rice

Poke City: Hawaii by the Quad

Published on April 10, 2017 by The Crimson CraveLeave a comment

By Saranya Vijayakumar ’18 and Sara Surani ’18

Do you love cultural appropriation of traditional Hawaiian foods? So do we!

This week we ventured to Poke City near the Radcliffe Quadrangle and found ourselves pleasantly surprised with the poke bowls! It is similar to fast-sushi in a Subway/Chipotle-like format where you can add toppings and customize your meal as you go.

Saranya ordered the spicy salmon bowl, with edamame, mango, mango salsa, and seaweed salad, topped with crispy rice and toasted seaweed.

Sara ordered the Poke City bowl with spicy salmon, zucchini noodles, brown rice, crab meat, edamame, cucumbers, and mango salad topped with extra mangos and crunchy onions.

Both bowls tasted a lot like deconstructed sushi–a flavor explosion of zesty seafood in exciting colors and textures. However, the key we realized, is to shake up the bowls to mix up the flavors! While Saranya mixed up her bowl, Sara decided not to. After trying both, we concluded that mixing the bowl up was definitely a better call! This not only equalized the flavors and allowed the flavorful salsas, spicy mayo, and soy sauce to permeate throughout all of the rice, but it also made each bite taste just as good as the last (instead of getting all the cucumbers or crab meat in one bite, and none in the next.) However, Saranya thought the ratio of different foods was a bit off, with way too much sushi for the fish.

Even though we didn’t order the poke-rolls (say, sushirrito??), the man behind us who did seemed very content with it!

The space was small and had a cute blue mural on the wall. The service was very helpful, and many of the people who were eating there seemed to be regulars.

Poke City is definitely a great place to try out!

Chicken & Rice Guys, D-hall Style

Published on March 28, 2016 by mchiang123Leave a comment

by Michelle Chiang ’19

The Chicken & Rice Guys food truck is a familiar sight in the Science Center plaza. Nonetheless, I had always somewhat ignored the block of sunny yellow. Compared to Vietnamese sandwiches and gourmet grilled cheese, who would want to spend money on boring chicken and rice?

My opinion changed the moment I actually tasted that “boring” chicken and rice. The chicken was tender, flavorful, and warm; the rice, lettuce, and sauces blended perfectly into a crisp, smooth mouthful of deliciousness. It got me wondering if I could recreate the taste in the d-hall. Who wouldn’t want to eat Chicken & Rice Guys all the time?

20111205-ctb-halal-chicken-rice-primary-thumb-625xauto-203410 (1) — courtesy of http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2011/12/serious-eats-halal-cart-style-chicken-and-rice-white-sauce-recipe.html

After doing a bit of research, I’ve concluded that perfectly recreating the dish is impossible without considerable amounts of time, effort, and spices (to prove my point, here’s a recipe for a similar halal food truck in New York City). However, it IS possible to create an approximation that isn’t too shabby. Best of all, you won’t need to buy anything on your own, and you can substitute ingredients and alter proportions to make it as healthy or indulgent as you want.

Ingredients:

grilled chicken

lettuce (and any other vegetables you want)

rice (I used brown rice for my meal, but feel free to use any other kind of rice!)

White Sauce:

1 /2 cup Greek yogurt

1 teaspoon lemon juice (Yes, they have this in the d-hall.)

1 teaspoon olive oil

1 tablespoons vinegar (Yes, they also have non-balsamic vinegar in the d-hall. HUDS is just full of surprises, isn’t it?)

2 tablespoons ranch or blue cheese dressing

salt and pepper to taste

(Helpful tip: 1/2 cup is about half of a d-hall soup bowl. You can use the d-hall spoons for teaspoons and tablespoons.)

Enjoy!

Fried Rice

Published on March 7, 2016March 7, 2016 by mchiang123Leave a comment

by Michelle Chiang ’19

We’ve all been there – you walk into the dining hall, and nothing really piques your appetite. You could settle for a salad, but that’s hardly satisfying. You could splurge and eat out, but you don’t want to spend money. What to do?

Fortunately, there’s a third option that’s ALWAYS available: make your own meal. More specifically, make your own fried rice.

Fried rice is unbelievably easy to make. At home, my family often makes it with whatever ingredients are at hand: rice (of course), steamed vegetables, egg, leftover meat. Here’s my dhall version of fried rice.

(Feel free to add, remove, or change any part or the recipe! Everything is entirely up to you and your tastes.)

Ingredients:

brown rice

over-easy egg (from the grill)

vegetables (whatever’s in the dhall that day)

sesame oil

soy sauce

Recipe:

1.Dump everything in a bowl.

2. Mix.

3. Eat and be happy.

Enjoy!

Life Alive: Organic, Friendly, and Fresh

Published on October 19, 2014 by The Crimson CraveLeave a comment

By Katja Lierhaus ’16

It’s 7:30pm on a Thursday,and there is already a line out the door. Located on a street corner in Central Square, Life Alive might not seem like it would be a popular offering, since it serves what some people consider “hippie food,” but meat-lovers and vegetarians alike flock to feast at this laid-back and humble food joint.

The moment you enter the comfortable yet quirky space, you can’t help but feel relaxed. As their menu reads, you truly cross into a “world of delicious, organic, and therapeutic food, created with love to feed your vitality.”The food here is meant to heal, nurture, and strengthen the body. Everything is fresh and wholesome, but also incredibly delicious. With options for omnivore, vegetarian, vegan, macrobiotic, raw, gluten-free and other diets, fantastic taste is never compromised.

Life Alive offer a wide assortment of teas, fresh pressed juices, smoothies (made coconut ice cream instead of milk), salads, wraps, udon noodle bowls, and side snacks.

However, their main dishes and most popular items are the rice/quinoa bowls with steamed veggies, topped with a certain je-ne-se-quoi, kick-ass, unbelievable, out of this world, #yourtastebudswillthankyou sauce. Trust me, I’ve tried to create their bowls at home: I can’t come close to the awesome goodness they somehow incorporate in their sauce.

You won’t find any meat options here, but I am certain anyone can find a dish they are crazy about. I brought my big, Rugby-playing, protein-loving friend here before, and he loved the “Hot and Healthy Bachelor,” which consists of melted cheddar, hardboiled egg, broccoli flowers, dark greens, Braggs and nutritional yeast, all nestled in a soft whole-wheat tortilla. He also downed the “Elvis Alive” smoothie: peanut butter, cocoa, banana, coconut ice cream, and rice milk. I swear, anyone will love this place.

I have tried almost every main dish at this point and I have never been disappointed. All of the veggie bowls offer something different. This time I chose to sit in the basement where they have live music is played every Thursday night. Here people are chatting about the week on couches topped with pillows, against a backdrop of empowering aphorisms and colorful, geometric art.

My thoughts about midterms and p-sets melt away. A waitress brings my “Carrot Cake Alive” smoothie and “Rebel Bowl” and I am in a total bliss. The Rebel Bowl is both juicy and crunchy, oozing with sesame ginger nama sauce with flax oil, enlivening carrots, beets, broccoli, dark greens, legumes and hijiki, which is all over quinoa and short grain brown rice. I slowly devour this beautiful display of food as I sip the not-too-sweet smoothie.

I could eat there every day, which is why I am often thankful it is located in Central Square. (It is about a fifteen-minute walk from the yard going east on Mass Ave past Berry Line, and Crate and Barrel.) Any closer, and I would seriously eat there every meal, which would mean I would be broke in no time.

Life Alive. Go, and you’ll never look back.