Restaurants Archives - Page 34 of 49

Terra Mae Bistro-Chef’s Table Premier, 12.12.12

December 14, 2012

A few weeks ago I was followed on Twitter by an upcoming local restaurant, Terra Mae, located at Stone Fort Inn, a bed and breakfast on East 10th Street. I need to make an effort to go to Stone Fort for breakfast one of these days, but I haven’t quite yet. Anyway…back to Terra Mae. I was invited to their Chef’s Table Premier, which was a nine-dish sampler lunch served on the day of their opening.

Upon entering the first thing that you notice is how beautiful the restaurant is; it has been completely remodeled and they did a wonderful job. The lights on the ceiling and the wall of wines in the bar line your walk to the dining area, where beautiful light pours in the large windows. Gorgeous glass vases and bright flower arrangements alternately adorned tables, and the tiny salt and pepper shakers made me smile.

They call themselves an “Appalachian Bistro” and specialize in locally sourced (indigenous is the word that Troy, the general manager used) foods. If you are a regular Chattavore reader, you probably recognize names like Link 41, Crabtree Farms, and Circle S Farm-some of my favorite farmers market vendors. Those are just a few of the names on the Terra Mae menu. Chef Robert Stockwell specializes in a unique twist on Southern cooking as well as “deconstructing” dishes (instead of my trying to explain that here….see the chicken & dumplings below). He and his crew could be seen preparing our meals in the open kitchen (unfortunately, I didn’t catch Chef Robert in this photo).

Almost immediately after being seated, guests were presented with an amuse-bouche (literally “mouth teaser” or a bite-sized hors d’oeuvre) of cucumber, lemon aioli, smoked salmon, and a sunflower shoot (boy, I love sunflower shoots!). I didn’t really consider myself a smoked salmon fan prior to this…but perhaps I’ve eaten the wrong smoked salmon in the past? This was delicious, all the way around. And beautiful to boot.

After the amuse-bouche each guest was served the house salad, Lee and Gordon greens with Crabtree tomatoes, spicy candied walnuts, blue cheese, julienned beets (don’t they look like red tortilla strips?) and chardonnay vinaigrette. I loved the tang of the blue cheese (it was so tangy it burned my tongue a little!) with the cool tomato and the spicy (yes, they were spicy!) walnuts. Next came the appetizers (all dishes from here on were served to be shared among three or four diners) starting with smoked stuffed scallop-scallops stuffed with Link 41 andouille sausage, wrapped in prosciutto, and served with sunflower shoots and red pepper coulis. I didn’t think that I liked sausage, but I guess it should be no surprise that Link 41 proved me wrong. This was a delicious combination. Truffle-infused roasted beets came next, served with smoked feta. If you think you don’t like beets, you should at least give roasted beets a try if you haven’t already…they changed my mind for sure. Served with feta cheese, they were perfect. Finally, we were served a port-wine marinated foie gras torchon (which is foie cooked molded in cheesecloth as opposed to a terrine mold), served with poached pears and a brioche slice. Now, I am pretty sure that I have discussed this here before…I am not much for organ meats, and, while my husband loves foie gras (fattened goose liver, if you didn’t know) I have never been able to bring myself to try (I’m baring my picky-eater soul here) but I did taste it. I didn’t hate it, but I do think it is probably an acquired taste, though the seasoned foie gras eaters around me seemed pretty excited, so it must have been pretty tasty. The pears were absolutely delicious.

It probably won’t surprise you to hear that I got pretty excited about what we were served next: a Kobe burger served on a brioche bun with Sequatchie Cove farmstead cheese, housemade jowl bacon, mushroom pesto, housemade pickles, and Lee and Gordon lettuce with triple-fried parmesan fries. Forgive me for being so unsophisticated as to get all gaga over being served a burger, but you know that I am a burger girl. This one was quite delicious, the beef cooked just right, the bun a little crisp around the edges, the pickles lending just the right amount of sour, and the parmesan fries (so thick that I find it to be a minor miracle that they were not only cooked through, they were soft and fluffy inside) a crisp, cheesy, and perfectly salty accompaniment.

