Las Vegas is a magical place. I am lucky that I live so close to it. I am able to go there a lot. On Saturday afternoon I went there with the Nielsen clan for dinner and to buy some shaving cream at The Art of Shaving. It is always an impossible debate and game of give and take when debating where to eat dinner with the Nielsen clan, but we were finally able to settle on a Chinese place called Red 8 at The Wynn. The red 8 on the outside of the menu is pictured above.

Some might say I have strange taste in food. Occasionally I enjoy the exotic and forbidden. Las Vegas Chinese restaurants are often able to provide the exotic and forbidden with creative dishes that can cost up to $200. I don't splurge and drop hundreds on Shark Fin Soup, but when I see a $20 dish of Oxtail Stew (pictured above), I just can't resist!

My first exposure to oxtail was in Zimbabwe. It wasn't a very exotic thing really, we had little soup packets we would mix into sauces to give them flavor. The best tasting packet was oxtail flavored. Later on mission I had a chance to try oxtail soup at a members house. This oxtail soup had real chunks of bone and meat in it. It was savory and delicious.

The flavor of oxtail soup is a little tangy at first. The afternote is savory and long lasting. This differs greatly from normal beef stew which is savory upfront and then fades away quickly. Oxtail soup is a dish that many people my age would never try. They are missing out on real great food when all they will order is a dish of stir-fried noodles.