Happy Monday, everyone!
The weekend went by much too fast, didn’t it? I can’t complain too much though because a lot of it was fun and only a little of it was work – although I’m paying for that now 
Yesterday, my roommate and I went on a shopping adventure to a huge mall. When our wallets were nearly empty, we decided to head over to Big Bowl to spend the rest of it on – what could be better? – a good meal!
I love the bowl in the sign 🙂 This restaurant has some of the most delectable Chinese and Thai food I have ever tasted. Upon opening the menu, it’s almost impossible not to find something you’re going to really enjoy. For my roommate and me, it’s always been a tradition to take advantage of all the options at the stir-fry bar!
There are so many things to choose from, it can be overwhelming to know where to start. We’re each given a red bowl and a set of tongs to pick and choose as we please. We are then asked to choose a protein, sauce and rice or noodles. Here’s my roommate weighing out her options:
For my dish, I added the following to my bowl:
- Broccoli
- Corn
- Shallots
- Pea pods
- Pineapple
- Water chestnuts
- Edamame
- Mushrooms
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I then asked for chicken with a teriyaki sauce and brown rice. Once you’ve placed your final order, you drop off the veggie bowl and return to your table. Upon further investigation of the restaurant, you will also see their commitment to the environment. Everything from the locally grown ingredients they use to the biodegradable cocktail napkins benefits the environment – and the restaurant claims to be committed to reducing its carbon footprint by 100%. Not bad!
Soon enough, the food was brought to our table, steaming hot and smelling great.
I wasn’t especially hungry so I ordered my brown rice on the side and took it home – expect it to be used in my dinner very soon!
However, I did manage to eat every last bite of that absolutely incredible picture above. The teriyaki sauce permeated throughout each ingredient but was NEVER too heavy or too salty, which left me perfectly full and surprisingly NOT bloated – a rarity after exiting a Chinese restaurant, right?!
After enjoying the meal, we were brought our check with fortunes in tow.
I love fortune cookies! Mine was also very wise this time around:
“The smart thing to do is to prepare for the unexpected.”
I couldn’t agree more!
My roommate and I are very happy with our time at Big Bowl. We’ve gone there consistently for the past three years and have never had a bad experience. Unfortunately, they are only located in Chicago, Minneapolis and DC – but if you’re ever in any of those locations (I know some of you live there!), please check it out and let me know if you agree!
My roommate and I also had a thoroughly enjoyable time watching the Desperate Housewives and Brothers & Sisters season premieres last night! They were both incredible!
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And now, the second part of this post title. An article came out late last week which discussed PETA asking Ben & Jerry’s to discuss using human breast milk instead of cow’s milk in their ice cream. You can find the article here. I thought it was very interesting. Ben & Jerry’s pretty much called the notion “udderly ridiculous” – corny joke from the article – but I want to know, what do you all think?
Is it odd that we consider breast milk such an unusual idea considering most of us probably drank it at one time in our lives and many of us continue to drink milk from other animals today? I want to hear your thoughts!
you have to be KIDDING me re: ben and jerry’s ice cream. ewwwwwwwwwwwww
it is because of practices like this and reading too much that makes me so grossed out by so many foods. icky icky.
Woah! I’m so sad I don’t have one of these restaurants in my area! It looks GREAT!
I use to go to a siliamr place in florida when I lived there, but I have a sensitive stomach and sometimes when they reuse the grills with different oils/dressings it does not agree with me.. but I love the concept!
I dont think i could eat anything made with breastmilk it would just freak me out
Cool restaurant! We have one that is similar here, I loooove being able to overload on the veggies, and Teriyaki sauce is the best!
I think it’s a lot to ask to use human breast milk in ice cream production. Not because it’s gross, but it’s just a really bad idea and an inefficient way to produce something that’s sold nation-wide. What are they going to do, have “breast milk farms” with women in stalls all day? That’s just odd.
No way, that looks like the coolest restaurant ever. We have a similar stir-fry type place around here that I’ve been to once. It was pretty awesome. But I would LOVE to try out the Big Bowl place. Sounds awesome.
As for the breast milk… I’m almost speechless. I mean, as a whole the idea probably isn’t that disgusting. Considering the fact that yes, we did drink it as infants and I mean, we ARE drinking liquids out of a cow’s udder and not questioning it… but because we’ve been brought up in a society where breast milk is not considered as something we would drink, I just don’t think I could get my head around the idea. It sketches me out just a little too much.
