Taste of South Tampa

Hi everybody!

Today I had the amazing opportunity to attend the ninth annual Taste of South Tampa event in Hyde Park Village! My boyfriend won tickets on Twitter so we were super excited to check this food festival out.

Hyde Park Village was swarmed with people and tons of different food and drink options all over. We started at the entrance and made our way to pretty much every area. The tickets included all-you-can-eat food and drink, which was excellent!

Lots of local restaurants I've been to were serving up food as well as restaurants I haven't tried before, which made this event a real treat since I got to "try before I buy," so to speak.

Some of my favorite items of the day were the chicken and waffles from Inside the Box, the delicious meatballs and eggplant from Anthony's Coal Fired Pizza and the awesome salad and meat roll from CDB's.

Austrian Peppers also had a pretty good array of food. I loved their sauerkraut. The schnitzel was alright but the sausage was really tasty and flavorful.

My boyfriend said his #1 choice were the Cuban sandwiches from The Floridian, which has been ranked as the "best Cuban sandwich!"

There were also desserts! Unfortunately all of the desserts from Alessi were all gone by the time I got there, which made me super sad but I snagged an apple crumble and some chocolate cake from Austrian Peppers, which were actually very good.

The Sweet Tooth Cakery also had a sampling of desserts too. I loved their cookies and cream cupcake!

Surprisingly, I did not have many desserts. I have been trying to back away from desserts lately and I think my sweet tooth has gotten a lot smaller over time...

There was a ton of free swag too. I snagged a tumbler, some cups and even a Tampa Bay Bucs towel.

My favorite item I got was probably this cool mug though:

I had a super fun time at Taste of South Tampa. The only thing I wish there had been more of was the Alessi desserts and maybe more drink stations. I only drank soda during the event and had to constantly go back since only one place was giving it out.

See you next year, Taste of South Tampa!

Trader Joe's Comes to Tampa

Over the last few months I had heard a lot about this little grocery store called Trader Joe's.  My sister raved about the great prices and the awesome organic selection at this store. Over the holidays, she even let me try a peppermint flavored Oreo-style cookie from Trader Joe's. I fell in love at first bite.

So when I heard a Trader Joe's was going to open up nearby in Tampa, I was pretty excited and also curious to see if the store really lived up to the hype. After surveying my Facebook friends, I decided to venture to Trader Joe's yesterday. 

The store opened up on Friday, March 21, so I was expecting it to be pretty busy. However, I am a huge early bird and usually get my workout done in the morning around 8 a.m., which is right around the time the store opens. On a typical rainy Florida day (Sunshine State? Yeah right!) I pulled into the Trader Joe's parking lot, found a spot, and headed in! Easy peasy. 

Welcome sign

Beautiful, inexpensive flowers (hint hint, gentlemen)

The produce here looked awesome and almost all of it was very inexpensive. Baby spinach, which runs around $3-$3.50 at Publix, was only $1.99. And it was organic! Score.

Great prices

Yummy treats! Those donuts...

I love this stuff...only $3!

The store was allowing people to sample their famous cookie butter, both the creamy kind and the crunchy kind. This was it. My first time trying cookie butter.

Cookie butter sample cups

I tried the creamy kind at first. Pretty good, interesting consistency. Then I tried the crunchy kind and was blown away. Same texture as the creamy kind (almost like peanut butter, but smoother) but with bits of crunchy gingerbread in it! Heaven.

Of course I got a jar!

Cookie butter shrine

The checkout aisles are named after big streets in South Tampa. So cute.

I loved my experience at Trader Joe's and definitely anticipate more trips in the future. Organic foods at awesome prices? Yes, please. I'm officially a Trader Joe's convert!

Have you been to a Trader Joe's before? What are your favorite things to buy from the store? 

Event Review: Tampa Greek Festival

Hi everyone! Sorry it's been so long since my last post. I've been so busy with work and just life in general lately.

This weekend I had the opportunity to go to the Tampa Greek Festival being held at the St. John Greek Orthodox Church here in South Tampa. My boyfriend is a huge fan of Greek food and the more Americanized gyro sandwich so we stopped by on Friday night to enjoy the food, dancing and fun!

Dolmathes-A Greek appetizer of grape leaves stuffed with rice and veggies. 

My plate: Greek meatballs, Greek-style green beans (SO good) and feta cheese. 

Close-up of the feta cheese. Anyone that knows me knows I'm a huge cheese lover so I made sure to grab a plate of this stuff when I went. It was really tasty. 

There was quite an impressive array of Greek desserts at the Tampa Greek Festival. The whoopie-pie looking dessert is called Kok. It's a sponge cake with custard in the middle. To the right is Kataifi, a pastry made with shredded dough soaked in syrup. My mouth is watering just thinking about it!

How can I forget the Baklava? Mmm. I'm a huge fan of Baklava and this looked sooo tasty. There was even a Baklava sundae station at the Greek festival! I didn't get around to trying one, but imagine the equation of a Baklava sundae goes something like this...ice cream + baklava=pure bliss. 

The Tampa Greek Festival runs until Sunday. If you haven't been yet, I highly suggest checking it out. There was dancing, shopping, and great live music as well. It's not very often that we have these kinds of festivals in Tampa, so definitely stop by if you're looking for some fun this weekend!

Tampa Greek Festival 

St. John Greek Orthodox Church 

2418 W. Swann Avenue 

Tampa FL, 33609

Dessert Spotlight: D'Lites

Anyone that knows me knows I have a horrible sweet tooth. I love all things sweet -- pastries, cakes, candy, chocolate -- oh, I just love it all and I'd probably eat sweets until I passed out and/or my stomach exploded.

But while I really love my sweets, I also really value my health. For that reason, I try to opt for healthier options when my sugar craving kicks in.

And so, in my quest to be healthy (but still indulge), I found D'Lites.

It's basically an ice cream place with loads of different flavors (changing every day) and all of the options are low calorie and low carb.  Each flavor has around 50 calories per 4 oz. serving which is great because that way, I can eat ice cream without feeling guilty afterwards.

The last time I went to D'Lites, I got the red velvet and mint chocolate chip flavors. I know, the two don't really sound like they'd go together, so I had the nice people working at D'Lites them put side by side in a cup:

SO. GOOD. The red velvet tasted just like red velvet cake and the mint chocolate chip reminded me a lot of what a Thin Mint would taste like if converted into soft serve ice cream.

Some of my other favorite flavors (and there are so many varieties) are: Snickers, Oreo, Samoa, and any cheesecake flavor. Like I said earlier, the flavors change daily, so there are always new and interesting types of ice cream to try. All of them are made either out of the chocolate or vanilla ice cream, so they all have the same caloric content.

All in all, I'd definitely suggest D'Lites to anybody who is either trying to make healthy choices or just wants some good ice cream. They've got lots of options for everyone here. I'll definitely be back!

D'Lites
1906 S. Dale Mabry Hwy
Tampa, FL 33629