Beef Thai Wrap

Cabbage. Beef. Red peppers. Maybe a hint of onions or garlic? What is that pungent after-taste?

Even as I write this, a full hour after I ate the Beef Thai Wrap from Pollock, I can’t get that taste out of my mouth. In the past hour, I’ve brushed my teeth twice, yet still it lingers. I tried to wash it away with a cookie (because as we all know, cookies can solve any problem), but surprisingly, it seems to have made it worse! I must say, this is the first time a cookie has ever failed me.

The Beef Thai Wrap looked pretty appetizing to me as pursued my quest in the dining hall to find something to new to eat. It was just a regular wrap with shredded beef, cooked red peppers, and cabbage. So all in all, not too scary, especially considering the sushi I’ve tried the past two weeks.

First bite – success. It was a bit crunchy from the cabbage and peppers, but nothing unusual or unexpected. It just tasted like a normal wrap, and frankly, I wouldn’t have realized it was Thai food if the index card above it hadn’t labeled it as a Beef Thai Wrap.

I polished off my tasty wrap pretty quickly; satisfied and pretty full…although that may have been from the huge salad I ate right before it.

However, my mistake in eating this wrap was unavoidable. I finished it. As soon as I stopped eating, the after-taste overwhelmed me. I tried to wash it down with water, and as I stated earlier, a cookie, but nothing seemed to help. There must have been some hidden onions or garlic or something in there, because I haven’t experienced that bad of a taste in a long time.

Unfortunately, the after-taste ruined the wrap for me. I’m feeling a little bitter towards the Beef Thai Wrap now. It quite literally “left me with a bad taste in my mouth”.  

Tempura Shrimp Roll

As promised, this week I tried Sushi! Last week I tasted Nigiri Sushi, which was supposed to be a good transition into regular sushi. However, in comparing both types of sushi, I think I tried them in reverse order. Maybe it’s because I sort of knew what to expect this time around, but I thought the Nigiri Sushi was a lot scarier than the regular one!

Yesterday I went to “Maki Yaki”, a Japanese restaurant off of Garner Street (next to DP Dough) and ordered the Tempura Shrimp Roll. Just as it sounds, this sushi contained shrimp as its main ingredient. (It also had cucumbers but I ordered it without them – I’m not quite that daring yet!) Aside from the shrimp, this sushi also contained avocado, although you couldn’t taste it, and then the typical seaweed and rice wrap.

Just like the Nigiri Sushi, these ten pieces of sushi came with ginger, soy sauce, and wasabi as a topping. And, just like last week, I wasn’t too thrilled with the ginger or wasabi, but the soy sauce was good! After tasting the wasabi and ginger, I mostly stuck to plain sushi or sushi dipped in soy sauce.

This sushi also came with two types of mystery sauce: some sort of spicy mustard and a variation of soy sauce. Not only did the sauces make the sushi look a little more gourmet for a low-key restaurant, but they also added a nice touch to the taste.

I was a little nervous about eating seaweed, but it didn’t really taste like much; it was just kind of chewy. I got the most flavor from the shrimp, rice, and soy sauce when I used it. My only complaint was that because the seaweed was so chewy, you couldn’t really bite the sushi in half, you had to just eat the whole roll at once. And it was a big roll!

I would definitely recommend the Tempura Shrimp Roll from Maki Yaki for anyone who is a little hesitant about trying sushi. It was great!

First Taste of Sushi! (...kind of)

Last night I was perusing the aisles of Wegman’s looking for something tasty to eat when I stumbled upon the Sushi section. Immediately overcome with the adrenaline rush of trying something new, I knew I had to try some. While I stood there scrutinizing each box of sushi to see which one I would like the best (or like at all), my friend, who I was shopping with, found a different type of sushi, unlike the usual one wrapped in seaweed you’d expect to see.  

Called Nigiri Sushi, this new food consisted of rice packed together in a rectangular cube with raw fish draped over top. The box we bought had tuna, salmon, and scallops for the fish. After doing a bit of research, I found that most Nigiri Sushi comes in pairs, and it is generally a good type of sushi to try if you’ve never tried sushi before.

