It’s restaurant week in Collingswood! If any of you are New Jersey locals, you must know about Collingswood and it’s restaurants. For restaurant week, participating locations make a special menu for the event (usually 3-4 courses) and list it at a reasonable price.

Today my boyfriend and I stopped at Akira for a late lunch. I have actually eaten here before, but the restaurant week menu had a few things I wanted to check out. 

I ordered:

• Avocado Salad -Avocado on mixed green salad served with healthy ginger
• Sexy Jalapeño - Tempura Jalapeño stuffed with Spicy Tuna, Seaweed Salad & cream cheese served with spicy mango sauce
• Sushi Dinner - Tuna, Salmon, Fluke, Striped Bass,Yellowtail, Shrimp, White Tuna with a Spicy Tuna Roll
• Gelato Hearts

Although I am not a huge fan of avocado, I really enjoyed this salad. It’s a basic green salad,  typical of most sushi or hibachi restaurants, topped with avocado, ginger dressing and mango sauce. The only thing I would have changed would be a little less mango sauce. It was incredibly sweet and really overpowered everything else. I would rather have a touch of mango and more ginger dressing.

My second course was the sexy jalapeno. It’s like sushi jalapeno poppers! As I ate, each pepper had more seeds than the last. (If you didn’t know, the heat is in the seeds and veins of the pepper.) After my third pepper I was dying for more water. I already went through the glass at the table and had to grab the water bottle from my purse to refill my glass! I am not sure if this was intentional, possibly part of the eating experience, or accidental. Either way these were yummy, just very spicy. (Make sure you have water nearby.)

After a few glasses of water, I moved on to the sushi dinner platter. It was a decent array of sushi and presented very nicely. The tuna was my favorite, but the entire platter was enjoyable. (Although I didn’t try every piece. I traded one piece of sushi to my boyfriend in exchange for another tuna roll.)

When it came to the desserts, I was really hoping to have their heart-shaped crème brûlée, but they ran out. I had the heat-shaped gelato instead. Most sushi shops and hibachis around here do not make their own desserts, so I wasn’t surprised when I got my little confection-coated heart of “gelato.” While the presentation was lovely, the actual “gelato” heart was lack luster. The outside is a thick, hard, waxy coating. Inside was a creamy ice cream, that I think was strawberry… the flavor was a bit difficult to place.

Overall the meal itself was pretty nice, but if I were able to do it again I would opt for a different dessert.

© Maria Smith http://poison-and-antidote.net

Like me on facebook to keep up with all my adventures!

One of my favorite holiday candies. Just as cute as conversation hearts, but MUCH tastier. I love Gobstoppers, and this is my favorite version of them.

The design for the bag is pretty bright and obnoxious, which is typical for Wonka candies. The design easily catches the eyes of kids, but I think a lot of adults would pass on these. (Which is a shame!)

If you’ve never had a Gobstopper, it’s a candy that was created in the book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. (It was also featured in both versions of the film.) In the book/film there is a candy, with the same name, that lasts forever. It won’t ever get any smaller or lose it’s flavor as you suck on it. The Gobstoppers that we actually have in our stores today are small jawbreakers with several candy coated layers. Each layer has it’s own distinct flavor and there is a sweet-tart-like center. 

Since these “heartbreakers” are holiday themed, they do not come in the typical gobstopper flavors. This bag contains:

• Yellow - lemon->strawberry->center
• Pink - strawberry->cherry->center
• Red- cherry->lemon->center
• Orange- orange->lemon->center
• Purple- grape->strawberry->center

The flavors are sweet and mild, but some are stronger than others. I think the lemon is the strongest of the bunch and grape i the weakest, but they all blend nicely together.

I love this candy because is tastes great, looks adorable, and fits perfectly in your mouth. I have them in candy bowls all over my house because they look so festive and my friends all seem to love the taste. If your looking to replace conversation hearts in your Valentine’s Day goodie bags, I strongly recommend these.

© Maria Smith http://poison-and-antidote.net

Like me on facebook to keep up with all my adventures!