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Entries Tagged as 'Restaurants'

Turkish Kebab’s Subs and Grill

August 30th, 2011 · 5 Comments · Local stores, Restaurants, Sandwich, Turkish

 

Have you been in a convenience store lately? It used to be that you could only find sad packages of stale sunflower seeds, Slim Jims, or half smushed Hostess snack packs, but not much else. You may have been able to buy your late night desperation pint of ice cream, but usually it wasn’t the good flavor. For decades, convenience stores weren’t filled with what one wanted, but rather what one, in a moment of irrationality, believed they needed.

Now I have certainly been grateful at times for the salvation of convenience stores: that Snickers bar in Fort Bragg after driving unintentionally three hours up the Pacific Coast Highway without having eaten all day, and the air conditioning in a Buttonwillow gas station when it was 120°F come to mind. But these experiences have been few and far between. It used to be that I wouldn’t stop in one unless I was truly desperate.

I am here to share that times are ‘a changing. In New England, a curious thing seems to be happening. This region has hopes and dreams for convenience stores, and is pushing for a small revolution. Taking it a new level. The ultra-convenience. Superlative convenience. Or more to the point, actually convenient. In New England, our convenience stores are marvelous and full of happy surprises. We have affectionate names for them too. Cumby’s anyone? Ours come with or without gas. And, some of them house restaurants.

Take, for instance, my latest experience: Turkish Kebab’s, located in Jay’s Newmarket Convenience.

Turkish Food Sign

Jay’s Convenience Store is actually a converted house. You can get your gas and your cigarettes and your six-packs, but what you really want to come for is the food. Real Turkish food. I’m not really sure which I would have found more unlikely a decade ago – having great food in a convenience store, or finding Turkish food in Newmarket, New Hampshire.

Turkish food is my comfort food, the food I crave. I grew up spending summers in Istanbul. We would visit the city where my grandmother lived, and then spend weeks on Büyükada, the biggest of the Princes’ Islands. The setting was idyllic: a beautiful island in the Bosphorus, with centuries old houses, no cars, and horse drawn carriages. You’d take your tea in the afternoon on the waterfront, watching the ferry boats come in from the city, their passengers visibly relaxing as they got off the boats. We’d swim, and bike, and walk through the neighborhoods. But mostly, we’d eat.

The street food culture in Turkey is diverse and enticing at every corner. There are Dönerci’s selling döner kebap – meat cooked on a rotating spit, and shaved thinly (similar to schwarma). You can get kebabs in sandwiches, or midye tava (fried mussels) with a nut sauce called tarator, or stuffed mussels taken straight from the Bosphorus and cooked on the sidewalk. Or you can get lahmacun, (lah-ma-joon) a thin Turkish flatbread with lamb, filled with lettuce and lemon, and wrapped up to eat on the go. There is Tost – which is the best grilled cheese you will ever eat, stuffed optionally with sucuk, a spicy sausage. Or if you need something sweet, there are pudding shops nearly everywhere, and more ice cream and waffle sellers than there are Starbucks in Manhattan.

shaving doner-2Shish Kebabs

I tend to feel sorry for myself that I live so far away from Turkey, especially in the summertime, so I was ecstatic to find Jay’s so close to home to fill myself up on the foods I was missing. I try to do a lot of Turkish cooking but you just can’t recreate döner without a large spit and a qualified chef. (It takes years of training to become a proper Dönerci).

turkish salads

Jay’s is filled with all sorts of treats that I crave. Kebabs – which loosely refers to almost any meat cooked on a stick – are their specialty. I’ve heard good things about their falafel, although I haven’t tried it. You can also get almost anything in sub form. They do Italian style subs as well, and some Italian home-style dishes.

They also have a large variety of Turkish salads, including Kısır, a bulgur wheat salad similar to Tabouli (they actually label it as Tabouli, but technically it is different), and hummus, and a very good eggplant salad. They have “popular” New England favorites including seafood salad, but why you would purchase that when you had Jay’s other options, I have no idea.

Turkish people also consume a lot of pastry and fried foods, and Jay’s carries many of these as well, including flaky Börek (turnovers) filled with white cheese and parsley, savory meat pies, zucchini fritters, and even some Italian arancini (rice balls) as big as your fist.

Turkish Appetizers

I was excited to hear the grocery section had a small collection of imported Turkish foods, because I always find myself missing things like Turkish honey, jams, and olive spreads. We typically travel over an hour to stock up on these things at Sevan in Watertown, Massachusetts, and I was looking forward to the.. erm.. close to home convenience.

