Planet Dailies at Planet Hollywood – Las Vegas, Nevada

It was American Thanksgiving when we came to Planet Dailies inside Planet Hollywood on the Las Vegas strip. We were originally going to eat at the Spice Market at Planet Hollywood, but they were doing a special “Thanksgiving Dinner” buffet for lunch, which we didn’t want to eat that much – so we settled down here instead.

I ordered a Patty Melt which is a sandwich with marble rye bread filled with an Angus beef patty, sauteed onions and melted Swiss cheese. Of course, I got this with fries, which was nice and crispy on the outside, and tender on the inside. Also, it was served with Thousand Island dressing on the side – which I thought was a little odd, but the tangy taste of the dressing actually was quite refreshing with the sandwich!

As it was Thanksgiving, we ordered a Thanksgiving Lunch Special with slices of Turkey, some fresh vegetables, and mashed potatoes with gravy. It’s kind of your typical Thanksgiving lunch, but it was good! The turkey wasn’t dry at all, and the vegetables was fresh and crispy!

Then, we ordered a pasta dish, and had the Chicken Primavera with tons of tender chicken sauteed with shallots and garlic, tossed with broccoli, yellow squash, zucchini, asparagus, tomato and gemelli pasta. This pasta dish was light enough to be a pasta salad, and it was refreshing!

Planet Dailies at Planet Hollywood was a great place we popped into! It worked out better actually, and the food is great! Our waitress was super cute and so happy that she could make anyone smile – no matter how bad of a day! The food was excellent, service was great and prices was reasonable too!

Planet Dailies

3667 S Las Vegas Blvd
Las Vegas, NV
(702) 732-1222

Koreana BBQ Restaurant

Ahh, something different and totally delicious!! We popped into Koreana BBQ Restaurant with some great friends to try it out and it was so good! The prices were a little high, but it definitely could be a lot worse in the city! The space was open and there were private booths along one ends and regular booths on the other edge. In the centre were regular tables and all the tables throughout had the option of having a BBQ flame right at the table!

As most Korean places, they give you a wide selection of kimchi first and then your actual meal. Here, they gave us not only a large selection of kimchi, but they also had a really good soup with it. It was kind of like a miso soup, with more ingredients in it.

We ordered Seafood pancake (Hae Mul Pa Jeon) which was made with tons of seafood and made into an egg pancake with green onion! It definitely tasted as good as it looks and the dipping sauce it came with added just the right amount of sweetness and saltiness to the omelette.

We also ordered a delicious Korean cuisine soup, the Pork Bone Spicy Soup with Potato and Vegetable (Gam Ja tang) which was full of flavours and spice! The pork was fall of the bone tender and juicy and the potatoes and vegetables made it nice and hearty!

As you can now see, there were huge chunks of potatoes and tons of spices in this soup on the pork and throughout! It was a wonderful soup and extra special – perfect for a cold winter day!

The final dish we enjoyed for the evening would be the Marinated Grilled Beef Short Ribs in a large order – and we got them to cook it for us. It was cooked to perfection, tender, and the sauce that goes with it was unbelievable!

I am sure we will be back, either to try dishes such as these, or even their Korean Hot Pot and maybe even the actual Korean Tabletop BBQ!

Koreana BBQ Restaurant on Urbanspoon

Koreana BBQ Restaurant
17-7400 Macleod Trl S
Calgary, AB
(403) 452-1020

Wolfgang Puck – Spago Las Vegas

We were walking up and down the Las Vegas strip until dark. It was werid, for a city that never sleeps, we actually missed dinner – so we popped into Spago’s inside Caesars Palace. Since we missed dinner, they just gave us the a la carte menu, which was great – since a dinner would of been too much food at this late hour! We were seated quickly, and some bread with a variety of bread oils came – and they were quite delicious!

For dinner, I ordered from their wood fire pizza menu selection – from my seat, I could see the wood fire pit for pizza’s and thought it would be fun to watch them make my pizza. So, ordered the Pepperoni Pizza which was quite a large pizza for a single serving with fontina and mozzarella Cheese, Tomato Sauce, Shaved Red Onions and Button Mushrooms

We also went and ordered the Spago Pancetta-Wrapped Meatloaf which was a beautiful plate with Russet Potato Purée on the bottom, where the piece of pancetta wrapped meatloaf sat on. On top of the meatloaf sat some crispy Onion Rings. Then they had Mushroom Gravy and Port Wine Sauce drizzled over the entire dish. It was a wonderful dish!

This has become an amazing and memorable place for a night light snack – with the quality you’d expect! Everything was really good, and I’d have no problems popping in for another meal (or snack)!