I should probably add at this point that I really only like shellfish (shrimp, lobster, crab, clams, oysters, scallops, etc), and any “regular” fish (tuna, salmon, trout) grosses me out. Needless to say, I was a bit terrified to try the Nigiri Sushi.

Because of my dislike of most fish, I decided to start with the one with scallops on it first. I took the first bite and was pleasantly surprised with its taste. Luckily for me, the taste of rice was prominent, so (although I do like scallops) the taste of fish wasn’t too overwhelming. I finished the rest of that piece by dipping it in soy sauce, which really strengthened the flavor.

Now comes the bad part: the tuna and salmon.  I gingerly picked up the tuna Nigiri with my chopsticks and smelled it. (Yuck). When I bit down, it was a tougher texture than I expected…and not one I liked at all. One bite was all I needed to move on to the next one.

The salmon was without a doubt the worst. Even after taking the tiniest of bites, I almost spit it out because it was so bad. It took all of my willpower to chew and swallow!

Overall, I’d recommend Nigiri Sushi to anyone who is not a wimp like me. That being said, I really liked the scallops one, so I guess next time I’ll have to try one with shrimp or another shellfish to be satisfied.

Next week I’ll upgrade to the more traditional sushi…wish me luck!

Breakfast Pizza

I had a difficult time this week finding something new to find to eat. Overwhelmed with the mounds of work piling up from professors trying to stress students out as much as possible after a nice relaxing break, I didn’t have much time to go out to eat to a new restaurant, so my meal choices were limited to the regular old dining hall food.

Today for lunch I tried something at Pollock that looked like it could be new and interesting. Called “breakfast pizza”, it mixed all of my favorite breakfast foods into one small square-shaped snack.  As you may imagine, this pizza consisted of scrambled eggs mixed with bacon, potatoes, onions, and lots of cheese on top of regular pizza crust.

There’s something about breakfast that is just so satisfying. Any type of breakfast food will do the trick. Whether it’s pancakes or waffles, sausage or bacon (although preferably sausage), or just cereal and milk, I’m happy to eat breakfast at any time of day.

Pizza has the same mouth-watering effect for me. Pepperoni, sausage, ham and pineapple, or mushroom pizzas are okay on my list any day. (That being said, I prefer good pizza over the cheap Canyon pizza everyone seems to love so much. Try pizza from Home Delivery or Angelo’s in Boalsburg and you’ll never eat at Canyon again!)

I guess that’s why I loved the breakfast pizza so much. It mixed two of my favorite things, pizza and any kind of breakfast food, into one delectable, (and greasy) food. The only thing that I would love more than this combination would be if it somehow incorporated chocolate, my other weakness, into the mix…although that may not taste as good as I’d like to think. I guess I’ll have to turn somewhere else to get my daily chocolate fix!

The picture I took of my new discovery did not turn out too well, so I’ll include a recipe for the breakfast pizza here. Enjoy!

A Tribute to Hallie and Annie

Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to introduce you to my new obsession. Last week I announced my new favorite restaurant, but now I’d like to tell you about my new favorite snack. Good for satisfying your sweet tooth, or sneaking a midnight snack, I’ve finally tried something I’ve heard about all my life, but never had a chance to try. It’s a snack Annie James and Hallie Parker from The Parent Trap would be proud of.

Hallie: [takes out a box of Oreos] Want one?

Annie: Oh, sure, I love Oreos. At home, I eat them with... I eat them with peanut butter.
Hallie: You do? That is so weird.
[takes out a jar of peanut butter]

Hallie: So do I!

Annie: You're kidding! Most people find that totally disgusting.

Hallie: I know, I don't get it.

Annie: Me either.

That’s right folks, Oreos with peanut butter. To be more specific, double stuffed Oreos with peanut butter.

My dreams of trying this delectable snack began in 1999 when I first saw The Parent Trap, but for whatever reason, I never got around to trying them before this weekend. I either had Oreos with me, but no peanut butter, or peanut butter, but no Oreos. And thus, I had no opportunity to try it. 

How can you resist?

