Next time you look across at that pink filet calling you, remember where it came from.

It’s about time.  After decades of ordering pizza through undertrained teenagers or mexicans that can barely speak english, Domino has finally made it possible to customize an entire pizza with a few clicks.

It’s easy.  Just go to Domino’s BFD Builder (Big Fantastic Deal) and your pizza will be ready in 30 minutes for pickup.

You can choose from a bunch of different crusts, varying levels of sauce and cheese and several different meats and vegetables.  Best of all, it will only cost you $11.

I have to say that this is a great deal.  Ordering pizza over the phone is very very frustrating…especially if you want a variety of toppings and half and half combinations.  This way, at least your order will be accurately transmitted to Dominos.  Now you just have to hope that it’s made correctly.

Ever since I’ve been little I’ve heard every year that there will be a shortage of Ahi for the New Years Eve parties around the island.  This year the spin is a little different.  Supposedly because of the Sugar Bowl also on New Years there is going to be a shortage of ahi.  Take my advice, don’t worry about it you’ll get your fish.

I’ve got another bento blog to bring to the japadamus readers’ attention. Just Bento, via SeriousEats, is a relatively new blog by a veteran food blogger. There aren’t a ton of entries yet, but so far, she’s posted a few recipes for bento meals that contain both approximate calories per serving and estimated time needed.

Additionally, she’s got various useful how-to’s, like freezing pre-portioned rice. I had no idea you could freeze short-grain rice. Her posts are often focused on how to lose weight through making your own bento lunches, which seems sort of far-fetched because bentos always are heavy on the white rice component. But there is something to be said about making your own fresh from produce meals and maybe switching out to brown rice. Plus, if you’re so inclined, god, bento lunches can be very cute. Anyhow, I’m additing JustBento to my bookmarks and hope that there will be frequent posts. You should check it out!

I saw this at the Nijaya japanese market today, and really couldn’t resist.  These little mini choco croissants looks exactly like little turds - they even have turd folds and kind of a swirly turd-like brown color.  That makes them initially kind of unappetizing, but they actually taste great.  Check them out at your local japanese market.

During this weekend’s last minute trip to vegas we actually got to dine at some of the city’s better restaurants.  Not only that, but it seemed like a slow weekend, so we were actually able to walk in to restaurants or make same-day reservations with no problem.

On Friday night we walked in to Nobu.  I’ve already posted about my trip to Nobu with TJFKAK, so I won’t go into full detail, but generally the experience was so-so like last time.

Now let me say one thing, Nobu is a nice restaurant that has good food.  It just isn’t a great value.  With the exception of a few more fancy dishes like whole lobster sashimi, uni tempura and others, you will find Nobu-like items at most fusiony Japanese restaurants.  But at Nobu, you pay a high premium that in my mind is just not worth it.  I mean, ideally the service and ambience would make up this difference, but at the end of the day I would choose several bay area sushi bars above Nobu.

The next day we went to the Bellagio buffet, which was good as usual.  Sushi Attack has not been there before, and if you’re really going to try and compare vegas buffets you need to start at the Bellagio.  Since it was lunch we didn’t get the full offering of Kobe, venison and sashimi, but had a decent selection of different cuisines, as well as prime rib and lamb.

Still, I think I prefer the Rio’s lunch buffet more than Bellagio’s lunch buffet, just because the Rio does a better job of reproducing each cuisine.  The Bellagio was decent, but some dishes were a bit too generic for my taste.

On Saturday night, we got reservations for Bouchon, which was created by Chef Thomas Keller from French Laundry fame.  The restaurant is in a nice location in the Venetian with both indoor and outdoor dining.

The restaurant itself was kind of casual looking - I guess this is a standard kind of french restaurant design.  The tables were covered with paper table cloths, which seemed kind of cheap to me, but everything else, from the dinnerware to glassware, were high quality.  I don’t know why this stuck out to me - it kind of gave the restaurant both a comfortable and upscale appearance.

The menu also mixed both upscale and homestyle dishes.  There were dishes like ham sandwiches and steak with fries, which seemed out of place to me.  But really, I don’t know much about French food so it’s hard for me to say.

Anyway, we started with oysters, spanish mackerel (pictured) and a salami sampler.  The oysters were fine, and the salami was nicely presented.  I especially like their mustard.  The spanish mackerel was steamed with citrus, and served with sliced octopus.  This gave the fish a mild flavor, which is good since spanish mackerel is usually very fishy.  I thought the serving size was very small though, and not as flaky and tender as I would have hoped.  The octopus was nicely cooked though - it absorbed flavors well and maintained a somewhat crunchy texture.

For my entree I got the spareribs, and Sushi Attack got the veal.  I have to say, both dishes were kind of disappointing.

