Off to Seattle

We had a Friday evening flight out to Seattle, and after getting to the airport and going through security, we only had a short time to grab some dinner. We were flying JetBlue so we were pretty familiar with the food court options - pizza, Asian food, burgers, sandwiches, salad bar, soups and the like. All generally fine, but nothing fun like Shake Shack or some of the other more interesting options we've found at other airports. 

We took turns picking up dinner, and when I went up to order, many of the lines were long. It seemed easiest and quickest to just pick up some ready-made food from Cibo Express, that generic deli that you can find at lots of airports. None of the sandwiches were that interesting, and they were also all pretty expensive, so I went with chicken noodle soup (although I should have gotten a small instead of a large as it was a ton of soup to drink before getting on a plane and very, very hot) and an assortment of salads from the cold bar. The soup was okay, but didn't have a ton of flavor and probably could have used more chicken stock. From the cold bar, I got a Southwest bean salsa, buffalo chicken pasta salad, pasta salad with chicken and tomatoes, and tuna salad. They were light and refreshing, which was good before getting on a long flight.

When A went up to get his dinner, there was no line at the Boar's Head Deli, so he got a build-your-own sandwich there with focaccia bread, cracked pepper turkey, pepper jack cheese, red onions, tomatoes, lettuce, and spicy deli mustard, which he had them toast. Overall, it was a good sandwich - a good combination of flavors and good ingredients - although A did find it a little over-toasted in parts. I had buyer's remorse after I tasted his sandwich, as it was just so much better than everything I had gotten and not that different in price (about $11 total for each). I knew they made pretty good sandwiches there (since I got that on our way out to San Diego), so I wished I had waited in line for it instead of getting what I got. A's sandwich was even better than the one I got there last time. We decided that, whenever flying JetBlue in the future, we'll probably just get some Boar's Head sandwiches as they do seem like the best quality option, even if a little pricey for a sandwich.

A also got a small cup of the potato cheddar soup from Cibo. It was very creamy and rich, but it wasn't all that cheesy considering the name. You could taste some cheese, but it wasn't a dominant flavor. It had chopped vegetables and potatoes, and was generally a hearty soup. It was warm and comforting, and a perfect complement to the sandwich he got.

On board the flight, we settled in and waited for them to come around with the snack baskets, one of the highlights of the JetBlue experience. I was ready to get my usual Cheez-Its and chocolate chip cookies, but when they let us know the options, there were some changes from our last visit. They now had Rold Gold pretzels as well as cinema style (basically butter flavor) Popcorners (instead of kettle). Fantastic improvements, in our opinion, and we got all of those, including the cookies, over the course of our flight. We arrived in Seattle around midnight, so it was pretty much straight into a taxi to the hotel at that late hour, but it was a pretty good first day (or night) of vacation!

Hello San Diego

Our San Diego vacation from last October feels like it was just yesterday, and we wish we were back there instead of in New York's cold winter (even if today felt like spring for a day). We normally do separate posts for every place we visit on our trip, but since the first day was mostly spent traveling and we hit up lots of places that are repeats from other recent trips, I'm going to combine them all here to move things along faster.

We flew out on JetBlue from JFK, so there weren't a ton of fast options for lunch. A chose to go with Famous Famiglia's pizza, getting one slice of plain pizza and one slice with sausage and pepperoni, the first of which he found bland and the second a bit too salty. They both could have used more time in the oven, and generally he didn't particularly think too highly of them.

I went to the Boar's Head Deli which had a fancy tablet ordering system, and got a chipotle chicken sandwich with lettuce, avocado, and provolone. I remember the menu saying something about a mango mayo but didn't taste anything like that. This sandwich was supposed to be a panini, but it wasn't very pressed. The provolone cheese was melted, but the sandwich just seemed to come out like it would if I put a sandwich in the toaster for a few minutes, not a panini press. I had thought the chipotle chicken would be chunks of chicken, not slices, but that was not the most logical expectation considering where I went to get the sandwich. It was nice having some avocado, but since that was in chunks, it kind of fell out and made the sandwich harder to eat. The sandwich wasn't cheap, but at least the flavors were good.

In-flight, we got our usual free snacks - lots of water and (for A) some ginger ale, plus some chocolate chip cookies and Cheez-It crackers. We've mentioned JetBlue's free snacks plenty on this blog, and we hope they never stop doing that.

