By Location Archives - Page 23 of 42

Food Love from Scratch at Dish T’Pass

June 11, 2013

Dish T’Pass is a cooking school and catering company located in downtown Chattanooga and serving up “Food Love From Scratch”.

Back in November I got a new follower on Twitter who piqued my interest. Her name was Amanda Varnell and her website was http://dishtpass.com. I was intrigued by the domain name and decided to do a little investigation…and discovered that Dish T’Pass was the name of a catering company and soon-to-be-cooking-school in Chattanooga. How had I not heard of this before? I sent Amanda a direct message and we decided that it was imperative that we get together for a chat. I headed down to their location on 6th Street that weekend (Small Business Saturday, to be exact) with my camera in tow.

Sarah Hooper, Amanda’s business partner, was not there when I was visiting, but Amanda was kind enough to give me the rundown of exactly what it was they were trying to do. Dish T’Pass began as CookingLIVE, a catering & cooking instruction operation that Amanda started in 2006 and Sarah joined a little later down the road. After several doors of opportunity shut, it became apparent that the proverbial window had been opened at the former location of the St. Barnabas nursing home, which was being turned into the Chattanooga WorkSpace-a space for local artists. Food is art, of course, and Amanda and Sarah immediately fell in love with the well-worn kitchen, seeing beyond the ceiling caked with grease from years of use and the industrial-sized fryer to see the potential of a space that, it turns out, was perfect for their dream to become a reality (I took “before” pictures but they did not turn out well).

Dish T’Pass opened for business in this location in December 2012. Because of all the construction in the WorkSpace, they couldn’t immediately begin offering cooking classes…but this provided the perfect opportunity for them to really begin expanding their catering business. They have built up a sizable clientele among the downtown lunch crowd, with several offices coming to them again and again for their fabulous boxed lunches, which include amazing sandwiches (made on Bread Basket bread), chips, fruit, a scratch-made cookie, and a drink.

Eventually they were able to open their space up to begin serving lunch from each day, including sandwiches, salads, and a hot option. They do their best to accommodate their customers special requests, something that they are, as moms, used to doing. The food that they serve is made from scratch, with love, and Amanda and Sarah are determined that while they want their business to grow, they never want to get to the point where the quantity affects the quality of the food they are able to provide.

A very attractive feature of Dish T’Pass is their FoodLove case. Teeming with small, single-serving items like Coke products, fruit, and Greek yogurt as well as family-sized servings of stuffed peppers, “Olive You” bread, baked potato halves, and take & bake cookie dough (made in-house, of course), the FoodLove case was a study in resistance for me. I already had dinner planned but so badly wanted to bring home some of their smoky chicken salad or maybe some of their bacony pimento cheese for dinner. I did not do so that day, but I plan on going back for lunch very soon and will probably be bringing home a few things from the case when I do.

Since construction has slowed on their building and they have firmly established their catering business, lunch service, and grab-and-go case, Amanda and Sarah started in May focusing on building their cooking school. They have a variety of classes on the schedule, including a grilling workshop, a kids’ camp series, and several teen classes. Their classes geared toward kids and teens are meant to be fun but also provide real, functional skills that can be applied to getting an actual meal on the table. And guess what!?! Yours truly may be teaching a food photography class soon!

Dish T’Pass has been a true labor of love for these ladies and when you talk to them about it you can sense that this place is a part of them.

It’s truly the fulfillment of their dream. From their beautiful logo and the handwritten chalkboard calendar in the kitchen to the floral table runners and the scratch-made items in the FoodLove case, Amanda and Sarah have thought out every detail of this space, this menu, this business…and it shows.

