Restaurant Review

One of my favorite things about visiting Las Vegas is the food scene. There's always something new and fun popping up and because of the competition, innovation is constant. On this most recent trip, we were invited to check out Rice & Company, a pan-Asian restaurant located right between Blue Man Group and Carrot Top's theaters inside of the Luxor resort at the south end of the strip. It's the perfect spot for pre/post show drinks as well as a complete dinner to keep you going all night long.

It's time to celebrate the holidays with feasts, bright colors, drinking, and good friends. Thanks to the folks at Fogo de Chao, I was invited to check out their new holiday offerings and of course, I jumped at the opportunity! At most restaurants right now you're going to find a menu matching the winter weather that we're all starting to dread. For those in the Southern Hemisphere like our friends in Brazil though, this is the beginning of summer! This means that you'll find not only traditional holiday treats like sweet potato casserole but also fresh watermelon, pears, mangoes, and other fruit on the harvest table.

It should be quite clear by now that I am a huge fan of Brazilian steakhouses or Churrascaria as they are also known. There's something magical about a buffet of meat that comes to you. Since you and your friends can simply sit at the table for most of the meal and not worry about getting up to load your plate with more food, conversation seems to flow more freely and it's certainly a more relaxing form of celebratory eating than other options out there. I've been lucky to be treated so well by the folks at Fogo de Chao and so after my visit to their Vegas location last week I figured it was a good opportunity to share some of my expert knowledge on how to maximize your experience at a Brazilian Steakhouse!

Theatre Box just opened up in downtown San Diego and frankly you'd have to be living under a rock to not know about it. Between celebrities posting ridiculous dessert pictures on Instagram and other buzz it honestly wasn't my sort of place I thought. After all, usually these places just have "instagram food" that looks pretty but doesn't really taste that great. However, when I was invited to check it out I accepted since I was curious. Honestly I wasn't expecting much. I figured that at very least though that it would be a good opportunity to finally see Aquaman and grab some dinner. My bias against celebrity endorsement almost caused me to miss out on one of the coolest new concepts in San Diego. 

There are two things in life that I love the most (outside of my wife of course!) - Traveling and Food. That's really one bigger thing: exploring new cultures. That's why I love trying new restaurants that work hard to transport you to new times and places like Havana 1920 does. Havana 1920 is a new Cuban-themed cafe and bar in the heart of San Diego's Gaslamp Quarter - very close to the convention center as well as most of the bigger hotels. Here's what we loved about it!

Any guy who loves dive bars, punk metal, or even just simply craves a unique experience needs to visit GWARbar on their next trip to Richmond, Virginia. This bar is the twisted brainchild of one of the band's founding members and is quite the experience. However, what I was even more impressed with is that while it looks like you might need a tetnus shot ever dining there... the food is actually pretty good!

2020 was a rough year in a lot of ways and generally, we like to do at least one restaurant feature every month, sometimes two or even three. With dine-in options mostly closed or simply not to my level of comfort, I stopped doing restaurant features the way I liked to do previously. I still continued to order out but it took time for the industry to catch up and start producing options that made sense beyond the typical take-out heroes like burritos, sushi, sandwiches, and sandwiches. I was a bit nervous for New Years Day dinner since not only is this a big night for foodies in general... but it's also my anniversary. Luckily we saw Parc Bistro on TV and loved their attitude and creativity so we decided to order their Beef Wellington and try it out.

Everyone should have a neighborhood bar. It's one of those places that can be a home away from home where the bartenders welcome you warmly when you enter the door and you feel comfortable before you even have a chance to order a drink. That's what San Diego's The Whiskey House is to me, so when I got the opportunity to join them for a Glenfiddich tasting a few weeks ago I jumped at the opportunity. Then I discovered that they were opening a $4,000 bottle of Glenfiddich 40 year and I cleared my schedule for the rest of the evening!

