A Decimated Grocery Store

It's hard to believe that just a couple days ago, Atlanta was frozen in place. Other than my roads being a little extra grave-ly this weekend and the odd piece of stray cardboard left by the roadside, there's not many visible signs of last week's snowpocalypse. So imagine my surprise when I ran into the Publix on Old Alabama yesterday morning for a quick errand and saw the shelves were still empty. Those who could had raided the grocery store shelves for supplies before holing up for the next three days. Here are some pictures I snapped while I was there.

Frozen pizzas seem pretty popular. 

Fancy breads were wiped out, but the regular kind was still full. Either they had stocked the bread aisle before we got there, or I live in a classy neighborhood. The stock boy was filling the soup aisle with cans as fast as he could yesterday, so who knows what else got bought out.

Shredded cheese? My guess is lots of chili was made during the snowpocalypse.

Yogurt and butter were pretty popular, along with canned cinnamon rolls and biscuits. 

Breakfast meats were almost all gone. Everyone planned to make a hearty breakfast after the storm. 

And every kind of meat was gone. 

In case you were wondering what we ate, Tuesday night was frozen potstickers. Wednesday morning was steel cut oats and quinoa and we had Chicken and Biscuits that night. Thursday was eggs and oven roasted potatoes, with Kale and Sausage soup for dinner. Lunches both days were leftovers. Things had thawed enough by Friday that I went out for both lunch and dinner. We had supplies to make tofu and broccoli for another meal, and I had one of the pineapple upside down cakes I've been playing with recently for dessert. Clearly, you need to be snowed in with me next time. 

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Tokyo Boat II

It's hibachi night! Get excited! Whoo! Hibachi! Fire! Flying shrimp! Chefs clanging on metal salt shakers! Whoo! How much fun is Tokyo Boat II, the latest hibachi to open in the Publix shopping center at Holcomb Bridge and Old Albama? It's pretty fun.

The great thing about hibachi is it's predictability. There's a certain rhythm to the meal, no matter where you go. It's different enough to be a change of pace, but nothing really boundary pushing. You can get grilled chicken and steak! Check out the shrimp and scallops, if you're feeling fancy. Here is your bowl of clear soup with thin mushroom shavings decorating. Now it's the garden salad with creamy dressing. I'm momentarily dismayed when they don't have a cocktail menu of silly drinks made with cheap sake, but I order a glass of syrupy sweet plum wine instead and plow forward. Tokyo Boat has an option for a red snapper combo. That's different enough that I order it. The sushi menu looks interesting and I mentally note to try it next time.

Here's the chef with his wheeled cart. He checks our orders and immediately sets fire to the grill pan. I love the heat coming off the grill in front of me. I chat with my friends about work and the coffee table I'm refinishing while I sip my wine and watch our chef twirl spatulas and fry eggs. Hibachi chefs are amazing. One part chef, one part waiter, all show man. He's new at this, but his patter is still well rehearsed and exactly like every other hibachi chef I've been served by. He fries the rice, grills my steak and fish and makes an onion volcano all while keeping a constant stream of conversation. Now it's time for my husband to catch a piece of raw zucchini in his mouth. Now we set more things on fire. The fire is ALWAYS the best part.

Now we're chowing down on plates of grill steak, chicken and seafood. It's time to order a second drink and make plans for the weekend. Our chef has reserved a shrimp and ends the meal by making my husband catch it in his mouth like the zucchini. He succeeds to great applause. My meal ends with green tea ice cream, wrapped in mochi and arranged on a platter. The show is over and it's time to get ready for work the next day.


Was this great food? Not really. I've had better.  But you don't go to hibachi looking for a great culinary experience. You want onion volcanoes, flying shrimp and gimicky cocktails. Tokyo Boat delivers all this but the cocktails. But that's okay. This was fun! They followed the formula for a successful hibachi night. Plus, Wednesday is half price night, so it's quite the deal. So if you're on my side of 400 in Roswell, check it out.


