iCream Cafe

Several friends have been telling my family that we need to take our girls to get ice cream at the iCream Cafe.  The ice cream store combines chemistry and ice cream to produce a fun experience for kids.  iCream takes milk, a flavor of your choice, and other ingredients you can add to the mixture to make instant ice cream with the help from a blast of liquid nitrogen and a mixer.  My kids enjoyed getting to see their ice cream being made and we were all suprised to watch our ice cream be made in less than a minute.

Making Ice Cream

One kid enoyed vanilla bean ice cream with sprinkles, while another enjoyed chocolate ice cream with sprinkles.  Since it is the season for Girl Scout Cookies, iCream had three varieties of their famous cookies that one could mix in their ice cream.  I chose to have chocolate mint ice cream with Girl Scout Thin Mint cookies.  It isn't every day that you can find an ice cream store that combines girl scout cookies with you favorite flavors.

Chocolate Mint with Thin Mints

If you prefer shakes or frozen yogurt, those are available at iCream as well.  I felt the flavor was comparable to most other ice cream parlors, but it seemed much smoother than your basic ice cream.  The staff was very friendly and seemed more than happy to walk first timers through the process of ordering and making their ice cream.  My kids had an absolute blast and I would highly recommend this place for families with young children.

Vanilla Bean with Sprinkles

iCream Cafe
http://www.icreamcafe.com
Livin the Good Life Rating=2

Yardbird Southern Table and Bar

Every year that I go to Las Vegas, I make a list of restaurants that I want to try during my trip.  One restaurant at the top of my list was a new restaurant called Yardbird Southern Table and Bar.  I have a friend who is also a foodie and she has raved about the Miami location for some time, so I was pleased to see that the restaurant had opened up a second location on restaurant row in the corridor between The Palazzo and The Venetian.

Dining Area

Shortly after checking in to The Palazzo, my wife and I took the short walk to grab some lunch at Yardbird.  We decided to try out several items, including the Fried Green Tomato BLT, Lewellyn's Fried Chicken, Buttermilk Biscuits, and the Macaroni and Cheese.  The restaurant makes a point of delivering items as soon as they are finished cooking, so we sampled the biscuits first and they were still piping hot.  The biscuits were wonderful in every possible way and were made even better when you added the honey butter and strawberry jam to them.

Buttermilk Biscuits, Honey Butter, and Strawberry Jam

Next up was the fried green tomato BLT.  Normally one associates a BLT with a sandwich, but this particular item was a fried green tomato topped with pork belly, greens, house-made pimento cheese, and tomato jam.  My wife is more a fan of fried green tomatoes than I am, but I really enjoyed the pork belly and pimento cheese which added flavor to the dish.

Yardbird's version of a BLT-Fried Green Tomato, Pork Belly, Greens, Tomato Jam, and House-Made Pimento Cheese

The fried chicken and mac and cheese arrived shortly after we finished off the BLT.  The fried chicken was very good and it was easy to see why it made Southern Living's list of The South's Best Fried Chicken.  I would certainly put it among my fried chicken top five.  The mac and cheese was made with a combination of Torchio pasta, five cheeses, and was topped with a crispy herb crust.  It was good as well, but it was not as good as the other items we tried on this visit.

Lewellyn's Fried Chicken and Macaroni and Cheese

I also dined at Yardbird a second time on my third day in Vegas.  My wife was at the pool, so I sat at the bar, watched some college basketball, and ordered the Smoke Brisket Sandwich and the House-Cut Fries.  The sandwich was made with brisket, tomato, and Swiss cheese on grilled bread.  This plate also included house-made ketchup and some pickled veggies.  I was a little surprised that the brisket didn't have a lot of smokey flavor and didn't include any bark.  Although it was very different from the brisket sandwiches I am used to, I really liked the flavor of this sandwich.  It tasted more like a spicy pot roast, but the flavor went great with the grilled bread.  The fries, which were topped with bacon salt (aka salted bacon bits), were amazing.  A buttermilk dipping sauce accompanied the fries and really added to the flavor of the fries and bacon.

