A Melody turns 20

A good friend of mine, Melody, turned 20 just a while ago. To celebrate no longer being a teen, she decided to have a birthday dinner at Formosa. I was more than ecstatic because in Iowa City, Formosa is one of my favorite restaurants because of their tasty signature rolls and discounted price on Sunday nights (Purchase 2 signature rolls, receive one free). Each signature roll is around $12, so if you go with 2 other people on a Sunday night and everybody orders a single speciality roll, you will find yourself only paying $8 total. Although this is still fairly expensive, I feel it's worth it for a signature roll. Some of my favorite signature rolls at Formosa are the Formosa roll, Tropical Rainforest, Las Vegas Roll and Tiger Shrimp Roll.

Tropical Rainforest:

Smoked salmon, tangy mango, rich cream cheese, sliced yellow onion and chopped green onion rolled and topped with avocado, sun flower seeds. Drizzled with both sweet eel and mango sauces.

Tropical Rainforest was the first uncooked sushi dish I have ever tried and I've been in love with it ever since. The combination of the cream cheese and smoked salmon with the sweet eel sauce is simply divine.

Las Vegas Roll:

Crab meat and rich cream cheese are rolled in rice and seaweed, lightly tempura fried and stacked with spicy tuna, crab meat mix and sliced lotus root crisps. Finished with sweet eel sauce and spinach tempura flakes.

The Las Vegas roll is a piece of art. It is the most requested roll at Formosa and it is easy to understand why - the combination of so many different ingredients and sauces mesh amazingly well together resulting in a full flavor explosion in your mouth.

I will review the Formosa Roll and Tiger Shrimp roll at another time, I don't think this post can handle two more speciality rolls......

You can't have a birthday without a birthday cake. For Melody's 20th, Rajiv had the excellent idea of bringing a Coldstone Strawberry Passion cakes. It's one of my favorite Coldstone signature cakes and it served to be the perfect dessert.

Moist red velvet cake, strawberry ice cream & graham cracker crust with strawberry puree wrapped in a fluffy strawberry frosting. (Price: ~$20 for a cake that serves 8-10 people)

I love Ice Cream cakes. Coldstone's signature collection is impressive and very, very good but I am a big fan of Dairy Queen Ice Cream Cakes. I think I like Dairy Queen more than Coldstone simply because of:

1) Their frosting: to me, it feels like a mixture between whipped cream and traditional frosting and it is just.... PERFECT. My favorite type of frosting, no doubt.

2) Dairy Queen secret chocolate crunch = ahhhhhhhaaamazing. Fudge mixed with chocolate crunch is incredibly good.

3) Perfect combination of everything - vanilla ice cream, crunch, fudge, frosting - it's simply delicious. If you haven't had a Dairy Queen cake yet, I would find an occasion to celebrate and purchase a cake ASAP.

Mmmmmm........

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Formosa Asian Cuisine

221 E College St
Iowa City, IA 52240
(319) 338-8880

Coldstone Creamery

39 S Dubuque St,

Iowa City - (319) 341-6155

Dairy Queen

212 E Market St,

Iowa City - (319) 354-1992

"A balanced diet is a cookie in each hand."

Few things in life are as soothing as homemade cookies: being in love; affectionate puppies; a mother's embrace. As I currently lack access to any of the above, cookies seemed like a good idea.
I initially wanted to make chocolate chip oatmeal ones, but I didn't have any brown sugar =( so I decided to make snickerdoodles, since I found a recipe for them a while back. My biggest problem with snickerdoodles is that they are sometimes too hard and I like my cookies soft and moist. I ended up tweaking the recipe a little and voilà!

SUCCESS!

They turned out better than my highest expectations. I mean, it's pretty bad graces to praise you own stuff, but umm, possibly the best cookies I've ever had! And if not, for sure the best snickerdoodle cookies I've ever tasted. The first bite carried me into a soft cloud of comfort, soft, sweet, delicious.

The Recipes:
It claims to make three dozen... but those would probably be some small cookies. I only was able to make around twenty.

Ingredients:
* not whole measurements because I had to adjust for different serving amount than the recipe.

