CHUY'S

Chuy's, 1034 Woodruff Road #B, Greenville, SC

For a person who doesn't like to eat in chain restaurants, I sure have been eating in a string of them over the last few weeks. First there was On The Border, then Texas Roadhouse, and now Chuy's, which turned out to be the best of the trio. One drawback is it's on Woodruff Road, but thankfully it's on the lower part near Verdae Blvd. and here's a hint: you can turn at the red light before you get to the restaurant and go through a couple of parking lots and arrive at the back of Chuy's.

We split a couple of plates. Above are the Chili Rellenos - two anaheim peppers fire roasted and filled with ground sirloin with ranchero sauce, battered then fried and served with a drizzle of sour cream. Very tasty with almost a sweetness to them. You can also have these with chicken, shrimp, or cheese.

 
Above is our other plate - Elvis Green Chile Fried Chicken - a pounded chicken breast, breaded with Lay's potato chips, deep fried and smothered in green chile sauce and cheddar cheese. The combination of all the ingredients worked and made for a flavorful entree. 

Both plates came with rice and beans, which were both pretty standard. We were served pre-meal complimentary chips and 2 dips - salsa and creamy jalapeno. The chips were the thin variety but very salty (which was only noticeable if you ate them without dip). My wife liked the salsa, but I thought the lime in it was overpowering, the creamy jalapeno was basically ranch with jalapeno. Overall, this was a pretty good meal and a chain restaurant I could see putting into our regular line-up of places to dine. My only real disappointment was I didn't notice until late in the meal that they had Shiner Bock, making me realize I had missed an opportunity to drink one of my favorite beers.

CAPRI'S of Easley

Capri's of Easley, 5667 Calhoun Memorial Hwy 

I didn't realize until this weekend that I had never reviewed Capri's of Easley.  Until a couple of years ago, we had a Capri's in Greer, SC, which went belly-up due to poor management and of course, many years ago we had several other Capri's in town.

We usually have two salads, a small picture of Yuengling and split a small pizza with sausage, green pepper, and onion (which you can see in the background of the above photo). This is one of my favorite pizzas, but some of my prejudice toward liking this pie is it's the taste of pizza I grew up on. If you didn't grow up eating at Capri's in the Greenville area, you may or may not find this pizza as wonderful as I do. This week, I ordered a cheeseburger with a baked potato (this is the combo I got used to when eating cheeseburgers in New Orleans). What a great burger, juicy and cooked just right. One final thing to add about Capri's of Easley, the service is always top notch. Hint: If you going on a Friday or Saturday night, go early or be prepared for a short wait.

TEXAS ROADHOUSE

Texas Roadhouse, Wade Hampton Blvd, Taylors, SC

We've been to Texas Roadhouse many years ago and everything was fine. We recently got a coupon for a free appetizer and since they had fried pickles on the menu, thought we would give them another try. 

The fried pickles were tasty and we would order them again. I had a cup of their chili which was really good and wouldn't mind picking some up sometime when it was cold outside. 

We split a cheeseburger plate and while it was good, the main problem was the meat was too high a grade. In other words, not greasy, which made it a little dry. The steak fries were also good. Plus, we had four beers (at 2.75 each, these were almost 1/2 of our bill). They also serve you roasted peanuts and complimentary rolls with cinnamon butter. The service was outstanding, very attentive without being over powering. As with previous visits, my reaction to Texas Roadhouse is, it's fine, but nothing to make me want to go every week; however, a visit every now and then wouldn't be out of the question.

ON THE BORDER - Mexican Grill and Cantina

On The Border - Mexican Grill & Cantina

74 Beacon Dr, Greenville, SC 29615

There's several foods that I like and usually order if they're on the menu - meatball sandwiches and meat loaf being two of my main picks, another is one that doesn't show up as much - empanadas. Even though I'm not big on chains and usually try to avoid them, when I saw On The Border served empanadas,  I decided I had to go.

I ordered a plate which came with two empanadas and a green chile chicken enchilada with the usual rice and beans. The cheese dip you see on the plate was simply Velveeta cheese with Rotel.

