Tag Archives: restaurant food

Seeing What Buffalo Has to Offer

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Another late post for another long day, yesterday that is 😉  My mom is in town until Saturday so we’ve been exploring all Buffalo has to offer.

We started our morning with a trip to Sweet_ness 7 Cafe,

a creperie.

It was our first trip, but we were totally impressed by the adorable details, comfy setting, and exciting menu.

I was pretty jazzed to see hibiscus lemonade available.

This was barely sour, and even less sweet, a near perfect lemonade by my standards. 

For breakfast the three of us split two crepes, one sweet and one savory.

The Irish Blessing, which came with a side salad, was caramelized fresh apples with brie.

The apples were literally caramelized, so sweet and chewy!

The Celtic Love Spell had Nutella and fresh whipped cream, with bananas.

Melty Nutella is pretty much the pinnacle of happiness.

The fillings were fun (obviously!), but the crepes themselves were delicious!  I don’t know much about crepes, but from what I’ve read these were perfectly made.  They had the best eggy smell!

Afterward we headed to another new (to us) and fun location – The Albright-Knox Art Gallery.

ABG has a lot of older pieces, but it is actually a gallery based around collecting contemporary work, not a museum.  It was really interesting to see the “created by” and “purchased by” dates side-by-side, many of which were less than a year apart.

There were bunches of works that I loved, but I didn’t take any pictures out of respect.  I did purchase postcards of two of my favorites from the gift shop,

and we snagged a free print that an artist was giving away to help promote his work.

I can’t wait to get that up on the wall and give this place a little class!

For lunch we went back to an old favorite, JP Bullfeathers, and were greeted with the good news of Restaurant Week.

Unfortunately we won’t be able to make it anywhere else (we tried many spots, but reservations for dinner were impossible), but Adam and I did take advantage of this menu.

I went with the Cajun Haddock Caesar Salad, with balsamic on the side subbed for the dressing.

This was my first time trying Haddock and I think I’m a fan, it’s a nice flakey white-fish without a lot of strong fishy flavor.

The specialty portions were super generous too, I could only eat half of my meal and now Adam has a nice lunch for later this week.

I did have room to try a Valomilk for dessert.

There’s an old-fashioned candy store on Elmwood and it’s sort of irresistable.

I also snacked on a Wallaby Caramel Apple Yogurt while we figured out a dinner plan.

Ultimately we decided low-key was the way to go, and headed to Moes.

I got a kids’ quesadilla with corn salsa,

and chips with queso.

My mom got a kick out of eating something I blog all the time; I think we’ll probably hit up the hot bar tomorrow too!

The rest of the evening was spent on this dorky/awesome venture, which I’ll blog more about in a few weeks.

Have a great night morning!

Is there an art museum and/or gallery in your town?  Do you prefer modern or classic art?  I’m all about modern; there was a series made with ink and soap bubbles on display today that could have held my attention all afternoon.

In the Nutritional Know

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Hello, hello. I want to tell you guys that I’ve got to hurry because of family time, but really I need to go finish making notecards! Don’t worry, we got plenty of fun time in as well.

Our vacation theme of mini mishaps continued – we wanted to work out on the great path behind my grandparents’ house, but Adam left our bag of running gear at home!  In keeping with my pessimistic optimism, I’m going to assume that means that I’m still too sick to run and it’s good that I couldn’t.

I wasn’t hungry for breakfast, but I did snag a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice.

The whole family (grandparents, mom, husband, me) piled in the car for lunch at a neat spot in Troy.

The Bakehouse was right up my alley; adorable, lots of offerings, and freshly baked bread!

I went with a half soup/sandwich combo for lunch.

A cup of turkey corn chowder,

with half a sandwich of turkey, aged swiss, cole slaw, and thousand island dressing on pumpernickel.

I only ate about half of the soup, because it was a little creamy for me, but the sandwich was perfection!  The reuben – sauerkraut + cole slaw is my absolute favorite.

Actually, my absolute favorite used to be the English toffee bars sold at Starbucks.  They were removed from the menu a while back and I’ve been in mourning ever since.  The Bakehouse had the exact replica –

Split four ways.