I want Big Bowl to come to my city, NOW. We have something called BD’s Mongolian Stir-Fry, which is similar but not quite as health minded. So jealous!
mmm that looks so good. I’ve been to restaurants like that before and I love them! One of the dining halls here actually has ‘stir fry night’ which is similar but I haven’t been there since freshman year. It definitely never looked as good as your meal does though!
Pineapple is my absolute FAVORITE addition to stir-fry! It gives it the perfect amount of sweetness. Mmmmm!
Re: breastmilk. I think it is an insane idea. How would they produce enough to milk to make that much ice cream? I understand animal rights but human rights must come into play, as well.
Desperate Housewives = my favorite show EVER. i love it! I’m really excited about the new direction this season is taking 😀
human breast milk in Ben & Jerry’s? err. I see your point, that most of us have had our mommy’s breast milk when we were young, but it still creeps me out to think of it in ice cream that we eat as adults. but as long as its not necessarily harmful, I guess its just the initial ack factor you gotta get over… lol. but also how would they harvest all of this breast milk from HUMANS to mass produce their ice cream?!??! I am getting some really weird mental images…
haha but anyways, Big Bowl looked like a lot of fun!!!
GREAT question! You probably don’t have to dig deep to figure out how I feel about this issue! Even though it’s a common practice and rather yummy, it is unnatural that humans drink/consume other species milk. It is also unnatural for humans to drink milk AFTER childhood! So, any way you look at it, breast milk in ice cream is no better or worse than cow milk – we shouldn’t really be doing either.
Not a fan of the breast milk idea. The Big Bowl only uses peanut oil…no? My son is allergic to peanuts and had a break out when we were standing in line at the Big Bowl…..food looks good though!
That restaurant looks so good and healthy! You’re right, Chinese food usually does leave a little bloat behind.
I’m all for breast milk. Just kidding! I feel like that’s weird, you know? I mean, would that mean someone’s career would be to continually provide milk for adults? From an evolutionary perspective it seems more appropriate for babies.
I love places like Big Bowl. We have one here called Genghis Grill, and it’s my absolute favorite restaurant!
I saw that article too… as a vegan, I guess I’m biased. But if people really stop to think about it, dairy milk is really “cow breast milk”
That BIG BOWL place looks awesome! Never heard of it – we don’t have anything fun where I live like this 🙁
That restaurant is like my dream come true.
what an amazing meal! we have a similar restauarant in tucson called iron grill but it doesn’t seem to be as eco friendly (or healthy… no brown rice) as big bowl. SO COOL!
i heard about that article on the news last week and it definitely made me think. the concept of drinking cow’s milk has always been a little strange to me (since it’s originally intended for baby cows) but the idea of drinking human breast milk from someone I DON’T KNOW really gives me the heeby jeebies..
hope you have a happy monday!
I used to have a Big Bowl and loved it!
I also loved the shows last night!
wow – never heard of Big Bowl and I live close enough to DC to make a trip…i have to go look it up!
Ooo, big bowl sounds great!
The premiere of DH was good to, they totally had me thinking Mike was dead!
Breast milk ice cream? Wow, weird. It just seems really gross,but on the other hand society has made it acceptable to drink cows breast milk.
Oooh, that looks just like the Stir Crazy restaurant here (which I loooove) – yum!!!
Great fortune, for sure!!
Hooray for watching great season premieres!!
I think that the breast milk ice cream idea is disgusting.
what an AMAZING restaurant
That place looks awesome! and yes, it is strange that breast milk seems so foreign to us now… as does breast feeding past a couple years!
umm, so how were they going to get the breast milk??? hormones?? yeah, i just started thinking about that more…
(1) I am tempted to come to Chicago simply to eat at Big Bowl.
(2) Did you read any of Skinny Bitch? It really made me think about breast milk (and milk in general) differently. As in, it’s for babies so they can grow quickly.
I LOVE BIG BOWL!!!!! I especially enjoy all their vegetables. I’m from Minneapolis and I try to go there every time I’m home from college.
what a rad restaurant!
and i get weekly peta emails and saw that in the lastest one…all i did was crack up…and thought, “do they think they’ll have enough mom’s, to produce enough milk, to make enough ice cream, for our population?” HAHAHAHA!
Your bowl of stir-fry from Big Bowl looks amazing. I totally want to make a trip to DC for it.
[…] also ended up using the leftover rice from my trip to Big Bowl with last night’s dinner. I couldn’t help myself – I went to Whole Foods and picked up […]
I drank breast milk until I was 5 or 6. I LOVE me some breast milk. Oh and I’m a vegan. The PETA is an um…interesting bunch, but I like their idea. I wonder…
Oh and Bender have you ever considered going vegan? I dare you to try.