Hixson Archives - Page 6 of 7

Glen-Gene Deli Hixson-June 2, 2012

June 5, 2012

Glen-Gene Deli holds a special place in my heart. It’s been around forever, or at least as long as I can remember. Until several years back, it was located inside of Northgate Mall (and, if I am not mistaken, there was also a location in Eastgate Mall). Since there have never been a ton of places to eat at Northgate (which, despite Hamilton Place’s ability to boast about being the largest mall in Tennessee, is far and away my Chattanooga mall of choice-I avoid crowds and traffic like the plague), I ate at the Northgate location more times than I can count. I ate there with my mom and my grandmother as well as with my friends on many a mall excursion. It’s funny to remember those days…it was back before the days of the smoking ban in Tennessee, and inevitably the place reeked of smoke. We usually sat out in the seating area in the mall. The mall has changed, and Glen-Gene is no longer there, having moved to the Oak Park Town Center (by the Hixson Wal-Mart) in a freestanding location. The food, however, has not changed.

Philip and I went there together on Saturday for the first time ever. I am not kidding. Now, I’ve been there a million and one times in the thirteen years we’ve been together, but he never wanted to go. For some reason he didn’t care for the food and he referred to it as “girl food”. He used to say the same thing about Chick-fil-a, but he is a Chick-fil-a convert now. While we were eating at Glen-Gene, we were talking about the whole “girl food” opinion. He formed this opinion because “it always seemed like only girls wanted to go there”. My explanation for this was that it was, after all, in a mall-as was the only location of Chick-fil-a when we were growing up. Besides, he and his friends pretty much lived at Taco Bell, so of course they didn’t want to go to Glen-Gene (or Chick-fil-a, for that matter).

I remember that when I was a kid/teenager, I used to order different things. Usually a cheeseburger, I think, but I seem to recall some chicken fingers in there too. When I was around 17 or 18, I tried their teriyaki chicken sandwich….and I don’t think I’ve ordered anything else since. It kind of makes me laugh….this sandwich is on the “10 grams of fat or less” menu, but on this gigantic bun I am sure that it’s got a pretty hefty amount of calories. You know I don’t get too worked up over that sort of thing….I’ll make up for it later. It’s basically a butterflied chicken, boneless/skinless chicken breast half basted with teriyaki sauce and served on a sesame seed bun. It’s consistent and tasty, not dripping with sauce, and always tender and well cooked. You can dress your own sandwich at their bar (when I was a kid, this wasn’t an option, and I seem to recall that they chopped their onions up into little pieces so they were impossible to separate from the lettuce. Ugh.). Philip decided on the bacon cheeseburger. It too is gigantic, served on a sesame seed bun. It’s a fairly thin patty. After at least 13 1/2 years since eating here (because I know he hasn’t touched it since our first date in 1999), he was won over. I doubt it will become his favorite restaurant, but he’s willing to eat there now.

We shared an order of fries. The fries are pretty average. They’re skin-on, but I have no idea if they’re made there or if they are frozen. One thing that bugs me about them is that they are unsalted, or at least they taste unsalted. I always have to salt them at the table (because really, who wants to eat unsalted fries) and you know salt doesn’t stick as well to fries when they aren’t fresh from the fryer. They also have a little shaker of seasoned salt by the toppings bar that you can add to your fries.

Glen-Gene has a variety of deli sandwiches, burgers, chicken sandwiches, and veggies sandwiches. They also have a large selection of “pita sacks”, including steak, gyro, chicken…you get the picture. They have a handful of “dinners” like chicken fingers or fried shrimp and fries. They have a surprisingly varied menu of sides, including fries, chips, tots, fried mushrooms, and mozzarella sticks. They also have several dessert offerings. You can check out their entire menu at http://glengene.com/. I checked them on Urbanspoon, and they have a “77% like it” rating. Like I said, I order the same thing every time. I encourage you to give it a try and decide for yourself. Glen-Gene isn’t haute cuisine, but it’s a quick bite to eat when you’ve been out shopping and you want a break from the usual. They feature a reusable coupon every year in the Hamilton County Schools Kids First coupon book.

