Dinner at Portofino at Secrets Los Cabos

 Dinner at Portofino Restaurant at Secrets Los Cabos

If you have stayed at a Secrets resort, you will find that they all have some similar restaurants.  This helps with brand loyalty so that when you visit a new Secrets, you can find your favorites.  This is true of the italian restaurant Portofino.  This was dinner for our first night.

They brought a great selection of bread and poured olive oil and balsamic on a side plate for dipping.  I usually don't eat the bread, but here it looked so good I had to try. My favorite was the focaccia with onion.  The cracker was also so tasty.  I expected it to be super crisp, but it had a nice flaky texture - almost like thin pie dough.

Started off with a delicious beef carpaccio.  This was delicate, thinly sliced beef with arugula, olive oil and some especially tasted crunchy parmesan crumbs.  Hard to describe them any other way.  Parmesan is a staple of most carpaccios but to see it used in a more creative way says a lot about the chef.  Added some much needed crunch.

Next up was something I also order at an italian restaurant.  Just like I will always try the burger and fries at a pub, you can see a lot about the chef at an italian restaurant by trying the lasagna.  

This wasn't the best lasagna I have ever had.  For that you would have to go back to my blog from Live Aqua from earlier this year.  That one would be hard to beat.   This one at Portofino had it's merits.  The pasts was cooked properly and not gummy.  The bolognese sauce was not overly complicated.  You could clearly taste the tomato and meat.  It could have used some more savory notes  It was topped with a creamy bechamel sauce with some drizzles of pesto.    I would order it again.  But they may want to visit Live Aqua for some pointers.

Next up was shrimp favoli.  This was delicate pockets of pasta with just cooked shrimp.  Simple and delicious.  I usually don't order shrimp in restaurant because I find they get overcooked to easily.  And like most seafood, it is not forgiving when overcooked.  The sauce may have had a bit of fontina cheese.  It complimented the shrimp and was helped by a reappearance of the pesto drizzle.

I also tried the mushroom risotto.  This had deep mushroom flavor. The arborio rice was cooked to al dente but the dish had been over reduced.  It wasn't salty, but the result was a little gummy.  So great flavor.  Just more like asian sticky rice than risotto.

The last dish of the night was my least favorite.  It was a beef tenderloin and spicy pasta special.  I had asked for medium rare and the beef was medium well.  It did have flavor, but was a bit tough due to it being cooked too much.  The pasta was cooked al dente and the sauce did have a nice kick.  They kept it simple since it seemed to only be tomatoes, red pepper flakes and probably a little sugar and salt.

I would return to this restaurant but probably start here for appetizers and move on to a different restaurant for entrees.  What is your favorite italian dish?  Leave me a comment.

The Importance of Attention to Detail

I am always impressed to see true craftsmanship from a chef and a fine attention to detail.  I can't recall a better example than the food display at Live Aqua in the Aqua Club.  For today's late morning snacks they had a display of seated tuna and salmon. By itself maybe not much different than I have seen elsewhere.  Although the individual marble slabs were a nice touch.  

What set this apart was the fine detail that went into each of the condiments.  And something I had never seen.  Here you see some wasabi, a mustard  capers and some onions.  

And here we have egg white, egg yolk, parsely and lime.  But I have never seen where a sous chef has taken a lime wedge and sliced out only the pulp.  

You get all the flavor of the lime without having the "bother" of squeezing.  Definitely a first for me.  Have you seen this?  Let me know in the comments.  

QUICK BITE: Go outside your comfort zone!! Veal Sweetbreads!!

If you have been following along, I like to try interesting dishes. So when the MB restaurant at Live Aqua had Veal Sweetbreads I just had to order them!!  

The people would want to know.  What are Sweetbreads?   They are organ meat, more specifically the pancreas. I have seen them on menus before.  Typically they are either pan fried or deep fried as they were here.  

If I gave you some to try, you would think these were just morsels of pork in a light batter.   Maybe that is what pancreas is supposed to taste like?  They were served with a light potato foam which added some needed creaminess. And for texture they were topped with shavings of deep fried sweet potato which added a salty crackle to each bite.   It was a really thoughtfully planned dish.  I know they are not for everyone.  And just the knowledge of what they are turns many people away.  However I suggest going out of your comfort zone occasionally. Especially on a cruise or an all inclusive resort where the worst that can happen is that you don't like a dish and order something else.  

QUICK BITE:. Can you find good French food at a Mexican all-inclusive?

We arrived last night at the Hard Rock in Riveria Maya Mexico.  After unpacking it was time to find some dinner.  We decided on Le Petit Couchon which is their French restaurant.   Can French food possibly be good at a Mexican resort?   Yes.  And yes.  

