The Bakery Collection of M&M’s Candy recently came out so I had to give them a try even though they ALL contain artificial flavoring.
Lemon Meringue Pie – I open the bag. they smell like lemon soda. When you eat them they have a strange texture and don’t feel like a M&M in your mouth. More of a candy coated cereal ball. They have a bright refreshing almost lemon taste and do taste a little bit white-chocolaty. Not terrible but have very little resemblance to an M&M.
Cherry Chocolate Cupcake – These smell like chocolate when you open the bag. They are the most successful flavor of the three. They do have an M&M’s chocolate taste embellished with a Cherry Soda type taste.
Peanut Butter Cinnamon Roll – YUK! Worst of the bunch. They smell like peanut butter. It’s like they made peanut butter M&M’s and instead of adding cinnamon they added a chemical that doesn’t taste like cinnamon and is bitter with a chemical taste.
Those were my FORKING Thoughts on the M&M’s Bakery Collection. I do note that YOUR Forking thoughts may indeed differ.
The International Marketplace is an enormous sort of Supermarket and Houseware Store that sells groceries and things from all over the world. They also sells lots of fresh and frozen seafood, kitchen items, some restaurant ware, live bamboo, Oriental urns, plant pots and more.
Below is just a small amount of what I came across.
Amazing Thai is a casual Thai Restaurant that offers most of the Thai dishes that you would expect and also some Vegan alternative dishes.
From my first visit we both enjoyed the eggplant chip appetizer.
Haven’t tried this dish again until recently. The Eggplant Chips look a bit different but are still tasty and very good but they gave us a different sauce that is just sweet instead of the savory spicy sauce that we preferred.
Recently I tried the Caramel Salmon.
It’s sweet caramelized salmon. on a bed of lettuce. It only pops when you add the spicy flavorful sauce on the end of the plate. It comes with a double order of rice.
My husband tried the Spicy Basil with Beef.
The beef was hand chopped that creates more surface space to hold in flavor better (some places just slice the meat or just use ground Meat) Tonight this dish was very soy forward. It should be basil forward.
Some of the dishes we tried on past visits were –
Chicken with Spicy Eggplant – This was the biggest hit. That day the eggplant was absolute perfection in a very tasty sauce.
Drucken Noodles with Beef
We also did some take out.
Spicy Basil Chicken Rice
Salmon Panang – reasonably good.
A little Hit and Miss like most places. Also not the most consistent.
The Chubby Cattle Hot Pot Restaurant is located in Las Vegas’s Chinatown. This is a restaurant that specializes in Asian Hot Pots or Hardy Soup Meals. They offer a variety of soup bases. Most soup bases do contain pork but they still offer a long list of things to those who don’t eat pork. You start out by ordering your soup base. You order add ons. The add ons come in small and large sizes. We found that small add ons are plenty for two people. They also have extra add ons that go by your table on a conveyer belt. You also use the condiment bar to embellish your hot pot further.
The tables have soup wells built into them to keep your hot pot hot.
You can see by my picture that we tried a lot of things.
I tried vegan Beautiful Tomato Hot Pot and my husband tried House Original Hot Pot.
See how red the Tomato one is in the bottom left corner looks different after you do the add ons.
I added on tomatoes, spinach noodles, pumpkin, baby corn, some mushrooms, and flounder. I also added just a little bit of condiments. Some garlic, cilantro, mirin, sesame oil. Everything is delicious (except for the flounder) I would not recommend getting the flounder here. I’m glad it didn’t spoil my soup. The fish was still edible but fishy. Somehow my soup stayed pretty darn tasty and I had a bunch left over for the next day.
My husband added on wagyu brisket, ramen noodles, mushrooms, potatoes, and extra numbing, spicy sauce. He enjoyed all of his very much.
Chubby Cattle is Worth a Try! (just don’t get the flounder)
Favorite Dish of the week was the Maitake Mushrooms with Miso Fondue from Ada’s Food & Wine. It was delicious and amazing. Almost every one would enjoy it. I also should say at this point that most dishes we tried were at least VERY GOOD from Ada’s ……..But also the worst dish of the week came from the same restaurant.
This pasta dish was terrible because of how highly over salted it was. The restaurant was very apologetic about this and did offer to replace and remove from the bill. But It’s a long story that is best saved for another time.
Took a trip to the newly opened Hearthstone at Red Rock. Had maybe the smallest salad that I ever had anywhere. (It was only tomatoes, cheese, and black berries)
In other food news –
Coming Soon –
Late February? – Hayworth (by chef Alex Reznik – winner of Beat Bobby Flay, and also from Bravo Top Chef) Eastern European and Jewish Foods – 1450 W Horizon Ridge Pkwy – Henderson
Feb.- 28 – Lunar New Year FESTIVAL at Korea Town Plaza
March?– Tacos 1986 – at The Resort at Summerlin (in the Food Hall)
March? – For The Win (smash burgers) At The Resort at Summerlin (in the Food Hall)
Now Open –
-The FIRST Five Guys with a walk up BAR on the Strip in The Venetian
And in Silly and or Cute Food News – My Dogs eating from The Great Greek Mediterranean Grill.
That was The FORKING Las Vegas FOOD Buzz of the week
This is an easy Boursin Style Cheese Recipe. It’s basically cream cheese, butter, sour cream, some herbs and sweet roasted whipped garlic. I do note that I used dried herbs because it would cost a lot here to buy all fresh herbs. Serving size is always difficult to determine. I’d say that it makes around 12 servings. (Pro Tip – It’s my big fat secret in my deviled eggs that I’ve been making. Everyone says that they are extra delicious)
16 oz cream cheese – room temperature
4 oz butter – room temperature
1/2 cup sour cream
2 oz sweet roasted garlic whipped (roast lots of garlic cloves with olive oil at 300F covered for about an hour – whip- add a splash of honey so it stays fresh or freeze in small portions)
1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
2 teaspoons parsley
1 teaspoon dried dill
1/2 teaspoon marjoram
1/2 teaspoon basil
1/2 teaspoon chives
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon piment d’ espelette
1/4 teaspoon thyme
Instructions – mix well. Taste. Adjust if you care too!