Dish T’Pass is located at 302 W. 6th Street, Chattanooga, TN 37402 (in the Chattanooga WorkSpace building and former location of St. Barnabas). They are located toward the back of the building on the side and have their own separate entrance as well as some parking spaces allotted for them. You can call them at 423-309-5353 or email for more info at Foodlove@dishtpass.com. You can read more about Amanda and Sarah, check out their class schedule, and find out details about their catering services, menu, and boxed lunches at their website, http://www.dishtpass.com. You can “like” them on Facebook and follow them on Twitter and Pinterest.

Merv’s-June 5, 2013

June 9, 2013

Merv’s is a dive bar located in Red Bank, Tennessee that claims to serve the best burgers in Tennessee. Here’s what I thought.

Boy, I found out on Friday just how passionate people are about burgers. For starters, my “Chattanooga’s Top 5 Burgers According to Chattavore” post garnered me my biggest blog day thus far (and that’s in 2 years of writing this blog!). Second, I definitely stirred a few people up on Facebook. They did not agree with my opinion. That’s the beauty of blogging, though. I can write my opinion, you can write yours. Maybe I’ll change my mind, maybe not. No matter, really. Burgers are…a good thing.

The reason I start with that is because since I was student teaching in the fall of 2000 I have been hearing about the awesome burgers at Merv’s. My cooperating teacher was actually the first to tell me, and I have heard it from many, many since. The restaurant claims, in fact, to serve not just Chattanooga’s best burger but Tennessee’s best burger. As I mentioned in Friday’s post, Philip and I lived in an apartment complex on Mountain Creek Road for the first year that we were married and we never made it to Merv’s. That was a different time for me, though, and if I wanted a burger I probably went to the Burger King just a little bit farther down Mountain Creek. For shame.

My excuse for not going sometime between moving away from Mountain Creek Road in 2001 and now? I thought Merv’s was a bar and thus a smoky environment. I guess that at some point in the past this probably was the case, but (maybe because of the smoking ban that rendered the under-21 crowd unable to enter a smoking-allowed-establishment) Merv’s may be a “bar” (as in they serve beer and have darts and pool) but it is not a smoky joint. Look, they have a kids’ menu. You’re safe. I knew that if I was going to write about my opinion about Chattanooga’s top burgers, I was going to have to check out Merv’s first, so Philip and I invited one of his friends to have dinner with us at Merv’s.

First impressions? The parking lot kind of sucks. All of the spaces were full when we got there and there were actually two cars that had created their own spaces at the end. We could have made another space by the telephone pole but instead we parked kind of caddy-cornered across the street in the parking lot of the former Food Lion. I’m all about far-away parking. It’s exercise you don’t really have to think about. There are booths and tables inside, plus a bar (of course) and televisions playing various sports channels. It’s a pretty big place, sparsely decorated, with a jukebox and a crowd of people who are obviously regulars. I actually saw the servers hug a couple of people as they were leaving. One server took our drink order, but then she ended up behind the bar (and eventually in the kitchen, I think) and another very friendly girl whose name I regret I didn’t get brought our drinks out.

The menu consisted of several fried appetizers, several sandwiches (including a BLT with eight-that’s right, eight-strips of bacon), plate dinners, salads, and, of course, the burgers. I really wanted to try the fried pickles (which a friend had told me were good) but at $6.95 they cost as much as the burgers, so no…..There really was no question about what we were going to have. We went for burgers, and burgers we would have. We asked the server for recommendations about the burgers, and she recommended the bacon cheeseburger hands down. That’s what all three of us ordered (mine without onions, of course). We considered the onion rings, but since she told us that they were frozen, not homemade like the fries are, we decided to go with fries instead. She promised the large basket would be plenty for all three of us. Just as an aside…they also make homemade chips….but have bags of Lay’s and other packaged chips on a shelf behind the bar. Why someone would buy bagged chips when homemade are available is beyond me. Anyway….

