CLOSED restaurants Archives - Page 5 of 8

Pasha Coffee & Tea

October 28, 2012

A couple of years ago Philip played a Monday night free show at a coffee house in St. Elmo we’d never heard of. It was pretty new and very tiny, tucked into the corner of a building that also contained a flower shop and a restaurant. The name of it was Pasha Coffee & Tea. We bought a bag of their organic, fair-trade whole coffee beans. It was a good thing.

Pasha has been on “the list” for a while but because of its location we hadn’t made it down there yet. Last month there was a Living Social deal for $30 worth of food and drink from Pasha for $15 so I pounced on it. I started thinking about it this week and decided that we needed to skip our normal Saturday morning breakfast at home tradition and head down to Pasha for one of their breakfast sandwiches. We didn’t make it down there until almost noon, so we considered ordering off the non-breakfast menu, but ultimately decided to go with our first instinct (breakfast is served daily).

We decided on the hummus, pita chips, and stuffed grape leaves plate as an “appetizer” (you can also order them as separate items). I’d tasted stuffed grape leaves at a diner several years back-0ne bite-and wasn’t too sure. Philip had them at the home of a friend who’s mother was of Middle-Eastern descent, and he liked them. I am not going to lie….these were different. The flavor was good, the texture was weird. Acquired taste, maybe? I have no idea what was stuffed in them. Hmmm. The hummus was good, nice and creamy, flavored with cumin, which is unique but not unheard of. The pita chips were packaged, not that I’m complaining. I like packaged pita chips. I’d order the hummus and pita chips again, but probably not the grape leaves. Maybe I’ll have to make them at home some time?

I decided to order the eggaprese sandwich-two eggs, pesto, spinach, mozzarella, and tomatoes on a toasted everything bagel. The combination on a breakfast sandwich was definitely intriguing. The ingredients were nice and fresh and the sandwich came out quickly. I liked the flavor of the pesto. I was not terribly impressed by the eggs, though…first of all, I think the sandwich would have been fine with just one egg. Second of all, I am pretty sure the eggs were cooked in the microwave. I am so picky about eggs, that just didn’t do it for me. I wish I’d just ordered the caprese sandwich. Nice concept, though, and I’d like to try to recreate it at home. I ordered a small frosted mint latte and it was delicious…not too sweet, not too milky, not too minty. Just right. Mmmm.

Philip decided on the Janissary-two eggs, feta cheese, turkey, pesto, and cholula (spicy mayo) on a toasted everything bagel. He felt pretty much the same way that I did about the eggs-meh-but really liked everything else about the sandwich. I tasted it. The cholula really did add a pretty strong hit of spiciness to the sandwich. One bite wasn’t too much but I’m betting a whole sandwich would light my mouth on fire! He ordered a mocha, which he felt was very chocolatey….but then, it is a mocha, right?

We also bought a bag of Peruvian coffee beans. The cashier told us that Pasha gets their beans from Bongo Java in Nashville. There were brownies and muffins on the counter as well…they looked delicious but we decided against a dessert item. Our total was around $40, which included the appetizer, two breakfast sandwiches, a small and a large coffee drink, and a bag of coffee beans (and, of course, most of that was covered by our Living Social deal).

Pasha has an interesting selection of sandwiches-curried chicken salad, the Elena Ruiz (turkey, cream cheese, and strawberry preserves), and a spicy BLT, to name a few-and I’m definitely going to have to go back for a sandwich. They’ve really put some thought into their menu. I love their coffee and I love their commitment to the community and to organics and fair-trade items. I don’t love their microwaved eggs. Can’t win them all. All in all, though, I really like this place. You should try it out.

Pasha Coffee and Tea is located at 3914 St. Elmo Avenue, Chattanooga, TN 37409. You can call them at 423-475-5482. You can also find them on Facebook and Twitter.

Mountain City Café-September 8, 2012

September 9, 2012

One of my earliest posts on here was about a restaurant named Wisteria Café, located in Middle Valley. It was a “Southern cooking” restaurant with some modern twists (my first meal here was a fried green tomato BLT with pimento cheese) and while the food was great there were also some clear issues. The restaurant didn’t last long, and early this year Philip and I noticed that the sign in front had changed from “Wisteria Café” to “Mountain City Café”. Not too long after it was featured in the Dining Out section of the Chattanooga Times-Free Press, touting a new owner and a new chef. We saw it again in the Dining Out section this past weekend and decided to give it a try today.

