A spicy dinner and monochromatic dessert

So we did end up seeing the Monet exhibit. Though I like Impressionism and Monet's work, I have to admit I was very disappointed by the exhibit. It took up all of 2 rooms. I would have loved to have seen more and would gladly have spent hours soaking it all in. We ended up spending 20 minutes max. It's a good thing we took advantage of a special the museum was running where they offer 50% admission on Thursdays from 4-8 pm, otherwise I would have felt even more upset. Anyway, at least we got to inject a bit of culture into our week!

After we were done, we were both getting hungry. Now, we were in the Midtown portion of Atlanta, which is where I used to work a few years ago. There are so many great restaurants in that area, but a lot of them were just a bit too pricey for us right now. We tossed around some ideas and were going to go to a Bangladeshi restaurant when Mr. Spice suggested we get some Caribbean food. I thought of a place a former coworker loved going to and highly recommended. It was a bit of a drive from where we were, but it was way after rush hour so the highway was clear.

It wasn't until we had the menus that we realized that this place was also a bit out of our price range considering our current situation, but we decided once in a while was okay and this would just be our once in a while. :) There were so many good choices, and I was wavering between quite a few but I ended up ordering the curry chicken/jerk chicken combo and Mr. Spice ordered the oxtail/curry goat combo. I really wish I could have taken a picture of my plate to show you how much food there was, but you know how Mr. Spice is about taking pictures of food in restaurants. Le sigh. But I did the next best thing and took a picture of the leftovers I brought home!


Starting from the top left: rice and beans, steamed veggies, and then the good stuff -- Jerk chicken on the left and curry chicken on the right.

The food at the restaurant was pretty good. The jerk chicken could have been spicier, but it was still good. I liked the curry chicken, but that's probably a given since I'm used to eating Indian food. Oh and I even tried some of Mr. Spice's oxtail and goat curry. Now this is a big deal since I don't like eating goat meat or lamb. The goat didn't have that "goat-y" taste that I usually find when I've tried it at restaurants or other people's houses. I'm not saying I would order an entree of goat meat, but I would try a bite here and there. The oxtail is really beef, and it was good -- very rich and meaty tasting. Again, I wouldn't order it myself as an entree but I would sample it again.

I was good about not polishing off my food, but that would have been hard to do anyway since they served so much food. But I was still careful not to let myself get to that stuffed point that's so easy to do when the food tastes good. I knew I wanted some ice cream when I got home, so that helped me stop when I had enough.

Now then, onto my monochromatic dessert.


I probably should have put this into one of my cute little prep bowls, but I guess it worked out after all.

I don't know if you guys have tried Ben and Jerry's Oatmeal Cookie Chunk ice cream. If you haven't, please do so. It's so good. I usually go for the all chocolate-type ice creams, but this is definitely up there in my favorites. It's a cinnamon-y ice cream with oatmeal cookie chunks and chocolate chunks. So good. Well when I saw that Publix had come out with their (significantly cheaper) version of it, I had to give it a try. The main difference is that the ice cream here is a honey ice cream with cinnamon swirls in it, but the taste is pretty dead on otherwise. If only someone would make a low-fat version of this!

But most importantly, don't you love how the ice cream matches my bowl? It even kinda goes with the counter-top!