Restaurants – Page 3 – The Adventures of a Calamari Queen

What’s for Dinner?!

Hello friends! It’s been a while since I last posted here. Life got a little hectic. I’ve been wanting to share our dinners since last week but I wasn’t able to. Here’s our meals for the last 2 weeks or so. I’ve been cooking most nights but on the weekends we go out or have take out. I hope you’re all having a good week and happy cooking!

chicken wings adobo (my fave chicken part)

grilled pork chop,roasted sweet potatoes,roasted jalapeno poppers,avocado

take out food from our fave Indian resto

My husband had banana blossom for the first time when we visited the Philippines last year. He really liked it and he’s been NAGGING me to try cooking it for him. We got the blossom at the Asian market and I found the recipe on youtube (panlasang pinoy). He liked it and said I’ll have to make it again(we’ll see!).

daing na bangus(milkfish),banana blossoms in coconut milk

crispy potato with red bell pepper,onions,parmesan cheese

breakfast for dinner:scramble eggs,bacon,rice,coffee

our homemade version of “chipotle” steal bowl

we also had take outs and dine outs for the last couple of weeks:

Dinner at Big Fish (local resto) after watching Starwars

Brunch at Lot No. 3 in Bellevue after Church with Julia (SIL)

Feast Buffet!

Hello friends! Happy Christmas week! We had a nice buffet dinner with our friends, Faye and Roger (and the kids!), at a Renton buffet restaurant called Feast Buffet. This was our first time at this place. Faye recommended it because they’ve been here a couple of times and she said they have a good food selection that we might like! We were pleasantly surprised because the place was impressive. The selection was enormous. The sushi was quite good for a buffet, better than conveyer belt sushi places. They had Dungeness crabs and fresh Uni as part of their specials today (Zach liked the Uni). It was such a fun evening catching up with our friends before the Holiday ends. Thanks Faye and Roger for spending your night with us. We will be back to this buffet place for sure!

faye

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Snowflake Lane!

Hi friends! Happy weekend! I can’t believe Christmas is almost here? I’m so glad I’m done with my Christmas shopping and gift wrapping so I can just focus on Christ (the real reason for Christmas!) and focus on my husband/family time. Planning makes a big difference. Today, we went to see the Snowflake lane event at Bellevue and it was a fun night. My favorite was the fake snow, the music and lights were great too! There was a ton of traffic and we couldn’t find parking for 30 minutes,but that’s OK (It’s expected after all since it’s the last weekend before Christmas). We had dinner before going to the event, so we’re all good!

We had dinner at Spice restaurant (it’s in the crossroads / bellevue area)

Braised Pork Belly! So Good, our fave at this place!

Braised Pork Hocks or Patatim (in Philippines)

After dinner! We’re off to the Snowflake Lane fun:

Some of the pictures are from my Ipad so it’s kinda blurry.

It was a cold night, Hot chocolate was in order when we got home. I love my new Lenox personalized mugs and plate that I got during their black Friday sale last month! So pretty and perfect this time of year.

Happy Birthday to us!

Hello friends! This weekend we had our birthday celebrations with my In laws. My bday was last nov. 16 and the hub’s is this coming nov. 26 (yup, Thanksgiving day). Ever since we got married we always just combined our birthday celebrations. I personally prefer it that way. No fuss and just a simple time with family is all that matters to me:) On my actual bday the hubs and I had a casual dinner at home, we had charcuterie (we got from Delaurentis at Pike Place), steak and green beans with blue cheese (Ree Dreemond/Pioneer womans recipe).

I told my husband not to give me flowers or a card, I prefer food! This is what he gave me when he got home from work! HA! Mcdonalds has the best fries for me.

Charcuterie plate with pate!

This Saturday, my In laws treated us for our bday dinner at Flat Iron Grill (local restaurant in Issaquah). We like this place because the food is good and prices are reasonable. I used my ipad for the pictures so I apologize for the poor quality.

After dinner,we went back to our house to have our bday cake (baked by my MIL, she’s the best) and opened gifts. We are so grateful for what the Lord has done in our lives over the last year. He is so good! The Best is yet to come:)

Having our Bday dance and song! It’s a family tradition:)

Thanks to my MIL for baking molten chocolate cake! She asked me what I wanted and baked me my fave (chocolate cake of course!).

