By Location Archives - Page 36 of 42

Jacob Myers Restaurant on the River (Dayton, TN)-April 6, 2012

April 7, 2012

We visited Jacob Myers based on recommendations from several people. Honestly, I hadn’t even heard of it until a few weeks ago when a friend posted on Facebook that she was going there for her birthday! Suddenly, I had people recommending it left and right. Jacob Myers is located in Dayton, Tennessee just off of Dayton Pike/Highway 27. I mean, you hang a right and it’s pretty much right there. It’s by a camping/picnic area and right across the street from a body of water that apparently is a river…although I’m not sure which one. Is this a branch of the Tennessee River? I’m feeling kind of dumb, but I couldn’t find this info on a map. Someone help me out!

We were fairly hungry fairly early, so we decided to head up to Dayton before the dinner rush hit. Jacob Myers serves lunch from 11-4 and dinner from 4-close, except for Sunday, when I am assuming that they serve from the dinner menu all day (11-6). We arrived at about 4:50 and were seated immediately. It was a beautiful breezy day, so we decided to sit on the deck. Our server, Kevin, came to take our drink orders when we’d had just enough time to peruse the menu and decide on an appetizer-fried pickles, which came with something called “spicy boom boom sauce”. The fried pickles were spears, which is my preference, and they were breaded, not battered. They were hot but not so hot that we burned our mouths, which is a good thing. The sauce was a mayo based sauce with something spicy, presumably some sort of pepper or buffalo sauce, mixed in. It was spicy but not overly so. The pickles were good, but still not the best I’ve had (alas, Durty Nelly’s, long since closed, will probably always hold that honor).

On the recommendation of a friend, I decided to get the dreamy mushroom chicken, which the menu describes as “a delectable blend of crème, button mushrooms and diced Tomatoes with a hint of
cayenne and garlic atop a whole grilled boneless chicken breast.” I decided on a loaded baked potato and side salad with tarragon vinegar dressing as my sides. The salad came out first, and it was pretty blah (see the picture below). Iceberg lettuce, carrot shreds, and a few cucumbers and tomatoes. I’ll be honest, it takes a lot to wow me with a house salad, and this one just wasn’t doing it. The dressing was okay, but the tarragon flavor was pretty strong and I’m not a gigantictarragon fan (I know, why’d I get it? I just wanted to try something a little different). The entree was huge with a lot of sauce. The first thing that I noticed was the gigantic slices of green onion. I like green onions, but I prefer them finely chopped. The next thing I noticed was that the “butter” on the baked potato was actually, um, buttery spread. A huge scoop of it. I promptly removed most of it. You know I don’t do margarine. So, there are my recommendations: use real butter and chop the scallions a little more! But I digress…now that I have the constructive criticism out of the way, let me tell you what I did like.

The sauce was nice, not overly salty, just enough so. The garlic flavor was not overpowering and there was just a tiny heat at the “back” of the bite from the cayenne. The mushrooms were very tender and flavorful. There was parmesan cheese grated on top, which I am sure I would have done if I was making this dish at my house. Honestly, I was a little unsure of how I would like the diced tomatoes on top of the chicken…it seemed like an odd addition to me. I really liked it! The tomatoes tasted very fresh and were nice and cool compared to the warm sauce. The chicken was nicely grilled and seasoned under the sauce. I would order this again. The baked potato was huge, and aside from the buttery spread, it was very tasty and fresh, unlike the baked potatoes you sometimes get that taste like they have been sitting around under a warmer all day.

Philip had a little trouble decided what to order. He (jokingly) considered the 16 oz. ribeye, then a burger, then the Reuben. On Kevin’s recommendation, he decided to go with the Jacob Myers burger, “a half pound angus burger topped with cheese, bacon, egg and crowned w/ a huge homemade onion ring.” Now, if you read my 60/40 burger post, you know we are not strangers to the idea of an egg on a burger. It’s a perfect combo! The presentation is meant to be pretty awe-inspiring with the big knife stuck through the thick onion ring. The onion ring had a nice tempura batter on it that was just a little sweet. The burger had a grilled taste and had lettuce, tomato, and onion on it. It was a tasty burger, not over-the-top good, but definitely good. The fries were just regular old frozen fries (I think) but tasted fine.

