CORT - Pita Gourmet

CORT- PITA GOURMET

Another day, another lunch craving. Today, we’re headed to Pita Gourmet which is usually somewhere I like to go during warm weather just because of that Mediterranean feeling in the summer but I’ve struck a craving for Dolmas today so off we go.

LOCATION: 41 MAIN ST., CORTLAND, NY, 13045

I’ve eaten here before and I’m kind of surprised I haven’t written a post about it yet so here we are. When I think if Pita Gourmet I have positive thoughts but I think my expected vs. reality ideas of it don’t quite line up. I like walking in there and ordering at the counter from the founders of the restaurant who seem so nice and get right down to business. The place feels authentic and it makes me excited to eat the food so maybe I’m just ordering the wrong thing and that’s why it’s not quite living up to my expectations.

My normal order is the Mazza combo which lets you try three of the five options: tabouleh, hommos, baba gannush, grape leaves or falafel. I love this option because it allows me to try a few different items and graze a little then switch it up so the flavors never get boring. I’m a fan of tapas or appetizer/sample platters for this very reason so ordering something that gives me multiple samples is ideal for me.

So when it comes down to it, I tend to order the mazza combo with hommos, grape leaves (my favorite Mediterranean dish), and falafel. This combo comes with warm pita for dipping which I also love. Warm Pita is just comforting all around. However, though this place delivers with options, I’m usually let down a little with the actual food.

The grape leaves (dolmas) are perfect to me and I love that they’re warm and zesty so there’s no complaint there but I could see them being a little too acidic/sour for some. The hommos is a little bit of a let down and isn’t really anything to write home about. It doesn’t have much interest to it and while it’s not bad, it’s not great either. The falafel really loses me and is so dry and overly salted. It comes on a little bed of tomato and lettuce that’s a little sad to look at and I can’t say that I rush to eat it either. It helps to eat the falafel dipped in some of the hommos to bring down the salt levels and add some moisture but I can’t imagine eating it with the pita because it would be dry dry dry. I could substitute out the falafel and get baba gannush or tebouleh but I can’t imagine getting the baba gannush AND the hommas as they’re too similar in texture. I also will admit that I’m not a huge fan of tebouleh so that’s not a great choice for me either. If it were, I would just order the Fabulous Five which is the combo with all of these options.

At the end of it, I want to love Pita Gourmet and I want to go more often but it’s tended to let me down the few times I’ve gone and my visits are few a far between. Maybe writing this post will be a reminder for me to expand my ordering and try something new next time. I just love the grape leaves so much and this combo always looks so appealing to me just on variety alone. Stay tuned. I promise I’ll order a different dish the next time I go. I’m sure there’s something wonderful here that' I’m just missing.

CORT - Wild Ginger Asian Fusion

CORT - Wild Ginger Asian Fusion

This week leading up to the holidays is tricky with prepping to travel and not wanting to get too many groceries before we have to pack up and leave so it’s leading to more lunch takeout than I would typically like but I won’t say I’m upset that I’m getting lunch from Wild Ginger.

LOCATION: 47 MAIN ST., CORTLAND, NY, 13045

Typically, I just order sushi and call it a day but I’m craving something warm today and miso soup won’t cut it. I decided to be a little more adventurous and I ordered the Beef Negimaki Bento Lunch Special. I’ve never heard of Beef Negimaki before but I really wanted a beef dish (I guess my body wants iron) and I looked up Beef Negimaki and to seemed like something nice to try. Google says it’s a traditional Japanese dish of thinly pounded meat that's marinated in teriyaki sauce, wrapped around scallions and grilled. I’m never really drawn to teriyaki sauce dishes but it’s not usually bad either so it seemed worth the shot.

