downtown Chattanooga restaurants Archives - Page 11 of 20

Bluegrass Grill-June 28, 2013

June 30, 2013

Bluegrass Grill is a breakfast/brunch/lunch hotspot located on Main Street in Downtown Chattanooga. They have great food with fantastic service!

I have been writing Chattavore for 2 years and 2 months. In that time, I’ve eaten at a lot of restaurants and done a few “repeat reviews”. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately, for the sake of the longevity of Chattavore reviews) I still have quite a few restaurants to get to.

There are an awful lot of locally owned restaurants that are only open during the day (and some of those aren’t open on the weekends). These places are pretty much impossible for me to get to when I’m working, since a teacher’s lunch break is about 25 minutes (and I eat with my kids anyway, and 25 minutes is barely enough time to walk to and from my car really). So, I have to cram as many of those sorts of places as possible into my summer.

Bluegrass Grill is one of those places. They are open from 6:30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. during the week and from 6:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. on Saturday. No way I would even attempt it on a Saturday, though, because I am willing to bet that there are people spilling out the doors from the minute that anyone has any business being awake on a weekend. We had heard (from a friend who raved about Bluegrass Grill) that it wasn’t too bad on a weekday if you could arrive after the breakfast crowd was gone but before the lunch crowd hit.

We arrived at a few minutes before eleven and the place was packed out. Mind you, it’s a fairly small space….but every table was taken and there was another couple waiting in front of us. It wasn’t too bad of a wait, though….we waited about ten minutes, I guess, for a seat at the bar, which I liked because I could watch how everything operated (I couldn’t see too much of what was going on in the kitchen, just a peek through the pick-up window).

At Bluegrass Grill there is no POS system where the servers are keying the orders in a fancy computer. It’s an old fashioned system where the server writes the order on a ticket and hangs it on a carousel-y thing that the cooks spin to see the tickets. Our server, Marissa, was very friendly as was Greg, a guy that was doing various tasks at the counter while we were waiting for our food whom I gathered was the son of the owners. Greg told us that Bluegrass Grill had been open for six years, which surprised us….we had no idea (I probably heard about it about two years ago). We spent a few minutes perusing our menus, which consisted of specials, hashes, biscuits, omelets, cereals, pancakes, & French toast, salads, soups, and sandwiches, potato dishes, and baked goods, as well as some specials written on a dry-erase board on the wall. The specials that day were a roasted corn salsa bisque and pastichio, basically a Greek lasagna.

Instantly I was torn between the Special #2-two eggs, any style, with choice of Applewood smoked bacon, jalapeño bacon, sausage, or ham and two of the following: breakfast potatoes, grits, biscuit, toast, or fresh fruit (for $0.75 extra) or the corned beef hash. Ultimately, I decided to go with my gut and get the special, which I ordered with eggs over medium, Applewood bacon, potatoes, and a biscuit. The biscuits are housemade, half whole wheat, and have the homemade touch of being obviously cut with a knife as opposed to a biscuit cutter, which means that the dough does not have to be handled over and over to reform it for cutting. The eggs were nicely cooked (though I would have liked the yolks just a tad runnier) and the bacon tasted great. The potatoes were red-skinned potatoes, hand-cut, boiled, then fried off till crisp, and the biscuit was nice and soft with a hearty texture similar to what I make at home (because mine are half whole-wheat too!). At first I was worried that they only had the Promise buttery spread that was at the top of the container, but Philip unearthed real butter that I spread on my biscuit and the day was saved.

I was fully expecting Philip to go with pancakes for his breakfast but he surprised me and ordered French toast instead, with an over-easy egg and bacon. The bread is homemade and you have a choice of buttermilk bread or whole-wheat; Philip chose whole-wheat. He also chose to add maple syrup for $1.50 extra rather than eat the pancake syrup that is included with the price ($1.50 seemed like a bit of a steep up charge until Greg handed Philip this pitcher that probably held about half a cup of syrup-do people actually use that much syrup? I guess we are used to carefully parsing out our liquid gold.). Funny story….we were actually impressed when we saw Joan, one of the owners, take the lid off of one of the pancake syrup pitchers and wash it. My dad refuses to eat at Waffle House (which he calls “The Awful Waffle”) because he says if you take the lid off the syrup pitcher you’ll be horrified at what you find. Philip remarked that my dad could eat at Bluegrass Grill. Like mine, Philip found his eggs to be cooked well and he liked his bacon. The scent of the batter from the French toast was really nice, and it had a good flavor. The only thing that I might change about it was the thickness of the bread-I like my French toast nice and thick. We got a laugh at the one little piece of cantaloupe that was wedged under Philip’s French toast; it looked as if it had landed there by accident, but I don’t think that it did!

