Las Vegas

I've been to "Lost Wages" many times. I headed out to Vegas on Mother's Day to spend some time with my mom and sister-in-law. This trip I decided to take some pictures of some of the food we ate. Everything tasted good. Here's a summary of some of the food:

Bacon Cheeseburger and Fries: More than a fast food cheeseburger, but with a buttery bun, bacon, cheddar cheese, tomato, lettuce, onions.

Mild Buffalo Wings:

Breakfast Burger: Buttery bun, fried egg, bacon, cheddar cheese.

Breakfast Fries: Scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, cheddar cheese, and fries.

Southern Belle Cupcake (i.e., Red Velvet) (Cupcakery):

Strawberry Shortcake Cupcake (Cupcakery):

Bacon Waffle (Hash House):

Tractor Driver Combo (Hash House): Scrambled eggs, sausage links, and apple cinnamon pancake.

Ragucci's Italian Cafe - CLOSED

Update: Ragucci's closed in August 2012.

Stopped by Ragucci's (located in Bloomington) yesterday to order takeout for dinner. The Italian Lasagna and the special, which was Tri-color Tortellini, was ordered. Both came with a breadstick and a side salad. You could tell the food was homemade. The breadsticks were really good. The sauce for the lasagna and the tortellini had a really good flavor. Ragucci's is definitely worth trying.

Lasagna:

Tortellini:

Baconfest Chicago 2012

One word describes Baconfest Chicago....AWESOME!!!

Greedy Eater 2 and I went to Baconfest Chicago yesterday. We have been waiting for this day to come for a couple of months, and it was well worth the wait.

Baconfest was held at the UIC Forum. We attended the lunch session that was between 12:30pm and 3:00pm. We checked-in around 10:45am. We each got a canvas bag, a map of the restaurants, and 6 drink (i.e. alcohol) tickets. Bottled water was available for free. After check-in, we proceeded to stand in line outside of the building to wait for the lunch session to start.


Greedy Eater 2 and I weren't sure how big the portions would be. Greedy Eater 2 was in charge of grabbing the food, and I was in charge of taking pictures of the food. There were 55 restaurants for the lunch session, and we ate at 27 of them. There were also 18 vendors, and we managed to check out 4 of them.

Overall the food was great! We would definitely go back again. We highly recommend anyone who loves bacon to try to attend this event at least once. It's well worth the time and money.

Here's what we ate:

Burger Bar Chicago: Pork Palooza Burger - Berkshire pork burger topped with candied cherrywood smoked pork belly, Jarisberg swiss, red onion pickles, smoked mustard glaze.
Review: This was awesome. We could have eaten a couple of these.

Mrs. Murphy & Sons Irish Bistro: Bacon Shepherds Pie
Review: This was actually pretty good. They were so small, that we could have eaten at least 4 more. The Pork Palooza Burger is also included in the picture below without the top bun.

Public House: Chicken-fried bacon, kimchi slaw, sweet & sour sauce.
Review: This was good. It was difficult to cut this due to the coating. The kimchi slaw and the sauce was a good combination with the bacon.

Roots Handmade Pizza: BLT Pizza - Canadian bacon and chopped bacon under the Quad Cities mozzarella blend cheese, topped with shredded lettuce and diced tomatoes.
Review: This was one our top favorites. You can't go wrong with a lot of bacon on pizza.

La Madia: Bruschette of Bacon Lardon, spinach, balsamic, and ricotta salata
Review: These were pretty good. The bread wasn't really hard. Two bites was all that was needed for this.

Paddy Long's: Bacon Grenades - Mini bacon bombs beer-battered and deep fried
Review: This was our top favorite. We could have eaten these all day.

LOKaL: Potato-bacon pancake with apple compote
Review: This was very different. The compote with pancake was an interesting combination.

Custom House Tavern:  Smoked pork sausage, smoked blue cheese & bacon slaw with pickled mustard seeds
Review: By looks alone, this dish almost looks frightening. Greedy Eater 2 liked this more than I did.

Chicago q: Smoked Bacon Baklava - Brined and hickory/apple-smoked pork belly layered between phyllo sheets topped with honey sugar glaze.
Review: This was our second favorite. It was a great mix of sweet and salty. This was another dish we could have eaten more of.

Benny's Chop House: Nueske's bacon and pork head cutlet with Michigan spring ramp kimchi on buttermilk biscuits; togarashi spiced pork rind fries; Benny's bacon-inspired cocktail.
Review: The size of this dish was the equivalent of a small meal for a child. All three items were really good. The cocktail had grapes with bacon. The biscuit took up reserved space we had in our stomach for bacon.

Chizakaya: Baconomiyaki - Japanese-style stuffed pizza with Nueske's bacon, napa cabbage, pickled ginger, scallion, shrimp, nori, and bonito flakes.
Review: This was very good. All of the ingredients tasted well together.

Inovasi: Quick cured and braised belly, Anson Mills farro verde, Argyle St. spice, wild ramp salsa.
Review: We weren't sure about the taste of this dish. This turned out to be a pretty good dish. The salsa was really good.

Bistro Campagne: Roasted pork belly with bacon apricot marmalade and bacon almond brittle.
Review: I'll be honest, the pork belly's presentation didn't look so great, but the flavors meshed well together. The sweetness of the marmalade and the tenderness of the pork made this a nice tasting dish.

Hopeleaf: Bacon rillette-stuffed arancini (cooked with bacon stock and Ommegang Three Philosophers), fava bean/ramp puree, preserved lemon, radish, and frisee.
Review: This was a sleeper dish. It looked mediocre, but it wound up tasting good. The arancini and the puree was a good combination.

Flo and Santos: Peppered bacon-wrapped pork wing with a bourbon coffee barbecue sauce.
Review: One word...delicious.

