Restaurants Archives - Page 19 of 49

Maple Street Biscuit Company

May 18, 2015

Maple Street Biscuit Company is a popular Downtown Chattanooga breakfast and lunch spot that serves biscuits with a variety of interesting topping options.
Maple Street Biscuit Company has been around for several months (since last summer, maybe?) and several people have mentioned that we needed to go there. I love a good biscuit, so I was definitely game. The problem is that the place closes at 2 on weekdays and is closed on Sundays, and since I almost always make biscuits for breakfast on Saturday we usually aren’t in the mood for biscuits on Saturday afternoon. We decided to have pancakes this weekend instead so that we would be in a biscuit state of mind for our late lunch.

We headed to Maple Street Biscuit Company around 12:30 or 1:00. It’s located on Broad Street near Five Guys and Top It Off, so parking is limited. We parked in a Unum lot and walked down. It was still pretty busy, with the patio still full, lots of tables occupied, and a fairly long line. The first thing that we noticed was that the place was loud.

You stand in the line and give your order to the cashier, who asks you a question and your answer is what they call out to indicate that your order is ready (today it was “If you could take a road trip anywhere, where would you go?”). You get your own silverware, drinks at the fountain, etc., then find a table. When your food is up, someone stands at the counter and essentially screams your answer then you go to retrieve it. When the place is really busy (like it was while we were there) they are screaming out constantly and it is a little unnerving. One guy’s voice actually made me jump. I was not wild about this process.

The menu at Maple Street Biscuit Company includes, naturally, a wide variety of biscuit sandwiches-most, but not all, including fried chicken breast. There are biscuits with sausage gravy and also a few vegetarian options. Sides include fried green tomatoes, collard greens, five-cheese macaroni and cheese, and sweet potato fries.

As for how we liked the food…well, I made the statement that since biscuits are my specialty I was a little concerned about how this was going to go. I decided to order the Reinhold ($6), with fried chicken breast, honey mustard, and crunchy dill pickles. The honey mustard was not the creamy kind, just the honey + mustard kind (most of the sauces are made in-house), and the pickles were thickly sliced. I decided to take the top off of my biscuit and eat it on its own while eating the bottom half with a knife and fork. I thought that the bottom part, with the chicken, honey mustard, and pickles on the biscuit, was pretty tasty; the chicken was crispy and well-cooked. The biscuit had a good texture, too. However…I thought it had a bit of a doughy flavor. I think it was maybe made with shortening and I am used to an all-butter biscuit, so that may have been the flavor that I was picking up. Philip got the Sticky Maple ($7) with fried chicken, pecan wood smoked bacon, and maple syrup (real maple syrup, not maple-flavored pancake syrup) and liked it pretty well also.

As a side, we shared an order of fried green tomatoes with ranch dressing (blue cheese dressing is available as well) for $4. The basket was 4 fried green tomato slices with a cup of dressing for dipping. The tomatoes were battered in a heavily peppered batter and fried till crisp and golden brown. They were pretty tasty with a heavy spice from the pepper. The ranch dressing was just average ranch dressing but pretty good with the tomatoes.

So…did I love the place? Nah. I didn’t hate it, either, but I’m going to be honest, the screaming killed it for me; I guess we should have sat outside, but the patio was packed out when we got there. At $18.57, it was not an expensive lunch but I did think about how much less it would cost for me to make it at home (but let’s be honest, that’s the case with just about everything). The food was pretty good, so if you don’t mind a loud atmosphere, then give it a try. If loud is not your style, go when there’s open seating on the patio (a Facebook follower also said that if you sit in the back you don’t hear the loudness. It was very crowded when we were in so this was not an option for us. Others said that when you go at less busy times-such as Friday or Saturday evenings-it is not as loud.). I will say that the staff seemed very helpful and I saw one cashier leave her station to help a couple with visual impairments get their drinks and find a table.

Maple Street Biscuit Company is located at 407 Broad Street, Chattanooga, TN 37402. You can call them at (423) 362-5380. They are open Monday-Thursday, 7-2, and Friday-Saturday 7-2 and 5-9. You can check out their website: Maple Street Biscuit Company and like Maple Street Biscuit Company on Facebook.

