Restaurants

Cibo Parnell is a restaurant in Auckland, NZ, located in a former chocolate factory. Even though what goes on inside is hardly a secret, Cibo claims it is still one of Auckland’s best kept secrets.

Food with Attitude - Cibo Parnell, Auckland, NZ

Can’t be all that big a secret, since America’s Next Top Model host Tyra Banks dropped in on Cibo without notice a couple of weeks back, while filming for the show in New Zealand. Tyra was accompanied by three friends, all four of them had a good time, enjoyed the food and none of them turned purple, got shrunk or stretched.

Cibo’s Willy Wonka is Kate Fay – head chef and owner. In fact, the whole restaurateur gig has been such a blast that Kate Fay has even penned a book – Food with Attitude – based on the behind the scenes life of a successful & busy restaurant, plus recipes & gorgeous photography of each dish & restaurant life.

The wine list and cuisine at Cibo are all up to scratch, as befitting an upscale restaurant famed for lavish wedding banquets and cocktail parties, but the best part of a meal at Cibo comes at the end, in the dessert menu.

The desserts include a plate with a selection of what Cibo calls ’small sweets’ - a Valrhona Tasting Plate with milk chocolate, brulee chocolate, marquise chocolate and chocolate sorbet. You also have a choice of raspberry and white chocolate macaroons, and cinnamon sugar doughnuts with hot chocolate shot.

If the chocolate-fest is too intoxicating for you, Cibo also offers 14 kinds of cheese selections and a wide choice of sherbets and ice-creams.

Info: 91 St Georges Bay Rd Parnell Auckland NZ; 09 303 9660; www.cibo.co.nz/

Cafe Madeleine San Francisco - Oh La La!

Haven’t we all had those days when we can’t decide what to eat? We are in an unfamiliar city or an area that we don’t normally spend much of our time, so we stand around and hope that we don’t just grab the first familiar fast food we see.

For anyone who has been in that predicament, you are in luck. Cafe Madeleine is a fabulous cafe and bakery in San Francisco with three locations in the heart of the city.

I’ve used to work across the street from one location, and to be honest, would have weeks where I would get the grilled sandwich for lunch every other day. One of my favorites is the Niman Ranch ham, cheddar cheese, sliced apples and honey mustard on ciabbata bread for $8. It is hot and tasty and oh la la good! Read More »

Try the tater tots with the chili lime aoili

Q Restaurant in one sentence: Giant portions of funky comfort food, with something for everyone, served in a friendly, low key and sorta artsy environment

Who you’ll see there: couples, families with young kids, girls night out

Make sure to try: The tater tots, with or without the mac and cheese; huge, perfectly crispy fried chicken; and all of the tasty and reasonably priced wine-pairing suggestions. Also make sure to check the specials, like the beef medallions, mashed potatoes and blue lake beans. Yum!

It’s okay to skip: Broccoli-Cauliflower Asiago Gratin – just not enough cheese to make it tasty

Best dessert: It’s a toss up between the perfectly chilled Decadent Chocolate Mousse and Brinn’s Wickedly Forbidden Apple Crisp — get both and share

The chocolate mousse is perfectly cold, and chewey rich!

Service: Friendly, attentive, your water glass is always full, honest opinions, no annoying upselling pressure

Average meal price: $10-15 entrees, Tuesday night special: $5 appetizer, $5 glass of wine, and $10 chef’s choice entree

Best time of day/meal to visit: Dinner on a week night – weekends can get crazy busy, with long waits for a table

Logistics:

• The play cool, classic rock – lots of Beatles
• No reservations
• Credit cards accepted

Location:
225 Clement Street (between 3rd & 4th Avenue)
San Francisco, CA 94118
p. 415-752-2298
Richmond District

Hours:
Monday through Friday
11:00 am to 3:00 pm
5:00 pm to 11:00 pm

Saturday
10:00 am to 11:00 pm

Sunday
10:00 am to 10:00 pm

Photos by Cat Lincoln

Artichoke Panzanella salad

Amici’s East Coast Pizzeria in one sentence: Thin crust pizza and pasta chain that is cheery enough but not too loud or prefab, plus it’s toasty warm on cold foggy evenings because of the brick ovens.

