Satisfries

This weekend Burger King is offering free orders of their new Satisfries. Rolled out recently, it's their "healthier" version of fries with less fat and calories than the regular fries. I guess the product hasn't taken off as quickly as they anticipated, leading to the free promotion.

I had heard that Satisfries cost more than regular fries, which some people cited as a reason to not order them, but at our local Burger King, the price difference was only ten cents. I thought it would be more.

We liked the Satisfries. The regular fries (which are skinny, straight and more crispy) don't have that much potato flavor (mostly salt and seasonings), and these Satisfries (softer and crinkle cut) really tasted like potatoes. They also weren't as heavily salted as fast food fries usually are, which is a plus. We definitely thought that these were worth the extra ten cents.

However, as much as we liked our free order of Satisfries, the existence of a "healthier" type of fry isn't enough to drive us to visit Burger King more. They're definitely better than the regular BK fries, but they're not such great fries that it would make us go to BK just for them. To be honest, if I'm ever at Burger King, I'm probably more likely to get the onion rings anyway, but A would probably substitute the regular fries with Satisfries in the future (if he remembered they existed). We do like that Burger King is trying a healthier alternative to regular fries, and hopefully it takes off so fast food outlets aim to make their menus a little better. Good job Burger King.

The fries are free all weekend, so go try them!

October Custard Calendar

This might be the latest we have ever done a custard calendar preview post. I started this way back on October 2, but somehow never got around to finishing it! So without further delay, here is the October custard calendar, with a bunch of new flavors for us to try:

Source

The October flavors are (average ratings in parentheses):

Monday: cinnamon pear cobbler (new for us!)

Tuesday: waffles and bacon (repeat from March but we missed it then)

Wednesday: salty chocolate peanut butter (8/10)

Thursday: Shackenstein (8/10)

Friday: candied apple (new for us!)

Saturday: pretzel caramel (guessing this is the same as "Pretz-idential caramel" - 7.5/10)

Sunday: pumpkin pie (8.75/10, with the usual "one of our first custards so numerically higher than it probably should be" caveat)

Based on the ones we've tried, it's a pretty solid custard calendar for the month.

We're really excited about cinnamon pear cobbler and are hoping it lives up to our expectations. And even though we've had Shackenstein before, we'd like to try it again since it's been awhile and it's very festive (and we're still not 100% sure what's in it). Happy (mid-)October!

NOLA in NYC

Top Chef's new season starts tonight and they're going to be in New Orleans! We don't have much experience with New Orleans itself - I've always wanted to go to NOLA but haven't made it yet, while A's been for Mardi Gras but didn't do much food exploring on his visits. So when we heard a few weeks ago that Bravo and Grub Street were bringing a food truck to the city with New Orleans treats to promote the new season of Top Chef, we marked it down in our calendar immediately.

The locations went up at the last minute, so we were lucky that there was only a short line when we arrived for breakfast. The breakfast included beignets and coffee from New Orleans's famous Cafe Du Monde, and we couldn't wait to try them.

The coffee (according to A) was a dark roast with a rich flavor, but it wasn't very different from many other dark roasts he's had before (and no pictures since they were plain white cups). He imagined that the brew down at Cafe Du Monde must taste better since it isn't standard coffee that was machine brewed on a truck. We liked the beignets although they were much smaller than the pictures we've seen of the actual Cafe Du Monde ones. They were dense but still light, and had a little more crunch and fried shell than we expected. The beignets were topped with powdered sugar, which gave them a nice sweet flavor, but the sugar also got clumped up a little bit by the dripping oil from the donuts. We would love to try the real ones.

Added bonus - we got to meet Gail Simmons as she was hanging out with fans at the breakfast stop!

Unfortunately A couldn't make it out to the lunch stops, but I showed up early for the first lunch stop, early enough to qualify for the Foursquare special which won us a free oven mitt! It was that or a hat, and the silicone oven mitt is really nice. Totally worth it going early.

The menu for all the stops other than breakfast listed three types of po-boys from Domilise's, jambalaya, and red beans and rice. There was some confusion on line about whether we were getting samplers with everything or could only pick one item. I'm not sure if they were doing different food at each lunch/dinner spot, but everyone at our stop that I could see walked away with their choice of po-boy.

I would say that 90% of the po-boys that I saw leave the truck while I was there were the fried shrimp po-boy. They looked delicious, so I went with the most popular option!

