Monsters' Night out: MoMo Style

What is MoMo style? This purely means finding as many discounts, groupons, restaurant.com, happy hour specials as possible so you don't spend full price for anything the entire night! Some might say I am cheap, I like to think I am being smart (what else am I suppose to do when both my husband and I have student loans that we will be paying until we die and a 70 year old house that we are trying to fix up?)

Step 1: Before you go out, go to restaurant.com and choose a restaurant in your area. Print out a coupon and you are good to go (I am a member so I get notifications when they are selling $25 gift certificates for $2, then I just buy 5 at that time and they are saved in my account whenever I need them-thanks to my good friend Lauren for telling me about this incredible website)

Step 2: Meet up early for Happy Hour. I met up with some of my lady friends at Social last night. We absolutely love going there because where else can you get $3 glasses of wine/beer/champagne, $3 appetizers, and $3 pizzas (which by the way are so tasty, I always eat the whole thing). Last night I was good though because I knew I would be meeting up with Mike later for dinner, so Lauren and I shared the Chicken Satay...not the smartest choice. Presentation does not always equal tasty. I would suggest just sticking to their spring rolls and pizza.

Mike met up with his friend at the Recovery Room where they have Happy Hour EVERYDAY from 4-8. He was pretty happy because he was able to get Newcastle for $2.25!

If you have an iphone and live in Charleston (or are visiting) download the "Cocktail Compass" app. It will tell you where every single happy hour is in Charleston and if you are a big sports fan, it will tell you every bar that is playing the game you want to see. It is a pretty handy dandy little tool.

Step 3: Meet up at your chosen restaurant for dinner. We went to Tasty Thai and Sushi on King Street last night. We missed their happy hour, but lucky for us, we had our restaurant.com certificate! We got an order of crab wontons, 2 sushi rolls, 2 orders of Nigiri, a ginormous order of Thai fried rice with chicken, I had a Lychee Peartini, and Mike had a Ginger Mojito and we walked out of there spending $40 including tip for our whole meal. We were 2 very satisfied and very happy monsters at the end of the night.

Look at that beautiful cucumber leaf cutout thing. I loved it so much, I had to take a picture.

Recipe of the day: Fettuccine Alfredo

We made this glorious dish the other night when we had one of our favorite monster friends over, Chelsea. As she put it, "I do not need a napkin Morgan... I will be licking this off of my fingers because this is so f'in good" (I am not sure if those were her exact words, but she said something to that extent). This is another recipe from eatingwell.com; it is the "healthy" version of Fettuccine Alfredo and it is pretty freakin delicious.

http://www.eatingwell.com/recipes/fettuccine_alfredo.html


I have made a few modifications to the recipe because I personally like some protein in my meals. So while I am cooking up the pasta and sauce, I will cook 1-2 chicken breasts (sliced) in a skillet with one sliced up red bell pepper. I only use about a half to a full table spoon of olive oil and season the meat with pepper and garlic powder. As for the sauce, instead of tossing the cheese with the pasta at the end, I just poor the cheese directly into the sauce and let it melt. I also skip on the parsley because I find that grocery stores sell it in such a large amount that it goes bad before I use it all...honestly, you really don't need it.

Also for the fettuccine, I like to use veggie fettuccine (it is made with tomatoes, spinach, and carrots-I think I found it at Harris Teeter), it makes the meal look very "pretty" (I like food that has a lot of color-see below).

Enjoy!

A Family Favorite

I don't know if you have ever been on eatingwell.com, but the Pecan Crusted chicken recipe is one of my favorites (and I guess pan fried chicken is considered healthy???).

Go check it out: http://www.eatingwell.com/recipes/pecan_crusted_chicken.html.

It takes about 30 minutes to make and 5 minutes to eat. Now I am hungry again just thinking about it. I am going to go eat some cereal and go to bed. Good Night.

Victim no. 1: Zocalo

After reading a couple negative reviews about the long awaited Mexican Restaurant located in the up and coming neighborhood of Park Circle, Mike and I were determined to go try Zocalo ourselves and prove the reviews wrong.  Well...unfortunately, they were kind of right. Don't get me wrong, the food was delicious and so were the margaritas, but some items on the menu were on the pricey side for the amount they give you. The guacamole was small ($8.5), but AMAZING and lucky for us, it was National Margarita Day so we got a dollar off our $6 house margaritas (yeah, 6 bucks...we thought that was a bit steep for North Charleston). The other strange thing about place is that the walls are pretty much bare and painted white, so the atmosphere is lacking the intimate feel of a tucked-away Mexican restaurant. Maybe they are still in process of decorating (the outdoor patio still isn't setup), but I really hope they add some more to the interior, otherwise the Monster is not going to be happy.

Mike had the queso fundido ($9) which appeared greasy, but he said it was great. I had their carne asada taco and braised chicken tostada (I honestly can't remember the real name for it-$3.5 each), but they were both really good.

We ended the meal with Zocalo's version of churros ($7)...fried dough balls, drizzled with caramel, sprinkled with powdered sugar and cinnamon, and served with a bowl of creamy warm liquid chocolate...need I say more, we devoured them.

In the end, I guess what we are saying is, it wasn't as expensive as what the reviews made it out to be, but don't expect to take home any leftovers.

and so it begins...

So, here's what ha' happened... Morgan and I (Mike) have been flirting with the idea of her starting a blog for the past couple of years. Tonight, while sitting at a new Mexican restaurant in Park Circle (North Charleston) called Zocalo, we started to recognize just how critical we are about our dining experiences. Of course, the main topic of our discussions is the food itself, but we found ourselves critiquing the entire experience; everything from the music to the interior design to the type of people hanging out at the bar. So, here we are. Putting it all down for you to read. We promise we'll do our best to offer objective interpretations of the experiences, but the Monster won't let it get too boring.