ROTM - Wendy's Noodle Cafe 港朝樓

Wendy's Noodle Cafe 港朝樓

3401 S Jones Blvd
Las Vegas, NV 89146

(702) 889-3288

http://www.yelp.com/biz/wendys-noodle-cafe-las-vegas

這是一家港式的茶餐廳

有港式西餐及普通的中餐 如餛飩麵等等

環境很乾淨 味道還不錯 以下是我嘗試過的

This is Hong Kong Style cafe. They have your traditional Chinese food and they also have Western-Inspired Chinese Food, I come here for their traditional Chinese food though. 

They have a huge menu:
Starters 

(Springs Rolls, Dumplings, Sweet Potato Fries, Calamari) 

Noodles 

(Noodle Soup or Stir Fried Noodles), 

Rice Plates 

(Yang Chow Fried Rice, Salty Fish & Seafood Dry Scallop Friend Rice),

East Meet West 

(Cheese Baked with Pork or Chicken Cutlet, New York Steak with Rice), 

Chef's Specials 

(Oyster Omelets, Pork Patty w Salty Fish & Egg Rice Hot Pot, Curry Beef Stew Hot Pot),
Sweets 

(Hong Kong Style Egg Custard, Hong Kong Style Durian Crepe, Fruit Tarts, Shaved Ice).

The restaurant is very clean and well-lit. The owner Wendy is very friendly and always greets each table personally when she have time. Service is fast, efficient and friendly. And they take credit card (with $15 minimum purchase), which is a rare for a Asian restaurant to accept Credit Cards. 

Here are the dishes I've tried:

Sliced Rib Eye Noodle Soup
牛肉河粉：味道普通, 淡了一點.. 建議還是去越南餐廳吃

Popcorn Chicken with Basil
鹽酥雞：味道普通, 當然不能跟台灣的比

Flaming Hot Pork Kidney with Ginger and Scallion
麻辣豬肝：炒的剛剛好, 但可以再辣一點. 以我這個不吃辣的人都認為是中辣而以

Roast Duck with Rice
燒鴨飯

Pan Fried Rice Cake with Soy Sauce and Egg
蘿蔔糕炒蛋：這個推薦～

 

Pretzel Dogs

 Recipe: Pretzel Dogs

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups warm (110 to 115 degrees F) water
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast
• 4 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• 2 ounces unsalted butter, melted
• 2/3 cup baking soda
• 1 large egg
• 16 full sized hot dogs/ sausages

Instructions

1. Combine the warm water, sugar and salt in the bowl of a stand mixer and sprinkle the yeast on top. Allow it to sit for about 5 minutes. Add the flour and butter and using the dough hook attachment, mix on low speed until well combined. Change to medium speed and knead about 5 minutes until the dough is smooth and pulls away from the side of the bowl. Remove the dough from the bowl, and place the dough in a glass bowl oiled with vegetable oil. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place for approximately 50 to 55 minutes or until the dough has doubled in size.
2. Divide the dough into 16 pieces. Roll out each piece of dough into a 12 inch rope.
   
3. If you are making mini dogs, cut hot dogs to desired length.  Then take rope of dough and begin wrapping around the length of the hot dog/sausage. One dough rope can be used for a full sized hot dog. If you are making minis, wrap until you reach the top, then break off the dough for the rest of the mini hot dogs/sausages.
4. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F.
5. Using a large sauce pan, fill with water. Bring the water to a boil and add the baking soda.
6. Place the pretzels into the boiling water for 30 seconds. Remove them from the water using a large flat spatula. Place pretzels on baking sheet lined with parchment paper or silpat mat.
7. Beat one large egg. Brush the top of each pretzel dog with the beaten egg. Bake until dark golden brown in color, approximately 6-8 minutes.

I use the leftover dough to make a pretzel and sprinkled Gouda cheese on top.

Pretzel Dogs.

Restaurant.com & Sumo Sushi 2

Sumo Sushi 2
8795 W Warm Springs Rd
Ste 106
Las Vegas, NV 89148

We're a big sushi fan and always in search of a good sushi resturant. There are couple regular ones we go to but we've noticed there are lots of sushi restaurants near our house. So we decided to give one a try, if it turns out good, next time we crave sushi, we don't have to drive all the way across town to get it.


And if you know me, you know I'm a huge coupon user. And I discovered this site called www.Restaurant.com couple years ago. If you don't know about it, it's a site that sells coupons to local resturants across the nation. You can do a search by your zip code.

