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Northshore Grille-July 21, 2012 CLOSED

July 22, 2012

January 19, 2014: Northshore Grille recently closed. The space is being converted into Beast and Barrel, a family-friendly restaurant and bar owned by the group that owns The Terminal, Honest Pint, and Hair of the Dog.

We set out today with no particular restaurant in mind for our Saturday review extravaganza. We threw out a bunch of ideas, all of which sounded good to both of us. Finally, Philip made an executive decision and made a right turn onto Frazier rather than crossing Veteran’s Bridge. Northshore Grille it was.

Let me go ahead and get this out of the way…their Urbanspoon rating is 37%. I know one of my friends recently told me that she would never go there again. I didn’t ask for details and she didn’t give them. Honestly, I don’t understand. We have been there several times over the years and have never had a bad experience. The bottom line is…you have to form your own opinion. Here’s our experience….

I really like the decor in Northshore Grille. It’s pretty minimal…dark wood floors, dark walls, some large art pieces hanging, and gigantic windows in the bar area that open like garage doors. It was way too hot today for the windows to be up but on really nice days they do open them. It’s like sitting outside…but not.

It did take a couple of minutes for us to get seated. No host was at the station when we walked up. A server came out carrying some drinks and seated us after he delivered the drinks. A girl (Christy? Kristy? She said her name but I didn’t catch the spelling) brought us menus and quickly took our drink order. She gave us a couple of minutes to review our menus and quickly took our order when we were ready.

I decided on the caprese chicken sandwich…sauteéd chicken breast with pesto, melted mozzarella, and sundried tomatoes on a ciabatta roll, with baked potato salad. Let me tell you…I loved the potato salad, which is saying something. Generally I despise cold potato salads (I make a great hot roasted potato salad…but that’s another post) but I decided to give it a try. I think it was made with starchy Russet potatoes as opposed to the waxy red potatoes that you often see in potato salads. It also had bacon in it. It was well-seasoned and had a sour cream based sauce (rather than mayo). The only thing I would have changed would be to add some chives or chopped green onions for another layer of flavor. The chicken sandwich was okay…I wasn’t turning cartwheels, but I didn’t hate it either. I did really like the roll, but I’ll be honest…I just don’t love chicken breast. Too…..meh. It wasn’t seasoned as much as I would have liked, and I think I would have liked it more if the tomatoes had been fresh instead of sundried.

Philip decided on the Lotta Bacon and Cheddar Burger with fries. It was basically just a very large (9 oz, I think) burger patty with bacon, cheddar cheese, and an onion ring (which he took off the burger…and actually, I consumed most of it. It was good but a little greasy). He ordered it with lettuce, tomato, and pickle. It was a really great burger! I tasted it and found it to be well cooked and fresh tasting. I would have preferred a little creativity on the bun (I think it was just a packaged burger bun) but it still tasted good. Philip felt a little guilty for eating a slab of meat topped with….meat. But then again, we usually only eat meat on the weekend, so I guess he was just meeting his quota. The fries are handout, skin-on. Not super-crispy, but that’s fine by me. I like a balance of crispy and soft in my fries, and when they are too crispy I assume they are overly processed.

Northshore Grille used to be known (are they still? I didn’t even look.) as “Northshore Grille Smoking Crab Shack and Cantina”. They have crab cakes on the menu, as well as quite a few sandwiches and burgers (the Wellington, with mushrooms, Swiss, and a garlic butter sauce) sounded particularly appealing). They also have a pretty good menu of entrèes, a particular favorite being the steak medallions and biscuits, served with white (mayonnaise-based) barbecue sauce on the side.

I don’t know. Maybe I’ve just gone here on good days, or managed to get particularly good servers. We really liked our server….she was very friendly and attentive. Anyway, like I said earlier in the post, and like I’ve said a million (well, maybe not that many) times….you’ll just have to form your own opinion. This was my experience. I won’t bother with the caprese sandwich again, but I’ll definitely eat here again.

Northshore Grille is located at 16 Frazier Avenue, Chattanooga, TN 37405. You can call them at 423-757-2000. They (surprisingly) do not have a website, but you can find them on Facebook and on Twitter (though they only have one Tweet!).

