Red Robin Gingerbread Shake

Red Robin has introduced their Gingerbread Shake to celebrate the holidays. You can try it for $2.99, but make sure that you specify that you want the $2.99 shake or they'll surprise you with the sidecar and charge you the full $4.59!

I was really excited about it until I conferred with my sissy. She pointed out that it was blended with graham cracker and topped with a gingersnap. My review? Tastes Christmas-y, but not gingerbread-y like some might gather from the name. Maybe it would be better to call it a Holiday Shake... I'll be sticking to the good ol' glass of water from now on...

Jamestown Pie Company - Buy a Pie!!

My mom and aunt visited West Virginia a few years ago and discovered the best chocolate chip pecan pie that we've ever had. After some searching, I was able to find the company that made the pie...and I thought that I'd better blog it because of their awesome URL...

http://www.buyapie.com/

Buy a pie. Straightforward...and easy to remember! Genius. Their motto is pretty fantastic too:
Because Round Food is Good Food

:) I can't say that I can argue with that!

Many thumbs up for their pies; just don't eat too much at a time or you'll have sugar overload.

Pinkberry BOGO

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

As my family sat around and talked during Thanksgiving dinner, I discovered something very important. I found out that one of my cousins works for Pinkberry...and has for the past two years...wow I lag.

Anyhow, she gave me a BOGO coupon that starts tomorrow - and I think that you can get it via facebook or twitter too. The reason for the celebration that Pinkberry starts to serve their chocolate yogurt tomorrow! Yum. So print it out and treat someone tomorrow...hopefully it will help your bodies recover from the overeating from today!

Eggo Waffles Shortage

Yes, this is sad news for all Eggo Waffle lovers. Due to flooding at the Atlanta bakery - their largest waffle bakery - there will be a shortage of Eggo Waffles that could last until mid-2010. No joke.

I'm going to stock up tonight. If you want your Eggos, you better beat me to the grocery store!

Hershey's Irish Creme Kisses

I FINALLY found some new holiday candy. Hershey Kisses come in an Irish Creme-filled variety. I would've posted a picture, but I left them for the girls in my office. Don't worry if you want to find them - Target stocks tons of them, so they're easy to find. Just look for the green packaging.

Ben & Jerry's Gingersnap Ice Cream

I got an email a while back letting me know that it was on its way to stores...but last night I found it! Gingersnap Ice Cream - yummm. It's a sign that the holidays are here.

When I was younger, my sister and I would always find the gingerbread men ice cream sandwiches around the holidays. They don't make them anymore (so sad), but this is an acceptable substitution!

Now on to planning the Christmas lights for our house...

Pizza Party

I celebrated my birthday this year with a pizza party. Sounds simple, but it was probably a big pain for my family to deal with. This party involved pizzas from all over - from Chicago to LA.

Lou Malnahti's deep dish Chicago pizza straight from Chicago.
Round Table Pizza's Gourmet Veggie pizza - ooh garlic and veggies.
Domino's Regular Cheese Pizza and Thin Crust Veggie Pizza
Numero Uno's Thick Crust Cheese Pizza
Brownstone's NY style Pizza
Gourmet Pizza Shoppe's Dessert Pizzas

Add to that a sampling of Portillo's Italian Beef Sandwiches - both sweet and hot - plus other sides, desserts, and lime punch!

Total carb overload. Hopefully I'll get a picture of this smorgasbord and post it.

Halloween Candy Overload

It's been four days (in Sesame Street Count's language, that's 4 days AH, AH, AH, AH) since Halloween, and I'm still flooded with Halloween candy.


Usually, the manufacturers will just change the packaging. There are those, however, who decide to tint their white chocolate orange, or in the case of York Peppermint Patties, tint the peppermint cream orange. Weird.

But the weirdest thing is that I got a Kit Kat bar and the wafers were vertical instead of horizontal. I was going to take a picture, but I'm such a fat kid that I couldn't wait to take a picture. I just ate it. And now I'm telling you about it with no visuals. Sorry.

Pain du Monde

I'm a big fan of little bakeries. Coincidentally, some of the best ones I have found have been in the food courts of malls. Example? Paradise Bakery. I just stumbled upon Pain du Monde, which is another great example.

Pastries, cookies, sandwiches, everything that a bakery should have. I'll be visiting them again soon!

Disneyland's Halloween Time

This is BY FAR my favorite Disneyland celebration - Fantasmic, Halloween fireworks, "Nightmare Before Christmas" Haunted Mansion, Ghost Galaxy Space Mountain. There are some pretty decent videos of the fireworks show online...like these...

Thank goodness for annual passes and conference tickets!

No New Candy?!

I've been conducting my usual search for new candy (you know, every time I go to a store that sells candy), and I haven't found anything new in a while. This is driving me nuts! Usually I will find some sort of special edition of a candy bar as soon as they start selling holiday candy, but I've had no luck this year.

Maybe I'm just not searching hard enough...or maybe candy makers are slacking off!
Let me know if there's something out there that I need to try.

New Godiva Treats

So Godiva makes a suitable Reese's peanut butter cup substitution for me, and they're pretty tasty. I joined their club so I can get a piece every month for free. But now Godiva is trying to raise my sugar levels with other products - they now offer cupcakes and brownies.

