A Year of Nando's

The next post in our London recaps was supposed to be about our visit to Nando's Peri-Peri, our fourth visit to a Nando's in 2015 while on vacation. Unfortunately we haven't gotten around to recapping any of the other Nando's visits, so any comparisons we would make between the restaurants in London and the States would have no context whatsoever. Considering that, and also the fact that the next post in our Savannah recaps was also supposed to be about Nando's, we thought it was best to just put them all together in one post and take you through our year of Nando's.

Visit #1: Woodbridge, Virginia (Savannah road trip)

We had known about Nando's Peri-Peri for a long time before we ever tried it. Founded in South Africa, Nando's is a fast casual restaurant serving grilled chicken (and other stuff, but the draw for most people is the chicken) with peri-peri sauces, flavors that originated from Portugal and Mozambique. Nando's only recently expanded to the US, with locations in Virginia, DC, Maryland, and Chicago. Unfortunately they don't yet have one in New York, but that was why we definitely wanted to try some on our way to Savannah.

A got the half chicken, medium spiciness, with macho peas ("rugged pea mash with whole peas, parsley, mint and chilli" according to the menu). The chicken was very moist except for a few sections of the white meat which was a bit on the drier side. The sauce had a good amount of heat that didn't overpower his senses, and the peri peri seasoning added a nice floral hint. The macho peas were very tasty. They had a good bit of heat to them, and our guess was that they included the same chilli as their peri peri seasoning in them. The mint and parsley added a nice herbal freshness to the dish as well.

M got the sandwich called "Nandocas choice" which made her top 10 list that year. The sandwich was a chicken breast topped with cole slaw on buttery garlic bread. It was really, really good. She thought that the flavor of the chicken itself might have been a little bit better on A's regular flame grilled chicken, but all together, this combination was great. Can't really go wrong with a sandwich built on garlic bread.

Visit #2: Hanover, Maryland (Savannah road trip)

We liked Nando's so much on our first visit, just like we thought we would, that we also got lunch at one of the Maryland locations on our drive back home. The Hanover location was in the Arundel Mills mall not too far from our hotel, so it was our last real meal on the trip (if you don't count rest stop fries). We thought the Virginia location was a little better as far as organization and layout, but we really didn't care because we were eating delicious Nando's chicken.

The first time we got the chicken, we didn't add much seasoning or extra sauce to it, because we wanted to taste it right out of the kitchen with the flavors it was supposed to have. This visit, we experimented more with the sauces, especially the wild herb and garlic, which we liked even more mixed together. The garlic herb peri-peri sauce was our favorite on its own. We love garlic, and this had a really good garlicky flavor to it. The wild herb peri-peri sauce had a good flavor to it, but it just wasn't as good as the garlic herb. Together they formed a great, balanced sauce.

A wanted to kick things up a bit so he got the half chicken, hot spiciness, with corn. The chicken was similar, moist but with a few dry spots in the white meat, and the hot sauce was good and hot, but it was, for the most part, the same chicken he had on the way down. The corn was nice. He had seen a bunch of people ordering it on our first visit so he wanted to give it a try. It was really just a grilled ear of corn, but it was sweet, and the char on the corn gave it a nice smokiness. M isn't as big a fan of corn on the cob, but she thought it tasted good from the little bit she tried.

For her meal, M got a chicken breast (medium) sandwich with arugula, tomato, pickled onion, and peri-peri mayo, with sides of macho peas and fries. These were the same two sides that we had gotten in Virginia, and they were both good. As for the sandwich, it was fine, not as exciting as the Nandocas choice, but the chicken was really good. That said, M still thought A's chicken was better so she decided she would ditch the sandwiches and get regular chicken whenever we were lucky enough to go to Nando's again.

Visit #3: West Loop, Chicago (Great Lakes road trip)

The first Nando's in Chicago opened in spring of 2015 in the West Loop, and once we learned that, we knew where we absolutely had to go during our time in Chicago over the summer. This location was a little different from the other two we had been to, in that it wasn't located in a mall or shopping development, but just a regular neighborhood restaurant. We were really excited to see if anything was different about the Chicago locations, but they were mostly the same. The Chicago one did have better decor though.

A got a half chicken, hot spiciness, with peas and Portuguese rice. The flavor of this Nando's was just as good as before, but the chicken size was much smaller. The peas were tasty like last time, and the rice had really good flavor. We also used the garlic and herb sauce like last time and it was just as delicious.

