Noshtopia

Lollipop Chicken at Straits

You know how you get a food stuck in your head and all you can think about is how you just can't wait to sink your teeth into it? I had Straits Restaurant Lollipop chicken stuck in my head, and was elated at the fact that I was going to get to enjoy some at lunch today in downtown Burlingame with Behind the Makeup pal Allese. The food at Straits by the way is Singaporean.

So here's the Lollipop Chicken that arrived at our table. The Lollipop chicken is basically a chicken drummette where they strip the meat part of the leg so the bone shows to give it that "stick" feel. In this dish, you can see the leg is covered in a sweet chili garlic sauce. The meat is slightly breaded and covered in the sauce much like a piece of sweet & sour chicken, which is all good. However, this isn't what I was expecting.

At the Straits in Santana Row in San Jose, their Lollipop Chicken doesn't have the slight breading at least to my memory, and it doesn't have this sweet chili garlic sauce. Instead, the Lollipop part of the chicken is covered in a very thin yet crispy sweet layer much like the crunchy topping of creme brulee. I love creme brulee really only for that crunchy topping part. I'm happy to give someone else the custard.

So yeah, I was bummed. The Burlingame version was okay. Normally I wouldn't get something like that because of the breading and fried part. The only fried foods I eat is french fries and fish, and really I only eat those on occasion. The rest of our lunch was good though.

We started out with this mixed greens salad. And you'll have to forgive me because I didn't write down the salad name. The menu on the Straits website isn't updated so I couldn't find it there. The part of the salad I loved was the crunchy strips. They're kinda of like those Terra Taro chips.

This dish is called Ikan Pangang and it's salmon wrapped in banana leaves with lemongrass chili sambal. The salmon is so tender. It melts in your mouth like buttah.

We had another chicken dish called Butter Chicken and I took a picture but it came out all blurry. I know. Bummer. And, of course, the must have is a bowl of coconut rice. I don't know how Straits cooks their coconut rice, but I love it and could a whole bowl of it. Haven't tasted anything like this rice anywhere else (yet).

There are 3 Straits in the SF Bay Area, and one in Atlanta. If you have a chance to visit, please do. They also make the most amazing cocktails. I was at Straits on Valentine's Day and had the most delicious watermelon mojito. Scrumptious!

Food Should Taste Good And These Creative Tortilla Chips Certainly Do

I have never thought of tortilla chips as being "creative" but I have been enlightened by the folks at Food Should Taste Good. Yes, that's right, that's the name of their company, "Food Should Taste Good." And indeed, these chips do taste good, I have to say.

So what makes these chips "creative" in my book. Well basically, three things:

• I've never seen tortilla chips in unique shapes with unique flavors (this counts as two things):
  
  • Sweet Potato in an oval shape made from sweet potatoes
  • Jalapeno in a traditional triangle but it's a pretty red color and is made with jalapenos and crushed red peppers
  • Olive which is round and made with black, green, and kalamata olives with garlic
  • Buffalo In a traditional triangle in a dark orangey color made with cayenne pepper, vinegar, and garlic
  • Multi-Grain in a hexagon shape made with flax, sunflower, sesame seeds, oat fiber, brown rice, Quinoa, and Soy
  • The Works in a square shape made with poppy and caraway seeds, garlic, and onion
  • Chocolate in a rectangle made with semi-sweet chocolate and dutch cocoa
  • NOTE: If you click on each product link, it will take you to the nutritional info and ingredients list.
• The third thing. The beautiful packaging. The product designer in me LOVES the packaging and the look and feel of this brand. To me it says stylish, classy, and standout. Seriously, if you laid out a table full of bowls of tortilla chips, these FSTG chips would easily stick out in the crowd. Food stylists and those with an eye for hip will love these chips.

The wow factor: these chips are certified gluten free, certified OU Kosher, cholesterol and trans fat free, dairy/lactose free, MSG free, and non-GMO.

