Wednesday, May 11, 2011

LaSpada's Hoagies (University Drive)

LaSpada1

     Back when I was in high school I remember hearing about LaSpada's and how everyone loved the food there.  Now I didn't have a car back then and where I went out to eat was basically at the whim of my parents.  You can imagine that as an Asian household we didn't really go out for hoagies or the like very often/at all.   As a result, the name LaSpada's would disappear from my mind until just recently.

     As I was driving one weekend back to campus from home, I noticed a sign that read LaSpada's Hoagies.  Was this the same place that I've heard of, the famed LaSpada's?  If it was LaSpada's what did they even serve?  It sounded Italian and every time I had heard of LaSpada's from someone in high school it wasn't associated with a type of food, just that it was "so good!"  I definitely didn't associate hoagies with the name, but apparently that's what they are known for - really large hoagies with fresh cut deli meats (the fact that the sign said "LaSpada's Hoagies" should have been another tip off).

     The plaza that LaSpada's is located in is very nondescript.  I suppose the only good thing about it is that it's a stone's throw from Nova Southeastern University.  I honestly wouldn't have stopped by if it wasn't for the fact that they had awesome word of mouth back in the Boca area.  Apparently LaSpada's has opened up a few locations, 4 to be exact, throughout Florida.  The interior is extremely simple - tables, chairs, and the counter where the hoagies are made.  The walls really don't have anything on them, they're just white/no frills. The place really doesn't have much of a personality of its own, but it's not the decor which matters in the end, just the food. ^_^

LaSpada2

     The menu is really easy to read and honestly you have one of two choices: grab a salad or a hoagie for lunch.  They have all your basic cuts of deli meats available, chicken salad, meatballs, and even crabmeat.  I knew I was going to get an 8" hoagie, but I was debating between the chicken salad and roast beef.  I'm such a sucker for anything with mayo, so I was leaning towards the chicken salad.  One of the employees beind the counter took notice of my conundrum and kindly let me try out the chicken salad, which I thought was cool, before making my decision. The chicken salad was simply dressed with just a bit of celery and tossed lightly in mayonnaise; not a ton of fancy non-related fixings here.  Though the chicken was moist and cooked well, it was slightly lacking in flavor.   Maybe if they added a tinge bit more of salt it would have been better.  In the end I opted for the roast beef on white.

     At LaSpada's all the meat is sliced fresh right in front of you.  None of this pre-sliced, pre-measured stuff.  They bring out the huge hunk of meat, slice it in front of you, weigh it, and then place it on your hoagie.  After choosing a plethora of toppings they topped the hoagie with even more roast beef!  I'm guessing it's to keep the fixings from falling out. =)  That's my best guess and I'm sticking to it!
 
LaSpada3

     It was a pretty big hoagie, more so in girth than in length.  Since I had some studying to do I wrapped it back up and headed over to the dorm to devour it in peace along with microbiology notes.  I took the picture below in my dorm, so you could see the ratio of meat to fixings.  There's no way that the entire "small" hoagie was fitting in my stomach by the way, nu-uh.  I finished half for lunch and saved the other half for a midnight snack later.

LaSpada4

     With tax it was a little under $8 for the hoagie at LaSpada's.  At Publix, its equivalent (if you got Boar's Head brand deli meat) would be around the same price, I believe it's 30 cents cheaper or so.  LaSpada's hoagie's fillings have a decreased chance of falling out when you're eating it and I like their bread better than what they have available at Publix.  Otherwise, I'd say their hoagies/subs are about equivalent.  Now I'm not dissing LaSpada's by any stretch of the imagination, I think Publix subs are quite good actually and definitely both are far better choices than Subway or Quiznos.  In the end, I'm not head over heels in love with LaSpada's or hoagies in general, but if I feel in the mood for a good sandwich, LaSpada's wouldn't be a bad choice. =)

LaSpada's Original Hoagies
Davie
2645 S. University Dr.
(954) 476-1099
LaSpada's Original Hoagies on Urbanspoon

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Boiling Point (California - West Garvey Avenue)

Boiling Point 1 - Sign

  California back post 4 of 6.  Stinky tofu, the first time I had heard of it was on Andrew Zimmerman's Bizarre Foods; though his description of it really didn't sound all that appetizing.  However, I knew my boyfriend had always wanted to try it out, so when we went to California we stopped by Boiling Point in West Garvey.  Upon spying the poster in the window facing the street I immediately gravitated to the house special hot soup.  I <3 exotic cuts of meats!

