thai, Vietnamese, Japanese and Chinese cuisine. One of the more exotic offerings is the live lobster sashimi. A live lobster is carved, the tail meat served raw and the claw meat steamed.

Contact reporter Sonya Padgett at spadgett@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-4564.