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Part Three- Opa!

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One of the fun things about being a tourist are the tourist “traps”. One of the places that we visited like this was Tarpon Springs. Tarpon Springs was settled in the late 1800’s. The original industry of the city was natural sponges. One smart business man went to Greece and recruited some of their spoDSC_0470_01nge divers. From this point on Tarpon Springs has had a large Greek population. It now has the highest percentage of Greek-Americans of any city in the United States. In the 1940’s there was a huge red-algae bloom that whipped out the sponge crop. The sponge crop has just recently recovered. Since the sponge industry went bust, the town turned to fishing and tourism. Many of the old buildings used during the height of the sponge industry were transformed into museums commemorating the sponge industry, as well as restaurants and souvenir stores, all with a Greek flair. When we were there they had thousands of sponges decorating the buildings, boat tours, tons of souvenir shops and  lots of Greek restaurants.

Walking down the main tourist street, you can see the influence that the Greek-American’sDSC_0379_01 have had on the town. With small streets, brightly coloured buildings and people stopping and chatting in Greek you almost feel like you’re in a small town in Greece. While walking by the gift shops and buildings festooned with sponges you have different boat tour operators trying to entice you to take a tour on their boat. We ended up taking one of these boat tours. We were brought out through the channels, where we saw pelicans, learned about Manatees (did you know they can get hypothermia!), saw bottle-nosed dolphins playing in our wake and getting the chance to go shelling on a sandbar. My favourite part of the tour was seeing the dolphins!

After some time out on the open water, we were hungry! One of the reasons people come to Tarpon Springs is for the Greek food. OnDSC_0397_01 the suggestion of the guy who convinced us to take the boat tour, we went to Mama’s Greek Cuisine(it looked like he ate there a lot). Mama’s Greek Cuisine is located in the back of a tourist market (735 Dodecanese Blvd. Unit 40). Mama’s is a big place with a really nice patio in the back. We went for lunch and it wasn’t busy but I am sure at different times of year that this place is packed, especially if you come on nights with belly dancing! The menu is really big, if you have a Greek favourite I am sure you’ll be able to find it somewhere on the menu. I had the Keftedes, which are Greek meatballs. When I first saw the server bringing them to me, I thought that they looked super dry. However I was pleasantly surprised, they were super juicy! They DSC_0398_01were also seasoned perfectly. The entree also came with a Greek salad and while there wasn’t too much special about the salad, the feta cheese in it was out of this world! After our large lunch (the portion sizes are very generous) we were surprised to get baklava for dessert, it was really sweet but a great way to finish off a Greek meal. The one thing that was a little lacking at Mama’s was the service. While we got everything on time, with a name like Mama’s I was expecting very friendly servers who would explain what some of the entrees were. What made up for their lack of friendliness was the fact that they served Saganaki (flaming cheese) which they doused in Ouzo and light on fire table side! It was always fun seeing them do this while trying not to light the plastic plants on fire and then having to yell OPA! after. Overall I would recommend Mama’s Greek cuisine to anyone visiting Tarpon Springs for a fun touristy day, good food, good prices and lots of fun!

Mama's Greek Cuisine on Urbanspoon

After a day touring through the sponges in Tarpon Springs we headed back for some time on the beach!

Here are some links if you’re interested in visiting Tarpon Springs:

www.mamasgreekcuisine.net

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarpon_Springs,_Florida

www.spongedocks.net/

http://www.thespongeexchange.com/

http://www.spongeoramacruiselines.com/

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Funny sign, don’t see these in Canada        Fishing boat we saw on the boat tour

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Me and my catch – JAWS!!!

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There are tons of cool shells to be found!   Sandbar in the Gulf of Mexico, cool to visit!

Bite This!!!

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IMG-20110430-00035Food trucks are definitely a hot topic at the moment. Just before the popularity of food trucks blew up, a new food truck in Ottawa opened up. Bite this is one of very, very, very few food trucks that tries to have healthy options on the menu. As much as I love poutine and hot dogs, they get old, quick! Especially when the food sucks.

Bite This, located across the street from Trailhead (across the street from 1960 Scott St.), is a super cool food truck serving everything from a Thai-One-On (Pad Thai) to the Zorba Sandwich (a Greek styled wrap). I have known about this food truck for a while (I love all the outdoors stores in Westboro!) but have never had the chance to sample their menu. Then this weekend, my girlfriend and I were on our way to MEC to pick up a bike rack, I IMG-20110430-00036noticed that Trailhead was having their annual Spring Runoff Sale. Being someone who can’t miss a good sale (I wanted to get a canoe!) we stopped to take a look. While looking at all of the great sales, I got a waft of delicious smelling food. So I went in search of this delicious smelling food and found Bite This. Bite This is a super cool graffiti covered food truck. When we visited, the weather was super nice, so it was really busy. The menu is interesting, the vast majority of the choices are different then your normal food truck. They have Asian inspired noodle dishes and a number of different sandwich options. They also have some of the more typical Ottawan food truck fair like fires, poutine, hot dogs and hamburgers. From everything I’ve read online, the typical food truck menu items were only added to the menu after a number of people came up and asked for them (something I find disappointing).