Brisket Sandwich and Fries with "Bacon Salt"

Since I dined here twice, you can already guess by now that I really liked this restaurant.  The service at both the tables and the bar was excellent.  This casual restaurant has some excellent Southern cuisine and I can certainly see why the original location was nominated for best new restaurant of 2012 by the James Beard Foundation Awards.  If I had stayed another day in Vegas, I might have eaten at Yardbird a third time.  This restaurant is a great addition to the Venetian/Palazzo family.

Yardbird Southern Table and Bar
http://runchickenrun.com
Livin the Good Life Rating=4

Shady's Burger Joint

My family and I happened to be in Richardson, Texas for a sporting event and wanted to find a place to grab dinner.  After browsing my phone for a few minutes, I found that Shady's Burger Joint was close by and had a favorable diner rating.  I have heard good things about this place from others as well, so we decided to dine there.

Bacon BBQ Burger

Although it was crowded, we quickly placed our order and found a table that had just been cleaned off.  I ordered the Bacon BBQ Burger with cheese fries.  The burger was a little on the small side, but was topped with bacon, a large onion ring, barbecue sauce, and lettuce.  The burger looked better than it tasted.  The patty itself was flavorless and I didn't care for the taste of the barbecue sauce.  The highlight of the burger was the large and crispy onion ring.  The serving of bacon cheese fries was quite large and was much better than the burger I had.

Bacon Cheese Fries

My wife got the Shady's Burger (basic burger) with onion rings.  She felt her burger was also lacking in flavor, but said she did like the bun.  The order of onion rings were probably the best thing we had on this visit.  The onion rings were the same large rings that were on my burger and they had an outstanding batter that was very crispy.  Both my kids ordered from the kid's menu and enjoyed their grilled cheeses, fries, and chocolate chip cookies.  

Onion Rings

Although my kids seemed to enjoy their entire meal, my wife and I both felt the onion rings and bacon cheese fries were far superior to our burgers.  The staff was friendly and attentive, but it took the restaurant close to twenty minutes to get our order to us.  The tables were also very close together and it was cramped, which led to a lot of chairs bumping into one another.  Shady's wasn't bad, but I would not go out of my way to eat here again.  If I did eat here again, I probably wouldn't order a burger either.

Kids Grilled Cheese Meal

Shady's Burger Joint
http://shadysburgers.com
Livin the Good Life Rating=2

Ace's Ice House and Chop Shop

One of DFWs newest restaurants, Ace's Ice House and Chop Shop, opened it's doors in January.  The Frisco eatery claims to have a chef driven menu that serves up some Texas favorites.  Chad Brown and Cutter Brewer serve as executive chefs and they do have a menu that puts some interesting twists on some classic Southern dishes.

Bar Area at Ace's-My youngest saw me taking a picture and assumed she needed to be in the pic

One of the appetizers that intrigued me was the Bird and Waffle.  The dish included 4 petite waffles, habanero maple syrup, and the choice of hand breaded chicken or quail breast.  I actually ordered it with the quail, but they ended up bringing out the chicken.  Since I was hungry and love chicken and waffles anyway, I decided to eat what was brought out.  The chicken had a terrific batter and the habanero maple syrup was great, but the waffles were pretty basic.

Bird and Waffle

The first entree I tried was the Chicken Fried Wagyu Steak.  The hand breaded 7 oz. Wagyu sirloin was topped with whiskey mushroom gravy and served with garlic mashed potatoes.  This chicken fried steak was cooked to a perfect medium rare and had outstanding flavor (both the breading and the steak itself).  As good as the steak was, the whiskey mushroom gravy was even better.  My only complaint with the gravy is that I wished they would have included more gravy on the dish.  The mashed potatoes were disappointing in comparison to the chicken fried steak and were a little bland.

Wagyu Chicken Fried Steak and Garlic Mashed Potatoes

The second entree we sampled was the Big Block Grass-Fed Angus Burger.  I elected to get the burger with bacon and cheddar cheese as add-ons.  The burger had a nice charbroiled flavor and was extremely juicy.  I also really enjoyed the large pieces of bacon and the sourdough bun.  Steak cut Cajun fries were served with the burger and they could have used a little more Cajun seasoning.