Once we finally arrived in San Diego and got our bags, our first stop was the Ryan Bros coffee stand near baggage claim. Ryan Bros was a local micro roaster, but A had no idea of that when he opted to get coffee. Unfortunately, he didn't think it was that good. He's not judging the whole brand by this offering though, because it was really late and this was just a small kiosk with coffee sitting in those silver cylinder dispensers and not freshly brewed. It really wasn't a very good cup of coffee.

To close out the day, we went for pretty much the same meal we always do when we first get to California, In-N-Out Burger. Is that what most people from the East Coast do when they go out west? We were pretty hungry, so we got three double-doubles, animal style of course, and two orders of animal style fries. It had been so long since we had In-N-Out that we forgot our usual order also added raw onions to the burgers, but it was fine without them. Everything was so, so, so, so good, and we were thankful that we got there at the exact time we did because that branch was packed. It was so crowded that the drive-thru line went out of the parking lot and circled down the street, and at one point after we ordered, we saw the restaurant line go out the door. Can't think of any fast food out here that would inspire that type of line other than Shake Shack (but you definitely couldn't get out of Shake Shack with all this food for $20).

It was a good first day of our trip, mostly traveling, with the San Diego portion kicked off by a delicious visit to In-N-Out. We were pretty excited for the upcoming week of relaxation and good food, and couldn't wait to get started.

Returning from Brussels

The official last day of our 2010 European adventure was spent entirely on traveling from Brussels back to New York. We had a morning flight out of Brussels so we were packed and on the bus to the airport before 7 am, watching the sunrise as we drove through the streets. It was pretty busy at the airport when we got there considering how early it was.

We got a few snacks for "breakfast" while at the airport. The lines were pretty long, so we didn't really weigh the options too much and just looked for something quick. A picked up a "tropical storm smoothie" with mango, apple, and passion fruit, as well as a meat and cheese sandwich. The line was too long where he went by the time I went to get some food, so I went somewhere else and got a cheese salad sandwich. I had a bit of sticker shock; the sandwich was almost €6 (and that was 6 years ago!) and all it consisted of was bread, a slice of cheese, some dressing, and a little bit of greens and tomatoes. A bit pricey just for that. Before boarding our flight, we also picked up a couple last bags of Haribo from the vending machine, lamenting that our vending machines at home didn't offer such good candy.

Since our flight covered the lunchtime hours (European time), Delta served us lunch on board. We weren't expecting much, since we've always found the food to be better on non-American airlines, but we were pleasantly surprised. We don't remember a ton about the lunch itself other than that it was quite decent. There was a salad that was pretty fresh and came with a little squeeze bottle of Italian dressing, some cheddar cheese and crackers, a chocolate cookie dessert, and an entree of grilled chicken with herb butter, mashed potatoes, and vegetables. We still thought our KLM meal from the way out was better, but this wasn't bad at all.

Delta also announced that there would be a snack on our flight somewhere over the ocean. We were expecting some sort of bagged snack like nuts or pretzels or chips, but what actually arrived was so much better. There was a margherita pizza with pesto and a side of gelato, which tasted like vanilla with chocolate sauce (which made sense since the container said Dame Blanche). That was a pretty great snack, and the very last thing we ate on our European adventure. Considering how long it's taken us to write about this adventure, we'll do one last post for a summary and then we'll finally be done!

PDX Stumptown

I started out our trip to Portland much like I thought I would, drinking coffee. After landing it was close to 1am back here in NYC, but that wouldn't stop me. Stumptown is something of a Portland institution. It's probably the most well-known coffee roaster from the area. When I saw that we had gotten on to the ground in time to visit their airport outpost I knew I wasn't going to pass that up.

The item that jumped out at me the most on their menu was the nitro poured cold brew. It wasn't the cheapest, but you need to pay for good coffee. They have the tap right by the register, and I got to watch the woman working expertly pull a smooth, cascading cup full of dark goodness.

The coffee itself was a cold, smooth entry point into the Portland coffee scene. There was little to no lingering sourness from the beans used. Overall the flavor was bold and rich, and even though I keep using the word, the coffee itself was extremely smooth. Some cold brews come out a bit harsh, but the nitro pour, as it does with beer as well, makes things a little creamier. The coffee kept me awake long enough to get to my parents' house and gave me a pretty good indication of what I could expect from Portland and its magical coffee.

