Thursday, November 15, 2007
Trader Vic's still haunts me
Larry Bly
Larry Bly runs an ad agency and does freelance writing in the Roanoke area.
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I grew up on a beef cattle farm, enjoying simple foods such as mashed potatoes, gravy, steaks and fresh garden vegetables. But because of our farm's closeness to Baltimore and Washington, DC, I also grew up enjoying great seafood from the Chesapeake Bay and ethic foods from the big cities.
As a teenager still in high school, an old friend took me to D.C. for a fine meal at Trader Vic's, one of the early "concept" restaurants and an early franchise success as well. To this day, there's never been anything quite like it.
We entered the dramatic doorway (featuring huge tribal masks on each side) into the darkened environs and I discovered a new and exciting world that this old farm boy had never experienced. There were oversized booths, lit by candle. There were chefs and fire and exotic drinks and mystery. It was at this Trader Vic's that I experienced my first Mai Tai, a drink that Vic "The Trader" Bergeron had invented. It was also the first Asian-style food I ever tasted -- delicious -- and the first time I ever ate rice that hadn't been boiled to within an inch of its life. I remember trying something really out of the ordinary: pressed duck with sauce. It still brings my flavor buds to attention, just thinking about it.
When I returned from Korea (no not the war, I'm not THAT old) and the Army, I got a job on radio in Detroit. The first place the radio station took me to celebrate my new job was -- you guessed it -- Trader Vic's.
The restaurant owes its formative years to a guy named Ernest Raymond Beaumont-Gantt, also known as Don the Beachcomber, who started Hollywood's first tropical restaurant. A few others got involved in the business and eventually and it became L.A.'s first South Seas eatery, run by a schoolteacher and a bartender. Terribly impressed by the Zombies, Mai Tais and other exotic rum drinks was none other than "Trader" Vic Bergeron, who would then go on to establish his own business. The Beachcomber restaurants would soon go by the wayside.
I erroneously thought that Trader Vic's had met the same fate, but was I ever wrong. True, they no longer operate in many of the cities that I once frequented, but they're now an international company, doing quite well, and still cooking up what might be described as South Seas Cantonese or Chinese hybrid cuisine. The company's Web site claims it is now a "$70 million empire of company-owned and franchise restaurants".
I recently rediscovered them in Las Vegas -- newly opened and very upscale on the strip. By the way, I just returned from a week there and I have a NEW slogan for them: "What Stays In Vegas ... Is YOUR MONEY!"
Despite what you may hear about unlimited cheap buffets and such, it's not cheap. You'll pay one way or the other.
The new TRADER'S had to make a few concessions to the fire codes in Vegas. Gone is the fire, though it's still featured in most of the other locations around the world. And the menu is trimmed down from what I recall. But that's where any disappointed ended on my behalf.
The tables were smartly set, the service instant and friendly, the drinks perfectly done (you can mess up a martini faster than you can say Dixie Caverns), and the food interesting, delicious, beautifully presented.
While the lighting is subdued, gone are the darkened rooms and huge black booths that enveloped you while dining. This is a more open and streamlined restaurant.
My dining partner started with a crab Rangoon, blue crab and cream cheese wrapped in a wonton and fried crisp. We shared this perfect little appetizer and savored its subtle flavors. I started with the Szechwan prawns, with mushrooms, red peppers, snow pea in a Szechwan chili sauce.
Trader's has a winner with these combinations of flavors. In fact, they early-on built their menus fusing such flavors -- among the first to ever do so, using exotic and ethnic ingredients as available in each restaurant.
For my entree, I had a Cantonese lobster, with broccolini and shiitake in ginger black bean sauce. There was an ample portion; and I cannot remember a dish so delightful in my recent munching. My dining partner had something called "King Salmon 'lomi lomi" (Trader Vic's still has fun with names: Soy Sake Wahoo, Bongo bongo soup, etc). I'm not a big salmon fan, but a taste of this just literally melted on your tongue. It featured a heart of palm and Mizuna salad and Japanese lime dressing. Indescribably delicious!
I made the mistake of ordering a side of fried rice. It was more than I could handle, almost a meal in itself, with prawns, chicken, lobster, char siu pork and crispy shallots. My waitperson might have warned me that my dish came with white rice or I would have tried something else. Instead I shared both rices with my fellow diner and we were none the worse for all of that starch. I will say that I would love a bowl of that Vic's special rice this very minute. I can't believe how much food I left behind.
The VIC's menu is still chock full of interesting fare: Mango chili beef (with giner and red peppers in a mango sauce), New York Strip (but done with Sapporo onion and Wasabi thyme butter), Miso orange sea bass (with braised choy sum and ltus chips), and pink peppercorn crusted ahi (sesame seeds, crispy rice roll with soy chive dressing), to name a few.
The only crispy duck offered at the Vegas Vic's is a crispy duck taco, with cucumbers, scallions and hoisin sauce. Sauces are very big -- and a great variety of them are served during the course of a regular meal, including four distinct ones when the bread service arrives.
You may choose light fare for lunch and even "tidbits and finger foods" galore for dinner, including crispy prawns, crab Rangoon, Malazysian beef satay, coconut chicken, tuna tataki, Hawaiian poke, soup, ribs, bbq, spiced calamari, lobsters and crab cakes.
A very classy Asian gentleman named Mike was brought to my table soon after I began asking questions about Trader Vic's history and their current whereabouts. Mike's been with the company for 37 years or so. I have no idea what he does, but I think he's the company's point-man on various properties when they open. A more gracious soul you'll not find anywhere. He even took me to the upstairs lounge to get a better view of the "dancing fountains" at the Ballagio across the street. And he gave me a great deal of the company history -- having been a first-person part of much of it himself. In addition to the numerous domestic locations -- Scottsdale, Ariz., Atlanta, several in California still, Florida -- you may also dine with them in Shanghai, London, Bahrain, Berlin, Hamburg, Tokyo, Munich, Beirut, Taipei, Abu Dhabi, UAE and Dubai, if you're so inclined.
Trader Vic's has come a long way since those early mai thais, and I've come a long way since first tasting fried rice with side of duck sauce. I'm always happy to run into an old friend.
TRADER VIC'S
3663 Las Vegas Blvd. South
Suite 160
Las Vegas, Nev.
702-405-4700
Full service bar; all major credit cards
