AMUSE-ING CHOICE?

Most of us love when a restaurant gives us an amuse-bouche. For those who don't know what this is, it's the one-bite hors d'oeuvre some restaurants give you before your appetizer. It's a little something to whet you pallet. It's usually a welcome surprise. A "freebie" if you will (even though you may be paying $200 a person). As a vegetarian I often get the amuse-bouche, see it's not meat-free, and pass it right down the table to someone who will eat it. Sometimes restaurants will give me a vegetarian amuse and I appreciate that.  

Eggplant Amuse I had at Bradley Ogden in Vegas

  For some reason there is something fun about getting this little surprise. Usually though, as I said, it's just a given that I can't partake in this. Call it a side-effect of being a vegetarian. One of the many compromises we, as meat-free folks, have to make. I'm so used to it at this point, it doesn't really phase me anymore.  That's why I was surprised the other day when someone else raised the red flag on this topic.  My husband was eating at BLT Steak here in NYC when he says he was presented with a mystery amuse-bouche.  All he knows is that it looked like pate.  I'm going to assume the food runner told him what type of pate it was and he wasn't listening (because he does this), but either way he said he didn't know what it was so he wasn't going to eat it.    Now my husband doesn't eat things like veal, lamb, duck or foie gras to name a few.   So upon looking at this pate he said he didn't want to eat it because it could have been any number of a things.   Finally he knows how I feel so he came home and asked me why don't they give you a choice as far as the amuse-bouche. is concerned.   Well I think there is no choice for a few reasons.  #1 they want this to be something easy.  Something they can pretty much put together in no time.  #2 Some Chefs have big egos and they want you to eat what they want to serve you.  #3 It's "free" so they feel they don't need to give you a choice for something you kind of, sort of, aren't paying for.  Anyway who knows the reason.  The fact is I don't want the amuse-bouche to go away and lord knows my mom doesn't want it to go.  She will literally go back to a restaurant because they give you an amuse!   What I hope though is that more meat-eaters like my husband also become more discerning and bring it to restaurants attention that they too care what they put in their body.    As a Chef I really don't think it would be a problem to offer a couple different choices when it comes to the amuse.   Maybe they can bring it out on a silver platter and you can have your pick of a few amuse-bouches.  A meat one, a seafood one and a vegetarian one.  Of course they could just have a vegetarian one and then everyone would eat it, but that would be too easy.  Oh by the way I did a little research into what this pate my husband was served was and I think it was chicken liver.  He eats chicken, but he doesn't eat liver, so even if he knew was this was I don't think he would have been amused!

Amuse Bouche we had at Per Se (three salmon, one veg)

VEGAS: ADVENTURES IN DINING

I've taken more than a dozen trips to Las Vegas over the last five years and one thing I can say as far as vegetarian food goes it's either spectacular or it's barely existent. You'd think with those of us who don't eat meat clearly growing by leaps and bounds these days menus would be adding options we could sink our teeth into. Well I'm here to say sadly that isn't always the case. A lot of Chefs, ones highly acclaimed and not, just still can't seem to get their act together to come up with innovative meat-free options. Let me take you on my dining adventure during my latest trip:

Thursday night: Just arrived and we are starving. It's 8pm Vegas time, but 11pm back on the East Coast where we just flew in from. My husband wants sushi so I search opentable.com for a restaurant in our hotel (Caesars). I find "Sushi Roku" in the Forum shops. The description says they have sushi and other Japanese picks so I assume I'll find something. Maybe a noodle dish or at least some vegetable dumplings. Turns out there are a few vegetarian options. Problem is I want noodles and I don't see a meat-free noodle dish, but the waiter says they'll make me pan-fried noodles with just vegetables. It's so nice when restaurants work with vegetarians so I applaud them for that. The dish was just good enough to hit the spot. I just about ate it all. I hope I inspired them to put a vegetarian noodle dish on the menu permanently.

