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What's wrong with this restaurant:
1. The greeter/seater left us hanging while he wandered off looking for a table for us. He made us feel we were sort of a bother to him, not a good way to be welcomed into a restaurant.
2. Our server would be better off seeking a job in another field other than food service. The minimal effort she put forth on serving us and busing other tables was way below standards.
3. The floor of the restaurant was dirty with food scraps from the time we arrived until we left.
4. Pricing for this type of meal was excessive (10.00 for a meat and 2??). Luckily we had a coupon (buy one get one) making 10.00 for both of us acceptable.
5. Even though they have servers, you have to fetch your own drinks (This of course leads to unsanitary conditions, i.e. we noticed children playing with the tongs for the lemon slices).
6. Food arrived at the table lukewarm, whether this was due to the kitchen or the fault of our server not picking up the food fast enough is undetermined.
7. The crowd appeared to be mostly yuppie type families with children not kept in rein (not the fault of the restaurant, but still not your typical clientele for this type of restaurant).
8. Even though the restaurant wasn't huge, the noise was near din level.
9. The booths were big hard benches, probably to make sure customers don't linger, enabling the restaurant to turn tables faster.
What was right with this restaurant:
1. Even though the food should have been served a little hotter, it was all tasty and cooked good. I have to give Southern Fried Green Tomatoes props, since they could easily serve a lesser quality of food to the type of customers they seem to be attracting and probably get by with no one complaining.
Final Verdict:
With a 2 for 1 coupon, the meal was worth the price. Without a coupon, I would definitely recommend you spend your food dollars elsewhere.
Today was time for our annual trek up and down Main Street in Greenville for the festival Fall For Greenville OR as The Cafe and Then Some calls it "Fall Down Drunk For Greenville". We found a free parking space just off River Street (I hate to pay for parking!) and made the trek to the festival. The weather was nice (mid 70s) and this really brought out the people (as you can see in the above photo). Not quite as many restaurants participated in the event this year and the city compensated by not having any booths in the last block of North Main and several blocks at the end of South Main.
Our first purchase was a crab cake with maque choux from Soby's . I've had some items from Soby's New South Cuisine at the Saturday morning farmer's market that I thought were just okay. Their crab cake is not just okay, but superior to just about any you will find around this area.
Next we got a nice surprise when we tried the Black Angus meatloaf with caramelized onion and mushroom ragout from Two Chefs. I say a nice surprise since, for some reason, I always think of Two Chefs as a sandwich/bakery shop. I love a good meatloaf and this was certainly a good meatloaf, one of the best I've had in a while.
After two good choices, we hit a slight bump with our next choice. While they weren't bad, the crab fritters with dipping sauce from Brown Street Club paled next to our two previous dishes.
After three main dishes, of course it's time for dessert, and oh how lucky we were with our first choice. Beignets with carmelized peaches from Sassafras Southern Bistro. We were hesitant about ordering these, since they really didn't look like the beignets we eat in New Orleans. The good news is they tasted like real beignets and were almost as messy to eat. This is the type of dessert that stays stuck in your mind, long after you eaten it.
Brown Street Club redeemed theirselves with our next dessert choice, Bakers Boubon Pecan Pie. With just enough bourbon in the pie to make give it a faint liquor taste, this was a great dessert. It would have been our favorite, IF we hadn't already had the beignets.
With a few tickets left, we decided to try Fried Bourbon Bread Pudding from Smoke On The Water. The bread pudding was good, but unlike Brown Street's pie, the bourbon sauce for the bread pudding was too strong and made what could have been a good dessert just so-so. We had two tickets left and there's not much you can get with two tickets at Fall Down Drunk For Greenville, so we gave those away as we headed back to the car, where I remarked "I'm still hungry".
Our original plan on Saturday was another visit to Carolina Cafe. When those plans didn't work out, we decided to go to Oktoberfest in Greer, since last year we had a great Reuben sandwich and a few other good items there. This year turned out to be a bust, since the Reuben people didn't have a booth and any booth that had anything that looked interesting had L-O-N-G lines. We decided to hike on back to the car and go somewhere else. The "else" turned out to be Hans & Franz Biergarten, a German themed restaurant located just off the intersection of Highway 14 and Pelham Road and this turned out to be a wise decision.
Instead of entrees we opted instead for a couple of appetizers. We both started with Hungarian Goulash Soup: paprika, cayenne pepper, bell peppers, spiced up tender chunks of beef, and potatoes in a tomato based soup. This was served with two pieces of generously buttered bread slices. The soup turned out to be more of a hearty stew than a soup. It had such a great taste, we both cleaned our bowls. The spices were just enough to make the dish interesting and leave a slight tingle on your tongue. I also must give a special nod to our great waiter, James, who had the good sense to put the soup orders in first for us, instead of having everything come out at once.
For my other selection I chose Frikadellen: German meatball made of finely ground beef, pork and spices topped with tomato/curry sauce and mustard and served on a pretzel roll with homemade fries. This not only had the appearance but also the taste of a great meatloaf (and I've eaten a lot of meatloaf over the years) I challenge anyone without a super large mouth (i.e. Julia Roberts), to be able to put the top roll on this sandwich and be able to open your mouth wide enough to bite through it. As for myself, I had to use a fork and knife to eat this delicious sandwich.
My wife chose the Reuben Sliders: homemade corned beef (which really makes a difference in preparing a good Reuben), a sweet sauerkraut, and of course cheese and dressing, which were also served with homemade fries. While odd being served on small buns instead of rye bread, they were better than a lot of poorly made Reubens with rye bread we have eaten. The fries on both dishes were served with a mustard/mayonnaise/spice dressing that was delicious. As a matter of fact, everything was so good, to paraphrase Arnold Schwarzenegger "We'll be back"!
