Tag: Desserts

Food Alert: Royal Oak Taco Fest.

I decided to spend my July 4th over at Royal Oak Taco Fest! It was a very last minute decision, but in the end worth it. I’ve been saying that I wanted to challenge myself to go out and do things solo more, so I did just that! I’ve never been to any Taco Fest, so I wasn’t sure what it would be like, but it was well worth the drive and admission fee. Royal oak is about 2 hours to 2.5 hours away from me, so I made it a small foodie adventure. Admission tickets were $12 per person and when I got in, there were tons of food trucks, vendor booths and a huge kids area. There were all sorts of food beside tacos and plenty of drink booths, both non-alcoholic and alcoholic. Now, let’s eat!

It was pretty hot out, so a freshly squeezed lemonade was a must! There was an option to add alcohol to the lemonade, but I decided not too. I was not going to make the mistake of “eating” alcohol like I did with previous festivals that I wanted to blog about.
The first food truck was Eight Claw Crab Boil. I will say, I was hoping they had their seafood boil available, but sadly it wasn’t. Instead I ordered the Crab and Lobster Grilled Cheese. I’ve never had a grilled cheese that was this tasty. It was like heaven. I might have to hunt down Eight Claw Crab Boil pretty soon.

Next was Spicy Jerk Chicken and the famous BBQ Mac & Cheese from Chef Collier Willis of House of Barbecue. I was walking around and the smell of the ribs was so amazingly delicious that I stopped and grabbed food. The ribs were a big portion and I wanted to be able to try more foods, so I skipped on it. Don’t worry, I’m coming to find you too! The BBQ Mac & Cheese was nothing special, still good though, but the Spicy Jerk Chicken was SPICY. It had a great kick to it. I usually don’t like chicken that much because it usually is dry, but this was perfect and juicy. You got everything fresh and right off the smoker. House of Barbecue also got voted for ‘best entree’ out of everyone else!

I always try to go on these foodie adventures and get so full after the second food truck or booth. I opted in for some dessert just in case I was going to call it a day. I was so stuffed after eating this delicious strawberry and pineapple milk chocolate skewer topped with sprinkles, marshmellows and peanuts from Lekker Choco Treats. It was just what needed on a hot summers days. They have different fruit skewers to choose from, then you get to choose your chocolate and then your toppings. You can’t go wrong!

Who was I kidding? Who just quits after the third food truck when you go on a foodie adventure? Definitely not this girl. I was at the Taco Fest for hours, just trying to walk off the food I already ate to try more. I walked around for a good hour and even sat at one of the stages trying to stay awake and away from the food coma that was trying to get me LOL. Ya’ll I was struggling trying to not nap. I succeeded and decided to celebrate with some tacos! Finally the item that the festival was named after.

I know, I know. This might knock down my foodie credit with some of my readers, but I like flour tortillas over corn. Don’t hate me, okay!?! Please still support me ♡ I visited Galindo’s Authentic Mexican and ordered their red queso steak taco and just a regular steak taco. No, I didn’t eat them dry. I added both of their spicy roja salsa and verde salsa. They were good tacos, but nothing that made them stand out to be the ultimate best. Galindo’s got voted for most authentic taco at the festival!

Dessert time again! I’ve been really into sweets lately, which is very unlike me, but I’m not going to question it. It is what it is. There were some carnival like food booths and this one had deep fried candy bars. I’ve never heard of such thing or have seen one, so I had to give it a try. I ordered a deep fried snickers. I don’t know what I expected it to look like, but not a corndog like item with powdered sugar on top. Let me tell you though, if you haven’t had a deep fried snickers bar, you are missing out. I was impressed with this chocolate corndog delight. It may not look like it in the video though. I was passed full and starting to sweat being out in that heat.

I could no longer eat anymore, I was about to pop. It was time for me to leave, BUT before leaving I had to get one last drink. I tried the Watermelon Sugar topped with blue punch. It was a mix of the blue punch with raspberry tea and strawberry melon. It was very sweet, maybe a little too sweet for me. I think it would have been better without the added blue punch. It was pretty refreshing though, so I do recommend everyone to visit The Fern when you find yourself in Royal Oak!

I’m very happy that I did the solo trip to Royal Oak Taco Fest. Sometimes you just need to self indulge and take adventures. How would I rate Taco Fest? 8.5/10. It was a family friendly event with tons of craft tents and blowup obstacles for the kids, then tons of food options to choose from, plus multiple of the same food trucks, so lines were short. There were multiple vendors and chances to spin a wheel and win prizes from the merch ones. I will point out that if you are against cannabis, then this might not be the event for you. Most vendor booths were cannabis and THC products, so that’s all that I will point out. I’m not sure if this event is held in multiple cities, but you can always get a good idea of what vendors will be there based off of the sponsors! I’m not sure what the next foodie adventure will be and I won’t promise anymore about certain ones because I might end up “eating” alcohol again.. oopsies. ALWAYS remember though, we live to eat and not eat to live! ♡

Food Alert: Miami, Florida

food, Food, FOOD! I really wish I could eat more, so we could’ve gone to more food places in Miami! Everything looked cool and super yummy. There’s definitely going to be future trips to Miami to try all the other spots that I had on my list. Until then, enjoy these places! As I’m typing this post, I realized that we actually went to a lot of places, so this is a longer food post hehe.

