Bonefish Grill

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This past weekend my boyfriend and I decided to go to Bonefish Grill! It was his first but my second time going. My first experience was terrible! Upon arrival, even though we had reservations, we had to wait maybe 15 minutes. Then when we were seated, we didn't get to order for like 30 minutes and once we did, the waitress didn't come back for who knows how long and when she did she had appetizers but we still had no drinks or bread and pesto! She just seemed out of it, she was very inattentive and kept forgetting to bring things we'd asked for ages ago. My drink was terrible and they messed up my order for both my appetizer and entreé!

But even after all that I wanted to give them a second chance chose because the food was actually pretty good and I liked the ambience in the restaurant. This time around the service was complete 180! Damien made us reservations and we were seated as soon as we arrived. Our waiter was awesome, he was very attentive and prompt. We were never without anything! 

So for appetizers I had the Cold Snap Fresh Ceviche and it was absolutely delicious, not to mention extremely cool (no pun intended) to look at lol

My boyfriend had their famous Bang Bang shrimp which was surprisingly underwhelming, nothing to write home about but they seem to be so raved about...maybe it's me #kanyeshrug

Then for our entreés, he had a burger, which is what he orders 98% of time at any given restaurant, and starting eating before I could snap a picture lol

I had the Bonefish Grill salad with grilled chicken it was served with a citrus dressing which was good but didn't have much kick for it to be a citrus dressing. But I'm just glad it was made the right way this time!

After downing two martinis, neither one of us finished our food, which almost never happens, so we didn't order dessert. I definitely recommend either going on a slow day (Monday or Tuesday) or late around 10-10:30 like we did so that it's not so crowded. I feel like that may have played a part in our poor service the first time. But all in all it was a good experience and I definitely plan to go back to try some new things from their menu.

Verdict: Bonefish Grill in Savannah is bomdotcom approved 👍

bomdotcom bonefish grill burger Featured food foodiefriday local miscellany restaurant salad savannah seafood

10:26 AM

Fail-Proof Shrimp Scampi

I know I've tried to keep it moderately healthy so far with the recipes but everyone deserves an indulgent meal every so often and this buttery, shrimpy goodness was mine for the week! I can't take credit for coming up with the recipe but I modified it for my tastes so it's kind of its own recipe. I have made this recipe many times with different brands of ingredients and additional stuff thrown in and it always comes out amazing! If you wanna google, the original recipe is called Red Lobster's shrimp scampi but my version actually tastes better than the restaurant to me.

For the most part I stick to the original recipe but I do add a few more seasonings and strictly use moscato because it's sweetness goes perfectly with the tartness of the lemon juice. But you can use any other white wine you like. I usually pair this dish with steamed broccoli and/or a salad but you can totally do garlic bread or cheddar bay biscuits (if you do the biscuits, send me the recipe!!). But anywho, on to the good stuff..
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Like my other recipes this is cooks up pretty quickly, the first thing you want to do is defrost (if you're using frozen), peel and devein

the shrimp. Then get your pasta going, when I'm in the kitchen, I

like to minimize dishes and time, so I steam my broccoli over the boiling pasta. Pasta is optional and can be omitted or substituted with your favorite rice or quinoa if you prefer.

While that's cooking go ahead and heat a skillet with a little cooking oil, toss the shrimp in and cook until pink

Set the shrimp aside and add the garlic. Cook until fragrant but don't let it burn. I sometimes add onions here too but that's only when I'm feeling fancy....or trying to get rid of onions lol

Next add dump the wine and lemon juice in and cook until the liquid is reduced by about half. I usually cook until a little more than half is left because I like my scampi saucy. I also use a whole lemon in my recipe because I love lemon, but you can use half a lemon like the original recipe.

Now you add the italian seasoning plus some pepper, garlic and onion powder because it tastes so good! Mix that up and turn the stove to low.

Next, toss that whole stick of butter into your skillet....yes, it's a lot of butter I know but believe me when I tell you it's worth it!

