Brainerd/East Ridge Archives - Page 2 of 2

Toscano Italian Grill

August 10, 2016

Toscano Italian Grill is an unassuming Italian restaurant located in a strip mall in Chattanooga, TN with huge portions and surprisingly tasty food.

It has been a while – probably a couple of years – but I posted on Facebook asking readers about their favorite pizza in Chattanooga and was surprised by one of the answers: Toscano Italian Grill. I actually had to ask where it was located, because I had never heard of it. As soon as I was told that it was located in the strip mall on Lee Highway, I knew exactly where it was, but I’m rarely in that area so it took me ages to get out there.

Philip and I arrived at Toscano Italian Grill at around 4:00 on a Saturday afternoon and the place was empty. We were greeted by Haili as soon as we walked in the door and she led us to the seating area and let us choose our own table. Toscano looked basically like every strip mall restaurant I’ve ever been in: clean but basic. I will be honest, I didn’t expect much because I have had very bad experiences with trip mall Italian restaurants, pre-blog (those places are long defunct).

Haili filled our waters while we perused the menu. I had read several Yelp reviews that mentioned the Italian nachos at Toscano Italian Grill, so we decided to order those for $7.99. They were made from pita chips topped with Alfredo sauce, mozzarella cheese, chunks of grilled chicken, and pickled jalapeño slices. They were pretty tasty, though honestly, if I were making them at home I would probably leave off the chicken or cut it into smaller chunks. I loved the concept and may have to recreate it for the blog. Haili told us that the Toscano twisters (pizza rolls stuffed with mozzarella and a topping of your choice for $6.99) and the garlic knots ($5.99) are also fantastic.

Our entrees came with a Toscano salad (lettuce, tomatoes, onions, green peppers, and shredded carrots) or Caesar salad and garlic bread. We both decided on the Caesar salad, which was pretty basic: chopped romaine, shredded Parmesan, pre-fab croutons, and Caesar dressing on the side. It was good but there was nothing spectacular or “special” about it. The garlic bread was pretty much along the same lines: buttery crusty bread with garlic seasoning.

I was torn between the New York style pizza (a small – 10 inch – pizza starts at $7.99) and the baked penne. I ultimately decided that I was in the mood for pasta, so I decided on the baked penne with a creamy pink sauce, meat sauce, meatballs, or sausage, and cheese for $10.99 (I ordered mine with meatballs). I actually thought it was very, very good. The sauce was a nice balance between creamy and tomato-y, the pasta cooked to al dente, and the blanket of mozzarella….well, I love mozzarella, and there was plenty in every bite. The meatballs were good too, tender and well cooked, but honestly, I would have been just as happy with this as a meatless dish. This portion was large enough for a whole family and we brought home enough leftovers to feed both of us for lunch the next day.

Philip decided to go way out of his comfort zone and order the fruit de mari ($13.99): shrimp, calamari, chopped clams, and baby scallops cooked in a spicy marinara sauce served on top of spaghetti noodles. He typically doesn’t care for calamari and is sort of indifferent about clams, but he wanted to try something different. He said that on its own, the calamari was chewy and not great (because it’s calamari) but when he ate it with the pasta and sauce that it all paired together really well and he actually enjoyed it. One note: there was a ton of oil in this, which made it a little heavier than you might expect a seafood and marinara based dish to be.

It was before dinner time when we were there, but while we were dining a few more tables filled up and we heard Haili taking multiple orders on the phone as well. Toscano Italian Grill seems to be doing well. Like I said, I wasn’t expecting much, and I was pleasantly surprised. Was it Alleia or even Tony’s? Of course not. Was it perfectly tasty Italian food? Sure. I’m going to have to run by here on a work day and grab a small pizza for lunch so I can try it out (if I do, I’ll be sure to post an update).

If you’re in the Lee Highway area and looking for somewhere to eat, Toscano Italian Grill is worth a try!

Toscano Italian Grill is located at 6219 Lee Highway, Suite 8, Chattanooga, TN. They are open daily 10:30 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. You can call them at (423) 805-3888. You can find Toscano Italian Grill on Facebook and check out their website to find their menu and coupons.