OMG!  I love love love this bar, crunchy toffee inside a chewy blondie!

I cleansed my palate with some Hubba Bubba Bubble Tape.

We’re fancy like that.

We did some antiquing (Zzzz), and also made it to a matinée of “The Lincoln Lawyer.”  I feel like the opening wasn’t given a lot of fanfare (I only heard about the movie because I’m obsessed with Michaela Conlin), but the movie was so good!  The perfect mix of funny, touching, and tense.  I highly recommend.

We headed to Applebees afterward for dinner.  Chain restaurants aren’t exactly my speed, so I ordered using the nutritional info as my guide.  Looking for entres 500 calories or less led me to the Teriyaki Shrimp Pasta (440 calories).

This was actually very good!  Whole wheat pasta, teriyaki sauce, and grilled shrimp with broccoli, red bell pepper, water chestnuts, carrots, bok choy, mushrooms, and sugar snap peas.

I pretty much ignored the pasta, but I devoured my shrimp and veggies.

I tried to keep dinner light because I knew we were heading to George’s (<– Dairy Queen without the franchising) after dinner.

I ended up with a small snow storm (blizzard) with butterfingers and reeses cups.

I planned on sharing with Adam, but um, yeah…

We’re headed back to Buffalo tomorrow, with a few fun stops along the way.

If a restaurant offers nutritional info do you utilize it?  How much does the info affect your ordering?

Short On Dinner

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10pm is not technically late, but it feels late, and there’s really no good reason I’m not in bed already so I’ll keep this quick.

We had to take our cars in to a shop this morning (nothing big, just yearly brake, oil, and other things I’m sure I don’t know because I’m such a girl) so we brought them both at once and made an event of it.  Drive in, walk 8 blocks to Starbucks, study, walk back, drive home.  While we studied I made sure to hydrate and caffeinate.

That is a big bottle, but it looks extra big because my non-fat latte is a short, not a tall.  Did you know that all the locations in America carry short cups, they just don’t advertise them?

We had movie plans with friends so it was a quick turnaround once we made it home.  I snacked on baby carrots on the drive.

The husband and I were both a little irritable at the thought of watching a movie without lunch but thankfully(?!) Adam got the time wrong anyways and we had an extra hour or so to kill at the mall.  We ended up going to Jack Astors for lunch.

The husband and I split the Crispy Honey Sesame Chicken.  This was chicken with carrots, green onions, snow peas, red peppers, and bean sprouts in what was billed as a Thai-honey sauce.

The chicken was tasty and the veggies were good, but the sauce ended up tasting like bad American-Chinese food.  We cleared the plate though.

We also split some Reese’s Pieces at the movies.

Sucker Punch, by the way.  The movie was visually stunning and the musical score was fantastic, but the plot was soooo slow.

Things took a bit of a downward turn from there productivity-wise, but honestly any day I spend with the husband is a good one.  I made a major dinner fail.

I used the last of most of the ingredients, trying to make a mini pizza with sharp cheddar and an egg on top.  First I had a cooked pizza with a raw egg on top.  Then I had a cooked egg with a burnt hockey puck on the bottom.  I didn’t even take a picture it was such a disaster.

But, good news – when dinner fails you can finally go get that ice cream you’ve been waiting for.

A kid-sized mint ice cream with Oreo from ColdStone.

Mint ice cream is my favorite, but only when it’s green  🙂

Maybe I should eat some fruit tomorrow?!  We really did try to get me real dinner, but 40 frustrating minutes in the car later determined that Buffalo isn’t exactly a mecca of healthy take-out and I was better off just going to bed.

So I better get going to bed!

Did you know about the short, aka the”real” small, from Starbucks?  What size do you normally order in coffee?

Eeeeee!

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If I thought yesterday was exciting then I don’t even know what to call today – I WAS ACCEPTED TO THE COORDINATED PROGRAM!!! 

That’s my I’m-excited-but-also-embarassed-to-take-a-mirror-self-portrait-like-a-teenager-on-Myspace face.

