It's Finally Here!!!

Chipotle has finally opened it's doors in Columbia,SC! You know we were there to get in all the action!

We have been waiting a looong time for this day! Chipotle opened up here officially on January 15th. They did however, have a sneak peek on the 13th. JP and a co-worker went to the sneak peek, and quickly left! There were so many people there it was just crazy! I'm sure it had something to do with FREE burritos! LOL We did manage to make it out the official grand opening (family in tow). They were giving away t-shirts and cards for free burritos to the first 100 people. Our friend Kris was actually the first one there. He saved a spot for us too! :)

Here we are waiting in line for our t-shirt and burritos! Don't the kids look excited??? Ha!


The t-shirt give away started at 3, and this it what the line looked like as time got closer.

We made it in! Burrito time!

Our free shirt and gift card. They made the t-shirt look like a burrito! Cute!

JP Enjoying his burrito!

Arial shot of our favorite burrito the Barbacoa!


Me enjoying my burrito. Check out our friend Kris in the background! LOL

All Pau! It was well worth it! We stood in line for about an hour. I'm sure glad they finally came to our town. We were driving an hour away to get our fix! Moes better watch out! Moes also had the nerve to try and give away free burritos on Chipotle's grand opening! How dare they! lol Other friends of ours went to the new Chipotle a couple days after the grand opening and said there were still long lines! Sounds like they are off to a good start! Good times! :)

~JP and Feather

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Guess Who's Coming To Our Town???

Our burrito dreams have finally come true!!! *burrito dance* Yay! Yay!

It has been confirmed that later on this year, Columbia will finally get a Chipotle! *faints* Woo hoo! They have already built a location up in Greeneville. We knew it was coming, just didn't have a date. I'm not sure if this had anything to do with the letter our friend Chris wrote to them. LOL But I cannot tell you how excited we are! You know how much we love them! Good thing they won't be to close, because all of our six packs and biceps may disappear! LOL

The aftermath after one of our many Chipotle excursions!

Link to news article about the new location: Chipotle In Columbia,SC

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Five Guys Burgers and Fries

JP and I are on week three of our diet. On the weekends we allow ourselves to splurge. It actually works out really good. It's like you have this nice little prize to look forward to at the end of the week. That way you stay motivated and your still on the wagon. Ha ha! We try to decide what we will chose for our cheat meal either, on or before the weekend comes.

Last weekend we chose San Jose. We love that place! They have the best refried beans. So this weekend we chose Five Guys Burgers and Fries. There is actually one located very close to us. It is across from the Columbiana Mall in a small shopping plaza. There are actually several locations throughout the city. Every time we pass by, the place is always packed. Friends have given rave reviews as well.

Please excuse the camera phone pics, we forgot our camera. I think the pictures look decent to say it came from a phone.

Anyhoo...

When we got there it wasn't packed. People did start to show up later on. The place was brightly lit and had simple decor. They had large bags of potatoes stacked all over the place. Not sure if they really use those or if they are there for decoration. *shrugs* There was plenty of seating. We walked up and a young girl greeted us. We glanced up at the menu, to see that it was pretty simple and straight forward. They offer exactly what they are called, burger and fries. Well, they threw some dogs in there too. Burgers ranged from, plain, cheeseburger, bacon burger, and bacon cheeseburger. Then there were "little" options of those same burgers. Probably made for kids. They also offered Kosher hot dogs. Two of our younger kids chose the hot dog. The rest of us were having burgers. I ordered a regular cheeseburger, JP a Bacon Cheeseburger and my oldest a Little Cheeseburger.

On the bottom of the menu it says all toppings free. (I just noticed this while I was browsing the website). LOL When the girl said, "What do you want on it?" I said, "EVERYTHING!" JP of course did the same. I had no idea what this burger was going to look like. We also ordered fries. The girl suggested that we should only order 1 large fry. She told us that it could feed a family of four! We looked at her like, "Say what?" LOL We took her word for it and just got one order. Five Guys also offers free peanuts. They have a large bucket filled with them. They are free so you can have some while you wait on your grub. So we completed our ordered and sat down. The kids and JP munched on peanuts while we waited.

Our number was called, and JP went up to retrieve our goods! JP brought the goods back to the table. I got my burger and was shocked!


This is what I got! You can't see it, but this thing has two hand formed patties! TWO! It didn't say it was a double cheeseburger. And when I asked for everything I got everything! Onions, Pickles, Lettuce, Tomatoes, Cheese, and even sauteed mushrooms! There was probably some other things, but I can't remember right now. JP's was pretty much the same with the addition of bacon. The kids Kosher dogs looked more like smoked sausage. They said it didn't really taste like a hot dog.

