Caribbean Cafe

It's a new year! That means it's time to get back to this whole blogging thing! I was off work for a couple of wonderful weeks over the holidays and I got out of all of my good blogging habits :(

But things are back to normal now, Meal of Food Friday included. Last Friday, we tried a hidden gem called Caribbean Cafe. It's an authentic Cuban restaurant in Carrollton. It's in a small strip shopping center, and you might not notice it much from the street, but it's nice on the inside. It's actually right around the corner from Coconut Thai, which we tried a while back. The restaurant is pretty small, but we were able to get a table for 8 without a reservation. I'm not suggesting that you shouldn't call ahead, but we lucked out and didn't have to wait.

Photo credit: http://caribbeancafecuba.com/home.html

Ryan and I started out with beef empanadas, which were very tasty. Empanadas are basically pastry filled with seasoned meat, fruit, or other filling. We had a similar dish at Casa Vieja, a Colombian restaurant also in Carrollton.

who can say no to a flaky, buttery pastry?

I tried the Vaca Frita, which is fried shredded beef with onions, served with white rice and red or black beans. Ryan went for the Chicken Cordon Blue - Cuban Style! It had seasoned chicken and ham with swiss cheese and came with rice and fried plantains. We both enjoyed our meals a lot. I like Caribbean/South American/ Latin American food because the flavors are strong and interesting. They use quite a bit of onions, peppers, citrus, etc.

The Vaca Frita with double order of rice (hold the beans). I used the complementary bread to make a sandwich of sorts. Very yummy!

Ryan's Chicken Cordon Blue.

I liked this restaurant a lot. It doesn't look like much from the outside, but it's cozy and welcoming on the inside. The prices are reasonable - entrees run from $12 - $15 (my entree was enough for two meals) and sandwiches run around $8. Our waitress was friendly and attentive, and they had a great selection of food and drinks. Finding these great, authentic, off-the-beaten-path restaurants is one of my favorite parts of MoFF.

Tillman's Roadhouse

Last week, we ventured to the Bishop Arts district for a birthday celebration! Courtney picked Tillman's Roadhouse for her birthday MoFF, which has been named among the top ten restaurants in Dallas by D magazine. This was actually the third time that MoFF went to Tillman's, but it was my first time to visit. Tillman's offers an upscale take on classic dishes, including their signature chicken fried steak, along with a large selection of cocktails. It's a somewhat small restaurant with lush and modern decor. We got to sit in the peacock room, which was very fancy!

This was one of many birds that watched over our meal.

Dinner started with complementary seasoned popcorn, which I think I ate an entire bowl of. I love popcorn!

We ordered the truffle goat cheese tater tots, french fry trio, and lobster tamales to start. The tater tots were amazing. They were the best thing that I ate all evening. I liked the fries as well. I stayed away from the tamales, but the fellow diners report that they were tasty. I had a hard time deciding what to order as I'm a bit particular about what I eat. I decided to try the Shiner Short Rib and subbed mac and cheese for the grits.

The food was good. The meat was very tender, and well flavored. I wasn't terribly impressed with the mac and cheese. It was good, but not the best.

For dessert we tried Tillman's special - the tableside s'mores. It comes with flavored marshmallos that you toast at your table. They were fun and tasty! I had the maple flavored marshmallow, which was a little weird, but the cinnamon sugar graham crackers were really good. The other options were mint and root beer.

Cutest little indoor campfire that you ever saw!

I can understand why people like Tillman's. It modern and cool, and they offer interesting food combinations. It is a very "foodie" type of place. I am not a foodie, and most of the appeal was a little lost on me. My opinion comes down to the fact that Ryan and I spend over $100 on our meal on a typical night out. We chipped in for appetizers and dessert, ordered two entrees, and we each had one beer. Sure it was good, and the s'mores were fun, but it just wasn't $100 good. Sadly, that seems typical of the Bishop Arts area. I'm glad that I got to try Tillman's, but I'm in no rush to go back.

Terra Mediterranean Grill

Last week we had a nice double date for MoFF at Terra Mediterranean Grill (formerly Ali Baba's) in Irving. I was thrilled because I love Greek food.

Photo credit: http://www.terramedgrill.com/

Terra Mediterranean has a nice semi-casual atmosphere - nice, but not too fancy. Most entrees are around $12 - $14, and you get a pretty large portion. And, my beer came in a longhorn glass!

I had the Gyro entree, which was amazing. The gyro meat was tender and delicious and the ziziki sauce was so good! I used the pita bread appetizer to make myself a couple of gyro sandwiches. Maybe not the best mannered move, but it was super delicious. I liked the saffron rice on the side as well. I planned to take half home, but I was hungry and it was too delicious. So I ate it all. :)

Come on, how good does that look?!

I will happily go to Terra Mediterranean again!

Babe's Chicken Dinner House

Last Friday, we celebrated Ryan's birthday at Babe's Chicken Dinner House in downtown Carrollton, TX. It's family style and serves delicious fried chicken. This is my favorite kind of place because it's fun, casual, BYOB, and serves amazing food. It's not healthy, but it's great!

