Looks can be deceiving. London pub food.

During our recent trip to London, we definitely wanted to give a classic London pub a try.  You'll have to forgive me because I neglected to take pictures at some of our stops on this trip.  However, I'll do my best to include the ones I do have including the one from this pub off Carnaby Street.  

My husband and I both ordered the same meal here.  We started off with a sausage sampler that I don't have pictures of, but that plate definitely got our hopes up for a good experience.  The beef was another story.  All I can say is that this beef was more "fishy" than the fish that I had at Rock and Sole Plaice.  I am not sure what was wrong with it, but I couldn't take more than two bites.  I thought it was just me, but my husband was afraid to say his was fishy because he knew I wouldn't eat it at all if he did.  He claims that frozen beef that's defrosted can have that taste, but I'm not convinced.  The best thing on this plate were the potatoes.  You would have thought they were fried, but we later learned that the Brits have a special way of cooking these potatoes.  We've yet to attempt them at home, but as soon as we do, I promise to have pictures.  

Looks appealing, doesn't it?

A classic London fish place. Rock & Sole

Many people will tell you that London isn't known for its restaurants.  We did a lot of research before going, but apparently not enough as it seemed that every restaurant that we wanted to try was off the beaten path or nowhere near us when it was time to eat.  However, we did have a few "hits" among the misses.  One of them was the Rock & Sole Plaice.

I honestly am not a fish fan, but I have to admit that this was very good and fresh tasting.  This was the cod and the regular size portion.  It wasn't fishy and the coating was crisp and hot!  Seating here is limited and we ended up sharing an outside table with a couple and their daughter, but there was plenty of room for all and it added to the atmosphere.  

L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon

Our whole purpose of this trip was to sample the many restaurants Vegas has to offer.  The one restaurant my husband wanted to eat at was L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon.  We made reservations about two months in advance which I don't think is normally necessary, but we later found out that we were traveling there during Restaurant Week and many restaurants booked up rather quickly for this particular weekend.
We sat at the counter that overlooks the kitchen, so, it was nice to watch the magic happen.  I chose a few things off the menu and my husband chose the Restaurant Week menu with wine pairing.  He was afraid to do the tasting menu since I was only picking a few selections.  I hate to say it, but my choices again were better.

La Cebette.  White onion tart with smoked bacon and asparagus.  Simply delicious.  A very thin crisp tart with a perfect blend of bacon, onions, cheese and asparagus.  Not one flavor stood out which is saying a lot considering the amount of onions on this little tart.

La Tomate.

Chilled tomato gazpacho with croutons.

Le Crabe.  King crab fritter with spiced guacamole.

Le Beouf.  Beef tenderloin au poivre with baby fingerling potatoes and a wedge of salad.  Nothing was left on this plate at the end of the meal.

Le Flietan.  Halibut filet with vegetables and basil.

Pommes Puree.  Potato puree served with the halibut.  Light and creamy, but not sure it paired well with the fish.  

Le Chocolat.  Chocolate sensation cremeuz, araguani, oreo cookie crumbs.  Almost... just almost... too pretty to eat.  Joy in a black bowl.

Le Chastreuse.  Green chastreuse souffle with pistachio ice cream.

Wolfgang Puck Pizza- Postrio

In the midst of all the restaurants in Vegas, it is really hard to pick which ones to try.  We were torn between Postrio (Wolfgang Puck) and Enoteca San Marco (Mario Batali) when looking for a quick lunch.  Both were in our hotel and right across from one another.  Both served pizza which is what we were craving.  The reviews of Enoteca San Marco weren't all that favorable and considering we showed up our first night at 10:15 PM wanting to have a quick bite there and were turned away even though the restaurant website and other printed materials said it was open until 11 PM, we opted for Postrio.  Having a coupon from the hotel for 25% off our bill was a nice bonus as well.

The view from the Postrio dining area. This sky had me fooled from the moment we arrived at the hotel around 10 PM.  I never knew what time it was.  

Pizza with pesto marinated shrimp, rappini, goat cheese, sundried tomatoes and basil.

Classic Pizzeria Margherita.

Some of the live entertainment happening at The Venetian in front of  Postrio.

Bouchon dinner.

Since we tried both the breakfast and brunch menus at Bouchon, we thought it was only fair to try the dinner one as well.  The fact that the restaurant was in our hotel made it that much more convenient.  The one thing that we found difficult was eating around show times.  We saw two shows while we were there and found we either had to eat really early or really late if we had a 7 or 7:30 PM show time. Our Bouchon reservation was for 5 PM which meant that the restaurant was almost empty, but it filled up rather quickly.

I would love this floor in our kitchen.

Escargots de Bourgogne.
Marinated snails in garlic parsley butter with puff pastry.

Classic french onion soup.

Steak frites.  Again, the fries were delicious, but the steak (flat iron) itself was pretty tough and a little over done. The caramelized shallots on top were a nice touch though. This was probably my least favorite meal of our trip.

Gigot d'agneau.
Roasted leg of lamb with cassoulet of pole beans, pickled lamb's tongue and savory infused lamb jus.

Profiteroles.
The ice cream was the best part of this dessert.  It was creamy and rich with vanilla flavor.  You could see the vanilla bean flecks.  

Did someone say chocolate? Serendipity 3

How about a frozen hot chocolate from Serendipity 3?

I've tried a few times to visit the Serendipity in NYC, but each and every time, the line is too long just to try their famous frozen hot chocolate.  I've purchased the mix from Williams Sonoma and Amazon, but I knew the original had to be different.  So, when I found out there was a Serendipity 3 at Caesar's in Vegas, I knew we'd have to make a quick visit there to try the real thing.  If you've never tried it, the real thing is so much better than the mix, but not living in NYC or Vegas, the mix will have to do for me in the future.  The real thing was smoother and much more rich.  At first, it wasn't that appealing because it was overflowing the bowl onto the plate below, but my taste buds won over my eyes on this one.

Also, we saw many people here ordering brunch and the portions were huge! Some of the plates were almost bigger than the tables.

This was the serving for two.

Chocolate anyone?

Thanks to some posts on Tripadvisor about Jean Philippe Patisserie, I knew this would be a place after my own heart.  The title of this blog might be Joy to the World: Traveling through life looking for joy.  Well, I can tell you that if chocolate is involved that joy is usually soon to follow.  This was definitely the case at this little gem.  We would visit here on two occasions for pastry once and gelato the second.  Both were incredible and worth the wait.  There seemed to be a steady business here and always somewhat of a line, but they did their best to move it along and like I said, it was worth the wait.  The hardest part of the line was that it wrapped around all the pastries and it made deciding what to have that much harder.

The world's largest chocolate fountain according to the Guinness Book of World Records.

The Nutella Millefeuille was our pastry of choice.  I can't tell you how delicious it was in reality. It was layer upon layer of chocolate goodness with different textures and levels of creaminess.  

Fresh gelato waiting to be dipped into every morning.