It took maybe a little longer than we expected for the burgers to come out, but not really a long time. No big deal. They came out with a cup of ketchup on the side of each. The burgers were large but not the biggest I’ve seen and served on a standard sesame seed bun. Nothing fancy here. They were topped with American cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion, pickle, mayo, mustard, and ketchup. The burgers were cooked through without being overdone, juicy and just verging on greasy but not overwhelmingly so. While I consider a Tubby’s burger a 10-napkin burger, this was more of a 4-napkin burger….but that’s not a bad thing, because sometimes it can get a little ridiculous. The bun was grilled, giving it a crunchy edge, which I liked but Philip thought that was the only problem (but he just doesn’t like grilled bread or buns)-so if you don’t like grilled bread/buns, be sure to ask them not to grill yours. She wasn’t lying about the basket of fries being large….it was a large basket of fries and between me and two grown men we still had at least one or two servings left in the basket when we were done. I liked the fries, which had the skin left on. They were cooked well but not overly crisp, which is just how I like my skin-on fries. I did not feel that they were very greasy. I did, however, think they could have used a little more salt.

Merv’s is a dive, but it’s not scary or shady at all. The burgers are great. I’d be interested to try some of their other menu items but I seriously doubt I could ever bring myself to order anything else. The prices are about average. The beer list leaves something to be desired if you aren’t into cheap beer…they did have Sam Adams, Yuengling, Killian’s, and Shock Top….but other than that it was your standards…Bud, High Life, etc. We split the fries with our friend and the total for Philip’s and my meal was around $17 before tip. Not a bad price, since we were just discussing the other day that unless we go to a fast food place we generally expect to pay at least $30 once the tip is factored in. If you are looking for a good burger and fries at a decent price in the Red Bank/Signal Mountain Road area, Merv’s is a great choice (and let’s be honest, if Sofa King wants their food to be competitive with Merv’s and Tubby’s that close by, they need to step up their game)!

Merv’s is located at 713 Mountain Creek Road, Chattanooga (Red Bank), TN 37405. You can call them at 423-877-0221. They have a website (which is really just a menu with contact info and a map): http://www.mervsofchatt.com/Mervs_Restaurant_Chattanooga_TN.html. There are links on the website to Facebook and Twitter, but the Facebook link just takes you to the homepage and they only have one tweet…so right now I would really bother with the social media.

Update 2/14: Merv’s flooded not too terribly long after this post went up last summer. They were closed for remodeling for a very long time, with rumors floating around that they were permanently closed (I saw this on Urbanspoon, of all places!). Good news! The rumors were false. As of last week, Merv’s is reopened for business!

Sofa King Juicy Burger-May 31, 2013

June 2, 2013

With its wacky, off-color name and serving burgers & gourmet shakes, Sofa King Juicy Burger has (quite literally) made a name for itself in Chattanooga & beyond.

While my mom and sister were sifting through the Black Friday sale ads on Thanksgiving, I noticed a headline in the business section of TFP (Chattanooga Times Free-Press, for you non-Chattanoogans) about a new burger joint coming to the Red Bank area-Sofa King Juicy Burger. As a big SNL fan (there’s a Sofa King sketch that used to air on SNL a few years ago), I immediately broke out into laughter and ran to show the paper to Philip, who had a similar reaction.

It didn’t take long for the reaction to begin. If you don’t get the joke yet….well, I’m not going to explain it to you. I, however, am not offended in the least by expletives, real or implied, so the publicity just made me laugh even more. Sofa King even made it to Huffington Post….and so the set-up began.

As soon as the place opened in March people started asking me if I’d been yet. We actually attempted to go the week after the place opened, but the parking lot was so full that we couldn’t find a space so we just drove on to somewhere else. I definitely heard lots of opinions on the place, though. The lines instantly became legendary, and they ran out of buns on the first day, forcing an early closure and prompting a hysterical YouTube video. The thing about me, though, is that no matter how hyped a new restaurant is, I’m not going to wait 30 minutes or an hour or whatever. That’s not my style. After the “no parking” situation we quickly decided that we were going to wait for a weekday, not-during-a-meal-rush opportunity to go there. Friday I tweeted the following and Philip suggested that we could check out Sofa King:

We definitely got there at a good time. There were plenty of parking spaces and, while there were quite a few people inside, there were only a couple in front of us. Of course, you instantly notice the decor….the walls are lined with sofas and there are lots of retro signs, ads, and pictures hanging everywhere. Of course, I had to post the logo on Instagram….

