Day 3 of Las Vegas

Day 3 was the 11th of July.  This was a Friday and the Strip was full of tourists, taxis and people who don't know to press the gas when the light is green.

So we wander through the Venetian and the Canal Shops, we find a quick little spot to get lunch called something Torretta or something like that.  My phone took some blurry photos and I forget what it was now.  What a horrible restaurant writer I am, right?

They had a real simple lunch special and so I get a simple pizza Neapolitan and am happy with how it comes out to me.

The pizza crust was perfectly tasting and crisp and crunchy and not too much and not burnt.  It was perfect.  There was just the right amount of cheese, the sauce had flavors and spices so that it tasted of something other than tomatoes and the shreds of basil on top added that bit of herbyness required to keep everything balanced in this dish.  I'd give it a 3 out of 5 stars.

We were going to a show that evening, so we needed to go somewhere and try something new.  On our honeymoon, also in Las Vegas, we ate at the buffet at the Paris Paris.  This night, we went for dinner at the Grand Buffet at the Bellagio. (https://www.bellagio.com/restaurants/the-buffet.aspx)   What follows is a large assortment of almost every dish I ate at the Buffet:

Starting at the 12 o'clock position and going around, we have herbed potatoes, some cilantro rice under that, chicken curry, a dinner roll, some pork belly, a whole wheat dinner roll, some pesto mashed potatoes and some curried cauliflower.

Same as above, starting at 12 o'clock and moving around: panchetta, salami, pasta with vegetable sauce, a sesame dinner roll, some wagyu beef, some regular mashed potatoes with gravy and a slice of beef wellington with sauce.

 
I understand that it is not a great picture, but this was one of my wife's plates.  She got some tuna salad, some sushi pieces, a spicy tuna hand roll, some caviar and other things.

I didn't eat much because I knew there was a huge bar of deserts.  We have a pecan pie tart, a chocolate tart, a chocolate truffle tart, a strawberry thing, a lemon thing, a tiny key lime pie, a coconut macaroon and a strawberry cake cookie thing in the middle.

   I forget what these were, some lemon tart a tiramisu thing and something else.

There is a fruit tart, a chocolate brownie, a chocolate mousse thing, a flan, and a creme brule'.

All of the food was okay, much better quality that Old Country Buffet and much tastier and better looking.  I didn't leave hungry, but we both felt that the combined cost of the two of us, almost $90 was a bit much for any buffet.  I'd give the entire buffet, as a whole, a 3 out of 5 stars.

When we had finished and later that evening as we waited for our show, we went to this great little lakeside bar they had called Parasol Down, at the Wynn. (http://www.wynnlasvegas.com/Restaurants/BarLounges/ParasolDown)   They only served cocktails and it was outside this huge wall of glass windows, facing a waterfall and a pool with color changing lights around and dancing it in.  We thought we had a perfect spot, with view of the waterfall, and a server that came quickly over to us.

The first problem we had here is that there was one server.  My wife ordered a drink and I decided to not order one.  The server then tells us that there is a one drink minimum per customer.  This seemed like a big thing as most people won't go someplace if they are required to get a drink, and water didn't count.  So, I fall back and order a sugar free red bull.  So, it is 8:00 when we get a seat and we have a show, also at the Wynn at 9:00.  So, we think that there should be no problem getting our drink, relaxing and then going upstairs to our show, right?  Well, there was a problem.  The only way I can think of as an explanation, is that a black hole had suddenly manifested itself next to the bar and sucked in all of the bartenders for about 30 minutes.  We waited out there, for 30 minutes before our server came back to us and told us that are drinks were on the way and their bar got backed up.  Well, as we saw later as we left, there were 4 bartenders.  So, somehow, in an empty bar, 4 bartenders got backed up...

We finally get our drinks at 8:40.  We complain at the server telling her that we have a show in 20 minutes and we have to leave.  She suggests taking our drinks back and placing them into to-go cups.  So, my wife ordered a $16 cocktail only to have it for her to enjoy in a plastic cup, thanks to some slow people.  We get the bill then:

Her drink was $16, my red bull now also in a plastic cup, was $6.  We spent as much money as we could have at a restaurant eating food brought to our table on time, on two late drinks from a server blaming her problems on the 4 (four) bartenders.  We paid and left and this was the worst.  We are chugging down our drinks as we walk to our show.  Had we not been in a rush, we would have asked for a manager and wanted our money back.  Worst bar ever.  Don't go there.

With the show and things, this turned out to be a great night.

Basso always amazes

Late last month, I took my wife to Basso, on her birthday, for lunch.  I know, lunch sounds so taboo considering that most restaurants only open around 4 or 4:30 and even so, only open for dinner and after-hours.  But, as I said, I went there for lunch.  They do serve a lunch and on a weekend when it is cold outside and you want to go someplace nice and warm and have great food...then go to Basso.

