Po Dogs in Seattle

Back at the end of January I was in Seattle with my friends Daniel and Tim for a couple gigs (Ceremony @ the Fusion Cafe and then forgetters at Vera Project the next night). When we arrived in Seattle we went to the university district to find this hot dog joint called Po Dog. I think Daniel had tried it before, but i know that i had been wanting to visit Po Dog for a while. Anyways, the food was delicious! Highly recommended, and they not only have the University location but also one up in Capitol Hill.
Their menu features a variety of tasty options for toppings and they have a few different choices for your weiner; Hebrew National all-beef Kosher, Field Roast Apple Sage Vegetarian, Uli's Famous Sausages: Chicken Apple, Polish Kielbasa, and German Bratwurst. For those who are unadventerous you can get a dog with just basic ingredients. Or you can order one of the more interesting ones, check out their menu to see what they offer
For my weiner choice i got the all beef kosher and went with the South of the Border Dog which came with homemade guacamole & pico de gallo, topped with sour cream.


I'm trying to remember what made the bun so special.. was it steamed? or grilled? Perhaps both? Either way, every single thing about this hot dog was incredible!! The dog had a great flavor, and a good snap when you bit it. The bun was tasty. And the toppings were flavorful and fresh. The guacomole was good, no big chunks of avocado (which i do enjoy if i'm using it with nachos). Some people might not like the mess that came with eating this dog, but those people should shut up. Sometimes eating food is messy, no big whoop.

Halloween Themed Cupcakes

Quick post here tonight, partially because my brother made me feel bad about not posting more. Trust me, i've got pictures of food and stories to share, but you'll have to be patient.

Tonight i present to you a picture of some lovely cupcakes my wife made last Halloween...


We got some mummies and monsters here... but even slightly more important, we got some yummy cupcakes!! They were moist and delicious, and they looked very cool.

Eating tacos in Mexico!

For our honeymoon we went to Mexico... Playa Del Carmen, Mexico to be exact. Playa is far south, along the Caribbean ocean, about an hour west of Cancun. It is simply gorgeous down there!! The beaches are filled with soft, white sand. The water is crystal clear & blue and pretty warm. We stayed for a week at an all-inclusive resort, and even though they set it up so you don't really have to go off the resort we couldn't resist exploring the Yucatan Peninsula. A short 5 minute taxi ride away from our resort was the town of Playa Del Carmen. I won't go into alot of detail about the town except to say it's got a nice, touristy area near the waterfront filled with little shops and restaurants. But if you venture even 2 blocks away from that area you'll find yourself among the locals, and with alot of options for little taco shops. We tried a few different places, but the one we liked the best we made sure to pay a return visit before coming home to Canada.

All the seating is outside, the few walls in the place were near the back, by the fridges, and they were so bright & colorful. The tacos here, and thruout this area of Mexico are all about simplicity and bringing out the flavors. Alot of times in North America Mexican food is all about cramming as much as possible into your taco or burrito. Down here a taco is in a soft corn or flour tortilla (hand made), with some grilled meat, and a little bit of cheese. On the side they provide cilantro, fresh cut onions, some limes, and some fresh salsa. The simplicity is what made them so tasty!! You can tasty every single ingredient. The grilled meats are succulent and flavor-filled. We had chicken and beef. And once i had a shrimp taco, and while it was super tasty i now believe that i shouldn't have ate it (i'm not telling that story on here).





And of course when in Mexico you get to drink Mexican coke. Trust me, it's better than what we have up here. And usually you'll get it in a glass bottle, which just makes it even better.

Next up... more eating in Mexico!!

Wedding Menu!!

I'm back!! Sorry for the lack of posting.... no excuses, let's just try to catch up.

Back in August 2010 i got married. The months leading up was filled with planning galore. One of the tasks i was put in charge of was food. Sadly i wasn't able to set up any meetings with caters where they would feed me samples. Instead we chose a caterer based on a friends recommendation and figured out a menu. We weren't having a big sit down dinner, just appetizers and an open bar. I was very excited to try the food (as i'm sure you can guess) but due to the wedding party going out for dinner before the reception and being so busy talking to people that I barely got a chance to eat anything. I'm sure some of our guests would be better at giving a review of the food. I will instead give you the menu and if i can remember anything about it i will say so;

Mini Caprese Salad – Fresh mozzarella, basil and cherry tomatoes on a mini skewer with fleur de sel.

Shiitake Springrolls - spring rolls with sautéed shiitake mushrooms, ginger and assorted vegetables. Served with chili plum aioli. (I did have a bunch of these. Quite tasty, not too greasy)

Ginger Chicken – Ginger and garlic marinated chicken with minced peppers on cumin bagel chips. (yeah i'm pretty sure i ate some of these, must've been good)


Tapas Platter - Chorizo sausage, serrano ham, proscuitto, aged manchego cheese, marinated olives, artichokes, and roasted peppers accompanied by sliced artisan breads (I for sure dug into these little tasty morsels.)