There are a few specialty burgers, including a “classic”, the Awesome burger with Boursin and strawberry jam, and the Nutty burger, with peanut butter and bacon (intriguing, but I’m not sold). I considered the Awesome Burger but ultimately decided to go with something basic so I could judge the burger based on its….”burgerness”, not on an interesting combo of ingredients. I just went with the “build your own” with a beef burger (there’s also a veggie burger, which is a grilled portobello) on a white poppy seed bun with classic sauce (more or less a Thousand Island-ish dressing), cheddar ($1.00), bacon ($1.00), lettuce, tomato, and pickle. Philip decided to go with the Classic Burger-a beef burger on a white bun with lettuce, tomato, and classic sauce. Since our burgers were basically the same….I’m not going to talk about them separately. Mine’s first with the cheese and bacon. The burgers are made with grass-fed beef, which is always a plus. Each burger is made with two thin patties, which allows for a bit of a crispy edge (which I really like). The buns were very fresh and everything had a good flavor. I liked the sauce a lot….I really like the mayo-ketchup-relish combo and often add it to my burgers at home. I would rate the burger as good, and I really appreciate the use of local, grass-fed beef….but I wouldn’t place it in my “top five” (that’s gotta be a Friday list soon).

We decided to split an order of onion rings, battered with Budweiser (not PBR? What’s up, hipsters? There was a huge stack of PBR cases in a little storage area in the back….more on the beer in a minute) and Aretha Frankenstein’s pancake batter (Sofa King shares an owner with Aretha’s and Crust Pizza) and a milkshake-we decided to go with the Cat Man Du-vanilla ice cream, Himalayan sea salt, cashews, and, on the cashier’s recommendation, we added caramel to it. The onion rings were pretty good…sweet, more crumbly than I was expecting from a ring coated with pancake batter (I guess I was expecting a more tempura-like consistency). I really liked the shake (which had more of a soft-serve consistency than a shake consistency and needed to be eaten with a spoon); Philip liked it okay but said he wouldn’t really want to order it again. I really liked the sweet/salty combo of it.

Okay, back to the beer. They have a sign outside that boasts $1.00 beers. What? Okay…that’s PBR, Budweiser, or High Life. There’s no drink fountain, and those three canned beers cost less than canned Coke products (at $1.50) and are the least expensive drinks on the menu (there’s also a craft beer list for “beer snobs”, which we did not view). “Gourmet” sodas like Blue Sky are $2.50 apiece, and a Steaz coconut water is $4.95. Hmmmm. That brings me to my final verdict…

Sofa King Juicy Burger has been hyped a lot. I’ve talked to a few people who said they loved it, and I’ve heard a lot of people express disappointment in the quality of the food, and honestly I think when a place is so overly hyped you are pretty much doomed to be disappointed. I try not to let the hype get me, and I wasn’t disappointed with the food. It didn’t blow me away. I’d eat there again, but probably only if someone else was paying or I was going with a group and that’s where everyone else wanted to go. My big problem? The price. For 2 pretty basic burgers, an order of onion rings, and a milkshake (or a “liquid nitrogen milkshake”, whatever that means) we paid $25.00. I kind of feel like Sofa King Juicy Burger is all hype and not a lot of substance, and there are definitely other places that deliver food-wise without the hefty price tag. So, I didn’t hate it, and I’m not going to tell you not to go there.

Try Sofa King Juicy Burger at least once and make up your own mind….but don’t expect too much or you might be let down.