Who you’ll see there: Families, volleyball team, tourists, solo travelers

Make sure to try: Panzanella salad with artichokes, onions, capers, tomatoes and some crisp lettuce. The small is big enough to share when you pair it with one of Amici’s super crispy thin crust pizzas.

It’s okay to skip: The breadsticks with ranch dressing appetizer — seriously, eating breadsticks and ranch dressing before your pizza is why America is fat. If you need a ranch dressing fix, put it on a house salad.

Best dessert: Cheesecake with two forks to share — simple, light and lemony

Service: Friendly, relatively inexperienced young people, maybe even a first job for a lot of kids. Absolutely no upsell, but they can  answer questions if you ask them. Read More »

I finally found out what’s worst than a crowded buffet at Pizza Hut.

Pizza Hut

No, I’m not the kind to get skeeved out over germ issues in these situations. If you added up all the hand sanitizer I’ve used in my lifetime, it wouldn’t amount to a purse-sized bottle — I assume my Maker gave me an immune system to fight off the everyday dirt of life. 

But I have learned to avoid the Pizza Hut lunch buffet because it brings out the hunter in me. When they bring out a hot pizza straight from the oven, it’s my responsibility to place myself in a position against everyone else in the restaurant to get a slice. I watch the activity behind the counter, so I know when I can get a drop on my fellow diners in that mad rush. I can’t have a conversation with my companions, because I’m on edge to snag that next prize: a slice of hand-tossed sausage and cheese or a thin-crust cheese-only. 

And then there’s the golden ring: a dessert pizza, preferably cherry. One of these days I’m literally going to blow up with anger if the pig in front of me takes three slices again and leaves those of us in line hungry. 

That’s a lot of stress over a meal, frankly.

Read More »

Thanks, East Coast, for giving me one more reason, in the form of food, to miss you.

It’s not enough that you have Dunkin’ Donuts and New Haven pizza.  No, now you have to go ahead and add Rita’s, with its ice, custard, and happiness on order.

That’s right, they sell happiness.

Rita’s is a chain of custard shops with locations up and down the east coast and Alabama and Texas.  New locations have popped up around the town in Connecticut where my family lives and we were visiting, and after a long walk on the beach a friend treated me, oh so innocently, to a visit there.  Little did he know he was cultivating an addiction.  One spoonful of the creamy, smooth, buttery soft-serve custard and I was hooked.

Rita’s big sell is the combination of soft-serve frozen custard and a selection of slushy Italian ices, with flavors ranging from lemon to Swedish Fish.  You can get either type of frozen goodness by itself, or you can put them together in something they call a Gelati, which confused me because of course I was looking for the gelato.  No, this creation is more like the shave ice they sell in Hawaii, in which the confection is served as such:  a layer of your chosen flavor of custard, topped with a giant layer of you chosen flavor of Italian ice, with a dollop of the custard on top, all presented, as they say in Wall-E, “IN A CUP!”

After my original hit, I snuck back to Rita’s one day when I went out “to do some errands.”  Then the night before I left I bribed my mother into joining me, my treat.  It says a lot that on a clammy Friday night after a rainstorm, the place was packed.

Uno by any name is good food

I’m never sure what to call the restaurant in the Target parking lot at Southport Road and I-465.

The official sign (and receipt) says Uno Chicago Grill, but I’m old enough to remember when it was Pizzeria Uno — serving that deep dish pie the Windy City made famous. It doesn’t help that the restaurant still serves pizza as a main feature. Consequently, I have this restaurant phone number in my Rolodex because back in the Yellow Pages days, it was very difficult to look up.

And heaven knows, I have to call to inquire if there’s a long wait, because I’m all about sitting down when I walk in.

Which is exactly what happened when I arrived for lunch this afternoon. And despite the temptation of their “life’s short, have dessert first” slogan and the pictures of a chocolate chip cookie and ice cream, I was a good girl. I asked for the fish and chips with a bowl of Italian wedding soup. My good sense must have rubbed off because one friend decided he was in the mood for shrimp scampi, while the other ordered the individual pepperoni pizza.

I’ve never seen her eat anything else in there, which adds to my confusion on the name.

Read More »

You go to Paris for the culture, the food and, yes, the museums.  But the thing that they don’t tell you is that the museum bit can be exhausting.  The Louvre is the size of a small country – and since you’re likely to get lost a time or two as you meander its grand halls, you’ll be sure to get in your daily recommended 10,000 steps and then some.  I walked that place until my feet literally bled.  And though the Musee D’Orsay can’t compare in terms of square footage, it’s still involves a serious walking commitment.  And, of course, a high probability of getting lost, too.  It just can’t be helped.