Sweet Basil Thai Cuisine-February 16, 2013

February 17, 2013

Philip and I have been eating at Sweet Basil for years. Odd that I haven’t reviewed it yet, right? Actually, we went to Sweet Basil shortly after the inception of Chattavore in May 2011 and I started writing a post, but it was the end of the school year and that just isn’t a good time for me to do much of anything. The post never got finished and thus is now referred to as “the lost post”. When I updated my tags and created my recipe and restaurant index last month, I finally deleted the poor, forlorn post. Still, Sweet Basil deserves my love so finally we ended up back there yesterday. There was no planning ahead on our part; we had no idea where we were going when we left our house but after a marathon shopping trip to the School Box to spend some of my classroom money, it was close and sounded good to both of us.

At three in the afternoon, you may have expected it to be dead but it wasn’t. Not that it was packed out or anything, but there were several other tables occupied. We were immediately seated, though, after taking quick note of the lunchbox special including soup, salad, a spring roll, and chicken Panang curry (there may have been some other things but I didn’t notice). The tables were set with a plates, ornately folded napkins (which the server unfolded and placed in our laps), dinner menus, and a sushi menu. This is a phenomena that I wish someone would explain to me. Sweet Basil has not always served sushi and I am assuming that they started after Rain Thai Bistro opened and started serving sushi. I’m sure the sushi is good and I’m sure these places serve it on popular demand, but these are Thai restaurants. If I want sushi I’ll go to a Japanese restaurant. Why does a Thai restaurant need to serve sushi? So confusing. But I digress.

Anyway, we’ve kind of fallen off the bandwagon of using our Adventures in Dining Guide for every blog post. We did it last week but sometimes you just aren’t in the mood for the restaurants found there. Lucky for us, though, there was a Kids First coupon for $5 of $25 here at Sweet Basil. Yippee! Usually we order some spring rolls (crispy fried spring rolls served with tamarind sauce) but Philip was drawn to the basil rolls today so we decided to order those. The basil rolls are not fried. They are made with rice paper wrappers filled with thin rice noodles, a thick stack of sweet basil leaves, lettuce, and a single piece of shrimp each. They were served with a sweet and tangy plum sauce. Fresh and delicious, these made me want to make some unfried spring rolls at home. Look for a blog post soon(ish). We will order these again. At some point we would like to try the golden basil cups, crispy basil leaves with a shrimp, chicken, and corn-based filling.

This is one of those places that every time I go, I think “I need to branch out and order something other than the usual” but I just can’t bring myself to do it. I always order the Pad Thai. I think I ordered the lunchbox special once and, while I liked it, I found myself longing for my beloved Pad Thai, so I decided that branching out probably isn’t worth it. When I ordered the Pad Thai, the server removed my plate because they serve their Pad Thai in a large dish that’s kind of like a plate/bowl hybrid. The Pad Thai is typically served with shrimp, but the server asked me if I wanted shrimp so I assume that sometimes people order it with chicken, beef, or pork, or meatless. I definitely wanted the shrimp. Pad Thai is not spicy hot so it doesn’t have a chili pepper denoting the spiciness level, but you can request it with additional spice. Of course, I did not. The medium-wide rice noodles are stir-fried with a sweet & sour sauce with eggs, tofu, green onions, and shrimp, served with mung bean sprouts, chopped peanuts, and a lime slice for topping. Perfection. It’s unlikely I’m going to start ordering anything else here any time soon.

Like me, Philip always orders the same thing: Panang curry. Usually he orders pork, but today he decided to order beef. Panang curry is a one-chili-pepper spicy dish but Philip decided to up the spice factor to two chili peppers (which harkens back to the time we ate at Thai Smile for lunch years ago and the guy behind us ordered his curry with four-chili-pepper spiciness. Whoa, man. Crazy.). The time that I ordered the lunchbox special it came with chicken Panang curry and I found the standard one-chili-pepper spiciness to be too much for my wimpy taste buds, but Philip has a much higher heat tolerance than I do. For someone with a high tolerance, this curry doesn’t really start out spicy but the spiciness builds as you eat it. The server brought out a plate with the curry on it as well as a container of plain sticky white rice, which she scooped onto the plate that was preset onto the table. Panang curry paste is made with chili peppers, cilantro, Kaffir lime rind, and a variety of other exotic and not-so-exotic spices and seasonings, then mixed into a coconut milk based sauce and served with stir-fried sliced meat and peppers (green and red bell peppers). Philip ate most of it and declared at the end that he could finish it but he wouldn’t.

