usa Archives - Curiously Carmen

Applebee’s – Roadtrip to the USA!

July 10, 2015

Hi readers!

Call us crazy, but some friends and I made the trip down to USA for some good ol’ indulgence in cheap American food. Yes, we drove all the way there just to eat, but ended up wandering around Bellingham after as well! I’ve only ever driven by Bellingham or went to Bellis Fair, so it was nice to go around and explore the rest of the city.

We headed down shortly after rush hour ended, and following an adventure at the US border, we were off to Applebee’s!

To start off, I decided to get a strawberry lemonade. I was quite tired that day and needed some sugar for energy! The lemonade was very tart and sour, because the strawberry syrup was at the bottom. Give the drink a good stir and it will taste a lot better.

This drink also came with fresh strawberries! I ordered a couple of these during our visit as they have unlimited refills.
Originally, we were going to go to Olive Garden but found out that Applebee’s was having a promotion! One appetizer, and two entrees for twenty dollars – so cheap! You could never get that sort of price and portion in Canada.

The boyfriend and I shared the deal, while my two friends got the same deal but the ‘upgraded’ version.

Pictured above was both of our appetizers which we all shared – boneless wings and onion rings. The boneless wings were very juicy, flavourful, and had a nice crispy exterior! They were delicious! I believe my friends ordered this with BBQ sauce. As for the onion rings, they were gigantic and very fresh and crunchy.

Both appetizers were very satisfying and it was a great start to our meal.

I ordered the chicken strips and fries. Again, the chicken strips were fresh and had a crunchy batter, just like our appies. They were also well seasoned and juicy. The fries were a bit too salty and I didn’t end up eating all of them.

The boyfriend ordered the cheeseburger. The onion and bacon were already inside the patty, which is why the burger looks pretty plain. He enjoyed the burger a lot.

As I mentioned above, my two friends decided to upgrade and get the $25 special instead of the $20. Cheese ordered the macaroni and cheese, which came with some bread and chicken strips.

He was in love at first bite! The mac and cheese was incredibly creamy, and full of garlic and herb flavour. The chicken strips were the same as the ones I ordered. He wanted to finish the mac and cheese, but it was so rich and creamy that he had to pack some leftovers.

Cocoa ordered the chicken steak and prawn with potatoes. Oh mannnn… I had a bite of her chicken and I was in LOVE. The garlic butter slowly melted and encompassed the chicken, and was so delicious! It was very juicy, bursting with flavour, and had a slightly grilled taste to it.

I wish I had ordered this instead and will probably get this the next time I’m at Applebee’s!

We were all very satisfied and stuffed after our meal at Applebee’s. We couldn’t believe how little we paid, yet how much food we got in return.

What is your favourite American chain restaurant?

Thanks for reading!

-Carmen

Mio Sushi, Seattle

November 9, 2014

A lazy Sunday calls for staying at home in cozy blankets, PJs, and watching Netflix while eating a disgusting amount of corn nuts. Oh, and catching up on blogging too of course. Apart from Toulouse, we also stopped by and tried Mio sushi on a whim. Our result to Mio was a result of indecisiveness, hunger, and convenience.

It was quite sad that after arriving in Seattle for a mere 28 hours, I was already missing and craving Asian noodles. In particular, I was craving udon soup as well so we set out on what would be a thirty minute indecisiveness, constant scrolling on Urbanspoon until we found Mio. There were other places as well, but we didn’t want to drive and we also didn’t want to spend a lot of money in the downtown core.

We were pleasantly surprised at how fast of a walk Mio was from our hotel! I was a bit iffy on walking there because the streets were pretty dark and we had to pass a big dark, unlit park which has probably seen better days… but I was assured that it would be safe to walk, turns out it was a pretty nice day for a brief stroll.

This location of Mio was located right outside of the downtown core, in the South Lake Union neighbourhood. The area looked pretty new, nice, and trendy. Kind of reminded us a bit of Yaletown but more commercial. We were the only customers when we came in around 8:30 pm.
As mentioned, I knew what I was going to order before stepping in. They had a seafood and nabeyaki udon. I got the nabeyaki udon ($9 usd) since it was cheaper than the seafood udon, and all I really wanted was just udon. It came in a cute stone bowl with a handle, and I was warned the bowl was very hot. I would have liked the tempura on the side because it got really soggy, but it was good nonetheless.

