Showing posts with label dinner. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dinner. Show all posts

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Hal's Bar and Grill

Hal's bar and grill during DineLA week a few years back.  Daphne and I met here to grab some dinner.

First impressions about the place - half the restaurant is dedicated to tables, the rest to the bar - I think this place is pretty well known for their drinks - an after work spot.  We were there earlier for dinner, and were like one of two groups dining, most people were at the bar.   
A bread roll.  Decent crust on this. 
Tempura shrimp with cucumber salad in the middle.  Nicely and perfectly fried.  
Daphne got the stuffed squid as her appetizer.  She seemed to like it - again not overdone so not too chewy. 
We both got the duck breast - with pureed root vegetables and a really nice cranberry sauce to liven up the richness of the duck.  It was very nice and generous serving. 
Dessert - chocolate cake slice with ice cream
I think this was bread pudding.  I liked the presentation, pretty tasty, although very sweet.  

Good service, I'd go again if I was in the area, although there's a lot of competition for my dinner dollars on Abbot Kinney. 

Monday, January 02, 2012

RM Seafood

These are extremely old photos, but I wanted to post them to show some of the reason why I had been away for so long from the blog...well, the reason I had a few years ago anyways. (after that, it was work, laziness, lack of motivation - I am probably going to beat myself up for awhile in the next few weeks of posting, it is part of the process, heh.)   

I had been planning my wedding in Vegas for ages - it was somewhat stressful, as I am a person who likes planning things out a lot.  My wedding venue was at Mandalay Bay Casino Hotel Resort.  Owen and I loved the chapel's simple and contemporary design. Once location was set, we had to decide on the food.  I had booked RM Seafood initially, just based on what they had on the menu - my parents and I had discussed how important it was to be able to offer wedding guests delicious seafood options.  

My parents and I ended up visiting Vegas on our own around the new year, staying at Encore through a special deal (in a beautiful suite room, so amazing!) We decided to try out RM Seafood to see what kind of food offerings they had.  

The outside of the restaurant.  A very neat water running over glass effect is seen as you enter, if you look up.  Also, my parents are in this shot! Hey mom and dad!  :D

Upon entering, I talked to our waiter and explained that we were trying different dishes to determine what we were going to serve our guests at the wedding.  He tried to point out different dishes that were on the separate catering menu.  
We ordered the clam chowder to start.  Creamy, however I remember thinking it could have been more flavorful.
Steak, eggs and fries.  A pretty great offering of the three.  I loved how the egg was presented in a little cast iron dish, separate from everything else - perfect to keep the deliciously runny eggs in their place.  Crispy light fries, great to dip into the broken egg yolk. I expected the cut of the steak to be tough but it was actually quite tender and nice!
Burger and fries.  Good and satisfying.  More fries.  My weakness. 
Crab cake, the thing that we definitely needed to try, as it would have been the main thing to serve to wedding guests.  I remember it not being very hot when it arrived to the table though. The crab cake itself was decent, not very much filler. The slaw was a nice contrast.  

Okay, so we tried some dishes, but this ended up NOT being the location of our lunch wedding reception for a couple of reasons...please remember that I was figuring out wedding event reception details and this is not normally how I would judge a restaurant.  

1.  The tepid reception of the waiter and manager when telling them that I was trying out dishes for my wedding reception.  
I was treated pleasantly, but no special treatment or separate presentation of each dish.  I didn't expect a red carpet reception but the general attitude was cold towards me and my parents.  I asked to see the area where the reception was going to be held and they pointed to an area behind a curtain.  They didn't show me around or give me a tour.

2.  The distance of RM Seafood from the chapel
People were probably going to get lost in the casino on the way there.  It was a little confusing to find for the older folks (It was hard for me to find at first!) 

3.  The AMAZING reception I got from Border Grill.  That will be an upcoming post.  But it was everything I wanted it to be.  

