out and about in mke: thai-namite thai bistro and sushi bar

I love ethnic food, especially asian cuisines.  I am not really very adventurous when I go to restaurants – mainly sticking with my favorites, but it never gets old!  In fact, when my parents uprooted me in my middle-school years to a new town, one thing that consoled me was the fact that there were 13 Chinese buffets in one county.  Thank you, Wisconsin.

My first experience with Thai food, however, was in London.  I went to a little shop called Monkey and Me and I had the most delicious meal there ever – and proceeded to go back many, many times.  I had both their noodle dishes as well as their regular entrees served with coconut rice – which is the best rice product out there.  But that has nothing to do with Thai-namite since they do not have coconut rice…  Anyways, we grabbed dinner there a few weeks back and it was absolutely delicious and gluten free friendly.  We even brought up our concerns with the waitress and she came back with a menu that she had highlighted all of the gluten free dishes (she had been bored one shift and went through ALL of their ingredients to make this master menu!).

I had actually just gotten home from my weekend in Sonoma and was in the mood for a nice, hot meal.  Although I started out cold with an appetizer: Fresh Rolls.  Fresh rice wrap sheet with stuffed tofu, fried egg, rice noodle, and carrot served with chef special sauce (substituted for plum sauce that was gluten free) and ground peanut.  Loved these!

For my entree I went for the good ol’ Classic (Veggie) Fried Rice.  Tasty rice stir fried with egg, white onion, green onion, and tomato.  I contemplated the Hawaiian Fried Rice, but stuck with typical flavors instead.  This was so good and I ate every last bite!

I even had two of Kinley’s maki.  One Kappa (cucumber) and an Avocado.  These are not necessarily gluten free because of the vinegar they use in the sticky rice?  I had never heard this before but Kinley decided to risk it.

All of our meals were incredible.  Mom and Dad ate with us as well but I didn’t get pictures of their food and I have no clue what they got!  A chicken dish for sure with jasmine rice – they both said it was really good but I didn’t have a bite, but it seems like they do a really good job with all of their food and the wait staff is definitely knowledgable about gluten free dining – a real plus when eating out at a new place!  If you’re looking for some delicious Thai food in Milwaukee, you should definitely check out Thai-Namite Thai Bistro and Sushi Bar!

Thai-namite Menu
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dessert pizza

Kinley and I took a trip to New York City this past January.  I loved it.  I have always loved big cities and this was my first time in NYC – although it had been a longtime ambition of mine to get there.  It’s actually quite funny now, we decided to eat vegetarian when we were there in order to help with cost savings – and now that’s all we do :).  We ended up finding a bunch of really good restaurants even without pre-planning anything.  We had a couple stops in mind, but those were mainly for cupcakes.  One night we were really struggling to find something to eat was the night we went to see a show on Broadway, American Idiot.  We were walking around and around and could only find expensive prix fixe meals that didn’t even sound good!  Luckily, on probably our tenth loop around on side streets, we stumbled upon a small Italian Bistro.  I forget the name of it (I do have their business card somewhere), but I remember it was extremely delicious food.  I had some sort of pasta dish but Kinley had a pizza that was to die for.  And what was even more to die for than her meal pizza?  Dessert pizza of course.  Pizza Crust + Nutella + Marshmallows.  We changed it up a bit due to ingredients we had on hand, but the variability of this idea is what will make anyone happy :).

Dessert Pizza makes 1 pizza

• 1 gluten-free wrap (or a whole wheat wrap, I used Sami’s Millet & Flax Lavosh)
• 1T nut butter (or a serving of PB2)
• ~1T mini chocolate chips
• 4-5 dandies vegan marshmallows

1. Preheat oven to 350′.

2. Pre-bake the crust for a couple of minutes, if desired.

3. Top crust with your desired pizza toppings.

4. Bake for 8-10 minutes or until nut butter is warm and marshmallows have melted.  You could also use a broiler to help the marshmallows puff up a bit ;).

Mine was PB2 – Kinley’s was Raw Almond Butter.  Both were incredibly delicious.  To make it even more like the original, break out that Justin’s Chocolate Hazelnut Butter.

There will be more of these in the future.  Many, many more.

out and about in gb: the urban frog

I have been sitting on these photos for quite some time.  Six weeks to be exact.  When Kinley and I were looking for restaurants to go to after we ran the Bellin Run, Kinley happened across the website for The Urban Frog in Green Bay, WI.  Their menu looked way too good to pass up and they even had Gluten Free and Vegan options!  Can’t get much better than that in my book.  They’re located right in downtown Green Bay – the perfect urban location.

For an appetizer Kinley and I shared their Guacamole and Organic Blue Chips.  The guacamole was delicious.  My only complaint was that it was gone just too darn fast.

I decided to get the Pumpkin Wrap.  Pumpkin hummus, Granny Smith apple, raw almonds, dried cranberries, and feta cheese on a multi-grain tortilla.  I got mine without feta and with a millet & flax tortilla instead.  They also had gluten free Teff tortillas so I could have had my pick!  I asked for it grilled, but it wasn’t so I ate it how it came.  I was too hungry to wait any longer!

Dessert was out of this world good.  I wish I lived closer so I could eat it all the time.  I guess it might be a good thing I don’t live too close then…  This is Frog Cake. Wheat-,gluten-, and dairy-free chocolate cake served with raspberries.  Say what?!  No wheat, gluten or dairy in the most delicious and moist chocolate cake I might have ever had?  Excellent.  Now you know why I want to go back!

Along with the food items I had they had very delicious looking smoothies and a bunch of other wrap and sandwich options – with a lot of local and organic ingredients!  I really do want to run the Bellin 10k again next year so we have a good excuse to eat here again!