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Public Service Announcement: Dine In Brooklyn 2012

Posted by roodonfood on March 21, 2012 in Uncategorized

Good news for those of you in Brooklyn, NY. It’s currently Restaurant Week/Dine in Brooklyn throughout the borough.

The dates are March 19th-29th, 2012.

This means at participating restaurants they’re offering 3 Courses (an appetizer, entree and desert) for $20.12 for lunch and $25 for dinner.

You can find a list of participating restaurants here:

http://www.brooklyn-usa.org/pdf/DIB_2012.pdf

I live in Park Slope so I’m partial to restaurants here. I’m excited to check out Bogota Latin Bistro tomorrow evening which features Pan-Latin and some specifically Colombian foods. Unlike many Latin places, they have many vegetarian, vegan and gluten free options including a couple for Dine in Brooklyn. The menu is very clearly labeled with v for veg, vg for vegan and gf for gluten free.

A few other restaurants I can recommend:

Gialeti’s Cafe: American food served in a sweet cafe with great pastries.

Miriam: Israeli/Middle Eastern Food. Last time they had a great wine special too.

Sotto Voce: Features great pasta dishes and a wonderful brunch

Piramide: Great Mexican food.

 

What are you going to check out? Note that in the pink on the restaurant list are places offering 2 people for $25 or $20.12!

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Archer Farms Sweet & Spicy Thai-Style Chile Potato Chips (Target Store Brand)

Posted by roodonfood on March 21, 2012 in gluten free, Snacks

These chips are amazing. If there was an award for potato chips of the year, they would go to the Archer Farms Sweet & Spicy Thai-Style Chile Potato Chips. They’re kettle cooked which means they have a more satisfying crunch than standard issue chips. There is a wonderful tanginess complemented with a slight burn from chili pepper. You also get a nice hint of garlic as well. Interestingly, green and red bell peppers are also in the ingredients though you get none of that specific flavor.

Image Source: http://www.guysnation.com/wp-content/uploads//2011/07/AF_SpiSwe_Thai_Chile-224×300.jpg

Archer Farms is the Target Store brand. The few products I’ve tried from them have all been decent. I previously mentioned another Archer Farms Black Pepper Chips earlier in the year here. Note that there is milk in this product so it’s not vegan though it appears to be gluten free. Picking up these chips is now one of my main reasons to visit Target.

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Hostess Pudding Pie

Posted by roodonfood on March 20, 2012 in Snacks

I used to love Hostess Pudding Pies as a kid. We would get them at the Five and Dime in our neighborhood along with Garbage Pail Kids cards as youth in the 80s. I loved that they were slightly frosted and in portable pocket form.


Image: http://eatthis.womenshealthmag.com/files/wr-4_6.jpg
To my surprise, I discovered that they still sell pudding pies at least at Stewart’s Convenience stores in upstate New York (though without the chocolate crust). I opened the packet with some anticipation. The crust is still nice and moist, and the frosting is present as well. The “pudding” though is much, much thicker than I remember. Half the fun as a kid was the messiness of the pudding inside. The chocolatey flavor is a little questionable as well. Overall, the taste does not live up to nostalgia. First of all, post-consumption I noticed that it’s artificially flavored and has artificial colors too. Apparently in the 80s it was artificially flavored too if you look at the package zoom in at the end of the commercial below:

Adding to the buyer’s remorse, I looked at the ingredients list. Holy crap is it a long list. Among the strange ingredients possibly in it are beef fat and animal shortening. That’s the first time I’ve ever seen those additives in sweets (granted I don’t buy these types of snacks often). I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect sweet baked goods to be vegetarian. I won’t be purchasing these again unless of course they change the formula to real food ingredients. I however do still love the fruit based ones, in particular the Lemon flavor.

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Chock Full O Nuts French Roast

Posted by roodonfood on March 13, 2012 in Snacks

Chock is all around a great brand. It’s usually the brand I turn to over options like Folgers and Maxwell house. It’s regional. It has a competitive price and it’s tasty. The French Roast possesses a rich, medium bodied flavor with an unmistakable creaminess. I was pleasantly surprised with how much I liked it. If the Chock Full O Nuts Colombian was the same price though all bets are off and I’d get that 100% of the time. It’s all Arabica and a cut above most other brands. These being lean times I tend to drink the same coffee during the week and weekend (I used to do a weekend blend with special flavor coffees). As the house coffee it’s a perfectly respectable option.

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Snack #14: Haldiram’s Kashmiri Mixture

Posted by roodonfood on March 12, 2012 in gluten free, indian, Snacks

I was very excited to try the Haldiram’s Kashmiri Mixture because I’d never seen it before.

