Coming soon... Good eats in Las Vegas

Dairy Queen is at a conference in Vegas and is taking advantage of the good dining. She'll have photos and reviews when she returns!!

Pomodoro

Location: Pomodoro, Washington St, Brookline, MA
Meal: Sunday Brunch

Pomodoro is a small space in Brookline, 2 doors up from Matt Murphy's. I've been there for dinner before, and yesterday, I met the family for brunch. There were 3 adults and 2 kids (one in need of a high chair). Without reservations, we waited about 20 minutes for a table. The place was very busy and noisy as there was a jazz band playing, but it wasn't too noisy to talk without yelling.

The brunch menu offers more than 10 choices, each $10. Choices ranged from a yogurt, granola and fruit bowl to shrimp and asparagus bake. Two of us went for the Pork Confit with Roasted Vegetables and Scrambled Eggs. The pork was a confit because it was slow-cooked in duck fat. This made it quite savory and delicious. The pork was shredded, then mixed with vegs like potatoes, onions, green peppers, etc. and stacked, with scrambled eggs on top of the stack. We both loved this and ate the entire serving.

My brother ordered the Petite Steak with Poached Egg and Hollandaise. I tried a piece of steak and it was very flavorful. Lots of seasoning on the steak, and a really good hollandaise.

One of the kids ordered tortellini with butter. We could smell the butter from the other side of the table but this kid wasn't sharing. The other kid brought his own graham crackers.

I'm telling this out of order, but that's because I wanted to get right to the entrees. While I was waiting at the bar for the rest of my party, I snacked on some bread and olive oil. There was foccaccia and thick toasted italian bread, and a large plate of olive oil with green and black olives. Some of the olives were tiny, like the size of a pea. Pretty tasty. This was awesome.

The coffee was okay. Not awesome.

They also serve fresh-squeezed OJ, which was downed very quickly by my sister-in-law and nephew, and mimosas and bloody marys.

I'm definitely planning a return trip.

Haiku

Location: Haiku, Park Ave, Worcester, MA (formerly On the Rocks, next to El Basha West)
Meal: Dinner

It's been a couple of years since I've had sushi and I was pleased to find out a new restaurant had opened up nearby. Haiku features the sushi stylings of Kenzo, who used to work at Zipango on Shrewsbury Street. I was excited to see that he brought the Tiger Eye roll to Haiku.

I met a friend for dinner on Monday night. It was busier than expected for a Monday but it was a holiday. We were able to get a table right away. They have a full bar and an extensive wine list but I was in the mood for a beer. I ordered a Stella; my friend ordered a Coors Light. After at least 10 minutes, the waitress returned, beerless, to tell me that they were out of Stella. I chose a Sam Adams. She returned after another 10 minutes, still empty-handed, to tell me they were out of Sam Adams, but they had Sam Light. I went for it. Mere moments went by before we both received our beers. Finally. I wonder why there was the wait for the Coors Light, though, since they had that.

We ordered four rolls: Philadelphia Roll (wrapped in smoked salmon), avocado roll, Tiger Eye, and The Worcester Roll. The Tiger Eye is delicious, fully cooked, light tempura on the outside, with a flavorful sauce. I love this roll. The Worcester Roll is rice, beef, sweet potato, and some green sprouty things. This was also good but I liked the Tiger Eye better. My friend really enjoys the avocado and philly rolls. Overall, we were both very happy with the meal.

One thing - there was a piece of hair on the tablecloth. Clearly not one of ours. We were at a four-person table, and it was on the side that we weren't sitting at, so it wasn't that bad, but if we'd been sitting there, I might have been skeeved out. The place is nicely decorated and other than the hair, it seems very clean. I would not let that put me off from going again.

The sushi, beautifully displayed on the plate, from front to back: Avocado roll, Tiger Eye, Philadelphia Roll, Worcester Roll.

A haiku

A winter dinner
Appetite sated by fish
Rice, seaweed, and more

Finder's Pub (again)

Location: Finder's Pub, West Boylston, MA
Meal: Dinner, Friday night

This was another good Finder's experience. I ordered the Waldorf Chicken Salad, which was chicken salad with cranberries and walnuts, on top of salad with green grapes and green apple slices. I substituted romaine/iceberg blend for the spring greens because I wanted the crunch. The waitress suggested the balsamic vinaigrette and it was a hit.