Spago at The Forum Shops at Caesars Palace

3570 Las Vegas Blvd S
Las Vegas, NV
(702) 369-6300

Great Taste Chinese Restaurant

It was New Years Eve, and we wanted to grab a bite to eat to kill some time – and we found ourselves walking by what use to be one of our favourite Chinese places to eat… and noticed the place had changed names. So, out of curiosity, we went into what is now called Great Taste Chinese Restaurant

Since this wasn’t a meal, and we were looking for snack, we ordered really random snacks – which we really LOVED! Something I’ve always ate if I found, it would be Shanghai Style Sticky Rice (Savoury). These sticky rice are only availability on weekends only – so I was really happy it was a weekend when we popped in! We can pick from sweet or salty sticky rice, but I do prefer the salty ones.

Dumplings will also always be a great snack for me! It’s never too early or too late to eat dumplings, and here, they have Pan Fried Shanghai Style Pork Dumplings which we always remembered them as being like wor-tip (potstickers) pan fried to a nice crisp. I believe they make these dumplings themselves as it doesn’t look uniform – so I like to think it’s made of good quality pork dumpling filling. This filling is very flavourful and is perfect alone or with the vinegar dip they provide you with.

The last snack we had to order is Deep Fried Sweet Buns which is an Asian style bun made with either Hong Kong or Korean rice flour as it adds much more “bounce” in the dough. This bun is made with “threads” of the dough and then steamed. In this case, it is deep fried to a wonderful golden brown such that you get a crispy shell with a soft bun inside that shreds into strands/threads. This wonderful bun is then dipped to one of my all time favourite condiments – condensed milk. It’s a great vehicle to move condensed milk to my mouth – and when paired, it’s a great combination! The hot crisp of the exterior of the bun, the soft gooey strand inside of the bun with the sweet condensed milk sure make it a treat!

I’ve been trying to not use too many pictures in my blogs lately, but i have to post a picture of the “silver thread buns” interior as well! Even though this bun is cut into 3 pieces, it’s a great bun and I think the picture kind of shows it!

This was such a great place for simple Shanghai style snacks that I’m sure I’ll be back to eat here! I loved it before the new owners and I’m still loving it! I assume the owners changed, as the concept of the restaurant has changed – but the food is still really good.

Great Taste Chinese Restaurant on Urbanspoon

Great Taste Chinese Restaurant

123 2nd Avenue SE
Calgary, AB T2G 0B2
403-265-9880

Selkirk Grille at Heritage Park – Calgary, Alberta

We found ourselves at Heritage Park Historical Village for their Once Upon a Christmas event that was held there. When we got there, it was getting close to noon so we thought we would try Selkirk Grille which is located outside of the Heritage Park gates with no entrance fee and close access to free parking.

We started our lunch with a delicious Panko Crusted Crab and Shrimp Cakes which was 3 really delicious crab & shrimp cakes. The panko made the cakes really light and crusted with fluffy crunchy bites – it was really good. However, they seemed to only have heated one side of the cake, so only the top was really nicely crusted. I found that the inside wasn’t completely heated through, but it was “hot” enough! These shrimp and crab cakes sat in a puddle of red pepper aioli and tomato relish, and then topped with a roasted pepper.

As it was a lunch, I tried the Driview Farms Lamb burger which was a homemade lamb burger on a toasted golden grain bun Gorgonzola cheese, sweet and spicy onion marmalade Pesto aioli and arugula Kennebec potato fries or house greens salad. I got my meal with fries and it was good enough that I didn’t need gravy or ketchup! The burger is the best lamb burger I’ve had – it was a huge lamb patty cooked to perfection (medium, pink and juicy) with cheese that melted over the patty and topped with fresh veg! There’s nothing I don’t like about this burger!

We also ordered a delicious Bison Ragù Shepherd’s Pie Portabella mushrooms, tomato and rosemary ragù Whipped Yukon Gold potatoes Served with a house greens salad. This is a special lunch menu item, and we even recommended to the guests at the table beside us! The mashed potato top was light and fluffy, creamy and savoury! It was perfect alone! The Bison Ragu was an awesome and hearty stew with nice chunks of meat and it came out all nice, bubbly and brown! It sure was a Shepards Pie unlike any other!

Dining at the Selkirk for lunch seems reasonable in price. The food quality is really good for the main meal and it’s a wonderful family restaurant – or even a special occasion place!

Selkirk Grille at Heritage Park

1900 Heritage Dr SW
Calgary, AB T2V
(403) 268-8500