I want to warn you though, Basso may just be my favorite restaurant in St. Louis.  The prices are very reasonable, the service is excellent, the atmosphere is warm and comforting while still young and hip, the chef is amazing and everything is going for this place.  So, this review and write-up may seem a little biased.

First off, we ordered a Basso salad, the Mafalda (which doesn't look like it is available on the lunch menu anymore), a cauliflower soup and pizza, that they had split in half where one side had shrimp and the other side had poblano peppers and sausage.

Everything was delicious.  Period.

Why are you still reading this?  Basso is awesome.  They get my best of Tasty Magazine for 2013, for Best Restaurant.  Go there, eat there and you will love it.  Tell them I sent you, why not!  It is so cool, they even have valet parking.  Come'on, take the wife there before you finish your Christmas shopping.  Stop there, then go to the Galleria.  It is a win-win situation.  

http://www.basso-stl.com/

Address: 7036 Clayton Ave, St Louis, MO 63117

Phone:(314) 932-7820

Back to Basso

There are a few places that I love in St. Louis.  These places have a perfect combination of food, service and atmosphere.  With so many things changing in this city, St. Louis still has an issue deciding whether it wants to do things on its own or try to follow in the footsteps of East or West Coast big name cities.  Night clubs on Washington Avenue tend to try to play the music and make the feeling of New York or LA clubs but fail in doing so.  Just because it works there doesn't mean it will work here.  In the same token, I have seen restaurants with ideas which may work well in California try and fail here in the Mid West.  What has to be done for a successful restaurant here, is to work with the culture and foods that are present here. Don't try to make a bar as good as those in Las Vegas, don't try to have great food like that of New York and don't try to have impeccable service like Beirut.  What you should do, is make something unique and St. Louis.

Enter Chef Patrick Connolly, who is not only "like us" and from St. Louis, but he learned and worked and cooked and moved East where he became big, famous and earned a James Beard Award.  Then after working in more restaurants and earning more praise he came back and worked here.  Now, while all of this may sound humble and modest, let's be honest: the man comes up with some great food ideas. Basso tries to use everything seasonal and locally farmed or raised.  If Missouri beef is good enough for the high priced steak houses in Las Vegas, I'd say that it is good enough for the nice gastro-pubs here.  As I stated earlier, Basso does everything with a nod and twist of Italian flare.  While it may not seem as authentic and on the nose as other fine Italian eateries in the area, you can see the spark and the enjoy the flavors that bring just about every dish back to Italy.  

Now, the last time we had eaten at Basso, was late February and my wife and I enjoyed everything about it.  This time, we had brought two more people and they had not known that this place was here, but were ready for adventure.  The cool thing with Basso, is that they serve "Family style" and this means that you order some plates and share some plates.  This doesn't mean that there is too much food though, it is a nice and romantic enough place that a couple could order 4 plates and be full and happy without having extras.

Also, as Chef Robert Irvine or the guys behind Mystery Diners or Restaurant Stakeout know, a restaurant still counts on the service and even here at Basso, Blaise has done an awesome job as Service Manager as everything in the front of the house is run perfect.  No one waits too long for anything, the waiters and bussers are friendly and talkative.  They also know about the things on the menu and ave their favorites as well.  They don't try to sell or push things that are expensive and like to actually ask and please you, while there. So, even though I want to say and talk about the food, let me be clear that the service is perfect.   

We had ordered several things and saw that first of all, from our awesome dining location: at the kitchen bar, the menu had changed since the last time we had been there.  It is a clear sign that a menu is based on accessible items and seasonal ingredients, when you notice that the menu items change from time to time.  With just a few things still on the menu from last time, we went ahead and ordered a bunch of new things to try.

The first thing we had ordered was the Caprese Salad.  The Salad was tomatoes, basil and some cheese in the middle.  It had a nice vinegar and oil dressing and tasted fresh, clean and savory.  It wasn't too sweet from the tomatoes and it wasn't too savory from the pepper and basil.  I'd give it a 3 out of 5.

Then we got the baked lamb meatballs, which had these little meatballs, in a cast-iron skillet, with sauce, crumbled cheese on top and these balls of polenta.  The meatballs were moist and delicious and sprinkled with fresh oregano.  The polenta was perfectly cooked and great in the sauce.  The sauce was not too sweet and worked just well.  I'd say a good 4 out of 5.