Unfortunately, when we went, the entire Turkish grocery section in the back had been decimated. It turns out they had received a visit that week from a group of Turkish high-schoolers spending the month at Phillips Exeter Academy’s summer school. At least I can completely understand their impulse!

And apparently, students can also get a 15% discount on food if they show their ID. It’s probably better that they weren’t open when I was in highschool, otherwise I would have been in twice a week abusing their generosity.

making doner

This trip we all decided to order the same thing – thinly sliced döner in a Turkish lavash bread, rolled with lettuce, tomato, pickled onion, and yogurt sauce. While very tasty, I found myself finding the ratio a little off – there was actually too much meat for my preference, and I would have liked a little bit more sauce. Next time, I think I might actually get the tomato sauce their Italian cook makes rather than the more traditional yogurt. Nothing wrong with a little fusion!

We also took home some smoky Turkish eggplant salad, and some kisir, as well as some kadayif  – a crispy pastry similar to baklava, except with vermicelli-like dough filled with pistachio nuts. (At some point, I’ll write a 5000 word essay on my love of Turkish pastry… the stuff is glorious.)

The one flaw of Jay’s is the lack of seating: when you are hungry, you want to eat food right away! Some quick thinking led us to the benches at Stratham Hill Park. And here, I leave you with a shot of my mother, a real live Turkish person, enjoying her sandwich. Authenticity folks, I like it.

eating doner

Turkish Kebab’s Subs & Grill (in Jay’s Newmarket Convenient Store and Gas)
35 North Main Street, Newmarket, New Hampshire
603 – 659- 1500

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Annabelle’s Ice Cream

August 5th, 2011 · 3 Comments · Ice Cream, Local stores, Restaurants

I had very few reservations about moving back across the country to New England. There is so much here I love passionately, and so much I missed when I was away. My family is here, I have dear friends that I’ve known my entire life. I love walking on the beach that I grew up on, a five minute walk from my childhood home that my parents still live in. I love driving into Boston just to amble through the Common on a sunny day. I love a spontaneous trip to New York to load my car full of smoked fish and bread and coffee from Zabars.

One reservation I had was bringing my partner Devon back to New England with me and the chance of him hating it. He was born in Southern California, and has lived all his life in the Golden State. I worried about the lack of air conditioning, the blizzard season, the drivers in Massachusetts, and the fact that our home basketball team is not to his liking. (Although that won’t really matter given that we don’t appear to have a season shaping up…Grumble.) But, despite all this, he, being a wonderful stand up fellow (or maybe just a little crazy), came with me. And I couldn’t be more ecstatic.

It’s not going to be the easiest transition, but he seems to be doing well so far. And we’ll make sure that we make a trip to L.L. Bean shortly to acquire proper gear for our arctic adventures.

In the past month, Devon has been learning a lot of intriguing (not quite true) facts about New England. Did you know that New Hampshire has the highest per capita rate of vanity plates? Well, everyone has been telling us this, and yet we are actually #2 after Virginia. What is also not true, is that we consume the largest amount of ice cream per capita. That award goes to the hardy citizens of Alaska. (No fewer than 4 people have claimed that fact to him as well.)

annabelles takeout windowcone white pistachio

This affectionate rumor is not actually surprising when you consider the amount of people in line at any given time of the day at any of the dozen or so home made ice cream shops in my home town. One of my greatest pleasures these past few weeks has been to introduce Devon to some of these local havens, so that he has an objective view of his options.

The best of these, in my opinion, is Annabelle’s. Annabelle’s has been open since 1982, and I’ve been going there pretty much since I was born. (My grandmother first fed me ice cream when I was five and a half months old. Before you scream out about negligence, she was eating a bowl of chocolate ice cream, I tasted it, determined that it was mine, and face-planted.)

The vibe in Annabelle’s is a certain rustic, hippy charm, and you feel like there might be a milking cow out back. You can come in and sit for a while, but most people don’t . You can order from a takeout window, and right outside are benches where you can overlook the water and the tugboats, and everything screams old-town charm.

annabelles ice cream interior

The ice cream itself is superb. Rich, thick, and high in butterfat. They have a good selection of classic flavors, and some non-traditional ones as well. They make a small fuss out of the fact that they don’t have mint chocolate chip ice cream – instead they have two mint-loving options: Mint Summer’s Night Dream (Mint Chocolate Ice Cream with Chocolate Chunks), and Minty Mint Cookie (Vanilla based Ice Cream with Mint flavoring and Mint Cookies).

