Het Friethoes

On our last trip to The Netherlands, we did everything we could to try pretty much every fry shop we walked by. It was no surprise that when we made the trip out to Haarlem we opted to try one of the local offerings. From the minimal research that we did, Het Friethoes seemed to be the place to go.

 Het Friethoes Storefront

The first thing that we found back in 2010 was that the fries with mayonnaise were the thing to get, and they were also delicious. There's something different about the mayonnaise out in The Netherlands that just makes it taste better than the offerings that we get here in the US. On that note we opted for their haus mayonaise (house mayonnaise) for our topping. 

 Fry Cup with Logo

Fries with house mayonnaise topping

The way they double fry the fries is clearly superior to how we fry fries in the US, and that's part of the allure. They are crisp on the outside while staying moist and soft on the inside. Also, because they start out so crisp, they don't wilt under the toppings placed on them. As for the house mayo topping, this was the best mayonnaise we've ever had. Whatever they added to this to make it special made this amazing. We both tasted some garlic hints to it, but there was also something else that we just couldn't pinpoint. Obviously we couldn't find out since it's a proprietary mix, but if we get the opportunity, we would gladly have more in the future.

Farmers Rotisserie

One of our favorite places in Hell's Kitchen for a casual dinner is Farmers Rotisserie.  Over a year ago, I wrote about the delicious arepas we had there and I think we've gotten arepas every single time since then.  But somehow, we've never written about the rotisserie chicken that the restaurant is named for!  We went to Farmers again a couple of days ago, so it's time to talk about the chicken (and everything else).

For appetizer we once again got the arepa con queso.  The corn cake was crispy and the cheese was delicious, as always.

The rotisserie chicken comes with a salad, which is usually the first thing to arrive at the table.  The salad has romaine lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, red onions, carrots and beets, along with bottles of oil and vinegar that you can mix to your liking.  Simple salad, but they include lots of non-lettuce vegetables which is nice.

We ordered a half-chicken with rice, beans and plantains.  You have a choice of red beans and black beans; we've tried both but usually end up going with the black beans.

The rotisserie chicken at Farmers could be the best rotisserie chicken we've ever had.  The chicken is seasoned well and incredibly moist and juicy, even the white meat.  Whatever they do to it is better than everyone else, and we keep going back.  The rice, beans and plantains are all solid, but the real star is the chicken itself.

The chicken is also accompanied by two sauces - a chimichurri sauce of parsley, garlic, olive oil, vinegar and seasonings, and a green spicy sauce.  Adding these to the already flavorful chicken just makes it even better.  I may also add the green spicy sauce to the plantains... and the beans... and the rice...

We often split the chicken and an arepa, but we were a little hungrier this time and decided to try one of the new specials - tostones con pollo y guacamole (green plantains with chicken and guacamole).  You can't see the plantains in the photo below but they are flattened and fried and placed under the chicken and guacamole.

What a great dish!  The combination just works, as did each individual part.  The chicken tasted so familiar but I still can't place where I've had those flavors before.  A thinks it tasted like an amazing chicken stew.  We would get this again, but it is quite filling.

If you're in the mood for rotisserie chicken, we highly recommend going to Farmers.  Laid-back, casual, tasty food, amazing rotisserie chicken.  Can't go wrong!

Chai Thai

Over the years that we've lived in Hell's Kitchen, we have been to Chai Thai (55th & 8th) a number of times, especially after long walks through Central Park.  We haven't been there in about a year, but found ourselves in the area yesterday and decided to check it out.

The menu had quite a few new additions since our last visit.  We decided to put together a menu of mostly small plates, focusing on the new part of the menu.

The first dish to come was the "homemade Thai dim sum" aka steamed chicken, shrimp and water chestnut dumplings aka kanom jeeb (4 pieces, $6).  We get kanom jeeb at a lot of different Thai restaurants because we really like steamed dumplings.  It's also a good way to compare restaurants.

