KCAA: Let's Dine Out with Allan Borgen (Sat, 20 Apr, 2024)

KCAA: Let's Dine Out with Allan Borgen on Sat, 20 Apr, 2024

Episode Transcript

(00:15):
Why Welcome to a delicious edition ofthe Left's Sign Out Show. Food critic
Alan Morgan here, and is hebussy? And I just got back from
Tijuana and I got new teeth.Oh it's blinding, it's blinding. Turn

(00:40):
up the flashlight. I found wonderfuldentists there, and all I can say
it's about seven thousand dollars cheaper,eight thousand dollars cheaper than one's here.
So for those of you who haveextensive dental work that needs to be done,
I would definitely go there. I'vegot a great dentist. So text
me at Alan at or mister foodieone at outlook dot com and I'll give

(01:03):
you her address and everything, andI highly recommend her and really really nice.
And I was really surprised. Well, first of all, I'll introduce
yourself, is he yes? Didyou did you say introduce yourself? No?
I did not. I was sohappy with my teeth. And who
are you. I've never seen youbefore? Uh did that drill just went

(01:23):
through your head or something? Didyou introduce yourself? Oh? I did?
Oh I did. Okay, Ididn't hear it. Okay, it
was my teeth. He's blinded byhis own light. Okay, Tim,
want to really impress me in termsof the food. The last time I
was there, God was about twentyyears ago probably if not longer, it
was a dump. I really didn'tlike it. You know, kids running
around selling chicklets and that's all Iremember. It was like, I just

(01:45):
nothing for me to go back to. But now it's really an interesting city.
I mean there's some bad spots there, but anywhere you go there's bad
spots, but lots of restaurants,really fine dining restaurants. So the next
couple of times we go there,I want to start eating a little bit
more there. And I was reallysurprised now that you have tea h So
anyway, a lot of stuff goingon. Super Bowl was last week and

(02:07):
we have a special guest on whowas busy doing some stuff there, and
we had them on about two weeksago. And if you missed the first
one, you can go to ourwebsite. Then let's sign out show on
Facebook and you'll hear be able tohear all the repeats of shows as well
as go to kseyaa radio dot comlook under past shows in the weekend shows.

(02:27):
Let's sign out show and you canhear all our shows again. So
let's go right into our guests.One of my favorite cities to go to
A. It's close by b.It's exciting, not just for the gambling
and all the other stuff. Imean, there's tons of casinos around us,
but because of the food scene,and to me, it's kind of
like a major city now in termsof a lot of restaurants are going there

(02:49):
and really good ones too, notjust on the strip. And we were
lucky enough to find one restaurant thatwe just fell in love with, and
after talking with the chef there andgoing to a second restaurant was like,
oh my goodness, we got tohave him on more. So it's our
honor to talk to introduce her chefwho we really admire, Chef James Trees.

(03:10):
Welcome to Let's sign out, showedchef. Yeah, Hey, how
are you guys? How you doing? I'm doing good. Have you recovered
from the Super Bowl? Oh?You know what, we had a really
good time doing case of the NFLand I actually went to a buddy in
mine's house for Super Bowl and wejust kicked back and watched the game and

(03:31):
they really enjoyed it was the citydid it go crazier than it normally is?
Uh, you know what the citywas at It had a buzz to
it, for sure. There wasdefinitely a different vibe to the Strip.
Everyone was having a great time.There were lots of new people in town,

(03:53):
and I would say that, youknow, that was fantastic for us
in the arts district and in Summerland. It was more of just our regulars
who just wanted to enjoy themselves andtaking the sites and see all the extra
things that the NFL brought. Vegasseems to be a real sports city now
now that you know that the GoldenKnights won last year the Stanley Cup,

(04:14):
and now you're getting a baseball teamand eventually you'll get a got football,
eventually basketball. But it really seemslike a buzz city. People really really
follow their team and really support them. I know a lot of people who
really support the Knights because of allthe community efforts that they put in and
in twenty seventeen and when they started, you know, when they started with

(04:39):
us here in Vegas, and Iknow that obviously with the one October shooting
and the way that they were ahuge outpouring to the support of the community.
That was a huge part of thembeing successful and endearing themselves to the
city, and I think that isdefinitely paid off for them over and over

(05:00):
again. And they you know,we have a lot of Golden Knights to
our regulars up at Al Selina Postobecause the love of women in Summerlane because
they train out there and you knowa time, you know, Zach white
Cloud or wild Bill or Mark Stonecome into the restaurant. Uh. You
know, it's really great because they'rejust such good community people and great family

(05:23):
men. And it's good to see, like, you know, athletes to
that level who still are jeering themselvesto the community. And that's huge.
With the Raiders, they've done alot of good work as well. And
obviously, you know, some ofour favorites are the Aces. You know,
we love having all the Aces comeout to Esther's and also the post

(05:46):
so and Adas. I know ChelseaPlumb, she loves coming to have lunch
at Ester Kitchen and her favorite thingis the cal Sallas. We love when
she comes back. That's cool.Let's talk about real quick on Vegas in
terms of being a restaurant scene.In the past, You've had some great

(06:08):
restaurants and then they kind of diedoff, and then you got new ones
and they stay for a little bit, some stay, some leave. Now
they seem to be staying a littlelonger and they're really getting away from the
strip. That's the thing that reallyimpresses me. And the quality of restaurants
seems to be just enormous. Imean, you got Chinatown, you got
a lot of ethnic communities now poppingup. And what's your take on the

(06:30):
whole restaurant scene in Vegas? Well, I mean, so coming I came
back to Vegas after being in LAfor ten years, and you know,
one of my favorite places in LosAngeles was the San Gabriel Valley and so
going to eat all these different ethnicChinese food restaurants and learning about ethnic Chinese
food and the different regions of Chinathat was a huge part of it.

