Sweet Treat: Edy's Samoas Ice Cream



I confess and I'll own up to it right now.  I have a serious weakness for Samoa Girl Scout Cookies.  Whenever the time of the years rolls around when they're being sold I simply am compelled to buy some and consume them in short order.  That's why I was so intrigued when I looked in the freezer section while The Girlfriend and I were at the grocery store last night.  Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus and he had left Edy's Samoas Ice Cream in my grocer's freezer.  Being that it was also on sale I just had to pick some up.

Unfortunately I have to report that while I think Samoa ice cream is great in theory in practice it just wasn't a home run for me.  It should have been.  All the components are things I love: caramel ice cream, fudge, sizable chunks of Samoa cookie pieces.  However, it just didn't come together into something that I found that tasty.  The best part of it by far was the cookie pieces, but I could barely taste any caramel flavor at all from the ice cream.  Maybe it would be improved by a coconut ice cream base with actual ribbons of caramel running through it.  It's also true that perhaps my expectations were just a bit too high on this one.  Whatever the case may be the fact remains that when you try new things you win some and you lose some.  Next it's time to get my hands on Ben and Jerry's new Late Night Snack ice cream.

Sweet Treat: Gummy Bears

Usually if I want something sweet one of the last things I seek out is candy.  Every once in a while I'll get the urge to have a candy bar, but sweets to me mostly fall into the baked goods or pastry category.  But to every rule there are some exceptions and my exception is gummy bears.  Ever since I was a little kid I have had a sweet spot for gummy candies of all kinds.  I like the traditional fruit flavored gummy bears, but I've been known to crave fruit snacks or sour gummy worms also.  I'm not really sure what the attraction is to that particular kind of candy, but I think it has a lot to do with the fact that they are usually not too sweet and the appealing texture.  They're also incredibly portable and don't melt like chocolate does.  Put them in a bag, take them to work and brighten your day.  Or if you're one of those Man vs. Food type people go ahead and order this 5lb monstrosity.

image courtesey crunchgear.com

P.F. Changs

There are a lot of things in this world that are popular and I just don't understand why.  Nascar, Dancing With the Stars, and Charlie Sheen (seriously everyone should be over this guy by now) just to name a few.  After my recent dining experience at P.F. Chang's I believe that restaurant deserves to be placed in the same category.

As we walked into the restaurant and sat down you're immediately welcomed in by the nice warm interior of the restaurant, the attentive servers and the inviting look of the semi-open kitchen.  It all seems that these elements are the signature part of P.F. Chang's bait-and-switch mentality.  The menu is quite large with a lot of the same or similar to what you mind find on a typical Chinese take-out menu.  The difference is of course the price.  I ordered the Moo Goo Gai Pan at a menu price of $13.50 which included a side of white rice.  The portion size was quite large, and I may have not even been too disappointed if my dish had even been the least bit palatable.

My dish was pretty standard for what Moo Goo Gai Pan is supposed to be.  Chicken, shrimp and veggies in white sauce.  It looked quite delicious as it was sat in front of me, but unfortunately once I tasted it I had my hopes dashed more than a Kansas fan during March Madness.  The shrimp were cooked nicely, but that is really the only thing I can say positively about it.  The entire dish lacked any kind of flavor what so ever.  The chicken and vegetables tasted like they had been boiled in completely unseasoned water and then thrown on my plate.  The sauce was so awful I almost fail to come up with words to describe it other than to say it was somewhat thicker than water, twice as flavorless and almost made me not want to eat the shrimp (one of my favorite foods) out of the dish.  I tried to liven up my meal some by adding one of P.F. Chang's table sauces, but there was no saving it.  This was the first time I ever remember getting Chinese food and not finishing my meal not due to bad flavors.  Now, I will say that I tried some of the dishes of my dining companions and they weren't all that bad.  But those dishes were of the fried and put in a sweet sauce variety and those are hard to screw up.  Some might say I just ordered the wrong dish, but if you're a big national chain charging a premium for otherwise cheap food then I expect every dish on the menu to be executed equally.  Then again what the hell do I know?  We were there on a weekday night and the place was packed.

