Harold’s House of Omelettes In Thousand Oaks

This place is awesome!  You can easily split a dish with someone here as the portion sizes are enormous!  If there’s one thing I’m crazy about it is places to eat that don’t belong to a big chain.   This place located in Thousand Oaks on Thousand Oaks Blvd has been around since 1961 and the food is pretty good.  This was our first time visiting this place. All of the omelets are super huge in size- I recommend you split it with someone unless you have a really big appetite.

This was my husbands order of the Chorizo Omelet with salsa verde- scrumptious!  It’s the size of the plate though.

I had the crêpes with berries and jam in the middle….MMMMMM do I love me crêpes. Enough to fill two people.

Kids plate! So much food…

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Tom Yoong Goong (Thai Shrimp Soup With lemongrass)

This came out so good and I bought the paste already prepared.  Unfortunately you can only find these ingredients in Asian and Thai Food Markets like Ranch Market.  Your local grocery store does not carry these items such as Kafir Lime Leaves, fresh Lemon Grass,  Galangal Root and Tom Yum Paste.  It tasted just as good as having it at a Thai Restaurant.   As for how to make it, it’s pretty simple the directions are on the back of the Tom Yum paste.  Just add the Paste, water, splash of Lime juice, Fish sauce, Lemon grass, Galangal Root, Shrimp, Kafir Lime Leaves and Canned Straw Mushrooms….mmmm

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Couscous Salad With Chickpeas

This was a tasty quick dish to make. It’s like the perfect lunch time meal,  with the exception if  it being high in carbs.  I still managed to lose a pound the next day after having this for lunch.  I’m learning it really is all about portion control.  I got this one from Cooking Light.

• YIELD: 4 servings (serving size: 1 1/3 cups salad and 3 tablespoons cheese)
• TOTAL: 20 MINUTES
• COURSE: Main Dishes, Salads

Ingredients

• 1 cup uncooked whole-wheat couscous
• 1/2 teaspoon salt, divided
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper, divided
• 1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 cup boiling water
• 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• 3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• 1 1/2 teaspoons minced garlic
• Dash of sugar
• 1/3 cup chopped fresh mint
• 1/4 cup thinly sliced green onions
• 1/8 teaspoon smoked paprika
• 1 (15-ounce) can chickpeas (garbanzo beans), rinsed and drained
• 1 large ripe tomato, chopped
• 3/4 cup (3 ounces) crumbled feta cheese

Preparation

• 1. Place couscous, 1/4 teaspoon salt, 1/4 teaspoon pepper, and cinnamon in a bowl. Stir in boiling water; cover and let stand 10 minutes. Fluff with a fork.
• 2. Combine oil, juice, garlic, and sugar.
• 3. Add oil mixture, remaining 1/4 teaspoon salt, 1/4 teaspoon pepper, mint, and next 4 ingredients (through tomato). Sprinkle with cheese.

Ivy Manning, Cooking Light
JULY 2010

Nutritional Information

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• Amount per serving
• Calories: 351
• Fat: 16.2g
• Saturated fat: 4.7g
• Monounsaturated fat: 8.6g
• Polyunsaturated fat: 1.6g
• Protein: 11g
• Carbohydrate: 43.6g
• Fiber: 7.7g
• Cholesterol: 19mg
• Iron: 2.6mg
• Sodium: 655mg
• Calcium: 154mg

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Ramen Or Udon Noodle Soup

I came up with a really tasty Ramen/Udon Noodle Soup. I originally got the idea from All Recipes but I changed the whole recipe and made it my own.   The original recipe did not have egg, meat or garlic in it and very little soy sauce.   My 3 year old loved this dish.   I was trying to replicate a good noodle place we go to in the Valley and it came out pretty good.

Ingredients

• 3 1/2 cups vegetable broth
• Udon Noodles (in refrigerated section of grocery store) or 2 packages of ramen noodles dispose the seasoning packet
• 1/3 Cup Soy Sauce
• 1 teaspoon chili oil, Chili Garlic Sauce or Siracha Sauce (more if you want it hot)
• 1 teaspoon ginger/garlic paste or you can just mince ginger
• 3 Boiled Eggs
• Pork
• splash of lime juice
• 2 green onions, sliced

• Directions

  1. In a medium saucepan combine broth and noodles. Cover and bring to a boil over high heat; stir to break up noodles or if using Udon Noodles it should cook quickly. Reduce heat to medium and add soy sauce, chili oil, ginger, Pork and drop in boiled egg and let that cook until meat is cooked through.  Stir in green onions.  Quick, Easy and tasty!  Serves 2-3 people

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Red Ginger

Dinner tonight was at Red Ginger, since it is fresh in my mind I’m doing this post now.  I love this place, the service is awesome, the food is tasty and this is the 2nd time going too.  The first time we went I had fantastic Thai food, this time I wanted to see what their sushi was like.  We also had the Sake Tasting and I recommend you get this if you love Sake.  My favorite of all the sushi we ordered was the Double Tuna Specialty Roll as it had a nice lime taste to it and their Red Dragon Specialty Roll was really yummy too.

They have Half off Sushi for $3.00! on the basic sushi pieces.  Check out their website  Red Ginger.  They are located in a small strip mall in Woodland Hills right off Ventura Blvd, off the Fallbrook exit from the 101fwy.

They open at 5pm on Saturday’s and Sunday’s, we beat the crowd.

Sake Tasting

Red Dragon Roll and Hamachi (Yellowtail)  Scrumptious!

