Roma Deli + the Rwandan Genocide (Book Review)
Last night, the Las Vegas Non-Fiction Book Group met at Roma Deli to discuss the book We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda.
Although I live just down the street from the Roma Deli, I’d never previously been there. This casual restaurant/deli/small Italian grocery store lies in a non-descript strip mall near Spring Mountain & Jones. I had probably driven past it over 100 times, but had not taken notice until the book group decided to meet there. I am glad that they did.
The restaurant serves up both standard and unique pasta dishes and several dozen Italian specialties with a Sicilian flair. Their extensive wine list includes around 50 Italian wines and a handful of American ones, ranging in price from $20 to $599 per bottle. I chose a glass of the Ruffiano Chianti, which I thought was well-priced at $8 per glass.
For my main dish, I decided on the Linguine alle Vongole — pasta served with about a dozen fresh clams and tossed in a red sauce. It must have been delicious because I ate every bite of it. The dessert and coffee menu looked great too — especially the chocolate fudgecake — but I decided not to indulge.
The staff were friendly and the service efficient. It took only about 15 minutes to receive our food from the time we ordered. I would definitely come back here again, but maybe next time for lunch. The lunch menu is distinctly different from the dinner menu — with a focus on sandwiches, salads and soups — although there didn’t seem to be too many vegetarian options.
During dinner we discussed Philip Gourevitch’s award-winning 1998 book We Wish to Inform Your That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda.
This book about the 1994 Rwanda genocide gets its name from a letter that seven Tutsi pastors sent to a Hutu colleague, Pastor Ntakirutimana, in the midst of the ethnic killings. In this formal letter, the pastors continue (page 42):
We therefore request you to intervene on our behalf…We believe that, with the help of God who entrusted you the leadership of this flock, which is going to be destroyed, your intervention will be highly appreciated, the same way as the Jews were saved by Esther.
Instead of intervening, Pastor Ntakirutimana fled to Zaire and then to the United States, and the seven Tutsi pastors were killed.
From the opening of the book, I learned that the true meaning of the word decimation is “the killing of every tenth person in a population,” which is exactly what happened over a 100 day period in Rwanda in 1994. While the rate of killing was three times that of Jewish killed during the Holocaust and “the most efficient mass killing since the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki” (page 3), the leaders of the world largely remained silent and inactive during this time. In his book, Gourevitch sought to find out why.
The author interviewed some pretty powerful people throughout the course of his research: Paul Rusesabagina (whose heroics were made famous in the movie Hotel Rwanda), Ugandan President Yoweri Musevani and General Paul Kagame, who has gone on to become the current President of Rwanda. This book was clearly well-researched, however sometimes the amount of data and historical background is a bit overwhelming. While the subject matter is important, it is hard to digest.
Claire, who heads our book group, also recently read and recommended Paul Rusesabagina’s autobiography An Ordinary Man. It’s over 100 pages shorter than Philip Gourevitch’s book, and if you’re looking for a first person account from a survivor of the genocide, it may be worth a read.
India Palace
I love Indian food, but as my husband doesn’t much care for it, I don’t get to eat it too often. Fortunately for me, the non-fiction book club of which I am a member chose India Palace as the venue for our discussion of Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity.
Since I reviewed the book last month I won’t duplicate my reflections here, but I do want to share a short review on the restaurant.
The menu is both extensive and impressive. You will find a dozen different kinds of Indian breads, Tandoori specialties from North India, nearly 20 vegetarian options, chicken, lamb and goat options. There’s also South Indian specialties such as sambar, dosa and uthappam that are not commonly found on the menus of your standard Indian restaurant. All menu items are served a la carte with main dishes ranging from $12.95 to $19.95. Extras such as naan bread, plain basmati rice, raita and chutney may be added for under $5 each.
What I was most impressed about is that the restaurant can cater to both Halaal and Jain diets as well, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen Jain options on a restaurant in the United States before. Next time, I’ll have to inquire what that menu entails.
As a starter, we were served roti flatbread with 3 different chutneys. The green was mild, the red spicy and the brown sweet. My favorite “dipping sauce” involves combining the green and red chutneys.