Taste 1/10  Had the shrimp not been cooked just the way I like them I probably would have given a zero here.

Value 0/10  Yeah sorry.  I know they are going for the sit-down upscale casual vibe here, but even with the bells and whistles it's pretty damn hard to get me to accept paying double what I usually pay for Chinese and have what I ordered be practically inedible.

Weekend Preview

It's Friday Friday Friday gotta get down on...sorry couldn't help myself.  But as Rebecca Black so cleverly reminds us tomorrow is Saturday, and as per usual I will be prowling the city in search of good eats.  There is a chance that my parents may be coming down from the big city of Muncie to dine with The Girlfriend and I.  I've been racking my brain to try to think of a place we could try out that meets the following criteria.  1. It has to be in the Fishers/Noblesville/Carmel area.  If my parents are already driving 45 minutes I don't want to spend the additional time dragging them to Brip or downtown.  2.  I want it to be tasty but casual.  Come on let's be honest here.  I'm trying to get the rents to spring for dinner and if it's some place that's 30-40 bucks a plate they aren't gonna go for it.  3.  I want to go some place independent.  They already have nothing but chain restaurants up there in Funcie.  I'd like to show them something a little more unique without getting too adventurous for their tastes.  Any suggestions are welcome.  Also, sometime this weekend I'm going to try to pound out my P.F. Chang's review that I've had hanging over my head for a while now.  Hmm maybe I'm putting off writing it so I don't have to re-live the experience..uh oh maybe I've said too much.  Well, have a good weekend everyone.  If I'm not back posting by early next week at the latest just assume I suffered an OD on processed onion soup powder after cocktail time at a Sandra Lee dinner party. 

Sandra Lee image courtesy foodnetworkhumor.com, Rebecca Black image courtesy lamusicblog.com

Fast Food Memoriam: The Hardee's Big Cookie

Some of my fondest childhood memories stem from the days when my mother would take me over to my grandma's so she could babysit me while mom my worked.  Often times either on our way to my grandparents house or on the way home in the afternoon my mom would stop and get me a special treat.  That treat was the Big Cookie from Hardee's.  That oversized, soft, warm chocolate chip cookie never ceased to bring a smile to my face.  It is with great sadness that I lament its passing.  I hadn't thought much about it in years until it came in conversation today, and I was incredibly disappointed that you can no longer stop into your local Hardee's and pick one up.  All of the Hardee's locations in Muncie where I grew up are closed and gone and have been for years.  You can't even get a Hardee's burger where I grew up let alone my favorite childhood treat.  When Hardee's did their menu overhaul several years ago some things were bound to get lost in the shuffle for the sake of making an overall better menu.  It's just unfortunate that the Big Cookie had to be one of those casualties of the corporate battlefield.  What are some of your favorite no longer in existence fast food menu items?  I have a feeling there are several out there that might be worth blogging about.  Also, I wasn't able to find any pictures of the Big Cookie and the Big Cookie pouch that it came in so if anybody can find one on the googles or somewhere else let me know.

Sweet Treat: St Patty's Day Cookies

Despite all the craziness and trendiness around cakes and cupcakes these days neither one really do that much for me.  They're okay, but if I really want to satisfy my sweet tooth I reach for a cookie.  Last week I was in luck because a co-worker of mine who is a fantastic baker and cake decorator sent several of us here in the office a little box of homemade St Patrick's Day themed sugar cookies.  I'm usually more of a chocolate chip kind of guy, but she totally nailed what a good sugar cookie is supposed to be.  They were soft and fluffy without being too heavy like some store brand sugar cookies.  Also, the icing that she put on them was fantastic.  Sweet and not too thick so it didn't dominate the cookie.  Some of the cookies also had green icing which had just a hint of mint flavor on the back end which I really enjoyed.  It's nice when the icing itself actually has flavor added instead of just food coloring.  Also, you have to admit that shamrock shaped cookies are pretty cool no matter what.