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Moss Hill Farm CSA

"So what have you concocted today, Mrs. Liang?" one of my coworkers asks me as I settle into a long cafeteria table with a group of my students. School policy is that staff eats with their students every day. The kids bustle around me, pulling out peanut butter sandwiches and baggies of potato chips. My coworkers know that I cook and I'm happy to talk about my food (Obviously).

I take the lid off my piping-hot-from-the-microwave bowl of soup and say "Gumbo. I have more okra than I know what to do with in my CSA box this week, so gumbo." I help someone open a difficult container and remind one of the girls that we don't run laps around the tables, even if you're really, really good at it.

"Oh you have a CSA? I want to know more about that."Another teacher says just before biting into her salad.

What's a CSA? It stands for "Community Supported Agriculture". Basically, you pay a farmer upfront for his or her harvest that season. Then, once a week, you o to the farm and pick up your "share" of the harvest. The farmer gets reliable income and you get delicious, farm fresh veggies. Win!

We subscribe to Moss Hill Farm in Milton, Georgia, which is owned and managed by Floyd Keisler. We first met Floyd when he sold us heirloom tomatoes at the Riverside Farmers Market. Floyd is a really warm and friendly guy, so we always enjoyed stopping by his booth to pick out Cherokee Purples. But after a few seasons, Floyd's CSA business took off and he quit coming. At first we were sad. But then we realized that we could just subscribe to Floyd and still chat with him and get some of the best veggies we ever ate.

We tend to subscribe in the fall and winter when the Farmers Markets aren't in session. Why? Because we like to pick our own food and just buy what we feel like eating. You can't do that with a CSA. You bought all of it, whether or not you like it. One winter, we ended up with something like five heads of bok choi every week. It was overwhelming and my husband still looks askance at it when it shows up in our box. So that's a downside.

Another downside is that a CSA requires effort. It's not just going to the farm to pick up the vegetables. Plants grow in dirt, right? And that dirt needs to be washed off. You can also expect the occasional critter to come home, hidden in your bundle of kale and for your veggies to be less than perfect looking sometimes. If you're only used to pre-washed and bagged greens and shiny, perfectly tasteless tomatoes, this can freak you out a little bit. Just hum Elton John's "Circle of Life" to yourself and relax.  But we're still doing a "half share" right now, with pick up every two weeks, just so I can have a break from washing and chopping.

I find that having a CSA makes me more creative in the kitchen and willing to try new recipes. I had bok choi tonight and I had tofu. I could have just stir fried them together like I normally would, but my wok needs re seasoning. So instead I made tofu and greens soup. Without those limitations, I would have had a boring dinner. Instead, I tried a new recipe. It's like when we started buying at Farmers Markets. We used to just eat frozen peas and canned corn for dinner every night. Now I'm eating a wider variety of food and experimenting. This week's basket included kale, tomatoes, onions, okra, cucumbers, two varieties of lettuce, bok choi and japanese eggplant.

We did a cost breakdown when we first subscribed and while it's steep upfront, the weekly price for veggies is quite reasonable and comparable to buying everything every week at a market or grocery store.

I've sort of dwelled on the downsides here, but overall, I enjoy the experience of having a CSA. I like the variety and the creativity that goes with it. I like having a relationship with the people who feed me. There's also a definite "cool" factor to it. I highly recommend looking into a CSA. Many are listed on LocalHarvest.org, but sometimes those listings haven't been updated in awhile. So you can always try my route and develop a relationship with a vendor you like at a Farmers Market.  If committing to six to eight weeks sounds a little much, Moore's Farm & Friends lets you order week by week, but they are more of a collective than a true CSA.

Anyways, there's the breakdown of CSAs and my experience with them. I hope you find this useful!

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Wolf Mountain Winery in Dahlonega

So a couple days ago my husband came to pick me up at work. My truck died over the summer and we're down to one car right now. Anyways, he mentions something about having a surprise for me this weekend.

"Oh, what is it?", I ask.

"If I tell you, it won't be a surprise anymore."

"No, I'll just be surprised NOW."

