Izzo's illegal burrito in New Orleans, LA

April 15, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Izzo’s Illegal Burrito
4316 Veterans Memorial Blvd.
Metairie, LA

I was super excited to eat here because I was trying to study at Starbucks and I saw that there were a ton of cars parked with hungry customers waiting to go inside. It’s gotta be good right?

Izzo's Illegal Burrito

Inside it’s kinda like Chipotle with the assembly line starting with tortilla flavor then to filling (meat or veggie) and then a ton of toppings. What is up with these americanized burritos that are the size of a small baby? This could’ve easily been 2 or 3 burrito servings.

look at how thick this burrito is!

My friend got the grilled mushrooms burrito. She liked it a lot, but wished that they had given her more veggies.

veggie burrito

I ordered the steak and I would say, nothing special. The meat was pretty tough to chew actually. Hopefully, if I go back, I’ll try something a bit more tender.

steak burrito

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Filed Under: Mexican, New Orleans, LA Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Phoenicia in New Orleans, LA

February 25, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Phoenicia Restaurant
4201 Veterans Memorial Blvd.
Metairie, LA

Phoenicia restaurant

I came across this place when I saw some really good reviews. But must be hard to get customers when you don’t have a website! I guess if the food here is as good as the reviews claim though, then they should have no problem! When we walked in, I was immediately impressed by the wide open spaces. No bumping elbows with your neighbors! I also liked the huge flat screen TVs everywhere.

free pita bread

the pita bread was very thin and warm! had the usual pita bread flavor. Not bad, but not great.

my friend ordered the moussaka because she had had it at another nearby Greek restaurant. She was very surprised by the eggplant tomato-based soup that came out.

moussaka

Both of us were not impressed although this is probably the legit moussaka dish. She ended up not finishing it, but loved her other dish, a meat pie appetizer. The filo dough was amazing!

meat pie

I had a gyro plate which is my usual choice at Greek restaurants. The meat was very tender and flavorful. I loved that it just disintegrated in my mouth. Delicious!

gyro plate $12

 

it came with a side of hummus which had this spicy chili sauce! an amazing combination!

Service could’ve been a bit friendlier. From the beginning, we had a stoic, somewhat stand-offish waittress. It took her  a while to warm up to us (not until we were asking for the check, it seems). I mean, we don’t need to become best buddies or anything, but a little friendliness never killed anyone (hopefully).

hummus with chili sauce

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Filed Under: Middle Eastern/ Greek, New Orleans, LA Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Oki Nago Sushi Buffet in New Orleans, LA

January 25, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Oki Nago
2712 N Arnoult Rd.
Metairie, LA

How has a year passed before I found out about this $10-all-you-can-eat-sushi-lunch-buffet in New Orleans?!?

Oki Nago restaurant

When I got here, I was kinda taken aback by how stereotypically Asian the exterior was.

veggie line

However, I was super ecstatic that there was such an extensive variety in the sushi menu. To be honest, I was expecting one table of a few rolls, I was so happy to see numerous tables with all sorts of maki and sashimi. Don’t fill up on the earlier rolls, they save the special stuff for the end of the line.

sushi buffet

And the nicer rolls, like soft shell crab, had a ton of crab meat!

fried foods section

And in case you need something besides sushi rolls, check out some of the fried foods and chinese dishes.

chinese food line

my favorite chinese dishes were the eggplant stirfry (delicious sauce!) and imperial shrimp (reminds me of my favorite walnut shrimp dish).

yea I went a little nuts

They also had a hibachi station! But as you can tell from my first dish, I was quite full and didn’t have room for hibachi.

There was an entire thing of crabs!! There was also a shrimp cocktail section (except I wasn’t in the mood so I didn’t get any).

crab!!

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Filed Under: Japanese, New Orleans, LA Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Acropolis Cuisine in New Orleans, LA

January 4, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Acropolis Cuisine
3841 Veterans Memorial Blvd
Metairie, LA

This Greek restaurant kinda sticks out among the fast food chains that neighbor it, so a friend and I thought we’d stop by and check out the food. When we talked to the woman behind the cash register, we were pretty sure we were going to get some delicious authentic Greek food (even with some of the questionable items on the menu, such as lasagna and garlic bread? isn’t that Italian??)