The po-boys we got were half-sandwiches that consisted of a soft white roll, mayo, ketchup, hot sauce, pickles, shredded lettuce, and freshly fried shrimp. I liked that that the bread wasn't crumbly, that the mayo wasn't overwhelming, and that the shrimp was lightly fried and not so battered that you couldn't see the actual shrimp inside. The combination of flavors was good and I do like po-boys, but in the end, it really was just a sandwich. I think if I had the right fried shrimp, I could probably re-create this at home, which makes it feel a little less "special." If we go to New Orleans, I definitely want to search out the best fried shrimp/oyster po-boy to see how it compares to this. This was good for lunch, but I wasn't as blown away as I thought I would be.

A little sad that we didn't have the opportunity to try all the po-boys, the jambalaya, or the red beans and rice, but really happy with (and thankful for) all the free food we got from Top Chef (not to mention the oven mitt)! We're definitely planning to watch this season and can't wait to see their adventures in New Orleans. Someday we'll go there...

Pennsylvania

We haven't blogged much this month. Part of the silence is due to our weeklong road trip in Pennsylvania, but we've been back for over a week and a half. We've also been watching a lot of TV (Agents of SHIELD!) since it's fall premiere season. But neither of those is really an excuse for not recording our adventures for our own memories.

Traversing the mountains of western Pennsylvania, the fall colors starting to show

We visited a lot of different towns and cities in the southern half of Pennsylvania between this road trip and a weekend stay in Philadelphia earlier this summer, but even so, it feels like we barely scraped the surface of the state. On our road trip, we tried to get all the food items unique or special to the Pennsylvania regions we visited - like ham balls, scrapple, shoofly pie and Eat'n Park cookies - and we can't wait to relive our adventures here. Now we just have to get started...

Goodbye Pancakes

On our final day in Amsterdam, we made a beeline for Pancakes! Amsterdam. As we said before, we loved our pancakes so much on our first visit that we decided to leave for Belgium a little later so we could get another pancake. We arrived at Pancakes! Amsterdam before it opened and just strolled the nearby streets as we waited for them to get set up. The lady setting up must have seen us waiting patiently because she motioned that we could come in even though they technically didn't open for another 5-10 minutes.

To start off our lunch (snack? brunch?), A got another glass of freshly squeezed orange juice, and I got a bottle of perensap. I liked the pear juice as it was more unique and not a common juice option. I'm not sure if I liked the flavor better than the apple juice from the day before. (It's been three years; that memory has faded.)

Since we were planning for our lunch to be a food crawl, we decided to split one pancake this time instead of getting two individual ones. The combination we chose this time had spinach, goat cheese, garlic oil, pine nuts and sunflower seeds.

We liked this pancake, but we liked our choices from our first visit better. For me, this one was just a little richer and heavier because of the goat cheese, and I liked the lighter vegetable pancake more (so much that it made my favorites list for the year). A also preferred his daily special from the day before. This pancake wasn't bad by any means. We just liked our other choices more.

We were sad to say goodbye to the little pancake shop as we loved it there and didn't know when we would be able to return. We highly recommend Pancakes! Amsterdam for a casual and fulfilling meal!

Pancakes! Amsterdam is located at Berenstraat 38 in Amsterdam.

Tempo Doeloe

Our memories of our rijsttafel at Tempo Doeloe in Amsterdam three years ago are getting a little hazy, but on the anniversary of our visit, we thought it was about time that we got back to our 2010 Europe trip recaps (before another year goes by!).

Tempo Doeloe is the green awning on a quiet street

We went for a relatively late dinner that night, after having various snacks and meals throughout the day (pancakes, herring, beer and ossenworst). It was our second rijsttafel of the trip (the first was at the more "modern" Blauw) and we were excited to go to one of the more "traditional" places that has been in Amsterdam for years. We didn't make reservations in advance (we didn't make reservations anywhere on that trip) and there was a short wait. As we waited, they gave us some chips (krupak udang and another shrimp cracker) and a sauce that we can't remember too much about.  We were hungry so we were thankful for the free snack.  

Bar snacks

[Side note: Since our visit, we've seen Tempo Doeloe featured on TV, including on Bourdain's show. While we loved seeing it and reliving our time there, internet research tells me that reservations are basically required now since the restaurant is so small (and that you have to ring a bell to be allowed in). Perhaps it was that busy back then too and on a random Wednesday night in September we just got lucky, but I think it's gotten busier over the years.]