Based on the food itself, RM Seafood was very tasty, and I would gladly go again for a special occasion lunch or dinner with friends or just me and Owen. However, for our reception, it just didn't make the cut.      

Ocean Avenue Seafood

Another DineLA dinner from a couple years back.  I'm embarrassed, and resolve to catch up with posting some highlights from the last couple (!) of years that I've been away.  They'll probably be quick posts to share some photos of the food, but I really am resolving to 1.  post more.  2.  finally post the redesign of the blog.  Please bear with me.

Ocean Ave Seafood, located in Santa Monica, special Dine LA dinner -
Ocean Avenue Seafood
Bread and butter, very good
Ocean Avenue Seafood
Clam Chowder - with Applewood smoked bacon.  Very rich and creamy.
Ocean Avenue Seafood
Oyster Sampler, 1/2 Dozen - Chef’s selection of fresh oysters.
Ocean Avenue Seafood
A close up.  I don't have raw oysters too often as Owen does not like them, but I think I will admit that I prefer their preparation either fried or Rockefeller'd.  These were decent though, very briny and fresh tasting.
Ocean Avenue Seafood
Mixed Seafood Pasta - Handmade linguine pasta tossed with clams, mussels, shrimp, scallop and calamari in fresh marinara sauce.  Daphne got this and she seemed to like this a lot.
Ocean Avenue Seafood
I think it was some sort of dessert wine, a muscato.  Daphne loves this kind of dessert wine.
Ocean Avenue Seafood
Grilled Salmon - with mashed potatoes, asparagus, and pinot noir reduction.  I love me some salmon, and mashed potatoes were excellent.  The skin was nice and crispy on this preparation, and thankfully not overdone.  Very good.
Ocean Avenue Seafood
Traditional Crème Brulee - Caramelized and served with raspberry.  Rich, sweet, although could have used more crunchy caramelized topping.
Ocean Avenue Seafood
Warm Chocolate Bread Pudding - Served with Vanilla Bean Sauce.  I think Owen would love loved this, as these are two things he loves the most.


Ocean Ave Seafood
1401 Ocean Ave.
Santa Monica CA 90401
310-394-5669
www.oceanave.com


Sunday, January 10, 2010

Jer-ne (DineLA dinner menu)

Happy New Year everyone! I hope this year brings you good fortune, good times and good food :) I am so behind on posts, and am currently trying to catch up like crazy. I hope you will enjoy what I've got to share!

Dine LA! I look forward to these special two times of the year, with specially priced menus and a great way to try out restaurants that I wouldn't have necessarily tried out before, but give me a set menu and price, I'm always down to try new things in that kind of environment.

Jer-ne is inside the Ritz Carlton in Marina del Rey, so the place is already very high end. (forced valet, which I dislike, but at least there was a small validation for eating at the restaurant.) I liked the seating and ambiance, very relaxed romantic style. Daphne, Eric and I met up for a late dinner, and it happened to be Eric's birthday as well, so it was a nice treat for him. We all ordered from the Dine LA menu.
Jer-ne
My usual drink order, the arnold palmer. A good one, I think. Not much else to say about it, but I remember I didn't get a refill...I stuck with water after I finished this.
Jer-ne
Eric and I chose the prawn appetizer- grilled ocean prawns, lime, chiles, cilantro. Huge, huge prawns, atop a grilled piece of french bread, with soft roasted sweet tomatoes, microgreens, and a delicious sauce. I really enjoyed this, and each prawn was massive, which was a joy to eat. This was great, but after seeing/tasting what Daphne got...
Jer-ne
...which was the soup - butternut squash, frangelico, pumpkin oil, I wish I had gotten that instead. The taste of her soup was so flavorful, so fragrant - just something special.
Jer-ne
Eric got the lamb - t-bone, spinach, feta, kalamata, lemon. The server had suggested it, and it was a great choice. I tried a piece and it was super juicy. Eric seemed very happy with this, I think he finished everything, down to the painted artful sauce on the plate.
Jer-ne
I remember craving beef that day, so I ordered the filet - chanterelles, brussel sprouts, zinfandel jus. I remember it being good, but not as juicy as Eric's lamb. Actually, maybe it was more on the dry side than what I would have preferred, but everything was still pretty good. The chanterelles and brussel sprouts were delicious, and everything was very artfully presented.
Jer-ne
Daphne ordered the bass. I'm actually not sure what was with it, some spinach and veggies? This differed from what they said was going to be online for DINELA. This was very nice, Daphne gets giddy when she has some awesome fish, and this was some awesome fish.
Jer-ne
Daph was really on a roll with her ordering...she ordered the brulee - pumpkin with maple walnut ice cream. The taste I had was so amazing that I ordered one of these to go for Owen to try at home. This was one of the best creme brulees I've had, definitely on the top 5.
Jer-ne
Eric and I decided to go with the cheese plate- cypress grove truffle tremor, midnight moon and lamb chopper. I can't remember exactly how each one tasted, but I remember almost all of them were super strong and I almost wanted the cheese to keep going.