Glen-Gene Deli is located at 5748 Highway 153, Hixson, TN 37343 (they also have a location at 7025 Shallowford Road, Chattanooga, TN 37421). You can call the Hixson location at 423-877-9997. You can visit their website, http://glengene.com.

China King Hixson-February 4, 2012 (CLOSED)

February 5, 2012

Note: China King Hixson closed sometime in the later half of 2013. Somehow I totally missed this until a reader pointed it out to me! There’s now a Workout 24/7 there. Shows you how much attention I pay, since I grocery shop in the Publix plaza at least once a week!

All right, I railed against going to this place for quite some time. Call me a snob, I don’t care. I just have this “thing” about hole-in-the-wall Chinese places….I’m suspicious. I can’t help it. Sometimes I am pleasantly surprised, and sometimes I’m not. There’s one very close to my house that we went to once and my eggroll had some sort of mysterious fluorescent pink meat in it. Never again.

Anyway, Philip went to a different hole-in-the-wall Chinese place in East Brainerd with a friend last week and loved it, so he wanted to try this one. One of my friends and her husband really like it and go there frequently, so I figured it was worth a shot. When we were racking our brains trying to think of something to eat on Saturday night, Philip suggested we go. So we did.

It was around 7:30 when we got there. There was one couple that was actually eating in the restaurant, and 4 or 5 people waiting for orders (2 more came in to pick up while we were there). The decoration was sparse, as you would probably expect, and they did have the required slightly creepy looking photos of different meals that are available hanging about the counter, like a menu. The menu is huge, but that’s generally pretty standard at a Chinese restaurant…..122 menu items plus “Chef’s Specialties”, “Special Combination Plates”, and lunch specials. Since we are partial to fried rice, we went for the special combination plates, which included the meat, pork fried rice, and an eggroll for $6.95. Philip got sweet and sour chicken, and I got sesame chicken. I won’t go into too much detail about what is available…it’s again pretty much the standard Chinese restaurant menu…plus you can check out the menu at the bottom of the post.

Philip took the first bite of the eggrolls….he’s a little bit braver than I am. Okay, he’s a lot braver than I am. Anyway, there was no pink mystery meat in the center of the eggrolls, just cabbage. We were in business. Since we had about 15 minutes from the time we got our food to the time we were actually eating it, it wasn’t overwhelmingly hot….just perfect. I’d be willing to be you’d burn your mouth eating one in the restaurant, though!

Interestingly, the sesame chicken smelled super-garlicky. It didn’t taste super-garlicky, though, so that was good. It was sweet, not overly sticky, and not spicy like you occasionally find (General Tso’s would be considered the spicy version of sesame chicken). I had two random pieces of broccoli, which I got a good laugh from. Philip’s sweet & sour was pretty much the average sweet & sour….not too much breading and not too greasy; that was a plus. The rice was fine, maybe not as sticky as I really like my fried rice to be. That’s the problem with making things at home…you end up liking what you make more than what you get at restaurants. I guess that’s why so many restaurants are terribly disappointing to me. Still, I didn’t have to cook this, and it’s nice to have the night off from time to time. There were not a ton of veggies in the rice…a few carrots, onions, and peas-but interestingly there was actually a fair amount of diced pork, which tasted pretty good. Can someone explain to me why the rice at some Chinese restaurants is yellow? Some, not all. I would love to know.

In the end, we had enough left over to have it for lunch today as well. Again, that’s always nice, and it makes me feel less guilty about the amount that I spend when I go to a restaurant. Of course, there were the requisite fortune cookies at the end of the meal, and our fortunes were so boring that I don’t remotely remember what mine said. I think Philip’s said something about going fishing. I was more intrigued by the one that Philip picked up off of the table where we were waiting….it said something about modifying your plans. But I digress.

