On a lazy Friday, my family decided to go with our best friends, the Wills, to our favorite restaurant Lalibela (it's an Ethiopian restaurant). They have a menu for kids if they don't like the food. So while my brother and my friends are eating chicken nuggets, I have the real food. Before we get our main dish, we have sambusas. Sambusas are pastries that either have beef or lentils in them. They are very soft and crunchy. Then when our food comes out, it smells like destiny. It smells so good that we are dying to eat it! We got...wait for it..the Taste of Lalibela with lamb, beef, chicken, an egg, and vegetables. It has a kick to it. They use these spices to pump up the dish, berbere and mitmita. They spice things up. The vegetables are scrumptious cabbage, carrots, and green beans. It also comes with lentils. With Ethiopian food, you don't use a fork. You get injera bread. It's a very spongey bread. You tear little pieces of bread off and use it to grab the food. That's how you eat the food! The next time you want to brighten things up, go to Lalibela in Mount Kisco. It's the only Ethiopian restaurant in Westchester and I'm glad to have it near my house.

We were snowed in on this past Saturday so we decided to cook. Yes, my favorite! First, my mom made cauliflower soup. It had a lot of texture and thickness to it. When you add sriracha it gives it so much more flavor and spiciness. She mixed the soup with an immersion blender which gives the soup its creaminess and textured flavor.  Then my dad made a paella. It's a Spanish rice dish with chorizo. rice, peas, and chicken. At the supermarket, me and my dad compared the rice. Even though you think rice is all the same, it's completely different. When I tried the paella I thought the rice was too creamy but it was really delicious. You should try it out and make cauliflower soup and paella. They are good on a snowy day.

On Saturday, January 18th, my family thought it would be a good idea to drive up to Peekskill for some ramen at RameNesque. Ramen is a big bowl of soup. It has noodles, meat, scallions, corn, fish cake, and a soy sauce egg. Before we got our ramen, we ordered veggie dumplings and beef sushi. I didn't even think beef sushi was a real thing. It tasted like crunchy, soft beef with avocado and cucumber. My little brother doesn't like sushi but he loved trying the beef sushi. When we got our ramen, I was really hungry. The flavors in the ramen were intense. The broth was nice and salty, the chicken was tender, and it just went well together. The noodles were squiggly and grainy. I was surprised that one big bowl of soup can fill me up. I asked the waiter if the noodles were homemade. She said everything was handmade except the noodles because it is hard to make. She said the noodle machine was too expensive. RameNesque is a good restaurant that you should definitely check out.

On Thursday night, me and my dad went to a pop-up restaurant in Irvington. My dad heard that Chef Eric Korn was having a Mexican pop-up restaurant named Restaurant Maize and he wanted to go with me. It was amazing! I expected a lot of different things. So I was really surprised about what Chef Eric gave us. I expected tacos, burritos, quesadillas, and rice but it was better.

When we walked inside, it looked magical with all the pretty lights and the way the tables looked fancy. When we walked in, Katie the hostess sat us at the Chef's Table next to Lisa Wexler. She is a radio host at WFAS. She was very nice and she made lots of observations about the food with me. The Chef's Table was at the counter where all of the bloggers and radio people sit. It felt very special sitting there asking Chef Eric questions and watching them make the dishes. It was very inspiring sitting at the Chef's Table. There were seven courses. They had a lot of mixed flavors. We had pozole, fish tacos, duck mole, chili marinated steak, ribs, a pan roasted snapper and a dessert platter. Here let me tell you about some of the dishes.

Our first course was the pozole. There was roasted pork and hominy in a stew. The hominy was hard and grainy.The stew had Mexican and chili flavors and the lime gave it a citrus flavor. It was a dark brown. Our second course was a fish taco. There was a masa cracker, snapper, avocado, pickles, and a lime. It was a bit sour because of the pickles and the lime. The cracker was made with masa and water. It was very crunchy. The snapper was very tender and had a fried texture to it. It was very colorful with the sauces around it.

Then for the entrees, my favorite was the duck mole. There was duck and it had a corn pudding and there was rainbow chard too. Then Chef Eric gave us a bowl of crispy mushrooms and pumpkin seeds. The duck was tender and it was rare. The corn was creamy and it was really sweet. I don't like sweet but that was insane. The rainbow chard was very colorful but it still tasted like swiss chard, After we had the duck mole, we had a dessert platter and that was really yummy. I loved the panna cotta!

This was a very good experience and I would like to go to another pop-up restaurant. The experience was special because you are never going to go there again so you have to make the best of it.
 

On Saturday, my family joined two other families to go to NEO World Bistro for dinner, the Mohrs and the Justianos. We go to NEO for my birthday and other occasions. One day my dad said instead of getting sushi, try the Bibimbap. I used to just have some of his Bibimbap. Bibimbap comes in a big stone bowl, which has been heated in an oven to get super hot. It has cabbage, carrots, eggs, rice, and seaweed. You can pick different meats like shrimp, beef, rib eye, and chicken. I get beef. There are two different sauces. One is a sweet and flavorful sauce. The other is a spicy sauce. I like to put both sauces in my bowl. My friends ordered sushi, but when they saw I was eating Bibimbap, they wanted it too! Now they are thinking about getting it next time. My four-year old brother eats his own whole bowl of Bibimbap.

I go Tengda Asian Bistro with my friend Alexia. When we go, we play Hangman. We usually both get sushi. It's ALL YOU CAN EAT SUSHI so we can eat as much as want! And the best part is I love sushi! It fits perfectly like a puzzle. I usually get a California Roll, a Yellowtail-Scallion roll, and a Tuna Roll. Or I get the same thing but instead of a Tuna roll I get the Shrimp Tempura roll. And sometimes if I'm feeling good enough I get a piece of Octopus Sushi. I like the Octopus because it is very chewy and flavorful and it has a lot of texture to it. You know what sounds even better than that? Making your own sushi! My family does it in the summertime and in the springtime and maybe sometimes in the fall. We get our ingredient from H-Mart. They are the best Korean market I know of! Lots of times, we make California Rolls. Mmmmm, my favorite! Occasionally we make tuna and salmon rolls. My other favorites! Sushi is definitely one of my favorite foods. It is very filling and I love the flavors.

A picture of me and my dad enjoying the beautiful, tasty, crunchy, flavorful BACON MUFFINS at dinner yesterday made the Bacon Selfies site! I am really excited that I made Bacon Selfies and that I'm providing this blog.

Yesterday, I made bacon muffins. It's actually not my recipe. We got it from a magazine called Taste of Home. It's very simple. You only need bacon, sugar, milk, an egg, and biscuit mix. Aftter that, it tastes very delicious. I would advise you to put some butter and a touch of salt in it. You can make it for any occasion. I just made it to eat it! We took a video and will post it soon.

My name is Jordan. The one thing you have to know about me is that I'm a big foodie. I like how you can compare foods to one another. Like is this food better than this food? Jordan's Lunch Box is going to be a place to show you lots of recipes and to talk about different foods. The goal of this is to inspire the people who love food. Some of my favorite foods are bacon, sushi, seafood, chocolate, strawberries, cucumbers, and bok choy. Some of my favorite restaurants are Neo World Bistro, Max Brenner, Baconery, Lalibela, Okinawa, and Sushi Mike's.