An American Breakfast

On the first of our return sea days, we decided to go for a leisurely sit-down breakfast at American Icon Grill, the only non-buffet breakfast location on the ship. It was pretty crowded since it seemed most people had the same idea. On most cruises we've been on, we've usually gone for the sit-down breakfast most days, with this cruise being the exception, so we were excited to try what sounded like a good menu.

To start with, we both got cereal with sliced banana and milk. M got Cheerios and A got frosted flakes. M had thought about getting the "Seattle granola with seasonal fruit salad topped with natural yogurt," but when the server said the seasonal fruit was predominantly melon, she passed.

M chose the Southwest huevos rancheros for her breakfast entree, which was described on the menu as "fried eggs, tomatoes, avocado, jalapeños, sour cream, and salsa picante." M was expecting those ingredients to be combined into something resembling every huevos rancheros plate she'd seen before and even made at home, but what arrived was exactly what the description said. Slices of tomatoes, avocado (3 pieces), and jalapeños with a dollop of sour cream, a drizzled circle of salsa, and some fried eggs on top. This was the strangest version of huevos rancheros she had ever seen. Probably should have been called fried eggs with vegetables instead. It wasn't great and she wouldn't get this again.

A got the eggs benedict, toasted English muffins with country ham, hollandaise sauce, and poached eggs. He found this odd. The hollandaise sauce was foamy, thick, and congealed, and not an actual sauce. The ham had no flavor. We had read a lot of message board posts prior to our cruise to get a feel for what people thought, and one thing that kept coming up was people complaining about the lack of eggs benedict on the menu. They would go on and on about how it was a staple of cruise breakfasts and that the Royal Caribbean version was so good. After having ordered and tasted this, A was confused as to what people were complaining about with it not being on the menu and also why they thought it was good. This was easily one of, if not the, worst eggs benedict he had ever eaten.

We didn't particularly like our breakfast at American Icon and had no plans to return on any other sea day. We thought it would be pretty easy to get a good meal with standard breakfast stuff like huevos rancheros and eggs benedict, but we were wrong. Maybe we should have picked the "bodega breakfast" (bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich) or the old bagel and lox standby, and it would have been better, but no guarantee.

Chic

The last complimentary restaurant we tried on the Quantum was Chic. Out of the four (Chic, The Grande, Silk, American Icon), Chic had the menu we were most excited about trying. (We were even more interested in Coastal Kitchen but weren't special enough to be allowed access to it.) Chic was billed as "contemporary" cuisine, which meant some more interesting combinations, but otherwise wasn't that revolutionary.

Our meal started with a bread basket filled with soft dinner rolls and some breadsticks. The rolls were fine but some of the breadsticks were a little soggy/stale.

Appetizers

We decided to get a bunch of different appetizers to split since we were having a hard time narrowing down the selections. They all sounded so good. The first one we tried was a pastrami-cured salmon with caper-egg remoulade and toasted bagel chips. This was so, so, so salty. The overwhelming flavor was just salt, which made it a little hard to eat. Sure, smoked salmon is often salty, but this was like another level of sodium. The bagel chips and mustard sauce didn't add much to it, as it really just tasted like salty smoked fish.

The next one we tried was the jumbo lump crab cake with herbed frisee lettuce and chipotle mayonnaise. This was really good, the best of the appetizer set we got, and we kind of wished we had each gotten one of these instead of some of the other stuff. The flavor of the crab cake itself was good, it wasn't entirely made up of filler, and the dressing for the crab cake had a nice flavor. It came with a little salad on the side which added some freshness. We were happy with this one, just wished we had more.

We also tried the grilled Catalan shrimp with soppressata, pickled peppers, and a cilantro emulsion. The grilled shrimp had good flavor. The soppressata was a bit salty (like it should be), which unfortunately overpowered the dish a little bit. The cilantro emulsion didn't have much flavor at all and the peppers were kind of just there. The shrimp here was good, but the rest of it, we didn't feel very strongly about.

The last appetizer was the fresh mozzarella and beet salad, with shaved beets, fennel, and burrata cheese. We didn't really like this one that much. The orange didn't seem to go very well with the other ingredients, the beet sauce was really sweet, and everything, while fine in quality, just seemed a little mismatched. Wish we had gotten a second crab cake instead of this.

