Hospitality School Capstone Lunch At UNLV

Capstone Lunches are three course meals created and served by the seniors in the College of Hospitality Management at UNLV.  For these students, the lunches are part of a credit course, and the students do everything, from planning the decor and menus, to actually running the event – from set up, to food service and preparation, to break down.  Each of these special events is planned by the students, and a different theme is created and implemented

This particular lunch event was a 50s dinner theme.  This is a special review, since it is being co-written by my friend Emilie, who is a film major at UNLV.  She’s gone to a few of these Capstone lunches as well, so doing this as a co-production was an easy step. Since there are two options for every course, we decided to order both options between the two of us and each taste test the serving. We then each wrote our opinions on everything we ordered.

My Appetizer: Pigs in a Blanket

The Pigs in a Blanket were sausage wrapped in a croissant. There was everything bagel seasoning on the top. This was my favorite thing I ordered. I thought the sausage was super juicy. I also thought the crescent was super flaky. It tasted really good with the spicy mustard. It added a new layer to the dish.

Emilie’s Appetizer: Cobb Salad

For my appetizer I ordered the Cobb Salad. Normally at the Capstone Lunches I try to avoid salad because as Jessica knows, I hate vegetables! I’ve recently been trying to make healthy changes to my diet and wanted to try something new, so here we are. Firstly, I thought the salad was absolutely delicious. I specifically enjoyed the boiled eggs that were seasoned with  vinaigrette dressing. Overall it was delicious, however I did have one problem with the salad, I found a large piece of eggshell in my salad which hurt to eat. Otherwise I did enjoy the salad.

My Main Dish: Smashburger with French Fries

I was excited to try this one.  It was called a Smashburger because the burger patties are smashed down. This makes the patties juicier. The bun on it was super soft. I think it was a brioche bun. I also thought the patties were super juicy.

Emilie’s Main Dish: Chicken Tenders

For my main dish I had the most wonderful crunchy chicken tenders, fries, and coleslaw. The chicken was seasoned to perfection. I looked straight at Jessica from across the table and told her to try my food! I am not exaggerating; the food was that good! Overall I had no complaints with the entrée.

My Dessert: Apple Crisp

I liked this a lot. It was apples with cinnamon glaze, oats, and a streusel crumble. It was all topped with ice cream.  It reminded me of apple pie. I liked the oats in it. It added a good crunch. The  ice cream on top was amazing as well.

Emilie’s Dessert: Banana Split

I was not a fan of dessert. Honestly, I was a bit disappointed with dessert. For dessert I ordered the banana split. The banana split was put together really sloppily and unproportioned. I didn’t think there was enough ice cream on my banana split. There was a lot of whip cream and chocolate sauce which was great, but without the ice cream I didn’t feel like I was eating a banana split.

My Drink: Arnold Palmer

An Arnold Palmer is a half-iced tea half lemonade drink. If you know me personally or have been reading my blog for a while you may know my favorite drink is tea. I was excited to try this. I had never ordered this drink at a restaurant before. The only time I had tried it was when I made it in the dining hall. However I was a bit disappointed. This drink did not taste like tea at all. I could only taste the lemonade. On the plus side it was super refreshing and reminded me of summer.

Emily’s Drink: Shirley Temple

This drink was originally a drink made with vodka. I asked for it without vodka. The first one I got was amazing. It had so much flavor. I liked it so much I asked for another one. Unfortunately this time they put vodka in it by mistake. It was so bad.  I asked Jessica to try it and she thought it tasted like nail polish remover smells.

Service

The service at this place was slow. It took us about 30 minutes to get our desserts. We told the server we were in a rush, but the service was still slow.  Emily had to leave for work, so I took our deserts to go and brought it to her work.

Ambiance

I really enjoyed the ambience. I loved the color scheme of the tables. The tables were decorated with a tiffany blue tablecloth and bright red napkins and red flowers. The centerpieces were 1950’s T-Bird model cars all ranging in color from lavender, pink, lime green, yellow, red, and blue. Displayed on two separate projectors in the dining hall, the movie Singing in the Rain was playing. The movie felt like a trip back in time. I liked that the movie was not playing loudly because there was other 1950’s music playing in the background. It was cool to watch the movie and just focus on the set design of the time period.

In conclusion, this was not the best capstone that I have been too, but it was not the worst either. I thought that Emily’s food and drinks were better than mine.