Boursin Style Cheese on home made cracker (crisp bread recipe is on this site)
Napoli Pizzeria has 4 location in Vegas. But for some odd reason the North Las Vegas Location is not listed on the Napoli Website and might only share the name and same sign. On Yelp this restaurant is listed as Napolis Pizza……?…..Maybe they just use the Napoli Sign and same cash register because Napoli is what I see on my receipt. Anyways…..They are an average Pizzeria that offers the usual pizzas, wings, pastas, sandwiches, and more.
We tried a plain pizza.
There’s a good amount of cheese and the crust is ok….but the top is salted….and is really too salty for me.
But-
It’s like the sauce is missing. No herbs, no flavors (but salt), almost no sauce.
GastroPub Nisei Bar & Grill is an Asian Fusion Unique Bar & Grill located in the Chinatown of Las Vegas Nevada. It’s sort of Las Vegas inside with neon. And it’s pretty quiet today mid-week at lunch time.
We started out by sharing the Kalbi Tacos (Korean Marinated Short Ribs)
Umm Tasty flavors. I like the sauces. One was called spicy mayo and the other was called salsa verde but are unique and different. Very good flavors but the meat is ever so slightly chewy.
We also shared a Mini Chicken kabob.
A little plain but ok.
I think the winner was the unique and unusual Pastrami Sando with Yuzu Slaw, and Hot Honey Mustard and added Truffle Fries.
The sandwich is actually banging with flavors. The Pastrami we were told was made by a nearby butcher. It’s very flavorful and the hot honey mustard is really perfect here. The pickles taste good but are kinda squishy. The fries are cooked perfect but the truffle stuff falls out and the fries seem broken.
Cantinetta Pizza & Pasta Restaurant is an Italian Restaurant located in Las Vegas Nevada. They offer many of your usual Italian favorites. They also offer things like beet carpaccio, salmon carbonara, and chocolate fettuccini. They are under the same ownership as Brunello LV in Summerlin and both restaurants are adorned with a Sofia Loren Pictures.
Whatever you order they start you off with warm bread and sun-dried tomato oil.
Maybe you want to start off with the soup of the day (minestrone was the soup)
or a fried eggplant appetizer with creamy walnut sauce.
Below is the beet salad with burrata, pistachios, pine nuts, oranges, greens, and chicken.
One of the pasta dishes is rigatoni picante with spicy nduja sausage.
Another pasta dish is the gnocchi al taleggio with lots of walnuts and some sausage.
Below is the chicken piccata (lunch portion)
A few of the desserts are gelatos (below is 1/2 pistachio and 1/2 Amareno Cherry)
Another dessert is a cake called chocolate temptation.
Everything was at least reasonably good so Cantinetta Pizza & Pasta is Worth a Try!
Aroma Latin American Cocina (by a 2024 James Beard Nominated Chef) Has recently closed at their Henderson location. Below are dishes we’ve tried there. All were amazing.
The good news is that Amora Latin American Cocina plans to open in Chinatown in February at 3355 Spring Mountain Road.
In Other FOOD News –
January 30th – Hearthstone expects to officially open at Red Rock
A second location of WSKY is now open in North Las Vegas at 720 E Cheyenne Ave.
North Las Vegas has a NEW casual Indian Restaurant….SORT OF……….
It’s called Spice Bomb-Bay and it shares the Hummus Republic Restaurant Building. 2546 E Craig Road
Noticed Slim Chicken’s Restaurant being built on Craig Road almost across from Pandora’s Burgers.
Also noticed a Vegas 888 Buffet being built on Decatur Rd
In even more FOOD News –
Maybe Spring? – Able Baker Bomb Shelter – 6371 Centennial Center Blvd
Maybe Spring – Istanbul Mediterranean Restaurant at 505 Fremont Street
Maybe this year? – Mediterranean Latin Grill 1216 Owens Ave.
Maybe this year? – Nashville Cats Cafe – somewhere on the strip
This Year – China Mama 2233 N Rampart Blvd
May-June? – China Mama 2550 Rose Parkway (Henderson)
Spring – The Hat (pastrami dip restaurant from CA) 6215 S Rainbow Blvd
June-July? – EDO Gastropub 9205 W Russell Rd
February – Braseria (at The Collective)
In Other Food News –
WORST FOOD of the week came from California Fish Grill In Centennial Hills.
The Salmon Wasabi Bowl was AWFUL. The whole experience was also awful. They didn’t turn on heaters for us so we left and did take out. Sauces were missing. Ingredients that should have went into the Salmon Wasabi bowl were missing and the fish was partially BURNT. ( I do note that we’ve been here several times and previous visits were reasonably good so I can’t say for sure what happened here.)
Best of the week was Rang’s Cocina Moderne. We’re there about once a month because the food and service is always perfect. They serve a unique menu of Italian, Spanish, that is mixed with a little bit of Asian. Below are many of the dishes we’ve tried there.
And in Silly and or Cute Food News – My dogs eating salmon from California Fish Grill.
“Give me all that nasty salmon so you don’t have to eat it.”
“Do you know that this salmon tastes a bit burnt?”
That was The FORKING Las Vegas Food Buzz of the Week.