A super excellent meal. I will come back sometime for a special occasion.

Jer-ne (inside the Ritz Carlton)
4375 Admiralty Way
Marina del Rey, CA 90292
310-574-4333
www.ritzcarlton.com

Friday, November 27, 2009

Kuru Kuru Sushi

This is awhile ago, when I had a different schedule at work (nights). Louisa and I met up with Bryan at Kuru Kuru sushi, as Bryan had a craving, and we were up for anything. I had gotten some takeout here before (decent) and was willing to give them a shot. The place was pretty full with people from the studios having their dinner, so space was limited. We initially sat at the sushi bar, but moved to a table once one cleared up.

Bryan and I were intrigued by a particular item on the menu - called "Monkey brains". Whaa? So, I HAD to order this - after all, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is one of my favorite movies of all time. This is what arrived at the table...
Kuru Kuru Sushi
...hrmm. I guess...monkey brain-ish. Kinda. Far as I can decipher (the waitress wasn't very descriptive, and the menu literally only said "Monkey brains") it was a mushroom, stuffed with tuna or other fish meats, tempura fried and covered in a siracha and teriyaki sauce. The novelty of the name was pretty much the best thing about it, I mean, it was edible but I don't think I'll order it again. The mix of fish meat became quite overcooked in the frying process, the mushroom itself was fine. I guess they did the best they could with presentation.
Kuru Kuru Sushi
This was Louisa's salad that came along with her dish. Sad iceberg lettuce leaves covered in ginger-y dressing. Serviceable, but very much a great example of "camp salad" (Owen's reference to how it's cheap lettuce in a bag, that came with purple lettuce and carrot shreds, that he was forced to eat during YMCA summer camp. Oh, the stuff that we endure as kids.)
Kuru Kuru Sushi
This was the rest of Louisa's dish, the Chicken Teriyaki dinner. The char-grilled chicken is over a bed of noodles, and white rice on the side. Louisa liked this, I've had it for that one time I had takeout and it's pretty decent. Good grilling on the chicken.
Kuru Kuru Sushi
Bryan's sushi cravings were satiated by this roll, I'm not sure what they called it, but considering they named the last dish Monkey Brains, I'm going to call it "Snake Surprise". I think it's a California roll topped with pieces of salmon sashimi. He was fairly happy with this roll, although Bryan is pretty much happy with most things he orders.
Kuru Kuru Sushi
I got a chirashi sushi box, scattered pieces of sashimi fish over a bed of sushi rice. From what I remember, it had tuna, salmon, whitefish, shrimp, and flying fish roe. The quality of the fish was not extremely great but it was ok. The salmon was a bit stringy. They were fairly generous with portions though, so I guess I can't complain too much.

I definitely have to try some more sushi places in Burbank to compare but this place falls neatly in the mid-low range of sushi places, but service was friendly and the turnover seemed pretty frequent so I would be willing to come here again.

