where Oh where have I been EATING?

The truth is I feel like I have been eating at home ALOT! TOO much! I like to cook, but I LOVE to eat out! I guess I have nothing to complain about I have been out a time or two recently. And I would love to share with you what I found.

Bangkok Taste-Thai Restaurant

616-667-8901, 674 Baldwin St, Jenison, MI
I have to tell you, this was not the first time we have come to this restaurant. Nor the last. We have been coming here since I can remember, and it just keeps getting better. They have updated the decor in the past couple years, making for a very warm atmosphere despite the drab strip mall location. This is a family owned and run restaurant. Mom, daughters and we believe Papa is in the back cooking, but have never seen him.....he is a mystery.

This is one of the places that we frequent because of the warm smiling faces that greet us ALWAYS, and how welcoming they are to our larger family. The food is consistently yummy.

I love the Curry Pad Thai. My children all love the Chicken Satay(marinated chicken skewers served with a peanut sauce, that my kids fight over) and the Sesame Chicken, which is crunchy and sweet with just the right amount of spice. My spice loving boys are ALL about that! We also always order the Tom Qha Gai soup which has a limey, spicy flavor with I am guessing coconut milk....we order it with chicken. It is the perfect soup to clear out your sinuses! I would recommend you try this little jewel of a restaurant in Jenison.
Bangkok Taste = THUMBS UP and double thumbs up because it's and easy place to bring the kids.

City Vu Bistro
61 E. 7th St, Holland Mi.
The City Vu Bistro is located at the top of the City Flats Hotel in Holland. And does it ever have a "Vu". We were there at night, but it is still beautiful to look out over all the lights and the snow coming down. Nothing like being at a restaurant that is up off the ground to add a little romance. City Flats/City Vu Bistro is a LEED Gold certified building. Which means in mommy speak, it's GREEN, or it's environmentally a good place to eat some food! The whole feel of the building is Scandinavian to me. Very minimal in decor and furnishing, but warm at the same time.

The Menu is also very clean and straight forward. Their specialty is flat breads, they featured 14 different flat breads. We had wimpy appetites this particular evening so we shared the Philly. Which had loads of steak, and caramelized onions on it, with a blue cheese sauce, on a whole wheat flat bread. It was a MAN sized portion for sure! OH but I forgot to tell you we started with a bottle of vino and the cheese and fruit platter, which they brought with out the crackers....ooops! Our waitress recovered well and had them there in a jiffy! "Nah, we don't need crackers we'll just eat these hunks of cheese." (sarcasm). There IS a method to our madness, we split a flat bread and an appetizer so we would have room to each get our own dessert!

Did I ever tell you that Kenny and I absolutely do NOT, never EVER, split dessert! Unless, one of us is not feeling well....then maybe. But that hasn't happened since 1993. We thought we would be all cute, and romantic and split a piece of ooohey, goey, chocolate cake. Well, I looked away for a nano second and when I looked back, it was GONE. THE CAKE WAS gone! And there sat my formerly sexy, cute boyfriend tipping the plate at a 30 degree angle and scraping it with his fork....Uh yeah...not so sexy, or cute. HOG! From then on I vowed to get my own dessert or no dessert at all! I think our dessert was the best part of the whole meal. It was FABULOUS! And they served us French press coffee. Ohh-lala I do like me some French pressed coffee! I ordered the carrot cake with the warm cream cheese frosting and HOG ordered the Mocha Chocolate cake which was very rich and moist. But we both decided that if you come you MUST try the Carrot Cake. It is 2die4!

Once when this hotel just opened, Kenny and I came out and had a "little" get away just the two of us a whole 25 minutes from home! Hey, you take what you can get right. And we are very thankful to have places so close by that we can go to and feel like we have "gotten away" It was very peaceful and a short walk to all that downtown Holland has to offer...shopping, coffee, brew pub, Irish Pub, you name. You should try it sometime. Then if Junior gets sick and you need to buzz home quick no biggy!

They do have a kids menu if you want to bring your kiddos, but this is a restaurant I am going to keep for adult eating. The prices were very reasonable: lite plate prices $6-14, 14 choices of flatbreads (fancy pizzas)$9-14 and these are enough food to share, they also had a entree choices the most expensive being the NY Strip for $21. A great choice of wines and their Olympic themed specials looked awesome! So go with your Honey or a bunch of friends and try it out and let me know what you think.

Stay tuned for more of the places I've eaten....