Really good food at Eat attracting loyal crowd

The name is kind of ill-conceived in another way. Officially, it’s “eat,” which looks great on menus and signs, not so much when it’s part of a story, whether in a newspaper or online. For the purposes of this review, we’ll call it Eat.

So here’s the thing: Don’t try Googling it. Don’t worry about whether it’s eat or Eat. But go there. And eat. At Eat.

Eat is one of the latest additions to the steadily revitalizing Fremont East district. It’s the most removed from Fremont Street, a block south at Seventh Street and Carson Avenue, but I suspect the district will eventually spread out to reach it.

In the meantime, Eat is attracting a loyal crowd for one simple reason: The food is really good.

Take, for example, the DWBLTA ($11), one of the best sandwiches I’ve had in a long time. It’s thick-cut smoked bacon, piled on toasted sourdough along with lettuce, tomato, avocado and chipotle mayo, and it’s a spinning-color carnival of flavor and textures.

Take, also, the roast beef sandwich ($13), which is served on a ciabatta roll along with blue cheese, sauteed mushrooms, pickled red onions and arugula. So you have the earthiness of the beef and the mushrooms, the tang of the cheese, the sweet-sour sublimity of the onions and the bitter austerity of the arugula, all piled high on a roll that’s equal to the task of containing it all, without overwhelming.

The sandwiches are generous, but they also come with a side of house-made chips or potato salad and “a really good pickle.” Yes, the pickle is indeed really good ­- a big spear, cold and crisp, with the brightness of garlic and mustard seed ­- but so are the chips, which are slightly thick and very crunchy. The potato salad was a somewhat offbeat version, with some of the potatoes melted into the creamy dressing to provide a heavier-than-usual background for the chunks of potato.

The salads sounded interesting, but so did the green chile chicken posole ($5), a departure from the classic with its chicken and its chunks of potato, plus de rigueur touches like lots of hominy and a jot of heat. Lots of cilantro, too, for a sprightly accent.

Service throughout was efficient and pleasant. The place itself is fairly streamlined, but care shows in lots of little touches, like the open-cage lights with the filament bulbs, and the orange slice and mint in the passionfruit iced tea.

Which is not to say that Eat is perfect. The chipotle mayo on one sandwich was so lightly applied as to be nearly indistinguishable, and the roast beef in the other had an oddly springy texture.

But those are quibbles. My advice is to eat at Eat.

Oh, and here’s the website, so you don’t get lost in Google hell: http://eatdowntownlv.com/.

Contact reporter Heidi Knapp Rinella at hrinella@ reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0474.