trifecta feast at flavor del mar

Opening Day at Del Mar is apparently a big deal.

I’ll be honest – I’ve never really paid attention. I’ve seen the commercials though – the ones singing about Del Mar. And I’ve heard about the “hats” that women wear for opening day. But beyond that, I don’t know a thing about horse racing. All I know about it is from what I’ve seen in the movies Seabiscuit and Secretariat.

But this post isn’t about the races – it’s about one of the after parties that happened in Del Mar celebrating Opening Day at the racetrack.

At Flavor Del Mar they had a special menu prepared for the day – a Trifecta Feast – with a three course meal to help you bask in your post-win celebration at the races.

[Trifecta Feast Menu]

Here’s a little peek at the menu and the offerings!

[Flavor Del Mar dining room – do you spot some hats?]

Laura and I started feeling a little under dressed as more people trickled into the dining room that evening for their Trifecta meal. It was great for people watching – seeing people all dressed up in suits and dresses with4 the ladies wearing their finest hats and high heels.

[Bread, butter, and fancy salts]

We started our fancy feast with some bread. This was a bit fancy though as we had a little tray of various salts laid down before us. The tiny little spoon for the salt just killed me, too. So freaking cute!

No one explained what the salts were to us – but I suspected the far right one was some kind of pink salt. One was also a bit gray-ish in color but the other two I wasn’t sure of. They were all coarse grained salts and I got a little over-eager and put too much salt on one slice of bread. Oops.

The bread was a whole wheat type of bread. I found myself wishing the bread had been warm but I loved the tray of salts.

[Crispy, spicy shrimp with crazy frisee & arugula on the bottom]

For my starter dish, I chose the crispy, spicy shrimp. The shrimp was in light, crispy batter and definitely packed a punch of heat. It wasn’t the lingering kind of heat though – just a passing through heat. The spiciness managed to enhance the whole dish without taking away from the shrimp – a welcome surprise for someone who has shunned heat and spiciness for a long time! I ignored most of the frisee and arugula on the bottom. I had a taste of the frisee, but it just really isn’t my thing. And, it seemed more like a garnish than anything else – the shrimp is the real star of this dish.

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fresh corn salad

For the Fourth of July this year, I made a few things – including my standby, go-to potluck side dish, the pesto pasta salad. With summer in full swing, I wanted to do a fresh salad with one of summer’s best vegetables – corn on the cob! I whipped up this fresh corn salad in a jiffy – doesn’t take too much to put it together and the taste of fresh, crunchy corn is always a welcome to my tastebuds.

Before I give you this magically delicious recipe, want some tips on how to cut off that corn from the cob?

Sure you do!

I’m pretty sure I saw this on an episode of 30 Minute Meals, back when I used to watch that show all of the time.

Basically, you put a smaller bowl upside inside of a bigger bowl. You stand the cob on top of the little bowl.

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the huddle / mission hills – san diego, ca

I first read about the Huddle over on Dennis’s blog, A Radiused Corner. It’s been tickling the back of my mind for awhile now. I’ve been searching for a good “go-to” place for breakfast and looking for the elusive “perfect” hash browns after my favorite place for hash browns closed last year.

The Huddle has recently earned a place in my heart with it’s down-home, “sit and stay awhile” feel. This local, family owned restaurant has been around for quite awhile and I’m glad I finally got to make my rounds to drop by for a visit.

On our first visit, Jake and I (with two of the kids in tow) make only a conservative effort at tackling their massive menu.

The first thing I ordered? The “Del Mar Fair Cinnamon Roll”. It called to me. I had to answer the siren song.

[The Del Mar Fair Cinnamon Roll – $2.50]

The huge hunk of a cinnamon roll is the same recipe from the lady who makes the famous cinnamon rolls you get at the fair every summer. The Huddle puts their own spin on the roll by slicing and grilling the massive roll and topping it off with their own homemade cream cheese icing. What you get as a result is a fresh, warm cinnamon roll with a little crisp and crunch from the grilling. The creamy icing melts on top and should be slathered onto very bite for maximum enjoyment.

Four of us happily split this cinnamon roll and devoured it in record time. It’s so big that I do highly recommend you share this with a friend to avoid the onslaught of a sugar coma.

