WIAW (What My Roommate Makes Me)

Hey ya’ll! It is Wednesday. Hurray. For me, that means only class today and tomorrow. However I have the dreadful GRE at 5:30 pm tomorrow evening. Bum bum bum. I know it sucks. The things I do to achieve my dreams. On a happier and much lighter note, it is What I Ate Wednesday. YES. Thank you Jenn for giving this special day to all of us food and healthy living bloggers. I love it. For today’s WIAW post I thought I would throw an extra special twist: What my roommate makes me. I love my roommate, she is all about healthy living, so she makes some delicious food for us to enjoy.

This past week she made enchiladas. Oh god were they good. She used corn tortillas and real Mexican cheese (although we aren’t sure how legit the cheese is because our stomachs hurt later). The sauce was the bomb though. She made it with peppers and other delicious goodness.

This is the whole plate of delicious heaven. She served the enchiladas with chopped lettuce and cherry tomatoes. Then there was a side of brown rice with tomatoes, peppers, and chiles. The rice was amazing. It was creamy, smooth, and filled with a bit of spice. I kept going back for more. Then we had some organic refried black beans on the side. I have a weakness for refried beans, soooo good.

This is so blurry. Maybe because I was tipsy? Blame it on the alcohol, blame it on the vodka, blame it on the henney. No, but actually really. My contribution to the dinner was the margaritas. This was round two. The first ones we had were lime margaritas and these were strawberry. We like to celebrate our Thursday nights in style, even if we are just sitting at home the two of us. We are cool like that, I know you are all jealous.

What is this? Vegetarian heaven on a plate. It was ezekial bread topped with relish, mayonaisse, and vegetarian sloppy joe. I’ve never had a vegetarian sloppy joe, so this was something new for me. It was amazing. Maybe even better than one with actual meat it in. She served corn on the side. I was a big fan. I haven’t had corn in a while.

Aren’t you jealous that my roommate is better than yours? You should be because mine serves me up delicious meals like this. I gobbled it up.

She makes the best salads. No joke. This one was spinach leaves, pine nuts, goat cheese, blueberries and topped with a blueberry dressing. Oh man, this was good. I love a nice refreshing salad, so whenever she pops one of these bad boys up I’m pretty excited.

This is Ivy, the crazy kitten. She had managed to get into the empty alcohol bag. Maybe she wanted to booze too? Too bad you are a kitten. Underage problems. She just has a love for bags. We think she looks like a gremlin. She pops out of nowhere and jumps on everything. She is like a little ball of energy.

Hope everyone has a good humpday and WIAW!

Belated Birthday

Hey ya’ll! This week is sort of crazy for me. I’m taking the GRE on Thursday night, so I’ve been devoting my life to studying for it. I am praying that I do good, so I don’t have to take it again. That thing is freaking expensive. To be honest, I don’t really think you need to be skilled in geometry or have a high vocab to get your masters in nutrition and exercise physiology. Anyways this past weekend it was my mom’s birthday! I seriously love my mom to death, she is pretty awesome.

Funny story actually. So on Friday we went to this place called Hey Cupcake to get my cousin a few cupcakes for her birthday (yeah, all of my relatives are born at the same time – weird), and my mom decided to get one for herself for her birthday. The guy working there was like well how old are you and she was like guess how old my daughter is, so he looks at me and goes 16. REALLY DUDE? Like really? I’m 23, but sure 7 years off isn’t bad. He then proceeds to flirt with me and talk about how tall women are beautiful. Umm okay, you just thought I was 16 about 5 seconds ago.

For my mom’s actual birthday, we ended up going to the Whole Foods in downtown Austin to pick up lunch and about 5 million desserts. Okay, I exaggerated a bit. Only like 6 desserts because there was a surprise waiting for my mom at home. We first went to go get my mom a chocolate covered caramel apple at the chocolate bar in the Whole Foods, and that is where I saw some pretty cool stained glass chocolate. I love that chocolate is an art form. I also love the way it tastes. You are probably a deeply disturbed person if you don’t like chocolate.