I expected a taste similar to Reese’s Cups, because after all, it is just chocolate and peanut butter. But in reality, it is so much more. It’s rich, creamy taste of the peanut butter, thickly spread on top of a chocolate wafer. After biting through the wafer, you get to the icing of the Oreo, which is usually my favorite part of the cookie, but with the peanut butter mixed in, the flavor is one hundred times stronger.


Oreos and peanut butter can be combined by delicately spreading the peanut butter on top, as shown in the picture above, or my favorite way, by using the Oreo as a spoon to scoop out the peanut butter. Another great variation on this medley is to switch Oreos with Thin Mints Girl Scout Cookies. The addition of mint to the chocolate and peanut butter mix gives the cookie a whole new layer of flavor.

I could go on and on about how much I love Oreos with peanut butter. In fact, I don’t think I’ve stopped eating them since I first tried them earlier this week. It’s definitely a snack to enjoy again and again!

Pad Thai Delight

Well folks, I’ve found it - my new favorite restaurant. It’s called Galanga by Cozy Thai, and it’s on College Avenue right next to Subway. I’ve lived in State College for eighteen years and never knew it existed until this weekend.

Accompanied by a new friend, I entered Galanga a slightly nervous outlook because I had never tried Thai food before. Because I was a novice to the world of Thai, I asked the waiter what he recommended. I've found that this is the best technique when trying something new because most waiters at restaurants have a pretty good idea of what's good and what to stay away from. The waiter chose the Chicken Pad Thai for me, which he said was a good beginner meal. Here’s what my plate looked like when it first arrived:

I promise this looked better in person.

In reality it looked more like this - yum!

I won’t lie, the cabbage on the top sort of scared me, and so I took a tentative first bite. But thankfully, I was pleasantly surprised! It turned out to taste very similar to Chicken Lo Mein, which is lucky because that’s one of the only kinds of Chinese food I like, seeing as I usually don't branch out much with different kinds of food.

The Chicken Pad Thai I had consisted of noodles, cabbage, chicken, onions, garlic, what I believe were bean sprouts, and peanuts. As I continued eating, the peanuts became a little overbearing for me, because they were not evenly mixed throughout the dish. But this was not enough of a deterrent for me to stop eating!

I eventually did stop eating simply because the portion they gave me was too big to finish. I would definitely recommend trying Pad Thai, and I would especially recommend bringing a new friend with you to try it. It was certainly a bonding moment for both of us to taste something so different from what we're used to. I know I will be heading back to Galanga to branch out from their "beginner meals" soon!

Name This Dish

This week I tried a new dish, but please don’t ask me what it was called. I rushed in to Pollock Dining Hall, my stomach was growling, my mouth was watering, and the first thing I saw was a pasta-looking Chinese dish, so I grabbed it. I glanced up at the labels of each food, but all I saw was “brown rice”, “white rice”, and “egg roll”, so I chose to call this dish “mystery pasta”. (It sounds better than mystery meat, right?)

The mystery pasta consisted of what I believe may be called rice noodles (correct me if I’m wrong please!), red peppers, and snap peas. The rice noodles were a surprise for me. I expected to taste what I would consider to be normal noodles, but these were thinner, and not as soft as most pasta dishes, although maybe that was an error in the preparation and not how they were actually supposed to taste. The snap peas also startled me because they weren’t crunchy, like you would expect when you eat them raw, but they also weren’t soft, as you would expect when they are cooked. Again, this may have been the chef’s fault. The red peppers, as usual, simply added a bit of color and texture to mix. I rarely find red peppers to have much flavor when cooked with other food.

I’ll admit, I was in somewhat of a rush today during dinner, so I did not get the chance to fully appreciate my newfound food. Overall, I’d give this dish an A-. It certainly expanded my horizons on Chinese food, and it was more than just my go-to egg roll or brown rice that I would usually get. And, it tasted pretty good too! No longer will I opt for the regular pasta with olive oil and cheese that I usually get at the dining hall. If I see this mystery pasta, I’ll be sure to try it again!

Crepes Galore

This week I decided to try something that had been suggested to me countless times during my daily trips to Pollock Dining Hall. I had been feeling kind of off this week, so I knew I needed something chocolate-y and sweet to cheer me up. Thankfully, the Nutella crepe I had for dessert did the job.

