They’re not in Belgium.  They’re in Denver, Colorado, at a little joint called Waffle Brothers.  I don’t even care that the two waffles I just ate are going to cost me about 30 miles on the treadmill.  They were worth it.  Just look at these:

I had one with marshmallow cream cheese and another with Nutella.  And now I’m ruined for all food.

Waffle engineers John and Rod spent over a year developing their perfect waffle recipe — using a special imported Belgian sugar that melts into each waffle as it cooks, while some caramelizes on the outside, giving each waffle a kick of sweetness and just the right texture.  You can get your waffle dressed up with fruits or sauces, either in preselected combinations on the menu, or you may build your own from a long list of yummy extras.

These waffles are seriously my new favorite thing.  If you’re not lucky enough to check out Waffle Brothers in Denver, you can order Waffle Brothers waffles online.  Need a Father’s Day gift idea?  Send a bag of waffles.  Seriously, it’s way better than golf clubs.

Bon apetit.

Located practically in the center of The Palazzo’s casino floor, Fusion Mixology Bar is a unique kind of oasis.  The circular bar has its own music piped in, and Fusion definitely has its own atmosphere — a hip, chill escape right in the middle of casino chaos.

Each month, Fusion mixologists create a new specialty cocktail.  With St. Patrick’s Day in mind, mixologist Wendy Verdel created The Height of Folly to be March’s featured cocktail.  The drink is a beautiful mix of Bushmills Irish Whiskey, Bailey’s Irish Cream, Half n Half syrup, and simple syrup garnished with a green white chocolate swirl in the glass.  It tastes like pure joy.

Far more than bartenders, Wendy and her fellow Fusion mixologists are true artists.  Tell them what you like and they’ll create something you didn’t know you could love so much.  In addition to their monthly specials, mixologists will create personalized cocktails for your parties, weddings, or just whatever mood you bring to the bar.  Stop by Fusion and prepare to be blown away.

I know it’s not cool for a journalist to get all giddy in her reviews.  We’re supposed to be experts in our field — we’ve seen and done it all, and we’re jaded.  We’re not supposed to use superlatives; we’re not supposed to impress easily.  But I’m more blogger than journalist, and I’m honest.  You guys — Zine is superlatively impressive.

A good blogger also writes about more interesting things than what she had to eat for dinner — but you guys!  Let me tell you about what I had for dinner!

Now that I’ve broken all those rules, I’ll break one more and admit that I’m not an expert food critic.  My friend Alex loves to laugh about the time I was helping him cook for a party and he asked me to hand him the ginger.  I failed, because I didn’t know what ginger looked like.  My complete lack of cooking knowledge precludes me from ever being a real food critic, but I have fully functional taste buds, and they were thrilled with my meal at Zine, the luxurious, authentic Asian restaurant on the casino level of The Palazzo in Las Vegas.

Have I mentioned yet that I’m not a food critic? I don’t have a food critic’s vocabulary, but one word is all I need to describe the taste of each of my five courses: exceptional.  I never knew a salad could pack so much flavor, but you’ve got to try the mandarin salad at Zine if you want to have lettuce that tastes intense.  And I’ll bet you thought tofu was tofu, right? Not so. Room chef Danny Choi created a tofu masterpiece for my main course — braised tofu with veggies and mushrooms, and vegetable fried rice.

The real food critics have already decided, without my input, that Zine Executive Chef Simon To runs one of the finest Chinese restaurants in the United States, and whether my input matters or not, I agree with them.  Each time I tasted one of the dishes set in front of me, my first thought was “Oooh!  This is my favorite!”  You just can’t go wrong.

The atmosphere inside Zine is perfect for a quiet, romantic date night.  Take a time out from the wild and crazy Vegas experience and enjoy your evening in this beautiful restaurant, decorated in a contemporary Asian style.  Soft, almost unnoticeable music and gentle orange light create a very peaceful environment to relax and enjoy the best meal available on the Strip.

The food critics will tell you essentially the same thing, with fancier words and probably more to say about the food itself — but writing as someone who likes to eat dinner, Zine is the place to do it.  Zine is open from 11am to 1am daily.  Call (702) 607-2220 for reservations.

Lagasse’s Stadium is a new theme restaurant at The Palazzo on the Las Vegas strip.  That’s Lagasse as in renowned celebrity chef Emeril Lagasse, and Stadium as in where you go to watch sports.  This is the restaurant part of The Palazzo’s sports book, and it’s like no other sports book in Vegas.