Spoiled Riley licking the ice cream!

I’m so loving what my SIL gifted me!LOL

Gifts from my Hubs! I got some Lenox stuff I’ve been wanting to get this year. Thanks Hubs:)

Weekend Fun!

Hello Friends! How was your weekend? Ours was busy and fun in a good way. The weathers been rainy and windy, so our activities were mostly indoors. Saturday, we watched the movie “Bridges of Spies” starring Tom Hanks and the movie was great. I highly recommend it (I will not be surprised if it will get some Oscars). After the movie we had dinner at the RAM (it’s a sports bar).

Dinner and Movie with my In Laws is always a good time!

Sunday, my In laws gave us tickets to watch a musical show “Snapshots” in our local “broadway” theater. We really enjoyed it and were grateful for the tickets, otherwise we would have missed a great show. We had some Chinese food after the play.

Me and my Hubs dorky hat (while waiting for the play to start)

Of course lots of napping this weekend too!

Have a great rest of your week friends!

SARSA

Hello Friends! One of the restaurants we wanted to try during our Vacation in Manila was the SARSA Kitchen (+Bar). Chef JP (I guess one of the owners too) is always a guest on KrisTV (one of my favorite morning shows!) and his recipes always look so good. So when my family finalized our Philippines trip, dining at Sarsa was a must! I was looking forward to it! The place was big and full, luckily we didn’t have to wait for a long time. Before we we’re even seated, the receptionist already asked us if we can order ahead because cooking and preparation time can be 20-30 minutes. The service was great! You can really tell that the waiters and staff are attentive to their customers and the service was quick ( so rare in most Philippine restaurants, based on our experience). I can’t say that about their food though. Honestly, I was disappointed with the majority of what we ordered. Their mango shake was another story! Oh My! The hubs and myself wanted a mango shake and were looking forward to having a fresh, sweet mango shake to enjoy with our lunch. The mango tasted like it was from a bottle of mango juice (maybe Gina brand) and they put in a blender, and there you go, your Shake! I can’t believe Chef JP would allow that to be in his restaurant. Oh Well! Anyways, it was still a good time with my family. We will probably still go back and try their other dishes, although we ordered most of their “best in town” type of food, so we’ll see.

SARSA (MOA)

Their Famous sisig (this was good)

Sinuglaw (a big disappointment); look at how tiny their pork belly is.

Big disappointment in their mango shake (The yellow one), the green mango was OK!

Kinilaw

The Pinakbet, another disappointing dish (I think they just blanch or steam the veggies then coated it with sauce). The veggies we’re not full of pinakbet flavor!

Tortang talong with kesong puti(too much breading)

Kare-kare sauce

Kare-kare

Crispy pata

Another sisig

Sizzling Kansi (this was good)

What we’ve been eating lately!

Happy September friends! Although It’s not yet “officially” fall, the weather outside seems like it is. It’s been raining the whole time and windy too. I think it’s time to get out some of my fall decorations ( I don’t have a lot), burn some fall candles, drink a Starbucks Pumpkin spice latte to really put me in the fall spirit. I love fall but the constant rain is annoying. Anyways, I wanted to share some of our meals that we’ve been having in the last part of August! We’ve eaten most of our meals at home and had take out for most weekends (we budgeted for it!). Looking forward to eating soup and stews in the coming weeks:) *Food picture overload ahead…

Bagel and lox, coffee for breakfast (we don’t eat this regularly though)

Sausage, eggs, avocado for dinner

Loco Moco (spam,eggs,beef pattie)

Spaghetti

Short ribs and polenta

Chinese take out as we celebrate 10 years together (7 years married)

Caprese salad (tomatoes and basil from the garden)

Hotdogs and caprese salad

Beef stroganoff and green beans

Fried rice

Deep fried ribs (to go with our rice)

Filipino breakfast *dried fish and eggs

Dried fish and mung bean soup

Steak and potatoes, broccolli

Braised short ribs

Spicy Garlic shrimp

Spam Musubi made by Hubs

Fried chicken (Pioneer woman recipe), corn and cucumber salad

Our take outs:

Chinese food

Terriyake beef, gyoza

Jack n the Box take out food (cheap and unhealthy meal kind of weekend)

Pizza from our local place!