I knew we were going to try Sumo Sushi 2 eventually, so I went to do a search on the site, and they happen to have a coupon: $25 certificate for the price of $10. What better way to try a new restaurant, at discounted price?

It saves the certificates on their website and keeps track for you, so you can wait until you are ready to use it then go to their site to print it out. There are some minor restrictions on the certificates though. It expires 1 year after your purchase date. Often it comes with restrictions like - a minimum purchase, dine-in only, not valid on weekends, dinner-only, 18% gratuity automatically added. It will say on the restaurant page before you make a purchase, so you know what you're getting and how to use it. Those factors are not big deal for me, if I can get $25 of food for only $10.



And if you sign up to be a member, you will get coupon offers weekly or biweekly like this. And it varies from time to time, I've seen it for 80% off at times, so you're getting a $25 certificate for the price of $2! I've been spreading the word around this site to all my friends but I'm surprised not everyone have taken this great offer. So I decided to write about it as a reminder to save you some money! And chances are, there just might be some local restaurants near you that's on here! :)

 

Anyway, back to Sumo Sushi, the service is great, but it gets busier towards dinning hours so the service could get a little slow. But the atmosphere is nice and modern with a giant fish tank as soon as you walk in. The rolls selection is huge and they have a regular menu and just started doing all-you-can-eat (AYCE) for ~$25 per person. I have tried both. The AYCE menu has a lot of selections as well. 

My recommendations would be the popular "Something Wrong 69 Roll", "What the Heck #2 Roll", Tuna Karai (spicy tuna sashimi - poke style, my personal favorite so far), Baked Green Mussels, Plum Ice cream is to-die-for....and hubby's favorite, their Fried Rice! LOL he swears it's the best fried rice in town.

Check it out if you are ever in the area! This might be my favorite sushi joint in town!

One thing I do want to mention though, which a lot of Yelper (http://www.yelp.com/biz/sumo-sushi-2-las-vegas) gave a bad review, is because they will not honor the Restaurant.com coupon for the all-you-can-eat menu. Which is kind of expected since this is a great deal already, and since I don't really go for the AYCE menu that often.

Tuna Karai

New at Starbucks (well, at least for me) - Red Velvet Whoopie Pie

I was getting my regular coffee from Starbucks today - Pike Place Roast with 2% Milk, and something caught my eye on their menu and I had to get it. I'm a sucker for Red Velvet cakes... This is the description on their website: cream cheese frosting and two small red velvet cakes. Yum!

The cake is moist, and the cream cheese frosting in the center is not overly sweet at all. Although it's delicious, but it's kind of pricey for 2 macaroon-sized cakes - $2.50, total with coffee =  $4.81.
 

Did you know?

While foods were rationed during World War II, bakers used boiled beets to enhance the color of their cakes. Boiled grated beets or beet baby food are found in some red velvet cake recipes.

A great recipe site to share with you

I don't know about you, but I'm a very visual person when it comes to food. A beautiful presentation or photo definitely makes me want to try it more. I came across this site a while ago, which is a compilation of a lot of different food blogs.

At first glance, you will see the beautiful photos immediately. It has definitely inspired me to cook more and try out the different recipes. Hopefully it will inspire you too!

The site is called http://foodgawker.com/

BBQ Korean Short-ribs

Greenland Supermarket

6850 W Spring Mountain Rd
Spring Valley, NV 89146

There's a really nice and fairly new Korean market here in Las Vegas, which sells fresh meats for Korean BBQ, hot pot, variety of kimchee (fermented spicy napa cabbage) and lots of vegetable side dishes (cucumbers, daikon, spinach...etc) that's ready-to-eat and made fresh daily.

In their meat section, they also have pre-marinated meat in the BBQ sauces to choose from, whether it's Bulgogi or Kalbi. This time, I purchased the beef fresh short-ribs and a jar of the Korean Kalbi BBQ Sauce.

I marinated the beef short-ribs in the sauce for about 45 min. The sauce already has all the seasoning in there, so you do not need add any additional seasonings.

Then I just pan sear the short-ribs, about 3 minutes on each side.

Then I serve it with the ready-made bean sprout salad and the spinach salad I got from the Korean market as well. Here is the finished product:

ROTM - Hot N Juicy Crawfish

Hot N Juicy Crawfish

4810 Spring Mountain Rd
Ste C & D
Las Vegas, NV 89102

(702) 891-8889

hotandjuicycrawfish.com

I've been hearing about this place for a long time and finally had the chance to go try it out over the past weekend. This restaurant have been feature on the Travel Channel show, Man Vs. Food. Skip to 6:50 for the Hot N Juicy segment.


