Bakeries & Coffee Shops Archives

2 Sons Kitchen

November 22, 2017

2 Sons Kitchen and Market, owned by Chef Nathan Flynt of Famous Nater’s food truck fame, serves breakfast, lunch, and dinner in Downtown Chattanooga.

I’ve been meaning to get down to Nathan Flynt’s (of Famous Nater’s fame) new restaurant ever since it opened earlier this year. We don’t get out much, at least not during the week. When 2 Sons Kitchen first opened they were not open late on Saturdays, which meant that we weren’t going to make it since Philip was working every Saturday morning.

Ironically, they are now open later in the afternoon and evening on Saturday but I actually visited for brunch. Becky from A Calculated Whisk and I like to meet for coffee or lunch or dinner or whatever excuse we can make to get together from time to time, so we decided to do some brunching at 2 Sons Kitchen. By the way, breakfast/brunch is served until 10:30 a.m. on weekdays but until 3 p.m. on Saturdays.

When you enter 2 Sons Kitchen, you grab a menu off of the counter (specials are listed on a blackboard on the wall as well) and order from a cashier. You are given a number, you choose a table, and your food is brought to your table.

The promise of a homemade biscuit is really all I need to be happy, and if there is chicken on it, even better. I didn’t even have to think about my order of a fried chicken biscuit ($4) with a hash brown ($2) on the side, plus a coffee ($2.50 because I wanted a lot of coffee). Unfortunately, the cashier misheard my order of “chicken biscuit” for “bacon biscuit” so that’s what came out at first, but the mistake was quickly corrected and I got my oversized fried chicken biscuit with a drizzle of hot sauce and housemade pickles. The pickles and the fried chicken batter were both just a little spicy, and paired with the hot sauce it made for a pretty spicy biscuit sandwich (I would have actually preferred for the hot sauce to be served on the side as indicated on the menu, but it was still delicious). Nathan cuts his biscuits with a knife instead of cutting them with biscuit cutters, which results in having to work the dough less and therefore a more tender biscuit (this is the trick I use, too). The biscuit was pretty perfect – flaky and tender…I consider myself an expert biscuit maker and I was definitely impressed. The hash brown was incredibly brown and crispy, well seasoned, and SO good. I could have eaten nothing but hash browns.

Becky went for the quiche of the day ($6.50), which was listed as a wild mushroom quiche but turned out to be a kale and cheese quiche. Since there were greens in the quiche, she subbed hash browns for the mixed greens with lemon vinaigrette. She said that the quiche was very tasty but she did feel that it could have been just a little bit warmer, and while she liked the greens in the quiche she was disappointed that they didn’t have the wild mushroom quiche. She too really liked the crispy hash brown.

The service at 2 Sons Kitchen was great; all of the employees that we encountered were very friendly. The atmosphere was great – very clean, bright, and modern. The only issue was with my biscuit and that was quickly addressed. The prices were very good – the total for my biscuit, a hash brown, a 16-ounce coffee, and the quiche + side was $16.39 + tax. I definitely recommend 2 Sons Kitchen for breakfast, and knowing Nathan’s cooking, I’m going to take bet that it’s a great place for lunch or dinner as well.

2 Sons Kitchen and Market is located at 422 E. MLK Boulevard, Chattanooga, Tennessee, 37403. They are open Monday – Wednesday, 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. and Thursday – Saturday, 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. Breakfast is served until 10:30 a.m. daily except on Saturdays, when it is served until 3 p.m. You can call 2 Sons Kitchen at 423-661-8709. For more information, you can check out their website, www.2sonskitchen.com. You can also follow 2 Sons Kitchen on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Dutch Maid Bakery & Café (CLOSED)

July 6, 2014

Dutch Maid Bakery & Café at Chatt-R-Bug is no longer in operation, but has been replaced by Twins Bakery & Cafe. I haven’t been yet, but you can check out Lisa Denton’s review from the Chattanooga Times Free Press.

