Constable Comestible

Yamato Japanese Restaurant

2009-07-21T21:21:00.000-07:00

Tonight I had a new experience. I went to the Yamato Japanese Restaurant in Orem with some friends. Our hostess was really polite and impressive (from what I noticed she was the only one running around- literally- and serving people). We got to sit in a "room" secluded from the rest of the dining area by those Japanese paper screens. It was built on a platform, so we could take our shoes off before climbing up into it. From aways back, it looked like there was just a low table on the floor with some thin cushions to sit on, but once we had climbed in we discovered that there was actually space under the table for our legs. So we could either kneel at the table or sit regularly.

There were quite a few choices on the menu. Fortunately, we had an expert on Japanese food with us. Ben had served his mission in Japan and could tell us what everything was. Most of us chose the chicken donburi, but Ben went with mackerel and shrimp. Jessica had some sort of fried noodles while Allen had the beef donburi and dragonfly sushi (where half was the raw fish and the other half was cooked shrimp, if I understood right).

Our first course was meso soup. I know it had some cubes of tofu in it, but I think it had some green onion and seaweed in it. The broth was pretty good, but I would have been just fine if the tofu had been left out. Next was a small salad with the house dressing. We asked the hostess what was in it and she said it was made of fruits and vegetables. It was pretty tasty and can possibly even beat Catalina, my favorite salad dressing.

After that, our main orders were brought to us. The chicken donburi is served on rice. I think the menu said that the donburi contained onions and egg. Probably some other things too. After the first two courses, I knew I wouldn't be able to finish it all in one sitting, but I found a little room to try one of the legs from Ben's shrimp as well as a little of Allen's sushi. Until then, I'd never had "good" sushi before. Actually, the only sushi I'd ever tried was absolutely disgusting and came from one of the girls in my freshman ward who had bought it at a grocery store. I admitted that this sushi (Allen offered me some from the raw side) was actually "all right," but because I'm not much of a seafood person to begin with, I wouldn't go order sushi for myself.
Allen's dragonfly sushi was an interesting creation because it was arranged to look like a dragonfly and had some fish eggs on the top of it as well as some Dynamite sauce, as Ben called it. The sauce was somewhat spicy, hence the name.

Once the hostess made it back to us, we tried some tempura (fried ice cream) that was offered on-the-house. We had the choice of either strawberry or chocolate chip. Everyone really enjoyed it.

When we pulled into the parking lot of Yamato, I was a little concerned since I'm not the most adventurous eater, but when we left, I thought it was a pretty good restaurant. The exterior isn't much to look at, but the interior is decorated quite well, making it a nice place to dine. And now I can have my leftovers for dinner tomorrow!

Bubba Gump and Ghirardelli Square!

2009-07-13T12:02:00.000-07:00

So...I'm finally getting around to my first post. I know I've been a slacker, but school has kept me busy. And as penance for my laziness I have pictures! Michelle and I headed off to San Francisco for Memorial day and while there we got to see many sweet things and eat many amzing delicacies.

At the top of my list was the Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. Restaurant based off the movie Forrest Gump. The movie from which the name of the joint originated plays on a loop on flat screen TV's throughout the restaurant, and all the employs wear Forrest Gump themed shirts as part of their uniforms. The tables are adorned with license plates from Alabama (that's where Forrest is from if you happen to live under a rock and have never seen the movie) that say either "Stop, Forrest, Stop!" if you need assistance from your server or "Run, Forrest, Run!" (which is a famous quote from the movie if you happen to be so socially awkward that you don't know how to interact with people and have never heard that) if you're busy stuffing your face and the servers can continue to assist other patrons. The meal even comes complete with a quiz on Forrest Gump trivia. But now lets get down to it...the food there was amazing! At least their fried shrimp which is what I chose to order! As my friend Matty described it, "it tastes like they cast their shrimp nets right outside the restaurant, catch them, and fry them up fresh." It was delish. Michelle had a chicken salad entree, which she said was good but had a bit too much onion in it, and it was pretty darn huge too, like the size of my head! So...word to the wise when dining at the famed eatery, shrimp good--salads iffy, and if you are so bold as to order one you might consider asking them to go light on the onion.