The bento boxes from Wild Ginger are a good deal since they come with a couple dumplings/mini eggrolls, rice, soup/salad, and a California roll along with the protein of choice. While I knew this was a filling order I also go a spicy salmon roll too because I really wanted that but there wasn’t a way to substitute the Cali roll for it when I ordered online. I was super happy I ordered the salmon roll though because the California roll just doesn’t cut it like it used it. I did have too much food and had to save some for dinner but it was a good order overall. I didn’t really love the Beef Negimaki because there was SO MUCH scallion on the inside which was very overpowering; not the dish for me though the grilled beef was still good. I also still don’t love teriyaki because it can be so salty so these were things I knew going into ordering that weren’t a surprise for me. If these things sound like your type of food, then Negimaki is good for you but it turns out to not be my thing. I’m still glad I tried it and it was a good deal for lunch so I’m happy about that as well. Wild Ginger doesn’t let me down.

CORT - Yori House

Yori House is back in rotation! At least for today. I always come back to it because I CRAVE Korean food and I always want Yori House to be good even when it continues to slightly disappoint me. They did just come out with their Winter ‘22 menu and there were some menu items I wanted to try so I had to give it another shot. It also happens to be the only restaurant in town that is remotely Korean so this is my only option for a fix. The struggle is so real.

LOCATION: 114 ELM ST., CORTLAND NY, 13045

One new item on their winter menu is the Creamy Seafood Pasta which I’m not sure is remotely Korean but this could be a good thing for my expectations. The pasta comes with shrimp, mussels, cream sauce, and pecorino cheese over a classic spaghetti. Seeing as my go to dish on their menu is the Seafood ‘Paella’, this option seemed like a safe choice for something I would enjoy and I wasn’t wrong. They use the same mussels and shrimp in their paella dish as well as the same cream sauce so the only difference was the carb that was switched out. I don’t recall if the paella has pecorino on it but boy did it add a lot more salt to this dish. It was a little bit of a salt bomb and I was really glad I decided to order edamame on the side to help me quell the saltiness of the pasta though the shrimp did help.

Yori House slightly disappoints again. This wasn’t a bad meal and was still edible but it wasn’t very good and I will go back to my usual Seafood Paella next time instead over this salty pasta. Oh Yori House, we’ll keep trying.

ROC - Allah's Kitchen

I’m in town for the weekend and have decided to finally take up my friend’s recommendation to eat at the vegan restaurant Allah’s Kitchen. They also happened to open a new location right by RIT’s campus in August which makes it so much easier for me to get to when I’m in town so I’m super excited for that aspect too.

LOCATION: 200 JEFFERSON RD, PARK POINT DR. SUITE 205, ROCHESTER, NY 14623

I knew exactly where this location was and used to frequent different restaurants there when I was in college so I went right in but boy was this a chaotic experience in terms of service. I came around 2pm just because that’s what time I arrived in town, and I was so hungry. There were a couple of women in the restaurant when I arrived and it seemed like they had already ordered and were having a fun little day out together. The counter at this place was sparse with space for food to be out for easy service but nothing actually out. Since it was 2pm I gave them the benefit of the doubt because I have no idea what it looks like during a normal lunch or dinner rush so that was odd but not a big deal. I waited for a little and there were two men working and one finally asked me what I wanted to order and I got the INFINITE BOWL. I will say that their menu is kind of crunchy and has these lofty names for their bowls that don’t indicate at all what’s in side of them, aka ‘infinite bowl’ but my friend highly recommends it so I’m along for the ride. The Infinite Bowl is gluten free and soy free along with being vegan so this place is a great option for people with any sort of dietary restrictions because most of their menu is soy free or gluten free as well. This bowl comes with coconut brown rice, aloo gobi (which is potatoes and cauliflower cooked in an Indian curry sauce), stewed chickpeas with spinach, kale, onions, peppers, zucchini, and plantains cooked in coconut oil. Now this sounds like so much food (which it is) but this infinite bowl had a lot of different sides combined into it so I wanted to try it in order to get a little sample of a lot to see if I liked this restaurant. Unluckily for me, they ran out of stewed chickpeas (which are often my favorite side dish) and they asked if a substitute of stewed cabbage was alright which was sad but fine with me.