(06:54):
And then obviously we have you know, all Southeast Asia kind of covered in
what we call our of Sound.There's amazing Vietnamese restaurants like Yen, and
then you have amazing you know,traditional Chinese like Shanghai tastes. Those are
fantastic, great Korean with eight ouncewhich is my favorite, and uh,

(07:15):
this place called Captain six sixty sixthat is another Korean joint. I have
a lot you know, if I'mgonna grab just regular noodles, there's a
little spot next to eed Oh thatjust does really good bowls of like noodles
and broth and uh and dumplings andthings like that. And I love China

(07:35):
count for what it is. Downtown. I mean, like I think we
have a little bit more eclectic scenewhen it comes to the restaurants. And
then you know, the strip Ibelieve is basically out of ideas. So
you see, like they'll come upwith a new idea or they'll import a

(07:55):
new idea, and then basically they'lldo five different us good renditions of that
one idea, right, right,I mean like look at like, you
know, not to trash anybody,but you know, I look at like
restaurants like Delilah, which are somethingthat came from Los Angeles and everybody thought
it was this great thing. Wellthat's a great supper club. Right.

(08:16):
They do an amazing job. ShiJoshna the best in the city. That
being said, then they get copiedat like by Mayfair and now it's Voltaire,
right, And I mean the chargesthat these restaurants are putting out are
just astronomical, right. I sawI saw a bill that was in the
that was in the news for twotops from Voltaire was seven hundred and thirty

(08:39):
four dollars. Wow, to watch, to watch the show and to have
dinner. I mean, like it'sridiculous the things that like I'm seeing,
and I mean like that just makesyou know what we do at Esther's and
all Toledo and a US which areyou know, We're not trying to crist
out anybody. We want you tocome back once a week, not once
a month, right, And soit just makes a different vibe for us.

(09:03):
I see a lot of Gross andHenderson and the southwest area has just
been blowing up obviously with the SundryAmari and all in Keiko Nio over across
from Durango, ship Mark Atric andthe pierrol Apasta Bar. There are our
neighbors you're Amisushi are in there aswell, and of course our great neighbor

(09:28):
Jared Favesta has two outlets Durango.I mean like we're seeing expansion and what
we're really seeing, which I love, is I see the expansion of local
brands, and that's a huge turningpoint for Las Vegas, where we stop
importing all of our talent and startbuilding it from the middle out right.

(09:50):
Well, speaking of which, let'slet's start with your restaurants. And I
got a question later on, I'llask you about your favorite restaurants. But
in terms of your restaurants, let'sstart with I think your flagship would be
the Yes. Let's start with thatone rush and talk about the exciting news
you're gonna be on twenty ninth.You're going to be moving into your new
location right next door. It's awhole bunch of big hurry. Let's get
talking about that a little bit.Yeah, you know, we thought it

(10:13):
was gonna be the twenty ninth,but unfortunately Nevada Power put a little bit
of a damper on that, ofcourse, because of the week of rain
that we had. Apparently they can'twork in the rain, so think about
electricity and water. That doesn't men, right, So we ended up moving
in a week and we'll be openingon Marches, which you know, it's

(10:33):
an inconvenience, but at the sametime, I mean, it just gives
us more time to prepare and moretime to be ready, and I think
that's a good thing. Yeah,no stress on that. But for sure
Esthers is the first. But itis the flagship. I mean, I've
been offered many different opportunities to expandthe Ester's brand, but I tell people

(10:56):
all the time that Esther's is nota brand. Estra's is a singular restaurant
will only be a singular restaurant.It doesn't make a lot of sense to
me to take all the passion andeverything that we have there and then to
try to replicate that because Esther's issuch a special place. You know,
Adas is a wine bar that doesbeautiful seasonal food and changes things all the

(11:20):
time, and chet Jackson and gatOver there are just dynamics there. They
really are a dynamic hero of peoplewho help run that restaurant and they do
the nuts and bolts that they staythere and their teams are amazing. And
then you have Afflido Posto, andAlflido Posto is the biggest restaurant currently that

(11:41):
we have. It's deats to totalof about two hundred and twenty five people.
However, I would say that it'snot the flagship because Esthers is more
of the personal expression of the foodthat I want to be cooking, and
Afflito is the food for people.You know, It's really like we have
a great you know, Papa Dellibolognes on that menu. We have an

(12:05):
amazing toy you know, like thosekinds of things that like you expect to
have an Italian style uh steak houseor chop house, and you know we
you know, we are in dieselson here for six months. Like those
are the things that we really puta lot of love and effort into and
because of that, you know,I would say that between all the restaurants,

(12:28):
ALSOLDO is the one most likely tobe replicated, and then Estra's is
something that I just don't want toreplicate. I just feel like with the
amount of changes that we make,it would take sense. What makes us
so different in terms of your food? I mean, you mentioned it's your
passion. What makes it so different? So unique? I mean we've been

(12:48):
there three times already, and everytime it's been a different experience, everything
differently except your wonderful bread, buteverything else we've tried differently, and it's
hard to explain. It's just it'sjust so unique, is he you?
I know, A take on ityou know, it's you know, putting.
Italian food can be born, itcan be very one note, it
could be repetitive by you know,and and it's the food of immigrants.

