Our first stop in the town of Hershey, well, apart from our hotel, The Hershey Lodge, was Chocolate World!

We went on an indoor tour of the Factory Experience, a cute way of showing us how chocolate is made. After which, we had lunch at the food court. Check out how nice it is!

It even has an indoor tropical “garden” inside!

Chocolate World, by the way, is THE place to stock up on chocolate, because they have all sorts of chocolate and chocolate themed souvenirs for chocolate lovers of all ages!

Did we buy any chocolates? Honestly, we didn’t. The town and people of Hershey are so sweet, we got free chocolates all the time! They gave us bars of chocolates when we checked into our hotel. We got mini chocolate bars after the Factory Experience ride, we also got chocolates all throughout our Trolley Tour!

So yeah, in as much as I love chocolate, I got sick of it right away. Especially when we would get free chocolates every 30 minutes or so! My friend Xsa, who is a doctor at Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center tells us that the incidence of diabetes and obesity in this town is so high! Why am I not surprised? Hahaha!

Last weekend, we went on a roadtrip to Hersey, PA to visit “The Sweetest Place on Earth”. Why the sweetest? Well because it’s home to Hershey’s Chocolates, and the biggest chocolate factory in the world!!!

Check out their chocolate silos/tanks which store 8 months worth of chocolates for production! Considering that they produce millions of chocolates each day, this means there’s chocolate here enough for billions of Kisses, Reese’s peanut butter cups, Kit-Kats, and Hershey’s chocolate bars!

The town of Hershey was built by Milton S. Hershey, the founder of Hershey’s Chocolates. He envisioned it as the perfect town for his employees to live, work and play. The town is so perfect, they have their own amusement park and outlet mall! Of course, apart from tree-lined residential areas with clean, well-kept homes, sprawling schools, community centers, hotels and small businesses that support the needs of the community and its tourists.

Watch out for more of my posts on Hershey, PA this week! You’ll enjoy it for sure! Even if you don’t like chocolate that much! Heehee!

Remember when I told you about Hill Country BBQ?

Well, I forgot to tell you about this!

My heavenly bowl of chili! I love chili and I used to order a bowl of chili topped with corn chips every time my friends and I ate at The Soup Kitchen for lunch back home. It always guaranteed a light yet very filling lunch! This one from Hill Country BBQ is more hearty though with lots of chunky beef, sausage and beans, that even if I just ordered the smallest bowl, it was enough to get my tummy full!

Too bad I should be avoiding spicy food these days though. Spicy food and a pregnant woman are not a good combination. I’ve been having heartburn these days, especially since the Little One is getting bigger and bigger now that I am at 32 weeks! So for now, I would have to enjoy my bowl of chili through pictures instead, boohoo!

If you’re planning a Hello Kitty party, let’s start with the plates! Because how fun it is to eat out of Hello Kitty plates? I remember when I was 7, I won a Hello Kitty dinner set at a school raffle and I just loved loved loved it! It was rectangular with 5 sections and I just enjoyed eating out of that plate even if the food served wasn’t exactly my favorite! See what a cute plate can do to a picky eater?

Here’s a big one with three sections for the main meal…

And a smaller one with two sections for the birthday cake and some more dessert!

Available at Target!

Dear Hubby and I had a fun and delicious dinner at Kobe Japanese Steak House in Orlando with our friends Tots & Chester some months back and all he could of think of up until last week was the teppanyaki table. So I did some research and discovered there was a highly rated steak house with a hibachi table near our place!

So we invited our friends Me-an and Eric and had dinner at Matsushima, a Japanese steak house behind our favorite Japanese grocery store Mitsuwa!

Here’s the hibachi table, and we had iced green tea to go with our meal!

Our meal came with miso soup…

…and Japanese salad! The dressing was really unique and very good!

Here’s our chef preparing our vegetables - sweet white onions, mushrooms and zucchini!

The main course: shrimp, lobster and

…steak!

Yummy!!! Our total bill added up to $216 for four, inclusive of tips. Not cheap, but not too expensive either. At least Dear Hubby’s teppanyaki craving was solved!