For my lunch I had a salad from the hot and cold food bars. I piled it on with delicious goodness. It had spinach leaves and romaine lettuce, eggplant with miso glaze, roasted zucchini, grilled mushrooms, pesto roasted tofu, edamame, and some roasted tomatoes. Healthy and delicious. That is my style. My brother and mom split a sandwich called the Mopac. I know ya’ll are telling me to shut up about the food and just get to the desserts, so lets do this.

That is beautiful. I have a weakness for cherries. Oh and if you didn’t already know chocolate too. I love chocolate. This was a black forest cake in a cup. I love when Whole Foods smashes up a dessert and puts it in a cup to go. This dessert was probably my favorite of all the ones we picked out to have. It was so rich from the chocolate and it was moist. Thank god because I hate when cakes or brownies are like crispy instead of squishy.

That cloud of fluffy icing looks like a nice pillow that I just want to lay on and eat it up. Maybe not exactly, but I definitely want to gobble it up. This is the tres leches cake at Whole Foods. If you haven’t had it, you seriously need to get in your car and go pick one up immediately. This is probably the moistest cake I have ever had, and also the best tres leches cake I’ve probably had too. Whole Foods does a perfect job of incorporating the classic flavors of this traditional Mexican dessert.

The surprise that was awaiting my mother. A Banana Fosters birthday cake. Yes, I know. This actually exists in reality. Thank you Whole Foods for being the greatest place in the world. Okay I wouldn’t go that far, but I do love the Whole Foods. Really just the one in Austin because it is the headquarters and far superior to any other one in the world.

This cake was heaven. It had a thin layer of caramel for every icing layer within the cake. The bottom of the cake was surrounded in dehydrated bananas, I was a fan and no one else was. The icing was fluffy and delicious, while the cake was not dry and had so many flavors packed into it. It was sort of overwhelming, but in a good way.

I ended up having some fruit salad, so I could pretend that I didn’t eat all of that dessert. I’m not that much of a fatty. I only had one or two bites of every dessert that we actually got. I liked the fruit salad though. It was only filled berries and pineapple. I was glad because I’m not a fan of honeydew and I hate when people put it in fruit salad. Gross.

I just thought this was really neat. We obviously didn’t buy a huge thing of chocolate, but I love how they do all these cool artsy pieces in the display case at the chocolate bar in the Whole Foods. I do wonder if someone actually buys these things. I wouldn’t mind if a guy bought me that key in dark chocolate.

We know I love cupcakes. My weakness in life. Whole Foods does such a good job at making the cupcakes look crazy adorable, so people will buy them. This one was my favorite one that day. It was an icecream sunday on top of a plain vanilla cupcake. I’ve had their cupcakes before, so I didn’t want to get one. I love the icing, but the cake is just sort of a cake. Whole Foods is obviously somewhere you don’t go to get the cupcakes, but still most of their desserts are pretty mind blowing.

What is your favorite dessert?
How often do you go to Whole Foods?

Pancakes Without Flour?!

Hey ya’ll! It is Thursday, which is my favorite day of the week for obvious reasons. I don’t have class on Fridays. Thank god. I deserve it as a fifth year senior! Also Thursday means celebrate. Tonight I’m having homemade enchiladas and some ice cold margaritas. My roommate and I know how to throw down on a Thursday night. Last Thursday night we made vegan chocolate cupcakes – scrumptious!

Anyways today I’m posting about pancakes. Flourless pancakes. Yes, you heard me. No flour. Just two ingredient pancakes. I creep on Pinterest on a regular basis, so I saw this idea a lot on various boards.

This looks absolutely disgusting, I know. When I was first mixing it I was like oh god this is going to be a hot mess. I wasn’t even sure if this was going to be edible. I was convinced that it was going to turn into an omelet or something since one of the two ingredients was an egg.

When I poured the batter onto the pan from a 1/4 cup then things started to look. Okay, these somewhat are starting to resemble pancakes. Do they have a weird color? Yes. Do they look super runny? Yes. Are the typical bubbles appearing? YES. That means it is a success, at least in appearance wise. As I was flipping and turning them, the pancakes became soft and browned on each side like a normal pancake does.

