Wobble Cafe

I know, I know! Bad blogger! I haven't posted in almost a month, with no real good excuse besides the fact that life has been busy and I have been hibernating! Frigid temperatures in New York make it difficult for anyone to muster any motivation.

I have also started a new diet: The Ketogenic Diet.  It is a low carb, high fat diet in which your body enters Ketosis (not to be confused with Ketoacidosis - which is bad) and burns fat instead of calories. If you are intrigued I would suggest reading up on it here: A Beginners Guide to the Keto Diet. As such, I will be posting some awesome recipes for you all to try soon!

Now that I have given my excuses, I can get on with the intended restaurant review! The Wobble Cafe in Ossining, NY is a well know cute little spot. When my friend and her 18 month daughter wanted to meet up for lunch, we agreed on the super child friendly Wobble Cafe.

T and I are both teachers and we, luckily, had this week off, but she is an overachiever (!) and went in to do some test prep, so we met up at around 3pm for a late lunch.

The cafe was completely dead when we went in and it seemed like they were doing some sort of set up or remodeling towards the front, so we took a seat in the back next to the handy children's play area. Little L played while we got in some gossip and ordered our food.

Since I am doing my low - carb diet, and had already eaten an omelet that morning, I was somewhat sad looking at all the delicious sandwiches and paninis on the lunch menu. When I shared my dieting dilemma to the waitress, she pretty much told me they would make me whatever I wanted! That is amazing! That is what makes this place awesome, the fact that they feel like a local cafe where everything has a personal touch. They were also incredibly understanding when Little L's lunch ended up all over the table!

All this was only $8!

I ordered the turkey and brie panini, minus the bread and they even offered to put it over greens for me! Perfect! The brie was yummy, the turkey, while sliced like deli meat, didn't have that artificial taste of deli meat, and the greens were a perfect mix of different leaves, onions, radishes and tomatoes (with one large cucumber slice to boot!). In fact, there was so much salad on the plate, I wasn't able to finish it.

Orange finger paint. Right?

On the menu, they have a "Kids' and Small Bites" menu, which T and I thought was nice. Often times adults don't want a whole meal, but the kids' menu is off limits.  This allows us to get a PB&J every once in a while! T ordered Little L the cheese fondue! Sounds fancy, and to some degree, for a child, it was! The waitress brought out a bowl of nacho-esque cheese over a little candle (not lit) and a variety of dippers including: chicken fingers, pretzel sticks, french fries and veggies.

Little L went nuts for it! She starting out dipping in quite a refined matter before giving in to the cheese's spell and sticking her whole hand into the cheese, licking it off finger by finger! When she was full, she proceeded to let out her inner artist and finger paint the table top with the gooey orange stuff. The waitress, without even having to be asked, brought us over some wipes to clean Little L up and never once gave the slightest stink eye to the mess (which we did clean up!).

All in all, I would highly recommend Wobble Cafe (something locals would definitely agree with me on), especially, if you have children.  It was dead when we got there, but I can image the wonderful chaos of a Saturday morning, with parents sipping coffee as kids make new friends in the play area. Sounds perfect.

The Wobble Cafe
21 Campwoods Road, Ossining, NY 10562
(914) 762-3459

Wobble Website

Little Pub

This past week I contacted some of my friends to do a little lunch meet up.  Tammy was coming from Stamford, so we decided to meet halfway somewhere around Greenwich.  Tammy, being the well informed woman of the world that she is suggested Little Pub in Cos Cob, CT. 
"It will change your life," I was assured.  I left (late), hoping she was right.

I arrived in snow flurries to the mandatory valet.  The lot is small and it is probably best that they have some people in charge of maneuvering all those fancy Greenwich cars, but I have to admit I was a bit embarrassed at the state of the inside of my car.

The pub is part bar, part dining room. When you walk in you are greeted by a warm double sided fire separating the front entrance and dining room. We were there for lunch on a Monday, but school was out, so the place was packed with friends, couples and cute little families.

As I mentioned, I was late and Tammy and Melissa had already ordered and been served some Santa Fe Egg Rolls. Lucky for me, they are good friends and saved me one!