Our total came to about $16 and some change before tip….not a bad price. It was definitely a good meal and I’d like to go back and try some of their Greek specials. This place has been around for quite a while and has been voted best non-chain breakfast in Chattanooga in the past (sad that they have to make a chain and a non-chain category because if they didn’t everyone would just vote for Cracker Barrel). It’s a good place to get a good breakfast, though I’m probably just going to stick to my homemade breakfasts that I can cook and eat in my robe with my gigantic cup of Velo coffee in hand on the weekends (because I make a mean breakfast, I hate crowds, and I’m a hermit).

If you, however, are looking for a great homestyle breakfast served by good, friendly people and you aren’t into making that sort of thing yourself, head on down and give Bluegrass Grill a try!

Bluegrass Grill is located at 55 East Main Street, Chattanooga, TN 37408. They are open 6:30-2:00 Tuesday-Friday and 6:30-1:00 on Saturday. There was also a sign for a Sunday brunch buffet that they just started (today!) by reservation only, though I didn’t notice a time…but you can call them for that information at 423-752-4020. Check out their website: http://bluegrassgrillchattanooga.com and “like” them on Facebook.

212 Market-June 15, 2013

June 16, 2013

212 Market is a Southern cooking spot in downtown Chattanooga, near the Tennessee Aquarium, that has been around for many years.

How is it possible to be a food blogger in the town in which you grew up and you’ve never eaten at a restaurant that’s been around for twenty-one years?

I have no idea, but it is.

212 Market has been open in Chattanooga’s downtown since 1992, around the same time that the formerly skid row-ish downtown area was being revitalized with the opening of the Tennessee Aquarium and lots of beautification projects. Back in the eighties you didn’t really go downtown unless you had to…say, you worked down there or something. It just wasn’t very smart. In the nineties it was much safer but old habits die hard and my parents didn’t care too much for the downtown area. It wasn’t until late in my high school career when I started going downtown with my friends that people from the suburbs felt safe going downtown.

I remember one of my best friends in high school loving 212 and going there often with her parents, but that was back in the age when lots of casual dining places were opening up in Hixson, starting with Applebee’s then later O’Charley’s and Chilis and those were the kinds of places where my friends and I hung out when we wanted a “nice” dinner, something besides our usual McDonald’s (I am not kidding). I lived downtown for four years while in college but still TGIFriday’s and Taco Mac were more my kind of hangouts. I recall Philip and I discussing going to 212 for our first dating anniversary but it never panned out. And so here we are twenty-one years after the inception of what I would now call an institution in the Chattanooga dining scene and I have finally eaten there (at this point I would say I haven’t been because I generally avoid the fairly congested area around the Aquarium….notice I haven’t blogged about Thai Smile or Hennen’s yet either).

So, we parked at the visitor’s lot at Unum and trekked it down to 212 Market for lunch (not really necessary, as 212 Market is one of the very few restaurants downtown that has free parking on-site for its patrons, but we like to walk). A sign was out detailing their brunch specials and though there were several tables occupied we were immediately seated. While the decor was not what I would call “contemporary”, it wasn’t outdated either. It was nice and comfy, and the first thing that I noticed was the Fiesta saucers on the table for bread. One of 212’s missions is to be as local as possible, and with the made in the USA Fiesta dishes they are really proving their point. We were given a brunch menu and a lunch menu, and our server Julia arrived very quickly with glasses of water for us, then a basket of focaccia and whole wheat bread. The bread is house made and had good flavor, though Philip and I agreed that the whole wheat bread was not really the kind of bread that is best served in a bread basket (a little too heavy/hearty).

