http://www.strength.org/orlando/

Buy your ticket to the hottest food and wine event of 2011 and help fight childhood hunger.

Share Our Strength’s Taste of the Nation^® is the nation’s premier culinary benefit, featuring top chefs and mixologists — all of whom are coming together to donate their time, talent and passion to end childhood hunger in America.

Join us for the 22nd Annual Taste of the Nation Orlando. Guests will sample delectable specialties and culinary sensations prepared by chefs from Central Florida’s leading restaurants. Showcasing their talent and creativity, the combination of presentation and taste are sure to make the evening unforgettable.

Please note: No one under the age of 21, including children in strollers accompanied by their parents, will be admitted to Taste of the Nation.

http://www.strength.org/orlando/

Date:

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I recently visited West Palm Beach and headed out on a night on the town with my family. Just south of Cityplace in downtown West Palm Beach, Joy Noodles sits off of S. Dixie Highway in a older part of town where most buildings have shuttered up, having seen better days.

Joy Noodles is a popular place though, serving up various noodle bowls and stir fried noodles based mostly from the family owner’s background from Thailand, but also dishes stemming from Japan, Vietnam, and China.

For appetizers, we chose the crispy calamari $5.95 which were quite decent calamari though a bit on the fried side, it had that fresh squid taste still in tact and wasn’t too tough to chew.

For entree, my mom ordered the mee goreng, a stir fried noodle dish stemming from Indonesia. I ordered the Chiangmai noodle soup (A northern Thai dish with a definite Burmese influence, with egg noodles in light curry coconut broth) and my sister ordered the Japanese udon noodle soup.

Their bowls are huge and shaped like toilet bowls. I think my bowl alone would have fed an entire village in the mother land. I could hardly finish a third of the bowl before throwing in the white napkin to signal defeat. The noodles themselves were okay, nothing outstanding but also not particularly offensive.

I thought this place has potential and could be better if they kicked up their spices some and added more flavor profile to their dishes rather than being one dimensional.

Friday night. Palm Beach Gardens. Do you know where your children are?

If you are from Palm Beach Gardens, they are probably hanging out with their middle school friends at the local Downtown development near the Palm Beach Gardens Mall. I recently went there to catch a movie at the Downtown Cobb Theatre and was surprised to see that the whole place was inundated with teens and preteens all walking around in packs, chatting away and otherwise enjoying themselves in a sort of huge weekend socialization / coming of age ritual where they meet up with friends at the movies, catch some froyo, and goof off around Downtown Palm Beach Gardens.

Located next to the Downtown Cobb Theatre in downtown Palm Beach Gardens, MJ Fresh is housed in a former Johnny Rocket’s building. The furniture and even the old juke boxes were still in place. They did try to fix it up a little with some modern blue light fixtures but that is about it. It was quite a strange set up but I didn’t think too much of it.

The place is owned by a small family with roots in California naming the restaurant MJ after the matriarch of the family. (Not as a nod to Michael Jordan/Michael Jackson as my sister and I had previously conjectured)

Their menu is mostly American fare such as California Chicken wraps, sandwiches, burgers, and pastas. They even have a small selection of chicken curries that you can try (owing from their Pakistani roots)

My sister had the fettucine alfredo pasta with chicken which was decent enough. I ordered the The Phoos burger topped with Gorgonzola, Lettuce, Tomato, Pickles, Onion (7.99), which was delicious: succulent and juicy, filling and topped with a fresh ciabatta bun. I will definitely have to come back to try the chicken curry.

For more information visit:

http://www.mjsfresh.com/

Brand spanking new t-shirt designs for theDailyCity’s Food Truck Bazaar this Sunday July 24th 2011 at Avalon Park ! Pre-order yours today by emailing shop@impressink.com with your shirt choice and shirt size! If we run out, you can pick it up at their shop on Goldenrod next week or have it sent via shopping at http://tastychomps.storenvy.com !

There are limited quantities available so make sure you get there early!

Its from 6pm-10pm at Avalon Park. The big park with the bandshell. Just drive into Avalon Park and keep going till you see the park (and the chaos) on the right hand side.

http://www.thedailycity.com/2011/05/thedailycitycom-food-truck-bazaar.html

Applebee’s(r) Three New Stacked Stuffed & Topped Dishes Treat Guests to New Twists on Steaks, Pastas and Salads Starting at $9.99

LENEXA, Kan. – (July 11, 2011) -Applebee’s new Stacked Stuffed & Topped entrees take the neighborhood’s tried and true favorites – sirloin, chicken, pasta and salad – and pair them with unexpected twists like mozzarella scoops, fresh roasted vegetables and bruschetta.

The latest dishes include Florentine Topped House Sirloin with fresh roasted red peppers and sliced mushrooms, Chicken Parmesan Stack featuring country fried chicken atop a bed of fettuccine with roasted garlic Alfredo and Provolone-Stuffed Meatballs with Fettuccine.