M got a quarter chicken, medium spiciness, white meat, with coleslaw and garlic bread as sides. The garlic bread was delicious, even if garlic bread is the type of thing we could probably make it at home. The coleslaw was really, really good and better than M remembered from before. With the sides she picked, it was like she could make the Nandocas choice sandwich all over again if she really wanted to, selections which weren't intentional but perhaps subconscious.

Visit #4: Shepherd's Bush, London (2015 vacation)

Our stomachs weren't feeling particularly great after our pie and mash and jellied eels lunch, so we thought the best thing to do was to grab some Nando's for dinner. Grilled chicken sounded like it would be nice and calming. There were two Nando's locations not too far from our hotel, including one a little more conveniently located at the Westfield mall. (You might remember the mall from our first day visits to Square Pie and Pho.) The Nando's at the mall wasn't in the takeaway food court, but in a section with other restaurants. When we got there and saw the line, we were alarmed to see it stretching out of the restaurant and around a corner. The mall was packed, but it was a Tuesday night so we really weren't expecting it to be so crowded. (We kept forgetting it was half term.)

Since that wasn't going to work, we left the mall and walked over to the other Shepherd's Bush location, which had free tables and very little line. It was nice being in a place where there was more than one Nando's within walking distance.

M got a half chicken, medium spiciness, with garlic bread and coleslaw, pretty much the same thing she got in Chicago. She got a half so that A could eat some of the dark meat, since she was planning to eat mostly white meat. The chicken seemed to be very similar to the ones we got in the States, and it was nice to see that the quality was consistent. Both sides were good, but the garlic bread wasn't seasoned as much and didn't have the garlic spread to the edges, so it wasn't quite as good as the ones we had had previously. It was probably healthier that way, but M likes garlic bread with lots of butter and garlic on it. It was a nice, solid dinner that M really hoped would soothe her stomach and erase all memories of jellied eels.

A got the chicken livers which we both knew he was going to get as soon as we looked at the English menu. The chicken livers aren't on the American menu, and that's a real shame. The chicken livers came with a Portuguese roll and he got a side of fries. We couldn't pinpoint exactly what they used to cook the chicken livers, but they were so good. Looking at the Nando's recipes online before they were removed, it sounded like it was just butter and peri-peri sauce, but it tasted like something more than that. There was something familiar about it, but we just couldn't figure it out. We tried these on everything: plain, on the roll, on M's garlic bread, and even on the fries. It didn't matter how we ate them, they were just awesome. There was a little bit of a spiciness to the sauce as well as A ordered them with medium spiciness.

Dinner was really good. We were very glad that we had such a good, tasty dinner since lunch was not as good as we were expecting it to be.

After visiting Nando's four times in 2015, we haven't been to one since then, pretty much since they don't have one here in New York. When the day comes (hopefully) that they do open here, we will be so happy. It's the perfect fast casual type of spot - good flavorful food, no fuss, not too expensive. Nando's, please open in NYC, and if possible bring the chicken livers too!

Nettle and Chive Cheese

The current spotlight cheese at Trader Joe's is the nettle and chive cheese, a handmade cheddar style cheese. The main flavorings here came from a nettle and chive dried herb blend composed of nettle leaves, chive, parsley, onion, and garlic.

M's quick review:

On paper, this cheese was everything I love. Cheddar, chives, parsley, onions, garlic - that's absolutely my thing, and we've had cheeses from TJ's before with those flavorings that were great. This one was a little different though because of the nettle leaves. I'd never had nettle before, but had always been curious about it because of its medicinal effects especially for allergies. I have no idea what nettle leaves taste like, so I have no idea if this cheese tastes like that at all. The flavor was pretty mild, and oddly I didn't get a ton of flavor from any of the herbs in the blend at all. There were hints of some of them, and again I don't know what nettle tastes like, but the flavor was a little subdued. Nothing like one review I read which said it tasted exactly like sour cream and onion dip. I didn't get that at all.

Rating: 7/10

Buy again? Maybe. I liked it, but I like other ones more.

A's quick review:

I thought I would like this more than I did. It was fine as a cheese, but I didn't get a ton of chive flavor from it. No clue what nettles taste like, but during allergy season we wanted to test out how well nettles actually worked for that. I didn't notice a ton of difference, but at least I got some pretty tasty cheese. This was an okay, mild white cheese.

