I have another dinner from our road trip that I want to share.

I usually don’t like Mexican food, but last Thursday (I think?) night it was late when we got into Tulsa (Oklahoma) and I didn’t feel like making an effort to find a good place. We decided to go to Monterey’s Little Mexico restaurant right near the hotel. (Funny how we went to another restaurant called Monterey the night before.)

We started off with free chips and salsa (score!):

I can’t find what I ordered on the online menu, but here it is:

It was a grilled chicken breast with a side of rice and beans, plus sauteed veggies. I don’t like beans so I asked for extra veggies instead. But I kept the rice – it was delicious (I usually hate rice). I actually finished this whole plate. Bobby got this gigantic margarita:

I think he almost finished it, with a little help from me. It was pretty yummy but not very alcoholic.

I really liked Monterey’s in Tulsa – I hope they come to New York soon!

Today I had a yummy *vegan* meal from Wegmans (a grocery store in NJ and NY that I worked at in high school). Back at Cornell, Bobby and I (and others) would make midnight runs to Wegmans and buy humongous bags of sour gummy worms. We were an odd group.

I got 2 packages of a butternut squash dish (butternut squash, spinach, cranberries, and onions with a whole lot of oil and a few spices) and a veggie medley dish (zucchini, yellow squash, carrots, red peppers, green beans, and some more oil). I love Wegmans’ prepared food. I think I like it more than Whole Foods’ hot bar. I have to figure out the recipe for the butternut squash one. I don’t think it’ll be too hard.

Do you buy prepared food? Why or why not?

P.S. …I have some good news. Friends, email me if you want to hear about it!

Bobby’s cousins are so sweet. I’m going to miss them a lot. On our last night in California (Monday, November 9th) we went out together to Blue Mango (our favorite restaurant) in Santa Clara. Blue Mango is a Thai restaurant and they have a separate vegetarian menu (I haven’t used it in a while). We shared a bunch of dishes…

Appetizer: Heavenly Stuffed Wings – de-boned chicken wings stuffed with ground chicken, silver noodle, cilantro, water chestnut and black mushroom. They came with this great sweet dipping sauce. This was kind of scary at first (fried! processed! breaded!) but the deliciousness made up for it.

For dinner we shared 4 dishes. The Blue Mango Fried Rice – a big house special: chicken fried rice topped with sweet garlic pork.

The Green Curry – eggplant, bamboo, and bell pepper are soaked in coconut milk, with a hint of basil (cannot be mild).

Mushroom Mountain, as usual – soft tofu, baby corn, bamboo, straw mushroom, and bean sprout stir-fried with a bit of green curry paste. Sesame seed are sprinkled on for a beautiful finish.

And Basil Chili Chicken, also as usual – with bell pepper and onion.

After dinner we went out for dessert (frozen yogurt) at Golden Spoon – pumpkin pie and chocolate flavors. The toppings were raspberries, mango (not ripe, unfortunately), and crushed brownie bits.

Blue Mango never disappoints. And neither does Golden Spoon. If you ever get a chance, go there! (I’m talking about the Blue Mango on Stevens Creek – I hear the other one is not so good.)

Now that I’m in NJ I don’t have Blue Mango. But I do have Edo Sushi! Bobby, Julia, and I all went out for dinner tonight. I love this place. Edo Sushi is a Japanese and Chinese restaurant on Route 31 in the same shopping center as Pennington Market. It’s about a 10 minute walk from my parents’ house.

First is the tea… (unlimited and free – my two favorite qualities). Notice my cool NY key chain – it’s kind of vintage because it has the twin towers on it. I think I got it back in middle school.

I got chicken and broccoli with the sauce on the side (brown sauce).

The other pictures didn’t come out, but Julia got veggies and tofu with the sauce on the side (also brown sauce). Bobby got the Dragon vs. Phoenix – chicken, shrimp, and veggies stir-fried with yet another brown sauce. He also got a big pot of rice.

We finished everything. The check came with pineapple cubes and fortune cookies. Yum! I love Edo’s.

This dinner was nice after my indulgent afternoon… My parents gave me a massage + facial combo for my birthday and I finally used it. I went to Sydney Albert Salon Spa in Princeton. I’d highly recommend this place – I’ve been going there for years and I’ve always loved everything. Their haircuts are amazing, the facials are fantastic, and the massage was wonderful. Bobby also got a massage and he loved it.

While we were getting pampered, our Relocube arrived. Now we have to unpack it. I’m going into the city tomorrow, but when I get home I think we’re going to try to start sorting through all of our stuff. It’ll be a big project.

