I’m back with the main events from our Boston and New York trip.

Lunch

The food courts in America are amazing, so we didn’t mind making a quick pit stop at one while shopping. We went to Panda Express and had orange chicken and kung po with rice. The best orange chicken ever might I add.

In New York we hit it lucky and found that our hotel was attached to Tick Tock Diner. After travelling on Amtrak from Boston to New York we arrived just in time for some lunch. Alex had a ‘Monte Cristo’- turkey, ham and cheese between two wodges of french toast. I dread to think how many calories! My Southern Chicken Sandwich was equally indulgent, but man it tasted gooood.

Our other lunch highlight came just around the corner from Ground Zero. It was the day with the severe snow storms and we were absolutely drenched. For the first time ever I caved in and put one of those god awful rain mate things on. We didn’t so much choose Au Bon Pain rather than dive in to take cover. I had a warming bowl of butternut squash and apple soup with a cheese breadstick and Alex had oatmeal with cinammon and apple. It was just what we needed before a *very* wet and snowy open top bus tour.

Dinner

About two months before our holiday Alex started researching places to eat and things to see and Whiskey’s was one of the places we had earmarked from way before we jumped on the first plane. It’s a barbecue pit restaurant where they cook ribs and brisket for 14 hrs! The pulled pork was to die for.

On our second night we went to Max Brenner: Chocolate by the bald man (sorry pic came out really dark). Most menu items had chocolate in them (even the game chips were cocoa dusted!) and the deserts.. they had all types of fondue including a table top flame to toast marshmallows. We didn’t have dessert (I’m not sure why either!) but we ransacked the shop on the way out. One of the things we bought was a ‘chocolate syringe’ that we created our own fondue with at home, the quality of the chocolate was amazing. Nom.

I’ve read about The Cheesecake Factory on some American blogs so I was pretty confident it would be ok. Alex and I both ordered the ‘Memphis Burger’ – a quarter pounder topped with barbecued pulled pork, cheese and coleslaw. It was the best burger either of us have ever eaten. To be honest it was a miracle we managed to choose anything, the menu is the largest I think I’ve ever seen anywhere. There was no space for desert but we did take away a huge wodge of key lime pie to share

My final food highlight was at the California Kitchen. We stopped for a late lunch or early dinner, depends which way you look at it. There was alcohol so I think an early dinner! I had pork taco and Alex had barbecued chicken and pineapple pizza. We stumbled off a little tipsy and ended up treating ourselves to Uggs and Oakleys, remind me never to go ‘drunk shopping’ again!

The Guru has been a favourite of ours for over 10 years. The restaurant itself isn’t anything to shout about but the food, oh the food.. well that’s delicious and great value too.

The last time I went with my mum. We’d been to see the new version of Wuthering Heights which was quite frankly hell, how we managed to last for whole 45 mins I’ll never know. After creeping out part way through we needed something good to cheer us up and The Guru is always a safe bet. You’ve probably guessed that it’s an Indian restaurant which serves everything you’d expect from an Indian.

The staff are always wonderful and really attentive. For starter we shared a mixed pakora and poppadums with all the chutneys and oniony bits. The portions are huge so we got a chicken tikka balti korma which is one of the specials. I actually really love the dopiaza too but my stomach is a bit sensitive at the moment! We also had a pilau rice and the largest garlic naan you’ve ever seen – my mum stuck her hand up against it so you could get a good idea of just how big it was.

The bill came in at under £30 and we left with a doggy bag for Alex (yes, one curry fed three people that night!) and feeling like we’d had a bargain. Remains a family favourite and we would give it a good 8/10

www.gurubaltirestaurant.co.uk

More ‘Eating Out in Edinburgh’ reviews;

Mamma’s Pizza 6/10

I wrote this post for English Mum, but the first weeks in January are always a bit dull so a good time to remind myself what a fab time we had

I’ve been eating my way around Boston and I thought I’d share my highlights with you. The trip was a two-legged trip, first few days were spent in Boston and the last two in New York. The food in America is pretty good depending on what you like, we went for standard American fare during this trip but there were plenty of fine dining options along the way. Here’s my food lover’s guide to Boston (and a wee bit of NYC) then..