If you visit India Palace for dinner, I highly recommend the fixed price dinner specials, as they are a good value and you get to sample a range of dishes. The vegetarian special will run you $19.95 and the Tandoori chicken, rack of lamb and mixed curry dinners will run you $25.95. If you come here for lunch, the buffet is an excellent value at $10.99.
For my dinner, I chose the vegetarian dinner special, which included dal soup, saag paneer (creamy spinach with homemade cheese), navratan korma (mixed veggies with cashews and almonds in a cream sauce), dal makhani (a lentil dish), raita (a cucumber-yogurt accompaniment), garlic naan, basmati rice and mango custard. My favorite dishes were the saag paneer and mango custard. It was an abundance of food, and I definitely have enough leftovers for at least another meal.
On a Monday evening in June the restaurant was half-full to two-thirds full of people the entirety of the 2.5 hours we were there. While clientele appeared to largely be people of Indian descent, there were a fair number of other tourists and locals earlier in the evening. You most likely will not need a reservation unless you are a party over 6. Also, given the location of the restaurant, it is just a short taxi ride from the Las Vegas Strip (and much cheaper than the restaurants you will find in most Strip hotels). And it is within walking distance of many hotels on Paradise Road.
The restaurant also offers a selection of wine and domestic and Indian beers. A 1-liter bottle of Kingfisher lager will run you $8.95. Unfortunately their full list of beer and wine with prices is not published on their menu, and had I known the price of the Kingfisher I would have probably opted against it.
Posted in Las Vegas, Restaurant Reviews
Tagged Indian food, Las Vegas, Las Vegas restaurant reviews, restaurant reviews
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Blues, Brews & BBQ Festival
My dad and I have an annual Father’s Day tradition of attending the Blues, Brews & BBQ Festival at the Cannery Casino. Usually it’s held on Father’s Day weekend, but this year it was a week later. Here’s a photo of me and my dad — who taught me to appreciate good microwbrews and opera, among other things
I was excited for this to be the first outing for my new DSLR camera, but when we got to the event there was a big sign indicating “no digital cameras.” All of the photos in this blog post were taken by my mom with her iphone, except for the marquis photo above.
As we’re veterans at the event, we knew to arrive early to get a table in the shade. We also wanted to be close to Ironing Board Sam, a 72-year-old keyboardist/vocalist who sets up his keyboard on top of an ironing board. He is the “between acts” performer, but for my family, was really the highlight of the event. For yesterday’s performance, he wore a gold lamé jumpsuit.
There were three acts on the main stage: (1) Sputzy & the Soul Providers — a cover band from Pittsburgh; (2) John Lee Hooker Jr. — a Grammy-nominated blues band; and (3) The Official Blues Brothers Revue. The latter performers really did look like Jake and Ellwood from the 1980 movie and they put on a lively show.
On the “brews” side of things, they had over a dozen different microbreweries and craft-breweries to choose from. I had two pints: Uinta Brewing Company’s Organic Sum’r Ale and a Shock Top Belgian White. Both were tasty, although I was a bit disappointed to learn that Shock Top is owned by Annheuser-Busch, since I generally like to support smaller brands.
For dinner there were three different barbecue restaurants to choose from: H&H Barbeque, Austin Blues Bar-B-Q and Lone Coyote Smokehouse & Grill. Since the latter two only had beef and pork on their menus, I chose H&H Barbeque, well worth the 40 minute wait. My combo meal included two pieces of barbecue chicken, macaroni and cheese and potato salad. The potato salad was the best part.
Admission to the event was very reasonable at $5 per person, considering you get to hear live music for 5 hours. Beers were $4 for a pint or $2 for a 7-ounce cup, and a barbecue combo dinner was $10 (sandwiches were around $5). It’s a pretty good value overall, but if you attend in future years be sure to bring cash, as I don’t think credit cards were accepted by any of the vendors.
My only two demerits for the event were: (1) The Cannery Casino doesn’t have a recycling program. I cringed a bit upon seeing all of those glass beer bottles and plastic pint cups in the trash can. (2) The venue was really smoky. But since Las Vegas has some of the most lax smoking regulations among major US cities, it’s pretty hard to find a non-smoking event associated with any casino.
And if you live in the Las Vegas area and love blues music, next weekend is the first installment in the Music on the Mountain summer concert series at Lee Canyon, Mount Charleston. I hope they allow DSLR cameras, because that is a picturesque setting.