Next was roasted kingfish (black from a dousing of squid ink) served over poached wild mushrooms, spinach puree, and mussel cream with sorrel. I don’t think that I have ever had kingfish before, and I found this to be a wonderful texture, cooked just right, and not overly fishy. Mushrooms are one of those foods that gets me all excited, and these were amazing swiped through the mussel cream (by the way, the flowers are edible).

Next, the chicken and dumplings, deconstructed: chicken, cooked sous-vide (vacuum sealed and cooked in a water bath) and sliced, served alongside large, round “dumplings” with asparagus, tiny diced squash, chard, and a sauce. The chicken was amazingly tender (as sous-vide meats tend to be) and seasoned perfectly. The dumplings had a great flavor but I’m not going to lie….I’m just all about the traditional Southern flat dumpling. The asparagus and chard were perfectly cooked.

Finally, dessert consisted of a sampling of everything on the dessert menu (pictured clockwise from left): a deconstructed lemon meringue pie, a flourless chocolate cake, caramelized honey panna cotta (usually served with pistachio sponge cake), and white chocolate bread pudding. The chocolate cake and the bread pudding were perfectly lovely but what I think of as “the usual suspects”-easy to find on a dessert menu. The lemon meringue pie was sooooo lemony, and if you live in my world, that is a very good thing. I love all things lemon, and this little sliver was no exception. My favorite, though, was the panna cotta. Shut your mouth. This honey-infused creamy little gem made me want to grab the plate and fight off my fellow sharers with my fork…but I didn’t. It was amazing. Coffee was served as well, and while I didn’t take any (though I wished that I had as I fought off the after-lunch energy drain!), I took a photo of the beautiful mug being enjoyed by the diner to my right.

Terra Mae officially opened for business on Wednesday night, 12.12.12. They have a unique menu, offering several items that you will not likely find in other area restaurants, and executed it very well. The staff is open to suggestions and want their menu to reflect the sorts of things that local want to eat-after all, what good is local food if you aren’t making it the way the locals want it? I wish them all the success in the world and can’t wait to return for dinner with Philip one day soon!

Terra Mae Bistro is located at 120A East 10th Street, Chattanooga, TN 37402. They are open Wednesday-Saturday, 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. You can call them at 423-267-7866. Check out their website, www.terramae.org. You can also like them on Facebook and follow them on Twitter (@TerraMaeBistro).

Meo Mio’s-December 8, 2012 CLOSED

December 9, 2012

Back in the summer, Philip played a songwriter’s night arranged by the Chattanooga Songwriter’s Association at a Cajun restaurant in Tiftonia of which we had never heard. The name of the restaurant was Meo Mio’s, and we had no clue how to pronounce it. Turns out it’s MEEE-oh MY-oh’s. Easy enough. Anyway, I stayed home for some reason and Philip didn’t eat, so we decided we’d make a trip back to try the food at some point. A soon-to-expire Groupon and a desire to stay away from downtown Chattanooga while Christmas-parade-preparations were happening provided the perfect excuse.

The restaurant was pretty much dead so we were seated immediately. Our server, Destiny, took our drink orders quickly then came back to see if we were ready to order. We weren’t. It took a few minutes to decide, since neither of us is what one would call a connoisseur of Cajun food. Philip, who sampled some excellent Cajun cooking on a trip to Louisiana last spring (I was not with him), wanted to try the fried gator bites-he loved the gator that he tried in Baton Rouge-but they were out. Apparently gator can be hard to come by; to be fair, the menu does warn that gator bites are subject to availability.

After considering a fried oyster po’boy (I’ve been wanting to try fried oysters, you know, just to branch out a little), I decided that an entire sandwich was too big of a leap and I should just go with a fried shrimp po’boy-fried shrimp, shredded lettuce, tomato, and Cajun mayonnaise (yes, otherwise known as remoulade….perhaps they think Tennesseans wouldn’t know what to make of that word?) on a wheat hoagie roll. The sandwich comes with chips but Destiny suggested the beer-battered onion rings. They also serve beer-battered fries but were out of them…the fact that they were out made me suspect that the fries and onion rings are frozen. The onion rings were pretty good, though. The sandwich was gigantic; the hoagie roll was more like a footlong hotdog bun. Because the bread was so narrow, when I closed it up everything fell out. It tasted pretty good but I would prefer a homemade roll-to me, the bread is the essence (to get really cliché) of a sandwich.