Which is how I found out I was having lunch at Wolf Mountain Winery in north Georgia on Saturday. I had visited the winery for a tasting last summer when I went on a tour of three north Georgia wineries from LivingSocial with one of my sisters. (I've uploaded my pictures from that day to Flickr.)

Wolf Mountain is owned by the Boegner family. Karl Boegner was the original manager of Chateau Elan in Braselton and you can see that same attentiveness to detail and the experience at Wolf Mountain. In fact, I think they do a better job at making your time at the winery feel like a special occasion. It's definitely a smaller winery, but they make up for it in wonderful ways. I hesitate to call it "off the beaten path", because it's a pretty busy and well known winery, but it's not the same kind of resort destination.

Anyways, let's talk about our day! Look at that gorgeous building. That's the cafe and tasting room. You have to walk up the incredibly steep driveway to get there from the parking lot. My calves burned. But the walk is totally worth it, because at the top you have a gorgeous view of the valley and the vines themselves.

The tasting room is a beautiful glass enclosed patio that overlooks the vineyard. You can go out to sit a tables to enjoy your glass, or stand at the dark wood bar where they pour.  My husband and I shared a tasting flight of eight wines for $20. They tell you this will equal about two glasses, but the pours are generous, so its really just a bit more than that. I won't get into too much detail about the wines, since eight is a lot to keep track of in your head (I think it's tacky to take notes while I'm eating and drinking in public. I also think it's tacky to snap pictures with my phone, but my blog would be pretty boring without that. Sorry good taste and propriety.) But Wolf Mountain is an award winning wine maker and none of the wines offered disappointed.  Our server was knowledgeable and chatty and though he was busy with several other patrons, I never felt rushed or unattended. We could have taken longer, but we had a lunch reservation at the cafe upstairs.

The cafe is another beautiful, light, airy room overlooking the valley. We had a table on the patio, which was perfect with this early fall weather we are having.  We started with a tomato mozzarella spread with pita chips. The cheese spread was savory and delicious. The pita chips were thick toast points that were lightly fried, not baked. It makes a chip that's both chewy and crispy. It was a little much for two people, but we ate it all anyways. We're both gluttons for good cheese and bread.

I ordered the crab cake sandwich special. It was a large crab cake that included kernels of grilled corn, but otherwise very little filler and a house made mustard sauce. It came with fries, which were just fries. Very few places put effort into their fries. The bun overpowered the crab cake, so I just ate the cake by itself and left the bread. It was a pretty tasty crab cake by itself and I'd probably order it like that if I saw it on their menu.

I paired my sandwich with a glass of their Plentitude white wine. This is a 70/30 blend of Chardonnay and Viognier grapes. It's dry and crisp and just the sort of thing I like drinking on a pleasant almost fall day.  I've had it before and I think it's about a perfect wine for this time of year.

My husband ordered a smoked brisket sandwich which was served with a horse radish sauce on soft focaccia bread. This was a pretty amazing beef brisket. Mr. Northside is from Texas and they know their smoked beef down there. So if his semi-hysterical natterings while eating are any indication, this is really good brisket. You should eat it.

All the prices are pretty moderate, especially considering this is a "fancy" place. This isn't a cheap date, but it's not going to break your piggy bank either.

After lunch, we walked around the grounds again and enjoyed the gorgeous scenery. Everything seems to have been placed to give you just the perfect view or backdrop wherever you go at Wolf Mountain. Like I said before, attention to detail.

So yeah. My husband pretty much wins at surprises. Aren't you jealous now?

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Easy Spinach Alfredo Pizza

I just finished up the first week of school, (My schedule is different because I work at a private school.) and felt celebratory. What better way to celebrate than to host a small dinner party? Homemade pizza is such an easy way to entertain, especially on a Friday night when you are exhausted from explaining to autistic fourth graders that stalls in the bathroom are one per customer. (Don't even ask. Seriously.) So pizza it is!

