This is my favorite summer salad – it’s light, refreshing, and very easy to make. It also tastes better a day after it’s been in the fridge (especially if you use a lot of lemon juice and tomatoes!):
You can also turn the salad into a meal by adding feta, chicken (or other proteins). I love eating this salad in the summer time, especially when it’s too hot to cook in the kitchen!
Last Thursday, Soren and I made plans to have lunch and then spend the entire afternoon at the movie theater. I suggested Saravanaa Bhavan in Murray Hill because the movie theater was in nearby and Indian food definitely would’ve kept us full for the entire day. I’ve had dosas in the past from The Dosa Man in Washington Square Park, but a lot of my Indian friends said that the Indian chain was the best dosa in New York:
The restaurant’s dosas are the largest I’ve ever seen; some of the waiters brought out dosas that took up half of a table! Since Soren and I were sharing, we decided to order one lunch special:
And one masala dosa:
Both were very good, but my dosa stuck to the tray and the onions and potatoes were really unevenly spread through the dosa (in fact, I didn’t even know my dosa had potatoes in it until I was halfway done). Soren’s meal was very good, especially with so many different sauces to dip the rice in – Soren didn’t even know it was entirely vegetarian because it tasted so hearty. Maybe not the BEST dosa I’ve ever had, but it was very good and very filling. Their prices are around $10 per dosa, but they are very large and come with lots of different chutneys.
The restaurant fills up really quickly around lunch time, but getting a seat wasn’t too difficult because the food is served really quickly. After our lunch, we watched Toy Story 3, Despicable Me, and Twilight – my favorite was Toy Story 3 (in 3-D) – my favorite character was the hedgehog that’s always in character – Mr. Prickle Pants!
Did you know that you can take a ferry from Manhattan’s Pier 11 to Brooklyn’s Ikea? My friend Annie had to buy some picture frames and we decided to make a night of it by taking the ferry across the East River to the huge Swedish megastore. I’ve only been to Ikea a handful of times, but I always hear SO MUCH about their meatballs (in fact, one writer from The Atlantic actually made an entire meal from food purchased at Ikea). I had absolutely no idea that the Ikea in Brooklyn had a large cafeteria – I thought there was only a small food court area that sold soft serve and their frozen foods. When Annie told me we were going to eat Swedish meatballs there, I was wondering how we were going to eat them because I thought they only sold them frozen; however, we went up the escalator and walked to Ikea’s huge cafeteria!
People actually go to Ikea to eat dinner – they have no intention of shopping and just want to eat Ikea’s meatballs…isn’t that CRAZY?! We picked up trays (awesome) and immediately saw all these awesome desserts (double awesome):
There were a lot of things I wanted to eat (a problem I always have when I go to cafeterias with multiple stations) – there was macaroni and cheese, chicken tenders, stuffed salmon, tarts, tortes, cake, even baby food! We were originally going to get two orders of Swedish meatballs and one order of chicken tenders, but we decided to all order the Swedish meatballs:
The Swedish meatballs plate comes with 10 Swedish meatballs (the guy had a heavy hand with our plates because it was later in the night), mashed potatoes, gravy, and lingonberry sauce. I also impulsively got an elderflower juice box. The Swedish meatballs had a really synthetic texture (like, there was no way that meatball was coming apart) but was nicely seasoned and I ate them all. It almost tasted like Thanksgiving (a really really bad Thanksgiving) because of the slightly tangy lingonberry sauce, meatball, mashed potato, and gravy combination. We also shared this torte:
The torte had pleasing textures – very creamy chocolate with crunchy wafers and possibly a little coconut. After we returned our trays, we walked around and looked through their children’s department (all of their stuff is so cute, especially their fabric!) We found awesome hats, puppets, and…an abacus:
Annie found her frames and we caught the last ferry back into Manhattan. The ferry ride is really nice and is a nice way to see the New York skyline and the statue of liberty (although I got a little seasick on my way to Ikea). Ikea also has a bunch of specials – Tuesday was Swedish Meatballs for $2.49 and Thursdays is Ribs night! Thank you, Badrul, for dinner!
A while back, I visited my mom in North Carolina and went to one of her favorite restaurants, Imperial Koi, for some sushi (my review here). The owner, Peter, agreed to have his sushi chef, Jack, teach me how to make a California Roll so I could have a sushi party. Here’s the sushi chef teaching me how to make the California roll (we made 3 or 4 before we filmed the video!):
Jack also made their specialty roll, the Angry Dragon:
They use special soy papers (instead of the normal seaweed) and even fresh fruit (papaya) in a lot of their rolls. If you’re ever in Greensboro, definitely stop by Imperial Koi for some sushi!
A while back, I read on Seriouseats.com that Alton Brown lost over 50 pounds by eating this Sardine-Avocado sandwich. I was interested, especially since I’ve never really tried sardines on a sandwich (has anyone, really?) so I made the open-faced sandwich:
It’s actually REALLY good and I can see how Alton Brown eats so many of them; I mushed up the sardines with the oil mixture (do NOT get sardines in water because that is just…gross). Then I sliced half an avocado, placed it on top of the sardines, and happily ate the sandwich (I made two because I was super hungry and I didn’t want to put the other half of the avocado in the fridge). The sardines don’t have too much of a fishy taste and I did add a little salt and pepper to kick up the flavor a little, but this is definitely an amazing snack that is really easy to make AND super healthy!