Goodbye Florida

After spending a few days at Epcot, it was time to bid farewell to Florida. We thought we would probably return soon, but it's been five years now and we haven't made it back. So I guess this is still the most recent meal we've had in Florida.

We headed to the airport late in the day after visiting the last few kiosks at the Food and Wine Festival. If I remember correctly, we didn't go to the same food court as we did when we got there, but instead opted to eat closer to our gate. We found ourselves at Qdoba, where we got fairly standard Qdoba fare, so I won't get into it here (especially since I'm not 100% sure of everything we got). We've written enough about Qdoba from other visits.

As we waited for our flight, A also got a coffee drink from some Cuban coffee chain that we don't remember the name of and doesn't appear to be there anymore. He doesn't remember anything special about it this many years later. It was some frozen mocha concoction and clearly didn't leave much of an impression.

That's the last stop on our Orlando trip. Next up - a summary of our trip (reviewed over five years...) and general thoughts about visiting Orlando!

Legal Sea Foods

A little over ten years ago, we spent Memorial Day Weekend in Boston because A was playing in a basketball tournament. I tagged along for the weekend, and we spent our first night in Boston having dinner at Legal Sea Foods, an East Coast seafood chain that originated in the Boston area. We have pretty fond memories of that dinner, so when we were on our layover at Logan on our way to Portland, we decided we should have a nice, relaxed meal at Legal Sea Foods in the terminal.

We figured Legal Sea Foods would be like a lot of the other nicer sit-down airport restaurants we've been to - relaxed, not super crowded, a good place to leisurely pass the time. We couldn't have been more wrong about the location in this terminal. It was packed the entire time (even though it was not peak meal time), there was a wait list, and they had crammed a lot of tables into a small space right next to the security checkpoint. We hadn't realized just how crowded it was going to be, especially considering that the price point isn't exactly cheap, so we ended up waiting a little bit before we could squeeze into a table.

The one thing we knew we were going to get was a mug of the New England clam chowder ($6.95). You could smell the chowder everywhere in the vicinity of the restaurant, and the aroma was amazing. I couldn't stop talking about chowder the entire time. After trying it, I liked it a lot. A thought it was good but not amazing, so between the two of us, I think I liked it more. It was full of clams and potatoes and vegetables, and just felt so comforting between our flights. At the start of the meal, they also gave us two rolls that we liked and dipped into the chowder.

Besides the chowder, we ordered two sandwiches, both of which came with fries and cole slaw. Both accompaniments were fine, but nothing extraordinary. For his sandwich, A ordered the crispy fish sandwich ($12.95) which came with lettuce, tomato, and tartar sauce. This was kind of standard, but mostly good. A thought the fish was a little greasy, and I just remembered the part I tried being nice and flaky. In the end, it didn't make much of an impression on us.

I ordered the tuna burger ($16.50), which was described on the menu as "freshly ground tuna, chili paste, crumbs and spices." What arrived wasn't exactly what I was expecting. We've had tuna burgers with ground tuna before, and they've always been a bit of a loosely formed patty with lots of stuff mixed in. This one was a lot more solid and formed than I thought it would be, but that was fine. As far as the flavor, we didn't really taste much chili paste or spices in it. It was fine, but we expected it to be more flavorful.

As we watched all the mugs of chowder being delivered to other customers, and then saw a plate of onion strings on the table next to us, we wondered if perhaps we should have ordered differently. Maybe a mug of chowder for each of us along with a side of onion strings, or maybe we should have just splurged and gotten a platter of New England clam bellies. Although we're glad we got some fish and seafood by stopping in at Legal Sea Foods, the location in our terminal wasn't really the relaxed, leisurely meal we were looking for on our layover. It was still nice to have a good meal, but we ended up relocating to another section of the terminal right after eating (a pretty nice new section that we quite liked) and took some (food coma?) naps. Hopefully at some point we can make it back to New England in the summer for some proper seafood exploration.

Off to Boston

To get to Portland this summer, first we flew to Boston. It might sound a little weird to fly from New York (technically, New Jersey) to Boston instead of just taking a direct flight to Portland, but the time and price with the layover were a better fit, so we figured we might as well take the detour. The layover wouldn't give us enough time to leave the airport and explore, but neither of us had ever been to Logan Airport before, so we planned to just hang out there and have a nice leisurely meal.

