A Vegetarian in Vegas

V had to make a last minute trip to Vegas last weekend for CES and I decided to play hooky from work and tag along; and we ended up having a wonderful time!

On Sunday we decided to try out the buffet at Wynn, the newest hotel on the Strip. It was a rather pricey choice, but after lounging there for two hours chatting and eating and chatting, we felt we got our money's worth. The setting was simply gorgeous; the irregular-shaped white plates and silverware unique and the staff attentive (ready to fill my cup of joe!)

By sheer luck, we ran into the Executive Chef; V with his characteristic charm started making small talk with her and we ended up getting the best out of the buffet. So here's how to survive as a vegetarian at a Las Vegas buffet:

• Make friends with the Executive Chef and make him/her walk you through the buffet.
• V fixed us a beautiful salad with fresh greens, cherry tomatoes and beautiful red strawberries topped with crème fraîche.
• The Chinese station served congee (rice porridge)-- V brought us each a bowl topped with green onions and sautéed mushrooms. (Etymologically, the word congee comes from the Tamil "kanji"; which is actually the staple food of the working class in some parts of Southern India.)
• V also ordered a special vegetarian kung-pao for himself with lots and lots of peanuts (just the way he likes it) and was nice enough to share a teeny-bit with me.
• I ordered special vegetarian Eggs Benedict for us -minus the bacon. The hollandaise sauce was out of this world!
• The Mexican station had vegetarian fajitas, which was bit of a disappointment. So were the California rolls at the Japanese station
• Dessert overload! Seriously, they had a whole room as big as an ice cream shop dedicated to desserts! Fresh pastries, ice cream and sorbets, cookies, crème brulee, pecan pie; there was so much choice, I didn't know what to take and what to leave. Finally we settled for a crème brulee, a nutty cookie, a slice of pecan pie, and an unusual dessert that reminded me of "ras malai". It was yummy!

Fasting

I have decided to fast for the next 10 Wednesdays! (Actually I was signed up for it by V but that is a story for another day.)

Merriam-Webster says "to fast" is "to abstain from food" or "to eat sparingly or abstain from some foods". The latter definition is the one that applies to my fasting; I do indulge in fruits, nuts, yogurt, and milk (especially in the form of hot chocolate!). And I certainly do not sacrifice my morning cup of joe!

Dinner was a yummy fruit salad. The secret ingredient, as V would has pointed out, is the ginger.

Here's the recipe:

1 apple peeled, cored and cubed

1 pear peeled, cored and cubed

1 avocado, cubed

Ginger 1 inch piece, peeled

Lemon juice

Black pepper to taste

Red chili powder to taste

Salt to taste

Arrange the fruit on a salad plate. Drizzle with lemon juice. Grate the ginger on top. Season with pepper, red chili powder and salt.

More of a feast than a fast, wouldn't you say?!

A New Vegetarian Blog is born

One of the shared passions that brought V and me together is our love for good vegetarian food. I floated the idea of writing a blog on our vegetarian culinary experiences and he jumped in with gusto.. and it has come to pass.

V treated me to a great time in the Mission district in San Francisco to ring in 2007! No, we did not party into the night at "Amnesia" or indulge in a fancy six-course New Year's eve dinner at one of the high-end establishments.

Instead, like everything else in our life so far, it was by complete serendipity that V spotted Cha-Ya, a Japanese vegan restaurant on Valencia at 18th. We have a special place in our hearts for Japanese vegetarian food since one of our early dates was at the Cha-Ya in Berkeley.

Dinner was exceptionally good. We ordered "Goma-ae (Sesame greens)", "Dengaku (Eggplant and Tofu)", and "Gyoza (Pot stickers)" as sides and the Vege-Tofu Curry noodles as the main dish. Other than the Gyoza, which we made a mental note not to order again, everything else was top-notch.

1. Goma-ae, my all-time favorite Japanese appetizer usually comes in a fish-sauce dressing which means I have to fore-go it. The Goma-ae at Cha-Ya had beautiful deep green spinach and broccolini with a sesame-based sweet dressing to die for.
   
2. Our favorite new experience however was the Dengaku. Wikipedia says that Dengaku is a Japanese harvest festival, but a little more internet surfing revealed that Dengaku refers to vegetables grilled with a miso dressing. Artistically arranged on our plate at Cha-Ya, there was peeled broiled soft greenish eggplant, tofu and portobello mushroom, all coated with a golden-brown miso glaze.
   
3. And finally the kare-noodles was made of soba noodles and a variety of vegetables in a curry broth. In Tokyo, one can find any number of kare-raisu lunch joints. Possibly India's lone culinary influence, Japanese curry sauce is sweeter and is quite easy to prepare with the ready-made roux available in most grocery stores.
   
4. When we saw that the tea being served was "dip tea", V canceled the green tea that we had ordered.

V adds the following bullets to my list:

5. The check came to around $35 without tips. They don't take plastic and also don't serve alcohol yet.
6. We didn't try the dessert in this packed veggie mart as we had yearning for the Bombay Ice Cream factory near 16th and Valencia. More on the experience on a later post.

Oh, V's new year gift to me is "Samayal", a South-Indian Vegetarian cookbook by Viji Varadarajan. More on that later.