Let the butter melt, mingle and do it's magic. You can swirl it around a bit to speed up the process like I do.

Once it's all melted throw the shrimp back in, a little salt and let it all heat up for a minute. 

The pasta should be done by now so drain the water out of the pot and dump the scampi on top. Sprinkle some Parmesan (or not if you're still hyperventilating about the butter, it's STILL amazing) on top and feast like royalty!!!

I will say that this time I made it super saucy, which is ok with me but once it was devoured it was hard not to want to drink the sauce lol but I had self control this time. Other than though, which was my bad, it was perfect yet again! I know if you try this recipe it'll definitely become a favorite of yours, like it is mine. 

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For 2 servings I used:

~1/2 lb shrimp, peeled and deveined

3 C cooked pasta

1 T cooking oil

1/2 C of softened butter

1 C moscato (or other white wine)

Juice of one lemon

1 T garlic

1 T Italian seasoning

Salt, pepper, onion and garlic powder to taste

Parmesan cheese (optional)

Directions:

1. Cook your pasta according to package directions, drain off water, leave pasta in pot and set aside.

2. Heat a skillet over medium heat with 1 T of cooking oil

3. Cook shrimp in skillet until pink then remove to a plate and place skillet back on stove. Add garlic to skillet and cook until fragrant, about 2 minutes.

4. Pour wine and lemon juice into skillet and cook until liquid is reduced by half.

5. Add Italian seasoning, pepper, garlic and onion powder and mix. Turn stove down to low heat.

6. Add softened butter to sauce and let it melt. Put shrimp back into sauce and heat throughout over low for a minute.

7. Pour shrimp scampi into pot with pasta and stir. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese if desired

food Italian lemon pasta seafood shrimp

8:47 PM

You ever get soooo hungry you just start throwing stuff in a pot and hope it comes out good? Well that's how this recipe came about. I was going for something Asian inspired as I'm a lover of most all Asian cuisine (as well just about every other cuisine lol but I've been in an asain mood as of late). Since I had recently done the ginger soy glaze I was searching for something similar but sweeter and remembered I had a jar of mandarin oranges I got from Wally World for all of $1 so I figured why not? 

I'm really not a "cookbook chef" or any type of chef for that matter but I like to get creative in the kitchen and when I do I never measure anything! So I'm going to give rough estimates of what I think I used for this sauce. Luckily I was forward-thinking enough to jot down everything I put in the sauce, just not how much. I know that the base is mostly mandarin juice and roughly equal amounts of soy sauce and rice wine vinegar with some honey or brown sugar (whatever you have) to sweeten to your liking. 

As for the sides I've been on a brown rice kick for a while because I just like rice and decided to replace my beloved white rice with something healthier, so brown it is...for now. But I'm always down to try new food and have been hearing so much about quinoa (not pronounced qui-no-a, like I thought but keen-wa, boujie) plus my mom (who is like my health guru and is also who told me the proper way to pronounce it after laughing at my attempt) been on it, so I decided to get a brown rice/quinoa mix from walmart to slowly introduce myself to it. I believe it was olive oil and rosemary blend or something...wish I would've took a pic of the box but it's not hard to find in the rice aisle. This was also my first time cooking with fresh green beans so I was really hoping everything came out good and it did and was awesome. I impressed myself with this one! But let me stop blabbing and get to the good stuff!!

For the glaze:

*this estimate is so you can make the general base and add more of whatever to get the taste, it's a sweet glaze with a twing of sour*

1/3 cup mandarin orange juice/syrup

1/4 cup soy sauce

1/4 cup rice wine vinegar (you can use apple cider or white vinegar but it'll taste a little different)

2 T honey or brown sugar 

1 T garlic

1 T melted butter

1 t grated ginger (optional, I just had a piece left in the fridge so I threw it in)

Everything else:

4 tilapia filets (or any other white meat)

1/4 cup mandarin orange segments

2 cups cooked rice or quinoa

2 cups fresh green beans

2 T cooking oil

Half a lemon (optional)

Salt and pepper (or good ol Tony's)

