thehungrydot

[thehungrydot]

It's all Greek to me!

Hi!

Hello!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Phew! That was a lot!

Now that everything has finally settled down after all the craziness from the festivities and the wedding (yes! I'm a Mrs. Bondoc now!) I feel like I have the energy to write again.

Greece, I love you.

Let me tell you, I had my doubts about Greece. As we were getting closer to our honeymoon, I was nervous I was not going to like where we were going. I was even looking at other flights, trying to figure out my other options. See, I travel mostly for food. For some reason I had one bad experience with Mediterranean/Greek type food so I avoided it as much as I could. But going to Greece, there was no escape, I was doomed. There's no way I was going to be able to get out of it.

But boy, was I wrong about all of it! What I avoided all this time, I never thought I'd miss now. Almost every single day, I think about the gyros, the souvlaki, that doughy pita bread, that excellent breakfast from our hotel served with LIFE-CHANGING thick greek yogurt with honey, and the lamb, ooooh the lamb!

I have to give you a heads up though, this is probably going to be a food post, as well as a travel post so it will get lengthy and nonsensical but bear with me! I won't bore you and tell you how terrible the conversion is from dollar to euro in the airport, or how I got robbed and lost my phone. No no, I'll try to keep it together. I will TRY.

So. We flew into Athens, Greece and immediately we knew we were in a different place. Mountains in the distance, the near freezing temperatures, the absence of feeling in our fingers and toes, and the confusion that overtook our brains when EVERYTHING. WAS. IN GREEK ALPHABET.

Yes, I know, we should've done our homework, or even downloaded a translator app. But nope, I DID NOT DO ANY OF THAT 🤦‍♀️

But thank goodness for Google!

And with that, somehow we managed to figure it all out, thanks to my husband (I love you!) and we reached our station near our airbnb. And there it was. The Acropolis in the distance, lit in front of the dark background of the night sky. It was beautiful!

We were in Europe! Not the Americas, not the Philippines, IN EUROPE, where I've always wanted to go. All feeling of doubt and nervousness being in Greece, suddenly gone.

After a long trip, of course first thing I look for is food. My stomach was screaming at me at this point! After we had dropped off our things, we walked to the town which was luckily only about 5-10 min walk and began our hunt for food. Usually, I use handy-dandy Yelp but there was no such thing there. It didn't exist.

And then we found a place called Souvlakia.

"Ok lang" Oh gosh. They were right! I do say "okay" a lot 😅 We ordered cheese fries (of course just in case I didn't like any of the others), a souvlaki plate and a gyro sandwich I think (it could be the other way around?). We got to choose the meat for each. Again, I don't remember which one was which, pretty sure we got a chicken and one was some type of sausage maybe?

Looking back now, that was actually pretty good. I just needed to get used to that tzaziki which I was never a fan of. But if you like tzaziki, promise you'll be all for it! And let me just say, fries in a gyro? GENIUS! (Do they always come with fries?)

SUCH a cute place. And that music! 

So next one, we had pretty much every night while in Athens. Most of our meals consisted of never-ending gyros for brunch and dinner, and ALWAYS a dessert to end the night. And our choice every night? Iceroll.

Yep, it is EXACTLY what you think it is. Rolled ice cream popularized by the Thai and nope it isn't Greek at all. But we had our reasons!

We had this every single night that we basically became friends with the owner #noshame

These next two places were recommended by a YouTuber Mark Wiens (O yaa!)

This was a bit of a walk from where we were staying but...

🎶I would walk 500 miles

And I would walk 500 more

Just to be a girl who walks a thousand miles

To eat some good ass food!

Da da da (da da da)

Da da da (da da da)🎶

Haha I'm such a dork!

Λευτέρης Ο Πολίτης (Lefteris O Politis) is probably my second favorite place from this trip. Super simple, quick and easy take-away place (no seating) to get a souvlaki. You pick from a small list of menu (which is all you need in my opinion), then they cook the meat on a flat grill top on a stick, they press the pita bread on while it's cooking to absorb the grease and meat flavor which is probably the reason why it was so damn delicious. They take the meat off the stick, put some kind of voodoo magic wizardry, and whatever they put on the sandwich and voila, I was hooked! I walked away wanting more!

Those things were huge! And each one for less than 3 euros! Talk about cheap! Delicious and cheap! Two things I live for!

Next stop...Mam. They serve street food and snacks, popular for their bougatsa (cheese pastry/pie) and had a whole variety of them: spinach, feta, sweet (cream cheese maybe?), etc. Though you'd think I'd like this for the cheese and the flaky phyllo dough, it was honestly not my favorite thing. It was good, just not anything special in my opinion 🤷‍♀️ Charming place though! NEXT!