Each dumpling was topped with bits of peppers, green onions and fried garlic.  It also came with a sweet soy sauce on the side.  They were pretty good, but probably not the best kanom jeeb we've had.  Even though they were supposed to have water chestnuts, they were only slightly present (in my opinion) or barely there at all (in A's opinion).  The flavor of the meatball inside the wrapper was good, and the wrapper was thin, which was nice.  Even without the water chestnuts, it was a pretty good appetizer.

We tried to order the garlic chive cake (another new item we hadn't tried) but they were out of that.  So we ended up getting curry puffs instead (2 puffs, $5).

The curry puffs had a good curry flavor but the insides were different from what we were expecting.  Instead of a smooth paste-like curry mixture, there were individual seasoned pieces of chicken with vegetables (corn, string beans, etc).  It was good, but there's something about those soft, squishy, gooey curry puffs that are really tasty that was missing here.  The relish appeared to be the usual onion and cucumber relish, but it was sweeter than some others, which was a little odd for us.

The third dish to arrive was our salad - minced chicken, shrimp and cellophane noodles (aka yum woon sen) ($8).

This was exactly what we thought it would be - a bed of lettuce, topped with grilled shrimp (2 pieces), minced chicken, tomatoes, red peppers, red onions, cellophane noodles, green onions in a dressing of lime juice, fish sauce and herbs.  It was tasty and light and very flavorful.

We also got one noodle dish - chicken pad thai with cellophane noodles ($12).  We've had a similar dish before at Qi (the special pad thai made with cellophane noodles and seafood in an egg white crepe).

It was good but we prefer the one at Qi because that one is really unique and this one was a little more salty.  This one was basically a good pad thai made with different noodles.  Good pad thai makes us happy!

It was a good dinner at Chai and it was nice to try something different from the lychee fried rice or the grilled chicken we usually get.  Maybe next time they will have the garlic chive cake!

Gazpacho

It was hot today - 96, felt like 100, at lunch - which made me not want to eat anything other than popsicles (happy about the Clinique-Sweetery promotion), ice, cucumbers, and gazpacho.  I went from place to place, looking at lunch options, going into 4 or 5 different places, but nothing was appealing.  Everything looked and felt so heavy in that heat.  Apparently my brain was also working really slowly because it took awhile before I realized that I could go to Hale & Hearty for some soup, since they would probably have cold soups... like gazpacho.

Before going for the gazpacho, I decided to try the chilled carrot ginger soup.  I have had the hot carrot ginger soup before, which is especially good in the winter.  It has a warm, comforting flavor and the spice is really tasty.  But I couldn't finish the sample of this soup.  It had no ginger flavor, tasted completely like carrots, and somehow, even though dairy-free, was really rich and creamy.  Not for me.

The gazpacho, on the other hand, was light, full of flavor and refreshing crunchy vegetables, and perfect for the hot weather.

The gazpacho had tomatoes, cucumbers, green peppers, roasted red peppers, celery, red onions and a mix of herbs.  It was perfect and the H&H version was so tasty.  I wished I had an extra-large container of just gazpacho (and oyster crackers), as the light, clean flavors are exactly what you need in this weather.  I'm thankful to Spain for coming up with gazpacho.  It's no wonder why they did it.  The south of Spain gets much, much hotter than the heat we're suffering through now and gazpacho is a healthy and cooling dish.

I also picked up a half sandwich - my usual and favorite one, the chicken, sundried tomato and mozzarella sandwich - which was just as good as always, but a bit oily today.

 

It was a successful lunch, even if it was the 5th or 6th choice on my mental list.  I think when I was younger I had some not very good gazpacho so before our Spain trip, I didn't love it.  But now I'm 100% on the gazpacho train!

Ice Pops

When it feels like 100 degrees out, popsicles are a priority.  Luckily, Clinique has been teaming up with the Sweetery truck yesterday and today to celebrate their Chubby Stick lip color, which meant free ice pops at lunch!  (They have been out all day the past 2 days but I only had a chance to go during lunch today.)

