May 7, 2010

Food from overseas (Part 4)

This is the fourth and final instalment of my ‘Food from overseas’ series!

For the last part of my trip, I spent a month in the United States travelling across New York, Philadelphia, Washington, New Orleans and San Francisco.

While there were some things that I absolutely had to try (Philly cheesesteak anyone?), for the most part, I was happy to eat anything.

It’s true what people say about American serving sizes compared to Australia. They’re huge! And you don’t have to look far to find the most unusual, greasiest combinations of food that you can find.

For example, one night in New York, we went to Chelsea to find this ribs place that was highly rated in my friend’s travel guide. Firstly, the place was hilarious. Genuine redneck dining.

I ordered an obscene amount of food for myself – ribs, coleslaw, some other form of meat and huge serving of fries – which came out on a tray, on baking paper.

But that wasn’t enough, we went an extra mile and got a huge baked potato stuffed with cheese – with melted cheese on top.

Look – it’s McDonald’s cheese orange!

New York also has lots of great Cuban food.

That yellow rice was yummy!

We also discovered the wonder of IHOP – International House of Pancakes, which serves all kinds of food round the clock!

IHOP – inside

Of course I had to take advantage of the crazy and ordered something from their dinner menu for breakfast.

Roast chicken, mushrooms, garlic bread and veggies….for breakfast, yum

We also discovered another amazing American chain – The Cheesecake Factory!!!! It was one place that I really wanted to eat at, but unfortunately we didn’t come across any of their restaurants during our trip……………….until our last stop at San Francisco!

There is a Cheesecake Factory in the Macys building and we ate there three or four times – which is a high number of times when we were only there for a week, and you also know the food blogger curse of wanting to try different things.

But their menu is huge and their portions are GINORMOUS. It is not uncommon for people to doggie bag the remains of their meal, despite the fact that it is a proper restaurant.

Pulled pork sandwich combo from the Cheesecake Factory – the plate was twice the size of my head

Fish tacos from the Cheesecake Factory – sorry for the dark picture, we were sitting in a low lighting booth

Another Cheesecake Factory dish – one third is chicken, there is a small mountain range of mashed potato in the middle and the right hand side is prawns!

San Francisco is famous for its Fisherman’s Wharf. When we went down to the wharf, we walked past the Boudin Bakery where they bake their bread on premises and the scent of bread wafts onto the street.

Obviously we were lured in.

Crab chowder in a bread bowl

The bread bowl is a great invention. Can we bring that to Australia please?

Lastly, I want to show you guys some food from New Orleans. I had been looking forward to eating in New Orleans due to its exotic blend of French Cajun with Southern-style cooking and it did not disappoint.

All the locals insisted that you couldn’t visit New Orleans without trying the beignets from Cafe du Monde, located at the edge of Jacksons’s Square.

Beignets

And you had to wash them down with their signature cafe latte.

The beignets were a mess to eat but I think that’s half the fun of it! As for the taste, they tasted like deep fried doughnuts….which I guess would just be doughnuts fried a second time?

Some more random New Orleans pics…

Cool olive oil bottle

Candy covered toffee apples – if only I was 15 years younger…

Chocolate bread pudding – oh my god. Heart attack inducing chocolate goodness. Bread pudding was on the dessert menu of 95% of the New Orleans restaurants but this place put a whole new spin on it. The two upturned ramekins on the left side of the picture contained the chocolate sauce which the waitress drizzled over the pudding.