Philip and I were both grabbed initially by the eggs Benedict on the brunch menu, but as usual decided against the brunch because we had already eaten eggs at breakfast. Honestly, I don’t even remember much else of what was on the brunch menu…I wish I had taken a picture of it! There is also a pretty comprehensive salad & starter menu, including a Mediterranean salad with hummus and quinoa tabbouleh, a strawberry and chèvre (goat cheese) salad, a bison spring roll (including locally-raised bison), and the obligatory Caesar salad. The spinach salad sounded particularly delicious with apples, gorgonzola, bacon, and spiced pecans dressed with orange-basil vinaigrette.

I wasn’t in it for a salad, though. While the burger with Alabama dry-aged beef sounded delicious, I was torn between the grilled pimento cheese sandwich and the signature spinach and walnut ravioli primavera. I asked Julia for her recommendation and she told me that both were very good….but from her descriptions, I could tell that her preference was for the pimento cheese sandwich. In fact, I felt that she threw down the gauntlet when she told me that their pimento cheese was the best that she had ever had…so I ordered it, with bacon, lettuce, and tomato, per her recommendation. She sounded a little less biased about the sides (which are $2 with a sandwich). Ultimately I decided to have the fruit…I definitely needed something besides fries, and I felt that fresh fruit would not compete with my sandwich. The fruit consisted of thinly sliced apples, kiwi, bananas, and nectarines, quartered strawberries, grapes, and and orange wedge. The fruit was very fresh and tasty, though I would have liked just a little more, or perhaps for it to be more of a “fruit salad” amalgam (I love a good fruit salad!). The sandwich was grilled to the point that the cheese was melty and drippy, but the outside of the sandwich was not greasy as it can sometimes be. While the bacon was included on the sandwich when I got it, the lettuce and tomato were on the side. The pimento cheese had shreds of cheddar and finely diced pimentos in it as well as green onions, which added a little zip to it. It was indeed among the best pimento cheese I’ve had at a restaurant…but not better than mine (sorry, 212). While, as I mentioned before, I thought the whole wheat bread was a little too “hearty” for a bread basket, I thought that it was an excellent sandwich bread.

Philip was seriously torn about his entrée. He thought the burger sounded amazing, but they had shrimp and grits on the menu and it is very difficult for him to pass up shrimp and grits. Julia told him that the dry-aged beef on the burgers was something that they had substituted once for the more local beef from Sequatchie Cove they used to make their burgers with, and their regular customers raved that they needed to keep the dry-aged beef on the menu…so they did. However, she stated that the shrimp and grits was one of her favorite items on the menu, the recipe of the Charlestonian grandmother of a former chef. While the sauce was not cream-based as he generally prefers (the grits were, though), Philip decided to take a chance and go for the grits: wild caught shrimp, Falls Mill stoneground grits, Link 41 andouille, black-eyed pea salsa, and fried green tomatoes. The shrimp were gigantic and very well-cooked, the andouille perfect (of course, Link 41 can do no wrong in our opinion), and the fried green tomatoes delicious…hand-coated in a cornmeal breading and fried to golden perfection. While the grits were loose, not in a fried grit cake form as Philip generally preferred, he was able to concede that while they were not the style of shrimp and grits that reeled him in or made shrimp and grits one of his favorite meals, they were still quite delicious.

Our final total was $26. Not too bad for a fine-dining restaurant, though we were definitely tempted to check out the dessert menu (since we had coconut ice cream and brown butter chocolate chip cookies at home, we figured we better abstain). 212 Market is definitely one of the most local restaurants around, making an amazing effort to source as many items as possible locally. With a registered dietician (Maggie Moses, one of the owners) consulting with them on their menu, they are able to offer many healthy options including clearly indicated gluten-free and vegetarian options. They are also a very “green” restaurant, practicing recycling and composting, sending scraps to local farmers to be fed to livestock, and sending leftover food to the Food Bank. They also have solar panels on the roof and electric car charging stations in the parking lot (and, need I point out again-FREE PARKING FOR PATRONS?!?!). They offer seasonal menus (allowing them to make the most of seasonal produce) as well as daily specials. I have no idea how it took us twenty-one years to try this place out, but I don’t think it will be another twenty-one years until we come back.