I wasn’t expecting to get in, and we weren’t supposed to hear the news until later, so the shock just adds to the thrill.  I’ve been crossing my fingers and hoping for months, I’m not even sure what my plan B was going to be if I didn’t get in.  Let me explain…

In order to be a Registered Dietician (a highly regulated job title in the US) you must –

  1. take a certain set of courses
  2. complete a certain set of clinical hours/experiences
  3. pass a comprehensive exam – which you can only sit for after #1 & 2 have been completed

The Didactic program (what I’ve been in since this summer) is the typical course for most students.  You complete the courses, then apply separately for the internship, then sit for the exam.  It’s a great program, but the competition for internship spots is fierce.  In the Didactic program, I would have had 2 more years of school, followed by a year of clinical work (if I got accepted to an internship right away).

The Coordinated program is not available at most schools.  It has you complete clinical work alongside the required coursework.  You complete requirements #1 & 2 as a set, and then are ready to sit for the exam.  It is a very challenging program, but is helpful for people who learn better when pairing clinical and classroom learning.  Doing the Clinical program means you don’t have to go through the carnival ride that is finding an internship.

Additionally (and for me most important of all), in the Clinical program I will have two more years of school until I’m ready to sit for the exam.  2 years, and not 3 years.  And since Adam is done with medical school (not done done, but ready for residency done) in two years – and probably moving in 2 years – this is a very big deal for us.  Yay!

I’m thrilled that now I won’t have to live in Buffalo for a year without Adam, I’m excited about starting clinical work, and I’m proud of myself for getting in to such a competitive program.  This year was especially tough, because there were more than 40 of us applying for the 16 spots.  I’m so glad I made the cut!

–  –  –  –  –  –  –  –  –  –  –  –  –  –  –  –  –  –  –  –  –  –  –  –  –  –  –  –  –  –  –  –  –  –  –  –  –  –  –  –  –  – 

Before we even knew there was anything to celebrate, a group of friends and I had plans to meet for breakfast at Panos before our last class before Spring break.  I got a short, nonfat latte on my walk there.

Pano’s breakfast menu is amazing; I don’t know how I don’t end up there more often.  I convinced the waitress to let me order the 1-1-1 (a kid’s meal).

1 egg (sunny side up), with hash browns,

and 1 pancake.

I couldn’t quite finish it all (about 3/4), but it was nice to have any sort of breakfast appetite for a change.

I also ordered an extra-spicy Bloody Mary.

Yes, I’m the person who orders off the kid’s menu and the drink menu.

When we got to school and got our letters, after a lot of screaming and jumping around, I somehow decided more coffee was a good idea.

A grande nonfat latte with almond roca syrup (half amount of syrup).  Can I just say, I pretty much shook and twitched my way through Biochem?!

Since we are so busy over Spring break I’m actually trying to get a lot of work done this weekend, so my friend Rachel came home with me after class for some studying and TV watching.  I can’t even tell you how fun it was to watch “Grey’s Anatomy” with another girl for a change.

I had to show her how to get back out to the main road, so I took a random stroll down Elmwood to reflect.  I ended up stopping at the Co-op for celebratory sushi.

Now I’m about to dig into a late lunch of veggie sushi with brown rice.

I can’t wait!  I also feel that ice-cream should be on the agenda at some point today….

What was the last thing you applied for that required an interview?  Are you good at interviews or do you seize up with nervousness?  Apparently I rocked mine, because I don’t feel like I’m the best candidate on paper 🙂

Exotic Culinary Exploration

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After our race this morning – and a very long recovery in the shower – we spent the rest of the day doing exotic culinary exploration.  If you want to get technical, our culinary travels took us to Jamaica, England, Korea, and Canada.  If you want to get really technical though, just Canada.

On our way out of town we had an errand at a local bakery and ended up sharing this neat cookie.

Pink always tastes good!

Since parts of Canada are only a 30 minute drive away, we occasionally get Groupon offers for places ‘up north.’  When one came up for a Jamaican spot, my homesickness forced me to bite.  And thus we headed to Kool Katz.

It was a low-key spot and the wait staff was so friendly.  We ordered a random sampling of familiar dishes.  I went with a veggie pattie (fried dough stuffed with seasoned veggies),

And a jerk shrimp skewer appetizer (jerk = a fantastic spice rub).

