Restaurant Review - Brasa

Last night Trevor and I had dinner at Brasa in Niagara Falls at the Hilton Hotel. Brasa has a salad bar which is buffet style and for the meat servings they have Gaucho's walking around with skewers of fire roasted meats carved at your table.

You really have to be careful not to fill up at the salad bar, pace yourself. The buffet is so appetizing it's easy to do this. The meats were very good, a couple of the selections were a bit dry but I had end pieces since they were a bit more well done. If you want your meat well done though they have no problem taking a portion to the grill again and doing that for you. The meats we chose were beef short rib, parmesan pork loin, lamb leg and beef rib eye.

They have many more to choose from. It sounds like a lot of meat but they give you small portions so that you can taste all the different offerings. This was our second time to Brasa, the food is delicious and the service is excellent. The price during the week for this buffet is 39.95 per person.

Loaded Web

District Society of Chefs & Cooks

Tim Humble is bringing the District Society of Chefs and Cooks back to life. We are pleased to be members as this provides local networking with others in the industry and educational opportunities. It also helps support those new to the industry. For more information on this check out the website at ccfhamilton.ca

Los Olivos

Jan. 15, 2012

Dinner at Los Olivos

Occidental Grand

Neuvo Vallarta, Mexico

Well tonight was our a la carte Italian dinner. First let me say that I really feel this is a bit of an unfair review as they just opened and are using a pre-existing menu. Chef Andre told us that they are in the process of creating a new menu and with his talent I am sure it will be amazing.

What a disappointment. Considering this was a very elegant looking restaurant and there is a dress code we expected that this would be our best meal here. Boy did we miss the buffet tonight.

For my appetizer I ordered a mixed salad, it was basically 2 kinds of lettuce in huge pieces with oil and a dash of vinegar. I believe it was balsamic but there was so little it was hard to be sure. Trevor ordered a torta which was basically a pizza type dough with cold bacon and spinach in it. Not off to a very good start.

For our soup I ordered a Minestrone. Can’t go too wrong with that. It was ok, not outstanding. Trevor ordered an onion cream soup. Nevermind where is the beef, how about where is the onion. It just tasted like a thick watered down carnation milk. It was terrible.

My main course was lasagna. The sauce itself was not too bad but the lasagna filling had some kind of off taste. A lasagna is supposed to be layers of pasta. There was one layer of pasta on the bottem then a lot of filling and topped with cheese and sauce. I could barely eat it.

Trevor ordered a surf and turf that was to be served with pasta. We did not even recognize this as a surf and turf when it came. We said to the guy “this is supposed to be surf and turf” he said “yes that is it”. It was more like a pasta dish with pieces of beef mixed in and one shrimp. The beef was very tough, again the sauce was not too bad.

Le Buffet - Mexico

Jan. 13/12 to Jan 20/12

Le Buffet

Neuvo Vallarta, Mexico

Occidental Grand

This week we are soaking up the sun in Mexico and loving every minute of it. Our package is all inclusive and the majority of our meals are at Le Buffet. Not the usual Buffet you see when on vacation. We are both quite impressed with this one. The menu changes everyday and the food is very good for a buffet. We talked to the Assistant food and Beverage Manager and he told us that they turn their menu around every two weeks. Trevor also had an opportunity to talk to the Executive Chef and he told him that he is from Montreal and has been in Mexico for 20 years.

The service at this Hotel is wonderful. The servers in the dining room cannot do enough for you. The only thing that we found that we actually disliked on the menu was the Miso soup. It was just like water with a very small bit of miso flavour to it. The food is not hot in terms of spicy and that to me is satisfactory although unexpected being in Mexico but I guess since the guests are not natives they know that the majority probably would not appreciate that. Trevor asked if they had any hot sauce and they did not.

My favourite thing on the buffet was the Guacomole. I have never tasted such a good guacamole. The way they do the omelets is also something I found unique. They have all the choices for the omelet out and you take a little bowl and place all the ingredients you would like in your omelet and hand it to the girl and she prepares it with those ingredients.