Today, the sign when we walked in said “Seat Yourself”-I am going to assume that when it is crowded (which I have heard it is at times) that you have to wait to be seated. We chose a seat near between the entrance and the kitchen and waited for the server, who quickly brought us a menu and our waters (although we did find out when we left that technically they were still serving breakfast when we arrived and we did not get a breakfast menu). The special of the day was breaded, fried pork chops (with bread and two sides) along with chili and a chicken gumbo on the soup and salad bar, which can be purchased on its own or added to any entrée.

The lunch/dinner menu is fairly small, with a few appetizers (mostly deep-fried items like pickles and chicken tenders), a few sandwiches (a burger, a tuna salad sandwich, a grilled cheese, and a few others), and some entrées. There are several “country-style” side items, like mac and cheese, fried okra, and pinto beans. I decided on the fried chicken with mashed potatoes and broccoli salad. Our server gave us a bread choice of rolls, cornbread, or both. We decided on both. The rolls were yeast-style but I am pretty sure they are not made in-house…the square shape is too perfect. The cornbread came in muffin shapes. It was slightly sweet but not bad (here’s the thing, though….we’re spoiled by the cornbread I make in a cast-iron skillet replete with butter, bacon grease, and cornmeal and flour that I grind myself). I was disappointed by the “whipped spread” that was served alongside the bread instead of butter.

The chicken was a gigantic boneless chicken breast that seemed to be freshly battered and deep fried to a golden brown color. It was nicely seasoned, tender, and crunchy. I really did like the chicken a lot. The broccoli salad had cheddar cheese, sunflower seeds, pecans, raisins, and a slightly sweet mayo-based dressing. I absolutely adore broccoli salad and found the flavor of this salad to be quite good. The broccoli was cooked, which I thought to be a little odd (I use raw broccoli in my broccoli salad) but it was very tasty. The mashed potatoes were undersalted (I honestly didn’t think they tasted like they had any salt in them at all) but the texture and flavor were okay (although I make mine a little creamier). Once I added salt they were fine. I thought the brown gravy tasted like the kind that comes out of an envelope.

Philip decided on the meatloaf with fried okra and fried apples. The meatloaf had a thin layer of ketchup-based sauce on top and didn’t have a lot of big chunks (onions, peppers, etc.) in it, which is definitely a plus in our book (I don’t put “chunks” in my meatloaf). I thought the meatloaf tasted like it could have had just a touch more salt in it, but the flavor was good. This is one of the few places that we have found in Chattanooga that actually fries their okra from scratch rather than out of a freezer bag, so that was impressive. Their okra is batter-dipped and deep-fried rather than the more traditional Southern cornmeal-coated, shallow-fried okra, but it was tasty and crispy. The apples were pretty good, but Philip did suspect that they may have come from a can (the sauce was very thick and “cinnamon-y”).

We picked up a breakfast menu on the way out. They have pretty standard breakfast items-biscuit sandwiches, gravy and biscuits, meats and eggs, and pancakes. They also serve a cheese omelet and a “redneck eggs benedict” which features country ham, cheddar cheese, and cheesy hollandaise sauce. The cashier told us that breakfast is served on Saturdays until noon, although the menu says it is served all day. There were also several cakes featured on the dessert menu, which, if I am not mistaken, are made by the owner’s mother. The featured cakes were key lime, Coca-Cola, orange-pineapple, and coconut (and maybe one more we can’t remember). We considered ordering some Coca-Cola cake but were feeling a little too full for it. Next time.

This is pretty decent “Southern” cooking (though I wouldn’t consider it 100% homestyle). I am interested to try some of their other menu items (like the burgers, the chicken & dumplings, and the desserts). We’ll definitely give it another try. Next time I’d really like to make it in time for breakfast….I feel you can really judge a restaurant’s quality by how well they do basic breakfast items like eggs, biscuits, and gravy. I say….give it a try and decide for yourself!

Mountain City Café is located at 6849 Prestige Lane (just off of Boy Scout Road near the light at Middle Valley Road), Hixson, TN 37343. You can call them at 423-847-1163. They do not have a website or Facebook page at this time.

Nitty-Gritty Café-August 11, 2012 CLOSED

August 12, 2012

3/31/13 Nitty Gritty Café has closed.

Philip and I drive by this place every single Sunday as we go to and from my parents’ house….but since they’re closed on Sunday, we’ve never had occasion to stop in, and honestly, we forget about it most of the time. A lady at church went out of her way to mention it to me last week, though, so yesterday Philip and I purposed to try it out.

Let me say, this place is tiny. TINY. There is a handful of parking spaces (Nitty-Gritty diners may not park in front of the fruit stand next door) and I counted seven tables, a couple of them being two-person tables (which is what we chose). We were a little confused when we walked in because we weren’t sure where to sit (I guess the server/hostess was busy in the back and it took her a second to come out). I’m not trying to pick on Nitty-Gritty Café, because God knows this has happened more times than I can count….but I really just wish that all restaurants would put up a sign letting diners know whether they should seat themselves or wait to be seated. At least they had a hostess who came out after a couple of minutes and told us to sit wherever we wanted….we’ve eaten at restaurants where we had to seek out a staff member to ask them.

