Boca Raton Florida-Stir Crazy

For my birthday this year, I chose to go to one of my favorite restaurants in Boca Raton, Florida. And that restaurant is "Stir Crazy", a stir-fry restaurant chain that has restaurants in six states! Stir Crazy has a menu that includes soups and other foods, but the thing that brings people to this restaurant is their create-your-own stir fry bar. When you order the create-your-own stir-fry, you are asked if you want chicken,

shrimp, or beef, and if you want rice or noodles. You are also brought two bowls. One medium one for ingredients, and a small one for sauce. Once you grab your bowls and head to the huge  stir-fry bar at the back of the restaurant, you pick what you want. There are always about two dozen vegetable options that you can put into your stir-fry.  They also have a "Vegetable of the Month"! This is a vegetable that is typically not on the veggie bar, but Stir Crazy adds it for one month, making it fun to try something new. I have a trick to getting as many vegetables in the bowl as possible. The trick is: add the largest stuff first, and the smaller stuff on top, that way it is easier to 

carry as well! After you have picked out your vegetables, you can choose your sauce. They have a dozen different flavors of sauces that you can experiment and mix-and-match with. I personally love the peanut sauce! The sauces are labeled by spiciness, so you don't accidentally burn your mouth off!!! After you have all your ingredients, and your sauce, you head on up to a counter right next to the sauces, and wait until it's your turn. When it's your turn, you hand the chef your two bowls, and you watch him stir-fry your stir fry! There is a point where these huge flames fly up really high, and it looks amazing!  When I went there recently, I put onions, bamboo shoots (sound weird, but are really good), carrots, pineapple, baby corn, garlic, ginger, water chestnuts, green beans, and the peanut sauce all together with chicken and noodles, and it made an awesome stir-fry! Although it may not seem like a huge stir-fry when you are adding the ingredients, it is HUGE! Not only that, but it is really filling! One stir-fry can last me up to three meals! It's Stir Crazy!!!! As for pricing, it's a great deal for kids, a make-your-own stir fry is about 6$, and it's the same size as the adult make-your-own stir fry. Also, we were there on a Thursday night, which happened to be one of the nights (Tuesday is the other) when Stir Crazy has a special deal. For each paid adult meal, you get a kid's meal free! For the five of us (3 kids, 2 adults) it was only 36$ for the whole meal! For a healthy, great meal, it doesn't get much better than that!

As always, I will be rating the restaurants I visit on my Cookie scale of Cookieness, with 10 being perfect chocolate chip (my favorite) goodness, and 1 being burnt, stale, oatmeal raisin nastiness! My ratings for Stir Crazy are:

Food: 8 cookies

Atmosphere: 9 cookies (You get to see your food being made!!!!)

Service: 8 cookies

Until Next Time, Keep Cooking!

Stir Crazy Website: http://www.stircrazy.com

New York City-Dylan's Candy Bar

When I found out that my family and I were going to New York City for a week, I immediately knew I had to go to Dylan's Candy Bar. Dylan's Candy Bar has been in New York City for a while, since 2001, but definitely still an amazing store! It is not only a HUGE candy store with an extensive collection, but it also features an upper level with a mini cupcake shop and an ice cream bar that serves really unique flavors. Dylan's Candy Bar has three levels! A main floor which holds the main checkout lines, and a bulk fill your own bag candy area. A lower level that holds a huge line of all the different flavored Jelly-Belly's, an area that sells lots of old-timey candy like Necco Wafers, Clark Bars, and even more! It also features an area that sells merchandise, such as pajamas, sweatshirts, and purses to have as a souvenir of Dylan's after you have eaten all your candy! One of the best parts downstairs is their fudge stand in one of the two rooms on the lower level! There they have about a dozen different kinds of fudge that you can only get at Dylan's! They let you try as many tastes of whatever there as you want, and everything is so amazing that you will want to try them all! The upper level, as I said before, features a mini cupcake shop, as well as an ice cream bar that has about a half-dozen flavors that are truly unique to Dylan's! They have quite a bit of seating on the upper level, with three booths that

Me looking at all the old candies!

