Georgio's Bistro and Bistro

My family.





Well it's actually called Georgio's Bakery and Bistro. Located at 800 North Ocean Drive
Hollywood, Fl. My sister chose this place for my birthday lunch with the family(I had no complaints). The family included my mother, father, aunt, sister, brother-in-law, niece and nephew. Phew, that was a mouth full....and so was the food.

I feel like my, I guess you could call it review, is more interesting when you get a little background info or scene setting, for the sake of entertaining storytelling. So I must first add that my mother is not the easiest person to find a new location with. She is terrible with directions and even worse at driving. (I hope she doesn't decide to read these). The restaurant is located on the intercoastal side of A1A and if you are coming from the South, there are no left turns on most of the highway.

So we pull into the bistro. Let me just set this up for you, it's a little confusing. There is a Georgio's Grille and a Georgio's Bakery and Bistro. They are right next to each other, only separated by a small parking lot fitting at max 20 cars. The parking lot is jam-packed, ther is a guy outside w/ a food cart making sausages etc. shaking his finger no at a guy trying to park right at the entrance to the bistro. So, at this point my mom is starting to panic. Parking is terrible, so we figure let's just go next door to the Grille and valet it. What other option do we have, I don't feel like waiting forever for someone to leave. so we go to the grille and it's complimentary valet, you just have to show them your receipt from the bistro when you leave.

The place is really cute, very relaxed setting.

Fresh baked breads greet you at the entrance.

There is a wall stacked with wine bottles and a dessert case full of pastries, cakes and cookies.

The tables inside are thick and long, topped with Spanish tile.

Tables that would hold multiple parties, so don't be surprised if you end up sitting at the same table as another group. It reminds me of Biergartens in Germany. The place looks like a deli/market.

We ordered quite a few things. More foods I grew up eating. yum.
TRIO OF EGGPLANT DIP, HUMMUS, FISH OR TZATZIKI (served with pita bread) — $4.75

Ours had the fish, more commonly called taramosalata. This dish is very popular in the Mediterranean. The eggplant is usually called Baba Ghanoush. And I think everyone knows what hummus is. This was very good, each dip was very flavorful, the hummus was nice and garlicy. It was delicious.

BAKED GOAT CHEESE AND ARTICHOKE GRATIN (artichoke and spinach dip served with crispy baguette) — $5.75
This was pretty good, very cheesy and creamy. No complaints here. If you like spinach and artichoke dip, get it.


SPANIKOPITA (spinach pie) — $3.50
This was pretty good too, another traditional Greek food item. Any -opita is most likely a Greek/Mediterranean dish. This one was seasoned with spearmint aka nana, the Moroccan version. I like almost anything flavored with spearmint. Especially mint lemonade.

TIROPITA (cheese pie) —$3.50
Also delicious, the feta cheese was nice and strong, very salty. Don't recommend if you are on a low salt diet, but in that case you wouldn't be eating feta cheese, period.

STEAMED MUSSELS (creamy garlic sauce and orange zest in fennel broth) — $8.00
The mussels were delicious. I really liked them. Everyone makes them with a different sauce and this was made with a creamy garlic, fennel sauce. I really enjoyed this dish. They serve this with a loaf of bread to slop up all the sauce, this was a huge plus in my book. :)


OVEN ROASTED SPICY CHICKEN PIZZA (roasted peppers and onions, sundried tomatoes with mozzerella cheese) — $9.00

I didn't try the pizza, but I heard that it was good. My mom compared it to American Flatbread in Vermont, and they are AMAZING. You can buy frozen American Flatbread pizza at Whole Foods. I think it was a little spicy. Sorry I'm of no help on this one. :/ Oh man I really want to go to Vermont now.

