Since yesterday's post was getting a little out of hand, I broke my Insomnia Cookies review into two parts. Check out yesterday's post to see my thoughts on this company, the packaging, and their chocolate chip cookie.
I wasn't head over heels in love with the chocolate chip (even though it was delicious), but there are still 4 more delicious cookies to review!
I don't think I have ever mentioned this before, but I occasionally work in construction. That's right, I'm a construction worker by day and foodie blogger by night. (Sounds like an 80's movie, doesn't it?) It isn't a full time position, I occasionally do painting, finishing, sanding and detail work for my step-dad's company. I have a good eye for detail, so when he gets jobs in fancy (and insanely expensive) apartments in Philadelphia, I usually help out.
Why am I mentioning this? Well I was working with him today, doing some sanding, and there was an Insomnia Cookies store right next to our location! This is a franchise I had heard about a few years ago, and I was really excited to see that I could finally get some cookies to try for myself.
My mother wanted to treat me to a late lunch/early dinner, to celebrate my completion of the teacher prep program, so I let her pick the place.
It's been a while since I've eaten at Houlihan's, so I'm not sure how new this is, but they have an early bird dinner menu. You get a fountain drink, soup (or salad), an entree, and a dessert for under twenty bucks. Not too shabby.
I ordered:
- Cream of Broccoli Soup (The soup of the day)
- Chicken Stir-fry
- Crème Brûlée
Sadly, summer is coming to a close. I want to celebrate my last few days of freedom (before starting my final semester of college) by posting some summery foods. Nothing says summer like watermelon, so we’re kicking things off with a refreshing watermelon smoothie.
Time for another trip to Terakawa Ramen in Philadelphia.
This time I ordered… (From top to bottom.)
- Charshu Onigiri (Roast pork)
- Takoyaki
- Katsu Don
If you’ve been following me for a while you might remember that I have reviewed Terakawa Ramen before. You can read about the restaurant and it’s atmosphere HERE in my last post.
On to the food!
Right now, several restaurants in Collingswood are celebrating local farmers by using farm fresh ingredients to create special menus. At Inde Blue, you can create a 3 course meal from the farm fresh menu for $30.00 and you’ll also receive a coupon for $10.00 off your next order. (Not too shabby.)
I had actually made dinner reservations for Monday evening, but I had to cancel them due to my ER visit. So I re-booked a table for Friday night.
My 3 course meal consisted of:
- Aloo Makkai Tikki
spiced potato & corn kernel patties / house-made apple chutney- Twin Bombay Burgers
mustard & curry leaf flavored potato patties / tomato onion / green & tamarind chutney pao (indian style buns) / sweet potato pakora- Lasooni Naan nan withfresh garlic, butter & cilantro (not included in the farm fresh meal, but I ordered it anyway.)
- Banana Nirvana
I was down the shore with some friends and we stopped by the Route 66 diner on the boardwalk for dinner.
The building has a retro Doo Wop theme, just like the rest of Wildwood, and the servers perform choreographed dances to classic hits like Rockin’ Robin. It’s a cute place, and the atmosphere is fun, but the staff are the stars of the show. They went out of their way to accommodate us, and everyone we interacted with was extremely friendly and helpful.
For my meal I ordered one of the car themed burgers, the Galaxie, which was topped with blue cheese and hot sauce. Basically this is a buffalo burger. (I asked for the cheese sauce to be on the side, also this came with totmatoes, but I gave them to my boyfriend since I can’t really eat them.)
This was a very satisfying meal. The fries were crispy, the hot sauce was tangy, and the burger was well cooked. The cheese sauce tasted a lot like blue cheese dressing, so I just left it on the side. I usually eat my wings without any blue cheese anyway. (I’m a wing purist.) Everything down the shore is a little pricey, I got this meal for about $12.00, so the pricing at the Route 66 diner isn’t too bad.
I’d definitely eat there again, and I’d recommend it to anyone who is visiting the Jersey Shore.
© Maria Smith http://poison-and-antidote.net
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Sorry I missed yesterday’s post, I was in Chinatown with some friends celebrating Sean’s Birthday. (You might remember that I made him a birthday cake POSTED HERE.)
We rode the train into the city to grab lunch at Terakawa Ramen, and then we explored Chinatown to do some shopping. (I’ll post a mini haul to show you what I bought, but photos and reviews will be coming up soon.)
Terakawa Ramen is a relatively new restaurant here in Philly, it opened last July so it is almost 1 year old and it’s already getting good reviews. (There is a location in NY too.) The restaurant is very narrow, but that is typical for the buildings in Philly’s Chinatown. Thankfully the restaurant makes great use of the limited space. There are about 12 small tables available, and the seats at each table are small square stools that allow you to store bags underneath them (great for purses or your small shopping bags). If you’re not with a group or a party of people you can grab a seat at the bar.
I guess it’s kind of silly that I didn’t order ramen, since the place is called Terakawa Ramen and all, but I was in the mood for curry. The chicken cutlet curry platter came with a small green salad, white rice, sliced chicken cutlet, and delicious curry sauce with diced veggies. It was very reasonably priced and potions were HUGE. I wasn’t able to finish everything in one sitting so I had to take the last of my curry to-go.