212 Market is a great place to try if you’re in Downtown Chattanooga!

212 Market is located at 212 Market Street, Chattanooga, TN 37402. They are open for lunch from 11-3 daily and for dinner Monday-Thursday, 5-9:30, Friday and Saturday, 5-10, and Sunday 5-9. You can call them at 423-265-1212. Check out their website, http://www.212market.com. You can also like them on Facebook and follow them on Twitter.

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.

Blacksmith’s Bistro-April 6, 2013 (CLOSED)

April 7, 2013

Blacksmith’s Bistro was a popular dining spot, now closed, that was located first in St. Elmo and later in Downtown Chattanooga.

I’ve been meaning to get to Blacksmith’s for quite some time now. I’ve mentioned my Adventures in Dining coupon book (chock-full of buy one entrée, get one free coupons) before…well, there isn’t a Blacksmith’s coupon in the edition that I currently have, but I first heard of Blacksmith’s from an Adventures in Dining book. Unfortunately, I never got around to using the coupon, probably because of the slightly out-of-the-way location of Blacksmith’s (near The Incline in St. Elmo). Nice spot, but we just rarely make it to that side of town.

Well….they are out of the way no more, having moved to the former location of Market Street Tavern, which closed late last year. Apparently I was not the only person who kind of saw Blacksmith’s as “out of sight, out of mind” because Philip started talking to one of the employees about their relocation and it turns out that part of the reason that they moved was to increase their lunchtime visibility. Being right-smack in the middle of downtown definitely makes you more attractive to the business set, and their sales have increased 25% since they moved just a few weeks ago.

Anyway….we were driving aimlessly, consulting the list, and I mentioned Blacksmith’s….so off we went. There were only a couple of other tables occupied (it was about 2 p.m., so after lunch time and way before dinner) so we chose a table and checked out the decor, which is similar to what was here after MST moved in and remodeled, with specials written on the large chalkboard on the walls and dark tables and walls, but with Blacksmith’s own touches hanging on the walls. They have quite a few house drink specialties, a decent variety of beers on tap, a nice wine selection, and several non-alcoholic special drinks, including Pure Sodaworks bottles (yea!) and their own specialty Italian sodas. Michael, our server, quickly took our drink orders while we perused the menu.

The first section of the menu is “small plates”, or, basically, appetizers. I really wanted to try the fried green tomatoes, served with pimento cheese, black bean sauce, and booyah sauce (more on that in a few minutes) for $6, but Philip’s been on an antibiotic that’s seriously affecting his appetite so we passed. My eye was also drawn to the hummus, of course, and the vegetable spring rolls. They have quite a few unique-sounding salads on the menu, including the beet (with romaine, marinated beets, goat cheese, walnuts, and dijon vinaigrette), the arugula (with black bean-corn salsa, roasted tomatoes, and avocado), and the ubiquitous pear salad (with mixed greens, toasted pecans, gorgonzola, and dijon vinaigrette), which had us both salivating. Ultimately we decided against getting an appetizer or salad, though. Next time…next time.

They had several tasty sounding “big plates”, including steak frites (fancy-speak for steak & fries) and a couple of varieties of mac & cheese, but we were definitely in a sandwich mood. I perused the sandwich menu and was tempted-very tempted-by the Chatty cheesesteak (voodoo steak, pimento cheese, caramelized onion, sourdough)….but the Gooey burger (pimento cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion, avocado, russian dressing) was calling my name as well so I enlisted Michael’s assistance to choose. He recommended the burger, so that’s what I went for (nine times out of ten I will go for the server’s recommendation). I did not regret that decision. The burger patty was huge and really caramelized on the outside. The meat was absolutely delicious…I was very impressed. The flavor really stood out to me, I think because of the wonderful caramelization. The vegetables were fresh and the Russian dressing was just a teeny bit spicy, which was a nice complement to the salty, creamy pimento cheese, which had nice big (but not off-putting) chunks of pimento. The fries were shoestring fries, not made in-house, sadly, but Michael did tell me that the items that are outsourced are purchased from researched, reputable companies. I dipped mine in some booyah sauce because the name of that sauce was just too intriguing for me to pass it up. It was kind of like a wing sauce, thin, orange in color, not terribly spicy but smoky with the flavor of chipotle. The sauces-pimento cheese, Russian dressing, booyah sauce, etc.-are made in-house.

