In-N-Out Burgers, Bellagio and Paris Buffet @ Las Vegas

We ate so much at on the trip, I had to break the reviews in parts.  This part is for Vegas: In-N-Out Burgers, the famous Bellagio Buffet and the Village Buffet at Paris.  Let's talk about In-N-Out Burgers first...

In-N-Out Burgers

I admit, it was probably one of the best burgers I have had from a fast food restaurant. I like In-N-Out because not only they have a good burger patty, but the toppings and the buns are also really good.  Most people only focus on the burger patties when in comes to burgers but to me, everything matters.  That's probably another reason why I love Five Guys, I love those sauteed mushrooms on my burger!  For In-N-Out, I can't help to notice how crunchy and fresh their lettuce is, and finally I get a good thick slice of onion on my burger, not like a ring of onion.  In-N-Out definitely takes their burger seriously, I was very impress.
 
Bellagio vs Paris, whose cuisine reigns supreme?  
 

Prime Ribs @ Bellagio

Alaskan and Snow Crab legs @ Bellagio

Dessrt #1 @ Bellagio

Dessert #2 @ Bellagio

The first time I went to Vegas was in 2006 and I was a poor college student who was traveling with my student loan money.  Back then, I was not so much of a foodie, I love food, but I probably only spend like 10% of what I spend now on food.  Even though back then, I already know about Bellagio Buffet, and I really wanted to try it, but I would never spend $45 on any single meal, so I didn't get to eat at Bellagio.  Now this time, once we have made a decision to make a stop at Vegas on our trip, the first demand I had was - Bellagio Buffet.  For people who doesn't know, Bellagio is known for the most luxurious (priciest), and highest rated buffet on the Vegas strip.  After waiting for more than an hour, and only left with 40 min to eat, here's the verdict.  Without a doubt, Bellagio buffet offers an extensive variety of food, Chinese, Japanese, Italian and American.  I was very impress that they had a good selection of sashimi and sushi at the buffet.  The best thing I had at the Bellagio is definitely the prime rib, and since it's a buffet, I didn't mind how fat it was (prime rib should be fat), I don't eat chucks of fat, but I like my prime rib to be fat because the meat next to the fatty part are more tender.  Cutting out the fat, I am left with a smaller portion of meat, but I can always get 2nd, 3rd, 4th slice, and every slice was cooked perfectly medium rare, juicy, tender, and just melts in your mouth.  The crab legs at Bellagio were really salty, but other than that, everything was on par, but nothing really outstanding (except for their prime rib).  Since we went on a weekday, our buffet only cost $35/person instead of $45 on the weekend, so I probably didn't get the full experience.  I read that some people had foie gras at Bellagio buffet, but I didn't see any when I was there.
 

Prime Rib and ribs @ Paris

Blueberries Crepes @ Paris

Snow Crab Legs @ Paris

Dessert #1 @ Paris

Dessert #2 @ Paris

For the second night, we ate at the Village Buffet at Paris, which is known as the second best buffet on the strip.  The Village Buffet is a French theme restaurant, most of the food at the buffet are French dishes or with French influences, and I am a huge French food eater so that Paris immediately became my second choice. Like Bellagio, they have some good and bad dishes.  Their prime ribs are definitely not as good as Bellagio's, I had half of my prime rib and I didn't want to eat it anymore, Bellagio ruined it for me. However compared to Bellagio, Paris' crab legs are better and not as salty - we probably ate 4x more crab legs than at Bellagio because of that reason.  Paris does have a few good dishes like the duck confit and spare ribs.  There is one dish you have to avoid at Paris, which is their French onion soup, it is the worst onion soup I have ever had, it's really ironic - bad onion soup at a French theme restaurant.  While they did really poorly with their onion soup, they made it up by having delicious dessert (finally representing the French).  You must go to the crepe station and make your own crepe, remember to add some ice cream on it, it makes the perfect dessert.  I also love the flan at Paris, it's very rich, creamy, and not overly sweet. I have had many flans, and Paris has the best.   

Even though both buffets weren't as good as I expected, but for $30-35 for such a huge variety of food, and don't forget you are in Vegas where nothing is cheap, I think it's not bad at all.  Of course, if you are a huge gambler than maybe you will have better hook ups, but I don't believe in chance.

Bellagio Buffet
Paris Buffet 

Coming Up: San Diego

Grand Cafe, Chowders, Fish, and Emmy's Spaghetti Shack @ San Fran/Sausalito

The last time when I hit my heaviest weight was after spending a month of winter break in CA.  I mean how can you not gain weight when you are surrounded by good food all the time?

