Restaurants Archives - Page 24 of 49

Mean Mug Coffeehouse (Downtown Chattanooga)

April 12, 2014

Mean Mug Coffeehouse, located on Main Street, serves great sandwiches and desserts (and other food) and delicious coffee and tea-based drinks.

It’s Spring break! It’s Spring break! I am excited to have a week off and I’m very excited that the weather this weekend has been perfect, especially since it’s going to be a little chillier than I like this week (51 degrees is the predicted high temperature on Tuesday). While you might read a comment on here about the Tennessee summer heat, you will never read a complaint. Since it was a wonderful 80 degree day, we were in the mood for something a little on the not-so-heavy-side and since we were headed down to main to pick up eggs and coffee at Enzo’s, we decided to stop in next door at Mean Mug Coffeehouse.

Mean Mug Coffeehouse has been around for a few years but somehow we haven’t made it there yet (which is surprising since they are owned by the same guys that owns The Terminal and Honest Pint, two of our favorite places). We hit it at a good time, around 1:30. There was no one else in line when we walked in and were greeted by a friendly guy who showed us the menu and the special (an Italian breakfast casserole) and talked to us about the pastries and desserts in the case, including a mascarpone brunch parfait with strawberries, layered in a Mason jar, Key lime pie, hummingbird cake, and oatmeal cookie sandwiches (basically oatmeal cream pies). They serve your standard coffee drinks, mostly made with Velo coffee but they are featuring a special “guest” coffee right now by Argo Sons. They have their own Velo blend and you know I had to pick up a bag of that. The atmosphere was nice, with dark wood, varied seating (couches, tables, a counter), and a nice outdoor seating area.

The menu includes breakfast (biscuits, steel-cut oats, house made (!) yogurt), starters (hummus, salads, soup du jour), and sandwiches. Breakfast is served all day and I’d like to try out their biscuits at some point (you know, to see if they measure up to mine) but as soon as I saw the BAT sandwich-bacon, avocado, and tomato-I knew that was what I would order. The sandwiches are served panini-style on white or wheat bread or you can order a wrap. I decided to get it with Brie. Each sandwich comes with a choice of side-chips, cheese grits, fruit, or pasta salad-and I decided on the grits. The sandwich was large but not ridiculously so, nicely grilled, with a perfect balance of bacon, mashed avocado, tomato, and melty Brie. I have never ordered a sandwich with Brie and it’s definitely an unusual cheese offering but it was delicious on this sandwich, which held together much more nicely than many grilled sandwiches that include non-cheese foods. The grits were maybe a little thinner than I’m used to but delicious, very peppery, not super-cheesy.

Philip decided to order the Dijon Frise with turkey, Brie, sliced green apples, sautéed onions, and Dijon mustard. He also opted for wheat bread and cheese grits. The sandwich was great with a great sweet-tart-salty thing going on with the green apples, the turkey, and the Brie. Philip doesn’t like Brie usually, much to my chagrin (I keep trying to fix this, but it isn’t working, you guys. I think it’s the rind….I think they make rindless Brie but I haven’t found it in a store yet.) but he thought that it worked well here. His only suggestion was that it needed more sautéed onions.

When I saw the hummingbird cake in the case I knew that I was going to have to order it. This is a recipe that I’m going to be making here soon…in case you don’t know, hummingbird cake is a traditional Southern cake with mashed bananas, pineapple, pecans, and cinnamon iced with cream cheese frosting. Theirs was amazing, with a perfect banana flavor and just the right amount of icing. Philip also ordered a Chai latte (I forgot to take a picture). It was very good, not overly sweet with a decent amount of spice.

I liked the food here a lot. I’ll admit that I felt about fifteen years too old to be in there, though, since almost every other patron had a laptop and one or more textbooks…but I won’t hold that against them. The food was excellent and I need to go back to try some more of the menu or items from the case and the coffee drinks.

For great coffee or food, why not check out Mean Mug Coffeehouse?