Shortly following our lunch at Bubba Gump we took a jaunt across town to Ghirardelli Square where we sample their hot chocolate which was the cheapest thing on the menu, and let me tell you it was like heaven in a tiny foam cup!! The how chocolate was just the right temperature, not scalding hot, but warm. It was rather rich, but not in an overwhelming sort of way, just enough to be delicious! It's definitely recommended.

Jason's Deli

2009-07-11T10:17:00.000-07:00

While Felicia finds the time to review Bubba Gump and Ghirardelli, I get to write about Jason's Deli. Felicia put a lot of thought into her order and even asked the cashier which one he preferred- the Chicken Panini or Chicken something-or-other (I think he enjoyed her attention). Obviously, she went with the panini and enjoyed it greatly. I had been considering a Turkey Wrap until I spotted Santa Fe Chicken Sandwich under the Favorites section on the menu. That was my choice. It was really good but could have used a little more sauce.

Jason's Deli includes a bag of their special baked chips with each order as well as a pickle in plastic wrap. Good thing I like pickles because Felicia doesn't. I couldn't let it go to waste. Another note of interest is that the cashier-guy mentioned that there was free ice cream while we waited. I'm not sure if he offered it because he was still flustered from Felicia or because it's free for each customer. In any case, we headed over to the ice cream machine and were devestated to see that they were out of cones. We're still debating about going back, showing our receipts, and demanding a free ice cream cone.

Chipotle

2009-06-03T21:27:00.000-07:00

Felicia and I have been tinkering around for a while now about starting our own food blog. Because we're poor college students, we realized that it would be unrealistic to go around to a bunch of the nicer restaurants in the Provo/Orem area. Thus, this blog will focus on whatever restaurants we do go to. So get ready for some excitement and interesting insights. As well as warnings. The name for the blog came pretty easy. Felicia pretty much relegated me to actually starting the blog and coming up with the name, just as she had me do all the planning for our San Francisco trip--just kidding Felicia! I looked up alternate words for "food" on www.thesaurus.com and came up with a few choices. "Comestible" was an appealing word because how often do you even hear it? From there, I decided that we couldn't just leave the name of our blog as "Comestible," so obviously it needed something a little more. I thought of C words that would fit, and then it hit me that "constable" was sort of similar to "comestible" (well, it starts with "co" and ends with "ble"), so it seemed like a good idea to name it Constable Comestible. After all, we are posing as food critics. Why not be constables of food?

I was assigned the first review, and because Felicia has experienced Chipotle many times and become biased in its favor, it is my task to inform any readers we might actually get on the joys of a Chipotle dining experience. I admit that I was a little baffled as to why Felicia wanted to drive up to Sandy so badly just to go eat at a restaurant named after a pepper, but I went along anyway.

It turns out that they have the best burritos I've ever had at a restaurant--or maybe ever. I tried the grilled chicken burrito with pinto beans, cilantro-lime rice, and mild salsa, but I hear that the steak burrito is tasty too. Although I don't particularly like sour cream, I consented to a little dab on my burrito (you can choose exactly what you want in it; if it pleases you, you can switch pinto beans for black beans), and it tasted good! I won't say I'm converted to sour cream, but it was a dandily yummy burrito. And because everyone knows I'm not the tidiest eater, I didn't have to worry about Felicia staring at me weird as I ate a crumbling burrito. Fortunately, once you get to the stage where it's pretty much impossible to hold in your hand, they do supply you with forks. But if you use a fork to begin with, they'll parade around you singing a little ditty about being a pansy fork-eater. Actually, no they won't.

For locations near you, if any, check www.chipotle.com.