Chino Latino

This past weekend was my very good friend Emily's birthday. To celebrate she didn't want to do the same ol' same ol' and go out in River Falls. So Emily, her friend Lucy and I skipped our way to uptown for some serious food and drinkage.

Emily chose the restaurant, which I had never heard of. Chino Latino.

It's quite a cool concept actually. They say it's "Street Food from the Hot Zones".

On their website they say this: "Chino Latino serves Street Food from the Hot Zones – the tropical belt that extends from the Caribbean to the Americas to Polynesia, on to Southeast Asia, India, Africa and back again. There’s no fusion cooking here. What unites our offerings is the power of their flavors, the emphasis on freshness and their embrace of ingredients and cooking styles common to the Hot Zones."

They have awesome menu's that are personalized if you reserve ahead of time and they have big and small plates for people to share. It's served family style also so you can get a little nibble of everything!

They also had a drink, sushi, and dessert menu.

It was super busy and had the best atmosphere. It is definitely a hole in the wall - literally. I've been to uptown many-a-times but I never knew it was there. If you're familiar with the area, the entrance hides under the sparkles that surround the MAC cosmetics store. It was quite dark which was my only drawback and the music was also quite loud - but at least it was catchy and upbeat!

We all shared Kalifornia Krab roll sushi and pan fried chicken pot stickers. Then we each got our own desert. If you look at the menu above I got hot funky love, Emily got the chocolate volcano cup, and Lucy got chocolate flandango.

IT WAS SO AMAZING! Seriously the best sushi I've ever eaten.

So given my fortune I maybe shouldn't have eaten the last pot sticker.....

If you read my post from a couple weeks ago about Muffuletta then you will be happy to know they are owned by the same people. In fact there's a whole slew of restaurants in the parasole family. Take a look at the website to see other yummy places to try!

I loved my experience at Chino Latino and will definitely be going back sooner rather than later.

Let me know if you try it!

xo

Dirty Hunters and Fresh Air

That's what last Sunday consisted of.

Saturday was homecoming so my boyfriend Mitch, his little sister Hannah, and her friend Lauren came up and spent the night at my apartment. We stayed in with my roommate Chelsey for the most part accept for a point when we danced our butts off at the homecoming dance for about an hour.

We slept in the next morning and had a full day planned. First we went to 'the falls'. It was shortly after I moved to River Falls last year that I discovered there were actual falls on the river and if you off-road it you can see them up close and personal. So we all got ready and we set off.

Side note: I was the only one smart enough to wear rain boots. Needless to say my Hunters came in handy.

The fall leaves were beautiful and once we were done at the falls we all got frozen yogurt at Yo-Joes in downtown River Falls. I'm a sucker for anything cake batter so I got that flavor with sprinkles. 

We then picked up some stray roommates on the side of the road and went to the middle of nowhere to an apple orchard. Unfortunately the you-pick season was over but we were still able to walk around and buy some apples and apple cider from the growers. 

After that we all went to dinner and called it an early night.

I love fall. The whole day was blissful. 

xo