Ordering at Tempo Doeloe was easy, since we knew we wanted another rijsttafel adventure. We really enjoyed having such a great variety of small tastes and were really pleased to see how extensive their rijsttafel menu was. They have some smaller rijsttafel options but we went for the grand one. Three years later, we couldn't possibly tell you which of the dishes were our favorites, but I'm not sure we would have been able to do that three weeks later either. It was all really good.

Clearest photo of our rijsttafel but no iPhone yet and didn't want to use flash for everything

The rijsttafel came with two types of rice (white and yellow) and four trays of dishes (three on burners to keep them warm).

Fluffy white rice

"Yellow" rice - basically like fried rice, topped with delicious fried garlic/onions

The four trays of rijsttafel dishes were separated by type and spiciness. The small circular dish had snacks and cold salads, and the others were mild, medium and spicy.

Snacks and salads

Mild (I think)

The dishes in the rijsttafel according to the menu were:

• babi tjien (pork in mild soy sauce with aniseed)
• daging semoor (beef in sweet soy sauce and tomatoes)
• paksoy (green leaf vegetables with sesame oil)
• sawi toemis (Chinese cabbage with Indonesian spices)
• ajam opor (chicken in mild coconut sauce)
• gadon dari sapi (beef in creamy coconut sauce and fresh coriander)
• sambal goreng tempeh (fried soy cake in spicy sauce)
• sambal goreng tahoe (fried tofu in spicy sauce)
• sambal goreng oedang (small shrimp with peteh beans)
• sambal goreng boentjes (string beans in spicy sauce)
• sambal goreng hati (chicken livers in spicy soy sauce)
• oerapan (fresh vegetables with rasped coconut)
• ajam roedjak (chicken in strongly seasoned sauce of chili peppers and coconut)
• ajam bali (chicken in a sauce of tomatoes and peppers)
• sajoer lodeh (vegetables in coconut broth)
• orek arek (caterpillar cabbage with garlic)
• daging belado (beef in spicy sauce with red peppers and garlic)
• daging rendang (the spiciest thing there - very spicy beef stewed with coconut)
• sateh babi (pork skewers with peanut sauce)
• gado gado (fresh vegetables with peanut sauce)
• kroepoek (crispy prawn crackers)
• emping (crispy chips of belindjonuts)
• seroendeng (rasped coconut and peanuts)
• atjar (sweet and sour Indonesian salad)

Medium (I think)

Spicy (definitely)

A story about Tempo Doeloe's spicy dishes, which I will let A tell:

M and I had heard so much about the spicy dishes of a traditional rijsttafel, and I was really intrigued to try them. I remember the first four having decent heat, but it wasn't that overpowering. The second to last spicy dish was the dish with red chili peppers shown above. This had a definite kick to it. The burn was pretty intense, and that made us pretty worried about trying the last dish. So we each built ourselves up and tried little pieces of the spiciest dish pictured above with the slice of what appears to be a scotch bonnet pepper as a garnish. To quote The Simpsons, "It tastes like... burning..." Dear god, this was one of the spiciest things I had ever eaten in my life. The burn consumes your mouth, and no amount of anything helps alleviate it. Our waiter recommended some toasted coconut that comes with the rijstaffel, but that only did a little. M didn't eat as much of the spicy dishes as they were a little overwhelming, so the majority of these dishes were mine to eat. I'm pretty sure I ate it all, but I suffered through it.

However, this wasn't the end. On their menu is a stewed chicken dish that is hotter than the spiciest dish listed above. They actually offer you a taste if you really want one, and it's also offered as a full dish. We decided against destroying what was left of the feeling in our mouths, but one brave soul at the far end of the restaurant tried it. He had apparently been bragging all night about how he could take any heat to the staff so they were more than happy to oblige. After the small dish was delivered, our waiter came back with a wry smile and told us to watch as the guy ate the chicken. He put on a brave face for the first 10-30 seconds, and our waiter told us to wait for it. Within 5 seconds of saying that, an intense look of pain crossed the guys face. He got really red, started sweating profusely, and was banging his fist on the table in an attempt to stem the tide of pure flame coursing through his mouth. He ran back to the bathroom, and I'm pretty sure we didn't see him again before we left. Our waiter enjoyed a small chuckle with us before departing to continue his duties. Knowing that it's spicier than the spiciest dish we tried, we couldn't even begin to imagine how nasty that chicken would have felt.

