restaurant review

Chinatown

/ Shane / 2 Comments

Sara and I had been looking for a really good place to go in Chinatown, and I think we may have found it: Joy Yee.

This was just sort of your typical Chinese restaurant: very busy, huuuge menu, portions very large, very cheap, and very solid. All of the food was very good. We played it pretty safe, so nothing was outstanding, but perhaps in the future we will be more adventurous.

However, one place that Joy Yee really shown, was the enormous drink menu. We tried 3 tapioca freezes: Avocado, Jack Fruit, and Taro Root. All of them were good, but I thought the Taro Root was particularly amazing (and blue!). Evie was quite surprised to suck up a tapioca bubble. I think this was the most fun, picking out these crazy drinks and finding them delicious.

And to top it all off, even with the drinks, we only spent like $27! There is no question that we will be back.

So, after that rousing success, we couldn’t just stop there. Next up was the Saint Anna Bakery, located just a few doors down. We wanted some desert, and we got it! Everything was very good. We picked out 4 things, including a giant slice of hazelnut cake. Imagine my surprise when the total came to less than $5! Just to top it all off, the lady gave an extra desert to Evie for being too cute.

So, needless to say, a very successful trip. Thanks to Dabu for suggesting it!

Frontera Grill

/ Shane / 1 Comment

Over the weekend we hit up another new restaurant, Frontera Grill. This place was a little pricier than we usually go in for. Run by famous Chicago chef-restaurateur Rick Bayless, it serves some truly awesome, authentic Mexican food. It’s also right downtown in a pretty touristy area, another thing we don’t usually do.

Let me back up a second and say how it is we came to be interested in this place. They make awesome salsa. I can imagine most people might eat at the restaurant and then seek out the salsa at the store afterwards, but it kind of happened the opposite for us. We’ve been getting their truly impressive salsa at the store for some time now.

So we went to check the place out, but we pulled our usual trick of going really, really early so that we can be in and out with Evie before the place gets too crowded. The problem is that the plan falls down when a place is so busy that it’s always crowded. There was a line already when we got there 15 minutes before they opened. They told us we would get a table in about 45 minutes.

We spent some time at the fanciest McDonalds I have ever seen, before eventually making it into the restaurant. Despite the wait, and despite the hype, the place still blew me away. The food was amazing. We had a couple of appetizers and entres of course, and even a margarita. With the exception of some salsa that was roughly the temperature of the sun, each thing was more delicious than the last.

I can’t recommend the place highly enough, we will definitely be back there again.

As far as everything else, work is really killing me at the moment, so I didn’t do much else besides work over the weekend. So I apologize for the lack of quotes, etc. Hopefully we’ll be on track again next week.

Review: Smoque

/ Shane / 2 Comments

A couple of weekends ago, we drove all the way up to the North side to check out a barbecue restaurant, Smoque. Despite several missteps on our part (driving to the North side is a misstep to begin with), I was very impressed!

Our first impression was related to the fact that there was a huge line out the door. We probably waited about 45 minutes to an hour. Now this might have been enough to sink the experience, but it was a really nice night, and Evie was a perfect angel, hamming it up and entertaining us while we waited. The line didn’t move very fast, so don’t expect to run in and run out. But this also might have been because we were there at like 5 p.m. on a Saturday night.

The food was awesome. I really appreciated that they let the meat speak for itself, rather than drowning it in sauce.

I had a pulled pork sandwich in a vinegary, Carolina style sauce. Don’t get me wrong, they gave me big thing of sauce on the side, but I didn’t really use it (except for dipping my fries!) The fries were just plain awesome. They were larger versions of the homemade fries we used to make at home, growing up. Another thing I liked about the place was that they had a “taste” menu, so you could get a little side order of something for a couple of bucks extra. Sara got one and couldn’t eat it, so she had some left over brisket the next day to smugly eat in front of us. For what it’s worth, Evie liked the mac & cheese.

One of the claims to fame of the restaurant, was being featured on Diner’s, Drive-ins, and Dives, which you can watch below (Warning, don’t watch on an empty stomach!):

In summary, 2 thumbs up! It might not be worth braving the traffic from my place, but if you find yourself in the neighborhood, it’s well worth the stop. Absolutely the best barbecue I’ve had in a long time, and easily some of the best I’ve ever had (there was a place in Georgetown (D.C.) that competes)

Happy Birthday to Me

/ Shane / 1 Comment

And I am gracious enough to share my birthday with several lesser known celebrities:

           

And a couple of people not quite as smart as me:

For my birthday we went over to Dixie Kitchen.  I mentioned that we have tried to go there several times but it was always too busy, so we went elsewhere.  So we figured we better get in there before the episode aired, or else we’d never have a chance.

The food was really good, well worth a birthday meal.  They give you complimentary johnny cakes on your table, which was unique and they were pretty good.  We had fried green tomatoes as an appetizer and I was really impressed with them. I don’t think I have ever had them and these were just perfect.  Slightly spicy.  I thought they would have some sort of sauce, but they didn’t.  The cornbread muffins were really good too.  They actually had little pieces of jalapeno in them.  I knew it was a southern place but I didn’t know it was a specifically a Nawlins place.  I had catfish, mashed potatoes and red beans and rice and Sara had blackened chicken, mashed sweet potatoes and greens.  I thought it was better than Calypso, but Sara said she still prefers Calypso.  Oh, and did I mention it was pretty cheap?  Anyway, Mr. Obama has good taste and I will definitely be back some time!