Alleia Restaurant-July 14, 2012

July 14, 2012

Choosing a restaurant at which to eat for our anniversary (number eleven!) was somewhat of a challenge this year. Initially I wanted to go to The Meeting Place, the more casual sister of St. John’s, but as the date got closer I began to add more and more restaurants to the list. Saturday morning there were five restaurants. I had talked to Philip’s sister on Friday and she highly recommended Alleia, then Saturday morning Philip talked to her as well and again she emphasized how wonderful the food was. Why not? We booked a reservation for 6 p.m. and headed to Main Street.

It’s funny, because I was always a little foggy about exactly where Alleia (pronounced a-LEE-a) was located. Turns out, I drive past it every Wednesday as I head to the farmers market. It’s on Main, right after you turn from Market, in the building right before The Soho. A large metal sculpture serves as something of a landmark. The huge wood door with the large metal ring handle is quite impressive. We walked in and were quickly seated by a hostess who told us that we did not look old enough to have been married eleven years (stop it! You flatter.). We were indeed hardly more than children when we wed, but it has worked out well for us!

We were seated at a booth, a very private booth with walls on three sides. While we were perusing the menu, we took in the ambiance….slightly dimly lit, but not dark (although I do need to apologize for the poor lighting of the photos….nicer restaurants rarely have lighting conducive to great photography), with beautiful worn looking walls. We were seated near a large lighting feature of candles with wax forming a mantel of sorts as well as a base on the floor; very unique and interesting. Also interesting was the heavy wool blanket decorating the wall; light grey plaid, it looked and felt like a horse blanket. The kitchen was open, and I enjoyed watching the guys work (although I wished that I could stand at the counter and really watch them work….but I suppose I would had missed out on my anniversary meal with my husband then, wouldn’t I?

The menu at Alleia is divided into six parts: antipasti (appetizers), insalate (salad), primi (first courses-all pasta dishes), secondi (main courses-meat-based entrées), pizzas, and contorni (side dishes). There was also a specials list, with one or two specials for each menu section, and a Vino (wine) menu. We had a difficult time choosing our antipasti…the bruschettas (one with ricotta and honey, the other with cannellini beans and roasted peppers) sounded wonderful, and I was very interested in the arancini (basically breaded and fried rice balls) with mozzarella and meat sauce…but the dates wrapped in Benton’s bacon with a balsamic and olive oil drizzle sounded wonderful, and that is what we finally decided to order. It arrived about the same time as our bread, a portion of a fresh Italian loaf (made in-house) with lots of olive oil and garlic on top. We were not disappointed in our choice. Just the scent from the dates was enough to send us over the edge….smoky and sweet. Both the dates and the bacon were tender enough to cut through easily, and the savory/sweet combination was perfect. Our server, Arturo, even encouraged us to sop the olive oil and vinegar with our bread.

The Bob Jones salad (with Bob Jones lettuce, gorgonzola, and strawberries), sounded lovely, as did the Caesar salad with romaine lettuce and shaved grana padano cheese, but I could not resist the insalate special for the day, a caprese salad. They divided the salad between two plates for us; it was a combination of sliced heirloom tomatoes and wedged tomatoes, with a chunk of mozzarella, a basil chiffonade, and again, a balsamic and olive oil drizzle. Delicious. The tomatoes were in that perfectly ripe stage, so juicy and drippy, and the cheese was fresh and amazing. Again, I sopped up the wonderful juices with the bread. Perfect. I kept waxing on and on about how the most amazing food is usually the most simple. Philip is surely a patient man to listen to all this food jargon all the time….but then again, he certainly has benefitted from it over the years.