Started with the beet carpaccio. 

Most fine restaurants these days will feature a beet appetizer and it ends up being disappointing since beets aren't the featured ingredients. That wasn't an issue here. The beets were finely chopped and molded into a beet shape.   There was also a bit of creme fraiche to add some creaminess.   It was presented as a dip since there were chips that were crispy wedges of potato.  Such an outstanding dish and a wonderful start. 

Next was the foie gras.  

This had a slab of deliciously savory foie gras.  And on the sides were sweet offerings including marinated plums, sweet cream and some cookies that were like vanilla wafers.   I appreciated that there was sweet and savory combinations, but as I got to the end it was tasting more like a dessert.   And this could function as a very interesting dessert.  I would have preferred it to be more savory.  

Next up was onion soup which has such an interesting presentation.  We were served a large mound of carmelized onions on top of a crouton. And then a delicious broth of onion goodness was poured on top.  Too often an onion soup features goopy cheese and a soggy crouton.  In this preparation, the crouton had a subtle essence of cheese but it wasn't overpowering.  And since the broth was poured tableside, the crouton still had some texture. 

My main course was grilled scallops with  what was stated as a mushroom risotto.  The scallops were perfectly cooked medium rare and had the flavor from the sea - just like they should. I think the only seasoning they used was some salt which was all they needed.  The "risotto" certainly wasn't traditional.   It was a mound of somewhat mushy rice on top of a delicious mushroom sauce.   Great flavors, but it wasn't a composed risotto.  

My wife tried the mushroom stew which was such a simple dish, but had great complex flavors.  It was really just sauteed mushrooms on top of a cauliflower and potato puree.  So simple and could have very easy to just throw together into a tasteless mess.  But here the mushrooms were so meaty and savory, and perfectly complimented by the barely underseasoned puree.  There was plenty of butter throughout the dish to bring it all together.  While the beet carpiccio was my favorite dish of the night, I would definitely order the mushroom stew for my main next time.  

So you can have great French food at a Mexiy all-inclusive.   They also had some more traditional French dishes such as duck and filets with complex bourginon sauces.   We are here for six more nights so we may have to come back.  

QUICK BITE:. Good Hospital Food?

Definitely the best hospital food I have ever had.   This was from The Library last night which is a restaurant in the bottom floor of John Hopkins Hospital in St Petersburg. 

Started with fried brussels sprouts. I had never seen such a large portion.  They came with grilled lemon wedges and a garlic aioli.   I think they had been brined, then roasted, flash fried and then tossed in a sauce that had red pepper flakes.  The seasoning was good but I think the brining and subsequent roasting made them too salty, especially with so many!

The Mediterranean salad was excellent!  Fresh spinach, sweet red peppers, artichokes and a flavorful balsamic vinegarette. 

The spaghetti Bolognese had so much flavor from the veal and sausage.  I liked the addition of the basil, but it was more sauteed than fried.  Could have been crispier.  

Overall a very nice meal!  Next time you are in St Pete give this place a try.

#BrusselsSprouts #HospitalFood #StPetersburg

QUICK BITE: Plane Food or Plain Food?

I flew SAS (Skandanavian Airlines) from Newark to Bergen Norway to catch a transatlantic flight.  Can you get a decent meal on a plane?  For dinner, they had an option of salmon or chicken. I went with salmon. 

Salmon for dinner on SAS Plus

Salmon was pretty good but needed more salt as did the bland noodles. The salad was my favorite. A big wedge of goat cheese, greens and a rice pilaf. All went well together. I think the dessert was blueberry cheesecake but it was more cake than cheese which is "no go" for me. 

They did have a tasty lager branded under their name which was organic and a decent whiskey.

SAS branded Organic Lager

SAS branded whiskey

QUICK BITE: Domestic First Class Meal

Are you curious what the airlines are serving these days in domestic first class?  I had the opportunity to fly on Delta first class from Atlanta to Punta Cana Dominican Republic and found out for you.

The choices were a chicken parmesan sandwich or an antipasto salad.  As luck would have it, I had also flown on Delta in the first class cabin a few weeks prior - also to Punta Cana  - and ordered the chicken parm.  It was nothing like a chicken parm sandwich you would want. Instead of a breaded cutlet with melted mozzarella and sauce, it was strangely sliced deli chicken in an off-tasting sauce.  Let's just say I knew not to order that this time.