Thursday dessert: A smores crepe from Payard. We get it to go and bring it to our room. It's absolutely sinful (as you can see). I want another one right now!

Sinful dessert in Sin City

Friday breakfast: Crappy food court food at Caesars. Only one place is open. I just get eggs and a biscuit. They have bagels too, but I want a little protein. Boring, not much else to say. Well actually I could say the biscuit was $3.50 about $3 overpriced, but in Vegas they get you wherever they can baby!

Friday lunch: Finally a place with a few, innovative meat-free options. It's funny everyone says the most vegetarian-friendly restaurant in Vegas is Mesa Grill and they are right. While this is the first time we are actually staying at Caesars we pretty much hit up Mesa Grill every time we are in Vegas. One of my husband's favorite dishes on the planet is the Spicy Chicken and Sweet Potato Hash (clearly he's not a vegetarian, but he's hopefully on his way there). I instantly know every time we sit down there we'll be starting with the Queso Fundido appetizer. I think it used to have sausage in it and I'd always tell them to leave that out, but now it's all vegetarian all the time. It is a wonderful creamy melted goat cheese with colorful peppers (rajas) mixed in, served with tasty blue chips. I also dipped some bread from the bread basket in this time around and it was absolutely delish. For the main course I had a few choices. This is sadly unusual at a restaurant of this caliber. Usually there's one veg option, but Bobby Flay does it right here and for that I truly applaud him. I'm torn between the Cornmeal Crusted Chili Relleno and the Wild Mushroom Quesadillas (an appetizer, but we all know quesadillas are a filling lunch). I could have also gotten a couple different salads, but I wasn't feeling it. While I am intrigued by the Relleno (it is the dish I made for our final dinner in culinary school), I opt for the quesadillas because I knew the fundido would basically fill me up. I was actually full after that, but I just had to try another dish. The mushroom quesadillas were bursting with flavor. These aren't your Mexican joint next door's quesadillas. These are slathered with a white bean hummus, flavorful mushrooms, white truffle oil and a colorful sauce on the plate (perhaps pepper in origin). Next time I promise to try the relleno, though I'm sure I'll have the same predicament! As far as veg-friendly meals goes I'd recommend Mesa Grill anytime. Oh wait I already did! We sold the place to a group of women we met at the pool.

Friday dinner: We were going to see the Beatles “Love†show at the Mirage so I picked a restaurant at that hotel. I looked through menus from their restaurant online and I settled on "Stack". When I opened the menu at the restaurant though I couldn't remember why I chose it. There really didn't seem to be many meat-free choices at all. There was a tomato soup with a small grilled cheese sandwich on the appetizer side though so I settled on that. The waiter then let the wind out of my sails. I asked if the soup was vegetarian and it turns out it's made with a chicken stock. Very disappointing. Why would you make a tomato soup with a chicken broth? Sounds lazy to me. Sounds like you have chicken stock laying around in the kitchen so you use that. Instead when they put an item like this on a menu they should be cognizant of things like that. #1: Wouldn't you want to have a couple vegetarian options on your menu? #2: Doesn't a veggie based broth lend itself better to a vegetable type soup? Obviously the chef here isn't on the same page as me. I do have one question though? Meat eaters who order the soup wouldn't care if it's made with veggie broth so why not appeal to everyone here and just use the meat-free broth. This is just something I'll never understand. You'd sell more soup if you could please all the people all time, rather than some of the people some of the time. Moving on! My husband actually orders the soup and gives me the grilled cheese sandwich.

Why put chicken stock in this?

All I'm left to order are side dishes so I order the fries and a vegetable medley. Everything actually turned out to be semi-tasty. The grilled cheese sandwich is decadent thanks to being slathered in butter. As for the fries, not the best I've ever had, but they are decent and the mixed vegetables are excellent.