I split this with my mom, but I think she only took one bite.
SMOKED SALMON WRAP (smoked nova salmon with tzatziki sauce, cucumber, red onion, greens in a spinach wrap) —$7.50

It's not an out-of-the-ordinary dish but it was my mom's choice so I went with it. It was orety good, very basic, huge. I'm not crazy about onions and this one had a lot of red onions. But you have to expect it with smoked salmon. The chips were just regular Lays. I ate the other half for lunch today. The wrap was a little soggy and it reeked of onion, but I pulled most of them out.

Dessert
Canoli and Eclair

The canoli was ok but they are just not my preferred dessert. And I still think that the best eclairs were from La Baguette.

These are my niece and nephew eating ice cream.



I think we did ok

A Sublime Birthday dinner

After about 4-5 years of talking about it, I finally got a chance to check out Sublime Restaurant and Bar, located on Federal Hwy between Oakland Park Blvd and Sunrise Blvd. It's a vegetarian restaurant w/ vegan options as well.

I had been asked by my boyfriend David to pick a place to eat for my birthday dinner. I couldn't make a decision and considering how obsessed I am w/ food/eating (hence the creation of this blog w/ Lee) I was overwhelmed with choices. I started thinking locally and familiarly, is that a word? I thought, Cheesecake Factory, or maybe Grand Lux (similar but not as frequented) then I thought Ocean Prime, but I always feel weird going into failry fancy or upscale eateries dressed pretty street clothes-ish and ordering expensive food amongst business entrepreneurs and snotty people. When David asked me where I had decided I was still unsure. So I asked my fellow food obsessed, amongst other strange obsessions, friend and fellow blogger Lee for her suggestion. Right off the bat she said Sublime. Instantly the light went on and a smile crept onto my face. SUBLIME!!! Why didn't I think of THAT!!! I was pleased. So here it goes, my first official food blog.

May 28th, 2010
I had passed by the place many times and it looks sort of like a banquet hall or hotel outside. Inside the place is very neat, pretty and upscale-ish. I'm probably going to use "ish" a lot, thanks to David.
the restaurant is rather large, well spaced out tables, booths and strange 1/2 table 1/2 booths. I did mention to David that the inside, aside from looking like a hotel lobby or hotel restaurant, was very nice.
Ok let's get down to the good stuff. (sorry in advance for dark phone photos)
We started with the loaf of bread with garlic oil.

The bread was good, seemed fresh baked, it was warm, pretty sure it was whole wheat. The oil sauce was good, garlicky and smooth. But basically just olive oil w/ mashed garlic and some spices. It costs about $3.75. I like it when we get a basket of free bread (David would agree), but he needed to start munching on something, plus we wanted to try as much as we could fit in our stomachs.

2nd item, fava bean soup.
I don't have much to say about this, it was the soup of the day, tomato based and very good. I think fava beans are underrated. They are sort of like giant soy beans mixed w/ lima beans, except they taste way better than lima beans :P.

I didn't take the above photo. credit: CookingLight.
I like them. :) How simple of me. For some reason I can't get the picture on here bc David took it on his phone and my phone doesn't want to save it properly. So just imagine a red colored soup with fava beans and slices of basil leaves in the center. For fava bean recipes try CookingLight, a not-so-pretty bean website, or some Moroccan recipes.

Onward.
As David is inhaling the bread and I'm slurping soup, our waitress comes by with a small plate and two triangles on it and says "compliments of the chef, pesto infused polenta, enjoy". (not sure of the exact words she used whether is was infused, or spiced or seasoned). David and I sort of look at each other half puzzled half excited. Well I was excited. It was so simple yet sooo good. They were surrounded by basil leaves.

Being part Romanian, I grew up eating polenta (equivalent to Cuban's rice or American's potatoes) and I never get sick of it. I could eat it in place of rice or potatoes any day. We felt so special to get something compliments of the chef that we kept creeping at other diners' tables to see if they got it too, and they DIDN'T! HA!