PS – This is my new favorite cinnamon roll in town. For reals!

[Corned Beef Hash and Eggs – $9.50]

I had a serious hankering for some corned beef hash. Jake only made a slight protest and then told me to “order whatever I wanted” since we were sharing. I was going to get something else, but since he’s a good boyfriend, made it sound like it really didn’t bother him if I ordered this. So I did.

We told our waitress we’d be sharing the plate, so she went ahead and split the plates for us. How nice is that! I was very touched by this little detail – and that we didn’t have to ask for it to happen and it was done at no extra charge. That is what I call some fine service!

The corned beef hash itself was quite good – it had a nice, crispy top and was soft on the bottom. Not too salty but with a good overall flavor. If you dig this type of thing, then the version they serve here won’t disappoint you.

[Homemade jams]

The other thing that I found exciting was their lineup of homemade jams.

Our waitress, who’s family has owned the Huddle for years, told us that the jams were her grandmother’s recipe. The jams you see above are: apple butter, strawberry rhubarb, and orange marmalade.

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caramel cupcakes with honey sea salt

At the end of June, our friend Chris flew into town from Tampa to spend a couple of weeks with us. For some reason that I don’t remember, I promised him baked goods on his first night in town. I was going to make red velvet cupcakes since I had some leftover buttermilk but then I thought I should try something else. I stumbled upon this recipe for triple caramel cupcakes and was instantly smitten. Had to make them! Stat!

These. Are. The. Bestest. Cupcakes. Ever.

The cake base uses a ton of brown sugar in it to give the cake a sort of caramel flavor to it. Then it has caramel stuffed inside of it. Then there’s caramel frosting on top!#!@!

Swoon.

It’s dangerous to make these. But you can bet that I will be making them again soon.

Kind of looks like a little hat, doesn’t it?

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dave and buster’s – mission valley / san diego, ca

I hadn’t been to a Dave & Buster’s in years, but I was recently invited to swing on by and to check it out again. I was looking forward to taking Jake, Chris and T for a night out to try out Dave & Buster’s newest menu items and to try out some of their fun, new games this summer!

Let’s get crackin’. There’s a lot of food to cover.

Looking at all of these photos makes me feel the fullness again. Oof.

We were greeted by some of the assistant managers who took very good care of us that evening. He had everything under control – ordering the food and drinks for us, asking if there was anything else we wanted and catering to our needs. I wish I could dine like this all of the time. Totally, totally spoiled. Oy.

[The Lawnmower Salad – layered using fresh romaine and green leaf lettuces, grilled chicken, diced garden vegetables, boiled eggs, bacon bits and bleu cheese crumbles]

We started the dinner off with a salad – a salad unlike any other I have seen before. They call it the “Lawnmower Salad” and it comes on a huge plate with all of the veggies and greens layered out in pretty little rows. The nice part about this is you get to kind of build the salad the way you want it – grabbing the veggies you like and scooping them onto your own plate. The lettuces are underneath all of the toppings, so as you grab some, you also get the lettuce underneath.

By the time you scoop what you want onto your own little plate, it manages to get all tossed and mixed up and ready for your waiting mouth… don’t read into that.

You get your choice of dressing on the side to pour over your own mini salad. Perfect for sharing with a crowd!

[The 5:15 – Comes with 5 Buffalo Wings with your choice of Ranch or Bleu Cheese dressing; 5 Chicken Quesadilla Wedges with salsa; 5  Pretzel Dogs; and 5 Crispy Fried Shrimp with spicy habanero sauce; complete with a stack of fresh BBQ potato chips]

Next we had the “5:15” appetizer platter brought out to us – this is geared towards the “after work” crowd who’s ready to get the evening started after a long day at work. It comes with a little mix of everything – wings, quesadilla wedges, pretzel dogs, fried shrimp and plenty of freshly made BBQ potato chips.

I got to eat all of the shrimp, because boys are weird.

Well, at least the ones I know are. Who cares though – more shrimp for ME!

