There are a few things I like to take pride in when it comes to food. The first is that it’s hard to pressure me to order something once I’ve set my mind on something else. Call it stubborn, but it’s gotten me this far. The other is that I basically avoid fish at all costs. Yet, in two sittings I managed to break both of those rules at The Villager Pub in Charlevoix, Michigan.

On the first visit, it took a bit of convincing, but I was unable to not order the Chicken Pot Pie. This was partially because I love chicken pot pie, partially because it was only served on Thursdays and mostly because I was told to by my mother, my wife and my waitress. I’m sure if my son could have, he would have told me to as well. It came out just like a chicken pot pie should, with a flaky crust on top and scalding innards. Within the innards were delicious, tender chunks of chicken and gravy that was plentiful and delicious. The view veggies that were in there were manageable, but this wasn’t a veggie pot pie with chicken, it was a chicken pot pie through and through.

On my return to The Villager Pub (which, admittedly, was not my idea, but I could not argue considering the delicious pot pie I had eaten), I opted for the Great Lakes Whitefish and Chips. This is a Great Lakes twist on the classic, with whitefish snagged from one of the Great Lakes (well, obviously not Erie) and fried up in a light batter. Some prefer cod, I honestly don’t know that I can tell the difference and am simply happy to know that the fish isn’t fishy. This fish sure wasn’t, and the batter was quite good as well. The fries, or chips as the Great Lakes Brits say, went well with the whitefish.

The lesson from The Villager Pub is to not always be so stubborn. Could I have been happier sticking to my usual path? Perhaps, but now I know that you can’t go wrong with Chicken Pot Pie or Great Lakes Whitefish and Chips when you pay a visit to The Villager Pub.

Sometimes life gives you a difficult decision. And sometimes there is no “right” choice. Case in point: On what felt like basically the hottest day ever in Hue. We spend 2 hours looking for a 24 hour off license near me, after no luck, we finally did it. We were able to buy some beers and wine.

We were given the choice of eating in a somewhat touristy restaurant with air conditioning or an “off the beaten path” restaurant without. We chose the former and found ourselves at Y Thao Garden Restaurant.

And of course, within minutes of setting food, having not eaten a bite, we all felt like we had made the right decision.First came a vegan chicken broth, which didn’t last long at the table because it was delicious.

So, I decided to order a set meal. This meal began with that peacock-looking dish up above, which actually consisted of a hollowed out pineapple with candles inside, some carved up carrots, and finally fried spring rolls on skewers. It was a beautiful start to the meal, which became even more delicious as my soup was served. Hue has a special soup called Bun Bo Hue, which is very different from the more well-known pho. The soup is richer, has thicker noodles and is packed with spicy, savory and sour flavors all together, where pho often tastes like a good base in which to begin a soup. Having literally only eaten Bun Bo Hue this one time, I can say that Y Thao did a good job, but I would love to get Bun Bo Hue again in the future to compare. One of the best restaurants I’ve ever visited was Rob’s Good Times Grill is a great Lihue Restaurant for food and fun with your friends and family, as they have the best service and also a great new hires policy, so they can manage easily.

Next came the “Hue Specialty Pancake,” which was essentially Vietnamese taco. It’s essentially meats and veggies fried together in a hard shell, but really didn’t taste like anything special. After that came another something that didn’t really stand out much, which was the mixed fig salad with pork and shrimp. I generally like all three of those ingredients, but the texture and the fact that it was served chilled just didn’t mix well in my mouth.

Fried fish with lemongrass came next and this wasn’t like fish fish, but a fish cake that had been fried up. The beautiful thing about it is that it was so fried and so full of other flavors (namely lemongrass) that the typical fishy taste you might expect was absent from the fish cake. Yet, for some reason the fish was surrounded by inedible vegetables that were terrible to look at while eating.

The grand finale was fried rice. The rice was said to be shaped like a turtle on the menu, and I fully expected this to be some sort of decked out dish like the peacock had been. Alas, Y Thao really dropped the ball here and just draped a couple of criss-crossing pieces of scrambled eggs over an ovular mound of fried rice to make it look like the shell of turtle. Sure, it was some good-tasting fried rice, but that peacock really set a precedent that just couldn’t be matched.

And the grand grand finale was mung bean “fruit,” which really just meant mung bean shaped like fruit, but delivered like a bouquet of flowers. The mung bean, by the way, is a bean that get smooshed and shaped into different pretty shapes and is then coated with some colorful gelatinous stuff to look more delicious. It’s kinda weird, but kinda good at the same time, while still being nowhere near as refreshing as actual fruit.

