Zorba’s at Cordova Mall
I have to admit I am not a big fan of food court eating, but we were at the mall looking for 18 month pajamas with feet, and AdventureMan had seen Zorba’s and wanted to try eating there.
Zorba’s does a great business; all the health and fitness people were buying lunch there. I will also admit that the food court at the Cordova Mall has some pretty good choices; it is a step-up from most food courts and their standard fast-food outlets.
I ordered Chicken Schwerma, and it came with hummus and a small green salad. It wasn’t really like chicken schwerma, which is usually sliced off a huge revolving kebab in tiny thin slices, this was larger grilled chicken pieces, but it tasted good, and that is way more important that having it look like real schwerma.
The hummus was good. The salad was good.
AdventureMan ordered a side of Baba Ghannoush, which we both love. This one was delicious and smokey, the way we like it.
He also ordered a felafel sandwich, and he said that the felafel were homemade, not prepackaged, and the sandwich was delicious.
We don’t eat french fries. Most of the time it is easy not to eat them, most places buy huge packages of frozen ‘french fries’ and fry ’em up as they are needed, but they are anonymous and boring and not good.
Unfortunately for us, the felafel sandwich came with fabulous french fries, big french fries fried in a good oil, so they were delicious. Yes, I tried one. It was hard not to eat more than one!
All in all, a better than expected meal from a mall food court. LOL, the Egyptian server behind the counter kept thinking AdventureMan was Lebanese. 🙂
Marrakesh Vegetable Curry
We served this with couscous, but it would be every bit as good with rice – or even just plain. It was so delicious that AdventureMan said he wasn’t hungry any longer, but that he couldn’t stop eating it. It is SO good!
Marrakesh Vegetable Curry
Ingredients
• 1 sweet potato, peeled and cubed
• 1 medium eggplant, cubed
• 1 green bell pepper, chopped
• 1 red bell pepper, chopped
• 2 carrots, chopped
• 1 onion, chopped
• 6 tablespoons olive oil
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 teaspoon ground turmeric
• 1 tablespoon curry powder
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 3/4 tablespoon sea salt
• 3/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1 (15 ounce) can garbanzo beans, drained
• 1/4 cup blanched almonds
• 1 zucchini, sliced
• 2 tablespoons raisins
• 1 cup orange juice
• 10 ounces spinach
Directions:
1. In a large Dutch oven place sweet potato, eggplant, peppers, carrots, onion, and three tablespoons oil. Saute over medium heat for 5 minutes.
2. In a medium saucepan place 3 tablespoons olive oil, garlic, turmeric, curry powder, cinnamon, salt and pepper and saute over medium heat for 3 minutes.
3. Pour garlic and spice mixture into the Dutch oven with vegetables in it. Add the garbanzo beans, almonds, zucchini, raisins, and orange juice. Simmer 20 minutes, covered.
4. Add spinach to pot and cook for 5 more minutes. Serve!
Joe Patti’s Fresh Seafood
We have died and gone to heaven. At a time in our life when fish is a very good thing, we have come to another place where seafood is plentiful and delicious. (Kuwait and Qatar were also fish heavens 🙂 )
We have often eaten at Joey Patti’s, but had only glimpsed the Joe Patti outlet next door. Oh WOW. While I will still be buying at Maria’s because it is so close to where I live, Joe Patti’s is what Michelin calls “worth a trip.” They have wild salmon, cut into steaks, my all-time favorite. Good salmon, seared, cooked just through, has a moist, buttery taste I crave, with none of the high-cholesterol drawbacks of butter. 🙂
Joe Patti’s is HUGE, and full of seafood. Not just seafood, but anything associated with seafood, like spices, like prepared seafood salads, like condiments, and cooking equipment. Even some great palate-cleansing gelato. 🙂
Here is how you get there:
Flounders in Pensacola Beach
“We’ll have to take you to Flounders.” our Pensacola friends said, and we wondered, because we hadn’t seen Flounders on our trips to the beach, and we hadn’t seen it advertised. One day we Googled it, found it on the map and headed for the beach.
They don’t seem to need to advertise. Even if there is a parking spot in the parking lot (not a given) you are likely to have to wait. Even on a weekday, when you think no one else will be there. And what a very cool place.
