I’m back with the traveling and food blogs! I know, it’s been taking me forever and the only thing I can say is that I’m sorry. Life becomes life and it really takes me away from writing, BUT I’m entering a new decade and I want to take what matters to me most with me. This is a two part blog about the food I ate and the places I visited for my birthday trip. Welcome to the first half of my roadtrip to 30’s – Colorado.
Colorado Springs, Colorado
The start of my trip was to Colorado Springs to meet up with my siblings, dad and their families. They all drove to Colorado Springs and arrived a few days before me, but I got to join them for two days before flying over to San Francisco. The Colorado part was actually a trip planned by my little sister for her son, my nephew, Mateo. He had his last chemotherapy treatment for his leukemia in April/May and was cleared to do everything and anything. So this trip was to celebrate that and him beating leukemia.
First stop, Snooze A.M. Eatery in Colorado Springs. Snooze A.M. Eatery serves breakfast/brunch items and their own specialty cocktails. I wasn’t too hungry so I shared a Benny Duo with my niece. With the Benny Duo, You can choose two different benedicts instead of two benedicts of the same and we got the Smashed Avocado Benny and the Ham Benedict III. The benny’s weren’t bad, but they weren’t anything special either. I definitely had better at other places. An entree that was really good and worth mentioning would be their Habanero Pork Belly Breakfast Fried Rice. It was full of flavor and had the right amount of hotness!
Ham Benedict III:English muffin topped with shaved ham, perfectly poached cage-free eggs and our house-made smoked cheddar hollandaise
Habanero Pork Belly Breakfast Fried Rice:Jasmine-garlic fried rice with seared cider-braised habanero pork belly, sautéed red bell peppers, onions, poblanos, carrots and pineapple. Topped with a drizzle of our house-made Sriracha maple aioli, two crispy sunny-side up eggs, scallions and kimchi spice.
Garden of the Gods was the first non-food place we went too. With all the younger kids, we didn’t walk or hike the other paths, but we did walk around the main path and still had a good time! For me it was surreal to be in a mountainous area with most of my family. It’s already hard to get all of us at the same function, let alone on a trip in a state on the other side of the country. We were still one person down, my mom, but she called everyday of the trip to check in with all of us. I would love to come back to Garden of the Gods to do some of their other hiking trails/paths. It was absolutely beautiful, so I could only imagine how it looks like from a higher view.
Denver, Colorado
My two days with the family was pretty chill, they had gone on the more intense hikes earlier in the week and by the time I arrived the kids were all sick of hikes. I can’t blame them though, they did some pretty tough ones! Go them though, they all made it to the top, even if it was hard with the elevation or with the heights. Second day, We made our way to places closer towards Denver, Colorado. Our first visit was to Red Rocks Parks and Amphitheater. I’ve always wanted to make a stop here and watch a show. Iykyk. This is suppose to be one of the best venues and specifically for EDM. I was happy that we were able to check it out. It has a lot of potential still and I can’t wait to see all the new additions they are working on! No show, but they were playing music and that sounded great already. Red Rocks, I’m coming for you!
After Red Rocks, we took a drive over to Lookout Mountain / Buffalo Bill’s Grave. It was an easy drive and for the kids no major hiking was involved. There was a nice lookout of the city and mountains. I think sunrise or sunset watching there would be a beautiful spot. We were all getting pretty hungry, so we didn’t go into the Buffalo Bill museum that they had there.
Now for the yummy location! My family and I went to Tatsu Izakaya for lunch. Now this spot was so good, especially their ramen. I work at a ramen and sushi restaurant which I think our ramen is really good, but I will have to say Tatsu Izakaya did it better. I got the Spicy Tonkatsu Ramen, Hamachi Kama appetizer, White Tuna Sashimi and a Grape Ramune. Everything was super delicious and the portion size of the ramen bowl was huge. I had leftovers and it was my dinner as well.
Spicy Tonkatsu Ramen:Creamy pork bone broth topped with chashu, half egg, mushrooms, sprouts, naruto, bok choy, green onion, scallions & ginger
Hamachi Kama:Grilled yellowtail collar/cheek
Everyone ate so much, we needed to walk it off. We went to Denver’s 16th Street Mall. Sadly malls are dying everywhere, so it nothing much to show off. There are a lot of restaurants on the street and a lot of them looked very aesthetically pleasing and had a good menu. I have been to 16th Street Mall before towards the end of covid and back then it was more lively than what it was this time around. We walked around down 16th Street and visited the train station as well. There where cute stores in there and a grand dining area. It was a nice walk around. When we were all done, we left and drove back to Colorado Springs.
