Mr. BBQ is a premium All-You-Can-Eat Korean BBQ in Las Vegas Nevada’s Chinatown. It’s normally around $50. a person for the all you can eat dinner and normally close to $30. a person for the Monday-Friday all-you-eat-lunch. Recently it was restaurant week and they were offering a $20 (till June 16th 2023) lunch special so we decided to give it a try.
We pulled in.
As soon as you step in it looks like Las Vegas.
Then after that I’m not sure if it’s Las Vegas or Psychedelics?
I couldn’t believe the amount of banchan (side dishes) they served us to start with. I never received so many at any Korean Restaurant before.
We received 17 different mostly salad dishes, a BIG bowl of salad, rice papers, and three different sauces to start out with. Some of the salads were bean sprouts, cucumber, macaroni, potato, kimchi, radish, onions, corn, and celery. We also received fish cakes, edamame, and gosh a lot more.
Then we got steamed eggs, spicy tofu soup and rice.
Here come the meats.
16 oz. USDA Prime Brisket and 16 oz of spicy chicken thighs.
We cook ourselves. We do the brisket first.
Then we do the spicy chicken.
I am very surprised on how good they both are. Both are as tender as can be and also delicious!
After all this who on earth has room for more?
We were suppose topic up a donut next door. We didn’t have room for donuts so we skipped it.
But WOW! All this even at $10. more a person is sure was Worth a Fork!
Mr. BBQ is Worth a Fork!
Worth a Fork!
Mr. BBQ 4240 Spring Mountain Road Las Vegas NV – 702-483-4240
Bravo’s Top Chef contestant Chef Gene Villatora has a well known popular Hawaiian Street Food Restaurant in California called Ai Pono. Late this year (2023) a Nevada opening is expected at the Durango Casino and Resort that is soon to open. I heard about the pop up and wanted to give this a try. There might be over a thousand people here.
It really is a big deal. Channel 3 was filming.
Saw Chef Villatora was actually working the line.
By the time we made it to order they ran out of the platter that I was the most excited to try.
So we tried a bunch of other things and even the secret menu item. We only tried Da Side Chick and the guava chili pepper fried chicken for lunch.
Da Side Chick—-Tasty and delicious and priced not much higher than fast food from a Bravo Top Chef ($10.)
Guava chili pepper fried chicken – large portion tasty and the rice and slaw is especially notable. Also priced like regular Hawaiian plate lunches but much better than most.
Later for dinner we got to try some more.
Ahi Katsu with miso hot mustard breading and sweet soy reduction……Not bad but not my favorite…maybe it’s just better when you get this one fresh and right away?
This is the crackhead chicken that was marinated for 24 hours with a secret batter and a garlic-coconut-miso glaze…….The chicken is very tender and developed with flavor. The glaze does sound amazing but maybe didn’t travel well?
This one only my husband tried……..it was the surprise meal. We were told it was something fish.
We think it’s more guava chili chicken and it’s over some sort of meat chili with beans. The chicken is good. My husband said that the chili flavoring is very unusual.
The strong favorite was the da side chick sandwich.
You can visit Ai Pono in California or wait for the Durango Opening.
That was my trip to the Ai Pono Pop Up at Red Rock Casino in Las Vegas NV.
Spices, dijon, maple, walnuts, and celery leaves all go together very well and all taste great on carrots so here we are! This recipe will make 4-6 servings depending on how big your serving size is. Ovens do differ so timing may differ. Tis took far longer in this oven than I think it would have taken in my last oven.
Ingredients for around 5 servings.
1 1//2 pounds carrots – peel if not organic. You can cut however you like but that will affect cooking time. I cut mine longways.
1 Tablespoon Dijon (I used Amaro Brand)
1 teaspoon ground yellow mustard
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1 teaspoon fennel seeds
2 Tablespoons maple syrup
1 orange – the fresh squeezed juice and zest separate
2 garlic cloves – ground to paste
2 Tablespoons butter – room temperature ( doesn’t matter if salted or not you adjust to your liking)
2 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
sea salt – to taste
pepper (of your choice) – to taste (I used one small dried Calabrian crushed)
2 Tablespoons walnuts – ground
2 loose Tablespoons – celery leaves – chopped
Directions
Preheat oven to 450 degrees F.