Kuru Kuru Sushi
521 N Hollywood Way
Burbank, CA 91505-4983
(818) 846-6552

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Back home in Lahaina

I’ve been here many times but I don’t think I’ve blogged about it yet. Sometimes I get a crazy Hawaiian food craving, and this is our restaurant of choice to satisfy that craving. The restaurant is hard to see from the street, as the entrance faces the back and not street front, but upon entrance, it’s quite festively decorated, taking the Hawaiian theme to heart, with fake foliage, vines and even a fake tree in the middle of the dining room.

I can’t help myself, when there’s Spam musubi, I order it…

Back Home in Lahina
Okay, my view on Spam- well, it’s not so bad. My mom and dad used to fry up thin slices of it, and then put sugar on them (because they felt like Spam was way too salty, which it is…but the addition of granulated sugar on top is not a great addition). We’d have this with rice, so this is not that much removed from spam musubi. I admit the Spam slime (the gooey slimy gelatin that encases the Spam in the can) is the most unpleasant part, and would deter most people upon experiencing “Spam in the raw”. Upon opening the can, I would suggest immediately rinsing and blotting the gelatin away, as it does not add or detract from the overall experience, and slicing it up and frying it to get a good crust on it.

Back to the spam musubi, they do a decent one, with a bit of teriyaki and green onion chopped on top. Nice little snacky appetizers to start the meal.

Plate lunch is very popular in Hawaii (from what I remember when I went in, ah, 8th grade!) so they have something similar with their lunch specials, choose one or two chicken or beef or pork, each plate comes with their ramen salad, rice and a scoop of mac salad. Here are the variations that we ordered:

Back Home in Lahina
Julian got the lahaina fried chicken and upgraded his rice to bacon fried rice. Almost all food is better when you add bacon. I think the lahaina fried chicken is the thing to get here, the marinade for the chicken is sweet, fried perfectly with fried crunchy bits all over it. The ramen salad is interesting - straight from the package ramen, crumpled up over thinly sliced cabbage, green onion and a tangy dressing. The mac salad is a nice texture contrast, very creamy and overwhelmingly ginger flavored, that's the only thing that I don't really like about their mac salad, how strongly the ginger taste is. The sauce was a teriyaki sauce, but I don't use much of it myself, I usually douse my plate with siracha sauce.
Back Home in Lahina
My plate lunch combo was very similar, lahaina fried chicken, BBQ Hawaiian chicken, plain white rice, ramen salad and that scoop of mac salad. Whenever I'm here, I'm quite drawn to this order, but I've gotten variations on this before - I think last time I ended up switching out my ramen salad for gyoza (very freshly fried!), and sometimes I get chicken long rice on the side (not pictured, but think, salty chicken noodle soup with rice noodle instead of thick pasta noodle, with a lot of green onions). I've also had their salmon, which was decent as well.

Also, on another visit, I've tried their premium Hawaiian ice cream. Owen couldn't help himself when he saw that they offered a chocolate, coconut and macadamia nut ice cream. (not pictured.) The generous scoop more than satisfied his cravings, the coconut made the whole scoop very rich, and the macadamia nuts were fun to crunch into. I didn't have much at all, since I'm not really a fan of chocolate ice cream (I know, it's a thing...), but if I did like it, I would choose this one.

This place is one of our favorites and we usually have excellent service. Highly recommended!

Back Home in Lahaina
916 N Sepulveda Blvd, Manhattan Beach, Los Angeles, California
http://www.backhomeinlahaina.com
310-374-0111

Thursday, October 01, 2009

Casitas Taco Al Carbon

It feels like ages ago since I went to this place with Fernando and Louisa, but I’m finally getting around to showing the pictures for it (don’t hate me, please…) As I do not know many places in Burbank to eat, Fern drove us down to Casitas for some Mexican food, in a tiny strip mall close to Downtown Burbank.