One of my friends had also told me that you can’t go to Jacob Myers without eating dessert. We were way too full to eat dessert there, but we ordered it to go. Kevin rattled off a list of about five cheesecakes (the only one I remember was pineapple upside-down….I pretty much tuned those out because Philip hates cheesecake), the chocolate thing (chocolate pudding and Cool Whip and some other stuff), coconut praline pie, buckeyes, chocolate chip cookies, oatmeal creme pies, and brownies. We decided on the buckeyes, which are peanut butter fudge balls dipped in chocolate candy coating. I was expecting something small (truffle-sized) but these were huge! If you’ve ever eaten peanut butter fudge, imagine eating it with a chocolate coating on it. Sweet and rich-we had to drink glasses of milk to tamp down the sweetness! Still, good.

I am not saying this was an out-of-this-world dining experience….but the ambiance is nice, especially with the outdoors dining…the staff was friendly, and Kevin was a great server. The food was definitely good. I’ve been told that I need to go for lunch as well, so I will be visiting them during lunch hours at some point in the future. If you are ever in Dayton and need a dining spot, this is a great place to go!

Jacob Myers Restaurant on the River is located at 185 Chickamauga Drive, Dayton, TN 37321. You can call them at 423-570-0023. They serve lunch from 11-4, Tuesday-Saturday, and dinner from 4-9 Tuesday-Thursday, 4-10 Friday and Saturday, and 11-6 on Sunday. Visit their website, www.jacobmyersrestaurant.com, and find them on Facebook. By the way, to avoid any confusion, the restaurant is also known as Jacob Myers Deli.

Blue Ribbon Cafe, Revisited-March 27, 2012

March 29, 2012

Would I totally destroy my credibility as a reviewer if I write a review about Blue Ribbon Cafe every single time I go there? Man, I love that place. I feel like it’s my “hometown restaurant”. I guess it is, really….it has a true smalltown feel and I see someone I know almost every time I go there. I might…in fact probably would….even go so far as to say that it’s my favorite restaurant.

This visit I was with my mom and my cousin, as Philip was working out of town on Tuesday. I met them there around 6:45. There weren’t a ton of people there, but it wasn’t close to empty either. We sat down and Dianne, the owner, quickly took our drink order. It took me forever to decide what to order. The special of the day was chicken and dressing with corn and okra, and they also had chicken carbonara and a few other dishes featured on their blackboard. I also contemplated “Forrest Gump’s Favorite” (shrimp & grits) or chicken or shrimp alfredo.

In the end, though, I decided I wanted some fries and decided to go with “The Hippie”. The Hippie is shaved ribeye with grilled onions and red and green peppers and tzatziki sauce on warm pita bread. I love all of the above, and this is one of my go-to meals at BRC. It’s huge, and I always eat the whole thing. And I never feel bad about it…because it’s worth it. The meat is shaved so thinly, seasoned and cooked perfectly. The tzatziki doesn’t have a really strong garlicky or cucumbery flavor but works really well with the meat and the charred veggies. The pocketless, soft pita bread is one of my favorite things, and if anyone knows where I can purchase some, please let me know. I haven’t found anything comparable and haven’t found a recipe I like. Of course, I can’t get enough of their handcut fries….this is one of my favorite places to eat fries!

