Street Food is the Best Food

As a part of UCLA's SWC Health Fair, several cultural organizations on campus congregated to serve...FOOD! Lots and lots of food!

For lunch today, I grabbed some tandoori chicken and a zefir (a Russian marshallow treat!) There's no restaurant recommendation to go along with this...more of encouragement to try new foods...especially Indian and Russian!

- Steph

I've got folic acid, how about you?

A finally-realized desire to be healthy, coupled with a very opportune Spring quarter course in Community Health Sciences, has got me on this creative dark-greens kick. Thus, I present to our readers the salad du jour: the Rockstar Mix (catchy, right?)!

I call it the rockstar salad because like us, rockstars don't have large amounts of time to prepare food! This is a quick and easy recipe, worthy of even Mick Jagger.

Literally everything that went into this dish, except for the plate, was bought for suuuuuper cheap at Trader Joe's!

I started off with a base of baby romaine lettuce leaves. Then, I added a homemade vinaigrette (learned two weeks ago from a live demonstration by Alice Water!). The dressing is half (extra virgin Spanish) olive oil, half white balsamic vinegar, and just a little table pepper. The trick is to get the dressing into the lettuce with your hands. None of that spoon and drizzle nonsense.

Then, I went over the dressing with a few squeezes of a fresh squeezed lemon. Afterwards, I added the contents of 1 1/2 Mandarin oranges (Cuties!) and a handful of fried fruit. I really enjoy that play between sweet and sour. Mix this all together (with your hands!), and add a mini sweet bell pepper on top, and as our French friends say...voila! Also...j'aime manger!

- Steph

Palomino Euro-Bistro

Yesterday, the destructive duo headed over to Palomino, a Westwood haunt that has a certain...je ne sais quoi (ewww Steph...CLICHE!). In reality, Palomino is a hip little drink-and-eat with an infamously spectacular Happy Hour (FIVE DOLLAR GOURMET THIN CRUST PIZZAS!)

Michelle: The thin crust pizza is so thin it's like chomping on a cracker loaded with toppings. I want another pizza right now cuz it's so good! Rotisserie Chicken pizza...for happy hour! Palomino's doesn't serve just your basic sliders and burritos -- it's chic. We didn't order any appetizers, but they looked really upscale on the menu. I ate a whole pizza by myself -- and some of Steph's, too. I'd go back again!

Steph: I ordered a Prosciutto and Roma Tomato Signature Brick Oven Pizza. It ended up coming out with some slices of ham on it (?), but I like to think of these ordering mishaps as small bits of heaven delegated by some higher, food-oriented, celestial being. The food was already great, but it was AMAZING in retrospect considering the whole pizza (like...BJs Brewery size mini) was $5! And, eating it in a swanky bar ambience...check this place out!

www.palomino.com

C&O Trattoria

Special Guest Blog!

This weekend, Steph's Campus Volunteers commitee in the Alumni Scholars Club took a trip out to Marina Del Rey to eat at the famed C&O Trattoria, an italian eatery renowned for its stellar garlic balls, and its SIZABLE PORTIONS! Video review below:

www.cotrattoria.com

Westwood Thai Cafe

Today (4/21/2010), we decided to go South of Wilshire to find a hole-in-the-wall restaurant. From the outside, this restaurant looks unremarkable, suspect even. From the inside, it looks super snazzy.

Michelle: I ordered the variety lunch special with chicken and broccoli. It tasted good. It wasn't fantastic or fancy; it was more like something you'd eat at home with family. Simple and sufficient. The sauce adds to this dish and makes ordinary food taste scrumptious! Plus, it only costs $5.95!

Steph: I ordered the A special with Pad Thai and chicken satay. WTT gets the job done. If you're looking for an unparalleled peanut sauce to noodle ratio, and large portions to boot, you've found the right place. My dish was also around $6.00. Judgment? A+ if you're ridiculously hungry. :)