Tag restaurants

This Pizza May End Decision Fatigue

Angel Ackerman 1 Comment

This blog and website started life as my journalism portfolio, and if you look to the side menu, that stuff is still there. It morphed into some place to chronicle my travel writings, my adventures, and my restaurant “reviews,” and then headed down the road of my disability experiences. I guess, in essence, this blog can serve anything.

One of the best perks of social media is exposure to restaurants and attractions you’ve never heard of– with many of them in your own backyard.

Instagram decided I needed to know about Spice Crust Pizzeria, located at 2910 Easton Avenue in Bethlehem, Pa. It’s a pizzeria– and it does indeed serve standard pizza, but it’s specialty is traditional Indian flavors served on pizza. Now, Eva and I love two things: pizza and well-done Indian cuisine. Other members of our household are less adventurous so we left them home. Now that we know they serve boring pizza, too, we can bring them next time.

If you know Easton Avenue, it’s in the plaza behind the Dairy Queen– the one Eva and I call “creepy plaza,” because the area is a little run down and at night can look extra dilapidated.

In the midst of my recent health journey, and refining my eating patterns, I don’t eat out much. And working part-time in a fast food restaurant, I do typically make good choices like kale salads and yogurt and fruit cups but when I’m stressed I eat the ginormous fried chicken sandwich and gain two pounds the next morning.

So if I’m going to make a choice to eat out, I want it to be special and “worth it.” And I want options that aren’t fancy sit-down ordeals, but conducive to a relaxing evening of doing nothing. For many of us, pizza is a go-to. And Dominos, with its inexpensive delivery and special deals can be cheap and satisfying, but so bad for your body. Chinese and Indian are other great go-tos, and at least offer more opportunities for vegetables, but Eva and I see those menus and order enough food for a family of ten.

This is a great compromise– the ease of pizza, the lazy shove it in your face experience, but the culinary adventure of spices outside your everyday repertoire. (And I made an Indian-spiced lentil stew on Sunday that I have eaten for the last three days, but this was still better, and more delightful, and welcome.)

In the gallery below, you will see two medium pizzas. The one on the left, where you can see a pizza box, is the veggie paneer pizza. The one on the right is the chicken curry halal pizza. They are very beautiful, colorful pizzas full of texture.

We arrived and we ordered the halal chicken curry pizza. Eva grabbed a couple of their in-house-bottled mango lassis and I picked a lychee drink, which was very floral yet not heavy. It offered a great reprieve from the spiciness of the pizza.

We later learned that they make their own yogurt for the lassi, and Eva brought home three more for her breakfast. The lassi has the perfect blend of sweet from the mango, and tang from the yogurt, but had a delicateness to it that I would attribute to their homemade yogurt. Eva has already texted her father about stopping on his way home from visiting his mother to get her more.

We also ordered the fried broccoli cheese bites. Yeah, I probably shouldn’t have. I didn’t need more food and I certainly didn’t need fried food. If I hadn’t ordered those, the scale might have been kinder to me today.

But it is nice to do something out of the ordinary.

The pizza arrived and it was really amazing. They didn’t skimp on toppings. Every mouthful was full of flavor and exploding on the tongue.

That’s why we ordered the second pizza to take home. It’s waiting for us in the fridge.

Their web site reads: “Diverse Tastes, Unforgettable Flavors, Offering a Unique Dining Experience That Blends the Rich Flavors of Indian and Italian Cuisine.” Visit their web site here.

Traveling via the Food on my Plate

Angel Ackerman 1 Comment

One of my newspaper bosses, my favorite newsroom personality ever, liked to bet on horses at the racetrack or play some cards in Vegas. He said he gave himself a budget, and since he didn’t smoke or go to the movies or play video games or have an expensive car, that this was his hobby.

I have a similar past-time that overwhelms me with guilt sometimes. I love to go out to eat. It’s my stress relief. I also love to cook, so you think I’d spend more on groceries and less on restaurants.

I’ve tried. I’ve cut the landline, canceled the Internet, lowered the thermostat, only bought meat on clearance and cat food when on sale. I can run a lean household. But I can’t resist the allure of a family meal in a fun restaurant.

Twice this week I was reminded why. A great meal is a lot like a mini-vacation. Without jet lag or clogged ears or piles of dirty laundry or traveler’s diarrhea.

And sometimes, you’re a mile away from home.

Like this penne with vodka sauce:

 

We all have that neighborhood restaurant we’ve been meaning to try. For me, it was George’s Pizzeria. I never really noticed it until my daughter moved from the elementary school to the intermediate school.  We finally checked it out and were impressed by the prices, the quality of the food, and the efficient but understated soft sell of the staff as they met our needs.

Once we left, I couldn’t stop thinking about trying their penne with vodka sauce. So, I returned this week after a long pre-Easter day in retail. 

You notice things the second time to visit a restaurant. I anticipated this and looked forward to discovering some nuances to this small, plain pizzeria. It was unexpectedly busy for the before-dinner hour. My daughter and I ordered drinks. We watched the hustle and bustle and customers came, some stayed and some picked up their food and left.

After a few minutes, a staff member ran to us. “Did anyone take your food order?”

No. He apologized so genuinely and honestly I didn’t mind because the atmosphere was like hanging out in someone’s kitchen. My daughter adores calimari. I ordered her an appetizer. I ordered my pasta, which is a $10 dish, asking if they could add chicken and broccoli.

It was the best meal I’ve had in a long time. The broccoli was fresh, not frozen. The chicken was real, not processed. (And they put so much in there I kept joking that I couldn’t find the noodles.) The sauce was smooth and no one ingredient overpowered. The texture was creamy but amazingly light.

My daughter devoured the calimari, despite the fact that it was the “hoops” kind and not the baby squid shape that she prefers. I enjoy calimari, but I still can’t bring myself to eat anything breaded in its original full-size form and shape.

My husband joined us late, so my daughter and I had dessert. I asked for coffee and they brought it in a New Orleans mug from the French coffee market. The Francophile in me was tickled.

 

When I went to pay the bill, they asked if I wanted more coffee. I declined as I do need to sleep eventually. They offered to prepare some “to go” since they had brewed me a fresh pot!

We were there two hours. I chatted with my family and enjoyed three courses. It was the most at ease I’d felt in a long time. It was the same feeling I get when my traveling companion and I find a special restaurant overseas. Like vacation.

I had a similar experience today. I finally visited Full of Crêpe in South Bethlehem. I had some delightful concoction of Brie, ham, and raspberry jam. Soooo good. 

 

It was like being in Paris. Except the staff was helpful. And crêpe was served in a restaurant not on the street. We shared a dessert crêpe.

 

The crêpes came in a fancy cardboard sleeve with perforations so you could eat in without having it flop all over. Each time you ate more, you tore down the sleeve. I couldn’t get the hang of it. I took the sleeve off and ate out of the tissue paper. Like Paris. Except I didn’t drip cheese all over myself.