One of the things I love about Vegas is all the amazing restaurants. It seems there is a never ending supply of creativity that is both pushing the culinary as well as architectural arts. What I didn't expect was to find an astonishingly awesome dinner at the top of Delano on the far south end of the strip. That's where Rivea sits and offers diners an unparalleled view of the entire strip. They say retail is location, location, location and this is absolutely true for Rivea. Luckily for us, the service and food was equally fantastic - making for one of the best dinners I've experienced in a long while.

Old Vegas may have slipped behind the curtain over the past decade to make way for hipsters and people looking for upscale luxury experiences but below the surface there are still a few Vegas treasures that will transport you back to the golden age of Vegas when being a "celebrity" meant something more than just how many Instagram followers you have. 

My wife tells me that I'm weird since i don't love pizza. Unfortunately because of that, I've generally avoided California Pizza kitchen since I'd always seen it as a pizza joint. Since earlier this year though when I helped them kick off their new location at The Park in Vegas, it's become one of my favorite restaurants.

Good wine needs good food and so when we were invited to dine at Vineyard Rose at South Coast Winery, I immediately said yes.

When most people think of Mexican food, they imagine basic Tex-Mex dishes like tacos and burritos. While these dishes can be delicious, they don't come close to representing the true diversity of Mexican cuisine. There are many amazing restaurants in Mexico that will make you rethink your perception of Mexican cuisine. In this blog post, we will list nine of the top restaurants in Mexico, each with its own unique take on Mexican cuisine.

In the world of steak, sometimes bigger is better and other times it is all about being ridiculous and over-the-top. This $100 steak at Greystone Steakhouse in San Diego's Gaslamp firmly belongs in that second category. The 3oz Japanese Wagyu steak comes topped with 24 karat gold flakes, hand shaved black truffle and is served on a slab of fine marble. 

Sometimes you just walk by a place and have no idea what you've been missing. That was the case up until a few days ago with The Smoking Gun in San Diego's Gaslamp Quarter. I live just a few blocks away and have walked by the place regularly, without stopping in. On the outside it looks like just any other "hipster bar" downtown but what we found inside was surprisingly good quality cocktails, a very creative menu and a great atmosphere that I can't wait to return to sometime soon.

Since 1969, when Byron and Virginia Hardin opened their first location in Ocean Beach, Hodad's has been a legendary burger joint in San Diego. With an atmosphere that borders on kitschy tourist trap but somehow manages to stay authentic, this is a must-visit location for anyone visiting the city. However, what makes it even more awesome is that it is more than just a "cool place" to grab a bite, it is serving up some of the most amazing burgers in the whole world. 

For those of you who have never been to Ocean Beach, it is a beach town located just north of the city and is full of hippies / surfer culture, so it is also great for people watching.

San Diego has tons of craft beer bars and great wine is in no shortage either but the craft spirits industry is also growing rapidly here as well. One of the shining stars there is El Agave Artesanal tequila and so I was thrilled that the folks at El Agave Restaurant invited us back to try some additional menu items as well as a tequila tasting led by one of their experts.

El Agave - it's the plant that when processed makes such delicious products such as agave syrup and tequila. In this case though, it is the name of one of San Diego's finest Mexican restaurants. For those of you who think "Mexican" is just tacos and burritos you are missing out on the fact that Mexico cuisines is as diverse as any other with influences from Europe as well as indigenous cooking techniques and plants.

I have seen El Agave several times as it is located above one of my favorite liquor stores in Old Town San Diego. However I didn't know much about it until the PR folks contacted me recently and invited Heather and I to check it out.

I haven't had too many chances to do restaurant features this year but The Gathering Table Restaurant at Ballard Inn, located in California's Santa Ynez Valley was absolutely worth the experience. It goes to show that you can still offer a fine dining experience in a safe way despite challenges from the pandemic. While their outdoor space would normally be more decorative than functional, there's a certain sense of romance to sitting in a garden with a string of lights above you while enjoying fine wine and food on par with anything you could find in Los Angeles.

Islands is one of my favorite restaurants to take my friends and that's because the food is always good and while the classics never change, they always have new offerings to switch stuff up too. On our recent guys weekend to Palm Desert, California they invited us to stop by and fuel up as well as taste their new Islands Golden Ale brewed in collaboration with Karl Strauss Brewing.