The Un-Luck of The Irish

Hello there, have you missed me? I finally had another day off which means I finally had something worth posting about. This was a much needed day off because since the 16th we have gone into extra hours at the restaurant, which means longer days, less sleep, and less eating. Work didn't give me anything exciting to blog about ( i continued to be runner 1, 2, 3, and on deserts) but here I am off from work and ready to tell you about yet another eventful day here in sunny florida.
Actually, it wasn't very eventful, more like.. indecisive.

I decided to have lunch at Applebees which is right down the street. As soon as I saw the you pick 3 appetizer option it was already decided what I was getting. I can never say no to those things.

yumm. just looking at this picture is making me hungry. I
decided to go with the wonton pulled pork taco's, the spinach
and artichoke dip, and the mozzarella sticks. I cleaned the plate.

For the rest of the afternoon I hung out by the pool, did some swimming, some tanning, and some reading. Sounds like the perfect relaxing day to me. After that we decided to venture to the boardwalk to get some dinner. 

We got to the boardwalk and decided on the ESPN restaurant. Only problem? The line was out the door. We decided to try and walk in and see if there were any seat yourself tables at the bar. Nope. The place was packed, and now we had lost our spot in the line that was now around the building. Time for plan B. We decided to check out Cat Cora's restaurant. No reservations until 9 pm. Yeah right. Plan C? Check out the Flying Fish. There was hardly anything under 30/40 dollars so nope on to the next one. We decided we should take the ferry to Epcot and go to eat someplace there. After waiting in line for a while and realizing that every restaurant there would probably have just as long of a wait, we decided to leave the line, get on a bus, and go to Downtown Disney. We finally got there and got in line for the rainforest cafe, an hour and 45 minute wait. Nope. We next tried Portabello's. They weren't taking any walk in's. At this point we were starving and decided the wait's at Planet Hollywood and The House of Blues would be just as long, so we settled on the Quick Service Restaurant, The Cookes of Dublin. 

I decided on the Chicken and wild mushroom pie that came with
"chips", and I got a side of the cheese and bacon dip. 

One word for this meal..bland. Another? Disappointing. The pie had no flavor whatsoever and after adding packets of salt and pepper it still was not satisfying. The cheese dip was watery and also did not have much flavor. For 14 dollars this meal was a bit of a rip off, and I will not be returning to eat here again. 

After leaving dinner still hungry, we mad our way to the movie theater to go see Scream 4. I got myself a small popcorn and a water. The movie was actually better then expected and compared to my Irish meal the popcorn was heavenly. 

Fun In The Sun

I have not posted anything on here in a while because I have been working alot, and at the same stations that I have already told you guys all about. But this week I got the luxury of having two days off in a row, Wednesday and Thursday. Yesterday was a great day full of lots of exciting things and lots of amazing food. But of course I was too busy indulging myself that I didn't take the time to take any pictures. Bummer. But I can tell you about it and then you can go see for yourself just how delicious it is.
Now I will be the first person to tell you I do not enjoy sweet things very often. I would much rather eat a bag of chips then eat a cookie or ice cream. So yesterday was a very rare happening where I ate an abundant amount of sweets.
My day started off at Typhoon Lagoon, which turned out to be alot more fun then Blizzard Beach in my opinion. For one, all the water was heated which made it much more enjoyable.

Their wave pool was crazy!

This had to be my favorite ride, the crush n gusher "water coaster"

While we were there we went snorkeling with sharks, stingrays,
and tropical fish. This guy swam right under me. 

Had to get my picture with stich while I was there of coarse. 

Now on to the food. At Typhoon Lagoon we got two things, and yes both of them were sweets. We got a funnel cake, and some mini donuts with a raspberry dipping sauce. YUM. 

After going back and showering after the water park, we headed to Epcot for some dinner in Japan, but first I had some business to attend to: to ride Test Track. It was closed the last two times I went to Epcot so nothing was stopping me this time from riding it. The wait time said 40 minutes but it really only took about 20, and the ride was so much fun! I loved it, and it is definitely now one of my favorite rides. 

We then headed to Japan but not before we stopped in the bakery in France to get some desert. Since Epcot closes at 9, the bakery would be closed by the time we were finished eating. I got an eclair and almost couldn't wait until after dinner to eat it. 

We finally arrived in Japan and decided to go to Tokyo Dining, the sushi place. I always think I am going to get a certain thing, but once I see tempura on the menu everything changes. So I decided to go with the assorted tempura for an appetizer, and the tempura shrimp rolls for my meal. The appetizer portion was really small and if I could go back I probably would have skipped on that and gotten some California rolls instead, but the tempura shrimp rolls were delicious. While we were finishing dinner we had a perfect view of the fireworks from the restaurant. 