(13:11):
So when you think of Italian Americanfood where you're talking about very large portions
of pasta because it was cheap carb, you know, that was something that
that was always kind of like ahighlight. And that's like, you know,
you saw that kind of run downthe field. Using seasonal produce and
using seasonal products. You really haveto work with the seasons and be able

(13:33):
to change that menu at any time. One of the things about Esthers is
I tell people all the time,like our goal is to take your favorite
dish off the menu. You knowthat is something that I really do.
You know, like as soon asyou love something, I'm gonna take it
away. It's such a tease,aren't you. You know I've been called
worse. Yeah, okay, Soit's basically, is it what you feel

(14:00):
like making? Is what I mean? How do you choose your menu?
How do you come up with thewhole team. It's involving the whole team.
The cool thing about Esther is it'ssuch a collaboration between all the chefs,
the cook I mean, we thinkeven the prep cooks, you know,
everybody comes to work with the idea. I tell people all the time,
I'm like, if you get tiredof cooking something, let's change it,

(14:24):
you know. Like, and that'sreally really important to me that the
cooks feel like they're a part ofthe restaurant because when they're bringing ideas,
the creative onus is not on notonly on me or on my chefs,
but the entire team. And thenwe all work together to accomplish the goal
of being able to, you know, create this menu that has harmony and

(14:48):
at the same time is highlighting thebest seasonal products, really good technique,
and doing all the things that wewant to do as a team and showing
that off as well. I mean, I really do believe that we have
the most unique Italian food in allof Las Vegas, you know, and

(15:09):
at the same time, everything isrecognizable in some way, and everything has
a little bit of not only techniqueand flair, but also a little bit
of comfort to it. Those arethe things that you have to balance all
of that, and it's it's notas easy as as we make it look.
Sometimes. How often do you changeyour menus, but I mean we'll

(15:33):
make a change to one of themenus at least once a week, okay,
So like you know, I meansometimes we'll sometimes we'll change a dish
three times before it even stays onthe menu for a good amount of time.
Okay. So we'll put something onthe menu and we'll think, oh,
this is a really good idea,and then someone will eat it and
will time in. I remember thatwe did a strawberry pancake with with fable

(15:58):
syrup and someone said, you knowwhat I really wished just had a creamy
element to it. So we wentback and took some of our strawberry jam
that we make and then we whippedit into moscarpone and then we did a
big canlo that on top. Andthat was because the first person who tried
the dish said, oh, man, this shouldn't really have a creami element.

(16:21):
And one of the things about gettingguest feedback is that these are the
people who want you to succeed.These are the people who are in the
dining room and getting that feedback.Sometimes, like as a chef, you
just have like a hole in yourin your line of sight and you missed
something right, and it was aninstantaneous Oh yeah, we should do that.

(16:44):
It makes sense we did. Itmade the dish better, right.
Speaking of your teamwork, we weresupposed to have Stacy On, one of
your servers who served us last timewe were there, who was unbelievable.
She was such a doll and justso professional and friendly and her whole family
her and she and the whole familysix so they couldn't be on. But
she We were talking to her alittle bit about you working with you,
and she's been with you for aboutfive six years and spoke so highly of

(17:07):
you and just all the team andjust of esther is how special it was
she worked in other restaurants and whyshe likes it there, and it's all
because you all work together and it'sand it's you, and it's just a
fun place to work at. Andagain, you don't hear that too often
about any job, but I've heardthat over and over and over from people

(17:27):
I've talked to, not just employeesbut other professionals. Aaron Panell, who's
the food and beverage director from Palestation, I mean, he just said you,
you know, he loves your restauranthe's the one that tolds about you,
and that's why we we're here nowwith you. But a lot of
people, you know, among otherprofessionals, you're looked upon as someone who

(17:48):
has not only helped the whole culinarydistrict, especially the art district. I
mean, you made it, whatis You made a name for yourself there
and now other restaurants you go thereexcept for parking, which sometimes can be
a little body negative thing, butyou look around, there's so many restaurants
and really small little ones and reallyreally good ones and it's all because you.
And you again, you seem likeI know, I keep saying,

(18:11):
I'm not here to be gushing overyou, but you impress me because you're
always looking to be better. Andthat's something like with the Pcola is from
the pizza Expo that I look forwardto and next two weeks I'll be a
judge her again. Everyone there,they strive and strive to get to a
point. They get to that point, then they want to get higher,
and they want to get higher.They want it. They never just sit
in their laurels and and like Isaid, replicate what they got and that's

(18:33):
it. They're always trying things newand Isy shaking her head and she definitely
agree. We talk about that allthe time, we just don't see it
very often. Yeah, we're soinspired by you, and I think all
the people that works for you feelthe same way. They look at you
as a mentor and they feel,you know, from your passion. I
think it speaks through it and everybodyfeels it around you. You know,

(18:56):
your whole team is like that.You know, I'll I'm going to disagree
with you a little bit on that. I think they inspire me every day
because if they're showing up, thatgives me the reason to do the work
to allow them to be successful andgive them the tools they need to be
successful. I think, you know, a lot of people see like all
the people who have come out ofmy kitchen and gone to open up their

(19:17):
own restaurants, And the simple sectsof the matter is they see how stupid
I am, and then they figure, hey, that's done. You can
do it. I can do ano, no, there you go done.
You know, I mean, likeyou know, I'm you know,
I'm not. I'm just a cogin the wheel like everybody else. You
know, Like I tell people allthe time that you know, when you're

(19:38):
your job as a chef is toand I actually learned this from my buddy
Brian Howard. He said, youknow, don't create your own prison,
right And so my goal is tonot be attached every single day where I
have to be on the path andexpediting service. But for the first year,
that's what it was. Every singleday dow services. A day I

(20:00):
was on the path. When therestaurant was closed, I was in there
prepping and cleaning the hoods or doingwhatever it took. And I think,
you know, one of the thingsthat I tell my staff, and one
of the things I all my teammateshere, I tell them that, which
is like, don't tell me wecan't do something. There's no rule that

(20:21):
says that we can't do something.Wow, So do what's awesome? Do
something that that you've always wanted to, you know. And and you know,
the other thing that I tell themis something that that Michael Mean has
told me, and that is verysimply is that a restaurant gets better or
worse every single day, you know. And that's the thing is like we

(20:41):
were we are not the well oiledmachine that we are now. Where we
were sixty years ago, we justweren't We're not right, and then you
know, we just decided that weweren't going to be okay with where we
were. And all these little thingsthat we've been working on for five years,

(21:02):
you know, they're all incremental improvements, you know, small, small,
small increments, but over thousands ofdays, that is the way that
you get better, and you canalso get worse for thousands of days,
you know. I mean I alwayssay that, like, you know,
when you have a restaurant, likein a hotel, where the corporate team

