Restaurant Review: Benito's Brick Oven Pizza, Pumpkin Muffins, BSI!

First off, the BSI recipes (Pear) look awesome so far! Keep them coming!! If you need a little motivation- here is the start of the prize for the winner:



Second, tonight we did our second restaurant review! We decided to keep it a little low key and tried Benito's Brick Oven in Mount Pleasant, SC. Benito's is located in the heart of Mount Pleasant in the town center. Here are the eats:

Josh ordered a personal pizza with artichokes and prosciutto:


I ordered baked ziti which came with a house salad which was topped with goat cheese, tomatoes, onions, olives (which I picked off), and their house honey balsamic dressing:

Josh's Review:




Pros: No extra charge for artichoke hearts. Fast service. Filling.

Cons: Food was nothing spectacular. Receipt was unnecessarily oversized. Poor beer selection.

Overall Rating: 5.2 out of 8

Erica's Review:


Benito's is conveniently located near a lot of the great shopping in Mount Pleasant. The place was basically empty because it was Halloween (Halloween is HUGE in Charleston). The decor in the restaurant was great- a combination of modern meets old Italy. The menu was large and offered some interesting choices- including cheese plates. The house honey balsamic dressing was really delicious- just slightly sweet! The baked ziti was also very good. The noodles tasted homemade. They do not use sauce in the baked ziti, they only top it with sauce. It was sooo filling I could barely eat 1/4 of it (don't worry Josh finished it off when we got home haha). The food wasn't INCREDIBLE but it was good. The service was pleasant and quick! I would definitely return to Benito's for a hearty, quick meal.

Frank's Review:



I wasn't allowed to go (some lame rule about no animals in the restaurant), so I had mini chunks for dinner. They tasted just as terrible as they usually taste. haha.

3rd: I came home tonight and decided to make some yummy treats to give to all of the instructors after the Body Step Launch tomorrow! I used Tina's recipe for Pumpkin Carob Chip muffins with a few modifications:

Ingredients:

1 cup plain canned pumpkin
1/3 cup water
1/3 cup apple sauce (unsweetened)
2 tbsp. ground flax seed
1 tsp. vanilla
1 2/3 cups whole wheat flour (or whole wheat pastry flour)
1 1/3 cups sugar
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. kosher salt
3/4 tsp pumpkin pie spice
2/3 cup vegan carob chips (or chocolate chips but then they would be non-vegan)

Preheat the oven to 350º. Spray a nonstick muffin tin sprayed well with nonstick spray, or line the tin with paper muffin cups and spray the cups with nonstick spray. Set aside.

Put the pumpkin, water, applesauce, ground flax seed, and vanilla in a blender and process on high for at least one minute, until light in color and well-blended. Set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the whole wheat flour (or whole wheat pastry flour), sugar, baking powder, baking soda, kosher salt, and pumpkin pie spice. Add the pumpkin mixture and mix well with a wooden spoon or large spatula until well-blended. Fold in the carob chips.

Spoon the batter into the muffin tin, distributing evenly.

Bake until center of muffin is fully cooked (took me 26 minutes for full sized muffins). Let cool for 5 minutes in the pan, then use a spatula to gently lift each muffin from the muffin tin. Finish cooling on a wire rack.

I was too lazy to take a picture of the finished muffins! Hope you had a wonderful Halloween! Can't wait to see pics of all the costumes!