One mashed banana and one egg stirred together led to this beautiful plate of fluffiness. Yes, they look like real pancakes. They also tasted like real pancakes. It was incredible. Pinterest definitely knows its stuff when it comes to recipes. I’m glad I have discovered this recipe because I can’t wait to turn it into crazy typical Lindsay recipes like my other pancake ones that have flour in them.

Flourless Pancakes:

1 Banana
1 egg

1. Mash banana into a small mixing bowl until there are no chunks.
2. Add in one egg.
3. Mix well until there is a liquidy smooth consistency.4. Measure out 1/4 c. at at time onto a pan.
5. Wait until the top of the pancake bubbles then flip over until lightly browned on both sides.
6. Serve with whatever toppings you desire (I put bananas, chocolate chips, and syrup on mine).

Seriously this is my new favorite recipe. Probably not, but it is definitely healthy and really easy to make. If you want to make more, you can just double the recipe. Also another healthy option would be to switch out the entire egg and just place in 4 egg whites. I can’t wait to get creative in the kitchen with these bad boys.

Sorry for overloading ya’ll with pancake photos. I’m just in love with them. It is ridiculous. I actually took about 10 photos of the pancakes, so ya’ll are lucky that I’m only showing you this many. I hope ya’ll have a fantastic weekend. I know mine is going to be filled with tons of stuff. Tomorrow we are celebrating my cousin’s birthday, then Saturday is mother’s birthday, and Sunday I have volleyball tryouts for my Maccabi Volleyball team. I’m so excited!

Have ya’ll ever had flourless pancakes?
If so, what do you think of them? Any cool recipes using them?

WIAW (More like What Trailers I Ate)

Hey ya’ll! It is my favorite day of the week. What I Ate Wednesday. Since this is my first one back, I’ve decided to make it extra special. It is going to be based around…drum roll….TRAILERS. Ya’ll are probably sick of my love for food trailers, but I think you are just going to have to get over it. Shout out to Jenn for allowing me to post my love for trailers on her blog on Wednesdays. Lets get this WIAW party started.

Oh you have seen this trailer on my blog before? That is right. I love this trailer more than anything. Capital City bakery has a sweet spot in my heart. Not only because of the delicious cupcakes they serve or the cinnamon rolls, but the brownies with various toppings are mind blowing.

I know your stomach is probably growling out of control right now staring at these beauties. Let me tell you, that woman knows how to make some amazing brownies. Seriously. The two brownies in this box are raspberry and peanut butter. Both icings are decadent and different in their own way. I couldn’t even pick what brownie was my favorite because they were both so delicious, I couldn’t handle it.

My brother had a champagne cupcake. It was also equally as delicious, but in a different way. The hint of champagne was not strong enough to get you tipsy from a cupcake, but it was just enough to have that sweet bubbly flavor. I’m glad I got to have a bite of it.

Oh the peached tortilla. Heaven in a food trailer pretty much. I discovered this place once at a farmers market, so I was excited to have run into this amazing trailer again in my life. Their menu spans from sliders to various kinds of asian inspired tacos. Tacos? Yes, sign me up. Also sometimes they sell some baked goods from a small company. I was once blessed enough to have a banana fosters cake pop. It was amazing as it sounds.

Their bahn mi taco could give Taco Deli a run for their money. Unlike the pork in that taco, the pork in this taco is shredded. You get more bang for your buck. You know how we Jews feel about that. Also the sauce on top of it is amazing. I love a good sauce. Typical to a bahn mi taco, there was shredded carrots, daikon, and some cilantro. It was delicious. I could definitely eat a few of these.

Cool Haus, one of the more popular trailers that is around the US. I think there is one in New York City and Los Angeles. Who doesn’t want a custom ice cream sandwich? Especially when the flavors of ice cream are so wacky like balsamic fig, candied bacon, and spicy pineapple. Then you get it sandwiched in between cookies such as chocolate chunk pretzel or smore’s. If you don’t want that you are obviously a crazy person.