I’m super happy that I was able to have that time with my family and next time I hope my mom will be able to come with us too. The one place that I would love to go with my whole entire family is Disney World. I have been many times, but it would fill my heart x1 million if I went with my parents! Growing up my mom and dad would always talk about taking all of us and I just know when it happens, it’s going to heal a big part of my inner child. Going places and doing new things with my family now as an adult, brings me back to when I was a child doing things with my family, my aunts and uncles. So I get to be the fun aunt and make memories with my nieces & nephew like how I had with my aunts. It’s one of the best full circle moments ♡
P.S – Don’t forget part two of Roadtrip to 30’s: San Francisco – Food & Place Alert is coming soon! There’s a lot more foodie adventures there ♡
Here we are with another food alert! It’s another long one for you guys. Destination: Houston, Texas For the location, I chose to visit Houston mainly because I heard about how good the food is and I needed to try it for myself, specifically Vietnamese food. Back in Grand Rapids, we have a few Viet spots that are worth going to, but in Wisconsin there’s even less. Houston definitely did not disappoint me, it actually left me with wanting more. There was no bad dish!
So let’s start off with day one with Shokku Ramen. Besides some airport pizza in the morning, our first meal in Houston was at this cool anime themed ramen restaurant. The restaurant plays different anime series on their televisions, plays anime music the whole time and even serves some of their dishes on cool wooden plates with anime figures on them. Unfortunately, the ramen wasn’t one of those dishes. I ended up choosing “Da Oxtail” Ramen and my boyfriend choose the Surf & Turf Ramen. The entrees were super delicious and thank you to whoever decided to add crispy garlic to the ingredients! Garlic pretty much goes on everything.
“Da Oxtail” Tender, shredded oxtail & steak in a combination of our Tonkotsu and house-made oxtail broths with a hint of miso, served with yellow noodles and topped with 2 shrimp tempura, Hon-shimeji mushrooms, soy-cured egg, bok choy, red ginger, crispy garlic & ginger butter with a hint of Togarashi. Rich and delicious.
Surf & Turf Soft-shell crab tempura & tender NY strip steak in a combination of our house-made Tori and Tonkotsu broths served with yellow noodles, tempura scallion, soy-cured egg, crispy garlic, red ginger, fried onion & ginger butter
Next we went over to Houston’s Asian Town over on Bellaire Blvd. I will say that it is the biggest Asian town that I have ever seen or been too, but I’m only from Michigan and Wisconsin. We don’t have too much there. You have your Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean, Malaysian, etc. stores, markets and restaurants all along the street. Everything looked so good and I’m coming back to Houston over and over to try them all! We came across Viet Street Drinks & Snacks where we got the Tropical Green Tea drink. The Tropical Green Tea drink is a fresh fruit tea and had fruit pieces of strawberries, mangoes, pineapples, lychee, peaches, passion fruit, and jackfruit. The freshness of the fruit and drink was much needed after traveling all day and stuffing ourselves with ramen! They also sell Viet street foods there, but the kitchen was closed when we got there. I’ll definitely want to head back to try those. There were snacks that I have never heard of!
I was so in awe of the wall murals at Ninja Matcha that I forgot to take a picture of our ice cream. Ninja Matcha is also located in Houston’s Asian Town by a whole bunch of other food places and markets. There we shared one of their house made Green Matcha Ice Cream cone (with 38% matcha powder). If you have ever had matcha, you know that it can taste pretty bitter. I would say I would not go more than 38%, that was a little more than enough for me, but it was still very enjoyable to eat! They had cool matcha sundaes that were huge and filled with different toppings. If we weren’t so full already, I would have dug into one of those bad boys. If you like matcha, this is the place for you!
Yes, we stuffed ourselves as much as we could on the first day because we ended our night with some tacos from a food truck by our Airbnb called Taco Arcelia. We tried their carnes and pollo tacos. I’ve had my fair share of tacos, but I would have to say that Taco Arcelia has THE BEST tacos ever. They didn’t add any fancy unique toppings, it had the usual toppings like the protein, onions, cilantro with squeezed lime and your choice of salsa, but maaaaaaaan. It was incredible. There’s actually a lot of different taco food trucks that are all around Houston and they are AUTHENTIC not American catered. Most of these taco trucks are open all day and late at night, honestly what gets better than that?
DAY TWO IN HOUSTON When it comes to me, there’s no such things as breakfast foods, anything can be eaten for breakfast. I will eat a steak or pizza for breakfast, it doesn’t matter as long as I feel full after!
