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Healthiest restaurant food I’ve ever had

6 Apr

While searching for vegetarian food during my travels in Oregon, I found a great vegetarian restaurant in Bend called Cafe Yumm located in the Old Mill District.

Their entire menu is all about healthy eating and they have a very good variety and selection of good for you foods.

I tried grilled tempah for the very first time (it’s interesting) and I also had their Cafe Yumm Bowl which consisted of brown rice, black beans, olives, tomatoes, cheese, avocados and salsa. I honestly think that was the most healthy bowl of good for me food I’ve ever had, and it was delicious!

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Light Lunch

6 Apr

Here’s a photo of what I call a light lunch.

Tuna (not tuna salad) half sandwich with side salad and vinegarett dressing, less then 400 calories.

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Eating healthy when dining out

6 Apr

After the start of the new year I really started paying attention to menus and food choices and found it is possible to eat healthy when dining out. It’s all a matter of making the right healthy choices.

Many restaurants now offer healthy selections somewhere on their menus, you just need to look for them and observe calorie counts and nutritional balance in the meals you are ordering.

To my amazement I was even able to find healthy choices at Red Robbin Restaurant which is known for their burgers. I had a turkey croissant sandwhich with a side of black beans instead of fries that was very good.

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The worse thing to eat is french fries, avoid them as often as possible, they are around 300-400 calories just for a side of fries.

Know your food labels

6 Apr

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Worthy Brewing in Bend, Oregon

5 Apr

In case you were not aware, there are a lot of breweries in Bend, Oregon.

You’ve probably heard of Deschutes Brewery and maybe 10 Barrel, Good Life, Cascade Lakes Brewing, Boneyard, Solstice, Silver Moon or one of the other of the many breweries in Bend. There are a lot.  Personally, I’ve been to nearly all of them over the past year while traveling for work in the area, it’s been fun exploring the culinary scene there.

Sign

Well, I have to tell you that now, there’s a brand new brewery that just opened in Bend – called Worthy Brewing Company and I have to note that it is now #1 in my book for best  Brew Pub in Bend Oregon.

Worthy is located at 495 NE Bellevue Drive, Bend, Oregon 
http://www.worthybrewing.com/

This brewery and restaurant are a sight to see, it’s a large industrial modern building with an outdoor raised bed hop garden, hop green house, a full scale brewery and a very nice restaurant section.  The wood rafters and the bar top in the restaurant are all made from recovered wood from an old insane asylum in Oregon where the movie “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest” was filmed.  So right from the start, this place already has built-in history, that’s pretty cool.  Needless to say the ambiance is outstanding.

Worthy Brewing Company

Hop Garden

They have a very good seasonal chalk board beer menu at Worthy. They not only serve their own beers, which are all very good, they also have guest taps with other beers and ciders from all over the west.

Beer List

The food is what really pushes this place to #1 from day 1. It is outstanding! They have a really nicely tiled wood fired pizza oven that they use to make great tasting pizza’s and entree’s.  I’ve been there 4x’s so far and every thing I’ve eaten has been excellent.  Some of their pizza’s have a wow factor with their creativity using a melding of delicious ingredients with a great tasting wood fired pizza crust.

Irish Pizza

To round it all out, service was impeccable.  I could not have asked for anything better.  My beer glass never ever sits empty, and my food is always served promptly.

Two big thumbs up for Worthy Brewing Company!

Beertopia

Fat Rabbit Public House

20 Feb

Decided to head over to The Fat Rabbit Public House on Sutter Street in Old Town Folsom for lunch today.

Needless to say I was not disappointed. I had the pieorgies appetizer and the special of the day, catfish tacos.

The food was very good and tasted great washing it all down with a Belgian White style beer called Hoegaarden.

Two thumbs up, I really like this place!

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36 Handles Pub & Eatery, El Dorado Hills CA

28 Dec

36Handles

Richard Righton has done it again! The owner of the successful Bidwell Street Bistro in Folsom, and Relish Burger Bar in El Dorado Hills has opened his 3rd restaurant (nearly next door to Relish) called 36 Handles Irish Pub & Eatery, and from our first visit I can tell you right now that Richard has done it again – this place is great!