Breakfast

Thornton’s is one of those places that you imagine the actual Bostonian’s eat, not touristy at all but with amazing food. Alex went for a breakfast bagel which was huge and I had poached eggs with rye bread and home fries (spicy potatoes). I love the Kitsch plates!

Boston loves Dunkin’ Donuts, in fact they have more Dunkin’ Donuts outlets per square metre than any other American city, 77 in total. They are literally everywhere. And their slogan? ‘America runs on Dunkin’, and they aren’t even being ironic. We went once as a treat!

My final breakfast highlight in Boston, and please don’t judge me was at the train station (we travelled to New York by amtrak). You know when you’re up early, cold and starving and you just want ‘dirty’ food. You know what I mean, right? Well Cosi delivered with this breakfast quiche. It was like quiche lorraine in a pastry cup, totally random but it hit the spot! The picture doesn’t do it justice. Honest.

The best breakfast I had, in fact it probably tied with Thornton’s, was at Tick Tock Diner in New York. French toast, bacon and maple syrup. Possibly the best food combination ever. Ridiculously huge portion that was made even more ridiculous with the serving of THREE milk jugs of maple syrup. Only in America.

Elevenses

Also known as second breakfast, ahem. We didn’t partake much. Honest.

Starbucks, they are everywhere, including a full size outlet inside our hotel as well as starbucks perculator in the room! It was a little bit Starbucks overload if I’m honest and I’m now caffeine detox-ing.

I couldn’t write a post on Englishmum without mentioning cupcakes. I don’t really eat cupcakes, apart from Englishmum’s Lime and Pistachio variety. I’m very discerning when it comes to my cupcakes dontcha know. I couldn’t not take a picture (my picture was rubbish so I picked one up from their site instead) of Johnny Cupcakes, which isn’t actually a cupcake store at all but a t-shirt shop, so there we are.

Slight departure from food there, but we’re back on it with Sugar Heaven, possibly the greatest sweet shop in the world. Loved it. Spent an absolute fortune. The pic n mix spans two full walls, that’s serious pic n mix people.

We spent $35 (just over £20) and bought everything from american skittles to a ‘blood bag’ filled with liquid candy for halloween.

Next time…Lunch and Dinner!

After catching the foodie bug again while in Boston, I’ve decided to add some reviews of restaurants closer to home. We live half way between Edinburgh and Livingston and like to eat out in both, although Edinburgh has a lot more to offer in the way of restaurants.

We had an unexpected child free night on Saturday and decided to head into Edinburgh for something to eat. Not wanting to go to one of our usual restaurants we devised a plan to ensure we’d end up somewhere new. Basically Alex chose the route and I chose a time, once we hit that time we had to pull over and park. We were then (the rules of the game developed as the night went on) allowed to pick four restaurants to check out the menu of, finally we had to pick one of those four to eat at (no second chances!). The winner was Mamma’s.

Mamma’s is an American pizza place in the Grassmarket. Now some might say we were brave to enter the Grassmarket on a Saturday night looking for a quiet bite to eat, it does tend to get a bit rowdy over the weekends but it was fine as we were there pretty early.

Inside it has that slightly cramped but atmospheric feel with a combination of American memorabilia and adverts for various events in Edinburgh on the walls.

Serving predominantly pizza and panzerotti other options included ‘stoned steak’, a steak dish that comes with it’s own lava stone, salmon, and Mamma’s meatballs.

For starter Alex went for barbecue wings and I had a mango and rocket salad with parmesan. The starters were good. Portion sizes were sensible and it was all really tasty (sorry, no photos this time – will do better next time). On to the mains and Alex chose a bacon and ground beef pizza and I had a goats cheese and red onion pizza, and that’s where things went a bit downhill. The pizza’s on the whole were pretty average. The bases were nothing to shout about and while Alex’s had a nice topping mine was sparse to say the least. When you’re getting pizza the main feature is the topping, there needs to actually be some and mine was sadly lacking. At £7.95 mine would have been ok, had there been any topping (not bitter, much…should have really pulled them up about it). I don’t think Alex’s was good value at £10.95 and I did begrudge £7 for what, in total, was two pints of soft drink.