So then we order the potato gnocchi which was potato gnocchi and some roasted mushrooms, tarragon, pecorino and all served in what tasted like a white wine reduction.  It was delicious and furthermore was so good that if I had stopped in for lunch, in the future, I'd get this for myself, for my meal.  So, good and so ....good.  I'd throw 4 stars at them right now.

For a pizza, we ordered the Ramper's Delight, which had ramp greens, fennel, fontina, prosciutto and some lemon.  The pizza was quite awesome.  All pizzas are cooked in their wood fire oven and unlike other places that claim to have a wood fire oven, to the back wall, next to the kitchen is a huge wall of chopped wood, which fuels the fire!  The pizza gave you the smokey flavor from the wood, the crispy-ness from the crust, and the wonderful play of the lemon sauce drizzled over the pieces of greens, fennel and meat.  It was very nice and very good.  Last time we had the Donald pizza, and this one was way better.  I'd say another 4 out of 5 on this one.

Now, for desserts: we had ordered the cookies, which were six yummy cookies.  The tiramisu, was plated in a small 8 ounce mason jar and was inhaled by the two women sitting at the bar with me. The lemon cheesecake, was also a big winner.  All good enough to get at 3 out of 5.

 So, what are my final thoughts?

If you are looking for a great lunch, go here and get a great pizza.
If you are looking for a nice and romantic night out, go here and get the kitchen bar area.
If you are looking for a place with good drinks and great food to watch the Blues, come to the bar in the center of the restaurant.
If the prices were less, so I could afford it,  I would bring my wife there every weekend.
The food is great, having been there now 2 times having had over 10 items from their menu, there has not been a bad one yet.  The service is perfect, everyone is friendly and you are likely going to get a big thank you when you leave.  Go here now!

Iron Chef America (duh, duh, duhhhhhhh)

I admit it, I am a fan of the show, even though it isn't the same as the original and is way too easy now.  By easy I mean that instead of the chefs having no idea what the secret ingredient could be they have to think for anything and instead of making one dish of each kind in that hour time, they have to make enough dishes for each judge at that time.  It takes a lot more time to make 20 plates of food than to make 5 plates of food.  Also, they reveal that on Iron Chef America, the chefs are told that there are three possibilities for what the secret ingredient could be, so they prepare for all three.  I remember the old show having no clue as to what it could be.  I think one time the secret ingredient was cheese and one time it is wine and it was difficult.  I also hoped that Iron Chef America would have foods that are more native to the country.  But anyway, I could go off all day complaining about the show, even though I do watch it.

What I also watched was The Next Iron Chef: Redemption, where they took everyone who didn't make it to one of the Next Iron Chef shows and asked them to compete again for the prize of being the next Iron Chef.  The show was interesting as they had a theme for each episode and tried to make dishes tied to that theme, like invention or inspiration.  Anyhow, you start with a load of really good chefs and then weed it down to the chefs that will make good TV.  What you had was 10 really good chefs, all celebrity chefs, all owners of multiple restaurants and all probably doing well; financially.  Then you say, "hey, win this and you will have some extra work to do but will gain fame and some bonus bucks."  Then you have a "Top Chef" knock-off called the Next Iron Chef, where chefs can compete to be an Iron Chef.  Again, my main issue with this is: if you have 10 Iron Chefs, and you can find new ones every year, then the chefs really are not that good.  In the original series show, you had 4 chefs who beat everyone.  They didn't get a new chef each year, they stuck with these and they beat everyone.  Look it up: there are now 10 Iron Chefs for Iron Chef America.  That is a lot of chefs.  I guess at this point, in order to keep the franchise going, they will get a new chef every year forever.

So, Alex Guarnaschelli wins to the dismay of a lot of people and takes the mantle as Iron Chef.  Her first battle, is mortadella.  http://blog.foodnetwork.com/fn-dish/2012/12/chef-guarnaschellis-first-iron-chef-america-showdown/   

Mortadella is a sausage, made from pork, with huge cubes of pork fat.  It is like a fatty bologna and has Italian origin.   The sausage was basically used by the ancient Romans, which indicates that it is an old recipe.  That picture is not of small people either.  The sausage links are huge.  I know this because on Friday, we went to a Schnucks and purchased some slices to make sandwiches.

Yes, this is real and not a fake ruler.  This is a slice of Mortadella, with pistachios, that is about 7 & 1/2 inches in diameter.  It is huge.  I was able to tear off a quarter and tried to fry it in a pan and treat it like a better bologna.

What you have here, is something that tastes like the best bologna, but with huge pieces of pork fat.  In this case, the fat squares that were white originally, had cooked and turned clear.   Then the sides and the fat started to render further and get crispy.  What finished was something that tastes like fried bologna with a slice of bacon on it.  I forget how much it was, for the quarter pound that we picked up, but so far, this is definitely worth it.  I recommend looking for this and eating this and buying this, if you can find it.