Sofa King Juicy Burger is located at 1743 Dayton Boulevard, Chattanooga, TN 37405. You can call them at 423-490-SOFA. Check out their website: http://www.sofakingjuicyburger.com. You can also “like” them on Facebook.

Vietnamese Bistro (Dayton)-May 18, 2013

May 18, 2013

Vietnamese Bistro is a tiny and quaint Vietnamese restaurant in Dayton, Tennessee with delicious food and friendly service.

Vietnamese food is not exactly easy to come by in this area, and I’m not going to lie….the first time that I noticed a “Vietnamese Bistro” in Dayton, I was a little suspicious. Dayton is pretty much a hole in the wall sort of city, a “don’t blink or you’ll miss it” sort of place (just like my hometown of Soddy-Daisy, so I’m really not making fun) and I just had to wonder how well they could really do Vietnamese food. Which was a dumb thing to wonder because of course Vietnamese people know how to make Vietnamese food, and several months back I got an email from a reader who was raving about the Vietnamese Bistro in Dayton, telling me that it was better than Old Saigon. Well, ma’am, you have my attention, because I freaking love Old Saigon, so….

Somehow it still took us a while to get down there. I don’t really know why. I guess it’s because there’s really not a lot to do in Dayton, so the typical Saturday doesn’t really see us driving thirty minutes just to eat Vietnamese food. This week, though, I was off on Friday so we’d gotten our typical running around out of the way. We stopped at the antiques store in Sale Creek for a fruitless Fiesta ware search (lots of pieces but not a single one in a color that I want) then headed down to the Bistro.

There were a couple of tables occupied in the tiny restaurant, which was truly a blink and you’ll miss it sort of place; in fact, I had to point out the Philip exactly where it was in the former Wal-Mart complex as we drove by to park. There were probably not more than ten tables. A friendly young man told us to sit wherever we wanted then brought us menus and took our drink orders. The place is definitely about food, not atmosphere….several large photographs of Vietnamese scenes on the wall and photos of menu items under the glass on the tables is pretty much all the decoration you’ll find. I didn’t go there for atmosphere, though, so no big.

The menu is large and a little confusing to read; I actually found the to-go menu a little easier to follow for whatever reason. The regular menu begins with vegetarian selections then moves into the regular (carnivorous) selections. We decided on a couple of appetizers: 2 pork & shrimp spring rolls for $3.50 and an order of fish ball dumplings (which I never would have ordered on my own but Philip wanted to try them) for $1.99. The appetizers came out quickly, the dumplings on a skewer and drizzled with sriracha and some other sauce (hoisin, perhaps?). They tasted like…fish. The texture wasn’t weird and the flavor was fine, but I don’t know that I would order them again. But that’s just me. The spring rolls were amazing, stuffed with shrimps, a thin slice of pork, rice noodles, lettuce, and mint leaves. The mint really set off the flavor. I’ve got to make these things at home. I’m not positive what the sauce was….I want to say that the menu said it was ginger sauce, and it had fried shallots and some chili oil in it as well. It was pretty tasty and just a little spicy.

I pretty much knew before I went here that I wanted to order the phở bò (beef rice noodle soup), which is the Vietnamese national dish (by the way, that is pronounced fuh bah). I waffled briefly, though, when I saw a rice noodle salad on the menu…but in the end the regular-sized bowl of phở bò ($6.99) won out (by the way, chicken phở is called phở gà). What came to me was a gigantic bowl of broth, strips of beef, meatballs, rice noodles, onions, scallions, and cilantro, with a side dish of bean sprouts, basil, and lime, and bottles of sriracha and hoisin. I pulled the cilantro off the sprigs and dropped it in, tore up several basil leaves and dropped them in, put in a couple of handfuls of bean sprouts, and doused it with a little sriracha. This stuff was not easy to eat, because (a) it was so hot! and (b) how do you eat the noodles? Fork? Spoon? I ended up doing both, and once the soup cooled down enough I pretty much put my face in the bowl and shoveled it in (as evidenced by the photo below). The meatballs had some oddly textured little pieces in them but tasted good; the strips of beef were perfectly textured and delicious, and the broth was flavorful and perfectly seasoned. I would order this again…and again….and again.