We decided to eat here for lunch when we realized almost all the selections were the same at dinner time except almost half the price at lunch.
My friend had the moussaka; thin layers of eggplant, zucchini, and Idaho potatoes sautéed in extra virgin olive oil, ground veal simmered in herbs and spices and baked to perfection. It was delicious and you couldn’t tell there was ground veal in it. I loved how the eggplant flavor was really enhanced by the herbs, spices and olive oil. This was definitely winner of the meal!

Moussaka

i had the gyro wrap with seasoned beef and lamb, thin sliced and dressed with lettuce, onions and tzatziki sauce. I’m a sucker for tzatziki sauce. The lamb meat was nice and tender and delicious with the tzatziki sauce. The french fries were seasoned with a similar spice as the moussaka (aka awesome!)

lamb gyro

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Filed Under: Middle Eastern/ Greek, New Orleans, LA Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

McAlister Deli in New Orleans

November 26, 2010 By Leave a Comment

McAlister Deli
2701 Airline Dr
Metairie, LA 70001

lots of deli choices here, it all looked quite fresh but it was pretty much the run of the mill deli sandwiches. the prices weren’t too bad either (most likely spend under $10 here).
huge space here which I love, with cute 50s decor (there were pictures and posters depicting 50s movies and fashion).
i had a giant spud w bacon, cheddar and chili (thought I’d try something different than a fresh deli sandwich).
my friend had the half reuben and half sandwich. she said both were delish.
the service was very friendly here, they kept checking up on us and offered to get us extra chili.

50s ambiance

half reuben

half salad

giant spud

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Filed Under: American, New Orleans, LA Tagged With: , , ,

Unagi and Sushi in New Orleans

November 16, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Unagi and Sushi
2701 Airline Dr.
Metairie, LA

This place is very easy to miss because its on the outer corner of Rouse’s in a shopping plaza. And the sign for it kinda blends in with the building.

hidden gem in a plaza

The ambiance here was a bit on the minimal side, but for an Asian restaurant, very clean and new looking. None of that carpet from the 80s business here! I did like the fans on the wall behind the sushi bar though.

ambiance

My fellow foodie ordered the sushi roll combination for lunch. For $7.95 she ordered the (from many choices) the salmon avocado roll and crunchy roll (crabstick, shrimp, avocado and tempura flakes) with miso soup and generic Japanese salad with sour orange stuff on top.

usual miso soup

 

generic Japanese salad

roll combo

She said out of the two rolls, the crunchy roll was by far her favorite.

up close n personal

I decided to be a little more adventurous and try some of the House special rolls.

Unforgettable roll and desiree roll

The first one I selected was the Unforgettable Roll for $12.95, it was a sushi roll with salmon, tuna, spicy tuna, tempura shrimp, snowcrab, cream cheese, avocado, cucumber, smelt roe all wrapped in a pink soy wrap.  I really love when sushi flavor is enhanced by the tang of cream cheese. This place served very fresh sushi! And this was by far my favorite!

unforgettable roll

I also had the desiree roll for $6.95 which had crawfish, shrimp, and eel sauce and then the entire roll was dunked in a light batter and deep fried! It was still hot on my plate! It was amazing! And a total steal for its value!

desiree roll

 

 

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Filed Under: Japanese, New Orleans, LA Tagged With: , , , , , ,

China Rose in New Orleans

September 9, 2010 By 2 Comments

China Rose
3501 N. Arnoult Rd.
Metairie, LA

Really funny, as soon as I walked in here, I started flipping thru a menu and the woman behind the counter asked me if I wanted the Chinese menu.  She was very friendly, but I couldn’t help but hear sounds from adult play machines behind a curtain next to the counter. It was a little awkward. I said I can’t read Chinese and she said it’s in English. So I flipped through it and picked out these dishes. The garlic and ginger chicken had a big a tang to it, but it was by far my favorite spicy dish. The black bean sauce noodle, I thought would resemble the Korean dish I’ve had before or something similar to a chinese hand drawn noodle dish I’ve had before. Nope! It was flavorless and a waste of time. The crispy duck was delicious. It smelled juicy! How is that possible? I have no idea. Unforutunately, the duck pieces I had had a ton of fat and I couldn’t pull the fat off so the only way to avoid ingesting it was to chew off the meaty parts and spit out the fat. The texture of the meat, otherwise, was very nice. The spicy pork noodle was similar to a spicy ramen. The sauce was veryyyyyyyy spicy but still good.

chicken in garlic and ginger sauce

black bean sauce noodle

Crispy Duck

Spicy pork noodle

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Filed Under: Chinese, New Orleans, LA Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,