Travel: Las Vegas - Grand Lux Cafe

I think it's mainly because we're too lazy to leave the casino the majority of the time, but we end up eating at the Grand Lux Cafe if we're staying at the Venetian or at Palazzo at least once a trip. This here is their gnocchi with asparagus and breaded chicken. It was actually rather bland. :/

Ok, for reals, this will be my last post this week. :( See you all next week!

Lamb Chops

Last week, I have no idea what happened, but between Passover meals and cravings, I ended up having three different lamb dishes. I had lamb on a rack, as chops, and as a shank. The above pictures is when I made them as chops and only fried them on a pan. The ingredients were fairly simple: salt, pepper, garlic, olive oil, and rosemary. That's it. Sooo good! But I'm definitely lamb-ed out right now. Chicken is beginning to look good...

Cupcake!

Well this weekend has been hectic. Great Super Bowl game! Lots of celebrations! And when I went to shoot this morning's cloud photo I got distracted by this photo which I took last month. I love chocolate. Immensely. So chocolate trumps clouds for today's posting. I mean, come on, it even has sprinkles and frosting!!! Enough drool. Tomorrow, we'll probably resume our regularly scheduled programming.

Chop Suey

Just wanted to give you all a quick update: I should return to LA to resume posting on Monday (I'm hoping!). Sorry for the more or less two week absence (there's a lot that's been happening in my personal life). In the meantime, here's a dish that was prepared for some VIPs who attended my birthday in the Philippines. I never even touched this dish but at least I got a photograph of it. :)

Raw Shrimp

So here's a quick shot of a friend preparing dinner (ceviche, actually) for us from a few years ago. I was actually not yet shooting RAW back then and edited this from a JPEG file. It felt surreal.

Travel: Philippines - Raw Kalderetang Kambing

Well, this is what my goat from yesterday's post became. Pictured above is kalderetang kambing (goat kaldereta) which was one of three dishes prepared (the other two were papaitan and sinampalukang kambing).  All three were all absolutely delicious. All were used as pulutan (drinking food) for my two-day despedida (farewell party). I wonder how I could possibly have a better going-away party in the future.

Pit Stop

This was actually my meal at a pit stop from Vienna to Salzburg, Austria. The above picture is a lemonade (not a beer). The bottom picture was perhaps a cheesecake? Gah -- this is what I get for going through my archives and trying to remember things that happened when I had had too little sleep back then. I suppose that's what photographs are for. All I do remember was that it was SO MUCH FUN. :)

Lumpia

I was thinking about what I wanted to post today when I suddenly had a craving for lumpia shanghai. Then, I remembered I had a photo of it from when I was down in San Diego. I don't recall if these are store-bought or if they're homemade, but this picture makes my mouth water (even if they aren't cooked yet). Mmm... lumpia... :::drool:::

Travel: Las Vegas - The Obligatory Food Post

Deep fried mac and cheese. Yum.

In light of my experience with  the "Buffet of Buffets" pass, we decided not to do that again and instead opted to go to actual restaurants in Las Vegas. The first one (below) is at "Noodle Asia" at the Venetian. It was the first time I had even seen it, so I'm assuming it recently opened up and was part of all the renovations at the casino. It's quite expensive Asian food (think: double the normal price of what it should be in LA), but it was quite good. Your view is the slot machines nearby. The second photo was taken at the Macaroni Grill on Sahara Blvd. (above). I don't know what prompted us to eat there, but we did. :/

'Tis the Season for Eating

I swear these holidays will be the death of me with all the eating. Anyway, here are a couple more food shots from a party I went to a while back (I can't keep up). What was particularly depressing was seeing a couple kids get a hold of the red velvet cupcakes (above) and then were tossing them up in the air. As they were trying to catch them, I instead witnessed the cupcakes exploding upon impact in their hands and splattering everywhere. Tsk tsk. What a waste.

I know the cake's been cut into already. That's what I get for arriving to a party 2 hours fashionably late.

Mexican Food Night

Raw steak fajitas

So, the other night, G came over and cooked a 3-course dinner for us. It was so yummy! We started with a simple garden salad (complete with raw bell peppers?), followed by chips and homemade (next-level) guac(amole) (topped off with tequila!), and, for our main course, steak fajitas. Drinks were tequila shots, naturally. We then treated G (a regular chef for us) to sweet crepes: Nutella + bananas!

Cilantro doused with tequila.