Sushi Inc in St. Petersburg, FL

I ate lunch at Sushi Inc located in Downtown St. Petersburg. My meal started out with a salad. 

I had the Tonkotsu ramen with pork. Ramen is normally either mediocre if not good/great, but this was the first ramen that I've experience that was bad. Broth tasted rancid, unlike any other tonkotsu broth I've had elsewhere. It had a distinct smell that was very similar to urine. Needless to say, I hardly touched the soup. Instant ramen was better than this.

 

Stillwaters Tavern in St. Petersburg, FL

I ate in a restaurant called Stillwaters Tavern in downtown St. Pete. There were a few different menu items that sounded good to me, so I asked the server what he would recommend out of them. His said that the Pan Fried Ramen was the most unique to the restaurant out of my choices, so that's what I ordered. The menu described it as: Chinese sausage, market veg, toasted peanuts, marinated soft boiled egg, bean sprouts, and Thai basil.

I enjoyed the ramen. The portion was huge. There was a good amount of sauce and other ingredients mixed in with the noodles, and everything was flavorful!
 

NY Food (Yonah Schimmel Knish Bakery, Veselka, Totto Ramen, Sunnyside Pizza, Halal Truck, Shiro, and Dave's Bagels)

Continuing from my recent trip which took me around New England, New York was the next stop on the journey:

Yonah Schimmel Knish Bakery (Manhattan):

This place has been on my radar for a while. They specialize in Knishes and have been around since 1910!

I had a Spinach Knish. Spinach was mixed into the potato in the knish. I very much enjoy knishes, and this was no exception!

Veselka (Manhattan):

I went here almost immediately after visiting Yonah Schimmel's. Pierogi are hard to resist and Veselka is one of my favorite restaurants in New York. Their Sunday Brunch was happening and I tried the bacon, egg, & cheese pierogi. The waiter told me I wanted them fried. I should have gotten them boiled. The amount of crispiness from being deep fried made them seem like empanadas more than pierogi. Filling wise, bacon egg and cheese in a pierogi was really good!

Totto Ramen (Manhattan):

Google listed this as a highly rated ramen shop in the city. They specialized in a type of broth which I had never had called Paitan. This is apparently a chicken based broth.

I had the Miso Paitan Ramen. It was noodles in chicken paitan broth, topped with miso, egg, scallions, bean sprouds, onions, and pork. Delicious!

Sunnyside Pizza (Queens):

This is a pizzeria in Queens that has good New York style pizza, available by the slice.

I had a slice of cheese and an eggplant/ricotta slice. I do enjoy that they put sesame seeds on the crust.

Halal Truck (Queens):

I had a Lamb/Chicken combo from a random Halal food truck in Sunnyside. They made the standard NY Halal cart fare a little more interesting by adding bell peppers and onions in with the meat. Served over rice and lettuce, topped with white and hot sauce.

Shiro (Grand Central):

I had an Eel Avocado Roll from a fast food sushi restaurant in Grand Central from Shiro.

Dave's Bagels and Grill (Queens):

I had an everything bagel with lox cream cheese.

Chicago Food (Twin Anchors, Pequod's Pizza, Ann Sather Restaurant, Futatsuki Ramen, Lickety Split Frozen Custard, Dao Thai Restaurant, Star Grill, The Weiner's Circle, Venice Cafe, and Pierogi Crib)

I recently went on a trip to visit Chicago. I had never been to the city and while there I tasted some of Chicago's food.

Twin Anchors:

Apparently Chicago is known for their barbecue. I wasn't aware of this before visiting the city, but smoked meat was added to the list of Chicago foods to try. I ended up at a restaurant called Twin Anchors. They have been open since 1932 and boast that Frank Sinatra was one of their regular customers.

I ordered a half slab of ribs with a side of onion rings and cole-slaw. The ribs were good enough. I found the meat to be a little on the dry side. Not the best I've ever had but good enough to keep the restaurant open since the 1930s.

Pequod's Pizza:

This restaurant was recommended as one of the best places to get Chicago-style pizza in the city. I'm still a bit confused on the different nomenclature of Chicago-style pizza, and the explanation that I got here didn't help. There is apparently pan pizza, deep dish pizza, and stuffed pizza. I think I understand that stuffed pizza is what Giordano's serves (seems like nobody in Chicago actually likes Giordano's). Haven't really figured out the difference between pan and deep dish though, and I don't know which version of the pizza I ate here.

Started out with a side salad.

The pizza, topped with Italian sausage and spinach. I enjoyed this pie. It wasn't the complete overload of cheese like you get a Giordano's and was much better proportioned. I did really enjoy the crust which got nice and crispy around the outer, vertical edge of the pie.

