Yes Virginia . . .

There IS a Santa Clause and he makes grilled cheese at Burger Palace of all places. 

Long awaited lunch with Twist today. Took a risk on the Ultimate Grilled cheese and was not sorry. Perfectly buttered and crisped sandwich properly done on the grill with melted cheese bacon and avocado was a delightful alternative to burger. Bacon and avocado were sliced thin and stacked nearly so as to prevent falling out of sandwich. Perfectly executed. Taste was also great. 

Twist and I split truffle fries which were wonderful as well. 

I'd forgotten about burger palace but will have to stop in more often. Last time I was there was a year ago. 

Burger Palace recommended. 

Caracol Take Me Away . . .

First ever visit to Caracol in Galleria area.  I'm apparently late to the party though because it seems everyone else has eaten here multiple times.  BBF was in from satellite office so we met there along with Twist and Quiet Guy.  I had not socialized with Twist in freaking forEVER and was very happy for the chance to do so. 

We started with ceviche de caracol.  I didnt care for the conch and presentation was not traditional ceviche style.  Just kind of meh in terms of flavor and overall impressions.  Also had carne apache and wood fired oysters.  carne apache was tasty but super small bites and ridiculously priced I thought for what came out on the plate.  Wood fired oysters on the other hand were the business.  SO tasty with a little tang of tomato and Parmesan.  Oysters done just right, not too overcooked.

Entrees Twist and I split the scallops.  Quiet got crab soup and BBF also did scallops.  Very please with scallops.  not overwhelmed by sauce and garnishes and scallops done just right.  Whomever was cooking last night had a light touch with the grilling.  Very much appreciated!  Quiet (known for putting away food) cleaned his soup bowl, which I think means it was good although with him that is not necessarily an indicator.  No complaints at least.  Quiet bailed and the rest of us got some dessert.  some plantains foster thing that I wasnt about to touch b/c cooked bananas are mostly gross, and then a roasted pineapple and pistachio cake thing in some sauce.  pineapple and sauce were delish!  pistachio cake was like eating a damp old sponge so I could have lived without it.  Not the worst thing I have ever had.

Overall nice meal, great company and pleasant atmosphere.  Prices are pretty high for what you get, says me, but it's trendy and popular so there you go.

I'd recommend Caracol and give it 3.5 microwaves (you forgot about that didn't you?).

Tonight: thrilling office dinner for holidays with assigned seating!

Ewwwww

My love of chana masala should be well documented in this blog. Saw a ready to eat kind at the store and figured I would try it. I've had varying success with shelf stable meals. Usually the frozen is better. That was def reinforced here. 

Photo removed 

Ok, so here it is before. 

Photo removed (trust me. It looks gross)

And this is after. It looked ok. Was lacking the aromatics I prefer. No curry no turmeric. Rice was too mushy but I can live with that. What I could not deal with though was the taste. Lack of curry was noticeable, no garlic either. Too much of an underlying cinnamon with vague prune flavor. Kind of gross.  Gross enough that I couldn't keep eating it, and I have a high tolerance to eat stuff that I don't like or isn't that great.  I got about 4 bites then had to stop. Toooo nasty. Bleh. 

Then this happened:

Yeah. You're seeing that right. Olives, pickles and Kings Hawaiian. The pickles, by the way, were spectacular.

Happy Saturday peeps!

Guilty Pleasure. . .

McDonald's southern fried chicken sandwich. I can't count all the ways this is bad. I only eat about one a year. Add mayo and the bbq sauce.  Heaven. 

I will feel super bad about eating this later. Right now though. Not so much. 

So Much Food . . .

So little time to write about it! 

Some recent notables: 

Orange Leaf pineapple soft serve w coconut strawberries and blueberries. Dairy free! 

Ahi poke at Yokozuna in Tulsa Ok over Labor Day. Lunch w childhood BFF. She had salmon eggs Benedict. We also had a carafe of mimosas. Yeah boy! That's just how we roll. 

Meat and cheese plate and calamari Ferraro's at the Maui Four Seasons 

Cannot tell you what I had for diner but it was lovely. 

Kalua pork "lunch plate" Lava Rock Cafe Volvano Hawaii.  This rocked the house. Pork was well flavored and moist. Serious run for the money against any Texas bbq pork I've had. 

Have more but need to look through photos and pull them up. 

Happy weekend y'all! 

Fear the Gelatin . . .

Monday conference luncheon at TheFour  Seasons Houston. Standard salad greens with a grilled chicken breast, some bok choy and rice. Not bad. Having somewhat gone paleo a little while back (after a 3 mo vegan stint) no rice for me. Pretty nice pan Asian sauce on the chicken. Although forgettable since 5 days later I can't tell you if it was coconut, curry or both.  

Now, also on the tables at each place was a mystery bowl with something yellow in it. Initially I thought it was a chilled soup but then the servers never gave it to us, and it looked like it had cream in it. Dairy is non paleo (and non vegan) so it's not like I was gonna eat it anyway. 

Did I say the conference was an oil and gas infrastructure conference? Lots of dudes. Handful of women. 