The shrimp is a basic fried shrimp, but the spicy habanero sauce gives it a hefty kick to the seat of your pants, if you like that kind of thing. The pretzel dogs were my next favorite item – they were encased in a soft pretzel dough which paired nicely with the dogs. The boys were all seriously digging the potato chips which had Dave & Buster’s own BBQ seasoning dusted over all of the chips. They had a good crunch and flavor – though not my favorite, simply because I don’t dig BBQ chips all that much.

Maybe I’m just a weird girl.

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crispy creamy 5 cheese macaroni and cheese

I know it’s summer and you probably don’t want to turn the oven on.

But if you do, then I can promise you that this macaroni and cheese it totally worth it.

I’d endure hot kitchens over and over again for another creamy bite.

Our out of town friend (Hi Chris!) wanted me to make this again.

I didn’t though. Only because I wanted him to try other, new things!

I’m all about trying new experiences here, people.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve tried to make macaroni and cheese. Each attempt was frustrating since I had bought a bunch of wonderful cheese only to get dried out macaroni and cheese. Or a cheese sauce that broke and so it looked kind of like scrambled eggs. Or just didn’t taste cheesy enough. I’m glad to have finally figured out my cheesy problems! This recipe is based on Martha Stewart’s version, but with a few tweaks of my own.

You probably don’t need to use five cheeses. But why would you not? It’s cheese, for heaven’s sake. Beautiful, glorious, delicious cheese. I got the idea for the brie because it’s one of the cheeses added in for the mac n cheese at Urban Eats. Splendid idea, I thought!

Oh, Cheese. I love you so much.

I need to also be in a good mood to make this, as it requires a serious arm workout grating all of that cheese.

You could, of course, buy the already grated cheese. I won’t judge you if you do. You can avoid the arm workout.

But grating it yourself is a bit satisfying. You worked hard for this delicious meal!

I also cook pancetta into my macaroni and cheese. It gives a bit of a salty porky delicious flavor to the whole dish.

Also: this make a lot of sauce so it looks soupy and runny. This is what you want!

Soupy = extra creamy macaroni and cheese.

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gluten free baked goods from butterfly bakery

I was recently sent samples of gluten free baked goods from the Butterfly Bakery. No, no, I’m gluten free or anything. I had actually asked if I could try the sugar-free goods, but I guess that just wasn’t going to happen and a few weeks later I got these gluten free baked goods in the mail.

I’m very skeptical of gluten free products and if they’ll taste good or not. Since I’m perfectly okay with eating up glutens, I really tend to shy away from gluten free stuff since well, I don’t really need or want to eat them. But hey, I’ll still try things.

I was sent two products to try:

The sliced plain vanilla creme cake and…

banana walnut mini muffins.

[Vanilla Creme Cake Facts & Ingredients]

Both products are made with 100% teff flour – which is a very small grain, about the size of a poppy seed.

[Banana Nut Muffin Facts]

I’ll admit now that I know nothing about teff flour. Or about gluten free products. Let’s just consider this a taste test from a non-gluten person to you.

I had a furry little helper with me while I was taking photos and taste testing the products. I guess this was a sniff test. Sniff test was approved and I was able to move on to the next step.

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great bao – las vegas, nv

For our final meal in Vegas, I wanted to go somewhere a little off the beaten path – at least, off of the beaten Strip path. After we checked out of the hotel and got everything together, we headed over to this little strip mall just a couple of miles away from the Las Vegas Strip.

To a beauty salon.

[Great Bao Cafe is inside – there’s food beyond these doors, promise!]

My cohorts were pretty skeptical about this one. Food inside of a beauty salon? Is that even healthy?

The fact that it’s in a beauty salon just intrigued me more. I love weird, quirky places and this totally fit the bill! I ignored their weird looks and trusted my gut that this place would be awesome. Luckily my friends trust me as well and I heard no protests.

[Great Bao Cafe]

The owner/chef has got his little corner in the beauty salon, complete with tiled roof and little string of lanterns. I was already in love with this place.

The owner is originally from Los Angeles and made his way out east to Vegas (I think because his wife is from Vegas – but don’t quote me on that). He originally had a food truck, but set up shop here after seeing a place for rent in Craigslist. I swear, you can find just about anything on Craiglist! Used TV’s, free chairs, moving boxes, boyfriends, and apparently, places to rent so you can make and sell your little steamed bun sandwiches.