Entrees

For the main course, M got the baked salmon strudel with sweet carrots, green asparagus, and a dilled hollandaise sauce. She had been picturing salmon baked inside of pastry coming out looking like an actual strudel, but what actually arrived was a baked salmon with pieces of strudel pastry coming out of it. Not only was that a little strange and unexpected, but the salmon itself was overcooked. The asparagus and carrots were fine, as was the sauce, but the fish itself was just okay. Experimentation with the strudel here didn't lead to a better fish, in her opinion.

Since it was a cruise, we ordered multiples of each course just because we could and because then we could try more. We decided to split the pan-roasted Australian barramundi with sautéed spinach, radish, pineapple and caper brown butter. Similar to the salmon, the fish here was a little overdone, but it was mostly okay. We thought the pineapple caper sauce was also just okay but we liked the spinach and radish on the side.

A chose well for his entree, getting the crispy crusted chicken with smoked bacon, caramelized onion, potatoes, and honey dijon mustard jus. This was really good and the chicken was nice and juicy. The accouterments added a nice sweetness and smokiness to the dish, and the moist chicken was really paired well. The potatoes gave the dish a little heartiness to complete everything.

Desserts

We ordered two desserts at Chic, but tried a third. The one we didn't order was this dark chocolate torte with pretzel crust, bittersweet ganache, and caramel drizzle that M's dad ordered. This was way too rich and heavy, so rich that it was hard to eat more than one bite of it. It was an explosion of chocolate but in the worst way possible. We were glad we hadn't ordered another one of these for ourselves.

A got the carrot cake trifle, spiced cake with cream cheese mousse, that came with some weird sorbet that tasted like bubble gum. We saw lots of carrot cakes arrive at other tables so we thought this would be good. It was kind of bland and the sorbet was just so odd.

When she saw the dessert menu, M immediately chose the plum crepe mille-feuille with lemon creme, vanilla, and apricot. This was a really good mille-feuille, nice flavors, with a texture like thin and fluffy pancakes. The lemon creme in the middle was also really light and didn't overpower it. The sweet sauce with plums and apricots had great fruit flavor. It was rare on the trip to find lighter fruit-based desserts but this one was quite good.

Overall our meal at Chic was pretty good. There were some misses, but also a few good dishes (or parts of dishes). Now that we had tried all four restaurants, we weren't sure which one we liked the best yet, but nothing had blown us away either. At least our time at Chic was pleasant and for the most part the food wasn't too bad.

Week 40 - Steakhouse

The first thing you'll probably notice about our Week 40 steakhouse challenge meal is that there's no steak on the plate. I don't eat steak (or cook much red meat at home), so for the challenge, I made the meal that I would be ordering if I went to a steakhouse. I've had plenty of fish dishes from steakhouses, so I decided to make some salmon (the one I most commonly get there) with some typical steakhouse sides.

Coffee-Rubbed Baked Salmon

The first part of the meal was baked salmon, which I prepared with some coffee garlic rub, similar to the coffee challenge from last year. I forgot to also rub it with olive oil like I did that time so the ingredients were just:

- salmon ($9.17)
- coffee rub ($0.25)

After letting it marinate for a while, I baked the salmon in the oven for about 10 minutes at 400 degrees and then let it rest until the other meal components were done. Unfortunately it came out a little on the drier side, which I realized later was because I forgot to rub it with olive oil. Lesson learned for next time. It turned out much better, both in texture and taste, when I used the olive oil last time, but it was still good.

Roasted Herb Potatoes

Just about every steakhouse we've ever been to has had some form of potato side, whether it's baked, mashed, roasted, or something else. I decided to roast some small red potatoes, as I really like that side dish in restaurants with its creamy, flavorful potatoes. I didn't follow a recipe here, but just tried to replicate whatever flavor profile I could remember from the potatoes I liked.