My mom and cousin both went for the ribeye wrap, which is, as you might assume from the name, shaved ribeye with cheese, lettuce, and cusabi (cucumber and wasabi) dressing. I think there might have been some onion on there, too. Anyway, it’s all wrapped up in a tortilla and served with a side (I didn’t mention this before, but all of the sandwiches come with fries, sweet potato fries, housemade chips, potato salad, or okra. Maybe slaw, too….I don’t remember. I always order fries!). I tasted my mom’s and it was really delicious, with the perfect meat just like on my sandwich. The dressing had a very faint spicy, wasabi flavor…definitely not overpowering. I should have opened the wrap up to take the picture, but completely forgot!

On the dessert menu that night, they had Coca-Cola cake, carrot cake, and carmalicious brownies. Dianne recommended the carrot cake, but I wanted some Coca-Cola cake to share with Philip (with some of the homemade coffee ice cream I made Saturday!). Dianne slipped a small piece of carrot cake in my bag too, though. Both were delicious. Coca-Cola cake is one of my favorites….so chocolately and sweet. However, if I had to choose between these two desserts, I would choose the carrot cake. It had pineapples and nuts (walnuts or pecans? I couldn’t decide which.) and a perfect cream cheese frosting. Cream cheese frosting makes anything better! Well, almost. Today Blue Ribbon posted a picture of a pink lemonade cake on Facebook. I’m gonna have to try that one out!

Maybe one of these days Pioneer Woman will post her coffee ice cream recipe on her blog and I can link you to it! It's better than store-bought!

If you haven’t been to Blue Ribbon Cafe, I’m not sure what you are waiting for! They are located at 9705 Dayton Pike, Soddy-Daisy, TN 37379. They can be reached at 423-332-5005. You can find them on Facebook. They are open from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., Monday-Friday. That’s the only thing I don’t like about them-I wish they were open on weekends (or at least Saturdays)!

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.

Boathouse Rotisserie & Raw Bar-March 17, 2012

March 17, 2012

When we headed out on this sunny and warm Saturday, we had no real plans for where we were going to eat. We’d had a breakfast of waffles, bacon, and eggs at home, so it was a while before we were hungry. We knew we wanted to have a late lunch, but when we started feeling the hunger pangs, we couldn’t think of anywhere to go…and then it hit me. I’d been thinking about the Boathouse lately, so it seemed like the perfect opportunity. Two o’clock on a Saturday afternoon is generally a great time to visit restaurants and avoid the crowds, and I figured that a restaurant located on Amnicola Highway-possibly one of the most obscure locations I can think of in the urban part of Chattanooga-would be no exception. Boy, was I surprised! The parking lot was nearly full, and when we walked up there were multiple parties waiting to be seated. The hostess told us that if we wanted to eat indoors, we could be seated immediately, but if we wanted to sit outside, there would be a wait. We chose not to wait (surprise!). Still, we couldn’t believe that the large outdoor seating area was full at two o’clock on a Saturday afternoon but I guess that riverside view is pretty alluring on a 75+ degree afternoon in mid-March.

Our server, Tammy, quickly brought us a carafe of water and told us that since it was happy hour, there were appetizer specials (all “mini” sandwiches and tacos) and that regular appetizers were $2.50 off. We decided on the queso dip with roasted tomato salsa. The queso turned out to be the standard white American cheese dip served with a small cup of a very delicious, slightly spicy salsa and freshly fried chips. We mixed the salsa into our queso. It tasted very fresh and had a strong cheesy flavor, and I really loved the chips. Besides the chips on the plate, they also brought us a basket of additional chips.

According to the menu, the Boathouse specializes in “foods from the Gulf,” including several different seafood offerings (including a raw bar), rotisserie roasted chicken, and brisket. Tammy helped me decide between the wood-spit roasted 1/2 chicken with margarita sauce and the roasted chicken sandwich (she recommended the sandwich). The sandwich was French bread with a large slice of roasted chicken breast, pickle, onions (which I promptly removed), tomato, arugula, Swiss cheese, and mayo. It was served with olive oil fried French fries (called olive fries on the menu) and a very simple slaw-just shredded cabbage with a very light sesame oil dressing. The chicken on the sandwich was incredibly tender, and I loved the bitter note that the arugula added to the sandwich (I am crazy about arugula!). The fries were skin-on, and boy, am I a sucker for skin-on fries. I loved this meal! I really wanted to try the fries on this trip, but next time I go, I want to try the Lotta Lotta Garlic chicken, one of the Boathouse’s specialties, with black beans, rice, arugula, pineapple, tomatoes, avocado and feta. Sounds delicious!

