Weekend Eats

Friday evening was a very nice, surprisingly warm night, and I ended up drinking some wine on my patio with a few friends until much later than I'd originally planned. So I made myself a $1 frozen pizza - a supermarket label, and I actually don't remember which. I really enjoyed it, much more than any Celeste pizza I have ever had. (Although I guess I can't actually compare the two until we cook one in Tyler's outdoor pizza oven and blast it with a kitchen torch.)

Saturday was 84 degrees and blue skies, so we decided to have lunch somewhere we could eat outside. But we weren't looking for anything too fancy. Elizabeth suggested Pita Pita, a great idea. (Even though every time I go there I am impressed at how tasty the food is, I always forget about it.) So we went there, placed our order, and took seats on the sidewalk.

I again got an order of "spicy fries." There weren't as many as last time, but it's not like it was a tiny order. As always, they were crispy and full of garlic flavor. I have no doubt you could smell them a block away.

The "spicy sauce" that is served on the side is quite unattractive, similar to how my cat's vomit looks when he drinks too much water then runs around. However, it tastes much better. 

The last time we had lunch at Pita Pita, I got the garlic chicken wrap and Elizabeth had the spicy chicken. We gave each other a bite of our respective wraps and both liked the other person's wrap more. So this time we reversed the process. Elizabeth had the garlic chicken above.

And I had the spicy chicken. I ordered it without tomatoes; when the waitress brought our two plates I saw that my wrap was full of tomatoes. Although I found that amusing - we were the only two people in the restaurant, it's not like she could have gotten confused - I was prepared to just pick out the tomatoes. When she saw me start to do that, she said "Oh, I forgot! I will make you another one," and quickly grabbed my plate and scurried away before I could tell her it was okay. At any rate, since there was no one else in the joint, she returned with my tomato-less wrap in less than two minutes.

Both wraps were delicious and again we each took half home with us. We finished them in the afternoon while watching football.

Saturday evening I was flipping back and forth between the World Series and the USC-Notre Dame game. It was a good night for making something that required little effort. As often happens in these cases, we decided to just cook three Trader Joe's frozen pizzas, all of which you have seen here multiple times: the piadina and tarte d'alsace (Elizabeth's two favorites) and the Pizza Parlanno (my favorite). As always, they were cheap, easy, and delicious, and we had several slices left over for Sunday breakfast.

We also decided to watch a movie. Given that we are getting close to Halloween, we chose Scream 4. I may have seen a worse movie in 2011, but I can't think of what.

On Sunday I went by Burger King because I wanted to try their new "Chef's Choice" burger. I wasn't able to... but for a reason I was not expecting: they couldn't tell me if I they had it.

Seriously. When I was ordering I noticed the sign for the burger had a "Coming Soon" label pasted over it. "Do you have the Chef's Choice burger?" I asked.

"Um," the woman said, "I let you know at the window."

"Can you tell me now please?"

"I let you know at the window."

"Well," I stammered, not quite sure if what to say, "if you don't have the burger I'm going to order something else, so I'd really like to know now."

"I don't know."

I realized I wasn't going to get anywhere. So I ordered the BK Topper in the "Western BBQ Cheeseburger" flavor. I'd seen pictures of this on some of my favorite blogs and thought it looked better than most burgers that BK serves. But when I got up to the window I still asked: "Do you have the Chef's Choice burger?" There was no one in line behind me and I figured if they had it I could still order one. But again she told me "I don't know." So I gave up. It's not like I was asking how many calories are in a packet of mayonnaise or what bakery makes their buns. I just wanted to know if they carried the item that is currently prominently featured on their website. I didn't think I was making an unreasonable request.

At home two minutes later I unwrapped my burger. I will get this out of the way: the bun was terrible. It was stale. But other than that, the burger wasn't bad. Because I really liked the crunchy onion rings and especially the "tangy BBQ sauce." Plus it was only $1.99. I don't like it as much as the (cheaper) McDouble, but I have found something at BK that I don't hate. I still wish I'd gotten to try the Chef's Choice burger, though.

For dinner I went with an old standby: the roast beef and Havarti baguette from the Ralph's deli. As usual, I cooked it on the panini press for a few minutes to melt the cheese and crisp up the bread. The sandwich is supposed to come with a "horseradish chive butter" but I couldn't see (or, more importantly, taste) any so I whipped up a horseradish sauce for dipping, which was a welcome addition. 

I hope you had a good weekend, too.