Flavor: The Kashmiri Mixture is much spicier than Khatta Meetha or their Plain Bhujia offerings. The mix features a few unique ingredients. The potato sticks are small and slender but provide some nice crunch and variety from the more common lentil or chickpea based sev, and moong dal. Apparently there is some spinach as well though it isn’t readily apparent. There are no dried spinach leaves for example. There are however some lentil bori’s which have a green tint. Maybe that’s the form the spinach is taking.  Cashews are a clever addition providing a new texture and much needed sweetness. Common to many of Haldiram’s blends, there is a little tang. The tang I’ve come to learn is again from amchur (mango powder) as well as citric acid.

It’s charming that they call it mixture on the packaging rather than the more casual sounding mix. You’d never find the word mixture on any American made snack products maybe because it connotes lab coats and science.

The package has a resealable zipper which is always a nice plus. Common to all of the Haldiram’s resealable packs, it has the following funny instructions: “Open Slider, Cut Inner Membrane.” The word membrane would also never be found on American food products because it connotes doctors.

Overall the flavor is good but not a favorite. This is a very tasty mix but because of spice level, a little may go a long way for some. The experience would be vastly improved if added to some type of chaat with yogurt, chickpeas, potatoes and tamarind chutney to mellow out the spice level. If you don’t have the aforementioned available, you could consider mixing it with some of the plain bhujia and currants.

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Snack #13: Xochitl Totopos de Maiz Blue Corn

Posted by roodonfood on March 11, 2012 in gluten free, Snacks, vegan

I have a new favorite tortilla chip, Xochitl Totopos de Maiz Blue Corn. Pronounced like “so cheel,” the flavor is unlike any other I’ve had from a store. They taste just like the ones you get in a Mexican restaurant. They’re softer and less dense than other chips. Like Cheetos you can also eat quite a few of these in one sitting because they taste so light.

The aroma reminds me of potato chips. When munching on these I’d suggest homemade salsa. Attempts to eat them with guacamole were not as successful because the totopos break easily when dipped. They’re pricier than others but it’s also a larger amount. The blue corn was $4.49 for a $16oz bag whereas most tortilla chip bags are 5-10 oz bags for $2.99-$3.99. They’re so delicious you can just eat these by themselves. The chips are organic and gluten free.

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Update: Voskos Greek Yogurt “Exotic Fig”

Posted by roodonfood on March 9, 2012 in Snacks

The other day I reviewed Voskos Yogurt Vanilla Bean and Peach flavors. I explained that upon feeling brave I would try the fig flavor. I felt brave yesterday. My reticence to check it out feels justified. All you taste is fig. Combine the strong flavor with the thickness of the Greek yogurt and you have a painful snacking experience. Skip this flavor and opt for their vanilla bean instead.

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Snack #12: Voskos Greek Yogurt

Posted by roodonfood on March 7, 2012 in Snacks

The Greek Yogurt trend is one I can get behind. Every week there seems to be a new company selling their version, even Yoplait (which I don’t recommend). Ben and Jerry’s (Vermont) is even debuting 4 Frozen Greek Yogurt flavors. I can say with some pride that New York has become something of a regional powerhouse for this popular treat as well,  discussed at length recently in the New York Times.

 

Voskos is from an area called Sun Valley, CA

Anytime Greek Yogurt is on sale at my local grocery store, I buy multiples. Recently, a new brand to me, called Voskos was on sale for $0.75, 25-50% cheaper than all of the others in the Greek Yogurt category. I bought three types, Vanilla Bean, Peach and “Exotic Fig.” I’ve been on the Greek beat since my doctor commented that Greek yogurts are better because they have higher protein content and less sugar. True to form, the Voskos package points out the higher protein content.

The Vanilla bean flavor came through nicely. If you’ve never had Greek yogurt before it’s a good test subject. Since Greek Yogurt is strained, it’s thicker. Voskos gives you a good sample of that. If you’re used to other yogurts, you might find this so thick it gives you pause. I really like the thickness. One odd thing I noticed was that it tasted less sugary than other Greeks. Strangely, the Vanilla Bean flavor has 16g of sugar, fairly high for this type.

The peach was a little disappointing. The peach flavor lingers a little longer than you’d like and comes across as acidic. Because it adds a crunch and is less expensive than granola, I like to add rice crispies to yogurt. In this case I added the nice Gluten Free Brown Rice Crispies. They worked nicely with vanilla bean. With the peach however, the crunch wasn’t enough to mitigate the acidity of peach.

So far I’ve just tried the Vanilla Bean and Peach, because frankly I’m a little scared to try “exotic fig.” I’ll update once I get brave.

