#35: Visit 5 restaurants I've never been to in my hometown/surrounding area (Chalit's Thai Bistro)

My mom and I decided that Friday night dinner together sounded like the perfect ending to a fairly hectic week!  We have a few restaurants in the area that we tend to frequent, which is partially why I decided to add #35 to my list!  Chalit's Thai Bistro (a local BYOB) has been open for around two years and, although I have heard good things, I just didn't have a chance to make it there yet. After a little Googling, I found that the owner Chalit "Chad" Kijcharoen, who grew up in Thailand, spent several years living and working in California before following his partner to the East Coast.

Chalit's Thai Bistro!

Following the theory that you can't go wrong ordering the specials, my mom and I started off with a papaya salad that was finished with shrimp and a spicy lime dressing.  It was absolutely delicious!  I loved the juxtaposition of the mildly sweet papaya with the spice of the dressing.  It hit me halfway through my entree that I should have been taking pictures - so I apologize in advance for the lack of photography (I took the above photo as I was leaving the restaurant...)! 

For our entrees, my mom chose the special spicy seafood wok and I ordered the special salmon and avocado curry.  As we usually do with Thai, we shared the entrees and I must say that both of them were absolutely DELICIOUS.  The ingredients tasted fresh and the dish contained just the right amount of spice. 

YUMMY

We thought the entire meal was great and we will definitely be returning sometime in the future! 

#25: See all of the films that, since I was born, have won the Academy Award for Best Picture (Driving Miss Daisy)

Although I still have many more days ahead of me in which to accomplish all of tasks I set for myself, I realized the other day that I had QUITE a few movies to watch in order to finish!  I definitely enjoy a good movie and certainly do not consider myself to have any attention deficit whatsoever, but I often find it very difficult to sit and watch an entire film from start to finish.  Nonetheless, I set some time aside the other day to watch "Driving Miss Daisy," which won the 1989 Academy Award for Best Picture. 

I honestly knew very little about this film prior to watching it - and definitely did not know that it was adapted from a play of the same name by Alfred Uhry.  I found the movie to be very subtle but also very sweet.  Both Jessica Tandy and Morgan Freeman were just wonderful in their roles - not to mention the fact that I got a kick out of seeing Dan Aykroyd looking so young.  I was hoping to find a photo of his character in this oh-so-amazing red and white country western attire that he sported at one point but I came up empty handed in my search on the interwebs...