December 13, 2007

mmm-yoso!!! is the blog…all about food…sometimes with some interesting tidbits thrown in for variety and written by a small group of friends. Today, it is Cathy’s turn.

Hi. It is that time of year again-
Yes, The National Finals Rodeo is in Las Vegas -49th Annual, Best of the Best…and Ms. T and I drove there (and are back) and we had a wonderful time. We were here last year, you may recall.

We went shopping on Monday, to the Cowboy Christmas -an art, craft, gift and accessories show at the Convention Center, and then wanted lunch, and knew that the "main drag" for Asian restaurants was on Spring Mountain Road, so we just drove, looked and…stopped.Dae Jang Keum is in a Pagoda Themed Strip Mall on the South Side of Spring Mountain along with two other restaurants advertising "tofu" on their signage. We just picked this one at random and hoped for the best. (There was a sign on the front door advertising 20% off from 11 pm to 8 am, daily…it is open 24/7…for BBQ!…cool)
The interior is neat, clean and each table with a heat source has the ubiquitous fan (and table number) far above. The fans are extremely efficient-and quiet. I did not even think ours was on.We decided to play it safe, and ordered bulgogi beef and chicken-this is half of the serving.
and this is the other half. We could not finish all of the meat…(which was well marinated, tender and with a very slight malty-sweetness, which balanced well with a salty kick) because we got the wonderful side dishes:

lettuce salad, bean sprout salad, broccoli, rice, rice paper, various kim chees, oyster mushrooms cut in chunks, sauces, raw garlic and jalapeno slices…all refilled when they were emptied and all very fresh, very, very tasty, spicy and wonderful.
When we first ordered, we were hungry and also asked for the fried dumplings-and we devoured half of them immediately. Ten in a serving.
This is cross section of the juicy very flavored pork filled delights, which were fried to a very light crisp.
The whole bill-less than $53 and worth it. We did not know the servings would be so large or that we would get refills of kim chee or any of the other sides, or would not have needed to order the fried dumplings, but they were very tasty.