The ingredients were:

- about 1.5 lbs small red potatoes ($1.79)
- olive oil ($0.50)
- salt ($0.05)
- freshly ground black pepper ($0.05)
- garlic powder ($0.05)
- dried rosemary ($0.10)
- 1/2 batch of parsley, leaves chopped ($0.90)

The potatoes were really easy to prepare, and I found myself wondering why I hadn't made them before. The steps were:

- scrub potatoes and cut in halves (or quarters, depending on size)
- grease baking dish and add potatoes
- combine olive oil (maybe 1/4 cup) with garlic powder and rosemary
- add olive oil mixture to potatoes along with salt and pepper
- mix together well
- bake in oven at 400 degrees for about 30-35 minutes (until potatoes are fork tender)
- move potatoes to large bowl
- add parsley and some more olive oil and combine well
- cover with aluminum foil for at least 10-15 minutes (or in our case, until everything else was done)

I covered the potatoes, hoping this would get them to soften up a little more, and it absolutely worked. The potatoes were exactly what I was hoping they would be - full of roasted flavor with a little crispness on the edges but really creamy and soft inside. I definitely plan to make this again.

Green Beans

I usually look for vegetable sides when at a steakhouse and green beans seem to be fairly common. I wanted to try something new so I went with a Williams Sonoma recipe for green beans with glazed shallots and lemon. I think I found it in a steakhouse sides section, even though the description on the page talks about Passover and holiday celebrations.

The ingredients we used were:

- 24 oz bag of frozen French green beans ($1.99)
- olive oil, about 1 tbsp ($0.20)
- 4 shallots, thinly sliced ($0.99)
- juice of 1 lemon and about 1 tsp lemon zest ($0.49)
- salt ($0.05)
- freshly ground black pepper ($0.05)
- 1/2 batch of parsley, leaves chopped ($0.89)

I mostly followed the recipe for making the dish and the steps were:

- cook green beans in boiling water until mostly done and then drain
- heat olive oil in large pan
- add shallots and saute for a few minutes
- add green beans and cook for a few minutes (trying to mix in the shallots which was way harder than it should have been)
- add lemon juice, lemon zest, salt, and pepper and cook for a few more minutes
- remove from heat and add parsley and mix together well

The green beans turned out pretty well and I liked them a lot more than I thought I would. A thought the lemon was overpowering, which is probably because I used more lemon juice than the recipe dictated, but I kind of liked the punch from the lemon combined with the shallots flavor. I thought it really livened up the plain green beans. If I make this again, maybe I'll use a little less lemon juice.

Belgian Endives

Belgian endives are one of those vegetables that we've had before (but not often) and have never made. I think I saw it on some steakhouse menu when I was looking around, and I thought it would be fun to try something new with an ingredient that was new to me. I decided to try a recipe for braised Belgian endives from Chowhound since I wasn't really sure what else to do with them. (I don't know if this is technically really braising since the endives aren't sauteed or cooked at all prior to being submerged in the cooking liquid, but that's the title of their recipe.)

The ingredients were:

- 3 Belgian endives (2 white, 1 red) ($2.99)
- 1 spoonful of chicken bouillon and 1 cup of water, mixed together ($0.25)
- 2 tbsp butter, melted ($0.12)
- salt and pepper ($0.05)
- 2 tsp sugar ($0.05)
- 1 tsp white wine vinegar ($0.10)

Making the endives was pretty simple:

- prep endives (wash, cut lengthwise, and quarter)
- combine all non-endive ingredients in large pan and heat over medium heat
- add endives in single layer and cook, turning every so often, until soft and the sauce has reduced and liquid has almost evaporated (the sauce got very thick in our pan)

The endives were so buttery and a lot sweeter than we were expecting considering not that much sugar was added. A thought the flavors were really good and there was no bitterness of any type that you sometimes get with endives. I liked how soft these were and thought they were good for fall, although I might use a little less butter and sugar next time and the sauce would probably still be fine. Once cooked, the endives didn't seem that substantial in amount, so it was good that we had other sides too.

This was a pretty good "steakhouse" meal even though there was a lot of running around the tiny kitchen trying to get 4 dishes done at once (or more accurately, trying to figure out where to put everything for the various stages of the dishes). It was a little on the expensive side for dinner, just over $21 for the two of us, but that's certainly cheaper than any steakhouse meal out. It was the first thing I made after our trip to San Diego, and it felt good to get back into the kitchen to make something new. We were pretty satisfied.

