On New Year's Day we were invited to a very fancy brunch at one of the upscale restaurants at the Rio Hotel/Casino in Las Vegas. There was a lovely, gourmet buffet, and then we were also supposed to order an entree from the menu.

The buffet was intended to be the 'starters' so there was bouillabaise (fish stew) and seafood and cheese platters, and custom fruit smoothies and sushi, and also dessert selections. That alone would have been adequate, but the entrees weren't very large, so it worked out.

I am not a breakfast person; it takes awhile in the morning for me to work up an appetite for anything, so I was very sparing in my selections. Everything was arranged so nicely and we were the first ones there, so I hesitated to disturb the arrangements. I took a slice of fancy bread and some house-made sausage and some marinated wild mushrooms. When I got back to the table I forgot what all I had, and wondered how did I manage to pick up that thing that looks like a sardine. Then I realized it was the stem of a marinated wild mushroom of some sort. I was going to be a good sport and eat it anyway, but a sardine wouldn't have been my idea of fun.

Here is one of the ice sculptures with the shell fish:



Here's the buffet part:


The chefs were making the fish stew from scratch.

Here is the entree menu:

Beef
Seared Tenderloin with Demi Glace and Kobe Shortrib
Served with a Fried Potato Cake, Baked Mushroom Terrine, and Oven Dried Tomatoes with Marinated Asparagus Tips

Shortribs are very trendy right now. One of the ladies at our table thought the mushroom terrine was goose liver so she gave it to her son. Keep in mind these are not plates full of food, they are big plates with little dabs of food arranged on them.

Poultry
Petaluma Organic Chicken Breast with Reisling Lacquer
Served with Prosciutto Wrapped Green Bean with Sauce Maltese, Black Eyed Pea Ragout and a Red and Gold Beet Composition

The lacquer was a baked-on glaze. Note that it says Green Bean singular, and it was singular. The Red and Gold beet thing was a couple of whole beets (one yellow, one regular) standing next to each other on the plate.

Lamb
Lamb Rack with Mint Froth and Sliced Tenderloin with Peppercorn Lamb Jus
Served with Root Vegetable Gratin and Potato Puree

This is what I had because I generally order lamb when it is offered. There were two tiny lamb chops and a 2 inch square piece of meat on the plate. They were cooked just right, and the quantity was fine because there was so much other food available on the buffet. The Mint Froth looked like about a tablespoon of soap suds and I didn't want anything to do with it so I scraped it aside. The Potato Puree was a smear of yellow on the plate and it was pretty good. The best part was the root vegetable thing, paper-thin slices of parsnip and sweet potato cooked and cut into a 2-inch square. Very tasty.

Fish
Chilean Sea Bass with Thyme Fumet and Shallot Foam
Served with a Zucchini Croquette, Rainbow Swiss Chard, and Blood Orange Essence

Mr. Troutbend ordered this. It came in a very deep bowl with the food sort of puddled at the bottom in the sauce. The chard was not fluffy or very noticeable, it was limp little things off to the side. I tasted the sauce and it was heaven - tasted like pure butter only maybe better. I think the sauce was the Thyme Fumet, which is cooked down fish or other stock with wine, as far as I can tell, and the Blood Orange Essence maybe squeezed over the whole thing, I suppose. He says the foam wasn't as foamy as my froth and he didn't notice that it added anything to the dish.

Lobster
Maine Lobster Fritatta with Beurre Blanc and a Sauteed Lobster Claw
Served with a Fried Potato Cake, Braised Tomato and Avocado Salad Carmellized Shallot and Blanched Romanesco

I didn't see anyone order this and I don't know why I didn't order it. I think I was in a state of shock at the opulence of the whole thing, and didn't feel like I deserved it. Sounds really good, doesn't it? Romanesco is a type of broccoli.

Poached Egg
Grilled Asparagus, Marinated Portobello and Sauce Maltese
Served with Fried Potato Cake and a Salted Foam

I can't imagine why anyone would order a dumb old poached egg when those other choices were available.

I googled Sauce Maltese and came up with Sauce Maltaise, which is like a hollandaise sauce made with blood orange juice as well as lemon juice. In case you don't know, blood oranges are called that because the flesh of the orange is bright red, nothing gory and not like blood diamonds.

With regard to the salted foam, next time I make poached eggs here at home I'm probably going to have some salted foam in the normal course of making them, so I'll scoop some onto the plates and we'll pretend we're posh. Usually that foam goes down the drain with the cooking water, but one has to keep up with the trends.

So that's it. Yummity yum.