We ended up getting the balsamic fig and marscapone icecream sandwiched in between snickerdoodle cookies. It was actually really delicious, I’m not gonna lie. At first I was like what is my brother thinking? Those are some weird flavor combinations, but the cinnamon flavors the snickerdoodle went perfectly with the fig and marscapone cheese in the ice cream. It was pretty good. This isn’t a trailer I would seek out on my own, but if I passed by on a hot day then I would definitely stop in.

This is all I’m going to give you for today. Trust me I got a lot more food trailers up my sleeve, but ya’ll probably wouldn’t be able to handle it if I threw them all on you at once. I hope everyone has a good wednesday. Only one more day left of class! Thank god. School is really exhausting especially when it is your last semester (wooooo).

I Live in Taco Heaven

Hey ya’ll! This whole going back to school thing after having a four day break is definitely not cool. I’m exhausted. Class for the most part was interesting except for my biochemical nutrition class – what a snooze. On to better subjects like tacos. Living in Austin and I guess Texas in general you have amazing tacos everywhere. One of my favorite taco places in Austin is Taco Deli.

Since my best friend was in town, she wanted to get Taco Deli one morning. We met up with one of our other really good friends and her friend. Of course going on a Sunday morning leads to a long line out the door and a packed parking lot, but oh well it is always worth it to crush some tacos. Plus waiting in line gave us time to chat about the night before and little bits from our life. By the time we got to the front, my stomach was eating itself and I was ready to dig in.

Oh god yes. Queso. So amazing. My best friend loves queso as do I, so we all decided to order a large queso to share. It isn’t my favorite queso in town, but that doesn’t mean it is not good. It is more on the liquidy side rather than a thick version, which most people are used to.

I had to throw in a second picture because look how good it is. Doesn’t it just make your mouth water and your stomach grumble? As my best friend stated as she was eating it, “can you just roll me in it” or “coat my entire body with it”. Obviously it is some pretty good queso if she wants to have cheese sauce all over her body.

I ended up just ordering two tacos. I wish I would have gotten more to go for later because these were so delicious. I decided to branch out for once and try something new. They had a Bahn Mi Taco on the menu board. Well I like Asian food, I like Vietnamese food, and I like Bahn Mi sandwiches, so why the heck not? Oh god, good choice on my part. The pork was so tender and had all the right Asian flavors in the rub of the pork. It was topped with shredded carrots and daikon, which added those classic tastes from a bahn mi sandwich. I was in taco heaven.

I decided to be somewhat healthy (I mean the tacos aren’t that bad for you to begin with), and I went with a vegetarian taco for my second one. I got the mushroom taco, which was amazing. The mushrooms were sauteed perfectly and topped with peppers and onions to give it that fajita style flavor. There were definitely some other vegetarian tacos I wanted to try, but I’m happy that I picked this one. I have a love for mushrooms. Once again I was on my taco cloud 9.

Look at that beautiful basket of tacos. Now aren’t you jealous that you don’t live in Austin or Texas? You can never experience good tacos or even good brisket/BBQ (that is a whole different story that sometime I will have to get to). Now you can salivate over my pictures while I enjoy a nice taco. Actually I’m eating vegetarian sloppy joes at the moment (thanks to my amazing roommate), but oh well.

Have an awesome Tuesday. I have a job interview for something really cool. Hopefully I get it, but if not life goes on.

A Jumbled Seattle

Hey ya’ll! I’m currently dying actual death. You think I’m kidding, but no I’m definitely not. I went out with my roommate last night and it was pretty much the most ridiculous night of my life. Not in a good way. Why not bring some cheer back in my life with a great post about random things in Seattle to close up the posts about my trip? Okay, sounds like a plan.

Typical Lindsay Move. Cupcakes are pretty much my thing in life, so I’m always on the hunt for a good one. When we were walking around one morning, I spotted this cute sign when I looked up from under my umbrella. Adorable. I had to acquire more information about this mystery cupcake place. Out pops the iPhone.

After some much needed yelping, I saw that Cupcake Royale only got about 3 1/2 stars. That can sort of be disappointing because Yelp is like my bible. I follow it religiously and search for places to eat all the time on it. It has never let me down, but I decided why not try the cupcakes anyways. You can never lose with a cupcake unless they are just the most god awful things ever. The store was really cute though and packed, so obviously something good had to be going on inside.