Before our flight to Boston, we grabbed a quick lunch from Currito Cantina, which we remembered we had seen at a rest stop in Maryland earlier in the year. They had a sit-down restaurant but we stuck with the grab and go case and ate by our gate. We only picked up one salad to share because I had eaten a giant breakfast of leftovers from our Sticky's dinner from the night before and wasn't that hungry, and we also had plans to eat when we got to Boston. A chose the ensalada mixta (romaine lettuce, pico de gallo, corn salsa, black beans, applewood smoked bacon, cotija cheese, guacamole, and lime dressing). The salad was good, very light and refreshing, and exactly the type of thing we like to eat on a travel day. The only criticism we had was that it probably would have been better if parts of it hadn't frozen in the to-go case. Aside from that, it was great having a place with fresh vegetables instead of all the fast food and sandwiches.

Since the flight from New York to Boston was really short, JetBlue only did express service instead of their full menu of snacks, which made sense. The choices were water or soda (water for us), and cookies or chips. We both went for cookies, which we didn't remember being on the snack menu during our last flight and came in cute packaging.

Mini chocolate chip cookies like these always remind me of the cookies I used to bring to school when I was younger. I liked these, but I don't know if it was because of the cookies themselves or nostalgia (or both). I got another bag of cookies and also some Cheez-Its on the flight to Portland, but didn't take any pictures of them since I didn't open them until it was already dark outside. A fell asleep and missed snack service on that leg. We love the free snacks on JetBlue and hope they'll never take those away.

La Ensalada Original

We had an afternoon flight from Cancun back to New York, so we got to the airport around lunchtime. We weren't especially hungry after such a big breakfast, but we were pretty sure there wouldn't be much to eat on the flight other than some snacks and we weren't due to return home until after 7 pm. We decided to get a snack, just something light, so that we wouldn't be starving when we got home.

There weren't a ton of options at the airport terminal, just Grab and Go, Bubba Gump, Johnny Rockets, and California Pizza Kitchen (which is no longer listed on the airport restaurant list). The option that seemed the best to us at the time was CPK since we could get The Original BBQ Chicken Chopped Salad. We skipped the tortilla strips that came with the salad, but just ate the salad itself which was pretty light and healthy.

The salad had chopped lettuce, black beans, sweet corn, jicama, cilantro, basil, jack cheese, green onions, tomatoes, and chopped BBQ chicken breast. It came with sides of BBQ sauce and a ranch dressing, which we only used lightly as the chicken and cheese had a lot of their own flavor. For an airport meal, it wasn't bad and it was a lot healthier than the usual fare because of all the fresh vegetables. Not a bad choice for the last thing we would eat on our Cancun vacation.

Quick Chicago Weekend

Back in August 2013, we flew out to Chicago for a quick weekend trip to celebrate our nephew's first birthday. For most trips, we recap each food stop on our journey, trying to commit our memories to words before they completely fade (and we're not always successful in that, sadly), but this time, we're going to wrap up the whole thing in this one post. Why? Primarily because most of the memories of this trip have completely faded despite having pretty good photographic documentation. Sad but true. We probably have enough memories left to fill up the content of one post, but not 5.

We left on a Friday morning from LaGuardia (and not the comfy Marine Air Terminal) headed for O'Hare. We had packed a couple of sandwiches from Trader Joe's to eat at the airport and on the plane, but those no longer need a post because we already talked about them from a later trip to Vegas. After we landed, we made our way over to A's brother's place, and then went out to grab a quick lunch. We found ourselves at the local Mariano's, a grocery chain in Chicago we became completely enamored with the year before when they first opened in the West Loop.

Mariano's reminds me a little bit of Wegmans when it comes to their premade selections in that they are extensive. We decided to split one of the $6 meals (main and 2 sides), getting the hand-rolled Sicilian meatballs (2 giant meatballs) with sides of potato salad and mojito Cuban quinoa salad. The meatballs were delicious. We really don't remember anything about the potato salad over 2 years later. The quinoa salad had quinoa, black beans, green peppers, olive oil, lime juice, coconut, red peppers, green onion, jalapeño, cilantro, garlic, mint, salt, pepper, and oregano. I only know this because we had kept the ingredient label after the trip, and it was one of the only food notes I had from the entire weekend. That also tells me that we must have liked it if we wanted to try to figure out how to make something similar at home.