The truck, decorated for Clinique

There were 3 flavors of ice pops - voluptuous violet, oversized orange and chunky cherry.  I was hoping to get violet but when I got to the truck, they were giving out cherry.  Works for me!

Cherry ice pop

The ice pop was good - a little on the watery side so it broke apart and melted quickly, but I'm not sure if that was how it was made or the fact that it was sunny and 96 degrees.  The hardest part for me was getting the ice pop out of its plastic bag so it became even more of a drippy mess.  But it definitely tasted like cherry and it felt so good after trekking through the heat to get there. Luckily we have 4.5 more boxes of ice pops in the freezer at home because I am definitely in a popsicle mood!

Chapulin

This is a post I was supposed to write a very long time ago. El Rey Del Sabor is a Mexican food cart that M and I both love a lot. Every year they import a special order of chapulin to offer to their clients. I don't know if it's the same dish every year, but the year I went it was quesadillas.

A little pricey, but this was definitely worth the experience

Quesadilla platter with guacamole and pico di gallo

Oh, I didn't tell you what chapulin are? They're grasshoppers. This is something that I had been looking forward to trying ever since I heard that they do this yearly.

Grasshoppers!

The grasshoppers themselves didn't really have that much flavor to them. They were seasoned, and what I remember is that there was a slight sourness mixed into the saltiness of the seasonings. The sauce was nice and garlicky, and it finished off the quesadilla well. The grasshoppers also added texture as they had a good crunch to them. Overall, the novelty wore off fast as the legs had a habit of getting stuck in my teeth. The flavors were nice, but it was a little expensive, and it wasn't so overly great that I thought I had to have it again. In the end I can cross off grasshoppers from my eating list.

Summer Ribbons

Today I went to Jean Georges for lunch with some of the summer associates at our firm.  A and I have previously gone to Nougatine, the more "informal" dining room next door to Jean Georges, for their lunch prix fixe, but neither of us had been to the Jean Georges dining room before.  I was excited to see how the experience would be different.

The meal started out with a three-part amuse plate, with sashimi, a strawberry mozzarella cube, and watercress sorbet.

According to the servers, the first thing to try was the sashimi.  I missed what type of sashimi (big group) but it came with fruit (cantaloupe, I think) and a thin slice of pepper, on top of a mustard-like sauce.  It was a good mix of sweet, tart, spicy and tangy, on top of the clean flavor of the fish.  I liked it.  Second was the strawberry on top of a small block of mozzarella which came with a balsamic vinaigrette sauce.  The mozzarella was rich and the strawberry was sweet, but the combination of the 2 wasn't my favorite.  Last was the watercress sorbet topped with creme fraiche.  This was interesting although it had mostly melted into a green soup by the time I got through the other 2 parts of the amuse plate.

The Jean Georges prix fixe menu consists of any 2 plates (appetizer or entree size) for $38.  I decided to go with one appetizer and one entree.  For the appetizer, I got the yellowfin tuna ribbons with avocado, spicy radish and ginger marinade.  I had been trying to decide between the ribbons and the hamachi sashimi, and the server recommended the ribbons for the more "classic" JG dish, which worked for me.

The tuna was fresh, so soft it could melt, and cut into thin ribbons.  Surrounding the tuna ribbons were small pieces of radish and on the bottom of the plate, mashed avocado like guacamole.  After bringing out the tuna, they poured the ginger marinade on top and around the ribbon pile, which added a lot of a tangy flavor.  I liked how light the appetizer felt, especially in comparison the goat cheese gnocchi some of the others got.  Later in the afternoon I realized why this dish felt so familiar.  It was the same flavor profile (and the same ingredients) as the tuna tartare that I got when I went to Nougatine with A a few years ago!  The only difference was this time it was tuna ribbons and last time it was tuna tartare.  I guess this is just a winning combination!

For the entree, I wanted something light and healthy (partly because it was 90 degrees outside). I thought, of all the fish options, the cod sounded best because it wasn't crusted with anything.  According to the menu, it was a steamed cod, with baby bok choy, black bean vinaigrette and chervil.