are shaped to look like cupcakes, with frosting-shaped lamps above the booths. There are also a few tables that are pretty sweet because they are filled with gumballs! During the time I was in New York City, my family and I went to Dylan's twice. The first time it was getting late at night, and because they close at nine o'clock, we didn't have much time. When I stepped into Dylan's Candy Bar for the first time, I became overwhelmed, and almost passed out. No matter where you looked, there was candy! We only had time to scope out Dylan's that night, but as we were leaving, I decided to get a small treat

Like the sign???

because even though I knew I would be back to get candy the next day, it seemed foolish to me to come to and leave Dylan's Candy Bar without getting something. During our scope, I knew that I wanted to get a lot of candy from the "older" candies section, because some of the things in the store I knew I could get anywhere.  So I focused on the hard-to-find things as well as stuff exclusive to Dylan's. When we returned to Dylan's the next day I got tons of candy! I got a lot of "old" candies, a few of Dylan's exclusive candy bars, as well as gifts for some friends of mine! Even though we had just finished a great dinner and had finished our shopping, we went up to the upper level and decided to try some of the unusual ice creams that Dylan's Candy Bar had to offer! We tried several flavors, but my favorite was the Candy Bar Blast! It was so amazing because it has tons of little chunks of different candy bars that made this ice cream so unique!


I will always rate the places I visit on my Cookie Counter scale of Cookieness with 10 cookies being perfect chocolate chip (my favorite) goodness, and 1 cookie being burnt, stale oatmeal cookie nastiness. My Cookie Counter ratings for Dylan's Candy Bar are:

Candy Selection: 10 Cookies
Ice Cream: 9 Cookies
Atmosphere: 10 Cookies
Service: 8 Cookies

This is an amazing and magical place that can bring out the inner child in everyone.  However, there are so many great things that it is easy to spend a lot of money, so bring some extra cash when coming!

Until Next Time, Keep Cooking!

Dylan's Candy Bar Website: http://www.dylanscandybar.com

Cookies Culinary Adventures- Making French Macarons!

While I was in New York, I saw lots of french macaron shops. One day as we were passing one, I decided I wanted to try one. So my family and I went inside and because we were literally ready to sit down for lunch we ordered two macarons to split amongst the four of us.  We got a lemon and a chocolate raspberry to split.  Luckily my Mom and Dad just wanted a nibble!  As soon as I tried them, I knew I wanted to learn how to make these amazing treats! A major difference between a macaroon (with two "o"s) and a french macaron (with one "o") is that macaroons usually are made with coconut, whereas french macarons are made with almond flour. French macarons also have what bakers like to call "feet". These feet are the little lines that look like

French Macarons vs Macaroons

ruffles near the middle of  the french macarons. When my family and I returned home from New York, I took a class with a pastry chef, (Shout out to Amy, Thanks again for everything!) on how to make these awesome treats. During that class, I learned that french macarons have very few ingredients, but are very hard to make because if you don't whip the egg whites enough OR if you whip them too much, it won't come out good. I am including the recipe below, but I warn you, it takes patience and a little bit of adjusting depending on where you live, the humidity, and the elevation.

While I was at the class, I made some vanilla macarons to take home and fill myself, and Amy had prepared some earlier so she could teach me how to fill them. When I came home with my macarons, my entire family decided to experiment with making the frosting into different flavors, and found out that it is really super simple to make amazing flavors. The trick is to add whatever you want into it, but you can adjust the consistency by adding more sugar or a little bit of milk. I  have a few tips for first-timers:

1. When making a fruity frosting, use fresh juice  or zest

2. If you are using jam, make sure it does not have any fruit chunks in it, or else it will come out really weird

3. Be creative, because you can really use anything!

Until next time, Keep cooking!

New York City-PB&Co

The outside of PB& Co

While I was in New York City recently, my family and I had to think of fun and good places to eat. My Dad had found PB&Co online, and we decided we should go there because it looked like a fun place with good food.  PB&Co is a little restaurant very close to New York University. Almost everything the restaurant serves is different kinds of peanut butter sandwiches. My family decided that we would each get a sandwich and split it among everyone, which was a great idea, so everyone could have everything! My dad got a "The Heat Is On" sandwich, which consisted of a cold piece of grilled chicken, pineapple jam, and spicy peanut butter. My mom tried a "White Chocolate Wonderful" sandwich, which was white chocolate peanut butter with orange marmalade and some sliced almonds. My brother loves bacon, so he decided on "The Elvis" which was a grilled peanut butter sandwich stuffed with bananas, honey, and bacon! I love cookie dough, so I wanted to try the "Cookie Dough Surprise"that had dark chocolate peanut putter on one side, vanilla cream cheese on the other, and stuffed with chocolate chips!  We split up all the sandwiches, and we each got a quarter of each one.

