Emeril's Table 10: BAM!!!!!

Table 10, an Emeril Lagasse Restaurant, was another one of those highly recommended Vegas restaurants, so we decided to check it out.  Lunch was a fantastic experience that set us back about $75 for two.  It was so good that we decided to make a second visit during happy hour.  Unfortunately, happy hour was advertised as 3-7 pm on their website and Foursquare, but it was actually 3-6 pm.  They changed the hours in June, but didn't bother to change the website or Foursquare for almost six months! We didn't have in the budget to spend another $75 on drinks and a snack; so we decided to opt for other dinner plans (turned out to be the comped dinner at Wicked Spoon). 

It was quite a heavy lunch, and well worth the calories.  We started with roasted beef marrow, and oh....it was so sinful. 

The bread at Table 10 was divine.  The addition of unami laden, gelatinous, melty fat made it even more sinfully delicious. 

It isn't the prettiest food, but it sure is tasty.

We had some leftovers that I gave to my sister when we arrived back in Austin.  I got a giddy phone call about it about 10 minutes later. 

Uh-oh, what happened to all the bone marrow? 

We also had the braised beef cheeks.  I liked the dish, but the magic of the roasted beef marrow overshadowed this dish. 

I got the gumbo, which was a perfect gumbo.  However, it was overshadowed by the po'boy pictured below. 

This was the best po'boy I've ever had.  The bread was lightly crunchy, and incredible soft and fluffy on the inside.  The pork was perfectly seasoned, tender and juicy with fat.  I'd order this sandwich again, in a heartbeat.  I would have loved to try the muffaletta (served during happy hour), but alas, no happy hour for us during this Vegas trip. 

Touring the Wicked Spoon, Las Vegas

No trip to Las Vegas is a complete without a gluttonous visit to a buffet.  Yes, I said a buffet.  While there are inherently undesirable traits about buffets, we visited one nonetheless.  Not once, but twice, we visited the Wicked Spoon.  The first time was because I had read that this was one of the better buffets.  The second time was because both @Windaddict and I won a free dinner buffet.  Before we jump into the photos, I'll go through the pros and cons.

Pros:

• The cheesy carbohydrate dishes were absolutely amazing.  In particular, the cheesy grits and gnocchi were probably best I've had.  I'm fairly certain that there was a copious amount of butter and mascarpone cheese those dishes.  This statement does not include the cheese covered vegetables.
• A variety of foods including the roasted beef marrow and snow crab legs as dinner. I liked that there were were a number of different cuisines represented.
• The chao siu bao (Chinese pork bbq buns) were pretty tasty.  I think I had five of them over both buffet visits.
• The mac and cheese station at dinner was also wonderfully fantastic.  You get to choose your ad-ins and type of cheese.  They customize your mac and cheese right then.
• Visually pleasing dessert display. 
• The Cosmopolitan does not have overwhelming smell of cigarettes like many other hotels. 

Cons:

• The price of the buffet is pretty expensive compared to other buffets at $22 for a weekday brunch and $35 for dinner. Don't forget to add tax and tip.  There is plenty of overlap on brunch and dinner, so I wouldn't recommend going to both. The brunch was definitely worthy of $22, but $35 for dinner is too steep for my pocketbook.
• The snow crab legs were over salted, and many of the meat dishes were overly greasy.  Avoid the tacos.
• Serving sizes: I thought they were too big as I like tiny little bites.  While the pots were a cute presentation, they were pretty big sizes for a tasting.  I'm sure other people might think that the servings were too small. I felt guilty throwing out so much food. 
• While the desserts were pretty, some of them were just plain odd and not tasty.
• Avoid the rolls pictured below.  They were as hard as a rock.  I could probably use them as a military weapons.

Avoid the tacos.  The sweet potato hash was kind of dried out too.

Pretty desserts, but some were not as palatable as they appeared. 

Yellow jello with pine nuts and a purple macaron?  I'm not sure who came up with that idea.

Oh yes, that cheesy grit was fantastic.  The bacon was tasty.  Avoid that roll in the bottom left side.  I saw many of them left on plates.  It was not even edible. 

I didn't eat most of these, but I do appreciate the time it took to make them. 

Carrot cakes and pecan pies.  These were actually pretty good.

The mac and cheese station was brilliant.

The shrimp and grits wasn't all that great.  The cauliflower au gratin was just alright. 

The sushi was just alright.  The lamb meat ball was tough, though the sauce was quite nice.  Those gnocchi with goat cheese were out of this world fantastic.

Beef marrow, yes.  Snow crab, just alright. 

These little balls were also kind of hard. 

The chocolate covered strawberries were gigantic.  I took the chocolate off and ate the strawberries. 

These cones were filled with vanilla mousse, and the chocolate balls were filled with chocolate truffle.

I did eat all of it, and it was quite nice.

I'm not sure what was going on with the dessert on the right.  I tried the dessert in the middle, and it was too hard to bite through.  Sad waste of butter and sugar.

Lean Meat and Century Egg Congee - A Traditional Asian dish

Asian cuisine can be some of the most forgiving dishes.  There's rarely an exact recipe, rather rough ratios.  You can add whatever you like in whatever amounts you like.  There really aren’t any rules.  Any deviation from a recipe is called a "secret" recipe.  



The lean meat and century egg congee is a dish that is considered common cafe food.  It is just as popular in Asian countries as chips and tortillas are popular in Austin, TX.  While it isn't considered peasant food, it definitely isn't considered upscale fare.  You won't find it at any fancy or event semi-fancy restaurant, but you might find it at a dim sum restaurant.