The choices are more than you need and the presentation is very nice. We had very little to complain about the Buffet.

Every evening they have snacks, I have to say they are probably not the best part of the menu. They tend to dry out quickly. The first one we had was smoked salmon on a little bun and breaded chicken slices. Last night the offering was hamburger, fries or pizza. We chose a slice of pizza. Unfortunately it was not cooked properly and the crust was burned while the rest of the dough was not cooked enough.

La Hacienda

Jan. 14, 2012

Neuvo Vallarta, Mexico

Occidental Grand Neuvo Hotel

La Hacienda

This week we are on vacation in Mexico. Wonderful place to be at this time of year.

We had dinner last night at the La Hacienda at our hotel. Our package includes two a la carte meals, one Italian and one Mexican. Tonight was the Mexican. For my appetizer I had a grilled vegetable and cheese plate. The presentation was lovely. I can`t say the vegetables were grilled very well but the cheese was nice and fresh and topped with something that made it quite flavourful. I did find the wait very long though before we got the appetizers. Trevor had burritos for his appetizer. It was a little much for an appetizer and not presented as nicely as mine. He said the burritos were nice but nothing special.

Trevor also had a seafood soup with tomato broth including tomatoe , carrot and pepper. It was mostly shrimp but it was very nice and he did enjoy it.

My main course was rack of lamb with pureed sweet potatoes. They called it a rack of lamb although it was only two small slices but for me the serving size was perfect and the meat was tender and juicy and the potatoes were nice. It`s more just a matter of improper wording on the menu. Some chefs are a bit sticky about wording when they are out eating.

The main course Trevor had was Beef tenderloin. It was slivers of beef but a good size portion. It was accompanied by fried peppers and onions with a Serrano pepper sauce. We found that his beef was a little bit tough. We believe that the reason for that is because they do not actually prepare the beef right there and when they carry it from the main kitchen in a container sealed the steam that produces causes the beef to be tough. The sauce on the beef was very tasty and the vegetables were satisfactory, however not overly memorable.

For desert we chose a mille feuilles. It didn`t look like what we expected it to look like. But this was the Mexican version. It however was very tasty.

Overall the experience was positive other than the long waits between courses. I definitely cannot complain about the servers though. They are very attentive and aim to please.

Review - Peurto Vallarta, Mexico

Jan. 18/12

Trevor and I are in Mexico this week, at Neuvo Vallarta. We are staying at the lovely Occidental Grand Neuvo Vallarta. This hotel has been re-modeled and it really does look, feel and act like a 5 star hotel, which it is rated. We found the staff to be fantastic, they were always eager to please their guests in any way they could, right from the Bell boys to the Chef.

Speaking of the Chef we were honoured to meet Occidental’s Executive Chef Andre several times during the week. Chef Andre has a brigade of about 32 and his days easily run 12 hours. He told us that he is originally from Montreal, Canada and has been in Mexico for over 10 years. Just from talking to him you can hear the dedication to his craft in his voice.

His staff work very hard, coming in at 5am to get the breakfast started and the restaurant does not close until approximately 9:30 at night. Today Trevor had the opportunity to check out the kitchen with Chef Andre, considering it was during the lunch service and they were fairly busy Trevor said the kitchen looked like it is kept very clean and they have all the updated conveniences.

Just slipping away from the kitchen for a minute we would also like to say how pleased we were with Luis, the Sunquest representative. He booked some great day trips for us. Monday we had the tour of the City, which included a trip to see how Tequila is made the old fashioned way. Mmm smooth. Tues we went whale watching and wed aft a canal riverboat ride to see crocs, reptiles and birds in their natural habitat. Tomorrow we will be going on a pirate ship, which includes dinner and a show.

On the next several inserts I have talked about some of the meals we have had and included some pics.

Please read on and if you are looking for a wonderful winter getaway this is definitely the place to go. This is nowhere near where there is any danger and we felt comfortable to leave our bags anywhere and know they were totally safe. The natives of Mexico living down here are spectacular people, they treat everyone like a special guest, even away from the hotel.