Where to Eat in Seattle: Broiler Bay Burgers

G and I tried this new (to us) restaurant on Saturday, and it was so good that if I could eat there every single day I would.  But alas, I am poor.  One of G's co-workers gave him a bunch of coupons and one of them was for buy one get one free at Broiler Bay Burgers.  I don't remember if I've mentioned this, but G is a borderline hoarder of coupons.  He always has coupons for various restaurants and rarely uses them before the expiration date.  It turns out that Broiler Bay Burgers has a popular restaurant in Bellevue and opened up a new location in Shoreline, which is much closer to us.  The new location hasn't gotten too popular yet.  Walking in, the restaurant seems like a fast food place: you order at the counter where you pay and seat yourself wherever you want while you wait for your order.  They seemed slightly understaffed (a few of the tables hadn't been wiped off after customers left).  We sat to wait for our order, two 8 inch long Philly Cheesesteaks, G's with fries.  When we picked up our order, it smelled so delicious.  G shared some of his fries and they were so much better than any fast food fries I have ever eaten, maybe one notch below Red Robin fries.  They were not at all greasy, fried to a perfect golden brown, and we couldn't wait until they cooled down to eat them because they were that good.  The Philly Cheesesteaks were easily the best I've ever had, way better than the delicious ones from the Bellevue Art Fair last year.  They were also really filling.  G and I could each only eat half of ours.  I'm having my other half for lunch today.  G had his for dinner that night, but my tummy was being obnoxious with the combination of heat, stress, and hormones, so I only had some broccoli.  The restaurant played quiet classic rock in the background which definitely seals the deal for me.  This restaurant is definitely in my top 5 now.  Right before we left I had to order a milkshake.  I could say it was to write a more complete review, but let's be real here.  Their website said they had hard ice cream milkshakes and had a list of flavors and I am an ice cream-aholic who hasn't had a good, or even mediocre, milkshake in a while, so I had to get one.  I only had room for a few sips right then, but it was so delicious.  I got a small banana shake and they asked me how much banana I wanted, so I said a lot.  I watched the guy scoop out the vanilla ice cream, put in half of an actual banana (none of this flavored syrup nonsense here), pour in some milk, and mix it all up.  It was easily the thickest milkshake I've ever had and so incredibly delicious.  So, in summary, I would definitely recommend this restaurant to everyone who lives in Seattle or plans to visit.  G and I will be going back many many times in the future.


And completely unrelated, I saw this picture on the Seattle Times website in the photo gallery for the Capitol Hill Block Party and I think I would get along great with this girl.  Seriously, a Darth Vader mask, a lightsaber, and Tetris leggings?!  We will be friends.  And her hair looks like it's cool too.

from the Seattle Times photo gallery;
click here to see the other Capitol Hill Block Party fashion

Food Friday: Oven Smores

Today I am forgoing fashion entirely and discussing food.  Don't fret though, I have a pretty cool fashion post planned for next week.  I found this recipe on Pinterest and immediately had to try it.  There are a few reasons why I had to try it: I have the biggest sweet tooth ever, CHOCOLATE, lately I've accidentally been buying lots of smore-flavored things, and lastly it looked super simple.  The recipe over there is easy to follow and I did follow it, but there are some things I would change next time.  And by that, I mean there are some things that I did change, because I already made them again.  The first time I made them was last weekend.  Get ready for gratuitous food shots of every single step.  But be warned, if you are the type of person who likes their marshmallows black on the outside, this recipe is not for you, because everything will be burnt to a crisp if you do that.  Also, G insists that they're called shmores.  I'm not sure where the sh comes from and he won't tell me (because I laughed at his pronunciation).  My guess is from the sh in marshmallow.

This step could go pretty fast if you don't have OCD. G wanted to unperfectize
it but I told him it had to be nice for pictures for my blog, so he left it alone.

Look how wonderfully toasty the marshmallows are after just under 5 minutes in the oven!

smush them together; Jersey Shore made that word so dirty

Stir the melting chocolate like your hand is a tornado!

Dip them all in chocolate and put them right on the plate because you don't have wax paper.

After two are eaten, realize that it looks like a person. Maybe you should have bought wax paper.
Look at all that wasted chocolate, which I may or not have scraped off later with a fork and eaten.

So if you are going to do the dipping in chocolate step, definitely use wax paper.  I actually skipped that step entirely the second time because when you refrigerate them for the chocolate to set up, the marshmallows get all hard and weird.  Plus you have to wait longer until you can eat them.  Both G, who has no sweet tooth, and I enjoyed these immensely.  He even asked me to make them for him again, which I happily did.  This is super duper simple and quick to do, especially if you don't dip them in chocolate at the end.  Plus your house will smell like toasted marshmallows for a while, which is always a good thing, in my opinion.  Happy eating and happy weekend.

Linking up here.

Healthy Fish and Chips

I made this a couple of weeks ago, but I've had so many other things to post about that I'm just now sharing it.  G's mom gave us a beautiful halibut fillet.  I'd never cooked fish before.  I learned that fish cooks waaaaaaaaaaaay faster than chicken.  The bottom of my piece got a little bit burnt but it was still delicious.