As my mother made this particular batch, I looked online at other recipes.  And many of them were deeply involved and time consuming.  As my mother says, "Why make things so complicated?"  This version is quick and easy.  From the very start to finish, it look no longer than seven minutes.  Again, it isn't fancy.  It isn't even pretty.  But it is comfort food to a portion of the population.  

Century egg is one of those Asian foods that might be difficult to understand.  These eggs are not visually pleasing.  The flavor of can be intensely eggy and pungent. The texture can be rubbery and gelatinous.  Some other people might find these qualities unattractive, but I don't find century egg to be unpleasant or offensive.  They are usually individually wrapped and fairly inexpensive.  Most Asian grocery stores will have them.  If you're adventurous, try century eggs!
 

Adjust ingredients to your liking.  The raw ginger can be pretty harsh for those who aren't accustomed to it.  Cut back the ginger or mince into tiny pieces.  Any type of meat is suitable, however, lean pork meat is the most traditional.  

Ingredients:

4 cups cooked rice (I use the sticky kind)
1 piece of raw ginger (roughly 1/2 oz) - julienned or
4 ounces of raw minced pork.  Ground pork is also okay.  
3-4 Century eggs diced or sliced.  It doesn't matter what shape it is in.
1 pinch salt
1 pinch white pepper
1 bunch of green onions, sliced
6 cups of water or chicken broth.

In a large pot, boil the water/broth.  Add the raw meat to the water, and allow it to cook. You could add the meat to the water before it boils too.  It really makes no difference.  My mother puts the meat in nearly frozen. If you are squeamish, you might want to skim the scum off the top pot after the meat has cooked.  Add in the raw ginger, and cooked rice.  Let the rice cook for 3-5 minutes.  It should start to get soft and the liquid should become almost gelatinous.  Congee typically as the consistency of a pudding, but if you like it more like a soup, add more water.  If you like it thicker like an oatmeal, cook it longer.  My mother says that this particular dish should be fairly soup-y, but culinary freedom is in your hands.  

Once the rice is almost the consistency you want, add in the century eggs, salt, and pepper.  Garnish with green onion when serving.  Tada.....easy to make Lean Meat and Century Egg Congee. 




A shelled egg.  The color of eggs can range from light yellow, gray, and to a deep brown. 

The eggs are certainly colorful. 

Frozen minced meat ready to be chopped.

Cutting up the ginger, which happened to be frozen too.

The meat and ginger are cooking.

The soup is ready now.  If you leave it uncovered, it will thicken into a sticky mass.  You can thin it out with with water later. 

A piece of century egg.

A close up.  Easy and comforting.

The Uni Crab Special @UchikoAustin Makes You Want to do Really Bad Things

My Christmas present came early this year - a Canon Powershot 95 from the ever thoughtful @Windaddict.  My previous camera was a Fuji Film FinepixZ90 that had seen much rough abuse over the last four years or so.  It had tumbled down 6th street during a cartwheel and round off Halloween, and it has also taken a tumble down more than one flights of stairs.  Needless to say, it has been handed to someone else who really needs a camera, and can probably take care of it through intensive care. 

To take part in America Express's Small Business Saturday (both @Windaddict and myself got $25 each), we started at Macho Taco, watched Puss in Boots at Alamo Drafthouse, and rounded out the night with dinner at Uchiko.  Uchiko, with its visually appealing food and low lighting, makes photography fun and challenging.

We arrived during social hour, which meant we got to partake in snacks before dinner.  This is the ham and eggs.  I hadn't messed with the camera yet. I just pulled it out and shot in auto mode.  Keep in mind that there's almost no light where we were sitting. 


The beef tongue is one of my favorite nigiris at Uchiko.  At this point, I still hadn't messed with any of the settings yet. 


A gift from the kitchen: uni crab special.  Trumpet mushrooms, uni, mitsuba, apefel cuvee, and crab are smothered with a lobster sauce.  It wasn't a bisque, but close. 


The server poured the sauce all over different ingredients leaving it a visually interesting dish. 


If you aren't a seafood fan, you might not like this dish.  If you grew up on the coast, love seafood like your first born child, and love unami more than life itself; you'll love this dish.  The combination of sweet seafood, meaty mushrooms, intense seafood flavors with pungent uni powder is amazing.  I still can't find the right words to describe the dish, but I'll try.  *My description is also Chef Tyson Cole approved.  This dish is so rich and sinful you'll feel like you're fornicating in a church.  If you don't know what fornicating in a church is like, I would recommend this dish.  And if you decide to try it (the fornicating), please don't get caught and clean up after yourself. 


As you can see, I really loved this dish.  I mean REALLY loved it. 


This was the sabavichie.  It was completely different from the uni crab in style, but lovely all the same.  I remember it tasting like a mashup of thai flavors and cevichie, but honestly I didn't eat that much of it.  I was still licking the plate of the uni crab. 


My favorite dish at Uchiko used to be the truffled congee.  It inspired me to make a macaron with a similar flavor profile of lemon, togarashi spice, and truffle.  Then the truffled congee went away, and I was sad. This tamago congee was a good replacement.  This congee has slow scrambled egg, black truffle, and koshi hikari.


The slow cooked scrambled egg in congee had a comfort food element for me that reminded me of that flashback scene in Ratatouille, except the Asian version.  I grew up eating plain congee, called mwua in Taiwanese or shee fan in Mandarin.  No, I didn't use proper pin yin.  Really upscale comfort food is really good.


I found a piece of egg!


This was the dessert special of lemon gelato, pistachio soil, and beet puree.  That's black pepper on the meringue pieces.  This dessert has also inspired me to make another macaron flavor out of it.  Black pepper, lemon, pistachio, and beets. 


This was the perfect way to end a Small Business Saturday.