Lay the carrots in a single layer on baking sheet(s) and set to the side.
In a small mixing bowl mix together the mustards, coriander, fennel seeds, maple syrup, orange juice, garlic, butter, oil, pepper, salt. Mix well. Spoon this mixture evenly over the carrots.
Put them on the middle rack. In my oven this took a total of 45 minutes to be done. I put mine in for 35 minutes and turned them over and cooked them another ten minutes for a total of 45 minutes.
Finished them with the walnut crumbs, orange zest, and the celery leaves.
Spiced Dijon Orange Maple Carrots with Walnut Crumbs and Celery Leaves
In case you never read my blog before. The Forking Truth happens to be a variety food blog. I go to restaurants and take photos and write about my experiences. I do recipes here. Some are mine, some are from great chefs, and some are chef inspired. I also write about different foods I try or just see from the grocery store. I write about anything food related. Thursdays are my freestyle day and can be about anything.
The reasons why many food bloggers stop blogging probably isn’t that they’ve run out of ideas. It’s probably because they are tired of all the online money grabbers crap we come by. The latest money grabber I’ve come by is Facebook. They ask for $42. dollars daily and in exchange will let a little over a thousand readers see my posting. I get similar messages from Instagram too and I’m sick of it. The other big one comes from my blog hosting company. They want a yearly extra fee of $240. so that I am able to “Like” other people’s blogs so in return they will “Like’ my blog. According to them I ran out of “Free” likes.
I just thought I’d put The FORKING Truth out there.
Don’t worry I’m still posting and not not asking for any money from anyone.
These are some of the difficulties of Food Blogging.
Oh and I thought I’d add a little more food to today’s posting.
I’m making a lot of different chicken breast dinners stuffed with different fillings.
This one I made real fast and didn’t jot down what I put in it but I made mixed vegetables (cabbage, carrots, peppers) with gyro seasoning and stuffed them in chicken breast that I opened up and pounded thin. Rolled it up. Season the outside with gyro seasoning. Then they get vacuumed packed. Sous vide at 146 degrees F for around 3 1/2 hours. Chilled and froze some. The refrigerated ones heat up in 350 degree F oven for 30-40 minutes and they come out FORKING AMAZING!
Las Pupusas is a casual Salvadorian Mexican Restaurant with around five locations around Las Vegas Nevada. They offer mostly Salvadorian foods but also offer some Mexican dishes and also offer some breakfast plates. They don’t have a bar but do offer some bottled beers. This isn’t a fancy place but they do offer some wait service.
Since we are here we have to try some Salvadorian Pupusas. (Salvadorian stuffed flat breads).
We tried a spinach and cheese and a cheese and herbs pupusa. They are both really tasty. You eat then with a pile of spicy slaw on them. I like the spinach one better because it’s like they almost forgot the herbs in the herbs one all I tasted was a tiny part of a mint leaf in that one but both still are very tasty.
For my main I tried the fried tilapia.
The fish is shattering crisp with mild white flesh. You can embellish it with some lime and hot sauce. It also comes with a family sized pile of rice, refried beans, salad and two hand made tortillas.
The salpicon (picadillo) is a cold Salvadorian ground rib eye salad.
It also comes with rice, refried beans, salad, and two hand made tortillas. The beef is aromatic, sort of refreshing and full of flavors. We can taste fresh mint in it.
Las Pupusas serves large portions and prices are low.
Las Pupusas is Worth a Try!