We dined at the Ram restaurant with my In laws 2 weeks ago:

Enjoyed Dimsum at Dough zone after church:

Ohana

Ohana restaurant opened a couple of weeks ago in Issaquah, in the old La Costa place (Mexican restaurant that’s been in Issaquah for 30 years). Hubs and I were really looking forward to trying this place because we love sushi and some Hawaiian dishes like spam musubi, kalua pork, and poke. After Church last Sunday we finally decided to check Ohana (they also have one in Belltown), I personally had high expectations because I noticed they’ve been under construction for a while now so they must be doing something big in there! I really liked the atmosphere the moment we entered, It did remind me of our vacation in Maui years ago. It was spacious too! The servers were attentive and really friendly. The food was decent, I ordered Loco Moco (the meat was too well-done for my liking but the sauce/gravy was flavorful) the one I had in Maui is still the best for me though. We shared an order of spam musubi, which had too much rice in our opinion (there’s this place in Renton that serves good spam musubi (Aloha Grill)) and Hubs had sushi. He thinks it was pricey for what he got. Over all a good experience but we probably won’t be back for a while just because the value wasn’t there for the price. The sushi was pretty over priced for the portion size / quality.

Miso Soup

Loco Moco

This was really good! Salmon and Yellow tail..

Liking this gravy on my Loco Moco dish!

Spam Musubi

Giada

One thing me and my sisters wanted to do in Vegas was to dine at Giada De Laurentii’s new restaurant in the Strip (Cromwell Hotel) because it got good reviews and personally I really like Giada. I usually watch her Food Network shows and I have 2 of her cookbooks. I even went to Costco when she had her cookbook released and I waited in line to get it signed. I’m sort of a fan! This is her first restaurant so I figured I might as well check it out. The atmosphere was really nice, we were seated at the window so we got a good view of the Bellagio fountain and the Strip.

It was a pricey dinner for what we had (I think, the Hubs kinda disagree!). The food was good but the servings were kinda small for the prices ( I guess we need to expect that in a fine dining place). Although the food was good, Zach was unlucky because he didn’t like his order. He got the lobster ravioli (the servers recommendation) and it was pathetic. I tasted the ravioli and I can’t believe Giada would allow that dish to be served in her restaurant. The pasta was too al dente and BLAND and the lobster was overcooked! I wouldn’t recommend their lobster ravioli. Despite Zach’s order, we had a good experience and the service was fast. We will most likely be back here if we happen to be in Vegas but we’ll just skip the raviolis 😉

Meat and Cheese platter! I love their Parmesan and Prisciutto — Meat and Cheese platter! I love their Parmesan and Prosciutto

She put her name everywhere, from plates to the placemats!

Lobster Ravioli (looks good but this was so BLAND)

Lemon SPaghetti with shrimps (this was good) — Lemon Spaghetti with shrimps (this was good)

There was a photobooth outside the restaurant but we didn't bother checking it out. — There was a photobooth outside the restaurant but we didn’t bother checking it out.

Happy Easter!

Today we are celebrating the Resurrection of Jesus Christ! One of the most important events in the Christian world. I’m just so grateful for what Jesus did on the Cross, the unconditional love He gave to all of us. The perfect, sinless Son of God suffered and died for all of us, despite our unworthiness. Thank You Jesus for what you’ve done for our sake.

Aside from Easter Sunday celebration, we are also celebrating our 7th wedding Anniversary! We are thankful to God for blessing our marriage for the last 7 years. We cannot wait to see what is in store for us in the coming years! The Best is yet to come:) We took a couple of pictures before going to church this morning. We had brunch after with my In laws in one of the restaurants here in Issaquah. The Hubs and I plan to have a little getaway somewhere to celebrate and we are so excited! I hope you had a great Easter weekend all:)

someone was forced to have a solo picture!hehe