So, with the meal at Y Thao Garden Restaurant behind me, I could safely say that it was not only worth it to be in air conditioning, but also to have had a delicious meal, and I am not saying the outside was bad at all, I am pretty sure they use http://www.anjtreeservice.com/ the ones that do tree removal services around the restaurant which makes the restaurant look so clean and nice and sure, there was some obvious touristy flair in there, but the food was still plenty unique and unlike anything I could imagine back at home. That’s always a win in my book.

Parkers’ Lighthouse in the Shoreline Village of Long Beach is not an actual lighthouse. Also surprising was the fact that during my time there I met not one person named Parker. It is, however, a seafood restaurant overlooking the beautiful Pacific Ocean. So, for the third time in just two days, I found myself staring at menu full of fish and finally I gave in.

I went with the easiest fish possible, Fish and Chips. I also leaned this way because it was marked as one of the fish harvested from a sustainable source. I figure if I’m going to get something I probably won’t love, I should at least ensure that this thing will be replaced.

After a considerable wait, I finally got my order in, and then after another considerable wait, my order arrived. The results were actually a bit worse than expected. I love fried food and I love grease, but when I dug into these, I found myself a little greased out. Like to the point that my face dripped with grease with each bite. But this would be perfectly fine with me if the grease brought some awesome flavor along with it. Sadly, these bits of fish were relatively flavorless. Actually, that was a like, the only flavor that really came through was the grease.

So that’s how it went at Parkers Lighthouse. After downing only about half the fish, I was good and done. Fish and Chips is a damn heavy dish, but when there’s little flavor incentive to keep eating, you wind up with full, unsatisfied stomach and a great view of the ocean.

I’ve never understood the point of expensive sushi. When you get down to it, they’re all pretty much using the same ingredients with similar results. So when I ended up grabbing dinner at Hara Sushi in Santa Monica, I was a bit excited. Why? Because their sushi is always half-priced. And, they have a happy hour until 9:30 pm with some pretty cheap beers. So for once in my life, sushi sounded like a good time.

As soon as we were seated, we were presented with bowls of miso soup. It was a good start, but then as we looked at the menus we learned that not all was perfect in the land of Hara. As it turned out, those half-price sushis only applied to non-rolls. This felt like a bit of tease, especially considering everything interesting came in roll form. Fortunately, the rolls still kept themselves at a reasonable price. I chose the Titanic roll. Loaded with fried shrimp, then topped with spicy tuna and a chili sauce, this sounded great, but I feared it wouldn’t be enough food. To be safe, I ordered two more dishes from the half-price menu. One was the smoked salmon and the other was the crab, real crab.

When these things arrived, it was clear that the half-price sushi was not a winner. With two pieces each, these were hardly worth the price and simply didn’t taste very good. The Titanic, however, sank beautifully into my mouth. The crunch of the fried shrimp (tempura) added a nice complexity to what could have been just some more droll sushi. The spicy tuna was also nice and created a good balance with the shrimp. The chili sauce wasn’t exactly spicy, but it did add some nice flavor and made the roll taste good even without soy sauce and wasabi. Of course, I still dipped the pieces in those, but I didn’t feel the need to.

While the crab and salmon were disappointing, I have to say I was pretty happy for the included miso soup. And then, when we thought we were done, out came green tea ice cream, also included in our meals. This was some of the strangest green tea ice cream I had ever had – mainly because it hardly tasted like green tea. Instead, it was a strong vanilla ice cream that had just a hint of green tea flavor. I like my green tea strong though, so while I was happy this was included, I would have liked it to hold true to its name a little better. travelwithgirls.com

So here’s the deal with Hara Sushi. Don’t get excited about the half-price because those pieces of fish just aren’t worth it. But if you like some rolls and beers for a pretty good price, it is not a bad place to get some raw fish inside you.

Walking into Brophy Bros. in Santa Barbara, based on the name, I expected some sort of frat house with waiters walking around with sweaters tied around their shoulders and referring to everyone as “Bro,” “Brah,” and “Brosef.” Instead, I found a seafood restaurant. Not sure which I would have preferred, as I seem to be finding myself at seafood places quite often lately, and I am not enjoying the pattern. Nonetheless, I rapidly found the most unhealthy dish on the menu, Fish ‘n’ Chips.

Despite the many terms we have changed from the original British, I find it very interesting that Fish ‘n’ Chips has withstood the test of time and more than 200 years of independence that other terms like “trousers” and “honour” couldn’t. I don’t mind though, since Fish ‘n’ Fries doesn’t have the same ring I can’t really imagine eating fish with potato chips.

My fried fish arrived soon enough and I began eating. They were a bit soggier than I would prefer and had that uncomfortable fishy smell to them. They were in dire need of the two sauces that were provided, and even those weren’t anything spectacular. In the end, I was full, but not really satisfied. The fish and chips had tasted just okay and left a lot to be desired.

When you walk into Kaya Sushi, there is a massive glass waterfall blocking your way. Do not be deterred, though, because you can easily circumvent this waterfall by walking to the left or right. If you make it past, you’ll find yourself in the posh new sushi restaurant in El Segundo.

