I thought it might be nice to talk about something other than my recent surgery for a change; so moving on to one of my favorite subjects - lets talk about food. :)
Over the years we've eaten out a lot; when I was young and my mother was a stay at home mom she cooked all the time and I never really appreciate that fact. As I got older and she started working we started eating out more. In my teenage years she had a job where she pulled long hours (first a trainer then later a branch manager for a finance company) and she traveled a lot especially later on. As such we ate out probably more than half the time. As many children do - we liked that a lot. As I got older the trend continued in my 20's and even 30's; but as I've gotten older I've again developed an appreciation for home cooked food. Generally it's better for me, it often tastes better as it's cooked to my desires and not to a generic specification, and so on. Couple that with the fact that while I've always been interested in cooking, and since my transition I've found that I greatly enjoy the whole process. From planning meals, to shopping, to preparation, and even cleaning up to an extent.
I've found Pinterest to be a great resource for recipes and ideas and I have a nice sized set of boards for foods to try, foods that worked, some that didn't, ones specific to slow cookers, and even a "copy cat" section. I work my way through them as I have time and while most aren't always great as-is they are generally good enough to get a repeat attempt. Now there are those few that just "work" and that's a great feeling - some are simple such as "three packet roast" (albeit we've tweaked ours a bit), or as silly as it sounds, "bubble pizza". I've also found some great ones in Reddit - our favorite being Jalapeno Cheddar puffs - I can't say enough about how good those are.
That all being said we do eat out on occasions, but it's less fast food and more of a go out type of experience. Part of that is me (and my wife too) being tired of fast food, but a bigger part is that early on in my transition these were what I like to call "safe outings". We picked restaurants in nice areas, generally table service, where I would feel comfortable even if I wasn't passing as well as I'd like. In that environment generally you're going to be treated nicely regardless of the server and staff's personal feelings since such a large portion of their income is tips. Now don't get me wrong, I've had one or two poor experiences which I've documented in this blog; but otherwise it's in general been good and we've had a lot of new food that we've liked - and some that we didn't, but even more important was the time we've spent together and for me the experience I've garnered being out and about.
I thought I'd mention a few recent restaurant trips; not so much for the experiences as they were good, but more for the food since it was notable for various reasons. Many of these occurred on our recent trip to Detroit, but a couple were in the week or two prior. Some of these are regional chains, some national chains, and others local restaurants - so they may or may not be known to anyone reading this; so if anybody has questions about any of them feel free to ask away. :)
The first one I'd like to mention is St. Louis Wing Co. They have a single location off of Manchester road here in St. Louis and as the name implies chicken wings are their thing. They have a nice selection of flavors for both traditional and boneless wings. We've been there a couple of times, including last week after my therapist visit. When we go, we tend to do the all you can eat boneless for $11.99 (I think). It includes fries and a drink and two flavors to start with (5 or 6 pieces each I forget). I wasn't feeling great that day so I went with honey bbq (their least spicy flavor) and parmesan marinara (second least spicy) and both were very good. I had not had the honey bbq prior to that and I was surprised at just how good they were. Once you finish they will bring you more - one set at a time (again 5 or 6). I had two more of the honey bbq and they were just as good as the first. It's in a little strip mall across from a McDonald's a few miles from where Manchester hits I-270 (going East from I-270) and I'd strongly recommend them.
Next up is Tucano's Brazilian Grille. This is a regional chain with stores scattered in various states and locations. I believe without looking that they are based in Colorado. It's a churrasco (forgive my spelling) so there is what they call their "salad festival" with various salads, salad bar, soups, and appetizer type of things. But the real treat is the churrasco. Servers come around with large skewers of various dishes and carve off (or in the case of some things, slide them off) onto a small serving plate. The options are more plentiful during dinner, but even during lunch there are usually at least a dozen including their awesome pineapple. My wife and I visited on 2/13 for their Valentine's special - it was a little more than normal (I believe about $20 each instead of the $14 each) - it's a bit much for lunch, but this was a special occasion and since we were leaving for Detroit in the wee hours of the 14th, this was our celebration. The additional fee added a few selections to the churrasco, included a rose (which I gave to her although they offered to bring me one too <G>), and a couple of truffles. I'm not sure it was worth an extra $12 total, as we only really liked two of the extra selections - the shrimp and some sort of meat, I forget what - and those only came around twice. Now to be fair after the first cycle they do ask if you want anything in particular so we could've aske for more of those, but pretty much everything was good so we just let them bring whatever. The will continue to visit as long as your "cue" is set to green, if you want a break or are finished you can flip it to red and they will let you be which we like. All told, we really like it, but it's definitely more of a treat than a regular destination.
