China Poblano

While in Las Vegas, we had to have a meal at China Poblano at the Cosmopolitan Hotel. Since we were only there for 3 days and 2 nights, we thought we had to try the very interesting cuisine of the innovative Spanish chef non other than Jose Andres. We have all been to his famous Bazaar at the SLS Hotel in Beverly Hills.  What made this different was the mixture of Chinese and Mexican cuisine.

We ordered 6 plates to share among the 4 of us.  The first plate was called Golden Pigs which had 4 pieces of  steamed buns which were crispy outside and soft inside with Chinese barbeque pork and condensed milk for dipping. I know it sounds weird but it intrigued us all.  The condensed milk was not as thick as what you get in an ordinary can and not quite as sweet. It was very good.
The second plate was the Sui Mai; traditional shrimp and pork with water chestnuts, mushrooms and peanuts. That had a lot of flavor even before it was dipped in the soy sauce.

 

We ordered the Twenty-Vegetable Fried Rice.  Indeed it had a lot of vegetables though we didn't bother to count if it really had 20.  This was essential to go with the rest of our courses.  We had to order something Mexican; no discrimination here...so we had 2 plates of the Cochinita; Yucatan-style barbeque pork tacos with marinated onions.  I haven't had tacos that good.  What is Chinese food without noodles...Swallow a Cloud...Hong Kong-style wonton with shrimps, pork and bok choy. That was nothing special. The last course was the Mongolian Beef Lettuce.  This was a 6 oz. grilled NY strip steak with romaine lettuce, ginger, soy and Chinkiang vinegar (dark and slightly sweet). Not bad but not great either.

The very best thing we had was the dessert called Mango Sticky Rice. This was not the traditional sticky rice with mango you get in Thai restaurants. This is where Jose Andres excels in turning something mundane to a creative masterpiece.  This was a light dessert with coconut milk and toasted rice with mangoes. They cooked the rice with the coconut milk down and took the rice off, toasted some of it to put on top of the mango granita.  Somewhere along the making of this dessert, something was extruded through a Nitrogen canister which gave it the very light and fluffy consistency.

If I were to compare our lunch at Julian Serrano and dinner at China Poblano, I will have to say that I enjoyed Julian Serrano's tapas more than Jose Andres.