2nd Chances...

So…I’ve never been a fan of Indian food…I guess partially because I’ve had an idea that Indian food is just mushy and also I’ve never had good Indian food. I remember the last time I had Indian food was at least 5 years ago at Clay Pit in Addison. It was not memorable….all I remember was that it wasn’t good and it was SERIOUSLY overpriced.

Chaat Cafe
18101 Preston Road
Dallas, TX 75252
(972) 381-0003
http://www.chaatcafedallas.com/index.asp
Price: $

Well, my sister loves Indian food. Her old roommate was Indian and her mom would often cook for them. Since I’m all about trying different/new types of foods, I was willing to give Indian another try. I had a gift certificate for Chaat Café on Preston & Frankford so we decided to go there. It was a busy little place. A steady stream of customers continued to come in while we were there. It’s the type of restaurant where you order at the counter and they bring the food to you.

I ordered the Chicken Tikka Masala ‘Dinner’ (Curry with boneless cubes of chicken in a tomato and onion based sauce) $9.99~ The dinner option includes the entrée with vegetable of the day, dal, rice, and naan. They also have a la carte options where you only get rice or naan. $6.99~

The dish was pretty good…there was A LOT of food. The naan was delicious (by itself or dipped in the curry), and the curry sauce over the rice was really good as well. I think I like Indian food!! Hehe :P

My sister ordered the Lamb Vindaloo ‘A la Carte’ (Curry with boneless cubes of lamb in a spicy tomato and onion based sauce), served with naan. $7.99~ The sauce had a slight heat to it (we LOVE spicy!), and was more flavorful than the Tikka Masala. Personally, I’m not a fan of lamb. I don’t like the smell or the “lamb” taste. The lamb in the Vindaloo did not have that smell or taste so it was good in my books. Haha. My sister told me that the flavors of the dishes weren’t very authentic Indian, but we both still agreed that the food was not too bad.









We also got a side of Cucumber Salad. $1.99~ It was light and refreshing. We enjoyed it.

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~~ CHOMP CHOMP ~~

Start to a new year....

This is going to be a pretty long post...

Here are some of the places I went to in January 2009. I take food pics everywhere I go, but just now getting around to posting them…hehe. Enjoy~
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Bread Winners Cafe & Bakery
4021 Preston Rd
Plano, TX 75093
(972) 312-9300
http://www.breadwinnerscafe.com/
Price: $$

I took my parents to a late lunch at the Bread Winners Café in Plano. This is the 2nd time that I’ve eaten there; both times have been more brunch type foods. I really want to try dinner there one of these days.

We got a couple things to share. First is the Veggie Scramble: spinach, broccoli, artichoke, tomato, mushroom. We had them put the herb cream cheese on the side since my mom doesn’t like too much cheese. It comes with a side of Brunch Potatoes. $9.50~

Overall, the dish was very light and healthy, and the portion was quite large. The presentation was pretty meh…as you can see. Haha. I think that the scramble could’ve been a little more seasoned…a little more salt and pepper and maybe even a dash of Tabasco would do the trick. It was decent, the main thing is that it wasn’t heavy, which is what we wanted.














We also got an order of Buttermilk Pancakes to share. $3.95~

You can add different fruit toppings on it for an extra charge, but we decided not to. Now, for the price, I think this is a pretty good deal. The pancakes weren’t spectacular, but they were good. Fluffy, not too heavy or doughy, just what you would expect a pancake to be. Again, not much there as far as presentation goes…

And lastly, to satisfy my sweet tooth (my dad has one too…hehe), of course we had to go peek through their dessert display case. Bread Winners has a wide variety of cakes, pies, tortes, muffins, cookies, etc… And they all look delicious! We decided on a slice of their Chocolate Seduction Cake. $4.50~


I believe it’s 4 layers of different cakes: 3 of them are chocolate and one layer is a white cake; and topped off with a whipped frosting. Isn’t it pretty?!? :P

The cake was good…very chocolaty, but a little too sweet. It would go really well with a cup of tea or something. However, it was missing something…not enough different textures or something. I was a little disappointed on that note.

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**Update 12.28.10**

Tart Pastry Boutique is now closed.

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Went with a friend to Tart Pastry Boutique & Studio at the Shops at Legacy in Plano for the first time. http://www.tartbakerydallas.com/

They were having a 1 year anniversary special on their cupcakes. Buy 1 get 1 half off. They also had some samples out of their Lemon Meringue Tart. I normally don’t like lemon, but the tart was really good. The whip cream on top was slightly torched so it had a nice crisp to it.

So we decided take advantage of their special and get some cupcakes. If I remember correctly, each cupcake is $2.50~ I got a cinnamon cupcake to eat there and 3 to go: Red Velvet, Chocolate with vanilla frosting, and White with chocolate frosting. My friend got the strawberry cupcake to try.

