Waffle House

Three years ago today, we were off on our Southern road trip heading for Savannah. When we last wrote about this trip, we had just visited Nando's for the first time, indulging in some delicious grilled chicken before hitting the road and driving for hours. We stopped briefly in Richmond, Virginia to do some sightseeing, but otherwise our next real stop wasn't until Rocky Mount, North Carolina for a late dinner.

Waffle House is a true American institution. They're cheap, they're open all night, they have a lot of choices on the menu, and the food hits the spot. Even though they're now as far north as Pennsylvania and Delaware (still not close enough to us), I pretty much still associate them with the South. So there was no question that on our Savannah road trip, we would try to fit in at least one visit to Waffle House.

My first trip to Waffle House was in college. We were on a road trip to Myrtle Beach and after a long night of driving, we stopped off at Waffle House for breakfast. It was exactly what we needed to refuel for the rest of our drive (although I passed out from food coma shortly thereafter since I drove all night), and I've associated good memories with them ever since. Somehow, even though he had been to the South many more times than I had, A had never stopped at a Waffle House before. I was happy that around the time we chose to stop for dinner in North Carolina, there was a Waffle House right near the interstate. Perfect road trip stop.

We both opted to order off the special $5 meals menu which not only covered your choice of breakfast, lunch, or dinner (from a list of 15), but also included a drink. A opted for coffee to help him stay awake until we got to our stopover in Fayetteville (about 90 minutes further), and I went for a sweet tea-lemonade mix. We were in the South after all.

Since it was A's first time at Waffle House, he chose to go with the double classic waffle. He topped it with butter and syrup. The waffles were creamy and sweet, and the butter and syrup combined to make a really tasty concoction that was salty, sweet, and extra creamy. A had never put butter on his waffles before, but it just seemed like the right thing to do. It was great, but he's thinking that he might only do that while at other Waffle House locations and not a regular basis. The coffee certainly helped him get to the next hotel, but it wasn't anything special. For the most part, it tasted just like regular diner coffee.

I'm not much of a breakfast person (although the sausage, egg, and cheese grits bowl and biscuit were tempting), so I picked the Texas sausage melt which came with hash browns. Each of the Waffle House Texas melts came with meat (sausage patty in this case), double cheese, and grilled onions on Texas toast. This was simple, but so, so good after a long day of driving. This ended up being our only Waffle House visit on our road trip, but it made us really happy. It's definitely a Southern road trip must for us!

Loaded Taco Burrito

I don't watch very many commercials, but somehow my ears always perk up when there's one for Taco Bell, most recently their loaded taco burrito. Supposedly this was supposed to be a "coupling" of a crispy taco and a burrito, which to me just sounded like a burrito, but I tried to keep an open mind as we gave it a try.

The loaded taco burrito consisted of a "double helping" of ground beef (double compared to the taco which makes sense as you can't fit as much into a taco as you can a burrito), cheese, lettuce, tomato (although we did not really notice much, if any, lettuce or tomato), tortilla strips, sour cream, and avocado ranch sauce. I guess by "loaded taco burrito," they just meant that they were taking the fillings of the usual crispy taco plus the shell and putting it into a burrito, but really that's just a burrito with tortilla strips in it. Nothing about it, even after tasting it, made me think, "Whoa, it's just like eating a taco but in burrito form!" It was just a burrito. A also wasn't all that impressed with the "inventiveness."

That said, it wasn't bad. The flavor was actually pretty good, between the meat, sour cream, and avocado ranch sauce, and it was relatively satisfying. Nothing revolutionary though. And it was definitely not worth kicking the naked chicken chalupa off the menu for this. (Bring back the naked chicken chalupa!)

Naked Chicken Chalupa

I was reading Grub Street earlier today and they were talking about a new Taco Bell experiment - a taco shell made out of a fried egg debuting this month in Michigan. I can't say that I'm very excited about the idea of holding an oily, squishy egg in taco form, but it reminded me of the last unconventional taco shell that Taco Bell had, the one made out of fried chicken that they sold across the country as the naked chicken chalupa and which was gone within a month.

The naked chicken chalupa came out at the end of January, and within the first week, I picked one up at Taco Bell for lunch and absolutely loved it. I wanted to get more, but there isn't a Taco Bell super close to us at home and our February weekends were pretty packed, making it difficult. Sometime near the end of February, less than a month after releasing it, they announced that the naked chicken chalupa would be gone before March. I had missed the news for a few days (was pretty busy with work and stuff), so by the time I finally learned about it, it was too late. The naked chicken chalupa was gone. I always knew it was going to be a limited edition item, but I didn't think it would be that limited.

There was a lot of buzz around this chalupa when it first came out because it was replacing the regular fried chalupa shell with a shell made of fried chicken. Inside the fried chicken shell were the usual chalupa toppings - lettuce, tomato, cheese, and avocado ranch sauce. Eating it, it was just like eating a regular chalupa. The taste was so similar, except better since the fried chicken shell not only had the flavor of the regular fried chalupa shell but also fried chicken. It was so good. Unfortunately, now it's gone. Was it that expensive to make? Did they run out of fried chicken shells? It got pretty good reviews as far as I could see, and there was a lot of hype about it, so why was it gone so soon? Hopefully this will be like some of the other menu items that Taco Bell brings back from time to time. If so, I will definitely be trying to get as many as I can.

Blue Star Paros

Our trip from Naxos to Santorini was on the Blue Star Paros, another large ferry with lots of amenities (unlike the small ferry we took to get to Naxos). We paid for business class again to get some space to comfortably relax on our afternoon journey, and it was totally worth it. About an hour into our trip, we decided to get some lunch, and we were happy to see that there was another Goody's restaurant on the boat so we could get more from the Greek fast food chain. Unfortunately, since it's now almost six years later, we don't really remember that much about all of the stuff we ordered (really wish we took notes back then so we didn't lose all these memories; at least we've learned our lesson now), but here's what we got.

Onion rings fried in olive oil, which were like the soft onion rings with mashed up onion inside:

I love onion rings like that, but I have no idea where to get them regularly at home. Sometimes the AYCE Chinese buffets have them but it's very hit or miss.

Fries, just like the ones we got last time, fairly standard and just lightly salted:

"Chicken Fillet Goody's," breaded chicken breast fillets (basically chicken nuggets) served with mustard sauce and salad with vinaigrette sauce:

It was nice to get some salad with chicken nuggets, and I wish that was common here too.

Western barbecue burger, which added barbecue sauce, cheese, bacon, and onion rings to the burger:

After eating, we just rested and watched the seas and islands pass by from our window. The boat stopped briefly at Ios, where it was raining, and then finally we were in Santorini, the last Greek island on our adventure!

Eatsa

Over the past few months, one of the more interesting developments in Midtown lunching has been the opening of Eatsa, a San Francisco-based chain selling $6.95 quinoa salad bowls, currently with two locations in Midtown East. Eatsa is unique in part because of its reliance on technology and automation. You order at a kiosk (or on your phone), and then when the food is ready, it lets you know which cubby to pick it up in, just like an automat. The second location of Eatsa opened up last week and we both stopped by to finally try them out. (In the interests of full disclosure, we signed up early online to get codes for free bowls, but we both agreed that our opinions of the bowls and the experience would have been the same even if we had paid.) In the time it has taken us to finish up this post, M already returned a second time to Eatsa to try out a different bowl. We considered waiting until we tried them all before posting, but figured then it might take us forever to write this.

M's review:

On my first visit, I got the Smokehouse bowl (toasted red quinoa, mixed greens, BBQ ranch dressing, cucumber, tomato, grilled corn, pickled onions, white cheddar, crispy onion strings, BBQ portobello), and from the extra free garnishes, added green onions and cilantro. (The other free add-ons were parsley and sesame seeds, but I didn't think they made sense here.) I went at an off time, so it was not very crowded while there, and therefore, I didn't feel that bad about taking my time at the kiosk checking out all the ordering options.

This bowl was so tasty. At first, I thought maybe they forgot the extra garnishes because I couldn't see them, but they were there, hiding in the greens below the quinoa. The order was 100% accurate. Everything mixed together was really good, very fresh, very healthy-tasting, and a good combination. I liked it so much that I thought it would be difficult to pick a different bowl the next time, because I might keep getting drawn back to this one. Compared to the other salad chains, there were a lot more ingredients in the bowl and for a lower price, so I think Eatsa is going to provide some good competition, at least for my lunch spending. I liked everything about the experience - easy electronic ordering from a kiosk (especially after a horrific customer service experience on the phone with someone else earlier that afternoon), nice staff members, good healthy food, and prompt customer service in the form of instant surveys and follow-up emails. Overall, I left very impressed with plans to return.

On my second visit, I got the Aloha bowl (sesame seeds, edamame, orange miso dressing, portobello poke, macaroni salad, taro root chips, cucumber, island style quinoa, lomi lomi tomato, wakame, pickled ginger, and napa cabbage), to which I once again added green onions and cilantro. Although I prefer the Smokehouse if I had to choose between the two, this bowl was really good. Very healthy, very light, so many different ingredients, and very filling. I'm not usually a fan of pickled ginger, but this one was pretty mild and didn't make me wince, so that was good. The whole bowl just worked well together other than the mac salad, which wasn't bad as part of it and tasted fine on its own, but whose flavor got a little lost when mixed together. Overall, it tasted more like an Asian salad bowl to me than a Hawaiian bowl, but I was pretty happy with it. Can't wait to try more bowls!

A's review:

For my free bowl I opted to get the Bento bowl (stir fried quinoa with egg, edamame, crispy wonton strips, teriyaki sauce, miso portabello, apple-cabbage slaw). I didn't know you could add free items so I left it as is. It was a little on the crowded side when I went since it was right in the middle of the lunch rush, but I didn't have to wait that long. It's a neat system where you order on iPads and then wait to pick up your food in a little drawer/kiosk on the wall. It's a cool POS, and I can't wait to go back to play around with it.

The bowl tasted really great. The majority of the flavor came from the portabello mushrooms and teriyaki sauce, but every component definitely had its place and was well thought out. I'm usually not a fan of food with wonton strips, but these were so light and crisp and didn't feel oily or heavy at all. The egg, unfortunately, was something of an afterthought. That little white rectangle near the edamame was the majority of the egg that was in the bowl. The apple-cabbage slaw was interesting but far less sweet than I was expecting. Overall this was a delicious bowl, but it's also the least caloric bowl they offer. I was hungry about an hour and a half later, but it was at least delicious. I'm definitely looking forward to going back.

Meatballs and Kelp Noodles

The "warm bowl" in the Destination Thailand series at Chopt caught my eye immediately the first time I read the description, mostly because of the spicy green curry turkey meatballs. I love meatballs, and green curry meatballs just sounded like they would be amazing. I was also intrigued by the kelp noodles, an ingredient I had never had before.

The ingredients in the warm bowl were the meatballs (about 3 medium sized meatballs) and kelp noodles, along with pickled hearts of palm, the tatsoi, purple cabbage, and herb mix, toasted coconut garlic crunch, and a recommended dressing of coriander-chile vinaigrette. Unlike the salad, for the warm bowl they just tossed all the ingredients with the dressing (other than the meatballs and the garlic crunch), and there was no chopping of everything together. On the plus side, this helped the flavor of the pickled hearts of palm stand out more, but it also meant that the flavors of all the ingredients weren't as uniformly distributed as they were in the chopped market salad.

The meatballs here were really good. The spice of the green curry came through, and any heat in the bowl was from the meatballs, not the dressing. The kelp noodles reminded me of glass noodles in their appearance, but they were crunchy and a good match for the crisp greens. I liked this bowl a lot, but in the end, I think I liked the market salad better. The flavors there were just a little stronger, and the chopping mixed everything together just a little bit more which I preferred. Glad to be able to try this though, even if it was bittersweet, reminding me of the demise of Shophouse as we loved the meatball bowl there. At least this one will be around for a few more weeks.

Hello San Diego

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Double Stacked Habanero

I went to Taco Bell over Christmas weekend and noticed that they had something new, double stacked tacos. Now that I've tried them, I'm also seeing the commercials all over TV advertising them for $1 each. At the one I went to, they were almost double the price at $1.99, but I guess that's the NY upcharge for you. There are three types - nacho crunch, spicy sweet, and cool habanero - and I went with the cool habanero, since the flavor profile of that one was both most appealing and the easiest to guess from the name since I had never heard of these before.

I thought the reason they were called double stacked tacos was just because they had a crunchy shell inside a soft tortilla, but I guess they're also supposed to bring together contrasting ingredients (they describe it as yin-yang on the website). Anyway, this was one of their standard tacos with beef, lettuce, and cheese, but it also had sour cream and habanero sauce. (I guess they consider those the opposing ingredients - sour cream and habanero - but that seemed pretty standard to me to cool the spice of hot sauce with sour cream.) Usually I find fast food places advertising things to be spicy (coughWendyscough) to not really be that spicy but the habanero sauce here packed some nice heat. Texturally the double shells worked, and the flavor of the taco was good, as it was your standard taco plus a creamy hot sauce. After trying it and reading the descriptions of the other two versions of the double stacked taco, I think I made the right flavor choice for me. Overall, it was a pretty good taco and I'd get it again. I just wish it were really only $1.

Sriracha Chicken

It was late afternoon yesterday when I went for lunch thanks to a bit of a doctor's office fiasco, so I wanted something quick. There was a Wendy's nearby, and they're probably my favorite of the big 3 fast food spots, so I stopped in there, lured in part by the giant sign for bacon sriracha fries. Once inside though, I saw that not only were there bacon sriracha fries, but a sriracha chicken sandwich. That sounded even better to me.

After doing a quick check online to make sure there was no broccoli slaw hiding anywhere in the sandwich (I've been surprised by it before), I ordered it. The sandwich (which is technically called the "spicy sriracha chicken sandwich") had a sriracha-infused bun, spicy crispy chicken, sriracha jack cheese, a few slices of applewood smoked bacon, creamy sriracha aioli, spring mix, and red onions. It seemed like they pretty much added sriracha to every single component that they could. It showed, as the spice of the sriracha was definitely there. There was a bit of a burn (in a good way) from the sriracha. I liked the sandwich.

As I thought about the sandwich more and more as I was eating it, I realized that this might be the closest thing I've had at Wendy's to the wild mountain chicken sandwich that they offered more than a decade ago and that I still miss. I think I mention this sandwich every single time I try something new at Wendy's, but I can't help it. It was so good. That one had a southwestern pepper sauce instead of sriracha aioli, and because of it, the spice there was more zesty than the burn of sriracha. There was also colby jack instead, which I preferred to this cheese. But otherwise, it was close. It was good on its own and even better because it came close to the best sandwich they've ever made.

Goodbye Florida

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

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

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

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

ShopHouse

Yesterday we read some really disappointing news: Chipotle is planning to abandon ShopHouse, their fast casual Southeast Asian line. There aren't any ShopHouse locations in NYC, but we visited the Dupont Circle shop multiple times during our short visit to DC earlier in the year (which is also conveniently where we were up to in our DC trip recaps). We had heard about ShopHouse before Chipotle ever launched the line (mostly due to Pure Thai having to change the Shophouse in its name to Cookhouse), but never got to try it until this year. Sadly, it sounds like this means they'll never make it to NYC.

ShopHouse is modeled after Chipotle but with Southeast Asian ingredients and flavors. The bowl starts off with your choice of base - rice (jasmine or brown), cold rice noodles, or salad. Next up is the protein - chicken, meatballs, steak, or tofu. After that, you pick one vegetable (corn, green beans, or some seasonal choices) and a sauce (curry sauces or others). There are also a bunch of garnishes and toppings that are not limited to one, stuff like papaya salad, pickled vegetables, herb salad, toasted rice, crispy garlic, crushed peanuts, and chiles. After visiting Chipotle for so many years, we were pretty familiar with the format (except for the part where they limited you to one item in certain categories).

