Sunday I went to The Original Pancake House, not for the first time, but for the first time in a while. If you’re in the mood for pancakes…look NO further…they have 13 different “pancake” items under that category on their menu.

This weekend I went out to breakfast twice, which is very unusual because I’m allergic to eggs…which means breakfast is a tricky meal for me and more often than not my only choices are either the pancakes, waffles or a combination of sides. Though at brunch, typically I have better luck because I have some lunch options…weird, I know!

I went with the Bacon Pancakes…how could I not…this was a brilliant combination. The saltiness of the bacon was the perfect balance for the sweetness of the pancakes. They might not be pretty, but they were very tasty!

 

 

 

 

 

Rebekah got the Potato Pancakes…we were both picturing potato latkes but they were way different. They were so thin and had been cooked in butter, they looked more like the batter on French Toast, but Rebekah still enjoyed them.

 

 

 

Of course the ladies of Life is a Run went with one of the healthy options The Original Pancake House offers, the Lifestyle Omelete, a vegetarian egg white omelet. But this omelete was served with 3 Buckwheat pancakes that tasted “wheaty.” 

 

 

 

 

While The Original Pancake House’s apple pancake and dutch boy looked interesting, they looked entirely too sweet for me. I do like that they offer more than just blueberry pancakes in the way of fruit pancakes, you can also choose from banana or strawberry. They’ve even got a gluten free pancake option.

I also recommend the hash brown potatoes, they make them right!

 

Another BIG perk about The Original Pancake House is they keep the coffee flowing!  There was constantly at least one person walking around with freshly brewed coffee.  I wanna say I got about 5 refills in the hour and half we were there and that’s rare!

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Last week, we had another Brown Bag Wine night (I’ll talk about the wines tomorrow) and headed to Kozy’s.  If you ever been to Knox Street Pub off McKinney, you’ve probably seen this bright green and purple building and like me wondered what it was.  

After looking at the website, I thought surely they have more food than that?  They did have a few more things, but not many.  Though that doesn’t mean what they have isn’t delicious.  Kozy’s offers grass fed proteins (beef and buffalo) as well as Gluten Free breads.

We were a little early and hungry so we ordered a few appetizers.  Beth got the “Chips and Stuff” that included: salsa, black bean dip and guacamole.  The salsa was good, the black bean dip was ok (I like Gloria’s better) and the guacamole was interesting.  It was very citrusy with quite a bit of lemon juice and also had blue cheese in it which was an odd twist.

I ordered the Baked Brie, it was one of their weekly specials.  And doesn’t it look pretty (to the left)?  This dish included ricotta, homemade marinara and was topped with Brie.  It was served with gluten free bread.  I thought the Baked Brie was delicious and was an interesting combination; the gluten free bread, was gross…sorry?  I really wanted to like it, but it was just so bland and flimsy. 

For dinner, I went with the Buffalo Burger (regular bun, couldn’t do gluten free again).  I can’t recall ever having buffalo before, but this was probably one of the best burgers I’ve ever had!  The patty was peppery and very moist; I ordered it with feta a great combination.  It came with vegetables and potato mash (or mashed potatoes), but after the two appetizers I was way too stuffed for the sides.

Justin, who sat next to me ordered the buffalo tacos that looked really good.  I’ll have to try them out next time!

 

 

 

 

My sister ordered the Seafood Diablo.  Of course it wasn’t my cup of tea because it was full of shrimp and scallops but she quite enjoyed it.  It was served over a bed of risotto.

 

If you’re looking for a great BYOB in the Dallas area go to Kozy’s.  If you’re looking for a great healthy dinner, go to Kozy’s.  Get the hint? If you haven’t been to Kozy’s yet, you need to go!

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For years Beth & I have joked that Del Frisco’s is our neighborhood friendly bar, because we’d go there often with dad for a drink after work.  So when I heard that Del Frisco’s Grille was opening I couldn’t wait to try it!

After a long week I needed a fun girl’s night and scheduled dinner with Jodie & Pam.  We got to the restaurant about 6:30 and didn’t have a reservation, so we planned to have a drink while we waited for a table…no luck, the bar was PACKED!  Just when we thought we were going to be able to get to the bar our table was ready.

