Buying a house was expensive. For almost two years Jenn and I buckled down and saved a ton of money to purchase our home. As such I haven't had a lot of these restaurant review type of posts. The last dinner post I wrote was back in February at SWSH Shabu Shabu (although I did two breakfast review posts in March/April). This past Friday night Jenn and I decided we needed to get out and try a new place. So we went to what is considered on Yelp one of the best places to eat in Newport Beach, Juliette Kitchen & Bar. 

I'm hoping this is a trend that Jenn and I can continue. Two weeks, two new recipes. Last week we tried the crock pot Chicken Tikka Masala to less then great results. I just don't think chicken and crock pots mix very well. This past Sunday we decided it was time to try a completely different recipe, Kung Pao Spaghetti.

Last year Jenn stumbled upon an advertisement for The Celebrity Cruises Great Wine Festival and we both knew we had to go. It was an incredible day at the OC Great Park and one we knew right after we exited the park last year we would be back. A year later and we are back and had yet another great time. 

Its been a month since our last edition of Chef Joel & Jenn which was the Beef Gyritos from Plated. Those didn't turn out nearly as good as they looked in the promotion pictures. Sadly we've been extremely busy during April and only recently got to do another recipe. This time Chicken Tikka Masala.

As I mentioned in our review of our breakfast at Richard Walker's Pancake House we've been staying down in San Diego quite a bit recently. With everything going on its been a nice reprieve to just get away. One of the things we've loved about being down there is the incredible food options. Since we've been on this breakfast kick recently, we decided to take one of Jenn's co-workers recommendations and try out Queenstown Public House which is near Little Italy. 

For Valentines Day Jenn got me a subscription to a service called Plated. Its a service that sends you two meals a week with all of the ingredients to cook. Its a great way to get to know new recipes and cook with ingredients that you either aren't familiar with or wouldn't think to use. I'll talk more about the service and unboxing in a different post when we restart the service with meal choices we actually choose. Sadly with everything going on we haven't had time to make an order and actually use it. Because its a weekly subscription I've just been canceling each week. Well a couple weeks ago they sent me a box by mistake (their mistake) and said we could have it for free.