Countryside Café (Ooltewah, TN)

May 2, 2015

Countryside Café is a very popular Southern cooking restaurant in Ooltewah, Tennessee. They serve all of your Southern favorites!

I am a bit of a Type A. I have no idea if any of that comes through in my blog, but I am a classic overachieving first born Type A. Exhibit A: I haven’t missed a single day of work this year…I have managed not to get sick (no noses to wipe this year) and, as I almost always do, I have saved my personal days to the very end. This week was the week of the dreaded TCAP (state-mandated testing, for any of you who don’t live in Tennessee) and I couldn’t do very many school visits, so I decided to take a couple of days off. That gave us a chance to visit the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville (and a jaunt to Wish You Were Beer), finish painting our kitchen (except the trim…almost done!), and go to Countryside Café in Ooltewah.

Actually, we probably would have gone to Countryside Café this weekend even if I hadn’t taken the time off. I had excellent food catered from there years ago and have been meaning to get back since the inception of this blog…but Ooltewah is kind of a drive so I have to plan to go out there or I won’t think about it. This was a perfect opportunity! After sleeping in a little, eating breakfast, and doing the first coat of paint, it was almost 2:00 by the time we go out there. You’d imagine that on a weekday a place so far out would be dead at 2 p.m., but you’d be wrong. While we were seated immediately, there were plenty of other diners in the place. Plenty.

There are several dry erase boards stationed in different areas around the restaurant announcing the specials (meatloaf, wood-roasted chicken wings, wood-roasted chicken breast) and the desserts (too many to name, but the highlights included strawberry shortcake, Reese’s peanut butter cup cake, and chocolate chip walnut (ahem, not Derby) pie). A chalkboard on the hostess stand alerts you that the servers work as a team and that you can ask any one of them for anything that you need, and indeed this turned out to be true. Different people took our orders, filled our drinks, cleared our plates, checked up on us. It seemed to be a very efficient way of handling things!

I decided that in order to truly judge a country cooking type restaurant I needed to order sweet tea. It was quite good, pretty sweet but not cloying and just the right strength. I love sweet tea…I used to drink it all day long but somewhere in my late twenties realized I needed to replace my sweet tea with water and I’m sure my kidneys thank me for it. I decided to get the fried chicken filet with white gravy. Each meat is served with three vegetables and cornbread or a Sister Schubert’s roll unless otherwise noted. I ordered cornbread, mashed potatoes, green beans, and fried okra. The chicken was a gigantic boneless breast, breaded and fried and served smothered with peppery white gravy. It was deliciously seasoned and perfectly cooked and-this is important-there was no skin on the gravy. Gah, I hate being served gravy with a skin on it. The potatoes had a good flavor but were a little bit thicker than I prefer. The green beans were cooked until soft (true Southern style) and well-seasoned, and the okra…well, when I saw the okra the heavens opened and the angels sang. It was cornmeal dredged and pan fried, just like your momma or your granny (or I!) would cook in her Lodge skillet. Perfect.

Philip decided on the country-fried steak with white gravy (brown gravy was also a choice), mashed potatoes, white beans, and okra. The steak was well-breaded, nicely seasoned, and cooked just right and he liked the gravy as well. He agreed with me about the potatoes…good flavor but a little thick. He also did a little jig (not really) over the fried okra (it’s just so rare to find okra in a restaurant that isn’t fried!). He thought that the white beans were cooked well but a little under salted.

The cornbread muffins were also delicious. They were soft and moist and, like Southern cornbread should be, 100% savory and 0% sweet. And they were served with real butter. Amen and amen. Real butter and non-frozen fried okra alone are just about enough to make me declare this one of the best Southern cooking restaurants in which I’ve ever eaten.