(21:23):
comes in and for the first twoweeks, it's everyone on deck and everyone's
eyes up and everyone's caring about thedetails, you know, that's the best
that restaurant is ever going to be. And then it just starts to split
one day at a time, andthen you look at that restaurant ten fifteen
years later, and it's just notthe level of quality. It's not the

(21:47):
level of care and not the levelof service. And because of that,
it will never be great. Itwas it may had the opportunity to be
great, but it takes a lotof time and effort, a lot of
effort and understanding gets to the pointwhere you're able to run the restaurant day
of the day and make it improveit right. It takes a lot of
work. You're listening to Let's SignOut show right here on KCAA ten fifty

(22:11):
am and one of six point fiveFM, the station to leave Knowledge behind,
and we're talking to chef James Trees, who was Chef of the Year
in Las Vegas last year this year, I guess, and he's a mentor
to me. Even though I don'twork for him. I would love to
work for you, number one.I wish I wouldn't knowing you twenty years
ago because when I was getting whenI was thinking about getting into the restaurant

(22:33):
business, I worked with some reallybad people. I mean just they didn't
care. I mean I worked ata place that, you know, the
state was a steakhouse. They droppedthe steak on the floor. He picked
it up, put it back ona fire, and put it back on
a plate and served it. Imean I was like, I was appalled.
But and that was a major placetoo, it wasn't just a small
place. So but I really admirethat. And you know, also,
I think it's not just you andthe staff, but it's also dealing with

(22:56):
the public now because now it's socialmedia, it's changed an awful lot.
You got people out there who thinkthey're food critics. You know, being
a food critics it's kind of awonderful job. They have no idea what
it's like to be a real foodcritic. Most of them don't know food.
That's why I don't look at likeyelp and stuff, and you know,
they it's easy to criticize, butthey can't tell you what how to,

(23:17):
how to make a suggestion to makeit better. And at least when
I when I review a restaurant,if it's something I didn't like, I
would say I was disappointed. However, if they add this or this or
this, it'd be a lot better. And you know, that's the way
it should be a reviews. Itshould be positive. But you know a
little twist. If it's bad,it's bad. I mean, if the
service is bad. But you know, if somebody everyone's sick and there's only

(23:38):
one server there, you got torealize that and you can't take it out
on the restaurant. But I thinkthat's a whole new thing too, isn't
it. I mean, how hasit affected you the whole social media thing.
Well, I mean, like Iuse social media a lot. I
use Instagram a lot. Obviously,Eric is the guru behind the social media

(24:00):
and he has a really good strategyand a plan for the way that we
approach our social media on the outboundside, on the inbound side where people
are giving us reviews on Yelp andwhatnot. I've been known to voice my
opinions about the meal reviews. Ididn't feel work there. Yeah, and

(24:23):
you know, I will. Iwill tell people that they're wrong, and
I don't care if they ever comeback to the restaurant, that's fine,
you know. And that's the thingis as an independent business where I'm not
beholden to some corporate entity, right, you know. One of the best
things that I've ever done was likereach out on Yelp and say, hey,
you're wrong and you don't know whatyou're talking about. But then I

(24:45):
also you Yelp specifically as a barometer. Yelp will tell you how your services
are going, you know, likeone of the things that we've known.
And it's also the time of year, which I know is really really weird
to say, but having watched ouryell reviews, over like the last six
years, and we have three twohundred or twenty one hundred yell reviews.

(25:10):
It's a lot of yell reviews.So we're able to use it as like
a if someone says something one time, it could be a choice. So
I'll look at their profile and thenI'll judge that person and off of their
other yell purdue. So if weget a one star yell review and the
person has thirty six reviews and allof them are one stars or three corps
and we're one stars, well,then guess what, You're just a terrible

(25:34):
person. You're not saying to helpanybody. You're just being rude, So
you wouldn't hire them. In otherwords, well, the thing is,
like, you know what I willdo is I will fire customers. You
know, if someone's like a badcustomer a restaurant. I And this is
something I do believe as well,And this is one of the things I
sold Stafy and a lot of theother people in the front of out at

(25:56):
my restaurant. Like a restaurant chooseshis customers. The customers do not choose
the restaurant, right because like atthe end of the day, like if
we wanted to serve less people,we would serve different food. If we
wanted to have a higher price point, we would have less guests. So
like creating the balance between the pricepoint, the quality the service, the

(26:18):
bar, and creating of value quotientto that, that would be the right
way to like look at it,right, Like I don't know about you,
but like, you know, ifwe're going to charge me three hundred
dollars for a meal, I wantperfect service, perfect food, all these
different things, right. I wanteverything to be dialed in. I want

(26:41):
I don't want us to be thinkingabout anything. I want everything anticipated for
me. You know, Now wecan take some of that and put that
into ESTERS and empower our service tomake sure that you know that the goal
of ESTERS is, like I toldmy services every day, I'm like,
it's not the food, it's notthe drink, it's not the service,

(27:06):
it's not the room, but it'ssomething to every single person that comes in
that makes them love this restaurant.And your only goal is to make someone
say that this is my favorite restaurant. And luckily enough, we have a
lot of people who love ESTERS andwant to continue supporting it. And as

(27:29):
we find more and more people whowant to support this restaurant. You know,
obviously we had to expand outside ofour current, our current you know,
four wall, go ahead, I'msorry, No, that's all.
That's how many people do you serve? How many people do you serve?
Now? So we did the numbersfor last year and we averaged three hundred

(27:52):
and ninety one guests per day.Wow, now, how many seats you
have? It's not that many.Eight Oh my goodness, that's a lot.
Now you're a new restaurant which willbe in about three weeks, four
weeks, how many How much biggerwould that be? We're tripling our seating
capacity, But our goal is notto triple the number of cupboards that we

(28:15):
do. Our goal is to beable to allow someone to like as there
is even more says like right now, like you come in at five o'clock
and we rush, We'll like it'sa very high tempo restaurant. We want
to kind of slow down the serviceslightly, extend the time that someone can