Philip decided on the Local Vore (Eagle’s Rest bison, Sequatchie Cove Coppinger cheese, balsamic honey marinated red onion, arugula, ciabatta, herb aioli) without much thought because, well….those are a few of his favorite things. It was served on an individual ciabatta roll, which was gigantic still, with very fresh bison meat that is brought to the restaurant a few days a week by the man that raises the bison, perfectly cooked. Of course, Coppinger cheese is a very local raw milk cheese with a very unique flavor, and the caramelized onions and arugula were an excellent addition to the strong flavors of this burger. Philip liked the shoestring fries, too, and we joked that we needed some cheese sauce with them (because they were very similar to the shoestring fries served at Steak & Shake, which are just not right without cheese sauce).

We were too full for dessert (both of us cleaned our plates!) but I asked Michael for a dessert menu just so I could check it out. It was pretty standard-a chocolate lava cake, an ice cream sundae, and a few other things, including an ice cream float served in stout beer. Our total was about $24. We really enjoyed our Blacksmith’s experience and will definitely go back…perhaps to try their Sunday brunch? I’m dying to try the Croque Madame from their brunch menu, and I’m sure that Philip would be more than happy to check out their shrimp & grits.

Blacksmith’s is located at 809 Market Street, Chattanooga, TN 37402. You can call them at (423) 702-5461. Check out their website: http://www.blacksmithsgastropub.com and “like” them on Facebook. They are open from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Sunday-Thursday and 11 a.m. to 12 a.m. Friday and Saturday. Also, a reader recently asked me to share whether establishments are wheelchair-accessible. Due to their location right off of a major downtown street with curb cuts, Blacksmith’s is wheelchair-accessible, and a large space running between the tables on either side of the restaurant allows room to get around (not sure about the restroom).

Marco’s Italian Bistro (Chattanooga North Shore) (CLOSED)

March 31, 2013

Marco’s Italian Bistro was an Italian restaurant, now closed, that was located on Chattanooga’s North Shore (Frazier Avenue).

Well, kiddies, spring break is almost over. This teacher is feeling a little sad. While winter break is two weeks long and sates me for a little while, fall and spring breaks are just a blasted week and always leave me longing for more, especially when the weather is colder at the end of March than it was in December and I spend the whole week trying to hide out in my house wearing knee socks and fuzzy slippers to avoid freezing to death.

Finally on Thursday the weather started warming up a bit, enough to be outside without a coat at least. Philip and I went downtown to St. Mark’s United Methodist (in the north Chatt area) to check out their Faith Marks exhibit (about the spiritual meaning behind people’s tattoos) with out friend Rachel. Very, very interesting (you may not know that I am married to a, um, tattoo enthusiast, or that I have a couple myself). After checking it out, we headed to the North Shore for dinner. Not too many places left in that area that haven’t been blogged about, so it came down to North Chatt Cat or Marco’s. Obviously, Marco’s won.

We got there around 6:45 or 7 and were seated immediately. Our server, Frank, quickly took our drink orders and let us know the specials: housemade butternut squash ravioli with either cajun cream sauce or citrus pesto, and some variety of filet (I think it was filet, anyway….definitely a steak of some sort). We set to perusing the menu, which consisted of appetizers, salads, chef’s specials, create your own pasta, pizzas, and desserts.

