Midori Goodness!

For date night last week, we decided to go to one of our favorite local Japanese restaurants: Midori. We had gotten an online deal, $10 for $20 to spend! Midori has two locations, one is in Piscataway and the other is in Highland Park. We have been there many times - in fact, this is where we went on our first "real" date, on Valentine's Day last year...yes, I did use an online deal, and yes, I still hear about that to this day!

Green tea is a must with every Japanese meal.

Midori's green tea  posing with low-sodium soy sauce

We started off our meal with a bowl of miso soup!

Miso Soup

Then, for our entrees, we ordered two specialty rolls from their awesome selection. Jess chose the Phoenix roll, which had shrimp tempura, cucumber, avocado, and lobster salad. I decided to stick with just fish, so I went with the Madness roll, which contained spicy tuna with spicy yellowtail inside and crispy spicy salmon on top (yum!).

Madness Roll

Phoenix Roll

Overall, this place is awesome. With our coupon deal ($10 for $20) we only ended up paying a little more than $10 dollars for tea, soup, and sushi. We are always satisfied with Midori and will definitely be making our way back in the near future!

Winner Winner Chicken (and Beef) Dinner!

I'm going to keep this blog entry much like our dishes: simple and sweet. On Wednesday we decided to go to Noodle Gourmet: a reasonably-priced Chinese/Cantonese restaurant in New Brunswick. After ordering at the front of the restaurant we sat down and the waiter brought us crispy noodles, yum! (because we were starving)

crispy noodles + duck sauce

essentials for Chinese food: white pepper, soy sauce, and hot sauce

Jess ordered a special dish not featured on their standard menu, three mushrooms (straw, shitake, and button mushrooms) with beef, and I ordered chicken with hot pepper sauce over rice.

three mushrooms with beef

chicken with hot pepper over white rice

Our meals were under $8 dollars each, and we had enough for lunch the next day. This place also serves bubble tea, which is one of Jess's favorite drinks. Sesame bubble tea is her personal favorite, but it doesn't rival to other bubble tea establishments in the area. In summary, Noodle Gourmet offers authentic Chinese dishes at a reasonable price. Not bad for a weekday date!

Maggiano's: Italian for Salt?

Last Friday for Date Night, Jess and I went to Maggiano's in Bridgewater.

The ambiance of the restaurant was very inviting, warm, and yet intimate, full of lively patrons and staff. This place definitely earned a decor rating of 5-stars!

average bread on an above-average dinner table

Our server immediately brought us warm bread in a nice basket. We poured some olive oil and sprinkled some grated cheese onto a small plate and sampled the bread. We then carefully explored the menu and found a great couple's deal: Marco's Meal for Two

Marco's Meal for Two

To kickoff our 3-course feast, we chose the chicken and roasted pepper flatbread for our appetizer. After much consideration, Jess finally settled on the spaghetti and meatballs and I went with the baked rigatoni pomodoro, which had chicken sausage, roasted peppers, and a little kick to it.

Chicken and Roasted Pepper Flatbread

Spaghetti and Meatballs

Baked Rigatoni Pomodoro

Then, if this wasn't enough, Marco's Meal for 2 calls for two more to-go meals. So, Jess and I chose the Fettuccine Alfredo (with chicken) and Mom's Lasagna, which was prepared while we were enjoying our desert of Tiramisu.

We really wanted to like this place, but the food in this restaurant was a case of quantity over quality. And when I say quantity, I mean quantity. We ate less than half of our entrees, PLUS we had two full additional meals (each meal can easily feed 2). The leftovers from Maggiano's saw us through the weekend into Monday.

One heavy to-go bag!

All-in-all, for $60 dollars we got 4 very large meals of decent Italian food (not great). Unfortunately the food was very over-flavored (think a lot of salt) - after eating here we looked at the nutrition facts, and the sodium content in these meals was quite astounding!

Would we go back - probably not. However, we will probably go to Olive Garden in the near future to give Italian food a second chance!

Where it all Began: Penang

Penang has three meanings to me: 
1. It's the island where my girlfriend is from (it's in Malaysia).
2. It's the restaurant where I took my girlfriend out on our first date (February 11, 2012).
3. And it happens to be a restaurant with very authentic Malaysian food (in terms of food AND price).

selamat datang to Penang!

Jess and I have been here several times. When we go, we usually kick-off our meal with roti canai (awesome appetizer), but last night we decided to jump right to entrees since it was a little late and we weren't that hungry.

Jess ordered one of her favorite entrees, Hokkien prawn mee (literal translation: shrimp noodles), a spicy noodle soup dish that is very popular in Penang. The dish consists of egg noodles served in richly flavored dark soup stock with prawns (shrimp), pork slices and bean sprouts topped with fried shallots.

Hokkien prawn mee

I was feeling a little adventurous last night, so instead of getting my usual order of Young Chow fried rice I asked for Cantonese Chow Fun, a very common dish among locals in Malaysia. The dish's base is very similar to your typical chow fun with one major difference: delicious thick egg gravy with a side of pickled green chili bathed in soy sauce. I must admit that the initial appearance caught me by surprise - however, after my girlfriend assured me that I was in for a treat, I quickly gave it a try and have not looked back since...this stuff is REALLY good!

Cantonese chow fun

One more thing to note, the restaurant has changed a lot since our first date over a year ago. We sat in a boat-style booth area that is not there anymore, which is a little upsetting. However, their makeover gives it an appearance that matches the quality of the food.

In summary, Penang has the best Malaysian cuisine in Central New Jersey, and it rivals restaurants like Banana Leaf and Nyonya, located in Philly and NYC, respectively. Additionally, our bill was under $25 dollars, and we even had leftovers for lunch the next day! Great food for a great price. This is a great restaurant, and we always look forward to coming back for more good Malaysian food!