(28:36):
sit and enjoy themselves. Right Likeour turntime on a two stop is an
hour and thirty minutes at dinner.Like that's like, like, hey,
you guys, have ninety minutes,so let's go. You know. So
we think among these real worlds wherethe foods and foods, and then we're
like, okay, get out there. People need to go. Yeah,

(28:59):
we've been in a situation where you'res so eating and they give you the
bill you want to don't even askif you want to dessert. They just
want you out of there. Imean, is he can tell you stories
after stories that we did that Alan, Like, I will admit that I
remember that we were it was probablytwo or three years into the restaurant.
Hamilton came to town at the SmithCenter, and we were fully committed for

(29:23):
like to the point where we hadlike one hundred and ten reservations in the
first two hours of the restaurant andwith the dacs. That seems a little
crazy, and it was. Andwe were literally like people are finishing and
we wouldn't even give my dessert menu. We would just drop the check and
be like, guys, thank youso much. People behind you waiting to

(29:45):
the table right, you know.Yeah, And that's the thing is like
we don't want to do that.So like the things that we're adding for
the menu, you know, spandingour pizza sections, we can just chill
the bar, grab a pizza anda drink and hang out. We're adding
the cop cell lounge, so ifyou just want to drink and hang out,
you don't feel like you're in theway of the bartenders of people who

(30:06):
want to die, right. Andthen in the dining room we're adding you
know, we're adding sappuccinos and lassesand espressos and you know, a coffee
service part of the game that we'venever had. You know. I remember
someone, someone who is Italian,came in and he's like, I'll have
an espresso and we're like, wedon't have espresso. And he had a

(30:27):
wonderful meal, and he got curiouslyangry at us because he's like, how
are you an Italian trump it doesn'tserve espresso. And I just looked.
I pointed behind the bar and Isaid, where would we put the machine?
Yeah, exactly. However, youdo listen to your staff. I
know one of your posts, youtiremy Sue, a lot of people were
asking for it and you didn't haveit, and now you got it and

(30:48):
you have it. And not justagain when you do something, it's not
just Teremy Sue is Teremy sue.I mean you went out of your way.
I showed a picture of Izzie andshe chooses her jaws as dropped us.
Oh my goodness, you know,I mean that that's you. That's
something like, yeah, let's doit. It makes sense. However,
let's do it differently. Yeah,I mean, like so so our tear
mesu. People have obviously been askingus for tear miscuit because we're an Italian

(31:11):
restaurant for for six years, andI were like, okay, cool,
all right. Eventually it became time. But I don't like teer messu in
its regular form because I like texture. I love texture and dessert. So
like, for me, if youget the same bite over and over and
over again, I'm not interested inthat at all. So what we did

(31:34):
is we made a coffee povlova.We had a pufflovo on the menu,
and rather than take it off,we just modified it to UH. When
you explain to explain what is sois basically a baked meringue, but it
still has a little bit of chewinessto it. And the way you do

(31:57):
that is by adding acid to theUH to the shells. So basically you
make a meringue and then you pipeit and then you bake it at two
hundred and fifty degrees for about twohours, and then you let it cool
down and then that sugar slidifies.It gets crunchy on the outside. It's

(32:19):
chewy on the inside, and it'slike a think of it like a crunchy
marshmallow almost. So you take thatand then we fill it with uh.
It's kind of funny because it lookslike a giant dessert, but it's all
air, right. So we takethe lob logo, which is the shell.
We hallow out the inside a littlebit, and we fill it up

(32:40):
with marscapone, emaretto and egg yolk. Yeah, we take We take yeah,
emeretto, egg yolks and uh andwe whip those over a double boiler
until they look like Collen Day sauce. And then rather than adding butter to
it, we whip moscapone in itto make a move. Yes, we

(33:02):
put that in the bottom. Thenwe take the lady fingers. We still
come in an espresso syrup using Mario'shard espresso licor. We use that.
Put that in there. Then wedo more of the sun and then on
top of that there's usually just abunch of whipped cream. And so what
we did is we use whipped cream, we use cream with coffee, and

(33:27):
then we chill it and then wewhip it. But then we make a
chantilly of we make a chentilli creamof a coffee and then we pipe that
on top of it, and thenwe do an espresso lace cookie and some
chopa chocolate. That ditch has layersof texture and the flavors are all here.

(33:50):
We're gonna go to Denny's and seeif they have it there. I
think I saw it on their menu. Is he you want to say something,
You're just gonna be these faces.No, I see you describing it.
I'm just imagining the flavor and thetexture, and I'm just like,
oh, that's what we want.That's what I want to exactly. So,
Wow, everything you do, doyou do anything simple? Yeah?

(34:14):
Absolutely? I means right, Okay. You know, at the end of
the day, we're still an Italianrestaurant. Our highest selling items, you
know, outside of the bread,which is twenty one simple steps, give
spaghetti, meatballs and caesar salad.Wow, Like, you know, if
you can't do those things right,right, why are you serving its salience

(34:35):
foods right right, like you know, and so from there, you know,
we we have found But if you'resomeone who's not an adventurous signer,
you know it is one hundred percentokay to come to the restaurant and order
the spaghetti because it's the best spaghettiyou'll ever have. That's it. And
the story like like our goal.And we were constantly even updating that,

(34:58):
like we just like four months togo change the actual recipe for the noodle
for the spaghetti, you know,And I know, and I know that
sounds like we should have his ownboss, but like we're always asking ourselves
if we can improve something. Youknow, the day that you are fine
with one thing and you think somethingis good enough, that's the day take

(35:19):
it off the menu and do somethingelse. Next time we come there,
we're gonna give you. We foundthis pasta. I don't know the name
of it. We found it,we fell in love with it. It
was kind of thick and it's wellanyway, I'll bring it to you.
It's unbelievaby We've never seen it anywhere, and it was in a package and
is he was just like, ohmy god, this is amazing and it
didn't look that good, but whenyou eat it, it was it looked