Chef Emeril, a big sports fan, has been heavily involved with every aspect of this restaurant to ensure visitors an enjoyable dining, sports, and gaming experience.  The menu choices include stadium classics like nachos, burgers, and beer, but also steaks, seafood, fancy soups, salads, and sides, and delicious desserts.  It’s the selection and quality you’d expect from a world class chef, but the prices aren’t what you might guess.  Menu items start at $6, and lots of entrees are under $15.  Next week, Lagasse’s Stadium will introduce a new menu with expanded vegetarian options.

In here, even the worst seat (I couldn’t find a bad one) offers better views than 90% of the seats at any sports book in town.  Each table in the restaurant has at least one flatscreen television to itself, or you can sit in the super comfy stadium seats that face the big screen at the front of the restaurant.  You won’t have to fight over seats with your buddies, because you can all see whatever game you want to see from anywhere in the place.  You can place sports book bets while you eat, and with the PocketCasino gaming devices available here, you can place bets from the comfort of your own seat — and more bets than you ever imagined.  In a football game, for instance, you can place a bet on every down.  Lagasse’s Stadium is the only place on the strip that has PocketCasino.  You could say that Lagasse’s takes the sports book and kicks it up a notch!  (Couldn’t resist.)

In addition to stadium, table, and bar seating, Lagasse’s has a year-round patio, with heaters for when it gets chilly, and great views of the Treasure Island show across Las Vegas Blvd at night.  Then there are sky boxes — semi-private box seats at the top of the stadium — and luxury boxes — private rooms available for group rentals.  The luxury boxes accommodate groups of 5 to 50 people, and each is equipped with televisions, an iPod dock so you can play your own tunes, and a Wii console stocked with lots of games.  Fun fact: Vanna White uses luxury boxes 4 & 5 as her dressing room when she films Wheel of Fortune in Vegas.

Inside one of Vanna's dressing rooms

Lagasse’s Stadium is still a brand new addition to the Vegas restaurant scene, but it’s already become a favorite hangout for celebs and tourists alike.  If you want seats here for a big game, you’re going to need reservations.  For really big games, you’ll need reservations way in advance.  Call 702-607-2665 to reserve your spot at Lagasse’s Stadium.  This is a must for any sports fan.

I change time zones like some people change clothes.  That means a lot of long, cross-country flights and a lot of meals in airports.  The last thing you want on a five-hour flight is an upset stomach, so you really have to be careful what you eat on travel days.  Keep in mind that if your flight encounters turbulence, the crew won’t allow you to get up and use the lavatories, so you don’t want to eat anything that could be cause for a potential gastronomical emergency.

In addition to bathroom logistics, your flight schedule can throw your meal plan for a loop.  Often you’ll have the choice of a 10:30am lunch or no real food again until 4pm.  If you do eat the earlybird lunch, you’re going to be hungry for dinner when you land at 4, and if you give in to that craving, you’ll want another meal before bed, won’t you?  It’s a mess.

My last cross country flight was a 5+ hour ride from DC to San Francisco on United, and they didn’t even serve a snack on that trip!  Five effing hours and all I got was one tiny cup of oj.  Not even a half a handful of pretzels.  Any 60+ minute flight on Southwest and you get two beverage services and all the free cookies, crackers, pretzels, and peanuts you can handle.

My point, though, is that it’s hard to plan your meals around your flight schedule, and you know you’re taking a risk any time you order an airport burrito.  My solution is to carry a box of meal replacement bars in my carry-0n luggage.  Thanks to a year of dieting, I’ve tried all the brands, and my clear favorite is the Special K Choclatey Chip Protein Bar.

The Special K meal bars are available in five different flavors — all are yummy, but the three different chocolate flavors (Choclatey Chip, Double Chocolate, and Chocolate Peanut Butter) taste like candy bars.  You can find them at just about any grocery store — they’ll be with the diet food like Slim Fast shakes and other meal replacement products, and a box of six usually sells for $5-$7.  The bars are about the size of a large candy bar, and are approximately 180 calories each, with 10g of protein and 5g of fiber to help you feel full and satisfied.