We were stuffed to the gills by the time we finished our meals (not cleaned our plates…there was not way) but we couldn’t possibly leave without dessert, so we decided to get it to go. Buttermilk pie and Italian cream cake were our Friday night, um, dinner (we were nowhere near hungry enough for me to make the King Ranch casserole I’d planned to make for dinner). The Italian cream cake was a delicious, buttery yellow cake with a rich cream cheese frosting, coconut, and pecans. It was wonderful and didn’t have so much icing that it was overwhelming or caused me tooth pain (darn those sensitive teeth!). The buttermilk pie was creamy and custardy and had a beautifully crimped crust. Both were fantastic!

If you are willing to go a few minutes outside of Chattanooga to get amazing Southern food, you will not regret going to Countryside Café. The prices are reasonable (ours was $30 and some change pre-tip for 2 meat and three plates, two desserts, and a drink). They serve a wide variety of food with rotating specials and much of it is made from scratch. The desserts are out of this world! The people were friendly and the service was amazingly fast and efficient.

Countryside Café is obviously a local favorite for good reason-they’ve been around for 25 years so they must be doing something right!

Countryside Café is located at 8223 Mahan Gap Road, Ooltewah, TN 37363. You can call them at 423-344-8646. They are open Monday-Saturday, 10:30 a.m.-9:00 p.m., and Sunday 10:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m. You can check out their full menu on their website, www.countrysidecafe.net. You can also like Countryside Café on Facebook.

Purple Daisy Picnic Café (Revisit)

April 6, 2015

Purple Daisy Picnic Café is a popular restaurant near downtown Chattanooga & Lookout Mountain (St. Elmo) that serves great BBQ, Southern food, & burgers!

So, this was not supposed to be a Purple Daisy revisit post. We were actually planning to go to Zarzour’s since I’ve been told that a Chattanooga burger list is invalid if Zarzour’s is not a consideration. I tried to call them to see if they take credit cards (does anyone know the answer to this?) and got no answer…so they either were too busy to answer or they were closed for Good Friday. We decided not to take the chance and instead went to Purple Daisy. I’ve been before, but want to try the burger and the barbecue (I always order the rainbow sandwich).

The place was pretty busy right at noon but we were immediately seated at a table outside. The server took our drink order and I decided to deviate from my usual water and have fruit tea instead. The fruit tea is a blend of tea, juices, and spices. It tastes mostly like tea and pineapple juice…it’s a little tart and a little sweet and very delicious.

Since a burger was my mission, I didn’t have to think about my order at all. I decided on the single ($4.95…there’s a double for $7.95) with Cheddar cheese, lettuce, tomato, pickle, mayo, mustard, and ketchup. I decided to get hash brown casserole instead of the chips that come with the burger, because has brown casserole is a non-negotiable when I go to the Purple Daisy. It’s creamy, cheesy, and very flavorful, just like my mom makes it. The burger is charcoal grilled. It was well-cooked and tasted like a burger you’d get at a cookout. I’d rate it a 3 for meat-well-seasoned, cooked through just right, and with a nice grilled flavor. For bread, I’ll give it a 3-standard soft bun like you’d get in the bread aisle of a grocery store. For cheese, a 4…a decent amount of Cheddar, melted on top; for toppings, a 3-just the standard toppings, maybe a little too heavy on the condiments. For structural integrity, I’ll give it a 3 as well. It held together pretty well until I got to the middle, when the ample condiments started sliding around on the lettuce and tomato and it pretty much fell apart. Size? A 4.5…it was a good-sized burger, not so huge that I felt stuffed but definitely not small. Overall burger score: 3.4.

Philip decided to get the pork barbecue tacos with a side of hot slaw (extra-they don’t come with a side). The tacos came on flour tortillas with cheddar cheese, iceberg lettuce, and a little bit of original barbecue sauce plus a small cup of sour cream. The barbecue here is very good-fresh tasting, shredded (not chopped), smoky, and moist. They offer three sauces: original, sweet, and hot. Philip didn’t care for the sweet much but liked the hot and the original. The tacos overall were very tasty, simple enough to allow the flavor of the pork to shine through. The slaw? HOT. Philip isn’t very sensitive to spicy foods and he found the hot slaw very hot, seasoned with cayenne and with chopped jalapeños mixed in. Again, very fresh, very flavorful, but don’t plan on eating all of it unless you are used to eating very spicy food.