Besides lunch, we also picked up some pluots to eat later since they had so many varieties of pluots that we had never seen before, and they looked so juicy since it was late summer. (They were really, really good.)

Many of the meals we ate that weekend were homecooked by A's mom (very tasty, as always), but we did go out for one nice meal to celebrate our nephew's birthday and just generally to have one really nice dinner as a family for A's family (similar reasoning as our Japonais dinner from last summer). Dinner was at the bustling Paris Club in the River North area of Chicago, and we got a bunch of appetizers to split as well as individual entrees. If you had asked us to name from memory what we got at this meal, without looking at any of the photos, I think the only part we might remember is the charcuterie board. I don't think that's a reflection on the food at Paris Club, because I think we concluded that the quality was pretty good after we ate there, but more a confirmation of how much memories can fade in just over 2 years (same reason I recently went on a draft-deleting spree). 

Anyway, from what we can tell/remember after looking at the pictures, we (or someone at the table) got:

- charcuterie board (homemade pates, terrines, and saucissons)

- shrimp cocktail

- baked brie with mushrooms and walnuts
- butter lettuce salad with dijon vinaigrette and shaved radishes

- side of roasted mushrooms

- side of braised lentils

- skate wing with lemon, capers, and brioche croutons (A is guessing this was his, but not really sure)

- duck confit with braised lentils and mustard greens
- wild Alaskan halibut with creamed corn and chorizo (I think this was mine)

We didn't get any desserts because there was still a massive amount of birthday cake left to eat back at the house.

After the very short weekend, we left O'Hare for Newark on Sunday afternoon. Before leaving we stopped by our favorite place to eat at O'Hare, Tortas Frontera, Rick Bayless's fast casual spot. Since we've gone there on so many trips, you would think we would have written about it before, but it's usually the last stop on a Chicago trip so we've never gotten up to it.

Unfortunately we didn't really have any recollection of which torta we got this time (seriously, why is this trip so faded in our memories?), so any post about Tortas Frontera based on this visit would not do it justice. We'll save that for another trip. My photo album captions tell me that we got the roasted garlic mushrooms torta, but considering we didn't know that just by looking at the photo, we clearly don't remember what it tasted like enough to describe it. We do remember that we got a raspberry prickly pear agua fresca which was refreshing.

Before leaving for the airport, we had picked up a couple of sandwiches from Mariano's to eat on the plane. Since we got the torta at the airport, we were only really hungry enough to split one of them on the plane - a turkey and swiss sandwich on pretzel bread. We ate the other one (warmed up) after we got home, an Italian meat sandwich on focaccia. We remember that we liked both sandwiches, but the specifics are just too faded.

Anyway, there's a quick recap of the weekend we spent in Chicago back in 2013. We did eat a lot of tasty food, even if for some reason we can barely remember some of it. At least we've managed to get this much down in a post before the rest of our memories of this trip completely fade!

Belgian Beer Cafe

We kicked off our London trip with dinner at the airport. We were flying out of Newark's Terminal B, our first time there, which (like Terminal A) has multiple security checkpoints, limiting the meal options dramatically. There was a food court pre-security, but we wanted to make sure we were through security with plenty of time, so that left us with a choice between a Belgian cafe and an English pub, the latter of which also had a takeaway section with some really badly bruised bananas. Since we were en route to London, we chose the Belgian Beer Cafe. No need for an English pub in New Jersey if we were going to visit real English pubs in London.

We knew we were getting dinner on the flight, but that was a few hours later and we hadn't eaten a ton during the day as we rushed around finishing up work and packing and preparing for the trip. We ordered 2 entrees from the Belgian specialties menu to share, and tried not to pick anything too heavy in case the in-flight dinner was filling. Here's what we got.

Croque monsieur ($14): sandwich with Belgian Chimay beer cheese, smoked ham, grilled sourdough, hint of dijon mustard, served with crispy frites.

The croque monsieur was pretty good, but it wasn't what we expected from a croque monsieur. We were expecting something rich and decadent, and covered in cheese and bechamel, but it was basically a ham and cheese panini. The thing that made this taste a little different from any other ham and cheese sandwich was the inclusion of beer cheese, which we had never had in a croque monsieur before. It was heavier and saltier than other cheeses, but didn't really have a very distinctive flavor. The fries were really good though, nice and crispy. The sandwich was fine, but the fries were better.