Rating: 7/10

Buy again? I guess so? It would depend on what other cheeses were available.

Goddards at Greenwich

Taking a little bit of a break from our Greek honeymoon recaps to dream about London...

This is a post that I've been dreading writing ever since we ate here. I knew that M would ask me to write this, and I'll get into that a bit more later. Before arriving in London, we did our research on what to eat that was traditionally British, and one of the things we found was jellied eels. We figured that even though we'd never had them before, they'd probably be fine. We like eel in other preparations like sushi, so how different could these be?

The location we chose was Goddards at Greenwich. It had really good reviews, and everything we read about it said it was an institution as it had been around for a long time (1890 by the signage). The first thing that we found that was promising was that it seemed like a lot of locals seemed to be eating here. When we're on vacation, we try to find places that are packed with locals when we can.

We figured that getting just jellied eels wasn't a great idea (or enough for lunch) so we also each got a pie with some sides. M got the traditional mince pie with two scoops of mashed potatoes, peas, and eel liquor (the green-ish gravy). The choice of gravy was between brown gravy and "parsley" which was the liquid from the boiled eels thickened with herbs and spices mixed in. I got the steak and kidney pie with mashed potatoes and eel liquor and also the bowl of jellied eels. We opted to share the additional sides (peas and eels) so that we didn't each have to get them.

M's minced beef pie had a very rich and buttery crust, but it didn't have a great deal of flavor from the filling. It certainly wasn't as good as the pie we had the day before. Overall the pie was just okay. The gravy didn't impart much flavor, and the filling for the pie wasn't that special either. The mashed potatoes were just okay. The peas were also just okay though they might have been our favorite thing from this meal. Everything was just somewhat lackluster.

I got the steak and kidney pie. There was a lot more texture to the meat since it was larger chunks as opposed to being minced up. We couldn't tell what was the kidney, though, so for all we knew it was all kidney and no beef or vice versa. There were also onions mixed into the filling. M preferred her pie more, and I preferred the flavor of mine. The only issue for me was that the beef was a little too dry. Overall, both pies were nothing special. We really enjoyed the other pies we had in London far more than these.

Now for the part that I was dreading writing about the most - the traditionally British jellied eels. The options in these old-school pie shops were stewed versus jellied eels. The difference is that the stewed eels are warm and in liquid whereas the jellied eels are cold, and the liquid has solidified into jelly. We opted for the jellied as that's how we read was the way to eat them.

My first bite wasn't so bad. It was a little salty and squishy, but the texture was similar to other eel I have had in other preparations. The jelly also was pretty salty and had a rather heavy fishy flavor to it. It was so salty and fishy to the point that I started to get a little nauseated from eating it. I opted to ignore the jelly and focus on the eel itself. The eel was still okay to me so I made sure to just eat that. Each piece of eel had a small circular bone in the middle so we had to be careful to pick around that as well as the other little bones that were attached to it since there was a possibility of them getting stuck in our throats.

M had a much different experience with the eels. She hated them and would never eat them again even if it was the only thing left in the world to eat (and she hopes it never comes to that). They were slimy and salty, they were a ton of work with all the bones for not much benefit, the taste and texture of the jelly and the eel skin made her feel sick, and she just did not like them at all. She could barely get through more than one bite, which is why she thought I should write this post instead of her.

Overall, this was a very disappointing meal for us. The pies, mash, and peas were fine. There was nothing special about them, and they were generally bland. The eel liquor poured on top didn't add much either. The eels were a touch on the nasty side, but at least I could eat the eels themselves if not the jelly that came with them. M, on the other hand, would not touch them ever again. While we're glad we got to experience this very old, traditional meal, I doubt that we'd ever do this again.

Skala

After sunset, we walked back through Oia with everyone else in search of some dinner. It was still on the earlier side, starting to get more crowded now that the sun had set, but we were able to get a table at Skala overlooking the caldera without too much trouble. We had spotted this restaurant on some of our walks through Oia earlier and were glad to finally get to try it.

The first thing to arrive was the bread, which from the receipt, it looks like they didn't charge us for. We thought that maybe this was the time when we finally realized that we could turn it down, but from other pics, it looks like we ate it. It clearly didn't make too much of an impression on us, and we can't even remember what was in that little sauce cup. (Why didn't we take notes?!)