I’m a sucker for classic New England flavors: Maple Walnut, Pumpkin Pie, Grape-Nut. Yes, there is an ice cream flavor that is Grape-Nut, like the cereal. My absolute favorite is the Raspberry Chocolate Chip. Real raspberry ice cream, with generous chocolate-y shards. I eat it pretty much every other time I go.

On the past two trips, Devon has had the White Pistachio – pure pistachio ice cream with whole pistachios, and he has sworn allegiance. I think this coast may be growing on him.

raspberrychip

Annabelle’s Ice Cream
49 Ceres Street
Portsmouth, NH 03801
(603) 436-3400

Annabelle's Natural Ice Cream on Urbanspoon

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Shio Japanese Restaurant

July 26th, 2011 · 2 Comments · Asian, Japanese, Restaurants

P1060796

We all have one type of food we crave no matter what our mood is, and for me, that’s Japanese food. New England isn’t exactly the hotbed of Japanese cuisine, but when I was growing up, we happened to have a good little Japanese restaurant in town called Sakura. I regularly would beg for dinner out so I could eat miso soup and California rolls.

Over time I learned there were more exciting options than California rolls, and soon I moved onto Nabeyaki Udon (a rich broth filled with thick, chewy noodles and seafood and vegetables served in a cast iron soup bowl) and Beef Negima, (thinly sliced beef wrapped around scallions). I finally moved onto the Omakase chefs’ favorite sushi – and “please, hold the cooked shrimp”, because I wasn’t interested, thank you.

Sakura closed after I moved to San Francisco. I was sad to hear the news, certainly, but more out of nostalgia than any real loss. It wasn’t the best Japanese food, yet it was the place that opened my heart to an entire regional cuisine. However, I found out another Japanese restaurant opened in its absence when my mother started texting me photos of elaborate sushi rolls. It was called Shio.

tatamiluckycat

Fast forward to my big return to the Seacoast. I’ve been going on the gastronomic tour these past few weeks, eating at all the old haunts, and making a list of the new ones.

The first time we tried to visit Shio – on a Tuesday – they were closed and I had what we call affectionately in Yiddish, a “kanipshin”, which roughly translates to a big ole’ hissy fit. Two weeks in my hometown away from the big city and I really needed my Japanese food!!  When triple digit temperatures actually made the idea of raw fish in a blissfully air conditioned environment a necessity, we came back two days later.

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Shio is located in a half empty strip mall in Portsmouth, right on Route 1. This isn’t the type of place you’d be casually charmed to stop in after strolling by, you kind of have to know about it. If you aren’t the type of person immediately put off by neon sushi signs and a “Big Lots” next door, you’ll get rewarded by a pleasant looking restaurant interior. Shio has nice big tables, a sushi bar, and traditional tatami rooms, where you can take off your shoes and sit on cushions. The evening crowd is mainly families, although we saw a few dates, and it can get quite busy.

Let’s face it, it’s not Nobu, but the food is a notch above your New England neighborhood sushi joint. It filled my sushi cravings, used relatively high quality fish that wasn’t bland, and took greater care in plating. They took pride in their food.

Being a tee-totaler of late, we didn’t order any drinks (I know, shame on me), but I did observe a fairly well stocked bar, and some excellently kitschy cocktail umbrellas.

P1060792 Seafood Yaki Soba with Shrimp and Scallops ($14.00)

In addition to sushi, there is a good selection of cooked food made in the kitchen. Having grown up with a sibling that wouldn’t have touched raw fish with a ten foot pole, the relative variety of non-sushi options makes this more family friendly for those who haven’t yet hopped on the bandwagon. Even my grandmother eats sushi, then again, she also has a Mac and goes to Zumba classes.

At dinner, my father ordered the Yaki Soba which was unctuous, not too salty, and generously topped with seafood. The Dumpling Soup was a warming bowl of rich mushroom broth with little meat dumplings, scallions, mushrooms and vegetables (and was much better than the miso soup). Devon’s Chicken Katsu was lightly breaded with a great crunch, and avoided the typical katsu pitfall of being too greasy. It also tasted superb when I ate the leftovers at 11:45 pm, and was awarded my extra stamp of approval.