36 Handles is an Irish Pub with an upscale decor that is noticeable as soon as you see the ornate wood red and black doors at the entrance. Upon stepping inside it’s like being transported to Ireland, this place truly has the look and feel of an authentic Irish Pub – it’s very nicely done with excellent quality furnishings and interesting wall hangings. The bar itself is a sight to behold, you don’t see really cool large wood bars like that very much anymore and this one is great, and very well equipped.

The staff and the service deserve special notice because we could not have wished for better service then we received at 36 Handles on our first visit today, simply put – the service was outstanding.

From the minute we sat down at our table in the bar area, we were handed menus and a minute or two later we had our drink orders in. Our waitress was very attentive and had a really great attitude. I’ll discuss the food later, for now I want to tell you more about the great service. My wife’s order of fish and chips came out wrong, she ordered panko crusted instead of traditional but that was no problem and did not end up being an issue, in fact it helped us experience another level of service that is sometimes awkward. Our waitress immediately took care of the mix up and promptly kept us informed on the status of the order every few minutes and she even brought over a plate of fries until the new order of fish and chips arrived. That mix up was easily forgotten when getting to experience this kind of top notch service.

The beer list is great with lots of excellent choices of beers of all types, and what’s really amazing is that for an Irish BEER Pub, they have a pretty good selection of good wines too! My wife enjoyed a nice Hess Chardonnay while I had a Kroenenbourg beer.

Photo from 36 Handles Website

The menu has a nice selection of traditional pub fare and more. For food I tried the Corn Beefed Reuben Sandwich made of marble rye, corned beef, white cheddar, braised cabbage, whole grain & served with pub fries. My wife had the fish and chips with Cod (there are 3 choices of fish) and she had it panko style (it’s also served traditional style).

My wife and I have had some pretty good fish and chips at another local restaurant lately, so that was what we used as a benchmark to measure how well 36 Handles makes their fish and chips. The results were immediately recognized, the fish and chips at 36 Handles BEAT the competition! The flavor was outstanding, the sauce amazing and the fish was cooked absolutely perfectly, very nice and flaky and tasty.

36 Handles, has it all – great ambiance, great service AND great food – two thumbs up here! We will be back – often!

36 Handles Pub & Eatery
1010 White Rock Rd.
El Dorado Hills, CA 95762
(916) 941-3606


http://www.36handles.com/

https://www.facebook.com/36Handles

Al’s #1 Beef, Chicago Il

26 Dec

My uncle JD, a life long Chicagoan, gave us a tour of Chicago a few years ago while we were there and for lunch one day he took us all to famous Al’s #1 Italian Beef.

Stepping inside was like stepping back in time where the ambiance and food is exactly the same as it has been for the past 25+ years. Their specialty is their roast beef dipped sandwich, they also sell Chicago hot dogs and tamales and a few other items.

Everything here is classic and tasty. Don’t plan to sit down, though, there are no chairs and tables here, just a counter to lean on, but its fun.

Al’s #1 Italian Beef

http://www.alsbeef.com/index.asp

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The Kitchen Restaurant, Sacramento Ca

26 Dec

What’s to say that hasn’t already been posted a thousand times already about The Kitchen Restaurant? Simply put, this place is the best. Everything is top notch. It’s spendy but well worth it.

Dinning at The Kitchen is equally all about great fresh ingredients, expert preparation, and outstanding entertaining service.

The Kitchen Restaurant
2225 Hurley Way, Sacramento, CA 95825
(916) 568-7171

http://www.thekitchenrestaurant.com

The following photos are of executive chef Noah in action.

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Chinese Food in Folsom, Part 1 – T2 Yan

25 Dec

T2 Yan is a nice Chinese restaurant located in the city of Folsom on Riley Street at the Walmart shopping area in one of the outlying buildings.

The ambiance is very cool and has a tropical Chinese theme to it with subdued lighting that makes for a nice dining experience. In addition to the good food they also have a full bar.

The service and food are both very good at this restaurant, it’s what you’d expect for traditional Chinese cuisine with a few extra specialties including a fresh lobster tank.

We’ve been going to this place regularly since they opened several years ago and we recommend you try them some time soon too.

1010 Riley St., #1, Folsom, Ca.
(916) 983-5275

http://www.t2yan.com

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