Review: Todd’s Unique Dining

Vegas dining doesn’t get better than Todd’s Unique Dining, a charming little neighborhood restaurant under the stewardship of Todd Clore, who garnered a national name for himself before undertaking this solo venture. Clore, one may remember, is responsible for turning the mediocre brunch at Bally’s into a national sensation that garnered accolades from everything from Zagats to the Food Channel. He started his culinary career at age 15 as a busboy for a Mexican restaurant in Denver. Immediately, he fell in love with the business and by age 17, he was running the joint.

After graduating high school and then the prestigious Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, as sous chef Clore helped open Cliff Young’s, which shot to the top of Denver’s premier dining scene. Restless, he moved to Napa, then LA and Laguna, working, among others, for Mobil 5 star L’Orangerie as the only American in an otherwise all French staff and opening Pascal with Pascal Olhats. It was at Pascal’s that he began to accrue national attention. Gourmet magazine called him a chef to watch and our own Max Jacobson named Todd “the best seafood chef in Orange County.”

Todd’s Unique shows the influence of all of those culinary journeys (as well as the new Asian influence from his time at Roy Yamaguchi’s 385 North and the Chinese-French preparations that rubbed off from Michael Kang at Five Feet Too.) He specializes in intense flavors that are hard to dissect. We started with Malaysian BBQ Shrimp with cucumber salad and Johnny Cakes ($10) and Goats Cheese Wontons ($8). The giant shrimp were rubbed with a smoky, slightly tangy BBQ sauce that flared within your sinuses only to be doused by the vinegary cucumber and warm pancakes; the snappy wontons were filled with a creamy goat cheese adorned with a raspberry sauce seasoned with a breath of basil.

Grumpy’s Salad ($8), finely chopped iceberg lettuce, tomatoes and onions tossed with an aromatic bleu cheese is a must-have of an undisclosed family member, our waiter informed us. A stacked tomato mozzarella salad ($10) switches chive for olive oil and forgoes the fresh basil leaves for an unexpectedly light twist to an old Italian favorite.

Todd’s fall-from-the-bone braised boneless short ribs ($26) are one of the restaurant’s signature dishes, with deep earthy flavors of wine and herbs infusing the meat that is complemented by zesty jalapeno mashed potatoes and sweet caramelized onions. After such all-encompassing flavors, I expected the seared ahi tuna ($26) to pale beside the short ribs. Instead, if the beef is earth, the ahi is deep blue summer sky – far from pallid, yet clear and pierced with a shaft of wasabi sunlight. The meal was paired with an Australian wine suggested by the staff, assuring us that Todd’s wine cellar is intimate, but select and inventive.

Todd’s Unique Dining

4350 E. Sunset Road, Henderson

702-259-8633

Image courtesy of Alan Goya.

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