Everything on the menu sounded delicious, so it was difficult to decide on what to order.  Lucky for us, they were featuring their Summer Tasting Menu, which consisted of a first course, a second course, side dishes and dessert.  Unlike most prix fixe menus where you are asked to pick one item in each course from the pre-selected options, Craftsteak serves you everything that’s listed on their Summer Tasting Menu.  A total of 13 different items!  All courses were served family style with more than enough food to keep our appetites sated.

FIRST COURSE

SECOND COURSE

SIDE DISHES

DESSERT (Chef’s Selection)

And because all of that food wasn’t going to suffice, we also ordered from the regular menu to supplement our already over-indulgent meal.

Craftsteak will be serving this same menu during Restaurant Week (August 31 – September 6, 2009) at $50.09 per person.  A portion of the proceeds benefits Three Square Food Bank, a partner organization of Feeding America.

Happy Spooning and Forking!

The first encounter I had with Yogurtland was in California a few months ago. Some friends of ours took us to the location across from the CSU Long Beach campus. It was a weekend night, around 10-ish, and the place was packed. SUPER PACKED. It seemed like an Under-21 club scene.

The line wrapped along the sidewalk, with hoards of college kids and more than a handful of high schoolers, some in line and some just hanging around. Not an open parking space in sight, unless you were up to doing a crazy hike clear across the parking lot and had enough energy to stand in the long line.

I love frozen yogurt – any frozen novelty at that – but my tolerance and patience for boisterous crowds have since dwindled. I can only take so much of status-conscious-gossip-girls saying things like “Omigod, like, is that a real Louie or did you get that from downtown LA?” and amateur rice-rocket-pilots muttering to each other “Dude, check out that car kit on that Honda. Dude, it’s hella tight!” before I start rolling my eyes in disdain… But I digress…

Sure I wanted some yogurt, but I didn’t want it that bad… So we left and headed home… (Oh man… I must be getting old…) Needless to say, it was a busy weekend for us, so we begrudgingly decided that Yogurtland had to wait till the next road trip.

That is… until I found out that Yogurtland was opening up shop here in Las Vegas. From what my friends have been saying, Yogurtland was much better than Pinkberry. I needed to find out myself. I anxiously wanted to see how they measured up to Pinkberry (the froyo shop lucky enough to pop my froyo cherry).

Bottom line – I LOVE YOGURTLAND. LOVE. LOVE. LOVE. More than Pinkberry. Which I like. A little.

During the first week that the Town Square location opened, I visited Yogurtland about 4 times. I purposely spaced out my visits and went and different times for fear of a possible restraining order or job offer. The week after that, I visited twice. And then I just had to restrain myself from going to Yogurtland for fear that the novelty would wear thin and I would stop loving it as much as I do.

Yogurtland reminds me of a Sanrio store, just without the ever cute Hello Kitty mascot. It’s cute. And pink. And bright green. It makes me happy just walking in the place.

Unlike Pinkberry, Yogurtland is a self-serve yogurt place. You pick out the cup size you want – there’s 2 sizes: big and HUGE. Along one wall are the yogurt machines. They have about 15 or so flavors available at a time – most of the flavors rotate, so visit often. LOL.

At the end of the wall is the topping bar, where you can choose as little or as much toppings as you want. They offer the same toppings as Pinkberry, but also offer about 10 other different ones that Pinkberry failed to add to their topping bar – like chocolate syrup, caramel syrup and condensed milk. The price of your personal creation is based, then, on weight. At 30-cents an ounce, you can get a lot of yogurt and toppings for under $5.00. A much better deal than Pinkberry.

The yogurt at Yogurtland is also a lot creamier and not as tart as Pinkberry’s. So much so that at times, you forget that you’re eating yogurt. The strawberry yogurt is my favorite of all the flavors that I’ve tried – so far. It’s creamy and tastes and looks as if real strawberries were put into the mix. My next favorite flavor is the mango yogurt, which I was a bit hesitant to try, but so glad that I did. It’s refreshing, perfect for summer. As far as toppings are concerned, the mochi balls, Cap’n Crunch cereal, Coco Pebbles cereal and condensed milk never fails to impress.

There’s usually a line (and a teeny bopper crowd hanging out in front) at this Yogurtland also. Especially on weekends. But the line moves pretty quick and trust me, it’s well worth the wait.

