Quick Bite in Tampa: Cali

After being on the road for a little over six hours, we settled in to our hotel and stopped at Cali, where they serve “California inspired bowls, brick oven pizzas, fresh wraps – all made to order.” There are four locations in South Florida all part of the Ciccio Restaurant Group, and this one in South Tampa was 5 minutes from our hotel.

We started with the “Golden State,” one of their house made juices, and is made from carrot, apple, ginger, and lemon; and the “Lavender Cacao” wellness latte, which is raw cacao, CBD oil, maca, and lavender simple syrup. I had mine with almondmilk, as dairy milk doesn’t exactly agree with me.

We also started with the Crispy Artichokes with lime Caesar dressing, which was fried in a tempura batter and very delicious.

For their Cali bowls (which is very customizable), you first pick a bowl itself, followed by a base, and finally a protein. My mom chose the Thai bowl, which consists of mango, scallions, jicama, carrots, cilantro, crispy wontons, peanut aioli, and togarashi (a Japanese spice blend). She went with the suggested base and protein of Udon noodles and chargrilled chicken.

For mine, I chose the Mexican bowl, which had black beans, cheddar (they also note that you can replace cheese in any menu item with vegan cheese with no extra cost), pico de gallo, smashed avocado, lime sour cream, and a side of salsa. I opted for a base of mixed greens and jackfruit carnitas for my protein, and added pickled jalapeños to the mix.

Everything was very fresh, tasty, and not too heavy, and the perfect end to a very long road trip day. My only con? That they don’t have one near me!

New Orleans: What I Ate

This past week my friend and I took a road trip to New Orleans to see Don Broco in support of Dance Gavin Dance. It marked only the third time I’ve ever been to New Orleans (I KNOW), and I wished we had stayed longer to try to eat EVERYTHING.

When we got to Louisiana we went straight to the Cajun Pride Swamp Tours, which operates out of the Manchac Swamp and where visitors can see all kinds of wildlife. What we saw on our trip were mostly alligators, softshell turtles, raccoons, blue heron, and fox squirrels.

As soon as the tour concluded we went straight to our first food destination: Seed, a vegan restaurant located in the Lower Garden District. While I currently follow a pescetarian diet, I do like to seek out and try more vegan and vegetarian options.

We tried the Southern Fried Nuggets with Garlic Aioli, Artichoke Cakes, Sweet Corn Polenta (not pictured), Vegetable Etouffee, and a side of Mac & Cheese, as well as mango lassi for each of us.

We loved everything we got and were happy with our portions - my only complaint was that I was too full to try more! My friend was particularly surprised at how the nuggets tasted just like chicken, and how creamy the Mac & Cheese was. It was also the first time she tried polenta, which she said was A+. Next time I’m definitely making it a goal to try one of their po’ boys and their gumbo.

Next up we did the French Quarter Haunted Pub Crawl through Haunted History Tours, after which we stopped at Café du Monde for beignets and frozen cafe au lait to decide what we were going to eat for dinner.

It’s not a pretty picture, or a sharp one…

We ended up not going anywhere else the rest of the night for some odd reason, but the beignets were a nice and filling snack.

The next morning we woke up around 6:30 to get to Cafe Beignet at the Royal Street location before it got too crowded, which was definitely the right decision.

Again, not a pretty picture but we couldn’t wait to eat it

I got the crawfish omelette while my friend got the Western omelette, and they both came with a side of French bread and grits. This was also the perfect portion, and the omelettes were satisfying and had just the right amount of filling. In fact, I managed to find room for their beignets, which were also perfect.

After wandering around the Quarter for a bit and getting more coffee, I wanted to stop into House of Pepper to taste some of their Carolina Reaper sauces. Now I don’t know much about the pepper, but the ladies at the register informed us that the Carolina Reaper is currently the second hottest pepper grown. The sauces I wanted to try that day didn’t need a waiver, but the ones that did were in a locked case that were upwards of 3 million Scoville units!

These were more my speed.

My dad tried to scare me by showing me videos of people trying things flavored with Carolina Reaper (people that tried the pepper straight apparently went to the hospital), and even showed me the Shaq video.

But still, I tried three sauces. And they were definitely the hottest sauces I’ve ever had, for sure. My mouth was still burning for twenty minutes. So naturally I bought two of the three I tried, they were just that good.

Afterwards we stopped at the French Market and browsed around before stopping to get some Gator Bites and Gator on a Stick from World Famous N’awlins Cafe & Spice Emporium.

Just call me the Queen of Not A Pretty Picture at this point

These were delicious, but winner was the Gator on a Stick. Also, the Cajun potatoes were the perfect side to these. Buttery and just the right amount of spice.

After a little more shopping stopped to get more coffee and made our way to Willa Jean for a late lunch before heading to the show.

We started with the artichoke dip with crostini, which was SO cheesy and delicious I wanted to eat it with a spoon. I had the smoked salmon toast, which also had cream cheese, capers, tomato, red onion, and herbs, while my friend had the pimento grilled cheese with spicy creole tomato soup (not pictured). For dessert we tried their cookies and (vanilla) milk, which was decorated with cookie dough on a hook. Overall this was a great light lunch, and once again my only regret was that I was too full to order more food.

Then it was show time! As you can imagine we did a lot of drinking and didn’t eat after the show.

The next morning I worked up an appetite. We walked over to Café Fleur De Lis and unsurprisingly ordered a lot of food.

We both ordered the oyster benedict and split the fried green tomatoes. I’d only ever had oysters once, so I wasn’t sure how this was supposed to taste. I loved it at first bite! The fried oysters with the spicy hollandaise sauce was so flavorful next to the eggs and creamed spinach. We also tried to order King Cake beignets but they were unavailable. Hopefully next time we can try them!

We checked out the Pharmacy Museum next, and spent a good hour and a half there - there’s a lot to take in just on the ground floor alone! We also took a break in Finnegan’s Easy and got more coffee at a CC’s before continuing on through the Quarter.

Sucré was our next coffee stop (can you tell we can’t get enough coffee?), and soon enough we were also getting gelato, spiked milkshakes, and macarons.

Sorry about my dry hands

I ordered the Grasshopper and eight different macarons, while my friend ordered coffee and gelato before she caved and also ordered a Grasshopper. Of all of the macarons, I have to say the Lavender Honey was my favorite.

We then went to Acme Oyster House. Though there is one where I live, I had never been and chose the place to try it.

We ordered the chargrilled oysters, fried oyster platter (not pictured), and two oyster shooters, which consist of Tabasco and a raw oyster in vodka. I do have to point out, I ended up taking both of those shooters because it wasn’t my friend’s thing.

We continued to walk through Bourbon Street for a couple of hours and stopped into a few shops before ending the night with Olde Nola Cookery, specifically for the Gator Tail Bites and the Cajun Jambalaya Pasta.

Over the three days we spent in New Orleans we made constant trips to Envie Espresso Bar & Cafe for (boozy) coffee and tea, and on the morning we left we stopped in for omelets.

We ordered the Vegetarian and the Avocado omelets with our coffee, both of which were perfect. The goat cheese brought the whole omelet together.

On our way out of the city we stopped in to Dong Phuong Bakery & Restaurant and it was so packed and busy we couldn’t move, and the line quickly became long behind us. It was absolutely worth the wait though.

I wished we had more time to spend in New Orleans! The places we stopped at were just the tip of the iceberg, there were so much more places I wished we could’ve also gone to. Where should we stop by next in this city?