Mini cupcakes for the win. You can get a sweet treat, but without feeling super guilty. We got just a plain vanilla cupcake with vanilla icing and the velvet elvis. The velvet elvis was a brown sugar banana cupcake with peanut butter chocolate frosting and topped with bacon. It was delicious. The other one was good, but it was just a regular cupcake. I wish we would have gotten a different flavor.

The other cupcake we got was a normal size one. It was the Meyer Lemon Drop cupcake. My brother and I love fruit flavors, so that is why we decided to get this one too. It was a vanilla bean buttercake with zesty meyer lemon frosting and topped with a lemon drop. The description definitely did not lie. That icing was super zesty and delicious. I wish the actual cake would have been lemon too. I thought 3 and a half stars appropriately fit Cupcake Royale. While it was good, it was still lacking the richness of flavor that better cupcakeries have in their product. Also was sad about the dismal amount of frosting on top. I’m a frosting girl, so I need it packed on.

We ended up going to the flight museum. It was probably the most boring museum I have ever been to. I tried to enjoy it, but it was just awful. The place was dead too besides a few children and random old people. My brother and I made the most of it. We played around in air planes like this one above. My brother will probably kill me again for posting this, but oh well. It is already on facebook, so who cares.

Oh Archie McPhees. One of the weirdest shops I’ve ever been in to. They had toys, gadgets, and masks galore. It was like a 5 year olds heaven, so obviously my dad and brother enjoyed it.

I seriously love my brother. He is one of the funniest people I know. The good old cooked chicken mask. He really wanted this, so he could wear it to parties randomly. Yes, that is how interesting my brother is. It was 35$, so I couldn’t justify spending that.

Unfortunately I didn’t take any pictures in Vancouver because it was pouring down rain when we were there. I just had gotten a nice new camera, so I didn’t want to get it wet. I would have stolen my brothers pictures, but the ones of the food came out super blurry. All in all, I hope you enjoyed my recap about my awesome trip to Seattle. I definitely want to go back there and spend more time in Vancouver because it was so beautiful. Have a good MLK day!

 

The Bakery of the Gods

Hey ya’ll! This weekend has been a blast so far, and there are still two days left. I’ve loved having my best friend back in town. It is like she has never left. I’m sad that she is going to have to leave, but I can’t wait to go visit her in NYC. I think the Big Apple needs a little Lindsay.

Back to the real world. Today I’m going to post about the greatest bakery in the world. Maybe not compared to bakeries in France, but at least places in the United States. This bakery was the bakery of the gods. It was that amazing.

Welcome to Bakery Nouveau. It is a delicious French bakery in Seattle. They have pastries, a chocolate case, bread, sandwiches, and drinks. Going only once was a crime. We should have at least gone twice, maybe even three times. My brother has his love for French bakeries, so of course when we were in Seattle we had to frequent a couple. We yelped it (typical of us), and saw that it has 4 and a half stars. WIN.

Hello to this case of goodies. Unfortunately we weren’t there for the chocolate. Although now that I’m thinking about it, I definitely wish we would have gotten some chocolate to go. I have a weakness for chocolate.

Get in my belly right now. Welcome to the greatness that is called the twice baked chocolate almond croissant. The pastry was so flaky and soft as you bite into the croissant. Then you taste the soft creaminess of the chocolate and almond paste inside. Heaven in the mouth. I’m not even kidding. This is probably the best croissant I have ever had in my life, and trust me my family and I are connoisseurs of croissants. We’ve had them in Paris, Berlin, and various US bakeries. This one is the cherry on top. Try to get this in your life immediately.

Pear danish? Yes please. One again the pastry was extremely flaky and soft when you bit into it. Once you reached the middle of the danish, you got to experience the fruity flavor of the pear mixed with an almond cream that was underneath it.

Oh what is this delicious treat? I forgot what specifically it is, but I know it had apple and cinnamon in it. Oh god it was delicious. The crust was perfectly baked. The inside of the pastry had chunks of apples and a sweat thick cream that tasted amazing when it entered your mouth. Pure perfection in a little bite.