So if there’s a Yogurtland in your neck of the woods, I highly recommend you stopping by for some really good frozen yogurt. Maybe I’ll bump into you at the one in Town Square. I try to visit at least once every 2 to 3 weeks or so. It’s not so much a staple in my diet like when they first opened. Now, it’s more like a well-deserved treat and a better alternative to Cold Stone Creamery, which is THE DEVIL… disguised as cold, sweet, creamy goodness…

But I like playing with fire, every once in a while… hahaha!

Looking over the menu, nothing really jumped out at me.  The server came by to get our orders about 20 minutes after we were seated and I still was not ready to place my order.  I asked our server what he likes to order from their menu and he mentioned their ribeye, which I would have ordered instantly, but I was not in the mood for steak – I know, shocker, huh?!?  Then he mentioned the special – sea bass – and I was ready to order.  Sea Bass, is one of my favorite fish, ever since I first tried the Chilean Sea Bass at Tao.  So now, whenever I see it on a menu, I’ll order it, in hopes of duplicating the Tao experience (which, by the way, can only be imitated – Tao is still up there on my list of favorite restaurants…).

So, I had the sea bass – and Chilean it was not – more like from the Santa Barbara region.  It was hardwood grilled with a citrus flavored rub/seasoning mix and served with a side of steamed broccoli (my favorite!) and some kind of dill sauce, which I thought was too thick and heavy for the fish.  All it needed was a touch of lemon juice.  This was good, don’t get me wrong.  I enjoyed it. I did.  But it wasn’t spectacular. I wasn’t expecting fireworks, but for the premium price of $25.99, I expected sparklers, at least.  Or at least a bigger hunk of fish and not just a snack-sized fillet.

The other dish that we ordered was their  is their Pork Tenderloin entree that is prepared with an apricot bbq glaze.  They give you about 6 medallions of pork loin and top it with the glaze.  This was served with a side of mashed potatoes, which was really nice and creamy.  This was $18.00.   It was tasty.

White Chocolate Grill has done what no other restaurant that I’ve been to has done – a pretty bold move at that.  On their menu, the first items that are listed are their desserts, where at other restaurants, the desserts are listed either at the end of the menu or on a separate menu altogether.

So this subliminally told me “our desserts are so good, that we had to list them first on the menu”. I wasn’t sure at that time if that’s the message that they intended to send, but that’s the message I got.

So, instead of ordering appetizers or salads, we opted to save our appetites and make room for dessert.  At the end of our meal, we ordered 2 desserts…the first 2 desserts that they had listed on the menu.

White Chocolate Banana Cream Pie (with Graham Cracker Crust) $7.50

A mini banana cream pie of sorts. The base is a graham cracker and oatmeal crust that was light and crispy and pretty tasty.  The filling was a vanilla-ish pudding of sorts with banana slices, that was way too runny.  I also couldn’t tell if it should have been banana flavored or vanilla flavored because of the visible vanilla bean, as its flavor was difficult to decipher.  This was all topped with a dollop of whipped cream and white chocolate shavings (that had some funky aftertaste).  The caramel sauce, I want to say, was purely for aesthetic purposes as it did not add or take away from the taste (or lack of) of the dessert.  Also way too runny/diluted.

White chocolate Brownie (Callebaut Choclate and French Vanilla ice cream) $7.50

The White Chocolate Brownie was disaster.  It could have been saved had the brownie been a regular brownie brownie and not a blondie.  I get it… White Chocolate Grill… White Chocolate Brownie. But how about if they did say a regular brownie with white chocolate chunks in the brownie or maybe some sort of white chocolate topping.  This one was trying too hard to be good, and it wasn’t. The brownie was more like a chewy/doughy sugar cookie and the chocolate sauce was way too runny and all over the place.  The saving grace to this dessert was the vanilla ice cream and the whip cream, which, no matter how hard you try, you can’t mess up.  I know… OUCH! Bad blogger!  Sorry…

So I’m hoping they were just having a bad night, which was why we had to wait 20 minutes to place our order and get something to drink, then wait another 35 minutes or so to get our food (which we finished in 15 minutes), then wait another 20 minutes for dessert (which wasn’t all that), then wait another 15 minutes for our check.  We were seated at 6:15ish and didn’t get out till close to 9 pm.  And by this time, I so wanted to just get out of this place already.

I’ll give White Chocolate Grill another try, for sure… but not anytime soon.  The White Chocolate Grill aftertaste is still a turn -off.

Tread cautiously, if you want to give it a try.  You might have a different experience than what we had.  Maybe I should have tried the ribeye…  maybe….