Directions:

1. Make your rice, quinoa or blend of both first since brown rice takes some time to cook

2. Whisk together all the glaze ingredients and adjust to your liking if necessary

3. Place fish in a baking dish and pour glaze sauce over it plus 1 T cooking oil. Bake at 400 for about 10 minutes or so, it will be white and flake easily when done

4. While your fish is baking go ahead and rinse your beans and cut off the tips. Coat them with the other T of cooking oil plus salt and pepper or other seasoning and sauté them until tender. I like a bit of crunch in mine but cook to your liking

5. When your fish is done, remove them to a plate, pour off glaze into a skillet, toss in mandarin orange segments and cook until it thickens. You can leave the oranges whole but I chopped mine up a bit to get more orangey flavor. You can also add flour or cornstarch to the sauce to speed up the process 

6. Plate your rice and beans, put one or two pieces of fish on a plate and drizzle glaze over fish and rice (if you want). Squeeze lemon over green beans and voila! Feast!!!

I hope I wasn't too confusing, I always feel like I'm rambling when trying to explain my cooking methods lol. Also all of my recipes are pretty flexible when it comes to main meats, so don't skip over something just because you don't have what I did, sauces are not picky they love all meats. Til next time, bon apetit! =)

Featured fish food low calorie mandarin orange seafood tilapia

6:28 PM

I guess I have to start somewhere and for me there's no better place than with my current favorite recipe, Ginger Soy Tilapia! Not only is this recipe ridiculously easy, it's super quick to make and it's under 500 calories (including sides)! 

I served brown rice and sautéed broccoli with red onions with this dish. I've only recently discovered brown rice after a coworker of mine told me it's much better for me than white rice but it takes a little more time to make. That was good enough for me to try it and it's not more expensive than white rice and I did need more rice sooooo here we are! 

Okay so back to the fish, so I did have to buy a few ingredients to make this but nothing was more than four bucks which is right up my alley, especially with my current jobless situation. Now some of this you may already have and can save more money, but it was time for me to restock anyway so it was just perfect timing. 

So what I specifically needed to buy for this recipe was: ginger, for $.98, they were $3.99 lb, not expensive at all...and you can freeze it so that's even better! Soy sauce was $2.99 and the balsamic vinegar for $3.99. Everything else, I already had at home, so let's get to it!

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This recipe is for 2 but can easily be doubled, tripled, etc.

3 T soy sauce

3 T balsamic vinegar

3 T olive oil (or whatever oil you have)

    -plus 1 T for sautéing 

3 T honey

1 T garlic (fresh or jarred)

1 t minced ginger (I chopped it as best I could and it was fine)

4 tilapia filets (thawed)

2 cups cooked brown rice*

1 cup broccoli

1/2 cup sliced onions

*you can buy minute rice or regular, I bought regular and I do one cup to 1 1/2 cups water plus a chicken bouillon cube for flavor, it takes about 45 minutes so I make it first because the fish only takes about 20 minutes.

 Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Combine the first six ingredients in a baking dish big enough to hold all your fish. Add the fish and scoop some sauce over the fish so they all get coated. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and cover with aluminum foil. When the fish is white and flakes easily it's done, your oven may take longer or shorter to cook. 

While that's baking, go ahead and heat a skillet over med-high heat, add your oil, once hot sauté your veggies to your preference. I like mine broccoli pretty crunchy but onions softer so I cook the onions a little before I add the broccoli.

Once your fish is done, this is completely optional but totally worth it, you can pour that sauce into the skillet you used to sauté and add a bit of flour and let it cook until it thickens to make a sort of glaze.

That's it, plate it and eat! I'm a strong believer in "if it looks good, it'll taste good" and I haven't been proven wrong yet, so I make a good effort to make my presentations look appetizing, which also helps for my bf because I sneak alot of healthy stuff in and he doesn't know or care because it's delicious lol! Anywho hope you enjoy it as much as we did =)

balsamic vinegar brown rice food ginger healthy food low calorie seafood soy tilapia

6:26 PM