Since I covered Flurt and Yolato, I felt like I had to try Pinkberry today to feel complete. Pinkberry has three flavors and I sampled each. The coffee was vile, sour coffee is not a good thing, the green tea didn't taste enough like green tea, but the plain was good if you think of it as a yogurt flavored sorbet. It's not creamy enough to call it frozen yogurt for me, so in that arena, only Flurt makes the mark so far. As I ate the second half, thinking of it as sorbet, I did enjoy it, but a minute after I was done, my mouth felt very dry and then the sour aftertaste lingered for a while. It wasn't terrible but I did need water.
Pinkberry does gets points for extremely good blueberries but overall, this small cup with blueberries is expensive for $4.23. If the idea is to make these frozen yogurts healthy so that you can have them often, then they need to be priced so you can have them often. For me, no thanks, I prefer having ice cream and/or gelato in moderation.
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StumbleI was looking for spices and came across SOS Chefs SOS Chefs on-line. It's pretty out of the way but on a nice day, I couldn't resist exploring. The place has just a tad more decor than a warehouse and you wouldn't know what they were selling from the outside. Yet, as soon as I entered, I got all excited, standing on tippy toes to see the tops of each shelf, sniffing around, much like my dog at Petco.
A very helpful women showed me the different offerings, starting with spices since I was looking to buy some allspice. She recommended Sumac, a spice I had never heard of. It smelled good and has a wonderful deep purple/maroon color so I bought a bit to try. I had to resist buying several different oils, flavored salts, honeys and preserves, and limited myself to some allspice, Sumac, caper berries, and harissa. Can't wait to try all of this out!
Ellen posted this comment 2 weeks ago and it was finally warm enough for me to try Flurt's Flurt frozen yogurt today:
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Since it was my first visit, I asked Alex Kim (one of the founders/owners) for his way of eating it. He says it changes over time, but currently, he is having it with strawberries, bananas, crushed oreos, and cinnamon toast crunch cereal. It was truly a treat and I will most likely be back.
We've posted about Birdbath before, the green offshoot of The City Bakery, and while I was hoping to like it more this time (when my friend Angie brought some treats over), I actually liked it less. The Coconut Cookie was ok. The crispy cookie did taste like coconut and it seemed fresh, but that's about it, nothing memorable.
The Sesame Banana Cake?? tasted very healthy with weird chunks of dried banana in it. I don't think 4 or more people got through even half of it. I hope this health-puck cures some disease.
Then we saw something that looked more promising...
But alas, those were doggie cookies for Ice. Ice loved them but she eats anything, literally anything.
I'm seriously disappointed since I'm really for the green efforts, but now I'm pretty sure I'll be staying away from Birdbath.
On a past post, Wonders commented:
"I been having Siggi's Skyr lately, it's just as good and made with Skim Milk!! Just add a bit of honey (cus its extra tart) and it's good to go! Try it out! -=D"I just tried the blueberry flavor and the plain. While this Icelandic style yogurt is better (because it's thicker) than the standard American style yogurt, it is extra tart, as you mentioned. The blueberry is tart but still palatable on it's own, although I still prefer the flavored Fage yogurts. The plain has a similar taste to the Fage 0%, I guess because they are both fat free, but I don't like either. I am a big fan of the 2% Fage in plain and often eat it on it's own. That bit of extra fat, well, my waist-line will just have to give in to the demands of my tongue, but my wallet will thank me as well, considering Siggi's is much more expensive. ( It's $2.69 for a 6oz container of Siggi's and $1.99 for a 7oz container of Fage at my local Whole Foods.)
In the end, I prefer Fage way way more, but I thank you for the recommendation and even though we don't agree this time, I hope you will continue to make recommendations.
Between Lon's acupuncture appointment and ballroom dancing lessons (for our first dance), we had to squeeze in a quick dinner. Unfortunately, we were in that area, I call the culinary black hole, around the upper 20s by Fifth Avenue. To our great surprise, we found a diamond in the rough, Ilili Ilili. This very large and newly renovated Lebanese restaurant just opened in November and I haven't heard anything about it. The injustice!
Well, we didn't have much time this evening but we rushed through a dinner and the staff was very accommodating. They start you off with some complimentary labne (strained yogurt) and olives. Lon loved the olives while I licked up the Lebanese yogurt. I seriously love Middle Eastern and Greek yogurts. They must laugh at Dannon over there.
The Shishito Bi Labne was so delicious and nothing like anything I've had before. It seems simple, shishito peppers and onions baked in labne, in a cast iron dish, which keeps it hot throughout the meal. The varying heat of the peppers contrasting the thick creamy yogurt was such a draw for me, slathered on to the pita.
The house-made pita isn't even that good, just mediocre, but I ate a lot anyway, as transportation for the Shishito Bi Labne to my mouth.
The Black Cod sauteed with dried Zaatar, pomegranate molasses and fennel, was recommended by our waitress. It was incredibly tender and flaky, perfectly seasoned, atop some slightly sweetened braised fennel. We both oo'd and ahh'd.
The Sardines were bony as always, a little plumper than average, but otherwise pretty standard in texture in flavor. There was a phenomenal gremolata-like mixture served on the side, made with lemon and/or lime zest ( I think), that was the highlight of the dish.
Manti, a Lebanese pasta dish stuffed with beef and lamb and covered in minted yogurt, was made so elegantly here. We first experienced this dish at Ali Baba, but thought it was quite heavy. Here, the yogurt is presented as a foam on top of the ravioli and sauce, making the dish seem substantially lighter.
These ravioli are not like the Italian kind. Here, the dough is a very thin, barely noticeable layer, surrounding little meatballs.
Lon's favorite dish was the Duck Shawarma, presented as wraps. The meat was tender and well seasoned. The pairing of fig, pomegranate, and garlic was wonderful. One wrap was rather dry oddly, since the other wasn't.
Lon and I had to rush this meal but were still glad to have found this place. So I can't pronounce the name, but four out of five dishes were a hit! We're definitely planning on coming back for a more relaxed dinner where we can really enjoy all this good, and rather unique food. Hopefully, we'll be coming in a group so we can try more dishes. We both agreed that we'd like to order most of these dishes again.
Since readers seemed to appreciate my saving tip last week, I thought I'd mention another one. Do you get Bed Bath & Beyond coupons in the mail? If you want to, you can sign-up here. They usually send 20% off coupons which makes a really nice savings on kitchen appliances. They have expiration dates but they actually NEVER EXPIRE!! Lon's mom told us about this a while ago and I've used two year old coupons. No problem. So by yourself that ice cream maker you wanted!