P1060794 Chicken Katsu ($13) lightly breaded and fried chicken cutlets

Although I’m not a “roll person”, the selections at Shio are creative and slightly more exciting than your average selection, using more traditional Japanese condiments such as plum paste, spicy kampyo (squash), or non-traditional additions such as cilantro, mango and fresh chile. My mother had the Rob Roll, which I’m fairly sure was named after someone named Rob, but immediately brought to mind the Urban Dictionary connotation of being very good at something unexpectedly after drinking a lot of booze.

P1060795    Rob Roll (11.95) Spicy crunchy yellow tail and avocado, topped with salmon roe, caviar, and fresh chili pepper. Side of Saba (Mackerel) sashimi ($4.50).

I ordered my favorite fish preparation, Chirashi, which is assorted sashimi scattered over a bed of sushi rice. This rendition was quite satisfying, and I found myself enjoying everything except for the imitation crab, which I could generally do without. I particularly enjoyed the variety of tsukemono (pickles), there were three beyond the standard pickled ginger.

P1060799  Shio’s Style Chirashi ($20) Assorted raw fish, eel, ikura, caviar and Japanese pickles on seasoned rice.

In the name of impartial research, Devon and I actually decided to go back to Shio for lunch, as the specials were quite reasonably priced. Interestingly, while the typical Seacoast lunch crowd is made up of women, we were surprised to see a crowd of mostly business men in button downs and slacks – clearly Shio is the place to be for a work lunch. Unfortunately, one of said businessmen spent twenty five minutes prodding his sushi with a chopstick, and left abruptly, but not before rudely telling the staff he was in a hurry, and wasting his entire meal. In his defense, the asshat convention was probably about to start without him.

Lunch specials were served with miso soup and salad, both of which I could have done without. While I generally like carrot ginger dressing, serving it ontop of iceberg lettuce pains me.  Devon ordered the sushi platter, which came with five pieces of sushi and a California roll, and I ordered the Sushi and Sashimi combo.

sushi platter Sushi Platter ($9.50) Five assorted sushi, and a California roll.

sushi sashimi combo Sushi Sashimi Combo ($12.50) Four sushi, six sashimi, and a California roll.

Although admittedly not as good as my Chirashi at the previous meal, the sushi was flavorful and lunch was a pretty good deal all around. Overall, two solid meals, a decent price, a lucky cat statue, and we will be back.

paper cranes

Shio Japanese Restaurant
2454 Lafayette Road
Portsmouth, NH

www.shiorestaurant.com

Shio on Urbanspoon

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Summer Reads: Shark’s Fin and Sichuan Pepper

August 19th, 2010 · 1 Comment · Asian, Books, omnivore books, Restaurants

Summer isn’t over yet! (Really, it’s just beginning here in San Francisco). For anyone looking for some good summer food reading – look no further!  There is still time to hit the beaches and don your sunhat with a good book! Here is the official Omnivore Books Summer Reading List – for those of you who haven’t seen the newsletter – here is the list (I have in fact, read every single one of these books, and enjoyed them myself):

OMNIVORE’S 2010 BEACH READS

By far, one of my favorite books on this list is Fuchsia Dunlop’s ‘Shark’s Fin and Sichuan Pepper: A Sweet-Sour Memoir of Eating in China‘. Perhaps I’m biased because one of my oldest childhood friends lives in Shanghai, and I feel a kinship to those who write about China, and perhaps my bias extends from my love of Chinese food instilled from my father’s very good Chinese cooking skills (he learned from an Asian grandmother whom he exchanged grocery shopping for her for cooking lessons), but nevertheless there is something visceral that comes up every time I get to recommend this book to someone.

When people come into Omnivore asking for their next good read, I usually direct them towards this book and start waxing poetic and verging on desperation. You MUST read this book. I’m not sure how I would even describe this woman without babbling about how cool she is and how much I admire her tenacity and how much I want to be like her. Here I am doing it again.

Above all, I love reading books by smart, motivated, strong women. There, I said it. Some of my biggest role models are writers such as M.F.K. Fisher, Elizabeth David, and Judith Jones. These women inspire me every day. In brief, Fuchsia Dunlop is certainly one of these women I admire: a witty and persistent Englishwoman, who rather than taking the safe and comfortable route, decided to study abroad in China during her University years. People just didn’t do that in the 90′s. Her brief stint led to a lifelong passion – she went back to live there, and ultimately managed to stumble her way into becoming the first westerner ever to attend the Sichuan Institute of Higher Cuisine.

Ultimately she went on to write two cookbooks, ‘Land of Plenty: A Treasury of Authentic Sichuan Cooking‘ and the ‘Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook: Recipes from Hunan Province‘ which are both excellent resources for Sichuan and Hunanese cooking. Beyond the cookbooks, it was a good thing she went ahead and wrote her memoir. Her voice on the page is clearly one of a woman I’d love to go gallivanting off to the ends of the earth with.