The bonus factor: On the back of each bag are recommended accompaniments to go with the chips.To me, that is brilliant and so helpful. For example, with the Sweet Potato you can dip it in apple butter, and for The Works you can enjoy them with buffalo mozzarella. I'd never think of that.

With the Chocolate, I coupled them with this easy Chocolate Ricotta, and oh was it divine!  Of all the FSTG chips, the chocolate was my favorite because they taste like crunchy cookies with salt. I'm one of those who really digs sweet/salty combos like yogurt covered pretzels. My second favorite were the Sweet Potato. Oh it was sooo good!

Not all flavors are sold in all stores. Here's a product locator. There is an online coupon available for $1 off.

Food Should Taste Good, and when it does, you should eat it! Definitely try these chips for your next poker night, slumber party, wine & cheese event, wedding shower, or just because.

Trader Joe's Wasabi Tempura Seaweed Snacks

I was at Trader Joe's the other day, and saw these Wasabi Tempura Seaweed Snacks, and zOMG! they are the bomb! Yeah, that's a double exclamation point. These snacks are made in Japan for Trader Joe's.

I don't know who came up with this idea at Trader Joe's but this chip-like snack hits it out of the ball park for me. I LOVE it! And I don't get this excited about chips my friends, but holey moley!

Now the wasabi flavor is not consistent with all the chips. You can eat one chip that has almost no wasabi, and then you can eat another chip that is like wowza my lips are stinging. I was okay with that. It was kinda like a little surprise game. Wasabi is exciting to me because of that stinging-ness.

Here is the nutritional information on the Wasabi Tempura Seaweed Snacks. One serving is 7 pieces and really that is a good portion. Each piece is about 1-1/2" x 2-1/2" in size.

I have nothing left to say but I'm going back tomorrow to buy another bag. I will have to run some extra mileage to eat these puppies but so what its' worth it :-D

Rachel's Pear and Mangosteen Cottage Cheese in a Yogurt Cup

The product designer in me loves to see refreshing packaging. Walking down the dairy aisle at Whole Foods, I remembered that I needed to pick up some Honey Greek Yogurt for my Cantaloupe and Ginger  Snap Granola with Pecan dish. While perusing all the different yogurts, my eye caught the words "Pear and Mangosteen."

I got a bit excited here as Mangosteen is an exotic fruit I like but you don't really see it (yet) in many every day foods like yogurt. As usual, I grabbed the cup to check out the nutrition label, and was a bit surprised (pleasantly though) to see that it wasn't yogurt but actually cottage cheese. I thought, "How clever!"

I mean really. Why do you need to design a different package for cottage cheese? Putting cottage cheese in yogurt cups makes sense.

So how did Rachel's Pear Mangosteen cottage cheese taste?

It was good. I likely! I added in some cut up Bosc pear chunks to jazz it up a bit. The pear and mangosteen fruit flavors were only a hint, and there were some fruit chunks in there albeit very small and few. Rachel’s cottage cheese are free of artificial sweeteners, flavors, preservatives and no high fructose corn syrup. w00t!

This 5oz. cup was only 130 calories which makes for a really great afternoon snack or nice addition to breakfast with half a bagel or some granola. Here's the nutritional information with ingredients list.

I enjoyed Rachel's Cottage Cheese and definitely am going to try the other flavors which include Pomegranate-Orange-Cranberry, Lemon-Verbana-Berry, Sun Dried Tomato Pesto, Cucumber Dill, and Roasted Red Pepper. I think it's cool that Rachel's has both sweet and savory offerings.

Next time, we'll try Rachel's yogurts.

A Den Just For Cookbooks

In my dream house, I want to have a den that is full of just cook books something like this book area in one of my favorite local grocery stores Draeger's. I'd like to collect cookbooks from all over the world, and even have some signed copies from the chefs themselves. Wouldn't that be so fun?!

Obviously, one of my favorite past times is looking at big glossy pictures of food in cook books. I can do this for hours. Huge pictures of succulent looking food is probably my main criteria for buying a cookbook unless it's an old cookbook before the days of digital photography. Because digital photography is so easy and less costly than film, there is no reason in my mind that a cookbook should not be full of beautiful photos of the dishes.