I was terribly sad that I didn’t have room for dessert. Perhaps next time I will go back on my word and have some soup and a Thai salad (with peanut dressing) so that I can have space for some sticky rice with mango or maybe some coconut or green tea ice cream. Not this time, though. I also am dying to try Thai iced tea, which is sweet with condensed milk, but I’m thinking that maybe that’s one of those things I’m going to have to make at home because it’s unlikely I’ll ever pay to purchase it in a restaurant. Anyway, before the coupon, our total was $31. The server was quick to take our coupon when she cleared the table, bring back the check, and run our credit card. They also kept our water glasses filled and they are always very, very friendly. The ladies at the table behind us even got their picture taken with one of the servers! We love Sweet Basil and so far it’s our favorite Thai food in Chattanooga (while we’ve only reviewed one other, we have tried other Thai restaurants prior to the existence of Chattavore), though we have heard great things about a couple we haven’t gotten around to yet. Stay tuned.

Sweet Basil Thai Cuisine is located at 5845 Brainerd Road, Chattanooga, TN 37411 (across from the Wal-Mart complex). You can call them at 423-485-8836.

India Mahal-February 9, 2013

February 10, 2013

Several months ago, I wrote about the BLT pizza that I ate at a restaurant named Kudzu Grille on Philip’s and my first date. Yesterday was the fourteenth anniversary of that day! While we don’t really “celebrate” the day (as all of the anniversary glory belongs, of course, to the anniversary of our wedding in July), we always remember it. Eating at a new restaurant, drinking coffee at Rembrandt’s, walking on the bridge, wondering what the coming days (months, years…) have in store. The excitement of a new relationship…which, in our case anyway, eventually gave way to the excitement of a longterm (i.e. lifelong) relationship, but the kind where holding hands and talking about when we first met (at Chuck E. Cheese’s, where I was convinced that he hated me for months before we eventually became friends-we didn’t date until much later) never gets old. Or just hanging out on the couch and pretending like the rest of the world doesn’t exist, which is what we do most nights.

Yesterday, though, we actually hung out with a friend, our old friend Rachel, who took the photo below. We had planned to have lunch with Rachel last Saturday but then the snow kind of threw off those plans so we ate at Subway with her after church on Sunday in about twenty minutes because I had a photo shoot to do. We had to have a real lunch with her! I can’t remember what, but something had gotten Philip thinking about saag paneer, which I made one time after seeing Aarti Sequiera make it on her Food Network show Aarti Party. This dish consisted of making my own cheese from whole milk & lemon juice, which you know I’m always game for, cutting it into cubes and frying it then combining it with a spicy, creamy spinach mixture. Only her spice measurements lit me on fire and I had no idea that was going to happen. I think I ended up having a grilled cheese while Philip happily ate the spinach bowl of death.

Anyway, as I was saying….Philip wanted some saag paneer, so we had to decide where we were going to go for said dish. There are three restaurants in Chattanooga that we are aware of (perhaps there are more, please tell me if you know of any!) that serve Indian food, and they each serve a lunch buffet daily. This had us a little suspicious because we are not buffet lovers, but we eventually decided to give it a go. We decided on India Mahal because (a) to our knowledge it’s been around the longest; and (b) we had a buy one get one free coupon. We’d been seeing India Mahal for years (it’s been around since 1995) but I was always afraid to try it (truth be told, I’m not a super-adventurous eater. I was a junior in college before Philip and my roommate convinced me to try Chinese food.)…but we’d been talking about it for a long time.

The restaurant wasn’t super-crowded but it wasn’t dead either. The man who greeted us at the door, whom I assume was the owner, seated us in a booth and shook our hands (he shook Philip’s hand again as he was paying). One thing I read over and over about India Mahal is that the owners were extremely friendly and remember people from previous visits. As people came in, it seemed that the man knew several of them. They definitely have some regulars.