What a beautiful piece of art. I love the shape of this pastry. It was an apricot danish. It was delicious. The crust on this was was more cooked than the other ones, so the flaky factor was a little less than the other ones. However it was still delicious in its own way. The apricot in the middle was delicious and once again there was a surprise of cream underneath the fruit. It was delicious. Yum.

I stole this picture from bing, but this is what my dad ordered for himself. It was a pistachio cake with various layers of cake and cream. It was an interesting dessert, but definitely not my favorite thing we had eaten that day. I love pistachio, but it wasn’t that rich in flavor. I was disappointed in it. Oh well the rest of the pastries were so mind blowing amazing that it didn’t even matter to me.

This is a must if you go to Seattle. I hope ya’ll have a good football Sunday and for those that have off on Martin Luther King day enjoy it. I know I will be enjoying it with some margaritas with my roommate. Probably some cupcakes too. We know how to have fun!

Seattle on the Mind

Hey ya’ll! I hope everyone had a good Friday. I ended up sleeping about 12 hours, which was much needed. I’m still sort of tired, but there is a Disney movie marathon on ABC family (HECK YES). Not to mention that….

My best friend is back in Austin for the weekend! I’m so happy because I haven’t seen her since October, which was sooo long ago. We are going to be spending a ton of time together in the next few months. She is here this long weekend, I’m going to NYC in februrary, and then we are going to Ultra Music Festival in Miami in March! I love her. Anyways back to more important things like what I’m going to talk about today. More fun things about my trip to Seattle.

We decided to wake up somewhat early (10 am lol) to go get brunch at a place called Portage Bay Cafe. Funny story is that my dad just typed in portage bay into his phone, so we ended up driving to some residential neighborhood in Seattle. After we ended up having a 45 minute wait, we decided to drive around and look at the University of Washington (I wouldn’t mind going there for my masters). It was so beautiful, but then we went back to the restaurant to get our grub on.

Hello to this gorgeous plate. My brother ended up getting the lemon curd french toast for breakfast. When you ordered certain items on the menu, you got to use and abuse their breakfast bar. The bar was filled with various fruits, whipped topping, syrup, brown sugar, and some dried fruit. It was heavenly. The lemon curd was tart and delicious. The added toppings just added to this perfect dish. My brother wanted to burst afterwards.

He also ordered a side of potatoes to share with me. They were perfectly seasoned and crisped to perfection. I’m glad he ordered them because I needed something to go with my meal.

I ended up ordering the steel cut oats. This meant that I got to use the amazing breakfast bar. I topped mine with some brown sugar and fruit. I had strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, some local type of berry, and some raisins. In my mind it was just okay. I personally think I make better oatmeal, but then again how can you really screw up oatmeal. I was trying to eat somewhat healthy, which is why I didn’t choose something else.

This building was so pretty and unique. We ended up going to the EMB musuem, which was dedicated to music. It pretty much only had rock music in it. Obviously not my favorite, but my dad wanted to go so we went along with it.

One of the coolest parts of the museum was that there was this room where you could play various musical instruments and have jam sessions. My brother and I jacked one of the jam rooms, which had a drum set and two types of guitars on it. I definitely rocked out the drums (I had no idea what I was doing) and my brother jammed on the electric guitar. It was hilarious. We then left the room and went to a mixing board. It was kid like fun.

Probably my favorite part of the museum was the leather jacket exhibit. I am a huge fan of leather. Seriously I go no where without my leather coat. It was definitely one of the greatest investment pieces in my wardrobe. Anyways they had the coolest jackets on exhibit there like this one above. I love crazy prints. There were other jackets with studs, jewels, and colors. It was leather jacket heaven.

For dinner that night, we ended up going to a place that was on Diners, Drive-ins, and dives. My brother and I were so stoked because it is one of our favorite shows. The place we went for dinner was called Bizarros. It was definitely a bizarre place.

The lighting is a wee bit weird because inside the restaurant the lights were dimmed with an orange hue. Also there were crazy things hanging from the ceiling such as upside down bicycles, a recliner chair, and a window frame. For one of the appetizers, we ordered the mussels. They were so divine. The restaurant is Italian, so they had the classic flavors. My brother and dad ended up using the bread to eat up all the sauce in the bowl too. It was just that good.

