The Best Meal Eva!

We are back from Las Vegas. Sadly, we did not win big but we had so much fun. We walked the strip, we gambled, we ate, we lazed in the pool, we window-shopped and more. We had a beautiful dinner at Morels, a french steakhouse in the Palazzo hotel.

It was one of those chic-chic restaurants where the focus is on the food and wine. We had an almost three hour meal and enjoyed every minute of it. I am a big foodie and love the experience of fine dining and the quality of ingredients. Rarely do we eat like this but it was such a treat. This is a picture of the dining room at Morels.

First we were introduced to our team of servers, yes team. That team had a captain, as in, "My name is Richard and I will be your Captain this evening." We had a sommilier(wine steward) who advised us what wine pairings were most complimentary to our food. We also had a server whose job seemed to consist only of filling our water and folding our napkin whenever one of us left the table to use the restroom. Seriously, you'd go to the restroom and come back to your napkin refolded sitting on the table.

When we sat down, we were asked what water we'd like, we were given the still water selections and the sparkling water selections. Of course we chose tap, I like good food but will never pay eight dollars for a glass of water. Another waiter handed us beautifully bound menus and told us the Captain would be by to walk us through the menus. Among the selctions was Wagyu beef, the most expensive and highly sought after meat. Can you imagine paying $185 for a steak? That's what you'd have to shell out for this prized beef. Unless I'm going to poop out a brick of gold afterward, this was a little pricey for me.

Next, they brought us bread right from the oven served with butter and olive tapenade. Butter you say, that sounds like what you'd get in any restaurant but you'd be wrong, this was french butter.

Let me put my food snob hat on for a moment. French butter has a higher percentage of fat than American butter, yes, the french actually figured out how to make butter more fattening. Higher fat content means lower water content which produces a richer, creamier, more flavorful butter. Now in my book, American butter is delicious, so imagine that, but better or should I say butter, mmmmm.



I, the occasional carnivore, partook in the 18oz bone-in ribeye, and ate it all, save for the bone. Gene had oven-roasted Australian lobster, the first time my husband has eaten any animal(though basically an insect) in years. We had asparagus with a citrus beurre-blance, a fancy-schmancy white sauce with pristinely segmented slices of meyer lemon, grapefruit and orange, no pith, no peel, no seeds. By the way, I found out that the term for doing this to a citrus fruit is called supreming, or to supreme, and it was.


Then for the best part, the part you will love even if fancy food doesn't float your boat, the dessert. Needless to say, I was disppointed when my husband informed me he didn't want dessert. No dessert? Sacrilege. Treason. Mutiny. Thankfully I am not one of those girls who won't order dessert just because no one else is. "You'll at least have a bite won't you?" I asked. "Yeah, I'll try it." he said. I waffled between the trio of creme brulee and the chocolate souffle, back and forth, back and forth, finally settling on one. Our captain came by. "I'll take the trio of creme brulee please." "I want the chocolate souffle," my husband chimed in. Ah, peer pressure, he caved thinking about how he'd feel as he watched me eat dessert.



The dessert came and we weren't disappointed. The three brulees were vanilla bean(classic), pistachio(subtle) and caramel(heavenly). The chocolate souffle was like what you imagine chocolate cake would taste like if it was made by angels and you ate it in heaven. I don't even like chocolate that much and I couldn't stop eating it. I will channel Roberto Benini as I express for you now how the souffle made me feel,


"Thank you, thank you, this is a moment of joy and I want to kiss everybody. This is wonderful to be here, too dive in this ocean of chocolate generosity, how do you say, gratitude, I thank you, so happy, so happy, I want to thank my parents, mamma, pappa for putting me here so I can be to do this, this, this life is beautiful, chocolate is beautiful, I want to make the love to this souffle, I want to make love to all of you."


I am not exaggerating.

Anyhow, hubs and I had so much fun together that we were a little sad to come home though we missed our kids. It was a wonderful birthday and anniversary.

So now that I've filled you in, I am positively drooling. This is just like when I watch Top Chef and get hungry.

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11 comments:

Jan said... August 25, 2008 at 2:09 PM  

Wow, I am reading this while throwing a bag of popcorn in the microwave and wishing I were in Vegas getting dressed to go to Morels. What a great weekend...I am hardly jealous at all. hrumph

KaritaG said... August 25, 2008 at 2:25 PM  

Gah. Now I am drooling. And all we have are leftovers, LOL. Sounds fun.

Anonymous said... August 25, 2008 at 5:17 PM  

U know, us Vietnamese blokes had the posh super creamy clog your arteries French butter for ages at the supermarket, it's like 5 bucks. Tasty stuff. (you'd have to traverse through treacherous old Asian drivers with big fat bmws and Mercedes who's sole purpose is to run you over, to get at this creamy butter. But ooh so good.

lisa said... August 25, 2008 at 7:05 PM  

yummy, makes the fruit snacks I'm munching on taste like flavored rubber.

Practically Joe said... August 25, 2008 at 9:20 PM  

WOW! Talk about being wined and dined. And you still had enough money to get home after that dinner?

Anonymous said... August 25, 2008 at 10:29 PM  

Sounds heavenly - nothing better than a hedonistic dinner.

Bluestreak said... August 25, 2008 at 11:35 PM  

"poop out a gold brick" ahahahahahhhaaaahah

MJ said... August 26, 2008 at 6:11 AM  

Wow. That sounds so good. I'm planning my Vegas trip now...
I'm a big foodie too, so I understand the obsession. And I loooooove restaurants that give you the "team" of people to serve you.

Anonymous said... August 26, 2008 at 8:22 AM  

How am I supposed to feed my family the same old slop (i.e. my cooking) after reading this? How?

(BTW, this was porn to me. I am so very food motivated. So thank you.)

Captain Steve said... August 27, 2008 at 10:44 AM  

I hate you. I'm eating peanut butter and jelly all week until I get paid.

Gypsy said... August 28, 2008 at 8:13 AM  

Oh, I'm drooling. I love meals like that, and I don't have them nearly often enough.

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