Cheer Up With Food

Earlier this week  Deadmau5 played at XS Nightclub in celebration of it's 2nd anniversary... I'm so glad I was able to go!  Kudos to whoever made this killer cake!

For my Dad's birthday, my relative thought it be best to celebrate it at  Harley Davidson Cafe . My Dad loves riding his motorcycle, so we agreed this would be the perfect place to celebrate his birthday at! Despite reading many 'OK' online reviews about this place, I enjoyed Harley Davidson Cafe's food and atmosphere. I tried the  BBQ Shrimp Salad - it had a nice variety of veggies with mesquite ranch dressing. I really liked the boldness of the ranch! My cousin had the Chinese Chicken Salad. She kept raving how awesome the salad was and she's food lover like me! The rest of our family had other chicken dishes, sandwiches, and fries - they all weren't super greasy... Thank goodness! Another thing I like about the foods was their big portion size. My dad's birthday ice cream sundae was big enough to feed our party! My niece and nephew were really fixated towards the big sundae:

At my cousin's house warming party, he had many traditional Filipino dishes laid out on a table.  To me, its nice eating these typical Filipino foods at parties like pancit, barbecue, dinuguan, puto, etc.  Then there are times when I'm not excited seeing the same party foods again.  When I looked around the kitchen, I saw something out of the ordinary.  One of my in-laws was near the stove watching two big covered pots that were simmering.  I found out he was making the goat soup called  sinampalukang kambing! One way of making sinampalukang kambing is with a sour broth consisting of sampaloc ( tamarind ), sampaloc flowers or leaves, a goat's head, leg, and/or some meat, onions, celery, salt, pepper, and MSG.  My relative had made his own sour and bitter version of the soup.  I only tried the sour version (I'll try anything but bitter foods!) and it left me sati...

I went to a family dinner (with my good friends from UNLV) at Reggie & Dan's place.  Isn't this set up nice?  The main dish was  borscht  - a common Eastern European soup.  Saying the name of this soup may sound harsh, but it doesn't taste like it!  The main ingredient may be a beetroot or tomato and can be served hot or cold.  This version was cold with cabbage and potatoes.  To add more flavor, put however you want of paprika and sour creme: I ate this soup with toasted bread rubbed with a clove of garlic.  That was the first time I've seen that!  I rubbed a lot of garlic into my bread haha... I think this way is better than eating garlic bread because you choose how much garlic you want on your bread!

A gift certificate from my favorite sushi place... Thanks A+D! 

On a night trip to Laughlin, my friends and I ate at the Boiler Room Pints Brewery in the Colorado Belle Resort .  Although Laughlin is not known for it culinary creativity, I found an interesting item on this brewery's menu.  The Krispy Kreme Burger sounded like the best and deadliest burger on the menu! I know for sure my arteries cannot handle this Krispy Kreme Burger !  I couldn't even handle a  Sausage, Egg & Cheese McGriddles from McDonalds (my heart pumped heavily for an hour after eating it).  So that was why I backed out and so did my friends... Oh well maybe I can share the burger with someone next time I go back.  

If you're interested in trying Sicilian style food, go to  Sicilian Caffe !  They've got some savory dishes that you won't usually see in other Italian restaurants.  An antipasti I suggest are the Stuffed Mushrooms -  Stuffed with bread crumbs, raisins and pine nuts, baked and served with marinara sauce.  They were huge as you can see in this photo: