Week 2 - Dairy

The theme for Week 2 was dairy, which we thought would be pretty easy to complete. So many recipes would fit this challenge; the hardest part was figuring out which one to choose. I decided on this recipe for a swiss chard and goat cheese custard bake from Kalyn's Kitchen that I had bookmarked sometime last year. The ingredient list included milk and 3 types of cheese (goat cheese, parmesan, and mozzarella), so this would definitely count for the dairy challenge.

The ingredients for the custard bake, slightly adapted from the original, were:

- 10 oz bag of kaleidoscope chard leaves, finely chopped ($1.99)
- 1 yellow onion, chopped ($0.60)
- olive oil for sauteing ($0.20)
- 5 oz log of goat cheese ($2.49)
- 1/2 cup of 2% milk ($0.14)
- 8 eggs ($1.66)
- salt and pepper ($0.05)
- 1/4 cup shredded mozzarella ($0.60)
- 1/4 cup freshly grated parmesan, divided ($1)

The total cost of the custard bake was about $8.73. Not bad for dinner for 2, and there were enough pieces left over for breakfast for 2 more days. I only used the chard leaves for the custard bake, but sauteed the stems while the custard was baking, so I'll just count the whole bag as used for dinner.

The custard was pretty easy to put together. The prep steps were:

- chop chard and onion

- heat olive oil in skillet, saute onion until starting to brown, add chard, saute until wilted, cool

- in one bowl, stir goat cheese (softened) and milk together until smooth

- in a second bowl, beat the eggs until combined

- add salt and pepper to eggs (I added a lot of pepper but I love black pepper in eggs)

- add goat cheese/milk mixture to egg mixture

- add shredded mozzarella and half the parmesan to the mixture

- add chard/onion mixture to everything else

- stir well

Once everything was mixed together well, it was time to bake. We couldn't find any deep casserole dishes so we ended up using some pie pans. The mixture wasn't enough to completely fill up two pans but was too much for one, so we ended up with one full dish and one half-filled dish. Once the mixture was poured in, I added the rest of the parmesan to the top. We baked them for the same amount of time - about an hour at 350 degrees, until they were done and browned on the top - so one was a little more "well done" than the other. (I forgot to spray the pans with nonstick spray before adding the egg mixture, but nothing stuck. Not sure if it's the dish or how long we baked it, but I was glad for that.)

The custard bake was very similar to a crustless quiche or the insides of a quiche, and we like quiche. Baking this for an hour was good because the eggs were fully set and the slices of the bake came out really easily and intact. If we wanted to, we probably could have picked them up like slices of a pizza and eaten them without any utensils.

Overall, we really liked the flavor of this quiche/custard bake and we would make it again, maybe with other green vegetables, or maybe some other mix of cheeses. We found the flavors of the cheese to be very mild and none of them really stood out. While this wasn't a bad thing as the bake still tasted good, maybe we would use more cheese next time or a stronger flavored cheese.

To make that night even more of a dairy night, we broke open an expiring box of Boursin garlic and herb gournay cheese as an "appetizer" to eat with some crackers as we waited for the custard to bake. We love the flavor of that cheese, both the garlic one and the shallot version that also comes in the Costco sampler.  We had a pretty successful dairy challenge night!

Right Back to the Windjammer

When it's time for breakfast on a cruise, we usually don't head for the buffet, but instead go to the main dining room. (Remember our trip on the Carnival Glory when we had breakfast in the dining room every single day except the last day because the buffet was all there was?) On those ships, you pretty much had 2 options - the buffet or the dining room - and one was peaceful and one was chaotic, so we always chose a calm start to the day. (Also, you're paying and auto-tipping for service, so why not go for waiter service when you can?) The Quantum was a little different. 

View from our room before breakfast on our first morning at sea

On Quantum, there were 4 free options for breakfast (we refuse to count Coastal Kitchen as we were not permitted access because we were not special enough), but the issue was that they weren't all open very late in the morning. On the first sea day, we're often still getting adjusted to the ship and being on vacation, and are a bit slow to get up and move around. The Windjammer was generally open until 11, but Devinly Decadence (the healthier buffet) and Cafe 270 (lighter breakfast sandwiches and stuff) closed up at 10:30 am (9:30 am for Devinly on port days), while American Icon Grill (the closest option to the old main dining room) ended at an astonishingly early 9:30. On top of that, American Icon can only fit a little over 10% of the cruise passengers at any given time (for the size of our sailing), so there isn't exactly as much space as the old dining rooms.

Needless to say, for our first Quantum breakfast, it was right back to the Windjammer, the same spot where we had ended our day less than 12 hours earlier. We were looking forward to seeing what they had though, since we had seen some pics on Instagram before the trip which made it look like there was a lot of variety and also maybe some Asian breakfast options. We love more interesting breakfast choices.

Our breakfast plates looked pretty good, but were a mixed bag in terms of quality. On M's plate (above), she got: 

- turkey sausage (terrible and could not finish it)

- pork sausage (good but was soaking in a vat of oil on the buffet line)

- corned beef hash (good, just like out of the can)

- baked beans (also like out of the can, but nothing special)

- sauteed spinach with onion (good)

- hash brown triangle (good and nicely fried)

- Indian spiced eggs (fine but expected more, as they were basically scrambled eggs with not much spice at all)

- scrambled eggs with baby shrimp (fine, but a bit bland)

- fried rice (average, rice was hard and kind of bland), and 

- an Asian-style pan-fried fish (pretty good flavor and not dry). 

The turkey sausage was really awful and there were a few mediocre items, but at least there were a bunch of legitimately good things to eat for breakfast on that plate.

A also got a large portion of corned beef hash to go with some hash brown triangles, one pork sausage, one turkey sausage, some sauteed spinach, the same Asian-style pan-fried fish M got, and what he thought was a biscuit with sausage gravy.

The corned beef hash was good, but it didn't have that nice crisp you can get off a griddle. The hash browns were nice, but they were nothing special. The pork sausage was oily, but that was because he got one of the last ones that was sitting in the dish full of grease. The turkey sausage was rather flavorless, and A regretted getting it. The spinach and fish were very tasty. The fish was flaky and tender, and the spinach was cooked nicely. The "biscuit" with sausage gravy was a disaster. A saw that the sign said scones, but he thought that maybe it was just a mislabeled item. Nope. There was no buttery biscuit covered in gravy; it was a dense, flavorless brick of starch. The sausage gravy also had no flavor whatsoever. In the end, that was an incredibly disappointing selection.

Overall, our breakfast at the Windjammer wasn't terrible, but we hoped we would be able to get up earlier on future mornings so we could try all the other options as well.

Winter Summer Salad

It's the middle of winter, but for reasons I can't explain, all I want to eat are salads. Not stews or soups or chili or other "cold weather" foods. Just salads. I've made 3 salads in 3 days. Not exactly food to keep you warm when the wind chill is in the 20s, but it made me happy!

Tonight's salad definitely made me think of summer. Filled with cucumbers and corn and celery, it was super light and refreshing, exactly what I was looking for. I started off with this recipe for a chilled black bean feta cucumber salad from the kitchn and adapted it for what we had and like. The ingredients I used were:

- 2 cans of black beans, drained and rinsed ($1.33)

- 1 can of corn, drained ($0.89)

- 1 hothouse cucumber, finely diced ($1.69)

- torn leaves from 1/2 bunch of cilantro ($0.50)

- 1/2 bunch of celery, finely chopped ($0.50)

- 1 bunch of green onions, chopped ($0.70)

- 1.5 cups of crumbled feta ($2)

- 1/4 cup of lime juice ($0.60)

- 1/3 cup of red wine vinegar ($0.50)

- salt, pepper, and cumin to taste ($0.10)

The cost for the salad came in just under $9, which isn't cheap for just one component of dinner, but it made quite a lot of food. Even though we ate a lot (too much?) of it, we still had a small bowl of leftover salad after dinner, so it was worth it. You would never get this much salad for the price outside.

Making the salad is really easy. You mix together all the non-dressing ingredients (black beans, corn, cucumber, celery, scallions, cilantro, feta) in a large bowl, then add the lime juice and red wine vinegar, and then season it with salt, pepper, and cumin. After that, you're supposed to chill it for at least an hour. I didn't have that type of time though (prepping took me a while, definitely not the 15 minutes in the original post, and didn't want to start eating at 10 pm), so I chilled it for about 30-40 minutes, as long as it took to pre-heat the oven and bake the chicken tenders we ate with it. Would longer fridge time have been better? Maybe, but it was just fine with less time.

Overall, we really liked this salad and would definitely make it again. Next time, I think maybe I would add more cumin, as we both thought that we could taste a hint of it but it was very subtle. We love cumin so we wouldn't mind it having a bit of a stronger presence. Originally, I was going to use half of a red onion, but the half we had in the fridge smelled a little odd, so we ditched it instead and I used more green onions. We think we prefer it this way and would probably not go for the red onion next time either. A didn't read the recipe in advance but thought that maybe adding a chopped jalapeño pepper would also be good. That was one of the suggestions in the recipe, but I forgot to buy one, so maybe will do that next time. This was really great and perfect for my salad craving!

P.S. This works great as a salad, but it also makes for a delicious dip with some corn chip dippers.

Late Night at the Windjammer

We had a long first day on our Quantum trip. An early wakeup time, embarkation, ship exploring, more steps and flights of stairs than we had had in quite a while, followed by a multi-course dinner and a full-length Broadway performance of Mamma Mia. The show was fantastic (the entertainment, for the most part, was one of the standout parts of the Quantum experience), but by the end of it, we were feeling a little bit peckish, so we headed up to the Windjammer, since we had heard they were open 24 hours (even though the daily itinerary listed their dinner closure at 9 pm, so it was all very confusing).

There wasn't a whole lot of food out. There was some hot and cold stuff that looked like it was leftover from lunch and dinner, and of course, the famous fresh-baked cookies. We had heard rumors of some 24 hour grill, but we didn't see anyone grilling anything as we looked around, and whole sections of the buffet were closed or roped off. So we just filled up a couple of plates with some snacks from the food we did see laid out.

M's plate:

I got a chocolate chip cookie (still too crispy for me) and a cookie that looked like it should be a soft and chewy sugar cookie, but was really a crispy, sugar-free, sugar cookie-looking cookie (flavorless and disappointing). I also got a small spoonful of baba ghanoush (pretty good), some string bean salad (fine), a spoonful of a sliced meat salad (I forgot what meat was on the label, but it was okay), and a little bit of a DIY salad with some spinach leaves, tomatoes, and shredded mozzarella with oil and vinegar (fine). After our heavier dinner, I was clearly gravitating towards things that were light (other than the cookies). Overall, my buffet plate was fine, but nothing special.

A's plate:

I also got a flavorless, hard, sugar-free sugar cookie, and I paired it with a white chocolate chip and cranberry cookie which was just okay. I also got that lunch meat salad which I enjoyed more than M. I thought it had a decent vinegar kick to go with the cabbage and salty processed meat. I then picked up one single mozzarella ball and some beef shawarma. The mozz ball was good enough, it was mozz. The shawarma was a bit dried out and tough, and it didn't have that much spice to it either. Oh well.

--

We found out later that apparently the section where we were getting our food was the 24 hour grill and that the guy there would make whatever you wanted on the grill. The only problems were that we learned that after we got home and we didn't remember seeing anything made-to-order like that on our first day. We weren't the only ones confused by the "24 hour option" on this cruise, and since we weren't that impressed by it on day 1, we never went back there for another late night snack, opting for the Cafe Promenade and Sorrento's combo (more on that another time) instead. This wasn't like other cruises we'd been on (like the Carnival Glory) which set out a bountiful late night buffet. This just looked like leftovers.

Mario Batali's Pappa al Pomodoro

Chef's Series has returned to Hale and Hearty soup, and I couldn't be more excited. With the recent weather we've been having here in NYC, soup was definitely on the agenda. This time they've changed things up a little. Before they would have a different soup each week, but this time around they're giving each chef's offering a 3-week run. I'm so excited for this every time they do it, and they also benefit such amazing charities in the process.

First up is Mario Batali and his Pappa al Pomodoro soup. It's described as "From iconic Chef Mario Batali comes this rustic and flavorful soup of tomatoes and herbs, thickened with cubes of bread pan-toasted in olive oil. Served with a sprinkling of parmesan, it's a perfect light-but-hearty cold weather comfort soup."

This is everything I could have hoped for in a winter soup. It's warm, it's thick, and it makes you feel like you're at home wrapped up in a blanket. At first glance the "sprinkling of parmesan" looked more like a big glob of slightly congealed, formerly grated parmesan, but that's what happens when you carry it back to your office. When I tried the soup on its own, it was very tart from the tomatoes. I mixed in the cheese a little better and started taking bigger spoonfuls to try and get all of the flavors at once, and what I got was a very balanced, warming soup. The tartness noted before was tempered by the saltiness from the cheese and the pan-fried bread cubes. The bread itself was obviously very mushy from soaking in the soup for so long, but it added a little more texture in comparison to the slightly firmer pieces of tomato. I couldn't pinpoint all of the spices, but I'm sure I saw some oregano in there.

Overall I was very happy with this first Chef's Series offering, and I can't wait to try the rest.

Silk

Our first dinner on board the Quantum, and our first experience with their new "dynamic dining," was at Silk, the pan-Asian complimentary restaurant. Normally, we're not big fans of pan-Asian restaurants and prefer to go to restaurants for the cuisine the chefs actually specialize in, but we were hopeful about this one since the menu we saw online before the cruise sounded so good. We wanted to try everything.

It was the first night and the service from the start was not the best. It took a while to place our orders, since the waiter we got didn't seem to comprehend what having food allergies and intolerances meant. (For example, if someone says, "I can't eat x. What dishes should I avoid?" the answer is not to suggest to that person to eat one specific appetizer, unless that is the only dish on the entire menu that person can eat, which it was not. It took several tries to get an answer to that one.) Even though one significant feature of dynamic dining is that the menus don't change over the entire length of the cruise, and remain pretty much the same from cruise to cruise, the staff just seemed clueless about what their restaurant was serving, after a month of serving the same thing every day. It wasn't an auspicious beginning, but we were hoping that things would improve from there.

The first food we got to try at Silk was a basket of wonton chips that came with a sweet chili dipping sauce. These were good and a nice surprise since they weren't on the menu and we hadn't read about them before. They were deep fried, but a little different from some Chinese restaurants since they didn't have the big bubbles on them and were a bit less greasy. Normally, we would try to get multiple baskets of these (if we were at an a la carte restaurant on land), but we had tons of food coming and needed to save some space.

The appetizers at Silk are all served family style in the center of the table (other than the soups, which are more suited for a single person). We read about that before the cruise, so this was one restaurant where we definitely didn't want to share a table. In addition to any dietary restrictions, we knew we were going to order enough on the menu for our party of 4, and wanted to make sure everyone got to try everything. Who knows how sharing would go with complete strangers? Would there be enough for each person to have one? They didn't ask us to share a table during this dinner, so we never had to worry about that.

M's mom got the chicken egg drop soup, which came with scallions and crispy noodles. The "crispy noodles" were a little weird. They seemed like soggy wonton chips and didn't really add anything to the soup. M thinks they actually made the soup worse, since the texture seemed out of place in such a light and smooth soup, and they were completely flavorless after stewing for so long. Since the soups aren't really shared appetizers, we don't have much more to say on this one right now.

The other appetizers we got were:

Szechuan pork short ribs with tamarind glaze - A found these cooked to the point of being tough. There also wasn't much meat on the bones so it wasn't all that satisfying of a dish. The flavors were okay, but the poor cooking on the meat really ruined this. M wasn't really that interested in these, but tried a small bite of meat. She liked the sauce and the piece she got didn't seem too tough, but it was pretty small. There were also some scallions on the side here, which were nice.

Vietnamese tacos with steamed bun, pork belly, hoisin, and topped with fresh vegetables - We were excited for these. M loves tacos, so she figured this would be her no-brainer favorite appetizer. Wrong! The bun was sticky and hard to swallow, the pork belly was hard to bite and chew and had almost no meat to it, and the whole thing was relatively flavorless. If you're going to throw a big piece of fat in a taco with some garnishes, at least give it some flavor and make a bun that isn't going to stick to the roof of your mouth. We were so disappointed in these.

Thai fried chicken wings with sesame-peanut satay - A is a huge fan of wings, and he was looking forward to trying these. At the end of the day, they were just okay. The sauce came out nicely, but the wings were overly fried and ended up being more fried skin than meat. It was another disappointment in his eyes. M isn't a huge wings person, but picked the meat out of one of them. She liked the sauce, although it didn't taste too much like satay sauces that she'd had before.

Green papaya salad with pea shoots, coriander, peanuts - This was the most bizarre dish of the night for us. We've had plenty of green papaya salads at Thai restaurants and what arrived was most definitely not a green papaya salad. For starters, the papaya was orange and not green. We've never gotten a papaya salad in a Thai restaurant with orange papaya and we've been to plenty of authentic Thai restaurants around the country. They mentioned pea shoots but we thought we saw arugula, in addition to the cilantro, peanuts, red peppers, and grape tomatoes. It just seemed like a light Asian-style salad with (orange) papaya. Judged on that level, this was actually one of the better appetizers and M's favorite.

Shrimp shumai with lemon ponzu - These reminded us of the shu mai you can buy at an Asian grocery store in the frozen section and then steam at home. They had thin skins and a kind of mushy inside (in the best way) like a shrimp paste. We liked these and they had nice flavor. It's just sad that one of the better appetizers was something we could find in our local grocery store freezers.

For the entrees, M's dad got the Asian style duck, which came with wok-seared vegetables, scallion pancakes, and hoisin sauce. We didn't try the duck or the vegetables, but M's dad offered M some of the scallion pancake. She didn't know this was supposed to be a scallion pancake (until re-reading the menu for this post) and had assumed it was some sort of greasy roti. It was really thin and floppy and full of oil and grease. It also had no flavor. M isn't sure how this could be considered a scallion pancake in anyone's book. Were there even any scallions in it?

A got the chicken tikka masala, which was accompanied by coconut jasmine rice with mango chutney. A was really excited about this dish when he saw it on the menu online as he figured that, since the ship came from England, the Indian cuisine might actually be pretty solid. This definitely didn't disappoint. The chicken was a touch on the salty side, but the overall flavor was really nice. It had a subtle heat to the sauce, and the chicken wasn't too dry. The mango chutney was really sweet, but when paired with the chicken in small doses it all mellowed out nicely. The rice was really the star of the show. It had a really nice and soft coconut flavor to it, and the mild sweetness made it really tasty. M really liked this dish too and had a bit of buyer's (orderer's?) remorse, since this was so much better than hers.