Out of everyone in our group, I happened to pick the 2 dishes that had sauce poured on them after they arrived on the table.  When I first got the cod, it was just the cleanest, purest piece of white cod that you could find, on top of what appeared to be steamed bok choy.  That looked so healthy and I was really happy with my choice.  I completely forgot there was sauce for it until the server appeared next to me.  The sauce was a black bean vinaigrette with actual beans and some other vegetables.  It fit the fish and vegetables, as it was full of flavor but very light.

I really enjoyed the Asian flavors that came through in this dish.  Everything worked perfectly together and was the right choice for the summer day.  The fish was flaky and soft, the bok choy was crisp but not hard to chew, and the black bean sauce was full of rich flavors but still not heavy.

We decided not to order dessert but the meal ended with some sweet treats. 

There were 4 different types of chocolate, a plate of homemade marshmallows that were soft and gooey, and some mini strawberry macarons (soft, sweet and flaky).  It was a nice ending to a delicious meal!

Momos and Manchurian Sauce

The Chinese Mirch truck has been roaming the streets of Midtown for a bit, but I never had a chance to try it until today.  They specialize in Chinese-Indian fusion cuisine, offering momos (Tibetan dumplings), rice bowls (momos over basmati rice and vegetables), thukpas (momos in noodle stew), and sliders (baos).  The truck is apparently an offshoot of a restaurant, which has multiple locations in the Northeast area.  I haven't tried the restaurant but was excited to try something new from the truck!

I decided on the rice bowl with chicken momos.  Each bowl comes with Manchurian sauce or garlic sauce.  They suggested Manchurian sauce if you can take spice, and I took the recommendation. The primary ingredients in Manchurian sauce are ginger, onions, cilantro and green chili, and the spice definitely comes through.  It's nice to have a sauce where they don't hold back on the spice.  

Each momo consisted of chicken mixed with chives and other herbs.  On their own, topped with cilantro, and in the Manchurian sauce, they were really flavorful. The wrapper was soft and not too doughy, allowing the chicken inside to be the dominant flavor and texture.

The basmati rice under the momos was mixed with peas, carrots, green peppers, red onions, lettuce and cabbage.  The flavor of the rice bowl part came predominantly from the sauce but it was nice to have the vegetables.  It felt like a really healthy meal.

The portion of the rice bowl wasn't exceptionally large and I was hungry again a few hours later.  But I do recommend the rice bowl.  My favorite parts were the momos and the Manchurian sauce.  Those alone make this worth getting again. (Or you could just get momos on their own.)  I'm also curious to try the thukpa but considering summer is here, hot soup may have to wait!

Summer Ale Lobster Roll

Last Friday was National Lobster Day, and in honor of the holiday, Sam Adams and the Red Hook Lobster Pound Truck teamed up for a free lobster roll giveaway.  The first 50 people to show up at the truck with the secret phrase ("Sam Adams!") would get a free (half size) lobster roll.  The truck luckily was right near my office so I went over about 15-20 minutes before the giveaway was scheduled to start.  I thought there would be a line of 50 people there but I guess, being a summer Friday, the city was slow and I was person #6 in line! Free lobster roll for me!

The lobster roll they were giving away was not their usual lobster roll but a special Sam Adams Summer Ale-infused lobster roll with a recipe created by Chef David Burke.  The lobster roll had lobster (obviously) and a mixture of celery, carrots, green apples, tarragon, mayo, cream cheese, lemon juice, scallions, and summer ale, on a bed of lettuce and the usual roll. (At least those are the ingredients on the recipe card they gave out.) It was delicious and perfect for a summer day.  I love that the lobster isn't overpowered by the mayo or other creamy ingredients and is allowed to shine on its own.

As good as the summer ale-infused lobster roll was, I have to admit that I actually prefer the Red Hook Lobster Pound's regular Maine lobster roll a little more.  I think I like how simple and uncomplicated the recipe is and how well each ingredient works together (someday we'll write about it). But I'm glad that I was able to try the summer ale-infused roll and celebrate National Lobster Day!  