Sidenote: I think that I may have to do a broccoli intervention for G. He wants it every single night : )

I cooked the broccoli the way I usually do now, with a little bit of salt and pepper in a sauce of equal parts extra virgin olive oil, worcestershire sauce, and honey.  I just cook the broccoli, turning it occasionally, until it gets nice and bright green.  If you cook it to mush, almost all of the healthy nutrients get cooked out.  I battered the fish with flour mixed with some sage, some oregano, and salt and pepper. Then I cooked it in the sauce left in the pan that I cooked the broccoli in. 

For the "chips" portion of the fish and chips, I washed some potatoes, then diced them up without peeling them.  I cooked them with a seasoning of some sage, some oregano, salt and pepper, and a little paprika.  I fried them in a little bit of extra virgin olive oil.

To make this healthier, substitute olive oil with coconut oil.

This is a Post About Nachos

I could say that this post is an analogy for how it takes all kinds of people to make the world work, but it's not. I just like nachos. And I made some recently.  So there will be pictures.  Nachos are a great food for when you aren't starving to death.  If you think you'll be really hungry in about 20 minutes, then nachos are a perfect food to make.  The great thing is that you can put as many or as few toppings on as you would like and they still taste amazing either way.  They obviously taste amazinger with more toppings (Yeah, I know that's not a word.)  And you can put anything on them that you want, which is pretty much true of literally any food, but whatever.  Nachos are just melted cheese on chips.  That's all. Which makes them really affordable if you don't add other toppings.  But G and I like to add other toppings.  For one thing, we are meatatarians (also not a real word, so sue me, but don't really sue me please), so I browned a bunch of hamburger to sprinkle liberally on top of our nachos.  We also added some diced onions, as well as jalapenos to only G's half, because spicy food and I do not mix.  Then we stuck them in the oven at an arbitrary temperature (it may or may not have been 350, I don't remember) until both layers of cheese were nice and melty.  Then we pulled them out and piled on diced tomatoes, more onions, guacamole, and sour cream.  I couldn't even finish my whole plate before getting full.  But they were delicious indeed, so delicious that G ate all the leftovers by dinnertime the next day.  Here are some pictures, of G's plate, because I just fail at my sour cream dolloping skills.

Om nom nom

Now quit drooling all over your keyboard and go make your own.

When Life Gives you Overripe Bananas

Or more accurately, when you notice your roommate's bananas will surely go bad by tomorrow if they aren't eaten as soon as possible, you bake banana muffins.  That's what I did this morning, and they are delicious.  There were only two bananas, so I made half the recipe, except I still used a whole egg, and not a half, and they turned out very moist and delicious.  At the risk of making you drool on your computer, here's a picture.

Notice how I couldn't resist taking a bite out of one before snapping the photo.

In other news, G and I finally beat Little Big Planet! The end was very challenging, as the end to any proper video game should be.  We'll still be playing it a lot though, since we haven't collected all of the items on every level yet.  Last week, I made some blackberry syrup, which really isn't too difficult unless you wait too long to strain out the berries and then it turns into blackberry jelly.  It was super delicious with some homemade (not from a mix) pancakes on Saturday night.  I even made one pancake into the shape of a heart for G, a sort of lopsided heart, but making pancakes into shapes is not an easy thing to do.  We didn't do anything this weekend, aside from beating the game, except lay around watching scary movies and cuddling.  He tried really hard to get me to watch a scary clown movie, but I refused because I am scared to death of clowns.  Like if I see a clown in real life, I have to walk on the other side of the street and avoid eye contact with it.  It's not because of any movies either.  It's partially because of John Wayne Gacy and partially just because a smiling clown looks evil no matter what.  After unsuccessfully trying to convince me to watch a scary clown movie for at least 20 minutes, he relented and we watched Hellraiser III, even though neither of us have seen the first two.  We found out that you can still understand the third even if you haven't seen the first two, and it's kind of a dumb movie, but it was alright.  I give it 3 out of 5 stars.  I have discovered that I love Indian food, which I never had before meeting him.  His mom brought some home for us on Saturday.  (He lives with his mom right now, until he finishes his master's, because rent is free and college is expensive.  He has the entire finished basement to himself.) Anyway, we had garlic naan and mango curry and lamb with some sort of delicious green sauce and saffron rice.  It is my new favorite food.  I also discovered that I no longer hate orange juice.  I actually like it a lot.  My grandparents always used to buy this really sour orange juice when I was growing up, so I thought I didn't like orange juice.  Now that I realized that I like orange juice, I am going to drink a lot of it, so I hopefully will stop getting sick so often.


Having a boyfriend has been amazing for my self esteem.  He tells me I'm beautiful all the time.  On Sunday, I was getting ready for church and I didn't put on any makeup except foundation and he told me that I look so pretty all the boys at church are going to hit on me (which they did not).  Anyway, I just took a random picture of myself.  I haven't taken a shower today or brushed my hair, but I still think I look pretty good.  And don't think I'm all full of myself or anything.  I used to have zero self esteem, possibly a negative amount, so it's good that I can look at myself and not feel like I'm horribly unattractive.

I love the way this shirt brings out the green in my eyes

In other news, I haven't heard back from either place I applied for a job at yet.  When I was on the Ave on Sunday, I noticed at least four stores are hiring, so I'm going to go check them out before church on Wednesday.  Hopefully I'll get something soon, before I have to dip into my life savings to pay my rent.

Check out this cool mural I saw when I was hanging out with my friend a few weeks ago.  Dinosaurs, alien (plant?)s, and mutant flowers, oh my!