So by the third night, it was time again for dessert. We stood on the other side of the street where for two nights in a row, we spent gorging down Iceroll. Contemplating on what our life has come to be and what the owner will think of us. He and I meet eyes from across the street, and me and my husband shamefully walks away and we find another place to eat dessert.

Dun dun dunnnn.

We sadly walk away just to find the perfect replacement, at least for the night, Davinci.

Dark chocolate ice cream in a dark chocolate cone, it was almost like a dream.

Of course we didn't just go to Greece for the food. We walked around town, saw the Acropolis and the Parthenon among other things.

I know what you're thinking, we so cute! 😘

Next, we traveled to Kalambaka to see Meteora and the monasteries. We walked, we hiked, we climbed!

It was absolutely breathtaking, nothing I've ever seen before. Being surrounded with all this beauty, it really made me take a step back and appreciate the silence and beauty we were gifted with.

The next day, we had free breakfast at our hotel, which was wonderful! This is where I discovered the life-changing greek yogurt I was talking about. You put honey right on top and it's pretty bomb. It's a staple from Greece...it being called greek yogurt and all... It was a thicker consistency than what I can find here in the states. So how can something be so simple yet so delicious? I've had it for breakfast almost every single day since then.

Before heading back to Athens, we decided to have our last dinner in Kalambaka at All Time Taverna. And my winner for #1 food in Greece is:

Drumroll please....

LAMB! (Sorry for my vegetarians out there for this horrific gif of cute baby lambs)

So sooo sad I didn't get to take a picture. Really didn't expect much from it since our dinner from the night before was a bust. Anyway, I had lamb platter while the hubs got a veal platter. Both were so tender, so juicy, and cooked to perfection. Yum yum yumm. They even gave us dessert on the house which was also 👌. Date nights are so so fun!

After a whole week and a half of eating gyros, I think it's safe to say I wanted to eat anything but. For our last dinner in Athens, we opted for the most American food: burgers. So, we went to the most touristy place in town and went to Pax Burgers. Man oh man, too bad this place isn't here in the states, I would totally go here all the time. They have all sorts of burgers (beef, pork, seafood and pretty sure they have a vegetarian/vegan option too) and beer. What a surprise. 

Overall, me and the hubs had the best time on our honeymoon in Greece. So so glad I didn't change it and everything went the way we didn't plan to, which always turns out to be so much better. I also learned a lot of things. learned the difference between a souvlaki and a gyro. Also learned that food and drinks in Athens is insanely cheap if you go to a local, no-english-menu food. Learned to keep an eye on my stuff because pick-pocketing is common. Learned that losing my phone was probably one of the best things that happened to me in Greece.

Greece, I love you. From your confusing safe-like locks where you have to turn your key 5 times to lock and unlock  your doors, to the guy who refused to say παρακαλώ the first time I had the courage to say thank you in Greek, and to my newfound palate and appreciation for your food, along with many other things, thank you for a really great time. I will never forget you! Til next time!

ευχαριστώ!

[thehungrydot]

Could you Be More Pacific?

If I'm being completely honest, I've consciously avoided going to any Filipino restaurants. Why? Well first of all, none of them even gets close to comparison to my mom's cooking (she's the absolute best!) And second, well hmm...how do I put this...I've never really been a fan of Filipino cuisine, period. Or so I thought.

Here I am, three months later and speaking words I never thought I'd say, but I MISS FILIPINO FOOD. Since moving away from home, I have not tasted, smelled, or even caught a glimpse of Filipino food. Now I've found myself dreaming of it.

Luckily, we found our kitchen away from home: Be More Pacific Filipino Kitchen and Bar. I've been talking about wanting to come here for a little while now, being haunted by thoughts of me eating Filipino food and now finally, my dream had become a reality. So you can imagine how excited I was walking in.

Apparently they started as a food truck (food trucks are a thing here in Austin) that grew into a restaurant, which in itself is pretty impressive. Anyway, we came here for brunch because we realized we didn't get groceries which means no eggs. And how? How do you do brunch without eggs? Now think: tapsilog, longsilog, tocilog, anything with itlog on top, really. I'm drooling already. 

Now I'm not sure if they had all that but they had a few itlog options and we went with tosilog because that's one of the things that everybody enjoyed according to the netizens on yelp (thank goodness for yelp!)

What's impressive is that they make their tocino in house. It was decent, I think it was missing that sweetness that tocino usually has. Would I get it again? Sure, why not! 

Now for what I ultimately came here for, the sisig. And OH MY GOSH it did not disappoint! It was absolutely to-die-for! It was crispy and tender in every bite! 

I found myself digging in for some more. Nom nom. 

We also got the Longganisa Tots, it was okay. It wasn't bad but there was nothing special to it. Did not even bother taking a picture.

