The Hills

I know I have not blogged here in a while, but I had something I had to get off my chest.  I was up late last night and happened to catch my first view of The Hills (really, there wasn't anything else better on...well, at least I thought so at the time). 

So in brief the "plot line" of the episode was that girl A had broken up with her boyfriend.  There was a different boy, B, in their circle of friends who was dating girl C.  The boys decided to take a Hawaii vacation to surf.  Girl A got a small circle of girl friends together to "crash" the boys' vacation.  While they were all having dinner in Hawaii, Girl A admits to "having a small crush" on boy B.  Blah blah blah, Boy B ends up sleeping with Girl A.

Seriously!?!?!?!  Is that all it takes in this day and age?  If someone says that they have a small crush on you, you just forget that you have a girlfriend and just sleep with them? 

I posed this question to my roommate, who is more "hip" and "with it" than I am.  Her opinion is that, "Yup, that is all it takes.  Most guys would jump at the chance to sleep with a girl who admits to having a crush on them."

I know most of my friends no longer uses this site, but would be very curious to hear other people's opinions.  Either way, I probably will not be watching The Hills again anytime soon.

Shady Maples Revisited - Early!

So the other day we were told not to show up at work until 12:30.  I thought what better time to go to Shady Maples?  You might be thinking, "What?!?!?!" Since I started this new project, I had to learn to get up early, and Shady Maples ends their breakfast buffet at 10:00am.  So I figured, what better way to trick myself into getting up early than with the promise of delicious awesome food?  Another of my night owl friends also loves breakfast, so I thought I would entice him with the same offer.

We were good and made it to Shady Maples by 9:00am.  We totally pigged out!  Everything was delicious.  The only mildly disappointing note was that the cheese sausage was a bit overcooked, so not so juicy.  The eggs benedict was delicious.  But my favorite was their apple fritter.  Drool!  You could see the chunks of apple and they even included raisins.  It was fried and crispy to perfection.

After thinking about the apple fritter, this has to be a short post, because I am now starving!  Needless to say, it was totally worth waking up for.

Dry and as Far from Ethiopian as One Gets

One of my best friends and complete pizza addict mentioned that he had never been to Tacconelli's.  Although I had never been either, I was shocked and thought that he, of all people, should visit this infamous place.  After multiple calls (3) I finally got through to a person (their answering machine asks one to not leave a message and apparently they were on vacation), and was able to pre-order my dough. 

After walking in, you can see immediately that this was a cutesy, classic neighborhood pizza joint.  Although it was 8:45pm and we had made reservations, the place was packed and we had to wait a good few minutes before a table opened up.  I visited the restroom and realized that it was tiny and tight (but thank goodness clean).  Anyone who is not a size 4 or below would probably be more comfortable not squeezing the this restroom.

The pizza, when it came, was a thin crust pizza.  We had ordered a regular pizza with spinach, sausage and half pepperoni and half mushroom.  The pizza was fairly delicious.  The toppings were incredible, fresh and delicious.  The tomato sauce was a great flavor, not too acidic.  If one likes a thin crust, the crust was very good and crispy.  It was like air, even though I was not that hungry, I easily downed 3 slices and seriously thought about the 4th one. 

Now for the few negatives.  There was not enough cheese for my taste.  And the weirdest one is that the pizza leaves a dry, papery feeling in your mouth after you eat.  This is especially on the roof of your mouth and your tongue.  Very bizarre and a little worrying.  For me, this took a star away, frankly, I should probably take 2.  This pizza overall is a bit overrated in my personal opinion.

On the plus side our waitress was very nice and sweet.  All the waitresses seemed like they were this way too!

Foodies Unite for Ethiopian

I had a very special experience the other night with several (8 others) foodie friends.  I have been talking up Ethio Cafe so much that a few of my foodie friends (you know who you are ) really wanted to try it and bring their other foodie friends too.  It was a wonderful experience to talk food and trade notes on Ethiopian and other restaurants with these folks.

I made reservations at Ethio Cafe and was a little disappointed to see chef #2 on deck (see 2 entries ago for explanation).  But the food was delicious, and the wonderful thing about having so many people was that we were able to order one of everything off the menu!  Mmmm I had the Kitfo again, this time completely raw. Although I am not a big fan of raw meat, the texture was delicious raw.  It was creamy and had the consistency of tuna tartare. One friend did not think it had enough spices in it, but I thought it was pretty flavorful nonetheless.  It should also be noted that this friend likes his food HOT! So perhaps you can gage what your reaction would be to the level of spices given that I can not take any spiciness at all.  hahaha Although I suspect there is a big vast middle ground between us.

I also had Dulcet for the first time. Kudos to all those at the table to were willing to order it with me. It is beef, tripe and liver all chopped up.  If you are thinking "YUCK!," you could not be more wrong.  It was DELICIOUS!  Again, perhaps it should be kept in mind that not a lot of food faze me.  We also had Lamb Kilkal (sp?), which is my new favorite Ethiopian dish.  I do not know how I went so long without knowing about this!  I have wasted the last few decades of my life!  hahaha It was Lamb chunks in a buttery broth.  The broth tasted like pure herb flavored butter, if a certain friend did not point out that there were only a few oil bubbles floating on top, I would have believed it was pure melted butter.  We were probably not eating it in the proper way, but who cares as long as it goes down into the tummy?

It should be mentioned here that a friend had baklava for dessert and highly recommends it.  I am still kicking myself for not ordering it too.  I was too stuffed for dessert.  Shocking, but true.  It really only happens around Ethiopian food.  Well, there is always next time!  

Ethio Cafe was nice enough to stay open an hour later than their usual closing time for us. I can not say enough great things about this place; can you tell?  hahaha

High Street Caffe - Bowl Lick'n Good

One of my friends from West Chester and I discovered that we both love High Street Caffe.  We also saw that they recently started a prix fixe menu.  3 courses for I believe $30 (please do not quote me on that figure).  Mmmmm I got the Lobster Ravioli for appetizer and Jambalaya for my meal.  As usual High Street does not disappoint.  I think that I am just a wuss, but the Jambalaya was too spicy for me.  Sigh. And of course for dessert, I got the banana's foster. I think my friend was surprised that I meant it when I said that I would probably lick the plate hahaha.

I know this is a short entry, unfortunately High Street is always wonderful, so there is not much new to report.