Dare Connoisseur--Lava Lips

After a long long hibernation, I finally came back my dear friends!!!

How about starting with a "hot" stuff right in this hotter and hotter season?

So I firstly went across this place in Groupon's website. Indy's first Hot Sauce BAR? That's fancy! Marked and here I came!

Let's begin with the basics:

Website

Address: 
4915 N College Ave, Indianapolis, IN 46205

Opening hour: 

Monday           Closed Tuesday         1:00 – 8:00 pm Wednesday    1:00 – 8:00 pm Thursday        1:00 – 8:00 pm Friday             1:00 – 8:00 pm Saturday         11:00 am – 8:00 pm Sunday           1:00 – 6:00 pm

This little shop is located in broad ripple area with a pretty ease parking option. The Board is not that catchy and bold enough in my opinion. If people just passed by, they probably won't pop in without former looking up. But I am OK with that and I will just consider it as a "nerdy place" for "nerdy foodies" like me. LOL.

Actually it is quite spacious inside. Except a private party room back inside, there is a "bar"-like area in the center, shelves full of hot sauce with different levels of spiciness are around the wall.
 

A special show table for some commonly seen categories like jalapeño , tropical and garlic that provide the newbies a chance to get start. 

















There are also some other food with spicy theme like XXX hot salsa, special hot BBQ sauce, rubs, chipotle caramel, spicy popcorn et. al. (take a look at the following pictures!)

The "rubs" corner.

The spicy popcorn!

Extra strong coffee!

Here is how it works. You can bring your own food like chips, fruits and drinks or start with a mini size tortilla chips purchased there ($0.5). You can either talk to the really nice "bar tender" Alex to start with some recommendations or browse around to find your own "zing". Then, Alex will open that bottle for you to have a taste. Of course, if it is already being picked before, the opened one will be waiting for you. All the tasting is for FREE!

I really went out and tried a lot...There is literally a 3-inch-tall piled-up testing mini-cups in front of me!





































I also tried some salsa which is also pretty good!
   

I am the kind of person who can actually tolerate quite high level of spicy but would rather not go too far and numb my taste. If you just want the "excitement" and "pain", what's the point to have a "recipe"? So I particularly try to search the finesse and deep wisdom of the people who create the sauce if there is any…And I was glad that I finally found one. (picture comes last)

Actually I did ask for some "funky" flavors and Alex suggested me a banana rum one (picture below) and a brand specifically used cane vinegar rather than white vinegar called amazon. They are not bad but also not quite worth "collecting".

Ahh, I also tried the ghost pepper which is supposed to be really really hot but still in a normal range. (You will know why I said "normal range" later). They are not that bad and I do want to say. Poor Americans' tolerance to spiciness...I am very sorry you missed gigantic amount of delicious food... 

OK, here comes the real craziness. There is a shelf full of hot sauce that made with extract of the pepper--the capsaicine.  I didn't tried myself but there was another guy sitting there tasted probably the 2nd or 3rd hottest sauce in the whole store. It took probably 2-3 bottles of water and 2-3 small cups of caramel sauce to quench it only a little bit down. 
Honestly I really didn't see the point to make or eat something that just "bite" you. Anyway, I do appreciate that the designers indeed spend some time designing the bottles which are eye catching.

The price of the hot sauce there usually range from $7-12. Those with extra capsaicine might be pricier. In the end, I got a mango habanero (this is so far the best and has a really good balance between hot and sweet with a hint of tartness. Also, I just love the design of the bottle) and some other random stuff like a Tellicherry pepper chocolate (a gourmet black pepper) which is not that impressive actually.


Other random thoughts that came cross when I tasted the wide range of hot sauce:
 I do like fruit in hot sauce a lot especially tropical fruits. My old impression was like that nearly all of them like mango, pineapple, peach and passion fruit should be pretty match with the spicy aspect. BUT! I was wrong! Actually I would conclude after tasting more than 10 different "fruity" hot sauce. MANGO is still the best across the board! No wonder Southeastern Asian cuisine or those Hot Wing store usually carry far more Mango hot sauce flavor than other fruity ones. There is a reason! 

