Restaurants
feliz cinco de mayo
May 7, 2012
I’m going to let you in on a little secret. Here in the Mertinso household, none of us are Mexican. But we certainly do not use that as an excuse not to celebrate Cinco de Mayo. We just celebrate it our own way… by going to eat TexMex at On the Border.
Our friends Jake, Cami and their son, Bentley (aka Gracie’s bf), joined us for dinner.
And then we finished off the night by going over to their place for a rousing game of Ticket to Ride.
Normally I refuse to play games that I know I stand no chance of winning, but since it was a holiday, I made an exception. And I didn’t even pout during the process.
birthday dinner
April 30, 2012
For my birthday, I decided that I wanted to go out for sushi. And not just any sushi, I wanted all-you-can-eat sushi because lets face it, I wanted to eat as much as I could. I was my birthday, after all. Graciela fell asleep on the drive over, so I mistakenly thought I would get to eat in peace.
Sadly, just about the second the sushi started being delivered to our table, she woke up ready to chow down.
Luis opted against the all you can eat, and just ordered a couple of rolls for himself. Smart move on his part. He didn’t go home in pain like I did.
Once we were finished with our sushi, it was on to dessert. Felipe chose the fried bananas with ice cream, chocolate sauce and nuts. Had he known the ice cream was going to be so small, he would have ordered another roll.
I ordered to mango mochi ice cream (the outside is mango-flavored mochi and the inside was mango sorbet). This thing was pretty small (about the size of a golf ball, cut into 4 pieces), which normally would have made me very disappointed. However, since I had stuffed myself with sushi until I felt like I was going to explode, this was the perfect size little dessert bite to end my meal.
The place we went to is pretty small. And as you can see, it was totally packed that night. There was another person there celebrating a birthday and the entire restaurant sang to him. I threatened Luis that if he did that to me, he would have to walk home.
Our good friends came over after all of this and brought me a cute little red velvet cake and a gift. I wish I would have taken a picture of it, but by then I was having excruciating gallbladder pain and just didn’t think to get out the camera. Luis got a video of it, but it was dark and you can’t see much of it so I won’t bother uploading it here. All in all, I had a great birthday celebration and am relatively happy to be one year away from the big 3-0 :)
Boca do Brasil
April 26, 2012
I accidentally discovered a Brazilian restaurant here in town. Apparently it has been around for a while. So (of course) we went to try it out.
Now, we definitely could not eat Brazilian food without drinking some guarana (a Brazilian soda).
These gigantic things are what is called “pastel.” Essentially it is a deep fried dough similar to wonton wrappers, that has been filled with a few tablespoons of a variety of fillings. The pastel itself looks huge (which it is) but the puffiness is just from the deep frying, it is not completely stuffed with the filling (remember, only a few tablespoons of filling are put in it). But they are really yummy. Some of my favorite fillings are heart of palm and cheese.
We also couldn’t pass up the coxinha de galinha. Now this actually is completely stuffed. It is a deep fried dough (a very doughy dough) that is filled with a chicken mixture. Delish!
Thankfully Luis is a good sport about trying new restaurants with me.
The particular night when we went they had feijoada. I don’t particularly care one way or another whether my beans have meat in them, but since they had feijoada, I felt I would be unpatriotic if I didn’t order it. Of course, it was definitely a bonus that they were served with a side of collard greens :)
Hopefully this little one will love this food just as much as I do.
the verdict’s inn
April 11, 2012
There is a little eatery close to my work called The Verdict’s Inn. And yes, the pun is definitely intended. The area where I work downtown is like lawyer row. There are tons of attorney offices and a few courthouses. So this shop took advantage of that, and has a whole court theme going. Since it is within walking distance from my office, I have walked down a few times. Usually I’ll get a sandwich of some sort. To be honest, I hadn’t really found anything too special about the food until I tried the “Bench Warrant.”
Brown rice, spicy Thai peanut & coconut and curry/cumin sauce over chicken breast, peas, topped with cilantro and served with a lime wedge. I asked them to leave out the pecans and sesame seeds because I’m not a big fan of nuts. And it was really surprisingly delicious. The bowl was pretty big and enough for me to make 2 meals out of it. So next time I’m in a curry kind of mood, I’ll definitely be taking a little stroll down there again.
buon gusto ristorante
April 6, 2012
A few weeks ago, I had the hankering for fresh Italian food. So after consulting friends and online reviews, we headed to Buon Gusto Ristorante.
My biggest complaint about the place is simply its size. It is a really, really small space in a strip mall. We had to wait about 20 minutes for a table, but the “waiting area” is literally right next to the tables. I felt like we were practically joining the previous party for dinner.
But the food did not disappoint. We had a delicious, cheesy bruschetta to start.
And, of course, salads all around.
I had the gnocchi. And let me just say, I absolutely ADORE gnocchi! It is rare to find it at restaurants, so I’m always extra happy when they have it.
My brother, Felipe, had the manicotti.
And Luis had…. I don’t really remember. He liked it ok, but it definitely was not as good as my gnocchi.
So delicious!
family time @ cpk
February 22, 2012
Going out to eat is becoming more and more challenging with the little one’s grabby hands.
I just noticed that we matched.
all you can eat
February 1, 2012
I had been wanting to go out to eat sushi for a while. Luis isn’t a huge fan (though he is a good sport about it… he doesn’t hate it, he just doesn’t adore it). So when my younger brother told me that he enjoyed sushi, I could not pass up the opportunity to go. He had only one stipulation: that we go to an all-you-can-eat place. Reason being that one sushi roll is simply not enough for either us, and this way we would be able to order as much as we wanted. So we picked a place and went with the intention of equally sharing all of the rolls we ordered.
Apparently I can only handle eating 3.5 rolls.
My brother, Felipe, on the other hand, can polish off 6.5.
Which is a good thing because we did not want to be charged extra for not finishing the rolls we ordered… even if the last one really was the.most.disgusting.thing.ever! We almost ordered one more after that just to get the taste out of mouths, but we just couldn’t handle it anymore.
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