The other day my mother and sister went to the farm to take care of my sister’s horse, and they got me a salad from Panera on the way home.
I LOVE Panera. I actually worked for Panera for several years as an associate trainer, and I can honestly say it is a great place to work and eat. I don’t have any food horror stories from behind the scenes, and I still go back to visit my old bosses and grab a bite to eat. (Unlike my time working at Friendly’s, I haven’t eaten there since 2004.)
The packaging Panera uses for their to-go salad orders has really changed. When I worked there, the clear plastic containers used in restaurants were used for to-go orders. Now, the company uses this nifty, waxed, cardboard box with a clear window. It functions the same way, stacks in the fridge the same way, but it feels more recyclable now. I’ll have to look into it, but I am pretty sure this is more Eco-friendly. I like it.
My sister and I went out to lunch today, and since I was craving sushi, we decided to go to Mikado. (I actually reviewed this place before and talked a bit about the atmosphere, here’s my last review.)
I ordered:
- 1 Amanda Roll
- Chicken Teriyaki Lunch Box
Mikado has an amazing lunch menu. (Plus you get a LOT for your money.) The “lunch box” special is $9.00 and there are a bunch of options to choose from: curry, sushi, teriyaki, yakitori, and many more. With that, you get a salad, miso soup, a spring roll, 4 California rolls, and white (or brown) rice. I chose the teriyaki style chicken and my sister picked the yakitori chicken. That was plenty of food already, but I HAD to get the Amanda roll. My sister’s name is Amanda, so it was too quirky a coincidence to pass up.
The food was delicious. (I’ve already raved about the ginger carrot salad dressing, so I’ll skip over that.)
I’m back from DC with some foodie photos!
I met a lovely gentleman in The National Portrait Gallery who recommended a local restaurant, The Matchbox. Sadly, I hit the dinner rush and the wait for food was a bit too long for me to have a meal. Instead, I grabbed a drink at the bar.
I like sweet drinks, so I ordered off the “girlie” drink menu.
vanilla peach tea
absolut vanilla / peach schnapps / peach puree / ginger ale / iced tea
For a mixed drink it was fairly strong, but nothing I couldn’t handle. The tea was really delicious, it tasted fresh brewed, and the puree was very sweet. The liquor mixed well with the other ingredients. I really liked this a lot! (Here is my review of Peach Schnaps on it’s own.)
It’s a shame I couldn’t grab any food here, the menu looks amazing, but I plan on checking them out the next time I’m in DC.
© Maria Smith http://poison-and-antidote.net
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It’s restaurant week in Collingswood! If any of you are New Jersey locals, you must know about Collingswood and it’s restaurants. For restaurant week, participating locations make a special menu for the event (usually 3-4 courses) and list it at a reasonable price. This is a great way to try something new. I have been looking forward to this for a while, and tonight my boyfriend and I ate at That’s Amore.
I had never been to this restaurant before, but I had heard very good things. I felt like their restaurant week menu was the best menu available. I was able to get a lovely 4 course meal for $35.00. (You also get a voucher for $10.00 off for a return visit)
I ordered:
- Grilled Caesar Salad with Pancetta Chips and Parmigiano Shavings
- Olive Oil Crostini with Artichoke & Olive Tapenade
- Grilled Citrus Scottish Salmon over Mascarpone Risotto
- Zabaglione Cream over Drunken Strawberries
My Salad was presented in a beautiful and interesting way, which was very enjoyable and easy to eat. The star of this dish was definitely the salty pancetta. All of the flavors worked very well together, but that pancetta was to die for.
It’s restaurant week in Collingswood! If any of you are New Jersey locals, you must know about Collingswood and it’s restaurants. For restaurant week, participating locations make a special menu for the event (usually 3-4 courses) and list it at a reasonable price.
Today my boyfriend and I stopped at Akira for a late lunch. I have actually eaten here before, but the restaurant week menu had a few things I wanted to check out.
I ordered:
- Gelato Hearts
Although I am not a huge fan of avocado, I really enjoyed this salad. It’s a basic green salad, typical of most sushi or hibachi restaurants, topped with avocado, ginger dressing and mango sauce. The only thing I would have changed would be a little less mango sauce. It was incredibly sweet and really overpowered everything else. I would rather have a touch of mango and more ginger dressing.
I went to the art museum last weekend to see the Impressionist exhibit with my mom and her beau. The museum has a cafeteria so we grabbed lunch. I normally don’t eat at the museum cafe (it’s pretty pricey) but my mom has a museum membership and gets a discount.
There were a LOT of options available. Hot meals, wine, panini…
It was a bit crowded so I grabbed something ready-made and easy, a ham and brie sandwich with a lemon-poppy muffin.
This weekend I drove out to Long Branch to see a bunch of awesome underground bands play. (Specifically, The Zombie Mafia.) After a few sets my friends and I grabbed some food.It was during a classic car show, so the restaurant was only serving food from a specialty menu.
I ordered the “Authentic Mexican Tacos” with chicken, and my boyfriend got the same (but with beef.)
