Tales on the Motorcycle Courier Shift...chicken and waffles.

Tales on the Motorcycle Courier Shift...continued.

The shenanigans on the night shift continue...

The 2013 SoCal Holiday Excursion Recap: Flight Delays and Bonus Footage

**This is a recap of my vacation back to Southern California from 12/28/13-1/9/14.**

When I last left this recap, I found myself with a few extra days at home thanks to the first of what is now several winter storms that have hit the Midwest this year. I didn't mind it at all, but my [now former] boss had an issue about the delays and questioned the validity of my flight cancellations to the point that it was stressing me out. Then again, what could I do about flights that I couldn't take? As I stood outside in 59 degrees while tending to a barbecue and overlooking the mystic glow of the Los Angeles skyline, I realized that there were far better things to think about, like how I would be able to finally pick up stakes and leave Ohio once and for all.

Quick Bites: Lure Bistro (Willoughby, OH)

I had wanted to head over to Lure Bistro in nearby Willoughby for their seasonal All-You-Can-Eat crab leg special. I finally was able to make one and had my fill. Lure Bistro is also known for their special seafood-based dishes, but for this visit I was scarfing crab legs. I'll go back for the sushi and the lobster nachos another time. Meanwhile, here is a preview of some of the goodies.

House salad with several types of lettuce and an original vinegarette.

Sorry about the mess. I managed to nearly fill a beer bucket of crab pieces. There was cole slaw and french fries included too. I have no idea where those went either, but they were sure tasty.

I even managed to score a "Cookie Monster" dessert which consists of two freshly-baked chocolate cookies with dulce de leche gelato sandwiched in between them.

I did enjoy the ambiance of the outdoor bar and it's on my wish list for a nice romantic dinner if someone *cough cough* would take me there.

For more information about Lure Bistro, visit http://www.thelurebistro.com/. Did I mention they offer free valet parking?

UPDATE (9/29/13)! I had the chance to revisit this place with a friend where we went for a clambake with clams, crab legs, sushi (spicy tuna roll and crunchy eel roll), and complementing sides of mashed sweet potatoes and a Crème brûlée cornbread. Super fresh seafood and surprisingly addicting sides. Let this photo add to your temptations. I have a feeling I'm going to frequent this place.

Day 3: A Gas Shortage in Iowa, near Waterloo. Couldn't escape if I wanted to.

**This series of posts recap my two-week trip to Billings, MT and back from July 1-16, 2013. For the entire list of my featured rides, click here.**

Murphy's Law: "Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong."

I don't know who you are, Murphy, but if I ever meet you in a parking lot, you're getting a swift kick to the nuts.

At least the first part of the day was just fine and dandy. Actually it wasn't.

Food Review: Choe's Asian Gourmet (Beavercreek, OH)

Finally, gourmet Asian food with a designer flare has come to the Dayton area! Choe's Asian Gourmet, located at The Greene, an open-air shopping center off of I-675 in Beavercreek/Kettering, opened less than two weeks ago to an area that was begging for a larger variety of exotic, off-beat restaurants. This is the third restaurant opened in Ohio of this type owned by a single company, the other two being Asian Gourmet and Sushi Bar in Gahanna and Edamame Sushi Grill at the Easton Town Center. I have been a loyal customer of Edamame since I moved here to Columbus and was curious to see this new location. It is also conveniently located a few blocks from my home hockey rink for my team, the Dayton Fangs.

The atmosphere of this venue evokes a romantic atmosphere with its dimly lit open seating while the sushi bar and tall-seating area had a very modern, simplistic look. I recognized one of the sushi chefs from Edamame, and the server also informed me that many of the employees were from the other two restaurants and helping with transition and training.

Choe's Asian Gourmet's menu is very similar to its Columbus couterpart, Asian Gourmet and Sushi Bar, with a few additional entrees and appetizers. There were several other surprises as well, such as the addition of Thai Pad See Ew noodles and different rolls such as the Samurai (pictured below) that isn't available at either of the Columbus locations. I ordered both those entrees and was very impressed with their quality and flavor. For someone looking for a good place to enjoy well-done Asian food, Choe's offers a comprehensive menu of Chinese, Korean, Japanese, and Thai dishes.

Here's the other half of my Samurai roll. Mmm...smoked salmon, cream cheese, and wasabi mayo.

Although this restaurant is still in its beginning stages, it was definitely staffed with extremely experienced servers and chefs. I enjoyed my dinner and look forward to returning there for a pre-game warm-up or post-game victory meal.

 

Food Review: Todai Seafood Buffet (Schaumburg, IL)

I enjoyed this restaurant from the week Matt and I got married so I'll share this review with you all.