Ann Sather Restaurant:

This was a Swedish diner, which was a new concept to me. I visited them for breakfast and ordered one of the specials, which was a Swedish breakfast sampler. It started with two very large cinnamon rolls. I was pretty much full after both of these. 

This was followed with a plate filled with a Swedish pancake with lingonberry jam, a Swedish meatball with gravy, a Swedish sausage, scrambled eggs, and a fruit salad. I liked it all with the exception of the sausage. I believe it was a pork and potato sausage that lacked flavor.

Futatsuki Ramen:

A friend in Chicago said the ramen in this restaurant is amazing. He was right. Futatsuki was a very efficient restaurant with only a few things on the menu. There was tonkotsu ramen, curry pork, and some appetizers. 

The large bowl of ramen had a milky white broth with was delicious. From what I understand, the broth takes a while to cook, getting its color from pork fat and bone marrow slowly seeping into the soup. Ramen noodles were hidden underneath the broth. Two slices of pork, scallions, pickled vegetables, an egg, and nori finished off the bowl. I don't like making bold statements when it comes to food, but this just might be some of the best ramen I've ever had!

Lickety Split Frozen Custard:

Frozen custard, desserts, and candies was what Lickety Split sold.

I had the Bing Crosberry Concrete. This was cherries and raspberries mixed together with cheesecake, graham cracker crust, and vanilla custard. It was tasty, but I thought it was a bit on the expensive side for the small size of the cup which it was served in.

Dao Thai Restaurant:

Had Thai food in Downtown Chicago here.

Chicken Satay:

Wonton and BBQ Pork soup. The menu made this sound more exiting in my head then it was. This was basically a huge bowl of wonton soup that you can find in any Chinese restaurant.

Star Grill: 

This was my first attempt at having a Chicago style hot dog. I got caught in a nasty rain storm so I hid in a restaurant called Star Grill to wait out the rain. I was told by a Chicago local that these weren't authentic Chicago dogs because of the toppings. The two hot dogs came topped with mustard, pickle spear, peppers, and tomatoes in the form of salsa. Apparently the salsa was the offender. Tomatoes on an authentic Chicago dog need to be sliced...

The Weiner's Circle:

My second attempt at finding an authentic Chicago Dog was at The Weiner's Circle. Besides the hot dogs, this restaurant's gimmick is being nasty to the customers. Unfortunately, there's a difference between being clever about insults and just coming across as bigoted. Using the gimmick to ignore the people complaining about food/wrong orders is an interesting way to do customer service. I guess there's a reason that there were only tourists in here...

The hot dog was very adequate. The toppings were on in the right form, unlike my previous experience with a Chicago dog. The bun had poppy seeds on it. I've had better Chicago style dogs with more generous toppings in Florida. We won't mention the cheese fries. They were cold and soggy topped with something that didn't really resemble cheese besides color. The majority of these were thrown out.

Venice Cafe:

Got a quick slice of pizza for a snack from this restaurant near the Willis Tower. I decided to try a NY style slice in Chicago. In my head, it was what I would expect NY style pizza to be like in the midwest. Way too much cheese and a bit doughy.

Pierogi Crib:

I visited a food hall in Chicago called the French Market. After wandering around a bit, I decided to try a booth called Pierogi Crib.

I had a Pierogi Bowl. This was an assortment of six pierogi served over a spinach salad, topped with bacon, grilled onions, red cabbage, and sour cream. I very much enjoyed this meal.

And that was my trip to Chicago. I tried most of the stereotypical Chicago foods on my list, along with foods I wasn't expecting to try. Never got around to trying an Italian Beef Sandwich though. Guess I have to go back...

Pei Wei Asian Diner in Orlando, FL

Pei Wei Asian Diner is a fast food Asian fusion restaurant owned by P.F. Chang's. Their first location in Orlando was on Colonial Drive, just on the outskirts of the Mill's 50 District where you have a high concentration of wonderful private Vietnamese and Chinese restaurants. I think the main reason I had never tried Pei Wei was because of it's location. If I was in that area of Orlando and was hungry for something in this genre of food, I'd always pick one of the great Vietnamese places right up the street rather than an Americanized chain version of Asian food.

A few months ago, I saw Pei Wei had a promotion where they were giving out coupons for free Japanese Chile Beef Ramen on Facebook. Once I got my coupon, I stopped into Pei Wei one night and got my Beef Ramen to go. Interestingly enough, the two people in line in front of me both had the same coupon, so apparently Pei Wei was giving out a lot of free food.

Soon enough, I opened up my to-go order and started eating. The Japanese Chile Beef Ramen was really tasty, with beef, carrots, onions, bean sprouts, red chiles, and cilantro, all over noodles. To me, it tasted very similar to Chinese lo mein for the most part, but I didn't mind. I like lo mein! And most lo mein doesn't have hot peppers in it either! I'd go back again.