Fast Food Eats : Chipotle Mexican Grill - Vegetarian Salad

I like Chipotle! I get their veggie salad every time. I mean you can make a veggie burrito, burrito bowl, or tortilla...but I like the salad the best. Their menu is pretty simple with few ingredients, but they are all seemingly fresh. They try to source their food locally and they believe in food integrity. It does show in the food. Although simple, it tastes good. I haven't found many (if any that I can remember) wilted lettuce leaves like I have at other restaurants let alone other fast food places. Is this really considered fast food? If fast food can be like this, I'll eat fast food more often...no problems. =)

Vegetarian Salad

This salad consists of black beans (you don't want to get pinto beans if you're vegetarian), romaine lettuce, mild salsa (because I don't like spicy foods), sour cream, cheese, and guacamole. I don't usually opt for the rice or the peppers and onions. Depending on how you order your food you can make it healthy or not so healthy. I heart guacamole. =)

Chipotle

http://www.chipotle.com/en-US/fwi/fwi.aspx

Pomegranate Cafe - Ahwatukee, AZ : Super Green Kale Salad & Arizona Roll

Although it's new to me, Pomegranate Cafe has been open since 2009. I wish I had discovered this place sooner! It is super healthy and their food tastes great.

Interior

Cozy little cafe. A place where they might know your name if you go often enough. (Or at least your regular order.)

Wall Art

Pomegranate Green Tea (I think)

Sorry, I was here a few months ago and forgot what drink this was exactly. But it came in a neat little glass jar.

Raw! Super Green Kale Salad

From their website this salad is made of: "lemon-olive oil-garlic rubbed kale with seasonal chopped veggies, avocado, beet, sprouts, sunflower seeds, almonds, living caesar dressing and golden flax crackers."

The golden flax crackers were good. The kale tasted awesome...never had it rubbed in garlic. It did neutralize the bitterness. The ingredients were fresh and after eating this meal...you feel good!

View of salad from the other side

The Arizona Roll

From their website these rolls are: "Nori seaweed spread with almond cheese, avocado & a rainbow of raw veggies - rolled into sushi. Served with ginger-tamari sauce, wasabi & a sweet miso cabbage slaw." The Meat-eater picked this dish and really enjoyed it!

Closer look at the roll

The ginger-tamari sauce was delicious. After dipping the sushi into the sauce, the flavors all came together. I could not believe how good this was. And everything is raw too!

I liked the ginger-tamari sauce so much that I added it to the salad. I am obviously no chef. Those flavors didn't go together as well as the intended meal. This made me realize that the chef knows exactly what they're doing with the seasoning. The Arizona Roll tasted the best with the ginger-tamari sauce and the Raw Kale Salad tasted best with the living caesar dressing.

Exterior

The Pomegranate Cafe is in the same shopping center as Trader Joe's and Safeway. If you want something super healthy and great tasting, I highly recommend coming here.

Pomegranate Cafe

http://www.pomegranatecafe.com/

4025 E. Chandler Blvd., Suite 28

Phoenix, AZ 85048

(480)706-7472

Tues - Sun 8:00am - 4:30pm

Closed Mondays

Homemade Veggie Burger Sandwich with Sourdough Bread from Boudin

In my previous entry about Boudin I said that you get a 1lb loaf of sourdough bread. Well, here is what I made with some of that bread.

Homemade Veggie Burger Sandwich

There's two sandwiches here, but the size of the bread isn't large. In each sandwich is half of a veggie burger. So these two little sandwiches equal one large sandwich.

Close-up of layers in the sandwich

The bottom most layer is the veggie patty. I used MorningStar Farms Garden Veggie Patties. I bought the whole bulk bag from Costco. Then there's tomatoes, alfalfa sprouts, clover sprouts, some spring mix salad, and the purple stuff on top is radicchio. I consider this semi-healthy because the white bread and processed veggie burger is not the best, but all the raw greens are good. =)

Boudin SF - Beet Salad with Goat Cheese

Usually I eat at Boudin once a month because you get a free 1lb loaf of sourdough bread if you have a frequent buyer card (it's free) and register it online. With the card you get free bread once a month for a year and $5 towards your next purchase after accruing 50 points. One dollar equals one point. So that's like 10% off your meals. That's pretty darn good! For some other frequent buyer cards you have to wait until 200 points to get $10...so that's only 5%.

Soup and Salad Combo:

Beet Salad with Goat Cheese and Rustic Tomato Soup

Beets and goat cheese are both good for you and I don't usually get to eat it unless it's homemade. So I really wanted to try this salad out.

 This salad normally comes with spiced nuts but I asked for no nuts due to the spiciness. Not a fan of spicy things in any way. So the salad looks a bit plain because of that.

Goat cheese is an acquired taste. I don't like the big big chunks...but after splitting it into smaller pieces it was perfect. Goat cheese is supposed to be easier to digest than cheese from cow's milk because goat's milk is closest to human milk. Our bodies have a hard time with cow's milk...especially after pasteurization the enzymes that may help with digestion are all destroyed. So give goat's cheese a try...just break it into small pieces and pair it with balsamic vinegar....it seems to take away the strong goat cheese scent. FYI...I will be getting this salad from now on.

