Zen Tara Tea, Bethesda MD

During our visit to Bethesda this past weekend, we also stopped by the Zen Tara Tea shop some of my girl friends are raving about.  We only picked up bubble tea to go since we had our puppy dog with us.  The place is small, but warm and cozy.  Probably a good place to linger and hang out for a bit, but since we couldn't take the dog inside, this post is strictly about their bubble tea and smoothie.

small store front

I ordered one regular black tea with milk and sugar for the dude.  Since the owner gave me an option, I picked the soy milk instead of regular milk.  The black milk tea was very different from traditional bubble tea shops in the area.  It had more tea flavor than anything else.  There was hardly any sugar, and the owner was very easy on the milk which I didn't mind, but the tapioca was borderline bad.  They were hard and not very chewy, also didn't have much taste (not sweetened like most other places).  Their black tea tasted very good though, not bitter or acidic like some other shops on a bad day.

I ordered the matcha smoothie.  It was pretty good and not overly sweet like other places.  Again, the tapioca was not up to par from this store, probably because it's not something they're known for.  Overall, I was somewhat disappointed with the tapioca served, but if you're in the area for a good pot of tea and some tea snacks, this might be a good spot to check out.

black tea with soy milk and matcha smoothie

Zen Tara Tea
4710 Bethesda Avenue
Bethesda, MD 20814

Yogi Castle, Germantown MD

The new Yogi Castle store is open in Germantown!!  We finally have a frozen yogurt place near work and it's the perfect timing since spring is right around the corner.  After eating at a nearby Thai cuisine, we decided to stop by Yogi Castle to check out their frozen yogurt flavors.

The store is decorated nicely, pretty much like any other hip frozen yogurt place.  Same trend continues here with some part time high school girls working the cashier as well.  The difference here is they have so many new and different flavors!  I counted about 14-16 flavors and varieties.  They even have some that are sugarless, which I have not seen in other frozen yogurt stores.

Yogi Castle

I tried the chocolate, Hawaiian pineapple, cookies & dough, and peach white tea flavors.  I really liked the Hawaiian pineapple and peach white tea!  They also have the usual toppings you find at frozen yogurt places, but I think cookie dough bits might be a new item (or maybe I just haven't been to frozen yogurt for a while?)  Anyway, give it a try if you go next time!

my mix

Here are some of their neat new flavors:

Nonfat Peppermint Stick, Lowfat Praline 'N Cream and Nonfat no sugar added Strawberry banana, Non-fat Hawaiian Pineapple, and Non-dairy Strawberry Lemonade Sorbet.

Yogi Castle
19877 Century Blvd
Germantown MD, 20874

Vapiano, Bethesda MD

On a sunny Saturday, we took our dog for a family lunch at Vapiano Bethesda since I heard good things from my friends.  They have very nice outdoor seating area with wooden table and benches, so we just picked a sunny spot and sat ourselves down.

customer #1 waiting for food

As soon as I walked through the door, the hostess greeted me and handed me a 'chip card' (is that what it's called?)  She explained that you basically order at the different food stations, swipe the card there and pick up a pager, and your food will be ready for pickup when the pager goes off. 

we each got a 'chip card'

My husband ordered some type of pasta with bacon bits and I ordered the pesto chicken pizza.  I then proceeded to order macchiato at the bar.  The macchiato was excellent!  The girl at the bar sorta mumbled that I picked the most difficult drink to make, but she still made it for me.  I'm definitely ordering this again when I go back next time.

macchiato

After I took a million pictures of my dog, the pager went off.  The waitress actually delivered the food to our table to our surprise.  As far as the pasta goes, you can pick different types of pasta (spaghetti, linguine, penn, etc) and also you can create your own pasta and picked your own ingredients.  We are really not the creative type when we go out to eat, so we just ordered the combination listed on the menu.  My thinking was, why waste efforts to create your dish when you go out to eat?  If I wanted to create a dish I could just do that at home!  Well, maybe that's just me, but I'm the '#1' type of person (example: #1 meal at McDonald's).  Speaking of which, I dislike (hate is such a strong word) waiting in drive-through line listening to people order the 'Can I have a big mac without onions, extra lettuce, no ketchup, blah blah....'.  I guess it's a good thing fast food restaurant are so accommodating, but at the same time they are also encouraging people to be difficult and picky on what they eat!  I mean, it's okay to have special orders but I've actually heard moms ordering for their kids and it takes 3-4 sentences to complete a special order for a hamburger.  Really??  It's a hamburger!