Fried Frog Legs @ Grand Cafe

Oysters on half shelf @ Grand Cafe

Baked Oysters @ Grand Cafe

Frisee Aux Lardons @ Grand Cafe

Duck Confit and Wild Mushroom Scramble @ Grand Cafe

Lobster Sandwich @ Grand Cafe

Eggs Benedict with Country Ham @ Grand Cafe

Gravlax de Saumon @ Grand Cafe

Grand Cafe is one restaurant we ate at the most during the entire trip, it is a French brasserie at our hotel.  The oysters and frog legs are from their weekend happy hour special.  The oysters are fresh, and one of the best I have ever tasted.  Their baked oysters are exceptionally good, baked to the perfect level, fresh, creamy and sweet.  It was so good that we ordered two rounds, and the server saw how much we liked it, he was nice enough to throw in extras!  I would go back for their oysters any day without a doubt.  The next day we had our Sunday brunch at Grand Cafe, the Frisee Aux Lardons, duck confit and wild mushroom scramble, and lobster sandwiches are items on their brunch menu.  Frisee Aux Lardons is a classic French bistro salad typically served with lettuce, bacon, croutons, and eggs.  Lardons mean pork fat in French.  Grand Cafe added a nice twist to this classic French bistro dish and used fried pork skin as croutons (for crunch), and shredded pork belly instead of bacon (more elegant), plus the perfect poached eggs.  The result was a heavenly salad, it was so tasty!  To me, it was the strongest dish out of the whole meal.  Unfortunately, the meal went down hill for me when I ordered the duck confit scramble.  The seasoning was bland, the duck confit was slightly dry, and the worst part, the scramble eggs were overcooked. They can poach a perfect egg, but cannot scramble, overcooked eggs are nightmares to me. I thought the lobster sandwich was just decent, but my bf liked it a lot, and I am more picky on average, so feel free to disregard my comment.  The one thing I didn't like about the lobster sandwich, was the bacon. I thought bacon and lobster is a bad combination, since bacon is salty, strong in taste, and lobsters are sweet, and mild.  Too much contrast? Therefore, I thought the bacon was overpowering the lobsters in the dish, while I was really looking to taste more lobsters than bacon.  Another meal we had at Grand Cafe was their regular breakfast menu. We had the Egg Benedict and salmon, cream cheese bagel.  Both were fantastic.  The eggs were perfectly poached as always, and the Hollandaise sauce was good, that's all you need for a good Eggs Benedict.  Their cured salmon were fresh and they are very generous with the portion.  I had many salmon and cream cheese bagel as lunch and breakfast in Europe, I mean it's basically three of my favorites in one, but the one from Grand Cafe is definitely one of the best I have ever had. 

The famous Clam Chowder @ Chowders

horrible crab cake @ Chowders

fish and chips @ Chowders

One of the meal we had near the fisherman wharf was at Chowders located at Pier 39.  Their famous dish is their clam chowder in sourdough bread bowl.  The chowders come in two types, white and red.  We only tried the white one this time, which turned out pretty good.  The only thing I didn't like about it was the texture, I thought it slightly snotty for my taste, but it has good flavors and loaded with clams and vegetables.  We also ordered the crab cake and fish and chips, both were disappointing, so please don't wast your calories on them.  Baltimore Lexington Market still has the best crab cake in my mind.

White Clam Chowder @ Fish

Red Clam Chowder @ Fish

Fish Taco @ Fish

Grilled Rainbow Trout @ Fish

One of the best meal we had on our trip was at Fish in Sausalito.  It was recommended by our server from Grand Cafe.  Fish is known for their fresh seafood and I can assure you their fish is FRESH! No question asked.  We had both white and red chowders, both were excellent.  I like Fish's white chowder more than Chowders.  It's really hard to pick between the white and red chowders at Fish, I would recommend getting both if possible, but if I can only order one, I might have to go with the red one.  It's tomatoes and vegetable based, but have lots of spice and a little kick;  it's unique but very good. After all, both chowders have well balanced flavors, perfect texture, and fresh ingredients.  For entree, we got the special of the day - grilled Rainbow Trout, which was simply fantastic.  The fish was fresh, tender and perfectly grilled, every part of the fish was delicious, and we ate the whole fish to the bone.  The fish taco, on the other side, was mediocre at best.  Next time, I would get their fish and chips instead, our neighbor ordered it, and it looked really good. 