We started off with some wine from the Sigalas winery located in Oia (€4 a glass, all pricing as of six years ago). We got one glass of Assyrtiko (a dry white wine) and one of the Ean Rosé (their dry rosé wine, which looks kind of red in the photo). We don't remember much about the wines, and we're also not very good at describing wines anyway so there's not much missing from our recap about these.

We started out with the fava, pureed yellow split peas (€6.50), which was topped with some onions, olives, and capers. It was pretty hard to go wrong when ordering fava in Santorini, as it was so good everywhere, and this was no exception. We planned to order it everywhere since this special kind of yellow pea was only really cultivated in that area. So delicious and Skala offered a pretty good portion size too. Since then we've been able to order something similar from other Greek restaurants in the US, but none of them ever compared to the ones we had here in Santorini.

Along with the fava, we got one of our other favorite dips, the melitzanosalata, traditional eggplant salad with garlic, onion, parsley, vinegar, oregano (€4.50). We can get good versions of this at home, but the smoky eggplant and all the fresh vegetables in Santorini just made this even better. This had an ever-present but not overpowering smokiness to it, and the overall texture was rich and creamy.

We also got two main courses. One was baked fresh cod fish with olive oil, fresh tomato and vegetables (potatoes, onion, garlic, parsley) (€14). The fish was flaky and tender, and you could tell it was caught that day. The added vegetables gave it a good balance and freshness as well as being filling because of the potato.

The other was soutzoukakia, cumin flavored meatballs baked with tomato sauce (€10) which was served over a rice pilaf. We love meatballs, perhaps M a little more than A, but we both do love them. These were very tasty. Cumin is a spice we both love, and they added a very unique flavor to the soft meatballs. The tomato sauce was fresh and tasty. Everything we had here just felt fresh and clean because we're guessing that everything was freshly picked relatively close to the time they were cooked.

Our dinner at Skala was quite good, probably better than our taverna lunch, and it cost less than lunch too. Perhaps had we known more about the scorpion fish we might have had a better meal for lunch, but we at least had a really good dinner. We were pretty satisfied with dinner, but unfortunately when we left, we had a bit of a craving for cookie ice cream (well, at least M did) and there was nothing like Milkato to be found in Oia. We settled for a cookie ice cream bar from the little market on the way back to our hotel (which we don't remember too much about). After that, it was back to our hotel to end another great day on our awesome honeymoon.

9th Ave Food Festival 2017 Part II

The second day of the 9th Avenue International Food Festival was warm and sunny, and the good weather meant even bigger crowds. While we spent our first day mostly visiting places familiar to us, the second day was all about trying small snacks from places in the neighborhood that we've known about but never made it to. It was an easy (and cheaper) way to sample their food and see whether we might want to go for a return visit sometime.

Our first stop was back at the Spam house as we're all about free snacks, especially when they're tasty. This time there was no musubi offered, just sliders and fries, so we both went with the slider. It tasted a little better than the day before, but that could just be because we each got a full slider to ourselves. We were much happier with a full slider as opposed to half and half of a musubi.

As we made our way up the avenue, we stopped first at K Rico, a South American steakhouse that seems to be sticking in a spot that has seen a lot of turnover since we've lived in the area. They had chicken legs, arepas, and empanadas, and after a staff recommendation, we went with one of the beef empanadas.

Unlike some empanadas we've had, these were more deep fried, sort of like a pastelillo. The inside had beef, egg, raisins, and some herbs. The raisins and the sauce made it a little sweeter than most similar beef empanadas we've had, and we think we prefer the more flavorful, more savory ones. A didn't get much meat in his bites, but that could also be because he somehow dropped a piece while eating. He also didn't really like the raisin addition in this case. In the end he thought it just tasted fried. M got more flavor from it, but not as much as she was expecting.

Our next stop was Tacuba which had caught our eye the day before because they had a rotating al pastor spit outside with pineapple on top. Unfortunately, the spit was gone when we got there, but they still had al pastor left. In addition to the pork, each taco had onions, cilantro, pineapple, and a green sauce. They were really good. The pork was flavorful and had just the right amount of "crisp" to the edges that only come from rotating spits. The pineapples were also grilled so they were nice and soft with a bit of smoky sweetness. The only negative here was that the taco filling amounts were pretty uneven from taco to taco.

