downtown Chattanooga restaurants Archives - Page 7 of 20

Brewhaus Chattanooga-Revisit

March 9, 2015

Brewhaus Chattanooga is the Chattanooga North Shore’s homage to German pubs. They serve great food and great beer in a relaxed atmosphere.
I’ve blogged about BrewHaus before, back in 2012. We liked it a lot (except for the German potato salad….I did NOT like the German potato salad!). We were out enjoying the sunshine and relative warmth this past weekend, walking the bridge and welcoming Spring-like weather after three weeks of nastiness. Since BrewHaus just reopened last week following the fire in January that shut the restaurant down for several weeks, we decided to drop in and see how things were going.

The restaurant looks great…I don’t know how much the fire affected the seating area as it happened in the kitchen, but everything looks just as it did before. We like to sit on the balcony, so that’s what we did. The menu is relatively unchanged, though I was excited to see fried pickles and cannot remember for the life of me if they were there the last time I went. The fried pickles are chips (woohoo!), lightly breaded and served with a dressing that tasted like horseradish. The fried pickles were nicely seasoned and a little spicy, with the dip adding a little additional spice. They were not greasy at all. Definitely some of the best fried pickles around.

I decided to order the Hamburg cheeseburger with pimento cheese and potato cakes on the side. The burger was nicely griddled and served on a chewy bun with lettuce, tomato, and mayonnaise. I really enjoyed the pimento cheese, which was melted a little on top, though I do think that pimento cheese burgers work better on a soft bun that doesn’t slide around as much. I had to be very careful while eating this burger so that my burger didn’t slide right out from underneath the bun top! All in all, though, a good burger. I really liked the potato cakes. They were a nice break from the usual fries, small patties of potatoes seasoned and fried till golden brown. Delicious.

Philip went for the chicken salad sandwich-chunks of white meat chicken with pecans, dried cherries, and mayonnaise served on toasted white bread. He liked the chicken salad, but he didn’t love the chicken salad. He ordered the spaetzle, German dumplings served in a cream sauce with mushrooms. The spaetzle was very good, creamy and well seasoned. He also had a Chattanooga Brewing Company Chestnut Street brown ale, which he thoroughly enjoyed. As you might expect from a restaurant named BrewHaus, they have a pretty nice beer list, with domestics, imports, and craft beers, and local beers…draughts, bottles, and cans.

While we were there, they were setting up for a parking lot party being held that evening to celebrate their reopening. All proceeds from the party were to go to charity. I overheard our server, David, telling the couple sitting next to us that because the community had been so supportive of them in their time of need, they wanted to give back. Other local restaurants and bars, including The Bitter Alibi, Root Kitchen, Chattanooga Brewing Company, and Mellow Mushroom hosted events benefiting BrewHaus and had the BrewHaus staff take over their establishments so that they could continue to pay their own bills. It’s very encouraging to see the restaurant community take care of each other!

We thoroughly enjoyed our lunch at BrewHaus Chattanooga.

During the day, it’s a nice family-friendly environment. The menu is good, small enough to not be overwhelming but with enough variety that just about anyone can find something to order. I recommend BrewHaus! By the way, our order was about $30 pre-tip.

BrewHaus Chattanooga is located at 224 Frazier Avenue, Chattanooga, Tennessee 37405. You can call them at 423-531-8490. You can visit the BrewHaus website and check out the BrewHaus menu. You can also like BrewHaus on Facebook and follow @BrewHausChatt on Twitter.

Taconooga (Downtown Chattanooga)

February 9, 2015

When I asked readers for Mexican food recommendations, TacoNooga on the North Shore ranked near the top of reader recommendations!

I am embarrassed that it took me as long as it did to get to Taconooga…it’s been around for a while, but that location doesn’t seem to be the best (which makes no sense, given how many people are always crawling the North Shore) so I guess I wanted to wait to make sure they were going to stick around! I’m glad that they did. Mexican food is one of my top “cravings” and, though we don’t eat it as much as we used to, I could probably eat it every night and not get tired of it. I was struck with a craving on Friday and decided that we needed to head to Taconooga this weekend, especially after commenters on my Facebook page raved about it.