I love The Purple Daisy Picnic Café, and apparently a lot of other people do too. The place was full the whole time that we were there and people were coming in and out the whole time. The food at The Purple Daisy is very consistent. The menu is fairly limited-barbecue, burgers, deli sandwiches, hot dogs, salads, and a few other items, plus sides and a couple of desserts (Oreo dirt cake and banana pudding)-allowing them to focus on serving flavorful and fresh food. I highly recommend The Purple Daisy! By the way, our pre-tip total for one drink, a burger, pork tacos, and 2 sides was just under $20.

I highly recommend The Purple Daisy!

The Purple Daisy Picnic Café is located at 4001 St. Elmo Avenue, Chattanooga, TN 37409. They are open Monday-Friday, 11 a.m.-8 p.m. and Saturday-Sunday, 11 a.m.-4 p.m. You can call them at 423-822-6477. Check out The Purple Daisy Picnic Café website and like The Purple Daisy Picnic Café on Facebook. You can also follow The Purple Daisy on Twitter.

The Blue Plate Revisit

March 23, 2015

The Blue Plate is a great downtown Chattanooga restaurant near the Tennessee Aquarium that serves great, fresh local food!

I love spring more than words can say. Not quite as much as I love summer, when I live in shorts and tank tops and flip flops and get to pretend that I’m a full-time blogger…but spring is when I feel like I am coming back to life after the winter cold (I despise winter as much as I love summer). It’s been so rainy around here lately, which has put a bit of a damper on my excitement about the warming trend, especially since I spend such a large portion of my day driving.

Anyway, this past Saturday was gorgeous, sunny, not exactly warm, per se, but warm enough that I could wear just a cardigan over my t-shirt and not feel like I was going to freeze. To celebrate, we headed down to the Chattanooga Riverfront. That’s the other thing I love about spring-my city is beautiful all year, but when the warmth returns, it springs into its full glory (Bradford pear trees excluded….my sinuses are killing me. Plus I hate those things after the one that we used to have in our front yard broke in half and fell on top of our house. The damage was minimal but we promptly removed it and replaced it with a perky dwarf magnolia).

We decided to go sit on the patio at The Blue Plate, which I first wrote about in 2012. You guys! That was when Chattavore was still a baby blog. I decided that we needed to go back so I could check out their burger as I get ready to revamp my burger list. You guys might be seeing a lot of burgers and revisits for a while, but normal blog activities will resume once I do my list update. I think I owe a lot of places a second visit anyway…it’s kind of fun to go back and see if things have changed and if so, how!

There wasn’t much thought that went into my order. Double-stack cheeseburger, with two house-blended beef patties, American cheese, toasted local (ahem, Niedlov’s) bun, house spread, and pickles, served with hand cut chips. The chips were good, albeit a little under seasoned. The burger was surprisingly (I’m not sure why surprisingly) delicious. It was a very simple, classic, diner style burger that tasted like it was cooked on a flat-top…a little crusty from the cook on the outside and still very juicy. The American cheese was simple, perfectly melted. I’d give it a 4 for meat (well cooked, well seasoned, very flavorful), a 5 for bread, a 4 for cheese (American wouldn’t be my first choice but works great here), a 4 for toppings (minimal, which I have decided is pretty ideal because it lets the meat shine through; the house spread was a little bit sweet and a little spicy-delicious), a 5 for structural integrity (i.e. because of the minimal toppings, the burger held together very well and the bread didn’t slide around at all), and a 3.5 for size (a little on the small side, but I really didn’t mind because I didn’t feel bad about eating the whole thing!) . Overall, a 4.25 out of 5. Impressive!

Philip decided to get the famous fried chicken wrap, with the Blue Plate’s famous buttermilk fried chicken, shredded lettuce, diced tomato, mixed cheese, house cheese sauce and all wrapped in a flour tortilla. It was gigantic and had a good balance of ingredients. That fried chicken-wow! It’s delicious. Philip really enjoyed this wrap, which also came with chips.

Since I’ve never really heard anything about Blue Plate’s burger, I didn’t really think of it as a contender for top burger, but I was really amazed by how great the burger was!