Philip considered the boudin, a Cajun sausage made with pork, rice, and Cajun spices, served with corn on the cob, slaw, and red potatoes…but he talked himself out of it and instead decided to go for rosemary shrimp parmesan, which the menu said was served with a side salad and a rosemary breadstick. Philip ordered the salad with raspberry vinaigrette. I have mentioned before that I have a tendency to judge restaurants based on their house salad, and this house salad was blah….some iceberg and romaine with a few shreds of arugula, some cheddar, and a couple of slices of cucumber, tomato, and onion, topped with boxed croutons. It was fairly fresh and the salad itself didn’t taste bad but Philip hated the vinaigrette, which was too much on the acidic/vinegary side and not enough on the sweet/raspberry-y side. Bottled, I feel sure (sigh. I wish more restaurants would make their own dressings. It’s so easy!).

The pasta was basically a creamy parmesan sauce served over fettucine topped with Cajun spiced shrimp. They did not bring Philip a breadstick and he didn’t think to ask about it. He liked the shrimp; it was well-cooked and well-seasoned. The sauced pasta was so-so….the cream sauce itself did not have a bad flavor but it needed salt/seasoning. Philip would have preferred the sauce if it had been spiced with the Cajun seasoning as well. I am not sure where the rosemary came in as we didn’t taste it on the shrimp or in the pasta.

When time for dessert came, we ordered some beignets, tossed in powdered sugar and served with Nutella. We were pretty excited about them…but they were out. If another reviewer on Urbanspoon is correct and the beignets are fried baguette slices and not raised the traditional yeast-raised doughnut strips, that’s okay. Destiny explained that they only had Bourbon balls and cheesecake and that everything else (New Orleans style bread pudding, beignets, chocolate cake) was being made at that time. We decided to order the Bourbon balls, which were made to order-a cook came out of the kitchen and went behind the bar and we heard him say something to the manager (or owner?) about needing something for an order of Bourbon balls. They were made of chopped pecans, sweet wafers, syrup, and rum, mixed together and formed into balls, topped with Nutella. They were quite tasty but not quite as strong as Destiny made them out to be (I’m not really complaining!).

Honestly, I’ve never had “authentic” Cajun food, so I’m not one to really judge the authenticity of the food. I do have a little bit of a suspicion of casual restaurants that serve seafood in a landlocked state. They have a pretty good selection of items that I recognize as traditional Cajun foods (besides the boudin, they also have red beans and rice, jambalaya, gumbo, crawfish, and several seafood selections). The food wasn’t bad but it wasn’t jump up and down good either. Apparently lunchtime on Saturday is not the ideal time to visit, as they seemed to be out of lots of things. I suspect that this is a restaurant that is at its best at busy times (when the staff is on their toes and menu items are available) and would suggest that if you want to try it you go at night.

Meo Mio’s is located at 4119 Cummings Highway, Chattanooga, TN. You can call them at 423-521-7160. You can also check out their website, http://www.meomios.com,

Panda Chinese Restaurant-November 29, 2012

December 2, 2012

So, I had to get my local restaurant dining out of the way early this week. Last night was the Ladies’ Christmas Dinner at my church so I knew there was no way I was eating out for lunch without having to do the rubber band trick on my pants by the end of the night (it works for non-pregnant ladies too, my friends). I decorated a table, ate some delicious brisket, and may or may not have donned a hood that made me look like a sheep, black paint on my nose, and a graduation robe as a judge in the Sheeple’s Court. But I digress.

My table….

Since it was a weeknight, there was no way we were going out of Hixson for dinner. That’s just not how we do it. We are homebodies for real, guys. We flipped through our ever-shortening list of Hixson/Soddy-Daisy choices till we landed on Panda Chinese Restaurant, across from Abba’s House and next to Sick Boys Ink (our tattoo shop of choice. I’m not kidding.). It’s not the national chain Panda Express, by the way. Panda Chinese has been around forever with its Chinese food & frozen yogurt sign, but somehow neither of us has never eaten there.