Because it's Friday, and going back to work after a summer at home sleeping in exhausts me, I'm taking a shortcut. While I can make a totally rocking pizza crust, I grabbed pre-made dough at Publix. We like the multigrain. It's tasty without being heavy. Most grocery stores have what I call "the pizza station", which will contain pre-made dough, crusts, jarred sauce and other things you can use to build a pizza at home. I also grabbed a bag of spinach and some shredded mozzarella and a wedge of asiago cheese.

 I pulled it as flat as I could to make the base. Can you see the sunflower seeds? That's multi-grain goodness right there.

I sweated some onions and garlic from our CSA in olive oil, then added the entire bag of baby spinach and a big pinch of salt. I turned down the heat and put the lid on to let the spinach cook down. When I make garlic spinach like this as a side dish, I usually use two bags of spinach, because spinach is delicious. The cooked spinach goes on top, with a generous layer of mozzarella cheese.

 
 The whole thing went into a 500 degree oven until the crust was crisp and the cheese was brown and bubbly. Then I added the grated asiago and popped it back in for a few minutes to let that melt. It was ready to serve after I sprinkled on some chopped parsley and savory from our CSA.

We ate it with heirloom tomatoes chopped and dressed with olive oil, balsamic vinegar and chopped savory and lemon verbena, all from our CSA. (Yeah, the CSA thing comes in handy.) Dessert was banana "ice cream" made by freezing over ripe bananas and pureeing them in my food processor until it had the consistency of soft serve. We topped that with nutella. We had a nice bottle of wine and some nice craft beers the staff at Ale Yeah in Roswell helped us pick out.

So what was the verdict? Well, everything but one slice of pizza was eaten. So if you're looking for a fun, casual dinner party after week at work, make a pizza!

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Changing Seasons at the Farmers Market

It's easy to tell when the seasons start to change when you eat locally. Yesterday I made my weekly trip to the Riverside Farmers Market (conveniently located a good mile or so from the actual river) here in Roswell. I'd missed the market last weekend due to my annual pilgrimage to Dragon*Con. The change in available produce seemed very abrubt.

Gone were the sacks of crisp, delicious, just picked peaches and baskets of the sweetest blueberries I've ever tasted. Our friends at Moss Hill Farm no longer had pounds and pounds of gorgeous heirloom tomatoes for us to browse either. While many of our summer favorites are still available, like green beans and peppers, we're also starting to see the beginnings of the fall crop. I bought a couple crisp Rome apples yesterday, perfect for slicing up and eating alongside a sharp cheese. Eggplants are still going strong, and we snagged a nice looking cabbage that will be the perfect side for a home made mac and cheese dinner tonight. We also picked up some beets and mustard greens and regretfully put down a head of swiss chard. (It looks beautiful, but neither one of us cares for it)

The summer fruits haven't quite given way to fall yet. Yesterday we picked up the biggest watermelon I have ever seen in my life. It was at least 30 pounds. My husband adores watermelon. It is, along with steamed white rice, his very favorite food. I told him we could buy it only if he promised he would eat watermelon with every meal this week. Even then, I'm not sure if we can eat it all before it goes bad. I took some to my gaming group last night, but I still have a fridge full of diced melon.  We'll see how well our war against it will go.

Crockpot Shredded Beef Taco Recipe

So I've been playing around with tacos recently, trying to create a recipe that's a little easier than my usual shredded pork tacos. I've experimented with chicken, pork and beef and I think I've found something that will work with anything.

You want:

A big piece of meat that'll work well in a crockpot. Either chicken thighs or leg quarters, pork shoulder or "country ribs" or a pot roast. I used a pot roast last night.
1 can of diced tomatoes
1 onion, quartered
4 cloves of garlic
2 healping tablespoons of your favorite chili powder
1 tablespoon coco powder
2 tablespoons red wine (optional)
1 jalapeno, chopped (optional)
1 cup fresh or frozen corn
Salt and pepper to taste

Liberally salt and pepper your meat, and brown on high heat in a frying pan. Place in crockpot. Use canned tomatoes to deglaze the pan, add to crockpot, along with onion, garlic, jalapeno (I included the seeds), chili powder coco powder and red wine. Place lid on crockpot and cook on "low" until meat shreds easily with a fork. Remove any bones, and add corn. Allow corn to cook, then serve.