Okay, back to food.  Here's what we ordered, the pasta was okay, nothing spectacular though.  The pizza was good, but I don't think I'd miss it much either.  So in conclusion, Vapiano looks real pretty, has good concepts, food makes the cut, but I won't be going back just for the food though.  I do love the nice outdoor area setup, so maybe I'll stop by when I take my dog out again on the weekend!

pasta with bacon bits

pesto chicken pizza, this was tasty.

Vapiano Bethesda

4900 Hampden Lane
Bethesda, MD 20814  

http://www.vapianointernational.com/vapiano/

Cava Restaurant, Rockville MD

I wanted to try the crab sliders that my friend raved about during our dinner last Friday, so we met up at Cava today around 12.  I've always liked their interior decor with the brick wall, but not their high prices.  But for lunch, their crab cake sliders is a steal with yummy fries and butter toasted bread!  The crab cakes were small but hardly any fillers.  For $12 dollars, I think it's a descent deal.  You also get a complimentary basket of delicious pita bread with 3 dippings to share!

reviews posted  in Cava Restaurant

crab sliders, $12 for lunch

Wonderful meal and good company.  Thanks girls!

Cava Restaurant
9713 Traville Gateway Drive
Rockville, MD 20850-7408

BLT steak house, D.C.

I came across a blog entry about BLT steak house last week and added it to my top to-eat list.  Since my birthday was coming up in a few days, I was on the fence deciding whether or not we should go to BLT steak house since it is very expensive.  A few days later, I found that BLT steak house was having their annual 3.03 birthday celebration and they held special prices for most of their entrees, drinks, sides, and even desserts!  I made our reservation for dinner as soon as I found out about the special pricing!

We arrived around 7:20pm for our 7:30pm reservation.  It was not difficult to find street side parking but we didn't have enough coins (make sure you carry lots of quarters).  It was also difficult to find place to get change, so we ended up moving the car to a machined street side parking that took credit cards.

They had special prices on so many things!  They even had special menus made up just for the day.  Sorry for all the dark pictures, I was hungry and too lazy to adjust the camera settings.  And the restaurant was dark.  But I absolutely LOVED everything we ordered!  Including the prices of course!  A bone-in rib eye steak is usually $44 dollars on their menu but on 3/3 of every year (BLT restaurant birthday) it only costs 33.04 (representing 3/3/2004)! 

we were part of BLT's birthday bash!

 

elegant interior























So the waiter took our orders and the complimentary bread arrived, it was a few slices of bread with amazing spread.  The spread tasted like it contained a little bit of foie gras plus some other spices.  It was so delicious!

complimentary bread & delicious bread spread

Almost forgot to mention there are 2 special cocktail drinks that are only 3.03 as well!  Of course we ordered 1 of each, then I proceeded to order one more after I finished the first one.  So 3 cocktails for less than 10 bucks!  Regular price is about $14-15 each.  Here's one of the drink special.
 

the sparkling sunset cocktail



Then the waiter came back with these two huge complimentary pop-over cheese bread!  These were absolutely piping hot goodness.  The butter that came with it was good as well, but I didn't even need to use it.  I was about full even before the main course and side items come!

complimentary pop-over cheese bread

The steaks were delivered to our table on sizzling hot staubs dishes.  We ordered one bone-in rib eye steak and one new york strip steak.  Both cooked medium rare and both were perfect.  Excuse the half eaten steak picture since I was so excited I started eating immediately...  sooo yummy!  I transferred my piece of steak from cast iron staub dish to my plate after I checked it.  If you want your steak to cook a little more, you can always leave the steak in the staub dish which was still piping hot.  There were also plenty of steak sauces to choose from.  We chose one peppercorn steak sauce and one regular steak sauce.  They were both good but I didn't even use the sauce on my steak because the steak was charred to perfection.

new york strip steak

bone-in rib eye steak

We also splurged and ordered 4 sides.  The sides are usually $9-$14 dollars but they were all just a merely $3.03 on that day!  So of course we ordered more than we could chew, and ended up taking some home with us.  I even used some of it for home-cooked breakfast the next day!  We ordered the stuffed mushroom caps, hen of woods mushrooms, jalapeno mashed potato, and brussel sprouts.  These all came in small staub cast iron dishes, very cute as well!