Audience Particpation Needed

My wife thought of doing something fun, you, the reader, get to participate in a fun game.  I describe my experience and you get to give your own thoughts and review this restaurant.  Are you ready?  Here we go.

So, we went to a regular restaurant in Columbia.  Jonny's Pizza has been open since May of 2011.  We haven't been there yet as it seems to always be closed on Mondays and closed at most times when we have free time.  We finally got in and after waiting a few minutes for a booth to be cleared, my wife and two kids had a spot. 

This is the inside of this pizza place?  Bland walls, white trim, black booths and fake hardwood flooring.  The chairs are normal, cheap metal frame chairs and the tables are basic black with laminate tops.  So, this restaurant says that it is famous for their Chicago style pizza, and happy that it is the only one in the area that serves it.  So, since this is my "choose your own adventure" or "make your own review" post, I'll skip my opinions further-on.  So, we order a few things.  We ordered a small pizza, the "meatlovers" which has sausage, hamburger, pepperoni and Canadian bacon.  The pizza was $11.50.  This is what came:

The pizza was hand-tossed, freshly made crust, with a tad of that yeast flavoring in it, a sweet sauce and all of those items on it.  The cheese made strings when you pull it showing how elastic it is and the sausage was a bit spicy, full flavored and perfectly cooked.  If this was your pizza, what would you give it?

Next we also had some bread sticks ordered.

 The bread sticks and dipping sauce consisted of a frozen bread stick which was heated in the pizza oven.  You could and can still see the black burn marks from the rack inside of the pizza oven.  All the bread sticks were the same size, shape and flavor.  All were chewy within 20 minutes.  This was $3.95.  The sauce is what they call, their "special sauce".  By special, I believe it means that it was canned spaghetti sauce with a cup of sugar added.  So sweet, in fact, that it was moving away from the savory side and towards the sweet side.  What would you give this one?

My wife wanted to try something different and her and I being close enough to St. Louis, where I'm originally from, and having had many times, St. Louis style Mostaccioli, we were expecting something more like the heaping, heavy amounts of Mostaccioli noodles with a thick sauce over and mixed around them, complete with big pieces of onions.  Well, what was delivered was this:

So, if you ordered Mostaccioli and received this, what would you rate it?  This is the same sauce, as the pizza and the bread stick dipping sauce.  This is the overly sweet sauce.  This was $7.75.

Next was the salad, the above pasta dish came with a small salad.  They call it a "dinner salad" and they mention that it is made with iceberg lettuce, olives, cucumber and tomato.   This is what it looked like:

The original salad, as plated before we started to eat, had 2 olives, one slice of cucumber and one tomato.  It also has a Fat Free Ranch that was so acidic that it could strip paint off of a tank.  (Probably not my opinion or an exaggeration there.)  What would give this salad?

I have saved the best for last.  We ordered the Hawaiian Chicago style pizza. This is what it looked like:

This is a small Chicago style Hawaiian pizza, going for $11.95.  This pizza had a layer of bottom crust, a layer of toppings and then a layer of cheese on top where a large puddle of that same sweet sauce was poured.  The sauce on the top of the pizza was not only cool, but also, about a 4th of an inch thick.  The inside of a slice looks like this:

The pizza had a crust that was mushy and wet and soggy.  The ham was diced and not fully cooked.  It was simple ham, nothing special about it.  The crust and dough tasted like pineapple, which could have been explained by the obviously canned pineapple chunks thrown into the pizza pie.  The water and juice from the pineapple had caused the dough and crust to be mushy and soggy so that it was hard to eat this pizza.  Chicago style pizza has a hard crust on the bottom and sides, not soggy and wet.  In the very bottom of the picture, in the middle shows something that looks like a white rectangle.  That item is a piece of raw onion.  Onions were used in this pizza and none of them, not a single one, was cooked.  They were raw still and so raw, that they still had the tart, sour flavor.  The chunks of onion and ham had made small indentations and spots in the bottom layer of cheese, which could indicate that they cooked the bottom layer with the cheese on it, then threw the ham and onions on to cook on top, then threw the pineapple and then finished the top layer.  The canned pineapple would have added enough moisture to soak the cooked food underneath it, as is evident by this picture of liquid, not sauce, liquid on the pizza pan.

The silvery color on the right of the picture is the pan and that other color is the water, just liquid coming from the pizza pie.  Again, there wasn't a bite that didn't have wet crust, raw onions, or cold sauce on top.  So, what would give a pizza like this?