On Saturday I had the Thai-One-On (Pad Thai). The food was great, it was a little bit sweet, a IMG-20110430-00037little bit sour and a lot spicy (I asked for spicy!). Not only was the food yummy, it was a HUGE serving, I couldn’t finish it all! My girlfriend had the Zorba sandwich. The sandwich was very good, there were lots of veggies, the sauce was tasty and the chicken was grilled perfectly. The only problem with the sandwich was the fact that it was very saucy and at the end it squirted all over the place. While the food was good, that wasn’t what impressed me about Bite This. What impressed me was the fact that Bite This does more than poutine and hot dogs. It shows the rest of Ottawa that food trucks can do more and it can be tasty. Bite This is an example of what Ottawa street food should be!

If you’re interested in seeing more places like Bite This around Ottawa, sign the petition!

http://thewig.ca/petition/streetfood

Bite This on Urbanspoon

UPDATE:

Here are the hours for the Bite This food truck:

  • Monday – 11:00am – 3:o1pm
  • Tuesday – 11:00am – 3:o1pm
  • Wednesday – 11:00am – 3:o1pm
  • Thursday – 11:00am – 3:o1pm
  • Friday – 11:00am – 3:o1pm
  • Saturday – 11:00am – 3 or 4:00pm
  • Sunday – closed and resting

Just an FYI there is a great note at the bottom of the sign with the hours of operation.

“Bite This reserves the right to close early and open late or remain closed any day for any reason. This includes but is not limited to bad weather, beautiful weather, bad bicycle days, good bicycle days, exhaustion, hangover or a good party.”

New Yorkers sample cheese made from human breast milk

2 May

New Yorkers sample cheese made from human breast milk.

Would you try this???

Yum … Fish!

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So I would like to preface this post by saying that fish has been my least favourite food for a long time. Recently I have started liking some fish a little more. But even still I only really like salmon, trout and tuna.

A couple of summers ago a friend invited me to an oyster festival. Not being a fan of fish and having never had fish I was somewhat apprehensive about going. But my friend and my girlfriend convinced me to go. When I got there is was PACKED!!! There were all kinds of people there enjoying adult beverages, oysters, fish sandwiches and burgers. Before getting into the festival came my first challenge, I needed to decide between a burger and a fish sandwich. It was a tough choice but in the end I made the right choice. I went with the fish sandwich, I my girlfriend was shocked! After waiting in line for my sandwich I took my first tentative bite … it was AMAZING!!! After that sandwich I was adventurous for the rest of the day and ate my fill of raw oysters. (Everyone with me loved when I had one because I made the funniest faces!) Ever since then I have wanted to go to the restaurant that hosted the festival, Whalesbone.

Whalesbone is a local restaurant and seafood provider. What makes Whalesbone so awesome other than the amazing food (by Charlotte Langley) is that it provides sustainable fish and seafood. This means that you can go there and get fish and know that you are helping preserve our oceans!

Whalesbone has two locations, Whalesbone Oyster Bar on Bank St. and Whalesbone Halibut SandwhichSustainable Oyster& Fish Supply on Kent St. The the Oyster Bar does supper you can get brown bag lunch and buy seafood. A couple weeks back the was an online deal for the Kent St. location, $5 for $10 worth of brown bag lunch. This isn’t your mom’s brown bag lunch with a peanut butter and jam sandwich you used to take to school. My sandwich was a fried breaded halibut sandwich with garlic aioli and caramelized onions. The fish was fresh and not greasy at all. The aioli had a great tang and I just love caramelized onions! My girlfriend got the smoked salmon sandwich. The Salmon had an awesome pink colour and a good kick to it. Now that we have had our amuse bouche, we can’t wait to go to the Whalesbone Oyster Bar for supper!!!

If you’re ever looking for a great, quick lunch checkout WIMG-20110421-00027halesbone Sustainable Oyster& Fish Supply on Kent St. , you need to go at least once. If you don’t like fish, you should still go, it will change you into a fish lover!!!

Smoked Salmon

Whalesbone Oyster House on Urbanspoon

Part Two – Fun in the Sun!