As well, I like the photos because they give me an idea of how the dish should look like. Now, I never follow directions exactly, and I'm always, always tweaking or re-inventing recipes, but I still like to have a visual to go by. And, looking at all those fabulous food photos gives me inspiration for my own food shots.

One day, I would like to get my food shots to the level where I can publish a full cookbook. Ah! Dreams are so delicious. It's fun being a food blogger :-D

But Arugula in Salad is So Bitter....

I think Arugula is one of the best greens Mother Nature invented. Because of arugula, I'm enjoying fresh green salad a whole lot more, in fact I eat arugula like every other day, because I like arugula's peppery flavor which adds a great deal of flavor to the salad without me having to add all kinds of dressings, oils, or vinegars. And eating greens is good for you because it's roughage. That's right good old roughage full of fiber so we have healthy b-movements.

Plus, I don't know about you, but I am soooo done with ice berg! Years of dieting will definitely make one very tired of the ice berg.

As much as I love this green leafy goodness, I get that fresh arugula can be a bit too much for some people. The common complaint I hear is, "...but it's so bitter." The first time I had arugula, I thought the same thing. If you steam arugula like spinach or cook it in a dish like my favorite Mango, Chicken (or Tempeh) and Arugula, then the bitter peppery taste calms down quite a bit.

So, here's an easy trick to help make eating fresh arugula in salad a more pleasant experience without drowning the poor green in dressing. Mix the arugula in with mixed greens. Yup, see, easy!

At Whole Foods in the fresh produce section in my area, there is typically four bins of greens: arugula, spinach, mixed greens, and exotic mixed greens where they put things in like chards. In the picture, is a local farmer's market where the vendor had all kinds of baskets of different greens. It's like a greens buffet.

I'll fill a bag with a tongful from each of the bins, and do a shake n' bake type of thing in the bag. So voila! The arugula is now mixed with other greens that are less or non bitter so now, each bite you take is flavorful versus too bittery.

Quick Scrumptious Cantaloupe with Ginger Snap Granola

Doesn't that look yummy? You can eat this for breakfast, brunch, or as an afternoon snack. And best yet, this simple dish is quick to make. The ingredients contain:

• Cube-like chunks of chilled cantaloupe

• Couple dollops of Honey Greek Yogurt

• Ginger Snap Granola which I got at the bulk bins at my local Whole Foods

• Bits of chopped up pecans

The Ginger Snap Granola sounded good because I thought the ginger would be kind of a complimentary contrast to the cantaloupe. Plus, for about one cup's amount, it was about 60 cents at my local Whole Foods. I added in the pecans, which I also got in the bulk foods aisle, to the granola to add some protein to the dish.

I've been really jonesing on Greek yogurt lately because I like that it's thicker than your typical yogurt, and because Greek yogurt is thicker it's nice to use as a fruit topper because it won't quickly slide to the bottom of the bowl. The yogurt hangs on top longer. The two brands I've been eating are the Greek Gods Greek Yogurt and Chobani.

To make this dish vegan friendly, use soy or rice based yogurt like Ricera.

If you're not in the mood for yogurt, cottage cheese would make a nice alternative.

Gratuitous Shots of Fries, Fries, and Rings

One of my indulgence foods is french fries and onion strings, the skinny rings. So, for pure gratuitous enjoyment here are some of my favorite fried creations from local jaunts

Here we have from The Counter, one of my favorite burger joints where you can make 312,120+ burger combinations (can you say burger cornucopia?), a side of "Fifty-Fifty" Sweet Potato Fries and Onion Strings. Not many places make sweet potato fries so whenever I see them on the menu, I just gotta get 'em. And just in case, here's a typical burger I'll order with these dee-lish fries. It's Zone-friendly too!

From Pluto's, here's a plate of their Garlic Potato Rings. I like to sprinkle the garlic rings with ketchup and Tabasco. Yum!