Moving on Denny's. I'm sure we all know about Denny's by now. We haven't been in a good while as the one nearest us has been closed for a couple of months for a remodel. However, we were in Novi on the 14th and with it being both a Friday and Valentine's day and the fact that I had surgery early the next morning we just wanted to eat and get back to the hotel and they weren't busy. Suffice it to say I was NOT impressed. Look, Denny's is what it is; and the service was just fine, but the food - well not much. They've redone the menu so that it's more a'la carte and if I'm paying $8-12 for my entree and then another $2+ for what they call a salad - well I might as well go to Applebee's or Chili's unless it's 2am and it wasn't. The food itself was bland, seemingly more bland than normal which agitated me as well. We may try the one near us when it reopens, but if things are similar here then we won't visit beyond that as even at 2am there's always an Ihop or something else open somewhere.
From bad to a great experience. Famous Dave's BBQ. From what I can gather it's a regional chain, just not here in St. Louis. There are a few scattered about Missouri, but they seemed more popular in Michigan (where we were at), Indiana, etc., than here. It was Saturday the 15th and I was about 10-12 hours post surgery and not feeling great so we didn't want to go out. Their menu looking appealing and my wife went to get carryout. Now we did NOT call it in and we paid the price for that as they were busy despite it being prior to 5pm so there was a wait to get our food; but it was everything I could have hoped for. Instead of trying to recreate the wheel here, I'll simply include a link to the Yelp review I did - I think that says it all. HIGHLY recommended. My Yelp review here: Famous Dave's BBQ Yelp Review
Well our next restaurant is Applebee's - again I'm guessing most everybody knows about them. My wife got us carryout on Sunday 2/16 from there in Greenfield Indiana. We got an order of their pretzels (appetizer - 4pc), a triple play with pretzels (2pc), boneless wings (maybe 6?), and quesadilla towers (1pc cut in half), and a steak dinner with shrimp and something. The dinner was my wife's, and the quesadilla towers and 2pc pretzels were her's as well. I got the 4pc pretzels and the boneless wings as I wasn't very hungry. All the food was good - not as good as when eaten there, but isn't that almost always the case? The cost is what the cost is, a little higher than I'd have liked, but such is life. It was about as consistently average to above average as it is when we do carry out at home. Mildly recommended for carry out.
Lastly, Bandana's BBQ. I guess they're regional now to an extent, but it's really a St. Louis based chain. Typical fast casual BBQ type of restaurant. Lots of sauces (on the side), various meats and sides, and so on. We got BBQ Chicken nachos as an appetizer which aren't really my thing, but my wife liked them. I had some buffalo chicken strips with cole slaw and fried okra - which I gave to my wife, although I had a piece and it was good, along with the garlic toast. She got a combo platter with turkey and sausage along with cole slaw, potato salad, and garlic toast. Our first agitation was that literally 2 minutes before our food hit the table the server came back and said they had a large order go out and were short on the sausage. I understand the large order and all, but they didn't know they had an issue until they were plating her food? Seriously? So she got some chicken to go with it. Now at that point they made the best of the situation as she basically got upgraded to a three meat platter (an extra $2) for free, not a huge deal. The next agitation came when the food arrived. Now they are NOT busy - it was around 2pm, maybe 3 tables counting us and one server. She asked if I wanted sauce for my chicken and I asked for ranch. She proceeded to forget completely about that until she touched our table 5-10 minutes later and we asked for it again. My chicken strips were fine, a little spicier than I'd probably have liked, but so be it - that varies everywhere. There were six, but small ones and I ate three of them before giving up even with the ranch. The cole slaw was fine - I'm picky about that and while you may laugh I prefer KFC's over anyone's and this while being pretty good wasn't on that level. The garlic toast was great as always and truthfully was the highlight of my meal. The piece of fried okra I had was also very hot and very good. My wife thought her turkey was great and her sausage as well. She felt the chicken was overly dry even after using sauce on it. I had a couple of small bites of the skin of the chicken and felt it was overly smoky - perhaps some/most/all like it that way, I simply don't which is why I ordered the buffalo strips. I'm not a huge BBQ fan, I like ribs on occasion, but otherwise my idea of BBQ is a hamburger on the grill. Her cole slaw and potato salad were decent enough from what I gathered and she ate her garlic toast (to my chagrin because I was drooling over it) but it seemed like she could take it or leave it. All told for the $30-$40 plus tip we spent I would've rather have went elsewhere which is a shame. Even though they are a regional chain, I still consider them a "hometown restaurant" and I like to support those as much as I can, I just was not impressed - especially after having had Famous Dave's a few nights prior. I guess I'd give them a mild recommendation with the caveat that only if you like BBQ and heavily smoked BBQ. Now perhaps I'm a bit overzealous with that, I don't eat a lot of BBQ admittedly, but that's how I feel and I would think that most people who aren't huge BBQ fans would likely agree.
With that I think I'll wrap this up, I have some work to get done (ie lunch is over) and I'm starting to hurt so I'm going to have to take a pain pill when my work is done and perhaps a nap. As always thanks for reading.
- M
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