We were greeted by a very friendly lady who seated us, gave us menus, and took our drink orders. She was minding the entire dining room as well as the cash register and balanced it all pretty well. There were several other tables occupied but I definitely wouldn’t call it “crowded”. Several people came in to pick up to-go orders while we were there as well. Anyway…she delivered our waters along with plates, silverware, folded napkins, and a bowl of fried wonton strips. Help me. I could eat nothing but fried wonton strips as my meal, so I was happy. What is it about this crispy little puffy fried strips of dough? They aren’t salty or sweet or anything like that but man are they delish. Love.

As is the protocol in Chinese restaurants, the menu was gigantic. We briefly considered one of the “family meals” which included soup, eggrolls, rice (fried or steamed), and two entrees to be shared, but the entree selections were limited (sweet & sour pork and garlic chicken OR beef & broccoli and shrimp with lobster sauce) and didn’t necessarily include the things that we would have chosen to order otherwise. Instead we ordered off the menu, taking no less than ten minutes to decide what to order. We skipped the soup but each ordered an eggroll, holding our breath until I cut mine in half to see if it contained pink meat, which frightens me. Beyond belief. No pink meat, just normal-colored ground pork, cabbage, and pepper fried up in an eggroll wrapper. Simple and delicious as an eggroll should be.

I decided on the cashew beef, which drew me in with the promise of mushrooms, water chestnuts, and cashews all on one plate. Sounds good to me. The meat was thinly sliced and tender, the vegetables nicely cooked. The sauce had a gravy-like consistency and didn’t taste too salty, though I will address the seasoning in a minute. The fried rice was rather plain, just some long-grain rice fried up with some egg (no carrots, peas, etc.), but tasted pretty good. It was a huge portion so I had the leftovers for lunch on Friday and really liked it better the second time around, especially since I mixed the rice into the beef mixture instead of eating it on the side.

Philip got the sweet and sour chicken since he judges Chinese restaurants on how well they do this dish. The sauce was not as thick and corn-syrupy looking as sweet and sour sauce often is, and he didn’t think it was as sweet as what is usually served in most Chinese joints. The chicken was nicely fried, the breading not as thick and doughy as you might expect, and the vegetables crisp-tender. He really liked it, although of course anything fried is rarely better the second time around.

All in all, I would say that Panda is a pretty good Thursday night Chinese experience (by the way, the total for our meal was $21.85). I’d love to try a real authentic Chinese restaurant, though, because, let’s face it, the food that we recognize at Chinese food in no way resembles what people in China actually eat, or even what the people who own/work at these restaurants cook for themselves. Perhaps I should just go in one day and ask them to cook me what they’d consider “authentic”? Anyway, back to the seasoning issue…while I didn’t think that the food tasted overly salty, I am fairly certain there was MSG in it. You can argue with me all day long that MSG has no adverse effects, and I know that there are many who believe that and that science is rather inconclusive regarding adverse effects from MSG….but I know how my body reacts and I definitely had some bloating. I liked the flavor of the food here enough to go back, for sure….but next time I’ll ask for it without MSG.

Panda Chinese Restaurant is located at 5137 Hixson Pike, Hixson, TN 37343. You can call them at 423-870-9563.

Sugar’s Ribs (Downtown Location)-November 24, 2012

November 24, 2012

November 24…Small Business Saturday. Of course, Chattanooga small businesses are concentrated in the downtown area. We headed down there to meet one of the owners of Dish T’Pass Cooking School and Catering Co. (more info coming soon!) and check out some things at Mia Cucina. Downtown Chattanooga is chock-full of great restaurants…we decided to hit up Sugar’s on Broad Street today.

There were not a ton of people in for lunch when we were there. Our server was with us quickly with a carafe of water for the table. She suggested some queso and tomatillo salsa as an appetizer, which we were more than happy to order. The white cheese queso dip was delicious, thick and creamy and with just a tiny bit of salsa stirred in. We were wondering if the recipe was the same as the Boat House, which is owned by the same group as Sugar’s….we really liked their’s too. The roasted tomatillo salsa was also wonderful, not too spicy and salted just right. You know I’m a stickler for just the right amount of salt. The chips were thick and hot and also salted just right.