Philip also had a little trouble deciding what to order. He knew that he wanted something with the rotisserie brisket, but didn’t want to order the brisket entree, so he asked Tammy to help him decide between the “You Don’t Have to Go to Texas” brisket sandwich with barbecue sauce and the “Texas Dip” brisket sandwich with Swiss, onions, and au jus for dipping. Tammy recommended the dip, since it is a pressed sandwich and a little more “interesting” than the other, which was pretty much just a brisket sandwich with barbecue sauce. Good call, Tammy! The Texas dip was pressed on French bread, with extremely tender slices of brisket. The au jus really set off the flavor. Perfect!

We were pretty much stuffed after we finished our meal, but if we had room for dessert, we would have ordered the tres leches cake. I’m dying to make one-I’ve never tried it-so my interested was definitely piqued.

Another thing I’d like to note about the Boathouse is that I just really like the atmosphere. The decor is interesting and I love the “open-ness” of the dining room with its high ceilings. I also love the color scheme and the large scenes of local scenery (Ruby Falls, etc.) on the wall.

Let me go ahead and address the elephant in the room. If you’ve been to the Boathouse, you either love it or you hate it. If you’ve never been, chances are you’ve heard from people who love it or hate it. The Boathouse has had some bad press in the past, and people definitely seem to have strong feelings one way or the other. Obviously, I am in the former group-I have been twice and have had great food and great service on both occasions. If you are in the latter group, I’m sorry for your experience and just want to remind you that Chattavore is a negativity-free zone! If you haven’t tried it, I encourage you to go and decide for yourself. I have heard several pieces of conflicting information regarding their check-splitting policy: (1) They don’t split checks; (2) They don’t split checks in the outside seating area, or they only split checks equally and not by individual orders; and (3) No problem with splitting checks. The third was in a comment left on this post (scroll down) and I am assuming that the person who left this comment works at the Boathouse. He (Charles) says, “Splitting Checks at Boathouse, inside or outside, No Problem, Come and eat!!” So, if this has been an issue for you in the past, I am assuming that this is a policy that has been updated.

Negative press aside, I really like the Boathouse. Their food has exceeded my expectations on both of my visits, and the service has been great on both visits as well. I am excited to go back and try another menu item!

Boathouse Rotisserie and Raw Bar is located at 1459 Riverside Drive, Chattanooga, TN 37406. You can reach them at 423-622-0122. Check out their website, http://boathousechattanooga.com. You can also “like” them on Facebook.

By the way, Boathouse shares owners with Sugar’s Ribs and Canyon Grille….both of which need to be reviewed by Chattavore…..hmmmm.

Greenlife Grocery-March 10, 2012

March 12, 2012

Note: As of December 2012, Greenlife Grocery is now officially known as Whole Foods Market. They have rearranged the store extensively. They do still serve sandwiches but I don’t know if the selections remain the same.

Greenlife is Chattanooga’s Whole Foods Market. While you might not think that this qualifies as “local”, let me explain. Greenlife started as a locally-owned grocery store, and it was acquired by Whole Foods in 2010. While there have been several changes to make Greenlife a Whole Foods store, there have also been many things left the same, and the menu is one of those things (I am sure that there are some Whole Foods menu items that have been added, but the menu items from Greenlife remain). So….I made the determination to count this as local.

