Day 2 of our U.S. Foodservice sponsored Las Vegas restaurant tour – Raves & Faves. If you’ve been following us on Twitter (twitter.com/Foodchannel), you already know where we’ve been and what we’ve eaten. Allow me to recap just a few of our experiences:
After a quick review of the bizarre Halloween activity and costumes from the night before, we went back on the streets of Vegas.
We set up lights, moved lights, re-arranged settings, did walk throughs, opened doors, closed doors, snapped more photos than we’ll use, interviewed some really nice people, and generally managed to make our presence known at the restaurants on our list for today. The owners, the chefs, and the staff all rolled with it beautifully and seemed to have a great time; at the end, one of our crew actually yelled, “And that’s a wrap.”
In between shoots, and actually within the space of about three hours, we sampled a succulent chicken with cognac dish, guacamole, margaritas, carnitas (pictured), steak with salsa verde, shrimp (not just any shrimp, but more on that later), fresh-made tortillas, fried ice cream, flan, sopapillas . . . and easily ten kinds of sushi (pictured, below). Not at the same restaurant. But with very little buffer in between.
Laptops were put to good use as we wrote, emailed, and Tweeted our way through the day. In the process, we found out some fun tidbits. Like how Chef Javier learned to cook from his Grandmother and father, still went to Le Cordon Bleu, was selected for an internship at Disney, and just graduated about two months ago. He’s now essentially running the operation at one Lindo Michoacan while his father prepares for the grand opening of their new location—and says that, “Besides our food being delicious, we have the best customer service due to our passion; we care about everyone who comes in, like one big family.”
And, like how Sushi Chef Kenny Song, from Sushi Avenue and Steak House in SW Vegas, thinks that while it is very important to know how to choose and cut the fish, it is just as important to give the customer a great experience.
Sensing a theme here? Watch for more about how these restaurants consider customer service crucial to their success. Funny how that happens.
We’ll be bringing you more from Las Vegas, presenting our findings to you over the next few months.
In the meantime, you can follow us on Twitter (@foodchannel). That is, if you can handle the great food descriptions without really being there. From some of the messages we’re receiving, it’s getting harder and harder for people to read and not be able to taste!
Simple solution: come to Vegas. The food is great.
