Good morning! As we approach the end of October, you can see the footsteps of Autumn across the campus! The pumpkins, balloons, leaf of the tree, parties for Halloween, and unsettled temperatures throughout the week all decorate this lovely season to the best of it can ever be!

As I struggled to find a new restaurant to explore for more food recommendations, my roommate suggested the Panera located at Kern Building next to the Pattee Library and West Residency. I may be an expert in many fields of food, but Panera is a well-known name that I never discovered, so I decided to give it a shot!

This particular Panera is not super big, but it still offers a variety of options, and Sandwiches, soups, salads, drinks, and bakeries mainly dominate the menu. Following the advice from my roommate, I ordered a Pick 2 including Chipotle Chicken Avocado Melt and Cream of Chicken & Wild Rice soup with a free French Baguette aside (you may choose from chips, an apple, and a piece of baguette). Even though I am a rookie at Panera, I am familiar with its drinks. Highly recommend the Papaya Green Tea and Mango Yuzu Citrus Charged Lemonade as a wonderful drink to start your morning with, but I do need to warn you they all contain a high amount of caffeine.

And bring the topic back to our main dish today. Starting with the sandwich, I asked for red onions and Country Rustic Sourdough to replace the regular Black Pepper Focaccia bread. The second I opened the package, the smell of grilled chicken mixed with fresh-baked wheat bread took over every part of my nose. Without hesitation, I took a big bite. I first sensed the crunchiness of the bread, and then avocado and mushed chicken softly landed in my mouth contradicting how crispy the bread was. And then all the taste starts to be shown. Due to the thickness of the bread this barely sensible flavor of wheat didn’t get covered by all the other strong taste ingredients, on top of that, the mushed chicken with sauce (not sure what sauce it is) set a foundation taste for this sandwich. In addition, avocado provided a fresh sense that blended into this heavy-tasting chicken, with a few red onions decorating the overall taste with a little spice. With all these layers of taste, they support each other perfectly.

Finally, my personal favorite from this order is wild Rice soup. To be honest, I don’t regularly eat creamy soup, but I did fall in love with this one. Maybe the chicken in the sandwich influenced my taste, but the soup only contained a light flavor of the chicken. Instead, it has a dominating flavor of rice, which is magical for me! As a big fan of all rice, this is the first time I have tasted rice in a creamy soup. Unlike many other soups, this soup used rice as a base and only used another flavor to emphasize to tastiness of this combination of rice and heavy cream. I don’t know if you ever put bread in your soup but trust me it’s great! The hot soup quickly warmed up the baguette and melted its shielded skin and my heart.

And that is all my first experience at Panera! Definitely highly recommend to all of you! Hope you all a happy weekend!

Believe you are all in the middle of a mid-term review or just survived through one already, all I can say is GOOD JOB! We are already halfway through our first college semester, even still confused about how but some rewards are necessary.

One of today’s recommendations can be familiar to many of you – Mr. Wish!

Mr. Wish is a boba shop with a variety of milk tea and fruit tea for you to choose from, you can detail how much percentage of sugar you want and if you prefer extra ingredients such as taro, boba, coconut, and others. The price is relatively fair compared to other boba shops around downtown, all around 4-6 dollars for small and 5-7 dollars for big cups. But the biggest advantage it has is the location! Mr. Wish is located right across the street from Schreyer’s college and south living dorms, even if you are walking from the west hall, it’s only 6-7 minutes! With this in mind, you can always get a cup of sweet boba to sit through a boring lecture, power through a review session, or a celebration of finishing your class for the day. Here is a little tip, download Snackpass on your phone and always order online. YOU GET FREE BOBA! You may stack up the credits and exchange them for free drinks, and it is cheaper online anyway!

Now I shall navigate you through the menu! First, I can’t imagine anyone disliking Boba, in my mind, there are only two types of people: Boba lovers and people who haven’t tried Boba. If you unfortunately fall into to second category, then I recommend you start your journey with Pearl Milk Tea or Black Tiger Milk. First, you can never go wrong with the classic Pearl Milk Tea, it is everything you can imagine a boba tea to ever be! In addition, you may adjust its flavor as you prefer, I would encourage you to shoot for 30% or 60% sugar so it’s not overwhelming but you still experience the sweetness you should get from a healing drink like this. The classic combo brings you a separated flavor of milk, tea, and boba itself. Then as you taste, they start to react to each other, creating chemistry that you can never expect! And now Black Tiger Milk, even I recommend this to y’all, but it isn’t for rookies! For this one, you MAY NOT change any flavor. If you do not have a sweet tooth like me, you may not enjoy it as much. Black Tiger is a drink that invades your heart with the sweetness and flavor of milk, even the boba is extra sweet! The milk tea first slides in smoothly, creating a dream-like feeling, and then the bouncy Boba drags you back to reality, but soon you will start to sense the sugar in Boba itself, all the sweets are different and unique.

And that will be everything for Mr. Wish! I hope this Boba drink can heal your mid-term and wish you preform the best you can!