The other thing that had caught our eye the day before was the clam chowder from Blue Seafood Bar, mostly because it wasn't that expensive and we love chowder. While this was a creamy chowder, it wasn't as heavy on the cream as some others we've had which we liked. Not sure if this is how it usually is or if it's because of how it was cooking on the grill outside, but it was good. In addition to the clams and broth, there was celery, corn, potatoes, and lots of herbs. The flavors here were good, but having just been to the Pacific Northwest, we've been spoiled on amazing chowders. As good as this was, there was almost no way for it to compare.

Our final stop was Ding which was selling an assortment of Chinese dishes for $5. A lot of them looked good, and in the end we went with dan dan noodles, one of our favorites. We watched as they scooped out the noodles and topped it with sauces, seasonings, and garnishes from at least eight different bowls. The noodles had a good amount of late hitting heat from the Chinese peppercorns, but wasn't unbearably spicy at all. Also the meat sauce and additional sauces and flavorings all melded to form a very tasty dish. We got a menu from the vendors there, and from this first taste we both think we'd like to give the restaurant a try.

We had a pretty successful visit to the food festival this year unlike the one year that we only got pierogi, curry puffs, and doughnuts on both days. We do still miss the pierogi though.

9th Ave Food Festival 2017 Part I

Last weekend was the annual 9th Avenue International Food Festival in Hell's Kitchen. We've missed it the past couple of years because of scheduling issues, but made it on both days this year. The first day of the festival was on the cooler side (low 60s following days of summery weather) and a little bit cloudy so even though it was plenty crowded, it wasn't as packed as it could have been which was more pleasant for walking. We walked the entire length of the fair both ways, but most of the food we got on the first day came from the southern part of the festival. After we got to the end and took a short detour to pick some stuff up at Whole Foods, we realized that we weren't really that hungry anymore and that it would be best to leave the other stuff that caught our eye for the next day.

Part of the reason we were probably so full was because our first stop was Daisy May's for BBQ. We've had Daisy May's BBQ several times before (and even went for the World Cup challenge in 2014), so the pulled chicken and mac and cheese weren't anything new but they were quite tasty. We had debated between the pulled chicken and the pulled pork, and in the end chose the chicken. It was drier than the pulled pork usually is, but it wasn't that bad. The sauce, as always with Daisy May's, was very good. It had an excellent balance of sweetness and tanginess to pair with the chicken. The mac and cheese was rich and creamy, and the parts with the crusty, cheese-infused breadcrumb topping were the best. Unfortunately they didn't give us much of it, but we enjoyed what they did give us.

Our next stop as we made our way up the avenue was the Spam house (aka the "Spam Tiny House of Sizzle") which was offering free samples. There was no way we were skipping free stuff, so we got on line not knowing or caring what the samples were. By the time we got to the front, there were three options - Spam fries (which we thought might have been fries topped with Spam but were just griddled Spam cut up into fries), Spam sliders, and Spam musubi. We got one of each of the latter two and split them.

The Spam slider had a thin slice of Spam on a King's Hawaiian roll with some wasabi mayo. The Spam itself was most likely griddled, and it produced a nice caramalization on the meat. Paired with the sweetness of the King's Hawaiian roll and the spicy creaminess of the wasabi mayo, it was our favorite of the two options. The Spam musubi was exactly what we expected it to be. A took the first bite, and he had a little trouble biting through the seaweed wrapper. He thought there wasn't a ton of Spam flavor to this despite the rather large slice of Spam. Also, a lot of the rice seemed undercooked to A, but M didn't seem to have that same issue as it seemed fine to her. She also tasted more Spam flavor but that could be because she ate some of the rice on its own first before eating the entire Spam-rice-seaweed combination together.

Next up we stopped at A-Pou's Taste, a street cart we've visited before on the Upper West Side but hadn't seen in a while. They specialize in Taiwanese-style potstickers, and we had always found them tasty in the past. This time we got an order of five pork potstickers which were covered in hot sauce and soy sauce. We really liked these potstickers, and they were just as good as we remembered them being before. This wasn't too surprising as they basically brought their regular cart out to the event.

By far, the busiest block of the entire festival was the one taken up by the Big Bite Tour. A bunch of promotional tents giving out samples, and obviously there was going to be a crowd. Free stuff! There were samples of Mentos gum, Nestea iced tea, Blue Diamond almonds, Wholey Cheese crackers (which we were so excited to see as we had recently tried them for the first time, but that's for another post), Allegra (also extremely exciting and money-saving for us), and Turkey Hill ice cream, which ended up being the last thing we ate from the festival.