All of the menu items at Sugar’s are served a la carte, with meat selections of smoked butt, smoked chicken, smoked brisket, BBQ legs, and hot legs. There was also fajita BBQ that I think was pork but I can’t remember for sure….it isn’t listed on the menu online. They serve regular-sized and mini sandwiches, tacos, and “servings” of meat served with a cornbread muffin. I decided on a pulled pork taco (with cabbage, radishes, cilantro, queso fresco, and grilled sweet onion with a side of tomatillo salsa and margarita sauce, which was creamy, lime-y, and avocado-y) and a mini brisket sandwich, just brisket on a dry slider bun. There are six sauces on each table and the meat is not sauced prior to serving. I found that the pork and the brisket both had a healthy smoke flavor and were deliciously moist. Neither needed the sauce for flavor but I did add just a little bit of sauce to the taco and dipped my mini sandwich in a little bit of sauce. My favorite sauce was the Tennessee Sweet & Gloppy (though I also liked the mustard sauce). I also ordered the grilled okra, which, if you are like me and you are turned off by the slime that is often present in non-fried okra, you might be a little frightened of…but you shouldn’t be. It’s delicious, smoky, and not slimy at all.

Philip decided on the serving of brisket with vinegar slaw. The chunk of brisket was huge and tender and, again, perfectly smoky. Philip tried it with a couple of different sauces before declaring that, while he liked them both, he really thought that the meat stood alone without the sauce. In my opinion, smoked meat that doesn’t need sauce is the hallmark of great barbecue. The slaw was just plain chopped cabbage with a sweet vinegar dressing and Philip loved it, even declaring that he liked it better than Rib and Loin’s, which is really saying something…although, to be fair, theirs is mayo-based and Philip didn’t try their mayo-based slaw. The cornbread muffin was average, not really anything to write home about but not bad….definitely the only mediocre part of this experience.

Sugar’s also offers a salad, flatbreads (like pizzas), and a variety of desserts, like banana pudding and several pies, though we were way too full to sample any of them. They have an interesting atmosphere, darkly lit with a wall of records and a mural of musical icons. There was also a disco ball that a nearby toddler kept pointing out to her mother (“Ball! Look, ball!”) which we found hysterical. Our server was very friendly and helpful. We really enjoyed this Sugar’s experience and declared that it was one of our favorite (if not the favorite) barbecue places in Chattanooga. As I type this on Saturday evening, I can still faintly smell the smoke in my hair. That’s some good smoked meat!

Sugar’s Ribs is located at 507 Broad Street, Chattanooga, TN 37402 (as well as the original location at 2450 15th Avenue, Chattanooga, TN 37404. You can call the downtown location at 423-508-8956 and the “Ridge Cut” location at 423-826-1199. Check out their website, http://sugarsribs.com. You can also like them on Facebook and follow them on Twitter.

Dub’s Place-November 10, 2012

November 11, 2012

How long have you lived in Chattanooga? Chances are if you’ve lived here very long at all, and have done any amount of driving in the Red Bank area, you’ve noticed Dub’s Place on Dayton Boulevard. It’s been there forever; since 1952, to be exact. Prior to yesterday, I had been there once in my life….I was probably about ten. I remember that they served ice cream and not much else. And that they always closed in the winter.

I recall last winter driving by, noticing that they were open, and thinking, “Huh. That’s weird.” Then I didn’t really think much more about it until my sister-in-law sent me a text that I needed to check it out and that they had a new owner. Dub’s was on my “list”, but since I thought they served ice cream confections with any other food being an afterthought and therefore likely substandard, we hadn’t visited yet. Now that I knew they had a real menu, though, we decided to check it out Saturday when I was craving a burger (it happens every couple of weeks. I can’t help it.).

We were a little confused when we got there. A hoard of people happened to be wandering up to the door from a nearby neighborhood when we pulled in to the parking lot, but the doors were locked and the “closed” sign was up. Jordan, the owner (or “captain”, as he calls himself) unlocked the door and explained that, while their posted opening time is 11:00 a.m., they pretty much open when people start showing up, which is usually around noon. We went in and started checking out the menu, which contained just a few food items: burgers, hot dogs, a few sandwiches (blt, pimento cheese, etc.), fries and a few other sides, and barbecue, which is not officially on the printed menu yet but which Jordan has recently added to the full-time menu…he smokes his own Boston butts (pork shoulder) and makes his own sauce. He gave us a cup to bring home so we could try it out (after we went on and on about how much we love smoked meat and homemade sauce) and it really is delicious. The meat is smoked till it has a little bit of a crust on the outside (heaven help me) and the inside is perfectly tender then chopped fine and sauced with Jordan’s homemade sauce, which starts with a North Carolina-style vinegar base to which he adds some tomatoey thickness and sweetness to satisfy Tennessee tastebuds. The sauce has a spicy zing that hits you in the back of the throat and lingers just a little without being overwhelming. Very tasty.