Mean Mug Coffeehouse is located at 114 W. Main Street, Chattanooga, TN 37408. They are open Monday-Thursday, 7 a.m.-5 p.m., and Friday-Saturday 7 a.m.-11 p.m. You can call them at 423-825-4206. You can check out their menu at http://meanmugcoffee.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Menu-1-2014.pdf. You can like Mean Mug on Facebook and follow @MeanMugCoffee on Twitter.

Other restaurants in the area: Enzo’s Market Café, Blue Orleans, Bluegrass Grill, Main Street Meats, and Taqueria Jalisco.

Porkers BBQ (Downtown Chattanooga BBQ)

March 16, 2014

Porkers BBQ is a downtown Chattanooga mainstay. They’ve been around on Market Street since 1989 and are a go-to spot for Chattanooga BBQ.

Philip and I decided fourteen years ago not to celebrate Valentine’s Day, and several years back (I don’t know, at least eight or nine years) we decided not to buy Christmas or birthday gifts either. It just felt forced to us to “have” to buy each other something when we pretty much bought what we wanted anyway. Philip, however, is a master of giving me awesome things for absolutely no reason, like the Vita-Mix he walked in with one afternoon or the Shun slicer he ceremoniously presented to me after I walked in from a trip to Houston without him (because he’d actually been slated to go on a separate trip but got sidelined due to a surgery). I have walked in twice in the last couple of weeks to find a great book in my spot on the couch, purchased on trade from McKay-the Cook’s Illustrated Baking Book for one, and Michael Pollan’s Cooked for the other.

In Cooked, Pollan recounts his experiences learning about cooking with different elements: fire, water, air, and earth. Cooking with fire = smoking meat, and Pollan learns about traditional Carolina barbecue from a famous pit master. Now, I realize that I am not likely to find Carolina-style barbecue in the Chattanooga area (and you better believe that one of these days I’m going to make it to one of the restaurants he mentioned), but that doesn’t mean that it didn’t make me crave some smoked meat. Seeing as how I don’t have a smoker (yet), this meant visiting a restaurant, so we decided to have some barbecue for this weeks review.

Porkers BBQ has been around on Market Street (near the Choo-Choo) since 1989 according to their menu, but I’m going to go ahead and venture a guess that the visit by President George W. Bush in 2007 is their biggest “claim to fame” (honestly, I’m not sure why presidents always eat barbecue when they visit CHA but at least W was taken to a truly local restaurant….Obama was served Sticky Fingers, which I know, I know, has local ties….but it is not a local restaurant). It’s a decent-sized establishment with black and white checkerboard floors and fifties-style booths with shiny vinyl seats. We seated ourselves and a friendly server took our drink orders while we perused the menu.

I decided to break from my usual barbecue restaurant form and order a plate instead of a potato. I really wanted smoked meat and I didn’t want anything to interfere with the flavor. The plates at Porker’s come with fries, baked beans, slaw, and Texas toast. I ordered pulled pork shoulder. The meat comes unsauced and you can sauce it yourself using the regular or hot sauce in the basket on the table. I tasted the sauce but didn’t love it and decided to eat my meat on its own. It had a nice smoke flavor with a decent amount of “bark” (the dark brown pieces from the outside of the smoked meat). I am not a huge fan of traditional barbecue sides like baked beans (beans should be salty, not sweet), slaw, and potato salad, but I did think that the baked beans were pretty good, with a stronger onion flavor than you usually find in baked beans. The dressing on the slaw was yellow so I assumed that it would taste mustardy, but it didn’t. It was pretty good, finely chopped which is how I prefer slaw (not the long shreds like you get in bagged slaw at the store). The fries were crinkle cut, from frozen no doubt, and were pretty much exactly what you’d expect from frozen crinkle cut fries…not bad but not shout-it-from-the-mountaintop awesome either.

