Restaurants

Restaurant Roundup: Elwood’s, Chuy’s, Urban Sip {Charlotte, NC}

1 Comment

ELWOODS BARBECUE & BURGER BAR

Invite me to brunch, and you’ll get a look.  When I ask you “what time” ELWOODS BBQwith furrowed eyebrows, it’s because I’m trying to determine whether you’re inviting me to have 10am brunch (AKA breakfast) or 12pm brunch (AKAlunch).  I don’t do brunch.  I love breakfast and I love lunch.  Why consolidate the eating joy into one meal?

Enter Elwoods Barbecue & Burger Bar‘s new brunch menu.  Needless to say, I ate my words.  Brunch vendetta be gone.  How could I say no knowing their juicy brisket makes an appearance in several of the menu items?  Exactly.  You can get straight-up brisket and eggs if you’d like, but if we’re doing brunch, might as well get a little fancy and go with my top pick:  the brisket BBQ Benedict with poached eggs and grilled tomatoes nestled on English muffin halves and topped with their signature red sauce.  It made a brunch believer out of me.Elwoods Brisket Benedict

If you’re not in the mood for BBQ (blasphemy!), their take on chicken and waffles, with buttermilk fried chicken tenders, a homestyle waffle, and honey maple syrup is a solid choice.  They’ve also got French toast make with thick-cut Texas toast, and you can even get it stuffed with peanut butter and banana or strawberry and cream cheese. Elwoods BBQ waffles

For you do-it-yourselfers, there’s a build-your-own breakfast sandwich, with your choice of bacon, sausage, pulled pork, or pulled chicken, plus an egg, choice of cheese, and bread, PLUS a self-serve Bloody Mary bar.  Homemade, house-made, made-from-scratch–you can use these terms to describe practically everything on the menu, including the breakfast sausage.  I snarfed down my whole side of their hashbrowns–they’re the chunky, chopped potato kind (not the shoestring kind, thank god), and they serve ’em up extra crispy.

Did I mention $10 bottomless mimosas?  Who wants to meet me for brunch this weekend?

Check out my review of the full Elwood’s menu here.

Continue Reading

Recipes

Shrimp & Bean Tostado

2 Comments

YOWZA!  Delicious dinner alert!  In my continued effort to use of more of the leftovers from last night’s dinner, I decided to make a tostado for dinner.  A Tostado is an “open-face” enchilada that you can order at pretty much any Mexican restaurant.  The base for the tostado is a flat hard-shelled taco shell, and it is topped with a variety amazing traditional mexican ingredients. 

First thing first, I need to crisp up my tortilla.  I sprayed a little cake pan with some cooking spray, and then tossed a Mama Lupe low carb tortilla into the pan.  I rubbed the tortilla around in the cooking spray on both sides, then popped into a 415 degree oven.  I cooked the tortilla for about 6 minutes, flipping halfway through. 

Mama Lupe gone crispy:

Meanwhile, I got to work on the shrimpies.  I sprayed a saute pan with cooking spray, seasoned both sides of the shrimp with McCormick’s Mexican blend seasoning, Cayenne pepper, and some black pepper.  Then I tossed them into the pan with a few drizzles of lime juice, and cooked them until opaque.

Next I heated up a 1/4 cup of Old El Paso Fat-Free Refried Beans in the microwave and smeared them on top of the crispy tortilla. 

Come to mama… Mama Lupe that is 😉

I also heated up some of the leftover grilled veggies from last night’s dinner (this was approximately 1/4 cup red onion, 1/4 of a green pepper, and 1/4 cup zucchini).  Once heated, I added the chopped up shrimp and about 1 tbsp of chopped fresh cilantro and gave it a good mix. 

Poured the veggies and shrimp onto the bean loaded tortilla and topped with 1 Sargento Light Mozzarella string cheese that I had cut into sticks:

Into a 415 degree oven for 5 minutes until the cheese was nice and melty… Try not to drool on your keyboard 😉

Ohhhhh yes.

But that’s not all! 

I topped the tostado off with some shredded lettuce, 1/4 chopped red onion, 1/2 a plum tomato, a few banana peppers, and 2 tbsp fat-free breakstones sour cream. 

Yeah that’s right.

Check me out:

Soooooo f.r.i.g.g.i.n. delicious…

The entire time I was eating this I kept thinking “why does this taste SOOOO good?”  

A.)  Cilantro

B.)  Spicy Shrimp

C.)  Beans?? 

D.) VEGGIES GALORE??!?!?

Nope.. It’s actually E.)  All of the above! 😀

Stats on dinner:  323 calories, 36g carbs, 6g fat, 29g protein, 10g fiber

  

Time to get my pack on for the HLS!!!  Anyone have tips for packing light??  I’m trying to avoid checked luggage fees at ALL costs…

 

Continue Reading