Bandit Burrito's Breakfast Burritos

We have a serious love of Bandit Burrito on Merle Hay in Johnston.  We have tried fried burritos on Wednesday and I have major cravings for their nacho plate from time to time, but today I tried their breakfast burrito for the first time!
I got the non-customized version so I could see what it was all about.  It comes with eggs, breakfast sausage links, home-fry style potatoes, an interesting gravy resembling salsa verde, and cheese (cheddar in this case).  I was offered a side of salsa and chose the mild.  With a small fountain drink, it was under $5!
It was pretty damn awesome too.  As soon as she finished wrapping it up, all the ingredients got melty with the cheese and gravy so it was nice and gooey.  The salsa was a nice complement but not really necessary so I'll probably skip it next time.  It was around the same size as their burrito slims which seems about just right for a breakfast offering.
The only danger I see in this is that they are perfectly located between my house and my work....
~Hanna

Mi Patria

Mi Patria, located at 1410 22nd St. in West Des Moines, claims to be the first Ecuadorian restaurant in the state of Iowa.  It is definitely the only one currently in the Des Moines area.
Since we have been there a couple times, I've had to look up some of the dishes we've ordered: Lomo Saltado (beef stir fry with fried potatoes that kind of reminds me of the awesomest chili fries ever), Hornado con Mote (marinated pork tips pan fried with white hominy), Churrasco (amazing marinated flank steak served with fried egg, bean menestra, fried plantain, and avocado), Arroz Marinero (translates to sailor rice; similar to paella, yellow rice with every type of seafood on top), and Camarones al Ajillo (translates to garlic shrimp; was sort of simmered in a pepper sauce and served with rice).  Conveniently, a lot of these dishes have their own wikipedia pages and appear to be staple Ecuadorian dishes.
It has been pretty delicious both times we've been there.  It is kind of sad that we've gone there on the weekend and it isn't very busy at all.  The food is made with fresh ingredients by an actual Ecuadorian!  I found out from facebook that they had offered Roasted Cuy (Yes, Guinea Pig) for a limited time and totally wished I had known so I could try that!  It is definitely the place to go to try something new.  Another dish they serve as an appetizer that I would like to try is called Llapingachos.  It is a cheese stuffed potato patty topped with peanut sauce.  The meals are very filling so if I got those I might just get them as a meal though.

Long time no post

Yo2Go - Urbandale

Hanna keeps an eye on the Twitter feed that announces new businesses, looking out for new restaurants and eateries for us to try. A few months back, she noticed Yo2Go, a new frozen yogurt shop. It's in the strip mall at the corner of 100th and Douglas in Urbandale. It's set up like this: you grab a cone or a dish and walk forward. There are six self-serve ice cream machines preloaded with different flavors of frozen yogurt. They rotate the flavors out every once in a while to keep things interesting. After you get your yogurt, you turn around and face the giant toppings bar. It's like a salad bar of everything you'd want to put on ice cream. There are a few warmers off to one end that have hot fudge and hot caramel.

When you pay for it, there are no price levels because everything is weighed. You put your dishes on a scale and you're charged by the ounce. We have been there a couple times and have each loaded up a dish. Both times we paid about $8.00 for a good amount of frozen yogurt.

Saraj - The Home of the Gyros

While I love Ted's Coney Island for my gyro fix, I've been wanting to try out Saraj, which is about 3 miles closer than either of the two Ted's locations. They painted on the side of the building that Saraj is the Home of the Gyro, so I figured they had to be pretty good. The first time I went there, I saw they had two varieties of standard gyro, so I knew I had to try them both, but not in one sitting.

First trip -- Gyro on a Greek pita
Massive. This isn't a bad thing, but apparently you can't order a Greek gyro without ordering fries. I got it to go and the container weighed about three pounds. Once I got home, I opened up my prize and saw that it looked just like what was pictured on the menu -- huge, barely able to close, and slathered in tsatsiki sauce. It was delicious. The fries were acceptable. I've never encountered the perfect French fry, but I knew these weren't it.