Without planning it, we got two different flavors of ice cream - vanilla bean and salted caramel. The vanilla ice cream was good. You could see the vanilla beans mixed into the ice cream itself, and that always makes a huge difference when comparing vanilla ice creams. A thought the salted caramel was just okay. It seemed more caramel and less salted, but in the end the overwhelming flavor in his mind was just sweet. M's not a huge fan of salted caramel, so she didn't feel like trying it, especially if A wasn't raving about how good it was.

We enjoyed our time at the festival other than having to dodge oblivious and/or inconsiderate people in the crowds. The one thing we did notice on the walk though was the absence of one of the vendors we had always looked forward to - Millie's Pierogi. No idea when they stopped coming since we've missed the festival for a couple of years, but we always stopped by their stand. Guess we'll have to look for them in Massachusetts to get our fix.

Week 15 - British

I really like Scotch eggs and was always curious if I could make them myself, but the fact that I don't deep fry at home posed a bit of a challenge. After we got back from London, I started looking around for alternatives and found a recipe for baked Scotch eggs on Food.com that looked promising. I saved it but never got around to making it, so it seemed perfect for the British challenge.

The ingredients for the baked Scotch eggs were:

- 5 eggs ($0.25)

- 1 lb ground turkey ($4.50)

- salt and pepper ($0.05)

- thyme ($0.05)

- sage ($0.10)

- garlic powder ($0.05)

- flour ($0.15)

- bread crumbs ($0.35)

The total was about $5.50 but two eggs each wouldn't really be enough for dinner. (We ate a lot of other stuff along the way.)

The steps for the baked Scotch eggs were:

1. Hard boil 4 eggs.

2. While eggs are cooking, combine ground turkey with salt, pepper, thyme, sage, and garlic powder. [I didn't measure anything, but just used what looked like a good amount to me.]

3. Split turkey mixture into 4 even parts.

4. Cool and peel eggs.

5. Set up bowls for dredging system (this should have been my first clue that maybe this wasn't going to go perfectly) - one with flour, one with bread crumbs, one with the last egg beaten, one with water, and then the peeled eggs and turkey mixture in their own bowls.

6. Dip each egg in water, then flour, and surround with turkey mixture. Then dip in egg and cover in bread crumbs.

[When I did the first two eggs this way, they looked gigantic, way too large for a regular Scotch egg. For the last two eggs, I split one of the turkey portions into two and just used half on each egg. That left us with a quarter of the turkey mixture and no eggs, so I just made it into a turkey burger that we ate for an appetizer.]

7. Chill eggs for an hour. [It was supposed to be an hour but it was late, and I had somehow forgotten the chilling step was there. We ended up chilling it for maybe 45 minutes instead.]

8. Bake eggs at 400 degrees until turkey is fully cooked. We started with 30 minutes but they weren't done, so we probably cooked them for 40 minutes total.

9. Cut eggs in half and serve.

The Scotch eggs were okay. Not as much flavor as the ones in the restaurants, but healthier because not deep fried. Way too much meat surrounding the eggs, but I think that was my failure in execution rather than the recipe. I just couldn't seem to get a thin turkey layer to cover the egg evenly on all sides. I really don't know how they do it, even to deep fry it, and get it so even. The turkey wasn't bad as a substitute, but I probably could have added more seasonings to it. While this was good, I probably won't try this again as it's easier to just get them at a restaurant.

Black Bean Taquitos

We're really grateful for Trader Joe's customer-friendly policy. Returns there are no hassle, which makes it really easy to try new products with no fear of wasting money. (We recently returned some seeds to the store that we just didn't care for, and they had no issues.) We also love the sampling station and have tried some really good stuff over the years that we've gone on to buy.

But we're also grateful for the sample offerings because sometimes they showcase things that we don't really care for. On one recent trip, they had these black bean and cheese taquitos (main filling ingredients were black beans, mushrooms, jack cheese, and jalapeños), but we both found the taquitos themselves relatively flavorless despite all those ingredients. They were serving them with salsa (one we already have at home and will review someday), and the salsa was definitely needed to give it flavor. I've always passed by these and wondered if we should buy them, and at least now I know they're not for us. I don't think they're new, so clearly some people like them (and maybe more than liked some of our beloved discontinued items), but they're just not for us. Better to know that now, rather than buying them and not loving them or in other cases, returning them and wasting food. Samples are great!