*****

A Wall of Fame greets you as soon as you open its doors. On this wall are dozens of pictures of burger lovers that have conquered their One Pounder and another set of pictures for younger burger lovers that have conquered the Half Pounder. The bubble gum pink walls, glass block, metal legged vinyl covered chairs and formica surfaced tables all add to the diner-esque feel of this burger joint. Definitely family friendly, Cheeburger Cheeburger makes you feel as if you were transformed back to the 50’s where small diners such as this one, was THE place to hang out with your friends or family and enjoy a wonderful meal and each other’s company.

Cheeburger Cheeburger is basically a “how-you-want-it-is-how-we-make-it” kinda place. From their burgers to their sandwiches to their shakes, you are in control.

Let’s start with their shake menu. You can either order a single flavor or combine a bunch of flavors to come up with your own personal flavor. As the sign says, there are 378,000 combinations. With all the different flavors that they offer, I don’t doubt it.

We kept it simple this time. Here’s a picture of 2 of the shakes that we ordered: Oreo Cheesecake Shake (left) and White Chocolate with Oreos Shake (right). All of their shakes start off using Dryer’s ice cream. SUPER YUMMY with chunks of oreos at the bottom. They even served it to us in the the metal cup that they made it in. Cute.

If you’d rather have a soda with your meal instead of a shake, they offer Pepsi and only Pepsi, that you can tweak with cherry syrup, chocolate syrup or vanilla syrup. So if Cherry Pepsi is your thing, they can make it. Chocolate Cola more your style, they can make that too.

On your table, in a plastic basket of other condiments and a set of trivia cards to keep you occupied as you wait for your food, is a bottle of their Zesty Seasoning. A mixture of salt, pepper, granulated garlic, use this sparingly over your burger and your fries and rings, if you want an extra dose of seasoning.

Now for the burgers.

First, you choose what size of a burger you want/need. They’ve got 5 different sizes: the Famous Pounder (actually 20 oz.), Delirious (3/4 lb.), Serious (1/2 lb.), Semi-Serious (1/3 lb.) and the Classic (5.5 oz.).

Then you choose how you want it cooked – medium, medium well or well.

Then you choose a cheese if you want cheese on your burger.

Then you go crazy and pick whatever toppings you want on your burger. Whatever you want. Don’t be shy – if you wall all 25 or so toppings, go for it – it’s included in the burger price. There’s really no limit to your imagination here. They also offer 3 “premium” toppings (bacon, sauteed mushrooms and grilled onions) for about a buck a piece.

After you’ve ordered your burger to your liking, you wait – for a bit – while they create your special burger. (This is when you make use of those trivia cards that they place on your table.)

It’s definitely worth the wait, as what you get is a burger that’s so close to one you’d make at home. Served on a roll instead of your usual sesame seed hamburger bun, the hamburger patty looks as if it were hand shaped and cooked to perfection without the excess grease that you’d get at some random drive thru burger place. Good food is definitely worth the wait.

Serious, medium well, pepper jack, 2 onion rings, grilled garlic, bacon

Semi-Serious, medium well, cheddar, 2 onion rings, bacon

Semi-Serious, medium well, with Swiss Cheese, tomato, bacon, guacamole and mayo

Best of Both Basket

A sampler of all 5 sauces for the rings and fries:

Texas horseradish (top left), Chile Lime (top right),

Creamy Cheese (center), Habanero Jelly (bottom left) and Creamy Jalapeno (bottom right)

*****

]]> http://spooningandforking.com/2008/07/cheeburger/feed/ 0 http://spooningandforking.com/2008/07/samba/ http://spooningandforking.com/2008/07/samba/#comments Sun, 13 Jul 2008 23:46:54 +0000 monette http://spooningandforking.com/?p=48 Birthdays in my family are somewhat of a big thing… well, sort of. Almost all birthdays are spent at our favorite rib place, Tony Roma’s. Regardless of the many other fine dining establishments that we could choose from, it’s always Tony Roma’s – a standing tradition. After my brother and I moved to the mainland, we still continued the tradition… my parents would celebrate at the Tony Roma’s in Hawaii and my brother and sister-in-law at a rib place in Arizona (since the closest Tony Roma’s is 45 minutes away from their home) and I would celebrate here in Las Vegas with some friends. So it’s almost like we’re all celebrating together – yeah, corny, I know, but that’s how we roll.

Yesterday was no different… well, sort of. My parents had other plans, so they’ll make it out to Tony Roma’s sometime this week. My brother and sister-in-law were invited to a barbeque at a friends house in Arizona, and they had ribs there.