[Great Bao Menu]

The menu here is pretty simple. All of the sandwiches are made with bao which uses similar ingredients to bread, but the bao is steamed, giving it a soft, chewy consistency. There are five different fillings for the Bao (one of them, the pulled pork, isn’t up on the menu). There are smoothies and salads plus cold and hot drinks. The best deal – the deal that all of us got – was three bao + a drink for $10. For an extra fee, you can upgrade to a smoothie.

All of us got iced tea as our drink of choice. The really nice thing about that was we could have it sweetened how we wanted it. Laura got it unsweetened, I got it slightly sweet, and Jake and Chris both got it sweet.

There was a bit of wait for our sandwiches – but that was totally understandable, seeing as this was a one man job that day. We waited outside for our food since it was about the only place where all four of us could sit together. There are two very small two seater tables inside and two tables outside.

[Bao sandwiches on a cutting board]

Everyone got a little cutting board with their bao sandwiches on it. I choose the duck, chicken and pork belly sandwiches.

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top of the world at stratosphere – las vegas, nv

At the top of the Stratosphere hotel in Las Vegas, there’s a restaurant called “The Top of the World”. It rotates very slowly around the top, giving you a tip-top view of the entire city in just over an hour. We got there right before the sun started to set and were able to see the Strip go from day to night in the span of a couple of hours. It was breathtaking!

We started out on the Strip side when we sat down – this was our view from the table.

There are signs up warning diners about possible skyjumpers – just so you don’t freak out as they jump off the edge while you’re dining. We happened to see a few but I wasn’t able to get a shot of any of them jumping!

The view really is just right there in front of you. It’s hard to tell that you’re even moving since it rotates so slowly. It’s subtle. And awesome!

Jake’s pointing out Fremont street in Downtown Vegas, right after the sunset.

[Bread Basket]

We were given a basket of breads to start off with. There was a large Parmesan crisp, and a variety of bread rolls.

[Flavored butters]

We were also given some flavored butters to go with our breads. The one in the back with the sprinkle of green color in it was an herb and garlic flavored butter. The orange one in the front had a ginger flavor to it and I believe the last one was plain. There were four of us at the table (Jake, Chris, Laura and I) so we got two plates of the butters to share. I honed in on the herb/garlic butter and used as much of that one as possible. I didn’t dig the ginger butter quite as much. It had a bit of a tart flavor, but it was fun to try.

[Corn and Plantain Soup – $11]

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sugar factory american brasserie – las vegas, nv

The Sugar Factory American Brasserie actually wasn’t on my “to-eat” list for Vegas. I had wanted to go to a burger place but I saw an ad and a coupon for the Sugar Factory and my interest instantly peaked at the words “Sugar” and “Factory”. I guess I really do have an insane sweet tooth.

There are multiple locations of the Sugar Factory shop on the Strip, but only one restaurant – which is open 24 hours a day and located inside of Paris Las Vegas.

After looking over the menu, I was convinced enough to convince everyone else that this was where we should go for breakfast the next day.

And we did the “share all of our food” thing again. It worked really well. I always want to get the sweet stuff for breakfast but I usually get quickly overwhelmed by the same sweet flavors. Jake and I usually share a savory dish and a sweet dish to balance out all of the flavors.

[Blueberry Pancakes – blueberry compote, powdered sugar, maple syrup and vanilla bean sauce – $12]

Laura choose the Blueberry Pancakes, covering us for the “sweet” part of our breakfast. These pancakes are HUGE and you get a stack of three of them. I found that I didn’t even need to add any maple syrup to these babies since they were sufficiently sweet with the rich blueberry compote. The pancakes were very fluffy and delicious.

I wonder how they get that pretty edge to them? Do they have a giant pancake mold?

The vanilla bean sauce that was on the side was also very good and gave another hint of flavor to the pancakes. These are definitely sharing-size pancakes.

[Ham & Cheese Croissant Sandwich – cheddar cheese, black forest ham with home fries – $14]

Chris ordered the ham and cheese croissant and split it into four neat little pieces for all of us. I mostly just ate the croissant because I’m a weird girl who doesn’t like ham that much. The croissant was buttery and flaky though, just the way a good croissant should be. Jake and Chris loved the sandwich, ham lovers that they are.

