Monday, August 22, 2011

Johnny Carino's

Yesterday my mom took Matt and I out for Sunday dinner... She wanted Italian and she has never been to Johnny Carino's, so off we went. I went there with work for lunch a long time ago and it was pretty good.. This time was a little disappointing.

When we arrived we had to wait for a hostess to come and greet us, the stand was empty and they were not busy. The hostess seats us and the waitress comes over and asks what we would like to drink and takes our order. We look over the menu while waiting for our drinks. I'm not getting a good vibe from our waitress, she was not too pleasant as she took our order.

She comes back with our appetizer, Fried Mozzarella with Mariana which was pretty good. Then all of a sudden she brought out or salads and soup. Timing was a little bit off. We finish our appetizer plus our salads and soup. Matt and I had garden salads, I had the house dressing, which was good, and Matt had Gorgonzola dressing on his. I can't remember what kind of soup my mom had but she said it was good.

Timing was better when they brought out our entrees. My mom ordered the Chicken Milano, Sautéed chicken breast with mushrooms and alfredo layered with ham, basil and provolone. Served with fettuccine



Matt ordered Smoked Turkey and Bacon Panini, Smoked turkey, applewood smoked bacon, gorgonzola, mozzarella and roma tomatoes.

I ordered the Lobster Ravioli, Maine lobster filled ravioli. Served with spinach, roma tomatoes, asiago and lemon basil cream sauce
We decided to get dessert, we were going to split it but they had mini desserts, which we ended up getting. Matt stepped away from the table for his after dinner dessert outside..but wanted an espresso. So, my mom and I order mini Tiramisu that come in espresso cups and we order Matt's espresso... Waitress: Oh, we don't have espresso... Us: It's on your dessert menu... Waitress: Well, that is an old menu and we need to update it. I don't know why they have not updated the menus.... Well you should of told us when you gave us the menu, is what I was thinking... so Matt ended up getting a coffee.

The food was good... not the best that we've had, but good. I do think they put MSG in their food... After I eat food with MSG I get spaced out feeling and I was feeling spacey for a little bit that night after eating.

Johnny Carino's Italian Kitchen on Urbanspoon

Sunday, August 21, 2011

Secret Garden Update

My garden is coming along pretty good this year... except for my Roma tomato plant. The plant is HUGE! Almost taller than me but it has blossom rot. I've been giving it calcium by filling up a milk jug when it's done and watering it with that. There are 3 tomatoes that look promising and had just started to turn red today *crosses fingers* I've thrown away about 35-45 tomatoes to date... :( God know what I would of done with all of those tomatoes... I think everyone at work would of been sick of them by now! ;)


The rest of the garden is doing good... The other 2 tomato plants are doing good, Had about 6 tomatoes from the smaller plants... Tons of basil and oregano, also pictured is my strawberry plant to the far left and the patio tomato plant to the right. You can't see the chives as they are hiding behind the basil.

Here is my better boy tomato plant, which got a little bit of a late start, parsley, green onions that I started from a bunch I bought at the grocery store and my Gerbera daisy.

The Romain lettuce I grew was a complete failure. When we had out heat way the plants just bolted. I ended up getting a few baby leaves before I had to chop down the plants :(

Right now I have a second crop of Strawberries growing. This year I've gotten about 5 tiny berries, plus the 2 pictured below.

Thursday, August 4, 2011

今日は, お元気ですか?

We need to cut down on the meat! It seems like we've been eating alot of it lately.. We were doing good flexing and eating mostly vegetarian, I think we need to get back on that boat... Granted we do crave a steak every now and then... but we try to eat mostly veggie, even though it does not seem like it...

Anyways, tonight we had terikaki steak with sauteed mushrooms, steamed broccoli and cheddar and chive mash potatoes. I marinated the steak for 24 hours and sauteed the mushrooms in terikaki sauce. I as pretty proud that I didn't cook the steak to death... I'm getting better at leaving a little pink in the middle.

The next time I made portobello steaks I'm going to marinate them in the terikaki sauce... I enjoyed the mushrooms alot more than the steak tonight...

So, you probably wondering what the hell the title of this entry means.... 今日は, お元気ですか???

Hmmm how about Konnichiwa, o genki desu ka?

Ok ok ok... It means Hello, how are you? in Japanese... one of a few phrases I remember from when I took Japanese in high school...

Sayōnara!

Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Rivertown Pour House

Almost a month ago Matt and I went to Rivertown Pour House for dinner. Being the slacker that I am, here is my review ;)

Of course we started off with a beer... I can't remember the name of what Matt had, neither can he, besides it was named after a girl... I had the Pineapple Under The Sea ;) Which we both enjoyed but my pineapple was a little cloudy compared to when I first had it a few months prior.  Rivertown Pour House only serves beer that they brew in house.

We also ordered the Pourhouse beer cheese dip... It was pretty damn good... With the beer and the cheese dip I hardly had any room left for my entree and the same went for Matt!

I ordered the Yinzer salad with steak and Gorgonzola dressing... If your from the 'burgh, I don't have to explain... but for those of you who are not, it's a salad with french fries on it... Healthy, i know... haha... They did go a little overboard on the cheese, but it was pretty good. I ended up taking most of it to go.

Matt ordered a Stromboli, which was delivered with a nice big steak knife in the middle... He can't remember what was in it, but it was good.... He ended up taking half of it home too.

Overall this place get's an A in my book. It's a great place to grab a bite to eat and spend some time with friends and family. Plus they have a great beer selection!

Oh, and a reminder tonight for everyone in the 'Burgh, that even made the Nightly News on NBC, which I got a kick out of....  Prepare for mayhem, explosions and gun shots... well fake gun shots... filming continues on the new Batman movies The Dark Knight Rises tonight... I can't wait to see this movie in theaters next year! I love all of the Batman movies and I can't wait to see the 'Burgh as Gotham City! I wish I could of talked Matt into being extras for next weekend filming... I think it would of been pretty neat to know you were part of a movie, even though we would of been in a sea of people... Oh well...

Ciao!

Rivertown Pour House on Foodio54

Rivertowne Pour House on Urbanspoon

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Butterflies and BBQ Buffalo Chicken Pizza

Over the weekend we had our friends over to play Magic... It's been a while so, Matt and I made Buffalo Chicken Dip and we had everyone else bring something. We had some left over dip and Matt wanted pizza for dinner tonight... so instead of BBQ chicken pizza... we had BBQ Buffalo Chicken Pizza.

I was surprised how good it was. I threw together Bull-eye Carolina BBQ sauce, a little bit of buffalo chicken dip, diced onions and cheddar cheese on a premade crust. Bake it for 10 min and voila!

Also on Saturday I was looking outside at my plants on the balcony and I thought I saw a humming bird in one of my hanging baskets... I get up off the couch to get a closer look and it was a HUGE butterfly... It kept flapping it's wings really fast, which is why I thought it was a humming bird.

I ended up getting a few pics but they didn't come out great on my phone. I've never seen a butterfly so big... A few weeks ago Matt was on the balcony at night and was joking the moth man was out there. We think it may have been a butterfly like this one. You really can't see the color and pattern on it's wings but it was black with orange and blue circles.