Spaghetti and Meatballs @ Emmy's

Cod Stew @ Emmy's

We are such foodies that we were constantly on yelp digging out those hidden pearls.  Emmy's Spaghetti Shack was one of those we found on yelp.  Calling it a shack is the perfect description, Emmy's is a small restaurant near downtown San Francisco, you would probably miss it if you weren't specifically looking for it.  Their famous dish is spaghetti and meatballs, nice and simple right? Hey...the simplest thing is the hardest to do well.  I like Emmy's spaghetti and meatballs, the meatballs are huge and it has the perfect fat content in it, delivers the right tenderness.  However, the spaghetti are overcooked, I like my pasta cooked al dente, again simple but you will be surprise how many times I have been served overcooked pasta. The cod stew has really good seasoning to it, but after tasting fresh fish for lunch, it was recognizable that their fish is not as fresh.  Almost forgot to mention one thing, they have balsamic vinegar and extra virgin olive oil for bread dipping, first time I have seen it since Italy. On top of the awesome dip, they had the right kind of bread for it too. You should have seen me, I wouldn't stop eating their bread.  I can eat that all day long!

Coming Up: Bellagio vs Paris @ Las Vegas

Grand Cafe @ San Fran

Chowders @ San Fran
Fish @ Sausalito
Emmy's @ San Fran

Sushi Taro @ Restaurant Week 2011

The original plan was to write about the restaurants I tried from my West Coast Trip before writing about RW, but this is one review I can't wait to blog about, so I have to swap the order for this one time.  Usually I wouldn't prefer eating out right after a trip, since you eat out on every meal when you are traveling, so I am kinda craving some homemade cooking.  I don't think I can do it for any other restaurant, but for Sushi Taro, most definitely! Believe it or not, I actually dreamed about dining at Sushi Taro the night before, that's how excited I was. Sushi Taro - definitely my favorite Japanese restaurant and might even be my favorite restaurant overall.

Even though it has already been 3 years since they changed the restaurant model at Sushi Taro, I still miss the old Sushi Taro all the time.  I remember the last month before they closed the old Taro, I went there every week for dinner, with different people of course, it was so good that I can never get sick of it. The always perfect yakitori, spicy scallop roll, the tamagoyaki with the Sushi Taro stamp, and mouth watering sashimi; I even miss the tatami!  Never had a bad dinner there, Sushi Taro never disappoints.

Enough reminiscing, unlike the old Sushi Taro, today's Taro focus on tasting menu, got rid of all the "cheaper dishes" and concentrate on authentic Japanese style cuisine.  The sashimi is still the freshest I have ever had, the dishes were still prepared with high quality, the only difference is... I can no longer stuff 20 yakitori to my face. Darn it!  I still enjoy going there for their weekday lunch (very affordable), and of course for RW. Today, I found out about their HH special, which I need to plan a visit very soon.

Appetizer Tasting

Staring from left to right, jelly coated vegetables, tuna and yellow tail sashimi, and cold soba with duck.  One of my food buddies didn't like the jelly coated vegetables, she thought it was weird, but I actually thought it was ok.  The sashimi, as always, encore is the only word I want to say, and the duck soba was very good as well.  All three tasting dishes were cold, but it's a refreshing start for the meal.

Grilled black cod marinated with soy sauce

braised pork belly in sweet soy sauce

The braised pork belly was actually one of the dishes on their old menu, which I always order. So I already know it's going to be really good, therefore I ordered it for my entree.  It's tender and marinated well, you can just poke it with your chopsticks, and the meat will fall right off.  Grilled cod was another choice for the warm dish, but I didn't try it, however my food buddy who got that as her dish was the first to clean the plate.

Special 4 with spicy tuna roll

Special 4 with Rainbow Roll

with Spider Roll

We were given the choice of 7 regular cut of sashimi (tuna, salmon, shrimp, eel, yellowtail, white fish, omelette), 5 Japanese cut of sashimi (octopus, mackerel, tuna, sweet raw shrimp, snapper), or 4 special or I call the finest cut of sashimi (fatty tuna, king salmon, waygu beef, salmon caviar or sea urchin).  All of us went for the finest cut, and every piece of the special 4 is to die for.  You can't go wrong with any sashimi at Sushi Taro, you are guarantee the freshest stuff already, so if you want more pieces and sea urchin or raw beef sashimi is too extreme for you, feel free to get the Japanese cut or regular cut. The spider roll and rainbow roll are additional cost, but worth the additional cost, we ordered one of each and split it.  If you never had any sashimi that are really fresh which has a hint of sweetness to it, and it's really soft to the point that it melts in your mouth, you can come to Sushi Taro, and this will be what you will experience. It's so satisfying, it's beyond words can describe. 

Mango ice cream

Green tea ice cream

A sweet ending to the meal, I would say both are excellent, go with your personal preference. 


The 2 hours meal went by too fast for me, I was full but I wanted more.  It is like every time when I walk down those stairs from Sushi Taro, I want to turn back already.  


Sushi Taro, I shall return very soon!


