Archive | October, 2010

Pop-Tarts World Pop-In

14 Oct

I heard some buzz about Pop-Tarts World opening up in Times Square, so when Mike and I had some time to kill on my birthday before seeing Million Dollar Quartet on Broadway (which was AMAZING btw), we decided to take a peak.

It’s their one and only location and it’s on 42nd street between 6th Ave and Broadway.

They had some cute features, including an on-site t-shirt maker.

And the “Varietizer,” which allowed you to customize the individual flavors in your box of Pop-Tarts.

And then… there’s the menu.

It is quite the collection of oddities as dreamed up by the “chefs.”  And everything looked cavity-inducingly delicious in the display.

They even make sandwiches… in case you need a “lunch” option.

We went for variety and started with the “sushi.”  It was a “fruity sushi roll” (similar to a fruit roll up) stuffed with ground up pop tarts (Frosted Raspberry, Frosted Blueberry, and Frosted Wild Berry).  It was WAAAAAY too sweet for me.  But it was a funny thing to eat… especially on my birthday.

Mike chose the granola bar for his “entree.”  This included a “wholesome bar” of oats, almonds, sunflower seeds, chocolate chips, dried cherries, and a splash of honey with chunks of Pop-Tarts Frosted Cherry and Pop-Tarts Frosted Chocolate Fudge.  Now if every granola bar tasted like this, I would eat granola bars all day.

My choice was the “Sticky Cinna Munchies.”  This was “warm and cozy” cinnamon roll bites with chunks of Pop-Tarts Frosted Cinnamon Roll smeared with cream cheese icing.  Now I couldn’t taste a bit of Pop-Tarts (even though the cinnamon roll variety is one of my faves) but I can tell you… this may be worth joining the obesity epidemic for. 

Mmmm Mmmmm Mmmmmmmmm

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Market Cafe- Bumped Up

14 Oct

I wrote about Market Cafe previously, however, I have to update the review because I found a dish that is SO good that it makes me need to bump up the Nom Nom points.

To start, however, I must mention that while they say they open at noon, we literally stood outside the empty restaurant staring at them until about 5 after when they finally seated us.

So onto the food… The Seared Sea Scallops are SO. DAMN. GOOD. that I could make a whole meal out of it.  Unfortunately, I have now sung their praises so much when I’m there with others that I always wind up splitting it. 

The scallops are cooked so well to begin with… but then they’re on a bed of potato puree with brown butter that is TO. DIE. FOR.  Holy potatoes batman!  I am salivating just looking at that picture.  Just because it’s so good… here is another picture.

The rest of the items on the menu are just pretty much average.  Good but not great.

On this adventure, Lori and I got both the pork loin sandwich.  It comes with smoke mozzarella, arugula, and butter pickles on homemade bread.  I couldn’t have the pickles due to my allergy, and Lori thought they were way too sweet (since I love sweet with pork… I probably would have liked it).  I also noticed that Lori could not handle the fat on the meat, however, in my humble opinion, that’s the best part!  To each their own.

We were there with my Aunt Linda and she got the omelet of the day.

It was something along the lines of swiss and mushrooms (I think) and she said she enjoyed it.

HOWEVER… there was a salad problem.  The lettuce was VERY old, brown, wilted, and tasted funny.  It should never have left the kitchen.

To be fare, the waiter was very apologetic about it and brought us french fries.  Unfortunately, they didn’t make it to the table before I had to leave for a meeting.  Though I remember them being tasty.

So while the 6.5 stands on most of the food… and the service was lacking… the scallops get a solid 8!  I’m therefore changing my ranking…

Total Nom Points: 7 out of 10

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Easy as Key Lime Pie

13 Oct

Another birthday… another baked good.  This time it was a new adventure with Key Lime Pie.

I wanted to make sure I had a good graham cracker crust, and after much searching, I opted for one that sounded a bit different on my favorite recipe site, AllRecipes.com.

I happen to love that they sell Graham Cracker Crumbs already all crumbled in a box.  I never can get the consistency exactly right when I chop it myself.  I’ll pay a little more for that (and the convenience).  Unfortunately, it’s very hard to find (when stores have it, it’s by the bread crumbs usually).  I haven’t yet found myself ordering a CASE on Amazon… but I wouldn’t put it past me.

So first you mix together the 1.5 cups of graham cracker crumbs, 1/3 cup melted butter, and 3 Tablespoons of granulated sugar.

Then you press it into the bottom of a pie pan and spread egg yolk on it.  After reading the feedback on the recipe, I soon realized this was the tough part… and they were right.  First of all, I used more like 3 yolks to have enough to go around.  And second, it was NOT easy to spread.  I wound up kind of dolloping it on and pressing it down with the back of a spoon until it was coated.  No real spreading involved.  But it wasn’t too bad.

I then baked it for 10 minutes at 350 to brown it a little.

After that, I was ready to add the key lime pie filling.  I got the recipe, again, from AllRecipes.com.  This was also as easy as… pie.

Mix 3 cups sweetened condensed milk with 1/2 cup sour cream, 3/4 cup key lime juice (I couldn’t find key limes so I used regular limes… much to my hesitation… but it worked out just fine), and 1 Tablespoon of grated lime zest.  Mixed it well and poured it on in.

As I baked the pie for about 8 minutes at 350 degrees, I realized that it looked kinda… boring.  So I had some limes left and decided to candy them.

I sliced them thin and put them in some sugar and water to soften and sweeten.

They did soften, but BOY were these tart!  Not for the faint of heart by any means.  I actually scooped these off my piece…

But they sure added a touch of flair to the pie itself.

I let it bake until I saw tiny bubbles come up the surface (the key is not to brown it).

I then chilled it overnight and brought it in the next day.

It was DELICIOUS!  I’m not sure if I would add this to my repertoire, but for a first time key lime pie, I think it was damn good.

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