The place looks beachy, there are usually people sitting out front, waiting, and you can see this huge boat, The Flounder:
Now that the temperatures have dropped about ten degrees, the entire restaurant is open, and it is heavenly. If it gets too hot or too cold, there are garage-door-like barriers against the elements, but for most of the year, Flounders can stay open to the sea breezes.
Prices are reasonable, portions are too big, service is quick and friendly without being overly intrusive. There are volleyball courts, a landing and a large area for children to play in.
We’ve seen a lot of birthday parties at Flounders; children’s and grown ups. 😉 They are owned by the same group that owns McGuires and Crabs: We Got ‘Em. Each of those restaurants has a unique menu, and we really like that each has such GOOD food.
So for our first visit, there are two MUST-ORDERS; to test a Florida seafood restaurant, you have to try their Seafood chowder and you have to test their hush puppies. Both were spectacular and memorable:
They were so good, in fact, that less that a week later, we went back for more.
We also had appetizers for lunch; I had the Baked Parmesan Oysters and AdventureMan had the Fish Tacos/Nachos. Both were SO good. Worth a trip across the bridge, which only takes maybe 20 minutes from our house. 🙂
The next time we went back, we also tried the Fish and Chips – very very good, served hot and crisp, lightly battered, tasty fish – and a slice of the Key Lime Pie, which was also very good, although not quite as tart as we like it.
Not only would I go there again in a heartbeat, but keeping a gallon of their chowder in our refrigerator for dinner sounds like a winning idea to me.
Happy Baby at Siam Thai in Pensacola
Generally speaking, AdventureMan and I do not like buffets, especially in hot countries / towns, because food can spoil quickly. Also because children sometimes get into buffets, LOL, in Kuwait and in Qatar we would see children eating food right out of the buffet dishes, at places like the JW Marriott or the Ritz Carleton! That is enough to put anyone off eating at a buffet.
We have found one buffet in Pensacola, however, where we can feel good about going, the Siam Thai. There are two now, one more a bistro, located by WalMart, and the one we go to, we call it the Siam Thai Carwash because there is a car wash attached, and, this is hilarious, you can watch the cars go by as you are eating your lunch. I am not kidding, there are windows from the restaurant into the automatic car wash part.
The food is always fresh. The restaurant is always clean, immaculately clean. We even invited our son and his wife and the Happy Baby to join us for lunch, and oh what fun.
Our own son started with Chinese and Mexican food at six months, as we drove across the country in our Volksvagon Van, en route to the Naval Postgraduate School with our cat, Big Nick. We taught him early about rice, about spring rolls, and beans. So we thought we would give the Happy Baby a little start on Thai food. Oh, what fun.
Everything’s allowed, a spoon (he has yet to figure out which way is up), chopsticks (we feed him like a baby bird) or fingers.
The team at Siam Thai was so good to us; we asked for a very private table far from the buffet – when you have a baby, you know there is going to be a mess. The Happy Baby really knows how to behave in a restaurant; he is a baby who wants to be good, and with four adults to do his bidding – who wouldn’t be happy? 😉
The only thing he doesn’t like is having his face wiped, which, after any meal where a baby gets to work at feeding himself is a total necessity, LOL:
We love this place – the salad rolls, the soups, the fresh fresh curries and the condiments – it is a Pensacola Red R (Michelin gives a red R for good local cuisine at reasonable prices)
Oh! My Aching Back!
“My back hurts,” AdventureMan complained, “and I am really, really tired.” He slept in yesterday, and I went to the early service alone.
We’ve been helping our son this weekend with the Happy Baby while his wife is out of town. 🙂
It is so easy to forget – a baby is hard work! Especially a mobil baby, able to explore and who moves quickly!
Fortunately for us, he is also a very very good baby, a sweet tempered baby who is easily distracted from his more dangerous attractions, and who is not yet fast enough to catch the cats, who evade him easily.
We took him out for barbecue yesterday, and fed him baked beans, sweet potato and broccoli. He gets this concerned look on his face, but he doesn’t complain, as he explores the new textures and tastes. I also bathed him when we got home, because he managed to get his hands and feet sticky between spoons of food.
It was a lot of fun, and we understand thoroughly why God gives babies to young parents, LOL!
Peg Leg Pete’s on Pensacola Beach
I am so lucky. My son and daughter-in-law live here and they can clue us in on where to go. When we were headed to the beach, my daughter-in-law suggested Peg Leg Pete’s.