Destination California

The current "destination" for Chopt's limited time salads is California, and all three of the options sound so good. We skipped the last destination - Pacific Northwest - because we had just gotten home from the Pacific Northwest and didn't really feel like trying them after having the "real thing." We decided some salads would be the perfect dinner for a recent, very hot night, and chose to try two of the California specials.

The first was the spicy Koreatown noodle bowl made with beet and carrot "noodles," Korean chicken, scallions, celery, a blend of napa cabbage, sunflower shoots, and sorrel, fried shallots, and the recommended spicy sunbutter dressing. This bowl was very good. This salad felt so light, perfect for summer, probably because the greens were dominated by crunchy napa cabbage. The flavors of the chicken were good, and the chicken combined well with the scallions, celery, and greens. We aren't really sure what went into the spicy sunbutter dressing, but it seemed like a good match.

If we were to point to any negatives, it would be that the shallots barely had a presence (sadly), and that the beets and carrots weren't really "noodles" like you would think of spiralized vegetable noodles. They were more like shaved vegetables, and once chopped, it was just like adding bits of carrots and beets to a cabbage-based salad as opposed to being the primary base. It was a good salad though and we were glad we got it. Very light, which is exactly what you need some days.

The other salad we tried was the spicy Sonoma Caesar which they advertised as being "back" so we guess they offered this at one time but we had never tried it. The Sonoma Caesar had a base of kale, romaine, and purple cabbage, and added chipotle chicken, avocado, parmesan quinoa crisps, and pickled cherry peppers, along with the recommended creamy Caesar dressing. This was a much heartier salad than the Koreatown bowl, almost entirely because of the kale. The texture of the kale was good, not that tough or chewy, just very hearty. The parmesan quinoa crisps were tasty, and I even remember remarking that if they sold those in bags as a snack, I'd consider buying them.

The chicken and avocado were good too, but the dominant flavor here came from the pickled cherry peppers. They were pretty hot, so if anyone can't tolerate spice, they might want to stay away from this one. (Yes, the salad is called spicy, but often things salad places label spicy aren't that spicy to me.) It was definitely nice having the avocado and the creamy Caesar dressing (and the Koreatown bowl) to counteract some of that heat. A liked this one better, but I couldn't decide between the two. There's one more from the California set - the grain bowl - and we definitely want to try that before the specials are over.

Skiza

Looking back at our time in Santorini years later, it feels like we didn't really do that much while we were there. Before getting there, we had grand plans of visiting the black sand beach, maybe a red sand beach or a vineyard too. But after riding in the taxi from the port to Oia and not liking the twists and turns of the road thanks to our driver, we decided to just relax and take it easy and spend most of our time in Oia. We also realized that we were just really, really, really tired. We loved our visits to Athens, Mykonos, and Naxos, but we had also traveled a lot in each of those places. In Santorini, we ended up just napping a lot, trying to get in as much rest as possible before we had to rejoin the "real world."

So after our visit to Ammoudi, I think we took another nap during the afternoon, or otherwise just rested in our mostly ant-free new room. We headed back out in the late afternoon to stroll some more of Oia, and decided to get a snack from a little cafe window on the main pathway called Skiza, choosing some sort of cheese pie.

Six years later, we honestly don't remember much about the pie itself (no idea if it was better than the breakfast pies or not), but we must have generally liked it or we would probably remember not liking it. (Assumptions like this are not how we like recapping things, but can't go back in time to create notes!) Mostly though, we remember this little dog that kept following us after we bought the pie and trailed at our feet as we ate the entire thing, hoping for crumbs to drop (or maybe for a bite). This wasn't an uncommon sight in Santorini, but we didn't mind. Although we didn't feed it any of our pie, we didn't feel bad about that since there were stray food bins for dogs all around the town. In fact, at one point, A pointed out the bin to the dog. The dog walked over, looked into the feeder, and then immediately walked back to look at our pie (and us). Guess it didn't want that.

After our pie, we joined the crowds to catch the sunset, which was supposed to be most spectacular from Oia, and it was the best one we witnessed while we were there. Once the sun had set, it was time to get some dinner and close out our first full day on the island.

Sunset Taverna

Somehow it's already mid-May, which means we're coming up on the six year anniversary of our honeymoon in Greece. Sadly we've not finished recapping that, so getting back to that...