I consider this meal semi-healthy because the salad is healthy, but the white bread is not so healthy. The soup itself is semi-healthy to me.

Boudin

http://www.boudinbakery.com/index.cfm

Maggiano's Little Italy - Costa Mesa, CA : Eggplant Parmesan

There are a few basic types of places that a vegetarian can dine at. Italian food is one of them. I haven't been to an Italian place where I couldn't find something to eat yet. Pasta and marinara is something simple and usually available no matter which Italian restaurant you visit. I remember Maggiano's being good...but haven't been back in a while. This is my first pic of food. It was also taken before I figured out the indoor light setting on the camera so the picture is a bit dark.

Eggplant Parmesan

The eggplant is sliced and breaded and then pan fried with provolone cheese layered in between and marinara sauce on top. If you order any classic pasta dish from there, they give you a take home box of any other (or the same) classic pasta dish on the menu. Pretty cool huh? You can eat this and have another full meal for later. I did not remember them having this a few years back. I think it's a great money saving deal! I got the same dish but should have gotten something different. The pan fried eggplant and all that cheese is pretty heavy for me and I couldn't eat a whole lot of it. Waay too much food. Should have had their Four Cheese Ravioli or Spaghetti Marinara. All in all it's pretty darn good.

Maggiano's Little Italy

http://www.maggianos.com/en/Pages/home.aspx

The location of this meal was at:

3333 Bristol Street

Costa Mesa, CA 92626

714-546-9550

Mitsuwa Marketplace - Special Events - Costa Mesa, CA

The Mitsuwa food court is not very vegetarian friendly. The Japanese food places have pork broth or fish broth or some type of meat juice in it. During special events however, there were some simple foods to try.

Inari Okowa

Okowa is glutinous rice with vegetables and/or meat. In this case I just asked for the ones without meat. The one in the center is their famous chestnut okowa. The other two are red bean. Usually inari has sushi rice but they put okowa in it instead. It's quite delicious. It's soft and chewy and the chestnut flavor was good. You can also use the okowa to make rice balls and it's very tasty. Something different that I've never had before. The people that made these were from Hokkaido. Hope to see them again at another special event.

Onigiri (Rice balls)

Speaking of rice balls, I had some onigiri at another one of Mitsuwa's special events. The only ones that didn't have meat were this one and the ume plum one. I didn't choose the ume plum because I was afraid it would be too sour. I think for a vegetarian it's probably better to make this one at home and add veggies and stuff to it. This is just plain rice with some soy sauce and what tasted like tea leaves. It was okay...but I liked the okowa better. There is more flavor to the okowa as this rice ball is kind of plain. There were other onigiri with meat that looked much tastier because it had nuts and other food in it besides just plain rice.

I usually check their website to see if there are special events coming up. Even though main dishes pretty much don't exist for a vegetarian, there are lots of sweets to eat. These goodies are considered not so healthy because it is mostly made up of plain white rice. =( Can someone make a brown rice version? That'd be great!

Mitsuwa Marketplace

http://www.mitsuwa.com/english/index.html

Okowa and Onigiri eaten at:

Costa Mesa Store

665 Paularino Ave.

Costa Mesa, CA 92626

714-557-6699

Food places open daily from 11AM - 7:30PM

Crepes de Paris - Irvine, CA : Caramel Crepe

I have been around crepes for the longest time but never had an urge to try them. While others around me ate them with glee and asked me if I wanted to try some...I never felt the inclination. I'm not really into cakes, cookies...you know those types of sweets but I do enjoy the occasional treat if made to my liking. I don't like the super sweet heavy desserts (except a good cheesecake). I like the light fluffy airy desserts. I once had cake in Japan and it was delicious. Perhaps if I grew up on Japanese cake I would love cake. Anyway I digress. Below is the crepe I tried.

Caramel Crepe

This wasn't on their regular menu. I think it was a special item. The crepe was soft...like a really thin pancake. Yup, just like Ricky Bobby said. I don't like the doughy-ness of pancakes...so this was much better. However I think I should try a different flavor as the caramel is really really sweet. This was a good start to getting an idea of what a crepe tastes like. I shall hunt down other places and try their crepes out. There's so much you can do with crepes...as a meal and as a dessert.

Coffee

Root Beer Float

Had some coffee and a root beer float with the crepe. Hmm...maybe the root beer float made everything really really sweet? Not the greatest idea. Heh heh. This meal is obviously considered not so healthy. It is an indulgence of sugar on sugar.

Crepes de Paris

http://www.crepesdeparisinc.com/

The location this crepe was eaten at:

Diamond Jamboree Center

2700 Alton Parkway, Suite 125

Irvine, CA 92606

949-727-2096

Mon - Thurs 8AM - 10PM

Fri - Sun 8AM - 11PM

Homemade Fruit Salad

The breakfast of...people who like fruit and yogurt.

Half mixed Fruit Salad

The above bowl of fruit contains organic blueberries, strawberries, and bananas. Added a few spoonfuls of plain yogurt and drizzled some agave on top.

Fruit Salad before mixing

The above bowl is similar to the previous bowl except I added some oranges.

Mix and devour. Simple breakfast. Just add what you like and subtract what you don't like. One of my favorites to make...especially if I can find organic berries on sale!