With that being said, we started our day off at Lúa Viet Kitchen. I’m a *little* bias, but Vietnamese food for the win always. I originally wanted to visit Houston for their Vietnamese food because I heard it was really good and Lúa Viet Kitchen proved that. We ordered the Gỏi Cuốn also known as Summer Spring Rolls with the lemongrass pork, Bò Lúc Lắc also known as Shaking Beef, and Phở Bò or their Lúa Beef Soup. I am guilty of always ordering Phở at Vietnamese restaurants, so I got Bò Lúc Lắc instead. I’m not bashing the dish in any way, but the Phở Bò was the best dish. Honestly, #2 best pho that I’ve ever had in my life. (Sorry, but nothing beats my mom’s homemade pho)
Gỏi Cuốn (Summer Spring Rolls) Tofu or tiger shrimp or Compart Duroc lemongrass grilled pork, sunbutter hoisin dipping sauce
We drove around the area and found a street with tons of other food places and some cool stores and stumbled upon another taco food truck called Tacos Mi Pueblito. The temptation was real and hello steak tacos! These tacos weren’t as flavorful as Taco Arcelia, but they still hit the spot.
Right down the street was this outrageous looking place called Present Company. From street view all you could see was this two story building that was purple and other colors with a huge disco ball shining, when you go inside, they have neon signs everywhere, some awesome halloween decor and very vibrant wallpaper. Even though we just ate and snacked, we had to try to it out! You do have to be 21+ to enter and you can sit outdoors on both floors or indoors.
I was sad that we came across Present Company because they had some really good looking alcoholic drinks, but cause of medical reasons I couldn’t have any the whole trip, so I had to order a mocktail of their Stranger Danger drink. It was still good, but it definitely would have been better with some vodka. My boyfriend ordered a Blackberry Mimosa and a Breakfast Brisket Taco. I didn’t sample his food because I was still full from the first two places, but he really enjoyed the Breakfast Brisket Taco. I would love to come back to see how it is at night. They already had a live dj in the morning, so I’m sure they get pretty popular during bar hours.
Stranger Danger (with alcohol) watermelon vodka, lime juice, honeysuckle liqueur, watermelon-kiwi la croix, topped with bubbles
Breakfast Brisket Taco scrambled eggs, slow cooked brisket, onions, cilantro, monterey jack cheese served in a flour tortilla
I’m sure everyone has heard of Voodoo Doughnuts already, so I won’t go into too much details, but they are a must have! We had some when we visited Orlando, Florida and had to get more doughy goodness in Houston. For those who don’t know Voodoo Doughnuts, they are known for their crazy, but creative doughnut creations and their pink boxes! We just got one doughnut to share and to stuff ourselves more with. It was the Viscous Hibiscus which is a raised ring doughnut with hibiscus frosting and black sprinkles. Personally it was a little too sweet for me, but still good. It was a one bite to a whole gulp of milk ratio.
After our day of exploring and eating, we came across Two Hands Corn Dogs, a place that sells Korean corndogs. They taste as good as they look and you can customize if you want cheese, hot or original sausage or both. From left to right it’s the Spicy Dog, Potato Dog, Two Hand Dog, and the Crispy Rice Dog. I don’t remember what ones had what fillings, but their spicy sausage is good and pretty spicy and the sausage cheese combo was the best. If only they mixed the cheese and spicy sausage together for the ultimate combo. I’ve been seeing Korean corndogs a lot more on social media and it makes me happy that foods from different countries are gaining popularity in the US! Just please don’t gentrify the dishes.
DAY THREE IN HOUSTON With how much we ate the last two days, we still found ourselves eating good. I mean if you’re in Houston, you have to take advantage of all the food places that they have! Day three was no different.
Yes, we did get actual breakfast foods. I was still so full from the day before so I ordered the typical breakfast entree. We started the morning at Revival Market. My Revival Breakfast didn’t taste typical though. The sausage was packed with rich flavor. Revival Market makes their own sausages and you can tell they spent the time to perfect their recipe. Super fresh tasting too. The boyfriend ordered the Butcher’s Brunch Burger and he killed his food while I struggled to finish mine. I got into the fall spirit when I saw the Hot Caramel Apple Cider. The drink was super delicious and perfect for the chilly morning!
Revival Breakfast 2 yard eggs your way, bacon OR house-made sausage, breakfast potatoes OR fresh fruit
Butcher’s Brunch Burger 44 Farms beef, house blend & grind, cheddar, Revival bacon, Yonderway egg, LTOP, toasted bun with crispy potatoes
We couldn’t miss the opportunity of visiting The Rusty Crab by Kefi HTX. It’s a Spongebob Squarepants/Bikini Bottom themed pop up. (It ended on 10/31, but will be an anime pop up next) This pop up was pretty fun and they had cool props everywhere. Since we ate right before, we just grabbed some drinks to sip on while we enjoyed our time there! Both my boyfriend and I actually won first and second place with the painting competition haha. I got their non-alcoholic lemonade called The Invisible Boat Mobile (right) and my boyfriend got Pineapple Under the Sea. Should I make another post of our time there?
