Fountains + Cantonese = Start of Restaurant Week

This week starts the semi-annual Las Vegas restaurant week.  The first restaurant we went to was Jasmine in the Bellagio.  It's Cantonese cuisine.  Let me start off by saying the food was indeed good.  I'm saying this upfront because it didn't meet our expectations.  I don't know if that's because for a restaurant in the Bellagio Pat and I expected more and it just didn't quite live up to our expectations.

Now Jasmine has a FANTASTIC view of the Bellagio Fountains.  The restaurant basically sits out over the pond that the fountains go off in.   So when the fountains go off you get to watch from right behind the fountains.  I love the fountains at Bellagio and seeing them from this point of view was pretty cool and different.  As the water shot up you would get to see this wall of water out the windows and it was really cool.

Now onto the food.  Pat and I each got a cocktail to start.  They brought their cocktail menu out on an ipad.  It was pretty cool.  There were nice pictures and you could touch each drink and see a description and ingredient list.  Maybe a slight overkill of technology but still kinda neat.  Pat got a drink called the Kiss of the dragon.  It was an orange-y tasting drink which was supposed to be slightly spicy but it really wasn't that spicy.  I got a watermelon mojito.  It has a good watermelon flavor and was nice and sweet, which is how I like my drinks. 

For my first course I picked the prawns two ways.  There were four prawns, two with a walnut sauce and two with a wasabi sauce.  They were really good.  Pat got the baby spinach and clam soup.  It was good but very mild in flavor.

Pat chose the wok fried beef tenderloin for his main entree and I choose the pan fried Chilean sea bass.  Both came with egg fried rice.  The rice was somewhat disappointing.  It had egg in it but for fried rice being called egg fried rice I expected it to have more of an egg punch to it and it just didn't.  Pat's beef was good and my sea bass was also good.  The sea bass came with a medley of mushrooms, which again weren't bad but they just weren't as flavorful as I thought they would be. 

Dessert was quite the show.  It was a mango cream.  It had a consistency slightly thicker than a soup.  It had small dice of mangos inside it and a lemon sorbet on top.  It was probably the best part of the meal.  It also had a showstopper presentation.  The bowl was set on top of a larger bowl of dry ice so it was swirling with smoke as it arrived.  I actually managed to get a picture.

So unfortunately we wouldn't recommend Jasmine.  Not because it was bad.  There are just better places serving similar food on the strip.  I did write a blog about one of them...unfortunately it was one of the ones that got lost...so if you are on the strip and want some good Asian food we would recommend either Zine in the Venetian/Pallazzo or Rice and Company in the Luxor.  Both were very flavorful meals.  If on the other hand you are more interested in a cool view of the fountains and decent food then go to Jasmine.

Amarillo + Beef Brisket = Amazing BBQ

It's a good thing I don't live in Texas.  I don't think I would eat anything but BBQ beef brisket...every.single.day.  It's so delicious.  Two years ago my brother Joey got married in Texas and Pat and I were exposed to all sorts of Texas BBQ.  We did the Salt Lick and then Smities and Black's in Lockhart.

When Pat and I drove across the country to move him to Vegas we had our first taste of Tyler's BBQ.  When I moved out to Vegas I stopped there.  And two weeks ago on our trip across the country we stopped again.  This time we didn't even bother to order anything but a pound of brisket.  It's THAT good.  It just melts in your mouth.  It has a great smoke ring.

And Tyler's BBQ was recently named one of the top 50 BBQ Joints in Texas by Texas Monthly.  Tyler's has been open just around 3 years and is already an award winner.  Pat and I totally agree.  And if you happen to be driving across I-40 in TX it's easy to access from the highway. 

So go to Tyler's.  It's delicious.  But be sure to get there early because they make a certain amount of BBQ each day and when they sell out that's it.  All you will get is a brown paper bag tapped to the door saying sold out. 