There were also some pan fried string beans, but it got pretty soggy and didn’t taste super fresh. Apart from those two very minor hiccups, this bowl of udon was exactly what I wanted, and was delicious. The broth was very flavourful, and a tad salty. It came with perfectly cooked and a decent amount of udon noodles, and imitation crab meat. I liked how there was a lot of seafood as well, it was a good addition as well as the fresh green onion garnishes.
The boyfriend ordered the Gyu ramen. The ramen was really disappointing. It lacked flavour, depth, and was very plain. Perhaps we were just used to amazing ramen in Vancouver, but this bowl was not appetizing. He also mentioned that the ramen noodles tasted like instant noodles… yikes.

To split, we ordered the salmon and yellowtail roll. Yellowtail roll is the same as negitoro roll, it confused us at first. Both rolls were very fresh and flavourful, pretty decent. The price was a bit steeper than we were used to for a casual Japanese joint at $4.75 USD per roll, but we did enjoy the freshness of it so we didn’t mind.

The rolls and udon were satisfying and delicious, but I wish we could say the same about the ramen. Service was pretty attentive, fast, and nice (well then again, we were the only customers in the restaurant!). Mio looked very clean, new, and had hints of pink accents throughout the restaurant. This looked like a place that would be really busy during lunch hours on the weekdays, but it was very quiet that night and they closed early after we finished eating. It was a good and convenient place to grab a quite bite since we were in the neighbourhood.

The Cheesecake Factory, Downtown Seattle

October 6, 2014

Since these two weeks haven’t been exactly the best, I always find myself thinking about my weekend getaway as that was the highlight of my month. So, let us flashback to my weekend in Seattle 🙂

After spending a long day walking around downtown, we were pretty hungry and tired by the time dinner rolled around. Walking around burned all the energy from our lunch at PF Changs. We also witnessed a ridiculous man who was going absolutely crazy, swearing and yelling at workers because their computer broke and had to close the store early. I’ve never seen someone so upset over gelato before!

After that incident, we were walking to the Cheesecake Factory and out of nowhere, this minivan starts honking for two minutes straight, because the car in front of her was dropping off an older man at the sidewalk when the traffic light was red and there wasn’t anything saying they couldn’t stop. WTF?! This is not including the creepy man on drugs who yelled at me at See’s Chocolate hours before but I don’t want to get sidetracked anymore LOL. People are scary sometimes. Anyways, we got to the main Cheesecake Factory location in downtown and waited about twenty minutes in line which was expected for a gorgeous, warm Saturday night.

Maki and Nigiri ordered the seared tuna tataki to start ($17.95 USD). Since it was $18 for a thinly sliced portion, I felt bad having some so I don’t have an opinion on this dish 🙂 But any dish with avocado and seared tuna is good in my books.

For the entree, Maki and Nigiri shared a pasta dish, which I can not remember the name of. Sorry 🙁 The portion was huge though, you can’t really tell from the picture but it is definitely an entree meant for more than one person!
The boyfriend ordered the classic burger ($11.95 USD) which came with a big piece of grilled onion, lettuce, tomato, and a side of fries. I was quite surprised he ordered a plain hamburger, but he didn’t want to over indulge since we were planning on getting cheesecake! To his surprise, he really enjoyed the hamburger and said it was delicious even without the cheese. To this day, he still brings up this burger and wants to have it again, haha!
I ordered the fried shrimp platter ($16.95 USD). I love my seafood, especially shrimp, and this one was no different. The shrimp were absolutely massive, I’ve never had shrimp that big before!

They were very crispy and flavourful. The fries underneath were pretty standard, and I didn’t try the cole slaw because I’m not a big fan of it. None of us enjoyed the special shrimp dipping sauce (the red one in the back), it had a very off putting flavour and was a bit watery and light. I ended up only eating half my entree because I was getting pretty full from the huge shrimp pieces, and plus I wanted to save room for cheesecake (duh).
Finally, the best and most famous part came! Maki and Nigiri decided to split the mango key lime cheesecake (all their cheesecakes have a set price, from $6.95-$7.95 USD). Yummmm!!
The reason why the boyfriend decided to skip out on the cheese for his burger earlier was for this slice of rich, heavenly indulgence, the Godiva cheesecake. One bite was more than satisfying for me, we all found this cheesecake to be very, very heavy and filling even though he asked for no whip creme.