As I said, the sauce works really well with either beef, chicken or pork. We definitely like it best with the jalapeno cooked in. It's good without, but it's missing that extra spicy kick.  My husband ate, like, six of these last night and then cried because he was too full to eat anymore.

I served the beef variety last night with a homemade heirloom tomato salsa and fresh arugula. Just as a note, there's going to be a TON of liquid released when you make these. I've been saving it and using it to poach eggs in, which I then ladle over mexican rice and serve with tortillas the next night. It's pretty awesome.

The Mexican Aisle

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Recently, I've started to become acquainted with the section of my Publix that houses the Hispanic ingredients. The bit that I particularly like right now is the selection of Hispanic spices. They come packaged in clear plastic baggies, which isn't the greatest thing in the world for freshness, but if you only need a couple tablespoons of something, it can be just what you're looking for. The variety is pretty good, and many of them come whole, like star anise, cinnamon sticks and nutmeg. I bought a little bag of pine nuts to make Lebanese stuffed eggplant this week. I only need a few tablespoons for the recipe. Why waste the money on a bottle?

And check out the difference on prices:

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These are the sesame seeds I bought to top an Asian coleslaw a few months ago.

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And these are the ones I didn't buy. Holy cow. What a difference. And sure, you get more with the bottle. But how often do I use sesame seeds? They'd go to waste. And I don't have to traipsing all over town to find a place that sells high quality spices. It's amazing what you can find in your neighborhood grocery store these days.

I'll never hear the end of this now...

I made yogurt.

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It's a PERFECTLY reasonable thing to do. I swear.

See, I had almost an entire gallon of milk that, for some reason, we hadn't finished before the sell by date. And even though I know that it's still good for a few days after that, it doesn't taste as fresh to me and I don't like to drink it straight. I'll use it to cook with though. But I had almost a full gallon this time. There was no way I could cook with all of it before it really went bad, so I decided that it was time I made yogurt.

I've been dithering over making yogurt for months now. My co workers make fun of me for talking about it all the time, but not doing it. So I decided to suck it up and go for broke. The milk was already wasted, why not experiment? So I made yogurt.

Unfortunately, I didn't take pictures of the process, since I didn't think it would really work. I'll take pictures next time, I promise.

The recipe I used comes from "A Year of Crockpotting", which is a really simple and easy recipe. Others I've read call for turning on the oven, or putting heating pads in a cooler or other silly things. I just heated the milk in the crockpot, added some store bought Stoneyfield Farms plain whole milk yogurt as a starter and let it do its thing.

Mine made a CRAZY amount of whey and it was very grainy. So I strained it using coffee filters and ended up with something similar in consistency to ricotta cheese, but very tangy. I like it. It's different, but I like it. I ended up with about three cups of whey, which I added to bread dough in place of water.

Sooo...I guess I'm a hippy now.

Slice

A group of us went out to Slice on Friday, where I got more practice with my camera.

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Seared tuna appetizer that the table shared. This was my favorite of the three we passed around. The tuna was rich and buttery and perfectly seared. I really love how it's plated too, with drizzles of ponzu dipping sauce and siracha hot sauce.

We also ordered fritters stuffed lump crab meat and risotto rice, which were very good. I loved the contrast between the crunch of the outside and the soft interior. There was a red pepper hummus as well, which I didn't like that much. It was oddly flavorless to me. I suspect I'm spoiled by the intensly garlicky hummus I get at Veranda.

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A salad of greens, with Asian pears, walnuts and goat cheese. This belonged to someone else, so no first hand experience with it. However, the owner of that plate said it was delicious.

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My husband ordered this one. Spinach salad with chopped hard boiled egg, panchetta, tomatoes, red onions and balsamic vinaigrette. This is a classic and almost impossible to screw up. I love the "bacon wheel" of the panchetta. Since his food is my food, I got a bite of this and immediately wished I'd ordered one too.

