Cute food.

Yes, I should have taken a picture of the 3 seed sandwich, it was beautiful. To make up for it, I have NOT forgotten to take a picture of the coolest thing to show up on my desk in a while.

Last night I was chatting w.my BFF @ work (BK), and he was trying to allure me w.a donut or cinnamon roll. Although those are lovely, I have a weakness for cookies & cake. He informed me he was going to get some 'pastries' (ie donuts & junk) for a morning meeting, and asked if I had special requests.

I told him exactly what I wanted. A white cookie w.white frosting decorated like Santa Claus. Or something baked that was not fried and had brown fruit in or on it. He said they may not have cookies, and to this I said I want nothing but that.

Well well.. what do you know. BFF came through with a BIG BANG. After perusing the decorated cookies, he came up with a sock & this kick-ass santa. You may not be able to tell from the pic, but the Santa cookie is filled with something.. it's totally 3D puffy-ized, and not a fried pastry. BFF has no idea what it is, and I think it's too cute to eat.



We'll see how long it lasts.

It reminds me of my last year's favorite baked good. The TURKEY CAKE @ Byerly's. It was my turning point into deciding, yes I really DO want to work here.

I totally didn't see them this year, although I did forget to make a special trip pre-Thanksgiving :( This is still pretty damn cool in my eyes.


sugar.

Stuffed

So goes the weekend of eating.

Wednesday: Chicken Parsnip Apple Soup (yay).

Thanksgiving food was fabulous!
Offering:
Turkey
Stuffing
Mashed potatoes w.gravy
**Sweet potatoes w.applesauce
**Green salad w.orange and red peppers
Cranberries
Cornmeal rolls

Elderberry pie
Pumpkin pie sans crust


..and later:
Leftovers.. w.a new addition:
Blackberry pie w. ff plain yogurt (hooray)

It was fun to have the family together, cooking. I hope Ruth doesn't mind me helping in the kitchen, or at least standing in the way.. :/ Went for a walk w.Quick, and then played some Sequence.

The next day was my Endo. What a drag.. sitting around. At least Jon got to see Press Your Luck before eating a crappy hospital sandwich.

Enjoyed some food @ David & Judie's later on. Highlight - our lefse? PICKLES!

Saturday we FINALLY made it to Aribel's. It was really fun.. my family was all adventurous and tried every section of the menu.

We enjoyed: Shrimp fried rice (my dad orders at every restaurant as sort of his trademark.. he said this is the BEST shrimp fried rice he has ever ever had (and he has had a lot).. but it may not be fair because it was SO different and good); beef pepper pot (I normally do not enjoy eating beef.. but this was NOT normal beef.. the owner/chef/only guy working explained it was flavored with molasses.. yum!); jerk chicken lo mein (also, very fresh and different taste), and the snapper curry (what an interesting, tasty (saltyfish) flavor) with extra veggies by request. Everything was so unique and tasty as can be... and very very reasonably priced.

reminder for next time: Keep asking for extra veggies.. they'll do it!

Sunday.. ate and ate and ate again. Breakfast of oatmeal, then breakfast #2 at Church ;)
Lunch -- um, did you know we like Quang? A lot? Yeah.
Seafood & Pork soup - it was great.. but I guess I was really in the mood for it. The veggie soup is just as good.. gosh it's so hard to order there.
even Jon's wontons w.red pork was also really nice... probably a more managable feat to finish up.

Dinner was pancakes of all sizes. Banana, cranberry orange, and apple pumpkin..hooray.

OCBleh

So Jon & I were on a long walk around the block once (feel the irony), and I thought it would be fun to see how much Old Country Buffet costs to dine in (since it is, sincerely, one block from our house.. and the parking lot is ALWAYS full..). Hearing it was $11/pp.. no way in hell were we going to risk it. Our lovely Q is a much safer bet.

Well, a few weeks ago, they sent us a coupon. You know me & coupons. I decided for the both of us, we have to do it.

We did it. Saturday. The line was up to the door (long hallway), plus we waited for seating (sure only 5 min), but holy CRAP do people like this place.

