Birthday dinner at Kindfood

It is my birthday in two days. I am turning 24 in two days. I am almost 25, and therefore almost 30, in two days. Ahhh!

But I'm not going to think about that. Instead I'm choosing to surround myself with delicious food, family, and friends throughout my birthday week. It started over the weekend with my family birthday celebrations involving the most glorious cake I've ever feasted on.

Then yesterday I met up with one of my best friends Lauren for a birthday dinner at Kindfood.  I ordered my favourite dish - their Buddha bowl. It has so many good flavours in it (Sweet potato, avocado, cilantro... How can you go wrong?) and always tastes so fresh. It never disappoints!

It was a gorgeous evening, so we ended up sitting out on the patio and chatting for hours. Shortly before they closed our sweet tooths demanded dessert, so we split a vegan brownie and proceeded to shovel it into our faces in record time. It was one of the best brownies I've ever had.

Thanks Kindfood for another great meal and wonderful customer service. Something tells me I'll be back very soon for another one of those brownies!

Have you ever freaked out about turning a certain age?

Best brownie you've ever eaten?

Road trip '13: Day 7

Day 7 was our last day! It had a rough start though because I had a pretty bad sleep - it was so stinking hot in our hotel room overnight. So we skipped working out again in favour of having a slow start to our morning.

After breakfast we said goodbye to Syracuse and headed to Rochester, where our first stop was Trader Joe's. Since we don't have these stores in Canada, I'm always excited to check them out when I'm in the US.

Just like my last visit though, I was a bit disappointed by how many of their products say "May contain nuts" on their labels. But I still managed to pick up a pretty good nut-free haul.

Mac & cheese, coconut cream, cookie butter, sunflower seed butter, sweet Thai chili sauce, coconut chips, dried banana, and plantain chips.

After TJ's we went to The Owl House for lunch, which is a cute restaurant we found through Urbanspoon. It was in a renovated house and we actually ate in the backyard on the patio - I felt like I was eating at someone's home!

They had really delicious iced Earl Grey tea - it made me want to start making my own iced teas at home more often!

We also split an order of their Moroccan smoked beef "jerky". It wasn't really jerky-like, but it was still really good.

And then I had the salad of my dreams: shaved Brussels sprouts, kale, lemon, olive oil, and romano aioli. This was amazing! I plan on trying to recreate it, but I doubt I could do it justice - the flavours were just so perfect.

My sister and I also split a panini with brie cheese, apple, red onion, baby arugula and Dijon mustard on sourdough bread with housemade kettle chips on the side. This was seriously good too! It was an all around good meal.

After lunch we drove to Buffalo for our last few stops at Target (for bathing suits and Champion workout wear) and Wegmans (for more food). We even bought a cooler so that we could get some refrigerated and frozen items - and by that I mostly just mean Greek yogurt. 

I decided to try out the Wegman's brand of Greek yogurt, Chobani Bites, honey Fage, vanilla coconut Oikos, and a few Chobani flavours I've never tried before. So far I'm not a big fan of the Wegman's kind, but I love the Chobani Bites!

With our car packed to the brim with groceries, our shopping loot, suitcases, pillows, gifts for dad, gum wrappers all over the floor, etc, we headed back home.

So that's the end of my recaps! But I already have plans to visit some great restaurants in the area this summer, so you'll definitely be seeing more of my foodie adventures soon. ;)

What are your favourite Trader Joe's products?

What are your favourite Greek yogurt brands? 

Road trip '13: Day 6

On Monday morning mom and I decided to go to the gym after taking two days off. It felt so nice to move a bit after spending so much time in the car! On our way back to the hotel room we stopped at the Starbucks in the lobby where I was excited to find some Chobani. I've missed their yogurt ever since they stopped selling in Canada! I used it to make a quick breakfast bowl before heading out on the road again.

This time we were heading off to Syracuse. I've actually been wanting to go there ever since I heard Pinback's song called 'Syracuse' in the10th grade (I'm not sure if the song has any link to the city though...). When we got there we stopped at Phoebe's Cafe for lunch. It was cute inside, but really busy and noisy.

I ordered the chicken pita with white cheddar, grilled onions, and a balsamic reduction. It was just okay. I'm not a big fan of blackened chicken - it just tastes burnt to me - and I didn't realize it would come that way. My mom's chicken bruschetta wrap tasted amazing though.

After lunch our destination was Destiny USA, which is apparently the 6th biggest mall in the USA! We managed to do some damage there, followed by even more damage to our wallets at the Urban Outfitters in Armory Square.