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After a 4 hour flight from Philadelphia to Tampa we werFlorida2 010e finally in sunny Florida! But  we hadn’t arrived at our final destination, Indian Rocks Beach. It was another 45minute car ride to the condo. One of the best things about the  condo was that it was super close to the beach, you could see it from the balcony and it was only a 2 minute walk. One of the other attractions of Indian Rocks Beach, other than the beach, is that it is close to where a bunch of baseball teams hold their training camp. So we went to go see the Philadelphia Phillies vs Pittsburgh Pirates game. If you read my blog a lot you may have already read out this. Florida2 009My favourite part of the game was the food! While at the game I got a Philly Cheese Steak and a pretzel. Philly Cheese Steaks are delicious, they are a sandwich made from thinly sliced pieces of steak and melted cheese in a long roll. The one I had also had sautéed onions. All of the steak is cooked on a flattop and it looks like it takes skill! The cooks are chopping and making sure the steak doesn’t burn, all the while sautéing the onions and putting sandwiches together! If you’re ever in Philadelphia or watching a Phillies pre-season game in Florida, try and get a Philly Cheese Steak! Florida2 001

One of the other great things about visiting the States for a week is being able to bring back back booze! Alcohol is way cheaper in the States, most place don’t tax it as high as they do here in Canada. On the first day there I went into a grocery store (they sell alcohol in the grocery stores!) and bought a 12 pack of Corona for $11.99, here in Ottawa a 12 pack of Corona goes for $23.95! Over the week my Corona disappeared so I brought back a liter of Jack Daniels, again almost half price! So if you’re going to the States bring me back some JD! (Please drink responsibly!)

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Stay tuned for the next segment …

Part One – The Journey

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At the beginning of March my girlfriend and I decided to escape the cold Ottawa winter and go south to Florida. We’re super lucky because her parents rent a condo down there every year and they are nice enough to put up with yours truly! We were there for a full week, (not long enough when you come back to a snow storm!)so instead of doing one uber long post about all the things that we did in Florida I am going to break it up into a short series of posts. So you will have to keep coming back to see what happens next!

Before we even left my girlfirend and I got into a “debate” – to drive or to fly. I was for driving because it would be cheaper then flying from Ottawa to Tampa and I always like a good road trip! While she was all for flying because it would mean we could spend more time in Florida, an argument that was hard to beat. In the end we were very mature and decided to drive to Syracuse, New York. Where we would then fly to Tampa, and the great thing was we found a flight from Syracuse for almost half the cost of flying from Ottawa! Look into it if you ever want to fly into Florida.

So the day we left we both worked a full work day and then I drove us to Syracuse. Let me tell you, some of the roads in New York are soooo dark! On our way imagedown to Syracuse we stopped at one of my favourite family restaurant chains in the US, Cracker Barrel! Cracker Barrel operates more than 595 stores across the states. They are all pretty much the same, there is a restaurant and a retail store. The theme is what I like to call “American Pickers on steroids”. It is southern US styled will all kinds of stuff on the walls. The food is southern comfort food, it has a huge menu and serves breakfast all day! The Cracker Barrel we went to was in Watertown, New York. The first thing I noticed walking into the Cracker Barrel was the number of people from the military. With Fort Drum really close by the place was packed with US military personnel and their families, I never felt safer! One of the great things about Cracker Barrel is that it is super affordable! Our entire meal was only $28. I had a 12oz rib eye steak with  baked potato, house salad, cornbread and biscuits. My girlfriend had Roast beef with corn and mashed potatoes. While the quality of the food wasn’t five star it was more than worth the money. The waitress was super quick and we got our food way fast! It was a great first meal in the United States.

Cracker Barrel Old Country Store on Urbanspoon

Once we got into Syracuse we went right to bed because we had a super early flight the DSC_0261next morning, we had to be up at 3 in the morning to get to the airport! When we got to the airport we found out the security didn’t open until half an hour after the airport opened, so we had to wait. Needless to say none of the restaurants or stores were open so no breakfast for us. We didn’t get anything to eat until we landed in Philadelphia for our connecting flight. There wasn’t a ton of quick options for breakfast so we broke down and had a McDonalds breakfast. I have to admit one of my guilty pleasures is a Sausage McMuffin Meal with the hash brown. While I know it isn’t good for me, and that McDonalds is an evil multinational company bent on taking over the world (ok maybe not taking over the world) I still love their breakfasts. After a quick bite, we were back on the plane, heading for sunny Florida!

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Stay tuned for part two…

I want options!!!

