Bouchon in Las Vegas

I had wanted to do a post about the wonderful time that my dearly beloved and I had at Bouchon restaurant in Las Vegas. I was feeling lazy and hadn't yet posted when I received this email from my reason for living. She did such a great job, that I decided just to post it.

Ix--
Just reminding you about a few details from Vegas, you know, for the Blog. Be sure to tell them about the table, that it was big enough for six with a curving banquette and overlooked the Italian garden. (this is just the Bouchon meal at the Venetian, the rest isn't important) And the waiter spells his name Krxstv. Such a nice boy. 6 months away from his Master's in engineering when he gave it up and moved to the desert to become a happy career waiter. He endeared himself when he kept a straight face when we didn't order booze or wine. Do you remember what town in Poland he was from? I should know that.
Not that you forgot, but the first dish (after the gorgeous bread and little jar of pistachios) was the homemade gravlax, salmon cured in lemon juice and honey for 36 hours. Lemon confit, cranberry pain perdu (savory bread pudding) and salmon skin cracklings. Finished with a whisper of rosemary oil, nothing like the Enoteca San Marcos meal--- but I digress. I'm only discussing Bouchon here.
Kristof (to spell it phonetically) really hooked us up with the second course, the salmon rillettes. I told you, this should be subtitled the Salmon Diaries. Or you can make a Salman Rushdie pun, I won't, I'm on strike. A 2 /1 ratio of fresh to smoked salmon, poached in Pernod with egg yolk, shallots and creme fraiche, then covered with clarified butter and sealed in a mason jar. The under-waiter scooped the butter off in one elegant swoop and we got the jar with those marvellous toasts, which must have been a skinny baguette sliced in half-inch increments then toasted on a grill and brushed with butter. Kristof brought us that extra little tower of toasts that no one else in sight got. A lovely boy, did I say that yet?
My truite aux amandes, your leg of lamb. Yours was roasted, then served with a sous vide fennel bulb, butternut squash puree (also sous vide) and french prunes poached in Pernod. The sauce was made from the lamb drippings.
But the dessert... If you post anything, you must tell them how Kristof wouldn't let us see the dessert menu. He was disappointed when I refused chocolate, but your little bitter chocolate bouchons with valrhona sauce and vanilla bean ice cream did you just fine. (And I don't think he would've been embarassed that you had a chunk of vanilla bean still in your ice cream, you should've let me say something) And my pot de creme was better than your chocolate. Egg nog infused, and those little cookies that were crispy to the tooth then disappeared in an effusion of butter and spice. Even the espresso was exquisite, no grounds at all and a perfect crema on top.
When you post, be sure to get in the details, like the flaming gas lamps over the brocade carpet and Italianate molding and 17th century-esque wallpaper in the hall we walked through to get to the restaurant. The deliciousness is in the details.
Flo