Okay, in the end….China King is not the ultimate be all and end all of Chinese restaurants. It was decent food, though, and inexpensive, at least when you consider that we got two meals from it. I doubt will eat there often, but I am sure we will eat there again. Perfectly acceptable for a no-cook Saturday night.

China King is located at 5922 Hixson Pike, Hixson, TN 37343 (in the Publix complex, between El Metate and BiBa’s). You can reach them at 423-842-0666.

Hillbilly’s-December 22, 2011 (CLOSED)

December 26, 2011

December 16, 2012: Hillbilly’s is closed. They’ve actually been closed for a few months now, and I thought I had either updated this post to reflect that or deleted it….but apparently I was wrong. The former location is now “Hixson Pike Diner”, which opened last month. If it lasts I’ll give it a try one of these days!

Okay, in the spirit of full disclosure, I have to admit that when a restaurant named “Hillbilly’s” opened at the former location of Backyard Burgers in Hixson, I had myself a good laugh. Not too sure about that name, and the location just didn’t seem great to me. Not too much action in that area, you know? Anyway, a few months back a friend posted on Facebook that he was at Hillbilly’s, so I asked him what he thought about it. By this time, it had been around for some time-and had even changed locations-so I was beginning to wonder if maybe it wasn’t so bad. My friend, whose opinion I trust when it comes to food, told me, “It’s not Southern Star, but it’s good.” Fair enough. No offense, Hillbilly’s, but it really is tough to beat the Star. So, at that point it was decided that we needed to give Hillbilly’s a try.

The time came last Thursday when we couldn’t make a decision about where to eat lunch. Hillbilly’s was there, it wasn’t crowded, it just made sense. When we walked in, we were immediately greeted by a very friendly server who told us to have a seat and immediately took our drink orders (water) which he quickly brought out in gigantic Mason jars. He told us about the day’s specials-chicken and dumplings and chicken and dressing-which come with two sides and tea. There were other specials on the menu-each day has three or four specials. There’s a massive sandwich menu, including a burger called a quadruple heart attack-three burger patties sandwiched between four grilled cheese sandwiches for $14.75 (or was it $14.95?). Anyway, there was a (rather small) guy there when we got there who actually finished one. What???? Wow.

I pondered ordering a burger for no other reason but that Hillbilly’s sign boasts that they have the best burgers in town…but unless a burger is a restaurant’s specialty, I usually don’t order them on the first try. I like to feel out a restaurant before jumping into the burger world. I decided instead to order one of the specials: a fried chicken breast with green beans, mashed potatoes, and a biscuit. Philip decided on Grandma’s meatloaf with fried okra, mashed potatoes, and cornbread. I went ahead and decided to get the tea that came with the special (Philip passed on it) and thought that their sweet tea was fantastic. These days, I don’t order anything other than water very often, but sweet tea is so easy to mess up. The worst is when a restaurant serves Nestea. This was definitely brewed tea with just the right amount of sweetness. Score!

When our food came, the portion sizes were large but not outrageous. The gravy was brown gravy, which I was just a tiny bit disappointed with-I was hoping for cream gravy. Oh well. I had heard that the mashed potatoes were instant here, but they had lumps and skins in them, and I have yet to encounter a mashed potato with lumps and skins. They were not the best mashed potatoes I’ve ever had, but they were fine. The green beans were very tasty, slow cooked and seasoned just right. The chicken was great! It was hot, fresh, and had a nice crispy crust on it. By the way, it was a boneless breast. I know there’s a lot of debate about whether it’s okay to serve fried chicken boneless, but it definitely cuts down on the work you have to do to eat it! My only disappointments were that the biscuit was not homemade, and it was served with “whipped spread”, not butter. You know how I feel about margarine!