(35:40):
you know, I had to chewto it and all the sauceage wrapped around
it. It was so good.But I'll get that to you. I'm
sure you'll make it that What wasthe name of the boss, I'll find
out. Well, i'll text itto you. I'll take a picture of
it. But it's amazing. Imean, we make all the pasta for
users in the house every day.Of course, that's one of the things
that like, you know a littlebit different, and it was something that

(36:02):
no one else in Vegas was reallydoing when we opened, feel like they
weren't doing it at a regular paceof like of making fasa every single day
from scratch. And it's something thatwe, you know, we think a
lot of pright in is like usingreally good ingredients and creating very simple foods,

(36:22):
right you know, that's you know, that's that's gotta be the goal
of like any that's the Italian ethosrights simplicity. Right now, we can
do all these things, but wecan and we can dress things up however
we want, but at the otherday, they have to be simple,
good dish. But it's got it'sgot the James Trees flare to it.

(36:43):
Everything is not normal. I mean, you know sour dough bread, Yeah,
sour dough bread, sour dough bread. However, when you've got eight
different spreads are so different and unique, and you're charged for it and people
buy it, it's like again,that's that's the way you think. It's
like, let's give them something worthbuying that's gonna be different. You know,
why should they come here? That'sthe first question I always ask restaurants.

(37:04):
Why should they come here? Ourfood's great? McDonald says that,
you know, everyone says that,and you know some people they know,
they don't know the difference. AndI agree. You know, you're a
restaurantoft for everybody, and not thatit's out of the price range or anything.
But you know they're happy with justthe basic, basic, basic,
you know, just the Cisco foodsyou want if you if you want to
basic, if you like. Mostpeople think that when you go to an

(37:27):
Italian restaurant, the only two dishesyou should order is caesar salad and spaghetti
and meatball. Right, And wedon't want to we don't want to alienate
those people. We want them tocome and say, these guys have the
best spaghetti and meatballs, right,these guys have the best caesar salad,
right, Like that's harder to dobecause everyone The hardest thing about Italian stitch

(37:49):
is everyone has a gage for it. Everyone has uh, you know,
a nonah or everyone has like afamily recipe. And I can't tell you
how many times people have come intoessers and told me they're like, I
tell my grandma she makes this spaghetiand meatballs, and now I can't say
that, Oh right, I pissedoff Grandma is now great. It's like,

(38:14):
you know, and I tell peopleall the time, like what you
grew up with for Italian food isprobably a not even Italian food, and
then b' is probably not even thatgood. You know, there's very few,
you know, there are very fewlike families who you know, cook
all day all day. Yeah youknow that was a normal thing. Yeah,

(38:37):
can you imagine Grandma's being like him? Is he? But the other
thing is that like it's not allme, like it really is. It
really is the team, It reallyis everybody who's involved with the restaurant,
because you know, like right nowit's Saturday at four thirty. Our restaurant
will do this. Five. I'mnot even in the restaurant because I know

(39:00):
that my team's got me covered,and I know that they're going to be
good, and I know that everyoneshows up on time, and I know
they can't. And and that's thethings you have to do in order to
work it as true. You've earnedit. You've earned it because most owners
they don't show up. But it'scrap. You know, when they're there,
it's great, but when they're notthere, I mean, very few

(39:22):
times have I seen a restaurant ornot there and it's perfect. I mean
I can almost count on three fingershow many perfect dinners I've had and all
three were yours. Well okay,five fingers, well three were yours,
the three restaurants. But what aboutyour pizzas. Let's get into that real
quick. That's one thing we haven'thad. Yeah, we haven't tried that.
We'll have to, especially going youknow, to the pizza expo.

(39:44):
What do you plan on you planon, like I say, uplifting your
pizzas or what type of what kindof pieces you can do? You know,
it's weird. We actually got namesby time out or the y'all yelp
and time out. It was y'all, Yeah, we got named the number
thirty six pizza in America. Wow. And I just kind of laugh at

(40:05):
that chuckles, because I think,you know, when you look at people
like John Arena and Tony GEMIONI right, I mean we we don't even play
in the same stratit there, thoseguys. We don't even try. Like,
you know, we we do athree day naturally rise you know,
fermented dough. We use you know, Bianco Dinapolis tomatoes, and we use

(40:29):
local mozzarella from northern Nevada. Andwe use a combination of h you know,
drier, lower moisture mozzarella and freshmozzarella. We also use some other
kind of fun cheeses, some mostmozzarella, some fontina, and you know,
we don't always do tomato sauce bases. So we like to take our

(40:52):
our our seasonal cooking and kind oflike infuse that into the pizza that we
do. So, like right now, it's winter time, so we have
a potato and Brussels sprout pizza witha truffle pawna as the base and a
little bit of mazzarella and fontina cheese. I mean like something like that.

(41:14):
For us, you wouldn't think aBrussels sprout pizza would be, you know,
great, but it's one of ourtop selling pizzas because people love you
know, the potato and the Brusselssprouts on it. Yeah, a little
bit, just a little bit oftruffle paste in the in the mouscar phone
prema that we put on the base, take a little bit of a gar

(41:36):
yeah, like you know, likethat's what we're doing when we move over
to the news space. We're goingto take that same approach, except for
where we have a wood fired oven, and that's going to be a huge
upgrade to the pizza. And youknow a lot of times like people think
like, oh, you're going withfire, therefore you need to keep the
oven at around eight hundred degrees andget all the blistery edges the neapolismostyle vibe.

(42:02):
And the answer to that is absolutelynot. We take more of a
draw from Ostia Mozza and what NancySilver is known for it. We're going
to cook the pizzas a little bitlower around six hundred and fifty degrees,
allow them a little more time.Because people in Italy have been to Naples.