Haarlem Grocery Exploration

After an afternoon of wandering around Haarlem, we decided to make our way back to the train station, stopping at various shops along the way.  The first was Tromp Kaashuis, a cheese market (which appears to have multiple locations all around the Netherlands), on Barteljorisstraat.

There were so many different types of cheese at Tromp.  The sad thing was that we knew we couldn't buy anything because there was no way we could get on a plane (especially back to the US) with cheese.  No one wants to have delicious food thrown away at customs!  But we enjoyed looking at all the different types of cheese, including some we had never seen before like this green cheese (pesto cheese).  There was also sambal cheese and so many other varieties.

Near the front entrance, there were some cheeses to sample.  We tried the fenugreek one and it was really, really good.  If we were going to be around longer, and had time for cheese and crackers while hanging out, we might have gotten some.

Highly recommend a stop at Tromp.  Even if you can't buy anything, the breadth of their cheese selection is impressive and worth a look.

Our next stop was at HEMA on Kruisstraat, which I think is a Dutch chain of discount department stores.  They also have a food section with some ready to eat items and other grocery items.  I found a package of ossenworst for only 1 euro and was so surprised to find this liverwurst and other meats for under 1 euro.  So cheap!  Didn't look like the quality was that bad either.

Our last stop before grabbing a snack (next post) was Albert Heijn, the grocery chain you see all over the Netherlands including a small outpost in the airport.  (We've written about Albert Heijn adventures in Amsterdam before here and here.)  I figured, from past experience, they might have some Haribo candy so we stopped in and grabbed some snacks (sadly no Smurfs).  I know some people prefer the Turkish-made Haribo bears we get in the US, but I really like the German-made candy.  It tastes different and I'm convinced it tastes better.  Each European trip includes some Haribo souvenirs (if we don't eat them all before going home).

One of our favorite finds of the Haarlem trip was this lemon passionfruit water made by Crystal Clear.  It was a non-carbonated flavored water, and the big reason we liked it was the fruit flavor.  It was so natural and did not taste artificial at all, unlike some of the flavored water we can get here in the US.  We really liked it but unfortunately this Albert Heijn location was the only place we have found it so far.

We love stopping in at grocery stores and food shops when on vacation.  Often we end up walking around saying "why can't we get this at home?" over and over, but it's nice to see what is available elsewhere.  We'll be looking for that Crystal Clear water on future trips!

Jamin

One thing we are always on the lookout for in Europe is Haribo candy, our favorite candy brand.  Once we find Haribo, we start looking for smurfs.  I've mentioned these in the year-end recaps (since I never got to them in the trip recaps), but we absolutely love these berry-flavored smurfs.  So much so that we bought the giant tub of them the last time we were in Germany (on a layover).

We went wandering around Haarlem after lunch (mostly because I was looking for the post office), and then stumbled upon Jamin, a popular candy store in the Netherlands which had a lot of packaged candy as well as tubs of loose candy (and ice cream).

I thought it was a long shot, but we checked for Haribo Smurfs anyway.  And they had them in one of the loose candy bins!

I was trying to be good so I only got us 200 grams of Smurfs.  They were gone in less than a day (so quickly that I didn't even take a photo of the Smurfs themselves!).  We didn't find Smurfs at any other point on the trip, which was sad.  It was so great to have a small taste of them again, but I wish we would have been able to bring some home!

Grand Cafe Brinkmann

After arriving in Amsterdam, we took the train to Haarlem for our "day trip."  Our first activity was to find lunch.  We went over to Grote Markt, the center square of Haarlem, where there were a bunch of outdoor restaurants that were all crowded with people eating lunch.  We decided on Grand Cafe Brinkmann because the food looked good, the people looked happy, and there was an empty table outside where we could get fresh air and enjoy the mild weather.

