Going Round and Round in Las Vegas

[Kerry Beal]

Chocolot and Alleguede from eG are with me in Las Vegas at a chocolate panning course in Las Vegas at Jean-Marie Auboine.  

 

Chocolot and I arrived on Wednesday (the course started on Friday).  I picked her up at the airport - and shortly thereafter we headed off to Lotus of Siam for our first dinner.

 

 

Crispy Rice.  

 

 

Larb - can't recall if we ordered pork or chicken.

 

 

Garlic Prawns.

 

 

Sticky rice and mango.

 

 

After dinner we headed off to the new retail location of Jinju Chocolates in the new 'container park' that we had seen being assembled when we were down in May for our eG 2014 Chocolate Workshop.  Thought the container park concept was a neat idea.  

[Kerry Beal]

Day 2 in Las Vegas Chocolot and I headed out to hit just about every place we could think of - we were at Jinju's production facility, Chef Rubber, a couple of thrift stores (my tea mug had broken in transit), Ethel M chocolates, and I'm sure a few other places I've forgotten already. Oh yeah Lee's Discount Liquors.  

 

Breakfast was at Chocolate and Spice Bakery.

 

 

An omelet and ham in a croissant.  

 

 

Had to try In and Out burger for the first time.  Burgers 'animal style' with double fried fries for me.  

 

 

Root beer float.  

 

 

Dinner at Umami Burger - a Jose Andres restaurant in the SLS hotel and casino.  Classic burger for me - parmesan frico, roasted tomato.

 

 

Smooshed Potatoes to share.

 

 

Onion rings to share.

 

 

Jose Burger - pork, serrano ham and manchego cheese with piquillo pepper.  

 

 

Cali burger - avocado, caramelized onion.

 

 

 

 

Two different ice cream sandwiches.  

 

 

[gfweb]

Kerry, tell us more about the container park please.  Is it a pop-up shopping center of sorts?

[Smithy]

What a series of feasts! I can't decide whether the burgers or the Thai food make me more hungry. I'm definitely nostalgic for an In and Out Burger now, and I know what greasy things they are.

[rotuts]

I love InNOut.  Im pleased there are none near me.

 

Id gain 15 lbs, of the worst kind.

 

when I think about it, they shouldn't be so tasty, but they are.

[Anna N]

You can have your burgers but could I ask for a doggy bag from Lotus of Siam, please? I am insanely jealous of the good company you're keeping - Chocolot and Alleguede!

[Deryn]

I am with Anna. The Thai food made me salivate. Thanks for the luscious food updates. Hope you are all enjoying your course.

[Kerry Beal]

Kerry, tell us more about the container park please.  Is it a pop-up shopping center of sorts?

I think it's a little more permanent than that - each retired container makes up a small store.  Shared bathrooms and common areas.  A bit of green space in there as well.

[Kerry Beal]

Last night's dinner at China Poblano - another Jose Andres restaurant in the Cosmopolitan Hotel.

 

 

Chrysanthemum tea for Romina.  

 

 

 

Assorted tacos.  

 

 

Siu mai.  

 

 

When PIgs Fly - steamed buns.

 

 

Another unidentified taco.  

 

 

Jiaozi.

 

 

A poor choice of a cocktail - mezcal, cynar, grapefruit, ginger beer - sounded like it should be good - tasted like cleaning fluid.  Returned to the bar.

 

 

Vegetable fried rice.  

 

 

Shrimp Mojo.

 

 

Dan dan noodles.

 

 

Golden PIgs - fried steamed buns.

 

 

Lamb potstickers - stuck on you.

 

After a bit of a walk and people watching - we decided to hit Serendipity 3 for some ice cream. 

 

 

Ro ordered carrot cake sunday - not realizing it came with an entire piece of cake (actually only half a piece the server noted!) 

 

 

Alleguede had a cookie sundae with some long unpronounceable name.  

 

 

Frozen hot chocolate for Chocolot.  

 

 

Hot fudge sunday for myself.  

 

Gotta hit the sack now - will try to post today's meals in the morning.  

 

 

[SylviaLovegren]

Looks like you're eating light! 

[Kerry Beal]

Back to Lotus of Siam again last night - with 4 people you can have more dishes!

 

 

Fried dumplings.  

 

 

Of course the crispy rice.  

 

 

Fresh rolls.

 

 

And Garlic Pepper shrimp again. 

 

 

Crispy duck with drunken noodles.

 

 

Fried rice with crab.

 

 

Stir fried veg with pork belly chunks.  

 

 

[Kerry Beal]

I've been busier panning than taking pictures at the course.  And a lot that I have taken have people in them so I'm not willing to post.

