Aria Dessert Tour

One of the things I wanted to do before Zoey's arrival is to do a dessert tour of couple places on the Strip that I have never tried. If you do a Yelp search for dessert in Las Vegas, one of the top rated one is Jean Phillippe inside Bellagio or Aria.  I started looking through the pictures and I was determined to try at least something from here. They have so many choices when it comes to desserts, from hot chocolate, pastries, gourmet boxed chocolates and crepes...etc.  

I wish I had more room in my stomach to try everything they had... and the crepe. Maybe next time!
 
Jean Philippe Patisserie

Categories: Desserts, Chocolatiers and Shops, Bakeries

ARIA
3730 Las Vegas Blvd S
Las Vegas, NV 89109

(877) 230-2742

 

Entire dragon made of chocolates, even the cherry blossoms too!

I forgot the name of this one, but it's a chocolate mousse covered in chocolate fondant toppped with a macaroon.  OMG it's a foodgasm in your mouth! A must try for a chocolate lover!

Nutella Napoleon, very light and fluffy!

Key Lime Pie

Chocolate covered strawberries, my favorite at $3.75 a pop but totally worth it.

We then stopped on the 2nd floor of Aria to get ice cream from Chill. Kaelan had the strawberry cheesecake and I had the mango passion sorbet.  We were both in a sugar coma afterwards but it was worth every penny. Our dessert tour came to about $40 total ($20 for the trio dessert, $10 for ice cream and $10 for the chocolate covered strawberries).  Then Kaelan picked up a little gift for Zoey at the gift shop, as you can see here.

Mango Passion Sorbet at Chill.

Apple Pie!

I'm addicted to cooking shows and one of my favorites is Master Chef, we were watching Monday's episode and one of their Mystery Box challenge was the all American classic - apple pie. They have just 1 hour to cook the apple pie and some of them look delicious and some looked disastrous. But I've been craving a good pie for a while and I have never made one. So with hubby's help and his background in cooking and pastry, we decide to make our very first own apple pie.

I didn't realize what a long process it's going to be, from prepping to cooking to baking, it took total of 3 hours at least.  But the end result was delicious, it beats ANY store bought pies, it's a lot of work but definitely worth it at the end. See for yourself:

Prep the dry ingridents

Chop up some cold butter

Work it into the dry mixture, break it into small pieces

Slowly work the dough and put in the fridge if it gets too warm. You cannot let the butter melt.

While the dough is in the fridge, cut and slice some apples.

Season the apples with the sugar and spice and let it sit for 10-15 min to sweat.

Roll out the dough quickly. If it gets too warm the dough will break.

Set it into a pie pan.

Trim off the excess edges.

Texture the edges and fill it up with the apple fillings.

Cut up the rest of the dough into strips. We'll be doing a weaved topping.

Lay the first ones on like this.

Then weave in one by one. Over and under.

Trim off the excess.

Bake with foil for 25 min then take off foil bake for another 25 more.

Finished!

ROTM: Island Style & Mother's Korean Grill

It's been a Korean weekend for us. We visited two Korean restaurants. Very different styles though.

First one is a mom & pop place, close to the Strip, called "Island Style"

3909 W Sahara Ave
Ste 1
Las Vegas, NV 89102
Neighborhood: Westside

(702) 871-1911
It's a mix between Hawaiian and Korean. I know what you are thinking. How can a mix restaurant be good?? Like Thai & Chinese, Korean & Japanese? But this one is good surprisingly.  If you do an Yelp search for Korean restaurants, this one has one of the highest reviews. The inside is small, just rows of tables and chairs. I believe the owner is also the server here, I always see him whenever I come here. He is super friendly and the food is great.

He first brought out some complimentary boiled peanuts and side dishes before we ordered anything.  You get a lot of food for the price, each entree is about $10 but you definitely won't leave here hungry!

Half & Half - spicy cold buckwheat noodles (dry) and one with a light broth.

Hubby's favorite, Dol Sot Bi Bim Bap

The second resturant we went to is Mother's Korean Grill. Located in the Spring Mountain & Valley View Chinatown Plaza.

4215 Spring Mountain Rd
Las Vegas, NV 89102
Neighborhood: Chinatown

(702) 579-4745

This place is your traditional Korean with table BBQ. The inside is nicely decorated. Each table has it's own table BBQ and hood vent above you. 

The food is a little pricy but it's like all Korean foods, and it's all family style. The BBQ meats ranges from $25-$35. Seafood tofu soup is about $13 and the Jap Chae Noodles about $15. This is place is slightly higher than some of the other Korean restaurants we've been to.  The food was really good though, the place is very clean and service is fast. Although we had trouble getting the server's attention because a huge group of people just came in after us out of no where.

Side salad to go with the BBQ meats

Seafood tofu soup

Jap Chae- Stir Fry Chinese noodles

Kalbi Beef Short Ribs

It came with 8 side dishes.

What's for dinner? Corn Chowder 玉米濃湯

Summer is corn season. The local grocery store had some sweet white corn on sale this week so I decided to make a corn chowder.

First crisp some pieces of bacon. Save half for soup topping
and half to go into the soup. Save the bacon fat as well.

Sauté some chopped onions and garlic in the bacon fat.

Get a pot of chicken stock going, boiled.

Fresh corn washed and drained.

After saute the onion until clear, put in the corn and saute some more.

About 8 minutes later, slowly add in about a 1/2 cup of flour.
Coat well. It will be the thickening agent in the soup.

Add everything and half of the bacon pieces into the chicken stock and simmer for 2 hours.
Then half hour before ready to serve, put in some diced potato. Then season with salt, white pepper.
Finish it off with about 1/2 cup of heavy cream.

bon appetit~

Just as a side note, soup usually tastes better the next day. It will get slightly saltier as well. So I don't usually salt too much in case it gets too salty as it sits. Serve with some french bread or just eat it as is, it's a hearty and delicious meal.