My brother has a love for bruschetta, so he ordered that for our second appetizer. I was expecting the classic dish with diced vegetables on top, but oh how I was wrong (in a good way). The perfectly toasted bread was topped with goat cheese, figs, and a delicious honey based sauce. It was a sweet version of the dish. I had died and gone to foodie heaven. No wonder this place was on diners, drive-ins, and dives.

I definitely ordered the best main course. I got the wild mushroom tagilatelle. Oh my, how delicious it was. The mushrooms were cooked perfectly and the creamy sauce went well with the noddles and mushrooms. It was so good that my brother and dad were eating it too along with their dishes. Hungry guys, typical. If you are ever in Seattle, you definitely have to go here. It is so much fun and the staff is extremely friendly!

I hope ya’ll have a good Saturday. I know I will. I’m going on epic adventures with my two best friends. I better go get ready.

French Bakeries and Glass Art

Hey ya’ll! I hope you are all having a fantastic Friday. To be honest, I’m extremely exhausted. My Thursday night was filled with cupcakes, friends, and fun times. I didn’t go to sleep till really late and then I woke up super early. That leads to one exhausted girl. Continuing on my trend of Seattle, today I’m writing about our first full day in Seattle.

We woke up around 11 am the first day, and were ready for a fun adventure in the city. We decided to head down to Pike Place Market. It is a popular tourist destination, which was evident the day we went because it was crowded with tons of people. Not to mention the original Starbucks was across the street and there was a long line out of it every day.

This was what filled the long hall of the Pike Place Market. Sweat treats, fresh fruit, and locally made treasures. We ended up stopping at a dehydrated fruit stand, and bought some apples with cinnamon sprinkled on them. They were delicious. We then wondered for a while eye balling each shop until we decided to get some apples to snack on later in the room (honeycrisp, my favorite).

My brother and I were getting hungry, so we decided to go into this little French bakery on the corner of the street. We had yelped it before the trip, and we know it had gotten 4 and a half stars so you know it is going to be good. There was even a long line, so that also had to mean that it was legit. We were excited especially my brother because he loves French bakeries more than anything in life (besides dying his hair).

This was my box of goodies. I got French macarons, which are definitely one of my favorite bakery treats. I got a lemon and pistachio macaron for myself, and the third one is mocha for my dad. I also got a cute pink eclair. Pink is my favorite color and it looked so adorable in the pastry case that I had to have it. Everything was delicious. The macarons were so rich with flavor while the eclair was creamy and rich. Win. My brother got tons of tarts and croissants. My favorite thing of his was a croissant filled with raspberry jam. It was golden and flaky with a sweet tart flavor from the raspberry jam. It was perfect.

After we had our sweet treats, we ended up walking around a while until we formulated a good plan. We got on the monorail (it only has two stops), and went on to an area that had the space needle and tons of museums. This probably is the favorite part of my trip. We went to the Chihuly Garden and Glass museum. It was the most beautiful museum I have ever set foot in.

Chihuly is probably the greatest glass artist I have ever seen, which is saying a lot because I saw beautiful glass work in Venice when I was there years ago. One of his classic pieces, which can be seen many places around the United States, are his boats. They are either filled with these glass balls or crazy glass structures. A story we learned at the museum is that Chihuly would create a glass ball and throw it in a random pond or lake. The local kids would play with the balls, but would always return them to their original place. I thought that was really neat.

Chihuly is probably most well known for his ceiling masterpiece at the Bellagio hotel in Las Vegas. Of course there was a similar piece in the museum. It was in a smaller room, which was really cool because the different colors reflected all over the walls. It gave the room a magical feel.

This was probably my favorite room in the entire museum. It was pitch black in the room except for the installation. It was lit up and it glowed throughout the room. Each view of the long piece gave you a different spectacular view.