Philip decided to get the brisket, which, not surprisingly, was a little drier than the pork but was just as delicious. It was well-seasoned, very tender, and perfectly smoky with lots of dark barky pieces. He liked the slaw and beans also. We ordered a side of fried okra because we always have to sample fried okra at any recipe. I’ll be honest with you, unless okra is breaded the way I make it at home-tossed in cornmeal and maybe a little flour-I always assume it’s frozen. Those little jackets of breading are too suspiciously thick to make me think anything else. It didn’t taste bad but I just wish everyone would just do it themselves. If the okra is fresh, not frozen I apologize…I’d just like to see more homestyle fried okra in restaurants; it’s indeed a difficult thing to find.

Chattanooga barbecue is something I honestly feel indifferent about. While I have strong feelings about who has the best burger, I could never write a top five barbecue list because I honestly like the meats at most of the barbecue restaurants I’ve tried locally, and Porkers BBQ definitely wasn’t any different. The meat was great, the sides okay. I loved the atmosphere and the service was quick and very friendly. They’re conveniently located for a downtown lunch crowd and they have a good menu selection (which includes breakfast, by the way).

I’d definitely go back to Porkers BBQ.

Porkers BBQ is located at 1251 Market Street, Chattanooga, TN 37402. They are open Monday, 7 a.m.-2 p.m., Tuesday-Friday 7 a.m. to 8 p.m., and Saturday 7 a.m.-5 p.m. You can call them at 423-267-2726. They don’t have a website but you can check out Porkers BBQ on Facebook.

Do you have a Chattanooga barbecue favorite? Tell me about it!

Other area restaurants: Meeting Place, Public House, Urban Stack, Blue Orleans, Southern Burger, Tupelo Honey

Vine Street Market (River View)

March 2, 2014

Vine Street Market serves delicious homemade sandwiches, soups, and desserts as well as take and bake entrees. And it’s NOT located on Vine Street!

Quiz: Where is Vine Street Market?

If you said Vine Street, then you are WRONG. Vine Street Market is located on Hanover Street in the Riverview area of Chattanooga (right down the street from the former Greenlife building). I really didn’t have my heart set on any place in particular this weekend and my interest was piqued when a Facebook follower suggested Vine Street Market, adding that they make their own breads, salad dressings, and baked goods. Sounded like my kind of place!

I visited Vine Street Market once when I was a freshman in college (um, that was seventeen years ago. Whoa.), when they actually did have a location on Vine Street (next to the infamous David’s…any UTC alums remember that? I was pretty square in college-some things never change-so I never went, but boy did that place have a reputation!). I laughed when I thought about it because my roommate and her boyfriend were trying to set me up with one of his friends so we all met there for lunch. Pretty sure dude and I did not even make eye contact. The only thing that I remember about the food is that I ordered a sandwich-no idea what kind-and Ruffles. Boy, I was an adventurous eater back then….

Anyway, this location is in a cute little house with a little gravel parking lot. The staff was very friendly and the girl who took our order showed us the specials and got our drinks while we decided. I did something out of character and ordered the “Vine Street Market Famous Mint Tea”, which she told Philip lots of people like to cut with unsweetened tea because it is pretty sweet. It was indeed sweet but I didn’t find it cloying. It had a great flavor but I wouldn’t say it was extremely minty. They also serve their own special cranberry tea that I’d like to try (back before my water-guzzling days I was a big-time sweet tea drinker).

Ordering was a little bit difficult, only because there were so many things that I wanted to try. Since they make their own salad dressings, I kind of wanted to try a salad (they offer a basic tossed salad, a Greek salad, and a chef’s salad with your choice of turkey, ham, or both as well as a chicken or tuna salad plate). They serve daily soup specials, today’s being Brunswick stew, cheesy squash soup, tomato-basil, and chili, and you can build your own sandwich or choose from their specialty sandwiches. You can also do pretty much any combination you want of soups, salads, and sandwiches. They also have daily casserole specials (chicken enchilada and chicken, broccoli, and cheese). The counter was covered with lots of dessert options, including Texas sheet cake, fudgy brownies, lemon squares, and apricot bars.

