| Island Jerk |
[Jan. 20th, 2011|03:14 pm] |
I'm not sure how this place stands up to other Jamaican restaurants, but I thought I would share that this place exists in Huntsville:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jQgNgxet5M
It kind of had a gas-station feel to it, but the food was tasty, and spicy.
I'm not sure what the food I ate was called, but it had jerk chicken stuffed into a breaded pouch. A roti perhaps?
I'm going to brave the ox tail next time ;)
Are there any other Jamaican restaurants in Huntsville? |
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| Pumpkin Cheesecake |
[Oct. 8th, 2010|02:25 pm] |
Does anyone know where I can get a good pumpkin cheesecake in town?
I'm thinking about having one shipped in from the cheesecake factory if I can't buy local :( |
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| Cafe Lemon Bleu |
[Sep. 19th, 2010|03:37 pm] |
This is a new place in the Target shopping center on University (located right next to Firehouse Subs). I'd seen another review of them that was positive and mentioned they had crepes, so we were very much looking forward to trying it... since we've yet to find crepes locally. So we went for brunch today.
First off service was good when we came in. She gave us a menu and crepes were no where to be found :( I was sad. However, they had a wide selection of omelet fillings and the Omelet special for the day was a Smoked Guada omelet with onions. Omelets are served with a cup of fruit and toast. Since it was late enough for lunch they also had lunch options, mostly sandwiches and croques (?) - pressed sandwiches. The turkey and chicken are made in house. They also had home made fries on the menu, served with truffle aoli and a mustard aoli.
I asked about the crepes and they said that since they'd just opened they were working with a shortened menu but expected to have the full menu available the first week of October. They will also be doing crepes as specials between now and then. The waitress gave us a copy of the full menu and it has some really good looking items on it.
So I got the Omelet special with bacon. It came out so fluffy, like no omelet I've ever seen. The filling was perfect and so tasty. In addition to the expected cheese, onions and bacon (which I added), it also had fresh tomatoes. It was so good, possibly the best omelet I've ever had. It was served with a good size cup of fruit (which was a good variety of fruit, but as most fruit cups are the majority was apples and grapes). I ordered their cinnamon toast which was really good.
Hubby got their roast turkey sandwich which is served with chips. He also ordered a side of their fries with the truffle aoli. The turkey was big chunks of turkey (obviously fresh) and he said very good. The fries were obviously home cut and tasty. They sent out the mustard aoli along with the truffle aoli and we both agreed we liked the mustard better (more tasty), but the truffle aoli was good too.
We were both stuffed when we left. Our bill came out to just under $20 for both of us (not including tip). We will definitely be back.
Hours are 7-3 M-F & Sunday. THey are closed on Saturday (which we thought was a little odd... but it's so rare to find a good brunch place on Sunday that we were happy they were open on Sunday). |
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| G's Country Kitchen - no so homecooked food |
[Sep. 3rd, 2010|07:07 pm] |
With a name like "G's Country Kitchen" for some reason I expected good home-cooked food. It seemed like anyone we'd asked about this place had said the food was good, so we finally gave it a try.
When we got there they had one side closed and all the tables on the other side were either full or dirty. After looking around for a minute, one of the guys at a table looked up and told us to just grab a table and they'd clean it for us. Soon enough, someone did come clean it, and very quickly the empty tables did fill up.
The place is basically a "meat & three" diner type place, with a few meat choices and one daily special, and a pretty long list of veggie choices. Each meal is served with bread (roll or cornbread). From the crowd, we expected good things when our food came out.
I got... the special... Meatloaf (which came with 3 sides), so I chose Mac & Cheese, Potatoes & gravy & fried corn. The meatloaf was ok, if a bit greasy. It was better after I added a little Louisiana hot sauce. The corn was rather sweet. The Mac & Cheese tasted like it had vinager in it. The potatoes were obviously out of a box (I could taste the dried potato flake) and the gravy was out of a can. The cornbread was so dry it crumbled in my fingers before I could take a bite.
