Las Vegas Chinese Food Revisited

Most of you have read the original posting on this blog, later expanded for the Menuism blog, dispelling the myth that the best Chinese restaurants in America are in Las Vegas.  The popularity of that item has been puzzling to me.  It was later republished by the Huffington Post, even though I didn't think there was anything particularly noteworthy about the article, and indeed less worthy of publication there than a number of other  Menuism articles that were not reprinted.  Then on their Las Vegas annual convention website, the American Library Association included a prominent link to the article on the list of things for their attendees to do while in Las Vegas.  And now the article has been picked up by Scribd, the noted online digital library website.  My only explanation is that this article has garnered interest because it represents the intersection of two very popular topics, Las Vegas and food, as opposed to being particularly interesting or well written in its own right.

I do want to add an addendum to this article to reflect my subsequent visit to Wing Lei Restaurant.  I seldom write about restaurants that I  had not actually eaten at, but I felt compelled to mention Wing Lei because of its general renown, plus the fact that it was a Michelin one star restaurant.  Also,  I was fairly comfortable with my comments about Wing Lei, since its menu was wholly Americanized with items like egg drop soup, sweet and sour pork, and General Tso's chicken, a clear indication that this restaurant would do nothing for the reputation of Chinese restaurants in Las Vegas.

Finally having had the opportunity to eat at Wing Lei, I am pleased to confirm that my suspicions about the restaurant were correct.   I will say just like Michelin, I did give Wing Lei one star, though mine was on a scale of five, on the Opentable website.  As taken directly from that site:

• "Wing Lei is probably the only Michelin starred Chinese restaurant in the western United States. Wonderful setting and great service, but the food is borderline awful. Unless food is secondary to you, save your money and go to Panda Express. Or if you insist on a pricey Chinese meal, head to Hakkasan."

Actually, my comments above were relatively kind compared to how I really felt.  I had ordered the General Tso's chicken and the duck salad, the former in honor of my cameo in The Search For General Tso and the screening at the TriBeCa film festival.  It is possible to make Americanized Chinese food taste good in an upscale setting.  I've experienced that at such places like Tommy Toy's and the Empress of China in San Francisco (even some of the stuff at Ruby Foo's in New York was tasty) and that's what I was sort of expecting at Wing Lei.  What I got was awful (there was no borderline).  I've had better gloppy chicken at buck-a-plate Chinese fast food steam table outlets in South Central Los Angeles than what they served at Wing Lei.

Virtually all the other diners give Wing Lei four or five stars, some praising the General Tso's chicken in particular.  So it's clear what the profile of their targeted diners are, and how little they know about Chinese food.