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Gah. I hate how blurry this is. Anyways, it's the meatloaf. It's HUGE. The beef is locally raised, grass fed and so full of flavor. There's red bell pepper in this too, which I don't do in my meatloaf, but was pretty tasty.

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Didn't order this one, so no report on taste. It's scallops and risotto. My eating buddy Jeff said it was delicious though. I think I'll order this next time.

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This is what I ordered. Have I mentioned I'm on a diet? I didn't feel left out though, as I love French onion soup. It was very rich and smooth, one of the best I've had. And I got to order dessert guilt free. (Please, no one post in the comments about French onion soup is 98% lard or anything like that. I like my illusions.)

Speaking of dessert...

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Chocolate Crunch Cake. Yum.

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White Chocolate Raspberry Cake. Drool.

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Coca Cola Cake. All the desserts come from Lulu's Bakery in Alpharetta, and I always consider this their signiture dessert. It seems like every place around here that carries Lulu's desserts has this one. And oddly enough, I've never tried it. I'll need to address that at some point.

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Snickers Cheesecake. Yes, those are real chunks of Snicker bar on top.

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And this is mine, Andes mint cheesecake. Well worth skipping the meatloaf and prime rib everyone else was swilling.

Slice also has a great wine and beer list. I had a fantastic red with my meal that I'd recomend if I could recall it's name. It was a varietal I hadn't had before, which is why I chose it. The atmosphere is great as well. The downstairs is like swanky club, with blue lights and a large bar dominating. Upstairs is a quiet dining room, full of warm colors and subdued lighting. It's quite cozy. When the weather gets nice again, I like to eat out in the gazebo next to the koi pond.

I highly recomend this place for an evening out for good food and good drinks.

Picture Dump... Again.

I got a new camera for Christmas and I've slowly been getting the hang of it. Here's a couple things I've been working on.

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This is a lentil and kale soup I made last month. I got the recipe from Adam at The Amateur Gourmet. This was a great soup, a little spicy, a little sweet. Perfect for a cold night.

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Hot cocoa with a homemade marshmellow. Cute mug, right? It was a gift from one of the girls in my homeroom this year. It's just the right size for when I need a sweet drink, but don't want to feel too gluttonous.

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This is a cheese spread I made using the leftovers from my New Year's Eve cheese plate. It's called "fromage fort" and this version comes from Alton Brown. The gist of it is leftover cheese in a food processor, with white wine, garlic and parsley. I think I actually took this intending to use it in a "Grow Your Own" post, but it sat too long on my camera. It's awesome on those little whole wheat Kashi crackers you see there, or you can smear it on fresh apple slices for a slightly healthier treat.

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I came home late one night from a basketball game last month and I needed a fast dinner, so I made pizza. The crust is the Olive Oil Dough from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. The sauce was a quick amalgamation of canned tomatoes, rosemary, red wine, onions and garlic. It should have reduced a bit more. It was thinner than I like. The Italian sausage was leftover from something else. This was really, really good. I need to smoosh the crust thinner though.

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Another Olive Oil Dough creation. This was a stromboli that I whipped up. It's stuffed with cheese, more italian sausage, garlic and thawed, frozen spinach. I must make this again. Soon.

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This is a Chicken Tortilla Soup that ended up being so spicy I couldn't eat it. I froze the leftovers and I'm waiting for a victim to foist it off on. I added the chopped chiles too early, so they had too long to infect the broth. Even my husband thought it was too spicy. It had a great flavor under it though, just spicy.

Lunch at Shallots

I've been busy lately. But not too busy to pay for my lunch in gold doubloons.


I had to break a twenty to ride MARTA last weekend. Did you know MARTA gives your change back to you as... change? I used them to pay for lunch out with my co workers on a teacher work day.

I felt like a pirate.

It's time to make the donuts...

Breakfast this weekend was homemade beignets, made using the brioche recipe from my Artisan Bread in Five Minutes book.