Big Block Grass-Fed Angus Burger

I only sampled three items on my first visit to Ace's, but I think the place shows a lot of promise.  The food was mostly good and outside the mix-up on my order of bird and waffle, the service was commendable as well.  Ace's has a fun ambiance, a good-sized bar area, and a patio.  The restaurant would be a good place to eat with the family or hang out with friends for a Happy Hour.  In a city that has more than it's fair share of chain restaurants, it is nice to see an original restaurant that puts a little twist on some classic dishes.

Ace's Ice House and Chop Shop
http://acesicehouse.com
Livin the Good Life Rating=3

Meat U Anywhere BBQ

In my opinion, barbecue is the quintessential Texas cuisine.  My apologies to Tex-Mex, but few things get me more excited than trying out a new barbecue restaurant.  I recently read a Daniel Vaughn review of a barbecue joint in Grapevine called Meat U Anywhere BBQ.  He had high praises for this restaurant that opened in 2014, so I decided to give it a try.

The menu has the typical meats that you would expect to find at a barbecue joint, but they also have a Friday-Saturday menu that includes premium meats such as peppered smoked beef tenderloin, smoked prime rib, beef chuck ribs, and bone-in  pork loin chops.  The smoked meat menu is quite extensive when you visit on a Saturday morning, but I was able to sample five different meats and a couple of sides.

Dining Area

Brisket was the of the meats that I tried.  Just looking at the nice smoke ring and bark on the brisket brisket, I was pretty sure that I was in for a treat.  The bark was fantastic and the meat had a great smoky flavor to it.  The thick cut slices had fat that was well rendered and the meat melted in my mouth.  I had read that the brisket here could be a little dry, but I am pleased to say that this was not the case on my visit.   The remaining meats had to meet a high standard to compare with the brisket here.

Brisket

I also tried the smoked beef tenderloin, which was one of the Fri-Sat. premium meats.  The tenderloin was very tender, had a nice smoky flavor, and had a peppery bark.  Smoked tenderloin can dry out very easily when it is smoked, but the tenderloin at Meat U Anywhere BBQ was incredibly moist and was some of the best tenderloin I have ever sampled.

Smoked Beef Tenderloin

Ribs and sausage are very subjective meats.  What some people might love, others might detest.  St. Louis cut pork ribs are my favorite cut of ribs and the ribs here were thick and meaty.  While the ribs were moist and easily pulled off the bone, I personally did not care for the rub that had been applied to the ribs.  Of the meats I tried, the ribs were the only ones that I didn't like.

St. Louis Cut Pork Ribs

I was able to sample both the German sausage and the jalapeño cheddar sausage.  The plain German sausage was flavorful enough and certainly above average in the taste department, but I really loved the jalapeño cheddar sausage.  The latter had plenty of diced cheese and jalapeños throughout the links, which gave you a little of each with every bite.  In my opinion, both sausages were among the best I have had in DFW and I was pleasantly surprised by how good they were.

German Sausage and Jalapeño Cheddar Sausage

For sides, I skipped the traditional sides of beans, potato salad, and cole slaw.  Instead, I ordered jalapeño bacon mac n' cheese and Southern-style creamed corn.  Both were very good sides, but I preferred the creamed corn.  The mac n' cheese was good, but it played second fiddle to the creamed corn.

Jalapeño Bacon Mac n' Cheese

I was impressed with my first visit to Meat U Anywhere BBQ.  Good DFW barbecue places are few and far between, but this place definitely gets at big thumbs up from me.  The restaurant also serves breakfast and boasts an impressive collection of barbecue inspired breakfast burritos.  If this barbecue joint can keep turning out the quality of meats that I had on this visit, then I can see it becoming a top 5 DFW barbecue joint.

Meat U Anywhere
http://www.meatuanywhere.com
Livin the Good Life Rating=4