Week 14 - Food in Disguise

It's been some time since we've posted anything, and a big part of that is probably because I've been doing hours and hours of uploading and organizing our photo collection in preparation for Google killing off Picasa. But while that is preserving some of our memories in some fashion, not writing is probably causing others to fade. So, since it's a new month, it's time to get back to writing again. We've got lots of catching up to do.

While I enjoy looking for ideas for the 52 week cooking challenge, some of the weeks I have the hardest time with are the creative concepts. The Week 14 challenge (for April fools week) was food in disguise, making food look like something else other than what it is. I had no clue what to do, but luckily A is pretty good with these creative weeks. His idea was to make a cake out of meatloaf and mashed potatoes. Sounded good to me!

I really liked the meatloaf I made back in the Week 24 challenge in 2014, so I made that again for this challenge. It helped that it was glazed in ketchup, so it was like a layer of red cake. For the mashed potatoes, I just made pretty standard mashed potatoes with butter and milk and added in some chives. Instead of sprinkles on top of the cake, I went with chopped up chives. To build the cake, I cut a slice of meatloaf in half and put a layer of potatoes between the halves, and then also potato frosting on top, topped off with the chives.

I don't know why I envisioned a layer cake for this challenge the entire time instead of a single cake layer "frosted" with mashed potatoes. I just thought I could make us "slices" of layer cake. I probably needed to build the meatloaf into a bit of a taller loaf to make it really look like a cake slice, but it sort of worked. Meatloaf and mashed potatoes are always a good match, so as far as taste, this was a great dinner. The meatloaf was just as good as last time. Definitely our favorite meatloaf recipe at the moment.

Apparently A's idea to combine meatloaf and mashed potatoes was pretty popular for that challenge week as it turned up in a lot of people's dishes. Most people however made meatloaf cupcakes frosted with mashed potatoes, which I thought of but thought sounded a little too similar to the stuffins I made last year. I wish the cake had come out a little more looking like a giant cake slice, but since the components themselves tasted good and I care more about that than their appearance, it was still a very satisfying dinner.

Week 12 - Mac and Cheese

While we love mac and cheese, we had never actually made homemade mac and cheese before the Week 12 challenge. Most of the time, we usually did something semi-homemade using boxed mac and cheese and adding other stuff in for an easy dinner. For the challenge, I decided to use this recipe for garlic, bacon, and beer mac and cheese from Erica's Recipes as a starting point, since it sounded so good. Since there weren't a whole lot of vegetables in the mac and cheese, I decided to use up the rest of the bacon and make a side dish out of asparagus and the leeks from last year's Week 44 challenge. Seemed like a good way to welcome spring.

The ingredients for the mac and cheese (adapted from the original) were:

- 7 strips of bacon ($2.62)
- 4 tbsp butter, divided ($0.37)
- 3 tbsp flour ($0.15)
- 5 cloves of garlic, minced ($0.10)
- dried thyme (didn't measure but added a fair amount) ($0.20)
- 2 cups milk ($0.57)
- 3/4 cup oatmeal stout beer ($0.59)
- salt and pepper ($0.05)
- grated sharp cheddar cheese (about 2 cups) ($2.79)
- vegetable radiatore ($1.99)
- 1/2 cup panko breadcrumbs ($0.30)

The total for the mac and cheese was approximately $9.73. Adding in the side dish with the rest of the bacon, some mushrooms, leeks, and asparagus (along with butter, salt, pepper, and thyme for seasonings), the total for the entire meal was approximately $16.93. Not a very cheap dinner, but not the most expensive challenge meal we've had.

I'm not going to go through the entire process of making the leeks again since it was pretty much the same as last time except that I added some asparagus in too. The one thing that it did do was make cooking that night much more complicated. There was a lot more prep thrown in (slicing bacon, washing and chopping asparagus, washing and chopping mushrooms) because of the vegetables, and also a game of musical burners since our kitchen isn't really that large and there were a lot of moving pieces at once. By the end of the night, I had used up 3 pots, a large pan, a baking dish, and a frying pan, in addition to 2 cutting boards, the cheese grater, and a countless number of prep bowls. It was definitely a big project.