Casitas Taco al Carbon

The place itself is extremely small, the kitchen consists of a cramped grill operating directly behind a short counter with a cash register.

Casitas Taco al Carbon

The salsa bar is quite attractive for a small place – plenty of ice and a few romaine lettuce heads for display purposes. I just hope they don’t necessarily use those later for people’s salads. I filled up little containers full of pico de gallo, red and green salsa, and chipotle, and waited outside, as there was pretty much no room to linger in the doorway with other people ordering their food.

This is what we unearthed once we got back to work to eat our takeout food…

Casitas Taco al Carbon

Louisa and I got steak nachos – my eyes popped out of my head when I opened the Styrofoam container. Generous amounts of pico de gallo, guacamole, and sour cream completely concealed the equally generous mound of tortilla chips, melted Monterey jack cheese, pinto beans and thick cuts of flank steak. There was no way to finish these all in one sitting, and unfortunately a lot of this got wasted, as tortilla chips do not withstand the test of time or slowly congealing cold cheese. The portion was just…ridiculous.

Casitas Taco al Carbon
Close up of the meaty cheesy bean-y stuff...
I doubt even the manliest of men could tackle this nacho monster before it becomes inedible and fuses all into one piece. Taste wise, it was pretty decent, although with any kind of nacho consumption, all of it kinda starts tasting the same (gloppy cheesy slightly crunchy spicy.)

Casitas Taco al Carbon

Fern decided to go “healthier” and got a chicken Caesar salad, which he claims is the only salad that leaves him satisfied. This clear takeout container must have held at least 3-4 char-grilled chicken breasts, atop chopped romaine lettuce (agh, from the salsa bar?!), and quartered tomatoes. This came with a few salad dressing containers, and one container of shredded parmesan cheese. He threw everything in the container and shook it all around, ‘till it was all mixed up. He finished the whole thing, and seemed pretty happy.

To be honest, (this might be too much information…)my stomach hurt something bad after I ate the nachos, but I didn’t want to blame the nachos for it, and I don’t like lambasting a place unless i give it a second chance (I have grown as a foodblogger….right??), so that’s exactly what I did – I gave it a second chance, and got the chicken Caesar salad that Fern seemed to like so much. The taste was fine, the chicken was a bit on the dry side, the dressing was creamy and tasty enough, and I would have liked the tomatoes to have been chopped instead of just quartered (making them difficult to bite while covered with dressing). The portion was again, generous.

However, I again got stomach distress. Two times I've gone, two times I've been in massive pain. So in the end, as great of a portion and as decently tasty as it was going down...I can't recommend this place. By all means, maybe it was two flukes, just random chances that I got sick both times - but I don't think I can go another round on Casitas.


Casitas Taco Al Carbon
405 N Victory Blvd

Burbank, CA 91502
(818) 848-3242

Friday, August 07, 2009

Ciao Christina

Ciao Christina is a small little restaurant, just recently reopened after a long refurbishment, within walking distance of work, so Louisa and I decided to give it a try. We had heard that they had great gelato, and the gelato case is what instantly drew my eyes when I walked in. After a quick review of what flavors they had, I decided on:

Ciao Christina!

A scoop of hazelnut and a scoop of pistachio. I actually am not usually a pistachio flavor kinda gal, but this was an excellent pistachio gelato, although I think the real pistachios were quite stale and I had wished they had excluded them. The hazelnut was a rich nutty flavor, it was a good accompaniment to the pistachio. I ate this pretty quick - isn't gelato best eaten fairly quickly, before it gets soupy?

The rest of our dinner (yes, we had dessert first while waiting for our "to-go" order, sometimes, dessert first is a necessity) was unearthed when we arrived back at work, and what a pretty sight it was...
Ciao Christina!Align Center


This was Louisa's chicken parm sandwich (sorry for the blurriness). The bread was thick, and possibly could have been made in house, it was so good. The chicken had a nice breading to it, and held up its' crispness against the tomato sauce. There were even some olive slices in the sandwich. The potato chips were a real treat - they were freshly fried! Not out of a bag! Extra crispy crunchy, and really fun to eat. (I ended up ordering this the next time I went!)