The antipasto was exactly the opposite of the chicken parm.  It had everything you would expect to be in an antipasto.  Slightly spicy smoked salami, marinated artichoke, briny kalamata olives, fresh buffalo mozzarella, charred peppers,  asparagus and what I think was a wedge of manchego cheese (one of my favorites).  It also came with buttery, crunchy toasts which were great by themselves and also provided some texture to the salad.  The dessert was a wonderfully soft and rich molasses cookie.  The kind you need a large, cold glass of milk with - but I ate it anyway!!  Well done meal for our 3+ hour flight from Atlanta.

QUICK BITE: Banana Preserves?

On a recent trip to Punta Cana, Dominican Republic at the Casa de Campo resort I came across this at the breakfast buffet.  The typical jellies and preserves you see near the toast. bagels and pastries are strawberry, raspberry or maybe guava.   I have occasionally seen a lemon curd which has been very tart and tasty.  Had never seen banana until this resort.

The consistency was custardy and smooth - almost like a lip balm.  The taste was extremely sweet and masked the little banana flavor there was.  I wouldn't recommend this on toast.  Maybe it would be good as an ice cream topping if it was heated and made to be sauce-like.  Even then, you would have to supplement it with some fresh bananas.

A Day At The Minnesota State Fair

A Day At the Minnesota State Fair

I attended the Minnesota State Fair on Saturday August 24th.  This was the second visit I had made in my life having also visited four years ago.  I always love a good state fair and Minnesota is one of the best in the country in my opinion.  There are 322 acres to cover including almost 300 food booths (you know for me it is all about the food and beverage).  This year it was slated to set an attendance record given the seasonally mild weather in August.  In 2018, over 2 million people visited.   It runs for the 12 days before (and including) Labor Day. Through Saturday 8/31, they had already set four daily attendance records. 

So where to start?  Our group arrived at the turnstiles at 9AM so we were ready to start with a breakfast item.  As with my prior visit, that meant mini donuts.  These are best right from the fryer which is not hard to find since they are constantly making them.   I love a great plain donut (or some would call it old fashioned).  Growing up I remember getting fresh ones at Dunkin Donuts.  This was the 1970's when DD actually did make all the donuts in house instead of using regional bakeries.  These mini donuts reminder me of those treats.  Pillowy, soft inside with a slight crunch outside. All that was missing was a great cup of black coffee. They added powdered at the fair which wasn't required for my taste, but when you are at the fair you just need to have powdered sugar on anything fried.  Seems to be part of some federal mandate.

After a sweet start, I needed something salty.  What caught my eye was a Spam food stand.  I was in 5th grade in the mid 1970's and Spam was a staple item in our house.   My mother would make what she called "Chopped Ham and Pickle" as a sandwich spread.  It was not ham at all but mashed up Spam.  I loved it - much to the shock of my brother and sister.  It was a great sandwich on what my mother called Puff O Wind bread - or some will know it as Wonder Bread.  The kind of bread you could mash together into a ball of dough.  Also great for peanut butter and jelly.

The item that I decided to try was the Spam Curds.  Now if you have ever been to a state fair (especially in the mid-west), cheese curds are a staple item and a must have.  Having not known Spam to come in a "curd" I was intrigued.    What I received was a well fried basket of salty and flavorful Spam morsels.  Not 100% sure how they achieved the "curd" form.  Maybe the Spam was mashed and then put into an extruder?  In hindsight I should have investigated more.  It certainly helped that these were fresh from the fryer otherwise they would have suffered from being soggy.      They had a ranch dressing which I drizzled in the corner of the basket.  The ranch really did nothing to enhance the flavor.  I would have gone with a horseradish sauce (Horsey sauce at Arby's) which would have helped a little with the fattiness of the Spam.  One thing to know about Spam if you have never tried it:  Don't read the ingredients or you will never try it. 

Next up was more breakfast at the Blue Barn!  This was one of the new fair offerings called a Breakfast Potato Skin.  It has a meat preparation I had never heard of called chislic.  I had to go to Wikipedia to find out what this was.  Simple stated, it is deep fried cubed meat - which made perfect sense at a state fair!!    Traditionally it is lamb or mutton but I guess to meet the tastes of fair-goers, they used beef at the Blue Barn.   I got a cream ale to accompany the skin which was also new to the fair.  It was called a Great Minnesota Handshake which was supposed to be akin to a strawberry milkshake.  It definitely had the slight sourness you get from strawberries but I got none of the creaminess I have found in previous cream ales.  If you have ever had Abita's Purple Haze it was very similar to how this tasted.  