My wife ordered the plate with two empanadas and a chicken tinga tostada with the usual sides of rice and beans. The complimentary chips and salsa in the background were acceptable, but we've had much better.

While I really liked the empanadas, the green chile chicken enchilada was lacking and was almost tasteless, making me wish I had ordered something else. My wife did not like the empanadas. She said she could taste the grease they were cooked in, but did agree the beef filling was tasty. However, She really liked her tostada. 

So the verdict about On the Border is split. We both liked one item out of two. While a score of 50 per cent isn't very good, I would still go back - but only for empanadas. On the other hand, my wife said she had no desire to re-visit.

MIKE and JEFF'S BBQ

Mike & Jeff's BBQ
2401 Old Buncombe Rd, Greenville, SC

We've driven past Mike & Jeff's BBQ several times over the years, but just never got around to going there. We finally tried them out this weekend and found passing them by had definitely been our loss.

We both had pulled pork plates, which come with two sides. I chose slaw (since they don't have an option of putting slaw on the sandwich) and hush puppies. The photo above is the small plate (can you imagine how much pork is on the large plate). The bbq is so good it doesn't need any sauce, although they provide a mustard and a red vinegar sauce, which the latter was our preference. The hush puppies were good  and the slaw was made so well it didn't need any salt or pepper.

Above is my wife's plate, she chose baked beans and sweet potato souffle as her sides and both were delicious. They also steam the bun that comes with your meal which is a definite plus.

Mike & Jeff's is a tiny space with a few seats at the bar and a small dining room in the back, I'm guessing the whole restaurant would only seat 25-30 people. We went at 1:30 pm on a Saturday and by 2 pm most of the back dining room was taken plus a few to go orders had been served. 

There is only one other BBQ place where we have eaten which I consider better, and that's by a slight margin,  Bubba's BBQ & Bash in Spartanburg. The main reason is Bubba's meat is a little more moist, but other than that these are my two favorite BBQ spots, with all others in our immediate region paling by comparison. So when I'm in the mood for Q and don't want to make a trek to Spartanburg, all I have to do now is drive to the San Souci section of Greenville.

ZORBA LOUNGE

We've eaten at Zorba's East in Taylors, but we've never been to Zorba Lounge on Washington Street. When I was in high school (back in the dark ages) Zorba had a reputation for having topless waitresses. If that was true, I've never had anyone who could verify that fact, only that they also heard the same rumor. So, I always imagined it was going to be huge inside, but it was actually a fairly tiny place and if there used to be topless waitresses there, then many a person must have got popped in the head with a boob at some point during their visit.

We went to try the cheeseburger, but also saw they had a Reuben sandwich on the menu, and since we are always in search of a good Reuben, we split one of those and also split a cheeseburger with an order of fries. The cheeseburger wasn't a big patty, but they knew the right combination of meat, lettuce and tomato and mayo to put on an onion bun, and it was delicious. The Reuben was pretty good, definitely worth ordering, and it also had the right combination of corn beef, sauerkraut, and Russian dressing assembled on rye bread, it just wasn't as good as the cheeseburger. Add in four Yuenglings in bottles and this was a very satisfying meal. I should also mention the staff were friendly and efficient (something Zorba's East doesn't always have). Zorba Lounge is now on our must visit again list. 

KOUNTRY KUPBOARD - Walhalla, SC

Since we're in Walhalla several times a year, we usually eat at The Steak House Cafeteria, but on our last two visits we were a little disappointed with our meals. Their chicken was still great, but all of the sides tasted as though they weren't being prepared the way they were in the past. This led us to try a different place in Walhalla - Kountry Kupboard (located on the left hand side of the road, just as you're leaving the main part of town going toward Seneca). While it's not much to look at on the outside and it's fairly small on the inside, this will be our new "go-to" place in Walhalla. The chicken had a great crust, second in taste only to O.J.'s Diner in Greenville, SC. The above plate is my wife's, mine was the same, except I substituted mixed beans (which was really a mixed bean soup) for the green beans. Everything on our plates was delicious. We got a couple of desserts - banana split pie and coconut pie to bring home and they were equal in tastiness to the food we had in the restaurant. On a final note, adding to our dining experience was the fact that the staff were extremely nice.