Coffee creamers. The good, the bad and the super yummy!

I love coffee! Let me rephrase that, I ADORE coffee. And more than that, I NEED coffee. Seriously. About a month ago I went on a 1 week vegan cleanse. I was also supposed to cut out coffee and all caffeine. I tried. And I got the WORST headache ever! It would not go away. So, the second day, because I needed to be productive, I let myself have half a cup of straight black coffee. That kept the headaches at bay and I got through the week.

Anyhoo, so, yeah, I love coffee and I have to drink at least one cup everyday before 2 pm or the demons take over my head.

But, I'm trying to be healthier. I'm trying to drink less dairy because I feel like my body functions better on slightly less dairy. That means trying to cut out milk in things that don't really need it. Or using soy milk. I love soy milk in my cereal but not so much in my coffee. It separates and looks gross and doesn't quite taste right. So, I recently purchased a soy milk hazelnut flavored coffee creamer. I figured that it wouldn't taste like normal creamer or even like some common non dairy creamer brands. But, I expected it to taste pretty good. At the very least reminiscent of my favorite International Delight Hazelnut coffee creamer. It did not. Not even a little bit. Is it drinkable? Sure. It didn't make me gag. But it didn't make me smile and sigh happy little sighs of contented yumminess either. So, try it at your own risk.

I also tried another soy based creamer that was plain and not flavored. That was fine as well. Good enough I suppose. I think I prefer the unflavored over the flavored when it comes to soy milk creamers.

You may be asking why I don't just buy the International Delights creamer since it is non dairy? Good question. Because International Delights only seems to come in jumbo size bottles. They take up too much room and the lid gets an icky build up of dried creamer around it and it's just gross. I do like coffeemate non dairy creamers too and they come in smaller sizes, but they have partially hydrogenated oils in them. Those big boys are a bad scene, really, really bad for you, so, now I don't drink them.

I am wondering if Costco or Smart & Final or one of those places might sell those boxes of little individual sized International Delights creamers that you see at 7-11 and in offices and such? If I could get my hands on THOSE I'd be a happy lady! They're the perfect amount of creamer and they don't have to stay in the fridge.

Otherwise, I may have to stick to plain milk in my coffee. There are worse things in life. I suppose I'll survive.

Taking Flight

Well, Hello! This is my first post here on "Lil Vixen Stirs Things Up". I made this blog to discuss food, wine, restaurants and other fun and fabulous things!

Today I would like to tell you about a new restaurant that my boyfriend and I checked out last Saturday night. It is called Flight Restaurant and Social Lounge located in Huntington Beach, California. It's a swanky type of fusion restaurant open for dinner until 10 pm at which point it turns into a club/lounge. Fusion cuisine is pretty common in Southern Cal restaurants. This particular restaurant was described as classic American Cuisine fused with Italian and Asian, and it lived p to that. The food was excellent, the portions were not too big and not too small and the decor was quite lovely. Serene and yet somewhat edgy in my opinion. Curtis said it reminded him of a cross between the restaurants found in Miami and New York. Since I have not been to either of those cities as an adult, I couldn't tell you if I agree from actual experience, but based on pictures I have seen from restaurants in both of those cities I can kind of see what he meant by that.

Here's how our night went:

We arrived at the restaurant at 7 pm hungry and ready to use the gift certificate we had received months ago. We walked in and were quickly greeted by the friendly hostess. She took us to a very nice table and we realized while walking across the room that we were literally the only people in the restaurant. It was kind of eerie. I mean, this was a beautiful restaurant on a Saturday night in a very social area of town. Where the hell was everybody? I realize there is a pretty big recession going on and that people are cutting back on things, but this was ridiculous. I have literally never been in such an empty restaurant in my life! It was like being in an episode of "The Twilight Zone." It's a good thing we aren't one of those couples that needs to people watch in order to have something to say, otherwise, it could've been awkward.


See? It's gorgeous! But it was soooo empty! It was as if we had rented out the entire restaurant for ourselves. Since it was a "date night" for us, this was nice, but still, a little creepy. The staff was very nice and I feel like they handled us as the only patrons very well. They were attentive and yet not too hovering or over attentive. This can be tricky. So, I give them kudos for that.

We ordered and then we asked the waitress if it was always like this. We figured that it had to be a bit of a fluke because the restaurant has been there for a while and was still in business. She said that dinner could be "hit or miss" but that it generally got busy at night after 10 when it turned into a club and lounge. I could kind of see that being the case, so, I guess that's how it must go.

The food was quite tasty! We both gave it two thumbs up! I started with a compressed salad of greens, figs, apples, cheese and nuts. It reminded me of the compressed salad at Catal which is one of my favorite tings ever so, I was quite pleased. The main difference was that Flight's salad has figs and Catal's has dates. I think I really prefer the dates.


Curtis started with a tuna appetizer that was also quite good if you like sushi. It came garnished with avocado and a spicy dipping sauce and it looked like this:


Our entrees were also fantastic! I had a poorly named, but quite delicious "Airline Chicken". It came with sauteed bell pepper and garlic mashed potatoes. Curtis had the filet mignon which came with bacon wrapped asparagus and sauteed mushrooms. The mushrooms were delicious. I didn't try the bacon asparagus or the steak because I don't eat red meat or pork, but Curtis said it was really great! Unfortunately I also didn't get pictures of those! Sorry!

Dessert was amazing. We got a dessert "flight" that included a mini chocolate lava cake (one of my most favorite foods ever!), a tiny scoop of ice cream, and a baby passion fruit panna cotta. I'm not normally a huge fan of panna cotta but this panna cotta was REALLY good. Curtis had a few bites. I finished off the rest.



Aside from the kind of weird, kind of cool feeling of being the only people in the restaurant, it was a very lovely night with good service, good food and good atmosphere. I would heartily recommend it to anyone who lives nearby or visits Huntington Beach. I'd love to go back some other night and check it out later to see how it is as a lounge.