Sausage plate ($16): Flemish style pork sausage with onions, dijon, gherkins, potato and bacon salad.

The sausage plate arrived with 2 pork sausages, small containers of ketchup and mustard, a couple of gherkins, some spring greens, and a good sized portion of warm potato salad topped with bacon. The pork sausages tasted like pretty generic pork sausages that we could get anywhere else, not a lot of seasonings that we could discern. The gherkins were sweeter than A was expecting. I didn't notice that but mostly just appreciated the freshness. We both agreed that the best part of the plate was the potato salad topped with bacon. The potato salad had a little bit of a mustard flavor. By itself, the salad was good, but the bacon made it even better, and adding some of the greens made it feel really light despite all the potatoes and bacon. Definitely the best part of dinner.

Overall our meal at the Belgian Beer Cafe was fine. If it were anywhere other than the airport, we probably would say that we wouldn't return because it was nothing special, but if we're in that gate area again with such limited options, we might go back.

Classic Smash

We've mentioned Smashburger here before, our favorite place to grab a quick bite to eat at Terminal C in Newark Airport (a big reason we like that terminal at the moment). We finally have a branch of Smashburger in Manhattan now, which opened earlier this year, but that wasn't going to stop us from visiting them at the airport to get something to eat to kick off our Chicago trip. (Ridiculous mismanagement of security line lengths almost did, but we would prefer not to relive that frustrating experience here.)

Somehow, despite previous visits to Smashburger, we've never actually tried their "Classic Smash." So we decided to remedy that on this visit and also tacked on an order of smashfries. The smashfries are thinly cut regular fries that are seasoned with rosemary, olive oil, and garlic. They're soft and crisp, and the rosemary adds an extra dimension that most fast food fries don't have. We love the flavor of these skinny fries.

As I mentioned, we both got a Classic Smash, which is their standard burger, containing a beef patty on an egg bun with American cheese, smash sauce, ketchup, lettuce, tomato, pickles, and onion.

The Classic Smash is the burger we've had that's come the closest to tasting like Shake Shack's Shack Burger, one of our favorites. The onion is different (white vs red) and the sauce is a little different, but otherwise they were so similar that even the salting of the beef patty seemed to be around the same amount. The Shack Burger is only a smidgen better in our opinion. When you add in the line factor at Shake Shack and the fact that when we've gone to (the non-airport) Smashburger there hasn't been a line, they're pretty much equal options for us.

We were so happy with our Classic Smash burgers that we couldn't stop raving about them the entire way over to Chicago and stopped by our local Smashburger for more burgers only a couple of weeks later (more on those burgers another time). So happy to find another excellent burger to add to our rotation (that doesn't have an hour long line)!

Florida Chicken Fix

We arrived at the airport in Orlando ready to run off the plane after dealing with a few hours of screaming children and uncomfortable cramped seating (sigh, United). It was around 2:30, so we decided to get lunch at the airport since we still had to pick up our car rental and didn't want to eat too late and interfere with our dinner appetite. The airport food court was full of chains. I remember commenting that international travelers to the United States were getting a good representation of American fast food culture just by setting foot in the airport. Our choice from the food court was easy: Chick-fil-A.

I went to Chick-fil-A fairly often as a kid since there was a branch at a local mall. A didn't live near one so he only really got it when he went shopping with my family. Chick-fil-A keeps saying they're going to open up some stores in Manhattan, but they still haven't, so we've only had their chicken sandwiches sporadically over the past couple of decades. When we saw that the Orlando airport had a branch, we were so excited to finally be able to get our chicken sandwich fix.

If you've never had a Chick-fil-A sandwich before, this might look like an ordinary sandwich that isn't particularly special. But the sandwiches are quite good. The buns are toasty and buttery, the chicken is lightly fried and juicy, and the sandwich is topped with slightly sour pickle chips. It's a very simple sandwich but the flavor is great. Even though we don't get it often at all these days, it's always been one of our favorite fast food sandwiches.

We also had to get the standard waffle fries. Always good, lightly salted, skin-on, and crisp. Why can't more places offer waffle fries (or curly fries)?

We were very satisfied with our lunch. We tried to appreciate the visit as much as possible since we had no idea when it would happen next (and in the past 3 years, it hasn't). Onward to Disney World!