Sushi Taro


Coming Up: West Coast Trip

Brasserie Beck by Robert Wiedmaier

Finally get to try Brasserie Beck owned by Chef Robert Widemaier, who is also the owner of Mussel Bar, Marcel's in DC, and BRABO at Old Town Alexandria.  The first thing you are going to notice when you go to Brasserie Beck, it's their huge beer list, their beer list is bigger than their regular menu, and I lost patient reading all the description of the beer, so I took a fast track and asked the waiter for a recommendation.

Bavik Pils

I told him that I like drinking light beer, and he recommended Bavik to me, which is perfect for my beer taste. Definitely a beer I can just hangout and drink on its own.

Brugse Zot

This beer tastes like lemon and honey, very interesting taste...Oh, I would think all the beer comes with their unique glass?

Mussels in sweet potatoes and shallot sauce

Mussels in truffle and mushroom sauce

Robert Wiedmaier is specialized in mussels, of course if you have been following my blog, I did visit his Mussel Bar in Bethesda before, which I wasn't too impress with his mussels there. Because of that, I was skeptical at first to whether I should order mussels again, but one of my food buddies who have been to Brasserie Beck before guaranteed how great it would be, I decided to give Robert Wiedmaier's mussels another try. Out of the two we tried, I like the truffle and mushroom sauce the most.  Truffle and mushroom is definitely one of the best ingredients combination, they have a common elements in their flavors, they are both musky and nutty, which I love! I highly recommend the mussels in truffle and mushroom sauce combo. And my food buddies was right, Mussel Bar doesn't do the justice for Wiedmaier's mussels, you have to pay the extra bucks and go to Brasserie Becks. I would definitely order it again next time I go to BB. Another note, their mussels are really fresh, comes in good size and cooked perfectly (meaning not overcooked).

Grill Sea Bass on tomatoes salad

Since we were both pretty full after two order of mussels, we decided to split an entree instead.  This is one of the special of the day, it's a whole Sea Bass, grilled, deboned and served over salad.  This is after the entree was split into two plates, the waiter was nice enough to split it for us before it was served. Extra points for good service, even though I usually only care about the quality of the food, not so much the service. Overall, this entree was good, there are two things I don't like about it though. First, (which you can't see from the picture) there are bread at the bottom of the salad, which was used as croutons, but they are not croutons, so they became really soggy at the end, why not use croutons? Second, I think there are too much cheese in this salad, which over powered the whole flavor of the dish. They failed to balance the texture and taste on this one.

Despite the mediocre special of the day, I would still go back to BB for their beer and fantastic mussels.  I will probably look into going for their half price beer Happy Hour special.

Brasserie Beck

Makoto @ DC

Makoto is probably one of my favorite lunch place.  Ever since my first visit, I have taken numerous friends here and have recommended it to so many people, and I have never heard any negative feedback.  Yes, you do have to dress in proper attire, you do have to take off your shoes before you enter the restaurant, silent and put away your cellphone, drink your miso soup without a spoon, and make reservation ahead of time.  But after you have tried their food, I don't think anyone would mind those "special" requirements.  Makoto not only offer a good varieties of food, but their food is at high quality, and also at an affordable price.       

I have been here so many times, and every time I tell myself I should try something else, but I always ended up getting their lunch box, which is always $17 fix price for all the food you get starting here...

Steam mussels in white wine

This is always my favorite course, the mussels were always fresh and cooked perfectly, and the soup is very flavorful. Every sip is heaven. I have probably had this more than 10 times, and it was always perfect.

Appetizer set - jelly fish in vinegar, marinated yellow tail, and squid with some root vegetables (which I have no idea what it is)

The appetizer changes every time, you get whatever the chef feels like serving you, everything was always delicately prepared.  This time, the marinated yellow tail really shined.

Steamed salmon with lemon and tofu

This is a continuation of the appetizers, I was feeling really good at this point already.

Entree Lunch Box

Starting from the top left, grilled fish with tamagoyaki, tuna sashimi, eggplant with black bean paste, shrimp, fish balls and assorted vegetables. Can't go wrong with Makoto's grill fish, it's always flaky and seasoned just right. Their sashimi is really fresh, I always wish they will give us more. The fish ball and eggplant were probably the weakest entree, the black bean sauce is slightly salty, overpowering the eggplant, and the fish ball was too tough. But just like the appetizers, you get different entree every time, it's all up to the chef.  The box also comes with miso soup and rice.

Grape sorbet with Grand Marnier

There was only one time when I got flan as the dessert, but other than that, it's always sorbet, sometimes it's orange, sometimes pomegranate, and this time it was grape.  I am not complaining though, their sorbet always taste good and refreshing.

Usually by the time you are done with all the food, given that you finished all the rice and miso soup...you should be having a hard time breathing.  But! It's worth it!

Makoto

Coming Up: Brasserie Becks