Hubby got the chopped steak with Northern beans and Black-eyed peas. He said his meal was ok, but agreed that the gravy on his chopped steak was out of a can.
The service was friendly and excellent but not good enough to make up for mediocre food. We wouldn't try it again but at least we can mark it off our list of "places to try". |
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| Phoenix Bistro name changing |
[Aug. 27th, 2010|09:14 am] |
Some of you probably have heard of the Phoenix Bistro near downtown Huntsville. It's one of two restaurants featured on Restaurants.com.
I thought I'd post an update that their name is changing soon to "Watercrest." They have a new chef who started working there a few months back, but the rest of the staff is the same, just with new ownership and management.
I had one of their new dishes last night, it was Pork medallions over couscous in a spicy broth. It was absolutely amazing.
I highly recommend keeping at eye out over at restaurant.com. I've seen some great deals there, including a 70% off $25 ($25 coupon purchased for $7.50). Usually it's more like 50% of $25. |
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| The Dining Dragon |
[Aug. 4th, 2010|08:08 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  excited | ] |
I am always looking to find new (preferably small and local) places to eat and often frustrated at how difficult it is to find any information. Urbanspoon often leaves me wondering if people have tastebuds (Little Rosies is the 17th best restaurant in town? Really?) so I have started a new blog to share my experiences, opinions, and local finds.
I firmly believe that all food has the potential to be good food if it is fresh and prepared well. My goal is to find the best food in Huntsville and help others break away out of their routines and away from the same-old same-old of national chains.
You can get an idea of what the site will be all about from the first few reviews I have up:
Sandiwches n' Cream
Edith Anns
Little Rosie's
Feel free to add your thoughts in the comments. Agree? Disagree? Let's hear it. : )
You can also go directly to the main site:
http://www.thediningdragon.com/
(For anyone who might rather follow through lj, there is an rss feed set up at ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/syndicated.gif?v=92) thediningdragon.) |
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| Crepes |
[May. 30th, 2010|08:45 pm] |
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Do we have any place around here that sells/makes good crepes? Just got back from Co Springs and they are everywhere there and so good. |
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| Moes BBQ |
[May. 8th, 2010|08:47 pm] |
In the section of the building that used to house the Chef's Table (sorely missed), there is now a BBQ joint. They claim to be Missouri BBQ - I have no idea what that means - but we gave it a try.
The entire menu is about $10/plate (er basket). For $9 you get a sandwich and 2 sides, or for $10 you get a meat and 2 sides (unless it's ribs then it's more). They have 4 or 5 standard sides like slaw, baked beans, &banana pudding then they have their daily special sides. When we visited one of the special sides was what they called "Skillet corn".
I had the BBQ Pork Platter and chose the skillet corn and banana pudding as my sides. It also came with cornbread. The pork has a sort of sweet flavor and the sauce they use has a nice tang so they mix well together. It was quite good. The skillet corn is corn mixed with jalapenos, red peppers and onion, it's like corn with a kick, also quite good. I also had their banana pudding. Being used to Southern style Banana pudding (ala Dreamland) where 2 bites and you are in diabetic coma I was pleasantly surprised by theirs. It's a bit different, it seemed to be whip cream based and not nearly as sweet as others I've had.
My friend who was with me ordered two Pork Sandwiches (no sides). I have no idea what they charge for the sandwiches ala cart but our total was about $24 and that included my fountain drink and his $3 beer. They did not skimp on the meat on the sandwiches and unlike most BBQ joints they don't put slaw on the sandwiches (a plus in my book as I hate slaw), just a pickle and sauce. My friend was quite happy with his meal, as was I.
I give the food an A+ but give the service a B-. It's set up as a quick service restaurant. You order when you walk in and they take your name and call it out when your food is ready and you pick it up at the counter. It took a while to order as they only had one person taking orders so the line moved really slow. The food came out pretty slow as well, considering the "quick service" set up and the fact that it's bbq ao everything should be ready to go. We waited 10-15 minutes for food (long enough my friend had finished his beer before our food was ready). |
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| Venice Pizza near Research Park |
[Apr. 22nd, 2010|04:58 pm] |
For those familiar with the research park area, there is a small strip mall near the new Bridge Street Town Center that used to be the closest source of food without hitting university.