Buffalo Girl had the buffalo chicken salad, which was delicious. And large.

Steak and Potatoes had the baked haddock with rice pilaf and baby carrots and loved it. I've raved about the baked haddock at Finder's before and Steak and Potatoes seconds my review.

Uno Chicago Grille

Last night I met some friends to do some returns at the Blackstone Shoppes in Millbury. The mall was packed. It took 3 left turn light cycles for me to enter the mall road. This was around 6:15 pm. We put our names in at two restaurants because the waits were equally as long at both. We figured, we'd take the first page. Uno's won over Red Robin and boy, am I glad. I had the best meal. I ordered the Uno Firecracker Pasta. It's penne pasta with a spicy alfredo sauce, cheddar cheese, jalapenos, and sauteed chicken. When they say spicy, they really mean spicy. This was not that fake spicy that other places say, like when you order the "extra hot" buffalo wings and still need a tub of Frank's Red Hot to get some heat on those wings. The portion size was great, as I had leftovers for dinner tonight. The breadstick was also ideal. Buttery, with shaved parmesan cheese crisped on top. The side house salad with italian dressing was also good, but in a "salad is good for you so eat it" kind of way.

My dining companions were also quite happy with their meals. They shared the sausage flatbread pizza and a honey crisp chicken salad. This salad looked great. Tons of bacon and cheddar cheese. The dressing was given the thumbs up. The only comment I heard was that there could have been a little more lettuce. The pizza disappeared pretty quickly as well. Oh, and the 2 year old with us ate almost 2 whole pieces of cheese pizza so I'm going to say it was a success.

Sweetness alert: The BBQ sauce they use on the BBQ pizza is citrusy. We found this out because the staff puts out flatbread pizzas for the hordes of waiting patrons.

Question: There was a big bowl of red delicious apples by the door, right next to the tray of individually wrapped toothpicks (handy). Were these Uno's version of the after dinner mint? Should we have taken some?

Tostitos Scoops - Disappointing

I've had Tostitos Scoops several times, always from a big bag, and I've liked them. But yesterday at work, I bought a $.99 big grab to go with my sandwich and I was very disappointed. They were flavorless. There wasn't enough salt and they tasted like baked tortilla chips. Wasted calories. Of course, I saved about 1/3 of the bag and ate them today, with today's sandwich, hoping that they'd improved overnight. They hadn't.

The Flying Rhino

Location: The Flying Rhino, Shrewsbury St, Worcester, MA
Meal: Lunch, Friday afternoon

Three of us went for lunch one Friday afternoon last month. It was around 1, and it was still really busy in there, but we were seated right away.

We started with an appetizer of goat cheese, sun-dried tomatoes, and pesto, formed into a terrine. This was really tasty. The pesto had a lot of flavor. I don't like goat cheese but the others do, and found it delicious. The toasts that it came with were also good. Still warm and not too hard.

We each ordered a sandwich: Veggie Wrap, Cuban Panini, and Chicken Wrap. Two out of these 3 were good. The cuban panini was not really good. There was something in it that had a funny taste, sort of metallic. The sauce on the chicken wrap was yummy and creamy. The veggie wrap was chock full of good veggies, with quite a variety. All came with fries. They were good. I ate every one.

Here are some pictures of the food!

Drinks and Dessert at Bertucci's

Location: Bertucci's, Atrium Mall, MA
Meal: Dessert, Friday night

One of my friends, a frequent dining companion, and I were looking for some dessert at the Atrium Mall. We had eaten dinner a few hours earlier at the Cheesecake Factory but had been too full for dessert so thought we'd window shop and then head back later. Well, at 8pm there was a 45 minute wait so we quickly turned around. There's not a large selection of eateries in this mall, so we headed over to Bertucci's to see if they had dessert. They did, and the bar was empty (there are only about 5 stools at the bar).

We were going to get a nice coffee drink to go with some dessert but it was really warm in the mall. My friend came up with the brilliant idea of White Russians! Yum! Bertucci's made this drink really well. 2% milk, vodka, and Kahlua. There was quite a kick to the drink. We also shared the chocolate mousse cake, which was a multi-layer cake with whipped cream and raspberry coulis. Delicious, really big, too much for us to finish, even while sharing.