Off to See Harry and Mickey

Three years ago today, we set off from rainy, gloomy New York City (just like today!), bound for a sunnier, warmer land also known as the "happiest place on Earth." But before we could get there, we had to get out early and make our way over to Newark Airport to catch our (not very comfortable) flight on United.

Our plane

We were in Terminal C at Newark, in the same gate area where we had been just a few months earlier to leave for Geneva to begin our honeymoon. This brought back a lot of happy memories as we indulged in some morning snacks (not really sure you could call everything we got breakfast even though it was 10 am). 

A got some coffee from the Juan Valdez kiosk there, as well as some cinnamon pretzel sticks from Auntie Anne's. The coffee, while better than most generic airport coffee, still wasn't that great. It got the job done, though, with regards to delivering caffeine. The cinnamon pretzel sticks were an indulgence he often likes to have on vacation. They're buttery and sweet with just the right amount of crust to go with a chewy interior.

I've probably mentioned multiple times on this blog that I am not a big breakfast foods person, so I went over to Smashburger. We love Terminal C for having Smashburger, one of the airport's best options overall for a good meal. I wasn't hungry enough for a burger this time, so I decided on chili. I guess 3 years ago I was more confident in my stomach's ability to handle chili with jalapeños at 10:30 in the morning, but I am not sure I would do that again today. I don't remember much about the specific taste of the chili (it's been 3 years!), but I was remember it was hot, warming, spicy, and the same one from the chili dog.

We decided to be healthy for the last part of our "meal" and went to Jamba Juice for our favorite All Fruit smoothie - the pomegranate paradise (blend of pomegranate juice, mango, strawberry, and peach). We love the All Fruit smoothies because they feel so light and healthy (even if they're loaded with sugar) and the pomegranate one just has such an awesome combination of fruits.

Once we filled our bellies with snacks from the various chains in the Terminal C food court area, it was time to board for Orlando! We were really excited because we were heading off for our first time at both the Epcot Food and Wine Festival and the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. Off to Florida!

T5 Eats

Our Vegas escape started out with one travel inconvenience after another. The subway was late. It was packed and there were no seats, so we had to stand as the cars swayed back and forth, giving us motion sickness. We got to the Airtrain, thinking we had gotten some good luck since they weren't charging for the Airtrain, but the reason was because there was some fire the day before and the Airtrain wasn't running the full trip to the airport. So we had to disembark at Federal Circle and take a shuttle bus to the terminal. The shuttle bus filled up and then just hung around for awhile before finally leaving. We were so happy when we finally set foot in JetBlue's Terminal 5 (where there were basically no lines for check-in or security) and our trip could officially begin. 

We got a table in the (relatively empty) food court and split the sandwiches we picked up earlier in the day at Trader Joe's. We used to just eat whatever was available at the airport but it's so expensive and the quality isn't always great (see here and here). We can get 2 Trader Joe's sandwiches for less than the price of one Cibo sandwich. Much better deal.

We brought two sandwiches with us, both of which we had tried on another trip (but I don't think we wrote about yet). The first one we ate was the tarragon chicken salad wrap, which we remembered was the one we liked less.

The wrap had white meat chicken pieces, celery, almonds, parsley, tarragon and romaine lettuce wrapped up in a tortilla. The last time we had it A thought it was pretty bland. This time it had much more flavor, and the lettuce added a nice crunch.

The other sandwich we got was the grilled pesto chicken wrap, which had grilled chicken, feta cheese, zucchini, summer squash, roasted red peppers, green onions and sundried tomatoes in a tortilla with a cashew walnut pesto vinaigrette.

This sandwich was good, but not as spectacular as we remembered. The two sandwiches were equally good, which wasn't the case the last time we got them. We remembered liking this one more, but the pesto didn't seem very flavorful this time so perhaps that accounts for the difference. It was still good, but it was matched by the tarragon chicken salad.

We weren't completely full from the sandwiches, but figured we would just snack on the plane. But the table next to us was sharing a box of waffle fries, and I was still feeling a little queasy between the subway and bus rides, so all I wanted were waffle fries. The answer? The "Pomes Frites" place in the airport food court.

The waffle fries weren't cheap, but they were a decent portion size so $4 wasn't a terrible wallet hit. Nicely fried up, they were perfect for soothing our tummies.

After our sandwiches, waffle fries, orange juice and some water, it was time to make our way to our gate to board our flight. Vacation was officially underway!