Although they all looked really cute and delicious…I was unimpressed. First of all, I think most cupcake places overcharge… $2.50-3.50 for a cupcake seems pretty ridiculous to me. So if I’m going to pay that for a cupcake, I expect it to be awesome! The cupcakes were a little too sweet, and quite dry. I hate dry cupcakes. To make a moist cupcake, you need to use oil, but seems like a lot of places still bake with butter. Butter tends to dry out the cake…I don’t know why they never learn…
So I was pretty disappointed… At least they were pretty to look at… :/

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Me and two of my coworkers created a lunch club. :P We’re called “L2E” which stands for “Love 2 Eat”! hehe. Every few weeks or months we get together and go out to lunch. I’m usually in charge of picking the location since I love food more than anyone they know. Haha… I try to pick a new place every time.

This time we went to Thai Tanee…a little Thai place by Valley View Mall…on Alpha and Montfort.
5635 Alpha Rd
Dallas, TX 75240
(972) 960-1313
http://www.thaitaneecafe.com/
Price: $

We all ordered from the Lunch Specials menu. Every order comes with an egg roll and soup of the day.

I got the Pad Thai with chicken (rice noodle, egg, bean sprouts, green onion, tossed in a tamarind sauce, and garnished with fresh bean sprouts). $7.25~ Pad Thai is kind of my staple for every new Thai place. A lot of places make it too sweet…it’s hard to find places with really good Pad Thai.

The Pad Thai was not too bad. Slightly sweeter than I would prefer, but the sweetness wasn’t too overpowering. Not the best I’ve had, but it was not too bad. The portions were pretty big. I had to take half of my dish to go.

My coworker ordered the Spicy Big Noodle (Pad Kee Mow: flat rice noodle, egg, broccoli, onion, tomato, and fresh basil) with chicken. $7.25~ This is another staple for Thai food…best if you order it SPICY!! J However, the waiter didn’t ask if he wanted it spicy so this dish was lacking the heat that it needed...

Another coworker ordered the Tom Kha Noodle Soup (rice noodle, straw mushrooms, green onion, and cilantro). $6.95~ (with shrimp add $2). Tom Kha soup has coconut milk in it so it’s a creamy broth. She ate all the “stuff” in the bowl but didn’t drink much of the soup…not sure if she was just full or if the broth just wasn’t that great… I’m not a big soup person so I didn’t think much of the soup.
Overall, it was up to par with most other Thai places I’ve been to, but I’m not sure if it’s special enough for me to go back...

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~~ CHOMP CHOMP ~~

My FIRST post!! :) "Rise No 1"

My blog has OFFICIALLY started!! YAY! Took me long enough to finally get started...haha.

So...for my first post, I wanted it to be somewhere really cool and special. :) Went there for Valentine's Day (well, the day after...haha) but it was SUPER good!!

Rise No 1
5360 West Lovers Ln #220
Dallas, TX 75209
(214) 366-9900
risesouffle.com‎

It's called "Rise No 1", located on Lovers Lane and Inwood. It specializes in souffles and French cuisine. It's a cute little place with outdoor seating. The inside is very quaint and quite romantic. The price is a little high for my wallet, but the food was DELICIOUS and different than the norm. I will definitely go back again~

Now for the pictures!! :D

We did a late lunch/tea time kind of thing. I got the Chamomile and he got the Earl Grey. The little tea pots were pretty cute! Although the water was not hot enough for me...

We ordered the Rise No 1 salad: baby greens, blue cheese, roasted pecans, Granny Smith apples & pecan vinaigrette. $6~

It's basically the house salad. I was a little hesitant at first because it seemed like there was a lot of dressing on there. I'm not a fan of salad drowning in dressing. But it was surprisingly light, and slightly sweet. A very good starter.

Then we moved on to the savory souffle. This is the Herb & Spicy Sausage Souffle. $16~

Technically I've never had a REAL souffle, but I've had an idea of how they should be. This was super fluffy and light. The top crust of it was slightly crunchy and cheesy. The inside consistency was like a steamed egg (if you've ever had one). Tasted slightly like a pizza since its cheesy with sausage. Overall I LOVED it. Really light, flavorful, and well cooked.


After savory is SWEET of course! :D My favorite course of a meal! We got 2 different desserts...























The first is the Bread Pudding Souffle. $12~ It's the same size as the savory souffle!! When it's served, the waiter uses the spoon to poke a hole in the top of the souffle and pours the cream down the middle. It was quite sweet...tasted just like a regular bread pudding, but has the light/airy consistency instead of a normal dense bread pudding. Personally, I like the texture of regular bread pudding, so I wasn't as fond of this. Don't get me wrong...it was still really good!















Next is the Gateau de Chocolat. $9~

This was almost heaven... I'm a HUGE chocolate lover, so anything chocolate is good in my standards. haha. This is bascially what you would call a chocolate "lava" cake...where the middle has molten chocolate that oozes out when you break it open. (I'm drooling as I'm writing this...) One of the best molten chocolate cakes I've had EVER. The cake was super moist, the middle had a good amount of molten chocolate, and the outside had a nice thin crisp shell to it. Slap on a side of vanilla ice cream is just the icing on the cake! :P YUM-MYYYYY~

So...to sum it up... my personal rating system:

(1-really bad ~ 2-mehh... ~ 3-it's not bad ~ 4-pretty good! ~ 5-almost perfect!!)

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I totally recommend this place to everyone. And I hope you have just as great of a time as me! ^.^

~~ CHOMP CHOMP ~~