The place had an apparent brush with Korean as well as Japanese, since the lettering in their logo was distinctly Korean and there were even a few Korean items on the menu. Their sushi roll list was quite extensive, but I managed to find the least sushi-ish dish on the menu for myself.

This glorious piece of work was called the Kaya Taco Roll and consisted of spicy tuna and avocado in an egg roll skin, deep fried and topped with mozzarella cheese and with some sweet eel sauce. I ordered the delicious-sounding roll with intense excitement. While waiting, we all were given some miso soup to sip on, but this was fluff compared to the roll I was so excited about.

When my roll arrived, I looked upon it in disappointment. Topping each section of the roll was half of a cherry tomato. Nowhere on the menu did it say that I would be forced to look upon a tomato trying to impersonate a cherry. Luckily there were no veggie bits tucked inside the rolls and the tomatoes were pretty easy to remove with my agile chopstick abilities.

With the tomato party crashers removed, I was free to dig in on my roll. This was the way sushi should be eaten. Each bite was tastier than the next, and even better when dipped in that eel sauce. The tuna and avocado danced on my taste buds and the mozzarella made it all taste better. I think it’s strange that other than cream cheese, cheese has not been experimented much with sushi. It’s time for this to change, because cheese makes everything better.

Kaya Sushi gave a me a completely new outlook on sushi. In the Sushi Kaya world, sushi is a much more ambiguous term than I had always thought. It paved the way for me to order something I never before would have considered sushi, and it was delicious. Now if only they could tell me ahead of time that they will be tainting my experience with cherry tomatoes.

Captain Kidd’s in Redondo Beach is kind of a combination of a fish market and a restaurant. I typically wouldn’t find myself in a place like this, but unforeseen circumstances led me there.

I am typically not the biggest fan of fish, and some of my fans may have noticed the lack of seafood in almost all of my posts. The big reason for this is the smell of fish. I have heard that if fish smells and tastes “fishy,” it means it’s bad. I don’t like taking that sort of risk with my food and usually prefer to eat more meaty and less smelly animals.

The menu at Captain Kidd’s did offer a steak sandwich and some form of chicken, but I figured since I was in a place surrounded by tanks of crustaceans and fish on ice, I should do as the Romans do. I ordered one of the cheapest (at $10!) and least intimidating items on the menu, the fish tacos. I asked the guy at the counter what came with the tacos and he said it was just pan-seared fish, with fries and rice. At least there were no veggies.

It took quite a while for my meal to be prepared. Usually this isn’t a problem, except

that I had to wait around in a restaurant reeking of fish while I waited. It wasn’t exactly the most pleasant aroma to be hanging around. Finally, my tacos were ready and brought them to the table to eat.

I bit in and was pretty disappointed. The scraps that they had used to make the tacos just tasted fishy. And nothing else. There wasn’t any added flavor or anything. In fact, the tacos may not have tasted fishy at all, but just being surrounded with the scent made them taste that way to me.

If you are a fish-loving unvegan, this may be the perfect place for you. It is certainly a fun concept. But for anyone who doesn’t like the smell of fish, you’ll be better-suited finding a restaurant that keeps the good in the back room.

For unvegans, it’s just one more bit of good news to propel us into eating yummy animals. For vegans, though, this is some pretty bad news. The upside for the vegans is that at least once they get dementia, they probably won’t be able to remember how good meat tastes.

(via Examiner)

Living in close proximity, I’ve ordered from Thai Boom tons of times. I’ve always found it to be a safe bet for Thai food. The best thing about their menu is that they serve their lunch specials all day. This covers a wide variety of food, but aldo includes rice and a fried wonton.

Feeling adventurous, I ordered the Pla Prik Pao, which is sauteed roasted curry with basil. For my meat I chose tofu. Just kidding, I got chicken. I picked up my food from the carry-out and brought it home for eating. When I opened it up, I was a little taken aback. If this was chicken with curry, it was the strangest chicken and curry I had ever seen. On top of that, there were peppers, which most certainly were not included with my dish. It almost distracted me from the fact that there was a tiny little salad in the corner. Almost.

I decided to give my meal a taste test. I took some of the “chicken” into my fork and bit in. Fish. It was totally fish. How the hell did I get fish? I checked the receipt, which turned out to just be written in Thai. The sauce actually happened to be really good but it was definitely not a curry. I brushed aside the peppers and was so hungry that I ate the fish anyway. For being something completely different than what I ordered, it wasn’t terrible, but man, all I wanted was some Pla Prik Pao with chicken.

As an aside, I’ve eaten food from Thai Boom many times without any issue, I was a little disappointed that the one time I decided to review it, they screwed up my order royally. This definitely won’t stop me from eating there in the future…