Chow Down at Chow Baby!

On Wednesday, I got roped into helping my parents move some furniture in their townhouse in Midtown {because of my new bootcamp guns, of course}. In return, my dad said he would take us to Chow Baby for some dinner! I introduced my parents to this place a while back, and my dad just loves it now.

The way Chow Baby works is, you basically make your own lunch or dinner. You grab a bowl up at the giant buffet looking line, and pick your choice of carb. Brown or white rice, lo mein noodles, chicken noodles, and a few others are some tasty options. Then comes your veggies. There is pretty much every type of veg imaginable: baby corn, spinach, peppers, beans, cilantro, bok choy, mandarin oranges, and a million more.

After you get your rice and veggies, you get to the sauces line. There are also tons of sauces there, and you can even mix them up to make it fun! At the beginning of the line, all of the sauces and their associated nutrition facts are listed on the wall, which is useful to know which ones are decent to eat and which ones will make your pants not fit the next day. There are also a bunch of "recipes" of ways that you can mix up the sauces to make new flavors. It's like art class, but so much better.

Girl in green shirt spilled sauce all over my feet. Not pleased with her.

After sauces, comes protein - Sausage, beef, pork, chicken, salmon, scallops are some of the options you have. You get a separate bowl for this, so not to put all that raw food next to all your veggies, and then you are able to put some seasoning on the meat too.

Chow Baby chefs!

After you drop your food off at the chef area, you just go back to your table and hang out until the food is ready. They bring it over to you all cooked together in its deliciousness for you to chow down on!

I'm a skilled chopstix user, until I get too impatient.

Personally, I love the black bean garlic sauce on mine. 2-3 scoops of sauce is perfect, with tons of veggies, lo mein noodles, and some chicken and beef. I also went back for some seconds to try the thai bbq sauce, which was pretty tasty as well. Yes, that's right - seconds! You can go unlimited times, but to be honest, you'll be pretty full after the first bowl :)

After dinner, we went back to the townhouse so I could say bye to this little guy, Cooper! He's my parents' pooch, whom I often puppysit for :) Love him!

Happy Friday everyone!

Anyone have big plans over the weekend? I am going ziplining in North Ga tomorrow morning.. A post to come next week!

Village Pizza

On Saturday, the bf and I were trying to think of some possible lunch options. We didn't really have anything to do that day, and the weather was pretty icky, so we thought we would explore something new. So, what did we do? Searched through all the Scoutmobs we have, of course! If you don't know about Scoutmob, it is one of the best ways to try out new places. Every day there is a new deal (most of them are 50% off) at a different restaurant, store, spa, car cleaning service, etc... The only catch is that you have to text the deal to your phone that very day, or it is gone. Lucky for iPhone carriers, they can set up an app to automatically get all of the scoutmobs, without having to text it. Unlucky for losers like me, with Zack Morris phones, you have to manually send the text.

After searching through the Scoutmobs on the bf's phone (he is one of those fortunate iPhone carriers), we decided on Village Pizza in Cabbagetown. Though it's a bit of a drive, pizza sounded just about perfect for a lazy Saturday afternoon. Lucky for us, we had the 50% off, because pizza and beers can get a little pricey! The place was very cool inside though, and not too big.

Village Pizza in Cabbagetown

As you can see, we had our pick of tables

Squeezed in between some other restaurants and a tattoo parlor, it's a very quaint and delicious pizza joint. After agreeing on some toppings, we grabbed some beers and found a table. The place was definitely not crowded that day (aside from the group of dudes who all just got tattoos together), so we practically had the whole place to ourselves.

This was our table number - cracked me up!

Delicious!

We settled on pepperoni and cheese, with half mushrooms (for him) and half olives (for me). We ate until we were stuffed, and then spent the rest of the afternoon being lazy and watching You Don't Mess with the Zohan. This might have been one of the dumbest movies I've seen in a while, but somehow I still found myself laughing at Adam Sandler and crew's ridiculousness. I also loved that he had his buddies make their regular appearances: Chris Rock, Rob Schneider, and Kevin James to name a few. I probably wouldn't recommend spending more than Red Box prices for this movie (i.e. $1), but it's a nice break if you've got some downtime.

Armless pushups a la Zohan, of course.

Atlanta BeltLine!

Quick post, for all you Atlantans out there. Have you heard about the new BeltLine that is hopefully coming to Atlanta? Here's the scoop:

"The Atlanta BeltLine is a $2.8 billion redevelopment project that will shape the way Atlanta grows throughout the next several decades. The project provides a network of public parks, multi-use trails and transit along a historic 22-mile railroad corridor circling downtown and connecting 45 neighborhoods directly to each other. The Atlanta BeltLine is the most comprehensive economic development effort ever undertaken in the City of Atlanta and among the largest, most wide-ranging urban redevelopment projects currently underway in the United States.

At the heart of the Atlanta BeltLine is an integrated approach to land use, transportation, greenspace and sustainable development that will create a framework for future growth in the City of Atlanta. During the past 20 years, metro Atlanta’s growth has occurred in widely spread and disconnected pockets of development which have strained the region’s quality of life and economic growth. By attracting and organizing some of the region’s future growth around parks, transit, and trails, the BeltLine will help change the pattern of regional sprawl in the coming decades and lead to a vibrant and livable Atlanta with an enhanced quality of life."

BASICALLY, this new project will create new parks in Atlanta, walking/bike trails, connections to all of our areas around the city, and bring a ton of jobs for our peeps. There is a petition going around that they are asking people to sign because the companies involved are applying for a federal grant, which will potentially bring the BeltLine to Atlanta much faster than anticipated. So, do your research, and then sign the petition if you feel it is something that interests you! I think it will be something to help Atlanta kick other city's asses!

**ps I am not one to normally put my views about various things on my blog, because I feel that my blog should just be about goofy and fun stuff to share with everyone. I just feel like this is something that would be really cool and bring a lot of positive aspects to our city!

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