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baja fresh

last night we tried baja fresh for the first time. it opened recently and we have been hearing good things about the place (the food critic for the local paper gave it a good review too). fresh mex/fast casual restaurants are kind of trendy right now and are popping up everywhere. we love chipotle and we ate at a place called armadillo grill in downtown raleigh, nc that we really liked, so we thought baja fresh might be good as well. 

my husband ordered chicken tacos, "baja style" which basically means it has chopped onions and cilantro on it. the tacos were ok, they were in fresh corn tortillas, but were kind of skimpy. i ordered cheese enchiladas with black beans and rice and a grilled shrimp taco. the enchiladas weren't to my liking at all and the sauce was bitter and tasted like it was from a can. the rice and beans were decent.  the black beans had what looked like cojita cheese on top, so i was impressed by that. each taco we got was wrapped in two corn tortillas, so we used the second/extra tortilla to wrap up rice and beans and fresh pico de gallo (which was good too), so that was a nice thing. the shrimp taco i got was unimpressive.  the shrimp was fine, but that bitter taste from the sauce was there and it lacked little flavor besides that. our son, who is a very picky eater, ate most of his cheese quesadilla. the food came with fried tortilla chips and there was a salsa bar, but all the salsas were not great. the hot salsa had no heat to it and the "famous" baja salsa was bitter as well. i'm not sure if the bitter taste was from roasted dried chiles that were used in the sauces. i've used roasted dried chiles many times in my own cooking and have never experienced an overpowering bitter taste like everything at baja fresh seemed to have.  i understand that if you over toast dried chiles they can become bitter. perhaps they were having a bad day. 

i wasn't impressed with their prices either (we had heard they were cheap).  in fact, i thought they were over priced. my son's mini quesadilla with rice and beans cost $3.89....a mini quesadilla at chipotle is $.55...and rice and beans are free for kids. BIG difference. so, i guess we will stick to chipotle for our fast casual/fresh mex fix.

posted by: artichoke72 at 01:23 | link | comments |
restaurant reviews

brussel sprouts

brussel sprouts are one of my favorite fall vegetables. i think they are a beautiful vegetable. their form is visually pleasing for some reason....just so cute.

i cooked up some brussel sprouts tonight. i found a recipe that looked good and inspired me in this month's issue of saveur magazine.....brussel sprouts with breadcrumbs. i didn't have many brussel sprouts on hand because no one else in my family will eat them, so i used equal parts of cauliflower in my dish. i simmered the brussel sprouts (trimmed and cut in half) and cauliflower florets in a little bit of water in a saute pan until the water had cooked away and the veggies were tender. i added some butter and cooked them for a few more minutes on high, until they were browned. i sprinkled dry breadcrumbs over the veggies and stirred and continued to cook until the veggies were coated and the breadcrumbs had soaked up some of the butter, about a minute more. i seasoned with salt and pepper and it was done. i thought the dish was delicous....a great side dish....and is definitely something i will make again.

posted by: artichoke72 at 04:12 | link | comments (1) |
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