Al Powers / Power Imagery
Barbecue and Charcuterie are part of the offerings this weekend at Comme Ca, at the Cosmopolitan for the Bastille Day celebration.
Saturday, July 14, 2012 | 2 a.m.
As part of Bastille Day, six Strip chefs from the MGM Grand and Mandalay Bay will compete in a food truck cook-off on Saturday at Tommy Rocker's parking lot. Pictured, from left, are Chef Bruno Riou, Chef Laurent Pillard, Chef Steve Benjamin, Chef Claude Le-Tohic, host Jolene Mannina, Chef Vincent Pouessel and Chef Stephane Chevet.
For Cinco de Mayo, chefs on the Strip whip up specialty salsas and margaritas. For the Fourth of July, they create signature red, white and blue dishes. Today, on Bastille Day, they’ll barbecue in honor of France’s Independence Day.
“This is Las Vegas. We always need another reason to throw a party,” said David Myers, chef-owner of Comme Ca at the Cosmopolitan.
Restaurants up and down the Strip will celebrate the French holiday with specials. Comme Ca will offer “Le Barbecue” — a $49 smorgasbord of lamb, skirt steak au poivre and beer can chicken — from 3 to 7 p.m. today. Mon Abi Gabi at Paris has a weeklong Bastille menu that includes chilled crème du berry soup and duck confit salad with grilled peaches. And six of the Strip’s most acclaimed French chefs will battle one another in a late-night, Bastille Day-themed throwdown.
The monthly Back of the House Brawl held at Tommy Rocker’s, 4275 Dean Martin Drive, pits world-class chefs against one another with a mystery basket of ingredients and 30 minutes to create a dish to be judged by local food writers and critics.
Tonight’s battle, purposely set to coincide with Bastille Day, will feature duck.
“We’ve been planning this for five months,” said Steve Benjamin of L’Atelier, who will compete with fellow MGM Grand chefs Claude Le-Tohic of Joel Robuchon and Stephan Chevet of Shibuya. They will go head to head with Vincent Poussel of Aureole, Bruno Riou of Mix and Laurent Pillard of Fleur at Mandalay Bay.
“It started as a joke, but now we’re taking it very seriously,” Poussel said. “All of our families, girlfriends and wives are involved in it.”
The food trucks the chefs cook in roll on site at about 8 p.m. The chefs won’t show up until after they close their restaurants, at about 1 a.m.
Samples of the food will sell for $6, with half of the proceeds going to Three Square food bank. The food truck owners will keep the other half.
The winning team of chefs will take home a trophy made from a Pabst Blue Ribbon bucket and beer can.
"We're friends. But we're ready. Now it's on," Benjamin said. “Can you imagine being the loser? Every time you see the others, they’ll never let you forget about it.”
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