After your Hakka fried rice pot shows up like this, Ku Noodle pours oyster sauce over it and the rice sizzles to a crisp.
Just like every Vegas casino needs a steakhouse, every casino needs a Chinese restaurant -- preferably a casual noodle bar where Far East high rollers can roll through for a quick meal in between baccarat benders.
At SLS Las Vegas, chef José Andrés is redefining the Asian noodle bar with his new Ku Noodle concept. I showed up 10 minutes before 11 a.m. on opening day and found local writer John Curtas of Eating Las Vegas already waiting in line. We decided to dine together as the restaurant's first two customers because Chinese food should be shared.
What we tried impressed us and had little in common with five-spice-powder-heavy beef noodle soups polluted by chewy greens or the boring frozen dumplings you find at some other Vegas noodle bars.
Watermelon radish goes well with watermelon and pea shoots.
Ku Noodle serves a salad with watermelon radish, watermelon and pea shoots that's a lovely balance of sweet and tart. There are smartly conceived dim sum choices like cumin lamb sui mai, and the noodles include a version of the Szechuan classic known as Ants Climbing a Tree: cellophane noodles, pork and chiles. Neither of these dishes will burn your face off the way a lot of Szechuan food does, but the noodles have good heat.
And the gentle pricing at Ku Noodle lets you try a lot of dishes without emptying your wallet. The dish Andrés is most proud of is the most expensive one of the menu, but it's a $29.88 large-format bargain that can feed three people as a main course. This Hakka Fried Rice Pot comes in a clay vessel that's about a foot in diameter. Inside you'll find Chinese sausage, pork belly, fried eggs, vegetables, soy broth and preserved mushrooms. The pot is kept really hot, so when oyster sauce is poured over all the ingredients, the rice sizzles to a crisp. Put some chili sauce over this soccarat madness and call it Chinese paella.
Our favorite shaved ice combination was mango with strawberries, almond jelly, coconut and condensed milk.
Dessert at Ku Noodle is your own personalized texture bomb: Taiwanese shaved ice -- milk-based or dairy-free flavors, covered with your selection of soft, crunchy, chewy or fruit toppings plus your choice of sauces including condensed milk and coconut.
Vegas is the middle of a quiet but important makeover of Asian restaurants at casinos. Beyond Ku Noodle, there's the recent opening of Chicago chef Matthais Merges' much buzzed-about Yusho, which elevates Japanese street food at Monte Carlo. There's also next month's highly anticipated opening of Chicago chef Tony Hu's Lao Sze Chuan at the Palms. And KJ Dim Sum and Seafood is by far the best place to eat at the otherwise pathetic Rio.
KJ is an outpost of a popular local Cantonese restaurant in the bustling Chinatown you'll find on Spring Mountain Road just west of the Strip. In recent years, the quality of food in this enclave has made many high rollers venture outside of casinos to eat, packing themselves in with local crowds.
SLS, of course, wants to attract both big players and Vegas residents. Ku Noodle is a fine start.