The buffet was a couple of tables set up with a cold unit and warming (chafing) pans. Each item was labeled with the name and a description. I was immediately disappointed by the fact that there were no samosas (Indian turnovers stuffed with spiced potatoes and peas) on the buffet….I had been hoping to try them for quite some time. I will have to make them at home….perhaps to share with you? Anyway, I was not disappointed by the naan bread, which is a traditional Indian flatbread cooked in a tandoor oven till it’s crispy and bubbly. Like the best pita bread you’ve ever eaten. I could have eaten nothing but this amazing bread, but I held myself to two pieces so I wouldn’t be miserable when I was done.

I had read up prior to venturing to India Mahal to find out what dishes were safe for someone with mild tastebuds like mine to eat in an Indian restaurant. I was happy to see chicken curry (according to their menu, boneless chicken cooked with onions, tomatoes, ginger, garlic, and fragrant spices) and chicken makhni (also known as butter chicken, described as boneless pieces of tandoori chicken cooked in Oriental spices with tomato gravy and butter). Neither dish was hot, but both were deliciously seasoned. I loved the flavor of the tomato gravy on the makhni but thought that the chicken in the curry tasted fresher than the butter chicken.

As far as vegetarian items, there were many options and I definitely could have easily made it out with a full stomach without eating a single bite of meat. I was frightened of the saag paneer since the menu describes it as “spicy spinach cooked with pieces of fresh homemade cheese” so I just put a tiny spoonful on my plate, but it was definitely within my heat range and was delicious. I ended up going back for a larger serving, along with more of the vegetable biryani, basmati rice cooked with vegetables, nuts, and spices….similar to fried rice but not. It was amazing and I didn’t even bother with the plain basmati rice (by the way, basmati rice is nuttier than plan old white rice). The channa masala-chickpeas cooked with tomatoes, onions, and spices-were quite tasty but I especially loved the eggplant and potatoes (I didn’t write down the name and it isn’t on the menu) cooked with tomatoes, onions, and spices. It sounds like an odd combination but it really works. There was also a vegetarian dish called dal makhni, made with black lentils, but I did not try this one.

Clockwise from top (starting with the bowl): raita (cooling yogurt sauce with cucumbers and mint), chicken makhni saag paneer, channa masala, potatoes & eggplant, vegetable biryani, naan bread, and curry chicken

Philip was extremely excited about the desserts: kulfi badam pista (basmati rice cooked in sweetened milk with raisins and almonds) and gulab jamun, deep-fried balls of dough soaked in syrup. He loved the rice dish, as he is a huge lover of rice pudding, but I wasn’t really a fan. I don’t know what it was….perhaps the fact that it was made with basmati rice which infiltrated the flavor, or maybe there was some rogue spice that I didn’t care for in a sweet dish. Philip described the gulab jamun as “like deep-fried Munchkins”, which was an apt description. He filled the bottom of his bowl with syrup that he then slurped from the bowl (I was having flashbacks to his Cracker Barrel maple syrup drinking days) and said it tasted like cotton candy. I was dying to have a mango lassi but decided to save my sweet tooth for some ice cream that we got at Bi-lo last night (I’ve had an ice cream craving since December and my beloved Nana’s is closed for the winter).

The only thing that might border on a complaint or suggestion that we had was that our friend pointed out that, while the food definitely wasn’t cold, it also wasn’t piping hot….the danger of sitting in a chafing dish, I suppose. I want to go here at night so we can order off of the dinner menu. The total for two lunch buffets plus a fountain drink was $23.09. If you like well-spiced food with a friendly atmosphere, I would definitely recommend India Mahal.

India Mahal is located at 5970 Brainerd Road, Chattanooga, TN 37421. You can call them at 423-510-9651. They serve a lunch buffet daily from 11:30-3:00 and a dinner menu from 5-10. You can like them on Facebook.

Rain Thai Bistro-April 20, 2012

April 22, 2012

Dinner out on a Friday is such a rarity for us….we don’t do crowds or waiting very well, so the only way we will go to a “sit-down” place on a Friday or Saturday evening is usually if we have reservations. I was planning on making one of my farmers market meals Friday night for dinner (roasted chicken, potatoes, and salad) but Philip needed to head over to the Bonny Oaks area to pick up his paycheck so we decided to go to Hamilton Place. We were trying hard to think of somewhere local to eat in that area-there are not many places (I guess the rent’s outta control!). I suggested Sweet Basil Thai, but Brainerd Road is not a fun place to drive on Friday or Saturday night (well, it’s never a fun place to drive, but especially not on a weekend night) so we decided to go to Rain instead.