Even after 25 dishes, we wanted dessert, so we got the "grand dessert" (to go with our grand rijsttafel) - a selection of various ice creams (can't remember the flavors) with tropical fruit (one piece each of kiwi, star fruit, passion fruit, watermelon, strawberry, pineapple). This was a sweet and refreshing end to a great meal.

Pretty fruit plate

There was also a complimentary plate of mints/chocolate chips at the end of the meal.

Our blackberries! This was so long ago...

We were glad we got to try the rijsttafel at both Blauw and Tempo Doeloe, since they were very different experiences and both delicious. The dishes at Tempo Doeloe centered mostly around beef, pork, chicken and vegetables, while Blauw's rijsttafel also had fish and goat. Tempo Doeloe had more dishes in the rijsttafel but Blauw compensated for less variety with larger dishes. We really thought both restaurants were excellent and would love to go back to Amsterdam for more rijsttafel. Unless you live in an area with phenomenal Indonesian food, we highly recommend a rijsttafel meal during any Amsterdam visit.

September Custard Calendar

Happy Labor Day weekend! The September custard calendar is up with all repeat custards, which means we have reviews to link to! 

Source

The custard line-up for September is (with our average scores in parentheses):

Monday - salted caramel (4.75/10)

Tuesday - banana bread (6.75/10)

Wednesday - red velvet (6.75/10)

Thursday - thin mint (8/10)

Friday - peanut butter & jelly (4.5/10)

Saturday - coffee & donuts (5.75/10 - but a bit skewed since I don't drink coffee)

Sunday - oatmeal creme pie (6.25/10)

As you can see from the scores, there are some generally solid custards, but I'm not sure any of these would make our all-time favorites list. Looking forward to the fall flavors that should start to show up in the coming months...

Blueberry Sweet Corn

One custard we definitely wanted to try from this month's calendar was blueberry sweet corn. We've liked blueberry custards at Shake Shack before (like blueberry coffee cake) and wanted to see if this would join the ranks of our favorites.

M's thoughts:

Unlike the sweet corn custard we had before which tasted like vanilla, this one actually had a very noticeable flavor of corn. The blueberry flavor was also very present. So no complaints about whether the custard actually tasted like blueberry and sweet corn - it did. However, I'm just not sure if I like the combination of blueberry and sweet corn together. I think if you do, it's a good custard, but I'm ambivalent. It's well done though.

A's thoughts:

This was an odd flavor. I liked the corn flavor as it was much stronger than the corn flavor they had before, and I liked the blueberry swirl they added as it looked to have actual blueberries in it. However, corn and blueberry don't really go together as flavors in my opinion. In the end I don't think it worked, but I really hope that they bring them back individually.

Blueberry Sweet Corn

A's rating: 6/10

M's rating: 7/10

Reducing Guilt

There is a discussion going on right now on one of the food boards I read and it's all about why people like Trader Joe's. One thing that has come up in the conversation is the prepared frozen food. I've gotten a couple of frozen dishes there before, but there are a lot I haven't tried yet. In this week's shopping, I picked up one for lunch that I've been wanting to try for some time - the reduced guilt chicken breasts in poblano sauce with barley and sweet white corn risotto ($2.99).

The microwaved meal doesn't look quite as good as it does on the box, but I was willing to overlook that if it tasted good. Overall, I think it was just okay. The poblano sauce had a good flavor, and you could definitely taste the poblano peppers, which was good. There weren't many other vegetables in the dish - little bits of tomatoes, scallions, peppers. The barley and corn provided a good base. But the biggest problem was the chicken itself. I followed the box instructions exactly - heat 2 minutes in the microwave on the defrost function and then on high for 4-5 minutes (I did 4:30). But the chicken came out really overdone, too chewy and a little dry. It was still edible but it wasn't great. Covered in the sauce (even though the sauce somehow completely overflowed the container in the microwave), it shouldn't have been that dry.

Buy again? Undecided. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't great. It was $2.99, which isn't that expensive for lunch, but you can definitely get some frozen meals at the grocery store that have about the same amount of calories and nutritional content for less money. I do like that in the TJ's products I can recognize most of the ingredients on the box, but I'm not sure if I like this enough to get it again.

Spicy Lentil Curry

When reorganizing the pantry a couple of weeks ago, I realized we had a ridiculous number of bags of lentils, but hadn't made lentils in a really long time. How to remedy that? By trying a new lentil curry recipe!

