Starbucks Does Breakfast Right!!

Aside from their overpriced beverages and somewhat weird employees, Starbucks has come out with some amazing new breakfast and meal options for those trying to be more health conscious.

The breakfast of topic: The Greek Yogurt and Honey Parfait

Reduced fat greek yogurt topped with coconut-almond macaroon granola, pumpkin seeds, and dried cranberries. At $3.45, it's a little steep for a parfait, especially when McDonalds only charges $1.00 for theirs, and you're already paying over $3.00 for a drink! But, this parfait is totally worth it.

Rip off the top and pour the entire cup of granola into the yogurt and honey mixture, and stir it around to evenly mix everything. This makes for a breakfast filled with tons of protein, a healthy amount of fat, lots of calcium, and mostly natural sugars. The real damage is this: 290 calories, 12g of fat, 8g of protein, and 32g of sugar, but it'll keep you full past lunch and is absolutely delicious.

The Starbucks Fruit and Yogurt Parfait

If you're really hungry, or greek yogurt isn't your thing, you can opt for the larger fruit and yogurt parfait, which also comes with granola. This is usually too much for me to eat, but is equally delicious, and is a better value because you're getting 2 more ounces of food for the same price of $3.45. This has 320 calories, 4 grams of fat, and 11 grams of protein.

Both equally delicious breakfasts, at a pretty good value, definitely convenient, and overall pretty healthy!

Kudos to Starbucks for keeping up with the food trends and current consumer needs!

Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives restaurant visits

For some reason, I've seen Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives on TV a lot lately. It always seems to be on when I turn on the Food Network, so I just watch it. After watching a few times, I realized that it seemed like every episode had a place in Texas in it, so I kept watching. Recently, there have been 3 places in the Dallas/Ft. Worth metroplex on the show, and I'm about to tell you about the first one I made it to!

5 Star Dining at a Conoco Station- The Chef's Point Cafe

The story behind this restaurant is that the entrepreneurs who started the cafe were declined a loan to open a restaurant due to lack of experience (neither owner has a culinary degree or food backround).. However, they were granted a loan to open a cafe in part of an already existing gas station. The restaurant attracted people from all over since its opening in 2003, and it finally made it onto the Food Network. Since its appearance on DDD, there is always a wait to get in!

A scene from the crowded restaurant, adorned with Guy Fieri pictures and autographs all over the walls:

After waiting 45 minutes to be seated, we knew exactly what we wanted and went to town. I ordered everything off of their Special Nightly Menu, instead of their regular menu.. I figured I'd check out the specialties while they're available! Bobby and I both ordered an appetizer and an entree so we could see as many menu items as possible, and then shared their famous dessert.

Appetizers
I started out with a bowl of their homemade clam chowder in a bread bowl, which was perfect for the cold night that it was. It was so creamy and meaty that it sort of tasted like loaded baked potato soup! YUM! It was also the first clam chowder I'd ever tasted that had huge chunks of clams in it- you could tell it was completely made from scratch!

Bob started out with cheese fries. I normally love cheese fries, but when I read that they were topped with cheese SAUCE and American cheese, I shyed away.. When they arrived at our table, Bobby just started cracking up.. it turns out the chef had just placed a slice of American cheese ontop of the fries and left it there to melt! The presentation wasn't great, but the asiago cheese sauce they were coated in was fantastic! Very good. Round 1 was delicious!

Onto Round 2-Entrees

I wanted to order the Osso Bucco from the nightly specials menu because it was a great deal at only $15.95, but they were all out! So I opted for the Teriyaki Glazed Salmon topped with Grilled Pineapple and Coconut Rice. It sounded FANTASTIC and isn't something I could get at any other restaurant. When it came, the presentation looked great, and I couldn't believe that I had two huge salmon filets and all of this rice for onlty $14 bucks! The rice ended up having green beans, peas, and corn in it, which was sort of weird, but the flavor was amazing. It even had a little bit of heat to it. The salmon, of course, was fantasticly sweet and sticky. Yum!

For Bobby's entree, I convinced Bobby that he should go outside his normal course of sandwiches and pizza and try something different so we'd have some good food to try! He ordered the Shrimp Scampi, which came doused in butter sauce. Holy amazingness! Both entrees also came with a slice of their homemade fresh garlic bread, which worked perfectly to dip into our sauces!

Dessert

I knew I had to try their dessert, so I put more than half of my salmon into a to go box and ordered up their bread pudding!

The bread pudding comes served very plain- a big square hunk of sweet bread mixture served in a shallow bowl of bourbon sweet butter sauce. I even got Bob to try it, even though he said he "didn't like pudding" LOL! Of course he couldn't stop eating it, and we finished it off.

It was a fantastic visit, and definitely worth the 45 minute drive to Watauga, and the 45 minute wait to sit down. No wonder it made it on the Food Network! I would recommend this place to anyone :) By the end of the meal, I realized that this wasn't a restaurant in a gas station- this was a gas station inside of a restaurant. We learned that the owners purchased 2 acres behind their current location and will be expanding to hold the demand! Excellent!

1 downfall of the restaurant- they do not sell alcohol at dinner (although it's sold in the gas station), and it's not a BYOB restaurant. I guess this just makes your dinner cheaper! :)