The Blue Plate serves really great, high quality food with as much local food as possible. And they don’t have a microwave in the building, which makes me happy.

We really enjoyed our meal and our first opportunity to dine outside in 2015. I’m looking forward to more opportunities like this…and more burgers! By the way, our bill was just under $20 before tip.

The Blue Plate is located at 191 Chestnut Street Unit B, Chattanooga, TN 37402 (across from Ross’s Landing and the Tennessee Aquarium). They are open Tuesday-Friday, 7:30 a.m.-9 p.m. and Saturday-Sunday 8 a.m.-9 p.m. You can call them at 423-648-6767. Check out their website, theblueplate.info and their menu. You can like The Blue Plate on Facebook.

Brewhaus Chattanooga-Revisit

March 9, 2015

Brewhaus Chattanooga is the Chattanooga North Shore’s homage to German pubs. They serve great food and great beer in a relaxed atmosphere.
I’ve blogged about BrewHaus before, back in 2012. We liked it a lot (except for the German potato salad….I did NOT like the German potato salad!). We were out enjoying the sunshine and relative warmth this past weekend, walking the bridge and welcoming Spring-like weather after three weeks of nastiness. Since BrewHaus just reopened last week following the fire in January that shut the restaurant down for several weeks, we decided to drop in and see how things were going.

The restaurant looks great…I don’t know how much the fire affected the seating area as it happened in the kitchen, but everything looks just as it did before. We like to sit on the balcony, so that’s what we did. The menu is relatively unchanged, though I was excited to see fried pickles and cannot remember for the life of me if they were there the last time I went. The fried pickles are chips (woohoo!), lightly breaded and served with a dressing that tasted like horseradish. The fried pickles were nicely seasoned and a little spicy, with the dip adding a little additional spice. They were not greasy at all. Definitely some of the best fried pickles around.

I decided to order the Hamburg cheeseburger with pimento cheese and potato cakes on the side. The burger was nicely griddled and served on a chewy bun with lettuce, tomato, and mayonnaise. I really enjoyed the pimento cheese, which was melted a little on top, though I do think that pimento cheese burgers work better on a soft bun that doesn’t slide around as much. I had to be very careful while eating this burger so that my burger didn’t slide right out from underneath the bun top! All in all, though, a good burger. I really liked the potato cakes. They were a nice break from the usual fries, small patties of potatoes seasoned and fried till golden brown. Delicious.

Philip went for the chicken salad sandwich-chunks of white meat chicken with pecans, dried cherries, and mayonnaise served on toasted white bread. He liked the chicken salad, but he didn’t love the chicken salad. He ordered the spaetzle, German dumplings served in a cream sauce with mushrooms. The spaetzle was very good, creamy and well seasoned. He also had a Chattanooga Brewing Company Chestnut Street brown ale, which he thoroughly enjoyed. As you might expect from a restaurant named BrewHaus, they have a pretty nice beer list, with domestics, imports, and craft beers, and local beers…draughts, bottles, and cans.

While we were there, they were setting up for a parking lot party being held that evening to celebrate their reopening. All proceeds from the party were to go to charity. I overheard our server, David, telling the couple sitting next to us that because the community had been so supportive of them in their time of need, they wanted to give back. Other local restaurants and bars, including The Bitter Alibi, Root Kitchen, Chattanooga Brewing Company, and Mellow Mushroom hosted events benefiting BrewHaus and had the BrewHaus staff take over their establishments so that they could continue to pay their own bills. It’s very encouraging to see the restaurant community take care of each other!

We thoroughly enjoyed our lunch at BrewHaus Chattanooga.

During the day, it’s a nice family-friendly environment. The menu is good, small enough to not be overwhelming but with enough variety that just about anyone can find something to order. I recommend BrewHaus! By the way, our order was about $30 pre-tip.

BrewHaus Chattanooga is located at 224 Frazier Avenue, Chattanooga, Tennessee 37405. You can call them at 423-531-8490. You can visit the BrewHaus website and check out the BrewHaus menu. You can also like BrewHaus on Facebook and follow @BrewHausChatt on Twitter.

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