Universal Orlando Resort trip report early 2019

It’s that time again, off-topic lovers! More food and fun from Universal Orlando Resort during our February/March Florida trip this year. This time, after pricing up the options, we got annual passes for just a bit more than the 2-park, park-to-park passes for our trip. SOLD! 🙂 That means we just have to go back for a single day in the next 15 months to come out ahead and admission is free every day after that. Pretty cool. And with the new Hagrid coaster opening in June, well, it’s pretty much guaranteed. Anyway, below you’ll find a report on the rides and sights and stay and, especially, the food. Here’s the Islands of Adventure lighthouse from our first night for your enjoyment!

Advertisements

Wendy’s New Barbecue Cheeseburger

You may have seen that Wendy’s has a new “Made to Crave” menu featuring three new burgers.

Well, it was the barbecue item that called to me.

Mazadar is a must visit

For a change I’m going to write a review when it’s really fresh instead of trying to wrack my brain later.  We literally just got back from our first, but definitely not last, visit to Mazadar Mediterranean Kitchen in Albany.  I didn’t feel like taking pictures, but you can find a lot of good ones over at Yelp.  The restaurant is conveniently located on Central in a strip mall sort of across from Kohl’s near New Karner.  The space is bright and clean and roomy.

Totally off topic – a movie list

If you’re looking for words about food…sorry about that.  I listen to a lot of podcasts these days, many about food and many centered on pop culture.  I’ve heard a lot of ‘top whatever lists’, particularly on movies, which naturally gets the brain juices squishing about.  I decided to see how hard it would be to come up with a Top 10 list.

Moroccan Tajine in Latham

We love Tara Kitchen in Schenectady, but the limited seating can be a bit of a bummer as we really only go at odd times when we think we can get a table.  So when we saw that another Moroccan place was opening in Galleria 7 Market in Latham we were pretty excited.  Their menu looks really ambitious for a stall in the market, so that was a little odd, but we wanted to give them a try.  The first time we went was the first or second day they were open and they only had a few items, which was disappointing, and honestly I don’t even know what we got, but it was so-so.  Our second visit was more representative.

Pizza with the new baking steel

So I gave in and bought myself a shiny new baking steel.  I’ve been using the pizza stone we got as an engagement gift for, well, since we got engaged.  Sort of off and on, but I’ve tried to stick to a schedule of making pizza every two weeks lately so it’s gotten more use.  Seeing all the raves about baking steel vs. stone I went ahead and treated myself to one from http://www.bakingsteel.com/.  Soon enough a nice shiny slab of heavy metal was at my door (sorry, delivery guy).

Last Sunday was its test run…in it went.

Post-Christmas 2017 HomeGoods goodies

I love going to HomeGoods a couple of weeks after Christmas.  They always have strange, imported goodies still kicking around and start putting them on clearance.  I ended up with an armload this year (although mostly not clearanced, yet, still cheap).  But I’ll kick off with something I certainly did NOT buy – a 2,000-count dark chocolate selection!