Close up- Red Dragon Roll

My personal favorite “Double Tuna Specialty Roll”

Spicy Tuna with Spicy Mao sauce & Eel Avocado with eel Sauce

on the half price menu $3.00 each and .50 Cents each for the sauce.    Spicy tuna was delicious and spicy, eel was good but I prefer a big slice of eel over the rice type deal.

My daughter loved the chicken satay in her words “This is really good.”  So now I need to make this at home and once I find a recipe she likes I will post it.

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Hunan Chili King in San Gabriel

We found this magazine that talks about the top 10 Chinese food places in Los Angeles County, and we decided to give this one a try, coming in number 2 on the list was Hunan Chili King located in San Gabriel.  Let me just say, mild is soooo hot!  Careful how you order your food here,  the place is decorated with chili peppers all over the place and with big jars of chili displayed in their display case.  I suppose the hint was there and I missed the mark. The food is good, but I can’t enjoy food that is so spicy that it takes away the taste of the other flavors. We ordered a chicken dish for my daughter that didn’t have any heat and I loved that one the most because I could taste all the flavors.   I’m not big on Chinese Food, this was more of a stop for my husband but this was good… not great and really spicy if your into that.

Chicken Dish

Fish Dish

Eggplant

Lamb

It’s great to go with a group of people to a Chinese Restaurant as you get to try more of what they have.

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Italian Sausage Soup

This was so incredible….so tasty.    I got my 3 year old to eat Spinach!  She loved it! This is the best thing that can happen, she’s been on Iron Drops for over a year for her lack of interest in most foods especially vegetables.  I’m so happy to add this to my every other week menu.  This was a Cooking Light recipe with only 216 calories!  Beware it is so good you will want another bowl….

• IELD: 4 servings (serving size: 1 1/3 cups soup, 1 1/2 teaspoons cheese, and 1 1/2 teaspoons basil)
• COURSE: Soups/Stews

Ingredients

• 8 ounces hot or sweet turkey Italian sausage
• 2 cups fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth
• 1 (14.5-ounce) can diced tomatoes with basil, garlic, and oregano
• 1/2 cup uncooked small shell pasta
• 2 cups bagged baby spinach leaves
• 2 tablespoons grated fresh Parmesan or Romano cheese
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh basil

• Preparation

  • Heat a large saucepan over medium heat. Remove casings from sausage. Add sausage to pan, and cook about 5 minutes or until browned, stirring to crumble. Drain; return to pan.
  • Add broth, tomatoes, and pasta to pan, and bring to a boil over high heat. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer 10 minutes or until pasta is done. Remove from heat; stir in spinach until wilted. Sprinkle each serving with cheese and basil.

  Karen Levin, Cooking Light
  JULY 2004

  Nutritional Information

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  • Amount per serving
  • Calories: 216
  • Calories from fat: 30%
  • Fat: 7.1g
  • Saturated fat: 2.6g
  • Monounsaturated fat: 2.5g
  • Polyunsaturated fat: 1.8g
  • Protein: 17.4g
  • Carbohydrate: 20g
  • Fiber: 1.6g
  • Cholesterol: 52mg
  • Iron: 3.2mg
  • Sodium: 1020mg
  • Calcium: 153mg

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Smoked Salmon With Poached Egg Bagel

I’m not a fan of breakfast and I skip it often.  I do love brunch and it being something as simple as a Sourdough Bagel with cream cheese and Lox.  Well, I came across some ideas in Cooking Light about how to add some more flavor to this dish.  Here’s all you do to make this dish even more yummy.  Grab some Dill and chop purple onion finely and mix it in the cream cheese, spread on your choice of bagel.   Add 2 spinach leaves or arugla, top with smoked salmon and poach an egg to top it off.  Wow…it is really filling with the egg but is oh so yummy to drag that bagel in the broken egg yolk.   Just a quick note that you can cut your calories in half if you purchase water bagels!  I think also adding to a bagel some Goat Cheese and very finely chopped strawberries would taste good too.

Poach Egg- very simple if you never tried it, just add about 4 cups of water to a pan with a tsp of white wine vinegar- bring it to a boil.  Carefully drop your egg in and let that cook for 3 mins tops, spoon it out with a slotted spoon to release the liquid and have your bagel completely ready to top it.

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Sushi Planet

I want to get more food reviews up on this site and I’ve got some great places I plan to revisit soon just to get the review up on here.  As for Sushi Plant, great place, food and service.  I would give it a 4 star rating just because the best Sushi I’ve had  is in Hollywood and nothing has topped that place yet.  The photography is lacking quality and I know better as I took the pictures with the light against the food, I needed to be on the other side of this table.  You get the idea of what to expect here from the photographs though.  I was told also that the Westlake Sushi Planet has a bar inside and the one in Woodland Hills does not.  We didn’t know there was a Sushi Planet right up the street from us, so this one is the Woodland Hills Sushi Planet.

Called “Oh My God Roll”  :)  was tasty.

Was spicy but didn’t have that nice orange spicy sauce that some sushi places serve with it.

Crunchy Roll with sweet sauce.  It was good but I would try something different next time just because crab meat is not one of my top picks for sushi.

Toro Roll was really good and we gobbled that up before I could get a picture of it..

If you would like to follow my food reviews on Yelp- here is where you can find me… I promise to get more photos of food reviews  up on this Food site soon.

http://www.yelp.com/user_details?userid=TX4RFDBXKEEEMMQXoihInA

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