I can’t believe I’m saying this but we felt that there was almost too much of a chocolate taste (I know, impossible right?!). We didn’t really taste the actual cheesecake flavour, just lots and lots of chocolate. I think this would be a good dessert to split among four people, but definitely way too much for one person. Needless to say, he ended up packing half of it back to our hotel because it was impossible to finish.
For myself, I ordered the white chocolate raspberry truffle cheesecake (Oh man, I felt myself gaining a few pounds just typing that out LOL). I had asked for no whip, but they forgot about it so I ended up scooping it off. At first, we were wondering why my cheesecake crust was dark, and thought that maybe it got burnt since the other two looked fine? T

Turns out, my cheesecake came with a chocolate crust. I prefer the original crust cause I didn’t taste the chocolate at all, and it tasted a burnt to me. As for the cheesecake, it was pretty good and rich, but I was hoping that there would be more raspberry to it. Nonetheless, I did enjoy my slice and ended up bringing half of it back to the hotel as well. Of course, we didn’t end up eating both of them and had to throw them out since they melted in the car after outlet shopping. =.=”

All in all, I had a lovely experience as usual at the Cheesecake Factory and am already looking forward to the next visit! There was also some sort of homecoming prom thing for high schoolers that day, and it was very cute to see nervous preteens all dressed up and going on dates with each other 🙂

Andddd, here is a bonus picture of a gorgeous view in Seattle 🙂 Thanks for the great visit, see you next time Seattle ♥

-Carmen

PF Chang’s, Seattle

September 26, 2014

Four starving Canadians in downtown Seattle, roaming the streets for somewhere to eat. Compared to downtown Vancouver, I noticed that the food options in downtown Seattle were more limited. As our street count rose higher and higher, and the grumbling in our stomach got louder and louder, I noticed this “PF Chang’s” restaurant sign while we were looking for a place to eat.

I casually suggested it, as the building it was in looked nice and decent, and I was so hungry I didn’t even care if PF Chang’s was authentic Chinese food, let alone Chinese food at all. To my surprise, Maki and Nigiri had been to PF Chang’s before, absolutely loved it, and agreed to go. Okay, that’s all my starving stomach had to know.
The decor of this PF Chang’s location was very warming, clean, and had both Asian elements (the Terracotta warrior as seen above), Chinese artwork, and Chinese music contrasted against an open concept kitchen, stone tiled walls, and table set ups seen with Western restaurants.

At this point, I was pretty impressed with the fusion and friendly service. I decided to completely strip away my expectation of authentic Chinese food, and try this place as a new Asian-Western cuisine experience. Here is how that went.
For starters, I decided to order their cucumber strawberry limade ($3.95 US). I am a HUGE fan of adding fruits into my drink, those who have dined with me are used to it and I get made fun of all the time. Even though this came first, I decided to wait for my lunch entree before trying this as I wanted the full flavours of cucumber and strawberry to come out (yes, I have fruit water nailed down to a science..I love my fruit water).

I was in love at first sip. The tartness of the limeade went really well with the strawberry sweetness, while the cucumber gave it a really refreshing and crisp end. I also loved how the strawberries were fresh, and weren’t the syrupy ones.

The downside to this drink was that it’s not bottomless, as many of their drinks are. But that goes to show you how much fresh strawberry and cucumber is put into this delicious drink!
After taking a long time to decide on what I wanted, I chose their lunch special which comes with a choice of brown or white rice, a choice of soup (veggie or sweet and sour), and the entree.

I decided on getting the hot and sour soup. I didn’t really enjoy this dish as much because I felt that it had a strong soya sauce and teriyaki taste to it. I would have liked it more if there was beef, chicken, or prawn.

There was a good amount of spicy and sourness to it though.
To this day, I still miss and can’t stop thinking about their chicken-orange rice dish. I have been trying to find a way to copy the recipe so I can still eat it at home, it was that delicious. This was the main lunch entree, orange peel lunch ($9.95 USA) which came with fresh oranges, Hunan chili sauce, and garnished with sprouts.

This was absolutely delicious and I found myself conserving every last bite. The oranges were sweet, fresh, and juicy which mixed well with the spicy chili sauce.

The brown rice was cooked perfectly to my liking, and the chicken breast was lean and juicy. I also liked how my dish was filling, but I did not feel bloated or greasy afterwards!
Maki ordered the lunch bowl as well, she chose Chang’s Kung Pao lunch with choice of scallops ($11.95). I had a bite of this and liked how crunchy the cashews were. She also had no complaints about her food!

