Spice Cove in NY

Back in July of 2007, I visited Manhattan's Curry Row for some Indian food. This neighborhood is lined with Indian restaurants, each one with someone standing outside, competing with one another for you to come eat at their store. It sounded like walking down a carnival midway past the games, only dealing with food. On this visit, a restaurant called Spice Cove won my business.

Spice Cove offered a dinner special that included an appetizer, soup, and a main course for a really good price, so I went with that. Red Lentil soup was served first. It was really good, and the deep red color of the soup was great. I've never come across another lentil soup that color.

Next, the vegetable samosa appetizer was served. Yummy!

For the main course, I ordered Chicken Vindaloo. While I love spicy food, this dish was a bit extreme. The chicken seemed to be a variation on curry chicken, served over rice, but I could not handle the heat of the dish. I probably drank more water during the meal than what I actually ate. I did enjoy it, but after the meal wasn't as fun when I had to find a bathroom in the city at midnight to get rid of all of the liquid I drank to counter the spicy. Thank goodness there are Starbucks on every corner...

Tangierine Cafe at Epcot

I ended my day at Epcot with a visit to the Morocco Pavilion to get some dinner. There's the Restaurant Marrakesh at the back of the pavilion that I have yet to try, but not for this meal.

I got my food from the Tangierine Cafe. It's a fast food restaurant serving Moroccan food.

I ordered a Falafel Wrap, served with lentils and couscous. There it is being prepared behind the counter:


The couscous had some raisins mixed in and was nice and sweet. The lentils were a bit tart and were really tasty. I sat down to eat on the restaurant's patio just as the Illuminations fireworks show was starting. It was a pretty good view of Epcot exploding into a giant fireball...

Once I finished the lentils and couscous which both required forks, I ditched the plate and tray and walked closer to the lake with my falafel. Street vendors in major cities sell falafel for a reason. It's easy to eat on the go. The wrap was filled with the deep fried chickpea balls, lettuce, tomato, onions, and tzatziki.

As far as theme parks go, Epcot is pretty awesome when it comes to food. What other amusement park is there where you can have good Chinese noodle soup for lunch, get free soda, and then end the day by eating falafel while simultaneously watching fireworks?



(This post is listed at the Disney Blog Carnival)

Falafel Cafe

I picked up some take out from Falafel Cafe across the street from the University of Central Florida in Orlando. I've heard only good things about this place, so I decided to finally give it a try. For some reason I thought it was fast food, so I was surprised to see that Falafel Cafe was a sit down restaurant.

I had a Falafel Sandwich which came with a choice of soups. The lentil soup that I choose was interesting. It was very smooth, very similar to split pea soup, only with lentils instead. I've never come across lentil soup with this consistency. It was good, but I prefer the chunkier lentil soup that is more commonly found. The falafel sandwich was really good. There were nice sized falafels wrapped in Lebanese bread, along with lettuce, tomato, onions, parsley, and tahini. This was one of the better falafel sandwiches that I've eaten in the Central Florida area.

On the way out, I'm pretty sure I saw someone eating a plate of pickled turnips. I've only seen them in Lebanese restaurants, and it's been a very long time since I've eaten these. I definitely need to return to get myself some of these wonderful pickled root vegetables!

IKEA Chicken & Salmon Pilaf

I ate lunch at the IKEA near the Millenia Mall in Orlando, FL. I ate the chicken and salmon pilaf with a cup of lingonberry juice. The pilaf was very good with the chicken and salmon mixed with rice and lentils. It had a nice flavor of citrus and dill mixed in with the meal. I liked it better than the meatballs that I had here last time...

Stop 20 Diner

I ate lunch at Stop 20 Diner in Elmont, NY today. I ordered the Chicken Souvlaki Pita lunch special. It came with soup, a side Greek salad, the sandwich, dessert, and a drink.

There were several choices of soup to choose from, and I picked lentil. The soup was good. A basket of challah bread and crackers was brought out at the same time as the soup.

The soup and bread was followed with the side Greek salad. It didn't come with the wonderful items that make Greek salads from these Greek diners special such as the stuffed grape leaves or anchovies, but these generally don't come with side salads. It consisted of lettuce, tomato, onions, feta cheese, and olives. It tasted good enough, although it would have been much better with some stuffed grape leaves...

The Chicken Souvlaki pita came out next and was the biggest disappointment of the meal. The pita was filled with lots and lots of grilled chicken, chopped green peppers and onions, and chopped tomato. It was served with a cup of tzatziki. The sandwich was way too much chicken, and not enough other stuff. Each bite was almost all chicken and was way too much and lacked enough flavor. I've had much better chicken souvlaki sandwiches elsewhere...

I ordered a cheese danish for the included dessert. It was tasty enough, and had some currants in it which was a nice touch.

The lunch special was a great deal with the amount of food that was given for the money, but the quality of the food could have been better. My souvlaki had room for improvement. Two of the other meals ordered at my table was a spinach quiche and a spanakopita (spinach pie). The spanakopita and the quiche were exactly the same thing, only the quiche was served as an upside down spanakopita. A quiche is more than a spinach pie turned upside down.

The food here has been better in the past...