To start, my spareribs were a bit bland.  They seemed to be first pan seared then baked, so the meat had a hard crust on the outside while the inside was tender and flaky.  But for me, the outside was a bit overdone, with the crust being hard to eat and tasting a bit burnt.  The interior of the meat was nice and tender, but it didn’t really have very much flavor.

Sushi Attack’s veal was similarly bland I thought.  The meat was cooked perfectly, but it didn’t really absorb any of the flavors that it was served with.

And as a restaurant in the Venetian, our bill was a cool $100 per head including drinks - like Nobu, money that could be better spent.

A few notes about the pictures:  The top pic is my plate at the Bellagio, followed by the spanish mackerel, salami plate, spareribs and veal.  The pics at Bouchon didn’t come out very well due to bad lighting, unfortunately.

Michael Bauer in his blog talks about a growing number of diners starting to complain about amateur restaurant bloggers that are taking pictures during their meal.  As someone that loves blogging about food, I think its bullshit that I can’t take a picture of the food that I purchased.  In addition, the restaurant should encourage this behavior since it does create buzz about the restaurant and encourage other diners to visit the resturant.  Some resturants even go so far to comp bloggers to get some buzz going.  What do you guys think?

After reading Japadamus eloquently write about the virtues of Miller’s new Chelada style beer, I decided to take the plunge.  I set aside a Friday night out of of otherwise busy social calendar of dining out alone, shopping alone and watching movies alone (notice a pattern?) to have a Chill tasting at my apartment. 

Design:  The bottle is a lovely green color similar to a Pilsner Urquell.

Taste:  I’d describe the combination as being sprite meets keystone light meets Gatorade.  I definitely detect some added sweetness (corn syrup?)  I noticed the bottle states “No additives or preservatives” so I guess its safe to assume that there are salty lime flavored barley/hops growing somewhere.

Hangover:  This is an interesting question.  I think only by truly going over the top can one really know for sure.  Since I’ve already scheduled this block of time to scientific research, I decided to kill the entire 6 pack sans water chaser.  Here are the effects:

• I drank three beers and felt too full to drink the rest.
• I passed out tired after the third beer.
• This morning my stomach feels a little upset.  I did eat some chili last night which could reasonably be the cause of that.
• No hangover

Conclusion:  I think Chill is ok.  I don’t think its a substitute for a nice Corona or Pacifico with a Lime.  I could see this beer being presented at a picnic or a barbeque where the lime flavor isn’t too distracting.   Otherwise its definately different tasting than the Taquiza. 

Some other good reviews:

Helium

Bullz-eye review

BeerAdvocate

Kegworks Blog

You’ve probably seen Thai Kitchen-brand ingredients in the supermarket.  This company looks like it’s made a killing off of various thai sauces, ingredients and instant food products.

Their latest offering?  Instant Pad Thai.  Now, I don’t know anyone who doesn’t like pad thai, so I was actually pretty eager to try this out.

Each package looks like a big version of one of those to-go chinese containers, with colorful Thai Kitchen printing on the outside.  I got mine at costco - a six pack costs about $10.

The box includes dried noodles, a garnish package, a sauce package, peanuts, and a fork.  To prepare, you dump all the ingredients into the package, fill water up to a water line that is conveniently marked on the box, and microwave for four minutes.

I tried it out, and it really kind of works like a cup-o-noodle soup with less water.  After microwaving, you need to mix the noodles a bit to get the sauce evenly distributed.

Overall, it works OK.  My first try, the noodles came out a bit underdone and required more microwaving.  I think it takes a bit of fine tuning based on how powerful your microwave is.  It’s also hard to mix the noodles up with the plastic fork.  The fork is just not strong enough to mix the noodles effectively.

As for taste - it’s OK for an instant meal.  You don’t get the fresh flavor of a restaurant dish for sure, and the flavor didn’t get as infused into the noodles as I would like.  It also lacks protein - some chicken or shrimp would be nice - although probably difficult to make instantly.

As you can see, there are not a whole bunch of noodles in there.  That was a bit disappointing - especially because the box is so big.

But all in all, it’s a decent instant dish, and it’s a lot healthier than cup-o-noodles.  It made a good snack, and was quick to prepare as advertised.  It’s also very convenient - the only ingredient not included is water.  Great for say, a snack at work or a late nite snack, but not big enough to count as a full meal.

