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On a whim ‘T’ and I popped into the Caribou Café in Center City Philly for brunch, we’d never been there, but every-time I’d walk by, it was always crowded, and the food look very interesting. I’m not big on breakfast or brunch, but perhaps that’s going to change, simply put it was excellent - Caribou’s menu features authentic French bistro dishes - the brunch menu wasn’t huge, but we both easily found something we liked.

Me: Salade frisée -Warm potato, bacon and curly endive salad with croûtons and topped with a poached egg.

T: Croque monsieur - Parisian grilled ham and Gruyère cheese on brioche served with fries and salad.

I know, I know warm potato sounds a bit weird, but it rocked, definitely not the healthiest of meals, but it was mostly endive, and its not like I’m going to make a habit of french food. ‘T’s’ fancy pants grilled cheese and ham was a subtle cheesy heaven - in true ‘good-wife’ fashion she gave me a few bites - yum!

We definitely will be visiting again for dinner.

Our brunch conversation included a little game of ‘is that or isn’t that’ the table to our left featured Danny Devito, and the cast of ‘It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’, I’ve never seen the show, but I loved him on Taxi.

Caribou Café
1126 Walnut Street

Philadelphia, PA 19107
215-625-9535

We were in a lazy mood yesterday, so we popped over to the market and scrounged for something intresting and psuedo healthy for dinner. I had watched Bobby Flay’s Throwdown the night before - and Bobby made hot dogs, so I had hot dogs on the mind. I know I shouldn’t eat hot dogs, they’re full of nitrates, and are essentially salt and empty calories. But I had a jones for a hot dog, and it was hard to ignore

Browsing in the vegan section of the market we stumbled upon Smart Dogs - Vegetable Protein Links [doesn’t that sound yummy?] and there sittiing right next to the Smart Dogs, was packages of Smart Chili - so chili dogs it was, we paired them with a whole wheat tortilla, and a slice of fat-free cheese — cooking was simple, three microwave minutes and the dinner was complete. We had low-expectation, after all it’s highly unlikely that veggie protein links ‘plump when you cook them’, or if chili with texturized soy protein is ‘rich and meaty’ — but… we liked them, the Smart Dogs where good, and the Smart Chili was excellent.

So if you’re in the mood for veggie protein links, or vegan chili dogs - Smart Dogs and Smart Chili are an excellent choice.

I’ve been cooking lately, and I’ve been on the hunt for decent low-carb, low-salt recipes that have a bit of heat, I’m all about the heat - there are all kinds of hot sauces on the market; some hot, some tasty — but surprisingly few that both have decent heat and a flavor.

I’m not a fan of those hot sauces that are so insanely hot that they cause prolonged physical pain, [my tolerance seems to be anything under 100,000 Scoville units] — I’ll list a few of them here to spare you the unbearable pain and suffering Read More »