945 West Craig Road North Las Vegas NV – 702-648-6200
******UPDATE NOW CLOSED FOR BUSINESS*******M.Y. Asia is an Asian restaurant by James Beard Award Wining Celebrity Chef Martin Yan. This restaurant is located in the recently rebranded Bally’s Casino now known as the Horseshoe Casino on the Las Vegas Strip in Nevada. According to the M.Y. Asia website Martin Yan offers you a taste of authentic dishes from South East Asia, China, Japan, and Korea. As of this writing the website only list one menu and specials of the week. They also mention live noodle pulling. On the day of my visit I found out that the menu and specials are not offered at lunch and a much smaller abbreviated menu is offered and there wasn’t any live noodle pulling.
We start out by sharing the cucumber salad.
It has a nice refreshing vinaigrette on it with LOTS of sesame seeds. Besides cucumber there are thin slices of hot pepper and according to the menu wood ear mushrooms…. The menu description also reads that gogi berries are suppose to be in there but I didn’t find any. It’s still all tasty.
I tried the chow fun with chicken.
This dish has a base of rice noodles and has onions, scallions, bean sprouts, expertly moist tender chicken in a stir fry sauce topped with pepper threads.
I tried one bite of the Mongolian beef.
This dish is made of expertly tender tenderloin, onions, bell peppers, and dried chili peppers embellished with some crunchy rice and pepper threads.
It was all very good but much higher priced than from any similar spot in China Town.
That was my trip to M.Y. Asia******UPDATE NOW CLOSED FOR BUSINESS *******
3645 S. Las Vegas Blvd Las Vegas NV – 725-205-0539
OH MY GOSH I made a Great Discovery! I decided to try Monzu Italian Oven & Bar in Las Vegas Nevada not too far from the Strip. They happen to offer a Chef’s Table Menu. with a few different choices. We picked the $62. menu that offers a meat and cheese board, salad, pizza, pastas, meats, vegetables, and desserts. We got high quality delicious foods and got way more than we could eat too!
Whatever you pick they start you off with very special house made Italian Country Sour Dough Bread and house made creamy ricotta cheese drizzled with quality olive oil and some herbs.
Next is a snacking plate of all kinds of things.
On the left are eggplant salad and olives. Up top is mortadella, lemon beef. prosciutto. In the middle are fried breads, down below are a variety of cheeses. On the left side are bacon wrapped dates and fried anchovies with sage.
Next is salad.
It’s mostly arugula, heirloom tomatoes onions, and the crispest sweetest fennel that I have ever tasted anywhere.
We got to try this really unusually AMAZING pizza.
Instead of sauce this pizza is spread with date cream. It’s topped with arugula, scamorra cheese, ricotta, and heirloom tomatoes with prosciutto.
After that are two bowls of pasta.
We tried the light pillow-like gnocchi with walnuts and a creamy gorgonzola type sauce.
We also tried pasta with a red eggplant Norma sauce.
Then we tried this really great fish house quality Seabream with delicious potatoes and a specialty vegetable called sea asparagus.
The skin was perfectly crisp too! and the fish just melted in your mouth.
We also received petite lamb shanks with potatoes and vegetables.
They even gave us a generous plate of dessert too!
Biscotti, cannoli, and an Italian doughnut drizzled with honey and sour orange rind.
Now that is a deal!
The $62. Chef’s Table Menu at Monzu Italian Oven & Bar in Las Vegas NV sure is-
The only main vegetable I had today was celery. So I looked up celery recipes. To my surprise I found a whole long list of Italian Celery with Chick Pea Recipes. They all were different but not all but most didn’t have meat in them. When I read all the recipes they sort of reminded me of turkey stuffing but with chick peas instead of bread but maybe slightly soupy. Not all but a couple recipes involved mashing a potato or more beans in it to thicken it up some. I also read that many Italians eat the celery with chick peas with an egg to make it a complete meal. I winged my own version that is different. I didn’t have potatoes or more beans to add to mine but I did have Taralli Pugliesi Pizza Crackers so I added some to give it some body. I thought it was just right to stuff into a chicken breast so that is what I did. I do note that the Celery & Chick Peas takes an hour or more to prepare and needs some time to cool before you can stuff it into chicken so you need to plan for that.
I usually cut 1/2 chicken breast different but with the shape this one was this seemed like the way that made sense to me today.