4 side dishes

Then it was dessert time!  The desserts were on special as well, only $3.03 each.  We ordered the crepe souffle and warm chocolate tart with pistachio ice cream.  They were both delicious and not overly sweet!  The crepe souffle had some sort of passion fruit sauce underneath and it was a bit tart and sweet at the same time.  The chocolate warm tart tasted more like dark chocolate which I enjoyed very much.

warm crepe souffle

warm chocolate tart with pistachio ice cream

With everything we ordered for the night, I calculated our saving to be about $100 dollars.  That's about half off the check, what a good deal!  I'm definitely coming back to BLT steak house next year on their birthday special event!

complimentary sweets

stacking up the savings!

BLT Steak
1625 I Street, NW
Washington, DC 20006
http://www.bltsteak.com/

Sabai Sabai Simply Thai, Germantown MD

I was craving for spicy food today so I decided to get Thai food carryout.  Sabai Sabai is a fairly new thai restaurant that opened in Germantown.  I ordered 1 of the 4 lunch special sets called kra pow chicken with fried egg.  The lunch set also comes with a cucumber soup for free, so it was a good deal for 10.95 (after tax).  I called ahead for the order and the dish was ready when I got there, the only annoyance was parking.  It was hard to find street parking around noon time!  But picking up this spicy Thai dish definitely satisfied my craving for spicy food for today.

Kra pow is made from minced chicken (or you can choose pork) stir fried with basil, various spices, and a lot of hot peppers.  And having that fried egg on top definitely made it more delicious!  The egg yolk from the mixes very well with the spicy chicken and rice.  I'd definitely get this again for lunch!

kra pow chicken lunch set

Sabai Sabai Simply Thai
19847 M Century Blvd
Germantown, MD 20874

Tachibana Japanese Restaurant, McLean VA

On a sunny Friday, my husband and I decided to meet up at Tachibana Japanese Restaurant for lunch.  They have many lunch specials and bento boxes that are priced very reasonable!  But since the two of us are ramen lovers, we always order ramen when it's available on the menu...  But I definitely recommend the bento boxes for lunch if you're in the area, it's either 12.99 for regular salmon bento box or 16.99 for the deluxe version.  The salmon bento box is my favorite since it's cheaper and it has everything I like.  The bento comes with shrimp tempura, grilled salmon as center piece, 6 piece California rolls, chicken yakitori, and some marinated kelp plus a bowl of rice, very tasty!  I'll take a picture next time when I order.  I am not sure if these lunch specials are available on weekends as well, so make sure you give the place a try on weekdays!

We got to the restaurant around 11:40am, the restaurant was pretty empty.  By the time we finished, there was a long line waiting to get seated.  So definitely get there early on a weekday if you can!

The ramen orders comes with one small dish, we picked both the bean sprouts (marinated with vinegar and sauce) and seaweed salad which was $2 additional.

marinated bean sprouts

seaweed salad, $2 additional

There are only 2 types of ramen on the menu since it's not their specialty.  I ordered the salt flavor ramen and it was good!  I believe it was priced at $8.95.  It's not as good as the ramen shops in Bethesda, but since we wanted to meet near Arlington, it's a good alternative!

salt flavored ramen

We also ordered the soy sauce ramen, which seemed to be a healthier alternative since it was less salty.  On a side note, I really like the 'chia-shau' meat in the bowl!  They were very delicious!

soy sauce ramen

All in all, the ramen is descent in Tachibana.  I would definitely order again if I'm in the area.  My first choice is still 'Ren's Ramen' in Bethesda.  Unfortunately, 'Ren's Ramen' closed in Sept last year.  They need to re-open again!


Tachibana Japanese Restaurant
6715 Lowell Ave
McLean, VA 22101


(703) 847-1771