Dinner from Clifton Thai Restaurant in Clifton, NJ

 There are many Thai places to choose from but our favorite has become Clifton Thai.  Their menu is not as expansive as some but everything is always solid.  Their pineapple fried rice is our fav and I love their home-made ice cream.  The only negative is that their spice scale differs not only from order to order, but even within an order sometimes we get all our dishes at one spice level yet they are markedly different.  The bottom line though is to generally order below what you think you can handle because they are not afraid of heat haha.  That's the sign of authenticity to me.

The full order

Grilled Thai chicken dumpling

Pineapple fried rice with pork sausage

Chicken tempura with Thai peanut curry.  Their peanut curry is amazing

Dinners from Samurai Sushi in East Rutherford, NJ

 Samurai Sushi has become our go-to sushi place.  Their sushi is fresh and delicious.  They have crispy tuna rice!  And their ramen is top notch and you can get extra noodles for only $3 so can avoid having to order two full orders of ramen.  It's amazing in person too but we tend to order take-out.

Steamed buns, dragon roll and Samurai bites

Close-up of the dragon roll (inside grilled eel, cucumber.  Outside: avocado, eel glaze and tobiko)

Close-up of Samurai bites - crispy rice topped with spicy tuna and jalapenos

Steamed buns with chashu pork

Tonkatsu ramen w/extra noodles

Full dinner #1

Dinner #2 

Chicken ramen - this has become our ramen go-to

Eel Avocado roll and yellowtail scallion roll

Of course more Samurai bites

Dinner #3: Deluxe sushi plate - 10 pieces + classic roll

Dinner #4: Chicken ramen, Samurai bites, Negitoro roll, and Eel Avocado roll

Dinner #5

Dinner #5: Winter Roll and Dancing Eel roll

Negitoro roll

Samurai bites

Home-made breakfast

 Here's a few different home-made breakfast posts, including waffles, quiche and scallion egg pancakes

Home-made quiche with bacon and mushrooms

Home-made mochi pandan waffles

Scallion pancakes with eggs. So yummy

Another quiche.  This one def more mushroom forward

Dinner from Ameti's Pizza in Clifton, NJ

I was craving Italian so a tried a new place in Clifton.  The pizza was good but not quite Sicilian in the way I normally think of crust.  It was a bit thicker than normal crust but not as deep or hard.   The food overall was tasty though not super memorable considering how many Italian places there are around here.

Sicilian pizza with mushrooms

Penne with pink vodka sauce.  Vodka sauce is my fav and this was good but I don't remember it that well now

Crab stuffed mushrooms.  Tasty but the sauce was a little thin

Lunch at Hi-Collar in NYC

I had some time for lunch and took myself to a solo lunch at Hi-Collar.  It's a Japanese izakaya that I've wanted to go to for years for their omurice and it did not disappoint.  I'd love to come back to try the pancakes but it was too much food for me to get home.  I also had forgotten my credit card but thankfully had enough cash to cover the meal.

Omurice with katsu and demi glace sauce.  Sweet and a little tangy

Thick pieces of meat

So beautiful.  The omelette was SO fluffy

Menu

Home-made vegan tacos

 I had gotten Dan a tortilla press and we made home-made vegan tacos.  Except that tacos had bacon fat in them haha.  The tacos themselves took a little bit of work but didn't take too long to make.  I used beyond meat for the "meat" for the tacos and made rice and beans and plantains to go with it. A delicious meal though honestly we have some great Mexican/taco places nearby so tastier to order it.

Pressing the tortilla

Frying the tortilla

Tortilla factory

Close up of the tortilla.  Lookin pretty legit

Yellow rice and beans.  Thanks Yoga

Fried sweet plantains

Beyond meat

Finished taco

Full dinner

Home-made desserts

 Soooo have been very derelict in 2022 about posting.  I took lots of photos and failed to actually blog so 2023 I am doing retroactive posts and trying to be more timely.  So many of these posts will encompass numerous meals since we have various go-to restaurants we order from.

Mixing everything for ube rice krispies treats

Finished product - ube rice krispies treats.  So easy.  Just the regular recipe + ube extract

My home-made carrot cake with cream cheese frosting

I attempted to make mochi donuts using Trader Joe's ube mochi pancake mix.  The frosting was more work than I expected and came out too thick IMO

Naked ube mochi donuts

Frosted donuts

Final breakfast plate.  The donuts were unfortunately more work and less good than I thought LOL.  The mix is great for pancakes or waffles though

Oatmeal choc chip sandwiches with Trader Joe's sweet cannoli cream inside. SOOOO yummy.