M and her mom both got the sake-glazed salmon which came with bok choy and tamari-marinated shiitake. After trying the salmon and the vegetables, M thought it was pretty good, but that there was something missing. She tried some of A's coconut rice (since we share and try everything), and that was it - rice! She immediately flagged down the waiter to get a bowl of the coconut rice, which definitely rounded out the salmon dish a bit more. The rice was also the best thing she ate all night. As for the parts of the dish actually on the menu, the salmon was pretty good and not too dry (except a few spots). The pieces of bok choy were a little big, but fine. The mushrooms were marinated in tamari, but tasted a little more sour than we had expected from that. The rice definitely improved all of this, so if Royal Caribbean is reading this, I'd suggest adding some rice to this dish to balance it out better.

There were 5 desserts on the menu, but between all of us, we only tried 2 (and M's mom got a dairy-free sorbet). A got the Indian pudding which had pistachio and rose infusions. A knew he wanted to get this as soon as he read the menu. Rose and pistachio are two really wonderful flavors, and it really seemed like they would go well together. The weird fried wonton shaving things really confused A when he first saw it come out, and when he tried one on its own, he only tasted fried/oil. He took them off, and opted to eat the pudding on its own. Yet again A found himself disappointed. The whole pudding tasted heavily of chemicals and had none of the aromatic or perfume-like flavor of rose. There were some pistachio bits that added some texture but not much flavor. M tried a bit of this but did not like it at all. To her, it tasted artificial as well. M was also confused by the fried wonton slivers on top. They didn't add much except an odd texture, and she thought the pudding could have been much better if they were replaced with some shredded coconut or something like that.

M and her dad both got the strawberry matcha pound cake which came with yuzu sorbet (the one M's mom also got). The presentation of this was really nice with cubes of green and red and small scoop of sorbet on the side. (As a side note, M really liked the design of the non-white dishes at Silk, even though that matters not at all to the experience.)

For whatever reason, M thought this dessert was going to be strawberry and matcha mixed together in a pound cake with sorbet on the side. It wasn't. It was matcha pound cake with similarly sized cubes of strawberry mousse. The matcha cake was fine, but the strawberry mousse was too heavy and there was so much of it. M couldn't finish it, since it was too rich. Thank goodness for the light and tasty yuzu sorbet. Once M finished as much of the dessert as she was going to, she was pretty sure that she was going to pass out in a food coma before the show that night (and she did). Although she was glad she tried this to satisfy her curiosity, she had no interest in getting it again.

A didn't try much of this dessert, but thought the matcha pound cake wasn't that bad. It had a very light matcha flavor to it, but overall it was okay. The mousse, as M mentioned, was really rich and heavy. M ate most of the yuzu sorbet already (as it was the one part she actually liked), but A was able to at least get a small spoon of it.

When we left Silk to get ready for our show that night (Mamma Mia!), we saw large crowds of people gathered around the check-in desks, like we did most of the first few nights (and some others). Some were making reservations, some were trying to go in with reservations, and some had no reservations and wanted to walk in for dinner. There weren't any separate lines, and honestly it was a bit of a mess. We've heard that they've since changed this and tried to make lines for each function on later sailings, which would be an improvement on the chaos.

We weren't that thrilled by our dinner at Silk and weren't that excited that we had another Silk dinner in our future (since we had booked all the restaurants twice). There were all the issues with ordering because of food allergies and dietary restrictions, on top of the fact that our waiter seemed completely clueless. (We'll be writing up our overall assessments of dynamic dining and our cruise experience once we finish the restaurants, and we're sure we'll be expanding on some of this then. Hopefully that will be before Quantum leaves Cape Liberty for China!) We weren't expecting perfection, but we were expecting better than what we got. 

On top of the service issues, the food was overall less than mediocre. The only dishes that we would consider good and worthy of another order were probably the papaya salad, shu mai, chicken tikka masala (especially the rice), the wonton chips (for M), and maybe the salmon (but only with the coconut rice). Considering our group tried 6/8 appetizers, 3/7 entrees, and 2/5 desserts in a single meal (60% of the savory menu!) and we didn't come up with much more than that, that's a bit sad. It was another reason we weren't looking forward to our second dinner very much, although we hoped maybe these were just first night issues (sounds a lot like our previous Windjammer review) and that it would be better in the future. Either way, we were excited to get out of there and head over to the Royal Theater for a great show!

Capogiro Gelato

Our first night in Philadelphia had extremely strange weather for the middle of July. The temperature was somewhere around 70 degrees, but it was pouring, the winds were gusting, umbrellas were useless and breaking, and the cold driving rain had soaked through all of our clothes from every side. (70 degrees sounds so warm now that the wind chill is somewhere around -3, but we were freezing and I couldn't stop shivering.) We intended to head straight back to the hotel from dinner since we were full from our Burmese feast and the weather was terrible, but we needed a break from Mother Nature halfway through. Capogiro Gelato was the perfect spot.