Summary at a glance:

All in all, this is really a unique place to try. They can host private party especially if you got a group of "funky" friends. (In a good way.)

And here is my rating:

Environment: 5 stars
Selection: 4.5 stars (They don't have that much supermarket brands like Tabasco and Cholula, but they do have Shiracha! I guess it makes sense that you can totally purchase them in the supermarket, then why bother. But the reason I didn't give them full stars is because the overall quality of the hot sauce is not that great based on my taste test. But I have to say the choices are enormous!)
Service: 5 stars
Highlight: the free end-less tasting is indeed awesome!

Worth of the money: 4 stars (considering about the average quality of the hot sauce, the price shouldn't be that high. But maybe it was rather difficult to do all of those collection)
Overall: 4.5 stars
Bottom line: I would probably go back but maybe not that often

Chinese new year/Valentine's day special--Lady's Kisses

Chinese new year/Valentine's day special--

Lady's Kisses, A unique Italian nut cookie

It's been quite busy weeks for me...But the Chinese new year (Jan 31st in this year, the year of Horse!) is coming and I couldn't quite put this down.  I know, I know, I should have pick a Chinese recipe to try...

But, what ever, the Valentine's day is also coming right? ;-P

This is traditionally made from Hazelnut, same idea of Nutella.  Ferrero Roche etc...I am curious but is there a story behind this tight bond between Italian and hazelnut?

Actually I heard about a legend that if you ask the Italians to pick ONLY one specific food to save during famine, they would pick NUTELLA! The ingredients are simple and straightforward, just hazelnut and chocolate "spread" which usually include saturated fat and sugar besides cocoa, of course the recipe is still a secret mystery. But honestly, it is one of the most amazing inventory in the food world in my mind.  

Ok, back to the recipe. I first read about this in an Italian dessert book called Dolci about one year ago. Unlike butter based shortbread/cookies that you probably would find equivalents somewhat everywhere  in the world. There are some special finger goodies that are so unique that you just couldn't find them elsewhere like Macarons in France, sweet rice cake in Asia and a BUNCH of in Italy like Biscotti, Savoiardi(Lady finger) and this one--Lady's Kissis.
This is what the authentic look like:

Other than the original recipe in Dolci, I also referred to several written and video recipes online. Then, I came up with this super-easy-memorizing recipe using almond flour instead of hazelnut flour since I just happened to have that at hand. So here we go!

Ingredients:

For the cookies:

Equal weight of butter, plain flour and almond flour. It is not really rigid there, so to make it even easier:

1 stick butter (both salted and unsalted are fine, I used salted)

1 cup of plain flour

1 cup of almond flour/hazelnut flour (I bought a bag from Trader Joe's called "Just almond meal" which still includes the skin compared to regular "peeled" almond flour you usually see. To make almond meal/flour from whole almond: You can buy blanched-peeled almond or regular raw almond then blanch&peel them by yourself. Drain them well and put into the food processer until you get fine-sand-like texture. Same deal if you sick to the classic, hazelnut. NOTE: don't press the almond flour because that will make the dough tough)

1/3 cup regular granulated sugar

Orange peel from a small orange

Vanilla extract

Optional: if you use unsalted butter, add pinch of salt (~1/8 teaspoon)

For  the filling:

30g Nutella

15g melted 70% dark chocolate

The reason why I used this combination is to make a "nutella truffle" batter. So that the filling can hold its shape better and won't stick to everywhere.

But this is kind of time consuming, actually I found just Nutella is fine and really, any filling like peanut butter, almond butter or jam would work!

Steps:

1. Bring the butter up to room temperature, set aside
2. Mix the rest ingredients in a bowl (dry ingredients)
3. Pour the  dry ingredients to the butter bowl and patiently knead everything until they just form a dough which can hold its shape without too crumbly.

4. Use measure spoon (I used the "1/2 teaspoon") to make small semi-sphere dough and set them on baking tray lined with parchment paper or oiled aluminum foil

5. Chill them about 30min in the fridge
6. Preheat the oven to 350F/180C
7. Bake them about 15min until the top is a tiny bit tinted
8. After completely cool, assemble them together! (I used a zip loc bag to piping the filling out for a better looking purpose;-P But dipping should be fine. Let's make life easier!)