My wife's suggestion was that as a local business, I wouldn't have to trash it when I review it, only give an honest and truthful experience and leave it up to the reader to make their own decisions.  So, I hope you came up with your stars, out of 5, in each category for this restaurant.  I will only input this statement, this fact: my family and I will never be coming back to this place. 

Thanks for playing!

Again with the Bravo?

Yes, I did go to Bravo! again.  The thing is with this restaurant, is that because it is part of a mall that we visit at least once a month, this restaurant becomes one of the options of places where my family and I can eat.  If you have been reading my posts, you would have noticed that I have been there at least twice so far.  The first time, I just had my wife and I and we had great service and the food was good.  The second time we went, the food was bad and the service was horrible.  We also had our kids along on that second time.  We couldn't get into CPK (California Pizza Kitchen) and so we went to Bravo! again.  I have to say though, counting this review, Bravo! is now 1 for 2; one win and 2 losses.

If this is your first time reading about this place, it is like a more fancy Olive Garden.  They claim to have better or more authentic Italian food and they do have an open kitchen, but the service lacks.  My two kids and my wife show up, ask for a spot and are asked to follow the hostess to the very back of the restaurant, where there are some booths available.  She first tried to sit us in a booth, that was against a small wall and on the other side of a wall was a party in the banquet room, complete with presents waiting for opening on this small wall.  The first thing as asked if we could move booths.  I don't know what she was thinking, but if you take any young child and place them next to a wrapped present, it is nigh impossible having them not trying to open them.  Not to mention that the booth was behind a large table, with at least 10 people sitting there, which I hate, because you feel so cramped.

We got a booth further down and as we sat, almost immediately, the waiter was on us, asking if we were ready.  We told him what drinks we wanted and ordered for the kids, in hopes that their order gets in and moving along so they don't starve.  Within minutes, a different server arrived with the food for our kids, which was great.  But he didn't take our order.  Instead I watched our server tend to the large party behind the wall.  Here's a tip: if you have a large party in your section, then please do not sit anyone else in your section.  My wife ad I normally tip the regular 15% but if the food is good and service good, we do 20%.  Well, the server seemed that he was willing to sacrifice us and not care about us, so he could get the fattest tip from the party.  Who cares about us, right?  So, we wait and wait and wait and someone comes by and brings us a second basket of bread and we wait and wait.  10 minutes goes by and the waiter hasn't been back to our table to take our order.  My kids are complaining about being full, and half of their food is gone.  So, we are waiting and I'm looking all over, from our seat, for our waiter.  Then I spot him: he is over at the other end of the restaurant, helping the bar-tender dry glasses and chatting with her.

So, the hostess comes by our booth, as she finished seating someone and then walks back to her station.  I stop her and ask her: "our waiter has been sitting over there at the bar for almost 10 minutes now, could you please let him know that we have been waiting here to order."  She goes back, tells him and he looks back at us, and finishes a few more glasses.  Then he comes over like nothing happened.  He takes our order.  My wife wanted a salad with some lobster bisque soup.  I picked the Chianti braised beef ravioli.  I was a bit disappointed by the time the food came, a mere 10 minutes later.

Well, what did my food look like?

This is my ravioli, and let me say that it wasn't worth $10.75.  The ravioli was good, the large amount of fresh Parmesan cheese on top, over-did the flavor of the beef.  The orange chunks are the diced pieces of sweet potato that have been in a very rich and bad tasty cream sauce.  The sweet potato, tasted off, as in, rotten, nasty, like trash, and it smelled fresh.  It was the combination of the potato and that sauce that made it bad.  I'd like to give this dish a 2 out of 5.

My wife's salad and soup was here:

My wife thought it was okay as well.  But not that great, I'd say it looked like a 3 out of 5 for her.

What does this mean for this time>?  Well, this means that out of 3 visits, we have had two bad ones.  Will we return?  Probably not now.  In fact, we may try to actively avoid it now.

Two things that are starting to annoy me.

Okay my wife and I normally have the television on all through the night. She grew up sleeping this way as it gives her a background noise and light in the room.  I admit that it took some getting used to, considering my idea of a perfect atmosphere for sleeping is a completely dark and quiet room, but I am slowly getting used to.  So, we used to sleep at night with Nick at night on, but during the night, all through the night, they play Friends. I'm sorry, I may have watched that show a bit when it was first on, but now I don't care at all for it.  So, I don't want to hear the characters wine and talk nonsense so I have been turning the channel to the Cooking Network.  Its like channel 113 or something like that on Dish network.  Anyway, so we fall asleep with some replays of Iron Chef America or some Foodology shows, which is good.

