It's a grill, it's a smoker, it's a ... pizza oven!

The weeks topics include teaching an old grill new tricks, homemade pizza, a review of Bachi Burger in Las Vegas, and I flirt with culinary nirvana. 

Restaurant Review – Bachi Burger in Las Vegas.  I recently watched an episode of Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives where the host went to Bachi Burger in Las Vegas.  I thought “I’ll be there in a couple of weeks.  I should try it.”

First, the setting.  Bachi is a couple miles south of the Strip in a nondescript strip mall surrounded by residential neighborhoods.  Check out the strip mall.  There are thousands of these in Vegas, and none of them would likely strike your culinary fancy.  However, in my experience, some of the best food in Vegas is in strip malls. 

As I walk in, I notice the special board.  Check out the Shogun burger.  Wagyu beef, unagi, and foie gras in a burger?  Talk about decadent.  What kind of evil culinary genius comes up with something like that?! 

I walk in and there’s a 10 minute wait on a Monday night for just me.  This place is either really good or overhyped.  I look around and note a significant lack of tourists.  We’re well off the strip and a tourist would never find this place unless there were told to go here.  This is most definitely a locals place, and I like it! 

I start off my meal with some fries with parmesan reggiano, black truffle porcini cream, and sun dried tomato aioli, along with a 22 oz. bottle of Dogfish Head Pilsner.  Yes.  22 oz.  I know what you’re thinking and don’t judge.  I was thirsty. 

The fries were pretty good.  I expected awesome, but they weren’t.  Not cooked enough for my taste and I could barely taste the truffle in the cream.  However, the aioli was great.  Slightly tart from the sundries tomatoes, which paired nicely with the saltiness of the cheese on the fries. 

A side note.  Aioli is just a fancy word for mayonnaise with stuff mixed in.  Sometimes the mayonnaise is homemade.   Sometimes not.  Most people wouldn’t dip fries in mayo.  However, call it aioli and hell yes I’ll dip my fries in it!

Next came my burger, the Banh Mi burger.  Check out the food porn.  The patty is made of Angus beef, Duroc pork, and shrimp, all cooked in a nauc mam sauce and topped with grilled lemon grass, pork pate, and pickled vegetables.  This is not a burger that I would have even tried 10 or 15 years ago.  Thank god I’m not a picky eater anymore!

I threw everything into the bun so I could as the chef intended. 

The review?  In short, absolutely frickin awesome and the best burger I’ve ever had.  Ever. 

 

First, check out the bun.  Incredibly fresh and spongy.  You could serve anything on that bun and it would be good.  Second, the burger was cooked to absolute medium perfection, which is an art I have yet to master. 

However, what truly set this burger apart was that it was a complete dish.  Every element was supposed to be there.  The spongy bun, the crunch and tanginess of the pickled veggies, the slight heat of the pickled jalapeno, the curry aioli, and the slightly charred flavor of the burger all melded into a perfect bite.  I’ve had many burgers with various toppings. I’ve never had one with toppings that were so well chosen to accent each other.

 

It reminded me of a good bowl of noodles, where everything is there to accent other things in the dish.  The crunch of the sprouts accents the soft noodles, the hot of the peppers accents the saltiness of the sauce, and so on.  Everything is meant to be eaten together. 

Here’s what my plate looked like after the meal.

The best part?  The burger was $9!  This would cost $30 or more at a restaurant on the Strip, and it wouldn’t be as good. 

I have much to learn in the culinary arts…..

Go try this place.

What am I working on?  I recently made pulled pork for 80 people.  My smoker ran all day for that one, but that’s not what I’m here to write about.

I’m writing about pizza, and to be more precise, pizza cooked on the grill.

I know what you’re thinking.  “WF – you’ve finally and predictably gone off the edge.  You can’t cook pizza on a grill.  You need an oven, and preferable one with a pizza stone.”

Oh ye of little faith.  The grill is the perfect place to make pizza, and I’ll tell you how to do it.    

First, you need some dough.  You could cheat and buy some dough from the store and roll it out, but that would be, well, cheating.  However, if you’re in a pinch, so be it.  I suggest making it fresh or doing what I did.  Marry a baker who will make the dough for you.  Spread the dough as thinly as possible. 

Second, you need to figure out a sauce.  I whipped up a quick one with san marzano tomatoes, olive oil, garlic, fresh basil, a little salt, and a bit of dried oregano.  Another option, and one I love, is to thickly slice large tomatoes, put some salt and pepper and olive oil on them, and grill them a few minutes on each side.  Place those on a plate until the sauce it needed and they act as your sauce.  Just mush them a bit on the dough and voila!  Awesome pizza sauce.

Brush the top side of the dough with olive oil and gently place that side down onto a clean, hot grill.  Not “crazy I’m cooking steaks here” hot.  Just hot.  Say 350-400 degrees.  Brush the top side of the dough with olive oil and wait about 2-3 minutes, or until the underside shows grill marks and is starting to brown.

Flip it over.  It should look something like this.  Quickly put your sauce, cheese and all topping on, and close the lid of the grill.  Cook another 3-5 minutes, or until the underside is browned and the topping are, well, cooked. 

Check out the final product.  

Slice and enjoy outside with your favorite cold beer.  You’ve just made pizza without heating up the house.  Perfect on a summer evening. 

For extra credit, cook on a charcoal grill with real wood chunks to get that smoky flavor into the pizza.  Just be careful of the heat.

Happy cooking.

WF