And I celebrated my birthday as I always love to do… with my bestest-friends-in-the-whole-wide-world-universe-and-galaxy-EVER.

But we decided to switch it up a bit this year. Instead of the usual Tony Roma’s, we went to Samba at The Mirage. (This is actually the second time we celebrated my birthday here – good times!) Sorry no pictures of the food were taken. I didn’t want to detract from experience and just wanted to enjoy the food and company.

Like the first time, we all order the ALL YOU CAN EAT RODIZIO EXPERIENCE and got treated to what carnivores dream of every night – meat, meat and more meat.

For those of you that has never experienced Brazilian BBQ, here’s a crash course. Think of rodizio or churrascaria as a seated buffet. The food comes to you instead of you going to the food. There’s usually a little wood thingie on your table. One side is painted red and the other side is painted green. By the end of your dining experience, this will either be your best friend or worst enemy. GREEN MEANS GO – it lets your server know, “Bring it on, buddy. What are you waiting for? We’re hungry and we smell meat!” RED MEANS STOP – “We’re tapping out. I forgot to use my fat jeans. You come my way with that sword and I just might use it on you.” Servers will come to your table with swords of different cuts of beef and pork, some poultry and sausage. The meat is usually sliced up at your table and everyone is served individually. They give everyone these mini tongs to grab the meat that has been sliced – be polite and use the tongs and not your fingers. Also, if it seems that your server is in a good mood, ask for a bigger slice or better yet, ask for what’s left on the sword and he just might oblige. A smile and a wink usually helps also.

*SMILE* *WINK* *LICK LIPS* *PLAYFULLY BITE BOTTOM LIP* and you just might get the whole sword of sirloin next time around. LOL!!!

Dinner started off with their Samba Salad that was tossed on the way to our table by our wonderful host/salad tosser. Once we were done with our salad, our server brought out some traditional side dishes: Brazilian cheese rolls, crackers, creamed spinach, sweet fried plantains, caramelized carrots and black beans and rice. (Dont’ load up on these fluff dishes… the best is yet to come. TRUST ME!) Also on our table were little ramekins of their awesome chimichurri sauce (a garlic and olive oil based sauce with herbs and stuff) and tomato and onion relish, to put on the meat.

No more that 5 minutes after we were done with our salad, the PARADE OF MEATS began.

Bearing swords of meat, servers came to our table to slice up the goods. First to our table was the sirloin. This was then followed by the sausage and sweet peppers, the turkey breast wrapped in bacon, the huli huli chicken, the garlic chicken drumsticks, the flank steak, the roasted pork and roasted pineapple and then the baby back pork ribs.

Then it started all over again.

Then we tapped out.

All of the meats were simply seasoned (salt and pepper). Use the chimichurri sauce to kick up the flavor. You’ll never want steak sauce for your steaks again. The chimichurri’s so rustic, so simple, yet so complex, all at the same time. FANTASTICAL!!! The meats are cooked on a rotisserie, so the natural juices are kept in and constantly “bastes” the meat as it cooks, making for a juicy cut every time.

Missing was their fish course. But the sirloin and the turkey breast wrapped in bacon, more than made up for it.

The Rodizio Experience is on the pricey side, however, very comparable to what you’d pay at a premium steakhouse. Dinner runs at about $40.00 per person, but worth it.

Samba also has individual entrees on their menu if the thought of the meat parade scares you.

Don’t forget to try some of their house cocktails – a bit on the strong side, but yummy just the same. The caipirinha maracuja (traditional caipirinha with a splash of passion fruit juice) and the Brazilian punch (kinda like Jungle Juice that we used to make in college) are standouts.

*****

]]> http://spooningandforking.com/2008/07/samba/feed/ 0 http://spooningandforking.com/2008/07/sc_framboise/ http://spooningandforking.com/2008/07/sc_framboise/#comments Fri, 11 Jul 2008 17:14:50 +0000 monette http://spooningandforking.com/?p=39 I’m taking a break from writing about food to tell you about my new favorite adult beverage – FRUITY BEER. My new favorite being Lindeman’s Framboise. (It’s the one on the right in the picture below.)

Delirium Tremens & Framboise

I’m not a real big fan of beer, but I’ll drink it if 1) it’s icy cold or 2) it’s an icy cold Corona with Red Bull. But being that I was at the Yard House and they have a gazillion beers on tap, I just had to try something other than what readily available at any supermarket. So I decided to try the Framboise at the suggestion of a semi-beer-connoisseur friend that was with me.