The atmosphere at Rain is pretty fantastic. It is beautifully decorated. We were seated in the bar area at a table that we felt encouraged people to be that couple (that’s what we call couples who sit on the same side of the booth when dining out together-no offense if you are part of one of “those” couples!) because it was a large booth with a large table, made more for 3 or 4 people than 2. We worked it out, though. They have an area where the tables are sunk down into the floor…you sit on a cushion on the floor around the table but you put your legs down under the table. I’ve sat in that section when I’ve gone to lunch with colleagues but Philip never has….we should have asked to be seated there. There were not a lot of people there when we arrived, but our section filled up very quickly after we got there. Good timing!

Our server, Angelia, took our drink orders (water, duh!) very quickly, and we also decided to order some spring rolls. The funny thing is, I always think of spring rolls as soft (not fried) rolls wrapped in rice paper, but Sweet Basil and Rain both serve fried spring rolls. The wrappers are not as thick as one would find encasing a traditional Chinese eggrolls, but rather thin and very flaky, and they are vegetarian, containing cabbage and carrots. They are skinny and rolled up super tight and served with a slightly sweet and slightly spicy dipping sauce. Very tasty, though I’ll have to try the unfried rice paper version some time.

Here’s the problem I have when I go to Thai restaurants: I love pad Thai. I love it so much that I can’t seem to bring myself to order anything else. I just can’t do it! Well, I think I ordered fried rice at Rain once because I wanted to try Thai fried rice, but then I spent the whole meal wishing I had some pad Thai (even though I liked the fried rice). I looked over the menu about ten times trying to pick out something else to order, but I kept coming back to pad Thai. Of course, it also seemed like every time I found something that sounded interesting it would have the word “spicy” in the description. I know a person as obsessed with food as I am “should” be into spicy food, but I’m not. Weakness, I suppose. So, I broke down and ordered the usual. Interestingly, they ask here if you want the pad Thai “mild, medium, hot, or Thai hot”. I’ve never been asked what heat level I wanted my pad Thai at any other Thai restaurant. I justified my order by saying that “a lot of people order pad Thai….I should review a popular dish, right?????”

Pad Thai is basically medium-wide rice noodles with a sauce that is sweet, salty, and sour all at once. It has chicken, shrimp, tofu (in a very small dice and fried crisp), bean sprouts, scallions, and crushed peanuts. Lime wedges are included on the side for squeezing over the top. This is a huge plate of noodles (as you can see) so I probably only ate about half. Delicious and fresh. (On a side note, I love to make Thai-style rice noodles at home. I’ll have to post that recipe some time.)

Philip usually orders pork Panang curry, which is pork and vegetables in a coconut and curry sauce (too spicy for me) and it took him a while to decide not to order it this time. He decided instead to get the sweet and sour chicken, after our server assured him that it wasn’t just like the usual sweet and sour chicken served at every Chinese hole-in-the-wall in America (not that there’s anything wrong with that). This dish definitely didn’t have the same “Thai” feel as the Panang curry, but it wasn’t the usual suspect either. It was a fried chicken breast, sliced into thin strips and served with onions, peppers, carrots, and pineapple in a red but not Technicolor sauce. The sauce was not the candy-ish sauce usually served alongside or poured over sweet and sour chicken…it was actually a ketchup or chili-sauce based sauce that was spicy but not too much so (I took a bite). Philip said that it didn’t get spicier as he was eating like the curry usually does….he has a pretty high tolerance for spicy but usually has to stop at some point because it just gets too hot to handle. He too got full well before the plate was empty.

Angelia offered us dessert but we were definitely too stuffed for dessert. At some point I’m going to have to do a soup/salad combo so I can fit some sticky mango rice pudding or fried bananas in….we got a good laugh out of the “brownie and ice cream” on the dessert menu. Is that a Thai brownie? Ha. They also have a kid’s menu which includes chicken strips and cheesy noodles, which is always a little odd to see on an ethnic menu, but I guess they have to have something for everyone.

