LE THAI

Another addition to the downtown Las Vegas scene is the small restaurant, Le Thai.  Don't expect Thai food like what you get at Vegas' famous Lotus of Siam, but what Le Thai lacks in spice, it makes up for in style. The restaurant is small with a glassed-in kitchen to the left, a bar to the right and a few tables in the main room.  Further out back are several more tables and a long counter which is where we had our lunch.

There is an $8.95 set lunch menu served Monday to Saturday with a selection of dishes from the main menu mostly curries and stir-fries which come with soda.  From the main menu, there are several more dishes from appetizers, soups, salads and noodle dishes that are also larger in portion than the lunch menu and can be shared family-style.

My sisters opted for the lunch menu - the pork Pad Prik (spicy red curry based dry stir-fry) for one and the minced chicken Ga Pow (basil, chili, garlic stir fry) for the other.  My mom and my sister's MIL shared the lunch bowl of vegetable stir-fry with shrimp.  I opted for a non-lunch menu dish - Thai pork jerky for all of us to share plus the Thai beef fried rice and aside order of cucumber salad.  Spice levels are from 1-5,  my sisters chose 2 and so did I.

The food came quickly - large steaming bowls of goodness.  The fried rice had that smoky wok flavor complemented by the fresh cilantro and the pork jerky was hot and crispy and came with the standard sticky rice to make bites with the pork and fish sauce dip.  The food was good but I wish I had asked for a notch up in spice level as my fried rice was more sweet than spicy.  Next time I'm going for level 4.  Hopefully, the next time I'm in Vegas, there'll be a few more additions to the downtown dining scene but for now, Le Thai is where to go for a quick satisfying bowl of Thai goodness.

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Le Thai

523 Fremont Street

Las Vegas NV 89101

Telephone: +1 702 777 0888

email: info@lethaivegas.com

*Open Mondays to Saturdays from 11:30 straight till midnight.  Closed on Sundays.

EAT.

Downtown Las Vegas is experiencing a renaissance with the investments of Zappos.com founder Tony Hsieh who has started to buy up property all over downtown and turn it into a hip area of Las Vegas.  One of those he helped out was the restaurant eat. and ex-casino-chef Natalie Young.

Located on the corner of Carson and 7th in a nondescript building, eat opened in late 2012 and is now a bustling restaurant serving breakfast and lunch every day and closing in the early afternoon.  The place is simply decorated with red Navy chairs, a polished concrete floor, a communal counter table and colorful pieces of wood taken from food crates to make a low wall near the entry way.

We went for Sunday brunch on the last weekend of 2012 and walked into a packed restaurant with a live jazz band and singer helping make eat. extra cozy.  The breakfast menu is printed on one sheet of paper and changes over to the lunch menu at 11:00 a.m.  We started out with mugs of freshly-brewed coffee then ordered four different breakfasts - eggs benedict for me, steel cut oats for R, shrimp and grits for J and the chicken fried steak for C.  My eggs Benedict came on whole wheat bread with ham and crispy breakfast potatoes, the shrimp and grits was a large bowl of eggs, bacon and shrimp over grits, the chicken fried steak was a large piece of battered steak covered in gravy with fried eggs and the steel cut oats was served with cinnamon, roasted apples and sugared pecans.  Portions were hefty and the food was comfort on a plate.  eat is what Las Vegas has been missing and might be what will soon end up to be a hipster area in a town dominated by the bright lights of the Strip.  With the development of downtown and the opening of several other small cafes, bars and restaurants in the are, this will soon make Las Vegas a real city with a proper hipster neighborhood for the locals.

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eat.
707 Carson St. (at 7th avenue)
Las Vegas NV 89101
Telephone: +1 702 534 1515
email: info@eatdowntownlv.com
twitter: @eatDTLV
*Open Mondays to Fridays from 7 to 3 and Weekends from 8 to 2.  Serves breakfast and lunch daily.