The Framboise, served in a goblet at Yard House, embodies every essence of raspberries - its color, aroma and flavor. A light red, not quite pink, in color, it had the sweet-tartness of raspberries and at first seemed like cabonated raspberry juice. Kinda like a wine cooler, but without the cheap-wine-cooler-headache-after-effect. It is light, crisp and clean. Definitely refreshing! Perfect for summers in the desert!

This beer is sooooo addicting that I picked up a couple of bottles at BevMo! in Arizona when I was there (and I gladly shared – this time) and I also picked up a couple more bottles the other day at my neighborhood Lee’s Discount Liquor here in Las Vegas. At Yard House the Framboise costs $9.00 per goblet (half price during Happy Hour which is Monday through Friday from 4pm to 6pm). At BevMo! and Lee’s Discount Liquor it costs about $9.00 for a 750ml bottle or $6.00 for a 12 oz. bottle. The bottle that it comes in looks like a bottle of wine – it even has a cork!

I wonder how Framboise would taste like if it were FROZEN - like a granita…. or ice pops… Looks like I’ll be doing some experimenting….

*****

Yard House at Town Square

The Yard House isn’t your usual, ordinary bar. It boasts quite an impressive menu and has over 150 beers available on tap. I LOVE THIS PLACE!

Here is a picture of THE KEG ROOM. Can you hear the angels singing? Oh yeah, they’re singing alright. Kinda like how the ice cream man in his ice cream truck can easily lure kids out into the heat by playing his annoying circus clown music… having over 150 beers on tap at Yard House can easily lure many closet alcoholics out of hiding. Using a pretty amazing siphoning system, each keg has a tube attached to it, that magically brings the contents of the keg to the bar area. I’ll save my review on the beer and their other adult beverages for another post.

Anyway… back to the food… So on a lazy Saturday, we decided to have lunch at the Yard House.

Here’s some of the dishes we ordered…

Hawaiian Poke Stack

Pretty to look at huh? Bet you’ve never seen Hawaiian poke served this way, but I’ve never met a tuna tartare dish I didn’t like. The ahi was super fresh that day – SUPER FRESH. It was so good, I could have ate the whole thing by myself. But this time I remembered what my niece Paige always tells me… “Auntie, sharing is love.” Here’s how they stacked it. The fresh ahi is marinated ever so slightly in a mixture of soy sauce, sesame oil, sesame seeds, salt, green onions and some other ingredients that I could not pinpoint. Then the marinated tuna is plated, topped with a square of won ton wrapper that is fried till its golden brown. The won ton wrapper is then topped with a marinated mixture of bean sprouts and matchstick carrots. This “fluff” layer is then topped with another fried won ton wrapper, which is then topped off with another generous heap of the marinated ahi tuna. Wasabi sprouts garnish the entire stack and the avocado on the plate is merely there for color, as it does not really add or detract from the dish.

House Salad

My lunch date was not super hungry that day, so he decided to have the House Salad – mixed greens, broccoli, bean sprouts, and carrots tossed in a peanut vinaigrette. (Yeah, I told him he had to turn in his “Man Card” when he ordered this.) This salad was awesome. It was like a Asian chicken salad, but with out the chicken. So guess what he ordered to complement the salad…

Grilled Jamaican Wings

No wings in this dish – all drummettes. The chicken drummettes were tossed in jerk spices served with a rum barbeque sauce on the side. The wings are grilled instead of fried, so they were not greasy at all. And the pieces were massive - like Costco size chicken wings and they give you about 10 of them. This could have easily fed at least 2 people, with a girly salad, of course.

Classic Cheese Burger with Garlic Fries

I was in the mood for a burger that day, so I had the Classic Cheese burger. They use natural Angus beef for their burgers and the burger is served on a potato bun, which makes a big difference. You can choose what kind of cheese you want on your burger. Since they didn’t have any blue cheese or gorgonzola, I asked for the gouda. The burger is also served with french fries, but I requested garlic fries, instead. The burger was cooked to my liking for a burger – medium well. Juicy. Tasty. And the garlic fries… FANTASTICAL! Not greasy at all and infused with garlic.

All was washed down with beer, of course…

Stop by the Yard House if you get a chance. Very kid friendly during the day – they even have a kids menu. Maybe not so kid friendly after 9 on weekends. You decide.

There are lots of great entrees (Steaks, Pizzas, Seafood and Pastas) on the menu, along with your usual bar food fare. I’m sure you’ll find something to your liking.

*****