Philip and I like to go “the back way”. Actually, I’ve always preferred highways and generally take the way that’s the fastest when driving alone. Philip, on the other hand, prefers to avoid traffic as much as possible so he will sacrifice time for a back way most of the time. I’ve adopted a few of these back ways as my usual routes. One of those out of the way routes is the back way to Target in Hixson, crossing the railroad track on Old Hixson Pike (then back down behind the Hixson ballfields…but you don’t really care about that). If you turn onto Wilbanks Road just past the tracks, you’ll see a cute little store named Chatt-R-Bug. I still haven’t been in the store, but noticed recently that there were signs for “Dutch Maid Bakery and Café”. Naturally, I had to check it out.

Philip and I stopped in last week and found a tiny little space attached to the shop and a painting studio (Palette to Palate) with five tables. We were quickly greeted by a very sweet college-age girl (Abbie) and a very nice lady named Kim. Abbie brought us some menus and told us that the day’s soup was cream of mushroom and that they also had an apple pie special, then Kim brought our waters and talked to us a bit about the restaurant. Turns out everything is catered in from Dutch Maid Bakery & Café in Tracy City, Tennessee, from breads and cakes to meats, dressings, and soups. Kim brought us some samples: Kentucky Bourbon bread, maple-pecan bread, and peach moonshine bread. They were sweet, quick bread types and while they were all delicious…..peach moonshine was by far our favorite.

The menu consisted of sandwiches-basics like chicken salad, turkey, Reuben, a BLT, and a few others-and salads, including a plate with a slice of quiche and some chicken and pasta salads. You can choose your bread and Kim told us that a lot of people like the chicken salad on the croissant, so since I was thinking about trying the chicken salad I decided to try that out along with a bowl of soup (there was a soup and half sandwich combo). I heard her telling some “regulars” who came in that the chicken salad didn’t have fruit in it that day, so I assumed that the chicken salad usually did have fruit (grapes and apples, perhaps?) in in. Instead, it had celery and onions and it was delicious. It was made with white and dark meat chicken, not too much onion, and just enough mayo to hold it together. The soup was thick and creamy with tiny pieces of mushrooms and some rice in it. It had a good mushroom flavor but since I love mushrooms I would have loved for it to have more mushroom pieces in it. The fruit I think was the tropical fruit mix that comes in a jar. It was pretty good for jarred fruit mix but of course I would have preferred fresh fruit.

Kim also told Philip that Abbie made a mean Reuben. He decided on half a Reuben and soup. The Reuben was a triple decker with Thousand Island (not Russian) dressing and cheese melted on both layers. Philip actually took out the center slice of bread because he just didn’t want that much bread. However, he thought that the Reuben was really good, though it didn’t beat out his vote for “best Reuben in Chattanooga” (Vine Street Market). There was a good balance of ingredients-corned beef, melted Swiss, sauerkraut (very good sauerkraut), and dressing grilled on the freshly baked rye bread. Philip liked the soup a lot as well.

There was a shelf where you could pick up some individually-wrapped treats (cookies, bars, caramel apple dumplings) and another shelf with breads, jellies, and preserves. Like I mentioned, they also had a dessert available but we decided to pass that up. I was very tempted to bring home a loaf of the “salt-rise” bread just to find out what it tasted like and had to check out the Dutch Maid Bakery & Café website after I got home to find out more about it. Turns out that the menu at the main location is a little larger than the one here (no surprise since they are making everything in house). There is no mention on the website of whether or not they do this catered-lunch model in other locations.

This is a little out of the way but there were several people there while we were there that seemed to be on a first-name basis with the staff (of course, Kim sat down, introduced herself, and asked our names, so I guess it’s easy to get to know people that way). These were some super-friendly people and we liked the food. If you’re looking for a quiet little lunch spot with wonderful, friendly service and the promise of yummy baked goods in Hixson, Dutch Maid Bakery & Café at Chatt-R-Bug is a place worth checking out!

Dutch Maid Bakery & Café is located at 5231 Wilbanks Drive, Hixson, TN 37343. You can call them at 423-842-0905. Check out Dutch Maid Bakery & Café’s website, http://www.thedutchmaid.com, and the Dutch Maid Bakery & Café Facebook page. You can find out more about Chatt-R-Bug on their website, http://www.chatt-r-bug.com or the Chatt-R-Bug Facebook page.

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.

Main Street Chattanooga: Main Street Meats/The Hot Chocolatier

January 5, 2014

A day spent on Main Street Chattanooga must include a burger at Main Street Meats and some hot chocolate at the Hot Chocolatier!