After we left the restaurant we didn't wait a second to eat our deserts. We demolished them while walking to the monorail. It was still early so we decided to head over to Magic Kingdom. We got there just in time to see the fireworks. We then went on a couple of rides which included the teacups, it's a small world, the haunted mansion, the jungle cruise ride, and the pirates of the Caribbean ride. After that we headed home. 

I love having two days off in a row. That means I can have one day where I cram a million fun things in, and then another day to just relax, get some laundry done, order some food, and watch a couple of movies. Perfect. 

Look Who Came to Dinner

So far we have had a couple of famous people come in to Chef Micky's to eat dinner. It is always crazy whenever someone of note shows up. Everyone is always running around to make sure everything is perfect. So who has come to the restaurant since I have been working there you ask? Drumroll please...

Donald Trump's son and his wife and kid's came to the restaurant
one day. He didn't look like this when he came in. Just an ordinary
guy with a "Hungry Like The Wolf" t-shirt on. 

Andrew Zimmerman also came in to the restaurant one day
(and of coarse that day was my day off!). If you don't know
who he is, he is the star of the show Bizarre Foods on the Travel
Channel, where he goes to different countries and eats the craziest things.
I really wish I could have been there to meet him. 

Today, the Queen of Morocco came to the restaurant
with her kids (the prince of Morocco was 8 I believe).
I didn't see her but I did see the 20 body guards sitting
everywhere. 

So there you have it, in the one month I have been working there 3 "famous" or well known people have come in to the restaurant. I wonder who will come in next..

Casey's Walmart Pasta Salad

So my lovely boyfriend Dan informed me that I have been spelling Walmart like Wallmart. Oops.
So anyway yesterday I decided to make my favorite summer dish, my pasta salad for lunch this week. It is something easy to make, and can stay in the fridge until my break. Nice. Well seeing as how I was making the pasta salad out of things I could only find from Walmart with one L, I had to improvise. It still came out just as good just a little plainer. I thought I would share with you the first thing I have really cooked for myself in the kitchen in my apartment.

Here are the ingredients I was able to buy for my salad: Whole grain
rotini pasta, pitted black olives, marinated artichoke hearts, cherry
tomatoes, and light balsamic dressing. 

I normally use a mixture of kalamata olives, and oil cured olives in my salad but I didn't have that option here. You can also put in different bell peppers, cucumber ect. but i did not feel like buying that much produce. 

Trying to fit the bowl of pasta in the fridge to cool: not an easy task.
That is my little corner of the fridge, not much room.. hence why I
didn't buy so much produce to go in the salad. I wouldn't have any
room for the leftovers. 

Maybe I will make a blog post about my next food shopping experience, so you can get a look at what this college student is buying on her quest to eat healthier. There is a stack of Chobani yogurt there on the right. I hate yogurt but for some reason I really like this yogurt. Its thick and the fruit in it is delicious. I got one in every flavor to try them out and see which one I like best. 

And there you have it, my pasta salad lunch. I put the pasta in
the container this morning and just added a couple of the other
ingredients to it instead of adding it to all the pasta directly. 

The pasta salad was a great success, and it was good to actually eat something to get me through the rest of work instead of just a Fiber 1 bar.

Food Review: Marketside Cheesy Breadsticks

I went to Wallmart last night and did some seriously needed food shopping. In the prepared food area of the food section in this Super Wallmart there was a brand of pizza's and other goodies called Marketside. It looked good and I decided to get myself a treat to enjoy on my rainy day off. I decided to get the Cheesy Breadsticks. On the box it say's "We've topped our soft breadsticks with 100% natural mozzarella and added creamy ranch and zesty marinara dipping sauce for extra flavor". Sounded promising.

According to the box, 2 breadsticks and 2 tbsp of
Ranch dressing is 190 calories. 2 breadsticks and
2tbsp of marinara sauce is 170 calories. Well let
me tell you, I ate way more then two breadsticks and
2 tbsp of dipping sauce. Guess this was my one day
off treat. Gotta do some working out later on after I
stop feeling ridiculously full and lazy. 

Ready to go in the oven. You bake it at about 425 degrees,
and it is done in 7-8 minutes depending on how crispy you
like it. 

Hot and bubbly out of the oven. 

Yum. A good snack to eat while catching up on all
my shows I have missed. 