Ciao Christina!
I had decided on a chicken sausage stromboli (they also have calzones, but strombolis have mozzarella cheese on the inside, instead of ricotta, and for me, it was not a ricotta kinda day.), which was freshly made by request, and it showed. First off, this thing was huge - like, football sized. The bread was really great, not too much chew, not too hard of a crust. I neglected to take a picture of the insides, but the chicken sausage was where all the flavor was, and the cheese held it all together.
Ciao Christina!

This also came with my stromboli - tomato sauce. This was excellent sauce - great to dip pieces of the stromboli in, I was almost eating this as if it was tomato soup. Louisa gave her approval, as an Italian - she mentioned it was "good gravy" (I guess tomato sauce is known as gravy in her family?)

Ciao Christina!
Louisa also had gotten a cannoli to go, as her snack/dessert for later. I should have gotten one too, but I figured my stromboli was going to kick my ass (which it did.) I tried a bit of the creamy ricotta insides...sweet, tangy but mild, with bits of chocolate chips and dried fruit in the filling. I should have gotten one.

The proximity of this place pretty much assures the fact I will return, but I am also pleased it has great food, although I admit it is a little pricey (cept the gelato, which is a steal at 3 dollars for their biggest cup.) I will have to try their pizza next time.

Ciao Christina
4201 W. Olive Ave.
Burbank, CA 91505
(818) 563-2426

http://www.ciaocristina.com/

Thursday, August 06, 2009

Vegas getaway

A mini trip to Vegas! Literally, we went here just to go to a room, sleep all day, and then sleep some more. Is that weird? A vacation to sleep? Considering we live behind a car lot, and a really busy street, I don’t really get to experience pure silence very often, and better yet, air conditioning on a hot day. A hotel provides all these things, and I found a great deal to stay at Caesar’s Palace, so we booked a few days here.

We got off our flight extremely early (well, extremely early, relative to me and Owen) – our flight was annoyingly scheduled for 7 in the morning or something – by the time we rolled into Payard Patisserie, we were ready for a good meal to start us off on a better foot for the rest of our mini-break.

The seating is very interesting here – the cook is in the middle, where he makes everything to order, and the patrons are all seated around him in a circular design. It’s a very different kind of setup, but I found it was fascinating watching the cook make everything, (picking up some cooking tips, hah.) Our waiter was very good, very attentive but not too bothersome. We both ordered a glass of orange juice to start.

Payard Patisserie Restaurant

I really liked this juice! It tasted fresh squeezed, I think Owen mentioned it was the “best fresh squeezed orange juice he’s had”. It was a really tall glass, as well…I guess in Vegas, go big or go home, right?

Payard Patisserie Restaurant

Owen and I decided to get two plates, and halfway through, to switch and share. He ordered the French toast with Berry compote. This was amazing, this dish managed to be rich, yet light at the same time. The berries were my favorite kinds – raspberry, blueberry and blackberry, in their own juices, were not sweetened, so it didn’t feel like a over-sugared mess we usually get for something like this. This dish was overall NOT sweet, which I actually loved! And I USUALLY hate French toast, (weird hang-up, I know.), but I liked this a lot – the bread was almost custardy in the middle, the whipped cream was really freshly whipped cream, and not just sugary junk. If there was ever a perfect French toast plate, this would be it for me.

Payard Patisserie Restaurant

I ordered a croque madame – a ham and swiss sandwich, toasted, topped with béchamel sauce and a sunny side up egg. The plate was rounded out with a stuffed tomato, and mixed baby greens with a vinaigrette. I only had half of this and secretly wished I could have eaten the whole thing, heh. Again, the richness was not too rich, balanced by the tartness of the vinaigrette on the greens, and the tomato, and the bechamel was not globbed on, like other places I've had this before - this was almost toasted into the sandwich already, so it was more a flavorful crunch on the outside of the bread. Excellent meal, and we will definitely be back.