Then add stuffing
Roll it shut and season with an Italian type seasoning (I used not all but most of 1 Tablespoon sea salt, 3/4 Tablespoon ground black pepper, 1 small crush Calabrian pepper, I Tablespoon dried basil, 1 Tablespoon dried oregano, 1 Tablespoon fennel seeds)
If you have a sous vide this gets vacuumed sealed.
These go in the sous vide at 146 degrees F for around 3 1/2 hours. I refrigerated some of what I made and froze some. After refrigeration I reheated mine at 350 degrees for 35 minutes with Italian tomato puree. They came out delicious and expertly moist. My husband was very impressed. He said how come when we go to restaurants we never get chicken this moist. If I owned a restaurant I would sous vide most of the chicken.
Italian Style Celery & Chick Pea Stuffed Chicken
It’s just a fact that the sous vide results are so darn perfect that you can re-heat something you made from the sous vide and it will still be perfect.
Ingredients for around 8 servings
4 large 1/2 chicken breast opened up for stuffing
1 bundle celery – Sliced thin, reserve some leaves for finishing…..(Sorry I forgot to photo with celery leaves I reserved)
1/2 large onion – diced
6 garlic cloves – ground to paste
12 kalamata olives -pits removed, rough chop
2 short Calabrian peppers
1 can (around 15.5 oz) chick peas , drained, rinsed 3 times
1/2 teaspoon ground sage
1/2 teaspoon fennel seeds
1 lemon zest
1 mini red bell pepper – core, stem, seeds removed – diced
1 Tablespoon Better Than Bouillon (this adds great flavor and almost enough salt)
4 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 cup water
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
4 oz Taralli Pugliesi Pizza crackers – crushed
sea salt to taste
Italian seasoning to taste
1 cup Italian tomato puree
Directions
Set oven to 375 degrees F
In a 1/2 buffet pan or large dish add the celery, onion, garlic, olives, 2 short Calabrian crushed peppers, chick peas, safe, fennel seeds, lemon zest, bell pepper, Better Than Bouillon, olive oil, water, Taralli Pugliesi pizza crackers salt, and pepper.Cover pan. Cook on middle rack until the celery is tender (about an hour but timing may differ)
This mixture needs to cool to at least room temperature before you stuff it into chicken breasts.
When cool stuff the chicken breast, season each chicken breast all over with Italian seasoning. Then vacuum seal. Repeat till done. They go in a preheated sous vide. When the sous vide hits 146 degrees after the chicken is added let it go 3 1/2 hours. You can have heated tomato sauce or Italian tomato puree, vegetables and some of the extra celery and chick pea stuffing for serving. Garnish with some of the reserved celery leaves. You can brown in a pan if you like but it’s not necessary here.
Paulie’s South Street Steaks is a casual Philadelphia inspired Cheesesteak and Hoagie restaurant with two locations in Las Vegas Nevada. The West Craig Road location is small and very casual. You order and pay at the counter and seat yourself. Someone runs the food to you when it’s ready.
Today I tried a Spicy Jalapeño Avocado Steak Sandwich.
The steak meat (according to what they have written on the wall is) is a blend of Kobe beef and prime sirloin that is different from the usual shaved ribeye of most Philadelphia Cheese Steaks. The sandwich was also embellished with pickled jalapeños, creamy avocado, red bell pepper, caramelized onions, and chipotle mayonnaise. (sharp American cheese left off at my request) I think the filling of this steak sandwich is very good. The roll is locally made and is very soft…….
My husband tried the steak sandwich called the Italian.
This steak sandwich is made of steak meat, peppers, onions, garlic marinara, provolone cheese, and sharp American cheese on a locally made soft bun.
We also shared some scoop fries that were tasty.
Paulie’s didn’t take me back to the steak sandwiches of Philadelphia…….. mostly because the bread is very different (soft and squishy…..) and cherry peppers are not in sight but the meat filling was very good. Jay from Paulie’s did contact me and said bread differs everywhere in Philadelphia. He also said that the server is suppose to offer hot/sweet peppers.