Before:

After:

If you are craving for some honest to goodness Texas bbq right smack in Manhattan, look no further and visit this rustic looking bbq shack (where they serve bbq on paper and not plates!) at:

30 W 26th St # 1
New York, NY 10010
(212) 255-4544

Drinks are placed with a waitress, but bbq orders are done “turo-turo” style, meaning you go to a counter and let the folks behind it weigh in your order. Then you pick out your sidings and dessert. Quite an interesting, market style concept. You think “turo-turo” is an original Philippine idea? This makes us not so smug after all! Hahaha!

There’s a Thai place that I go to in SoHo, called Thai Angel, because they have amazing pad thai and green curry.

But when I went there the last time with my friend Sarj, we just had to get some dessert after scarfing down a whole serving of calamari and pad thai. This is what we got! Fried ice cream!

It was so yummy! The crust/dough was really good on its own, it could have been ok without the ice cream! Promise! Surprisingly, the ice cream inside remained frozen and didn’t even melt! Then again, the outer layer was really thick and the consistency was chewy so it must have done a great job keeping the ice cream inside unadulterated. Sigh, so yummy! The raspberry sauce and chocolate drizzle nicely rounded off this sweet, cool, chewy delight of a dessert!

This place really is an angel watching over my Thai cravings hahaha!

141 Grand Street
New York, NY 10013
Telephone : 212.966.8916
Fax : 212.966.9316

Thai Angel Cusine is located on Grand St. between Lafayette street and Crosby street.

Open 7 days a week
Monday - Saturday 11:30am - 11:00pm
Sunday 12:00 noon - 11:00pm

No there’s nothing freaky about this post, although I have to admit, a little taste of this…

…is enough to send shivers down your spine! An extremely pleasurable experience I tell you!

My other favorite Ben & Jerry’s flavors are Fossil Fuel and Chocolate Fudge Brownie. Sigh, yes I do love ice cream with chocolate in it!

Financier Patisserie has got to be the source of the best tasting cakes I’ve ever tried in my entire life! Thanks to our friend Sri who indulged our sweet tooth!

As the Financier website proudly proclaims, “The bakery, part of Peter Poulakakos’ ever expanding restaurant empire, which includes Bayard’s, Ulysses’, Adrienne’s Pizza Bar, Harry’s Café and Harry’s Steak, has garnered a following of New Yorkers in the know since the opening of the flagship location in 2002.”

This charming pastry shop specializes in traditional and signature French Pastries. “Its name not only refers to the district in which its flagship store is located but also to a unique French pastry of the same name. The financier is a rich almond cake which is traditionally baked in the shape of a gold bar.”

And I have to say, theirs is the gold standard in pastries, thanks to Executive Pastry Chef and co-owner Eric Bedoucha.

We tried this Sacher Torte (Layers of chocolate hazelnut cake alternating with thin layers of raspberry preserve) and it was just so moist and delicious, but not cloyingly sweet. I had two slices of this! So temptingly good, we didn’t even have time to take a “before” shot!

Now the Chocolate Mousse Cake (Moist almond macaron, chocolate mousse, chocolate ganache and chocolate biscuit with chocolate glaze) is simply divine! So light and it feels like having a bite of heaven! This picture doesn’t even do this confection any justice! Had two slices of this too! Heehee!

Sigh, so good, I just get dreamy thinking about these! In fact, I just called Dear Hubby at work to tell him I want a chocolate mousse cake from Financier! Heehee!

Financier Patisserie Locations:
62 Stone Street
(Bet Mill Lane and Hanover Sq)
New York, NY 10004
Telephone: (212) 344-5600
Fax: (212) 344-5602

3-4 World Financial Center
(Battery Park City)
New York, NY 10281
Telephone: (212) 786-3220
Fax: (212) 786-3226

35 Cedar Street @ 10 Liberty Plaza
(Bet Pearl and William)
New York, NY 10005
Telephone: (212) 952-3838
Fax: (212) 742-7016

Still here in Mitsuwa! I know, there’s just so much good stuff in one place huh?

I tried this green tea flavored bubble tea and it was yum!

But between bubble tea and soft serve ice cream, I think I will still go for soft serve ice cream! Hmmm, I feel like eating one now, ok gotta go! Bye! Hahahaha!