Here are the fries! Can you see that! It came in a grocery sized paper bag! lol JP cut the top off so we could all dig in. They even had malt vinegar to pour over the fries. The fries were okay. You could tell they used real fresh taters. They had bags of them laying around the place.

You could see everyone was still munching on peanuts even after the food came.

Here is JP's meal. Yum!

Here are the kids enjoying their food.

Overall, I think JP and I enjoyed our burgers. I thought the burgers were really good. Kind of reminded me of Edna's. The fries were just alright for me. Even with the addition of the Malt Vinegar. The burger was a bit messy, but it had great flavor. I like all the toppings you can add. The sauteed mushrooms were really good and was nice addition to the burger. I would definitely come back for a burger fix. It cost $34 and some change for all 5 of us to eat. Which seemed a little high, seeing that there were magazine covers on the walls boasting of cheap eats. Food was good, we were satisfied so it was pretty Bangin!

Here is a link to check for locations. Five Guys Burgers and Fries

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Blue Cactus Cafe

Ahh, another dining trip. Here is another spot we've been hearing rave reviews from a friend of ours. He's been trying to get us to go for months. Sooo, today we finally made the trip.

We headed out to Blue Cactus Cafe, located at 2002 Greene Street in the Five Points, area. Five Points is a popular College hangout, because it is very close to USC. There are tons of bars and restaurants in the area.

We got there and the place was packed! The place isn't very large, so you probably want to get there at a decent time if you go. We were able to find a spot. On Saturdays they are open from 12PM-9PM. We were greeted and was told we could find our own seating. We got seats and waited for our friends to arrive. Our waitress greeted us and gave us menus and took our drink orders. We started looking over the menu and saw a lot of good things. Blue Cactus specializes in Korean and Southwestern cuisine. They also are firm believers in slow cooking. So all of the dishes are made to order. So don't go in there expecting to get your meal in minutes. Works for us! We were also glad to see they had Chicken fingers for the kids.


People send the Blue Cactus postcards from all over, and they have them posted up on the wall. Pretty cool.

Going to discuss the menu with JP while we waited for our friends. Hmmm...what to get?

Our friends arrived and we were all ready to order. JP and I are pretty familiar with Korean food. Being that JP is half Korean and myself being from Hawaii, we were pretty familiar with a lot of the dishes. We saw another review on another blog and saw a dish in particular that looked really good. We decided to try that, and our friends have been there many times so they knew what they wanted also. We got the kids chicken fingers.


Johnny looking at the menu.


We started off with appetizers. Yum! We ordered Yaki Mandu. They were filled with beef, clear noodles, cabbage and green onion. Served with Soy Sauce. They were pretty good.


Brett and his wife ordered some Kim Bob. They look like sushi. They have Nori on the outside and filled with rice, pickled radish( I think Daikon), spinach, and carrot. It was served with Wasabi and Soy Sauce. These were really good. We all tried each other's appetizers.

They also ordered Egg Rolls. They were filled with cabbage and carrot. This was served with VERY hot mustard and Duck sauce. Man, that Hot Mustard was crazy hot! LOL It opened up our sinuses! Overall they were very good too.

Okay, moving on to the entrees!


JP and I ordered the same thing. We got the Bee Bim Bob. This dish is served with 5 Korean vegetables, a choice of Tofu, Beef, Chicken, or Spicy Pork and Rice. Ko Ju Chung is also served with this. That is the oh so yummy chili paste. We both chose the Spicy Pork, and I got my dish minus the egg. Not a huge fan of Sunny Side Up Eggs. Not sure what all the vegetables were. I know there was cucumber and some kind of bean sprout. I think the greens were Watercress.


Here are JP and I enjoying our meals. You can see the kids in the background enjoying their Chicken Fingers. Which by the way, two of them cleaned their plates. JP and I enjoyed our meals a lot. It was very good! I loved all of the fresh vegetables. The pork was really good too. Accompanied with the chili paste, it was just a great combination of food.

Brett and his wife ordered their faves. Kimchi Fried Rice and Stir Fried Squid. Both dishes looked really good. Brett gave us a taste of the squid and it was really good.

Brett enjoying his squid.

When our food arrived they also gave us two bowls of veggies to share. I know it was Kimchi and bean sprouts. Not sure what the other thing was, but it was really good. It went great with the other things we were eating. We love Kimchi. I could eat Kimchi all day.

JP had to get that last bite. He dropped some Ko Ju Chung on it.

Overall the food here was really good. We cleaned our bowls. It was a great dining experience. JP's Mom cooks a lot of the same dishes for us. It's good to find a spot were we can get those same home cooked flavors. We will definitely be coming back again. The food here was Bangin!

Here is a link to their website if you want to check them out...

Blue Cactus Cafe

Banginfood
JP and Feather

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