(42:24):
They love foggy, chewy pizzas.Americans hate that, right, you
know. So do you do thetraditional style and give somebody a products they
don't really want, or do youuse your intuition as a baker and as
a chef, change your dough,be able to cook it on a lower

(42:45):
temperature, be able to you know, control the fire a little bit better,
and actually be able to put outa frog. That's special. And
that's what we're going to be goingfor at the new restaurant. To really
elevate a game is basically to addthe wood fire without burning the pizzas,

(43:07):
you know, without you know,giving them christiness, lightness and the right
amount of too without it being achewy, doughy mess. Right now,
if you only did Detroit style pizza, I'd be I'm fly there right now,
I'd walk there. That's our favorite. Being a judge, I'll never
forget the first time we ever hadall the judges, we just say one

(43:27):
word. We just looked at Sean, who's the late Sean brought it to
us, or we were judging itand we're in the finals and we just
looked at each other and it waslike, oh my goodness the first time
we had it, and now it'sit's booming. It's like one of the
biggest rages and everything. But it'sso good and yours is like that too.
But we'll try your pizzas next timefor sure. So my actually,

(43:47):
my buddy, one of my greatfriends, Ryan Otosci, has a place
in what's Hollywood called Detown Pizzeria andhe's won twice in the pan division at
the at the Pizza at the Pizzas though. Yeah, because you know,
we we He's one of my greatfriends. He was a chef with

(44:12):
me for years and years and yearsand then he just decided to start making
Detroit pizza. And this is beforeanybody knew anything about Detroit pizza. So
I mean, like, he's fromDetroit and he grew up on it.
So it's one of those things wherehe was able to take his acumen as
a chef and to take this verydate like what people think is Little Caesar's

(44:36):
pizza right, which is what Detroitstyle is, right, and turned it
into something that was better than theproject he grew up with. Well burned
cheese is what does it? Yeah, oh yeah, it's fantastic. So
you mentioned at the beginning of theinterview. Again, you're listening to Let's
Sign out show right here on AMten fifty and one or six point five
FM, the stations that leaving nolistener behind and with us is Chef James

(44:59):
Trees, and we're talking about Vegas, his restaurants and also the whole restaurants
seen in Vegas. But I wantto get a little personal with you now.
If you you got ten dollars andyou're hungry, where would you go
to in Vegas? Shang Artist andNoodle? Oh that's when we were Yeah,
we went there. Didn't they expandthey've got bigger, did they?

(45:22):
They moved? They did? Yeah, okay, it's so funny. Like
I remember I stopped going there fora while because I wouldn't be able to
just walk in and the bar right. Yeah, the pork belly noodle there
with the handful noodle is one ofthe best dishes in Las Vegas. I'll
put that up against anybody, andalso real undercover their chicken chow mane with

(45:46):
a knife shave noodles is fantastic.Tried that yeah, okay, crazy,
like the one of those things youwouldn't even think about ordering it's so good.
Okay, what else let's say,uh, let's say, uh fast
food. You're in a hurry,you can't sit down, you have to

(46:07):
go through a drive through. Isthere any one place you'd like to go
to, whether it's a chain ora small place. You know, I
I don't really eat I don't.I don't eat fast food. Okay,
but that being said, if Ihad to, I think my only stop
would be in an Altburger. Everyonesays that, yeah, because yeah,
well I have to try. Yeah. I did just move there. Yeah.

(46:34):
Yeah. I grew up in Texas, so Water Burger is the place.
We were hungry. We got therelate. It was like two o'clock
in the morning. We were starving, and unfortunately where we are there's nothing
around us except you know, McDonald'sor whatever for where. So he went
there and it was like, oh, my goodness, was like the best
burger and it was really good.So uh, okay, Chinese food.
You know Doctor Pepper shake, andyeah, the Dr Pepper Shake is amazing.

(46:57):
That's good. Yeah. I onetime I flew into I flew into
uh Dallas Fort Worth and my outgoingflight was at love Field, so I
had to take a long long longUber and uh and yeah, and I
ended up stopping a water Burger andbuying my uh my Uber driver and water

(47:20):
burger. But I gotta yeah,that was the best thing. I was
like, oh it was doctor peppershehe ordered and I was like, I'm
in Yeah, that was really good. Okay, what about Chinese restaurant.
We went to the Hong Kong Cafe. We went to the Chinese restaurant in
at the Real which is actually prettygood, Big real Big, that was
very good. We went to uhwas it barbecue with what? And Aaron

(47:42):
took us to barbecue something. Somy favorite, my favorite. I was
like four of my favorite Chinese restaurants. My four, like like number one
is New Asia Barbecue. That's kindof like my go cub. Yeah that's
where we went to. Yeah,yeah, that's it. Says that place
just knows exactly what they do.They do it well, and they do

(48:02):
this like seafood fried noodle, seafoodnest that's kind of on the menu.
Not dim sum. That's really great. Uh every time I go there,
I get a half of a roostduck no matter what. That's amazing,
and all their standard dim sum isfantastic. So that Shanghai case, which
is just the best shy lung balladumplings that you can find UH in Vegas,

(48:30):
just really fantastic. I love theuh the traditional shyalom bow there they
have. They have this really cooldish called Kaifu, which is a brave
wheat gluten in sweet story with starrInis Chef Jimmy Lee over there is just
amazing and Joe who runs the placeis just the best. And then obviously
Shang would be in there. Andthen my fourth go Thro which is kind

(48:53):
of like hidden off of the side. And that's that little place I was
telling you next to eed Oh inthat really crazy shopping center, and it's
just a place where I'll go andget like some you know, barbecue roast
pork and some can't style pork andthen get a bowl of noodle once on

(49:13):
noodle two and you get's just fantastic. And that place is called Hong Kong
Noodle. I think, Okay,how about China Mamma have you been there?
I love Samma is great and infact that like when they're in that
same shopping center, they were mysecond favorite restaurant there. And now They're
my second favorite Chinese restaurant, changHi Plaza, but we went there for

(49:34):
for Christmas. And you know thethings that they do on that menu at
China Mama that are a little bitoff the wall but are very traditional.
There's a stepany big mouth pork pocket. I think if you most people haven't
had that dish. I say,get that dish. That's really great.
The fuffed egg yolk cured shrimp anotherone that is really great. Obviously,

(49:59):
they do a they do a Taiwanstyle beef roll with the beef cucumber,
the Lantrill and Boyston inside of theScallaiyan pancakes. That dish is out of
control good and they have the bestChristy beef in the city. I don't
know what they're doing to it,but somehow it is magically perfect. Everyone.