Posted in Las Vegas
Tagged barbeque, beer, blues, concert reviews, concerts, festivals, Las Vegas, live music, microwbrews
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McCarthy’s Bar + Singapore Noodles
In September, the Destinations Book and Dinner Club of which I am a part is scheduled to discuss Pete McCarthy’s memoir McCarthy’s Bar: A Journey of Discovery in the West of Ireland while enjoying a meal at a local Irish pub. As I am going on a week-long “field trip” to Ireland next March with this same book group, I am a bit bummed to miss this book dinner, but I’ll be in Mexico then. However, as I am anxious for our Ireland trip too, I still read the book.
This was a great, light-hearted read for me, as I’ve recently finished books on the Rwanda genocide and life in the Mumbai slums, and I’ll soon begin my grandiose summer reading challenge. It was about time I lighten up a bit.
McCarthy’s Bar is the story of a middle-aged Englishman with half-Irish ancestry, and his travels through Ireland while searching for a sense of place. A humorous writer, McCarthy has a host of travel rules such as: “Never Pass a Bar That Has Your Name On It”; “Never Eat in a Restaurant with Laminated Menus”; and “Never Try and Score Dope From Hassidic Jews While Under the Impression They’re Rastafarians” (page 3).
In this memoir, McCarthy travels to off-the-beaten path places such as the birthplace of Michael Collins and ancient Celtic stone rings surrounded by electric fences, and he even goes on a pilgrimage to St. Patrick’s Purgatory.
Singapore Noodles plays a prominent role in the book, as McCarthy states early on “the best gauge as to whether or not a country is expensive is the price of food in its Chinese restaurant. A complex calculation based on the cost of a plate of Singapore noodles will tell you the current rate of economic growth” (page 14). Singapore Noodles make random appearances throughout the remainder of the book, including as McCarthy’s final meal before the above-mentioned pilgrimage.
This recipe will always hold a special place in my heart because: (1) It is the first recipe shot with my brand new camera, which arrived yesterday; and (2) It is possibly the first complex recipe I’ve developed based on concept alone (and the recollection of feasting on Singapore Noodles in Christmas’ past). Yes, I am a giant nerd and get much of the inspiration for my recipes from Wikipedia.
I am still figuring out how to use my first-ever SLR camera, but here it goes…
Ingredients:
1 Tbsp. oil (I used canola oil, but peanut oil would also be good)
14-oz dried vermicelli rice noodles (I used Thai Kitchen’s Stir-Fry Rice Noodles)
2 cups bean sprouts
2 cups Napa cabbage, chopped or shredded
1/2 cup green onions, thinly sliced
1/2 cup carrots, slivered (I used a vegetable peeler)
1/2 cup peanuts
1 tsp. curry powder
1 Tbsp. soy sauce or Tamari
1 Tbsp. sesame oil
1 or 2 jalapenos, thinly sliced (depending on your preferred level of spice)
2 tsp. – 1 Tbsp. red pepper flakes (depending on your preferred level of spice)
To begin, you’ll need to par-bake the vermicelli noodles. Bring a large saucepan of water to a boil. Remove from heat and set aside. Add dried noodles to saucepan and soak for 10 minutes. Drain. While preparing the noodles, you can do all of the prep work for the vegetables.
The key to a good stir-fry dish (as I learned in a recent cooking class) is to know which order to add the ingredients and how long to cook each. To organize things, I like to place each set of ingredients in a row according to the order they should be added. For this dish, the order is: (1) jalapenos; (2) cabbage, carrots, curry powder and red pepper flakes; (3) vermicelli noodles, soy sauce and sesame oil; and (4) peanuts, bean sprouts and green onions.
In a large skillet or wok, set the stove top to medium-high heat and add the oil. Separately add each of the 4 sets of above-specified ingredients, allowing each set to cook for about 45 seconds while continuously tossing with a spoon. The dish will be done in less than 5 minutes. It really happens that fast, which is why all of the prep work is essential.
To commemorate the occasion, I enjoyed this dish with a cold Irish beer. Our final verdict on this dish was that it tasted above-average, but not awesome. If preparing on your own, one might experiment with adding tofu, chicken, beef or pork.
Becky A. Johnson 