Kitchen Table offers a pleasant setting for alfresco dining
Alfresco dining is much on my mind these days because we’ve got the perfect weather for it — warm (but not too warm) sunshine during the day, gentle breezes in the evening.
The best sites for outdoor dining are, of course, those that have sweeping views of … well, just about anything particularly pleasant to look at, be it waterfront, expansive gardens, glittering lights or a rejuvenating forest. But Southern Nevada real-estate realities being what they are, those things tend to be in fairly short supply here. So enterprising restaurateurs make hay where they can, maybe with a walled-off area in an office park or a little patio off their restaurant where the “view” is of a parking lot.
Kitchen Table is one of those places that has managed to make the most of what it has. Inside it’s tiny, with maybe a dozen tables or so, and the outdoor dining area is about the same size. But the space, effectively walled off from the residential traffic passing by on Horizon Ridge Parkway and Valle Verde Drive in Henderson, has been furnished with comfortable outdoor tables and chairs and colorful cabanas and patio umbrellas — all of which carry a very slightly funky air — with stout, massive palm trees towering above.
And if the atmosphere’s just slightly funky, it’s only right that the menu is, too, in the way that translates to a pleasing level of creativity. Yes, the familiar things are there, the wraps and Croque Madames and Monte Cristos and the like, but when was the last time you saw a breakfast menu that offered not one but two foie gras dishes? Or enabled you to add foie gras to anything on the menu?
The Foie and Apple Skillet Cake ($19) tempted mightily, but, as I said just last week, I try to think of readers more than my own affinity for the offbeat, so the Shorty Benedict ($15) seemed a better choice. And indeed it was a wise one, a lightly toasted English muffin piled with tons of suitably (and characteristically) fork-tender chunks of short rib. They weren’t done there, of course, but you know how restaurant poached eggs tend to be sort of molded, or at least really uniform? These were just the opposite, almost artful piles of gently poached whites encasing lovely runny yolks, the whole topped with Bearnaise sauce just in case it wasn’t rich enough. With a couple of piles of skillfully fried potatoes, this was a very successful platter.
Granola-crusted french toast ($11) also isn’t something we’re likely to see on most breakfast menus, and this one even sounded a little healthy, what with the whole grains in the granola and everything. The menu said the bread was flavored with coffee, white chocolate and walnuts, but most of that was lost under the granola coating, and the healthful edge was pretty well dulled by the process of battering and frying and topping with creme Anglaise. At any rate, this one was a pleasing riot of textures — the resilient bread, crunchy granola and velvet creme Anglaise — and quite complementary flavors.
Service throughout was just fine, a cause no doubt furthered by management presence on the patio and the chef popping out now and then.
Not that it would’ve mattered all that much, because we certainly were enjoying ourselves on this pleasant morning. We’ll take alfresco opportunities where we can find them, and one of the better ones is found at Kitchen Table.
Las Vegas Review-Journal restaurant reviews are done anonymously at Review-Journal expense. Email Heidi Knapp Rinella at hrinella@reviewjournal.com. Find more of her stories at www.reviewjournal.com and follow @HKRinella on Twitter.
Kitchen Table, 1716 W. Horizon Ridge Parkway (at Valle Verde Drive), Henderson; 702-478-4782
The essence: Creative, offbeat breakfast and lunch food that’s particularly enjoyable in the al-fresco setting.