As if we didn't have enough food, we just HAD TO get the halo-halo. You didn't go to a Filipino restaurant if you didn't get the halo-halo. It came in this huge cup that probably could have served the whole entire restaurant. It had your regular halo-halo ingredients, Amy's Ice Cream which is a local ice cream shop, leche flan, and real ube. REAL UBE Y'ALL! 

OH YEAH BABY!

We also ordered the turon to-go (sorry, no pictures) which was also delicious! I was happy it had jackfruit, it was crispy, not overly sweet, greasy, or covered in sugar. It satisfied the craving!

We definitely had a feast! We were so full, and no kidding it lasted us for the rest of the day!

It was a wonderful experience and we had a blast!

So if you're craving Filipino food and wanted a taste of home with a bit of a modern twist, you'll definitely get that here. They're a bit more on the pricey side (not to mention the 3.5 bucks upgrade to a sweet garlic rice and 2 bucks for a side of white rice). I thought it was absolutely worth it though, thank God for their sisig and halo halo! They also have drafts and signature cocktails which I honestly enjoyed the names of 😅 We have yet to try lunch and dinner, but so far so good. Definitely going back for more!

Final verdict? Be More Pacific is Better Than Okay! 👍

[thehungrydot]

Zero Times Thirty

There's only a few places that I even think about coming back to. This place was recommended by family and ever since then, it's been my go-to for a quick lunch or dinner.

Zero Degrees is an Asian-Hispanic fusion that specializes in drinks and snacks. They're known for their Mangonadas which I honestly think is aiiiight 🤷‍♀️ They have a variety of options though and if you're a boba lover, you'd be happy to know they have that too! My favorites are Sea Salt Green Tea and Jasmine Milk Tea. Boba is extra but it's totes worth it.

And if you're a fellow peep who can't make a decision to save their life 🙋‍♀️, you have the option of a split cup: pick two drinks and only pay for one (with a bit of an upcharge). It's pretty genius actually.

They don't have too many food options but who needs that when they've got chicken and fries? We usually get a combo and it's sharable between two people. You get either popcorn chicken, we get salt & pepper, which was delish; or wings, we get garlic butter salt, which was TO-DIE FOR. Best wings I've ever tasted! Cajun fries are amazeballs too.

They have a few more things like chilotes, elotes, and chicharrones, which can be topped with crushed hot cheetos, looks interesting. So if you're into that then it's definitely a place to check out!

[thehungrydot]

Tampa Eats: Armature Works and More

There's no better way to spend a weekend but with good food and great company.

Today's food take over includes breakfast, lunch, snack, dinner, and dessert so pull up a chair, sit down, and get comfortable. I know I will because frankly, I think I ate way too much more than my body can handle.

So Tampa has always been a place I really enjoy visiting in Florida, whether it's to explore the city or (let's get real) to find new places to eat. It's the perfect mini getaway from home, especially it being only an hour and a half from Orlando.

We really enjoy finding cool breakfast/brunch places and thank God for Yelp, we ended up in Maple Street Biscuit Company, which makes this our first stop. Apparently it's only been open a couple of months. They're known for their biscuits and southern style cooking (and their chicken, yum!)

First impression, we thought this was a really cool concept, cute place, creative names for menu items. We ordered the Squawking Goat (currently their featured favorite), BAM! Yo Yo, sweet potato fries, and a cranberry mimosa just cuz 🤷‍♀️🍷. Let's start with The Squawking Goat. So it goes biscuit, goat cheese, fried chicken breast with a sauce, and biscuit. Good biscuit and chicken for sure, apparently they used housemade pepper jelly for the sauce but the Asian in me tasted sweet and sour sauce. The boyfriend got BAM! Yo Yo and this was your typical chicken and maple bacon waffles. Nothing out of the ordinary with the sweet potato fries or mimosa. Good quality food I thought, but for the price we paid and the okay-ish food, I think I'd be okay turning to another place for brunch when I'm in the area.

Next up, Armature Works. This place was extremely cool! It's an old building that they repurposed to collectively hold different restaurants that has every type of food you can think of: sushi, tacos, empanadas, pizza, bbq, wings, etc. It's like a fancy food court. It's a nice place to have lunch with friends, chill, and hang out. I believe they also have different events, live music, even a cooking class, depending on the time of day. Honestly I could go on and on about this place.

Inside Armature Works, we had a late lunch and tried Ichicoro Imoto which was mainly a ramen shop (and I might lose some of you for saying this) but I was never into ramen, so we settled for a Karaage Chicken Bowl which was a rice bowl with marinated fried chicken, spicy mayo, garlic, scallion, and furikake. Ehh 🤷‍♀️. I'm sure other menu items are worth a try, my bad for not liking ramen.

