Kelly B.com

I'm suddenly full of this bubbling righteousness that makes me want to post. So I kind of noticed I haven't done a restaurant review in like, seven or eight months. I promise I've eaten out in that time, okay? I just keep forgetting to write about it because usually eating out is followed promptly with a lazy food-induced coma. And comatose people? Not very good bloggers. Plaza Azteca recently opened up in Manchester (CT, not UK) and it has inhabited what used to be a Macaroni Grill. It's a Mexican restaurant and although it does not in the slightest bit compare to my beloved Sarapes. But it's a heck of a lot more attractive looking since Sarapes is a prime example of hole-in-the-wall. You wouldn't be embarassed of bring a date to P.A. because it's big, spacious, and re-designed to look Southwestern-like with dark wood type decor and Santa Fe paint color. It's also pretty cheap. Even eating dinner there, most menu items are $10 or less. I do howe...

Saturday evening was our 2nd Christmas. No, this is not a new holiday persay, but we pulled names on my husband's side of the family and we didn't all spend Christmas together so some people (myself included) didn't get their gift. No big deal to me, but Trevor's mom pulled together a really nice meal (with Devin also cooking) and it was a nice excuse to get together. If not for holidays I don't know when I'd see some of Trevor's extended family members. People are busy. Life happens, but it's nice to see one another. I made a pecan crusted pumpkin pie, an eclair cake, green tea ice cream and cranberry muffins. I did not bring the muffins; I simply wanted something to munch on in the mornings and my oven was already hot from baking. Pumpkin pie is something I have a love hate relationship with. I love the fragrant spices. I love the velvety texture of custard pies, but something about pumpkin pie is a little too mushy so I can't commit to eat...

We are now feeling out the local food establishments. You'd think that having lived here for most of the years of my life I'd know the good places to eat, but you would be mistaken. My parents never ordered take out and my mother always fed me so full I never really felt any desire to branch out and spend money for food. My knowledge of convenience food is pretty limited. But this town is overrun with pizza places. What I wouldn't give for some spicy Thai drunken noodles, but the choices that are available appear to be A.) Pizza B.) Pizza related Italian food C.) Sandwiches D.) Chinese food E.) Indian food F.) Sushi Thriving metropolis we are not. Although I very much enjoy my house with my garage and quiet street I am mildly jealous of the sprawling food selection in NYC. While we were visiting Tyler we had Malaysian food and then Japanese Ramen Noodles they refer to it as ramen but it's totally are not like that Top Ramen stuff you add water to when you only h...

I'd like to start by saying I am cursed but on the bright side, if you believe that bad things happen in 3's then I am all set for a long time. The short story is my dad accidentally hit my car while trying to do a K-turn out of our driveway during a snowstorm. He felt awful. It's all cosmetic. I'm actually really complacent about the whole thing because I figure that I've cared so much up to this point and it's done nothing but make me feel awful. Plus the moment I get my car fixed I'm 94.79% sure that it'll just get hit again. That's just how my luck's been. And really, it's just a car. The fact of the matter is that it's not anything special. It's not a person whom I care about. It's not even in a color I like. So really, why continue thinking about it? Back to life. I got together with the girls (plus Trevor and Vinnie) for New Year's Eve. A.) We needed to exchange gifts still from the holiday and B.) I didn...

I'm sick so I haven't been updating. I don't really even want to get up out of bed let alone write about how miserable I've been. Vegas was a lot of fun. We didn't go out clubbing. We didn't go to Fremont Street like we wanted, but we still had a lot of fun hanging out together and eating to our heart's content. I loved the buffet at the Bellagio and I went to my first meal at PF Changs, which was also really good. I particularly enjoyed their specialty martinis. The vodka they used (Charbay) was unbelievably smooth. We also had a "fancy" dinner at Delmonico, but I wasn't really blown away by the food. It met my expectation but it by no means blew me out of the water. My steak felt kinda blah and I know whenever I order steak I always say the same thing but it's so dull. Steak, even the kings of steak like Porterhouse and tenderloin still need some seasoning to be tasty. That being said, the service at Delmonico was really good an...