You basically have the option of fried chicken, chicken fried steak, chicken fingers, fried catfish, or smoked chicken. Everyone at the table shares sides: green beans, creamed corn, mashed potatoes, and biscuits. You also get salad at the start of the meal. However, the salad is pretty much iceberg lettuce with a heavy dose of suggary dressing. I'm not a fan of creamed corn in general, but all of the rest of the food was amazing. I think I had three helpings of mashed potatoes. They aren't quite as good as the potatoes at Celebration, but they are tasty.

Delicious chicken tenders, mashed potatoes, and green beans!

Stack of Chicken Fried Steaks

Mountain of Fried Chicken

Bucket of Beer topped with biscuits!

We had a great time! This is three years in a row for fried chicken on Ryan's birthday (last two years we went to Kel's) and I hope we keep the tradition going. Who doesn't love fried chicken and mashed potatoes?

Howard Wang's China Grill

My crazy life has really gotten in the way of blogging! I'm so behind on posts, but I am trying to catch back up before the holidays start!

Last week, we tried Howard Wang's China Grill in the Preston Hollow area of Dallas. It's a cute little place, hidden in a shopping center. It's a pretty small restaurant, but we had a small group this week, so getting a table wasn't an issue. They have a huge menu with a variety of Chinese dishes and other Asian cuisine.

I'm a rather picky eater. I realize that this sounds funny from someone who writes a blog about trying new restaurants, but the truth is that I'm not very adventurous when it comes to trying new dishes. I don't care for fish or for spicy food, so Asian food tends to be tricky for me. Plus because of my diabetes, I'm sometimes wary of trying things that I'm unfamiliar with, as I'm not always sure how they will affect me. So the result of this is that I eat the same stuff at a lot of different places. :)

We started with the Crispy Crap Wontons. The others liked them better than I did, but I tried it! I liked it well enough, but it wasn't my favorite. The cream cheese covered the fishy taste of the crab.

For dinner, I ordered the tamest dish on the menu - Chicken Fried Rice. It was very good! You get a generous portion, with lots of chicken and veggies. It was enough food for me to take leftovers home. The nice thing about eating the same stuff at every restaurant is that it's easy to compare. I would say that I preferred Howard Wang's fried rice to Coconut Thai's, although I liked both.

I will say that Howard Wang's was a nice change of pace for MoFF. This would be a fun place to go with a date or a small group.

Addison Ice House

We checked the out Addison Ice House in Vitruvian Park on Halloween. We picked it because it's close to our friends apartment, where we had a sweet Halloween celebration! I thought that everyone would be in costume already at dinner....and I was wrong. Ryan was Dexter for Halloween and left some of his props in the car, so he looked normal. I, on the other hand, was dressed in my full on flapper costume. Luckily, it was super cute.

This is a nice little bar/restaurant. They have a good beer selection and a great patio. I've been once before when the weather was nice, and loved sitting outside. They have a variety of bar food - burgers, quesadillas, etc. For dinner, I had the Build Your Own Burger with avocado and bacon on a pretzel bun. It was messy and it made my blood sugar spike, but it was delicious.

Delicious burger and fries. That pretzel bun was excellent.

 I like this place - good food, good drinks, fun place to hang out. As the burger goes, I preferred Hopdoddy, but the pretzel bun at Addison Ice House was pretty great.

I do love a good Halloween party and we had a great time dressing up. What do you think of our costumes?

Me as a Flapper and Ryan as Dexter Morgan

Me and our wonderful host Lindsay

Bread Winners Cafe and TX/OU Weekend

This past weekend turned out to be much happier than expected. That's because my Texas Longhorns beat the Oklahoma Sooners in the Red River Rivalry!!!!!!! HOOK 'EM HORNS!

We started the weekend off with Meal of Food Friday at Bread Winners Cafe in Uptown. Bread Winner's has amazing brunch (excellent breakfast tacos), and serves sandwiches, salads, burgers, etc. for lunch and dinner. We celebrated Megan's belated birthday in our finest burnt orange.

photo credit: breadwinnerscafe.com

We started off with the Margherita flatbread, thinking that it would work as a good appetizer.  When they brought it out, it was clear that this dish is meant for a full meal. But never fear, we had no problem eating it! The dish was fine. I would have preferred more cheese. When in doubt, add more cheese.

We were too hungry to wait for picture taking. Pretend that this is a full pizza.

For dinner, I had the California Rollup, which is a wrap sandwich with chicken, bacon, avocado, ranch, cheese, lettuce, and tomato. Pretty much everything I like! I had fries and a Deep Ellum Dallas Blonde with it.

Avocados make life better. So do french fries.

I really enjoyed this meal. We got to sit outside and people watch again, which I love to do when the weather is nice. We also had a great server - friendly and helpful!

I've been to Bread Winners for brunch and for dinner on a couple different occasions, and my opinion is that brunch is better food wise. However, it's also super crowded during brunch on the weekend, so watch out for that! Dinner seems more relaxed, and the food is still very good!

After dinner, we tried out a bar called Kung Fu Saloon, which features vintage video games and a full bar! How fun is that! Ryan and I ducked out once the place got overrun football fans, but I'd like to go back some time.

Celebrating our seventh TX/OU weekend together! Texas Fight!

Happy belated TX/OU to you all!