Before I left for dinner, I did some research so I knew what to expect. Here’s what I found through Google Images.

 



Is your mouth watering yet?



While the crepe at Pollock did not look nearly as gourmet as some of the pictures above do, it certainly tasted just as I expected. A thin layer of dough, with creamy Nutella spilling out of the sides, garnished with strawberry sauce and whipped cream. Yum!

The only problem with trying this crepe this week was that I now have an entire semester left (which will surely include a few more bad days or weeks), in which I can eat my feelings through this chocolate haven. It was all I could do today to refrain from getting a second one!

Perhaps what I’ve learned about myself this week is that while it may be easy to gorge myself on comfort food at the end of a bad day, it won’t help in the long run. There was really no reason for my feeling bad this week; it was just one of those weeks. It was a week with too much work, a week without enough sleep, and a week sufficiently lacking any “me time”. The only way I can fix my attitude in those kinds of weeks is to take a deep breath and plow through it. So, although I certainly don’t regret having that calorie and sugar filled treat, the delectable taste of this crepe made me realize I am at a high risk of becoming one of the “girls who eat their feelings” in the cafeteria.

The Bison Burger

See this burger? Looks like a regular old cheeseburger, right? WRONG. It’s a bison burger from the one and only Corner Room. I know I know, I’m supposed to be trying new and exciting foods, but in my defense, the thought of a bison burger sort of intrigued me.

I went to The Corner Room for dinner tonight with two of my cousins who also go to Penn State. I had high hopes for my bison burger. I expected an explosion of new flavor. Maybe they’d put new seasonings on it that you wouldn’t really put on a regular burger, making it spicy and savory. Maybe it would be a different texture than what you’d expect from the old beef cow. Hey, maybe it would even be presented on a gold platter with a dancing waitress and chorus!

But no. Not at all. While the waitress was pleasant and certainly deserved her 18% tip, she did not dance, nor did her coworkers sing to me as I received my meal. The burger satisfied my rumbling tummy, but did not send my taste buds into a frenzy. And my wallet wasn’t too pleased with the deal either. The taste may have been a little stronger than the average restaurant-cooked burger, but I think my dad makes better burgers than what I had tonight.

The upside, and why I still may choose to order a bison burger at The Corner Room in the future? It is so much healthier than a regular burger! Compared to a regular hamburger, the patty itself on average has 76 less calories and 7.73 less grams of fat. That being said, if I go to The Corner Room I probably won’t order any type of burger at all, because I am a huge beef snob from growing up on a farm, and I can probably get a better burger at home than anywhere else.

So the final verdict: If you’re at The Corner Room and are dying to have a burger, you might as well have the healthier version and get a bison burger for the few extra dollars. Just don’t expect it to come on a gold platter.

Intro to Life In A Bite

I had a difficult time thinking of a topic for this passion blog, to say the least. Sure, I had a few ideas, but nothing that I felt comfortable writing about for an entire semester. “What am I passionate about?”, I asked myself over and over again. Well, I enjoy singing, I love my family, I used to be a swimmer, and I like Harry Potter. But none of these were good enough. Nothing stood out to me as the aspect of my life that really makes me tick.

I still haven’t found that one thing that makes me tick, but I have realized that I have a lot of self-exploration to do this semester. I want to figure out who I am, and where I want to go with my life. And yes, I realize even many adults may not know this about themselves, so I don’t expect to have it all figured out by finals week in May. But why not at least start this lifelong journey now?

As funny as it may sound, the only constant I’ve had in my life has been my love of food. I love to try new recipes, and although my mom says I used to be a very picky eater, I have grown to love trying new food. So my goal this semester is to begin my flight of finding myself through the simple act of trying new food.

This is what a typical dining hall meal looks like for me. Pasta with olive oil, sprinkled with cheese, and some fruits and veggies. Pretty boring, right?

Yes, those potatoes did turn out to be gross.

This semester I hope to try one new dish every week. This could include a main dish, a dessert, or maybe even a new drink! I plan to find these new meals in the dining halls, restaurants downtown, or possibly through an online recipe.

Thank you for taking a part in my journey through my “life in a bite”!