I'm the last person in the world to talk about work because...ugh...work is boring. I talk about work like 40 hours a week, and that's probably 40 hours too many. lol But I have to say that my manager Sean is really nice. He took the whole team out to a holiday lunch at The Cheesecake Factory. And he let us out of work at 11am only to return around 1:30pm after enjoying a very long relaxing lunch. Of course, the downside was that I still had 8 hours of work awaiting me at my desk and at least half a dozen "fires" to put out. Ugh. :-P But focusing on the positive, lunch was very nice and although I'm very friendly with all my coworkers anyway it was refreshing to not be chit chatting about work. I've been to the Cheesecake Factory one other time. It seems to be a very popular establishment since even at 11:30 there was a line out the door. "Really? On a random Tuesday?" Yes. Apparently people go buck wild over gigantic portions of food and ...

Mei Tzu in 4 Prospect Hill Road, East Windsor CT. Trevor and I had sushi there on Sunday after realizing that Oishi was closed that evening. So perhaps we didn't start off on the best foot since we wanted something else. I got the fried dumplings and fried shrimp tempura. The tempura was way over-battered and the oil seemed to have lingering aroma. It didn't taste bad but I had the feeling the oil was tainted by something they fried beforehand, like fish or some other seafood. It was all cooked but it was just too thickly battered up so you could hardly taste the shrimp. Good tempura should have a very light crisp coating and not mask whatever food it's encasing. The dumplings I had were pretty good, but a tad too gingery. On the other hand, I got a very generous portion of 8 fried dumplings instead of the usual 4 or 5. Trevor had sushi because he can't go to a new place and not have the sushi. It was mediocre. I'd say 2 1/2 out of 4 stars for the overall ...

Restaurant Review time!!! Oyama , Enfield CT. We went back last weekend because Trevor wanted to give them a 2 nd chance. Our first experience was particularly horrible, but perhaps their hot food would be better. Hot food has a tendency to be easier to throw together than sushi which is entirely dependent on a good fish distributor. They had hibachi grills set up and we thought that at least we could be entertained with an interesting chef. The first thing that hit me was how expensive it was. The menu listed one price, but once the bill came each entree came up being a few bucks more each. For around $20 an entree, it's pretty steep. I had the salmon and Trevor went for the steak. We had to wait around 10 minutes for a chef to come and start tossing food around. When you're at a restaurant with nothing to look at it feels like an eternity. Soup and salad came. Soup was pretty much just water and 4 paper thin mushroom slices; it was probably the sorriest excuse fo...

Trevor and I are self described foodies. More specifically we're Japanese foodies, so when I perused through Yahoo Local and found a Japanese establishment within 20 miles of our home it warranted trying to track it down and give it a try. Oishi does not have a website at present otherwise I'd link it up. Oishi is located at 1455 Riverdale Street,West Springfield, MA, 01089 The owner is Korean, which is a welcome change to a landscape that so far has been full of Chinese restaurateurs. I wouldn't say his menu sticks to all the traditions, but it has be best "spirit" of Japanese culture and food. It's hard to describe, but really good Japanese food is made with care and attention to detail. I feel like the owner really cares about his food and really cares about maintaining good relations with his patrons. There's nothing wrong with Chinese restaurateurs; they just have a tendency to have terrible service. Their staff is rarely attentive or nice. ...

Oyama Japanese Restaurant in Enfield CT: 2 Stars (at least for the sushi) This new establishment is actually a split restaurant, part seafood restaurant (Jason's) and part Japanese with hibachi grills. Again, I only had the sushi so my review is solely a result of the fish being lackluster, the spicy rolls having far and away too much scallion (what the heck is scallion doing in a spicy tuna roll?) and the rolls themselves being teeny tiny. I haven't tried the hibachi items at all, but if their seafood restaurant items are as bad as the sushi fish then I don't look forward to trying it. Apart from the uninspiring sushi, the decor is sparse at best and even though it's two restaurants, there's no separation between the two and it ends up looking like a vacuous cavern. It's not a place to impress a date for sure. But Trevor and I are sushi addicts and figured that it was worth a shot to try it, sadly it's so bad it's not worth trying again. Maybe t...