NOTE: You might found the dough is quite dry at first and though this is not going to work! But trust me, as you gradually melted the butter with the warm from you hand, the oil from almond flour is also going to "ooze' out. Then you would probably start to worry it's going to be too wet. So here, DON'T over kneed the dough because that will end up with hard rather than fluffy and short cute cookies. If it is really really too dry, add a little bit more melted butter to smooth that out.

The end result is another extreme short and crumbly delicious cookies just like Margarita cookies I used to make but completely different flavor! The high light is definitely the orange peel. I was not a big fan of citrus. The volatile essence oil is too much for me. But I found it works perfectly in this recipe. The orange, almond, butter and chocolate are just harmonized together so well!

To make it Valentine's theme, I use a little bit red icing to pipe some little hearts.

AND, to make it Chinese new year theme, I change the PS setting….Does this look a little Chinese style? LOL…

Hope you enjoy this recipe and give it try some time!

Happy Chinese New Year and Valentine's day :) 

INdulgent New Year! Ichiban Sushi Bar near Greenwood

INdulgent New Year! Ichiban Sushi Bar & Asian cuisine

I was visiting my aunt in Lexington KY this Christmas vacation. When I drove back to Indy from south. It was just around lunch time. Then I went to this sushi bar...
Actually I have been keeping this restaurant in my "INdulgent wish list" for a long time. But since it's not a quite convenient location for a downtown-er, I just grab this lovely chance to give it a try.
So here we go! So excited!

Begin with some basic info:
Official website
Address, contact and opening hour:
8265 US 31 S, Indianapolis, IN 46227
(317) 883-1888
Mon - Thu: 11am - 2:30pm,5pm - 9pm
Fri - Sat: 11am - 2:30pm, 5pm - 10pm
Sunday: 12am - 2:30pm, 5pm - 9pm

Like a lot of alternative/international restaurants in the U.S., the out side looks quite shabby which also usually locate in a shabby neighborhood.  But as always, like many things else, don't make judgement too early only by the appearance. 

Let's peek the inside. 

First of all, it is a really spacious restaurant. I really didn't expect this huge space.
Then comes the warm greeting from the chef behind the sushi bar. The environment and ambient is a quite good start!

The sushi bar area: "L" shaped 

The other arm of the sushi bar. Fresh and colorful ingredients! Yum!

The private room #1 (There is also a room #2 which can hold up to 8 people I think). The design is quite Japanese which reminds me of some restaurants in Beijing.

The Bar area which also have small screen for Sports fans.

A Japanese style corner.

OK! Let's come to the food!

Start with the Special Roll Menu. I particularly showed this menu is because this is exactly the weakness of other Japanese restaurant especially Americanized sushi places. 

In my opinion, a great dish should be a well balance of visual, smell and taste. Obviously Japanese food usually don't have much smell because they are either cold and raw or too healthy to barely have any strong taste (No offence. LOL...) . 

So why not high light such visually divine dishes with a menu with REAL PICTURES just like this??? So, Great Job Ichiban! You can pick the appearance most attractive rolls really!

I didn't try these this time but again, this is what called Professional!  Of course, they have a written detailed description menu for these rolls as well. The ingredients combination is not super creative but good enough for variety of pallets and preferences. 

I am a huge fan of Eel (I know, I know, there are so many people out there doubting that Eel doesn't make any sense for its fishy and gel even rubber like texture with scary skin still on it.) But this is really the knocking stone for a Japanese restaurant or chef. It's just such a delicate ingredients. And even though it's just Teriyakki sauce cooked with eel, it's still one of the most difficult technique to grasp in Japanese cooking. So here we go. They have lunch special Unagi Don (Eel rice bowl) which means smaller portion and cheaper ($12). Perfect!

Start with complimentary salad and miso soup. It's not surprising but safe and good.