I was so tempted to order a pizza. All of the topping combinations sounded impressive (especially proscuitto, arugula, and smoked mozzarella), and they are all neopolitan-style pizzas (thin, crispy….perfect) cooked in a 750 degree wood-fired oven. Shut your mouth, Arturo. However, I guess my desire to try the handmade pasta was stronger, so I asked Arturo to make a recommendation between the ricotta ravioli with zucchini and cremini mushrooms and the angel hair pasta with Gulf shrimp and cherry tomatoes. Rather than really make a “recommendation”, he gave me a very detailed description of each dish. Finally, I decided on the ravioli. Filled with ricotta lightly seasoned with salt and pepper, the ravioli is served in an herbed butter and white wine sauce with quartered cremini (baby portobello) mushrooms, very thinly sliced (almost shaved) zucchini, and red and yellow tomatoes with grated Parmigiano-Reggiano. My. Word. This was, without question, the best ravioli I had ever had. Ever. The sauce was perfectly seasoned, the pasta so tender and the ricotta so fresh tasting. Amazing.

While the secondi menu had a variety of tempting options, like Maple Leaf Farm duck breast and the secondi special pork osso buco (which I briefly considered before deciding I must order pasta) Philip took one look and knew immediately what he would order: wood-fired pork shoulder with grilled peaches. All of the dishes on the secondi menu are served with perfectly roasted red potatoes and red cabbage. First of all, pork shoulder is not something that you often see on a menu at an upscale restaurant, so I was very interested to see the execution. It was served in a cohesive chunk (sorry, that word is so unappetizing, but I couldn’t think of a better one!) but was amazingly tender. Philip was able to simply use his fork to pull bites of meat from it. He definitely had one of those eyes-rolling-into-your-head moments when he first took a bite of it…the tenderness, the smoky flavor from the wood-fired oven, the seasoning…everything worked together fabulously. The red potatoes were also delicious, perfectly browned and with a wonderful grilled flavor. I didn’t taste the cabbage, but Philip said it was very good. The peaches were delicious, with a perfect grilled flavor. I love grilled peaches. We both could have finished our entrees, but we needed to save room for dessert, so Arturo boxed up our leftovers (and our bread!) for us.

We were sincerely hoping for the dessert special, summer fruit cobbler with basil gelato (!), but apparently we should have made our reservation for when they opened at 5 p.m. rather than waiting until 6. They were all out by the time we ordered! The dessert menu consisted of a handful of specialty desserts (tiramisu, panna cotta, and a flourless chocolate cake) and several flavors of gelato (Italian ice cream, more dense with less air than American ice cream). We decided to order the flourless chocolate cake, served with strawberries, fresh whipped cream, and cinnamon gelato, made with cinnamon sticks, not packaged ground cinnamon. The cake was dark, rich, dense….the whipped cream light, barely sweetened, and the gelato had a wonderful texture with a strong cinnamon flavor. By the way….I will be making basil gelato soon. I have to, it’s a must.

Alleia is owned by Daniel Lindley, the renowned chef who also owns St. John’s and The Meeting Place (he was nominated for the James Beard Foundation Award for Best Chef: Southeast in 2009, 2010, and 2012). This is certainly another hit for Lindley….amazing, simple, perfect food, much of it sourced locally. Basically everything that can be purchased locally, is, and other ingredients are imported from Italy, adding to the authenticity. Let me say…it was not inexpensive. Certainly this is a special occasion dining spot, but worth saving up for. Besides, think of all of the local business you support when you dine here-not just Alleia, but all of the local farms and producers from which they obtain ingredients. The atmosphere was beautiful, and the execution of service and cuisine spot on.

Alleia is located at 25 East Main Street, Chattanooga, TN 37408. You can call them at 423-305-6990. You can learn more at their website, http://alleiarestaurant.com/. They also have a Facebook page.

Purple Daisy Picnic Cafe-July 6, 2012

July 8, 2012

My mom and I have been trying to make it back to the Purple Daisy for, like, two years now. All the way in St. Elmo, it’s not exactly close….but since we were taking my aunt to the Lodge Outlet in South Pittsburg on Friday (where she and my mom cleaned up, by the way! If you haven’t been, you should go…) that provided us the perfect opportunity to stop off.