Frank brought us some bread, an herbed focaccia with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, herbs, and red pepper for dipping. It was pretty tasty and I especially liked the crunchy outside texture of the triangles. I decided to order a half spinach salad (spinachio on the menu), which is definitely out of character for me since it contained goat cheese, which is just not my thing. However, it also contained pancetta, dried cherries, and roasted walnuts, which are all my thing, and was served with a tangy red wine honey vinaigrette. Full disclosure, I don’t really care for goat cheese because it tastes “musty” to me, but combined with all of the other delicious flavors in the salad, I didn’t find the goat cheese at all off-putting and it may have inspired me to try goat cheese (in small amounts) in combination with other strong flavors to see if I can increase my appreciation of it! Philip decided on a half Caesar (Appassito insalata Caesar) on the menu, which was a grilled romaine heart served with creamy Caesar dressing and a gigantic parmesan cracker (a frico). The menu said there were croutons with the salad but there were not any on his, though with the crunchy parmesan croutons were not necessary. The creamy dressing was really good and the frico was delicious. Philip liked it but I do tend to prefer a more traditional chopped romaine Caesar. Rachel decided on a cup of the bisque di pomodoro, tomato basil bisque drizzled with olive oil. It was slightly creamy, thick, with visible pieces of basil. I didn’t taste it, but Rachel enjoyed it.

As soon as Frank announced that butternut squash ravioli was a special I knew what I was going to order. I decided to top it with the cajun cream. It also came with sautéed spinach in the middle. The spinach was garlicky and perfectly cooked. The portion of ravioli was perfect, just enough for dinner so I wasn’t stuffed after. The raviolis had a decent amount of filling, not overstuffed but not skimpy either, and the filling was sweet and squashy. I liked the cajun cream but wish it had been just a little more spicy. Yes, I’m a bit of a wimp, but when dishes are supposed to be spicy I do like to taste at least a little bit of spice. I would have liked a tangible amount of grated parmesan (instead of the powdery white stuff you can see here) on top. Still, I liked this dish and would order it again.

I didn’t take Philip long to settle on the chicken piccata, which is chicken breasts pounded thin, lightly breaded and sautéed, and topped with a light lemon-caper sauce. Marco’s serves theirs on a gigantic bed of arugula. Frank asked Philip if he wanted to sub a side for the arugula…apparently a lot of people don’t notice that part of the menu and are taken aback when the chicken arrives atop all that arugula. Philip, however, loves arugula and definitely wanted it. There was definitely a lot of arugula and a good-sized portion of chicken. The sauce was lightly drizzled over the whole dish. It was light and lemony, not overpowering, and the arugula was very fresh and not wilty at all except in the spots where the warm chicken had touched. Philip really liked this dish and would definitely order it again.

Rachel decided on the baked ziti, ziti mixed with tomato-meat sauce and baked in a crock with mozzarella on top. Wow, this was a large portion. Rachel didn’t make it through too much of it and took home probably enough for at least two meals. There was a ton of cheese on top….I don’t know how “traditional” that is (or how traditional baked ziti is, for that matter) but I definitely never argue with a blanket of mozzarella. The pasta was not swimming in tomato sauce but was nicely coated and there was a good amount of meat, though it was sausage, not beef, which is what I expect in a meat sauce around these parts. I tasted the pasta; the sauce had a strong tomato flavor and the cheese was nice and melty, though I avoided the meat because I’m just not a fan of Italian sausage.

Philip saw crème brûlée on the menu and knew he had to have it before we had even ordered our meal. He sees crème brûlée on a menu and develops a one-track mind. The crème brûlée was good, flecked with vanilla bean with the whole cold/warm dynamic going on, but it wasn’t turning cartwheels great. It was crème brûlée, and you really have to do something amazing with crème brûlée to really blow me away since it’s one of those things I can make at home (restaurant meals tend to become less impressive when you start cooking everything at home).

I liked the food at Marco’s but it was a little pricier than I expected; I had a bit of sticker shock over the end bill, about $45 before tip for my & Philip’s meal (2 half salads, a pasta special, the chicken piccata, and the crème brûlée). …but we don’t usually order dessert so I guess that’s what kind of threw us over the top. Frank was friendly and attentive as were the hostesses and the atmosphere was pretty nice. If you are on the North Shore and looking for some Italian food, give Marco’s a try!

Marco’s is located at 417 Frazier Avenue, Chattanooga, TN 37405. You can call them at 423-710-2568. Check out their website, http://marcoschattanooga.com and “like” them on Facebook. They are open Monday-Saturday from 4-10 p.m. and are also open for brunch 11-3 on “special occasion” Sundays like Easter (that’s today, so if you are interested give them a call!) or Mother’s Day.

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