March Mania Day 12: 10 Favorite Restaurant Dishes

Today's episode of March Mania will be a less serious affair as I try to explain ten of my favorite restaurant dishes. There are a few rules however.

Rule 1: Fast food restaurants are disqualified from the list. This is to ensure that at least some effort was put in by the chef or the cook to create the dish. Fast casual is okay.

Rule 2: Past offerings and restaurants that formerly existed are fair game if I can remember them clearly. This rule is just so that I can include a dish that came from a restaurant that no longer exists.

Rule 3: These are not in order from 10 being the least most favorite to 1 being the most most favorite, so please don't treat the list like a top ten list of favorite dishes.

Rule 4: I reserve the right to elaborate or not elaborate on each dish.

With that out of the way, here we go! Also sorry that I only have pictures for five of the dishes.

1.

Chicken Tikka Masala from Himalayan Curry and Grill, Lancaster, PA

2. Ribs and Shrimp from George Martin's Grillfire, Hanover, MD
The notable part of the dish was that the shrimp were covered in a soy-ginger glaze, giving an Asian flair to a seafood that Americans love to eat.

3.

Crabby Friday from Three Brothers, a regional chain in MD

4. Spicy Chipotle Chicken Pasta from The Cheesecake Factory, the only national chain featured in this post.

5. 

Katsu Curry from Temari Café, Rockville, MD

Sometimes, I want extra meat in my curry, and pork katsu is always a good choice for an extra meaty curry.

6. Camarones a la Diabla from Pachanga Grill, Odenton, MD

Camarones a la Diabla remind me very much of the Japanese-Szechuan Ebi Chili dish. Shrimp cooked in a sauce that contains chiles and tomato stuff. I really like  Ebi Chili so I figured that a similar Mexican dish would also taste good.

7. 

Maspero's Crawfish and Tasso pasta from The Original Pierre Maspero's, located in the French Quarter of New Orleans

Crawfish? Tasso? Sounds like a good combination of New Orleans' favorite proteins in a cajun sauce. Mr. Sean likes!

8. Penne a la Vodka from Bei Tempi, a former restaurant in New Orleans located near the convention center. I've had Penne a la Vodka from various places before, but what made the one from Bei Tempi stand out were the large onion slivers (that resembled unfried Bloomin Onion petals, if I had to reference a different restaurant's food) that were not too crunchy, but a good mix of soft enough on the inside, crunch on the outside, and flavor all over. The rest of the dish was good too, but the onions stood out for me. Too bad it doesn't exist anymore so I'll have to make my own Penne a la Vodka and try to make and sautée onion petals.

9.  

Midori Spicy Udon from Issei Noodle, Lancaster, PA

This dish combines Japanese udon with Thai green curry. My mom sometimes makes me curry udon using Japanese curry, but if I want a good bit of spice, this dish brings spice a-plenty. I remember one time during Lent when I had a meatless version of this dish, if y'all want to see if they do it for real or if they just forgot to put the chicken on that one time I went, I'd suggest going to Issei on a Friday sometime before Easter.

10. Chicken Brunello from Cantina Mamma Lucia, Hanover, MD

Near home, there is a local Italian place well known for generous portions of delicious pasta called Cantina Mamma Lucia. My favorite pasta dish from Cantina Mamma Lucia is their Chicken Brunello. Pasta served with chicken, mushrooms, and topped with a tomato cream and marsala wine sauce. The sauce is very rich, but very delicious all the same.