The Culinary Tourist: On the Way to the Grape Street Cafe

The Lanes ofLas Vegas take us on a backroads tour of their new stomping grounds. 

Wine lovers Keith and Beth Lane, fresh from a trip to the Napa Valley, are eager to continue their taste-testing back home, and we arrive just in time. After flipping through their vacation photos, we hop into Beth’s new Honda CR-V for a tour of vintage Vegas. 

First stop is Khoury’s Fine Wine and Spirits, a boutique wine shop on S. Eastern Ave. in a residential community called Anthem.  The shop, which specializes in hard-to-find wines and spirits, offers complimentary wine tastings every Thursday, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.

When a member of Elton John’s entourage called Khoury’s looking for a 40-year-old Honduras rum, Issa Khoury plucked one from his stock and rushed it over to the Guy Savoy Restaurant in Caesars Palace. But Khoury’s caters to the locals, too, not just the rich and famous.

A dozen or so regulars gather around a wine barrel for casual conversation as we sip several fine French and Alsatian wines. My favorites are a wonderfully light Beaujolais, and a selection from the Cotes du Rhone and Chateauneuf-du-Pape regions. We find an astonishing array of international wines, too, including sakes from Japan and wines from Hungary, Romania, Lebanon, South Africa, Portugal, Argentina, Chile, Spain and Australia. Issa’s wife, Nura, says she and her husband enjoy helping people expand their knowledge of wine, and the informal setting is the perfect place for beginners to ask lots of questions.

Over the next few days we pick up enough wine to stock a modest cellar. It’s too bad we are on our way to Mexico and, alas, have to leave several untried bottles at Keith and Beth’s house. Keith is a bargain hunter, and many of our purchases are from Lee’s Discount Liquor store. Among them is a 2003 Firestone Syrah ($14.95), a Lee’s Wine Club Selection of the Month, though this big red would be a little too heavy for summer in Vegas, where temperatures often reach 100+ degrees.  Little Penguins are cool, and we add a few to our cart, favoring the pinot and chardonnay (both $6.99), just because we liked the labels. An African wine at $2.99 looked like a real deal, but we end up pouring most of it down the drain, not into the sweet little Riedel wine tumblers we brought Keith and Beth as a hostess gift.

Not to worry, we have dinner reservations at The Grape Street Café, a popular wine bar and restaurant on Lake Mead Boulevard in nearby Summerlin. Our friends have clearly become galloping gourmands since moving to Las Vegas in 1999.  “We could try a different restaurant every night and still not visit them all,” says Beth, as Keith turns into the parking lot at Marché Bacchus, a bustling bistro with yet another wine retail store. “I just want you to see the view,” says Keith, checking his watch, “We’ll have to come here next time.”

Voted Best French Restaurant and Best Patio Dining by readers of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Marché Bacchus overlooks a crystal blue lake in Desert Shores, an upscale neighborhood west of Vegas. What fun it would be to go up and down the aisles, pick a bottle of wine, and take it to your table. Tonight all we can do is snap a few photos on the flagstone patio and thank the gracious hostess for her patience.

Getting hungry? I know we are. We’re off to the Grape Street Café!

Review to follow.

HOSTESS GIFT:  You’ll have your wine in the palm of your hand, and your hosts, too, with the new “O” series wine tumbler from Riedel Glass. Elegant and uncomplicated, it has no stem or base to break, and fits easily into the dishwasher. At $25 a pair, they make a great hostess gift, even for the wine connoisseur who has enough stemware to fill three cupboards, like our friends Keith and Beth Lane.

Lisa Gensheimer, Travel Correspondent:
The Culinary Tourist  appears every other Thursday and by chance in Gather Essentials: Travel. Explore all 50 states with award-winning documentary producer Lisa Gensheimer as she discovers the fun, food and people she meets along the way. Whether you’re visiting the home of a faraway friend, stopping for directions at a roadside market, or on holiday in an exotic location, richly layered experiences await. A published author, Lisa has several new projects in the works, including a cultural cookbook and companion travel DVD. Read more about Lisa's work at MainStreetMedia.tv and TheForestPress.com.