I was intrigued by the cheesy squash soup…I can honestly say that I’ve never had a soup made from yellow and zucchini squash (and I’m a little mad that I didn’t think of it before visiting here, but you can bet I’ll be making it now!). I decided to get a special they were featuring with a cup of soup and a whole pimento cheese sandwich, which I ordered on honey wheat bread (remember that all of their breads are homemade) with lettuce and tomato. The pimento cheese was thick with cheddar cheese, not drippy with mayonnaise as some pimento cheeses are, and well-seasoned with pepper. The honey wheat bread was sturdy but soft enough that I could bite through the sandwich without squishing the pimento cheese out the sides, and the vegetables were fresh. And the soup? Delicious. It reminded me of a cheesy summer squash casserole made into a soup, with onions, squash, chicken broth, cheddar, and lots of pepper. It was perfectly salted as well, which is a problem I have with a lot of restaurant soups-they are either over- or under salted.

Philip decided to try Brunswick stew-something he’d never had-and a Reuben. I’ve mentioned before that Philip loves Reubens but he’s had a hard time finding a restaurant that serves one he really, really likes these days…but he has to look no further. He took one bite and proclaimed this one the best he’s ever had. Let’s review: the bread and salad dressing are homemade. Pair that with Boar’s Head corned beef and melted Swiss and just the right amount of sauerkraut and grill it up…and you have a perfect Reuben. The Brunswick stew was thick with carrots, potatoes, and mushrooms with shredded beef and chunks of chicken in a smoky broth. Like my soup, it was well-seasoned and very peppery.

We decided to pass up the desserts this time, but I can guarantee you that next time I’ll be trying something…or getting it to take home (by the way, they do catering and take & bake meals). I regret that it took us this long to make it to Vine Street Market. This was definitely one of the best meals we’ve had in a laid-back and friendly atmosphere. A handful of people came in while we were there who were clearly regulars, as the employees called them by name and seemed to know what was going on in their lives.

This is definitely the kind of place you want to come back to…and I can’t wait to go back to Vine Street Market.

Vine Street Market is located at 1313 Hanover Street, Chattanooga, TN 37405. They are open Monday-Friday, 9 a.m.-6 p.m., and Saturday 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. You can call them at 423-266-8463. You can also visit their website, vinestreetmarket.com or like Vine Street Market on Facebook. For their regular menu, click here; you can find the catering menu here.

Also in the Riverview area: Tremont Tavern, The Farmer’s Daughter

Got any restaurant suggestions for me in the greater Chattanooga area (includes Dayton, Cleveland, and North Georgia)? Leave a comment!

OPA Greek Restaurant Chattanooga, TN

February 16, 2014

OPA Greek restaurant, located in Coolidge Park in Chattanooga, serves amazing, homemade Greek food in a tiny, cozy space.

Right before Christmas, one of my friends was inquiring on Facebook as to were she should go for a solo lunch on the North Shore. Another friend (who is also a loyal Chattavore reader) suggested a restaurant I’d never heard of-OPA Greek Restaurant. A few weeks later another reader commented on my page that we needed to visit. Okay, I was all in. We tried to go last week but I literally had a meltdown in the Coolidge Park parking lot because I was trying to finish up studying two semesters’ worth of behavior analysis (thank you Jesus, my exam is scheduled for 2/25) and couldn’t bear the thought of feeling obligated to write anything. I am not proud of that moment. Anyway, we ended up having burgers at Elemental and heading back this week, now that I am done with gigantic binders of class notes and have moved on to flashcards and targeting key concepts. But I digress.