Now, before I talk about the actual dish, let me just say that the service continued to be chaotic. There was no one that was at the counter full time, and even though there were only two men working they were not good at communicating with each other or with the (few) customers in the building. The man who took my order seemed more like the owner/manager and relayed my order to the server in the back well enough but then the server came out and packed a bag of food while asking the other two women if they were dining in or not (they were). Without saying anything else he places the bag of food on the counter and walks back into the kitchen to get the other order ready. The bag sits there and I stand at the counter with the other women and we’re all waiting for someone to come so we can pay. It takes about 5mins until the owner/manger comes out and lets us know that the ipad/credit card machine isn’t working and asks if we have cash. I have cash in my car but not small bills so I tell him I do but need change to which he replied there is no change. At all. So now, we’ve all ordered and don’t have a means to pay for our food because there is no cash change and no credit card machine. He goes into the back and starts making calls to see if someone can bring cash to him so we can all pay for our meals. Luckily for him, they also allow for payment via CashApp or Venmo and after 5 more mins of standing at the counter wondering what we should do he lets us know that this is an option. Now I’m looking for them on Venmo and he walks away. I have no idea how much my meal costs with tax and i stand there for another 5mins waiting for him to return just to tell me that the $17 list price on the menu is fine and I can just Venmo that amount. All 5 of us in the restaurant stand there staring at each other, he asks me if the food at the counter is mine (how should I know??) then looks inside and asks the server who confirms it’s my meal. He brings out the order for the other ladies who are unbothered by this chaotic transaction, and I Venmo my money and leave with my food. At this point it’s been at least 20mins for a transaction that shouldn’t have taken more than 5, and my food is no longer hot but at least it’s warm and I head to my parent’s house where I can reheat it quickly.

All suffice to say that I was very hesitant to ever return because, while they staff were nice, I do not do well in this chaotic unstructured food service space and miss the automation of Chipotle.

Still, I try to shake it off and get ready to try some of this food. I do realize that I did not get any spinach/kale/onions/peppers but there’s still plenty of food in this container and I’m beyond hungry I just dig in.

This food smells so good and warm/cozy. I realize it’s best just to mix everything together but I set the plantains to the side because I want to save them as a palette cleanser/pseudo dessert since they get sweet when cooked like this. The Aloo golbi, stewed cabbage, and coconut brown rice are such a good combination and it fill’s be up so fast. I eat more than half in this sitting and am just stuffed. The rice is a little harder than I like for it to be but that kind of comes with the territory of brown rice and isn’t off-putting in any way. I love the coconut-y flavor from their use of coconut oil to cook their food and it’s so good that I start to rethink not going back. The food saves the awkwardly weird service and I decide that they’re worth the chaos. I’m still hopeful that next time it might be a little more structured and professional in terms of a business but the meal is great and I’m ready for more. I need to get some chickpeas next time so maybe when I’m in town again, I’ll give this location another shot before switching over to their first location father away. In either case, they’ve won me over as a non-vegan.

FL - I Heart Mac & Cheese

We’re back! And even though Karie is lactose intolerant we’re going to I Heart Mac & Cheese because it’s a must between me and Michael and this is the last meal I get before we have to head back to New York.

LOCATION: 15999 Pines Blvd. Pembroke Pines, FL 33027

I didn’t feel the need to order anything extravagant this time and went with a basic mac and cheese with broccoli. You can’t go wrong and I love this combo even if people think it’s weird. The main goal of this trip was that Michael told me they came out with new bowls for their mac and cheese shaped like a heart. This place is super cute with their branding and I love it.

While we were there Michael and I saw a sign for their new special Tacoroni which is exactly what it sounds like. Instead of a bowl you get your mac and cheese in a taco shell and while I think it’s totally hilarious to put noodles in a taco shell, this item isn’t for me. Luckily though, Michael is all about absurd menu items and ordered one to try along with his pasta order. It turns out, the tacoroni tastes exactly how you expect it to taste. It has a nice crunchy texture with the cheesy noodles and it makes me laugh to hear Michael eat it but I’m glad he did so I didn’t have to. It honestly doesn’t look bad either but I’ve passed my phase of noodles inside more carbs so mac and cheese tacos or sandwiches are a thing of my past.