Throughout the book, Dunlop has this wonderful way of describing the tastes and the essence of food, and ‘Shark’s Fin and Sichuan Pepper: A Sweet-Sour Memoir of Eating in China‘ is full of amazing, bizarre, and sometimes even shocking tales. I found myself reading through this book – giggling, getting hungry, and experiencing her remarkable journey as a vicarious travel partner.

The Bottom Line: I highly recommend this book.

And then, of course, once you read it, you too can join the ‘Fuchsia Dunlop Admiration Society’ (OK, so I made that up) and can follow her on twitter! Now if only we could get her to come on vacation and speak at Omnivore! We’ll have a party!

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And now, while we are on the topic, here are a few photos from a dinner I had with fellow food bloggers quite some time ago at Sichuan restaurant Z+Y in San Francisco’s Chinatown. Totally Authentic? Not quite, but it was delicious nonetheless.

I’ve had a soft spot for Sichuan since I was a child, mostly because one of the better Chinese restaurants in our slightly sleepy corner of New Hampshire was called Szechuan Taste. There was one in Portsmouth, and then they opened another one in Exeter conveniently located blocks away from my high school. I can’t really vouch for the authenticity of the food, as they became very Americanized over the years, but I loved the place and have fond memories that guided my pursuit of knowledge into Chinese cooking, so I have to give them credit where credit is due.

At Z+ Y, we ate (somewhat gluttonously, between eight of us): Scallion Pancakes, Spicy Numbing Beef Tendon, Yunnan Style Steamed Chicken Soup in Clay Pot, Peking Duck, Pea Sprouts with Garlic, Special Pork Belly (not on the menu), Chicken with Explosive Chili Peppers and Hot Braised Sea Bass, Cured Beef Wrapped In Scallion Pancake, and Red Bean Buns for dessert.

There is something really reassuring about eating dinner with food bloggers. For one, you don’t have to feel any embarrassment about taking photos of the food, and really the phrase “WAIT – let me just snap a few photos please!” even remains unsaid. Although, to be fair, Devon is very good about waiting patiently for me to take my photos at dinner.

Bloggers in attendance: @cookingwithamy @chefjen, @urbanstomach, @summertomato, @alphaprep (yep that’s me), @divinacucina, @heatherhal and @Jeters.

Another thing about eating with food bloggers is that you can order half of the menu and not skip over the bits and pieces of the animal for fear that your dining partners will not be so keen on your choice. And so here, a dish that we all (or mostly all) enjoyed: Tendon. It’s not just for pho! I can’t get over the fact that it looks like I’m being served food on an easel. I really got a kick out of this dish. The beef tendon was shaved thinly, and served with a tingly numbing sauce.

We food bloggers also really appreciate highly photogenic foods, such as this Chicken with Explosive Chili Peppers. Massive piles of fiery peppers in contrasting red and green! I’m fairly sure this had more peppers than would be needed or wanted in the home, but it made for an exciting presentation.

And then there was the duck. Apologies to @jeters for the “in the moment eating shot”, but I had to put this in as it was the only shot of the duck I managed to take. I’ve been a devotee of duck since my childhood where my favorite memories of Chinatown were the ducks hanging in the windows. I’m sure my parents were slightly concerned about my excitement – I was at that point fully aware of the live happy farm duck being the same, in theory, as the dessicated hanging duck in the window – and I still would ask to eat it pleadingly.

A great part about the food blogging community is that you can eat with people that you greatly respect and admire, and even if their work is heralded across the globe, perhaps in bookstores, or written about in famous magazines, even the best food writers will gather to share a meal – food is something we all have in common. The lovely and talented Divina Cucina in the background (for whom this dinner was in honor of), and quick pickled cucumbers in the foreground.

Food bloggers also have gumption and forethought to order in advance, and throw their hands into the air and say feed me the best you can! The Japanese have a word Omakase, or Chef’s Tasting Menu, that is in the spirit that I like to eat – allowing the chef to choose the best, the freshest, the most interesting foods, and as a rule, I always defer to their suggestions for which I’m often highly rewarded.  The pork belly – not on the menu, but at the recommendation of the chef was delightful – a current food trend, pork belly has been a delicacy for hundreds, if not thousands? of years, and prepared simply, this was one of the better experiences with pork belly I have had to date.

