Restaurant review of Salsa Fiesta & Brio(For Vegetarians)

Great eaters and great sleepers are incapable of anything else that is great - Henry IV of france.

I had been to this mexican restaurant called Salsa Fiesta recently. 

I was so missing some good mexican food since we left Arizona. Looks like this place filled the void and I went bananas for their food!

OK, so we ordered Tostada fiesta. As you can see it has all this amazing tostones, taquitos, tortilla, tabita, teapot, tarpone.... and...Ok wait.. !What am I saying!  

I just made up the last 3 words. I'm silly sometimes...
Getting back, tostones are fried raw plantains, Crispy taquito is deep fried/baked  filled burritto, Pico de gallo is nothing but a particular kind of salsa. The crispy corn tortilla had all kinds of toppings on it including black beans, salsa, guacamole, sour cream, cheese ... This dish not only tasted incredibly good, it was mind-boggling. All ingredients were so fresh.



The another dish we ordered was Ole Ole(Vegetarian Spanish Omlette) Sandwich.
It comes with a side of nachos, pico de gallo and a different kind of a dipping sauce.
I had never tasted such a kind of sandwich earlier. It had potatoes and caramalized onions, arugula and spanish omlette. It was lip smacking. Well this dish isn't strictly vegetarian. It for those egg eating vegetarians like us:)


For my son we ordered Kids menu which had rice, black beans, cheese quesedilla. My son loved the quesedilla.

There is also a salsa bar where the gamut of salsa's and dippings tingles your food senses. We have options of tacos, burritos, enchilladas , salads, soups which could all be custom made for vegetarians. They have a seperate brunch menu other than the lunch menu. Kids also have their menu.

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The decor is very urban, pop. Don't miss this restaurant next time you think of eating out. It's located in the whole foods market campus for those in pembroke pines area, FL. All dishes we brought were under 10$. Genuinely priced. Service was good. http://salsafiestagrill.com/

Would I visit this again? Yes, I would definately. Again and Again:)

Brio:

This Italian restaurant is located in the Shoppes at pembroke Pines, pembroke pines, FL. Had been here for my b'day with friends. This extravagant looking restaurant does have few vegetarian dishes. A seperate brunch menu is also available. 

It was a long time that I had visited this place, had clicked the pics and safely stored it in my laptop. Safely. Untouched. 
And now I open these pics and my really awesome bad memory fades about the names of these dishes. So I do not exactly remember this particular salad, but it was ofcourse vegetarian and of course it was very tasty.

This is their complimentary bread and one of a kind of cracker/tortilla you could say. Don't-know-what-it-is-exactly-called was good.

For the appetizer we had ordered Roasted Red Pepper and fresh Mozarella Brushetta. It was the first time I tasted this particular bruschetta and I wasn't disappointed. It has very distinct taste because of the drizzle of balsamic vinegar.

 And Oops! Sorry for the bad pictures. The phone, you know. The Night , you know. :(

For the main course, we had ordered Ravioli di bello. This dish is very similar to the ravioli portbello available in Olive garden restaurant. It tasted good, creamy.

The other dish was Penne Meditterranean. It had an interesting blend of mushroom, spinach, tomatoes, feta and pine nuts.

There is also a kids menu. Apart from these they also have few more dishes in the appetizer section and one another main dish called eggplant Pomodoro. Prices are ok! Not too heavily priced neither too cheap. The 2 times I have visited I surely had issues with their service. May be b'coz it's always crowded. We had to wait and wait for ofcourse the waitors but not for the food. It's ok to visit this once in a while. Would I visit this again? Yes, I would definately.

P.S: Oh yeah I remember now. It was the Brio chopped Salad.

DIY Mail Organizer

I hate mail. Paper mail.

This is along with hating noodles, pollution, kheer, corruption , mosquitos,  rice pudding, puris, dirty hands, apple pie , dirty lakes/ponds etc etc etc.

Wow, I sat here about 10 to 15 minutes to just think what I hate. Why did I do that? 

Anyways, coming back to paper mail. There's always so much of junk paper mail everyday.Whenever we get the mail from our mailbox, almost 7 out of ten times, the papers get strewn around our house. My adorable son loves to spread all the papers around and I just hate it. Here, there's another thing I hate.