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food-truck

So I have been trying to become a better Tweeter, I’ve been trying to keep up to date on what people are saying, what’s trending and tweeting myself. I have seen some cool things on Twitter in the last couple of weeks. One of the Tweets that piqued my attention was from @BlackCatOttawa (Black Cat Bistro) it was to sign a petition to bring some flavour to the streets of Ottawa.

With shows like Eat St. and The Great Food Truck Race on Food Network Canada, we are getting a chance to see all of the possibilities street food could bring to Ottawa’s food scene. We would no longer have to decide between the poutine and sausage. Instead we would have the difficult but envious task of deciding between French Food, Korean BBQ, Lebanese, Jamaican, Chinese, South American, etc. If you look at a city like New York City there is a thriving and competitive street food industry.

At the moment the City of Ottawa makes it very difficult for you to obtain a permit to sell street food. You need a permit of some sort to be allowed to operate your business on city streets. I think it would be a great opportunity for the City of Ottawa, the Ottawa food scene and all food lovers to open up the regulations to allow for more street food. If you want to read more about street food in OttStone Soupawa check out this awesome blog the WIG, (click here for the post about the food petition.) If you want to sign the WIG’s petition for more street food in Ottawa check it out HERE. And if you’re out and about eating street food tweet about it using the hash tag #613streetfood and follow Adventure of an Ottawa Foodie @AOttawaFoodie

One of Ottawa’s only non poutine Food Trucks

Stone Soup Foodworks

For more info check out my blog post about the Soup Truck.

Biking for a cause…

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So you may have noticed I haven’t been posting as frequently as I have in the past. That’s because I have been trying to get ready for the 2011 CN Cycle for CHEO. This is an annual bikeathon that helps raise funds to battle childhood cancer at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO). The funds go to the CHEO Foundation, Candlelighters and Ronald McDonald House Ottawa. All of these organizations help kids who are fighting cancer and their families.

Last year I started cycling because I had always wanted to compete in a Triathlon and I had signed up for my first Try-A-Tri. I found out I loved cycling and that it really My New Bike! Giant Defy 1 helped me stay in shape. So this year I bought a brand new bike and now I need to break it in. The best way to break it in, is while helping others! I am currently looking for donations. I am hoping to raise at least $100. If you want to help me reach my goal and help some amazing young people please think of making a donation. You can make an online donation by clicking HERE or the CN Cycle for CHEO logo in the sidebar. Or register to participate! There are events for everyone, including; a 2km walk, 5km walk, 15km cycle & inline skate, 35km cycle and a 70km cycle. (I am doing the 70km cycle!)

You may wonder why I am writing about a bikeathon on a food blog. One reason is because I eat a LOT! Since I like eating, and not always the most healthy food, I need to exercise to stay healthy. I always find it’s easier to get out to exercise when you have a goal and its easier to achieve a goal (like cycling 70km) when there are others out to encourage you. I also like sharing good causes with Ottawa Foodies because they are a great group of people, who love to help their community!

Over the summer I will keep you updated with some healthier recipes and other cool community events.

Listen to this kid!!!

3 Apr

Listen to this kid! He is an awesome speaker and has some great points on why we should think about where our food is coming from. An example on why kids are going to be the ones to save the world.

 

 

 

Soup…from a truck!

1 Apr Stone Soup

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I had today off and I am looking after a friends dog. So I decided to go for a big walk and check out a funky new food truck that is currently parked at the University of Ottawa. Stone Soup Foodworks  is a local business that believes in connecting people with one another and the land through a rich and healthy relationship with food. The way I got connected today was at their food truck.

Their food truck is a big green van that is currently parked at the University of Ottawa. From this cool truck they serve awesome soups, chilis and some baked goods. What makes Stone Soup Foodworks so cool is that they are really into local, organic and sustainable food. Not only do they source the products from local providers (Funny Duck Farms, Riverglen Biodynamics, Veggie Patch, Happy Goat Coffee Co., Auntie Loo’s Treats, etc.) but their van is solar powered! If you want to learn more about them (and I say you do!) checkout their website www.slowfoodfast.ca.DSC_0741

Today I had the French Onion Soup with some delicious bread! Whenever I have French Onion soup I find it way too salty and the onions mushy instead of soft. Stone Soup’s French Onion Soup wasn’t too salty and the onions were perfect. On top of that it had some nice crusty bread with cheese! Got to love the cheese!

My girlfriend had the Indian Spiced Carrot soup. She said it was GREAT! She loved the combinations of flavours and the bit of cilantro. Perfect pick me up for a cold day!

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So if you’re around the University of Ottawa this is a place you need to go to! If you’re a student at the university this is one of the only healthy, yummy, sanely priced places to eat on campus! (talking as a alumni)

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