The presentation was really nice, you get 5 lite tacos with 2 roasted pearl onions and roasted cactus. I was really excited to try the roasted cactus!! (It was actually why I ordered this platter in the first place.)
The tacos were filled with onions, chicken and cilantro. They were pretty good, but a few bits of chicken were really fatty and chewy. I cut the roasted onions up and added them to my taco, but there was already white diced onion on them, so the onion flavors really overpowered the chicken.
The roasted cactus was really soft and tender, which makes sense because cacti are mostly water. It tasted a lot like a roasted green pepper, but much juicier. The cactus was my favorite part of the meal.
I wasn’t really impressed by the tacos, but the cactus was really interesting. I don’t think I’d eat at this restaurant again (it wasn’t very good and it’s far away) but this did make more more interested is cooking cactus. I might grab it the next time I am at the grocery store.
© Maria Smith http://poison-and-antidote.netLike me on facebook to keep up with all my adventures!
My mother and I went to IKEA for the first time EVER this week. I originally went to purchase a table, but got wrapped up in the food! (I also bought some things from the food section, so I have an IKEA haul coming up soon!)
Here is what we had for lunch:
My Mother had the roasted chicken breast with mashed potatoes, she said it was the best chicken she had ever had in a restaurant.
For lunch I had the Swedish meatballs with lingonberry jam and mashed potatoes. Lingonberries are really popular in Scandinavian meals. On the side I had lingonberry juice and an elderflower cupcake.The mashed potatoes were creamy and delicious! They tasted buttery and had a hint of cracked pepper. They sell the same potatoes in the freezer section of their food market, and I have to say these were the best frozen mashed potatoes I had ever had.
I have to say, the lingonberry jam tasted like the best cranberry sauce I had ever had. The berries were tender and soft, but the overall flavor was dry and tangy. A lot like cranberry sauce, but the berries do not have anything to get stuck in your teeth (like cranberries often do.) I actually picked up a jar of this to have at home.
Although Ikea is famous for them, the meatballs were actually my least favorite part of the meal. they tasted a little overly spiced. I think I would have liked them with a different gravy more than the traditional brown. The brown gravy made the spices overpowering, if a tangy sauce had been used I would have liked them a lot more.
The lingonberry juice was really refreshing, but it was a lot like a cranberry juice, just a bit brighter. It isn’t very strong on it’s own, but when I mixed it with a bit of lemon lime soda it was really interesting! All of these items can be bought in the grocery section so you can easily recreate your meal at home.
The elderflower cupcake, was something I had never seen before. The cupcake was really moist and dense, and it tasted like vanilla pound cake mixed with lychee fruit. The icing on top was cream cheese and I think the elderflower was also in the icing, but it was hard to tell with how strongly the cupcake was flavored. I loved it!
Overall, I am incredibly impressed with IKEA’s food. I never though a store that sold furniture would also make decent food. I highly recommend everything! (Except the meatballs with gravy. I won’t be getting that again)
© Maria Smith http://poison-and-antidote.netLike me on facebook to keep up with all my adventures!
As I have gotten older, the shore became less about rides and more about food! Last Friday, my boyfriend and I went to Wildwood for a mini vacation. We had eggplant pizza for lunch and DQ hotdogs for dinner. (It was junk food overload!)
For lunch we went to the same pizza place we visited last year, III Brothers Pizza. Their food is VERY good! (Especially for shore-food.) The owners came from Italy so they use real mozzarella cheese! When you take a bite of their pizza the cheese pulls and gets stringy, which is just how I like it. The fried eggplant was really sweet, so I added some red pepper flakes to my slices to spice things up.
Overall I really love III Brothers Pizza, and it is my favorite pizza place on the Wildwood boardwalk. (It has been my favorite for the last 3 years.)
One of the problems with Wildwood is that there are tons of pizza places…and not much else. Since we already had pizza for lunch, I wanted something different for dinner. The boardwalk has tons of pizza places, fudge places, and snack stands…but not much in the way of dinner. So we settled on DQ hotdogs. (Mostly because they were cheap. Soda, chips and a hotdog for about $2.75)
As you can see, I always have my hotdog with yellow mustard and relish. Nothing super fancy here. The hotdogs and buns were very typical, so there wasn’t anything really special about this meal. It was just quick and cheap.
If you are at the Wildwood boardwalk and want something cheap, I would suggest the hotdog package at DQ. It is filling and inexpensive, as far as boardwalk food goes.
On this trip I also bought: soft pretzels, fudge, cotton candy, gourmet amaretto coffee, and a candy apple.
© Maria Smith http://poison-and-antidote.netLike me on facebook to keep up with all my adventures!
Even though I am sick with an upper respiratory infection and bronchitis, I went with my family to the local Golden Corral to eat. (I was too sick, lazy and hungry to cook.)
This was my second time going, the last time I went was with my boyfriend and I pecked at everything… until it was time for dessert. I ate every dessert I could!
This time, being sick, I toned down the sweets.
My friend Kevin came by a few days ago and asked me to go to Mikado with him. Mikado has sushi, curry and all sorts of yummy treats.