By the time we were done shopping we were more than ready for food. We had planned to hit up Empire Brewing Company, which is a microbrewery that was featured on Diners, Drive ins and Dives. I had my eyes on their farmstead chili, but my sister convinced me to split their Mediterranean platter with her. It came with falafels, hummus, couscous salad, pickled beans, olives, sun dried tomatoes, tzaziki, and herb flatbread. Everything was awesome, especially those falafels!

We both got a Greek Cobb salad as well, but what we didn't realize is that the salad had basically the exact same ingredients as the platter, except in salad form. Oops! I should have read the menu better, apparently. It was still good though.

 

As we were finishing up our meals, we realized that although we had tons of pictures of our food, we had barely any pictures of ourselves. So mom tried to take a picture of Hayley and I... except my eyes were closed. So she tried again, and my eyes looked drunk. Then she tried again, and I looked like I was half asleep. So after that we just got silly.

We were laughing so hard that my abs started to hurt!

After that we just headed to the hotel for our last night of the trip. I'll be back with the recap of our last day soon!

What's the biggest mall you've ever been to?

Have you ever been to a restaurant that was on Diners, Drive ins and Dives?

Road trip '13: Day 4

Saturday was the day we did our loooong drive from Halifax to Quebec City - we spent over 10.5 hours in the car!!! But first we checked out the Halifax Seaport Farmers' Market. We planned our trip specifically so that we would be in Halifax on Saturday because Hayley said I just had to see this market.

And of course she was right - I was in heaven! There were local fruits and vegetables, freshly caught fish, handmade soaps, vegan truffles and energy bars, fresh artisan breads, ethnic food stands, arts and crafts, and more. It was amazing!

We browsed for an hour and left by 9:30 am to begin our road trip. Our first stop was in Moncton, New Brunswick for lunch because we wanted to go to the Tide and Boar - a gastropub that was featured on You Gotta Eat Here.

They are famous for their boar poutine, so my sister got an order and we all helped her eat it. It was so good - the boar was so tender and there were huge chunks of cheese curds in it!

For my main meal I got their black bean and date veggie burger with spicy mayo, as per the recommendation of our waitress. It was pretty good, but it didn't really blow me away. The side salad was awesome though - it had roasted root vegetables, parmesan cheese and a shallot dressing. It was also supposed to have granola in it, but they had to leave it off because of my allergies.

After lunch we got back on the road and drove. And drove. And drove some more. I spent a good chunk of the time catching up with good ol' Alton Brown. His books are like a food geek's dream - I love how they explain some of the science behind cooking.

8 hours and 760 km later (that's not including the 250 km we drove in the morning!), we finally arrived in Quebec City. We checked into the Loews Hotel Le Concorde and then headed out on foot in Old Quebec in search of food. It's been almost 10 years since I was last in Quebec and I forgot how much I love it there - it has such a European feel to it.

We finally decided to stop at Bello Ristorante. Even though we just had Italian the night before, this place looked really good! Also we were just happy to find a restaurant that could get us a table since it was almost 9 pm and the rest of the restaurants nearby were full.

Bread with olive oil and balsamic before the meal:

For my appetizer I had an arugula salad with fresh market vegetables, parmesan cheese, and a white balsamic vinaigrette.

My entree was gemelli pasta with mushrooms, truffles, arugula, white wine and pecorino cheese. It was simple, but good - it really let the flavour of the pasta be the focus. I'm not sure if the pasta was made in house, but it tasted like it!

By the time we were done our meal it was past 10 so we just headed back to the hotel room and crashed - we were exhausted after such a long day in the car!

What is the furthest you've ever driven in one day?

Have you ever been to Quebec?

Road Trip '13: Day 3

Before getting onto my trip recap, I just want to say Happy Mother's Day to my mom! Thank you for being my friend, cheerleader, confidante, shopping buddy, supporter, and partner in crime. I love you!

So back to the recap... Friday was another early morning because I always have the worst sleeps in hotels! Anyone else have the same problem? So we went to the Goodlife gym next to the hotel - I did 45 minutes of incline walking while reading Glamour - then had breakfast back in our hotel room.

After doing lots of touristy things the previous day we decided to have a more chill day of shopping on Spring Garden Road. There are a few bigger name stores there like Roots and Lululemon, plus a handful of independent boutiques and vintage stores. I treated myself to this top because I've been eying it for a while!

For lunch we got some vegetarian/vegan fare (to balance out our meat heavy dinner the night before haha) at the Heartwood Cafe. We were also joined by one of my best friends Allyson who lives in Halifax - it was so great to see her again and catch up!