This photo was clearly taken on our way out, once the rain had subsided a bit

I was pretty full from dinner and didn't expect to eat much dessert, so I told A to just pick whatever flavors he wanted. He came back with Nutella and tiramisu. We were both pretty impressed with the gelato. It was so smooth and creamy and sweet. I was hesitant about the tiramisu, since I usually find the flavors of coffee and mascarpone overpowering in the actual dessert, but they were much more subtle here, which allowed the tiramisu scoop to be pretty complementary with the Nutella (which tasted like, well, Nutella). We liked both flavors.

Delicious gelato

I ended up having much more room for gelato than I thought I would, which disappointed A a little bit because he thought he would end up eating most of the gelato cup (sorry A!). We considered a return visit to Capogiro to try more flavors, but we never found the time during our short weekend trip. We would definitely return here or to another branch of Capogiro. This was some good gelato.

Capogiro Gelato has many locations, but the one we visited was at 119 S. 13th St (at Sansom).

Beet Hummus

Now that we keep checking the hummus aisle at Trader Joe's, we have been finding lots of new and interesting things. One thing that immediately caught our eye recently was this container of bright purple beet hummus ($2.29). We love beets and we love hummus, but we've never had them together like this. We were curious to see what this would be like.

A's take: This was really interesting looking. I had no idea what to expect as I love hummus and beets together in pitas and wraps, but I've never had them mixed together like this. I thought that maybe it would be hummus with beet pieces swirled in which would account for the chunks of beets and the beautiful red color, but that really wasn't the case. In the end it really just tasted like blended up beets with beet chunks mixed in. That's not to say it's bad, I do love beets, but it had no discernible hummus flavor. I like the flavor of beets, but I'd rather have whole beets that I can cut up if I'm going to eat them. If I want a beet puree I'll make it myself.

Buy Again? I wouldn't. As I noted, I prefer whole pieces of beets, which this does contain, but only sort of. I like the flavor since it's really just beets, but if you call something beet hummus, I want beets and hummus.

M's take: Similar to A, I wasn't sure what to expect from this beet hummus either. I loved the color (although it wasn't as bright as the photo, it was more of a deep magenta) and I hoped it would be full of the flavor of beets. It was, but like A mentioned, it tasted like beets but not at all like hummus. Perhaps the point of calling it hummus was just to substitute the word "hummus" for "spread." It was basically a thick beet spread. It tasted good, but I wasn't as impressed as I thought I would be.

Buy Again? Probably not. We love beets, but just weren't very enthusiastic about this product. Interesting concept, though.

TJ's Hummus Rankings: Spicy hummus dip > Roasted garlic hummus > Beet hummus

Bombay Sandwich Co

One year ago today, we visited a new (at the time) addition to the NYC eating landscape (and started a post that took us a year to finish...). Bombay Sandwich Co started out as a stand at the famous Smorgasburg, but they opened a storefront in Flatiron which was much easier for us to get to. For anyone that thinks vegetarian or vegan food can't taste good, they need to come here. There are so many delicious vegetarian options that there is something for everyone to like.

Snowy Storefront

The store itself has many doors, but on this cold and snowy day only the entryway off the street (not pictured, off to the left) was open. The restaurant itself was not extremely large. It was essentially a long hallway with counter seating leading up the register. We would imagine that during nicer days the line would stream out the door of the narrow shop. Such as it was, the cold winter day kept most people away.

We tried two sandwiches - the chana masala sandwich and the Bombay club (both $8.50 at the time).

Chana Masala Sandwich

The chana masala sandwich was described on the menu as "Mom's slow cooked chickpeas topped with mixed greens, pickled onions, homemade date chutney and green chutney on a Tasca ciabatta roll." (The current menu no longer lists green chutney.) This was really tasty. It was like eating a slightly drier version of chana masala (you wouldn't want it to be too full of sauce or it would be even messier than it already was) with some greens, with the bread soaking up all the flavors of the sauce. It was nice and light, but very full of flavor.

The Bombay club sandwich (which is no longer on their online menu) was described as a "street food classic, with potato, cucumber, tomato and red onion, in between three layers of 7 grain bread slapped with homemade green chutney." Already cut in half and neatly arranged, this was definitely the less messy and easier to eat of the two sandwiches.

Bombay Club

When you think of a club sandwich, normally the first thought is going to be a slather of mayo to go with the crunch and saltiness of bacon. Obviously since this is vegetarian, you won't be getting that exact feeling and flavor profile, but the sandwich offers almost the same experience. The cucumber adds that distinct crispness, and the spices on the potato and the bite of the red onion make up for any flavor missed from bacon. The homemade green chutney offered a slight tartness that worked much better than mayo ever would on a sandwich like this. The bread isn't as toasted as most normal club sandwiches either, but it works because everything else outside of the cucumber is nice and soft.