The Purple Daisy is a pretty small place, two rooms packed with tables and some seating out front (though somehow they manage to fit quite a few people in without crowding everyone). One room is bright and airy, the other room a little darker, but somehow that’s not an issue. The first thing that you notice when you walk in is the cheery decor-bandannas tied together hanging over a high window, Christmas lights (the kind contained within plastic tubing) hanging on the wall, lots of cool retro items like metal lunch boxes and a wooden ironing board hanging up. My aunt pointed out that there was a picnic basket like my grandparents used to have on a shelf, and my mom saw a lunch box like my other grandfather (Papaw) used to take to his job as an ironworker. In the bathrooms, the sinks are metal washbasins. Cool stuff. Adding to the atmosphere is the intoxicating scent of smoke (as in from the smoker). Yum.

The Purple Daisy is a very casual atmosphere, but they will seat you, give you a menu, and come take your order at your table. There were several specials listed on a folding whiteboard outside the door, including brisket and pork or chicken tacos. My mom ordered their fruit tea, which is pretty much brimming with pineapple juice and is very yummy, I ordered water, and my aunt ordered unsweetened tea (she’s from Texas, which I do not officially consider the South). The Purple Daisy’s menu consists of a “build your own sandwich”, which features chicken salad, pimento cheese, cucumber spread, and a variety of breads, meats, cheeses, and veggies. Purple Daisy is known for their barbecue (which I have yet to try) which can be ordered in plate form, on a sandwich, or atop a gigantic baked potato or plate of nachos. They also have quesadillas, grilled cheese, hot dogs (grilled), salads, chili, a smoked chicken sandwich (with or without buffalo sauce), and hamburgers (charcoal grilled) that are served on Thursday and Friday only.

I’ll admit, I haven’t tried any of the above items. I should, I know, but I can’t. Why not, you say? Because I have been rendered unable to order anything but the Rainbow Sandwich. What’s that? Oh, let me tell you. The Rainbow Sandwich is (and this is the menu description): A three-layered sandwich with homemade chicken salad, pimento cheese, and cucumber spread on crustless white and wheat bread served with chips and a pickle.

Help me.

I love this sandwich so much. The first time I came here, I didn’t know. I ordered something like a roast beef with cheddar on sourdough. It was good, sure…but one of the friends I was with had the Rainbow sandwich, and I was fascinated, so the next time I came, I had to have it. I was a little unsure of “cucumber spread”….but it’s wonderful. Cucumbers and cream cheese are the main ingredients. The pimento cheese is homemade, and you can see the little shreds of cheese. The chicken salad is made with smoked chicken. The person that dreamed this up is a genius, I tell you. Look at the pretty layers of white and wheat bread. This is one of the few occasions where I love just plain old soft white bread. I always know I shouldn’t eat the whole thing-that’s four slices of bread!-but I always do. Because it’s goooooooood. And as my side, I always sub hash brown casserole for the chips. If you haven’t had hash brown casserole…..mmmm. My mom makes it all the time, so it’s definitely a comfort food for me. Creamy, with mushroom soup, butter, onions, and cheese, served piping hot with paprika sprinkled over the top, theirs is very “authentic”. Not a culinary opus…but sometimes you don’t want a culinary opus. You want comfort. In a styrofoam cup. By the way, they also have slaw, hot slaw, baked beans, and potato salad as sides.

My mom ordered exactly the same thing as me, and my aunt (the vegan), ordered a baked potato with butter (she cheated a little!) and chives (which were actually green onions). I didn’t take a picture because I figured hey, we’ve all seen a baked potato. Only I should have taken a picture because it was seriously the size of the basket. Gigantic, I tell you. There’s not a whole lot to say about a baked potato, but hers was nice and fluffy, with plenty of butter and onions on top. It looked delish (I love baked potatoes).

We were all pretty much stuffed when we got done (my mom and I had, after all, just eaten the equivalent of two sandwiches), but if we had been so inclined we could have ordered banana pudding (which, the menu proclaims, was voted Chattanooga’s best 2009) or Alabama dirt (which I know as dirt cake, and if you’ve never heard of dirt cake you aren’t from Tennessee. It’s basically chocolate pudding, Cool Whip or whipped cream, and Oreo crumbs.). Instead we eased on down the road to see what we could see at Lodge.