On our first visit to ShopHouse, we both got brown rice bowls. M got brown rice topped with chicken satay, the seasonal vegetable special of butternut squash with Thai basil, green curry sauce, all of the salad toppings, toasted rice, and fried garlic. A got all the same garnishes and toppings on his bowl but also added the chiles to his, which was brown rice topped with the pork and chicken meatballs, green beans with chili jam, and red curry sauce. We were so happy with our bowls, and after finishing, immediately wanted to go back up to get another bowl. Not so much because we were still hungry, but because they were that good. It was the perfect dinner after a day of traveling since each bowl was packed with vegetables and other healthy ingredients, and they were so full of vibrant flavors.

Even though we weren't in DC for very long on this trip, we found time to make a second visit to ShopHouse a couple of days later. We really wished there were one in NYC, but since we knew there wouldn't be one, we wanted to make sure we got some more of those delicious bowls. This time, we both got the meatballs because they were our favorite the first time. M got the green beans (her favorite vegetable from the first visit), and A got the charred corn (which we hadn't tried yet), but otherwise we stuck with the same curry sauces, garnishes, and toppings as the first time. The bowls were a little smaller than the first time, but we weren't as hungry, so it was fine. We were just really happy with how tasty everything was, and the flavors themselves were just like what you might find in a regular sit-down Southeast Asian restaurant. Not what you would expect from an American chain, but we mean that in the best way.

Considering that Chipotle has now publicized that they didn't see the results they wanted from ShopHouse, it seems unlikely that someone will step in to save the day and pick them up, but we're hoping that maybe we're wrong about that. There have been so many nights that we've sat at home, wondering what to eat for dinner, trying to find something tasty and nutritious and well-balanced and flavorful, and we've just wished we could wander over to ShopHouse, except that there isn't one here in NYC. It's a shame that Chipotle has chosen to drop them and instead focus on pizza and burgers (is that not a saturated enough market?). Have they not noticed the popularity of all the poke joints or the Indian fast casual places? It seems like, at least here in NYC, people have an interest in Asian fast casual flavors, or at the very least, something different from the usual Chipotle meals. Sad that we'll likely never see a ShopHouse here now.

Goddess and Grains

When we go to Panera, we usually get the You Pick Two combo, and we both usually get the Thai chicken salad. Although we've tried other salads from time to time, that's been our go-to for a long time. On a recent lunch visit, we both decided to try something new. We don't think these salads are brand new to Panera, but they were new to us.

M's review of the Green Goddess Cobb with Chicken:
I like traditional Cobb salads a lot, except for one component - blue cheese - so whenever I see some variation of a Cobb salad that doesn't include blue cheese, I jump at the chance to try it. The Panera version of the Cobb salad has no cheese at all, and instead mixes chicken with a bunch of different greens (arugula, romaine, kale, radicchio), tomatoes, pickled red onions, avocado, bacon, a hard boiled egg, and a green goddess dressing. The dressing was packed with herbs and really tasty (Panera's website tells me it's mostly tarragon, chives, parsley, and watercress), although I personally prefer some of the green dressings at places like Chop't a little more. I liked the salad, and there was a decent amount of both avocado and bacon, which was nice to see. My only constructive criticism would be more onions and more dressing, but otherwise, it was really good. I might mix things up on future visits and get this sometimes instead of the Thai chicken if it lasts through the fall.

A's review of the Ancient Grain and Arugula with Chicken:
M has a bit of an aversion to mixing fruit with her savory foods, but I don't have that much of an issue with it. This salad consisted of "chicken raised without antibiotics, arugula, ancient grain blend, red grapes, and fresh apple and cabbage slaw tossed with white sweet balsamic vinaigrette dressing and topped with roasted and salted pumpkin seeds." This was a really fresh and tasty salad. The grapes and apples weren't so sweet to overpower the rest of the salad, and the grain blend added a nice crunch to the mix. The chicken was a touch on the bland side, but it had enough seasoning to at least not be a complete bore. Overall the salad was tasty, but I don't know that I would consistently get it over the Thai chicken salad.

