Sinking City: Vietnamese Food in Ames

Today I went to my Dad's work and for lunch we ate at a Vietnamese place. The name was Le's Vietnamese Restaurant. It's in Ames, Iowa.

For an appetizer we ordered those see-through things with the noodles and fresh stuff. What are they called? Spring rolls. Not the fried ones. They were filled with pork and shrimp and something that looked like noodles and tasted like nothing, that was the clear part. And there was lettuce and cucumber. There was a peanut or peanut butter sauce. It was OK but I wasn't really a big fan because it was too sweet and it tasted a little bit like soy sauce to me. The roll tasted good. I like those because it's sort of like a salad that you can pick up.

I ordered something with noodles and soup on the side. Or at least, that's what I thought. So the thing was there were noodles and there was soup on top of the noodles. The noodles were in a soup. I didn't really like it. I mean the soup tasted sort of like chicken broth and it was sort of nutty tasting too. Some of the pork was too dry. Actually, none of the pork was too dry. I just wasn't a very big fan.

But my dad's food, jalapeño beef, I really liked it. The beef tasted good because it had a sauce with the rice. And the sauce went really good with the rice. The sauce was sort of like a steak sauce, well, not a steak sauce but it just went really good with rice and beef. And then I didn't want the jalapeños because sometimes I just don't want to have something that's really spicy. I asked for fried rice because I wanted something hot and dry to wash the soup taste out of my mouth. And then I ate the rest of Dad's stuff. It tasted really good. The rice and steak and sauce went well with the bell peppers. The rice is a plain taste but the bell pepper is like a crunch. Rice you don't even need to chew it because it's tiny grains. So I had a pretty decent lunch off of what I ate off my dad's plate.

And there's one more thing, this awesome hot and sour soup. It wasn't really sour, just a hint of sour to make it really good. It was kind of chunky too, and I liked that. And then it was hot. And that made a good feel in my throat. It was a little bit spicy and a little bit sour. And it tasted really good.

So that's my review for today. Chili today, hot tamale. Do you get it? Chili today? Sort of like hot tomorrow, but hot tamale.

Rice Party

Today I was in Nevada. Me and my dad were thinking about going to Mayhem, the comic book store, and we were thinking about having lunch, so we walked around a little bit. And we found a place called Rice House. It was a new restaurant, and it was a Korean restaurant. We got it to go.

I ordered kimchi fried rice, and my dad got bibimbop. We also got dumplings. My fried rice had pickled cabbage; it sounds weird but it was pretty good. It also had an egg and some fish squares. The pickled cabbages tasted sour and they were crunchy because that’s what pickles and cabbage are like. The fish squares were kind of chewy like rubber and they tasted like fish (I don’t know what fish tastes like, really). They tasted sort of…meaty? Kind of?

I tried my dad’s bibimbop. It was pretty good, and it was a teeny bit spicy. Just a teeny bit, because of the sauce. If you’re wondering why the picture looks weird, the rice came in a different box, so that’s why.

The dumplings tasted like they had some sort of meat inside. I forgot what kind. They were not very crunchy, but they were good. Even without the soy sauce. There were also some vegetables inside of it. Even though I can’t remember what meat and vegetables they had inside it, they tasted pretty good, still.

If you want to try the bibimbop, if you get too much hot sauce it will make your tongue hurt, so don’t get too much hot sauce. Rice House is a good restaurant. You should go there sometime, but don’t get too much food because a sign there said, “Get sides that you can eat, do not waste food,” so don’t get too much food. Just get the right amount, that’s my advice for you.

Avengers Food

This is the first in "eating food I see in movies" blogs. This is No. 1: The Avengers. If you've seen Avengers, you'll know what I'm talking about today. At the very end, Iron Man invites all the Avengers to go to a restaurant and they all get the same thing: a beef shawarma.

And today we went to a restaurant, The Cafe, that had that! The Cafe is up in Ames, by where my mom and dad went to college. It's by Iowa State. Well, somewhat close to it.

At first, I was wondering what shawarma was and then my dad told me it was from the end of Avengers. Then I kind of remembered it, and he said they were all eating shawarma  So then I remembered it and I was like, "Hmmm." When it was my turn to order, I told the waitress, "I want beef shawarma," that's also what my dad got, too.

So as I was waiting for my food they had these things called wiki sticks. They were like little wax strands that you can stick together and make almost anything out of them. I was making people and playing around with them. I was waiting for my food to come.

Before I got my food, I ordered an iced tea. Here is a new thing that you probably don't know yet. For my New Year's resolution I said I will not be drinking pop anymore. So you won't see it in any of my reviews.