If you try these and don’t like them (I can’t imagine!), sample a few other brands of snack or meal replacement bars.  I also really like Fiber One (though these aren’t as filling), and the Slim Fast bars are tolerable, but not delicious.  Stash a few of your favorite meal replacement bars in your carry on luggage, and eating and hunger will be much smaller concerns the next time you fly.

When I was a kid, I went to basketball camp every summer, where I got to work one on one with some of the best players and coaches in women’s basketball at the time.  These were my celebrities and I loved getting that brief time with them at my camp each year.  I also got incredible instruction that helped me become a much better athlete.  How often do adults get opportunities like this?  I don’t think Dawn Staley is interested in helping me with my jump shots anymore, but let’s say I wanted to hone some other skill, like cooking — there’s a camp for that, and just reading about it made my mouth water.

Truffled Egg

La Toque restaurant at The Westin Verasa, Napa is one of just 12 restaurants in the world to feature a truffle menu, and for three days this January, executive chef and owner Ken Frank will open his kitchen and share his techniques with students at his Second Annual Truffle Camp.  Who says kids have all the fun — this sounds way better than basketball camp!

Truffle Camp kicks off on Sunday, January 17 with a welcome reception with Chef Frank, followed by a regional French dinner in BANK Café and Bar.  On Monday morning, students will meet at 9am in the La Toque kitchen for a three-hour hands on cooking class with Chef Frank, preparing a truffle-themed feast to eat for lunch.  In the afternoon, the group will take a field trip to Long Meadow Ranch to tour the farm and taste its products.

Chef Ken Frank

Tuesday brings a second cooking class with Chef Frank, where students will again prepare a truffle-themed lunch.  In the afternoon, you’ll meet La Toque Wine Director Scott Tracy for a private tour and barrel tasting of an exclusive winery not open to the public.  Tracy will teach the group about pairing wines with truffle cuisine.  That evening, you’ll dine on an extravagant All Truffle Dinner at La Toque, featuring Scott Tracy’s wine selections.

Truffle Camp’s last hurrah is a truffle omelet breakfast on Wednesday morning.  Is your mouth watering yet?

When you leave, you’ll be sent home with a truffle goodie bag so you can practice your new culinary skills at home.  (The only thing I ever brought home from basketball camp was sore muscles.)

The Second Annual Truffle Camp runs January 17-19, 2010, at The Westin Verasa, Napa.  The cost is $1800 per student based on single occupancy or $3000 per couple based on double occupancy.  All the meals, wine, accommodations, activities listed above, and gratuities are included in this price.  This year’s Truffle Camp is limited to 12 students, so book now if you want to go.  You can make reservations at www.WestinNapa.com.  This would be a wonderful gift for someone who loves to cook fine foods.

Truffle Camp is only three days, but Napa Valley has a lot to offer — you may want to extend your reservations to enjoy Napa’s other attractions.  The Westin Verasa, Napa is just two blocks west of Downtown Napa and very convenient to all of the Valley’s hottest attractions, like the wine train, wineries and the Oxbow Public Market.

I’ve been a vegetarian for 18 years.  For nearly the last two decades, every time I’ve gone out to eat, I’ve had at most three choices:  the veggie burger (meh), the pasta (whatever), or the salad (hardly a taste sensation).  When I came to Hawaii, I was prepared to eat a lot of salad in the state known for its delicious seafood.  (I’m a strict vegetarian — eggs and dairy are fine, but no fish.)  I had no idea just how well I was going to eat!  I spent four days at the beautiful Kapalua Resort in Maui, where yes, all of the restaurants specialize in seafood — which I heard from my companions was second to none — but they know how to feed a vegetarian here!  Choices!  I never get choices!  None did it better than the Plantation House Restaurant.

How's this for a view? Looking out from a table at Kapalua Resort's Plantation House Restaurant

Looking over the menu, I was initially a little bummed — there were several amazing fish creations, but it appeared once again I’d be “choosing” the pasta and contenting myself with the view, which was indeed stunning, overlooking the famous Plantation Golf Course and the Pacific Ocean.  As everyone scanned the menu, the server informed our table that the chef would happily prepare any of the fish dishes with a tofu substitute.  Mmm!

I know that many omnivores think “tofu” is a four-letter word, but really it’s all about the preparation, and my tofu dinner was prepared just like the artistic fish dishes my pals got to eat.  For once, I wasn’t halfheartedly picking at a plate of mush or leaves while my omnivore buddies enjoyed the meal of their lives.