Fried Boneless Chicken Breast, Mashed Potatoes (Gravy on the Side), Green Beans, and a Biscuit

Philip was very happy with his meatloaf, which was not chunky (big score!) and had a ketchup sauce (but it wasn’t as good as my meatloaf, which is really tough to beat!). I tasted it and it was really good. He also had the mashed potatoes, and his assessment of it was about the same as mine-good, not the best he’d ever had. He did really like the fried okra, which didn’t have a super-thick breading “jacket” on it and was crispy but not greasy. He also really liked the cornbread, which has been the subject of much debate. The cornbread is more like a cornbread pancake-a Johnnycake if you will-as opposed to the traditional squares of cornbread we’re used to in the South. It was sweet, but not overly so.

Grandma's Meatloaf with Fried Okra, Mashed Potatoes & Gravy, and Cornbread

Okay, so as my friend said, Hillbilly’s is not Southern Star, but it’s good southern food from a friendly staff for a decent price. There’s definitely a decent amount of food and a good variety offered. Definitely give it a try if you are looking for southern food in an unassuming atmosphere!

Hillbilly’s is located at 4047 Hixson Pike, Hixson, TN 37343 (in the old Huddle House building in the Lupton City area). You can reach them at 423-877-4457. Unfortunately, they don’t have a website or Facebook page, and I was unable to find their hours online (and forgot to look while I was there!). I am pretty sure they are open seven days a week, though.

McHale’s Brewhouse & Pub-November 26, 2011

November 27, 2011

We visited McHale’s on my brother’s suggestion. The place was pretty much empty; 0f course, it’s a bar and we were there between 6 and 7:30 on the Saturday night following Thanksgiving, so pretty much not high time for a fairly new pub in a fairly suburban area.

McHale’s is located on Ashland Terrace, in the former location of The Rusty Duck, which is now a few doors down. It’s a dive, don’t get me wrong. Since it’s a 21 and over establishment, of course there are some of the smoke issues that you will always encounter with a place that allows smoking, but it was faaaarrrrrr from being the worst that I have experienced. There are a few tables in the bar area, right when you walk in the door, and more tables (quite a few more) in the other room, where there are also pool tables and dartboards. We were greeted when we walked in the door by a very friendly server, who gave us a menu and a beer list (I’ll get back to this in a minute) and told us that, while fried pickles were not on the menu, they were available….so I quickly ordered some. I LOVE fried pickles and was so very upset when Durty Nelly’s, my favorite place to order this treat, went out of business a few years back.

The menu was fairly limited: a handful of appetizers, including Scotch eggs (a boiled egg wrapped in sausage, traditional Irish pub fare), mozzarella sticks, and chili cheese fries (among a few other things) and a few entrees: Cornish pie, Irish Stew, hamburgers, sloppy joes, and a chicken finger salad. Since we hadn’t heard anything about the food, we decided to play it safe and try a burger.

The fried pickles arrived without fanfare with a cup of ranch dressing on the side. They were good, not great-very hot, fresh out of the fryer….but not Durty Nelly’s. The burgers arrived pretty quickly, and they were pretty average as burgers go: standard bun, standard patty, a little greasy (not necessarily a bad thing), with American cheese, lettuce, tomato, pickle, and, in Philip’s case, onion, with fries that I don’t doubt came out of the freezer. This was not a culinary masterpiece, but it also wasn’t a disaster. Typically, a non-disaster would not qualify for a blog post, but I decided to focus instead on their brewing operation. After all, McHale’s, like most other bars/pubs, sells food secondary to their libations.