When we got there, there was a 45 minute wait, so we went to the new Margaritaville Hotel instead. This week, AdventureMan and I finally got to Peg Leg Pete’s, and oh, what fun.
First, there was no wait.
Second, we had a choice whether we wanted to eat outside:
Or inside:
It’s bearable outside, but it’s still in the 90’s (low 30’s C) and humid, so we chose to eat inside.
We started with the Yellowfin Tuna Dip – oh YUMMMMM:
AdventureMan had the Giant Scallops Platter, and there was so much food, he brought 4 scallops home and had them over pasta the next night:
I ordered the steamed shrimp, and I ate all the shrimp, and the tiny corn on the cob, but I left all the potatoes:
Peg Leg Pete’s is a lot of fun. It is very beach-y, lots of tourists, lots of scantily clad sun bathers just grabbing a bite to eat.
Here is what we have discovered, and what we are having a lot of fun with – when you Google ‘Peg Leg Pete’s Pensacola Beach’ Google will bring up a place item, where it shows on a little map where it is AND it will show all kinds of reviews gathered from all kinds of places, like UrbanSpoon, TripAdvisor, etc. All the comments, in one place. It is a great resource.
Mediterranean Plus ReVisit
One of the very first places we head once we are back in Pensacola is Mediterranean Plus, because the food there is always good.
This time, we order the Vegetarian Mezze (appetizer assortment) and I had the Seafood Soup.
The mezze is as good as anything we have ever had in the Gulf, or in Jordan. The Seafood Soup is spectacular, oh, sooooo goood.
If you are in Pensacola, you go to where 9th meets Creighton. On the north side of Creighton is the Walmart, across Creighton is a large strip mall. In the section closest to Creighton, in the same section with Four Winds Market and the liquor store, and Rob’s Cameras – is where you will find Mediterranean Plus. Parking is plentiful. The food is fabulous.
Baker’s Ribs and Fried Pies
Texas is a lot of fun! As we are driving through Ft. Worth and Texas, very early on a Saturday morning, the highway closes and all the traffic is diverted off, and then back on. Time for some major work, I guess, and early Saturday morning is probably one of the best times to do it.
Around mid-morning, we start seeing signs for Fried Pies. I have no idea what a fried pie is, so AdventureMan explains it to me, it is a round pie crust with a filling, usually fruit, folded in half, crimping the edges, and then deep fried.
Sounds like a lot of calories, LOL!
Then we start seeing more signs, and we decide it is a good time for a stop at Baker’s Ribs and Fried Pies.
We have to walk through the barbecue section to get to the pie section. Our downfall.
There are a million kinds of fried pies, so we buy an apricot, a peach, and a cherry, and we take a few bites, but we don’t want to eat the whole thing because it will spoil our lunch. Lunch . . . we can’t resist the barbecue. We buy a couple of smoked turkey sandwiches for later, the smell is just irresistible.
These girls were just so nice, and helpful. 🙂
This gal is making the pie crusts:
And this lady has just pulled out a batch of the fried pies (to the right)
Fried pies are delicious, and I learned you have to eat them fast or the liquid in the fruit makes the crust start to crumble. The smoked turkey was even better, maybe the best smoked turkey I have ever had. The sandwiches were a wonder.
Update: AdventureMan says choosing to eat fried pies is part of How Do You Want to Die? and that he is willing to sacrifice the few minutes those bites of fried pie might have cost him. (We don’t eat fried pies; this was an exception. Don’t do this at home!)
Tacos Y Mas in New Mexico
Shortly after our hike up the old volcano, we stopped for lunch in a small town. Sadly, many of the small towns we passed through were shells; old stores, old restaurants, old gas stations, all closed now. We saw this all across the United States, the center of the small towns dead or dying, and most of the remaining industry along the major state roads.
As we looked for something acceptable for lunch, we saw a Subway (‘think fresh!’) off in the distance and we can always settle for Subway, but just before we got to the Subway, we saw Tacos Y Mas:
You’re always taking your chances when you eat street food (this was not a restaurant, but an order-out trailer. The menu was fairly large for a small operation, and they had a steady stream of customers. We ordered the taco lunch special, drove down the road a few hundred yards and came to a rest stop with covered picnic tables, where we had a taco feast:
It was really delicious, but heartburn city later, LOL.
One of the funniest things in New Mexico and Texas were all the signs saying “do not pick up hitchhikers” near all the prisons. LLOOLLLL!
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