Tah-dah~ The shining leading player!! Visually appealing really. 5 Stars! The taste is pretty good. But maybe a little dull which means the sweetness is too straight. But still pretty satisfying already. As for the texture, in my mind, a perfect unagi steak should have a melting soft flesh with slightly chewy skin which is due to re-hydration after sizzling on the grill. This one lacks a little crispy-chewy skin but again, already did a super job!

Actually speaking to Unagi Don. I have tried two other restaurant ones in Indy. Mikado in downtown and One world in Castleton Corner area. They are all quite pricy ($19.95 for lunch) but Mikado one is definitely the best among these 3. One world is a neat Japanese grocery store with a small dining area. But their Unagi is quite disappointing I would say. For quality price ratio, Ichiban is a full win!

Then, out of curiosity, I also ordered a hand roll with the filling/topping of Spicy Tuna. The tuna is great! No funny after taste, great texture and most important, Temperature which should be cool but not cold. The Nori lacks a llllittle bit crunchy but still pretty good already. The overall flavor is quite balance and satisfying.

At last but not least, I want to specifically talk about their rice. It's probably the best sushi rice I have ever have in the US. Perfect "Mochi-mochi" texture which means slightly chewy but not too sticky, not too hard, not too mushy. The aroma is also clean and sleek. Great surprise!

As a summary, Ichiban is definitely a worthwhile place to try about Japanese cuisine. 5 stars in nearly every way maybe except for the location...

Another small surprise is, the sushi-monger told me the staffs are actually most Chinese and they started with only Japanese cuisine but gradually supplemented the menu with some Asian cuisine from China and Thai afterwards. This reminds me of the owner of Mikado which also runs Shanghai Li. He is from Taiwan.  So what's the deal with these cross-nation business? Showing the real spirits of the US--melting pot and culture collision happening everywhere? Great!  

When I stepped out, I just realized from the press poster that the sushi-monger I was talking to is actually the owner. Such a young and down-to-earth type boss!

Ah, last of the last. I knew this restaurant from a website called Indy-A-list which is an annul ranking system of nearly every possible business fields in Indy. From restaurant to salon, from tattoo shop to candy store. Check it out, you may find some hidden gems just by your place!

Indy-A-list

BTW, stay warm dear mid-west friends! 

Sweet teeth--Easy homemade Nougat with Marshmallow

How to make chewy Nougat with marshmallow at home--Super easy version!

I read about this recipe long ago but didn't have chance to try it out. Here comes the holiday season and how wonderful It would be if I can make some holiday themed candy for my friends? Then I instantly think about this recipe. Not only because it is super easy, but also I really missed the Nougat so I can have some "chef treat" from the edges and ends. Let's do that!

Basic formula:
Unsalted butter: 30g
Original mini marshmallow: 150g
Pinch of salt
Fat free dry milk : 90-100g (depends on how soft you want your nougat and what additive you have. And, supermarket brand preferred rather than Nestle, I will explain later. )

You can make endless flavor combinations or design developed from here. This time, to make it holiday theme, I made 3 color/flavor nougat:
Red/white: Cranberry peppermint crunch
Green: Matcha(green tea) peanut
Brown: Mocha pecan

Let's go over the ingredients one by one:
No matter what flavor you make, the butter, marshmallow and salt won't change.


For Red: 
Dry milk: 90g,
Cherry infused dry cranberry 60g (divided to 40+20g. 40g chopped for mixing into the nougat and 20g slightly chopped for topping)
Mini Peppermint sugar cane: 10*, chopped into small pieces

For green:
Dry milk: 80g
Matcha powder: 8g (I bought this in China because it is not so easily found in the U.S.. But I found some online in ebay. also on Nuts.com. The pure powder is quite pricy but the pre-made matcha tea mix also works. So you can use this Matcha tea mix or similar kinds you can bought in Asian/international grocery store)
Peanuts: 80g, toasted and chopped into small crunch

For Brown:
Dry milk: 75g
Coffee grinds: 8g (instant coffee also works)
Cocoa powder: 5g (natural or dutch processed both works)
Pecan: 80g, toasted and chopped into small crunch)

Steps:
You will need a non-stick small skillet pan, a rubber spatula, two pieces of parchment paper, a rolling pin and a knife.