The first restaurant that we went to was located in the Lincoln Road Mall called La Cerveceria De Barrio. Coming from the snowy and cold midwest, dining outside surrounded by palm trees was just what we needed. We took advantage of outdoor seating the whole trip. I don’t remember exactly what we got to eat, but the food was pretty good. I do remember the drink though haha. I ordered a lychee margarita and it was a very interesting mix. I’m not really sure if I like lychee flavor mixed with tequila though, I don’t really drink too much tequila to begin with. The drink smelled really good and I definitely felt a buzz from the drink.

On our walk back, we decided to grab some dessert from Icy-N-Spicy. Go check out their instagram when you have the chance, they have super fun and big desserts! I don’t remember the last time I had that much sugar in one sitting. We got the cotton candy + 2 scoops + 1 topping combo. The two flavors that we got for the ice cream was cookie monster and banana dulce leche with ferrero rochers chocolate as the topping. Both ice cream flavors were super good, but my favorite was the banana dulce leche. We didn’t have the option of picking our own flavored cones, but they had some pretty cool flavors like matcha and red velvet. This will be on my list of places to go back too, soooo many more desserts to try from them!

The first morning in Miami, our airbnb host recommended Pura Vida. It was super close and walking distance, so we decided to give it a try. We ordered the Blue Majik acai bowl with an Immune Booster juice shots. Our bowl consisted of blue spirulina blended with passionfruit, banana, pineapple, almond milk, chia seed, topped with vegan granola, shaved coconut and blueberries. We also picked up a fresh coconut to drink from! Smoothie/acai bowls are always so yummy and I really enjoy the taste of immune booster shots. It’s both fruity and spicy, plus it gives me that feeling of me actually taking care and doing something good for my body.

Now my FAVORITE dining experience ever. I booked a table for us at Gianni’s at the Former Versace Mansion, the Villa Casa Casuarina. I can’t even explain how exciting that was for me. I would have never thought that I would be dining in a mansion, let alone Gianni Versace’s mansion. One day, I’ll be able to afford to book a suite there and experience the rest of the mansion. It is a beautiful house and there’s so much details in the design and architecture everywhere. Our table was right by the pool outside and you didn’t even notice or hear any noise from anything beyond the walls, you literally just forget that you’re at South Beach Miami and in this other world.

So for our appetizers, we got the Gianni’s Salad and the Kobe Beef Carpaccio. The Kobe Beef was very tender and so easy to pull apart, the salad was perfect and light with the lemon dressing. For the main entree, we ordered the Spinach & Ricotta Ravioli and the Chicken Scallopini. Both entrees were delicious and then for dessert we both got the Sorbet. Now the sorbet was my favorite dish, the flavor was a creamy coconut. Probably the best coconut ice cream or sorbet that I have ever had. I would eat it all day if I could. For drinks, I ordered Versace Nero D’Avola IGT, a red wine and my boyfriend got the Coco Casuarina cocktail. Another great coconut food item we had on the trip! I would definitely go back to Gianni’s to try the rest of the food and just for the atmosphere itself.
Keep in mind that it was fine dining, so portions are small. I don’t eat much, so it was the perfect amount for me haha.

You thought I was done? Nope there’s still a few more places to go! So we ate pretty good the day of the mansion, summer bodies were not in mind at all because we went to Cajun Boil for dinner. The size of the seafood in Florida will always beat the midwest, it’s a must to get seafood in a bag when down south! We had our first seafood boil together in Orlando back in 2019 and have tried every place we could find ever since then and nothing beats the quality in Florida. I would say Cajun Boil is my second favorite place so far. (King Cajun Crawfish Orlando will forever be my favorite.) This place was pretty good, so we actually had dinner here again the next day LOL.

So between the two dinners that we had here, the flavor and spice levels were pretty inconsistent. On the first day, it was so flavorful and we ordered a medium spice level that had our nose running as we ate, but the second day it wasn’t as flavorful and we ordered a level up ‘spicy‘ and that wasn’t even as spicy as the day before. It was still good though, don’t get me wrong. The sauce wasn’t just all butter and oil, it was an actual sauce called the ultimate sauce. The first day we got combo #6 including 1/2 Lb shrimp & 1 Lb clam & 1/2 lb snow crab & 1 lobster tail. The table next to us ordered the pound of Alaskan Snow Crab, so the second day we ordered that with a combo #2 including 1 lb Crawfish & 1 lb Shrimp & 1 Fresh Maine Lobster.