Matt, our friend Victor, and I had the opportunity to have our fill of seafood at the Todai Seafood Buffet inside of the Woodfield Shopping Center in Schaumburg, IL before I had to take Victor back on his plane to Long Beach. We were super hungry, so the perk of "all-you-can-eat" was all we needed to get in the door. This is definitely a buffet I'd like to visit again.

To summarize the place, imagine a long buffet line filled with gobs and gobs of all-you-can-eat sushi, sashimi, and hot Japanese/Chinese food. I had my share of fresh raw salmon, Hawaiian ahi poke by the scoop, and hand-made rolls galore. For those desiring hot food, there was also a selection of soups, cooked fish and other sea creatures, rice, and noodles. I think I overdosed on pickled ginger too. :)

My only criticism of the place is that they charged for beverages other than water, but the approximately $20 per person tab is a small price to pay for the amount of freshly served seafood. Additionally, this Todai's main focus is definitely not on aesthetics as it resembles more of a cafeteria with Japanese accents. It's a straight-up buffet-style restaurant, so don't expect it to be a romantic place; it's not like you're looking around and enjoying the atmosphere while you're sucking down fish!

I had known about Todai Seafood Buffet before (there are several locations in Southern CA and in Las Vegas) but this was the first time I got to eat there. I'd like to go back sometime, but the two (soon to be three) closest locations to Columbus are in northeast Illinois and Virginia. Sounds like another series motorcycle rides. And as you know, I have been known to ride Eleanor to places just for the food.

To find locations near you, visit http://www.todai.com. Mmm...sushi.

Food Review: Eastern Palace (Reynoldsburg, OH)

I've been a member of Restaurant.com for about two years, and have used it as a way to try new food places without plunking down the entire bill. It's a website where you would purchase gift certificates at discount prices to use at supporting restaurants, many of them non-chain, off-the-wall, and individually owned places. For me, it's usually a chance to explore a new food establishment and try dishes that I wouldn't otherwise order.

My curiosity and a gift certificate led Matt and me to Eastern Palace in Reynoldsburg for a casual dinner for two. It's an Asian restaurant with gourmet Chinese food and Japanese sushi. Despite its very plain appearance on the outside, its interior was very clean and comfortable and was even set up for private parties or receptions. We sat in a booth that had a great view of a big screen TV so we even got to watch sports highlights on ESPN while we ate.

We decided to get a full, three-course meal. For our appetizers, we ordered a lobster sushi roll and a combination platter for two that contained chicken egg rolls, chicken wings, crab rangoon, and beef sticks. I was impressed by the appetizer's its presentation; there was a small flaming pot in the middle of the plate. The lobster roll was served in a traditional arrangement. Everything was perfectly cooked, and the sushi was fresh and delectable.

For our main course, Matt got an orange chicken dish and I went for a Hong Kong-style crispy noodle plate. It was very obvious that the chefs were very sensitive to flavor. The sauce in the orange chicken was light, yet flavorful, and I could still taste chicken underneath the crispy fried exterior of the chicken pieces. The crispy noodles on my plate appeared (and tasted) made-to-order and were well complemented with a light sauce, shrimp, chicken, and an assortment of snow peas and other vegetables. To finish things off, we had delicious green tea ice cream.

I'd definitely recommend this place to anyone who is looking for good Chinese cuisine and sushi. Not surprisingly, TripAdvisor.com even rates this restaurant in the top 25 in the Columbus area. For this website's reviews, click here.

 

Food Review: Siam Terrance (Urbana, IL)

Thanks to cut hours at Meijer, I was able to take a quick vacation to visit an old friend in Urbana, IL who is attending medical school at the University of Illinois. Of course, this was also a perfect opportunity for me and Matt to jump on the motorcycles and finally get our odometers ticked over to 80,000 miles each, which I hit somewhere en route to Indianapolis, IN and he upon reaching IL during this 600-mile round trip tour. Although the interstates were clear, the weather was quite nippy (averaging 35-37 degrees heading west and 25-27 heading home to be exact). I'll be addressing my first experience in extreme cold weather riding in another post. Now, on to the food. (There, Susy, you happy now?)

So Susy, Matt, and I traveled to Downtown Urbana, a hop from the University of IL campus, to try out Siam Terrace, a restaurant that specializes in Thai cuisine and...sushi? Yeah, you heard me, it's a restaurant that serves Asian food items from two separate regions but it's not a weird fusion concept place. With our group of hungry testers, both sides of the menu were going to be put to the test.

In terms of the inside appearance of Siam Terrance, it is simple with an eatery feel. It has an open seating area and a sit-down sushi bar toward the back of the room so it would be more like a place to bring friends for a casual dining experience.