I decided to go with an adaptation of the spicy lentil curry recipe from the American Heart Association Low-Fat Low-Cholesterol Cookbook that I got from the library. I liked it because it was healthy and didn't involve any butter or ghee, and only a minimal amount of oil. The healthier we can cook at home, the better.

Ingredients

How many different grocery store brands do you see in the photo?

- 4 cups of water ($0)

- 1 cup of dried lentils ($1)

- 1 tsp cumin seeds ($0.06)

- 1/2 tsp ground cumin ($0.05)

- 1 tsp canola oil ($0.05)

- 1 large onion, chopped ($0.54)

- 1 medium tomato, chopped ($0.50)

- 1 tbsp ginger, minced ($0.10)

- 1/2 tsp ground turmeric ($0.12)

- 1/2 tsp salt ($0.01)

- 2 medium garlic cloves ($0.03)

- 1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro ($0.30)

The recipe also called for a red chile pepper, but I didn't find any when grocery shopping that day. I have since learned that cayenne could be an acceptable substitute. Next time maybe I'll try that if I can't find a red chile. I definitely think the recipe would be improved with the spice.

The grand total for this dish was under $3 (and still would be with the cayenne). Legumes are so affordable! We should definitely make more legumes for budget eating.

Process

The recipe was fairly simple. It took some time, but most of that time was cooking the lentils and you can do all the prep during that period.

1. Sort lentils for stones and shriveled lentils. Rinse. In large heavy saucepan, bring water and lentils to boil over medium high heat. Then simmer on low, partially covered, for about 45 minutes (or until they are tender). Skim off the foam and stir occasionally.

Lentils rinsed and ready to boil

2. While lentils are cooking, prep everything else. Chop onions, tomatoes, cilantro, garlic, ginger.

Still takes me forever to prep this little amount of food

3. Heat a skillet over medium high heat. Cook cumin seeds for about 1 minute (but don't burn them), until you hear them pop and they are fragrant. Stir in oil and add onions and ground cumin. Cook 4-5 minutes or until onion is light brown. Then stir in tomato and chile pepper.

Mmm cumin seeds

Cook for 5 more minutes until tomato is reduced to pulp. Stir frequently. Discard chile pepper if using a whole dried pepper. I really wish I had a chile pepper.

Ready to mix

4. When lentils are tender, stir in tomato-onion mixture and all other ingredients except cilantro. Simmer 10-15 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Tomatoes and onions mixed in

Adding everything else

5. Sprinkle with cilantro and serve. (We ate the curry over brown rice.)

Review

My version of spicy lentil curry - no idea if this is how it's supposed to look since the cookbook had no pictures

We really liked this recipe. It was simple, healthy and hearty and overall a good dish. The only negative was that it seemed to be missing something, like there was a mild lack of seasoning. Could have been the spice. After all, without the chile pepper, it wasn't exactly a "spicy" lentil curry, just a lentil curry. We definitely want to try this again, but next time with a red chile pepper or possibly adding in some cayenne. And we were really pleased with how much this recipe made, even after I cut down the amount. Using the ingredients above over rice could have yielded us two full meals for under $3! Happy to find another tasty, healthy and cheap recipe!

A Premium for a McWrap

I think I've been to McDonalds more this summer than I have in the past few years. I get a craving every once in a while for a sausage biscuit and hash browns or a Filet-o-Fish, but that's about it. But between our hunt for the Happy Meal minion toys and occasions when we've been short on time and options (like one night earlier this week), there has been more eating than usual at the Golden Arches.

One (late) night earlier this week we were stuck at the hospital (long story) and ended up grabbing some sandwiches at McDonalds. My parents seem to be fans of the new(ish) Premium McWrap sandwiches (they usually get the ranch version with grilled chicken), so I thought I would try that.

The Premium McWrap can be ordered with grilled or crispy chicken, and comes in three flavors - chicken & bacon, sweet chili chicken, and chicken & ranch. McDonalds advertises that each wrap also comes with "gorgeous fresh vegetables" inside a "soft, warm tortilla." I'm not sure that I've ever had any "gorgeous" vegetables at McDonalds other than the Alvalle gazpacho in Barcelona. That was wonderful. Anyway, I went with the sweet chili chicken because I usually like sweet chili sauce more than ranch dressing.

