4th Recipe: Silver Inspired 

This is one of my favorite recipes I found and I can't wait to share it with you guys! After eating at Silver restaurant I was in love with their food and wanted to try to recreate some of it. My husband and I both enjoyed the lump crab salad with melon so I decided to put my own spin on something very similar.

Now, I am not the kind of person to eat just a salad for dinner so I started flipping through Eva's Kitchen (a present from my husband) and an amazing cookbook and I found a delicious lemon chicken recipe that I had to try. So this post turned into a salad and a chicken recipe.

The recipe is called Lemon Fried Chicken and it is from Eva Longoria's cookbook. It is a very simple recipe and it serves 6 to 8 servings. This is a nice twist on an everyday chicken entree.

For the recipe you will need:

2 1 1/4- pound packages thinly sliced chicken breast
4 large eggs
3 to 4 cups panko
1 cup vegetable oil or as needed
Kosher salt to taste
3 lemons, halved

First, place the chicken in a plastic bag and gently pound them until they are about 1/8 inch thick.

Then, put the eggs in one bowl and the panko in another bowl. Take one piece at a time and dip both sides in the egg bath and let the excess run of then coat both sides with the panko. Place the chicken on a baking sheet and do this process for the rest of the chicken. 

Next, line a large platter with paper towels. In a large skillet over medium-high heat, heat the oil until shimmery and hot but not smoking. Place as many pieces of chicken as you can in the pan and fry until golden brown on both sides (2-3 minutes per side). Transfer chicken to the paper towel platter and sprinkle with salt and squeeze a generous amount of the lemon juice from the halved lemons on them. Repeat for remaining chicken and serve!

This chicken is very easy to prepare but it is so packed with flavor your mouth will water for more. This meal is perfect to throw together when you are entertaining or when you want to have a intimate dinner with your spouse. It paris well with almost anything but this salad I have paired it with takes the chicken to the next level.

This salad is called a prosciutto melon salad and I kind of made it up as I went but I am sure there are many salads like this out there.

For this salad you need:

1 bag of arugula

Olive oil

Honeydew (however much you want, I used about a quarter a melon)

Prosciutto (however much you want, I used about 1.5 oz)

Parmesan cheese to sprinkle over the top

For the dressing:

3 cups of Balsamic vinegar 

First put the arugula in a bowl and drizzle with a little bit of olive oil. 

Then add the melon, prosciutto, and sprinkle with the parmesan cheese.

For the dressing I reduced 3 cups of balsamic vinegar. This thickens the balsamic vinegar and gives it a sweeter taste. Just place the balsamic vinegar on the stove and bring it to a soft boil until the liquid reduces to 1/2 a cup. 

Once you get your balsamic reduced dress your salad and sit down and eat this amazing meal you just created!

This meal is one of my favorites and my husband loves it too! The flavors in this meal combine so nicely and the sour of the lemon really helps balance out the sweetness in the salad. These recipes are good together, alone or with whatever you feel like making that night. Once you make this recipe it will be a repeat in your cooking repertoire.

Never a Bad Fish

The next restaurant I am going to write about is Mama's Fish House in Maui, Hawaii. It's located on the North Shore and if you are ever in Maui you need to pay Mama's Fish House a visit! This restaurant has the best fish I have ever tasted in my life, most likely because all the fish is caught that morning. I have been craving it ever since I  left Hawaii.

The venue is very open with a great view of the ocean along with a cool sea breeze. Mama's is very authentic and relaxing and even through it's medium sized  it's very quite so you can really have a good conversation with your party. Even though the menu is mostly fish everybody will find something magnificent.

 The Decor is very tropical and it displays the true beauties of the Island.

The food is beyond amazing! Each bite of everything we ordered was just bursting with flavor. You'll want to have a bite of everyone's meal. I wanted to lean over to the table next to me and tell

them to order what I got because it was mind blowing. 

We started out with some bread and a tomato bisque compliments of the chef. It was in a small cup and you sipped it directly from the cup. It was a bright reddish orange color and as soon as it touched my lips the creamy richness hugged my tongue. It was very delicate and as soon as I tasted that, I knew I was in for a good meal. I only wish the bowl was bigger

The appetizer I ordered was the Maui Onion Soup. This soup literally melted in my mouth with all the rich but light cheese and onions. Some of the other appetizers we got were an onion and tomato salad which was super fresh and crisp. We also got some sashimi that really brought out all the delicate flavor in the fish. 

The fish I ordered was the Onaga which is Red Hawaiian Snapper. It is the lightest fish and it was prepared the lightest. It was so fresh and it fell apart in my mouth that after my first bite I wanted to order another one to take home for later. It was savory and packed with flavor but wasn't fishy at all. It was the best fish I have had ever hands down!

The whole meal was amazing and the dessert only added to the grandeur. It's called  the Polynesian Black Pearl. When they brought it out it was so stunning I didn't want to eat it. After the first bite I couldn't stop. It was rich but not heavy and very creamy and smooth. It was one of those desserts that you would want to lick the plate if you weren't in public. 

This is a must visit restaurant and I can't wait to go back. Everyone needs to experience this food once in their lifetime. 

" The Belly Rules The Mind"

So much has gone on these past few weeks!!

I went home to McLean, Virginia over the Christmas break and did a lot of eating! We also spent some time in Maui, Hawaii so I will be writing about some of those restaurants as well.

The first restaurant I want to share with you is called Vapiano's in Arlington Virginia. This restaurant has a fun, interactive environment. How it works is when you enter the host gives you a card that looks like a credit card. You walk up to one of three stations the station where you can pick from pizza, pasta. salad and panini or all three! After you order the chef that takes your order cooks your meal right in front of you allowing you to see how they make all their food. They scan your card with your order and you hold on to your card until the end of your meal. At the end you take your card up to the host and they scan it, see how much is on your card and that is what you pay.

The restaurant is very clean and open with an eclectic and modern feel. It has very neat lines which draw your eye to all the decorations. They have long wooden tables to sit at either with your family or others intended for a very social meal.

After trying to figure out what to order for a long time I finally decided on the Carbonara pasta and Dane ordered the Carpacciso pizza. When you order pasta not only do you pick what kind of pasta you actually want but you also pick what kind of noodle you would like your pasta to be made with. The food is amazing! They make all the food in front of you and they grow their own herbs right there in the restaurant so you know it's fresh. It's delectable and mouth watering. The portions are a good sharing size and trust me you will want to share.

My pasta was fresh and very light even though the sauce was super creamy and delicious. Each bite was packed with flavor and the flavors blended very well. The pizza was bright and each bite brought all the crispness of the toppings on the pizza. I would definitely order this again but I hope to order many more items off the menu to get a real taste of the restaurant.

This is definitely a place I will return to and bring my friends so they can enjoy this wonderful creation. Like this fish pizza!