The We-Will-Make-You-Jealous Thanksgiving blog. Part 2 - Foodventure Friday!

I mean, you would think that we would've taken a break after all that cooking and eating, but how much better to maximize the time we had together over break than to foodventure it out on Black Friday, especially since everyone's out shopping and such (and not eating, or so we thought).

Our epic foodventure started very, very early that day--at around 2ish in the morning, where this list was drawn up by the foodventurers, who used Google Maps and Yelp--both of which proved to be excellent research resources.

"The List"

Our foodventure started at around 11:30 or 12 that morning, where we all got ourselves out of bed and into the car.

First Stop--90 Miles to Cuba Cafe: My friend recommended this to me and said it was delicious. She's Cuban, so I took her word for it. This was a very tiny restaurant, with merely a counter to order in just a counter of seats in the back to sit on--no actual tables or anything like that. The walls were completely covered with a lot of things--newspaper articles, memorabilia, and the like, making staring at the wall pretty interesting.

Mariquitas (Plantain chips): Loved these--they were delicious, freshly-fried and topped with a garlicky sauce. Yum. Reminded me a bit of the garlic fries that they have in baseball games from Kidd Valley.

Empanadas (one was guava and the other one was chorizo): These were hot and delicious. It was interesting to compare these to all the other empanadas I've had in the Philippines, because these were deep-fried instead of baked, and crisp instead of crumbly/flaky. The chorizo on the inside of one empanada had a nice spice to it, and the guava was more of in jam form--so was sweet and sticky, which went well with the fried crispiness of the outside layer.

Ropa Vieja sandwich: Yum. I guess you could say that this was analogous to having a pulled pork sandwich, except that the sauce for this was more tomato-based rather than barbecue-based. The beef in the sandwich was moist, juicy and flavorful, tasting like it had been stewing in the sauce for a while.
Cubano sandwich: If the Ropa Vieja was similar to a pulled-pork sandwich, this would be more of a ham and cheese sandwich. It was okay, but I thought it was unremarkable (which I guess goes without saying, because how much can you really do with a ham and cheese sandwich?).
Overall...I thought it was good, and a great way to start the foodventure. Cheap and tasty is always a good combination.

Second Stop--Hot Chocolate: Since this place has always been getting rave reviews from people (on Yelp, and otherwise) who claim that they had delicious desserts, we decided to try it out.

Chocolate #1 (chocolate souffle, salted caramel ice cream and salted pretzel): I mean, it was good--the chocolate souffle was bittersweet and slightly dense--which went nicely with the salty-creaminess of the ice cream and the salty-crunchiness of the homemade pretzel...but in the end it was just what it was: a pretzel, a chocolate souffle, and a scoop of caramel ice cream...nothing I haven't seen before (especially with the current trend towards putting salt with chocolate). It was pretty unexciting, so I would say it was definitely overpriced.

Creme Brulee: I was never really a creme brulee person to begin with anyways, and thought this was just okay. Even though I don't like creme brulees, I know I've definitely had better ones that were more custardy/creamy.

Brioche Donuts with Hot Fudge and Caramel Popcorn: Yeah...I can see what these people were trying to do--"dressing up" the concept of donuts with the idea of churros con chocolate. It was good, but it was just so... average.

Overall...It's okay, but it's just nothing I haven't seen before, and it can't justify the high price tags of the desserts at this place. Definitely overpriced. Maybe I should just try their drinks (they have a huge selection) next time.

Third Stop--Bellyshack: Bellyshack is one of two restaurants opened up by Bill Kim (the other one being Urban Belly, which I've also been to before). His main concept when it comes to food is to reimagine local street food and do something different with it. Since he's Korean, most of the things he had were more Asian-inspired, but he mixed a lot of non-traditional Asian ingredients in his reimagining of the dishes, and vice-versa (bringing in Asian influences to typically non-Asian food).

Belly Dog with Kimchi Salsa and Egg Noodle: Probably my favorite among the two things we tried, the belly dog took the idea of a hot dog and made it a bit Asian, with the addition of egg noodles and kimchi salsa on it. Although the hot dog was just a standard hot dog, the egg noodles added a crispiness in texture to it, which was complemented by the crunchy kimchi, which had a nice spicy kick to the belly dog. The Togarashi fries on the side with the curry mayonnaise was good too...and kind of addictive. I thought that this dish would've been a little more interesting if the noodles were slightly crispy, instead of just normal noodles, because the overall crunchiness would've factored in more as a textural component of the dish instead of you eating it and being like..."hmm, I'm eating two kinds of carbs..."

Asian Meatballs with Rice Noodles and Mint: I feel that this was their attempted version of a meatball sub, or a pita pocket, which was hard to split among 5 people, because everything kind of just fell out--what we ended up doing was taking a few bites and passing it on to the next person. I thought it was pretty interesting, but it wasn't totally innovative or something that required that much skill to make. Tastewise, it was okay. I felt like it was just a normal Asian noodle dish (similar to the Vietnamese noodle dishes where you have meat over rice noodles) inside a piece of bread.

Overall...Of course, it was nice to see the combinations that the chef did, which made one realize how much overlap there was among the street foods of the world, but once you had that idea--it's not that difficult to execute these things...they can just be done at home.

Fourth Stop--Crisp: Voted as one of the best fried chicken in America by Yahoo Travel (speaking of which, there's one in the article that's in Seattle that I should look into...), Crisp is run by a guy named Jay, who was working the counter while we were there. He had an interesting story--he used to be a hedge fund manager, who decided to open up this place, where he wanted to bring Korean food to the mainstream American taste, since he believes that there are a lot of Korean dishes that are variations of familiar American foods...like fried chicken.

Seoul Sassy and Crisp BBQ chicken wings: These were delicious, and executed so perfectly. I don't know how the guy did it (aside from saying later on that his wings were a 2-day work in progress), but these wings were not greasy, and the skin was caramelized very flavorfully with the sauce. For some chicken wings, you sometimes get the feeling that the sauce and the wings are two separate entities, but in the case of Crisp, both just went together so well and stayed true to the name--they were perfectly crisp. The sauces that they used were pretty good too--the Seoul Sassy was slightly sweet, while the Crisp BBQ used the ground red pepper sauce normally used for Kimchi (if I'm not mistaken) which added a smokiness and a little bit of heat to the wings.

Overall...Loved it, and would go back (especially since the owner Jay said he'd give me free kimchi next time...yay!)

Fifth Stop--Five Guys: So the five of us went to five guys as our fifth stop, because none of us had gone here and we'd all heard that it was pretty good for burgers and fries.

...they had Free peanuts! (which made Mindy happy, because they were free...not because they were peanuts)

French Fries: So Five Guys is known for having very fluffy and airy fries which are crisp on the outside. Yeah, that was true--their fries were pretty good. Not the best fries I've had though, but good all the same. Supposedly they have Cajun fries too, but we didn't get those. Maybe next time.

Bacon Cheeseburger: By this time, we were pretty full already from the day of eating, so we just split this big burger into smaller portions. Nothing much to say about it to be honest--it was a very normal burger. It was a good normal burger...but a normal burger is a normal burger.

Overall...I was kind of underwhelmed by Five Guys--not that I was expecting a lot either--it was just very average American food done well.

Overall on the Day...Foodventuring was fun, although we were all pretty full after (and during) the course of the day. Also felt the aftereffects of a food coma to some degree. Totally worth it though.