This place is busy! We went at 6 pm, dinner time on a Sunday, and we had a group of 6 and the wait was an hour.  The location is a very small strip-mall plaza with limited parking. As I pull up I see a line of cars parked on the side street.  There's definitely not enough parking here.

The place is not too big, so I wouldn't recommend a group larger than 4 people, since their table just seats 4. Otherwise you will have to wait a while for the seat.  The servers and waitress were really friendly, and attentive for a place as busy as this.

Here is the list of seafood they have:

Raw Oysters

Dungeness Crab

Blue Crab

Snow Crab legs

King Crab legs

Shrimp

Crawfish

What you do is, select your type of seafood select the type of seasoning you want, then select the spice level. Everything is sold by the pound.

We got 3 bags of shrimp, 2 lbs of the spicy one, and 1lb of the mild and medium. And 1 lb of the blue crab (they were out of the Dungeness)

The Extras:
Corn
Potato
Sausage
Cajun Fries
Sweet Potato Fries
Bowl of Rice
Rolls
Extra Seasoning Sauce

We added 6 pieces of corn and 1/2 dozen of sausage in our shrimp plus 2 bowls of rice (we asked extra sauce on the side to eat with the rice). The food came out about 15 minutes later, and not all at the same time. And as soon as you open it, the aroma fills up the entire area, of delicious seafood!  Beware of the spice level though, I'm very sensitive to spice and the mild was spicy already. But it's nothing I can't handle, so if you can't handle any spice at all, make sure to let the waitress know.

Total for 6 people with all the food & soft drinks came to $120 with tax and gratuity. (I think they automatically add in the gratuity for 6 or more people). So, $20 per person, for a ton of fresh seafood, it's a bargain! You get a cute bib when you get here, you can also ask for gloves if you don't want to get your hands dirty, trust me, you hand will smell afterwards no matter what! But they have a roll of paper towels at each table and they give you scented wipes with your check.

The aftermath...

Sorry about the poor quality of the photos, we were too busy to peel & eat the shrimp!

ROTM - Soyo Korean Barstaurant

ROTM - Restaurant of the Month.

Soyo Korean Barstaurant

7775 S. Rainbow Blvd
Ste 105
Las Vegas, NV 89139

One of my 2011's new year resolution is to try a new restaurant once a month.
In February, we went to try this Korean restaurant near our house. I love Korean food.
Most of the Korean restaurants are noisy, bright, crowded and with table BBQ.
Not Soyo.

It's a Barstaurant, as they call it.
You will see it as soon as you walk in.
This place reminds me of one of my favorite Japanese joint here in town, Ichiza, which I will post a detailed post later.

 They give you a bottle of a roasted corn tea and these aluminum bowls/cups when you first sit down.

 The restaurant interior

Our booth

 The daily choice side dishes that they immediately serve you, free and refillable.

 Korean sausage (filled with rice and buckwheat noodles, with a side of liver)
- the sausage was really good, but I can do without the liver.

 Kimchee Fried Rice - a bit spicy for my taste. And the bottle you see in the background is Lychee Soju, which is really tasty. They offer varieties of fruit flavors.

Beef short-rib stew - this the star of the show. This is to-die-for dish. The meat is so tender and melts in your mouth, and you can taste that it's been simmered for hours with daikon and carrots. I would order this dish every time I go.

Fried Dumplings - filled with pork and buckwheat noodles.

I highly recommend this restaurant. It's got a very cozy feel and the service is very friendly and attentive. And plus they have beer on tap and not to mention it's got great Soju and food! It's great that this place opens late night, until wee hours of the morning. So I imagine they have a late crowd since it's a bar. We went at normal dinner time, so there weren't very busy. All in all, it was delicious!

Breakfast

They say breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and weekends are times when I spurge myself. I decide to make french toast with hash browns, bacon and eggs. With a coconut syrup that we brought back from Kona, Hawaii. Yum!

First Entry

I’ve always loved to eat…and try new food. Also cooking is a passion of mine. So what a better way to document and share my culinary experiences than to start a food blog? Being in the one of the top culinary cities in America, Las Vegas, I am very blessed. I hope you will enjoy and be excited about food as I am.

- Wendy