Albuquerque + Sopapillas=New Mexican Mexican

Pat and I recently drove across the country from Las Vegas to PA.  On our way we stopped at some of our favorite restaurants along the way.  So the next couple blog entries will be about some of our favorite places on the drive.

The first place was El Pinto in Albuquerque, NM.  This was a restaurant that I first went to when I drove out last summer to Las Vegas.  I went there on the recommendation of the desk clerk at the hotel I was staying at.  So when Pat and I planned to visit the Petrified Forest in AZ we decided we would make that a shorter day(only 8/9 hours....I did say shorter) and stay in Albuquerque. 

So the hotel I stayed at my first trip out was really nice AND I thought I had remembered which one it was but I didn't.  Luckily I DID remember El Pinto.  One of the things I have learned driving across the country is that Mexican food is really different depending where you get it.  The Mexican we were used to in the East is different than the Mexican in NM, which are both different than the Mexican we get in Las Vegas.  One of the things I like the best about New Mexican Mexican is the sopapillas.  Sopapillas are these puffed pockets of dough.  I've had them before in the east but always as a dessert.  They've been served drenched in a caramel sauce with ice cream.  In New Mexico they aren't sweet.  They are served like bread is and most restaurants also have honey to put on them.  El Pinto has a local honey that is delicious.  The sopapillas and the green sauce at El Pinto are what I remembered the most after my first visit.

So Pat and I stopped together this time.  He admitted after I didn't remember which hotel I stayed in that he was skeptical I had remembered the correct Mexican place and was hoping it would stand up to the hype that I had given it.  I'm pleased to report it didn't disappoint.  It was just as good as I remembered.  Pat had the Carne Adovada plate.  It is pork marinated in red chili on top of a tortilla.  It was really good.  I had the stuffed sopapillas which were sopapillas stuffed with green chiles, chicken, and pinto beans and topped with lettuce tomatoes and cheese.  Both dishes were really good.

So if you are ever in Albuquerque you should stop by El Pinto.  It lives up to the hype and won't disappoint.  

Clam Chowder+ Caesar Salad=Lunch

In continuing our quest to discover good but affordable Vegas food Pat and I had lunch at the Oyster Bar in the Sunset Station Casino.  The Sunset Station is one of the off strip casinos.  We've been venturing around town exploring the various off strip casinos and signing up for their rewards cards so we know what special promotions they each have.  And we've found that many of them have deals on restaurants, especially the station casinos which try to cater to locals.

So we went to Sunset Station for our free "swipe and win entry", unfortunately we didn't win the million...oh well.  But we did try the Oyster Bar while we were there.  Before I talk about the food I want to take a second to talk about the ambiance.  The restaurant has an indoor water curtain...basically a veil of water cascading down and making a nice waterfall sound...surrounding the restaurant.  we picked a seat right next to the water.  Water and the sound of water is one of the main things I have missed the most since moving to Vegas, so the water sound albeit man-made was nice. 

Pat and I each got the lunch deal which was a bowl of clam chowder and a Caesar salad.  We each went for the New England clam chowder.  It was a very big bowl that was loaded with clams.  The Caesar salad was really good as well.  It wasn't overdressed and the croutons were really good.

Overall it was a good lunch and pretty filling and it was only $7 a piece.  A good bargain and a good lunch.  I definitely recommend it.

Steak+Martini=9.99 Dinner

So since Pat left his job we started to explore some of the "cheaper" side of Vegas for our date nights.  We had seen a steak and martini Monday advertisement at Casino MonteLago in Lake Las Vegas.  It was for $9.99.  That's right $9.99.  And my first thought was how good could a $9.99 steak and martini really be?  I mean come on $9.99...I know you are all thinking the same thing too.