Pretty Good

What vegetables wouldn't be good drenched in butter? Oh yeah note to everyone vegetables at restaurants aren't exactly a health food options. Trust me having worked in kitchens I can tell you butter isn't lightly thrown in. To a lot of Chefs butter is the only flavor they have up their arsenal. If you are looking for taste though sure it's great and this time the veggies are tasty (as well the butter soaked gc sandwich I mentioned earlier). The best part of this meal though hands down is the dessert. Mini Jelly Donuts with a vanilla dipping sauce. I didn't even need the dipping sauce. The donuts just melted in your mouth. So while this meal turned out to be okay you still have to look at the core issue here. Was it balanced? No. I didn't exactly get much protein. Were there a lot of choices? Well there actually weren't any choices. Stack clearly doesn't stack up to the lunch at Mesa Grill that day therefore I don't anticipate a return appearance for me there. Sorry Stack!

Saturday morning: We decide this will be our one buffet of the trip. My husband has been raving about this huge buffet at Caesars so we are excited to dig right in. It's 8am, but the cashier tells us they are already serving brunch and it's $26.95 a person. We know we probably won't eat $27 worth of food, but my husband's been raving about this so it should be worth it (well that's what we were thinking). We walk in and see a small buffet (a little bigger than you'd see at a wedding) and we wonder "uh where's the rest of it?" I peruse the table and after taking the 20 steps it takes to walk the whole line realize it's already mostly lunch food. It’s chock full of meats and not much else. First off we wonder where are the pancakes? Where are the crepes? How about some eggs florentine. If it's a brunch where's the variety of salads? Sadly they are nowhere to be found so we do what we've never done before, we walk up to the cashier and ask for a refund. Ha ha a refund at a buffet. It's funny I know, but we hadn't touched an ounce of food so what could they say? Funny thing is there was no argument. Makes you think this isn't the first time someone saw that buffet and went running the other way. So what happened to the lavish buffet my husband went on and on about? Turns out new management wanted to use the big buffet space for something else. Okay a space issue. I can understand that, but then why build a puny buffet no one is going to want to eat at? Casino workers tell us everyone misses the buffet. I'm sorry every Vegas casino needs a big buffet. Hotels want to keep their guests inside their doors at all times, what they don't want is what we did. We googled Vegas buffets and found there was a good one next door at the Mirage called Cravings so we took our craving for a buffet and stepped foot outside Caesars and right into another hotel. The cashier at Cravings said they were also already serving brunch here. The price was $5 cheaper and that was only the beginning of the good news here. This was the kind of buffet where you don't know where to start. A paradise for meat-eaters, seafood lovers and yes for vegetarians! They had about 12 different stations from a sushi station to a breakfast station (with pancakes of course) to a crepe station and so on. Basically you name it this buffet had it. I loaded up on hash browns, eggs benedict (sans the Canadian bacon), a nice carrot raisin salad, pancakes, French toast and a breakfast burrito. So much I can't remember everything. Then there was the dessert station. I had mini donuts, an unbelievable fritter that had a inch of glaze on it and some croissant bread pudding. Yep this is what a Vegas buffet is all about. It was all super yummy. Actually my husband said the corn bread was the best he'd had in years and he loves corn bread. The good news this buffet rocked, the bad news we exceeded our daily caloric intake for the day and walked out feeling like we had gained several pounds. It was so worth it!!!

Mmmmm donuts!

Saturday lunch: I know after that brunch you are probably wondering how we could have room for lunch? Problem is my blood sugar drops every few hours so regardless of how much I consumed earlier I need to refuel. We decide a light Asian meal would be good. So we again search opentable.com and find Chinois, a Wolfgang Puck restaurant in the Forum shops. I really don't have a whole lot to say about this meal. Usually at Asian restaurants there are a lot of vegetarian options, here that just wasn't the case. I think there was one item, but it was tofu and I wasn't feeling it. Vegetarians like a little variety, you know? I asked the waitress for suggestions, and she pointed out the side dishes were mostly meat-free so I opted to just get a side of vegetable fried rice. So this is why I don't have much to say about this meal. It was just veggie fried rice. I just wish Mr. Puck would take vegetarians into consideration. Yep won't be returning here either.