Overall I think this was a good product and would recommend it if it is sold in your local Wallmart. For just 2 something (sorry I don't remember the exact price) it is a lot cheaper then you would pay at a pizza place such as Domino's or Pizza Hut, and its ready in only 8 minutes. Definitely a good pick if you are wanting to have a pizza dinner made in the comfort of your own home, or just want to snack on it on your day off. 

Run Casey, Run

So today I went into work and after my three day streak of being in the wonderful desert room, and my name was on the board next to runner 2. I have never been runner 2 before but hey I have been runner 1 so how different could it be? Well for prep I just had to cut up the bread and put it all nice in the trays, put out the ice cream cones and the crackers, and thats about it. Pretty Simple. During service I just ran the food to the backside. It was a long night that felt like it was going on forever. Of coarse it wasn't without a little excitement. And by excitement I mean one of the lady cooks was walking around with no pants on at one point. No, I am not kidding.
So after service was over I learned that my after service work was to clean out the salad bar. Uhg. Let me start off by saying at the end of the night that salad bar is nasty. There is one at each end of the buffet and they are scattered with cheese, dressing, bacon, various salads, and anything else the guests dropped in there. Gross. Not the highlight of my night I am telling you.

Here is a before picture of the salad bar. This is after I trashed
whatever was in there. What is left is a whole bunch of ice and
food scattered everywhere. I used a half sheet pan to shovel out
all of the ice into bus trays. Took forever. Then I needed to take
the covers off and clean down inside of it.

It smelled so gross in here. I had to practically climb in there
to clean it out. Chef said that he was standing over the salad
bar watching, but I was half inside the thing intently washing it.
I just wanted to get out of there. By this point I had dropped my
whole bucket of water over, was soaking wet, smelled like nasty
food, and felt gross. It was time to go home. 

Here is the finished nice clean salad bar. 

Here is a scary picture of me and two of my
coworkers in the elevator. That is me, Michelle,
and Juan. What you can't see is the other three people,
two giant garbage cans of food, and three food trams.
That elevator was packed, and we were super excited to
be going home. 

And there I am after work in my very dirty and
too big chef coat. 

Good thing I finally have a day off tomorrow because I am writing this blog post at 4:20 am. Of coarse it is supposed to rain again tho. Guess I will have a day of relaxing, catching up on all my television shows i've missed, and maybe even do some cooking. I finally went to Wallmart after work today and bought a whole bunch of food to last me for a while. There might be a food blog post in your future.

Desert First

Today I got to train on a new position... deserts! I was super excited to see my name on the board next to deserts because I was finally going to be able to do something new. Even though when you do deserts you are in the back of the restaurant in the cleverly named desert room all by your lonesome, the day went by super fast and I never found myself looking at the clock counting down the minutes until I got to go home. Not like i do that... all the time. Anyway, I am sure you are wondering what exactly I do as the desert person, and most importantly do I get to eat the deserts.
Well my job was pretty simple. I needed to plate up all the deserts and fill up the ice cream machines. Sounds pretty easy huh? Well it is. You do have to get your stuff plated really quick tho because once those guests see those deserts they swarm at them like they have never seen a desert in their life. Throughout the night I switch out the plates, refill them, fill up the ice cream machine when the light goes on, and make sure the area is pretty clean. At the end of the day I just need to clean everything up.
Now I can't describe to you my job as desert person without telling you how amazing the desert room smells. Do you know how many times random servers came in to say hello just so that they could stand in the desert room for a while, and try and steal some treats? A lot.
So the deserts we have at Chef Micky's are delicious. Those guys in the bakery get an A+. We have chocolate chip cookies, rice crispy treats, brownies, sugar free brownies, carrot cake, mini cheesecakes, key lime pie tarts, Micky mouse mousse domes, and bread pudding. All delicious. Not like I ate them all or anything.. really.

Here are the mini cheesecakes. They are delicious.
They are topped with raspberries, strawberries, and blue berries. 

Yumm

These are the key lime pie tarts. They are delicious too.
They are topped with whipped cream and cute chocolate
shavings.

Mmmm, Hungry yet?

Here are the Micky mousse domes.
They are a mousse dome on top of an Oreo cookie
with little chocolate ears. They are so cute, and when
people see these they attack. I have to constantly
refill these guys. 

This is the bread pudding that is topped with a caramel sauce.
Have I used the word delicious in this blog post yet?

And here I am being a nerd filling up the ice cream
machine. Have to entertain myself somehow..

Chef said I will be working at this station for the next couple of days so I can get used to it. That is totally fine with me, altho maybe it was a bad idea to decide to start up my diet and exercise plan again today..