A Foodie-Licious Week!

This week might have been low on interesting recipes but it was high in local food goodness! I guess we should take this one day at a time…

Monday:

I started my week off with a treat breakfast: Triple berry jam from my June Foodie match on locally made whole wheat English muffins from The Bread Basket. I love these English muffins but since they don’t have any additives (yay!), they don’t last very long (boo!). Since I try to cut down on breads/pasta, I only buy them so often, as a treat. And the jam was absolutely berrylicious! 🙂
That night, I also made my only real recipe of the week, zucchini lasagna! I ate the leftovers all week and even managed to freeze two portions!

Tuesday:

Too hot to do much, I still managed to run a few errands in town. I walked to the Downtown Mall and as I was slowly melting in the heat, I bought a peach ice pops from the Pantheon Pop Shop. You could definitely tell that it was made with actual peaches, it was so good! I got to cool off without feeling like I ate something bad for me.

Wednesday:

I had a lunch date with Verena, a good friend of mine. We went to Now & Zen, a little sushi restaurant I had been wanting to try for a while. I was NOT disappointed! I went with their pick-3 combo and picked: eel with mango, tempura shrimp with avocado, and filet mignon with avocado. The filet mignon and eel rolls came with a wonderfully sweet eel sauce. And who knew filet mignon would be so delicious in a sushi roll! Now, was it too much food? Yes. Did I care? Not at all. It was some of the best sushi I’ve ever had (although I must admit, I’m far from being an expert) and it was surprisingly cheap, especially considering the quality. For $19 (tip included), I had 18 big pieces of sushi. Good deal if you ask me!

I was too busy enjoying the food to take a picture of it so instead, here is a photo from their Facebook page! Check them out! — I was too busy enjoying the food to take a picture, so instead, here is a photo from their Facebook page! Check them out!

Thursday:

As I had to walk to the Downtown Mall for errands (again!), I stopped by our all-time favorite place, Gibson’s Grocery to buy our weekly pound of local coffee and decided to go crazy and get a BLT sub as well. The place has been known to have the best hot-dogs in town for a while now (and it was made official in this week’s edition of C’ville Weekly!) but I had yet to try their sandwiches. Well, let me tell you, I did not regret my decision to give it a try! Once again, Alex and Chris reminded me why we love their store so much. Local products, affordable prices, and best customer service in town! A proud representation of the Belmont neighborhood! 🙂
Later that day, I met with the lovely Marcela and her adorable son Sebastian to try out (another first!) Sweethaus, the cutest cupcake café in town! They not only had an amazing selection of cupcakes (I tried the chocolate chip cookie dough cupcake but their salted caramel cupcake also looked scrumptious), they also have the cutest space. You have different options as to how you can enjoy your treat: sit on a stool in front of the kitchen and drool behind the glass as you see them prepare their next batch of goodies, or sit comfortably on one of the many big cozy couches. They also have an awesome children area where little ones can play while the grown-ups can chat and enjoy their sweets.

Once again, I forgot to take pictures of this dreamy shop so this one is from their Facebook page. Check them out!

Friday:

Friday was the foodiest day of them all! After exchanging a few emails, I got to meet Traci, from I’m Hungry, my November Foodie Pen Pal! She was traveling through Charlottesville with her family and I offered to show them around the Downtown Mall while they were here. We only had two hours together but it was enough to have her try: Chap’s ice cream, Australian meat pie from The Pie Guy, cider donut from Carpe Donut and a drink from Mudhouse. I also told her to stop by Bodo’s Bagels before leaving town the next morning. There were tons of other possibilities but she was only willing to eat so much. 😉 It was so much fun to meet a fellow foodie and to show her the yummies that Charlottesville has to offer. Traci even brought me extra Cincinnati chili seasoning (I already used and loved what she sent me in November!) and homemade granola she wrote about on her blog!

With Traci, and a guest appearance by her Wee One :) — With Traci, and a blurry guest appearance by her Wee One 🙂

As if this wasn’t enough foodie excitement for one week, last night, as I was checking out the Sweethaus Facebook page in preparation for this post, I noticed a cool Facebook cupcake. I clicked on it and was shocked to see my name in the post…it wasn’t tagged so I hadn’t been notified but apparently, I was their 2000th like so I won a $20 gift card! How exciting! I cannot wait to go back to their charming shop! 🙂