On the whole a bit disappointing and not somewhere we’d return to, but not the worst place I’ve ever eaten either. We settled on a 6/10

Mamma’s in Edinburgh

Guest post by Antonia Chitty

We love to bake, so getting sent baking kits is a great bonus. It’s not that long since cupcake week, and now it is National Baking Week and we’ve been trying out some of the Home Baking range from Asda. D, 9, loves to bake, and is good at mixing and making, but often needs help with measuring. With this range she’s been able to come up with some great results without too much trouble and minimal input from me.

We started with the chocolate tray bake, which comes with its own card baking tray. Making the cake was simple, even though we made it by hand instead of using a mixer as advised on the back. It baked in exactly the time advised and we put the icing on quickly and everyone enjoyed the cake for pudding. It got great feedback from all the family!

Next, we made toffee cookies. These were super-simple to make: one packet plus a little butter and water. They baked in 12 minutes and had a great toffee taste and slightly chewy texture.”

The range costs between 48p and £1.87 which puts it in the realm of being cheaper than buying the individual ingredients, even if you have less control over artificial additives! Ideal if you’re not a baker and want to do some cooking with the kids this half term.

This isn’t a recipe but it was so tasty I thought I’d blog it anyway. Instead of a usual tomato base I roasted a chicken and shredded it into a bottle of budweiser barbecue sauce and the chicken juices. I spread a layer of the barbecue chicken over the base of the pizza then added mozarella, bacon and onion. Not exactly healthy but it tasted good!

So after the virtuous fruity summer salads earlier in the week we deserve a treat, right?

This is one of the nicest desserts I’ve made and so simple! All you have to do is either griddle or barbecue some fresh wedges of pineapple. In a seperate pot make a syrup from brown sugar and rum, add a few fresh or dried chilli flakes. Serve pineapple with syrup over the top with good quality ice cream.

Fruit in a salad, I’m probably way behind the times but it’s a revelation. Here are two of my favourites;

Feta & Pineapple Salad

Ingredients;

Feta
Fresh pineapple
Fresh mint
Salad leaves

Dressing – lemon, olive oil, sea salt, pepper

Watermelon and Goats Cheese Salad

Watermelon
Goats cheese
Salad leaves
Pine nuts
Croutons

Dressing – lemon, olive oil, sea salt, pepper

I must admit I was pretty proud of this, I think I’ve cracked the pork thing. I decided to turn this into Honey Chilli Pork but it would have been just as nice with apple sauce.

I started off with a rolled belly joint. I unrolled it (removing the string) and put it into a roasting tray skin side up. I brushed the skin with olive oil and cracked a bit of black pepper onto it. After about 1hr 40 mins it looked like this..

I could have stopped here but at this point a belly joint still has quite a bit of fat, and I hate fatty meat. So I removed the crackling from the meat. The crackling goes back in the oven upside down so as to render the fat on the other side. I glazed the meat with honey and chilli flakes and put it back in the oven. Don’t forget to to turn the crackling back over once the fat has melted away.

Finally, remove the meat once it’s caramelised as much as you like. I like mine quite dark as you can see

While you rest the meat finish the crackling under a hot grill, remove once it’s bubbling but before it burns – keep an eye on it, it’s a fine line!

Here’s the finished dish. Serve with salad, rice, mash..goes with anything really. All leftover crackling should be dipped into apple sauce though. Yum.

Ok so it sounds a little weird but this is an adaptation of Jamie Oliver’s ‘Coley Korma’ and my husband professed it the best thing I’ve ever made! And no, that’s not because I’m a rubbish cook!

Ingredients

Haddock Fillet
Basmati rice
Korma paste
Low fat coconut milk
Coriander
Chilli
Spring onion
Lemon

1. Gently fry 1/4 of a jar of korma paste.

2. Add the haddock fillets and spread the paste over the flesh so the spices flavour the fish. Fry for a few minutes.

3. Add the coconut milk and simmer gently for about 15 minutes or untile the flesh flakes away from the skin.

4. Boil the rice

5. Add half the coriander and a bit of chilli (depending on how hot you like it), season to taste.

6. Serve with additional coriander, some spring onion and a wedge of lemon

Enjoy!