I had scoped out the menu online before we went to dinner and had to try the Apt. 5D martini.  Never had I tried a martini with balsamic vinegar, but I’d never even heard of a martini made with it before.  It was delicious!!  I highly recommend it.

The awesome thing about dinner with these two is we could order a ton of different things and share so we could all try a good portion of the menu.

To start, we picked out two appetizers.  The Cheesesteak Eggrolls.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They had a sweet and spicy chili sauce that was a nice compliment to the slices of cheesesteak.  They were amazing!

Next up we went with the Ahi Tacos.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These weren’t exactly my cup of tea, but I did try them.  The shells reminded me of a wonton because of the crunchiness; and the shells were jam packed with Tuna Tartare.  If you are tuna fan, you will love these.  Me…not so much, but that’s my own issue with raw fish!

For dinner, we couldn’t pick!  Too many things on the menu sounded good and then our waiter told us about the special it was a trio of steak medallions, each one with a different topping.  And I must take a minute and apologize, we got so excited to try the food that I didn’t get pictures until after we’d started digging in.

Here is the steak trio:

The piece on the left was topped with a gorgonzola butter sauce.  The middle medallion was topped with lump crab meat.  And the piece to the right was topped with some sort of sweet mushroom sauce.  All 3 were so different and obviously the gorgonzola butter piece was our favorite but they were all delicious.

We also ordered a flat bread to try and went with the Pulled Roasted Chicken flat bread.  It was topped with goat cheese, potatoes and chicken.  The flat bread was huge and was definitely more than enough for a meal.

Pam really wanted to try the Sole Franceses and I of course was skeptical but I am SO glad she ordered it.  It was amazing!  It didn’t tasty fishy at all and was very light.  It was topped with lump crab, an arugula-cherry tomato salad drizzled with a chive- lemon butter sauce.  If you like Sole, I’m confident you will enjoy this!

 

Despite ordering 2 appetizers and 3 entrees…there was no way we were getting out of there without trying the bacon, jalapeno mac & cheese!  It was really good, but I’m not gonna lie…it wasn’t as spicy as I’d hoped!  But I’d still recommend it.

The wine list is huge and was even overwhelming to this wino.  But, I saw the Decoy by Duckhorn, and since we’re all red wine fans it seemed like a good option.  I’d never had the Cabernet before and we didn’t leave a drop!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Not that we had room, but we decided we couldn’t turn down dessert. As the waiter was going over the rather extensive dessert list with us I noticed the Lemon Cake…now if you’ve never been to Del Frisco’s and tried the Lemon Cake you are missing out!  It is one of my all time favorite desserts so the girls wanted to try it.

We had a great time and I can’t wait to go back!

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Every time we talked about the place we were going for our next Sister Sushi dinner, the Styx song started playing in my head and I couldn’t stop singing: “Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto.”  Oops, sorry if I’ve now gotten the song stuck in your head too.  Okay not really…sing it with me…”Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto.”

Beth suggested Sushi Robata so that we could try a new place, which none of us minded.  Plus, this one is in a great location for all of us.  It’s nestled in the Albertson’s parking lot at the northeast corner of Frankford and the Tollway.  I was surprised at how classy this place was; especially considering it’s location.

I am a super picky sushi eater…okay, truth be told I’m a sushi wuss!  I can admit it.  So naturally I scoped out the menu online and picked out what to order before we even got there.  I am not good at the whole raw fish thing, which I understand means that I don’t really eat sushi.  But I’m okay with that!

I ordered:

Sunrise Roll – shrimp tempura roll topped with crab mix, smelt roe and spicy sauce.

Crunch Roll – california roll topped with tempura flakes, smelt roe and eel sauce.

Both were really good!

If you are looking for a new sushi place, I’d definitely recommend this place.  Have you been? What do you think of Sushi Robata?

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Apparently New Year’s Day is not the best night to eat out. Originally I had wanted to take my friends to this little Italian place I grew up going to. But of course they were closed and we had to come up with Plan B.

