A new Mexican restaurant has opened in town and you know what that means? I had to try it out. Yes indeed! The prices were a bit outrageous for a Mexican restaurant, especially one right across from campus. But with 35 margaritas on the menu, there was no question I was going. 35??? Are you serious? A must.

First, let's talk about the website and atmosphere. There are NO HOURS on the site! Why have a site if I have to call ahead to make sure you're open??? It has separate menu links for margaritas, tequilas, island drinks and pitchers which all went to the same thing. The only differences in the lunch and dinner menus is not price, it's that the lunch menu has a few sandwiches and wraps. In their place at dinner were 3 entrees. That's not going to work. Lunch is supposed to be a more cost-effective option. The inside is far too small. We were forced to sit outside because the restaurant was full. I wouldn't be surprised if it only seated 30. If memory serves me correctly there were no more than 8 tables against a wall and a bar. If we'd sat at the bar, perhaps we would've gotten our drinks more promptly. The outside bar took an obscenely long time

I saw several ceviches on the menu but I'm not a fan of shrimp or scallops so that eliminated a few. I decided to try the tuna ceviche which was Asian-style. The chunks of tuna were way too large and didn't have enough acid which made it taste flat. When the server asked me about it and I said there wasn't enough acid, she said, "I think the traditional ceviche has more of the acid taste, but because this is more of a non-traditional take on it, that's why." Yeah, no. It's ceviche and should therefore still TASTE like ceviche no matter what other ingredients you put in it. I've had multiple ceviche preparations including about a dozen at a restaurant dedicated to AND CALLED Seviche in Pittsburgh. And ALL of them had plenty of acid. That recipe needs to be fixed. Especially at that $10 price tag. The portion was huge, plenty to share among several people, but probably a tad ambitious for 2.

We had the 101 margarita which was the best one. The key lime margarita tasted almost powdery. Very strange and not appealing. The peach margarita didn't taste very peachy. The sangria margarita was definitely the worst and it didn't taste like sangria. Harsh reviews. But perhaps there should've been more taste tests of the ahead of time. I am absolutely still willing to make myself available if they would like someone to help them taste the margaritas as they tweak them.

Rashan had the chicken poblano pasta and liked it though it was a bit dry. I thought it could have used some heat. It didn't have to be mouth on fire hot, but something to perk up the flavor. It got better when he squeezed some lime juice on it. I had the cactus and corn and chicken fuego chimichanga. O.M.G. After a series of poor restaurant choices, the chimichanga was AWEEEEESOME!! I mean so good I couldn't keep Rashan's fork off of my plate! Delicious!! Loved it. Could eat it on a regular basis. And it was huge. Very much a fan. It's nice when the entree is fantastic. Now if they could only get more of the menu together.

Classic Black

Labels: tis the season

All the hipsters are doing it: going to Gainesville's most "cool cat" esque restaurant, The Top. The prices are a bit up there for a college population, but at least you feel like the menu is more creative than The Swamp restaurant in town. The Swamp is right across from campus and the love of the (white) fraternities and sororities. It has a very normal menu with some crazy prices. It's pretty good, but I always like The Top way more. It's not just that The Swamp feels preppier, that's not a problem to me. Preps need a place to go, too, but the food at The Top seems to be a little more creative. That might be because a lot of the food has a vegetarian or vegan option.

Last night I got the southwestern spinach fettucini with tofu. I'm not a vegetarian and love meat but since my fellow Disher is a veg-head 93% of the time, I'm more open to the idea. Good move! It was delicious! Though I need more texture than meat substitutes too often fail to provide. The Top also has AMAZING burgers. Rashan and I will likely be heading here again some time this weekend to get one of those. Good times, good times. Oh! But two fails for me at the Top are the corn nuggets and fried green tomatoes. The nuggets are pretty popular but I'm not a fan of corn kernels in my food. These are basically like mini hushpuppies studded with corn. I did not appreciate the extra hard tomatoes with the cornmeal crust, either. My tomato pickiness should have been a clue to me but I wanted to try them. I think I'll pass on either of those henceforth.

