Food/Restaurants

Flavors of India Restaurant Review

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Last night my wife and I had appointments to use one of her Groupons I purchased her for Christmas, Herbal Therapy Body Wraps. This article is not meant to fully discuss the wraps, but I will briefly recap. Honestly, I am not quite sure why anyone would pay and believe the body wraps actually did anything. They took measurements of me before and after, and showed I did lose an average of 3/4 of an inch across my body, but I am not too convinced. However, it was nice getting to spend some quality relaxation time with my wife, so money well spent.

After our wraps (actually my wife could only get a facial because she is still breastfeeding), we were starving, and decided to try Flavors of India next door, located at 26703 Brookpark Extn, North Olmsted, OH 44070.

We were one of only two tables when we went around 6pm. We were kind of surprised by the lack of patrons, but they are honestly in a horrible location. Luckily, by the time we left, the place had several tables. My wife ordered a Thakali Thali special and I ordered Himilayan Thali. Basically, they were one price with drink, appetizer, a five course meal, dessert, and tea.

First the appetizers. My Aloo Sadeko (Potatoes fried in a Nepali style) were amazing compared with my wife’s Himalayan Choela (Chicken in mustard oil and spices), which were slightly dry, but very flavorful.

Both of our main dishes were great, and even though they were served in small tea cup size bowls, there was way more food than we both could eat.

We both ended the meal with the rice pudding, which was really good as well.

What I was surprised with after we got home was how bad the reviews were online. We thought the food was amazing though, and loved the different, fresh flavors.

Another really crazy thing that was really good, was my soda. I ordered “Sunkist” off the menu, but when it arrived, it was a sparkling lemonade served in a can. We had never seen this before, and it was very good.

Overall, we were very pleasantly surprised with the meal, which including tip came to $50. We much rather support authentic, local cuisine, than chain restaurants. We even laughed how the Olive Garden down the street was packed as usual, yet right next door was the Flavors of India restaurant, which had no wait, and some amazing food. I think we ended up bringing home more food than we even ate because there was so much of it.

It really makes me want to travel to India to experience the authenticity of Indian cooking. With buying a new home though, it is not in the near future.

Taking the Kids Out to Eat While Traveling

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My wife recently read me an article from her April 2011 Parents magazine called “Take the Kids Out to Eat!” As anyone who knows us or is a frequent reader of our blog, we consider ourselves foodies and really enjoy a great meal. While I am not the epitome of fitness and health, as we raise our young boys, it is very important to both of us that we instill in our children the importance of eating healthy. This is no where more important than when you are traveling.

Often when traveling it can be easy to grab a quick burger and fries either from a fast food chain or even a sit down restaurant. However, typically after the first couple of days on a vacation I feel exhausted from eating out all the time. By the middle of our trip I find myself ordering way healthier options because even our bodies tell us enough of the quick, not healthy food.

So I find the Parents magazine article interesting. The following is a quick summary of their top 10 healthy eating chain restaurants.

1) Jason’s Deli
2) Cosi
3) Souplantation/Sweet Tomatoes
4) Red Lobster
5) Chipotle
6) Noodles & Company
7) Red Robin
8) Mimi’s Cafe
9) Panera Bread
10) P.F. Chang’s China Bistro

Keep in mind obviously not everything on the menu might be the most healthy option. What the article was implying was that these restaurants have the best options available to feed your children when eating out.

As my wife read me the list, I was in general agreement. Red Lobster I have always read is actually a fairly healthy eatery. Red Robin surprised me only because I would not picture a burger joint as a healthy option, yet alone the unlimited fries. Then she got to number ten on the list.

I have never eaten at P.F. Chang’s before, although I hear great things about it. My first reaction though is that it would be my very last choice for eating because of what I read in my Men’s Health magazine. It seems almost every month Men’s Health features a discussion in the Eat This, Not That series that P.F. Chang’s is practically the most unhealthy restaurant to eat. Usually it seems because the salt contents are so high.

For us in general, we stay away from chain style restaurants as much as possible. We would rather frequent more of the mom and pops type establishments as well as the local good eats. Even when eating at non-chain restaurants though, we need to make sure we make healthy choices for both us and our children.

I cringe every time I go to a restaurant and they tell me the kids meal is fried chicken fingers, pizza, buttered noodles, or a hot dog or hamburger. It is amazing to me that a chef can cook all these fabulous meals yet not come up with something creative and health for a child. Maybe I happen to be in a special situation though because of my oldest son’s eating habits.