Saturday dinner: My husband is surprising me and I am quite surprised to find he picked a Mandalay Bay offshoot of the restaurant we had our first date at "China Grill". I couldn't remember if China Grill was vegetarian friendly, but my husband said he asked when he made the reservations so I am hopeful. The waiter quickly points out several meat-free items (one is an edamame and vegetable risotto) and they all sound spectacular. Can the Marinated Tempura Tofu with Mushroom Potstickers live up to his recommendation? Oh yeah! First of all the item is $18, but it's an appetizer so I anticipate a small dish. Nope this was a huge plate with several potstickers and several pieces of tofu encrusted in a light tempura with kimchee aioli and an herb sauce. Contrary to popular belief that most vegetarians love tofu I don't so I dig in with skepticism, but wow am I blown away. I will venture to say this is the best tofu dish I've had EVER!!!! It was such a big dish too, by the time my main course a Wild Mushroom Profusion Pasta with Sake Madeira Cream Sauce comes around I can barely gets a couple mouthfuls in.

Huge Dish of Mushroom Pasta

I feel bad wasting such a great dish, but after that buffet in the morning it's still hard to gorge again. Of course there was still room for dessert, Cheesecake Potstickers. They were very tasty and they were nice enough to write happy anniversary on the plate, which was a great touch since we were celebrating. The spectacular service and food make this a place we would return to without a doubt.

Sunday morning: Banana and juice at the spa. I needed this light meal to detox (at least until lunch).

Sunday lunch: We returned to a place we go everytime we are in Vegas "Stripburger". They have a great, but messy veggie burger and fries with cheese that are the bomb. Add in some ranch dipping sauce for both items and I am in flavor heaven. Yes it's clogging my arteries, but sometimes that's the price you pay for enjoying yourself. Oh and we always top it off with a Butterscotch shake. The best shake we've ever had and the reason that really makes this a can't miss restaurant.

Sunday dinner: This is the one dinner neither of us planned in advance. When I planned the trip I figured this would be a low-key meal, but now we decide since it's our last night there we want to go all out. I search the Vegas tourism guide for some ideas, but I'm coming up empty. My husband suggests we stay at Caesars for dinner, so I read about all the restaurants in our hotel and nothing is really floating my boat. He suggests "Bradley Ogden" a restaurant we noticed downstairs, but I remind him I didn't think the menu had any vegetarian options. I tell him he can call though to double check. When he calls the hostess actually says there are a few things they can do for me. So we decide it's a date! For the appetizer course I'm offered an artichoke soup or a blue cheese souffle. I opt for the souffle and it's even better than I thought it would be. It's like two appetizers in one. In between two mini souffle the plate is sprinkled with vibrant red beets and greens. Definitely a great flavor combination. For dinner I get a mushroom agnolotti. It's great pillows of pasta filled with mushrooms and served with some asparagus and trumpet mushrooms.

Agnolotti (before I ate every last bit)

It's superb and I join the clean the plate club! Dessert was a great coconut flan. This meal was definitely a pleasant surprise. I was happy to know that a Chef like Mr. Ogden who promotes organic food came up with an innovative meal for this veg girl. I hope he puts more vegetarian items on his future. I imagine the meal I had is one even meat-eaters would love!

So thatss my Vegas vacation. Some great, some awful. Definitely harder to be a vegetarian in Vegas than it is in NYC, but I truly hope that changes as we vegetarians continue to make our mark on the world.