Second trip -- Gyro on Bosnian bread
Also massive, but without French fries, but for good reason. There was no picture for this one, so I had to guess what it would be like. The Bosnian gyro filled the entire to-go container! Imagine an 8-inch gyro hamburger on fried bread. Also delicious, but I have to say the Greek gyro is better.

You should go there right now and get one.

Cafe Su - 1/30/09

Ever since the Mandarin in Beaverdale closed, I've been kind of at a loss for quality chinese food. In the current economy, I've seen constant restaurant openings and closings in the local free papers. Its hard to even know until you even get to the restaurant if it will be open.

After a little research, I determined Cafe Su was a sit down chinese place that had been in business for quite a while and was, in fact, still open.

When we drove there, I was excited to actually be driving through historic Valley Junction since I had normally just driven past. The cafe was in an older building so I was surprised to see how modern the interior decor was. The first words out of my mouth were "It looks so trendy...". It seems to have been fairly recently redone in this sort of industrial look. There were metal walls and randomly shaped neon lights. Also they had bubble wrap hung around their cash area... seriously. I can appreciate some creative design but it all seemed a bit surreal for Iowa.

They have a pretty nice bar set up there but I stuck with water and Tim had a thai iced tea. We still aren't 100% sure what the ingredients in that are but I'm thinking tamarind is added to the stuff we've seen around here because thats the only thing that explains the flavor.

The average price of a main course was just over $10 so I was a little concerned that we were "paying for the trendiness", but the food was really great. All of the vegetables were extremely fresh and you could tell that a lot of work went into making the dishes just right.

At the end we had some green tea ice cream. I overheard as we were leaving that the owner makes it. They brought a generous portion and helpfully two spoons. It was weird because on the first bite you really get that acidic green tea flavor but then after that you get kind of generic creamy ice cream flavor and then as your mouth warms up afterwards you get it really strongly again. I also had green tea burps :-\

I think we would definately go again. It was really quiet and empty for a saturday night. Good for a date night.

Texas Roadhouse: The quickest visit evar and why its the best for steak while wearing a sleeveless racing t-shirt

The following image best represents the reason for going to Texas Roadhouse exclusively for steak:

This is a medium done ribeye. Normally when you order a medium you get medium well or medium rare or some weird strata of the two. TXR not only defines the doneness levels in their menu but you get the exact doneness you asked for. Period.

Also, tonight was awesome because as we were looking for a place to sit to wait our projected 20-30 minutes, our number popped up on the screen. 30 second wait is win. So apparently you should never go to TXR in groups larger than 2 if you are in a hurry.

Also, you can totally go there in your most extreme casual. Yes, we did in fact see a sleeveless racing shirt on a guy two tables over.

Not a restaurant review: Edam vs Gouda!

I am totally fascinated by Hy-Vee's gourmet cheese sections. The cheeses there can be pretty expensive though, so I find myself grabbing inexpensive versions of the same cheese to test them out. I grabbed some of the cheapest Edam I could find the other day. I realised I had had it before... it is pretty much the same as inside of the red babybels.

Then I was looking at the cheese again and began to wonder what the differences were between gouda and edam. They both come in wax and have a similar color. The cheap brand I had been buying sold them in nearly identical packaging. So I decided to have a taste test.

On the left, Edam: soft, smooth, nutty. A good snack cheese for me. On the right, Gouda: firm but smooth, sharp like cheddar or colby. Probably better in a recipe.

Turns out they are completely different flavors and textures! Both incredibly tasty sides of a red wax coin.

I also noticed they were carrying versions of swiss and cheddar made with goats milk. Normally all of the goat cheese is labeled as chevre. I got some of the cheddar, which was white and labeled medium. It doesn't taste much like cheddar, but it is only slightly goaty and very nice.