I also shared bites of Adam’s curried chicken with beans and rice and tostones (fried plantains).

Everything was tasty, but honestly the best dish at the table was this side of cole slaw.

It was tart instead of creamy and full of juicy pieces of citrus fruit.  Best cole slaw I’ve ever had!  Overall the meal was good, but it didn’t fill the urge we were looking to satisfy.  Different places around the Caribbean often serve the same types of dish, but Jamaican style is just not the same as St. Thomian.

While we were in Canada we took advantage of some great views of Niagara Falls, as well as proximity to exotic candies.

While we hung out this afternoon I polished off the Cadbury Pep Bar (England).

The Pep Bars are basically York Patties, but better!

This evening we met up with a big group of friends at Koreana for some tradition Korean fare.

I ordered a spicy chicken dish that came with sticky rice.

It was ok, but the spice level wasn’t as intense as I was looking for and I ended up leaving half of it on the plate.  Thankfully the company was amazing as always.

When I got home I supplemented my dinner with some baked fries.

Now I’m done.  It was nice to be hungry after yesterday’s incurable bout of satiety 😉

Have you ever eaten Jamaican food?  Korean food?

I Can’t Operate Machinery

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It’s Friday-Friday-Friday!  It’s been a long and fruitful day around these parts.  I did too much yesterday though, and I was definitely paying for it this morning – I got out of bed at 7 but only made it as far as the couch!

Thankfully by the time my one class came around I was able to make it to campus.  Walking to campus sucked, but it meant I got an opportunity to copy/photocopy all of my missed notes from various friends.  Well not all, music is kind of a lost cause!  And I got the good news that our Biochem test is pushed back, so I only have one exam next week 🙂

Walking back from campus in the hail (ouch!) wasn’t fun either, but I made it to Elmwood and got a nice set of work done.  I nibbled while I worked, first a black bean burrito from Elmwood Taco and Sub.

My hand’s there to show size.  It was sort of a strange burrito – just a tortilla with plain black beans and a slice of cheese – but it ended up being perfect for my sick stomach.

Next I walked over to Starbucks for a plain iced black tea with honey.

The honey worked about as well as you’d imagine it would it an iced drink, but it was a nice idea in theory.

I ordered after 2 so I got to choose a mini treat for free.

Note – I thought the box was so cute I actually brought it home!

I went with the salted caramel bar.

Divine!  I told Adam later that this was in my top 10 tasted cookie bars.

I cranked out some good notecards (I’m only halfway done though, missing nutrition classes is hard) and then the husband picked me up around 5:30.  Then we headed to Walgreens where I caved and finally bought some Niquil.  I’m not anti-medicine, we’re just too poor to buy any; but my coughing was driving Adam made so we bit the bullet.  I took some just before starting this post, we’ll have to see if I pass out mid-way!

I waited until after preparing dinner to dose myself in any case.

Roasted asparagus.

Sidenote – this is Adam’s favorite veggie, probably actually his favorite food, period.  If you know a veggie hater have them try roasted asparagus!

Reubens  <–swoon–>

On two thin slices of rye went Applegate Farms Organic Chicken, two slices of 2% swiss, a handful of sauerkraut, and a serving of 1000 island dressing.  Then we sandwiched and pressed in the George Foreman Grill.

So good!  Reubens, whether turkey or chicken or tempeh, or sauerkraut or cole slaw, always rock my socks.

And Zzzzzzzzzz…..

Do you take medication when you’re sick?  Why or why night?

Let There Be Light

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Okay, so I didn’t really do much work today either!  At least in the study sense, we did tackle some to-dos.  Really today was like my Friday, and the next two days are my weekend and my cram-like-crazy study days!

We had to tackle all sorts of not so fun stuff this morning, like filling our FAFSA and dropping stuff off at Goodwill.  My throat was feeling kind of funky so I never really got hungry for breakfast.  I did snag this grape leave from Adam’s leftovers.

And the husband and I split this Ring Pop.

There’s something wrong with my retainers (again, ugh!) so they’re out until Tuesday and it seemed like the perfect time to enjoy this leftover Valentine’s sweet.