If you had invited me to a Beatles' themed restaurant, I would probably have passed, since anytime I hear "theme restaurant", I always think more time is spent on the theme than the food. In the case of Mean Mr. Mustard's Cafe in Hendersonville, NC, I couldn't be more wrong. We were in Hendersonville last week and since our first choice had already closed for lunch (for some reason our schedule and restaurants in NC always seem to be out of synch), I vaguely remembered reading some positive remarks about Mean Mr. Mustard's and we headed downtown to find the restaurant.
Located down a side street in Hendersonville (133 4th Ave East), we found that they were open for breakfast/lunch 7 days 8am-2:30pm and Thursday -Saturday evenings 6pm-8:30pm). Luckily it was around 2pm on a Friday when we got parked and made it to the restaurant. There are lots of Beatles decorations on the walls and the background music is all Beatles' music , plus most of the menu items have either a Beatles' connected name or another music related name. Instead of like most themed restaurants I have eaten at, the food here was the star, NOT the decorations. We had such a great meal that day, we returned the following week, eight days to be exact....I just realized that made it "8 Days A Week"!! Since I didn't have my camera on the first trip, this review is going to be a combination of our two visits.
Last week, my wife had "The Walrus Chicken Salad Sandwich - diced chicken breast with red grapes, almonds, raisins, and cilantro served with tomato and greens on fresh baked focaccia bread". This was a very good chicken salad sandwich, but we would only rate it very good and nothing that would make you return right away. However, my choice turned out to be the winner (usually my wife chooses the best meal) when I reluctantly ordered "The Grand Funk Reuben" - corned beef, swiss and mozzarella cheese, and sauerkraut served open face german-style on thick, homemade rye bread with authentic brandied Russian dressing". I say reluctantly, because I love reubens, but the words "open face" really threw me off. Well friends, I'm here to say that this was probably the best reuben that I have ever had in this area. It was so good that is one of the reasons we went back for the second time.
On the second visit, we decided to split the reuben and try another item and we chose "Frankie - the good american version of the reuben, with chicken sausage, saurekraut, and swiss cheese on rye, topped with mozzarella cheese and a mean mr. mustard sauce". To be honest, we never could decide which of these sandwiches was better. Although they have some similar flavors, there are enough differences to make each of them unique. I would really have a hard time deciding which one to order next time. Which brings me to what I AM going to order next time - While waiting for our order we saw several orders of French Toast arrive at other tables...NOW...that's all I have on my mind. It comes either as "French Toast Cordon Bleu - egg dipped thick slices of house made bread, stuffed with ham and swiss cheese, then grilled golden brown with choice of grits or home fries" OR "The Full Monte (plain without ham and swiss)".
I'm sure there's some local restaurant that can please me without having to drive into the middle of "who knows where". As most of you know from reading this blog, Carolina Cafe in Gaffney, which was formerly Carolina Cafe in Chesnee is my favorite restaurant in Upstate SC. My second favorite is now Grits and Groceries at Saylors Crossroads (this is somewhere between Belton and Anderson). Once again, I have found a great place to eat....but it's over an hour drive to get there!! The restaurant is owned and operated by Heidi and Joe Trull. Heidi previously owned and operated the popular New Orleans restaurant Elizabeth's and Joe was the pastry chef for ten years at Emeril Lagasse's New Orleans Restaurant NOLA.
All four of us started with the tomato pie appetizer which also came with maque choux. This is one dish that must really be experienced, there is no way I could faithfully describe how good it was. Above are two photos, one as the pie is served and one with a look inside the pie.
For entrees, two of us chose the catfish po boy, one chose the shrimp po boy and one had the daily special - Greek meatloaf. While all were cooked to perfection, they paled in comparison after the tomato pies. We all agreed, if we could back up time, we would have just ordered two tomato pies each or one tomato pie and an additional different appetizer. Even though, we were all pretty well stuffed by this time, we had to try the desserts....believe me...DON'T miss dessert!! The only problem is that they have such a wide range of desserts, including homemade ice cream, that it's hard to decide. Below are the desserts we chose:
Two of us had the fried sweet potato pie.
One of us chose the carrot cake and in case anyone thinks they don't like carrot cake, they haven't had carrot cake from Grits and Groceries
And saving the best for last, the fig bread pudding with white chocolate caramel sauce. This is an "out of this world" dessert.
Besides the food all being great, the service was beyond reproach, some of the best I've had in a while, especially considering the meal was being served in an old country store. One last thing, they DON'T take credit cards....cash or checks only. For hours (breakfast and lunch only) and directions, check out their web site: Grits and Groceries
Does anyone remember anything about this singing trio from Greenville South Carolina? I know that they were called The Dollies. This photo, dated 1964, was made at Greenville Junior High School. The only other information I have been able to glean is that one of them was seen backstage at a Beach Boys concert at Greenville Memorial Auditorium.
As far as Florida comic novelists go, I always considered Carl Hiaasen to be the best of the bunch, with Tim Dorsey coming in second place. It's been four years since Hiaasen has written an adult novel and I was excited to read Star Island. I don't know if it was the subject matter, celebrities and paparazzi, or if Hiaasen has just lost his touch. Usually, I'm zipping through his books anxious to see what plot twist he'll throw in next and getting plenty of laughs along the way. Instead, with Star Island, I felt like I was doing some kind of penance for having read all of his other great books. I feel sorry for anyone if this is the first Hiaasen book they read, I imagine they'll wonder what all the acclaim for Hiaasen had been about. I was relieved to finally finish Star Island and anxious to get back to something good....maybe a Robert B. Parker. As for Tim Dorsey, while his book plots have gotten sort of repetitive, I now think he's the number one Florida comic novelist and I'll be looking forward to Serge's next adventure.