Back to the yellow bowls. Turns out it is dessert. The dudes looked super suspicious about eating it. Waiter says its pineapple panna cotta. I ask for bowl of fruit. Otherwise I'd be down with panna cotta. Once planet man saw me ask for fruit as well as my vegan coworker no one was touching dessert. The guy next to me asked what it was. Panna cotta not answering his question I said "custard". It didn't encourage him at all. Looking at the other tables it was clear the yellow panna cotta was not tempting anyone.  Watching the reactions to it however, excellent. As conference food is usually lowest common denominator of food the thinking behind panna cotta for dessert was clearly misguided. Four Seasons, surely you know you can't get all creative with a room full of oil and gas business guys and lawyers. Come on. You should've just done freaking soft serve.  

For conference food is say this was not bad. For Foir Seasons not impressive at all. Solidly mediocre. Overall I'd give it a 3   

On the conference front though, really well done and interesting.  

Can't wait to see what they serve next year! 

Mamma Mia . . .

Where does one go on her birthday for work? Pittsburgh of course. Actually it wasn't that bad. I'd never been before but weather was delightful, sun was out and I had some good food as long as I stayed outside of the hotel.  

I really did have to travel on my birthday with several work compatriots. All are pretty rowdy and fun so no issues there. One gal in particular I'm good buds with and we decided off campus dinner was called for when we got in Tuesday evening, my choice. Did I mention it was my birthday? 

She is a Researcher and a Planner. Even for a spontaneous dinner. She went so far as to call the front desk for suggestions. I'm more of a go with my gut girl so I just did a quick map search while she was busy contacting friends for recommendations and looking all over the Internet. My map showed a place called Juliano's somewhat nearby. Local joint not fancy with wine and basic Italian. My gut said go there.  Buddy took some convincing but I did get her on board. We dialed up an Uber and took off. 

Julianos didn't disappoint. I wouldn't call it a dive. More of a joint. Maybe an old fast food place converted to a restaurant. Waitress had a good solid burgh accent. Anything less would have been devastating.  She suggested a carafe of house wine after we ordered two glasses then Buddy again hit the Planning and Reaearch wanting to know what the house wine was. What grapes where'd it come from etc. Burgh took it in stride simultaneously looking at her like she was insane. Finally she relented and accepted that it was just House Wine. This is by no means a criticism. Just what makes her kickass at her job and an endearing dinner partner. 

We ordered way too much food combined with ridiculously large portions there was no way we could even hope to make a dent in it. Breadsticks, fried zucchini , eggplant parm with a side of spaghetti that could've fed 4 people , she had some pasta with homemade pink sauce that came in a bowl more like a trough. Ridiculous. All tasty 

We topped it all off with Dum Dums from the register. I felt too bad to leave my leftovers so took them with. Uber driver didn't want them. He was concerned about a food coma. The box must've weighed like 4 pounds. Took it back to hotel anyway and offered it up as a snack to all my co workers. Biggest regret was no mini fridge in the room to take advantage of cold spag for breakfast. Can't have everything I guess. Even on your birthday. 

Jiliano's family Italian on Steubenville Pike. Recommended. 5 microwaves. 

YUM 

Whoa. Part deux.

These on the other hand suck and are super disappointing. 

Boo Dancing Deer. Or maybe boo Randall's. Not sure which. These should be wonderful but instead are dry and lackluster. Gravely disappointing. I kind of feel like they are thawing out from frozen. Surely that's not right? 

Too bad. The name alone was supper exciting. 

Meh 

Whoa.

Oh my gawd this is so good. Nom nom nom nom. 

Chana Saag. Saffron Road. For realz. CRAZY GOOD 

Highly recommended. 

Tisket a Tosca

Lunch at Tosca on work trip to DC with a good friend. 

Worried about late afternoon food coma I got scallops and mussels. Perfect portion and left room for dessert. No photo because I inhaled it. Honestly I can't even tell you what I ordered other than something with strawberries. Maybe pannna cotta. Yeah. That is spelled wrong. Sue me. 

Meal topped off with lovely cappuccino and no resulting food coma. 

Great company and great eats. 

Recommended!

Luby's. A celebration.

Recent excision to the Galleria Luby's with TNT, my New Guy and Someone Else's New Guy.  When discussing lunch choices we threw out that we'd considered Luby's but New Guy wasn't familiar. SENG jumped in on the Lubys donee bagged former and and set off on foot for the promised land. Not to mention being pumped that SENG was a member of the Cult of Luby's. 

Usually, as y'all know from previous posts I favor the fried fish Luann platter with fried okra. Past 6 months I have been trying to eat better and thought something not fried was in order. Toyed with the sides platter but went with meatloaf Luann. 

LEt me just say this was some damn good meatloaf. Like really good. Great flavor nice texture, good loaf quality. The total package. Naturally the aides were good so I won't waste words on that.   New Guy seemed pleased with his meal as well and that bodes well for his future. He's a New Englander transplant to Htown. Luby's was total foreign concept to him. He managed it all very nicely.   And it turned out that T2 went to high school with SENG in Kingwood. Small world! But I didn't need to hear what year they graduated from high school. That just made me feel like an old lady but was not enough to overcome the meatloaf high. After a lovely walk back to the office we all took a nap. 

Not really. But we could have. 

Well done Luby's! 

A 5 microwaves rating for this visit!

Crack in a Bag

I recognize I'm in the minority with liking coconut, but goddamn this is addictive. 

I bought this Sunday at Costco and I've inhaled neay the whole bag by Friday. Jerks. 

If you like coconut HIGHLY recommended. If you don't, well what's wrong with you!