“Steaks and pastas are our best-selling items so we know guests love them,” said Chef Shannon Johnson, executive director – culinary innovation & development at Applebee’s. “We are taking these tried and true favorites and literally stacking, stuffing and topping them with new flavors.”

Today’s guests want to try new foods but are skeptical at spending their hard-earned money on something they might not like. In fact, 66 percent of consumers report they enjoy trying new flavors from time to time while 20 percent said they prefer to stick to tried and true options according to Technomic’s Flavor Consumer Trend Report.

The Applebee’s culinary team experimented with dozens of concepts before choosing the following Stacked Stuffed & Topped dishes, all of which scored well among focus groups:

*       Florentine Topped House Sirloin – Applebee’s classic 7 oz. signature sirloin grilled to order with roasted red peppers, sliced mushrooms, onion, fresh spinach and bruschetta, topped with garlic and herbs and served over fried red potatoes; a 9 oz. signature sirloin is available as well.
*       Chicken Parmesan Stack – Country-fried chicken stuffed with Italian cheeses, smothered in Applebee’s spicy marinara and served atop a bed of fettuccine with roasted garlic Alfredo, onions and peppers, topped with parsley and shredded Parmesan cheese and served with toasted garlic bread.
*       Bruschetta Topped Chicken Salad – Grilled chicken breast and warm fried mozzarella scoops served on a bed of crisp romaine tossed with champagne vinaigrette and topped with juicy tomatoes, red onions, kalamata olives, roasted red peppers, basil and garlic, sprinkled with Asiago cheese and finished with a balsalmic glaze.

And this isn’t the first time Applebee’s has stuffed a popular item with greater flavor. The new items join Applebee’s Provolone-Stuffed Meatballs with Fettuccine on the menu.

Applebee’s is also having some fun with those Stuffed Meatballs, this time in an appetizer. Applebee’s Stuffed Meatballs & Mozzarella Scoops features two meatballs paired up with crispy scoops of golden fried mozzarella, topped with zesty marinara, parsley and Parmesan cheese.

“We’re putting excitement back into the casual dining experience and being almost irreverent in our approach,” said Johnson. “People thought we were nuts when we took a perfectly good meatball and stuffed it with Provolone but our guests have eaten 30 million of those meatballs in less than a year, so we’re definitely onto something.”

 

I woke up to a nice hot styrofoam box of com tam bi suon cha (broken rice with shredded pork, pork chop, and pork casserole) bought down the street from my uncle’s house. We stayed in Quan Tan Phu about 15 minutes to the west of Tan Son Nhut International Airport.

Outside, I could see my aunt picking various fruits such as “chom chom” (rambutan), “sau rieng” (durian), and purple mangosteen from a fruit cart vendor that rolled up outside the house.

This day, we made a trip out to the country side to visit the hometown of my ancestors in Kinh Nuoc Man, about a 2 hour trip outside of the City (Ho Chi Minh City).  

This is where my mom’s mom’s family have lived for hundreds of years, with a initial ancestor being a member of the Teochiu people of China who came to Vietnam who knows when.

Its been over 12 years since I’d last been to Vietnam. In the summer of 1999, right before high school, I made the trip with my family to visit the homeland of my parents and ancestors. The trip was a memorable one that left deep imprints in my mind.

From the first moment I stepped off the airplane in Ho Chi Minh City, a distinct whiff of air infiltrated my nostrils, a mixture of durian and gasoline that I fondly grew to love for it was the smell of Saigon. I wondered if it would still smell the same this time around after so many years?

My flight would take me from Orlando to Dallas-Fort Worth and then onto Tokyo’s Narita Airport and finally stopping at Tan Son Nhut International Airport (SGN). Originally built by the French almost 100 years ago, Tan Son Nhut is the famous airport used as a airbase for the air force and American military during the Vietnam War. Its code SGN still recalls the city’s old name of Saigon before changing to Ho Chi Minh City after 1975 when the South fell and the country was united again.

In Dallas, I tried some of Cousin’s Bar B Q at the Dallas Fort Worth Airport. I ordered the beef brisket with mac n cheese and some casserole dish. I’ve had better, I thought the beef was a bit too “soggy”

After almost 30 hours of flight, lay overs, and waiting in terminals, I finally arrive at Tan Son Nhut International Airport. A frowning customs officer checking my passport, valets pushing carts with cardboard boxes filled with gifts from returning travellers, throngs of people outside the airport waiting for loved ones just beyond the metal gates. Familiar faces and a short moped ride. I have my first meal in Vietnam: bun bo hue, surrounded by family members on all sides.

 Last Meal in America

In Tokyo’s Narita Airport, there was this restaurant that displayed its food in the display case. Similar to the displays in Hong Kong that I’ve seen, the food was actually plastic models…pretty cool !