Restaurant Reviews: The Palm and The Thai Restaurant

As much as I love to cook, I love to eat out too and get ideas for myself. And in this past month, before I had my full-sized kitchen in my apartment, I ate out quite a bit. The restaurants I will review today feature a variety of cuisines -- both Italian and Thai.


The Palm 


The food was delicious, this is true. The prices were slightly higher than I would usually pay for a regular dinner. However, if you want to go to a nice restaurant with a date, or with several friends, and don't mind paying upwards of $40 for a 9 oz. filet mignon, then this is the place for you!

The ambiance was lovely (although it was a little bit hot in our part of the restaurant), our waiters were very attentive, and the food was great. And if you go here, the house specialties are lobster and filet mignon, so at least I got one of their best meals!

Here is the food I had with a rating between 1 and 10, with 10 being the max:
- mashed potatoes (8.0)
- potatoes au gratin (8.4)
- filet mignon (8.8)
- mushrooms (9.6)
- chocolate cake (9.3)
- creme brulee (9.8)
- cheesecake (8.2)

By far, hands down, best creme brulee I have ever tasted. It has inspired me to go make my own!


The Thai Restaurant


Although the name of the restaurant lacks in creativity, I did not expect the food to also be bland. Maybe I chose the wrong thing on the menu (although can you really go wrong by ordering chicken dishes?), but I was not too impressed with my first Thai experience. I don't think I'll give up on eating Thai just yet, but I will obviously need more suggestions on what dishes to choose. Or perhaps I'll convince people to go try different Thai restaurants around town... Yes?

Anyhow, my meal was under ten dollars (before tax), but I feel that it was overpriced based on quality and taste. In fact, I feel as though all they gave me was plain rice, steamed broccoli and chicken. Why would I pay that much again for something I could prepare for half the price, you know?

Where shall I go next in my take-out adventures? ... stay tuned to find out!

Workin' my 9-5... and a little bit of Quiche!

I know I promised a blog by the end of last week, and we're already half-way through this one but my job has literally taken over my life. I wake up at 7ish and come back LATE late. Meaning Monday I left work at 9 pm, Tuesday I left at 9:30 pm, and today it was 10:50 pm. Why so late??

But anyhow, I made a quiche last week and it was delish! So at work, it was my turn to bring breakfast on Thursday morning, so I woke up extra early, went grocery shopping and here is the result!

So to make it...

I mixed fresh spinach with sour cream and put it at the bottom of the pie dish. I then fried some bacon, and after it cooled down, I crumpled it and put it aside. At the same time, I sauteed some onions and oven roasted golden classic chicken (from the deli, sliced on 10, diced). I mixed in the bacon and put the mixture on top of the spinach. Next, I put lots and lots of parmesan and mixed cheddar/American cheese on top. I beat some eggs, mixed them with half and half and poured that on top of the pie dish and put it in the oven. And voila! It really wasn't hard, but the preparation took longer than expected. 

Sorry for the short blog post, but I have to go sleep now... seeing as how I have to be back at work in less than 8 hours. 

Until next time, wish me luck bartering to get my living room furniture for cheaper than listed on craigslist! :)

It's Been a Long, Long Time...

So I've been on hiatus for the last three weeks, mostly because my life has quasi turned upside down since my last entry. In a good way, though, no worries!

Drumroll please....

I now work for The Man! I started working in Corporate America three weeks ago and so far... it's not that bad. :)

But now that I'm in a new city and have started my grown-up life, I had to go around and get all settled in. Between my 6-hour, 12-apartment complex, 29-floor plan apartment hunt and three-week legal paperwork wait for my car titles, I've found that there's a lot to consider and do when starting over. Advice for the future: get a ThankYou Rewards credit card before you go around buying expensive mattresses and furniture and stuff left and right. It will help and it's like free money! (Yes, I know there's no such thing as a free lunch...) Anyways, I just now discovered that there's an AT&T Universal Card that would get me 10% off all my AT&T purchases for the first year, and 5% after that... so it seems like a good deal... right? :) I mean considering I just signed up for cable, internet and a phone plan all through AT&T.

So, on to the more important things: Fish Tacos!

I know I promised in my last post (forever and a half ago) that I would talk about Fish Tacos and the time has come! I forget everything I was going to originally tell you guys about the tacos, but I DO remember that my whole family loved them and they were really healthy! But I did remember to take pictures... :)

Just in case the picture doesn't come out perfectly clear or anything, the plates in the picture above are like this (clockwise starting top right):
1) Lettuce
2) Sauteed onions
3) Sauteed red bell peppers and avocado
4) Grilled salmon
5) Tortillas!

It wasn't too difficult to make. The only thing I had a little bit of trouble with was grilling the salmon (which was marinated in this yummy sauce I made with lemons and garlic and pepper and I forget what else), but I only had issues with it because I've never before grilled fish in my life. But overall, I would say the fish tacos were a success.

Random question of the day: should I get a Starbucks Reward Card? I tried signing up for one a few days ago and for some reason Starbucks' website didn't recognize my card as valid so I took it as a sign to reconsider my sign-up.

Anyhow, this blog hardly seemed organized and for that I apologize. I actually had a very nice blog typed up yesterday and then I walked away from my computer and I guess it had one of those automatic updates that it does every two weeks and it restarted... without saving my work. Oh well... Look forward to a blog about quiche by the end of the week!