My son has always been an amazing eater and will pretty much eat anything put in front of him. Yet he is a healthy size and weight and does not over eat. Therefore, when we dine out, I do not want to plop down a plate of fried whatever just because it is on the kids menu. It seems like numerous times our son has eaten more from our plates than even his own. We do not have a picky eater and thus do not have to resort to unhealthy typical kid meals.

My main point of this post is when eating out, do not accept ordering from a conventional kids menu if you have your child’s health in mind. Ask the server if the chef can make a creative entree using “fill-in-the-blank” ingredients. Or do not be afraid to order a smaller portion of a healthier alternative on the menu. A lot of times I have specifically not ordered a kids meal for our son only because I know between both my wife and my portions, we will have plenty of food to share.

Finger Lakes, New York Trip Report (Part 4)

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This is my last actual trip report for our vacation to the Finger Lakes, although my last post will discuss the finances of the vacation. In my previous posts I talked about our stay at the Staybridge Suites (Part 1), what we did while in Corning (Part 2), and our time spent in the Seneca Lake wine region (Part 3). On our final day in the Finger Lakes region, we concentrated on getting the boys outside for a hike, as well as see some additional wineries, breweries, and local establishments around Cayuga Lake.

We started out the morning splitting from my in-laws and heading up to the Watkins Glen State Park. Our goal for the day was to hike along the gorge since the weather finally broke and was warming up. I was last there probably at least 10-12 years ago and distinctly remember camping with my parents and best friend as well as hiking and swimming through the gorge, so I was excited to get to show my wife part of my childhood.

We entered the park at the south parking lot, which was surprisingly empty and the the guard house unattended. Sweet, I just saved us $8, I thought to myself. Apparently, even though it was spring break and the end of April, the park really is not fully open and staffed. We quickly learned that lesson when hiking the trails.

After talking with some local people leaving the trails and asking where was the best spot to hike with two young boys, we went off on some trails to the gorge. Basically we were only able to go approximately a quarter mile up and down stream since the trails had not been cleared yet from the winter and were closed. I was rather disappointed because I was really looking forward to this portion of the trip, but we still made a great time out of the park. My oldest son really enjoyed the idea of hiking. I carried him in a backpack as did my wife with our newborn. Besides getting to be outside enjoying nature and the fresh air, the southern parking lot also had an excellent playground that we played with our oldest son for a while.

After spending about two hours in the park area, we headed over and grabbed my coat from the Rooster Fish Brewery, which I forgot the night before, and then headed towards Cayuga Lake to meet up with our in-laws. We met for lunch at the Cayuga Lake Creamery and had hot dogs and of course ice cream.

We tried the following wineries around Cayuga Lake: Bellwether Hard Cider, Americana Vineyards, Wagner Vineyards and Brewery, 2 Goats Brewery, and Finger Lakes Distilling. Americana was probably the best of the day as they had an excellent assortment of wines. The tasting fee was $3 and you got to try up to 8 different wines. For an extra $1 we were able to sample 4 blueberry wines.

Wagner’s was extremely crowded due to the Wine and Cheese tour and had an extensive amount of drunk people present. We did not feel comfortable or welcomed having our kids with us here even though they were both well behaved.

2 Goats Brewery was disappointing from the standpoint that it really was nothing more than a fancy bar and not really a winery. They did make 3 of their own beers, but mostly sold an extensive collection of other people’s beer. The view on the patio was nice though looking out onto Seneca Lake.

Two things also worth seeing while in the area was the Muranda Cheese Company and World Famous Muranda Dairy Cows. They had an excellent assortment of small batch cheeses! We also met Mrs. Murray who was a delight to talk with about the cows and cheese making process. The best part was the excitement of our oldest son to see the “mooies,” which he came up with for the cows. I took him in the backpack up close and personal in the cow barn to get to see and touch some of the cows. I was really glad we made the trip up north for this stop.

The other must see was Hector Falls located on the east side of Seneca Lake along Route 414 in Hector.

The falls were beautiful and well worth the stop. However, there are only two small pull-offs to park and try and get out of the car while vehicles pass by at 55 MPH, so you definitely need to be careful. It would have been nice if they would have slowed down the traffic in the vicinity of the falls to make it safe for tourists to experience the falls.

So that pretty much wraps up our trip to the Finger Lakes region. I will be posting one final article discussing the financial aspect of what the trip costs and where we saved or splurged.