Being the responsible people we are, we pulled into a parking lot before pulling up the Yelp app on our iPhones to pick out a new destination.

We landed on Penne Pomodoro. I’ve never been but have heard about it several times so when I scrolled to it we decided that was the place; besides we’d already planned on Italian!

Luckily we all love to share, so we ordered a bunch of different things to try. We started with calamari, but I have to admit, I was still in awe of the Zio Cecio calamari and wasn’t all that impressed with this calamari.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We then ordered a pizza because we wanted to try it and the Pizza Bianca con Prosciutto  just sounded so good.  It is a white pizza with prosciutto, mozzarella, sautéed mushroom, baby spinach & Parmesan.  Told you it sounded delicious, even though I’m not a mushroom fan.  And guess what, it was SO good!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I am a sucker for good gnocchi and love to try it when it’s on the menu.  So naturally we had to order this.  I’ve discovered that I really like gnocchi best in a cream sauce but because of our other menu selection we went with their Pomodoro e basilico sauce.  It was a basil and roasted garlic tomato sauce that was that was good.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our last selection was one of the specials of the day, it was Rigatoni with sausage in a garlic cream sauce.  This was amazing!  I would say this was my favorite dish of all of them!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Needless to say after this feast, none of us had room for dessert. Guess I’ll save that for next time!

This was the wine we had with our dinner. I’m not sure that a Malbec was the best pairing for this meal but it was quite enjoyable.

 

 

 

 

Have you been to Penne Pomodoro? I want to go and try out their brunch some time!

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This year…just like every year…I plan to blog more…we’ll see how it goes!

I have no desire to join the ever growing ranks of “wanna be” food critics here in Dallas…but I figure I might as well put my two cents out there about restaurants I do go try. So…here goes nothing….

I’ve known the people over at Texas de Brazil for the past, almost, six years; so I tend to have a heads up when they are up to something new. I knew they were working on a new concept since early 2011, but it wasn’t until August that I found out the new concept was an Italian one. I could NOT wait to try it!

Finally I did just that a few weeks ago. Since it is getting dark here so early these days, I can honestly say I have no clue what this place looks like from the outside. But, it is located on Lovers Lane, west of Inwood Rd.. but before you get to Celebration (if you Dallasites don’t know about Celebration, well that’s a whole other issue).

I had warned my friend we were going and fortunately they alerted the manager because they were hosting a private party, oops! Luckily we got to sneak in and eat.

First of all, the restaurant is absolutely gorgeous! It’s got a homie feeling to it, but a nicer home than I’ve ever lived in. And don’t be fooled when you walk in the “windows” to your right are actually mirrors; my friend got a little confused.

My girlfriend and I got there early to catch up and have a glass of wine. She beat me because the tollway was bumper to bumper moving about a quarter mile a minute, so when I finally arrived I was ready for a drink and just said “I’ll have what she’s having.”

Which was:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

She had been told it was like a Pinot Noir and it was so tasty we ordered a whole bottle. She and I also started with the Tagliere Del Pastore (aka a meat & cheese tray)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was delicious! And those jams were SO good!

When our other friend arrived we settled on ordering one appetizer and two entrees to all share. First we started with Fritto Di Paranza (or Calamari)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This was probably the best calamari I’ve ever had!

For our entrees we ordered:

Agli Asparagi e Crema Di Formaggi Risotti (Risotto with asparagus and soft melted cheese), which I apparently did not photograph. Boo me!

And we ordered the Costata Al Ramerino (Aged Rib Eye steak prepared Tuscan style)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Everything was delicious! Especially those mashed potatoes the steak came served on.

Despite being stuffed we still ordered dessert. To try something different we went with the Ricotta al Miele Amaro e Bacche di Pepe.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It is fresh Ricotta cheese with a drizzle of bitter honey and dusted with black pepper. It wasn’t my favorite, but everyone else was a fan.

Then we were surprised with a glass of Lemoncello before we were brought a serving of the Sa Carapinna each!

The Gelato of the day was sour apple and it was amazing!

Bottom line, if you haven’t visited Zio Cecio yet…what are you waiting for?? Do yourself a favor and go try it!

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