After the third and final day of trade show goodness, and where it was actually truly warm enough to hang outside, we ate at the restaurant at the hotel pool. And really, the weather could not have been lovelier. And it was super relaxing. For me, a passion fruit smoothie to soothe the stress away…
I think these are southwestern style egg rolls. These weren’t half bad!
A grilled chicken sandwich with fries. You can’t really tell from the photo, but this sandwich was huge. I mean, like freakishly huge. Like fit for three people to eat huge. I snagged a lot of these fries and really liked them.
I got the fish tacos. They were served with some guac, pico, sour cream, and mango salsa. The tacos weren’t all that great, I ended up eating only two of them because the last one just wasn’t worth eating. But the fixins were all good! And the fruit too. And the food came out beyond slow. I mean, you’re at a pool, so I guess you can just hang out. But it was really nearly unacceptably slow. What are you gonna do?

For mother’s day this year, we somehow ended up at Margaret Kuo’s Akari Room in Wayne. My aunt picked it. But then she didn’t end up going. But we had to go anyway. That’s ok, the old lady would have picked sushi anyway. This is on the second floor of the chinese part of Margaret Kuo’s. It’s swanky. There’s a large sushi bar and plenty of tables and traditional style booths.
The miso soup – quite respectable. Mom didn’t complain about it being too salty or anything. It was just right.
Since I always like to try the agedashi tofu, I tried it here too. And it was good! It was nice and hot and the sauce was spot on.
Mom’s sushi dinner, which is usually her go-to at any sushi joint. Everything was good and fresh.
As for me, I went with a grilled chilean sea bass in an orange miso sauce. This was a great big honkin piece of fish! And it tasted great too. The sauce was just a tiny bit on the orangey side, just enough. The veggies were great too. All in all, this was good food with good service and a fancy atmosphere.

H/A and I headed over to nearby Saffron to stuff our faces. On a weeknight they were still doing brisk business. It’s nice to see this place busy. They had some monthly specials, as usual. When H/A ordered, the server complimented him on his pronunciation of the indian dishes.
we got one of the appetizer specials, the chicken and shrimp chaat. It’s a cold dish comprised of cubes of chicken tikka and shrimp tossed with cucumbers, tomatoes, chaat masala, and a touch of sour cream. It was ok but this didn’t excite me much. I think it would have been better just as a veggie salad as the chicken and the shrimp didn’t really kick this up any notches.
Here is the boti kabab masala. This is lean cubes of lamb marinated for 24 hours in yogurt and spices, baked on a skewer in a tandoor, and then finished in a tangy spicy sauce. The lamb was unbelievably tender and the flavor of this was pretty good. And there’s no veggies, it’s just straight up tender hunks of lamb and sauce, perfect for dipping your naan into! In this case, I got the spinach and cheese naan again. I had liked it the last time and I think it’s a nice alternative to plain naan or garlic naan. It has fresh spinach and homemade cheese. Eat it while it’s hot, people!
But you know what, hands down, with no doubt in my mind, the best dish at Saffron is the kadai paneer makhani. It’s got homemade cheese cubes cooked with bell peppers, onions, tomatoes, and freshly ground spices. There’s just something about this sauce that is unlike any other indian dish. It’s just the best! I would put this sauce on anything if I could buy it or figure out how to make it. It’s not like the sauce that came with the lamb, it’s not masala, it’s not korma, it’s not butter, it’s just the best indian sauce ever. Service is just fine here. They brought out the wrong bread at first but then fixed that right away. And they’re pretty good about filling up your waters. I will come back here for the kadai paneer makhani forever!