Bruegger's Bagel Bakery in Syracuse, NY

At the end of October, I found myself enjoying the wonderful cold weather in Syracuse, NY for a weekend. For breakfast one morning, I ended up at Bruegger's Bagel Bakery at Syracuse University.



There was a Bruegger's in Altamonte Springs for a while, but I never visited and they eventually closed. After getting my bagel, I can kind of see why they were so short lived. This bagel was tiny! I was expecting the bagel to be on par with the other chain bagel places, but this wasn't even close! The everything bagel was topped with smoked salmon cream cheese, roasted red peppers, cucumbers, and red onions. It tasted good, but was just way too small!

Curry Chicken from Mehek in Princeton, NJ

I'm running low on my supply of restaurants/food stuff to write about at the moment, so for the next few posts I'll be digging into the Watch Me Eat archives for previously unpublished food adventures. Memories are fallible, but I will do my best to keep these posts as accurate as possible. Mistakes in the details may happen though. Feel free to correct!

Today we are going back to September, 2007 to the lovely town of Princeton, NJ. After some exploring of the town, I ate lunch at an Indian restaurant called Mehek, located right across the street from the University.

Mehek had a take-out counter on ground level and a dining room upstairs. We ate on the second floor. It was after the lunch rush, so we were the only ones eating at the time. Because of this, I chose to order off the menu rather than get the lunch buffet that was offered.

I had the Curry Chicken. The dish came with a bowl of chicken and vegetables in a curry sauce, along with a side of rice, and basket of roti. I love the flavors of Indian food, and the food from Mehek was no exception. The curry was delicious, and I'm always amazed how much flavor the seemingly plain basmati rice has.

If there weren't six states between Florida and New Jersey, I'd gladly return to Mehek!

Hummus House

I bought dinner one evening from the Hummus House on University Boulevard in Orlando.

I had a falafel pita, and while it tasted alright, it was hard to ignore how stingy they were with the fillings in the pita. They used three or four tiny falafel balls that were too small and too few to properly fill the sandwich. I went several bites in a row without hitting any falafel. Hummus House wasn't any more generous with any of the other minor fillings (vegetables) either. The only redeeming factor was the hummus. Possibly because of their name, Hummus House put lots and lots of hummus on the pita.

I really have no complaints about the taste, but why go to Hummus House when there are so many other nearby restaurants that serve similar food and aren't stingy with the portions? Across the street, there is Falafel Cafe where you get a properly stuffed pita with and a cup of soup for basically the same price. There is also a Pita Pit across the street, and although I have not tried their falafel, I have always been pleased with their other pitas. Even the Mrs. Fields Cookies in the UCF Student Union has really good falafel!

I also ordered some stuffed grape leaves. Unlike the falafel pita, I was completely 100% happy with these!

Salsa2go at UCF

I was over at UCF and got hungry so I stopped by a relatively new restaurant that opened at the school called Salsa2go. It's an outdoor snack bar type restaurant that specializes in Mexican food. I ordered a chicken burrito on a chipotle flavored tortilla. The burrito was filled with chicken, lettuce, and jalapenos. I would have liked to try the homemade salsa that this place apparently makes but none was offered. Salsa2go should really have a list of the burrito toppings that are available on their menu.

The burrito itself was good but for some reason it reminded me of food served at sporting events. I couldn't quite place why this was, but the burrito had more of a high school concession stand feel than a Mexican restaurant feel. Not to say this was a bad thing though. Like I said, the burrito was tasty. The chicken had a nice flavor and the jalapenos added some spice. Besides from not trying the salsa, I had no complaints about this burrito.

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!