How come I am just now finding out about this Houston trio? (It is Thai for ‘airplane’)
Sunday Bike Ride
Mama Bird
Over on the Ikea side of town is a small southern kitchen called Mama Bird. Lots of fun stuff on the menu for sure. The Chicken / Waffle / Mac-n-Cheese sandwich was a must try. The MMAD hot option is hot – but not Howlin’ Ray or Mattie B hot. The waffle was a bit undercooked and soggy, but the chicken was very moist, the mac-n-cheese was amazing. This is a strong #2 chicken waffle vote for me outside of the Whiskey Cake in San Antonio. The deviled eggs were good along with the cake in a jar. We need to go back to try the brisket.
Hmong Egg Rolls
There were a number of Hmong immigrants in MN / WI in the 80s. They were the hill people of Cambodia/Laos/Thailand. My college roommate had to sneak out of the country through a trail of land mines to get out. His uncle brought over the family one at a time, taught them the language and a job in the family business. They were good hard working people who knew the dangers of socialism. They were not welfare queens.
Anyway, there were a large number of Vietnamese restaurants up north that were really Hmong style cooking. Vietnamese restaurants now are all about the pho. I have been having trouble finding really good Vietnamese food in Vegas much less traditional Hmong style I grew up with.
Luckily, I have a secret weapon named Tomoko. I showed her pictures of what I was looking for and she snooped through a number of recipes on line. Bingo. 5 out of 5 stars on the first attempt. These have wrappers that blister like the Chinese version (not Thai) and have glass noodles, pork, carrot, shrimp, and other goodies inside. The Hmong also have a weird fish sauce for dipping unlike the standard sweet and sour commonly served.
Paella for the People
Paella is a traditional Spanish rice dish. It is made with arborio rice and you dump in whatever leftovers you have in the fridge. The best I had was on the beaches of Spain 20 years ago. Valencian Gold just re-opened in Vegas. It is not often you find paella on a menu so we had to try. Firefly also does paella but the original location is dark and dreary inside. VG has a nice bright location and atmosphere. I would have preferred a different music selection than the rap crap playing. They have real Iberian jamon hanging from the ceiling and cook the paella in real pans over an open fire. We chose a couple of tapas and the seafood paella. It wasn’t excessively large so we had room for dessert. Food presentation was top notch.
Evening bike ride
Perfect weather for a bike ride to watch the sun set. There is a hidden park up in the hills nearby with giant sculptures of reptiles. The flying club who does the 4th of July flyovers was out practicing too.
MagicMirror #2 Rebuild
I built three MagicMirror variations about 5 years ago and they have been running non stop without issue until last week. #2 stopped getting data and when I manually ran updates the whole thing ‘shit the bed’ as we say. I had a backup file and that did not work either so I figured I would just start over from scratch. I had an extra Gen4 Raspberry Pi laying around just like the one running this web site. I put in the newest OS, the newest MM software, rewrote some scripts and after a day of tweeking the config file, it is running again. All text is in white but the monitor is behind stained glass to give it the color.
Top Left
- Analog Clock
- Planet Rise
Top Right
- Current Weather
- Weather Forcast
- National Radar Map
- Cryptocurrency (BTC was under 2000 when I build the first one)
Middle
- EARTH (DSCOVR sattelite 1 million miles out sends a picture every hour)
- NewsFeed – revolver.news
Yamaha goes to Overton
In the spirit of bike rotation I took the ’08 Yam WR250X out to Overton with the gang. The little 250 held it’s ground with the big boys until they wanted to take highway 15 back. The dirtbike gets blown around by trucks and tops out about 70mph – so I took the twisty road back home. That is such a fun bike to ride.
Sammy’s
This week’s dining adventure took us to Sammy’s in Henderson. This has been on our list for so long neither of us knew when or why or who recommended this place. No reservations, no masks, no waiting, and got a seat by the windows right by the garden with bunnies and birds.
Pizza was really good with lots of basil. Roasted brussel sprouts are always a favorite. Both were half off during happy hour. The prices are very reasonable and we will come back.
It also happens to be across the street from Cinnaholic – the mocha roll sadly did not survive long enough for a picture.
Jasmine Rice
Way out in the hinterlands of Henderson lies a tiny Thai Restaurant that came highly recommended. The atmosphere at Jasmine Rice is great. They had a live singer playing hits from the 70s on guitar in a slow almost Hawaiian style. We were lucky to call ahead for reservations as there were a lot of people outside who could not get in. Of course the singer had to stand behind plexiglass, which was weird, but we have retards making these laws.
I strayed from my usual panang curry to try the fried rice. It was very good as it had a lot of things in it. Not as aromatic as Indian Biryani and not as exotic as a good Spanish Paella but a solid 3rd in the world of rice dishes. For those of you who have never had Asian eggplant, you are missing out. It is very different than the big seedy ones we see here in the grocery stores.
