Keoni and Bonnie

For some reason, I have all of these layovers in BDL (Springfield, Mass.) this month.  There’s not a lot to do there but our hotel is nice.  There is actually a real health club located on the 4th floor and it is complimentary.

Another flight attendant friend told me about a restaurant called Big Mamou’s (Cajun cuisine) that is supposed to be excellent and cater to flight crews and the prices are reasonable.  It’s also BYOB, which can make your cost less.  I didn’t go there this time but I’ll be back next week and hope to try it.

Since I was going alone, I didn’t want to walk too far so I tried Cafe Lebanon right araound the corner on Main Street.  I really liked it and it seems healtier than some options.  I had a chicken kabob with a veggie kabob and it came with a fattoush salad and rice pilaf.  Fattoush salad is just romaine lettuce, parsley, cucumbers, radishes lemon juice and olive oil with some toasted pita bread in it.  I upgraded my regular rice pilaf for one called mdaradara.  This is lentils and rice with fried onions on top.  It is awesome!  I make this fairly often but didn’t know the name of it.  The server, Erin G. was really helpful and told me although it sounds cliche, there are actually little Lebanese ladies that make most of the food like the hummus, baba ghanoush and grape leaves.  She actually recommended the lamb kebab but I’m not a fan of lamb.  I would like to go back and try other dishes on the menu but there are a lot of restaurants to try!  I’ll keep ya’ll posted!