Thursday, July 19, 2012

Brandy Ho's

Stop #6 was Brandy Ho's Hunan Food. I've gotten food delivered from here a couple of times, but never been inside the restaurant. It's large and was fairly busy for lunch time. They have amazing lunch specials. Upon being seated they serve you wonton crisps & tea. Both were good. I ordered the garlic chicken & steamed rice which came with hot & sour soup (my fave), cold noodles in peanut sauce, and a green onion cake. My lunch companion, Shawn, ordered the hunan style stewed beef which came with the soup & onion cake, but pickled veggies instead of cold noodles. Both these lunch specials were under 8 bux. A ton of food for that price. I really enjoyed the entire meal especially the soup & the garlic chicken. Luckily I ordered the chicken mild since my mouth was on fire by the end of my meal- but i'm a bit of a wuss when it comes to spicy food. Shawn enjoyed his as well and said it was pretty typical for what he would expect for a hunan lunch special but for the price it was well worth it. The service was also really good, extremely attentive, they were eager little beavers. Whether it's dine in or delivery i'm sure to eat here again.



www.brandyhos.com

4 out of 5 Ciabatta loaves


Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Brioche Bakery & Cafe

Living in NB i'm surrounded by tons of pasta options, don't get me wrong this is not a complaint, but one thing i've struggled to find is a good salad option. This is why I was really looking forward to checking out stop #5 Brioche Bakery & Cafe. In addition to the five salads they offer on their daily menu they also offer a salad du jour. I'm very familiar with a soup du jour (which they have as well) but a salad du jour? Yes, please. Today was a Greek Salad. I ordered a small one to accompany the Grilled Caprese Panini I wanted. I was informed that they were out of panini bread. I have to say this really took me by surprise- there are six panini sammys on the menu, how is it possible to be out of the bread used for them at 1pm on a Tuesday? They did offer to make the panini on another type of bread, but I wanted it to be authentic. However, my salad did not disappoint, it had all the typical ingredients of a Greek: romaine lettuce, tomatoes, red onion, Kalamata olives & feta cheese. It was really good. Still want to go back one day and get my panini & possibly one of their daily salads.

http://www.briochecafe.com

3 out of 5 Ciabatta loaves (simply due to the panini let down)


Friday, July 13, 2012

Comstock Saloon



Stop #4 brought me back to a place I have been to a couple of times before: Comstock Saloon (CS). In the past I have just gone for drinks and appys. I especially like the Pisco Punch (Pisco, pineapple gum & lime). This time we were all in for a full on meal- yay! It was technically a "business" dinner, but with friends. We sat in the dining area instead of the saloon so we could handle the business part of the evening in a quietter setting. I really enjoy the atmosphere at CS. Very lively and old school. Instead of the amazing cocktails CS serves we decided on a bottle of wine-  a lovely Pinot Noir, my fave! For appys we had BBQ chips with ranch dressing. Simple, but effective. The bite from the BBQ cooled by the ranch was a great combo. We also had the rabbit 3 way: bruschetta style, deep fried, and pate style. The best was the deep fried style, followed closely by the bruschetta, wasn't crazy about the pate- i'm a texture girl so this wasn't my style. We also had Pig in a Biscuit. The homemade biscuits were amazing, the crispy pork inside was a little bland, until I added the secret sauce. "You can put this stuff on anything & it's good," Shannon said referring to the spicy vinegar. She was right. The vinegar is marinated for five days in chillies. The mildness of the vinegar with the spiciness of the chillies was yummy on anything it was added to. For the main course I chose the Grilled Skirt Steak with avo. It was scrumptious. I loved everything about it. The meat was cooked to perfection, the tomatillo salsa had great flavor to compliment the meat, the beans and avo were nice additions as well, all wrapped in the tortillas made for a meal I hope to have again soon. Shannon had the Ricotta gnocchi with roasted maitake mushrooms, green & yellow wax beans, English peas & parmesan. I was lucky enough to taste it. This texture girl was pleased with the gnocchi- another fave of mine. 



Joey had the fried squash blossoms with mashed potatoes. Yet another impressive dish. Josh went with the 3 course prix fixe menu which included the squash blossoms, skirt streak, and dessert. This was available on the daily specials board. For dessert he chose the whiskey pudding & was kind enough to share it with the rest of us- well a couple of bites. I'm not a huge pudding fan, but I have to admit this was tasty. There were small pieces of granola on the top which was great with the smoothness of the pudding. Delish meal overall. "Best work meeting i've ever been to," said Shannon.


http://www.comstocksaloon.com/

5 out of 5 Ciabatta loaves