Ocean One Bar and Grille

When in Vegas, we mainly eat at buffets, but sometimes it's nice to take a break from food overload and eat at a restaurant instead.  It helps save on the waistline and the wallet.

Today we were walking through the Miracle Mile Shops in the Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino, and we discovered Ocean One Bar and Grille.  It's nestled in the area where it looks like you're outside.  If you read my review of the Paris buffet, you know how much I love decor that makes you feel like you're outside.  It's also near the area where they have thunder and lightening and a rainstorm every hour.  That's right; it rains inside.


We arrived at lunch time and asked to sit "outside."  Keep in mind that you're actually inside no matter where you sit, but on the patio, it feels like you're outside.

They have six options that are only $5.99, and they have 2 for 1 drink specials.


I ordered the Warm Goat Cheese salad and added grilled chicken.  It was wonderful.  I loved all of the flavors.  My only complaint is that they gave me too much goat cheese.  Goat cheese has such a strong flavor, that you don't really need very much.  I ended up giving over half of it to my husband to eat with his meal.





My husband ordered the Buffalo Chicken Wrap.  He had no complaints.  I tasted a fry, and it had a nice seasoned salt flavor.

It was very relaxing sitting "outside" enjoying the view and the delicious food.  Our waitress was friendly, and the prices were right.  No complaints.

Happy eating!

Pizza Sandwiches

I love pizza, and by that I mainly mean that I love cheese and bread.  Well, for a sandwich version, take the classics of mozzarella and pepperoni and add a few extras.  Rye bread is one of my favorites, so that's what I use here, but you could substitute whole wheat, white or you favorite Italian bread.  If you want to cut down on grease, you can also use turkey versions of the meat, and it'll taste just as good.  For the perfect side dish, I suggest a simple salad.

Pizza Sandwiches

Servings: 2 (makes 2 Sandwiches, or 4 half-sandwiches)

Ingredients:

4 slices rye bread
4 slices salami
32 slices pepperoni
2 ounces mozzarella cheese, shredded
24 peperoncini slices
Pam butter flavor spray
spray butter (or butter)

Method:

Heat griddle or frying pan to medium and cook the salami until it's browned on each side.

Meanwhile, begin to assemble the sandwiches.  Spray one side of each slice of bread with spray butter (or spread lightly with regular butter).  The buttered sides will be the outside of the sandwiches.  Arrange 8 slices of pepperoni on a non-buttered side of 2 of the slices of bread (buttered side facing down).  Once the salami is browned, put 2 slices of salami on top of the pepperoni on each sandwich and then layer each sandwich as follows: 1/2 ounce cheese, 12 peperoncini slices, 1/2 ounce cheese, 8 slices pepperoni, and top with the remaining bread (butter side facing up, the outside of the sandwich).

Heat the griddle or frying pan back to medium, spray with Pam, and cook the sandwiches until the bread is golden brown and the cheese is melted.  Be careful when flipping the sandwiches over so that no pepperoni or peperoncinis slip out of the bread.

Cut each sandwich diagonally and plate.

Happy eating!

Baked Sweet Potato Fries

Until recently, I didn't like sweet potatoes.  I was the person who passed on the sweet potato casserole at Thanksgiving.  They always seemed too sweet to me.  I think it was this past Thanksgiving that I decided to give sweet potatoes one more chance, and I found that if I thought of them more like dessert than potatoes, I actually did like them.  I just had to get my mind to file them under the category I used for pumpkin pie.

Now I love sweet potato fries.  I don't know that I prefer them to regular fries, but they're just as good in their own dessert-like sweet way.  They're also just as easy to make.







Baked Sweet Potato Fries 

Ingredients:

1 and 1/2 lbs sweet potatoes
1 tbsp olive oil
TexJoy

Method:

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

Slice sweet potatoes into 1/4 inch long strips.  You can peel them, but it's not necessary.  Put the sweet potato strips in a bowl and toss them with the olive oil to coat.  Sprinkle with TexJoy and toss again.

Put parchment paper on a cookie sheet, and spread the fries in a single layer on top of the parchment paper.

Bake for 10 minutes.

Remove the fries from the oven and flip them over so that they cook evenly.  Sprinkle with more TexJoy and return them to the oven for 10 more minutes.

Happy eating!

Gaucho Grill

Our New Year's Resolution for the year was to eat at a restaurant in the L.A. area that we'd never eaten at before at least once a month.  This sounds easier than it really is...at least for us.  So far we're on track, but we usually don't get around to trying somewhere new until the end of the month.  Once again, we had reached the last week of the month and hadn't tried a new restaurant yet, so last night we decided to correct that.

We found a Groupon for Gaucho Grill in Woodland Hills.  The menu looked varied, and the reviews were okay, so we decided to give it a try.

We arrived around 7pm, and the restaurant only had half a dozen or so tables filled.  We were told we could sit wherever we wanted.  We chose a table near the windows.  Actually, they're doors, but they looked like windows.  We looked over the menu.  My husband was considering one of the sandwiches, and I was torn between a couple salads, but in the end we decided to order the Parrillada, which was intended to be shared by 2 people.  It comes with skirt steak, New York strip, half a chicken on the bone, chorizo, and sweetbreads which are all served on a hot grill.  It also comes with two sides, mashed potatoes and grilled zucchini.  Our waiter said we could substitute any other sides for the included sides if we wanted, but we decided to stick to the potatoes and zucchini.