And then there is that moment in many a meal, where sometimes, even seasoned food bloggers are slightly perplexed. In this case, the moment  was when we were served the cured meat wrapped in scallion pancake – Chinese-Jewish fusion food? I wasn’t able to grasp the influence, but I liked it!

Finally, we ended with red bean buns, and slices of orange, which, although I do have some fabulous photos of friends making awkward orange smiles, I’ve held back at posting them, perhaps though, they’ll serve as future blackmail.

For more perspective, check out Alex’s write-up (same dinner, lens across the table). And for even more convincing, Marcia (The Tablehopper) also had a great writeup of her dinner a month ago.

Z&Y Restaurant, 655 Jackson St, between Grant & Kearny

415-981-8988

Monday-Sunday 11 AM-10 PM
Pre-Ordered Nine Course Meal For Eight: $200 after tax and tip (sans beverage)

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The Marvelous Biscoff: Biscoff Coffee Corner Opens at Pier 39

July 15th, 2010 · 2 Comments · Cookies, Restaurants, Shopping

Over the past few nights I’ve been going to bed with a spoonful of Biscoff Spread. I know, I know, you dentists out there are cringing. I sit there, savoring it for minutes. Devon has joked that it is my crack spoon. Here is the back story:

Almost a decade ago, I was traveling internationally on Delta Airlines when I was first introduced to Lotus Bakeries’ Biscoff cookies. Biscoff are Belgian spice cookies, known in Europe as Speculoos, traditionally a holiday cookie. Now ubiquitous year round, they are the perfect accompaniment to a cup of afternoon coffee.

At first bite, I marveled at these crunchy caramelized spice cookies, which tasted similar to a gingersnap. I was so smitten in fact, that on our return trip, I begged the stewards to give me an extra supply as I exited the aircraft. For years I hoarded these cookies, requesting all traveling friends to bring them back for me.

The Biscoff was originally developed by the Boone family in Belgium in 1932, and sold as Lotus Speculoos. In 1984, Lotus partnered with The Gourmet Center in San Francisco, and  introduced the cookie to the United States as “Biscoff”, an amalgamation of the words ‘Biscuit + Coffee’. Delta began serving Biscoff cookies on their flights in the 1980′s, and since then they have been sold to a growing fan base through mail order catalogue, on their website, and just recently popping up in retailers across the country.

In addition to their cookies, the new Biscoff Spread is a food revelation. A few months ago, David Lebovitz raved about it on his blog, and I knew I had to get my hands on some. A similar consistency to peanut butter, it is a smooth spread made of blended Biscoff cookies. (Think Nutella, except tasting like Biscoff). The spread is perfect on toast, stirred into oatmeal, warmed and drizzled over vanilla ice cream, or, as I do most frequently, eaten directly from the jar.

I’ve been ordering the spread from the internet, but for the first time, it is available for purchase in San Francisco. Lotus Bakeries, and the Simmons Family, owners of Simco Restaurants’ PIER 39 establishments on Fisherman’s Wharf have partnered to open the Biscoff Coffee Corner and Coffee Cart, the first retail store of Biscoff products in the United States.

As a local, I don’t often find myself down by Pier 39, but it’s only a quick walk away from the Embarcadero, and well worth the trip in order to get yourself some Biscoff.

The Biscoff Coffee Corner opened last Thursday with free samples of Biscoff cookies, Biscoff cookie jugglers on stilts, a ribbon cutting ceremony with the Boone family, trivia, and giveaways. One hundred percent of sales were donated to The Marine Mammal Center, which rehabilitates seals and sea lions. In the future, 1% percent of all cookie sales will be donated to The Marine Mammal Center.

The Biscoff Coffee corner gives a free Biscoff cookie with the sale of each cup of coffee. The shop retails Biscoff cookies, Biscoff spread, as well as features menu items such as toasted bagels with cream cheese and Biscoff spread, and coffee with Biscoff flavoring and Biscoff crumbles (probably my entire calories for the day, but it was delicious!!). Additionally, Simco Restaurants will be featuring Biscoff cookies in dessert creations in their restaurants. Next time I head down there, I think I’m going to get some more Biscoff to make into ice cream.

Biscoff Spread is available at the Biscoff Coffee Corner for $5.50 for a 14 ounce jar. Biscoff Cookies are $3.50 for an 8.8 ounce loose package. Coffee with Biscoff flavoring and Biscoff crumbles is also on the menu at the Biscoff Coffee Corner. I highly recommend the trip out there.

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