I didn’t catch the server/hostess’s name, but she was extremely friendly. She brought us our menu and told us the special (fried catfish). There were daily specials listed on a chalkboard-Tuscan chicken pasta, Fried Chicken, Catfish, and I think meatloaf might have been on there too. They are closed on Sunday and Monday and the special was the same for Friday and Saturday. The menu features the daily specials with country-style veggies (you can choose two or three vegetables with your meat) like mashed potatoes, fried okra, fried green tomatoes, corn, or beans, several sandwiches (chicken, BLT, fried pork tenderloin, grilled cheese), a handful of burgers, a house or Cobb salad, several topped hot dogs, and some entrées like shrimp & grits and chicken tenders. They also have a case of cakes for dessert (there’s also a “dessert of the day”, and I’ve heard that their banana pudding is great), which all looked delicious, though we did not have room for dessert on this day…..

I really wanted to try some of the vegetables but I wasn’t feeling up to it (something I ate for lunch on Friday was disagreeing with me) so I decided to try the Jack burger (I have really strange food preferences when I’m not feeling well…I like to eat things like tacos and Ruffles with sour cream & onion dip). The Jack burger is a hand-patted burger patty on a bun with melted white American cheese (I know, I thought it was a little strange that it wasn’t Monterey Jack cheese too….), a fried green tomato, lettuce, and mayonnaise, with French fries. For the record, the fries were just frozen fries. A little off-putting since hand-cutting the fries would really amp it up a bit, but not particularly surprising or unusual (don’t think too many restaurants are hand-cutting their fries). They were fine. The burger patty was obviously handmade, since the shape wasn’t perfectly circular….a quality that I appreciate. It was well seasoned. The lettuce was iceberg and the bun was just a bun out of a bag (so again, a homemade or bakery purchased bun would really amp this up). I liked the fried green tomato and the cheese was very melty, not just stuck on the burger. All in all, not a bad burger….I’d order it again, for sure.

Philip decided to get the shrimp & grits. If you’ll recall, I mentioned here and here that shrimp & grits is one of his favorite restaurant meals, but he is very picky about them. These shrimp & grits were very plain looking….seasoned shrimp, crumbled bacon, & grits. I didn’t see any cheese, onions, etc., which is highly unusual. He said that the grits themselves were a little bland (not a lot of salt) but once he really stirred the shrimp and bacon into the grits they added the seasoning that was necessary. He really liked the seasoning that was on the shrimp and felt that the shrimp was cooked well. He also had cornbread and liked it fine….but I’ll be honest, if you try my cornbread recipe you’ll find that most restaurant cornbread just doesn’t measure up. It’s not their fault, it just….is. Just as a side…I’d love to see them work on their presentation. The gigantic bowl that Philip’s shrimp & grits were in was overkill and I saw several items served on styrofoam trays (they also charge $0.25 for water to pay for the styrofoam cup). Just a note. Some people don’t care about presentation but it can make or break a dining experience for others. I’m somewhere in-between….

One more thing is that they offer complimentary pinto beans to each table. Since Philip loves pinto beans (I can take ’em or leave ’em) we tried them. Again, they were pretty good….cooked to a good texture, not too hard, not too soft….but needed a little more salt, which we just added at the table. Perhaps this is their angle-everyone likes a different amount of salt. We are not salt fiends but do like to be able to taste that our food has been salted (but this can be an issue with beans, and we often have to add salt to our beans at the table at home as well). I really do want to go back and try a vegetable plate and see how their execution is on home-style vegetables. I love a good veggie plate!

So, I’ll be honest, it isn’t Blue Ribbon Café. It’s not likely to overtake BRC as the “best restaurant in Soddy-Daisy” in my humble opinion….but it’s pretty good, and seeing as how there aren’t exactly non-chain restaurants on every corner there’s definitely room for some variety in the mix. The prices are decent (our total was about $17 before tip), the food is pretty good, and they offer some unique menu items. The staff is very friendly. Give it a try!

The Nitty-Gritty Café is located at 11210 Dayton Pike, Soddy-Daisy, TN 37379. You can call them at 423-531-4582. They do not currently have a website or Facebook page. I have included the menu below although there are several menu items on signs hanging at the counter and the menu that is given to you at the table is also slightly different from this (for example, you will not see the burger that I ordered on the menu below).

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!).

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.

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