After I got home, I looked over the McDonalds site to see if there was any truth to their advertising for this particular wrap. They called it a "unique mix of juicy, grilled chicken breast filet, crisp cucumber slices, spring greens, shredded lettuce, all drizzled with sweet chili and creamy garlic sauce, wrapped in a warm flour tortilla." Agree on the chicken, cucumber and shredded lettuce, but spring greens? I didn't notice any spring greens, only the lettuce. It's guess it's entirely possible they were buried on the bottom and I didn't notice because by that point I was trying to stop the sandwich from dripping all over my backpack (at least it was juicy?), but I don't remember them. The sweet chili sauce was there but very mild, with not as much sweet or chili as sweet chili sauces I've had before. I didn't know it was supposed to be creamy garlic sauce, and it just tasted like mayo to me. All that said, the filling inside the wrap wasn't too bad at all. It was tasty and the chicken did have a nice seasoned flavor. It did taste fresh. The worst part, however, was that tortilla. It was cold and alternated between dry and gummy like most fast food tortillas. If only something could be done about that wrapper.

This does taste better than the original version snack wraps, but they also cost more than twice the amount of a snack wrap. One of these Premium McWraps will run you about $4 here in Manhattan. I'm not really sure it's worth that price. It also took forever to get the wrap. We went to McDonalds figuring that it would be quick, but it took over ten minutes to get the sandwiches and it's not like we had huge orders or there was much of a backlog ahead of us. Maybe that's how long it takes for freshly grilled chicken? I suppose that if I got this again, I would get the ranch, since the toppings sound more interesting than sweet chili chicken. Or maybe I'll just stick with the Filet-o-Fish.

Confetti Rice

We have a bunch of sides from Trader Joe's in our freezer, and one of the ones I was looking forward to trying was the confetti rice. It's basically rice combined with lemongrass, ginger and baby corn. We like all of those flavors, and rice with vegetables in it is healthier than rice without them, so how could this not be a good idea?

The box makes it look so good...

Each box comes with 2 microwaveable pouches. You snip off the corner of the package and then throw it in the microwave. When it's done, you have to carefully open the steamy pouch. Simple instructions on the box, but didn't really work in practice. Ours was really hot in parts but still kind of cold in others, so we had to cut it open, stir it up on a plate and then re-microwave it for a short time to get it all hot enough to eat.

Frozen confetti rice

The texture of the rice was okay - not really soft or fluffy but also not super-dry or falling apart. It tasted more like lemon than lemongrass, but the lemon flavor and scent were so artificial. I had read on a TJ's thread on Chowhound recently (weeks after I bought this) that it reminded someone of lemon Pledge, and unfortunately, we could definitely see the resemblance. If you like that fake lemon-ness, then this might not bother you, but we didn't like it. The corn didn't add much flavor even if you could see the small pieces of it. The ginger flavor was really strong, and not in a good way. It was a bit overpowering. Combining the strong ginger with the perfumed lemony scent/flavor was just not a winning combination.

One serving (half pouch) = 250 calories

Buy Again? No. We still have one pouch left and we're thinking that maybe we'll eat it with fish sticks or something. Hopefully the extra strong lemony flavor will rub off a little on the fish and balance it out more.

Habana

I am no stranger to Cuban-style sandwiches (see all the Sophie's posts). But the one sandwich that eluded me until this year (partially because of all the years I spent not eating meats like ham) was the Cuban sandwich (also known as a Cubano). Somehow, the Cuban sandwich we tried for WorldEats was the first real Cuban sandwich A and I have ever tried! 

The Barclays Center glows in golden light

We were at the Barclays Center for a basketball playoff game (yes, we are months behind on blogging) and I took advantage of that opportunity to grab a Cuban sandwich from the Habana kiosk on the concourse. Cafe Habana was one of the Cuban places on our "to try" list, so it was quite convenient that we could combine trying the sandwich with basketball.

Habana's Cuban sandwich

The Cuban sandwich at Habana consists of sliced ham, roasted pork, Swiss cheese, pickles and chipotle mayo on Cuban bread. I wasn't really paying that much attention to how they made the sandwich since my space was being forcibly invaded by some weird guy who kept acting like he was entitled to jump the line and trying to grab my sandwich even though I was ahead of him. I'm guessing that they compressed it or flattened it in some sort of panini press or something similar. It was a nice warm and melty sandwich.

We're no experts on Cubanos, so we definitely cannot proclaim whether this is the best in the city, but it was tasty, a good kind of salty, and creamy. I do feel safe in saying that it's probably one of the better options at the Barclays Center, having tried a bunch of different places at this point. We really enjoyed the combinations of flavors in this sandwich and would definitely return to the real Cafe Habana or another Cuban spot for another one. 