My only complaint about the Purple Daisy is the parking lot. I despise their parking lot. It’s tiny. There are never any spaces available and even on those rare occasions when you can actually find a spot, it’s super-cramped. It’s no big. You can park next door at the Incline for $1.00 (for all day!). That’s what we did….no finagling out of your space there.

If you want casual, delicious comfort food in the form of barbecue or a fantastic, creative sandwich, I highly recommend Purple Daisy (yes, I know I haven’t actually tried the barbecue. But I have heard great things about it from people whose opinions I trust, and if the smell is any indication…yowza!). By the way, they also do catering. The Purple Daisy Picnic Café is located at 4001 St. Elmo Ave., Chattanooga, TN. They are open Monday-Friday, 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., and Saturday 12-4 p.m. You can call them at 423-822-6477. Check out their website, http://www.thepurpledaisy.com. You can also like them on Facebook and follow them on Twitter.

Hill City Pizza-June 30, 2012

July 1, 2012

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again. I love Living Social. Yesterday they ran a “deal” for $10 for $20 to spend at Hill City Pizza….a place on “the list”. So I bought it, and today we ate lunch there.

Hill City Pizza has been around for a couple of years, on Chattanooga’s North Shore in the former location of the Mud Pie. If you can believe it, I never once ate at the Mud Pie in all of the years that it was there. I went in once, but for some reason we didn’t order. We went to Taco Bell instead. That was high school….sometimes teenagers make dumb decisions. But anyway, back to Hill City Pizza.

There were not a ton of people around when we hit Coolidge Park around 1 p.m. Still in the middle of a heat wave…..by this point in time temps were nearing 100 degrees and I guess not too many people decided to brave it. They were probably all at Chuck E. Cheese’s (seriously-go there on the coldest, hottest, or rainiest Saturday of the year. You’ll see what I mean.) and we definitely weren’t complaining.

There weren’t a ton of people in the restaurant either….a family, a couple of women around my age having lunch, and a fairly large group of high school or college age kids (sometimes it’s hard to tell). There was no one at the door and no sign telling you to seat yourself….which is a trend I’ve been seeing more of lately. Just hang a sign, people. I hate standing around and feeling like an idiot until I decide what I’m supposed to do. Anyway, we grabbed a table and our server (whose name I did not catch) brought us a menu and took our drink order very quickly.

Since we had $20 to spend, we decided to order an appetizer-breadsticks stuffed with mozzarella. They were pretty good, not great; a little bland without the sauce (marinara topped with parmesan and chopped parsley). They seemed awfully perfect, so we asked our server if they are made in house. They are not. That’s a little disappointing. Oh well…can’t win ’em all.

You can choose your pizza from their specialty pizzas (margherita, Hawaiian, barbecue chicken), top your own, or order a slice and add toppings. Topping a slice is definitely the most economical option, although their pizzas are not huge so two might be more of a meal (unless the slices are larger than the ones that come from the pie we ordered). We decided to order a “Grecian”-roasted red peppers, sundried tomatoes, black olives, red onions, artichokes, and feta cheese. It came out pretty quickly. The crust is not super-thin but also not super thick. The toppings were well cooked (as in, the onions were cooked enough that I was able to eat them, since I don’t do raw or undercooked onions). I liked the flavor combination, although I do think kalamata olives would be a little more authentic on a Grecian pizza….but maybe real authenticity isn’t what they’re going for. The only complaint I had about the pizza was that the toppings were not distributed quite as evenly as I would have liked (when I make a pizza at home, I’m pretty meticulous about even distribution).

Our total topped just a little over $20; the pizzas run from about $12 to about $15. They also have several entrees (chicken tenders, eggplant parm, etc.) and salads, and key lime and Reese’s pie for dessert. We weren’t thinking about dessert, though, because we were stopping in at Pure Sodaworks for soda after lunch (southern sweet tea and root beer!). Our server was friendly and the food was decent. The look of the restaurant was nice but acoustically it was a little loud. We’d go again, but we’d probably skip the breadsticks (they weren’t bad, but I just prefer housemade….).