Philip got much deeper into the entrée portion of the menu than I did, eventually settling on the thit kho (which I believe was pronounced “teet kuh”-no comments from the peanut gallery, please!) for $7.99, which was described as caramelized pork in condensed fish sauce (most of the descriptions that I found online called it caramelized pork belly, which this was not). All of the plates were served with either steamed rice or a choice of rice or egg noodles. Philip asked our server what he would recommend and he said that he usually eats it with steamed rice, so that’s what Philip ordered. It came with cucumbers (which Philip gave to me), bean sprouts, and shredded carrots on the side and a little bowl of spicy dipping sauce. It was thinly sliced, braised pork that was then caramelized and sauced with, well, a condensed fish sauce. Fish sauce is interesting stuff, very salty and stinky but delicious. The meat was indeed pretty salty and definitely had that fish sauce flavor but was tender and delicious. The rice was pretty plain (which is how Philip likes it) and the sauce on the side was spicy but not overwhelming.

A little piece of paper under the glass on the table said “desserts available, please ask your server” so we did. If there was anything disappointing about this restaurant, the dessert menu was it. I was hoping for a dessert menu like that at Old Saigon, which includes fried bananas, rice pudding, and mango sticky rice. Our server told us that sometimes they have two or three items available, but all they had that day were mung bean wontons. At $0.50 each, it was hard to pass up at least trying them, so we each ordered one. They were filled with a creamy batter made from mung bean puree and fried crisp. I was a little concerned about how the beany batter would taste, but I needn’t have been. It was just a sweet, custardy, vanilla-y paste in a perfectly crispy fried wonton. Pretty tasty and a nice sweet end to the meal.

Our total was about $24 before tip. Like I said, the atmosphere is lacking, but who cares? The food was fresh and delicious. They’ve been there for about five years and to last that long in a small town like Dayton speaks volumes about the quality.

I highly recommend that you check out Vietnamese Bistro!

Vietnamese Bistro is located at 200 Able Drive, Suite 11, Dayton, TN 37321. You can call them at 423-570-0100 or 423-285-7106. They are open 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday-Saturday. Since they are located in a larger shopping complex, there are curb cuts that allow for wheelchair accessibility, but the very cramped quarters would keep this from being an easy/comfortable place for a diner who uses a wheelchair.

Bluewater Grille-May 11, 2013

May 12, 2013

Bluewater Grille is a seafood restaurant located in downtown Chattanooga, within walking distance of the Tennessee Aquarium.

Let me start this by saying that this post is pushing it a little bit. Bluewater Grille is not a totally local restaurant. They are owned by the CraftWorks Restaurant & Brewery Group, which owns quite a few other restaurants around the U.S., including Big River Grille & Brewing Works. I am a little conflicted but since Chattanooga is the only location of Bluewater Grille I decided to go ahead with the post.

I’ve been wanting to go to Bluewater Grille for a couple of weeks now. The week before last I was struck with the urge for some sort of fish or shrimp dish, but as I mentioned in my Choo-Choo Barbecue post last week, we didn’t really want to risk downtown in the pouring rain on UTC graduation day….so we didn’t. Bluewater Grille opened in Chattanooga in 2006, and 2006 or 2007 was probably the last time that I’ve been (we’ve only been once). I recall liking the food when I went, but for whatever reason we just never went back.