1. In the pan, heat up the butter until just melted

2. Pour in the mini marshmallow and adjust the heat level to medium at the same time, stir and stir until they  are coated with butter. After a couple of minutes, you will observe that the small "puffs" begin to swell.

3. You don't need to wait until every thing is completely melted, just when there is no obvious chunk of "puffs", pour in all of the rest ingredients. Adjust the heat to low and stir quickly.

4.  When there is no obvious milk powder and it will form to play dough-like consistency with a shining appearance. You may need to lift the pan off the heat during the stirring process if you see some crystal like trace on the surface of the dough or there is too much add-in which cost too long to mix. Those are area that lost too much moist and will make the candy over chewy even hard after cooled down. So we don't want it to be heated too long. 

5. Pour the dough onto a parchment paper, cover it with another paper. Roll the dough out with the rolling pin to about 1/4 inch (about 1cm) thick.

5b. For the red or any kinds that you want to put some decorations on top, sprinkle them now and re-roll the top after covered with the parchment paper to "press" down those toppings.

6. Wait for about 10-15min until the dough cooled down to just a little warm. Use the knife to cut into square/rectangular/diamond shape as you like.

7. Further cool them down and store them into jars or Ziploc bags. They will last for weeks but since the nuts tend to become rancid. Don't wait too long. (I am sure you will eat them up before that happened because they are so so delicious!)

Notes:
1. Like I said before that the milk powder is adjustable depending on how chewy you want your nougat. The amount I provided here is on soft side. So they tend to stick together while storage(not solid sticky, just adhere together but still take no efforts to separate them apart). You can add a little bit more milk powder to make them hold their shape better.
2. I mentioned before I preferred supermarket brand rather than Nestle/Carnation milk powder. Because I found the supermarket brand has some bigger powder clusters rather than just super fine powder. This really give the nougat another layer of texture. Slightly crunchy with burst of milky flavor. Yum!
3. There are endless flavor combinations: except for nuts and dry fruits that you can go wild, for flavoring/coloring part. you can choose coconut powder, cocoa powder,  fruit juice powder. Just remember if you add powdered form additive. Decrease some of the milk powder to make sure it's not over chewy. Also I suggest not to go too crazy about powder form additive because the milky flavor is till critical for this candy.

A lonely nougat...

So, Merry Christmas and happy new year everybody!
Have fun!

INdulgent Nonweekend special --Siam Square

INdulgent Nonweekend special --Siam Square 

One of my best friend in collage came to Indy to visit me earlier this week. Happiest day recently! We were all born in Beijing. 

She is now studying in the University of Rochester and she showed so much jealous for "City-feeling" here. It was funny that when we compared several cities, Indy actually did a pretty good job in nearly every way. At least very balanced. From public area maintenance to traffic regulation, from not huge but pretty sufficient grocery shopping choices to high quality dinning selections. I feel more and more satisfied for Indy recently. Maybe I started to have the feeling of belonging here...

Ok, back to the topic. After discussion, we decided to give Siam square a try since she didn't quite have Thai in the U.S. before and it was also a good chance to have a night tour around downtown. BTW, Siam Square is located in Fountain square area, so a little southeastern of downtown.

So here we come!

First of all, except for several pepper/chili based dishes like green curry that I am going to mention later, most of their dishes have spiciness choice: mild(not spicy), medium(default), hot(a small dab of Thai red chili paste), Thai hot(a big dab of Thai red chili paste). Based on my feel, the "medium" is not spicy enough for a spicy lover. But reasonable as a "spicy dish". The "Hot" is just right for spicy lover. "Thai hot"...is...really spicy! But basically the secret is just the red chili paste and you can adjust to taste.

We ordered a Thom Yum (冬阴功) soup which is a featured sour spicy soup in Thai cuisine. If the restaurant can nail down Thom Yum, it passed the very basic test. 