Hill City Pizza is located at 12 Frazier Avenue, Chattanooga, TN 37405. You can call them at 423-702-5451. They do not have a website (I wish I had realized this; I would have taken a photo of the menu) but you can check out their Facebook page.

Nino’s Pastaria-June 16, 2012

June 18, 2012

Saturday afternoon found Philip and I trying to find somewhere a little out of the ordinary to eat. We didn’t want to go downtown for fear that we may end up in the melee that was the last night of Riverbend, and we’ve just about exhausted our Hixson restaurant options. Philip asked me if there was anywhere we could go on Signal Mountain, then he suggested Pastaria (also known as Nino’s, which I didn’t know until recently).

Since it was in between lunch and dinner (it was about 2:30 or 3:00), there was only one other couple there and we had our pick of tables. The inside of the restaurant was very nice, clean, not overly decorated but not too sparsely decorated at the same time, with rows of square tables diagonally placed throughout the large dining room. Since it was a little cooler on the mountain, we decided to sit outside. Lisa, our server, was very friendly and quickly took our drink orders and brought us a menu and bread. We also ordered bruschetta, which was delivered quickly by Sara, the manager, who was also cooking on this particular day.

The bread is made in-house, as is the butter, which you know made my day. The bread wasn’t super-hot but it tasted pretty good and the butter was delicious (of course!). The bruschetta was delicious, small slices of a thin loaf (a baguette, I assume) grilled and topped with a tomato-garlic relish, melted mozzarella and parmesan, and fresh basil (several herbs are growing in boxes beside the patio, and when we asked, Lisa told us that they do use them in some of the cooking).

I had a hard time deciding what to order. They serve pizzas, which all sounded good, but I wanted to get pasta and finally decided on the funghi bianchi….penne pasta in a creamy sauce with sliced mushrooms. I also ordered a salad. The salad was meh, not bad but not really anything to write home about. It was chopped romaine topped with pecorino romano and served with the balsamic vinagrette that’s out in a bottle on the table. I just like for my salads to have a little more interest, is all….

I did really like my pasta, though. The sauce was creamy but not heavy, seasoned nicely. The flavor of mushrooms really permeated the sauce and the mushrooms were perfectly cooked, not underdone so they were dry but also not overdone so they were shriveled. The pasta was al dente….it was just dried pasta, not handmade, so it’s not an, um, “artisinal pasta experience”, but how many of those do you get to have? I liked it and I would definitely order it again.

Philip decided on the carbonara. Traditional carbonara is a bacon and egg pasta…..hot pasta with bacon and egg mixed in. The residual heat from the pasta cooks the egg. Many restaurants shy away from this traditional approach and instead basically pour cream sauce over pasta, mix in some bacon, and call it carbonara. Nino’s takes the traditional approach, even using pancetta (Italian bacon, unsmoked) instead of regular bacon. You can also order asparagus instead of pancetta, but why would you want to do that? Philip, of course, decided on the pancetta. He was really impressed by the carbonara. It was fresh, salty, and just barely creamy from the eggs (by the way, the pasta in the dish was spaghetti). I tasted it. It was delicious.

We decided to order some spumoni ice cream, because I puffy-heart love spumoni. In case you didn’t know, spumoni is kind of an Italian neopolitan ice cream…made with chocolate, cherry, and pistachio ice cream. So good. They also serve chocolate mousse, tiramisu, and gelato (which is Italian ice cream, a little denser than American ice cream).

Nino came in while we were there and came out to work some on the plants out front. He came to our table and talked to us…he was very friendly and welcoming. Our server was also extremely friendly and helpful. We had a great experience. Apparently Nino’s has gotten some bad press recently and they are working hard to try to make a comeback. They have been in this location for 17 years, so apparently they’ve been doing something right all these years. If you haven’t tried it, I recommend you check it out and form your own opinion!

Nino’s Pastaria is located at 720 Mississippi Avenue, Signal Mountain, TN 37377. You can reach them at 423-886-1900. They do not have a website or Facebook page at this time, but you can view their menu on their Urbanspoon page (click on the Urbanspoon icon below).

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