Showing posts with label Food. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Food. Show all posts

Thursday, January 12, 2012

Vegas, Baby!

To celebrate Mrs. Pegleg's after-Christmas birthday a tad late, we flew to Vegas last weekend.  Up at three thirty, in Vegas before eight.  Since hotel check-in isn't until noon, what's there to do?  That's right--breakfast, bloody Mary, and mimosa!  We headed to one of the three (!) Vegas locations of Hash House a go go, having loved the original back in SD.  The SD location is tiny; this one was huge, so no thirty minute wait for breakfast.

As you can see, the bloody Mary was huge, and garnished with an assortment of pickled veggies, just the way I like them.  I had mine with gin, and the waitress thought I was off my rocker.  What can I say?  I like gin.  Not having quite the appetite for one of their enormous benedicts, I had a scramble that was very good.  Mrs. Pegleg had the french toast, which she thought was a bit disappointing.  The bread is about a foot thick, and it was like pulling teeth to get some syrup.

We still had a couple of hours to kill, so we headed over to the Flamingo, where we remembered there was a Sin City Brewery taproom.  They had a very-good-for-Vegas early day/late night deal--two 48oz pitchers for $15.  The seasonal brew on tap was a nice IPA, less hoppy than most SoCal brews these days, but quite nice.

After a nice long nap, we were ready to hit the town again.  Dinner reservations were at Table 10, one of Emeril's Vegas spots.  Since I rarely cook seafood (Mrs. Pegleg hates it), I nearly always eat fish when out.  The salt and pepper crusted farm-raised striped bass did not disappoint, and the few bites I stole from the wife's suckling pig porchetta were absolutely phenomenal.  A bit more bar-hopping--we do more people watching than gambling--and I was beat.

Up the next morning, headed straight to Kerry's Gourmet Burgers (KGB), Kerry Simon's burger and vodka bar in Harrah's.  The USSR-themed decor was great, and the waitresses were dressed like someone's fantasy of a Russian femme fatale.  The menu is small, but the food quite good.  I especially liked the build your own burger option.  The waffle fry nachos were very good; reminded me a bit of the carne asada fries that are popular in SD, but the pulled pork made them even better.  We headed over to Toby Kieth's I Love This Bar & Grill for some gigantic southern-inspired drinks--served in mason jars, naturally--and to watch some football.  The guitar-shaped bar was pretty cool, and the decor was fun.

Off to the airport, where we discover our flight is delayed an hour...two...almost three hours.  We sit around a bit, then check the board to see that our gate has been reassigned, in another terminal.  Arriving there, I ask the gate agent why there was no change announcement.  She told me that there was, and she had just personally walked over after making it at the original gate.  Also, she promised a fifty dollar voucher for all passengers.  I head out for a smoke.  I return to find that our gate has been changed again, back to the original terminal.  I've heard every other airline making gate change announcements, but not one from Spirit.  Now I'm mad, and spend twenty minutes waiting for someone to come to the desk. 

The gate agent comes up, I ask for her supervisor.  She is the supervisor, and cannot reach anyone over her.  Finally puts me on the phone with another supervisor, and within two minutes I'm talking to the boss that's unreachable.  I get on the plane just in time.  And that fifty dollar voucher?  Never appeared.  When I asked a flight attendant about it, she looked at me like I was crazy and snottily asked, "Why would you get a voucher?"

In the future, I'll spend the extra few bucks to fly Southwest.

Sunday, November 27, 2011

San Diego Bay Wine and Food Festival

So last Saturday, November 19th, Mrs. Pegleg and I woke up quite early and headed to SD for our volunteer shift at the San Diego Bay Wine and Food Festival Grand Tasting at Embarcadero Park. We talked the in-laws into dropping us off, decided to take the train home so we could both enjoy all of the fine wine and spirits available. Arriving at six-thirty in the AM, we were there to work exhibitor support in the US Foodservice tent (they supplied all of the cups, forks, plates, napkins, ice, etc. for exhibitors). Work a six-hour shift, get a free $180 ticket to the event, great deal.

The event opened to VIP ticketholders at eleven o'clock, so of course the (286!) exhibitors didn't start arriving en masse until about 10:15. Since our shift ended at twelve thirty, we had pretty light duty; I'm sure emergency supply runs were getting crazy after the event opened to all at noon. Twelve thirty came, time to take off the volunteer shirts and get to drinking! And eating, of course.

Being San Diego, seafood was at the forefront, to my joy and the missus' chagrin. The most interesting dish had to have been the Black Cod Foie Gras from Sea Rocket Bistro, who had a crew of young, gangsta-looking chefs. My personal favorites were the Beet-Cured Salmon (served with watercress and a lemonade foam) from the Red Marlin and fresh crab claws from Truluck's. Mrs. Pegleg's favorite was Fleming's Prime, who had some delicious steak skewers, along with an even more delicious chipotle mac 'n' cheese. We both loved the pizza from Spinelli Mobile Wood-Fire Oven Catering--the mobile oven is a uniquely awesome setup. The new Aaron Sanchez-created menu at House of Blues was repped by a white chocolate banana bread pudding that was very tasty.

Other standouts included Donovan's Steakhouse, with some great steak sandwiches and filet burritos; the line there was never shorter than 30+ people. Fiscalini Cheese Co. had some fantastic cheeses out, I wanted to carry around a block while wine-tasting. Nobu brought a kimchi stew of sorts that I didn't particularly care for; kimchi is very hit-or-miss for my palate. Dick's Last Resort made a surprisingly good showing for a chain, their pulled pork was succulent, the sauce quite good. Whisknladle suckling pig cured meat (prosciutto?) was melt-in-your-mouth amazing.  Jake's Del Mar, a spot with a very good local rep, failed to impress with soft, fishy scallops.

On the beverage front, the folks we helped supply at the San Diego Symphony booth had some great symphony-branded wines from Fallbrook Winery, and were a great group of people. We found a local winery, Carruth Cellars, that we have yet to visit, and their wine was quite good. Our friends at Sunshine Mountain in San Marcos were out showcasing some of their fine wines as well. Other good wines were from Cliff Family and Gruet Winery, as well as import L'Aventure Languedoc. Indulge Wines is selling box wines minus the box, marketed as eco-friendly packaging. In my day, we called those space bags. Most Beavis-and-Butthead-funny name goes to Ca' Momi Wines.

Ty Ku, who we had seen earlier this year at the San Diego Spirits Festival, had some very good cold sake and soju, though it was somewhat jarring to drink among wines. Pucker was one of the larger companies out, it was, well, what Pucker is. Stella Artois had the best booth and best swag, giving out three different glasses with three different beers (Stella, Leffe, and Hoegaarden), as well as some Crown Royal-style velvet bags. The only drink I can remember really not liking was Magner's Irish Cider.

All in all a great day. Beautiful November weather on the San Diego Bay, tons of people, food and drink. We're told that this is now the second largest wine festival in the US, and I can definitely see why.