If you read any of my farmers market posts (I wrote them weekly for several months in 2012), you probably remember my weekly bacon from Link 41 (here’s a sampling of posts where I have mentioned Link 41). Man, I was obsessed with that bacon. Unfortunately, the only downside of my job change is that I am too far away from Main Street Chattanooga to get to the farmers market every Wednesday, which severely limits my access to that wonderful bacon.

When Main Street Meats opened, it took me a minute to figure out that it was basically an expansion of Link 41, from a place from which to procure fantastic charcuterie to a full-blown butcher shop, complete with daily lunch offerings. Including a burger. As soon as I read the description of the burger on the Main Street Meats blog, I knew I had to have it.

It was an awfully cold day to be walking around on Main Street Chattanooga but I was willing to brave the cold for that burger (I’m a wuss, I know, but I’m from the American South. I can’t help it. Bring the heat!). The lunch menu for the day was the House Burger and beef stew, and we both decided to have the burger, with bacon (of course). The meat was taken out of the case after we ordered, cooked to a perfect crispness on the outside in cast iron, and served simply on a Niedlov’s bun with mayo and a smear of brown mustard, some gruyere (which is one of our favorite cheeses), caramelized onions, and some perfectly cooked bacon. There is nothing not to love about this burger. It was perfect. PERFECT. Drippy but not messy, if that’s possible, with an indescribable flavor. The lack of toppings (or options for toppings) may be off-putting for some but really….it needs nothing. This is a burger Ron Swanson would approve of (meat. on a bun. with nothing. Who knows what I’m talking about?).

Talking to Dan Key (an owner? I forgot to ask!), I learned that the meat is dry-aged for a minimum of 14 days. All the beef at Main Street Meats is local and grassfed, and you have your pick of beautiful meat in the case to take home. They offer beef, pork, lamb, and chicken (all local) and of course the charcuteries that made Link 41 famous…but also some take home items like pre-made heat and eat meat pies and deli containers of chicken salad. We paid $9 per burger, plus chips and drinks…worth every penny, and that money pretty much goes right back into the local economy and supporting local, humanely raised meat.

Main Street Meats is located at 217 East Main Street, Chattanooga, TN 37408. You can call them at 423-602-9568. Check out their website, mainstreetmeatschatt.com. You can also find Main Street Meats on Facebook and follow @MainStreetMeats on Twitter.

After our lunch, we stopped off at Enzo’s Market to pick up some Velo Coffee and some Alchemy Spice Wake & Bake Sweet Spice Blend before heading on to The Hot Chocolatier to have some, well, hot chocolate. How have I not been here before? A reader tipped me off (after reading about my affinity for all things lavender in my Milk and Honey post) that they have a lavender-vanilla hot chocolate, so I didn’t even have to think about my order (thanks, Kat!). Philip ordered a hazelnut hot chocolate, and since their marshmallows are house made, we of course had to top our mugs off with one (you can also have whipped cream). I managed to show a little restraint and resist the beautiful handmade chocolates and amazing pastries in the cases, but I did pick up some photographic evidence for you.

Can I just say that if you are a chain coffee shop addict (you know which one I’m talking about) it would do your soul good to check out a place like this? Yes, it’s out of the way (since there isn’t one every five miles) but this is just the kind of hot drink that makes you stop and thank God for chocolate (and I’m sure that their coffee and tea beverages make you feel the same way about coffee and tea). There was no Swiss Miss involved here….just deep, rich, sweet chocolate and milk. Definitely “European-style”….this is the kind of hot chocolate that is so rich you have to take your time…but you also have to drink every. last. drop. The marshmallow on top makes you question every Jet-Puffed marshmallow you ever consumed (though in my opinion those things have one use and one use only). And it’s difficult to walk out without making some, ahem…additional purchases.

The Hot Chocolatier is committed to making the best and the freshest products possible:

The Hot Chocolatier is located at 201 West Main Street, Chattanooga, TN 37408. You can call them at 423-266-3066. Check out their website, thehotchocolatier.com. “Like” The Hot Chocolatier on Facebook and follow @ahotchocolatier on Twitter.

More on Main Street Chattanooga: Taqueria Jalisco, Conga Latin Food, Enzo’s Market Café

Food Love from Scratch at Dish T’Pass

June 11, 2013

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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