First impression, there are not so many things in it. Compare with the price ($9.5 for a bowl, maybe 3-4 serves), maybe not that valuable. The flavor is ok. Not as complex and sophisticate as the one I had in Beijing. But still relatively refreshing and Thai-like. It just passed I guess..as fair..LOL

We also ordered an appetizer called Chicken Satay ($6.5) which basically has 5 chicken skewers marinated with Thai spices, fried and paired with peanut butter sauce and a pickled cucumber sauce. Sorry I didn't have the sauce picture here.

This tastes really pleasant. The skewer and both of the sauce. Maybe a little bit over sweet? But still within acceptable range. The good thing is it's not heavy at all and the chicken meat (I think they use tenderloin rather than just breast meat which is good!) is quite tender and juicy.

Then comes the entree. My friend ordered the Drunken noodle ($11.95+2 for shrimp) which is suggested by the waitress and I also read about this online a lot. Basically it is tomato-basil intensified Pad Thai. But with really wide rice noodles rather than linguine-type rice noodles (Of course the type of noodle used in Pad Thai depends on restaurant).

It looks really appealing from the appearance, and it also tastes pretty good. Again, maybe a little over sweet. The basil is regular basil rather than Thai basil. Maybe they want to show friendliness to Americans. The sauce is rich but not heavy. The ingredients are quite generous and shrimp is also good.

I ordered the Green curry with tofu ($12.95). For some reason I fell in love with green curry and tofu recently.
It is a coconut milk based soupy dish with bamboo shoot, green beans, basil and green eggplant. It comes with a bowl of steamed jasmine rice.

There are not so many ingredients either, but the soup is quite rich (again, good thing is it's not heavy) so it's ok for portion size consideration. The best serving way is to soak the rice with soup. So delightful!  

Dessert! Dessert! Dessert!

We ordered Thai ice cream with sweet rice ($6. Taro flavor ice cream this time) . They also have coconut and mango choices. 

The purple is kind of too drama because typically Taro flavored stuff is just a tinted purple in my mind. But it is impressive that I can tell this is house-made ice cream because there is still little taro chunks in it! The sweet rice is soaked in coconut milk balanced with slightly saltiness.  Great thumb up for this dish! 

I found it's a little difficult at first to explain the plant Taro to the westerns. It's a root vegetable with the size similar to butternut squash (also varied from 6-inch to 10-inch length-wise). The cooking and eating way is quite similar to sweet potato. So it can go savory or sweet. But it doesn't have strong flavor itself other than really subtle aroma and sweetness. After boiling/steaming, the texture is creamy and starchy just like Russet potato. 

Taro is quite popular as a vegetable in southwestern China and Southeastern Asia. Taro is also a popular flavor all over china and Asia. There is actually mashed Taro in Asian cuisine. And I had Taro flavored ice cream since I was really little and it reminds me of my childhood a lot.

 

The plant Taro！You can buy them in international/Asian grocery store like SARAGA, Asian mart and Viet-Hua market if you are in Indy area. Most of them sell it as fresh produce version (shown in the picture), peeled and vacuumed bag version or frozen version. I preferred vacuumed version.

The ice cream I had since I was really little! Miss it so much....But see the light purple color?

As a summary, Siam Square is a good choice for American Thai. The ingredients and flavor are great. The environment and service is good. A little sweet for Asian taste bud but who doesn't like reasonable sweet?

Talking about Thai restaurants in Indy, actually I tried several ones and here is my ranking list:

1. Thai Spice: 2220 E County Line Rd, Greenwood.
2. Sawasdee: 1222 W 86th St, Indianapolis
3. Thai Taste: 5353 E 82nd St, Indianapolis
4. Siam Square: 936 Virginia Ave (Sorry for putting this far behind because it's still American in my mind)

Another fun fact is: if you pay enough attention to dinning news around downtown area. There is a new contemporary-style Vietnam Sandwich shop called Rook in fountain square area. I visited there when it just opened earlier this year. It is a really artistic place with pretty affordable great taste food. Although Americanize Vietnamese, still definitely worth visiting! I probably will post another review for Rook.

And the point is: I found the Rook and Siam Square actually have the same owner! And their locations are just across the street...