I’m not going to mince words here….Rain is not my favorite Thai restaurant. Sweet Basil is and probably always will be (although there are a couple of places I’ve yet to try). (Funny that I haven’t reviewed Sweet Basil yet, but we actually went there for a blog post almost a year ago and lots of factors resulted in me never writing the post.) Still, the food is tasty and the atmosphere is lovely. I hear their sushi is good as well (the idea of sushi at a Thai restaurant has always made me snicker a little) but I haven’t tried it myself yet. If you are in the area, skip the chain restaurants and give Rain a try!

Rain Thai Bistro is located at 6933 Lee Highway, Chattanooga, TN 37421 (in the Rush complex). You can call them at 423-386-5586. You can also visit their website, rainthaibistro.com.

Taco Roc-March 24, 2012

March 26, 2012

Last week, I asked for suggestions for some places we could go to eat for this review, and, while there were many great suggestions, I ended up going somewhere that wasn’t suggested. We needed to go to a few places in the Hamilton Place area, so we decided to go to Taco Roc…we’d been wanting to go there for a while. We’ve heard many wonderful things about Taco Roc for several years, but after we heard that they were owned by the same people who own Delia’s, we knew we had to go!

When we arrived, there were only a couple of other tables filled…but, hey, it was not even 11:30 in the morning, so no surprise there! Sure enough, the menu was the same menu from both Delia’s locations. Unlike the sit-down Delia’s in Dayton, you don’t place your order at your table…you walk up to the counter and order, then they give you a number and bring the food to your table. There is a drink fountain (we got water, of course) and you can also order beer, a bottled Mexican soda (those things are GOOOOD if you’ve never had one!), and there were a couple of homemade-looking beverages in large beverage dispensers behind the counter. One was white, one was orange, and I wish that I had asked what they were…but I didn’t. There is also a little condiment bar with a few types of salsa (salsa verde, some sort of roasted tomato salsa, and a red, presumably hot sauce), shredded cheese, sliced jalapenos, some sort of whole pepper, cilantro, and a few other things.

I decided to order the flautas. I’ve seen them on the menu at Delia’s and wanted to try them, but since we always have to bring it home and flautas are deep-fried, I wasn’t too sure they would taste great once I got them home. I decided to have mine with steak (the other options were chicken or a mix with steak, chicken, and shrimp). Anyway, flautas are meat and cheese rolled into a flour tortilla and deep fried, then halved and topped with pico de gallo and queso fresco. The flautas were served on a bed of lettuce with a chipotle cream sauce. The steak at Taco Roc is seasoned and grilled perfectly. The cheese fried in the flautas was nice and melty, gooey, and stringy. I love queso fresco, which is very similar to feta. The chipotle cream sauce was quite delish, but a little spicy for my wimpy taste buds, so I didn’t eat a lot of it. I really liked the pico de gallo. It’s interesting, I hate raw onions but they don’t bother me in pico! This was a great dish, and I ate 3 of the 4 pieces of it!

Philip decided to order the tacos platter with Mexican sausage (chorizo). The menu says that the tacos platter comes with ground beef or chicken, but the cashier told Philip that he could choose any meat that he wanted. He has tried the steak and the barbacoa (shredded beef) and liked both of them, but he loves their chorizo. He decided to have them with flour tortillas. The tacos were what I would almost call overstuffed. Philip couldn’t finish them because they were so full of chorizo! He loved the beans, which, as I have mentioned before, are very fresh with no nasty skin on top. The rice was good too, but unlike Delia’s rice it had peas in it. I guess each location has its own approach! Anyway, we were both completely stuffed once we were finished.

The only (sort of) negative thing I can say about Taco Roc is that their chips were not quite as fresh as the ones we’ve had at Delia’s. They definitely weren’t bad, but at Delia’s they always taste like they were just fried. These tasted like they had been fried, I don’t know, maybe the day before or first thing in the morning. Oh well….we still ate them all!

So, we have completed the trifecta. Delia’s Soddy-Daisy, Delia’s Dayton, and Taco Roc. So far, the three best Mexican restaurants we’ve been to! I strongly urge you to try them-all of them!

Taco Roc is located at 6960 Lee Highway, Chattanooga, TN 37421. You can reach them at 423-653-1001. You can find them online at http://eltacoroc.com or on Facebook. They are open from 10-9 Monday through Saturday and 10-8 Sunday.

« Previous Page