As far as the steps to make the mac and cheese, what we did was:

1. Bring water to a boil in one pot. Fry the bacon strips, then set aside to cool and crumble. Mince garlic. Grate cheese. (Thankfully A was able to help me because of all the prep work to be done. Another set of hands was hugely appreciated.)

2. In another medium sized pot, melt the butter and add the flour over medium heat. Stir until it bubbles and cook for a couple of minutes. Add garlic and thyme, and cook for another minute, stirring the entire time.

3. Slowly add in the milk and beer. Stir until everything is mixed well together, but don't let it boil.

4. Lower heat to medium low and add cheese with salt and pepper. Stir until the sauce is smooth. (This sounded like a quick process in the recipe, but took at least 10 minutes for all that cheese to melt for us. There was just a lot of stirring in this part of the recipe.)

5. Once the sauce is smooth, remove from heat and add half of the crumbled bacon.

6. While making beer cheese sauce, cook the macaroni al dente.

7. Once the macaroni and beer cheese sauce are both done, pour cheese sauce over macaroni. (The recipe did this the reverse way, but our pasta pot was larger than our beer cheese sauce pot, so it made more sense to do it this way.)

8. In another pot, add 1 tbsp of butter with the panko, more thyme, and the rest of the bacon. Stir and cook for a couple of minutes.

9. Add macaroni and cheese sauce to baking dish. Sprinkle the bacon-panko mixture on top of the macaroni.

10. Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes (should be bubbly).

During the time that the mac and cheese was baking in the oven, the leeks and asparagus dish was simmering on the stove. Since both of them had to go for about the same amount of time, we had to do our best to get them on the same schedule if we were going to eat as early as possible (which was not early anyway). Chaotic and busy!

For our first time making mac and cheese from scratch, this was pretty good. My favorite part was the radiatore, which were nice and chewy, and which soaked up the cheese sauce in all of the ridges. There's a reason why it's one of my favorite pasta shapes. Baking your own mac and cheese in the oven also means you get that nice crusty top which was enhanced even more by the bacon-panko topping. As far as flavor, we didn't get a ton of beer or garlic in the sauce. It was mostly bacon and what seemed like a well-flavored cheese sauce. No complaints though. It was a really good mac and cheese.

Week 9 - From a Can

A bit behind on the 52 week cooking challenge recaps (even if I'm up to date on the challenge), but time to get back into it. The Week 9 challenge was from a can, which didn't mean every single ingredient had to come from a can, but the majority or at least the main ingredients should. Back when the theme was first announced, I had just made and posted about a dinner that was made almost entirely with canned and pantry items (the chorizo rice casserole here), so I couldn't make that again for the challenge but would have to come up with something else. We had 2 cans of crab meat in the pantry so I decided to make some crab cakes, and for vegetables, pair it with a cajun corn maque choux that I was originally going to make to celebrate Mardi Gras but didn't because we had too many Chinese New Year leftovers.

Ingredients

I based the crab cakes on this Allrecipes recipe and mostly followed this Southern Living recipe for the cajun corn maque choux, making adaptations along the way. The ingredients that we used were:

For the crab cakes:
- 5 scallions ($0.65)
- 2 small cans of crab meat ($3.98)
- 1 beaten egg ($0.17)
- 1 tbsp mayo ($0.10)
- 1 large spoonful of whole grain mustard ($0.10)
- buttery round crackers, crushed (about a column of crackers) ($0.67)
- about 1/2 tsp cayenne ($0.03)
- about 1 tsp garlic powder ($0.03)
- a few dashes of Old Bay seasoning (free - had some old sample packets from an Orioles game)
- salt and pepper ($0.05)
- panko bread crumbs to coat the cakes ($1)

For the cajun corn maque choux:
- 1 onion ($0.60)
- 1 green bell pepper ($0.99)
- olive oil for sauteing ($0.15)
- 5 scallions ($0.65)
- about 1 lb of chicken andouille with cheddar cheese ($4.50)
- 2 cans corn ($1.78)
- 2 cans Rotel (or 1 can Rotel, 1 can diced tomatoes) ($1.60)
- salt and pepper ($0.05)

The overall cost for everything was about $17.10 ($6.78 for the crab cakes and $10.32 for the maque choux). Not a cheap dinner compared to our usual costs. The andouille was a big part of the cost (and even more when I made it a second time recently), but the quality is excellent and it's worth it. But the cost also explains why in the future I didn't pair the maque choux with something like crab cakes and we just ate it on its own with some grains.