The bad things were too numerous to list.. so I'll list the most interesting:
the baked fish.. it was a little cold, but they tried.
they had cranberry sauce on their condiment bar. that, is fun.
3 bean salad !!
marinated mushrooms
bananas in the pudding (i took the bananas out of the pudding)
their dessert pizza was a big cookie. it was cute.

the cake was all bad. seriously. all. bad. i love cake, so this was a little disappointing. also disappointing. any form of vanilla ice cream was broken. boo. i had a weird looking orange sherbet because i could.

yes, i tried pretty much everything on the buffet (one spoonfull counts) minus the cheeseyfilledfriedchickencoveredw.bacon. oh yeah, also didn't try the world's largest ribs or the mini corn dogs (jon's report on the corn dogs is that they weren't as good as full size). jon liked the pumpkin pie.. and was smart enough to put gummy bears in his ice cream (he got chocolate).

now we are officially done with OCB. it only makes me crave Q even more =)

next:
Aribel's
http://www.satay2go.com/menu.html
Gangchen

Another month(iversary)

Jon had:

Poached Chicken & Spanish Chorizo Linguini:
Roasted red pepper & garlic basil cream sauce, sundried tomato, scallion, mache salad w/ blood orange vinaigrette, toasted macadamias, pomegranate, black radish & feta

He really liked it, which is awesome.

& I had the most beautiful looking, tasty sandwich in town (don't need to pieces of bread, the insides are so fabulous - what a find for $8)

Roasted Three Seed Sandwich
Pumpkin, sunflower & sesame seed spread, carrots, black spanish radish, chioggia beets, avocado & arugula on birchwood focaccia

PLUS the deli salad this week was a vegan cumin salad. It had red beans, corn, red peppers, spinach, onions, pumpkin seeds.. yeah, everything I love.. and to top it off was my own personalized dressing -- which was NOT oily, basically tasted like they sprinkled cumin+lemon juice on it. Who loves me so much there?

Oh yeah.. then after that Jon was nice enough to drive us to Keefer Court Bakery. SUPER FUN Chinese bakery... we had a wintermelon cookie (Jon loved it), and a Lotus cake (super filled, barely any crust - I loved it). We will return =) Still gotta try the sesame red bean ball. I really enjoy Chinese cake - way less sugary, more beany.. leaves you feeling good afterwards (even though there's shortening, we can just pretend it's the good kind).

let them eat bread

i am pretty sure i don't need to be gluten-free.. and as a mini-celebration, we had lots of bread again on saturday.

breakfast - pumpkin waffles + apple/maple topping (home-made) @ jon's folks. i used krusteaz.. and they turned out well.

lunch - couldn't resist the sandwich @ saigon.. but thai bazil is still closed (boo.)

dinner - french meadow after a discussion w.rupa. i think she would get the tempeh cutlet (minus the tempeh, which i liked, but was FRIED on the outside (so sad).. and i would totally get her arepas.. esp for 8.99.. had everything i love on it (corn pancakes + red peppers over spinach with balsamic).. wouldn't need the vegan sausage, but whatever.

skipped dessert bc we (me) had so much sugar earlier.. esp after making cookies & cleaning out the no pudge fudge dish (not to mention that breakfast up there).

today we are going to ring mtn creamery again.. hopefully i'm ready for the sugar. right now my stomach kind of gets the willies thinking about it.

Grand Cafe & not so grand Chiang Mai

In my attempt to gluten up (don't ask yet), Jon & I tried Grand Cafe today as a backup to Victor's (didn't get there soon enough to order the MANGO WAFFLE before church).

When we got there, the place was sparsely attended, but by the time we left, it was packed w.a line out the door (sorta). The atmosphere & seating was cool.. really was a neighborhood spot. The menu was a simple sort of swank. Jon ordered biscuits & gravy, and it was the prettiest dish I have seen in a while. I was gonna try their fancy 'ham and cheese' (doesn't sound fancy does it, I for sure need to give it a go next time after seeing it in person), but I really wanted fresh blueberries, so I went w.the blueberry pancakes (so simple, yet so nice) instead. The thing I memorized wanting on their menu like 2 months ago was the banana bread french toast, but I made this yesterday for our home-made brunch (which I may say I am quite proud of, sour cream apple + pb banana french toast w.maple apple ham).

We will more than likely go to the Grand Cafe again sometime.. I am looking forward to it (esp. after seeing the dinner specials from yesterday - some nice sounding fish & a spicy vegetable soup w.black beans). Not a value, but a nice meal (plus b1g1 free w.MPR card ;) )

We also forced ourselves out of the house for a sundayfunday w. Bobbi & Becky. Went to Chiang Mai Thai knowing the Thai Bazil is rumored to have had some sort of kitchen problem. After eating their beef (ack) spring rolls & uh.. tom yum (if you can call it that), we are VERY SAD about Thai Bazil. I can't believe Chiang Mai Thai was my old fav. Thai restaurant. Phuket Thai (also defunct) here in Richfield tasted better than this.. *sigh*. RIP Thai food in Minneapolis. We will miss you.

On a more hopeful note, we will be trying some new Asian spots on campus (or at least new to us) soon. Namely: Obento-Ya, Yummy Yummy, Keefer Court & the new digs on campus w.the hot pots. At least they are cheaper.. plus that spot on Nicollet w. momos & tom yum cups. Cross your fingers for us.

~