After walking for hours and going to a couple of other museums and cool tourist spots, we headed back to the hotel to make dinner plans. We decided to go to Seastar Restaurant and Raw Bar. It was amazing. For an appetizer we ordered mussels that had thai flavors and were in a thai coconut broth. These were some of the best mussels I have ever had. The various Thai flavors brought into the dish delivered a whole new flavor to the palate.

Our second appetizer was a crab cake. You can’t go to a seafood restaurant and not get a crab cake. Once again the restaurant brought in sweet Thai flavors that created  whole new crab cake experience. They were fried lightly, which provided the crisp yet sweet flavor of crab. It was delicious.

This beauty was my main course. I think I definitely picked the best dish of the three of us. It was Mahi Mahi on top of jasmine rice. It was a sweet Thai sauce that contained nuts, snap peas, and cucumber. This dish was perfect. There was not a single flaw. The fish was cooked perfectly, the flavors were on spot, and the dish was beautifully presented. All in all it was an amazing dinner.

Hope everyone has a good Friday night. I’ll be staying in tonight because I am too dead to do anything.

Welcome to Seattle

Hey ya’ll! One of my favorite things to do is travel, so for winterbreak I ended up going to Seattle and Vancouver. I fell in love with both. Seriously, I want to move to Canada to go to graduate school. For the next few days, I will recap my amazing trip and the foodie adventures I had in these wonderful places.

When my brother and I landed in Seattle, it was around 9 pm. We were starving. We still had to get our suitcases, ride the link light train, and check in to our hotel. I did not realize I was going to San Francisco! Kidding, but just a little. There were hills like the ones in SF, and I had to drag my suitcase and myself up the hill, not pleasant. We made it, checked in, and my brother got on yelp. We decided to walk down a bajillion hills in order to get some sushi. We ended up going to Nijo Sushi.

Here is my brother. He is obviously starving to death/dying because we want our food. He is probably going to kill me if he sees this online.

One of the greatest things abut this place was that they had happy hour until 12 am, which we were just in luck since we didn’t get there until about 10:30 pm. This was one of the dishes we got off the happy hour menu. They were yam fries, which were tossed with wasabi oil and kosher salt (yay kosher) and were served with a wasabi aioli. Oh god was that aoili sauce amazing. The creaminess of the sauce mixed with the crispy sweetness of the yam fries was pure perfection. I could just have eaten tons of this dish.

The second happy hour item we ordered was the dancing shrimp. It was flash fried rock shrimp tossed lightly with wasabi dressing. Once again Nijo hits us with an amazing creamy and crunchy blend of flavors. This probably was my favorite dish of the night. I am a sucker for good fried shrimp. I blame it on the cajun in me!

I’m about to serve you up some sweet sushi porn. My brother and I got three rolls because my dad has just messaged us saying that he was walking down to the restaurant. We ordered the frank and beans, which had tempura shrimp with cucumber topped with spicy tuna and tobiko. THAT ROLL WAS AMAZING. I’m not even sure how to describe it, but it was so fresh and creamy. I love rolls that have any type of creaminess. Another roll was the Crunch roll, which had spicy scallops, enoki mushrooms, cucumber, tobiko, and kalware. This roll was interesting. Not sure if I liked it, but it wasn’t bad. The third roll was the Cheeze roll. It was spicy tuna, cream cheese, cucumber, and avocado topped with panko breaded and fried eel. This roll was delicious too. Now it is time for some sushi porn!

Enough of this. Had to cut it off or I may not have been able to handle it. Just kidding. More sushi, but different rolls this time.

This beauty was the Chili Cha Cha roll. It was filled with soft shell crab, cucumber, and jalapeno topped with avocado and tobiko. It was pretty delicious. It had a nice kick to it too with the jalapenos, but it wasn’t so spicy that I couldn’t handle it.

This is the volcano roll. If you don’t like to have your mouth burning and on fire, run the other way. This thing made me chug about 5 glasses of water in about 5 minutes. It was crazy. It had cucumber, jalapeno, lemon slice, spicy scallop, eel sauce, and tenkasu and red tobiko. It was good, but scary spicy. Definitely couldn’t really handle it. I’m a whimp.

This place was pretty good, especially since they had a happy hour till 12 am. It was the perfect start to our amazing trip on the west coast.