 

Hello everyone, I believe everyone has been busy through this mid-term week, time to reward yourself with some delicious Panda Express! Today I will review some Panda Express menus and recommend a few ones that are top list in my heart.

Before I start, I have to admit Panda Express can be pricy compared to some dining hall food, but there are always a couple of days where you find yourself disgusted by dining hall food, and that is where Panda Express hits in. (Also, when you can’t find a place to eat after 8, they always open till 9:30 on workdays)

Panda Express offers three sizes of meals, I would always recommend the plate (2 sides) or a bowl (1 side) because they always give larger portions compared to places like Hibachi-San and South Asia-Market, plus they always season heavily to every side.

Now we start with entrees. Panda Express impressed me with the variety of Entress you may choose from, such as white rice, brown rice, fried rice, Lo Mein, and vegetables. From the list here I only recommend white rice and fried rice. The fried rice they provide doesn’t have a strong taste in itself which fits Panda Express’s heavy taste sides, plus you paying the same price for fried rice and white rice, so why not fried? Some of you may wonder why I choose white rice over noodles and brown rice, and here are the reasons. White rice doesn’t release much taste when you mix it with another dish, so it can reduce any overwhelming taste. For brown rice, I mean… since you are eating Panda Express, give yourself a break and enjoy the good food even if it’s unhealthy.

And now we move on to sides. The number of sides they have is scary, so today I will give you three options to consider for. First is our old classic – orange chicken! If I have to be honest, orange chicken is not real Chinese food, but that doesn’t change the deliciousness of it. Once the sourness and sweetness sauce melt your sense of taste, the crispiness of chicken will open up your appetite. When you mix it with rice, all the taste gets absorbed by rice and the taste got simpler instead of complicated. The follow up of orange chicken is fried shrimp. This fried shrimp shines with its crispy golden skin, that’s how you determine a good fried shrimp or an overcooked one. Spuriously, shrimp was seasoned just right, with right amount of salty covered with slight sweetness, the shrimp really performed its original taste out. The last one is from my roommate, the one and only – cream cheese Rangoon. As a nontraditional Chinese dish, Cream Rangoon has won the heart from everyone. The solid crispy skin with creamy cheese start to collide and mix, and slowly they became in one, kind of like how two individual fall in love. “They really complete each other” (My roommate)

And that is todays food recommendation, see you next time!

 

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Today is special! For the entire Chinese community Mid-autumn Festival happened this weekend! The festival represents the essence of Chinese culture, and the ideology of a family should always support and stand up for each other. With the festival, we would always reunite with families and friends to celebrate and enjoy the full moon at night. And there is always a key character – the mooncake.

Mooncakes acted as a symbol of the Mid-autumn Festival or even a traditional Chinese dessert for thousands of years, with all the times passed by, they never failed us even once. Because of that, I decided to purchase a mooncake from CSSA (Chinese Student Scholar Association) to celebrate this mid-autumn festival.

Mooncakes evolved, and now own many forms. Today I will introduce you to two types! We start with the classics, which are the ones presented in the picture. Classic mooncakes are usually the size of a rose flower, with a thin skin and full of fillings inside. The choice of fillings can influence the overall taste, most common choices combine black sesame seeds and powdered sugar, giving the whole thing a sweet texture, and of course, you may add ingredients such as terminalia seed and other nuts to enrich the taste. The one I purchased from CSSA, it’s a more modern type of classic mooncake.

As shown here, it is a small desert compared to others, but the most special part is its taste. The taste was a mix of heavy cream and milk followed up by a light eggy aroma, creating a soft landing of the overall taste. But as you taste it again, all the sugar the mooncake contains starts to rush into your throat and mouth, minimizing the appetite. I don’t recommend anyone to buy them just because their taste doesn’t match the price, one box (4 mooncakes) is priced at 25 dollars. If I have to rate it, 6/10. Definably worth trying when it’s cheaper.

And now my personal favorite – ice cream mooncakes. I had a debate with my dad about whether it belonged to Mooncake or Ice Cream before, and I won that for sure. The reason why it can cater to ice cream is simple, it has a similar taste to ice cream. All Ice cream mooncakes replaced their skin with sticky rice flour, which provides an extremely soft and chewy feeling. Fillings can be a mix of sugar and red beans, green beans, sesame, or even ice creams. The magic of ice cream mooncakes doesn’t stop there; the most important part is the temperature of it. They won’t be as cold as ice creams but the second your lips touch them you can feel a breeze inviting you for a dance, and when you reach the fillings, the feeling of a snowflake kissing you on the cheek and melted spread out in your mouth. That’s not the end. Soon enough, all the ingredients start to fill your mouth with their fragrance, sweets mixing with chewy rice flour, it’s the feeling of love.

Mooncakes are always for the Mid-Autumn festival, but the Mid-Autumn festival isn’t just for mooncakes. With all these fun activities and more delicious food, I hope y’all have a happy mid-autumn festival!