NORTHWEST GRILL

Northwest Grill, 13045 Old White Horse Rd,
Travelers Rest, SC 29690

I know polls mean nothing, except how many people you can get to vote for you. However, Northwest Grill piqued my curiosity when it was recently voted #2 in WYFF's Best Burger Facebook Poll. It's 26 minutes from my house to Northwest Grill and I'm happy to say that the trip is well worth it.

We both had cheeseburger plates, I got the large (probably about 1/3 pound) and my wife got the small (probably about 1/4 pound), both were delicious, cooked right and accompanied by fresh cut french fries. On top of the great burger, John, the cook who had a name tag that said "Burgerologist" (and he definitely deserves that title), insisted that we try the banana pudding, which was made from his Grandmother's recipe. This was an outstanding banana pudding and I think the only one I've had that was better was at OJ's Diner, and John's was darn close. 

Be aware when you go that each order is made fresh, so if there's a few orders in front of you, there will be a short wait. Once your burger arrives, you'll know it was well worth that wait and if you're anything like me, you'll be thinking "I'm definitely coming back to Northwest Grill".

CHARLIE'S BAR-B-QUE

I've eaten at Charlie's Bar-B-Que before, but it was many years ago. We've driven past the restaurant several times over the last few months, so I thought I would give it a another try. Unfortunately, that was a mistake. I'll give them credit for having a very friendly and efficient staff; however, that doesn't make up for the low quality meals that we ate there today.

I had a chopped sandwich plate with macaroni and cheese and the loaded potato salad. My wife had the same plate but with slaw and baked beans (see photo below). Much to my dismay, the macaroni and cheese was your standard "Kraft" style. I think this is the first time I've been in a BBQ restaurant and been served a children's dish. The loaded potato salad was the best thing we had, but I'm assuming they buy it from someone, since it was pretty obvious they didn't put much effort into their sides (slaw and beans were both just ok). If the BBQ had been good, I could have overlooked the sides, but the meat was practically tasteless and my guess is that is why they put sauce on it before serving it to you. My recommendation for Charlie's Bar-B-Que is spend your money at about any other BBQ restaurant in Greenville and you'll be better off.

CIRCLE M BBQ

Circle M BBQ, 345 Martin Sausage Rd, Liberty SC 

Circle M BBQ in Liberty SC made the SC BBQ Association's 100 Mile BBQ List (BBQ that you would drive 100 miles to eat). Everybody's taste in BBQ is different and I have to say, that for my taste, Circle M was just pretty good, but more like 10 mile BBQ (BBQ that I would drive 10 miles to eat....that's still not bad, since there's some BBQ I wouldn't drive a mile to eat).

When I say BBQ, I mean only one thing, the classic chopped/shredded pork Q on a bun. So I had the small bbq sandwich plate which comes with slaw and beans (no choosing sides at Circle M, these are the only two sides, with one exception, you can replace one of the sides with Brunswick stew for an additional .75. My wife had the same plate with an added side of Brunswick stew.

The sandwich was good, but the smoked meat already had some of the pepper vinegar sauce they use (the only sauce available). It was ok, but I would have preferred tasting the meat and deciding if I wanted any sauce. If the meat is good enough, it shouldn't need any type of sauce. I thought the beans were pretty good, the wife thought they were fair. She did really like the marinated slaw, which to my surprise was sweet. Hearing that the owner had learned to cook Q in NC, I was assuming he would fix a "red slaw". I'm not big on Brunswick stew and my wife said she had had much better. If I was in Liberty and someone said let's go to Circle M for some Q, I would be agreeable; but I certainly wouldn't ever drive from Taylors to Liberty again on my own, I can get much better Q in a much shorter trip.

SUGAR 'n' SPICE

We've driven by Sugar n Spice Restaurant many times over the years. Recently, I ran across the fact that they were famous for their roast beef (cooked in house) sandwich, so after the Hub City BBQ fest we thought we would give them a try. 

"A-Plenty" seems to be regional to Spartanburg, since I don't think I've run across it anywhere else. Our Greenville variation would be "big boy( or plate) half and half"

We split a Roast Beef a Plenty plate and the restaurant was nice enough to, not only provide an extra plate, but also another serving of slaw. Our opinions differ on this plate. I found the roast beef, which truly is like home cooking, to be flavorful and mighty tasty. My wife on the other hand thought it was too fatty. We did agree on the slaw, it was dry and could have been improved with some mayonnaise. Sugar n Spice was much better than The Beacon (the only other restaurant of this type that we've eaten at in Spartanburg) and for a roast beef sandwich I don't think you'll find better. Would we go back? Maybe, but there's so many better places to eat in Spartanburg, that Sugar n Spice wouldn't be one of our top picks.

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.