Memorial Day Cookout - Meats on Sticks

Memorial Day is a time to pay honor to those that have served before us and for those that currently do everything that they can to protect and serve our great country. However, the holiday does mean one more thing and this is cookouts. It is the "official" start to the summer cookout season. All across the country grills were fired up and meats were smoked or grilled to perfection. My house was no different on this Memorial Day.

This year I decided to go the meats on sticks route and went with beef and chicken kabobs. A good kabob is a thing of beauty and will leave you plenty satisfied. Some like to put their meat and veggies on the same skewers, but I choose to have the meat on their own and the vegetables on another. Only reason for this is because of the cooking times. Everything was marinated in the same Gourmet Warehouse of Hilton Head's Low Country Marinade. This stuff goes great with anything and played perfect with this selection of meats and vegetables.

As for the rest of the meal, I decided to make a pasta salad and then bought some potato salad from Publix. Just wasn't in the mood to make the potato salad this morning and the red skin homestyle one at Publix is pretty darn good. The pasta salad was just pasta, peas, onions, garlic, cherry tomatoes, feta, and Newman's Own Light Lime Dressing. Just a little of this goes a long way and this salad was perfectly dressed. A few hours chilling in the fridge gave the pasta salad time to get to the right serving temp and for the flavors in the dressing to work their way into every bite of the salad.

Nothing tops off a cookout quite like fresh ice cold watermelon, and this cookout was no different. Seedless might be on the label, but I don't think I have ever run across a watermelon that was 100% seedless. This was pretty close, but still no cigar.

Hope everyone had a great Memorial Day holiday weekend.

Miyabi Japanese Steak House & Sushi

Cook in your face Japanese is always good and there is always enough food to feed an army. This didn't disappoint on either level. The show was pretty good with a couple of large fires, a rice Santa, and many failed shrimp tail tosses. The latter must be a running joke in there since shrimp tails were flying all over the restaurant. There were also plenty of birthdays going on through the night, so the drums were constantly being played and everyone was having a great time.

The traditional meal starts off with the Miso soup & salad with ginger dressing. From there the cooking started and we received a few appetizer shrimp along with our vegetables. Next onto the plate was the "Wall of Rice". We were only 4 adults at the table with 2 small children, but the rice portion was enough for a full table of adults. He then quartered off the portions and we were each given a piece of the wall. The steak was next to make its way onto the plate and was quickly followed up by the teriyaki chicken.

I feel like I hardly made a dent into this meal and had plenty to take home for leftovers. We also were able to get the "Early Bird" pricing which made me very happy.

Chili & Caesar Side Salad from Wendy's

Been a while since I have eaten Chili from Wendy's, but I don't remember it looking or tasting like this. It was pretty good and there is a certain way to get the most out of this tasty treat on a cold day.

First you need to add the cheese and onions. The chili by itself if good, but the 2 things round out the base of the chili. Next, you add in 2 packets of the hot sauce. It isn't really "hot", but it does provide an additional burst of flavor in the chili. Finally you crumble the crackers in the packets and then pour on top of the chili. You will do this with 2 packets (4 total crackers) and then add more along they way until you have an empty bowl.

I also had a Caesar Side Salad to help round out this lunch. This is always a winner off the Value Menu.

Japanese Food

I love me some Japanese food! I especially love me some quick "fast food style" Japanese food. The first 3 pictures are from Hiranos on Habersham here in Savannah. It is a great little place owned and operated by the Hirano family. He works the grill and she is working the front end. Everything is made fresh to order and is always excellent.

The last 2 pictures are from Sakura on Broughton in downtown Savannah. It is a good place to pop in for lunch every now and then, especially with their lunch specials. The 2 rolls for $5.75 is always a good deal in my opinion. The quality might not be the best, but you get what you pay for and with the quick Japanese lunch that is the risk always worth taking.

Hiranos:


Sakura:

UGA vs Buffs...At least the food was good.

Another week of good eating spoiled by a crappy loss. Like I said, at least the food was good. Also, the beer was cold. Another plus in my book. As for the menu:

Jerk Pork Tenderloin, Key Lime Chicken, Cucumber-Tomato-Onion salad, my special baked beans, 7 layer bean dip with chips, Neufchatel Cheese & Dill Puff, Chex-Mix, Variety of Beer, and Ghirardelli Chocolate Brownies plus a whole bunch of chocolate chips.

Carolina Ale House in Augusta

This is a new sports bar/restaurant that just opened in Augusta. Get there early if you want to watch the games because this place gets packed. I decided to try it out for the Dolphins-Vikings game and this place is perfect for watching games and good food. We started off with the fried pickle chips and I ate the southern fried chicken salad as my meal. The fried pickles might be some of the best I have ever had. The salad could have used some more chicken on it, but it was as good as good can be when it comes to salads.

Sushi and some other Japanese stuff

Tried this new Japanese place...well, it is an old place but new for us...for dinner tonight. I had some sushi, a salad and an egg roll. Got the teriyaki chicken for the kid. He loved it. I did eat some of the veggies and maybe 2 pieces of the chicken. It was all white meat, so it was real chicken (I think) and it was good. The sushi was called a "Montgomery Crossroads", named after the street the restaurant is on. It was tuna, crab, and avacado. It was a very good roll that I would gladly get again. The salad with ginger dressing...hard to screw that up (unless they don't drain the lettuce like most Japanese restaurants never do). The eggroll was par for the course as far as egg rolls go. This was split in half for presentation. Not cool and not easy to eat. We will go back to this place.