My brother made the recommendation to visit McHale’s because he is friends with their brewmaster. When you walk in, you look to the left, and you see their brewing operation in a room behind a glass door. This is true microbrewing. Philip and I actually joked about a bunch of Mr. Beers sitting in a back room, and, of course, this is much more sophisticated than that, but it is true small-batch brewing, much smaller than the other microbreweries that we think of (Calhoun’s, Big River-nothing wrong with those, but this is a much smaller operation). Our server told us that Adam, the brewmaster, has been brewing at McHale’s since January 2011, and in May won a Pale Ale contest at the Chattanooga Market for Best Pale Ale in Chattanooga. McHale’s offers a variety of house-brewed beers that rotate on a regular basis. If you “like” their Facebook page, they announce the brews as they offer them. On this particular visit, they were offering a stout, a stout injected with nitrogen, “Bloody IPA”, “Black Pixie”, a Scottish ale, McHale’s light, and a red ale. A pint is $4.00, or you can order 6 4-oz sample glasses for $6. They also sell growlers for $14, and you can take your growler back for a refill for $10. Their bartender, Mike, has also created several original well drinks that include the house-brewed beer and spirits. He and our server spent a lot of time talking to us about the drinks, the history of different beers, and the advantages of small-batch brewing. I realize that this is something that probably wouldn’t happen if the place had been busier, but could you go to Big River and have a chat like that? I won’t say it isn’t possible, but I will say it’s probably unlikely.

Look, I’m not a beer-drinker, so I can’t make any recommendations about beer. What I can say, however, is that I have not seen, heard, or read anything from anyone who has tried McHale’s beer (or beer brewed by their brewmaster) that has been negative. This is the real deal, and from all accounts, Adam knows what he’s doing. These are down-to-earth people trying to make a small-town establishment work. Since Philip and I didn’t shop at any local shops for Small-Business Saturday, we saw our jaunt to McHale’s as our way to promote small business. I love to support local business, and I am fascinated by the idea of homebrewing and microbrewing and I love that McHale’s is confident enough to do true microbrewing. I will recommend McHale’s to anyone who is looking to try a truly different beer that they can’t get anywhere else. And look, if bars start to sell more food, they will start to focus more on their food. I am not likely to become a regular here at this time, but if someone asked me to go back, I would. Support your local microbrewery!

McHale’s is located at 724 Ashland Terrace, Chattanooga, TN 37415. You can call them at 423-877-2124, check out their website: http://www.mchalesbrewhouse.com/ or look them up on Facebook.

Nana’s Frozen Custard-September 23, 2011

October 18, 2011

April 2014: After they winter “break” and opening for one Saturday afternoon/evening, Nana’s sadly announced that they would not reopen the store again due to rising costs and a decrease in sales. I. Am. Devastated. However, the Nana’s truck will still be serving delicious frozen custard around town. Follow them on Facebook to find out where they’ll be.

Nana’s Frozen Custard, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways. (1) Cold; (2) Creamy; (3) Thick; (4) Amazing flavors; (5) Interesting menu; (6) Close to home. As my friend Chastity says, Nana’s pretty much ruins every other ice cream place. It’s just the best! In case you were wondering, yes, there is a difference between ice cream and frozen custard. Ice cream is made from a base of milk and/or cream, and frozen custard includes eggs to increase. I prefer custard. Nana’s Frozen Custard, to be exact.

You may have noticed that I am posting this a little late. Yep, our last trip to Nana’s was on 9/23. I took pictures but I guess in the busy-ness of work and finishing up my class, I just forgot to post about it. Now, I’m having another Nana’s craving, which made me remember that I needed to do my post.

We aren’t big sweets-eaters around here. It isn’t that we don’t like them, it’s just that I prefer to make things from scratch, so sweets are not always readily available. Ice cream is no exception; from time to time, I will buy some at the grocery store, but it usually results in either the ice cream going bad after we’ve eaten a couple of servings, or us totally eating way too much ice cream in order to avoid the ice cream going bad. Neither is a good thing. Thus, even though it is less cost-effective, we generally buy our ice cream from an ice cream shop. It feels more like a treat that way, anyway. So, Nana’s is a fairly frequent (once every month or two) treat for us.