In there are long established places like West End grill, and the reasonably new Coyote Mexican restaurant.
Come and gone from this strip mall is a sandwhich shop and a hot dog place called "Hot Doggit!"
Hot doggit was... well, a place to get a hot dog. You're not missing much, but I saw the other day on 72 in madison that another hot dog establishment has opened (only during lunch hours though). Chicago Dog or something. If you try it, let us know how it was!
Today I tried Venice Pizza. The pros of this location is that the food tastes good, it's made relatively quickly, and the price is right on.
Their "Personal" Calzone is only slightly smaller than the size of one you would find at Big Ed's Pizza, I would have hated to see what their small or large looked like. It was only $4.50 also, which was nice on the pocket book (though each topping was $0.75 extra).
My friend got the Philly cheese steak samich, and though it looked pretty normal he said they did a great job with it.
The seating here is sparse, you'll be lucky if you can pull together a table to fit four people. It's pretty obvious this place was intended as a pick up and delivery option for the local neighborhood and businesses. But if it's just you and one other person, you should have good luck eating in.
For a take-out place, I was surprised that they had more than your typical pizza and typical toppings.
Food wise, they look like they could give Tommy's or Tony's Pizza a run for their money.
Tommy's and Tony's both have better locations, though, and the capacity to seat people.
I'll have to hold that judgment until I actually sample their pizza ;)
Personal Calzone with 2 extra ingredients and a bottled drink ran $8.50.
Maybe I'm too much of an internet nerd, but their website's domain name bugs me.
http://venicehuntsville.webs.com
They should have gone with just http://venicehuntsville.com and left out the "webs" part, it would be easier for their customers to remember. But as long as their customers can use a search engine, they should be fine. |
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| crushing my hopes and dreams with your promises of fresh naan |
[Apr. 6th, 2010|01:38 pm] |
I ate at Taj Mahal, the new Indian restaurant on Hwy 72 near Charm Thai and what used to be Indigo Joes.
I was thrilled to finally eat at an Indian buffet that's actually spicy.
Unfortunately the quality was not as great as Spice of India on Hwy 20, or Sitar on Jordan lane.
I was really looking forward to trying their Naan, I had heard that Taj Mahal had great fresh baked Naan that was brought around to the tables. Unfortunately we got stuck with some retarded guy who spoke english but didn't seem to get what was involved in being a waiter. We asked him to put some tables together, and he said he would... well, he didn't.
Then I asked for Naan and he was like, "we didn't make any today." WTF? That's like going to a Mexican restaurants and being told they didn't bother to make tortillas. But after hearing about how great their Naan was, I want to go back just to get it. I guess I'll just call ahead next time, "hey did you bother to do your job today? you did? awesome, on my way."
But for all I know they had mountains of fresh Naan in the back, and we just happened to get Dinky McFuckForBrains as our server.
Dinky also failed to bring us our checks. We eventually had to confront Dinky and force him to let us pay our bill.
Thankfully this place did not add a surcharge for large parties.
Overall this review may seem negative, but honestly, every new place has growing pains, and every restaurant has that one idiot who's married to the boss' sister that he can't bring himself to fire. I'm sure in a few weeks the owner will find something more to to the guy's aptitude. Like watching to make sure no one steals the sidewalk.
The food was good, and spicy, so if that's not your thing, beware.
The variety wasn't as large as either Spice of India's or Sitars, but they did hit the three favorites: Chickin Tiki Masala, Vegetable Korma, and "The Green Stuff." All three spicy. There were 2-3 other dishes as well, but I didn't sample them.
The mango lasse was off, but maybe I'm just too used to the one at Sitar.
And I would love, LOVE to tell you about how great their Naan is. Maybe one day I'll get to.
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