(50:19):
What's that kosher one we went to? Is he Chinglish? Chinglish?
Yeah? It was funny story.We went to Chinglish. It was a
kosher Chinese restaurant, Like, that'sone side. We didn't know that.
So he went on the small side, which was the kosher side, and
all these rabbis are walking in there, like I don't think this is they
gave me aware, like they giveyou what I said, I don't think
this. We made reservations. Idon't think this is it. So we

(50:42):
went next door and it was likewhich I came back. He was so
happy I came because I felt soout of place. And they have great
duck there. It was very goodtoo. Yeah, they have a really
good risk stock and the Hecks,who are the people who owners on that
restaurant, are doing some really goodstuff out there. They have a really
good restaurant, and the wine programthere is also very good as well.

(51:05):
And you know, the duck thereis really good. They make everything in
the house. I think like it'suh. I believe her name is Kitty
is the lady who runs it,and her father is the chef, and
it's great. I think they doa really good job. That was right.
We just got back from a bigtrip to Hong Kong, Mical,
Singapore, Vietnam and Thailand. Sowe ate some incredible dishes and and they're

(51:30):
going when we go to every timewe go to Vegas, we always stop
one of the restaurants in Chinatown.We find something new and we love it
so well. Chef, we gotto run pretty soon but anyway, any
parting words, anything you'd like totell our audience. No, I thank
you very much for having me on. I do have one more recommendation for
Chinatown. Yeah, which is somethingthat my so, my one of my

(51:53):
general managers, Dave. He he'sjust spent like years and years and years
living in China. He speaks allthe dialects. He took us to.
Was it, uh the garden placeShaton something garden and I gotta find I'll

(52:13):
find you, Okay, I'll mentionto Okay, we'll definitely go and I'll
mention it on social media. Soyeah, I'll tea great well, chef,
thank you so much for joining us. We're gonna be coming to Vegas
next week. We're not gonna botheryou because you're busy with yourself two weeks
I guess. But uh, congratulationson your new restaurant. You can't wait
for it to open, and uhbe well, be safe and good luck

(52:35):
on your keto diet. How areyou doing on that killing it? Wait?
Well, I got new teeth andyou're skinnier, so this would be
fun. So anyway, take you, take care, be well? All
right? Thanks? Oh wow,what a neat guy, so anyway,
we're short on time, so uhanyway, hopefully you enjoyed it and again
next we're on every Saturday from fourto five. Let's start out show food

(52:58):
critic Allenborgan here and is he bussybeating everybody? Casey Express one O six
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Thinking about buying a home or maybejust refinancing, Let the mortgage Voice Jeff
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process, there's less likely to befreaking out at the end about what's happening.

(55:52):
The Mortgage Voice Saturday at three pmand Sunday's at noon here on CACAA
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a license agent with Litchfield Insurance Associateshere in Beaumont. A large portion
of Americans don't have life insurance ordon't have enough, whether you need a
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(56:15):
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(56:40):
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here. The first thing you're goingto have to learn is that until you
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going to change. The only personwho can change your life is you.

(57:00):
But you need to know how.Listen to my show, The Dell Wansley
Radio Show where the Hype ends andthe help begins right here on KCAA now
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five FM, K two ninety threeCF Burno Valley, NBC News Radio.

(57:22):
I'm Chris Karagio. The House hasapproved a ninety five billion dollars four and
aid package in a rare Saturday session. The Messi of Ukraine eight bill,
which passed by a three hundred andeleven to one hundred and twelve vote today,
now heads to the Senate, alongwith smaller funding bills for Israel and
Taiwan. Several lawmakers were seen wavingsmall Ukrainian flags and cheering upon the Ukrainian

(57:44):
bills package. The House also approveda bill that would force TikTok's parent company
to sell the social media platform.A man who traveled from Florida to New
York City is dead after setting himselfon fire outside the courthouse where Donald Trump's
hush money trial is underway. JacquolinKarl reports. Pollise say it happened Friday
afternoon in a park across the streetfrom the Lower Manhattan court room, where

(58:06):
a jury panel was being selected forthe Trump trial. Cops say the thirty
seven year old man was throwing antigovernmental pamphlets into the air before he doused
himself with an accelerant and set himselfon fire. The man was rushed to
a hospital burn unit, where policesay he later died from his injuries.
As for the trial itself, openingstatements are set for Monday. Much of
central Texas and parts of the GulfCoast are bracing for heavy rain and possible

(58:30):
flooding. The National Weather Service sayssevere thunderstorms could dump as much as three
to four inches of rain in someareas into the evening hours. Virtually all
of the South is expected to getsome rain during the weekend. Forcaster,
say, in areas stretching from DallasFort Worth all the way to the Mississippi
Alabama border is at the greatest riskfor flooding. Taylor Swift and Travis kelce

(58:51):
apparently planned to skip the met Gala. TMZ reports the pop superstar and NFL
player were invited individually to the event, but both RSVP no. Swift seems
to have an era's tour conflict withthe May sixth event. She'll be getting
back on the road to Paris afterthe much anticipated release of her album The
Tortured Poets Department. Swift and TravisKelcey have yet to walk a red carpet

(59:15):
together at any event. I'm ChrisGaragio, NBC News Radio, NBC News
on CACAA Lomalanda, sponsored by TeamstersLocal nineteen thirty two, Protecting the Future
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(01:00:07):
the Jazz bo