Namaste to You, a Pancake, too & Chili's is My New Favorite Restaurant

So, last night the family decided to go to Chili's for dinner, after picking up a few things at a nearby store.  Chili's has never been one of my more favorite restaurants, but our experience there last night changed my tune.

Chili's
Our new modus operandi when going out to eat has been to get to know the manager, or at the very least, to spend a few minutes talking with the waiter/waitress to make sure that they understand our family's food needs, because it generally rules out so many options on the menu.  So, we followed our new tradition, and were prepared to spend a good bit of time going over the menu with the waitress, when she pipes up and says, "give me just a minute, I may have a menu for that."

Well, naturally, my ears perked up, because that would just be so incredibly different from anywhere we've eaten yet.  Sure enough, after three or four minutes, here comes the waitress, new paper menu in hand, and says, "we've got a menu for everything back there."

Now, that's AMAZING, because while most other restaurants that I have been to are more than happy to talk to you about their menu and any substitutions or changes that you will need to make to eat there, this restaurant actually had a printed menu.

So, after reading through, I had the dry rub ribs with corn on the cob and mandarin oranges.  The boys each had grilled chicken broccoli, corn and we all ate chips and salsa.  Was it the food the best I've ever eaten?  No, but it was more than decent.  And with their paper menu in hand, Chili's is my new favorite restaurant.  Thanks, Chili's, I really do want my baby back... ribs.

My Moo Rating:

Namaste Pancakes

This morning, the family got up for the day and decided that pancakes were in order.  This was our first time having pancakes since the great milk meltdown of 2012 (or is it The Great Milk-pression?).  We had been shopping a few weeks back at Whole Foods in Bellaire and had bought a pancake mix from Namaste Foods (that link will take you directly to the product on their website), so we decided to use that.

2 eggs, some soy milk, oil and 2 cups of their mix later, and we had a batter to try.  Well, you never cook ANYTHING without tasting first, so I dipped a finger in and... whoa, that's not something I want to eat... yet.  So, we added 1 tsp of salt, 2 Tbsp powdered sugar and 1 tsp of vanilla extract, and voilà, we had a perfectly respectable pancake batter.  I added a little extra "milk" for good measure, to make sure that the batter was at the right consistency and we went to town.  Everyone seemed very happy with the mix overall, though it does have an odd (but not objectionable) "backend" taste to it due to some of the different flours that go into giving it the right texture.  But once you put on the syrup, all things are better.  We'll definitely eat it again, but will always use our modified recipe.

My Moo Rating:

on its own merits

with our changes