Baked Crab Cakes

The crab cakes were relatively easy to put together. The steps were basically:

1. Prep - chop green onions, beat egg.

2. Saute green onions very briefly (maybe a minute) in a small saute pan.

3. Combine in a bowl: sauteed green onions, drained crab meat, beaten egg, mayo, mustard, cayenne, garlic powder, Old Bay, salt and pepper. Adjust seasonings to taste if needed.

4. Crush the crackers and add to the mixture. (I did this in parts to make sure there wouldn't be too many cracker crumbs compared to everything else.)

5. Form the mixture into patties about 1/2 inch thick. (As you can see, there was a little leftover at the end, but because of step number 6, it wasn't very easy to just combine it with the existing patties to make them bigger.)

6. Coat the patties in panko and place on parchment paper lined baking sheet. (I combined what was left of the crab mixture at the end with what was left of the panko and basically just made a crab panko ball.)

7. Bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes per side.

Overall, we didn't love the crab cakes. Part of that could be the crab meat itself. We've bought these cans before (see the crab toast here) and thought the crab was okay, but in these crab cakes, the first couple of bites were kind of fishy before our tongues got desensitized to the flavor. There's probably a reason these cans of crab are so much cheaper than the refrigerated canned crab, and we probably won't get them again since we don't like it that much. The crab cakes were just okay, edible but not incredibly flavorful (other than the fishiness) and a little dry (maybe baked them a little too long). Probably won't make these again.

Cajun Corn Maque Choux

We were pretty excited for the maque choux in part because we had been thinking about it for a couple of weeks since the time we were originally going to make it, and in part because I picked up this chicken andouille with cheddar cheese that we had never tried before from our local meat market. The recipe had called for 1/4 pound, I requested 1/3 pound from the guy at the counter, and he ended up giving me almost a pound. It turned out to be for the best since even with almost a pound of sausage, it didn't seem like that much next to all of the vegetables.

The steps for making the maque choux (adapted a bit from the original recipe) were:

1. Prep - chop onion, chop bell pepper, chop scallions, chop andouille.

2. Heat oil in large skillet (the one I used for the challenge was not big enough to make it easy to stir but the second time I made it (yes, I made it again before finishing this post) I used a deeper skillet which was perfect) and saute onion and green pepper until tender.

3. Add the corn and Rotel and mix together.

4. While the vegetables are cooking, saute the andouille in a small skillet until cooked through and a little browned.

5. Add andouille when cooked to everything else, and cook together for about 10-15 minutes. (Depends how much liquid is in the pan. The first time, it cooked for a while, but the second time, there was barely any liquid at this point so it didn't need as much time.)

6. Add green onions, salt and pepper, and cook for another 5-10 minutes or so (again, dependent on how much liquid is in the pan).

We were big fans of the maque choux (not surprising since I've already mentioned we made this again). The andouille sausage had such good flavor - full of spices and creamy melted cheddar cheese - so the dish packed a punch. Outside of the andouille, it was a pretty healthy dish too, full of vegetables. One of the recipes I saw referred to it as a Cajun succotash, which is so true. On top of all the good flavors, it definitely passes the color test.

Overall, dinner was pretty good. The crab cakes tasted a lot better once I started eating bites combined with a little bit of the maque choux, which was the clear winner between the 2 dishes. The crab cakes may not be making it into the regular rotation, but the maque choux definitely will.

A Spicier Delaney Chicken

A few weeks ago, Delaney Chicken introduced a new "spicier chicken sandwich" to their kiosk at Urbanspace Vanderbilt. We had tried the original chicken sandwich back in the fall and liked it, and we love spicy chicken sandwiches, so we knew we had to try it. The spicier version cost a little bit more ($10 vs. $8), and added havarti, pickled jalapeños, and spicy mayo to the chicken. We also hadn't tried any of the sides before, so we thought this would be a good time to do that (despite having just eaten a whole bunch of macarons).