Instead of getting the soup for her side, she chose the salad which I really enjoyed. It came with a light, sweet and tangy taste and a variety of different dark greens, my favourite type of salad! Not to mention, the size of her salad was enourmous!
Another entree we got was the pad thai ($12.95). I didn’t try this, but Nigiri enjoyed this dish.
Da boyfriend ordered dan dan noodles ($10.95), which came with a spicy red pepper and garlic sauce, minced chicken and scallions, cucumbers and bean sprouts. He was not expecting his dish to look like this, but ended up enjoying his dish. I had a bite and I liked how the egg noodles had a bounce to them. We both agreed that although the sauce was very flavourful, but was very salty.

All in all, we made a good decision coming here and I left with a good, new opinion of Western-Asian fusion dishes. I’ve never really been a fan of Western-Asian fusion dishes, but PF Chang’s had delicious dishes and lovely ambiance. We had many questions about the menu and our server did a really great job in explaining everything patiently and informatively. He even gave us a sample of the black iced tea!

I wish that PF Chang’s will open in Vancouver one day, as my waiter told me every other Canadian customer has told him. #PFChangstoVancouver anybody?

-Carmen

TRADER JOES MINI HAUL – PART ONE!

February 21, 2014

Hi everyone!

Trader Joes is like a little country that welcomes you with open arms and smiling faces. The reason why I say this is because everything in store is produced and manufactured by themselves. Their staff are really friendly, and their interior design gives me a modern day cottage with a laid back feel to it.

Apart from that, most of TJ’s products are super healthy – organic, no preservatives, low fat, gluten free, no artificial flavours, but you get my point! I love that most ingredients that you read on the package are actually recognizable, meaning that they are all natural and do not contain artificial preservatives or things ending in -oxide -xide -acid, etc.

The best part though, is that even though all their products are super great quality and healthy, it’s extremely affordable. Usually, the trade off when buying healthy products is the cost that’s attached.

I took the liberty of taking a few pictures of the store shelves, just to give you guys an idea. The shelves are jam packed with yummy products, and as I mentioned before, their signage is really cute. I also love the packaging of their products. Kudos to the design team!

On their website, the coconut cranberry granola sounded really delicious, as did the triple berry o’s I laid my eyes upon on their shelves. However, these two did not live up to my expectations, especially the triple berry o’s. At first taste, they tasted no different than honey nut cheerios, which was disappointing to me.. Secondly, the dried berries inside the cereal looked really unappetizing, and tasted really unappetizing since they were super, super dry.

The blueberries were the worst part. To me, it tasted like cardboard and they were also really shriveled up even after I waited for it to absorb the milk.

On the other hand, the coconut cranberry granola was not bad, I just didn’t really like the taste of it that much. I felt that it tasted like regular granola that you can get at Walmart, and there weren’t that many cranberries inside. I also didn’t really taste much of the coconut flakes, although I could see a generous amount.
These caught my attention because of the nutritious and healthy ingredients in it. It’s also a good source of omega 3 and fiber among other nutrients, not to mention that it’s not fattening. I’ve also tried their other quinoa chips, so I decided to give this one a shot too.

I was glad I did because I liked these ones better. These chips had a fair amount of seasoning to it, bringing it away from the bland flavour tortilla chips usually have. I also liked how there were different chip varieties in there – carrot tomato, spinach garlic, and red beet onion. My favourite was spinach and garlic, although the other ones weren’t bad also. The variety in the chips kept it somewhat exciting. They were also pretty crunchy and had a thick texture to it too!
Saved the best for last! I was randomly walking by the frozen dessert section, not really aiming to buy anything but this caught my eye. Chocolate non-dairy frozen dessert made with coconut milk. I was really intrigued by this, so I decided to give it a shot. Am I ever glad I did!

There is a rich and creamy chocolate taste, but also a hint of coconut too. I honestly can’t tell the difference between this and real dairy cream, which is a great thing since this is much healthier for you. Eating this gave me less guilt as it is lower in fat and calories than regular ice cream.

The ingredients in this are also more familiar than ones in ice cream, which is always a plus! I will most definitely be buying this tub of goodness again.

I hope you guys enjoyed reading this! I have several more products I bought that weekend, so expect another haul sometime. Happy grocery shopping and remember to be aware of what you’re putting in your body!

Thanks for reading!

-Carmen

Want more of me? Why I Hate Disneyland , Restaurant reviews , Makeup reviews !