We settled in at our table and ordered lunch, enjoying the view and people watching.  At one point, a group of musicians showed up.  Haarlem's center was quite a charming area.

A started out with a Jupiler, which is a Belgian beer.  He thought it was crisp and refreshing.  We like Belgian beer.  And it's so much less expensive in Europe (at least in the Netherlands and Belgium!).

Instead of a beer like A's, I opted for kriek (this one was by Liefmans).  Kriek was one of my favorite discoveries of our 2010 Europe trip, something that I hadn't known I was missing in my life (and something we never got up to discussing in the recaps).  It was also one of the best things to come out of the Brussels portion of that trip.

If you're unfamiliar with kriek (as I was before that trip), it is a cherry-infused beer, especially common to the area around Brussels.  Once I had it the first time, I kept getting it, except for the one meal where I got raspberry lambic instead and while that was good, I immediately regretted it.  I was really excited when A pointed out the kriek on the menu here.  It was only about 1 euro more than getting water, and considering a bottle of kriek this size probably costs over $10-15 here in the US (and there it was maybe 3 euro), there was no way I wasn't getting the kriek.  It was as good as I remembered.  Smooth, sweet, a little tart, completely refreshing.

We both decided to go with open-faced sandwiches for our lunches.  Back in the US, I would normally just close up the sandwich, cut it in half, and eat it, but it looked like everyone there was cutting the sandwiches with a fork and knife.  That was different for us, but we figured we would do what everyone else was doing, as maybe that's how it should be done!

I went with the hete kip sandwich - ciabatta gemarineerd kippendijenvlees met atjar, chilisaus en gefruite uitjes (ciabatta, marinated chicken with atjar, sweet chili sauce and fried onions).

Atjar, from what the internet tells me, is a dish of sweet and sour pickled vegetables, common in Indonesian dishes and rijsttafel.  This one included carrots and peppers, and the sandwich also had mixed greens, bean sprouts and peanuts on top. The Southeast Asian flavors of the sandwich were really good and the vegetables offered a nice, refreshing crunch to the sandwich.  The bread was crisp on the outside but soft and chewy on the inside (although not always the easiest to cut with a knife).  I was happy with the choice.

Lastly, the star of the meal - A got the ossenworst sandwich - panini met ossenworst, rode ui, mosterd en cornichons (panini with ox sausage, red onion, mustard and French pickle (cornichons are small pickled gherkins)).

Ossenworst is basically like a steak tartare in thick slices, where the meat has been mixed with a bunch of spices.  We had it before in Amsterdam at Brouwerij 't IJ, where A liked it but I wasn't a big fan.  Based on this experience at Grand Cafe Brinkmann, I guess I don't really like ossenworst plain, but love it mixed with other things or in sandwich form!  This ossenworst was extremely tender and really well spiced.  It came with a spicy, smooth mustard (which seemed horseradish-based), in addition to the mixed greens, pickles and onions.  Each bite was a great mix of textures and flavors - the smooth soft ossenworst, the crusty bread, the crisp pickles and onions, the spicy mustard. It was delicious.

Our lunch at Grand Cafe Brinkmann was exactly how we wanted to spend our day trip layover in the Netherlands - a nice, leisurely lunch with good food and drinks, soaking up everyday Dutch life.  If you find yourself in Haarlem, we definitely recommend Grand Cafe Brinkmann.  Of all the cafes in the Grote Markt, it seemed popular and looked like it was busy longer than any of the other cafes, and the food was delicious.  An ossenworst sandwich and a bottle of kriek sounds like a perfect lunch to me!

Strawberry Cheesecake

The Friday custard this month is strawberry cheesecake.

M's thoughts:

I'm not a big cheesecake fan but I figured that, since I liked the fromage blanc raspberry swirl, I might also like this one.  Similar to that one, my first spoonful was very heavy on the cheesecake flavor.  After the first spoonful, the cheesecake flavor seemed to mellow and I could taste a subtle strawberry flavor (which I didn't taste at all in the first spoonful).  It wasn't too bad, but I didn't love it.  Especially not with A's strawberry sorbet in the freezer which tastes strongly like sweet strawberries and is so good.