Local Artisan Cheese - Featuring a selection of BC artisan cheeses from Poplar Grove, Salt Spring Island and Qualicum farms, accompanied with seasonal fruits, berries and grapes as well as sliced French bread and organic crackers. (if there was a big plate of cheese you know i dug into that!!)

Spinach Salad-With crisp applewood smoked bacon, Okanagan goat cheese, seasonal fruit and pomegranate vanilla balsamic vinaigrette. (this was tasty but i think the bacon scared some people away

Hot Spinach and Artichoke Dip-Served with spiced tortilla chips, pita wedges and sourdough bread. (I loved this one!!)

Fresh Fruit Platter - An assortment of fresh seasonal fruits elegantly arranged and served with a light citrus yogurt. (everyone loves fruit, right?)

The true highlight of the wedding reception though was the cupcakes, prepared by Tracy Thorn. She didn't an outstanding job!! Not only were they tasty & delicious, but they looked great. Since music is a big part of our lives we had little vinyl records made of chocolate put on top of each cupcake. This little topper seemed to impress everyone (maybe even more than the open bar).


Coming up next.... tacos in Mexico!!

Best Drink Ever?

Even though the sun isn't shining that bright here in Vancouver, the reality is that technically it is summer. Everyone knows that you should, and need to, drink water when it's hot out, but water doesn't always quench your thirst. 2 drinks that do quench your thirst would be Lemonade and Iced Tea. But how do you decide which one to grab? Well now you don't have to worry about making that choice because the people at Arizona Iced Tea company have created the Arnold Palmer....Half Lemondade & Half Iced-Tea! Brilliant idea! The only problem is that you can't always find these in Canada (or at least here in Vancouver). Whenever i cross the border to Washington State i always hit a 7-11 to pick some up. I have found them a couple times here, but it's pretty rare.

These beverages are so damn tasty!! Not to sweet and tons of flavor. It's like iced tea with a strong lemon flavor. And the packaging is top notch...

The small plastic bottle has a golf ball shaped top and the usual Arnold Palmer pictures and fun facts...


The LARGE can... is a hell of a bargain, because these costs only 99cents. The smaller cans i've never seen in America, but I have found in Vancouver. 2 for $1! Heck yeah!! Once again, all the Arnold Palmer fun facts all over the can....

Spaghetti Tacos!!

Sorry for the lack of posting.... too busy eating....

A few weeks back i found myself looking in the fridge at a container of spaghetti, and then i remembered that we had some leftover taco shells in the cupboard as well. Well shit... why not combine them?

So i opened the box of taco shells (we had Old El Paso brand if you care)...


And then i warmed up the spaghetti... that's a homemade tomato sauce, with spiced up ground beef and black olives....


And then i scooped the spaghetti into the tacos.... BAM!! Dinner is served!


These things tasted awesome!! I think there's a market for Spaghetti Tacos. I think we can all agree that tacos are a fun & tasty food to eat, as is spaghetti of any kind. So how could you lose with the 2 combined? Erin reluctantly took a bite of one and she thought it tasted ok, but didn't think it would catch on. I say she's wrong. The only problem i had was after making the tacos i realized we had no more cheese in the apartment to sprinkle on top. I'm wondering if other Taco toppings would work... like lettuce, or perhaps sour cream? There's no doubt that a dollop of salsa would be just fine on one of these suckers.

Another Doritos Post

I'm a sucker when it comes to Dorito brand potato chips. Over the years they've really branched out adding new flavors. The thing is though that almost every flavor gets over-powered by the standard dorito flavor. Don't get me wrong, i do enjoy alot of the flavors of Doritos, but see my other post about the cheeseburger ones.. aka "crunchy vomit". But i sure do love the split-flavor bags they do. Even though each chip flavor blends into the other since there's no actual divider inside the bag. I especially love taking one of the blue cheese chips and putting it in your mouth with a Hot Wings flavored chip. God damn! That's a flavor explosion!!

Quick little side note.... i just found this list online of all the Doritos flavor. http://www.taquitos.net/snack_guide/Doritos
i don't think i've seen even half of these flavors! How in the hell do i find them? I guess i need to go to Japan to try the Peking Duck flavored doritos.

Now onto the reason behind this post; Doritos new "mystery" flavor. What an insane marketing ploy!! Let's flavor some chips, put them in a shiny bag, and just say "we have no fuckin' clue what these taste like." And of course suckers like me will line up instantly to try them out.

Well... here goes, i'm gonna open the bag up.... OK, the smell isn't too revolting or unusual, it's got a bit of the typical doritos stink going on.... now let's put one of these suckers in my mouth.... hmmm.... this isn't really an unusual taste.... it's not bad, pretty basic dorito-esque taste.... try another chip..... lots of red flavor spices covering the chip...... kind of a basic,zesty nacho cheese mixed with standard dorito flavor... maybe a touch of "spice" on some chips..... yeah i approve of these... i'll give them 2 thumbs up.... kind of wish i had bought a bigger bag now.....