Read More »

Any trip to Disney’s El Capitan Theater in Hollywood, California would not be complete without a stop into the Disney Soda Shop. Traditionally, we like to get the sundae that goes along with the current movie in play. So last Thursday after attending the media premier of UP, we were excited to check out the new sundae.

Pretty!

We stopped in the soda shop after the movie to check out the UP paraphernalia, and the boys fell in love, with everything including the sundae. They were powerless to resist a sundae with: blue ice cream, marshmallow cream, sprinkles, whipped cream, balloons and badges. It did look pretty darn good.

I ordered my usual banana split, which just needs a little pineapple topping to make it the best banana split ever. Whit ordered a chocolate ice cream soda. They accidentally put vanilla ice cream in the soda, but she didn’t want to make us wait and brought chocolate ice cream on the side. She offered to make it over, but Whit’s easy to please when it comes to ice cream and said it was fine. He did eat both scoops of ice cream though.

While we were there we watched a table of six order the sorcerers hat, which is an insane amount of ice cream, whipped cream, cherries and syrup. The boys thought it was really cool that the soda jerk totally embarrassed them by announcing it to the whole place that they ordered it.

*note to self* Don’t ever go to the Disney soda shop and drown your sorrows in a sorcerers hat ice cream. You will be mortified.

Disney’s Soda Fountain & Studio Store

6834 Hollywood Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90028 -
(323) 817-1475
Open Daily 11am-10pm                                          Photo Source–Me and My iphone

Desserts you can't resist

You know with a name that mentions pie, I’ve been salivating over the newest restaurant in Indianapolis. I drove through the parking lot multiple times in those final construction days, staring at the red-painted brick and the cheerful sign, looking for an indication of when they would fling open the doors.

Last week, my husband walked in and announced that today was the big day — he saw cars and a line of people snaking into Grand Traverse Pie Company. I barely put on my shoes in the rush to be the next person in that line to try out what promised to be a marvelous new addiction.

I expected the sandwich menu. I anticipated they would offer soup, and a baked potato section wasn’t a surprise, either, to avid McAlister’s fans. I decided to try a chicken salad on wheat, my husband ordered chicken pot pie, and we each asked for a slice of pie (no ice cream) and soft drinks. They handed us two kiddie-size paper cups and a bill for $26.58.

$26.58?! Haha, what do we really owe? She wasn’t joking — we ran through the entire print-out and checked it against the posted prices. We’d just paid a premium to wait on ourselves (twice, because they call out the food order and dessert separately). It surely must be heaven on a plate to command the same dinner price as two meals plus salad and breadsticks at Olive Garden.

So imagine my surprise when I looked at the sandwich sitting there by its lonesome (no cole slaw, no fries, no baked beans, cup of soup … you get the drift), took off the bread and saw a dollop of chicken salad I swear they used a cookie scoop to measure out sitting on a piece of lettuce. The filling was gone in the first bite, and it didn’t have a single grape that the description said was part of the recipe. My husband’s pot pie filling was similarly skimpy after he cut into the crust.

You get the picture: We weren’t impressed.

Best pie on earth

Then I had a bite of my $2.99 slice of cherry pie. Tart cherries, buttery rich, sweet crumble top — now we’re eating! Frankly, that’s an overprice I’d pay again to experience. Forget the food, folks. GT Pie deserves to become the new hot spot for a treat after the movies, a social meeting spot after a high school concert, or a place to meet with friends when they say, “Oh, I’m sorry. We just had dinner.” I envision holding gift exchange parties here at Christmas, and picking up whole pies for Fourth of July.

It’s only fitting for a company that considers itself a bakery cafe, centered on producing fresh, homemade pies. Why they even bother adding food when the number one goal on its mission statement is to “offer the finest quality and selection of fruit, cream, and pot pies” escapes my logic.

But I do think I’ll sit next to the soft drink fountain to make those 5 trips refilling that Dixie cup worth the effort.

Grand Traverse Pie Company

1155 E. Stop 11 Road

Indianapolis, IN 46227

(317) 885-7437

Photography: Grand Traverse Pie Company