I will admit that I am not exactly a Greek food expert. There are not exactly lots of opportunities in the Chattanooga area to eat authentic Greek food…Acropolis is, well, at Hamilton Place, and the Epicurean, which doesn’t serve exclusively Greek food but does have Greek food on the menu, has tiropitakia I would like to proclaim right now is one of the best things I’ve ever put in my mouth but I haven’t eaten there in some years. Some of my very favorite things are traditional Greek foods, though….feta? Hummus? Pita bread? Spinach prepared in all manners? Heck, I’ve even made peace with olives of late. But obviously I’ve just scratched the surface of Greek cuisine. Still, I wanted to give it a try.

Let me give you a warning. This is the ~~smallest~~ tiniest restaurant I’ve ever set food in. There are two tables-one with six chairs, one with four-and three counters with a total of eight or nine chairs. Once we sat down, the seating in the place was full. Apparently, pretty much everyone had come in all at once and the owner was busy checking on the meat (which they cook outside behind the restaurant), helping in the kitchen, running food, and taking orders. I snagged our stools and Philip waited at the counter to order.

We decided to order some spanakopita (spinach & phyllo pie) as an appetizer ($5.00….they have a meal-sized portion served with a side of roasted potatoes for $9.00). I was tempted to try the appetizer special of tzatziki, hummus, and olive dip, but wanted to try their take on spanakopita. It was light-not super buttery, like some spanakopitas are, perfectly browned, and filled with spinach, leeks, and just a touch of feta, as opposed to being bound together by an excess of feta cheese and other binders like most spanakopitas that you find. Philip thought that it needed more salt, but I thought it was perfectly seasoned.

The entrèe menu contained such items as zucchini pie, moussaka (a layered casserole of sorts consisting of spiced meat, eggplant, and potatoes), and pastichio (basically Greek lazzania, as they have spelled it on their Facebook page, with pasta, béchamel, and ground beef). I seriously considered getting the pastichio and likely will when we go back…another diner had it while we were there and it looked seriously delicious, but decided that it sounded a bit heavy for how I was feeling. I decided instead to order the “Greek Souvlaki”, which contained pork, vegetables (red onion and tomato) and came with a little cup of tzatziki spiked with olive oil and a single kalamata olive, plus a dolmade (stuffed grape leaf) on the side. Unfortunately, they were out of the pork, so I got chicken instead (I have a confession….I have not fallen in love with lamb yet. I am working on this.). The chicken was in huge chunks and the pita bread is handmade. It was the best pita bread I’ve ever eaten….made in large batches and stored into the refrigerator until time to serve then grilled (or however they’re crisping it) until perfectly crunchy. Everything was beautifully seasoned and the tzatziki was wonderful, not watery like my tzatziki always is. And the dolmade? Well, I’ve hated every stuffed grape leaf I’ve ever attempted to eat….but I liked this one. It wasn’t too briny tasting and there was a nice herby freshness to the filling (rice-based).

Philip ordered the gyro, which, if you aren’t familiar, is (please forgive me for this Draconian description) basically like a spiced lamb meatloaf spit-roasted and thinly sliced and served up on pita bread with vegetables and tzatziki, just like mine. Guys….this meat. Goodness. It was delicious and suddenly I forgot that I haven’t learned to love lamb and kind of wished that I’d ordered it too. The spice was amazing and it was cooked just right. So, so good.

For dessert, the menu board said they had baklava and chocolate cake. Let me tell you something about the man I married: there are two menu items that he is unable to refuse: crème brûlée and baklava. While I was washing my hands (that was one messy souvlaki), Philip ordered the baklava. It was unlike any baklava I’ve ever eaten…filled with almonds and pistachios (pretty standard there) and drenched in butter and honey (okay, still standard) but lacking the layers and layers of phyllo that I’ve always recognized as baklava and consisting instead of a topping of phyllo shredded so finely that it resembled shredded wheat and heavily spiced with nutmeg. I love nutmeg. My eyes may or may not have rolled back in my head as I was eating it. Philip declared it the best baklava he’d ever eaten-a dangerous statement since I make baklava…but true because there’s just so much sugar and butter in it and phyllo is just so delicate that I always manage to burn it around the edges, so I let him off on this one (consider the gauntlet thrown down, though). The owner told us that it is made there…they want to elevate the expectation beyond something ordered from a restaurant supplier and stored in the freezer until the day it’s served.