INdulgent weekend--Barcelona Tapas

INdulgent weekend--Sunday Brunch in Barcelona Tapas  Downtown Indianapolis

Last Sunday, I went to Barcelona Tapas in downtown Indy with my roommate. This is the Official Site and the regular Full menu which is available Monday through Sunday for lunch and dinner except for Sunday lunch (which is the Sunday Brunch we went to this time). For weekdays, it also has lunch buffet for $9.95.

It was a snowy day and there were not whole lot of people in the lobby. It was called Sangria Sunday brunch, so there must be SANGRIA!!! This is included in the price and they have options for red and white. The waitress told me the red one is less sweet so I went for this! 

Red Sangria: Pretty good taste! 

With a bunch of cubed fruits like apple, orange, mellon and grape fruit. 

Now for the main dish! They have 4 made-to-order choices and they are all Spanish style: 

French toast, Omelet, Egg benedict and Specials (this time is the Savory and Sweet pancake).

I was attracted by the description of the Omelet and Egg benedict, so here they are! 

Spanish Omelet: 

Bacon, Ham, Chorizo, Grilled red pepper, mushroom, onion, spinach, tomato, Manchego cheese

The egg is a little crispy instead of soft/cloud texture in french style omelet but I like this a lot! The filling slightly reminds me of a Chinese stir-fry type dish but pretty mellow and balance. The cheese is not over-loaded, just the right amount of richness. The chorizo is definitely the star shining here with a good smoky chewy bite. Thumb up! 

Spanish Egg Benedict:

The egg cooked perfectly! The hollandaise sauce is average, has a little spiced flavor but very subtle. Instead of the traditional Canadian bacon, this one has a somewhat softer version chorizo which tastes like smoked sausage. And the English muffin is standard. All in all, this is not as shining as the omelet but still, they did a pretty good job!

Then comes the buffet part! So excited because there are a lot of options:

The cold/salad section which included: spiced candy nuts, coleslaw, potato salad, cottage cheese, green salads, Dried figs/Dates, Green Olives, et, al.

This is my favorite: Curry chicken salad

The warm/main dish section which included: classic American's like 

Spanish classics: Bean stew with Chorizo, Chicken Paella

These two are really delicious, make sure you try them if you come!

Spanish breakfast choices: Empanada, Fritata

The Empanada is good but the Fritata is a little bit salty.

The Cheese plate with cured meat: This is succinct yet really high quality. I am not a pro in cured meat but the cheese is amazing. Freshly cut and mellow aroma. Not too strong, not too shallow, just right!

The far left is the Tortilla Espanola which is also really good!
(if you are a newbie to Spanish cuisine, this is a classic dish in Spain. It is made by layering sliced potato and some veggies/a few meat choice in the iron pan, then pouring in beaten egg mixed with extra spices like paprika plus S&P to cook on stove top. This is also sometimes called Spanish potato pancake)

Meaty corner! Slow roasted top round beef, sorted aioli and salmon sashimi?

The beef taste fantastic! The salmon is a little disappointed. I don't know whether it is supposed to be like this or I missed something, but firstly it is room temperature even a little warm probably because of the bulb. So it ends up to be really greasy. A pretty presentation though. So I probably would recommend putting it by the cold section instead of here. 

BTW, the staff here taking charge of slicing the meat, is super friendly! 

The dessert/pastry section: Sorted fruits, Tres Leche cake, Blueberry muffin and.... 

Jam stuffed Churros!!

I am quite satisfied with the sweet table here. Everything has a really good flavor and high quality over all! 

And this is the first time I tasted a restaurant Tres leche cake. I know it is a really rich cake because the method required soaking the cake in a mixture of sweetened condensed milk, evaporated milk and milk (3 diary, Tres leche). But surprisingly, the cake is not overly sweet and milky. It is kind of refresh and have superior moist texture. (Well, that is the reason of soaking...Duh...) But anyways, it is really worth trying!

So, as a summary:

Environment: 5 

Selection: 5

Food: 5

This is definitely a 5 star choice for overall rating. Of course it is a little pricy but I think I will visit back occasionally.