Claw

It's summer which means it's the perfect season for lobster rolls. Most of the good lobster roll places are not in our area, so when a voucher popped up for the one lobster roll place we have - Claw - we jumped at the chance to buy it. Lobster rolls are expensive so any way to save on them without sacrificing quality is welcome! (I miss free lobster roll promotions.)

Proclaiming that you have the best lobster rolls in the city really raises expectations

We tried three times to use our voucher at Claw before we finally succeeded. It wasn't that they didn't accept it, but they sold a lot of vouchers so the wait was always in excess of an hour. It seemed like a lot of people waiting had also come back multiple times, frustrated with the long waits (for the tiny number of tables) until they finally had no choice but to wait because of an expiring voucher.

The voucher was $28 (a $56 value) for 2 lobster rolls, fries, and glasses of wine. They had a few choices for wine, but I don't remember exactly which ones other than that they were the cheapest ones on the menu. It's been over a month so I don't remember what we got, but A remembers we each got a different white one. They were fine but nothing special.

Voucher wine

We started out with a free appetizer of crab beignets thanks to our Foursquare check-in. One nice thing about Claw was that they honored that promotion alongside the voucher, which many restaurants won't do.

Free crab beignets

The crab beignets were basically like crab rangoon. Crispy crab-filled wontons with spicy mayo and sweet chili sauce on the side. At least that's what they said it would be, but neither of those sauces were really very much like any sweet chili sauce we've been accustomed to eating. The beignets weren't bad. Lots of shell, creamy sauces, not a ton of flavor, but at least there was real crab inside the wonton.

Inside the crab beignets

On to the main attraction - the lobster roll, which is usually $17 each. According to the menu, the lobster roll is served on a toasted potato bun with cornichons and fresh cut fries.

When we got the voucher, we thought that the 2 fries mentioned in the voucher meant sides of fries, and not the fries already included in the price of the lobster roll (which is what we got). After we got home from dinner, I added up the price of the wines we'd been offered and 2 lobster rolls, and it came up $6 short from the "value" of the voucher. The only way that could be the case would be if they had counted the $3 sides of fries as part of the "value" to make it sound like a better deal than it really was. Not a huge deal food-wise since I don't really need more fries, but it's a little deceptive and it annoys me on principle.

As for the food itself, it ranged from nothing special to disappointing. The fries were fine but unremarkable. The cornichons and ketchup were standard. Although that lobster roll bun looks like it's been toasted and/or grilled and/or griddled, it was cold, mushy and dry. It didn't even taste that buttery. The texture drove me crazy, because the bun is one of the things I love most about lobster rolls. We appreciated that the lobster roll was not full of mayo and had actual pieces of lobster, but the lobster had no flavor. Why would lobster not actually taste like lobster (really, why doesn't any of their seafood taste like it should)? It was also a pretty small lobster roll, the size of two ketchup cups in the photo. The entire roll was disappointing and didn't really hold up because of the lousy bun. We're not lobster roll connoisseurs but we've definitely had better.

The whole point of these vouchers for a lot of businesses is to bring in new customers who will hopefully return (and we have returned to some of the good ones). But the problem is that, if you don't put your best stuff forward, there is no reason for anyone to want to return. On our visits:

- the waits were extremely long and you could not make a reservation
- the food was either unremarkable or not good, just a really mediocre experience
- the servers seemed completely overwhelmed and no one could estimate correctly how long it would take to either get a table or receive your food
- it was ridiculously hot inside and it seemed like they had no A/C on, even on sweltering nights
- we waited forever to get our lobster rolls - the server told us multiple times they were just about ready but they didn't come for at least half an hour after the appetizer (and after other tables that ordered after us); it really seemed like they forgot even though the kitchen could not be overwhelmed as we were one of only two tables there still waiting for food for most of that time.

None of that makes us want to go back. I won't officially hold against them the fact that I got 8 mosquito bites that night while sitting in the heat during the endless wait for our lobster rolls, since I should have worn repellent.

I don't really like doing negative reviews for restaurants based solely on one visit. But reading many, many other people's experiences from the past couple of months that sound like we could have written them ourselves convinces us that the food and service issues we experienced aren't an isolated incident. Unfortunate, but true. We're definitely not going back to Claw. And there are definitely better lobster rolls in this city.