OPA Greek Restaurant strives to purchase as much of their food as possible-meat and produce alike-from local farmers, recognizing that this is best for the local economy as well as for the quality and flavor of the food. Based on my experience today (obviously I can’t speak for every day), it’s not a place to go if you’re in a hurry….but for fantastic, delicious, authentic Greek food at a fair price ($29 pre-tip for an appetizer, a souvlaki, a gyro, and a baklava), this is the place to go. While I didn’t feel that anything that we ate was particularly heavy, I was so full when we left! They offer daily specials and the owner told us that he tries to offer lots of new things to keep the menu interesting.

I for one look forward to going back to OPA Greek restaurant and honing my love of Greek food.

OPA Greek Restaurant is located at 249 River Street, Chattanooga, TN (in Coolidge Park, behind North Chatt Cat). You can call them at 423-305-0038. While their Facebook page states that they are open from 11-5 daily, I heard the owner tell another diner that they were open until 7:00, so I am not sure if that is daily or just on the weekend. They do not have a website but you can follow OPA Greek restaurant on Facebook.

Other Restaurants in the North Shore/Frazier Avenue/Cherokee Boulevard Area: River Street Deli, Totto Sushi & Grill, Good Dog, Brewhaus, Hill City Pizza, Terra Nostra Tapas & Wine, Julie Darling Donuts, Poblanos, Marco’s Italian Bistro, Milk & Honey, Taco Mamacita (vegan menu available), Tubby’s, Sluggo’s North Vegetarian Café, Foodworks, Elemental, ChatO Brasserie

The Farmer’s Daughter (CLOSED)

January 19, 2014

The Farmer’s Daughter, formerly located in River View near Downtown Chattanooga, is now closed. The Daily Ration, run by the owners of The Bitter Alibi, has moved in to take its place.

Seemingly ages ago (I think it was about 2 years in actuality), it was announced that Ann Keener, literally the farmer’s daughter (her parents farm at Sequatchie Cove) and her husband would be opening a restaurant at the former Exxon station at the corner of Hixson Pike and Tremont, across from the old Greenlife building and next door to Tremont Tavern. It seemed to take forever, but this past October, the Farmer’s Daughter finally opened for business. Much to my chagrin, their hours are 7-2 (which bugs me only because my opportunities to go anywhere during those hours are extremely limited). Philip and I have been meaning to go since they opened, but every Saturday we seem to think about it at about 1:40, and I hate being the person that goes into any sort of establishment right before they close. I think it comes from my days of working at Chuck E. Cheese’s as a teenager, when people would actually walk in the doors literally when the manager was locking the door for the night and they would inevitably stay for at least two hours (corporate policy prevented us from asking them to leave…but who keeps their kids out that late?!?!?! And I was a kid too, with homework to do and tests to pass!).

Anyway, I’m not here to vent about all those hours of lost teenage sleep. Someone asked us last week if we’d been to The Farmer’s Daughter yet and we decided that we must purpose to go there this weekend. So, we woke up super-early (6:40) in the morning on Saturday (actually, that wasn’t by choice, it just happened) and didn’t eat breakfast, which was really not a good decision because I was pretty much hollow by the time we got there at about 10:20. The parking lot wasn’t super-crowded, and even though there was a short wait (as in about five minutes) for a table, the spacious atmosphere kept feelings of being cramped at bay.

Before I go any farther, let me mention that The Farmer’s Daughter is also home of Chattanooga’s newest coffee bar, Copacetic Coffee. Copacetic is operated by my very, very favorite coffee purveyors, Velo Coffee Roasters. They have a walk-up bar right when you walk in the door in case you want something to sip while you wait or if you just want to slip in for a coffee (and maybe some baked goods, too….there were butternut cinnamon rolls, muffins, and peanut butter cookies on the counter). A limited menu of coffee drinks featuring Velo roasted coffee and Cruze Dairy Farm milk promises nothing but perfection, but unfortunately there was no decaf available. Philip, sadly, can no longer have caffeine, and since I was not going to drink delicious Velo in front of him, we just had water. Velo decaf, by the way, blows the others out of the water.