 

It was wonderful to see a delightful fellow that I did the Wybauw course with in 2007 - report here.

 

We are using the little pans that go on the kitchen aid that are made by DR in Canada. Maximum is around 5 lbs of product that you can get out of them.  So while they are not practical for production they are great for working up a recipe.  

 

The first day we made some pretty lumpy product (too much cold air) and lots of doubles (adding chocolate too fast) - but by the second day we were starting to get the hang of it and most items were pretty round with a minimum of aggravation.  

 

 

So really only two pictures for you - 

 

 

Chocolot reaching in to the panner (you need to keep a hand on what's going on in there).

 

 

Our hazelnut M&M like things - they have a hazelnut, milk chocolalte, sugar coating, more coloured white chocolate.  We will be polishing them today.  

 

[Deryn]

My gosh - you must have rolled out of the ice cream factory! What fun.

And, you say there is a panning bowl that fits on a Kitchen Aid .. made in Canada no less? You may get me hooked on chocolate yet, Kerry!

[Kerry Beal]

 

Polishing our M&Ms.  

 

 

An evaluation of each item.

 

 

The final outcome.

 

[rotuts]

I dont quite get the sense of the action of the panning bowl

 

thanks for the second pic.

 

does the inner bowl rotate to create the spheres ?  the outer bowl for adding / withdrawing ?

 

what part of the KA does the inner bowl attach to to get its power ?

 

thanks.

[Kerry Beal]

The whole bowl rotates - the kitchen aid hub on the front of the machine provides the drive.  You have your hand in there constantly to break up doubles, assess how the product is drying, whether it is getting lumpy etc.  

 

I can see what you mean by an inner bowl on the picture with the green M&Ms - but there is only a single bowl.  

[Kerry Beal]

A few more odds and ends that we produced.  

 

 

 

 

Raisins.  

 

 

Either cherries or cranberries.  

 

 

Malt balls. 

 

[Kerry Beal]

Last night we had dinner at Pho Kim Long -

 

 

 

 

 

Various appetizers.  

 

 

Pho for me.  

 

 

A chicken dish of some sort for Alleguede.  

 

A couple of bun were had as well as mayo shrimp.  Too many people in the pictures.  

[Kerry Beal]

Two of us were left this morning after we dropped Chocolot at the airport - so we headed off to 'Eat' in the old part of town right next to the container park.  

 

 

Shrimp and grits for me. 

 

 

Truffled egg sandwich for Ro.  

 

Grabbed a bottle of Laphroig at the duty free for the hubby.

 

Food on the plane was not worth photographing (or eating for that matter)! 

 

Luggage totalled about 75 lbs and included a fair amount of panned product, a heat sealer that was a freebie with the freeze dryer but I had delivered to Chocolot, an extra set of trays for the freeze dryer, a bunch of mylar bags and oxygen absorbers, bottle of Lost Spirit rum, some transfer sheets and coloured cocoa butter, cheese and salumi...

 

[rotuts]

thank you for the thread

 

Im unlikely to get to LV any time soon or even later than that.

 

but I know what to do :

 

go directly to  Lotus of Siam, order lots and lots of stuff.  every calamari dish for example

 

get a booth or corner table out of the way

 

eat very slowly.

 

when closing time comes around  ( im still eating slowly, you see )  Ill ask for all the extra stuff 'cartoned-up'

 

pay

 

slip under that out of the way table and stay there.  Ill not go hungry over night.

 

fiddle and faddle in the morning and Im ready for Lunch and Re-Peat for Dinner !

Edited December 9, 2014 by rotuts (log)

[Anna N]

I did not get the doggy bag I asked for from Lotus of Siam but look what I did get!

A selection of beautifully made and beautifully packaged chocolates from Chocolot

And a selection of the product that was panned from Kerry Beal

And I bet that doggy bag would be pretty high by now.

[Smithy]

Beautiful! Beautiful work, and thank you for posting photos of that excellent-looking food. (Rotuts, make room for me under that table.) Anna, you scored big-time!

Question regarding the panner: to what extent does the shape of the 'kernel' determine the shape of the finished product? The raisins still have a dimply oblong shape, whereas most of the other chocolates do not. If you rolled those raisins long enough would you get a sphere, or at least a smoother shape?

It's fun to see what I know from minerals processing as a balling drum scaled down to candy size and producing such beautiful product.

[Kerry Beal]

Indeed enough chocolate would probably round out the raisins - but there wouldn't be enough raisin to taste.  The typical Glossette panned raisins have that nice lumpy look.