We spoke with the person running the register for a bit, and we guessed he was one of the owners. He asked us how we heard about them and after discussing Smorgasburg for a bit he offered us a free cup of their masala chai tea. It was freezing outside, and we both love chai tea so how could we resist? The menu called it "proper brewed milk tea with our own blend of spices (clove, cinnamon, fennel, black pepper), fresh ginger and lightly sweetened." It definitely was properly brewed and very lightly sweetened. It was spiced beautifully as you might expect from a good chai tea and we really enjoyed it.

Chai Tea

In addition to the sandwiches we got, there are many other sandwich options, as well as wraps, salads, bowls, platters and smoothies and other drinks. Although it's a little pricey, the prices are largely explained by the excellent quality of the ingredients that we encountered in our 2 sandwiches. We would definitely return to Bombay Sandwich for another sandwich sometime, as they are pretty unique and quite tasty!

Week 1 - Diet Foods

New year, new 52 week cooking challenge! The first challenge for this year was all about diet foods. Since I've never really had the discipline to stick to any diets and there are so many that prohibit things I love to eat, I decided to just go for healthy clean eats and adapt a carrot and rye berry salad recipe from Serious Eats that I'd been eyeing for months.

Since I made this right after Christmas weekend, I didn't really have time to go searching for rye berries, as much as I wanted to try them for the first time. We still had our Costco bag of farro at home (I really wish they would sell this again), which seemed like a good substitute. Also, we looked at 3 or 4 different stores, but couldn't find any plain Marcona almonds, so I just left those out and used chickpeas instead. Not a real substitute for almonds, but better than nothing. For our adapted version of this recipe, I used:

- 1.5 cups of farro ($1)
- 2 bay leaves ($0.10)
- salt ($0.05)
- 6 medium carrots ($0.75)
- 1 can of chickpeas ($0.70)
- 2 spoonfuls of whole grain mustard ($0.14)
- 2 cloves of garlic ($0.06)
- 2 tsp (+ more to taste) of lemon juice ($0.10)
- 2 tsp (+ more to taste) of balsamic vinegar ($0.25)
- 3 tbsp olive oil ($0.60)
- 2 stalks of celery ($0.25)
- 1/2 red onion ($0.30)
- 1/2 bunch of cilantro ($0.50)
- freshly ground black pepper ($0.05)

For under $5, this made a giant bowl of farro salad, enough for a filling dinner that night plus leftovers for lunches. Eating vegan can be so friendly to your wallet sometimes.

Putting this salad together was pretty straightforward. With all my substitutions, I didn't follow the original recipe exactly, but what I did was:

- cook farro in one pot with 1 bay leaf and salt until tender (about half an hour), then drain and run under cold water
- peel carrots, add to a second pot with the other bay leaf and lots of water, bring to boil, then simmer until tender (I boiled them for too long, one fell apart), drain, cool, chop
- make dressing in large bowl: combine mustard, garlic, lemon juice, vinegar, olive oil
- add salad ingredients to bowl: chilled farro, chopped carrots, chickpeas (after draining and rinsing), chopped celery, slivered red onion, chopped cilantro
- mix together well and adjust seasoning as needed (I added more lemon juice and balsamic)

The salad was good. I love the texture of farro, in salads or anything else, and it's sturdy enough to work for a salad like this. The carrots were good, even if a touch too soft, and the celery was crisp and refreshing. The onions were a little sharp, so next time I would probably soak them in some cold water for a little bit before adding them to the salad. As for the dressing, it was good, but next time, I might add some extra mustard.

This was a really healthy way to kick off the new year of cooking challenges. Although I didn't think of this as fitting anything but a clean eating diet before making it, when looking back on it I realized that it scored well on the color diet, it was good for a vegan diet, and it was appropriate for a Meatless Monday diet. Overall, and more importantly for how I actually "diet," it was just healthy, full of whole grains and lots of vegetables. This was a great start to the challenge year!

Food on Sticks

The third stand we visited at the Viva La Comida street fair was Mama's Food, a Chinese/Korean food cart from Flushing. They specialize in grilled/griddled things on sticks so we got just that, something grilled/griddled on a stick.

The main thing that everyone seemed to be getting was grilled octopus on a stick. I mean, you couldn't go more than a few people without someone with a foil wrapped stick with pieces of octopus poking out of it.

As you can see, they were making tons of these on a near constant basis. The recipe itself is simple. They took pieces of octopus (both body and tentacles), strung them together on a stick, and griddled them. They were basted from time to time, and once they were finished the octopus would have one last slather in marinade and a shake of sesame seeds.

I honestly have no idea what they put in the marinade, but it's really tasty. My uneducated guess is that it's a soy-based marinade. They also have some hot sauce mixed in that tastes similar to a gochujang or maybe even a kimchi pickling brine. The flavors on the octopus were amazing. It had just the right amount of saltiness, sweetness, and spice. It was a touch chewy in certain parts, but overall it was cooked nicely. I chalk that up to needing to get as much out as they could as their line was always fairly long.