[Open Face Fried Egg Sandwich – two fried eggs, cheddar cheese, english muffin, canadian bacon, skinny fries and country gravy – $15]

I ordered this. Something about it just sounded terribly intriguing to me. It kind of reminds me of our carne asada fries, but this is like a breakfast version with country gravy instead. I loved it! It helped that I only ate a quarter of it so I didn’t sick of it, too. The Canadian bacon adds a nice bit of saltiness along with the crispy fries and the country gravy helps pull it all together. There could have been more gravy (Jake certainly thought so) but still a unique dish.

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frozen butterfinger pie

Need a quick and easy dessert for Fourth of July today? I got the hook up for you!

Last week I was planning on making dinner (macaroni and cheese — oh, I’ll have to post that one next week) and was asking Jake if he thought I should make dessert, too. He’s not a dessert person so he just kind of shrugged his shoulders at me. I decided it was better to ask Chris, our out of town friend, what he thought. He was much more receptive to the idea. Chris mentioned something about butterfingers and Jake then mentioned a pie, so butterfinger pie came up to the plate. See, I don’t even think of these things myself sometimes.

[The cast of characters]

This is a pretty simple no bake pie. You don’t have to freeze it – you can just leave it in the fridge – but freezing it gives it an almost ice cream like texture, perfect for a warm summer day. As you can see, you also don’t need a whole lot of ingredients to make this pie!

[Crush the vanilla wafers – bang, bang, bang!]

I decided I wanted to do this pie with vanilla wafers. You can also do an Oreo crust, graham cracker crust, or buy a premade shell. I put the wafers in a plastic bag and started to bang away on them until they were smooth crumbs.

[Melted butter and a tablespoon of sugar melds the vanilla wafers together to form a crust]

Add a tablespoon of sugar and six tablespoons of melted butter. Press it into a pie pan. I decided to bake mine for about 10 minutes at 350 degrees just to set it up a little, but you don’t really need to do that.

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max brenner – las vegas, nv

I went on vacation last week! For the whole week! Man, it was awesome. Getting back to work and reality is kind of a bummer this week. But I get to relive it a little bit with my food recap posts. Score. For our Vegas trip we had four of us tagging along – myself, Jake, Chris and Laura.

I had read a few other blogger’s posts about visiting Max Brenner in Las Vegas – a restaurant that also has a chocolate shop within it and a separate “Chocolate Menu”. I couldn’t resist.

[Really Cheesy-Really Crunchy Mac & Cheese – 5 cheese blend with tomatoes and smoked applewood bacon – $15.25]

I got to pick a couple of dishes because my friends are cool like that and trust my judgement. I got consensus though. We shared all of our dishes so it was like we all shared a mini buffet together – but this way the food was fresh and a bit more interesting that the items you’d get at the buffet.

One of the dishes we started off with was this Mac & Cheese dish – it is true to its name in that it was pretty crunchy. It’s not really a very saucy or creamy mac and cheese but still quite good on it’s own. The top got very crisp and crunchy, lending a nice texture to the dish. I prefer a little creamier mac and cheese, but I still loved the crunch on this one and the blend of cheeses was quite nice.

[Asian Chicken and Soba Noodle Salad – veggies, wontons and sesame peanut dressing – $14.50]

I also picked a salad to lighten up the meal since mac & cheese can be heavy at times. This Asian Chicken and Soba Noodle Salad really hit the spot and surprised all of us at how good it was. It was a nice, light, refreshing salad that had a lot of textures and flavors going on – the mint gave it a good flavor, the soba noodles were delicious and the crunch from the veggies, peanuts and wonton noodles really made this salad come together. We cleaned up that dish pretty quickly and it ended up being one of our favorite items.

[Molly’s White Corn Croquettes – white corn & manchego cheese ball in panko bread crumbs – individual portion – $6.95]

I was intrigued by the description of these white corn croquettes and decided on getting the smaller sized portion. It turned out to be perfect since it came with four little croquettes – one for each of us! These croquettes are lightly fried with a creamy, cheesy inside. The white corn adds a bit of sweetness to the bite while the cheese oozes out. It’s a flavorful, crunchy little bite!

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