Carmel Burgers

Despite my desire to try new things and restaurants and write about them on this blog I sometimes find myself slipping into going to restaurants that I already know are good.  Not that there is anything wrong with that.  If a place is good it makes sense I would become a frequent customer.  However, I have to remind myself that without trying new places I may never find that next great meal that will keep me coming back.  That's the reason the girlfriend and I decided to try Carmel Burgers (Hazel Dell and Main in Carmel).  I hadn't heard anything about this place.  No preconceptions.  Just a stop on the quest for a great local burger.

The menu at Carmel Burgers is pretty straight forward.  It pretty much consists of burgers of varying sizes, specialty burgers (mushroom, bacon, etc), hotdog, gyros, steakfries and onion rings.  Each burger comes standard with lettuce, tomato and pickle unless specified otherwise.  The girl and I both decided to get the 1/3lb cheeseburger, fries and Cokes.  She swapped out her steak fries for beer battered onion rings for an additional charge.  For both meals together it cost us about 18 bucks which is a little expensive for a burger from a fast-food style restaurant, but if it's a quality product I'm not going to complain too much.

When we got our burgers I thought they were a nice size.  Not overwhelmingly big, but stout enough that I was happy with a single patty.  I don't like veggies on my burger. My burger looks a little plain only being adorned with pickle slices.  If I was to make a tweak to the restaurant it would be adding some sort of special sauce or grilled onions and mushrooms as menu choices.  Luckily they had some very tasty bbq sauce available on the table for a condiment.  It was that great mix of sweet and spicy that tasted like it could have been house made.  The burger itself was a good but not great burger.  It was cooked a little more than I maybe would have preferred.  The meat also tasted unusually peppery for a burger which I somewhat enjoyed, but I'm not sure I'd be in the majority on that one.  The seasoning was quite strong.  The girlfriend agreed about the flavor of her burger and she said it even cut through the veggies and mayo that she elected as toppings.

On the basis of the burgers alone I could tell that this place has potential.  However, there were a couple of things that left me shaking my head.  First of all the side items.  I really tried to give them a chance, but I still detest steak fries.  As steak fries usually are these were heavy and mushy.  When I think of a great burger place great fries so often go hand in hand with that.  I want fries that are light and crispy while retaining that potato flavor.  These steak fries were just mediocre filler that weighed me down for the rest of the night.  Perhaps even the heavy fries wouldn't have been so bad without adding in the bun on which they decided to serve these burgers.  The buns were nicely toasted sesame seed buns, but they were way way too big.  The burger was fairly large, but it was dwarfed by the giant bun on which it was served.  If I'm eating a 1/3 lb burger and I can't see the meat when the bun is on that is a problem. The onion rings were actually quite tasty with quite a bit of beer flavor in them.  I was hoping they were hand battered and made in house, but after seeing food service posters for them by the counter on the way out I have to believe otherwise.

Aside from the food I found  a couple of other things a little bit strange about the restaurant.  Based on their website, www.carmelburgers.com, it seems like they want to be a cool hangout type place.  They tout their craft beers on sale and flat screen tvs.  While both of those items were present it still didn't contribute to that type of hangout atmosphere.  The music playing over the speakers was inordinately loud.  The televisions weren't even turned on to a particular channel, and the tables aren't really comfortable enough or laid out in such a way as to make it an easy place to drink with buddies and watch the game.

In conclusion maybe I didn't find that next great local burger place that will make me a regular customer, but I did find one that with some minor tweaks could be much better than average.  To put it in pop culture parlance if Carmel Burgers was a girl that someone brought back to the Jersey Shore house she wouldn't be a dime but I wouldn't be running to sound the grenade whistle either.  (lame pop culture reference!!!)

Taste 6.5/10  I wanted to give it a little bit better of a score, but there were enough little problems that dragged it down.

Value 3/10  I could have spent the same amount of cash at Five Guys or 96th Street Steakburgers and had a meal I enjoyed more.