BAO on BAO on BAO! I’ve never seen so many bao or dumpling places in a city before, so we had to stop by one. Thankfully there was one right by the Color Factory while we were waiting for our reservation time. Fat Bao has many, many different options to choose from and they all sounded so good. We ended up getting five different ones, the Spicy Thai, Bulgogi, Pork Belly, Katsu Pork, and Duck. I will have to vote that the Spicy ThaiBao was the best one, then it’s the Bulgogi Bao. The Bulgogi Bao definitely could have used some more kimchi on it though! Fat Bao also serves other foods like salads, tacos and plenty of appetizers!
The famous Lee’s Sandwiches. I only heard about the California locations, so when we saw the big building, you know what we did. I didn’t expect it to be so huge, they had a little market inside the building. The moment we got out of the car I felt like I was home. There were some of the adults outside smoking cigarettes and drinking Viet coffee while playing card games and the rest inside taking care of everything else. Vietnamese music playing and the voice calling out the order numbers was in Vietnamese too. Just relived my childhood all over again, it felt very comforting. I see why people love Lee’s Sandwiches. Their Bánh Mì‘s are so good and the portion size was perfect. You always have to try the house combo, so that’s what we got the #1 Lee’s Combination. I wrote a post before on different Bánh Mì places (click to read -> Food Alert: 3 States, 3 Bánh Mì.) Well now I can add Lee’s Sandwiches and put them at #1.
We tried to walk around the area after Lee’s to walk some food off for dinner, but we remembered there was a Harry Potter pop up cafe in the same area and went there. I know we’re fatties hahah. My friend Nia actually recommended this place because before the theme was Sailor Moon, but we missed the date for that. Popfancy Dessert Bar Fan Cafe is throwing The Broom Closet right now. We came a little late, so they ran out of their potion bottle glasses, but we were still able to get the Babbling Bevy Potion. The potion that causes and consist of uncontrollable speaking of nonsense, Butterfly Blossom Tonic Lemonade and Crystal Boba.
How did we do it? I honestly don’t know, but we went to Crawfish Cafe for dinner. My stomach will make room for seafood boil anytime of day. Crawfish Cafe was a recommendation from my friend Nou. Seafood boil was a must try for our trip. Seafood boils from the southern half of the US is 1000% better and tastier than the midwest. Plus you get your money’s worth because the seafood size is bigger. We ordered 2 lb head on shrimp, 1/2 lb crawfish, 1 lobster tail, 1 lb black mussel and 1 snow crab leg all in the signature sauce in medium spice. As you can see we got plenty of food for two people and yes we had some leftovers, but we actually ate most of it. It was good, but King Cajun Crawfish in Orlando, Florida still has my heart.
DAY FOUR IN HOUSTON The last day of our trip and I’m still sad that we had to leave. So many good places that we ate at and so many more places we still have to go too! I made a list of places and we only went to 2 of them on the list, all the other places we found by just driving around.
Shabu Zone was our last meal in Houston, an all you can eat hotpot buffet. I’ve only seen others go to one, but I got to finally experience for myself. What did I think about it? Well why don’t these exists anywhere close to me?!?!? You order what broth and meats that you would like, the the noodles, veggies, seafood and sauces are all buffet style. Adults each get their own little personal bowl/hotpot on the table and you just go from there and cook everything! I love the huge selection of everything, so you can really make a different bowl every time. I was doing the happy food dance the whole time and jamming out to the music they played. I didn’t want to leave.
My Hotpot Creation Broth: Tonkotsu soup (pork bone), Akaushi Wagyu Prime Chuck Eye, Akaushi Waygu Beef Belly, Lamb Leg, Shabu Zone Special Prime Rib, Shrimp, asian meatballs, enoki mushrooms, bokchoy, mussels, seafood meatballs, fish balls, green onions, mushrooms, squid, scallop, pork dumplings, and udon noodles with sweet garlic sauce, lemon, Sriracha and chili flakes.
There’s no way that we didn’t gain 100 pounds from our foodcation. Thankfully it was hot outside and the activities that we did in between eating consisted of a lot of walking. We had the chance to burn some calories off. I think my favorite vacations are foodcations, you get to spend time with those around you with a bonus of great tasting food. Eating itself is an experience. Now that we’re back in Wisconsin, I’ve been trying to eat as good and it’s not the same. I’m thinking of writing another blog of places we visited (non food related) soon, so watch for that coming in the next few blog posts. So where should I go next? What foods are waiting to get eaten next? Keep eating everyone!
SALLY♡THINGS 