I usually stay away from fast food baked goods as they're generally not tasty enough to waste money or calories on, but I was offered one for free about a month ago and was blown away by how delicious it was. It's probably the best chocolate chip cookie I've ever tasted that I didn't make myself. They use whole oats, both semi-sweet and milk chocolate chunks, and they're nice and soft even if you don't get one that came straight out of the oven. Most of the time they're still warm and gooey when you get your order, but I've found them to be just as good a few hours later when they're cool and less messy.

I've always liked Chick-fil-a so I wasn't surprised that they could pull off a good cookie if they put their mind into it, I was just surprised that it was *that* good. They're absolutely dangerous.

Haven't been myself, but I read someone else's trip report who visited right after it opened who hated the pasta dish he ordered, but tried and really liked the entrees that other people in his party ordered (wasn't specific about what those were).

I forget where the recipe came from as it's so easy and I've made it so often I know it by memory, but it's 1.5c sugar, .25c corn syrup, .25c water, 5 tbsp of butter, 2 tsp sea salt and 1c cream. I cook the sugar, water and syrup first and add the melted, butter, warmed cream and salt after the sugar mixture's hit 248 rather than having all the ingredient cooking for the beginning. When I do add chocolate (I usually make them plain), I just pour in 2-3 oz of melted chocolate toward the end. Turns out well. :)

I was going to have some of both. I prefer regular old salt caramels in there too, just have others for variety. I'll look into the aromatic idea though.

Hello! My mother's birthday is coming up and she's been obsessed with the salted caramels I've been making occasionally, so I thought I might give her a sort of home-made caramel sampler for her birthday that would branch out a little from my tried and true salt caramel recipe. Adjusting my caramel recipe into a chocolate caramel recipe should be easy enough, but I was unsure as to what the spice/sugar ratio would be for a moderately spiced chocolate caramel or at which stage I should add them to my mixture (with the cream and butter, or closer toward the end?). I was thinking of using a combo of cinnamon and cayenne but am open to suggestion there.

Thanks!
.

Hello! Was hoping for some dining advice as I don't have much experience with Vegas and the number of dining options available is overwhelming! I've only been to Vegas once before and that trip was for a wedding so I didn't have much chance to explore what the strip has to offer. I know dining in Vegas, especially on the strip, isn't going to be cheap so I do mean "moderately priced" by Vegas standards rather than what I'd consider moderately priced at home. So maybe a ballpark cost of $50 per person for an entree and dessert, not including drinks which can obviously inflate that total fast!

This is a girls only trip and we're nongamblers so we're not looking for places to just get in, eat quickly and get out. We're not looking for the cheapest place to eat, just a few not-quite-so-extravagant venues as we can't afford to splurge every night. We're staying at the Flamingo, but don't necessarily want to stick to eating at one of the neighboring properties as we had planned on exploring many of the different hotels on the strip and are prepared to do quite a bit of walking anyway. So long as using a cab isn't necessary to get there, it's fine. We're in our late 20s but aren't really looking for restaurants that cater to a youthful crowd and we're pretty openminded about different cuisines so we'd would welcome suggestions from all different types of restaurants. And while I think this likely goes without saying on this forum, we'd prefer not to eat at chain restaurants that we can frequent at home. Also I know a lot of restaurants have been releasing price fixed menus that are more affordable than eating a la carte, and we have been looking at those. It's just tough to tell from which restaurants are actually worth our time and money based on what they're putting on their menu, so specific suggestions are particularly welcome.

Thanks in advance!