Tofu on the left, catch of the day on the right. Images courtesy of Johnny at JohnnyJet.com

Look at that!  Doesn’t it make your mouth water?  This dish was called A Taste of Maui — pistachio-crusted, on Maui onions, local tomatoes, upcountry spinach, with couscous & olive oil.  I really appreciated that even with a diet that excludes the main part of a Hawaiian meal, Chef Alex at the Plantation House made it possible for me to experience a truly Hawaiian meal, and it was phenomenal.

Kapalua Farms Beet Salad -- this was my salad course, for which I would gladly fly back to Maui for one more bite. Image courtesy of Julie Wolfson.

Throughout my stay in Kapalua, I dined at several of the restaurants at the Ritz-Carlton Kapalua and Kapalua Resort property, and I always had choices and always ate very well.  All the restaurants utilize fresh local ingredients for an authentic Hawaiian dining experience.  Every restaurant on the property has several delicious and unique vegetarian options — more choices than I’ve ever had!  I want to extend extra kudos to the Plantation House Restaurant for majorly exceeding this lifelong vegetarian’s expectations.  Home run.

After our evening in Wendover, Nevada, Jess and I packed up early and hit the long and boring road to Reno.  When you’re driving through Western Utah and Nevada and you need to pee or get gas, even just a little bit, stop whenever you have the opportunity, because there won’t be another chance for many miles.

I’ve also driven to Reno from the northwest, and it’s the same story.  It’s pretty much a big city in the middle of hundreds of miles of nothingness.  Honestly, if you’re going there, I recommend flying.  But if you’re driving cross-country like we were, it’s pretty much the only place to stop.  And it’s not a bad place.

I have happy memories of Reno — it’s where I achieved the rank of Life Master in the ACBL at the 2007 Reno Regional Bridge Tournament — so I booked a night in the same hotel that I stayed in before:  The Grand Sierra Resort.

Following a string of no-star hotels and campgrounds, the Grand Sierra Resort was quite the upgrade.  The room was nice and spatious, the beds were the most comfortable I’ve had in a long time, and the pillows were the best ever.  The only complaint I have about the room is the internet connection.  For one thing, it’s $12.99 a day.  I’ve never stayed anywhere that charged more than $10/day, so that was a bummer, but the biggest nuisance was that it wasn’t wireless — you had to plug into an ethernet cable, which inconveniently would not reach all the way to the beds.  Given that I do most of my internetting before I get out of bed (including all my PT posts!), this was quite the hassle.  Get with the times, Grand Sierra.

Really, though, that’s my only complaint about this place.  It’s got so much else going for it.  I enjoy the casino, of course (which is large with good variety and table limits and has some of the friendliest dealers and cocktail waitresses in Nevada), but for those who don’t gamble, there’s plenty to do.  Grand Sierra has a bowling alley, a super cheap second run movie theater, a shopping mall, and tons of restaurants.  Jess and I ate at the Sierra Cafe, which is the only restaurant I’ve ever been to where you can order a $30 steak dinner, or a short stack of pancakes for $3.95.  (I had the pancakes.  They were delicious!)

The Grand Sierra casino has its pros and cons.  Pro:  low table limits.  Con:  not as many free offers with the comps program as you’ll find in other casinos.  Pro:  really good free cocktails.  Con:  easy to overdo it on really good free cocktails (not that I would know).  All in all, it is one of my favorite casinos, and a great place to stay if you’re passing through Reno.  Hopefully when I’m back there in December for the next bridge tournament, they’ll have wireless internet, too.

At the KOA in Moab, you can park your RV, pitch a tent, or rent one of these cozy cottages

In the tourism industry, brand names don’t always mean much.  Almost all hotels are independently owned, and I’ve learned that it takes a LOT for a hotel to lose its rights to the chain name.  So while all hotels in a chain will share signage and probably the same brand of mini shampoo, there can be vast differences between two hotels of the same name in two different cities.

We learned earlier this week that the same is true for campgrounds.  On Sunday night in Utah, we had a reservation at the KOA Kampground in Moab.  It was our first time camping out so far on our trip, but this place was much nicer than some of the hotels we’ve stayed in along the way!  Seriously, I could have vacationed here.  The place had free wi-fi, electricity at our campsite, very clean bathroom and shower facilities, a friendly staff, a pool, and lots to do, not to mention it was in a really gorgeous location.  So we didn’t have walls around us — who cares?  It’s the desert, so there’s not much risk of rain or even cold.