The beef shawarma came with cous cous that had tomatoes, cucumbers, green onions and parsley. They tasted really fresh and it was OK. I have to say, it wasn't my favorite. But the shawarma was the really good part. First it tasted like a gyro, and I love gyros.

In the shawarma there was shaved beef, cole slaw and pickled vegetables and it came with two dipping sauces. One was a ranchy kind that I really liked and the other tasted like tomato soup to me, I didn't like it at all. And since I loved the shawarma so much, I could only eat two pieces since I also ate a huge piece of baked potato pizza. It was very funky. My mom got it because she loves baked potatoes.

So I took home two pieces of shawarma and later in the afternoon, ohhhh my stomach wasn't feeling that good. It must have been the seasoning on the potatoes on the pizza. But anyways, the shawarma was a really good sandwich and I'm going to take one piece of my leftovers to lunch tomorrow.

My dessert was chocolate cake. I asked my mom if I could have the chocolate candy piece that was on top of it. But I hated it! Guess what it was? A Whopper! I hate those. You guys might like those but I don't. The cake was very chocolatey and tasted good. The frosting was very sweet. I liked it. But I really wanted my dad's cake. It was a lemon one with fresh fruit on the sides because it was so rich.

We were at the restaurant today because it was my dad's birthday and you always have to go to where the birthday boy wants to eat. So we went to The Cafe. I was not in school because it was Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

That's all for today's review.

I might try to have French fondue next because that's what they had in Captain America.

From the Archives: Indian Foods Are Interesting

Originally published February 15, 2012

Today for lunch I went to India Palace restaurant in Ames, Iowa. When we first opened the door, something odd stood before us. It had stairs that leaded down, underground, and that's where the cafe was. (Can I tell them a tip?) Let's say if a police officer was wanting to go to a restaurant and he picked India Palace, he would have to look for the door. He wouldn't be able to walk through the glass. If he walked through the glass he would get cut up a lot and he would also fall down the stairs. Ow! Painful, I know.

So, we went to our table. It was me, my dad Shawn, my grandpa Dwayne, my grandma Belinda and my uncle Brian. I ordered Diet Coke. It's strange that I order it at every restaurant. But I really like it. Well, I got a plate at the cafe and I picked out my stuff for my meal. It was a buffet. First, I got white rice and then I picked seven dishes for my meal.

I picked Navrttan Korma, that means peas and carrots. I thought it was kind of good. It had potatoes. I don't think potatoes are good. Except for these ones because they had sauce on them. Next I ate Alu Gobhi, that means cauliflower. The sauce on the cauliflower was good because it was hot sauce. Then I ate Alu Chatt, that's like salsa with garbanzo beans. It was OK. Next was Mint Chutney -- it looked green, gooey and slimy. But when I tasted it, it tasted good -- sour, peppery and a tiny bit of spice was in it.

Next I ate the Papudum. That's a chip -- it didn't taste good to me. It was salty. The reason I didn't like it was because it tastes like an almond. I don't like almonds. Next I ate the rice -- it was delicious! I've had it before and it is awesome. It was white rice. Next I ate the Pakora -- it's spinach chips fried. I loved them! They were crunchy, a little sweet with a vegetable taste. Next I ate the Zucchini. It was spicy and I also didn't like it. But it's still good that I tried it. Next I ate the Naan -- the Naan is a bread that looked like a quesadilla. Except there was no cheese inside of it, instead there was bread inside of it. It tasted great! It was a dull white.

Next I ate one bite of my dessert because I was almost full. It was rice pudding. It tasted sweet. It was slimy. It tasted creamy with noodles in it. It was good. Then I stood up and put my coat on and Shawn asked me if I was ready to go and I said yes. So we went. And that's all.

Restaurant Rating: Thumbs Up!

You should go to the India Palace restaurant sometime because you can make your own meal. It is in Ames, Iowa. I hope you had fun reading it. See you soon on my next restaurant adventure!

Small Restaurant, Good Food

Today we got food from Chinese Home Cooking in Ames, Iowa. Inside it looked really small and they had lots of pops up by the desk where you get your food. It was small and quite a few tables and it was pretty nice-looking inside.

I got shrimp fried rice, spicy crab rangoons, spicy chicken, and hot and sour soup. First I tried the chicken with jalapeno. It is an appetizer.

The first time I tried one with a jalapeno and I burnt my tongue and it was hot in my throat a lot. It was kind of hot, not super hot like habaneros. When it was first hot I drank some water and I drank some milk.

Then I tried salt on my tongue but all that did was make it spicier but when I started eating my fried rice it went away immediately.