When we walked up, we noticed that the patio seating was full up and we were a little concerned that we were not going to be seated quickly even at almost 2:00 p.m. on a Saturday. We needn’t have worried….I guess a lot of people were just eager to sit outside. We were offered the options of sitting in the cocktail area (where a Bloody Mary bar was set up….sorry if you’re an aficionado, but bleh) or in the dining area….we decided on the dining area and were seated at a table in the corner of the dining area. It was nice and quiet, a little away from everyone else, with fairly decent light for taking photos (I’m so tired of taking cell phone photos and trying to find a solution to this problem that doesn’t require me whipping out my gigantic DSLR at the table). We were given a regular menu and a brunch menu and Krystal, our server, took our drink order.

The brunch menu had some interesting items, including Grand Marnier (an orange-flavored liqueur) French toast, which sounded lovely, and shrimp Benedict, with grilled shrimp, poached eggs, and Hollandaise on an English muffin, as well as some more exotic items like crab cakes Benedict. I briefly considered getting the shrimp Benedict but then Philip said, “Eh. I’ve already had breakfast today,” and jolted me back into the reality that it was afternoon, I indeed did already have breakfast (biscuits & gravy!), and was really more in the mood for a lunch item. The menu included soups & salads, features (like Cajun fish tacos, grouper piccata, and sesame tuna), chicken & pasta, sandwiches (such as a crab BLT and a blackened Mahi Mahi sandwich), and lunch specialties. I managed to narrow my choices down to the lunch specialties, between the coconut shrimp & a wedge salad (iceberg wedge with blue cheese dressing, crumbled blue cheese, and bacon) and the fish & chips, served with malt vinegar mayonnaise. I asked Krystal if she would recommend one over the other and she said that she would order the fish & chips.

I decided to take her advice because more than once this week I was chomping at the bit to go to Hair of the Dog or Honest Pint for some fish & chips. It was a pretty straightforward dish, as fish & chips tends to be: three pieces of cod, battered (dipped in a liquidy batter before frying as opposed to being rolled in a bread crumb coating) as it should be, with hand-cut, skin on fries sprinkled with coarse salt. The fish was not greasy, which to me is the true hallmark of good battered fish. The fries might have been just a tad bit salty but that didn’t stop me from eating two-thirds of them. The malt vinegar mayonnaise was an interesting touch…a creamy dipping sauce with that smelly-foot tang that malt vinegar lends to everything it touches. I am not knocking malt vinegar…nay nay, I think that malt vinegar is essential to fish & chips and my BFF used to make fun of me as I doused my fish with it on our frequent trips to Captain D’s back in the day (I was a different person back then. Don’t judge me.). Fish & chips aren’t fish & chips without a potent splash of malt vinegar, and while this mayo definitely wasn’t traditional, it was strong and it was tasty. A nice touch.

Philip veered off the seafood path and decided to order the Kobe sliders with a house salad (with balsamic vinaigrette dressing). The sliders were pretty tiny, which made me laugh. They were pretty basic on what the menu touted as a “housemade bun”, no cheese, a mustard sauce, and pickles…though only one of Philip’s had a pickle. They were cooked nicely and had a good flavor. There was a pretty good portion of salad, which had mixed greens, tomato, cucumber (which Philip asked them to leave off), pepper jack & cheddar cheeses, bacon, and spiced candied pecans. The salad wasn’t drowned in dressing but everything was nicely coated and Philip didn’t feel that it had an overpowering flavor.

Our total was about $25 before tip. Krystal provided good service, checking back on us and keeping our water glasses filled. The atmosphere is nice, not too dark but not glaringly bright, with lots of wood and lovely light fixtures. I like that you can see what is going on in the kitchen. By the way, Bluewater offers a space for private parties and apparently has a pretty good happy hour (something I wouldn’t know anything about). We’ll try not to wait another six or seven years to go back….

Bluewater Grille is definitely a great place to go for seafood in the Chattanooga area.

Bluewater Grille is located at 224 Broad Street, Chattanooga, TN 37402. You can call them at 423-266-4200. You can check out their website, http://bluewaterchattanooga.com. You can also “like” them on Facebook.

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