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These are the ones I made yesterday. Pretty, aren't they? And yeah, they really do only take a few minutes. The dough was already in the fridge, because I made cinnamon rolls for Christmas morning. Roll it out, cut it into squares, let it rest while the oil heats up. I don't deep fry things often, but when I do, I make sure to drain things properly. A cookie sheet, layered with paper towels, the topped with a wire cooling rack. It keeps the food from reabsorbing the grease from the paper towels while it cools. Then just sprinkle with powdered sugar while they are still warm and serve.

I had to finish off the dough today, so we made a very large batch. If they last until tomorrow, my husband will take them to work to share with his office. He will be the most popular actuary ever.

Flip

We went downtown today to the High to see the terracotta warriors. It's a very exhibit. I'm glad I got a chance to see it before I take my students in March. I never get to enjoy museums when I take students. Either I'm too busy keeping them from touching everything in their excitement, or they are bored out of their minds and racing through to get to the gift shop. The joys of teaching middle school. Anyways, if you are interested in Chinese history, make time to see this exhibit before it goes away in April.

Since we were downtown, we decided to do lunch there. And I'm going to amend my rule of "Only Northside restaurants will be reviewed here" to "Only Northside restaurants, unless they have Richard Blais". I'm just fascinated by that guy and what he does to food. I may blog about my opinions of the guy later when I get a chance.

So anyways, we ended up at Flip, Blais's new burger joint, for lunch. Flip is part of that growing trend of taking something incredibly common and making it with premium ingredients and attention to detail. Blais is the "creative consultant", which means he designed the menu, but someone else executes it. From what I understand (and also from what I witnessed today), he's pretty hands on about making sure that vision is accurately represented.

Flip is cool. Very, very cool. We were seated in the back at a bar where we could see the kitchen and watch them put the finishing touches on each plate before serving. There's another bar, with mirrors and HD TVs and plush stools as well. The booths look very comfortable and plush as well. Next time I'm bringing a big group so we can snag one. The colors are bright and busy. It's almost a bit TOO busy for my tastes, but then I spend my working day trying to get people to calm down, not jazz up.

Our attention was immediately attracted by the barman whiping a batch of toasted marshmallow with liquid nitrogen. Liquid nitrogen is a Blais trademark, so it was pretty cool to see it in action. In fact, we were so impressed, we ordered a couple Krispy Kreme shakes ourselves, which were still smoking when they were brought to us.

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These were perfect. The ratio of ice cream and milk was just right. The donut had been pulverized, so other than that yummy sweetness, the only sign of it was a faint gritty texture. And due to the super cooling, it stayed chill and firm all through out our meal.

I was going to order a plain Flip burger initially (classic burger, with lettuce, tomato, etc.), but was sorely tempted by the more adventersome choices. I ended up choosing a Po Boyger, a patty made of ground shrimp, topped with Old Bay mayo, shredded lettuce, and a fried lemon.

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This was pretty tasty. The fried lemon was a bit strong though. I'd order it again. I also got a side of fries, which were crispy and airy, and lightly seasoned with salt and chives. Not much potato flavor to them, but not bad either.

My husband got a real winner though. He ordered the Philly cheesesteak burger.

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It's a beef patty smothered with green bell peppers and onions, and a dollop of Cheeze Whiz. It came out like canned whipped cream. That's awesome. The beef was cooked medium rare and was tender and juicy and full of big, beefy flavor. He ordered the vodka battered onion rings with his. I'm not a big fan of onion rings, but I took a nibble of the breading. It was light and crunchy, much like my French Fries.

While we were eating, Richard Blais came in and worked the room a bit, saying hello to other guests and allowing people to take pictures with him. I didn't speak to him, but in the small dining space, it was easy to see that he was a nice guy who enjoyed meeting his fans. In fact, the first person he made a beeline for, was a middle school aged girl out for lunch with her mother. Blais spent the longest talking to them of everyone. It was very cute seeing how star struck the girl was by her encounter with him.

Soo...Flip. I would definitely come back to this one. The shakes alone are worth the drive down. I really want to try some of their other burgers too.