A's thoughts:

This was more cheesecake than strawberry, but that's not all too uncommon even with real cheesecake topped with strawberries. Overall it was okay. The cheesecake flavor was a little heavy, but it certainly tasted like cheesecake. Again, the strawberry was muted, but it was definitely evident. I would have preferred a stronger strawberry flavor, but in the end this was a pretty good flavor. It's most likely not one that we would go out of our way to get again, though.

Strawberry Cheesecake

A's rating: 7/10

M's rating: 7/10

Summer Noodles

It was in the high 70s at lunch today and the nice weather brought out the crowds.  Everywhere I thought to go had long lines and I found myself further and further from the office (despite trying to make it back before the end of halftime in the Italy-Croatia match - fail).  I ended up going to Pro Korean (or Korean Pro or Pro Hot Korean - I don't really know what name they go by right now) on 56th Street after walking all over Midtown West.  Instead of getting one of the premade boxes like I usually do or bibimbap, I opted for something new - summer noodles - especially attractive since it was so hot after walking.  You can either order the summer noodles by themselves ($5.50) or with meat ($7).

The summer noodles themselves were very thin noodles tossed in a spicy gochujang-based sauce.  It came with half of a hardboiled egg (but I skipped that - not a big egg person).  There were lots of vegetables mixed in including mixed salad greens, other greens I could not identify, cabbage, red cabbage, cucumbers, onions, carrots, mint, and something else which I thought was a radish but kind of tasted like an apple.  The noodles were exactly what I hoped for - light and refreshing, but at the same time filling enough for lunch.

The chicken they added was the Korean spicy chicken I love, which also came mixed with some onions.  It was a moderate level of spiciness - more of a flavorful spicy than a spicy heat.  For the most part, the chicken was also tender, which was good.

I would definitely get the summer noodles again.  I liked the balance of the light vegetables and noodles with the spicy chicken, and how healthy it all felt.  A good lunch choice (even if getting there was my plan D!).

Raspberry Linzer

The custard we were most excited for this month at Shake Shack was raspberry linzer, the Monday custard.  We tried it on the first Monday of the month (so yes, we are a week late in filing this review) and were quite pleased that it lived up to our expectations.

The raspberry linzer custard was regular custard mixed with a lot of raspberry "jam", which was swirled throughout the custard.  Unlike the jam in the cookies which is more gooey and solid, this was a little more like syrup, but I think that's the only way to make it work in a custard.  We both liked the raspberry syrup swirl.  There were also broken up shortbread cookies mixed in.  They weren't so broken up that you missed them but still easy to eat pieces.  Shake Shack custards with cookies mixed in are some of our favorites.  Good flavor + good texture = good custard.

We would definitely recommend raspberry linzer and may return to get more on another Monday!

Raspberry Linzer

A's rating: 8.5/10

M's rating: 9/10

Crisp Authentic

The menu at Crisp has undergone plenty of changes since I first started going, but one constant is that they always have filling, flavorful falafel sandwiches.  My favorite is the Africa, but I've also tried the Mexican, the Casablanca, the Parisian, the Athenian and maybe some other combinations that I can't remember and they no longer have (and most of which I haven't written about).  Even though I tried all those varieties, the one I never tried was the Crisp Authentic, the most "traditional" of all of the falafel options.  Last week, Crisp ran a rainy day coupon special (side note: you should be on their mailing list because there are great coupon opportunities) and offered the Crisp Authentic for $5 (usually $6.95).  That was all the incentive I needed to finally order the Authentic.

The Crisp Authentic has falafel, hummus, Israeli salad (tomatoes and cucumbers), greens and cabbage salad.  It's a refreshing and light combination because of all the water-filled vegetable toppings.  Mixed with hummus and the usual tasty falafel, it's a solid sandwich.  I don't think it will displace the Africa but I would get the Authentic again, mostly because it's so refreshing - perfect for summer!