Of course we also had to try Chismis and Co. because it would just be unpatriotic for me not to go. It's a Filipino-inspired restaurant, although they have limited menu items, we had to try the turon. What is that you ask? It's a deep fried Filipino dessert/snack consisting of banana and jackfruit wrapped in a spring roll wrapper. Their version has guava and cream cheese with a tamarind caramel drizzle. Honestly, my mom's is better but it's good enough if you're craving some.

For dessert, we tried Astro Ice Cream Co. It's one of those places that use liquid nitrogen to make ice cream. It's made to order and you customize your own ice cream, add toppings, etc. We got strawberry ice cream with fresh strawberries, dark choc curls, and chocolate dirt crumbles, DEE-LICIOUS! And I'm not just talking about the ice cream 😋

If you've survived this long to virtually hear me talk, I commend you 👏 Now we've found ourselves in DT Tampa at the end of the day and probably my favorite and most surprising find. Now I'm not vegan whatsoever but many of my friends are, and I've learned to appreciate it. If you asked me to try something vegetarian a year or two ago, I would have said no. So now we're here. Who would have thought that my favorite place from this trip is Farmacy Vegan Kitchen & Bakery?

I've had Impossible Burger from both Wahlburger and Toasted before, which if you didn't know, is this plant-based burger patty that supposedly tastes like real meat. I'm not totally convinced that it does, but it's pretty decent I would say and I've been getting it at places where it's (im)possible, ha. I'm so lame. Anyway, in this place, they had an Impossible Philly that, no lie, had left me speechless. We got it "fuego" and OH. MY. GOD, it was absolutely forking unbelievable! (Props to you if you know where that's from). It was so good that it was almost a little frustrating honestly 😅 The flavors were all there, one bite packs a punch! And I was in a daze for a little while.

At this point, my body's telling me that I've eaten way too much but my brain and taste buds refuse to believe it. If you know me at all, I always have room for dessert, no matter how badly I want to unbutton my pants. I was craving for something sweet and lo and behold, we come across Dough Nation. It's your choice of edible cookie dough and ice cream in one, mmm. I'm a return customer and it was just enough to satisfy my sweet tooth. I'm a happy Dot!

And since we're all basically friends now, I'll share a really cool place to explore in Tampa. Downtown is great and all, but if you're ever in the area, don't forget to walk around those little towns and go to Ybor City. It has this historic-type feel with its red brick buildings, there's a row of shops, outside bars, and restaurants. I promise you, it's a feeling you won't just get from any ordinary place.

Well, that's all folks! It's been fun, til next time on our next food adventure.

[thehungrydot]

Let's Taco 'bout it!

I know, super cheesy right?

So ever since my trip to Chicago, where I found ZEE BEST tacos I've ever had in my entire 24 years of existence (yes, I'm talking to you Velvet Taco), I've been on a search for a good go-to taco place back in Orlando. Tried couple places, none of them came even close to the excitement I felt then.

Oh and before I get into it... Hi, I'm Rochelle 👋. I'm a huge fan of food (I mean c'mon really, who isn't) but I'm a total foodie. I mostly try to find those hole in the wall places, local eats, etc. And me being a picky eater, I'd like to think that I'm a good judge of whether something is good or not. Well, you be the judge. Now, writing about food is something I've wanted to do for a little bit. So why start now you ask? Because I love tacos and why the heck not.

Now back to what you actually came here for. YES. TIN & TACO is the place. You have no freakin idea how happy I was when we found this place. First of all: the music, the concept, the different lights coming down from the ceiling, the ambience. I was vibing this place.

AND THE FOOD DUH. I'm no cook whatsoever and I'm no expert at describing food (promise I'll be better), but all I can tell you is that it was so awesome that I died a little inside. Doesn't sound like a good thing, but trust me, it is! It felt like I finally found the place I can call my taco home, honest 😅. The tortilla they used seemed like it had some crunch but it was soft all at the same time, it was weirdly satisfying. Now the fillings, we got the Boom-boom, Chick Magnet, B-O-B, and Tacosaurus. ALL SO SOO GOOD, although I liked B-O-B the least. Still, it wasn't bad.

Not only do they have tacos, but they have burritos, burrito bowls, salads, wraps, and In-The-Bag (whatever that means), you pick what you want, each one for just $8. You can't freakin beat that! They also have sides and a meatless option. They do have craft beers and craft sodas, but I can't tell you about those because I didn't get either. I have yet to go back and try some.

Now to answer the most important question of all: Is it #BetterThanOkay? ABSO-FREAKIN-LUTELY.

(Is it better than Velvet Taco? Maybe, it's still a mystery to me.)