The menu at The Farmer’s Daughter is pretty tiny, which, if you have read my blog much, you know I find to actually be a strength in a restaurant. The more items on the menu, the less time you have to focus on making sure that each item is perfect. They feature almost exclusively locally-produced foods, including Link 41 bacon (more on this in a minute), other pork products as well as cheese from Sequatchie Cove Farm, grits from Riverview Farms, and Gregg’s Eggs. Until 10:30, they serve breakfast, then at 10:30 they switch to brunch (on Saturday) or lunch during the week. We got there at 10:20 so we were at that perfect nexus in time where we could order off of either menu, and while the breakfast quiche with kale, mushrooms, and cheese sounded stunning, we both ended up ordering off of the brunch menu.

Now, there was a pimento cheese sandwich (served with a choice of side) that naturally appealed to me, since pimento cheese is one of my obsessions. I also briefly considered the power salad, which with quinoa, french lentils, roasted roots or pumpkin, marinated veggies, pumpkin and sunflower seeds, shaved parmesan, and lemon-miso dressing sounded amazing, I was in a breakfasty mood. So….I turned my attention to deciding between grits and greens-a bowl of Riverview Farm grits with Cumberland cheese, topped with Crabtree Farm collards slow cooked with Link 41 cured bacon, and topped with a farm egg-or Mike’s potatoes-3 potato hashbrowns, served with housemade applesauce, organic sour cream, fried Sequatchie Cove ham, and an egg. Haley, our server, told me that while the grits were great, the hash browns were pretty much fantastic and that would be her recommendation…so I got them. She did not lie. They were excellent, cooked to crispy perfection with just the right amount of salt and not too much grease. The ham was wonderfully salty and delicious, and the egg was very nice too, though I was expecting (and hoping for) fried. I loved the accompanying applesauce and sour cream, which made me feel like I was eating latkes. The only thing that could have made this better is a biscuit!

Philip was a little bit upset by the lack of bacon on the menu. If you’ll notice, I mentioned it above in the grits & greens, but that’s the only menu item featuring the Link 41 bacon. An off-duty employee was dining at the table next to us and told him that it has a lot to do with the sheer volume of requests for Link 41 bacon that would inevitably come if it was a regular menu item. We don’t want Link 41 to run out of bacon! This meant that he had to settle (I say that sarcastically) for the breakfast sausage, which was a thick, well-cooked, perfectly seasoned patty alongside his blueberry cornmeal pancakes, which he had with house made vanilla syrup and sorghum plus a sunny-side up egg (for an extra charge). The pancakes were deliciously light and fluffy, though for some reason only the top pancake in the stack of three had blueberries. He wasn’t too put off by that since he really only ordered those over the regular buttermilk pancakes since they came with the sausage. The vanilla syrup was good but he really loved the sorghum, though nothing could ever replace good old maple syrup.

Our bill was a little under $20 pre-tip….not a discount brunch but definitely not expensive considering the high-quality local food that we were served. Our server, Haley, was wonderful-attentive, friendly, and a little bit sarcastic in a good way (but only after we were a little sarcastic with her in jest)-we like that in a server. The atmosphere is bright, the decor beautiful because of its simplicity….and the food the same-beautiful because of its simplicity. We were impressed.

The Farmer’s Daughter is located at 1211 Hixson Pike, Hixson, TN 37405. They are open from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m., Tuesday through Sunday. You can call them at 423-355-5372. You can find The Farmer’s Daughter on Facebook or check out their website, thefarmersdaughterchattanooga.com.

Also in the Riverview area: Tremont Tavern (AKA Chattavore’s current top burger)

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