We also picked up some croissants - Owen got a chocolate croissant, and I got a regular plain one. I didn't take a picture of these, but I SWEAR they were some of the best croissants I've ever eaten.

A bit later, while Owen was asleep (I had napped earlier, as I slept much less than him the night before), I went off on my own and walked around the Caesar's Palace gambling area on my own. I was pretty hungry (this was around dinnertime, and I didn't eat since around 10am at Payard), so I grabbed something at the food court. This is what I got...

Caesar's Palace Food Court

A Lobster roll with fries. Uh...well, I guess I can't say that my expectations were extremely high, but the bread was extremely burnt, which was a shame because it was a nice amount of buttered brioche. The lobster itself..a cold mash of seafood tasting stuff, but lobster meat was definitely lacking. I don't know if it WAS actually lobster, but...what should I expect from a food court, right? The fries were addicting, but I made an effort to only eat a few, because I knew Owen would be hungry later that night. I also got an iced tea, which was not pictured. I got a lot of mileage out of that iced tea, as you could refill your drinks from the soft serve machine yourself, so during the whole of our stay, I would go back to refill the drink with the same cup...awesome!

After a few games of Monopoly Penny Slots (ahhh, so mindless, those slot machines), a bit of shopping (the Forum shops are MASSIVE!), I went back to check on Owen, who I think, could have slept the whole night if I hadn't had walked back in the room. At that point, it was pretty late, but I knew there was a 24 hour restaurant at Caesar's, and I had gotten a 20 dollar food coupon for the cafe, because I had signed up for their rewards club (might as well, it's free, right?)

At the Augustus Cafe, I felt like it took forever to get our food...a lot of waiting, and then everything came at once. We weren't in a hurry but it really took an abnormal amount of time to get what we ordered.

Augustus Cafe

First off, onion rings. These were really tasty, actually - beer battered, thick, dusted with parmesan cheese, and two dipping sauces (red pepper aioli and ranch). Addicting, and a huge amount of them, we wanted to finish these off because we couldn't save them for later.

Augustus Cafe

Whenever there's a club sandwich available on the menu, Owen will almost always order it. This was pretty standard, oddly with the addition of roast beef, but they were heavy on the bacon (awesome!). These fries were very fresh, oddly better than the other fries with the other sandwich (which came later than this one.) We saved half of this sandwich for later, which was happily devoured by us in our hotel room the next morning.

Augustus Cafe

I had a hankering for french onion soup, which made this an onion heavy meal. This was mouthwatering when they set it down - melty gruyere cheese, on top of a french bread piece, with savory beef broth, and tons of carmelized onions. A huge amount of soup, again, Vegas does not skimp on quantity. I made an extra effort to finish this because there's no way to save this soup for later.

Augustus Cafe

Last thing we ordered (we definitely ordered too much) was a prime rib dip sandwich, which was piled high with quality beef, a little saucer of au-jus, and fries. Oddly, these fries were not the seasoned ones, pretty much the same fries from the food court that I had had earlier. We only managed a quarter of this sandwich, and saved the rest.

We had a few other meals in Vegas but it had been places we had been to before (Bouchon, although it was a dinner instead of the brunch we usually have, I remember sharing a roasted chicken, mixed green salad and creme brulee, all delicious of course). It was a pretty successful trip, I'd say, aside from the horrible early plane flights. Of course, another trip to Vegas will be in the future, so stay tuned!


Payard Patisserie, Caesar's Palace Food Court, Augustus Cafe, all at:
Caesar's Palace
E Flamingo Rd & Las Vegas Blvd South
Las Vegas, NV 89109

Bouchon is at Venetian Hotel
Spring Mountain Rd & Las Vegas Blvd South
Las Vegas, NV 89109