While we were waiting for our food to arrive, we were given a bread basket and chimichurri sauce.  There were slices of both white and wheat bread in the bread basket.  I chose a slice of wheat and spread it with the chimichurri sauce.  The bread was fine.  It was soft and fluffy.  I think I was expecting something more along the lines of flatbread or pita bread, but it was good.  The chimichurri sauce just tasted like olive oil to me.  I like a lot of flavor, and I didn't taste much.  I like the chimichurri sauce my husband and I make much better.  It's a pretty simple but incredibly flavorful recipe I found in Sunset magazine.  (Click here for our chimichurri recipe.)

The interior of the restaurant seems a little confused.  It's pretty dimly lit and leaning towards the rustic and romantic side, except that there are several TVs at one end, and the ceiling are really high with exposed ventilation, which gives it an industrial feel.  It was also really cold inside.  I usually bring a jacket with me in case there's strong air conditioning, but even with my jacket on, I was cold.

My husband noticed plates of food being brought outside, so we asked if we could move to a table outside.  There were plenty of empty tables, so our request was accommodated without a problem.  I liked it out there better.  It's too bad their location is right next to the entrance of a shopping center, but there were palm trees and flowers along the edge of the patio which improved the view.  The music was piped outside.  It sounded a little like elevator music, but it was better than no music at all.  Between that and the traffic, it was kind of hard to hold a conversation.

Once our food arrived, we were too busy eating to talk anyway.  I tasted everything before adding any extra seasoning to it, and I thought it all tasted really bland.  A little salt and pepper helped immensely.  I liked the skirt steak and the New York strip the best.  We ordered them cooked medium, and they were perfect, no pink but perfectly tender.  The chicken was okay, but a little bland.  I didn't like the chorizo or the sweetbreads.  They were way too greasy.  The mashed potatoes were cold by the time I got around to tasting them.  They were okay, but once again, bland.  My favorite part of the meal was the grilled zucchini.  It was served on the grill under all the meat, so it had a nice flavor.  It makes me think I need to start grilling zucchini at home.

In short, everything is fine, and the meat is cooked well, but I didn't find anything exceptionally great.  I don't think we'll return.  I'd prefer just to make chimichurri at home with grilled zucchini and skirt steak.

Happy eating!

Miguel's - Just Can't Get Enough!

My husband and I bookended our trip to Coronado, CA by eating at Miguel's.  It was the only restaurant where we ate while we were there.  It's just that good!  To read about the visit to Miguel's when we first arrived, you can click here.

Of course the chips and jalapeno white sauce were incredible.  We tried not to overdo it on those since we wanted to be hungry enough for our food.  We had considered going there and just ordering drinks and dessert.  We figured that along with the chips and white sauce, that'd be all we need.  However, once we got there, we wanted to order entrees.

We started with our drink order.  My husband ordered Miguel's Mango-Mint Tea.  It was iced tea with mango syrup and fresh mint.  It had a light mango flavor, but we both decided that we liked the Passion Fruit Iced Tea (which my husband had ordered last time) better.

I decided to try the Pacific Breeze Cooler which contained raspberry vodka, lemonade, a splash of soda and raspberry garnish.  I was worried that it was going to be too sweet or too strong, but I really liked it.  Some people would probably call it watered down (it came in a glass with a lot of ice), but I thought it was refreshing and a nice light drink for a summer lunch.  I liked it better than the Sangria (which I had last time), and I would definitely order it again.

On to our entrees.  My husband ordered Combo #4 which comes with a chicken burrito and your choice of either a chicken, beef or fish taco.  He went with the fish taco.  It usually comes with a corn tortilla, but he requested a flour tortilla instead, and they granted that request no problem.  We both prefer flour tortillas unless the tortilla is fried.  The fish was fried.  I didn't taste it, but it looked really good.  The burrito looked like a large enchilada, so it was smaller than if you just ordered a burrito.  It was covered with cheese and ranchero sauce.  The meal also came with rice and beans.  One thing I particularly like about the burritos at Miguel's is that they only contain meat.  Some restaurants use rice and beans for filler and hardly include any meat.  My husband's only comment for improvement was that he'd like cheese inside the burrito instead of just on top of it.

I ordered the Fiesta Salad.  If you read my post about eating at Miguel's earlier in the week (which you can read by clicking here), you know how much I liked the Seafood Fiesta Salad.  That special was no longer available this time, so I went with the regular Fiesta Salad with carne asada.  I also requested to have the chipotle ranch dressing on the side.  The salad came in a huge tostada shell, which I hardly touched.  I prefer the salty chips to the greasy shell, but the shell is nice for presentation.  It was loaded with mixed greens, black beans, and roasted corn.  It was topped with carne asada, salsa fresca and guacamole.  I gave most of the guac to my husband.  I think guac's okay.  He thinks it's great.  I loved how the juice from the meat added flavor to the entire salad.  I didn't even use the dressing.  I tasted it, and it's good, but the salad didn't need any additional flavor.  It tasted so fresh and delicious.  I think this salad is going to be my new usual.  You can call it getting stuck in a rut if you want to, but once I find something I love at a restaurant, I tend to stick with it.

We were too full for dessert.  The Mini Chimis will have to wait until the next time we visit Coronado, which will be in about a month.  I can't wait!

Happy eating!