What is not good, is when I wake up in the middle of the night for any reason and this awful show is on.  The show is called Nadia G's Bitchin Kitchen and while most guys would have no problem watching a show with a young, funny blond chef who wears heels while cooking, I am okay until she starts to talk.  I'm sorry.  I really don't know how to say this in a nice way but after watching years and years of food network's next food network star and seeing what they go through, this woman would have been kicked off after day one.  The show reminds me of Beakman's World, for cooking with a strange woman.  The show would have Nadia cooking and telling the camera about how she likes her meat tenderized and then the camera pans over to a guy in a meat locker, with his wife-beater shirt, punching the steak and talking about how he likes to tenderize the meat.  Whether the guy is really Italian or not, is besides the point because everyone has this over-the-top accent going.  The dialogue reminds me of the old movies where they make fun of the Italians in New York.  They start every sentence with "Yo! Check this out!" and then end it with "you know what I mean?"

What is nice to know, as her site just showed me, that the over the top accent and mobster references appear to be an act and she appears to be normal in some instances.  I highly suggest that she stays that way.  I'm sorry, but according to her site, she has a video suggesting that "some are calling her the Julia Child or the next generation."  What?  An icon who made a complicated way of cooking easy to understand for everyone else is being compared to a woman who runs a show at midnight?  If Julia Child's show was re-run on food network, it would get star billing and be before nightfall, most likely.  Not after midnight.

I'm sorry, Nadia, nothing against you personally, but I'd rather watch a marathon of Anthony Bourdain than watch your show.

Now...

The proper spelling of words is what separates us from the tweenies.  You know those girls who can sit there on their phones and text the whole Tale of Two Cities in 5 minutes using every kind of strange words and abbreviations?  These are the ones I am talking about.  The ones who spell "great" as "gr8" and the ones who can text "titc" for "that is totally cool."  Now, the typing skills of teen girls aside, using proper spelling and grammar seems to have become a lost art for our American society.  It is such a case as a local gym or fitness club, has used a large grammatical error in their company name and logo.

So, you want to know something comical?  Do you know how you pronounce that word?  It is Xist, as in "Cyst" or "Sist".  It is not "ex-ist" as the makers wanted it to be.  Think of other words that follow this example: Xloid, Xenophobic or even Xeme.  When an "X" is the first letter of these words, it takes on the sounds of a "Z".  It is not an "ex" sound and then the rest of the word.  Check this out:  http://www.howjsay.com/index.php?word=xist&submit=Submit

That above link does the correct pronunciation for words and in this case, just as I mentioned, the name of this fitness area is "sist".  I don't think that the company thought of their gym as being named after a medical item, that isn't a pleasant one.  Or maybe the owners of this gym didn't bother to think.  Here is the thing: if they wanted it to be pronounced like "exist" then they would have had entered a hyphen between the "X" and the rest of the word.  Then it would have been "X-ist" and pronounced that way not like "sist".  This just proves that you don't need a college degree to do the marketing or run a business.  I love driving by this billboard on the road and seeing the rest of the sign: Don't just exist; Xist.  Don't just exist, become a cyst?  Really?

The last of the Silver Spoon

Well, after 2 months and 30 recipes or so later, I am finished with my run of the Silver Spoon.  The recipes are easy to follow and put together using simple ingredients and in most cases, the food turns out to be complex and delicious.  This was a great way to get some very healthy foods into our family, just in time for the start of the new year and for the new year diet.  When I normally cook food, I cook during the weekend to produce at least one meal for a dinner and one to take to work for lunch.  Both of these meals last half the week.  I then make another two meals on a Wednesday or Thursday for the rest of the week and then restart.  Some of these recipes were made into non-meat meals to help with the diet.

We have a roasted red pepper sauce, meant for pastas.  I made it so my wife could use it on her yam noodles (which have almost no calories themselves.)

This was a mushrooms and prosciutto dish.  It had about 1 and 1/2 pounds of mushrooms and 3 ounces of prosciutto along with garlic and many other yummy things.  I do have to note, that only about 1/10th of the recipes in this book, used garlic.

This was blueberry risotto and while it may look strange, it is not a sweet dish but a savory one.

This was the best dish I had made in while.   This was called Baked Savoy Cabbage.  It is a layer of cabbage, then a layer of freshly cut mozzarella and then a layer of Italian sausage with some freshly ground black sea salt and pepper.  Then the layers continue until you finish with a layer of cabbage on the top.  You then pour a 1/2 cup of cream or in my case, half and half, over it all and it turns into this perfect casserole dish.  As I was telling my son who is studying the food pyramid in kindergarten, this dish has food from the meat, vegetable and dairy food groups all in one serving.  Maybe have a side of the blueberry risotto and you have all 5 food groups at one meal.

This is the last of the Silver Spoon recipes and my time in the book, if you are interested in any of the recipes and you do not want to buy the book for yourself, please let me know.