Boiling Point 2 - Special

     The restaurant itself was pretty small, but it wasn't bad finding seating as we came pretty early for lunch service.  However as we started eating, it quickly got busier as the peak of the lunch hour approached.  With all the hot pots in the room it quickly heated up the surrounding environment, so it was fairly warm inside the restaurant.  Thankfully I love the heat (<3 for Florida being warm 90% of the year), so it didn't bug me very much.  However, I can see how after a while it might start to have an effect on others who might not like the room being that warm.  Midway through service, the staff did end up opening a window over the door in order to let out some of the excess heat.

Boiling Point 10 - Inside

     It was $8.99 for each hot pot with a free beverage for the lunch special, I mean who can beat that?  The hot pots are individually sized and they're of a decent portion.  Of course I decided on the House Special Hot Soup which contained stinky tofu, pork intestines, meat balls, salty veggies, quail egg, green nira, cilantro, pork blood, enoki mushroom, kamaboko, pork slicers, nappa, and tomato.  *Whew* What a long ingredient list full of wonderful off beat proteins and I was excited to try them all!  Depending on how adventurous you felt, you could ask them to tweak the spiciness level of the soup base from mild to an authentic spice level (which I'm going to guess is incredibly hot).  I chose to be somewhere in the middle, as I wasn't in the mood to tempt the fates with the top level of spiciness. =)

     So after we made our hot pot selections we added onto our order some extras like more slices of meat, meatballs, fishballs, blood cakes, etc. on the side.  It reminded me of ordering dim sum since the menu resembled a dim sum menu, putting the numbers of orders we wanted next to the item.  While we waited for our food we grabbed some of the special dipping sauces they had available: Spicy garlic bean paste, garlic creamy soy sauce, and the house special spicy sauce.  You could either dip random cooked items in them directly or spice up your hot pot's broth, whatever you felt like!  The house special spicy sauce was my favorite, the bean paste not so much...but that's entirely preference because I'm not a fan of beans (don't let my distaste of beans deter you from trying the sauce).  I remember the garlic soy sauce didn't really wow me since it was just...garlic + soy sauce, nothing too special.

Boiling Point 3 - Sauces

     After a little bit of waiting, the parade of extras started to come out of the kitchen...

Boiling Point 4 - Bloodcakes
Boiling Point 5 - More add ons
Boiling Point 6 - Add ons

     Just a friendly bit of advice, if you order the blood cakes don't let them sit around for too long because as we would later find out they have this tendency to um...un-coagulate.  X_x  

     Our table was nearly overwhelmed with the amount of extras!  I don't think we were entirely prepared for the onslaught of food, we severely underestimated the amount of food we were going to receive.  To make matters worse (or better... ^_^ definitely better) the hot pots then came out!

Boiling Point 7 - Hot pot (top view)
Boiling Point 8 - Hot pot (side view)
Boiling Point 9 - Hot pot (top view)

     It was a steaming bowl of pure yummy goodness.  To take a quote from Grey's Anatomy, I could see "lines of deliciousness" emanating from the hot pot!  My only gripe was that because there were so many components for my hotpot that I only received a small portion of each item (my favorite part was the blood cakes).  Everything still tasted amazing though, all the flavors worked really well together, and honestly we had a bunch of random supplements to add on to what we purchased so I wasn't too upset about not having more blood cake, meatballs, fishballs, etc.