What’s your favorite restaurant?

You all know how much I heart Foodbuzz. Now look at all these awesome samples that I heart as well (from the afternoon tasting). I can’t possibly post everything I tried, but here are the pictures that came out well.

Brandi’s Stuffed French Toast:

Sabrina’s Egg White Veggie Frittata Muffins:

Frog Hollow Farm’s dried fruits (and Warren pears! So amazing).

Frog Hollow Farm also had a variety of chutneys and conserves, which were incredible. This was my favorite booth of the afternoon.

Some kind of shrimp and scallop ceviche from Fuego (can’t find a link):

A cool table with non-traditional shortbread made by Botanical Bakery:

Handmade marshmallows (pumpkin was one of the flavors) by Gateau et Ganache:

Chocolate covered nuts. I brought some of these home for Bobby and he has been calling them "poo balls". They are delicious despite their odd nickname.

My favorite candy of the day, made by Nina. Her Single Malt Scotch Bar was awesome.

Annie the Baker’s cookies. Amazingly buttery and delicious. They tasted just like cookie dough.

p.o.p. candy’s toffee – I had so much of the chai one. It had nuts and dried fruit.

Yummy (and pretty) chocolates.

Fabulous spreads.

479 Popcorn. My favorite was the curry (odd because I don’t like Indian food).

My other favorite dish of the day – Vineyard Pantry’s Autumn Savory Tartlets (little pastry filled with wild rice, butternut squash, blue cheese mustard, cheese, and more). I can’t wait to experiment with their products.

A crazy cool beet meringue goat cheese savory dessert thing. It was a work of art (and quite tasty).

Olives.

Shannon’s savory bread pudding.

I still have pictures from dinner, but I’ll save them. I met so many amazing people, including Emily from Foodzie – what a cool woman. That is a company I would love to work for.

A big thanks to FOODBUZZ for an amazing weekend.

In other news… wish me luck – we’re moving this week. (We’re taking off Tuesday instead of Monday.) Road trip from Sunnyvale to Princeton with two cats. Will be interesting.

Happy Monday! (Or Sunday, if you’re up late.) What did you do this weekend?

Now Coco and Sophia are both here!

Tonight we drove up to San Francisco for the first Foodbuzz Festival event. The welcome reception was from 5-7pm at the Hotel Vitale. This wasn’t the main food event of the day, but they did have two cool appetizers: gruyere gougeres with bacon and mascarpone and pork rillettes. They were provided by midi.

I tried the rilletes. Pretty good, but kind of salty. I didn’t try the puff things, but they looked cool.

After the reception we headed over to the Ferry Building for an amazing dinner event. Foodbuzz rented out a portion of the building and had restaurants serving food all the way down the alley.

As soon as we entered I saw mini cupcakes, and I couldn’t resist. Dessert first! I tried the pumpkin cupcake, but they also had red velvet, chocolate cinnamon, and an almond flavored one. I had an almond one on my way out for my real dessert. These were provided by Mission Minis.

I also tried this delicious vanilla bean ice cream by Straus Family Creamery. Awesome.

Then it was time for some real food. I had a bean burrito from Tacolicious. It wasn’t that good. I wanted chicken, but they were out. They had cool shirts though.

I also tried these savory vegetarian and meat pies from Pie Truck. Pretty yummy!

And a raw oyster from Hog Island Oyster Co…. awesome.

I passed on these chicharrones (fried pork chips) but they were cool looking. From 4505 Meats.

Alive had a selection of raw foods – 2 raw pizzas and raw cheesecake. These were okay. Not my favorite, to be honest.

The best items of the night: Spencer on the Go’s Beet Salad with blue cheese and "far west fungi vol au vent" (creamy mushrooms on top of a puff thing). I went back for seconds on both of these.

Then there was some incredible thin crust pizza from Pizza Politana. This was the best pizza I’ve had outside of Italy and New York. And I didn’t think I was a pizza person.

Lastly, there was a cool pork sandwich and potatoes from Roli Roti. This seemed to be really popular with other bloggers, but I thought it was just okay.

They had this funny shirt: "I heart Crispy Skin". (TWSS? Not.)

My favorite of the night was absolutely the mushroom dish from Spencer on the Go (second favorite was their beet salad). Holy amazing yum. On the way out I snagged some more ice cream and the almond cupcake.

Don’t worry, I didn’t finish everything pictured. I can’t wait to see what’s in store for tomorrow… Happy Saturday!