As standard practice for me at any Thai restaurant, I ordered Thai Tea as my drink. It was made to Thai specs, mixed well and very creamy. With the food, there was quite a bit more customizing involved. Since Thai food is notorious for its levels of spice, Siam Terrance makes guessing your torture preferences easier using a spicy scale of 1-4, one standing for "spicy as a chewing a burlap sack" from four for "true Thai or sadist." Matt went for the level four on his Spicy Fried Rice while Susy and I went for absolute zero whimp status spice for our plates of Pad See Eew (a favorite I inherited from my old coworker), done with chicken and beef, respectively. In addition, we ordered another plate of Thai shrimp fried rice to share around.

Overall, the Thai food was delicious and authentic. The Pad See Eew had a just enough sweetness to complement the meat and thick, yet tender, rice noodles. Both this stir-fried pasta and the shrimp fried rice were full of flavor and not greasy at all with just the right amount of onions, carrots, and other various veggies to add color and texture. The "full" feeling we got was not from heavy amounts of oil but rather from the fact that our plates were completely empty because we couldn't stop eating! Matt inhaled his Spicy Fried Rice without sipping a single drop of water; I refused his offer to kiss me afterward and took his word for the food's hot factor. To put the level of his rice's spicy in perspective, I tried half a teaspoon of rice from his plate and still felt its effects even after several sips of water and trying to chew it off with the broccoli from my own noodles. Yeah that stuff is spicy, yet happily approved by a person who can eat habanero peppers without crying.

After finishing our Thai dishes, we ordered one of their cooked sushi rolls, the "New York," to split between the three of us. This roll consisted of shrimp tempura, cream cheese, imitation crab, asparagus, masago and topped with avocado slices, tempura crunch, and a sweet/spicy sauce. The presentation was beautiful and made the roll even more tantalizing to eat. It looked a little something like this...

The final verdict? This restaurant still upholds its case for having a multiple personality disorder. Once again, here's another sushi place that upstages any sushi I've had near the Pacific Ocean and we're located more than half a day from the East Coast.

We were stuffed, so dessert didn't make it to the menu, although it would be nice to take a shot of the Fried Banana with Honey on a return trip.

If you're stopping in Urbana, IL, I'd definitely recommend this place to get a Thai food and sushi fix. It is nice to know that there are good Asian restaurants in these parts of the Midwest; it really does take a little of the homesickness away...although a little bit of pad see ew and Thai Tea from The Original Thai BBQ Restaurant in CA with friends would be nice as well. Those are memories I'd like to keep.

 

Some odds and ends in C-bus

NOTE: for those on Facebook who enjoy reading these notes, you can always access these blog posts on my official blog site @ http://twowheeledtourist.blogspot.com.

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After a month of actually having a job again, I've taken some liberties to reward myself and de-stress a little with small things such as a trip to our new favorite sushi place, a stop at the Polaris Fashion Place for some window shopping, and a detour from the monotony of robotic retail work. Here were a few things that were going through my mind lately.

Here's a view from the upper dining area the inside of Edamame Sushi and Grill in North Columbus. I go here to get my sushi fix (It's all about the Buckeye roll), sip a well-mixed Arnold Palmer, and enjoy the scenery. It's probably the only local restaurant by far that has gotten me hooked. It's unlike any other restaurant I've visited and they do provide awesome service. I've had a hankering to try out Columbus Fish Market and thanks to a gift card from Matt's family, it looks like that's going to happen pretty soon. I hear that place is top notch...an online review may be possible.

I got a haircut and shopped a little at the Polaris Mall the day before my birthday. Window shopping is fun, especially when the newest styles of the season are just being put out on display. Currently, it appears the The Gap is boasting their "best premium jeans" for $54.50. With a price like that, I can see how you wouldn't be able to afford anything else to wear. As demonstrated by the mannequin in the middle, it can also cost you an arm as well.

Currently, one of my duties at my job at Meijer is auditing shelf tag labels to make sure prices on the tags are identical to the main store system's database. This means having to go through the entire store and painstakingly scan anywhere between 3000-4000 items every day (and you wonder why I'm looking for another job). I've traversed to the grocery section of my particular store and came across this while scanning foods in the "Ethnic Foods" section.

 

So I'm thinking, "That sounds a little controversial." I pull this particular candy bar out and realize that it's made by Nestle and is marketed in the UK. In fact, this candy bar has been around for a long time! Here's the Wikipedia page for it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yorkie_%28chocolate_bar%29. I actually found it to be quite humorous, but there's always that one sensitive person that would cry over the sight of the front of the label.

Sorry, girl, not for you. Actually I bought one of these and took it home for me and Matt to try. It's a standard chocolate bar, like a Hershey's but creamier.

Lastly, I realized after working in retail that Christmas is the next major holiday after Halloween. Thanksgiving is a turkey and stuffing sale and that's about it. At least that's what the motorcycle shop said. Here's Iron Pony's take on Santa's new ride. Apparently he's traded his sleigh for a camo 4x4 and laid off the reindeer.

The good news is that he's wearing a helmet and is powered by Yamaha. That's my kind of Santa.