I would love to get another one of these if we ever find this cart again. The problem is that, whenever we do make it out to Flushing, there are so many other places we want to try as well. I guess all we can do is make several trips and do our best to gorge every time.

January 2015 Custard Calendar

Happy new year! Like I usually do on the first of a month, I headed over to Shake Shack's website in the early morning hours to see if they posted the month's custard calendar already. (This time it was also to admire the ShackMeister burger that we can't wait to try.) To my surprise since it's New Year's, the calendar was up, and they've completely changed the format of the calendar!

Source

Instead of having a custard on a particular day every day that month, they've now split it up by week. We're not sure if we like that change, but we'll keep an open mind. On the one hand, it means that if you're always busy or not around on a certain day, you still get to try the flavor, which is nice. On the other, it means less flavors per month, and if you go on vacation for a particular week, you're out of luck on that flavor (unless there's a Shake Shack nearby). Also, if you like a certain flavor, you have to concentrate all your custard eating into that one week. I mean, we would love to eat gianduja every day for an entire week, but we would prefer to spread it out so we could get our gianduja treat weekly and have something to look forward to. Of course, that's provided chocolate hazelnut comes back someday...

Anyway, back to this month's calendar. Each flavor runs Monday to Sunday, except the first week, since it starts on a Thursday. (I'm curious about how they're going to deal with February, with that lone Sunday in "week 1" of the month.) Here's the line-up and our previous ratings:

Week 1 - salted buttery caramel (new to us, but we didn't love the salted caramel)
Week 2 - oatmeal creme pie (6.25/10)
Week 3 - peanut butter banana (new to us)
Week 4 - red velvet (6.75/10)
Week 5 - s'mores (8.75/10)

We're curious to try the peanut butter banana (the Elvis?) since it sounds like it could be good, and it's nice to see s'mores, one of our favorites, return. Here's to a year of good custard!

Our Year in Food: 2014

2014 passed by in such a blur. We cooked more this year than we have in any other year before. We still went out to restaurants but with less time out, we tried to make every visit count. It also meant we went on a lot of food crawls to try to sample as many different things as possible on the weekends. Other than our brief stops at Caribbean island ports on the Quantum, this was another year that we stayed domestic. We missed our big international food trips, but we still had some wonderful food adventures this year. Here's our overview of our year in food.

The first restaurant meal we ate in 2014: New Year's Day lunch at Mission Cantina. All the tacos, tostadas, and sides that we tried are completely gone from Mission Cantina's ever-changing menu, but someday hopefully we'll get around to writing about it.

The first homecooked meal we ate in 2014: A combination of old and new - panko chicken tenders with leftover sauce from the bistro chicken from last New Year's Eve plus a warm black rice and butternut squash salad.

The last restaurant meal we ate in 2014: Late December lunch at Tabata Noodle, our go-to neighborhood place for ramen, to warm up with some gyoza, ramen, and tan tan men.

The last homecooked meal we ate in 2014: A made New Year's Eve dinner - seared scallops with cellophane noodles on a bed of garlic spinach and mushrooms. First time making seared scallops! We love trying and learning new things.

# of different restaurants we tried in 2014 (together and separate): 205. Considering how many meals we ate at home, I was really surprised that we broke 200, but I guess we made the most of our time out!

Cities explored (outside the NYC metro area): Las Vegas, NV; Chicago, IL (and its northwest suburbs); San Juan, PR; Philipsburg, St. Maarten; Trois Ilets, Martinique; Bridgetown, Barbados; Basseterre, St. Kitts.

# of new Shake Shack custards reviewed: 10. Double the number from last year. Our favorites from the new ones we tried were coconut marshmallow and golden sponge creme cake.

Most visited restaurant of 2014 (together): Windjammer Marketplace on Quantum of the Seas (10x, mostly due to limited options on the cruise ship). Runners-up were New Spring Garden (last year's winner, 8x, thanks to family dinners) and fast casual spots near my parents, Panera and Qdoba (both, 6x). From non-Quantum and non-family meal spots, the most visited were Meske, Don Antonio, and Obao, all in Hell's Kitchen (all, 4x). How crazy is it that our most regular spots, averaged out, were visited once per quarter?! So blessed to live in a place with so many delicious choices.

Progress on WorldEats challenge: We revamped the way we document the challenge, so we won't be listing countries here. But by the end of this year, we've blogged about food representing 39/196 countries and eaten even more.

2014 blog series that will someday be completed: Las Vegas winter escape, Chicago long weekend, Quantum of the Seas cruise extravaganza.

Favorite overall meal of 2014: Our anniversary dinner at Cosme. We'll write more about Cosme next year, but it was absolutely incredible and worth the wait to get a table. Fantastic addition to the NYC food scene.

Looking forward to more good eats in 2015!