A Smashing Labor Day

We dropped by the Midtown Manhattan location of Smashburger near the Empire State Building for lunch on Labor Day, and it occurred to us that we hadn't really posted anything here about Smashburger other than our visits at the airport (see here, here, here, and here). We had these grand plans at one time of trying every burger style on the menu and writing a comprehensive review, but obviously that never happened (or really got off the ground). Better to just tell you what we got this time while we still remember it...

M's sandwich review:
For the longest time, I always got burgers at Smashburger. While those are good, lately I've been gravitating more towards the chicken sandwiches, and specifically, the grilled chicken. A grilled chicken sandwich sounds incredibly boring, but at Smashburger, it's anything but. They flatten the chicken breast and however they grill it, it has so much flavor and isn't dry. I opted for the spicy jalapeño baja style that I often get, which adds fresh jalapeños, guacamole, pepper jack, lettuce, tomato, red onions, and chipotle mayo to the chicken on a spicy chipotle bun. The sandwich has a little bit of a zing to it that I like, and the flavor combination works really well, both as a burger and a chicken sandwich (and also as a salad). This is probably my favorite style, up there with the classic.

A's sandwich review:
I'm pretty sure the truffle mushroom swiss burger is the same burger I got the first time we went to this location. I love the flavors of the mushroom and swiss together. The truffle doesn't really come out all the time other than the scent, but at least the scent lets you know it's there. Overall the burger is delicious. They add just the right amount of seasoning to the meat, and the mushrooms are fresh and earthy to pair with the slightly funky swiss cheese. I love this combination, and it's often my go-to when we come here.

We also got 2 types of fries with lunch - the regular smashfries and also the sweet potato smashfries. Unlike the plain fries, the smashfries mix the fries with olive oil, rosemary, and garlic. They are so good in both versions, and it's hard to choose which one is better. We couldn't pick at lunch that day, which is part of the reason we got both.

Smashburger is probably one of our favorite fast casual chains, so we're hoping more outlets open up in the city at some point. Not only is the food good, but if you do the surveys, you can get free smashfries on your next visit. Totally worth it.

Chicken Caesar

As we've been wandering the city on all of our Pokemon walks, we've been seeing posters for limited time chicken caesar specials in the windows at McDonald's. I guess the posters worked because after unexpectedly chasing a rare Porygon today when I went for lunch, I found myself hungry and near McDonald's, and decided to stop in to try it.

I went to look for the sandwich on the McDonald's site, but apparently it's only a special in the NY area. Not only is there a chicken caesar sandwich, but they also have salads and McWraps as part of the promotion. I'm not sure if all the special caesar ingredients are the same across the different items, but I imagine they're fairly similar.

The chicken caesar sandwich pairs crispy (or grilled) chicken with toppings of lettuce, tomato, caesar dressing, and some parmesan shavings. Unlike some other fast food items, the sandwich ingredients didn't look that different from the poster; they just weren't styled as nicely.

Overall, I thought the sandwich was fine, but it didn't seem all that different from your regular chicken sandwich. The cheese and caesar flavors were there but not incredibly strong, and the other stuff is all fairly standard. I don't know that I need to go get this again before the promotion ends, but I wasn't disappointed that I tried it.

Schlotzsky's Deli

(Previously on our Great Lakes Road Trip: Timbits!)

Our last stop before we left Maumee, Ohio was lunch at Schlotzsky's Deli. Schlotzsky's is a sandwich chain that A had gone to quite a bit while he was in high school in the Midwest, but M had never been there before. It wasn't incredibly close to A's home, but it was on the way to the tennis courts he and his friends used to go to for lessons. As is his wont, he recommended that they stop by another haunt of his younger days.