Nana’s is a walk-up ice cream (excuse me, custard) stand with several picnic tables. They also have a drive-thru window. You can choose a standard, like a cup or cone with varying amounts of any flavor of Nana’s custard, a malt, a shake, a float, a sundae, or a “shiver”, which is similar to a Blizzard…or you can choose a treat off of their extensive original menu. The creations on their menu have interesting names like “Apple Pie Blossom” (a big scoop of vanilla custard melting over apples wrapped in a flaky crust, complimented by warm caramel sauce and brown sugar, “Happy Birthday to You” (Celebration! Cake flavored custard glowing with blue marshmallow frosting and confetti sprinkles, “Frozen Hot Chocolate” (hot cocoa mix blended with vanilla custard, topped by a swirl of marshmallow embedded whipped creme and chocolate sprinkles), and “Chester Frosty” (vanilla custard floating in blue marshmallow creme and Gummi fish, topped with Lifesavers swim “rings” and sprinkled with sandy brown sugar). I always look at the menu and deliberate between the Apple Pie Blossom and Strawberry Shortcake (vanilla custard surrounded by moist pieces of cake, swimming in sweet sliced strawberries and topped with whipped creme), but I always end up getting a cup of custard. Ultimately, I guess I just feel that there is no reason to sully the perfection of Nana’s custard with toppings and mix-ins. There are also a few “food” items on the menu, such as hot dogs, chili, and Frito pie.

The menu of custard flavors available changes on a regular basis. Some flavors are available seasonally (I’m pretty sure I’ve seen pumpkin on the menu, for example). I am not sure if the other flavors change daily, weekly, or what. I assume there is some sort of schedule on which the flavors are available, and, of course, the standards like vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry are always an option. I pretty much rotate through three flavors: mint chocolate chip, lemon, and birthday cake. On this particular night, I had birthday cake. Now, I love birthday cake ice cream. Mayfield’s has a great version, as does Ben & Jerry’s….but Nana’s is the best. I mean, the best. It has actual smashed-up cake in it. I haven’t asked for confirmation on this (I’ll have to next time I’m there) but I think it is Federal Bake Shop cake. At least it tastes like it is. I haven’t done a Federal Bake Shop post yet…..but tasting like it has Federal Bake Shop cake in it is a very good thing. It’s always difficult for me to decide which route to go, though. I love every flavor I’ve tried.

Medium birthday cake ice cream. Yes, we took these pictures on the bench of one of the picnic tables.

Philip always, I repeat always gets the chocolate malt. According to him, Nana’s and Kay’s Kastle are the only places that know how to mix a malt. Usually, the malt powder is clumpy or all stuck at the bottom. At Nana’s, though, the malts are always perfect. Perfectly blended, with just the right amount of malt powder. The malts are the perfect thickness, topped with whipped cream and a malted milk ball (which, oddly enough, Philip hates, even though he loves malts). He is never disappointed (well, except for the time that the “new guy” mixed his malt. But those things happen sometimes).

“Regular” size chocolate malt (as opposed to large)

Let me just lay this out here, though. Nana’s ain’t cheap. It usually costs around $8-$10 for Philip and me to go there, depending on whether I am being prudent and eating a small custard or being “decadent” and eating a medium. I have accepted the expense, though. There’s no waste, and it’s the best ice cream….er, custard….in town. I’m willing to spend a few bucks from time to time to have the best.

There is one downside, though. I don’t post negative reviews about food, because I figure that maybe it’s just me and everyone has their own tastes….but I’m going to comment on the service. I am not crazy about the customer service. I am not the only one that feels this way….when I told people that I was doing a Nana’s post, other people commented that while they loved Nana’s custard, their service needed some work. Nana’s is staffed mainly by teenagers, and it just seems to me that unless good customer service is really stressed to teenagers, they will not deliver. It’s not that they are unfriendly, they just don’t seem too excited to have to open the window and talk to customers. Last time we went, we could see the girl mentally drawing straws to decide who was going to wait on us. Once they open the window, they’re fine….not enthusiastic, but friendly enough. Since they aren’t rude, and the custard is out-of-this-world, I am willing to let it slide….but Nana’s, if you guys are reading this…kick it up a notch!

Nana’s Frozen Custard is located at 6707 Hixson Pike, Hixson, TN 37343. You can call them at 423-842-3003. Check out their website or check them out on Facebook or Twitter.

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