Since we went there specifically to satisfy my burger craving, I ordered a 1/2 pound patty burger with cheese, lettuce, tomato, mayo, and spicy mayo. If I’d noticed that relish was on the topping menu I would have thrown some of that on there too (I know it’s usually a hot dog topping but it is GREAT on burgers!), hand-cut fries (yippee!) and lemonade. Kookie, who, well, does the cooking, delivered it to me maybe ten minutes after we ordered. Um, wow. This is a gigantic burger, obviously hand-patted, and you can see the seasoning on the outside of it. The toppings were very fresh, not wilty or mushy, and the burger was perfectly cooked. Delicious. The fries were indeed hand-cut, which is obvious by the enormity of some of them. In the kitchen, uniformity can sometimes be a sign that food is prepackaged. This food is not. These were fantastic.

When I asked Jordan what a crumble burger was, his response was, “You aren’t from Red Bank, are you?” Indeed I am not….I am from Soddy-Daisy and our high school football teams have a legendary rivalry. Thank you very much (my team = not doing so well these days, but when I was in high school….well, those were the glory days, I tell you!). Anyway, like I said before, I’ve only been to Dub’s once in the past, so no, I didn’t know what a crumble burger was, but apparently it’s been around since the advent of Dub’s place in 1952. Jordan began describing what I know as a “loose-meat” sandwich (referred to as a Maid-Rite in some parts of the country) with crumbled ground beef, onions, pickle, and mustard on a bun. Jordan described it as tasting like a Krystal; I might blow some of my foodie cred here but Philip and I love Krystals (hey, I’m a die-hard Chattanoogan!). Philip decided to order a large one, with cheese, which Jordan assured him would help hold the sandwich together, plus fries and a chocolate malt (which can be added to the combo for an additional charge). It came just as Jordan described and indeed tasted a lot like a Krystal. A little greasy was Philip’s only negative comment, but I suspect that if the meat was drained too much then it would be really crumbly, too crumbly. It was well-seasoned and delicious, though. He liked the malt a lot too…he would have liked a little more malt powder (we like our malts to be über-malty, almost bittersweet) but loved that it was well-mixed; there are only two other places in town that know how to mix a malt.

In addition to the hamburger shop offerings, Dub’s has a traditional ice cream shop menu that includes an extensive listing of shake flavors (including the usual chocolate, strawberry, and vanilla, plus more unusual flavors like watermelon and mango. There are sixteen flavors in all.) and fifteen sundae toppings. They also offer soft serve in a cup or a cone….plus chocolate or cherry dips (kind of like Magic Shell). The DQs around here only do chocolate dips but a friend took me once to the DQ in Lenoir City and they did cherry dips. Yum. (That DQ is no longer there, by the way). Next time I go I’m going to have to try the orange creamsicle, because creamsicles were truly my childhood obsession.

We had a conversation with Jordan as we finished our lunch. He told us about his goal to really make Dub’s stand out for its customer service….he wants people to remember the friendliness of the staff as well as the excellence of the food. He shares my philosophy on what restaurant menus should be: small and well-executed. He really did take the time to make friendly conversation with every customer that walked in the door, and there were actually quite a few while we were there-most of whom appeared to be regulars. With the great, fresh menu items that they are offering, Dub’s is sure to gain some more regulars!

Dub’s Place is located at 4408 Dayton Boulevard, Red Bank, TN 37415. You can call them at 423-875-3151. You can email Jordan at DubsPlace1952@comcast.net and like them on Facebook. They are closed on Monday and open 11-9 Tuesday-Thursday, 11-10 or 11 on Friday and Saturday, and 1-9 on Sunday. They are OPEN ALL WINTER (besides about 2 weeks at Christmas-everyone needs a vacation!).

« Previous Page