Elements Kitchen & Martini Bar

Oh, how I wish I lived in Spanish Trail.

And probably not for the reason you're thinking. Sure, it might be nice to rub elbows with the glitterati, to come home every evening to a McMansion, to be a fat cat instead of just fat. But my main motivation would be that it's just across the street from Elements Kitchen & Martini Bar.

Elements is the kind of place that seems to breed regulars. That was obvious from the moment we walked through the door to find a number of yacht-club types dining at the bar that runs along one side of the medium-sized dining room. That they were regulars was made clear when one of them, noticing our hesitation in finding a seat, realized we were Elements virgins and called out to a waitress.

She hurried over and led us to a table, offering water and returning to recite the specials. Then an assistant waiter came by and offered us water, and one of the owners came by and recited the specials, so that service thing turned around in a hurry.

As it turned out, there was a lot we liked about Elements, but one of the biggest factors was its flexibility. In keeping with the name, there's a huge list of martinis made with gin, vodka, rum and more, and an extensive list of wines by the glass -- 365 between the martinis and wine. Food is available as small plates, two or three of which can be put together to constitute a meal, and also as entree-size plates, soups and salads and daily specials, so you can pretty much go whichever direction you'd like. (In the meantime, we were pretty happy with the breads -- a hard-crusted white and a pesto-roasted garlic -- served in a wire basket from which was suspended cups of butter and an apple-mint chutney.) We were torn, but eventually settled on splitting a small plate for a starter -- that would be the goat-cheese plate ($7) -- and each ordering an entree.

I'm actually not real crazy about goat cheese unless there's a slightly sweet counterpoint to its aggressive gaminess, and there was in this dish, in the form of a blackberry vinaigrette. The cheese rested on a pile of mesclun with some strips in red pepper that had been roasted in-house, plus some sections of mandarin orange, so there were other just-sweet-enough touches as well, and the variety of textures and flavors was very successful.

The portabella ravioli ($18), on the other hand, was pretty much crack. Mama taught me not to pick up my plate and lick it, but trust me, I was tempted. The ravioli themselves were put together well enough, the woodland flavor and resilient texture of the mushrooms enfolded into delicate pillows. What made the dish so holy-moley-bring-me-more was the sauce, billed as a "mild masala curry" on the menu, infused with coconut milk. You know umami, the "new" taste sensation that we've been hearing about for a number of years but that defines definition except for its association with those foods whose flavor profile is positively ethereal? Yeah, this sauce was characterized by umami. A sort of conserve of raisins and diced Granny Smith apples brought it all back to earth, with just a touch of sweetness.

So after that, the flank steak ($21) is probably going to sound pretty tame, but actually it wasn't (although it was absent umami). What drew us to this dish was the promise of chef/co-owner Jose Luis' family-recipe chimichurri, and the mix of olive oil, parsley, garlic, lemon and red-pepper didn't disappoint. But what was equally impressive was the chef's ability to season and slice flank steak, one of the toughest cuts, so that it was, as Linda Richman would say, like buttah.

The hostess/co-owner (who also is the pastry chef) seemed downright disappointed when we ordered the Mount Etna lava cake ($8) for dessert, but we found it a very good rendition of the nearly ubiquitous dessert, the center oozing gently, the Chambord sauce the right bit of sweetness. We were happy, but to show us the error or our ways, she brought us a lagniappe of one of her creme brulees with housemade biscotti, and all I can say is, "Wow."

Anybody want to buy a house?

Las Vegas Review-Journal reviews are done anonymously at Review-Journal expense. Contact Heidi Knapp Rinella at 383-0474 or e-mail her at hrinella@ reviewjournal.com.