They finally jumped in on the cupcake fad with these chocolate cupcakes (with a chocolate center) and vanilla or chocolate buttercream. Sorry kids, these treats are only available online and by catalog order (not in stores), so you'll have to plan ahead if you want these.

Free KFC - Take Two

KFC is trying for a second time to give their chicken away. On Monday, October 26, they will give one piece of their Kentucky Grilled Chicken to anyone who visits their stores. No coupon is necessary and they promise that they will have enough for everyone.

So if you're in the mood for KFC, but are not interested in the grilled chicken giveaway, I would recommend that you plan to satisfy your craving on any day but Monday.

Homemade Deliciousness

My brothers surprised me this past weekend with their cooking skills. The bros and one cousin decided that they wanted to cook...and cook they did.

We were treated to several flavors of homemade buffalo wings, garlic fries, and a pizzookie (a cookie baked in a deep dish, but they used a regular sheet pan) with ice cream for dessert!

Big thumbs up to the boys...for exercising cooking skills and for saving us from having to go out to a restaurant. I think they should do it more often. We just have to find a place to sneak in some veggies...

Just Say No

...to the Buffaloco wings at El Pollo Loco. Well, I can only talk about the Buffalo flavor, since that's the only one I tried. It may be that their BBQ flavor may be tasty and delicious, but I have yet to try them.

So I got the 5-piece buffalo wings...opened the container and got a whiff of the sauce. Yep, something got me. Good? Bad? I wasn't completely sure yet. So I proceeded to the visual inspection of the wings. It was a weird color for buffalo wings...a little too yellow...but maybe I'm just too used to the reddish sauce of the bar food in the area. The real test was to actually taste the sauce. Oh. I quickly discovered that I should have paid more attention to the initial indicators (smell and looks). They have this weird taste...some additional herb or seasoning that gave it a weird taste. My first guess was there was too much oregano or rotisserie seasoning that was competing with the buffalo sauce. But the wings didn't keep me interested long enough to figure it out.

Maybe I got a bad batch, or maybe I'm spoiled with the other good wings nearby. Whatever the reason, I'll stick with the restaurant wings when I allow myself to indulge.

Oh Romanos...

Guppy Tea House

We've found the perfect place to have a fat kids party. It's called the Guppy Tea House. If you thought that the food at Claim Jumpers was giant, this will blow your mind. Giant toast, giant shaved ice, it's crazy! I'll post pictures as soon as I get them.

San Diego Food continued...

So I had the chance to visit Fashion Valley Mall in San Diego, and this gave me the chance to have some good food.

D-Lush
One of the employees did a really good marketing job on me. I was walking by with Dippin' Dots in my hand. He took one look at me and said, "Dippin' Dots? Oh honey, why don't you try something healthy. Here's a sample of our Strawberry Banana smoothie." I tasted it, put my ice cream in the trash (before you freak out, it was almost done!), and decided to give them a try. I chose their Lemon Lover Jello Shot. Tasty! It was basically frozen lemonade with Jello snack packs blended in...it was big and I didn't finish the whole thing. So if you come across one of these places, you'll probably be lured in by the samples, coupons, and crazy fun employees. I hope whatever you try is good.

There's one here at Hollywood & Highland...if the mood ever strikes again.

Uno Chicago Grill
Chicago Pizza. Just the basics...nothing fancy. So delish. After lunch today, my grandfather made sure that there was still some pizza for his mid-afternoon snack. :)

Oh, and I can't forget the visit to Neiman Marcus so the employees would have an opportunity to be stuck up and ignore me once again. All for the love of the Yoku Moku. Thank goodness the people that helped me were friendly!

Have You Ever Tried To...

...find a Mexican restaurant in San Diego? They're not hard to find. In fact, you'd probably have some trouble finding the RIGHT one...if you were looking for a specific restaurant. If you drive through Old Town San Diego, almost every restaurant there is a Mexican restaurant! (This is actually what happened tonight.) And they're probably all awesome.

San Diego Foooooood

So it's more than a week into October and I haven't posted about food yet?! Shocking, I know. But I've been saving it up for this trip that I'm on. I'm in San Diego at a conference...and so I can eat. What have I had so far? Let's see....

Village Pizzeria at the Coronado Ferry Landing
New York-style pizza from those geniuses who decided to ship NY water to San Diego to make the crust as authentic as possible on the west coast! Yum.

Bloomingdale's 59th and Lex Cafe
So cute - a small cafe on the top floor of Bloomingdale's. I tried their frozen yogurt - swirled their plain and their raspberry/strawberry (that supposedly had rosewater...for your health?) - with their raspberry sauce. The sauce was really sweet, but strangely addicting...at least while I was eating the yogurt. I had to throw the cup away so I wouldn't look pathetic trying to scrape it all out.

More tomorrow, I think. I believe the stop is Uno Chicago Grill for some Chicago-style pizza!

Xooro Churros

I often blog about cupcakes and cookies, but I've never explored the world of Mexican desserts. But this weekend, my cousin gave me a new destination for CHURROS! The store is called Xooro in Santa Monica.

I plan to visit them...I've heard they're quite delicious. Hopefully I will get there soon.