A couple of years ago we had a wonderful dining experience at the Mayfair Supper Club at the Bellagio in Las Vegas. Fine food and wines, impeccable service, and mesmerizing entertainment made for a most memorable evening. Totally enamored by their Heirloom Tomato Salad, I re-created it here.
Well… we recently returned to celebrate my sister’s birthday. And the Mayfair Supper Club again did not disappoint with its glitz and glamour and old-school clubby ambiance.
Recipes for the popular Korean tofu stew, Sundubu(soft tofu) Jjigae(stew), are flexible. The recipes always include red chili powder and soft tofu, then perhaps add fresh vegetables and/or kimchi; the broth can be anchovy stock, chicken stock, or vegetable broth or water; it can be vegetarian or made with beef, pork belly, or seafood; the salty component can come from soy sauce, fish sauce or salt; sometimes an egg is added… sometimes not.
It’s spicy, silky, salty, and ultimately satisfying. It is a fast and easy dish, changing ingredients with whatever is at hand. Steamed white rice is served on the side to complement and balance the bubbling hot stew.
Happy Valentine’s Day
❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
Beet, Lentil, Strawberry Salad
With Yogurt, Hazelnuts, and Radicchio
The inspiration for this Valentine’s Day salad came from our lunch at Hell’s Kitchen Las Vegas where we thoroughly enjoyed a salad course of roasted golden beets over Greek yogurt with kumquats (fruit), pistachios (nuts), and a white balsamic vinaigrette.
Here, red beets are also served over Greek yogurt with beluga lentils, freeze dried strawberries (fruit), toasted hazelnuts (nuts), radicchio and Gordon Ramsay’s beet dressing.
The vibrant red salad is perfect for Valentine’s (or any other day for that matter) with sweet, savory, earthy, bitter, nutty, and creamy notes. It’s a symphony of color, flavor, texture, and crunch.
Gordon Ramsay Hell’s Kitchen Las Vegas
🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
And His Crispy Skin Salmon Dish
Gordon Ramsay made a surprise visit to Hell’s Kitchen at Caesars Palace on the Las Vegas Strip to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the restaurant, which was the first of his six Hells.
We were there, but unfortunately just missed him by exactly one week! The one word we used to describe our lunch at Hell’s Kitchen was FUN! It was super enjoyable from the buzzing energy, to the studio-set atmosphere with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the Strip, to the relaxed yet experienced service, and it felt like the guests were all there to have a good time, too. And we enjoyed the crispy skin salmon dish so much, that I decided to re-create it at home.
Hell’s Kitchen in Vegas is on track to hit $55 million in annual sales, Ramsay said, a figure that places it among the highest-grossing independent restaurants in the world. The 300+ seat restaurant is open more than 12 hours a day, seven days a week, 52 weeks of the year. Just like casinos, Ramsay staffs Hell’s Kitchen in three eight-hour shifts. In fact, there’s a team dedicated to making Wellingtons throughout the night. (from Las Vegas Review-Journal here)
Don’t get me wrong. We thoroughly enjoyed our lunch at Javier’s in Las Vegas, but I simply wanted to serve the dish with more shrimp, and more rajas! So here I re-create a version of that fabulous Camarones con Rajas at home. It’s overloaded with succulent Alaska spot shrimp atop poblano chile strips and onions smothered in a garlic butter cream sauce.
Rajas con crema is a popular Mexican dish consisting of strips or slices (rajas in Spanish) of roasted poblano peppers in a cream sauce.
At Javier’s, we dined on aguachile del rey with bay scallop, shrimp, and octopus; empanadas de camarón; chile verde with braised pork and tomatillo sauce; and the camarones con rajas – all accompanied by their hand-shaken signature margaritas. This stunning upscale Mexican restaurant is located in the Aria Resort right next to the casino floor where hundreds of rope strands form an impressive canopy in the bar area.
Javier’s dishes with Camarones con Rajas (top right)
While Javier’s prepares their dish with Mexican white prawns, I am elevating my dish with Alaska spot shrimp.
Alaska Spot Shrimp are sweet and plump. And if cooked correctly, they are luscious and much more tender than the Mexican prawn variety. With their slightly briny hint of the sea, spot shrimp taste like a sweet-buttery cross between lobster and Dungeness crab. They are just heavenly served over the poblano garlic butter cream.