The Elvis! Yum!

The first one I tried was The Elvis, and that was a great sandwich! The peanut butter went amazingly well with the honey, and I don't even like honey! The bananas were great, but the bacon was the all-star of this grilled sandwich! The second sandwich that I tried was the one that I had picked out, the Cookie Dough Surprise! I was shocked that it really tasted like cookie dough! Although my family didn't care for it, I thought it was pretty good. Then I tried the White Chocolate Wonderful, and even though they said it tasted like white chocolate (which I hate), all I could taste was the orange
marmalade. Not the best sandwich. Lastly, I tried a quarter of a The Heat is On sandwich, which to be completely honest, I thought was disgusting. The sandwich was served cold, and there was chicken on it, and personally, I don't like chicken unless it's hot. The pineapple jam didn't even taste like pineapple to me, to me it tasted bland. Although the place was clean, it didn't have much decoration except for a wall that they stacked tons of jars of their special-made peanut butter. This is a restaurant that kids will enjoy, but not somewhere that I am rushing back to.

I will always rate the places I visit on my Cookie Counter scale of Cookieness with 10 Cookies being perfect chocolate chip (my favorite) goodness and 1 Cookie being burnt, stale oatmeal raisin nastiness. My Cookie Counter Ratings for PB& co are:

Food: 6 Cookies
Atmosphere: 6 Cookies
Service: 7 Cookies

Until next time, Keep Cooking!

PB&Co's Website: http://ilovepeanutbutter.com

New York City-Max Brenner's

My brother and me in front of Max Brenner's

That's their tag line! Chocolate by the bald man!

Before my recent trip to New York City, I was informed by a number of friends that Max Brenner's was an amazing restaurant and I would miss out if I didn't go there. (Shout out to Michele, Hannah, and Dylan! You guys are the best!) I learned that Max Brenner's is a chocolate-based restaurant, meaning that many dishes use chocolate in some way. I became super excited about this restaurant! I love chocolate, I live chocolate, and I breathe chocolate, so this was the perfect place for me! During our time in  New York, we had to fit a lot of places we wanted to eat onto a small schedule, so we only picked the best ones, and thankfully, Max Brenner's made the cut.

You can see the pipes pumping chocolate through the resturant above

When we walked into the restaurant, I became overwhelmed! There were pipes on the ceiling that were carrying chocolate made by Max Brenner's, and it was amazing! It reminded me of the chocolate river in Willy Wonka's factory! To think, delicious chocolate that you can only get in Max Brenner's was right above your head! The entire restaurant is booths on one side and chairs on the other, which I
found really cool! They also had big chocolate bricks on top of the booths that were made of Max Brenner's special dark and milk chocolate, I was so tempted to eat it that I had to take the seat farthest away from the bricks so I wouldn't eat them!

Me and my heavenly mac-n-cheese

Everyone wanted to save room for dessert so my mom and dad ordered wings and a salad to share, my brother ordered a burger, and I ordered the macaroni and cheese off of the adult menu. The difference was the kid's macaroni and cheese had nothing in it, but it came with a plastic syringe of tomato sauce, and the adult's macaroni and cheese was the same thing except it was bigger, and had tomatoes and applewood smoked bacon in it, and it still came with the syringe of tomato sauce. My family decided to split an order of onion rings that were dusted with cocoa powder and came with a chocolate ranch that was so amazing I wanted to lick it out of the container. The onion rings were light, crispy, and full of AWESOMENESS! We never got to take a picture of them because we ate them too fast! Soon after,
everyone's food came. It took every bit of self-control I had to not start digging into my macaroni and cheese immediately because it looked amazing and smelled even better! But I managed to control myself long enough for a few pictures. When I finally was able to eat my macaroni and cheese, I could've sworn it came from the heavens, it was so amazing! the tomatoes were like little pockets of tomato sauce, an added bonus with the syringe that I got. The bacon was full of flavor, and brought the whole meal together! My mom and dad's wings were coated in a sweet sauce that was really amazing! I could have eaten a whole plate of those alone! I managed to coax my brother into giving me a bite of his burger for a bite of my macaroni and cheese, and it was worth it! The burger was super juicy, and cooked to perfection!