Ingredients

Labels: comfort food

So perplexed by her. And for some weird reason, she's hiding the ginormous garbage bag of a purse she had...

Labels: pix, WDDDA, YFF

I am so disappointed in myself. I can't believe that despite how tired I was from moving in all day yesterday, I was already out of the house, but too lazy to go too far for food. And I wanted some Mexican. So instead of a 5-minute drive, I settled for Taco Bell. Please don't beat me. I got the volcano nachos and a ranchero taco. The former is what made me realize that walk from my car to my apartment with that bag in hand was indeed a walk of shame. And I SHOULD be ashamed! How can I call myself a fan of Mexican food and eat these half-stale sorry excuses for tortilla chips with yellow processed cheese spread product (vomit), red dye 40 tortilla strips, a mashed mess of refried beans and ground beef essence? The best thing was the pickled jalapenos. Those were delicious, but not enough. I know Taco Bell technically serves its purpose somewhere (Maine maybe?) but there's a delicious drive-thru Mexican joint in town so I will have to call this what it is: sad. The taco wasn't bad, I can admit, but that does not negate the walk of shame. *hangs head*

If you know nothing else about me, you know I love lime and margaritas and lime margaritas. Perfect complements to my fave cuisine: Mexican food. Mmmm. All day mmmmm. So I decided to try these cupcakes from Rachael Ray magazine. DELICIOUS!

Several new restaurants have opened up near my mom's house so we of course had to try some out while I'm home. Our first stop was to Sweet T's Diner. In a brand new building, the diner was a modern version of a retro cafe. It was cute. Above the "lunch counter" there were 3 giant flat screens but you couldn't hear any of them and they didn't have closed captioning... why? There's music on so what's the reasoning behind the tvs if you can't hear them and there is no sports programming? They could've at least had CC or even those boxes on the table where you tune to whichever station to which you want to listen.
The decor led me to believe the menu would be much more interesting than it was, but it took a page from most diners and spread the gamut of food options. The worst was definitely the Metro Cafe outside Atlanta near Stone Mountain. That menu had at least 4 different cuisines on 10 pages (Stop with the menu schizophrenia! You can't possibly keep that much fresh food.) and the worst service I have ever experienced.

But back to Sweet T's, since breakfast was served all day, my mom and I decided to go with the make your own omelets. I had cheddar, ham, spinach and mushrooms with a side of sausage, grits and a biscuit. The biscuits didn't come out with our meal but there was no explanation for why not and then I couldn't find my waitress to tell her. When we first got there, she seemed to be a good waitress but by the time we left she had too many tables apparently because she seemed overly harried and unable to focus... though there weren't that many people in the restaurant.

We sent the grits back before she got them on the table good because they were in clumps. When they first approached our table, I thought they were lumpy mashed potatoes. That's how thick they were. Not going to work. My mom and I got the home fries instead. After a period which took almost as long as our original meal, we got the home fries and they were undercooked. The biscuits were ugly and overly dense but tasted okay if a bit crunchy. No flake at all. I've seen frozen biscuits in the supermarket that looked better. (The kind that come individually frozen are AMAZING!!) You can't serve breakfast all day with that biscuit, though. This is the south. It needs work.

And worst of all: my omelet. WAY too much ham and a heavy hand with the salt. The mushrooms and spinach inside were delicious when I could find them but the salt in the egg and the salty ham combination forced me to massacre the omelet to get to the mushrooms and spinach, leaving an abundance of ham and egg on the plate. The side of sausage was good, but I had to ignore most of it as well to overcome the salty omelet. And it repeated on me. I woke up the next morning with heart ache. Thanks salt. I won't be going back.

Open-toed booties are attacking me! With fringe, ruching, ties, grommet, woven, tall, short, heel, flat. Mess. These are all from Steve Madden, Nine West and Aldo.






I don't know whose idea it was to create these monstrosities but I beg of all of you: STOP!!