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Snack #11: Haldiram’s Khatta Meetha

Posted by roodonfood on March 6, 2012 in Snacks

I’ve previously written about Haldirams here, here and here.  The flavors I buy most frequently are the plain Bhujia, Aloo Bhujia. The other flavor I buy whenever possible is called Khatta Meetha. It’s always exciting to find it at Punjabi Deli because it’s a little rarer. It’s described as a “Sweet & Spicy blend” on the bag. That is an accurate description. The blend consists of puffed rice, peas, gram flour and peanuts. All the shapes present are fun to look at. They remind you of an Indian version of Chex Mix. Like any blend it’s fun to grab a bite and crunch the different textures concurrently.

The flavor is mildly spicy. The sweet comes from sugar powder. There is also an unmentioned tanginess which works to great effect. Once again, just as with the Aloo Bhujia, I mistook it for tamarind but it is actually from the Amchur Powder (Dried Green Mango Powder). This is not actually a snack I enjoy by itself because the sweet is slightly too strong. Generally my strategy is to combine equal parts khatta meetha with plain bhujia. This combination provides the right blend of sweet to salty and spicy. Plus it stretches out both snack bags for you longer. If you don’t have plain bhujia on hand, aloo bhujia works pretty well too. In fact a good rule of thumb is to buy two packets of Haldiram’s stuff at a time. The 2 bag rule ensures that you don’t get burned out on either one plus it gives you an option to blend if desired. In summary, if I was a rating man I’d give Khatta Meetha by itself a B+. Blended with Plain Bhujia it becomes an A+.

Like all Haldiram’s stuff, the ingredient list is very straight forward. It’s composed of things like Chickpea flour (gram), oil, peanuts, rice flakes, tapioca (called sago on the bag), peas, lentils, salt, mango, and various spices. The ingredients themselves then are vegetarian, vegan, and apparently gluten free as well. (If you have a peanut allergy you’ll skip this one).

Quick side note: It works great to have a smoothie to contrast.

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Stomach Flu Foods: Mashed Potatoes, Apple Sauce, Toast

Posted by roodonfood on March 2, 2012 in Random

The Chew just featured some amazing looking hamburgers. Mmm. Tator tots and a milkshake go great with burgers. Walking by a local bodega, I remembered a delicious chicken salad sandwich they make. I’m out of Cadbury eggs. Argh. My birthday is on March 3rd too boot so I hope to be better by then. Unfortunately I’ve had stomach flu and fever for the last couple of days. Under such circumstances the mind starts to imagine the foods you could be eating.

On the medicine front I’ve taken Pepto Bismol a few times, other than that nothing else for the stomach since it usually runs its course within 48 hours. I’ve secretly always appreciated the wintergreen flavor of Pepto. For the fever we got the Rite Aid brand of Flu Rapid Release Gelcaps (it came with 2 boxes, 12 daytime, 12 nighttime caps). It worked pretty well though I still have a slight fever today which is about to break.

In the meantime I’ve explored foods to eat while under the weather. According to family and the Internet, the B.R.A.T foods (Banana, Rice, Apple Sauce and Toast) are the way to go. Other notable foods include plain pasta and mashed potatoes. I stuck almost exclusively to a couple of foods, mashed potatoes and apple sauce. For the mashies, spices were kept to a minimum with just sparing amounts of salt, garlic and pepper, and milk. The Apple Sauce was Mott’s Natural. I’ve just been having a few spoons at a time.

Since you lose salt and sugar with the stomach flu my amazing girlfriend got me Gatorade (red and lemon) and some Edy’s Fruit Bar popsicles, acai flavored. I recommend both highly. Popsicles are one of those foods you only think of when you’re sick but appreciate them more as a result. In fact I have them so rarely, it makes me feel like a little kid. To settle the stomach Canada Dry ginger ale, also an exclusively sick day item.

Lack of food options makes you appreciate what you can eat. Each bite of mashed potatoes or BRAT food is very slow and deliberate as not to upset the stomach gods who make their presence known one or twice a year. If this is their way of saying appreciate your stomach when in working order, I am definitely taking note. The aforementioned items are already pleasant to eat, but a growling stomach and hours of not eating assured that they were twice as tasty.

I can’t wait to eat full meals again. Hopefully by this time tomorrow I’ll be back at a 100%. I’m double crossing my fingers for March 3rd. I really don’t want to eat birthday mashed potatoes and apple sauce but if the birthday candles must go in the potatoes, then they must. Any suggestions of what to eat first? I’m leaning towards chicken salad sandwich. Or aloo dom. Or just some dal, or keema or Funfetti cake.

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