The Silver Spoon part 2

I love the recipes out of the book and thought it would be fun to post pictures and my reviews of the recipes I try from the book.  So, here is part two of this idea.  (If anyone buys the book and wants to cook along with me and tell me how everything went for you, please let me know, my wife thinks this would be an awesome idea.)

So, the way I cook, is that I wait for a nice Saturday or Sunday to come along and after having marked about 5-6 recipes, I cook away.  I cook at least two protein rich dishes, so that one may be used for dinner at home for the next few nights and the other gets taken to work for lunch.  This is what I have made within the past week.

This was listed as a Pizza Napolatana, which was me making pizza dough, then putting some extra virgin olive oil, chopped tomatoes, fresh chunks of mozzerella and then some canned anchovies.  I'm not an anchovy person, but I know I did a good job when my wife eats the whole pizza.

This one was an interesting one, this is cream of lettuce soup.  This had milk and vegetable stock boiling together as the base and then about 6 cups of chopped lettuces were added and then blended together.  It tastes surprisingly good.

There was a recipe for a dish called "chicken in lager".  Basically, the recipe wanted me to boil some chicken in some lager beer, chopped celery, leek and carrot with salt and pepper.  That sounded fine, but I'd rather cook a chicken in my Dutch oven than in a pot any day.  So, I set the oven to 400 F and then placed all of the ingredients as well as some extra beef stock and water to fill it more than half way, so the liquids can get into the cavity of the bird to cook it.  I put the chopped veggies inside and then covered it to cook in the oven for an hour and a half, turning the chicken every 30 minutes.  It finished and looked like this:

The broth that was created was delicious and full of flavor and the meat on the chicken was juicy and fell off of the bone.  Do the recipe the book's way or my way.

This above picture is beets with anchovies.  It is a very simple recipe which has you cooking the beets then dicing them up.  Next you take a can of anchovies and after rinsing them, you place them in a hot pan with some extra virgin olive oil and some red wine vinegar.  You stir them around for what seemed like 2 minutes as they completely disintegrated.  You spoon that fishy mixture on top and then mix it up.  My wife, the anchovy eater, loved the cooked beets and anchovies so this is a good recipe for her or anyone else who loves anchovies.

The last thing I cooked in this week was "lentils with bacon".  What you do is soak the lentils overnight then the next day, pour them into a pot.  This recipe is interesting compared to past lentil recipes which I have tried because this one doesn't have you keep the vegetables.  With this one, you cut the carrots and celery in large chunks so they cook with the lentils and give flavor.  When the dish is finished, you pull the vegetables out and toss them.  The bacon is cooked whole, with the lentils as well and then when it is finished cooking, you take the bacon out, chop it up and mix it back in.  I added chopped onions and kept them chopped instead of whole, as I like the flavor of onions. (I call onions "flavor enhancers" to my kids to help persuade them to eat them.)

Everything that I tried was delicious and as I move along in the cookbook, I will continue to do more pictures and more foods for anyone to see.  I am finding this Italian cookbook, easier to follow and make better tasting dishes than say a Mario Batali 350 recipe cookbook.  (I'm not suggesting that Mr. Batali is not a good Italian chef, only that the layout of this book is simpler for people like me to follow: anyone can cook.) 

Where are the truffles, at Truffles?

I admit, one of my most favorite things in the world is: Irony.  I love seeing things that are either described for what they are not or named for something they are not.  One of my favorite examples of irony has to do with the names of cars and vehicles in the automotive industry.  For instance: an SUV called an Armada, when an armada is a group of warships from Spain.  A single vehicle, is not an armada, it is a single vehicle.  I also like the car that is called a Rendezvous.  A rendezvous is a location for a meeting, as in, a bar may be a rendezvous spot.  A car, by its very nature, cannot be a static meeting spot because it moves around. You cannot suggest to meet by the blue Rendezvous on Memorial Drive, unless you know for certain that the vehicle will not move and remain stationary no matter what.  A moving meeting place, doesn't really act as a reliable meeting place.

So, first off, at Truffles, there was nothing on the menu that had truffles in it.  That is ironic because the restaurant is named Truffles!  If I opened a restaurant called Tasty Pizza and didn't serve pizza, that would be ironic.  Now, apart from a bad walk down the nomenclature aisle, the restaurant is very nice and should be visited.

My wife and I went there to celebrate my birthday and we went there because Niche didn't have an open spot, even 3 days ahead, before 9:30pm, 30 minutes before they close.  But that is another story; http://tasty-magazine.blogspot.com/2011/10/niche-best-of-luck-because-im-your.html.