The Chocolate Syringe

Everyone at the table wanted to keep eating, but we knew we had to stop, because we were saving room for dessert. We decided to order a dessert pizza that had chocolate, marshmallows, and carmel on a fluffy sugar cookie crust! That was pure joy! The only thing I would have changed about it was make the cookie a little thinner, because I personally don't like thick crusts on anything. But overall it was great! Everyone at the table was stuffed, but we had to power through one more thing, The Chocolate Syringe!!! Everyone who had been to Max Brenner's had told me I had to get this, so I decided that even though we were full, we were going to do this! We ordered, and in a few minutes, it came out of the kitchen onto our table, and all I could think was that this was going to be AWESOME!!!! My brother and I each had a giant chocolate syringe, and we we really enjoyed eating the chocolate out of the syringe.  The chocolate was warm, rich and very sweet - actually I was surprised that it was even a little too sweet for me.  Despite that, I powered through but I could barely finish my giant syringe. Overall, though an amazing place!

As a reminder, I rate the places I visit on my Cookie Counter scale of Cookieness with 10 Cookies being perfect chocolate chip (my favorite) goodness and 1 Cookie being burnt, stale oatmeal raisin nastiness. My Cookie Counter Ratings for Max Brenner's are:

Food: 10 cookies
Atmosphere: 10 cookies
Service: 9 cookies

Until Next Time, Keep Cooking!

Max Brenner's Website: http://www.maxbrenner.com

New York City- Jane Restaurant

Out of all the places I went on my recent vacation to New york City, Jane Restaurant was one of my favorites. I had originally seen this on a Food Network show, "The Best Thing I ever Ate: Personal Favorites". In this episode, the featured food from Jane was their Crispy Ricotta Gnocchi. We were riding back to where we were staying one evening, when we realized we were passing right by Jane. My entire family yelled "STOP THE CAB!" to the driver, and he stopped. We hopped out, and headed into Jane for this unexpected treat. Jane had a very homey feel to it, really bringing a bit of warmth to it that served it well. We ordered one crispy ricotta gnocchi, a grilled calamari, a fried chicken (a special on mondays only) and a fried artichoke. Everyone had a little bit of everyone's dinner, so we could try everything. Everything was good, but what came out on top by a long shot was the crispy ricotta gnocchi, we were even fighting over it!  It was so amazing because it was soft and tender on the inside and lightly fried on the outside, making it crispy. It was perfect with the three-cheese cream sauce and white truffle oil drizzled on top. Totally worth the trip! Even though I felt the fried chicken was good, but not my favorite, the rest of my family loved it.  Seriously though, the crispy ricotta gnocchi was life-changing!!

I can't start rating without pointing out something about the service. It was amazing! When we were at our table raving about how amazing the gnocchi was, and that we had saw it on the Food Network, our waiter brought the chef out so we could meet him.  We complimented him endless times on how great the gnocchi was and he talked to us about how to make it.  We didn't have to wait very long for our food, and the entire staff was very nice! Great Service!

I plan to rate the places I visit on my Cookie Counter scale of Cookieness with 10 Cookies being perfect chocolate chip (my favorite) goodness and 1 Cookie being burnt, stale oatmeal raisin nastiness.  My Cookie Counter ratings for Jane are:

Food: 9 Cookies
Atmosphere: 8 Cookies
Service: 10 Cookies


Until next time, keep cooking!

Jane Restaurant's Website: http://janerestaurant.com

Welcome to the world of food!

Hi Guys, and welcome to Cookie's Culinary Adventures!
Here I will be showing you some of the best places there are to eat in this amazing worldwide culinary scene! Most of the places I will be reviewing will be in the United States, but there will be quite a few international excursions. My real name is Brooke and I'm 11 years old, but because I love to bake and eat cookies, I picked up the nickname Cookie! I am a chef, and have always loved to cook and bake, but what is the best part of cooking? Eating the finished product! This brings me to my other love - EATING GREAT FOOD!  Lucky for me, my whole family loves to travel and eat great food also, so we go to a lot of fun places.  So what are you waiting for? Follow my adventures and lets get started!