We decided to eat at Greenlife since I had a few staples that I needed to pick up from the bulk food section and I had a gift card. I didn’t think to even check out the hot bar, which changes daily, to see what was available. There is also a salad bar (hot bar and salad bar are priced by weight) but I was definitely not in the mood for salad. I did look at the soup (there are eight rotating soups available plus crackers and cornbread) but decided against it. Their pizza is great, with several varieties of the large slices available daily….always pepperoni and cheese, plus another few vegetarian varieties and varieties including meat. I knew that I wanted a sandwich, though. Their sandwiches are my favorite-they have paninis, cold sandwiches, and wraps. You circle your order on a slip of paper and hand it to the person who is making the sandwiches.

I love their Southern Belle panini (pimento cheese) and their BLT, but I decided to go for the Cha-Town club on this day. According to the menu, the Cha-Town club is turkey, bacon, cheese, spinach, avocado, tomato, and garlic aioli (a garlicky mayonnaise sauce). Since I am currently obsessed with avocado, I decided to go for this one (there were a few others with avocado, but this one was really appealing to me). Unfortunately, they left the avocado off! It was still great. The bacon was delicious and the sandwich was ample. I usually don’t like sandwiches with this much meat, but this one was really delicious. I just love the aioli, and I love that their sandwiches, which are pressed with a little oil, don’t have so much oil as to be greasy on the outside. I had a bag of Food Should Taste Good sweet potato tortilla chips and a 365 Cola. Usually, we just drink the free cucumber water that is available in their dining area, but I decided to have a rare treat. We almost never drink soda-in restaurants or otherwise-but I love the 365 Cola. 365 is the Whole Foods store brand. They do not use high fructose corn syrup…while I know that cane sugar isn’t “healthy” by any means, I do feel a little less guilty about consuming it in a rare soda than I do about HCFS. But I digress. This was a delicious sandwich. I ate about 3/4 of it, and I was stuffed!

Philip decided to go for the turkey-pesto panini. It may have another name, but if it does, neither of us can remember it, and their menu is not listed online! I’ll have to check it out next time I go. If you know, tell me! I kind of had a restaurant reviewer panic moment when neither of us could remember…but what are you going to do? Anyway, the sandwich is turkey, cheese, pesto, tomato, and red onion. The people behind the counter must have been really distracted on this day (they were super-busy), because not only did they leave off my avocado, they forgot Philip’s tomato! He doesn’t love tomato that much anyway, though, and in my opinion, tomato is not necessary on this sandwich. The pesto was good….he wouldn’t be a good judge of how basil-y or garlicky it was, because he loves basil and garlic….which I guess is why he loves pesto. The turkey, the pesto, the melted cheese, and the crunchy bread (with a little onion, but not too much, unlike in some restaurants where you get a gigantic slab) were pretty much perfect. He also had Food Should Taste Good chips (olive tortilla chips) and a 365 Cola. We came in $0.68 under budget with our gift card. Perfect!

Something you should know about Greenlife….if you go for lunch during normal lunch hours and order a sandwich, you should be prepared to wait. This is not just on Saturdays, either….there’s the after-church crowd to contend with on Sundays, and the lunch-breakers during the week. We waited for about 15 minutes for our sandwiches. Still, they have a sign posted warning that during peak times there may be a wait, and I’d rather wait a few minutes for a great sandwich than have a bad or mediocre one that I didn’t have to wait for. Besides, if you are in a hurry, you can just grab something other than a made-fresh sandwich…pizza, soup, hot bar, salad bar, or one of the many items available in their cooler (sandwiches, salads, dips, sushi, and even a Whole Foods “lunchable”-freshly assembled chunks of cheese and turkey with crackers and fruit that I can pretty much guarantee is a better nutritional deal than the real thing. I definitely recommend Greenlife for a great lunch…and a little healthy shopping after!

Greenlife Grocery is located at 301 Manufacturer’s Road, Chattanooga, TN 37405. You can call them at 423-702-7600. Like them on Facebook or follow Whole Foods on Twitter.

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