HIDDEN PITFALLS

As vegetarians we try to be so careful about what we eat. We make decisions based on the fact that we don't eat any animal flesh products. So when some restaurant or food company does something sneaky it's more than a little upsetting. It's like committing a crime you didn't know you were committing. I sometimes expect this in restaurants so I ask lots of questions. For instance you wouldn't think your macaroni and cheese would have a chicken product in it, but you never know. A lot of restaurants use chicken stock in their mac and cheese. For years nobody knew it, but McDonald's was using beef fat to fry their french fries. Of course you'd think french fries are just potatoes and hence vegetarian, but unfortunately if you don't ask the questions you could be wrong. Sometimes even when you ask questions the waiters lie or just answer out of ignorance. I ate at a T.G.I. Fridays recently and asked the waiter if the broccoli cheese soup had chicken stock in it and he said "no, it's just broccoli, cheese and cream" When it came though I took one bite it was unmistakable. I could taste chicken broth instantly. I asked a manager over and he said "yeah there's chicken stock in there". I can't tell you how frustrating this was. I asked the questions and yet I was still deceived. I think meat-eaters often don't realize this is a big deal. Restaurants should be especially careful about this because of allergies. If someone asks if nuts are in a dish and the waiter says no, but doesn't know for sure he is seriously jeopardizing that person's health. A man in Georgia was served some shellfish on a sandwich and he had an allergic reaction and died because he allegedly wasn't told there was shellfish in it. My point is this is serious business. This all brings me to why I'm writing this article today. A few months back I bought "Healthy Heart Tropicana Orange Juice". I drank a couple glasses. Then one day as I was pouring a glass the ingredients list caught my eye. I saw fish oil listed. FISH OIL IN ORANGE JUICE? WHAT?!?!?! Who would ever think in a million years that fish oil would be in orange juice? At this point I should have contacted Tropicana, but I let it slide. My mistake. Now a few months later I picked up Tropicana again. Ever since then I've vowed not to buy the Healthy Heart Tropicana. I probably should have given up on Tropicana altogether though because this week their new sneaky packaging made me fall for it again. I know a lot of people have been complaining about their new packaging. I have no idea why you'd change such a recognizable brand. It looks nothing like it used to, but I digress. Anyway I picked up what looked like their basic OJ, no pulp, off the shelf at my grocery store. You know how it is at the grocery store, you grab things quickly. When I went to pour the first glass though I noticed fine print on the package that said "Healthy Heart". It didn't look anything like their old "Healthy Heart" packaging and it was written so small it blended into the packaging. I looked at the ingredients list and sure enough there was fish oil. Luckily this time I didn't take a sip. I did waste my money though. I just don't understand #1 why they changed their packaging and #2 why it doesn't say on the front of the packaging "made with fish oil". I'm betting there are thousands of people out there who have no idea they are drinking fish oil in their orange juice every morning. Tricky, tricky! Just the sound of it I imagine would disgust someone. Fish and OJ? Even if I ate fish the thought of it is just gross. The point is even someone as careful as me about avoiding animal flesh products has to be even more careful because for some reason companies and restaurants just aren't as forthcoming as they should be. It's frustrating I know!. Hopefully by asking more questions and raising concerns like this companies will eventually learn!

MENU MISTAKES

A visit to "Vento", one of my favorite Italian restaurants in NYC's Meatpacking District, prompts me to write something I hope you all also speak up on: MAKE SURE YOU GET WHAT YOU ORDER and if you don't get what you order don't hesitate to point it out.
In this case I ordered the Bufalina Pizza. The menu item said: Buffalo mozzarella, pomodoro, gaeta olives and sun dried tomato. As a vegetarian I often ask a lot of questions about menu items, but this sounded pretty straight forward to me so I went ahead and ordered it. What I received though didn't resemble that description at all. Instead I got a pizza that was full of leafy salad greens that practically covered the entire pizza and cherry tomatoes. I didn't even see olives until I moved some of the lettuce over and then saw some small pieces of olive. I told the food runner I thought I received the wrong item, but he said that was the Bufalina. The waiter then came over and I told him the menu said sun dried tomato, but the topping here was uncooked cherry tomatoes and raw lettuce. He agreed. I asked if that's how it always looked and he said yes. I of course sent it right back and ordered something else. That's what prompted me to write this article. You mean to tell me hundreds of people before me have ordered this pizza and no one has brought it to the kitchen's attention that the menu says sun dried tomato, but instead they are being served uncooked cherry tomatoes? From the menu description one would assume the stars of this pizza are of course the cheese, then the olives and sun dried tomato. Instead there is no sun dried tomato, barely any olives and by looking at it the star of the pizza, the lettuce, isn't even listed in the description. A better name for this pizza would be salad pizza. In Culinary School we had a few lectures where we learned the importance of menu items titles and their descriptions. I wonder what the thought process was behind this poor description and why not include the biggest ingredient of the pizza on the menu?
The point is if you don't get what you order don't hesitate to send it back. You are paying for the item so you should get what you thought you ordered. Also if the restaurant truly cares about it's guests it will take the things you say into consideration. I sure hope when I return to Vento that either they change the menu description for this pizza or they serve the pizza they are describing.