Since this was M's first time at Schlotzsky's, she opted for the pick two option, which allowed you to mix and match between sandwiches, salads, soups, pizzas, and flatbreads. Lots of options. After some cool nights on our drive, soup seemed like a good choice, along with half a sandwich.

For the sandwich, M picked the fiesta chicken, which consisted of shaved chicken, cheddar cheese, black olives, roasted red peppers, chipotle mayo, lettuce, red and green onions, and tomato on a jalapeño cheese bun. The half sandwich was a good size, the ingredients tasted fresh, and everything worked well together. M especially liked the bread, which seemed a little crunchy on the outside but was really soft otherwise.

M's soup choice was gumbo, which if we remember correctly was a special. She thought this was good as far as flavor and quality, and it was a pretty large bowl for a partial order which was impressive. The pick two was a lot of food and very satisfying.

A got the Angus beef and provolone. It wasn't around when he was going to Schlotzsky's back in the day so he was interested to see how it was. On a whole, the sandwich was not as greasy as he remembered almost all of their sandwiches were before. That's not a bad thing, but it made the bread a little drier and harder to bite through. Overall this sandwich was just okay. A remembered these sandwiches being better when he was younger, but it's possible that he had just built them up in his mind as a fond memory of his youth.

After our Schlotzsky's lunch, it was time to hit the road for Chicago. It was a mostly uneventful drive except for a part of Indiana where it rained a lot and a cricket-like bug flew into our windshield and got stuck in the wiper, so we had to watch it disintegrate in the rain (gross). Once we got to Chicago, we checked in to our hotel and then headed over to visit family and have some good home-cooked food. It was a pretty good food day, and we were glad that we had a chance to have a nice relaxed lunch at Schlotzsky's instead of some unhealthy fried food at a rest stop!

DC Kickoff

A few months ago, we went on a short road trip to DC. We just needed to get out of the city for a little bit (although we did really just end up in a different city), and thought some time in a new environment, hanging out around pandas, and eating Ethiopian food would do us some good.

The morning we left for DC, it snowed a little bit, but fortunately that didn't screw up our drive too much. We left a little later than we planned, but made good time driving through Jersey. As a quick snack to start the trip, we decided to split some crispy M&M's that we had picked up from Target not long before. The bag was 99 cents for very few M&M's but it had been so long since I had had crispy M&M's that I couldn't resist picking up a bag.

The crispy M&M's had been back on the shelves for about a year already, but we hadn't gotten around to getting them. I think part of the reason we like them is the crispiness, that inner wafer-like center, and an overall texture reminiscent of a malt ball. But I think another part of it is also nostalgia. They hadn't had crispy M&M's for a decade or so, and we remembered them (and that age) fondly. The M&M's were fine, just not really a whole lot of them for the price, but it was nice to have them again.

We were planning to grab lunch in Maryland, but we were getting really hungry around Trenton so we decided to stop at a rest stop for a snack. Burger King seemed like the easiest option for something quick and not too heavy, and they had recently come out with jalapeño chicken fries, so we got a box of those as well as the onion rings I can never resist from BK.

We had tried regular chicken fries at Burger King before, and while we thought they were fine, we never thought they were amazing or anything really special. But these jalapeño chicken fries were different. They were so much better. You could taste the difference in the flavor and there was a definite jalapeño taste and sourness to them (in a good way). We weren't sure what the dipping sauce was supposed to be since no one gave us one with the box of chicken fries (no one really seemed to want to do much of anything at that BK), so we're not sure how well the sauce would complement the fries. But we liked these chicken fries and would get them again if they're still around.

As we sat at the rest stop for our break, we couldn't take our eyes off the news. That was the day that they had discovered a knife near OJ's old property, and it was partway through the season of The People v. OJ Simpson, and we were completely obsessed. Eventually we finished our fried snacks and tore ourselves away from the screen to get back on the road. It was a good thing we had stopped for a snack since we unfortunately hit a fair amount of congestion heading into Delaware, and we would have been so hungry if we had waited until Maryland to eat (and probably would have had even more buyer's remorse; more on that next). We were pretty happy with our snack, and more than anything, happy to start vacation!