Lillie's Q: Bacon custard filled bacon beignet with a Cafe Du Monde coffee and chicory bacon syrup.
Review: Both Greedy Eater 2 and I ate these before I had a chance to take a picture. So I had to take a picture of the chef putting them out on the table. We could have eaten these like tic-tacs. These were great.

Pleasant House Bakery: Bacon and pork pie with bacon fat crust
Review: Looks definitely can be deceiving as this dish shows. One bite was enough.This was served cold. We weren't real crazy about this dish.

Red Butter: Bacon-chile gulab jamun topped with bacon-pistachio brittle
Review: This was a great dessert dish. Could have eaten more than one.

Chalkboard: Bacon Cheesecake
Review: This was another dish that looked good, but tasted bad. The dish needed to be colder or set longer.

Spacca Napoli: Pea, Bacon, and Pecorino Salad - Bacon, fresh peas, sugar snap peas, pea shoots, pea sprouts, extra virgin olive oil, fresh lemon juice, pecorino romano.
Review: Even though there was a lot of ingredients in this dish, it was a nice, refreshing salad.

Union Sushi + BBQ: Panko bacon with baby arugula salad served with a bacon reduction and house-tonkatsu sauce
Review: A bite into the panko bacon provided a mouth full of grease. Having a mouthful of grease isn't 100% a bad thing, but it definitely wasn't expected.

N9NE Steakhouse: Topless bacon and steak slider on brioche with pickled pepper horseradish creme sauce and microgreens.
Review: This was another dish that could have been eaten like tic-tacs.

May St. Cafe: Double-chocolate flan with cherry-smoked bacon, rum-cured cherries with berries
Review: This was a really good dish. This had more of a sweet taste than a bacon taste.

Moderno: Homemade bacon cannoli, shaved reggiano, crushed pea powder and wasabi peas on the end.
Review: This was a good dish. The cannoli was light and crispy.

Pure Kitchen: Arabica coffee-cured bacon, black olive puree, scotch & coffee crunch, peppermint.
Review: This dish looked very enticing, until the first bite. There wasn't an urge to try another bite of this dish. This was served chilled which just ruined the taste.

The Cooking Chicks: Variety of desserts such as lemon, white truffle.
Review: You can't go wrong with sweets. These were good for reviving the taste buds.

West Town Tavern: Bourbon-bacon caramel corn
The Bacon Lady: Bacon rice crispy
Review: Both of these were good. The popcorn had more of the bourbon and caramel taste than bacon. For the bacon rice crispy, you could definitely taste bacon.

Salty Caramel: Bacon Bourbon Caramel Corn
Review: Sweet and salty always wins. Great balance of the caramel and bacon.

Nosh This: Bacon crack
Review: The name says it all, you will definitely go back for more bacon crack.

Additional Photos:

Greedy Eater 1 T-shirt:

 Greedy Eater 2 T-shirt:

Big Ed's

On Saturday, Greedy Eater 2 and I went to Big Ed's BBQ restaurant in North Chicago, IL. North Chicago is about an hour north of the city of Chicago. I've been to Big Ed's before and had a good experience, but Greedy Eater 2 had never been.

As soon as we walked in the door, we could see and smell the smoke from the grill. It was an awesome smell. Greedy Eater 2 ordered the half slab of ribs which came with two sides. The sides ordered were cole slaw and macaroni & cheese. I ordered the 2 piece catfish meal which came with fries and a drink.

Greedy Eater 2 liked the ribs so much, that they needed a private moment to savor the taste. There was a good amount of meat on the bones, which is always a good thing.

When I've went to Big Ed's in the past, I've ordered their rib tips. So this time I wanted to try their catfish. The catfish was one of the best fried catfish I've ever had. I liked it better than my mom's fried catfish. It was nice and hot, and it had a really good seasoning. The fries were nice and hot, and were just the way that I like them.

By the time we left there, we were full. A good happy full. The food was worth the $20 we paid. I will keep going back to Big Ed's and I'm sure Greedy Eater 2 is a new fan.

If you're ever in the northern suburbs around Gurnee, IL, you won't be too far from Big Ed's.

Hayashi - CLOSED

Update: Hayashi closed in March 2013.

This past Friday, Greedy Eater 2 and I went to Hayashi for sushi. We have eaten at Hayashi at its old location on Currency Dr., and we also frequented Fuji (old Baker's Square). We always thought both restaurants served good sushi, and our experiences at their hibachi grills weren't bad either. Now that Hayashi has moved to Fuji's location, we wanted to check it out. We always sat at the sushi bar at Fuji's, so we did the same this time. It's pretty cool seeing the chef make the sushi right there in front of you. Plus you can ask the chef sushi questions, etc.

We decided to just order sushi and skip getting an appetizer and a salad; however, the chef insisted we try the house salad since he made the dressing and it was new. Compared to the dressing on the salad at the old location, the dressing at the new location tastes much better. It's a little more creamier. I was also pretty proud of myself that I was able to eat my salad with chopsticks and not make a mess.

We ordered three sushi rolls: Golden Boy Roll, Mango Martini, and Tekka Roll. The Golden Boy consisted of shrimp tempura, cucumber, smoked salmon, mustard sauce.  The Mango Martini consisted of crab and cucumber, with mango sauce on top, and it was lightly fried. The Tekka roll was raw tuna rolled in rice and seaweed. All three rolls were good. The sauce on the Golden Boy and Mango Martini were not overpowering. Once we were done eating the three rolls, we ordered Hamachi Nigiri (i.e. yellowtail sushi). This was my first time trying yellowtail. It had an interesting taste.

As always, Hayashi didn't disappoint when it came to the food and service.