The restaurant is nice, from the outside, it has large windows, which look blacked-out.  On the inside, it is made to look like a fine Italian restaurant, complete with large stained glass dome in the ceiling and fake wooden walls and windows on the inside. Let's just say that on the outside, it looks like a normal red brick building and on the inside looks so much nicer.  My wife and I were given a nice seat and we started our fun, which was looking at the menu and trying to decide what to get.

They started to get our attention by giving us a very knowledgeable waiter who was filled with book-smarts but no street smarts.  For instance, he was okay with us mentioning to him that we were foodies, but then he explained to us what Swiss Chard was.  They eventually gave us some bread and butter spread.  The bread tasted like a small Italian bread with some added sugar for sweetness.  The spread was like someone took some butter and added large amounts of parsley, olive oil and basil.  It was tasty and better than the normal bread and butter.

Next we ordered our starters and I wanted something different.  I have cooked with beef marrow before, having used it to make some great tasting beef stock and soup base.  So, I thought it would be a huge risk, as in something that neither my wife or I had ever done before.  My wife wanted to try something new and ordered the "Housemade Salumi   |   chef’s selection of three, seasonal garnish, crostini." whcih she really enjoyed and was an interesting mix of what the restaurant is capable of.  The only issue that my wife had was in the explanation of what it was.  The waiter explained that there was a preservative of an inedible fruit that they make edible.  He used "preservative" where he meant to say "preserve" and he didn't explain it that well. But overall, my wife loved everything on the dish and would likely say a good 3&1/2 out of 5 stars on this.

I had picked the "Roasted Bone Marrow   |   pistachios, capers, crostone, herb salad" which is shown below the salumi dish.  My wife thought it so primal yet elegant to eat the mushy insides of a cow's bone, but yet have it flavored so balanced and tasty that you could eat it right from the bone using those little spoons.  The taste wasn't super beefy, but just beefy enough that it went perfect with the Italian herbs and olive oil  I was in love, especially with the thyme that was the "herb salad".  When you smeared the marrow mix onto a piece of toast and then sprinkled some of the herb on top, it was super delicious.  It tasted unlike anything I ever tasted before and the wonderfulness of eating something this unusual for me, was so good.  Considering that it was tasty and new to both of us, I gave it a 5 out of 5 stars.

My wife then had her turn to pick something interesting and then chose "Cocoa Maccheroni   |   duck ragu, rosemary, piave stravecchio".  We had it explained to us, even though I have made pasta, from scratch at home before.  I have even made chocolate pasta, which isn't sweet, so we had an idea of what we were getting ourselves into.  We ordered it and it came in time.

It was a very tasty dish.  The pasta was cooked perfectly, the flavor was spread out evenly among the dish so there wasn't a big pile of one thing in one spot, like a bunch of duck one one spot and none in another.  It was as if this dish was mathamatically designed so it would have been spread out evenly everywhere.  It was also very earthy as you tasted that duck, along with just a faint hint of the cocoa.  I think we gave it a 3&1/2 again.  My wife did point out that when it was first served to her, it was white on brown on brown.  It could have used some color to it and in a location where almost ever dish had basil in it, I was surprised that there wasn't a bit on top, either sprinkled or even for garnish.

I wanted to order some venison, but because it was out, I ordered the "Beef Shortrib   |   ragu genovese, smoked olive oil".  It was great.  It was beefy and had what tasted like a normal scoop of regular store bought Italian sauce on top of it.  Besides how simple it seemed, it was delicious and was a good 3 out of 5 for me.

It had the down to earth beef flavor mixed lightly in this rich Italian sauce with basil and some mushrooms.  It was good and really seemed to work well together.

Sides were a big decision as so many looked good.  I think my wife felt green deprived with her pasta dish and so decided on the "braised winter greens with garlic, sicilian anchovy and preserved lemon."  There was a large issue with this dish being that it was very, very wet.  She thought it would be more like a salad, with some dressing on it.  But the greens were over-cooked and reminded me of a dish that someone would make with frozen greens.  They were broken, watery and flavorless.  I think this got a 2 out of 5 stars.

I picked something that can never be screwed up:potatoes.  I picked the "roasted carola potatoes with olives, garlic and parsley" and it was so perfectly done, just like it should be.  Each small potato was perfectly cooked through, not too soft and mushy and not to hard and crisp.  They were perfectly seasoned as well as normal potato dishes are sometimes too salty and this was just right.  A 3 out of 5 for me.

All-in-all, I'd say that Truffles was a very good restaurant.  If you combine some great food selections with some great ideas, you get this restaurant.  While it wasn't what I was hoping for, it did the best job it could providing me and my wife with a lovely evening.  I suggest going to Truffles, even if you don't try calling Niche first.