THE BISTRO

Excellent linguine with clams in Boulder City. Who knew?

If not for a few helpful readers, I wouldn't have. It's not that I seldom get to Boulder City; it's just that when I do, I'm usually on a mission -- either headed to the town's art festival, taking out-of-town visitors to Hoover Dam or on my way to points south and east.

But even if I drove by daily, it's likely I'd overlook The Bistro. It's a small restaurant -- just 10 or so tables -- tucked away in a strip shopping center on the north end of town. And I'm very glad to have been tipped to it.

Make no mistake: No culinary ground is being broken at The Bistro; the user-friendly menu of steaks and Italian food didn't list anything that wasn't familiar. But magic is wrought in that cramped little open kitchen.

Which brings me back to the linguine with clams ($16), for which, given a choice of red or white sauce, we chose the former. The huge bowl of linguine was cooked al dente, the sauce spicy enough to qualify as fra diavolo. And oh, the clams! Tiny littlenecks, they were tender little morsels rich with the flavor of the sea, perfectly playing off the spicy sauce. The dish was served very hot, and the clams were so good that I found myself eagerly searching them out, burning my fingers on a few shells in the process. And still I dug, until the whole dozen had surfaced.

That speecy-spicy sauce was, as it happened, characteristic of our dinner at The Bistro; this clearly is a chef who's brave enough to use flavors that jump off the plate and poke you in the nose. That's not confined to spiciness, either; he's no one-trick pony. And so it was that an appetizer of mushrooms -- lots and lots of mushrooms -- ($8) was perked up with a very assertive garlic butter, and the lemon-butter-wine sauce on an appetizer of scallops ($11) was sufficiently lemony that we could taste it. Good scallops, too -- seared deftly, so that they were adequately crusted but soft, almost medium rare in the middle, and sweet and fresh and clearly the real thing, not cookie-cutter circles of skate or shark.

Nicely astringent sauce on our chicken Angelo ($18), with enough lemon and vinegar to bring out the flavor of the artichoke hearts but not overwhelm the mushrooms. This one had a starch option, and we were glad we chose the house specialty twice-baked potato, which was divine.

There was plenty of spiciness as well in the soup part of our soup-or-salad option -- it was even billed as spicy chicken, and boy was it ever. The Caesar salad was crisp and cool, with a creamy dressing and lots of shaved Parmesan. And the bread was a crisp-crusted Italian in ample measure, with a saucer of a sufficiently fruity olive oil with a dash of balsamic vinegar.

We liked the wine selection, too. No vintages on the printed list -- which is something that actually we don't like -- but there were quite a few additional wines listed on a board, with most of them downright interesting and at fair prices to boot. We ended up choosing a Charles Krug Cabernet Sauvignon ($34) from the printed list, which turned out to be a 2004 and turned out to be quite nice.

As was the tiramisu we had for dessert -- a classic preparation that was so addictive we kept eating it well past the point of being comfortable.

Our only quibble would be with the service, which was quick but not as polished as it could've been. When I asked our waiter if the clams were littlenecks, he said he didn't know, and I waited for him to offer to find out, since the kitchen was literally feet away. He then said that they were "about this big," which gave me enough information to make the leap, but he should've investigated.

Because the servers' performance ought to equal that of the kitchen, and that's a high bar at The Bistro. The level of Boulder City dining continues to increase with that of Las Vegas in general, and The Bistro is a big part of that.

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.