Source

I ordered the Heartwood Bowl, which was a bed of brown rice topped with steamed greens, roasted veggies, tofu, toasted seeds and sprouts with a basil umeboshi dressing. It was super delicious, but just not enough food for me - I still felt a bit hungry when we left the restaurant!

 

I wanted fro yo immediately after, but we had to help Hayley pack up some of her stuff for the summer first. Then finally I was able to drag them out to Yeh! (Halifax's only frozen yogurt shop). I got honey Greek and strawberry flavours topped with fruit, chocolate sprinkles, and Oreo bits. Oreo bits are always a must for me!

We shopped around the downtown area for the rest of the afternoon and then headed out to dinner at the place I was most looking forward to: The Bicycle Thief, which is an Italian restaurant right on the bay.

The entire menu here was amazing - I think I could have ordered anything off it and been happy with my meal!

I started with the spring panzanella salad with Mache greens, poached green beans, charred asparagus, heirloom red tomatoes, garlic toasted croutons, roasted pine nuts, fresh mozzarella and pesto genovese vinaigrette. There were so many great flavours in this! And oh my gosh those croutons - they were garlicky and oily and absolutely perfect!

For my entree I was considering the pancetta wrapped pork tenderloin or the pappardelle with a chicken and pancetta ragu, but when I heard that the halibut had been freshly caught that morning, I changed my mind. How can you turn that down?

The halibut was infused with porcini dust and fresh herbs and baked in parchment with fresh wild mushrooms, pancetta, cherry tomatoes, white wine, garlic and cream. I never considered cooking white fish with mushrooms before, but this pairing worked so well together! The buttery vegetables and potatoes that came on the side were also delicious.

For dessert we split the torched Madagascar vanilla crème brûlée. It's one of those desserts that isn't my first choice on a menu (I had my eye on the chocolate peppermint semifreddo!), but every time I order it I'm glad I did. This one was delicious!

I also want to say how great the service was. Our waitress recommended me a wine that ended up not liking, so she brought me out another glass on the house. I really appreciated that.

We were all pretty wiped from walking all day, so we headed back to the hotel room after dinner and relaxed. In my next recap I'll tell you all about our looooooong day of driving on Saturday!

Have you ever left a restaurant still hungry?

What is your favourite thing to order for dessert at a restaurant?

Road Trip '13: Day 2

On our second day, mom and I woke up early to workout at the Goodlife right next to the hotel (this was so convenient!). I did a chest and triceps workout with 15 minutes of cardio, then headed back to the hotel room to have breakfast.

When I'm travelling I prefer to make my own breakfasts and eat at restaurants for lunch and dinner because I like having more time to sight-see and do activities in the mornings. So the previous night we picked up some groceries: cereal, berries, bananas, milk, and Greek yogurt. I also brought my own soy nut butter from home - it's the one and only food item that I always travel with!

After breakfast Hayley took us to Point Pleasant, which is a park with really nice trails for locals to walk, run, and bike. It was super windy while we were there, but we still got in a nice 4-5 km walk.

During our walk we worked up an appetite for lunch at The Coastal, a brunch spot that Hayley has been raving about. And I can see why - their menu is so creative and full of tempting options.

I had such a hard time deciding what to get, so I went for the first thing that popped out at me: the "Frooty Loops", which was a French toasted Montreal bagel topped with berries, almond hemp seed granola, citrus vanilla bean yogurt and maple syrup. Yum!

 

In the afternoon we drove out to Peggy's Cove, which is a pretty big tourist destination in Nova Scotia. It was neat to see!

After hopping all over those rocks and battling with the wind at Peggy's Cove, we relaxed back in Halifax at the Clay Cafe which is a little spot where you can paint your own pottery. My art skills are, ummm, a bit lacking to say the least, so I kept it simple and just painted a bowl since I knew I couldn't mess that up.

For dinner we headed next door to The Wasabi House for sushi. I ordered a seaweed salad, an Atlantic Roll (salmon, crab, shrimp, and cucumber) and a tuna roll. They also brought us out some complementary salmon nigiri sushi and mango!

I was impressed that they offered brown rice sushi, but unfortunately it was pretty dry and hard. The fish itself was great though! Sushi from Halifax is always amazing because it is so fresh.

 

And that concludes Day 2 because after dinner we pretty much just went back to the hotel room and crashed ha!

Do you ever bring or make your own meals when travelling or do you just eat all your meals out?

Are you artistic?