Well...it was delicious!  It was a tender 6oz steak.  It was cooked perfectly medium rare.  It came with asparagus, which was roasted or sauteed or something, and mashed potatoes.  The asparagus was nutty and perfectly cooked and the mashed potatoes were super creamy and exactly how I like mashed potatoes.  And to top it off it came with a martini.  Pat got the martini and said it was very good.  I'm a I like to drink alcohol that doesn't taste like alcohol and was happy to hear I could get a glass of wine instead of the martini.  So I had a nice glass of moscato wine.  It was a very nice dinner.

And to top it off Casino MonteLago's July and August promotion for club members is to draw from the emergency fund.  So you pick an envelope and then get either free slot play, comps, or even cash.  Pat got free slot play and I got $5 off in the restaurant so technically my steak and martini was only $4.99. 

So the moral of the story is that $9.99 steak and martini CAN in fact be good and I encourage you to try it if you are out at Lake Las Vegas.

New Twist + Cosmopolitan = Date Night

It's been a while since I have blogged and I first off want to apologize.  It's been a couple whirlwind months and I got backlogged.  I tried to catch up while on a flight in May and I don't know what happened but the 5 entries I wrote got lost...so I decided to just start over.  So hopefully my new school year resolution will be to stay up to date with this blog.

A couple weeks ago Pat and I tried a new twist on Date Night.  I have recently been reading the blog A Cup of Jo.  In one of her entries she talks about meeting your husband someplace for a date rather than leaving the house together.  It was a good entry(read it here).  So Pat and I decided to give it a try.  I have been teaching an evening Calc class at the college and so we decided to meet on the strip for dinner after my class.  We got dressed separately and all so it was a total surprise what we would be wearing and all.  And it totally had that "like we were dating feeling" where you can't wait to see the other person and talk about your day.

We decided to try D.O.C.G enoteca an Italian restaurant by Scott Conant.  It's in the Cosmopolitan, which Pat and I have come to see as the chic, hip hotel.  We sometimes feel out of place in the hotel but they do have a plethora of good restaurants.  D.O.C.G. is fairly on the small side so we did find it more noisy.  It could also have been because we went to dinner more at the Vegas "prime time" of 9pm. 

We started off with a couple appetizers.  We had the Affettati Misti, which was a selection of Meats and Cheeses by the Chef.  It was good, but we would have liked a better explanation of what the meats and cheeses were, although must were good.  We also had the Beef Carpaccio.  Pat and I have a soft spot for beef carpaccio.  We had the best beef carpaccio ever at a restaurant called the Burgundy Room in Columbus, OH.  It closed a couple years ago and we haven't had a really good beef carpaccio since.  And unfortunately the beef carpaccio at D.O.C.G. didn't fill the void from the Burgundy Room.  The carpaccio lacked flavor.  The only bites that had any type of flavor at all was the bite that was loaded with the lemon aioli.  The beef, which should have been the star, was just lackluster.  And it was so thin that it was practically plastered to the plate.  We had to scrape the slices off of the plate.  Overall just not up to our standard of beef carpaccio.

Onto the main dishes.  I had a Pappardelle with a mushroom ragu.  The mushrooms were earthy and the pasta was cooked perfectly.  I'm a huge fan of pappardelle pasta and D.O.C.G. didn't disappoint.  Pat had the Cavatelli.  It was served in a sauce that had sausage and porcini mushrooms.  I tasted his dish and he definitely picked the better one.  It was a rich and hearty dish and it was delicious.  Our main dishes definitely made up for the poor carpaccio.

After having both an appetizer and a main dish I didn't think I would want dessert but the waiter tempted us with a dessert that was voted "best dessert on the strip" twice!  So of course how could you not bite?  I couldn't.  It was a salted caramel budino.  It was a creme brulee type custard that had a salted caramel sauce and whipped cream on top with a salted caramel pretzel bark.  Don't get me wrong it was good but I have a hard time thinking that it is the best dessert on the strip.  I guess maybe I'm a little bit of a dessert snob.  We haven't had many desserts on the strip so who knows. 

Overall we would recommend D.O.C.G., just skip the beef carpaccio.