The shrimp fried rice is a really, really good meal. The rice is hot (not spicy, like “sun” hot) and it tastes good because it’s hot. And it’s really kind of crispy a little bit, and it tastes really good with the eggs and shrimp on it. The eggs are like scrambled eggs and they’re also hot and they taste really good, too. It tastes kind of better than scrambled eggs, like fried scrambled eggs. And the shrimp is hot, too, and it tastes really good with the rice since it’s all hot, and fried rice is good hot. It was my favorite entrée.

Then I tried some hot and sour soup. It tasted hot and sour, but it was more “sour and sweet” than “hot and sour,” so I think they got the name a little bit wrong. And I think spicy and sour isn’t a good mixture, anyway, but sweet and sour is a pretty good mixture to me. I would like that more.

You can see my pop in the picture and I told my dad that I wanted pop from the restaurant but he said that I had to get it from his work.

Then I tried the spicy crab rangoon and since I was so busy eating the rice I took one bite. It wasn’t that spicy, but I think it had tiny bits of jalapeno in it and that made it taste really good. The outside tastes crispy and that’s how all crab rangoons’ outsides taste like.

  

The food was really, really good and I might have it another day.

Restaurant Rating: Thumbs Up

Warning! - Please do not eat 3 jalapenos at a time like my dad does and I even thought his tongue got burnt! You might turn white and I don’t know what would happen, it might be messy!

From the Archives: Fishes in the Tank

Originally published February 18, 2012

I went to Fuji Japanese restaurant in Ames, Iowa. I saw a fake whale skeleton and a fountain. We found our table. The table had a cooking stove and tools that helped you cook. The chef did the cooking at our table -- I thought it was pretty cool.

I also liked it because there was a fish tank and they gave me a hat for my head. It was a cooking hat like the chefs wore.

I ordered Hibachi Chicken because they would cook it in front of me. It came with appetizers. My choices for appetizers were salad or soup. I chose the miso soup. I like it because it has tofu in it and onions. We got sushi for our appetizer also -- there was a lot of different kinds of rolls. I liked the sushi.

Then the chef came. He put sauce in our bowls. Then he asked me if I wanted to see a big fire flame. And I said yes! So he put some cooking oil on and then he lighted it and it made a gigantic flame! Bo thought it was cool, too, because, you know, he likes fire.

Then he made some eggs. He flipped an egg into my mouth, but it didn't go in that time. So he tried again. And he flipped it and it landed right in my mouth and I ate it. Everybody at the table got an egg flipped into their mouth, except Bo. He didn't want to do it because he doesn't like eggs.

Then he made the rice. He mixed it up with the eggs and he put it on our plates. Then he made the stove hot and he threw on the vegetables. He used onions to make an onion volcano. He cut the onion into onion rings and he stacked them on top of each other. It looked like a volcano. Then he put some cooking oil inside and he made it light and it made a big flame. And then he cut them up and it made an onion island. And then he put them on our plates. Then he made our chicken and shrimp and steak and scallops. Then he put that on our plates and we ate it.

 

I thought the food tasted good -- it tasted spicy when I put the sauce on. The chicken was good. The whole plate was also colorful because of the rice and the vegetables. And that's all.

Restaurant Rating: Thumbs Up!

You should go to the Fuji restaurant in Ames, Iowa. You should go there because they cook the food right in front of you and you'll see an onion volcano!

From the Archives: Korean Foods Are Interesting

Originally published March 20, 2012

Today I went to The Scallion Korean restaurant in Ames, Iowa, with my dad Shawn. The restaurant was a street restaurant, not very fancy. But when you go inside it is very fancy -- it's clean, it's colorful and small. We both ordered the bi bim bop.

Bi bim bop is a mix of rice, vegetables and meat. Sometimes it has sauce in it. The sauce makes it very good. It was in a very hot bowl -- I couldn't touch it because it was super hot. I touched it once and it burnt my hands. The rice goes in on the bottom, the vegetables go next. There was zucchini, seaweed, carrots, bean sprouts. And then pork. That was the only kind of meat. And then an egg goes on top. It wasn't scrambled, it was like the white on the outside and yellow on the in part. You're supposed to stir it up so you don't have to take big bite. I tried the spicy red sauce. I didn't like it because it kind of tasted bitter and hot, and the flavor I didn't like. The bi bim bop was good. It was so colorful and it was a mix of funky flavors and that's why it was great.

 

 

We also got dumplings. The dumplings came with soy sauce. The dumplings had a wonton wrapper. A wonton wrapper is like a crunchy kind of good food. It was fried to make it crunchy. They put vegetables and meat inside the wonton. They tasted great with the soy sauce on them. Four came in the order. They were big. I ate three and Shawn ate one.

Restaurant rating: Thumbs Up!

You should go to Ames, Iowa, to The Scallion and try the bi bim bop and the dumplings.