Spicier Chicken Sandwich

M's review: I was really, really excited about this sandwich, but in the end, I liked the original sandwich better which surprised me. I don't know if Delaney Chicken changed their bread order or if the spicier sandwich comes on a bigger bun, but there was just so much excess bread compared to the chicken. A lot of that bread came with copious amounts of spicy mayo on it so it was basically just spicy globs of bread until I got to the chicken. As for the chicken itself, I think it was fine, but I didn't really taste much of the chicken itself. I just tasted spicy mayo with little hints of chicken, cheese, and jalapeño peppers. I don't know if it was the amount of the mayo or just how heavily flavored it was, but it was really overpowering. While the individual components seemed fine, when put together I think they needed a little bit more balance.

A's review: Maybe I was exhausted from a combination of being sick and having walked around a lot, but I didn't think this was anything special. I certainly think, based on this experience, that the original chicken sandwich is far superior. The chicken itself seemed blander than before, but of course, my taste buds were slightly muted. The big issue was that it was smothered in spicy mayo. Somehow this spicy mayo even managed to drown out most of the sliced jalapeño flavors. The havarti cheese was creamy and added a nice flavor, but most everything got covered up by the spicy mayo which was disappointing.

Potato Salad

M's review: I really liked the potato salad side that we got, and I spent a good portion of the time when eating it trying to figure out what was in it that made it so good. One thing that I definitely noticed was the presence of caramelized onions, and I thought maybe there was some mustard in it too. Turns out I wasn't too far off since this Square site says it is "Yukon and red bliss potatoes folded into a pickled mustard seed, sage, and caramelized onion dressing." I guess sage was the ingredient I couldn't quite determine at the time. I liked this better than the chicken sandwich other than the price as it was $5 for a pretty small cup. If I wanted a side from Delaney Chicken, I might get this again, but what it has really done is inspire me to see what would happen if I add caramelized onions to my own potato salad at home.

A's review: This was a really tasty potato salad. Along with the massive (though almost too big) pieces of potatoes, they added what tasted like caramelized onions and a ton of cracked pepper. There was also a mild bit of mayo as it had just the right touch of creaminess. There was also a nice, subtle sourness which really balanced all of the flavors out. My only gripe is that the little cup cost $5. I feel like for $5 M and I could make a massive load of potato salad. Now that we have an idea on what to do, maybe we'll just try that...

Fallingwater Cafe

One of the places in western Pennsylvania that was a must for our road trip was Frank Lloyd Wright's amazing Fallingwater. Designed in the 1930s as a residence, it's an amazing architectural masterpiece built over a waterfall. We really enjoyed the tour, and after spending time taking in Fallingwater from every angle, we headed over to their cafe for some lunch.

The Fallingwater Cafe was focused on seasonal and local fare, and served soups, sandwiches, and salads. This seemed to fall right in line with the Fallingwater aesthetic and philosophy of fitting in with the land and the environment.

We got 2 different items for lunch. One was Liliane Kaufmann's chicken salad from the Fallingwater cookbook. The Kaufmanns were the clients Frank Lloyd Wright designed the house for, and I guess this salad was a specialty there. The salad was described as having chicken, grapes, celery, and water chestnuts with a homemade dressing. It was served with a corn stick, which was like an elongated corn muffin. The salad itself we thought was good, clean tasting, but nothing extraordinary.

The other thing we got was the mixed mushroom melt (garlic and thyme sauteed portabello, shiitake, oyster and cremini mushrooms with lettuce, tomato, and mozzarella on Cuban roll) with a side of a cool English pea and couscous salad. From what we remember, the sandwich was pretty good. Again, very clean flavors, good quality ingredients, and well-executed. The part I remember a bit more is the pea and couscous salad, which I remember tasted very fresh and bright, but I also probably remember this more because of my love for Israeli couscous.

Overall, we had a nice light lunch at Fallingwater Cafe. We were still in a really great mood after spending the morning around such architectural beauty, and it was great to be able to extend that a little longer with some lunch there. Was it the most amazing, extraordinary food we had on our trip? Probably not, but it was a good, solid meal and we were glad we went.