After seafood, we decided to walk on Ocean Drive again for dessert and drinks to end the night. I’ve always seen things on social media about those nitro dragon breath bite things and there a spot called Nitro Dragons, so we grabbed some to try. To be pretty honest, I was pretty disappointed in it. First, I thought it would be more like ice cream bites or like crunchy flavored ice things, but they’re more like cheese balls that taste like captain crunch and they taste stale once they stop steaming. I would say overrated, first and last time eating those.

We went over to Sugar Factory for drinks and a small french fries snack. Of course we had to get their popular 60 oz. glass bowl. On my 21st birthday, I had a big bowl to myself, finished only half of it and had to take a fat midday nap because I was so drunk, so I wanted to share one this time just incase I wouldn’t be able to walk back to our place. My alcohol tolerance is so much higher now though, I’m sure I can handle a whole bowl to myself this time. The flavor that we got was The Watermelon Patch and fun fact: the Watermelon Patch was actually designed by Pitbull. So thank you Pitbull for that!
(We also grabbed a slice of pizza on the walk back and fell into a deep food coma sleep)

Our last full day in Miami was an adventure day, so for lunch we grabbed a quick slice of pizza and hotdogs from places we passed walking around in Wynwood. After our activities, we got some Taiyaki Ice Cream from Taiyaki NYC located inside 1-800 LUCKY. If we weren’t so full from the day before and saving room for another seafood boil dinner, I would’ve tried the ramen or other asian foods from the other restaurants located there too! It was such a vibe there, I could’ve stayed there all day and just ate listening to the music. Imagine a beer garden with asian influence. It’s a place that we’ll definitely go back to try out. We got the Cafe Con Leche and the Matcha Made in Heaven Taiyaki flavors.

Just writing and looking at all the pictures again made my mouth just water. So much good food and that wasn’t even all the places that I wanted to try! Most of the time I find food places through instagram, but this time I literally just googled best _____ in Miami and found tons of options. It’s honestly the best part about planning and going on trips, the food! Expect another food blog post from Miami with new locations later on, until then I’m going to train to eat more. HAHA. Should I make a post about where we visited in Miami? Let me know! Stay safe everyone and warm if you’re in a snowy winter season like me! xoxo ♡

SALLY ♡ T

Food Alert: Madison, Wisconsin

Are you ready for more food and drink boomerangs? It’s probably my favorite thing to do haha. Today’s city is Madison, Wisconsin and you’ll notice that I’ll be writing a lot about here or already have, but the answer for that is because my boyfriend lives in Wisconsin. So I do spend a good amount of time here and you guys already know that we both like to eat. Let’s jump into the food though!

When I arrived into town, our first food stop was to the new asian market that just opened called Global Market and Hall. It is a market, but it also has a food court inside with many different stands to choose from. I can’t remember the name of the food stand that I ordered from (oops), but I got a bowl of Beef Brisket Pho and a side of Barbecue Pork Buns. The Pho broth wasn’t as flavorful like how Pho usually is, but the beef brisket was really good, tender and just melts in your mouth. I was pretty disappointed with how dry the pork buns were, but I’m the type of person to give places a second chance, so hopefully next time it will be better!

If you guys follow me on snapchat, then you know my new favorite thing to eat are seafood boils in a bag. I can eat these forever! I usually get full quick, but when it comes to these, I will sit there for hours eating everything like I have a bottomless stomach. This one is from Ragin Cajun Seafood. You always have to get the House Special flavor, which is all the flavors combined. They have a good variety of seafoods in their combos compared to other seafood boil places that I’ve been to as well. So far King Cajun Crawfish in Orlando is my #1, but Ragin Cajun Seafood is pretty good if you find yourself in Madison, Wisconsin!

You can’t enjoy all these yummy entrees and big meals without some desserts. Treat yourself and top it off with some sweets! The boyfriend has a bigger sweet tooth than I do, but it’s starting to rub off on me. I do have a soft spot for boba and pleasing pretty looking drinks. We had to go get some drinks and dessert from Le C’s Patisserie & Tea House! Ugh, I wish we had places this like in Grand Rapids. Pretty tea drinks are so pleasing. We got the Flamingo Boba and the Peach Green Tea with Rose Flower and Lemon. Both are very delicious!

The dessert that we picked to try was the Caramel Coconut Custard Cake. It tasted so much like Flan, but with a soft custard/pudding like texture. It was really good! I wanted to get about 5 more just to eat. The desserts come in such cute boxes, white all over and gold on the inside. Felt like I was about to eat a million dollar cake. Both yummy and satisfying!
If you guys were wondering, my favorite thing is to make my boyfriend make boomerangs with me and he probably gets so annoyed with it hahah.

There’s so many other locations to eat at and a couple more seafood boils to try over in Wisconsin, so I’m ready for all of that. Don’t worry, these Food Alert post won’t be going away anytime soon. I think these are my favorite to write about and share. Recommendation for other food places are always welcomed, you can post them in the comments below or on the contact page!

SALLY ♡ T