Border Grill

As promised, I am posting regarding my wedding reception food, and after my experience with RM Seafood, I had a meeting with the event planner over at Mandalay Bay, and she suggested that I might go with Border Grill, as the location of the restaurant is very close to the chapel.  The contact at Border Grill was so nice...she set up a tasting for me and my parents.  This was the complete polar opposite of the customer experience I got at RM Seafood - I didn't even know I could DO a tasting.  When we got there, she discussed all the options, which could be customized.  The chef, Michael Minor, even came out and greeted us at one point, and agreed to do POTSTICKERS for us...not even on the menu!  It was so great for my parents to get this treatment as well, they were so impressed.  

Chips and salsa, with guacamole.  Everything was very fresh tasting, I especially liked the guacamole. 

They brought out so many alcoholic drinks, unfortunately my parents and I don't really drink.  I felt bad, but they insisted on giving them to us anyways, for us to see how they would be served to the guests.  I think this was some sort of margarita. 

I think this was a mango margarita.  My parents and I settled on having watermelon lemonades, which were served during our wedding, along with the alcoholic drinks of course. 

A delicious spread of appetizers.  From the right:  Southwestern eggroll, ceviche chip, quesadilla, a beef sopes, a chicken sopes and a plantain empanada. 

 First close up - southwestern eggroll and ceviche chip.  Both were excellent.  

More ceviche chip - hawaiian fish, red onions, cilantro, jalepeno chile sauce on a plantain chip, topped with avocado.

Quesadilla - I don't recall what kind of meat was in there, but a well done quesadilla slice is always welcome in my book.

The two sopes were alright, but the mazo boat cups they came in were a bit dense and heavy.  It was a good way to have them as little bites but I couldn't have all of it.  The plantain empanada was very good, great texture. 

A bacon wrapped fig is on this plate - one of my favorites of the day.  Fig is filled with a strong cheese, wrapped in bacon...a perfect sweet savory bite. 

More alcoholic drinks we didn't drink...agh, sometimes I really wish I could drink just a little (I'm very allergic to alcohol.)

A classic margarita.  

So as I said earlier, we ended up using Border Grill as our lunch reception venue. It worked out really well, and we had a great time - we even had a HUGE Paella station, manned by the Chef himself!  More photos to come later.  Thanks for sticking with me.