I know the title sounds like something out of the Hawaiian Chicken Skin Ghost Stories, but I’m not telling a ghost story.  I’m making an observation about every sushi resturant in Chicago with Toro on the menu.  Trust me, every place that serves sushi is chicago has something called Toro on the menu!  Almost as if its a brand.  I’ve tried some of these toros and none of them were fatty tuna!  Guess what!  Most of them were actually albacore tuna being pawned off as the real deal.  But sushiattack, what do they serve when they list shiro maguro on the menu?  Escolar!  Every place has escolar listed as shiro maguro, or “super white maguro.”  Interesting huh?

Check it out here:  Very good article

Journal of Food Science has published an article which sheds some light on caffeine content of major name brand soft drinks.

Its interesting to see that store brands have significantly less caffeine than Mountain
Dew or Dr. Pepper, is it a cost issue? 

I have to admit  I’ve been pretty unhappy with all the asian food I’ve been eating in the Midwest.  Yeah I know, “How is the fishing boat going to drop the asians off in the Midwest?”  Well, there’s enough railroads around here that probably had something to do with their relocation.  Anyway the great Chicago sushi place I found is called Ginza Japanese Resturant.  Trust me, for weeks I’ve been peeking my head into so called “sushi” resturants and taking a look at the menu and the clientele, so far this is the only place I would stamp Japadamus.com approved.

So far I’ve tried the Agedashi Tofu, Sapporo Beer, Sakekawa maki (Salmon skin roll), Natto Maki, Hamachi, Sake(salmon), Shiro Maguro (interestingly they didn’t serve albacore for their shiro maguro, rather they gave me Escolar), Ikura, and Scallop.  Out of those, I would say the Salmon was the most interesting.  They use a VERY fatty cut that doesn’t look like the traditional striped design, it looked almost all white with several pink portions.  It was slightly more chewy but altogether pretty good.  The only fish I had a slight problem with was the Hamachi.  It seemed to a cut that was much closer to the bloodline which gave it a stronger fishy taste.  I didn’t like it.

To all my loyal fans I will promise to explore the menu further and report back.

Recall our previous postings regarding the safety of Chinese food products.  Some things never change.  The New York Times today had an article regarding the safety of Chinese canned fish products.  This fish are from Chinese fish farms that have been contaminated with Carcinogens and banned antibiotics.  The article mentions that frozen Chinese Unagi has tested positive for pesticides.  I personally have purchase and consumed Unagi from china in the past but I’ll tell you I’m not doing it again.  I personally don’t trust any consumable coming out of China right now.  Something about the Chinese thrid world philosophy which always puts money over the safety of other people.  What happens when people start dying or getting sick from these products in the future?  I personally know a previous chinese roomate that used to eat tons of that canned dace fish I wonder what effect that will have on his health, it can’t be good.

Snake River Farms Kurobuta Pork

Kurobuta which means “black hog” in Japanese, is 100% pure all-natural Berkshire breed pork. It is celebrated the world over for its superior flavor and tenderness.
The origins of this delicious Kurobuta pork date back almost 300 years when it was discovered by Oliver Cromwell’s army in England. Fancied for its eating quality, the Berkshire breed was refined in the 1800’s and eventually given as diplomatic gifts, beginning the tradition of Kurobuta pork in the Far East.
Snake River Farms Kurobuta pork is now raised in the USA and has become the symbol of the highest quality pork available and the perfect essence of traditional Asian cuisine like Samgyopsal and Tonkatsu.

Kurobuta Pork - Samgyopsal for Korean BBQ
Fresh Pork Strips for Table Grilling
Thinly sliced Samgyopsal for Korean BBQ is a traditional and authentic Korean way to prepare this supreme quality pork.

Kurobuta Pork for Tonkatsu
Kurobuta Boneless Pork Chops for Breading and Deep Frying
Tonkatsu is a traditional and authentic Japanese way to prepare this supreme quality pork.

Snake River Farms American Style Kobe Beef

For hundreds of years, the people of Kobe, Japan have raised the most exquisite beef. This highly marbled Kobe beef has become world renowned for superior flavor and tenderness - beef fit for the emperors.
Snake River Farms brought the world famous Wagyu cattle (the Kobe beef breed) from Japan to the USA where they raise the cattle from start to finish in a time frame that runs considerably longer than traditional beef, insuring the same superior flavor and tenderness.
Snake River Farms American Style Kobe Beef has become the symbol of the highest quality beef available and the perfect essence of traditional Asian cuisine like Shabu-Shabu and Yakiniku.

American Style Kobe Beef for Shabu Shabu
Extrememly Thin Sliced Wagyu Beef
In Japanese, Shabu Shabu refers to a traditional cooking method of quickly swishing extremely thin sliced beef in a flavorful hot broth.

American Style Kobe Beef for Yakiniku
Bite Size Portions of Wagyu Beef for table Grilling
Enjoy in traditional Yakiniku or Korean Barbecue - family style grilling at the table.