I wonder how much of trees are cut up just for these paper mails. Anyways I was in need of a paper mail organizer and here's how I did it. 

Things needed:

2 Cereal boxes, more or less of the same size.

Scissors

Cello Tape

Glue

Any Nice looking paper

Marker

Measuring Scale / Ruler

Take 2 cereal boxes.

 

Cut one elongated side of both the boxes as shown. Close both the shorter sides (the top and the base) using cello tape on the top side of the box. 

Now apply glue on the bigger side of one box and place another box over it as shown. After this, seal all the closed edges with cello tape.

Now I measured 4 cms on the side of one box, and using a marker draw a line joining it to the top of other box as shown. This is just to get an oblique look. Do this on both the sides and cut along the line.

This is how it looks after cutting it on both the sides.

Now , I had these Shopping paper bags which were just lying in my cupboard. So I gave them some work. I cut them up into pieces.

With the help of glue I stuck these pieces all around the  cereal boxes. I salvages the letters M,A,I,L from the shopping bag and finished the look by sticking it onto the finished piece. 

So here's how you do this easy, peasy, neat mail organizer. Oh, wondered why I used 2 boxes? One is for the mail to be sorted out and the other section is for the mails and coupons that are in use.

Ok, I can't leave this post with those words of hatred. So for some love here's this lovely picture of dolphins flying in air momentarily before plunging into the blue water.

OK then have a lovely time until we meet next.

Refashioned

Hi there, 3 things I need to mention. Okay, Let's make it 6.

1. My parents had been here in US with us for 50 days on vacation, and we had an amazing time.

2. I ended up being lazy coz you know, mom used to do all the work around the house! And now that they are gone back to India..:(((

3. On our 2nd visit to disney land , Ankush enjoyed there a lot. I mean really a lot.

4. Ankush says 'wheels on the bus' song in his own sweet way, although annoying sometimes when it gets repetitive for long time , I derive great deal of gratification seeing him sing with his 'cute as a puppy' actions.

The next  2 things will be mentioned later in this post. Oops! See I told ya (remember #2), I got lazy. I procrastinate, even writing!


                     I had mentioned in my blog earlier that I don't like wasting things and about the 3 R's - reuse, reduce, recycle. Well here are some more examples.

I did this makeover for the wall clock using the packaging foam plates that comes with your vegetables in your grocery store.Cut out the designs , stick it around the clock and Voila, that's the most simple makeover.

The next 2 projects are 'Mom and Me' projects. Coz we both did it. I had borrowed my friends sewing machine . No we did not stitch this skirt, then why the machine???

Well , It was actually a white jeans pant, which we converted into a skirt. The white and black patterned material is store bought.

 It's now refashioned and ready to wear! See don't dispose your old clothes, you can somehow try and make it work in some or the other way.

This following bag I call it as a 'Mom and Dad' bag. Nopes, my dad doesn't know to sew, neither did he help in the project. It's still 'Mom and Dad' bag in the 'Mom and Me' project. Coz we did this bag using my Mom's chudidhar/suit and the inner lining of this bag with my dad's casual pants. Both of their clothes had accidents while ironing. And we thought why not use them instead of throwing away and we sew this bag.

See, before throwing away anything , think twice if you can come up with a way to use it, and surely you will get some amazing ideas. 

Here comes the next 2 things that I didn't mention earlier and has nothing to do with the 'Refashioned' topic.

5. I made these clay Ganesha idols for this Vinayaka/Ganesha chaturthi pooja. My son saw the idols and he said 'Gaaeesha'. 

6. Here is the bounty of Wheatgrass that I grew in my  balcony. The pot is nothing but a milk carton cut into half. See.... another reuse.

And here's the recipe for the very healthy juice that I made out of it.

Put WheatGrass in your blender. Put some water, run it, strain the juice. Put the grass back into the blender and keep repeating the process until almost whitish green fibre remains. Now stir in some honey and lemon juice to the juice and enjoy . One pot of grass was enough for 4 .

That's it for now. Have a happy week ahead.