In a large bowl whisk together the flour, salt, and baking powder.
In another bowl/electric mixer, beat butter, sugar, eggs, and vanilla extract. Add to dry mixture and beat till smooth dough forms.
Preheat over to 390 degrees.
Shape dough into round balls and place on baking sheets lined with parchment paper/aluminum foil.

For coating:
Roll the balls in a cinnamon and sugar mix (I did about 2/10 cup of sugar for every teaspoon of cinnamon). Flatten each cookie into about 1/2 inch thick.

Bake for 10 minutes or until the edges are slightly golden brown.

Let cool. Enjoy!

The Best Eats in IC: According to A

This shall be an on going series, in which I post about my favorite foods and eateries.

First up: #4 at SHORTS BURGER AND SHINE

For those who do not know me - I LOVE Burgers. Any burger. Any time. Any day. But burgers do not usually leave a lasting impression and I rarely crave burgers over other "finer" foods. At least that was the way it used to be, until one fateful sunday second semester (2009), when I walked into Shorts for the time with Justine around 3 in the afternoon, and my life was forever divided into BC (Burger Casual) and AD (After Dundee).Yes, it was THAT epic. Simply put, the #4 (Dundee) is simply the best burger I've ever had (and I've had some good burgers).

What is it:
(See also- heaven on a bun. orgasm on a plate. meat of the gods. the answer. perfection.)

A burger unlike any other. It comprises layers of mouth-watering goodness. Not sure exactly everything that is in it, as I don't have a menu in front of me. But the memorable ingredients are (in order):
- Garlic flavored mayo that makes my knees weak
- Overeasy egg that oozes out over the entire burger, enveloping it in melty, dreamy perfection
- Slice of American cheese
- A tinge of salty in the form of a slice of Canadian bacon.
- Thick, fresh, grain-fed, local (Iowan) beef
- Fresh veggies

What makes it the best?

What makes the dundee truly great is not all the great stuff in it. It is the COMBINATION of everything in it and the amazing balance of flavors and aromas that never overwhelm but always compliment each other, thus creating a paradisiac mélange that makes your taste buds dance in ecstasy.

What you should know:

- Due to the sheer size of this burger, many/most people do not finish (ridiculous).
- Also, I can never seem to finish with my hands. It always become soo messy that I just end up using forks.
- For vegetarians/non-beefers, Shorts also makes blackbean burgers. Doubt it's equally delicious (wouldn't be possible), but I hear it's quite good.

Criticisms:

They occasionally overtoast the buns.

Last thoughts:

While the other burgers at Shorts are no doubt delicious, whenever I get something else, no matter how good it tastes, I'm always disappointed I didn't get the # 4, nothing can live up to it's glory. It's like this: The dundee is the best. While the others are great, they are not the best, in comparison, they can only be called good. Why would you order good when you can have the best. It just doesn't make sense. And apparently a lot of people agree with me, because the number 4 is the most popular burger there (according to one of the waitress).

I always tip well at shorts. I can't help it. I'm just soo happy. (Supposedly, eating burgers release the same endorphins that is released during sex and some illicit feel good drugs.)

I've recommended this to 11 people, 8 of whom have enthusiastically agreed with me on the amazingness of this burger. If you doubt my taste (why would you?), the stats do not lie.

Their fries are also very satisfying. Some think it's not crispy enough though. I happen to love both the taste and texture. It taste even better if the egg from the dundee leaks onto the fries.
Soo sooo sooooo good.

Al Dente

Alyssa just told me the noodles were 2 minute away from being "Al dente."

Note: She does not have a timer.
Is this normal?

Cooking Adventures

In our first week of living in our new summer apartment, Alyssa and I have been experimenting with cooking on a gas stove and trying out different ingredients. We've had some victories and casualties.

Casualty #1: Alyssa burned her

finger... ouch.

Here are some things that we cooked that turned out pretty well.....

Victory #1: Potato fries w/ Cherry Lemonade

Victory #2: Coffee Cake

(this picture does not do this cake justice... it was soooo delicious!)

Victory #3: Sauteed Snow Peas

Victory #4: Chicken (mmm)

Victory #5: Grilled Corn!

And that's all! For now, anyway. Pics of living room and recipes will be coming soon if anyone is interested :)