BORING CHOICES
I just got back from a wonderful trip to Las Vegas. The food there is truly some of the best in the country. While I love to gamble, the food is another factor in why I visit the city of sin so often. On this January trip there was some innovative, fabulous vegetarian food and then there was some very borrrrring dishes. I'll start with the negative. I've eaten at the Eiffel Tower at the Paris hotel before and while there isn't a vegetarian main course option the chef has always whipped up something great. This trip though the dish changed. Once again there was no option on the menu, but the waiter told me the chef would prepare something. What I got was a dish of chopped vegetables in a flavorless sauce. It was truly one of the most bland dishes I've ever had at a restaurant. Luckily I had a wonderful waiter who noticed that I wasn't enjoying the dish (I only took a bite or two). He took it off the bill and I had room for the great Grand Marnier soufflé for dessert. All was well when I left, but it did leave me wondering how a well-trained chef at a famous restaurant doesn't know how to prepare a balanced and tasty vegetarian meal? I love side dishes and usually a chef could put a few of these together and make a meal, this dish wasn't even worthy of a side dish. The next night I ate at Aqua Knox in the Venetian. Again the menu doesn't have a vegetarian main dish, but I was also told the chef would make something. I'd been here before also and have also had a great meal in the past. The good thing is there were appetizers I could eat also. I started with the cheese course and it was fabulous with brie, blue cheese, fruit spreads and more. The main course here definitely topped the night before also, although I can say there is room for improvement. It was several different vegetables including purple cauliflower. The veggies circled a mountain of black rice. It was all topped off with a flavorful sauce. As I said it was better than the night before, but far from a well balanced veg meal. The next night though a restaurant got it right! This night I stayed in my hotel "The Bellagio" at Michael Mina. The restaurant offers a vegetarian tasting menu that looked better than their regular tasting menu and it was. First they bring the table pumpkin soup, this wasn't part of the tasting menu, just a bonus. Next up - an organic mixed greens salad with goat cheese, pumpkin seeds and more. The second course is a chanterelle mushroom soup with marscapone agnolotti and pearl onion confit. This soup was to die for! I didn't think it could get better than came the scrumptous third course a roquefort cheese souffle with a port reduction. This was like nothing I've had before. It was rich, creamy and delicious. I was full by this point, but I kept eating because it was that good. The main course was a wild mushroom pot pie with braised fennel. I wish I still had room in my stomach when this course came, but it was a lot of food so I didn't eat a lot of this course. What I had was good though, I just needed to leave a tiny bit of room for the trio of desserts that came with the tasting menu. Dessert was a coconut ----- cotta, warm chocolate cake with a liquid center and a mini rootbeer float. All in all there wasn't a contest Michael Mina won the vegetarian food fight by a mile. I just hope the other restaurants improve their choices in the future. I also hope that cooking schools teach these chefs more meat-free meals. As the numbers of vegetarians and vegans grows these restaurants will have to catch up or they will find themselves losing business.