Our first full day in Santorini started off stressful (dealing with the ants but luckily they were able to move us into another room in the villa; less scenic but less pests), but immediately improved after getting some pies for breakfast. After the pies, we wandered around Oia for a bit, just taking in the sights (lots of weddings, stray dogs, and ants, but also pretty buildings and the caldera) before heading for the (very long) staircase that would take us down to the water and the small port area called Ammoudi. We figured that we would just relax a bit by the water, explore the town (we thought it would be bigger than it was), and have some lunch.

There were a lot of steps and they took far longer than we thought, and they were also covered with donkey droppings everywhere, especially as we got closer to the bottom. We were pretty happy when we finally got to the port and didn't have to walk on the steps anymore. After looking around the port a little bit, we picked a taverna that had tables steps away from the water and decided to go there for lunch. The meal started with the usual bread (€2 six years ago), which was fine but we don't remember it being anything special.

We also got the horiatiki salad (€7.50), lots of fresh tomatoes and cucumbers and onions topped with feta cheese. We loved getting salads in Greece because all of the produce was just so fresh since everything was local.

We also got the tomato keftedes (€7.50), something we had previously read was a Santorini specialty. They were basically fried tomato patties, and we learned here that this was definitely something we wanted to get more of when we were in Santorini, especially if you couldn't really find them elsewhere. There was just something about the flavor, probably from all the fresh, local tomatoes they were made with, that made them so unique and so good.

Along with our vegetable appetizers, we got some freshly grilled fish (€29.25). A picked out the fish because M trusts him to do this. He picked out a skorpion [sic] fish because the workers said it was local. What they didn't mention was that it was a trash fish that was mostly just used in stews and not eaten whole like we were asking for. After reviewing the prices, he was happy to see that it was a moderately priced fish and not one of the more expensive fish types. (Whole fish could get really expensive at some spots in Greece.) He picked a medium sized one and asked them to grill it (and again, they never mentioned until later that that was not how it was usually prepared). As with all fresh fish grills we had gotten in Greece, it was a simple salt, pepper, olive oil, and herb grill with a lemon wedge on the side.

The fish wasn't bad, but it definitely wouldn't be our first choice if we were to ever do this meal again. A remembers that certain parts of it had a bit of a bitterness to it, and those could be the parts that were closer to the poisonous spines that this fish is known for. Thankfully neither of us got sick from eating this, but it's possible that those parts of the fish would have been left out if it were prepared in a stew. Otherwise the fish was a fairly standard flaky white fish, maybe a little firmer than the other ones we had gotten.

Overall, our meal here was nice. It was a great location on the water, the food was solid, and the weather was fantastic. A also got a frappe since he had fallen in love with them on this trip. The only real downside was that there was a very rude and loud family dining at the restaurant at the same time who seemed like they might have been from one of the many cruise ships that were docked in the area that day. They yelled at the staff about a simple mistake they made in a dish, and they were just generally so loud, what people usually think of as stereotypical loud Americans. They also seemed completely clueless about the geography or even where they were, and somewhat (loudly) proud of their ignorance, reinforcing more negative American stereotypes. Not the restaurant's fault though, and we felt pretty bad for the staff.

After relaxing in Ammoudi a little longer after our meal, we ended our time there by taking a taxi back up to Oia because we didn't feel like walking back up the donkey poop-filled stairs. There were also even more donkeys on the stairs after lunch so we could only imagine the fresh batches that would be awaiting us if we walked up. If you're going to Ammoudi, beware of the donkeys!

Southwestern Chopped Salad Kit

Product name: Southwestern chopped salad kit

Price: $3.29

Quick review: When we saw this at Trader Joe's, it immediately reminded me of a similar salad we got from Wegmans years ago. We really liked that one, but don't have a Wegmans nearby so only got it a couple of times. This one was very similar to what we remember of the Wegmans one (although it's been a while), except that the TJ's one had chunks of cheese in it. The ingredients in the salad were green cabbage, romaine lettuce, carrots, radish, cotija cheese, roasted pepitas, tortilla strips, green onions, cilantro, and a spicy Southwest avocado dressing. The flavors were good, it had lots of different ingredients so it wasn't boring, and it was nice to have a different salad kit from our usual Asian cashew chopped salad.

Buy again? Yes, absolutely. We've already eaten three of them, and hope they keep this kit around.