Our next set of errands took us up to the Barnes and Nobel on Niagara Blvd, were we just happened to also pull over here –

There’s kind of a deficit of good Thai in Buffalo, so when we spotted Jasmine Thai we just couldn’t resist!

After a few quick modifications, Adam and I ordered our two favorite dishes to split.  Cashew Tofu,

and Pad See Eiw (with steamed tofu and without the egg).

Yuuuuuum.

True story?  I groaned every – single – time I took a bite of the broad rice noodles.  They are just so fricking delicious!  Chewy foods are my favorite and these are the ultimate doughy chew.

My only complaint about Jasmine Thai is that both of our meals were way too light on veggies.  Thankfully I took care of that by eating leftover sesame green beans in the car like a weirdo.

My throat still felt funny all afternoon so we postponed our dinner plans and I made myself a bowl of something creamy, cool, and sweet –

Banana Soft Serve.  Into the food processor went 1.5 frozen bananas, 2 Tbsp shredded coconut, 2 Tbsp honey roasted peanuts, and 1 Tbsp real maple syrup.

This dish is reason alone to own a food processor.  Buy one, try it, and then go tell Gena she’s a genius.

The rest of dinner is going to be a bag of this goodness –

Wondering about that strange picture?  Adam built me a light box!!!!

The inside (backdrop) won’t be done until later but I am so appreciative.  Between my lack of skill, my cheap camera, and our house’s awful lighting, there have just been too many factors working against my pictures.  Hopefully soon I can get a couple of nice shots 🙂

Blogging readers – do you have/use a light box?  What kind of camera do you currently use?

Day One of Four

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There are several reasons why I didn’t post yesterday, some good and some bad.

  1. We determined that I am injured badly enough from my fall that I should continue to take a few days away from the gym.  Aka, my ticket out of Grumpsville hasn’t arrived yet.
  2. The popcorn I had for lunch was not exciting, and I later found out that it wasn’t vegan either!  Sidenote – why does the ingredients list need to be split?  I didn’t realize “natural flavors” meant “milk proteins” until after I’d (finished) looked at the other side of the bag.
  3. My dinner was exciting, and vegan, but since it was part of a review I agreed to do for a new recipes app I couldn’t share the recipes with you guys.  Telling you in retrospect that I had home-made Asian-style slaw and sesame green beans with spring rolls is mean, but showing you the tasty pictures too would have been just cruel.

I technically have a four-day weekend (my school canceled classes on Monday and Tuesday) but since I have two tests and two quizzes next week, today was my last day to really relax.  I made the most of it.

We slept in and hung out all morning, then picked up a quick meal from the Co-op hot bar.

I got vegan mac and cheese, cilantro baked tofu, falafel, and a few pieces of Cajun sweet potato.

Everything was good, and I liked the pasta for what it was, but Adam and I both agreed that “mac and cheese” was a pretty generous label.

I also randomly included an orange cream soda with lunch.

My afternoon snacks included a serving of Newman’s Own Pretzel Rods.

Dipped in Cherry Coke Zero, of course.

And a Liz Lovely Lemon Coconut Cookie.

Adam (who has a normal weekend) was at the lab until late so we decided to cash in a Groupon and try out a new place for dinner.  Acropolis, a Greek place a few blocks from our apartment, had a 50% off Groupon going that I picked up a few months ago.  Tonight was the night.

Tonight was also the night for silly faces.

The lighting was terrible, assume that all the food was 20% better than it looks.  Actually, the lighting was great when we walked in but the minute we sat down they put on the awful “mood” lighting.  I hate dim restaurants.  Even before I had a food blog, who wants to eat in the dark?!

We ended up ordering a bunch of appetizers and sharing.

The only vegan things on the menu all happened to be the only things on the menu we were interested in, so I’m glad we picked this month to try it out.

I ate my fair share of grape leaves,

baba ganoush,

and lavash and pita bread.

The pita was the best I’ve ever had!  So nice to go on a date with the husband.

Now I’m supposed to be in bed, but the dog in the apartment below us is going crazy.  Instead I’m sipping on this Bolthouse Farms Vanilla Chia drink, and trying to think calm thoughts.

Good night (hopefully!).