     Onto the stinky tofu, why we actually came here!  It actually didn't have as offensive of a smell that I thought it would possess.  It was actually a very mild odor, faintly smelling of gym socks (the best way I can describe it).  The taste was like one of those smelly cheeses, it wasn't that off putting, it just tasted like a mildly aged cheese but in the form of tofu.  It wasn't bad by any means, but it seems to be more of an acquired taste.

     By the way, don't worry about losing your soup base to evaporation because one of the waiters will happily come by to replenish the supply.  My boyfriend was slightly miffed when I had them refill his soup while he was off in the restroom because I diluted all the concentrated goodness that the proteins and veggies had imparted.  Whoops... ^_^()  The same applies if the fire underneath the hot pot seems to go out.  I know we ran out of sterno at a few points and the waiters were more than happy to relight the fire.

     Overall we had a fantastic time at boiling point.  The food and service were great and the price was right!  If I didn't have so many other places that I plan to visit my next trip out to California, I'd definitely stop by and eat here again.  <3  Boiling point, keep on doing what you're doing.

Boiling Point
153 West Garvey Avenue
Monterey Park, CA 91754-2801
(626) 288-9876
Boiling Point on Urbanspoon

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

The return to Half & Half Teahouse (California - San Gabriel)

     Back post from California - post 3 of 6!  Perhaps what makes posting older pictures more exciting is that I'm going back to California in just a little over a month.  I'm really looking forward to returning to a few of my favorite places as well as visiting a ton of new restaurants. ^___^  Sooooo excited!


     Anyways, a group of us went to visit Half & Half Teahouse in San Gabriel since I was having massive cravings for honey boba.  I'm not sure how they infuse the boba with the honey taste, but keep on doing what you're doing Half & Half Teahouse, because they are out of this world.  Usually boba doesn't tickle my fancy as it only serves as a vehicle for texture contrast, but the honey imparts a subtle sweetness which I <3.  


     The ambiance had changed slightly from our last visit.  Last time it was a rather chill place to hang out and have snacks and boba.  I loved the fact that people were playing WoW (WoW = World of Warcraft) in the back of the teahouse last time!  However, I guess it had gotten a LOT more popular because the place was packed and didn't really seem as conducive to simply sitting down and chilling for long periods of time.  In fact I would have felt quite rude to linger about at a table sipping my boba slowly and snacking with my friends (only because I'm a slow eater) since people were lining up out the door waiting for a place to sit down.  It's good that they are busy though!


     I noticed that in my absence they had added shaved ice to the menu.  Score!  I wanted to try shaved ice for the first time and that was actually on my fooding itinerary for the California trip.  "Find shaved ice," double check!   Since I loved my boyfriend's almond milk tea so much last visit I ordered one this time around (with honey boba, of course).  My boyfriend ordered a sesame milk tea and we also ordered a shaved ice to share.  

Half & Half Almond Half & Half Sesame

     I felt that the almond milk tea had a stronger, more pronounced flavor than the sesame milk tea, but they were both very good.  And it's always a plus when the boba is cooked well, which they were.  No one likes half-way cooked boba!  A few minutes after our drinks arrived, the shaved ice was served to our table.

Half and Half Teahouse 1

     I forget what the name it had on the menu, but it had honey boba, custard, caramel, and a scoop of icecream.  I was in heaven, it was just soooo yummy!!!  Each component was flavorful on their own and when tasted all together everything blended harmoniously.  The only sad thing was that there was so much that we couldn't eat it fast enough before it started to melt!  X_x  And melted ice = not so yummy, so eat it quickly!  Well...not too fast.  Too Fast = brain freeze.

     I can't wait to go back, just hopefully it's not during peak hours this time.  XD

Half & Half Tea House
120 N. San Gabriel Blvd.
San Gabriel, CA 91775
(626) 309-9387
Half & Half Tea House on Urbanspoon

LinkWithin

Related Posts with Thumbnails