Back to the chislic potato skin.  This item had lots of potential but had an execution error.  There was simply too much potato for it to be called a "skin" and this made it too dry  It was more like a split baked potato topped with beef and a very well-made creamy bearnise sauce.  Sounds good but there was not enough sauce or beef to complement the dry potato.  It did make me want just an order or chislic and bearnise - but sadly that was not on the menu.  

Another fair staple is fried pickles.    Preferred Pickle didn't disappoint with crispy, salty nuggets ot pickily goodness.  I think they use cornmeal for added crunch which was so welcome.  And of course some cool ranch dressing for dunking.   So well done!!  I wouldn't change a thing.

I next tried something I have never had from the Potato Man and Sweety Churro both.  Of course you will look at the picture and ask how I've never had a churro.  Well, I had never had a sweet potato churro before.  I give them some points for trying something different.  The biggest issue with these is they had a flavor that I think was caused by the higher sugar content found in sweet potatoes.  I call that flavor "Burned".  They came with a traditional chocolate sauce but these screamed out for that icing Pillsbury has at the end of the cinnamon roll package.  Would have improved them - if only slightly.

Next up was an item I was anxiously awaiting for.  This was a new item at the fair this year called the Deep-Fried Dilly Dog.  It was perfectly executed item which they kept cleverly simple.  A dill pickle was hollowed out, large enough for a bratwurst to be stuffed into the pickle.  Then coated in corn dog batter and fried.  That's it.  Optional mustard or ketchup (the horror!!!) but it needed nothing else.  The pickle was salty enough to season the brat and the crispy corn dog batter.  Hard to tell from the picture, but this was definitely big enough for 2 or three people to share as a snack. 

Next up was the signature item at Turkey to Go.    They call it the Juicy Turkey Sandwich and it is well named.  Perfectly cooked, moist turkey on a soft roll.  The turkey juices "melted" into the roll which only added to the deliciousness.  They had additional toppings (at extra cost) and I went to the cranberry and brie.  There are a few perfect combinations of foods  - and turkey and cranberry is one of them.  The brie also added a nice sharpness to the sandwich.  

Up next, I tried two other items new to the fair this year.  Hot Hen was essentially Cape Cod Nachos.  It was homemade kettle potato chips with pulled buffalo chicken, blue cheese drizzle, jalapenos, tomatoes and blue cheese crumble.  Our whole group said we would eat these again and again.  Such a perfectly thought out dish.  It was made to order so the chips remained crisp, the chicken was hot and the blue cheese crumbles hadn't quite melted yet.  With each chip you could grab a bit of everything for that perfect bite.   Many items at the fair are hard to duplicate at home unless you have a fryer.  This one I will definitely make for an upcoming football Sunday!!

The Jammin's Brisket Grilled Cheese at RC's was crispy sourdough sliced chock full of well smoked brisket and gooey pepper jack cheese.  Nothing wrong with any of those ingredients by themselves of together.  What brought them all together was the smear of savory and slight sweet onion jam.  The brisket and cheese both needed something to cut their richness and it was the perfect job for the jam.  Two of my top three items at the fair!!!

Also tried their smoke sausage with grain mustard.  It was still juicy and the skin had that snap I love in a good sausage or hot dog. 

All the food tastings made we thirsty!!  Good thing they have a section of the fair where they have many local flights of beers to try.    I always love a good sour beer so not surprisingly my favorites were the Saison, Raspberry Honey Ale and Watermelon Sour.  The Peanut Butter Stout was also tasty.

One of the most popular stands at the fair is Sweet Martha's where you can get freshly made chocolate chip cookies.  Being honest, the cookies themselves are no better than a supermarket brand of ""slice and bake" cookies.  The real draw is the Instagram moments that people want to create since you can get a bucket of 4 dozen cookies.  You see so many people with the buckets literally dripping with cookies that you want to find where they sell them.  I will also say they are best when fresh from the stand and don't hold up too well afterwards. 

That is it for this year's fair.  What were my favorites?  Number one was the Deep Fried Dilly Dog.  It lived up (and exceeded) the hype.  I suspect to see this at future state fairs across the country.  Next was the Hot Hen.  And third (maybe surprisingly) were the Spam curds.  They get a mention because of the excellent execution.

TOP TIPS:

1. Plan you day.  You will not be able to get to everything. All state fairs will have website and/or apps where you can see what is new.  The Minnesota State Fair let you make a list of our favorites and it showed you the location.    Prioritize and you'll have a much better day.
2. Get there early,  We arrived at 9AM and were able to get to a majority of the booths before we really noticed the crowds around 12:30PM.
3. Bring a water bottle and hydrate frequently.  There were places (although not enough) to fill up bottles.