The egg rolls were crunchy with a spicy chicken that slightly sneaks up on you. I especially loved the mild heat of the cilantro-chipotle dip that was served along side it.

Next to come out was the Crispy Eggplant Frites.  For me, these were the life changers I was promised! They had the tasty crisp of French fries, dusted with Parmesan cheese, but were so light that I could have happily eaten a whole plate to myself and bathed in the garlic aioli accompaniment! These frites took away all the heavy guilt that often comes with French fries. Healthy and light! Win-win.

I asked the waitress to help me choose between the Ahi Tuna tacos or the Food Truck fish tacos. She pointed out that the Food Truck fish tacos would be more filling, and I went for those. The fish tacos were standard fare, good pieces of fried cod with a cilantro-green onion slaw for crunch and a picante chipotle aioli. I, personally, am a huge fan of cabbage, and would have liked the extra crunch it added.

Tammy got the sliders, which looked a little lonely on their plate, but since I was not there when she ordered, I'm not sure if she requested it that way. Melissa, being the health conscious gal that she is, ordered a chopped Cobb salad with grilled chicken. It was a really nice size salad and she was very pleased with it.

We stayed and chatted for a bit after our food was finished and never felt rushed, despite the fact that the dining room was full.  I appreciated this. No one likes a restaurant that is all business and none of the homey comfort of a meal with friends or family, and I am happy to report that Little Pub was a very welcoming and filling lunch.

Little Pub Greenwich
531 East Putnam Ave.
Cos Cob, CT 06807
(203) 717.1147

Apiary

The Apiary - Larchmont

I lunched at the Apiary on January 2nd, 2015

Lovingly lifted from Apiary's Facebook page

One of the great things about being a teacher is the days off I get to recharge and explore the world around me.   The downside is that none of my closest friends are teachers, so when I’m off, they're working and vise versa. Today, the day after New Year’s Day, I was  lucky because my friend, Lauren, who works for some fancy schmancy company also had off. So, we did lunch!

Based off of some reviews from both Yelp! and The New York Times, we decided to try the newly opened Apiary located on Larchmont Avenue in Larchmont, NY. Parking is kind of iffy, especially with all the Larchmont “Yummy Mummies”, but if it’s a nice day out you can always pay to park in one of the public lots within walking distance.

Lovingly lifted for Apiary's Facebook page

Apiary’s motto is EAT, SERVE. LEARN. They offer meals you can take away or eat in their cute little shop, they will cater your events, and they even offer private cooking parties! How cute would that be for a birthday party or girls night in?  All their food is natural, and locally sourced, which, it being resolution season, is definitely a plus.

Now, a plethora of reviews told us to try the lobster roll. “It’s Amazing,” they said. Well, I am an idiot because when I got there and saw the Ham and Brie baguette with fig jam and mesculun greens it just called to me.  I’m a sucker for brie.  I can’t help it, soft cheeses are my weakness.

Half is already gone! Bad Blogger!

The sandwich was just OK.  The baguette was nice and crunchy and the brie room temperature and soft. The thing that killed it for me was the “fig jam”. I put that in quotes because it in no way resembled anything close to figs, or jam. It was a white cream with enough sweetness for it to me to wonder if there was a mistake.  I asked the woman behind the counter who assured me that this sweet cream was in fact fig jam. Ummm. OK.

I asked for some dijon mustard to balance the sweetness and it worked a treat. They should probably serve it that way, or swap out the fig cream for something a little less cloying.

I really liked the  corn and black bean salad that was served as a side to the sandwich, the sweet corn was perfectly balanced by the bitter kale shreds and I commented to my companion numerous times about how much I loved it!

Lauren got the Philly Cheesesteak, which was a special, and absolutely loved it.  I could see from the soft bun and cheese coated meat and onions that she definitely won menu roulette for this outing.

All in all, our trip to the Apiary was average. I would have preferred my sandwich to be less sweet, but will not give them a miss just because of it. Next time, I’m going for the lobster roll!

The Apiary

157 Larchmont Avenue

Larchmont, NY 10543

914.834.3572