Oh yea and our drinks were called Sublimeaid, basically house limeaid. And they are not Free refills. Again David's disappointment. :/

OK, entrees.
David ordered the Margherita Classico - tomato, “mozzarella,” fresh basil...12. No that wasn't a typos, it's "mozzarella" because it's not real cheese, it's vegan. It's like a personal pizza with 6 slices. The "mozzarella" didn't quite melt properly and the sauce was a little too sweet to our liking. The crust was very soft, like a frozen microwavable pizza. He got the white crust, but there is option for whole wheat crust. Again more basil.

He didn't like it very much but he still ate half of it. We brought home the leftovers and I put it in the toaster oven and made it a little more crispy, it was better.

I ordered the Portobello Stack - portobello, sautéed spinach, roasted tomato, red potatoes, cauliflower mash...19. Basically it was a large portobello topped with a layer of sauteed spinach w/onions, then some roasted plum tomatoes, then the top layer was crispy scalloped potatoes w/ some seasoning and a side of mashed cauliflower w/ what I think was seasoned with Thyme. Did I just pretty much repeat their description? No I think mine was a tad bit more descriptive. I'm answering myself, this blog is getting to be much.

Again, sorry for terrible photos.
The mushroom was surrounded by what David thought was gravy, it was actually a mushroom puree sauce. Very mushroomy, he didn't like it AT ALL. But he hates mushrooms. I just thought it was funny, how would a vegetarian/vegan restaurant make "gravy"? Insert your recipe here_________. So my input on this dish...the portobello was really good, the sauce was delicious, if you like earthy mushroom flavors, you'd be rolling in it like a pig would in mud. The little side salad was a slice of plum tomato on top of a bed of herbs (celery leaf, oregano, basil, rosemary, etc) not an actual salad. My only complaint- the cauliflower mash- :P how do I make a blech smiley? I wasn't crazy about the mash. Cauliflower as it is, is a strange veggie. Mashed up, it's even stranger. It was very gritty and the thyme was giving it a very not-good-earthy flavor, and I'm talking dirt flavor. It was weird. I thought it tasted dirt-like. But I'm sure it's just my taste buds, because I think it's a very popular menu item.

Rating 1-10 (1 obviously being garbage and 10 being phenomenal)
Overall 8

Not a place I would frequent since David won't go back and it's a little pricier than our regular places. Entrees range from $15-$21, but I will go back and try a different dish.

PS- they have a little gift shop/store at the entrance of the restaurant and you can buy a cookbook. 100% of Profits Benefit Animal Welfare

OK, 1st blog down, one more next. 2 new restaurants in 3 days.

Thank you for reading (if you actually read the entire thing).

amazing possibilities

I am officially able to blog on the imaginari-yum. Thank you Leeji. Recipes coming soon...

yakkosan, bitches!

Yakkosan may very well be my favorite place to eat in Miami. It is a place, almost hidden away in a side street of North Miami Beach. For those of us 'in the know' this quietly tucked away little Japanese restaurant holds the key to amazing adventures of the palate.
I love kinpira gobo, burdock root sauteed in oil with sesame. Order this in most sushi joints, and the waiters will look at you like you are crazy. The sushi, of course is amazing, but the real beauty of Yakkosan, is the grilling of fresh seafood behind the sushi bar. Yes, its a real sushi bar! There are different specials daily, each focusing on the delicious simplicity that makes Japanese food so special. There are octopus pancakes, eggplant dishes, tempura vegetables. Fresh and served by a friendly, knowledgeable staff, the food at Yakkosan proves again and again to be a journey into deliciousness! I I hope to try everything on the diverse menu, at least once...hopefully more!

welcome

welcome to the imaginariyum.

i didnt know what this blog would be, actually i still dont, but it is somewhere in my imagination, and now, its in yours!

i wanted one site to accommodate my diverse interests, to integrate all of my ideas. i love poetry, music, yoga, nail polish, shoes, science, and of course food! imaginari-yum seems to want to be about food, so i will give the blog what it wants. gotta feed the blog!

we will see...