All in all, this was a great place to pitch our tents for the night, and I wouldn’t have minded staying a few nights at a place like this.  But we had a schedule to keep, and our next stop was many hours away in Wendover, Nevada, where we had reservations at another KOA for the evening.  I felt pretty good about that coming off our great experience in Moab, but when we finally arrived in Wendover, our hopes for a repeat of the previous night were quickly dashed.  Whereas the Moab KOA had been hopping with other travelers, the Wendover site was almost completely deserted, and the place looked a lot like a prison site.  Everything was locked down, and you needed to be let in to use any of the facilities.  You even needed a passcode to get into the bathrooms.  Though the place boasted free wi-fi, we couldn’t establish a connection anywhere on the site, and after trying to make the most of it for an hour or so, we decided it just wasn’t worth it and we found a hotel instead.

We ended up at the Red Garter Casino and Hotel for the night.  Their sign advertised $22/night rooms, but the best they would do for us was $27.  I was annoyed by the misleading signage only until we got to the room.  It’s no five star hotel, but the place was just as nice as most $75/night rooms I’ve had in the past.  It was totally adequate, and the casino had $3 two-deck blackjack.  I was a happy girl.

There’s not much to Wendover, a town of about 2,000 people, according to my blackjack dealer, but there are a handful of casinos — some more happenin’ than others.  The Red Garter seemed like one of the less happenin’ ones, but I recognized the Peppermill down the road from my time in Vegas.  I’d never been to a Peppermill casino, but they have an excellent restaurant in Sin City, so we went there for dinner in Wendover.  The waitresses were dressed much less scandalously, but the menu was the same as the Vegas restaurant, and we ate happily and relatively inexpensively that evening.  The Peppermill in Wendover is a hotel and casino as well, and it seemed to be the most bustling of all the places on Wendover’s “strip.”

I can’t imagine why anyone would choose Wendover, Nevada as a tourist destination, but as a stop on our long drive, it was just fine.  It was the logical point to break up the journey between Moab and Reno — there’s not much else along the road between those two spots, so unless you’re up for a very long day of driving, this is one of your few opportunities to actually sleep on a bed.  I don’t recommend the KOA in Wendover, but the cheap hotel room at the Red Garter was well worth it, and the Peppermill has some of the best food in Nevada.

Jess and I have scheduled our cross country drive with lots of flex time each day.  We’re only driving a few hundred miles at a time, so that if we see anything cool on the side of the road, we’ve got room in our schedule to pull off and do some exploring.  We woke up yesterday morning in Lexington, KY, and had to get to St. Louis by the evening.  We decided to stop for a little while in Louisville along the way.

Two separate Louisvillians actually recommended the same eatery to us, so the choice was obvious.  We arrived at Lynn’s Paradise Cafe in time for brunch, and we knew immediately that we would love it.  The super-kitschy diner had a gift shop inside and lots of weird art and photo-ops outside, which we enjoyed while waiting for our table.

Once seated, the servings were huge, the food was delicious, and our waitress had purple eyes.  Even at 11:30 on a Wednesday, the place was hopping.  It seemed like a hot tourist destination as well as a local hangout, and I’ve never had a better buttermilk biscuit.

After brunch, it was back on the road.  Driving on I-64 through Indiana, we saw a road sign for Marengo Cave, a US National Landmark.  Annoyed with road construction and slow traffic, it was the perfect place to pull off and be tourists.  It was a bit of a detour (the signs say five minutes off the exit, but it was more like ten or fifteen), but a worthy side trip.

In addition to cave tours, visitors can camp and go canoeing at Marengo Cave.  We just took the $13, 30-minute Crystal Palace tour, which is a short loop through several large rooms at the front of the cave.  The longer Dripstone Trail tour is $14.50 and goes through much more of the cave, but we didn’t have time for that.  I don’t know what we missed by skipping the longer tour, but I felt like we saw a lot on ours.  This was a great way to break up our drive, too, as the caverns are located in the middle of a long stretch of rather boring roadway (and road construction).

All in all, it was a great day for side trips, and I hope we can find some equally exciting roadside attractions today.  Stay tuned…