This weekend was gorgeous, with nothing but blue skies and temperatures in the sixties. The North Shore was very busy (but then, when is it not?) and when we got to Taconooga around 2:00 it was packed out. No empty tables, though they quickly cleared a table that just had some supplies stacked on it so we could sit. Apparently we hit at the end of the lunch rush, because it wasn’t quite as busy when we left as it was when we arrived, but there were still a lot of people. We were given menus (the food menu, the drink list, and a weekend specials menu, which I wish I’d taken a photo of) and our server took our drink order.

After she brought our drinks it took her a few minutes to get back to us to take our order, for which she apologized, but the place was busy so we were really not upset! She was very friendly and I wish I’d thought to ask her name. After she took our order it only took a few minutes for her to bring out our food, which she told us was all made very fresh.

Perhaps the one downside to Taconooga is that the chips and salsa are not complimentary, but in my opinion it is mandatory to have tortilla chips with something in a Mexican restaurant so we were willing to pay. There are a lot of options: queso, freshly made guacamole (which is supposedly out of this world…we saw a couple order it and it was a huge bowl that looked delicious), choriqueso (queso with chorizo), and several others. We decided to just stick with the basics and get chips and salsa. You get to choose two of the three salsas: we chose the house salsa and the spicy chili salsa (the third was tomatillo). Both tasted very fresh. The spicy chili was not so spicy that I couldn’t eat it, but it definitely had a strong kick. The house salsa had some sort of herb or spice that I didn’t recognize that set it apart from others. The chips were thick, hot, and freshly fried. Perfect.

I decided to get the tacos al pastor and the pescado especial (fried tilapia tacos). The al pastor tacos had chunks of pineapple from the marinade, which I’ve never had in a taco al pastor before, but it definitely gave a tangy sweetness to the tacos. They had tons of cilantro, which in my opinion is always a good thing, and lots of red onion….which I would usually hate but for some reason I like raw onion on tacos. The pescado especial had a large piece of battered, fried fish on double corn tortillas and was topped with lettuce, mango salsa, and jicama for crunch. There was a side of a mayo-based sauce that I added to the fish taco. It was very fresh and the sauce, though I couldn’t place the flavors, was a great complement. There were large chunks of mango and jalapeño in the salsa, but it wasn’t overly spicy. I loved the addition of jicama.

Philip decided to get a chorizo (Mexican sausage) taco and a taco lengua (that’s right…tongue). Like my taco al pastor, both of his tacos were topped with ample amounts of cilantro and onions. He liked the chorizo and said that it was some of the best that he’d had-in competition with Taqueria Jalisco and Delia’s-not greasy, spicy but not too much so. The lengua was perfectly spiced, falling apart, shredded finely. I know the idea of tongue scares people, but it is really just like a very tasty pot roast. I PROMISE. I would tell you if it was bad! It was very tasty.

We ordered two sides: frijoles charros (pictured above with Philip’s tacos) and Mexican street corn (which you can order on the cob or loose…neither of us likes corn on the cob). The frijoles charros are pinto beans cooked with bacon, onions, and garlic. They were very smoky, tender, and flavorful….but if I had to choose one side to eat here for the rest of forever, it would be the Mexican street corn: yellow corn with queso fresco, spicy mayo sauce, and chili seasoning. There was just enough mayo sauce to make it a little creamy. The seasoning on top made it nice and smoky, and the queso fresco gave a salty bite. Everything we ordered was delicious, but the Mexican street corn was the highlight of the meal. By the way, the sides are big enough for two people, so next time we’ll probably just order one Mexican street corn and forego the beans.

Taconooga is definitely a contender for a spot among the best Mexican restaurants in Chattanooga.

The food is fresh and delicious and the staff is friendly and amazingly quick. It was a good value, too-a ton of food for just around $21 pre-tip. It’s great to see restaurants like this full to the brim with customers. I’ll be back as often as I can get back!

Taconooga is located at 207-A Frazier Avenue, Chattanooga, TN 37405. They are open Monday-Thursday, 11 a.m.-10 p.m., Friday-Saturday, 11 a.m.-10:30 p.m., and Sunday, 11 a.m.-9 p.m. You can call them at 423-757-5550 or email them at taconooga@gmail.com. Check out Taconooga’s website and like Taconooga on Facebook.

Root Kitchen and Wine Bar (CLOSED)

December 8, 2014

As of 9/13/16, Root Kitchen and Wine Bar is closed.
Root Kitchen and Wine Bar is a beautiful restaurant with a small but varied menu. The service was good and the food was fresh and delicious.
Over the last few weeks, I’ve been working hard to organize my life. Email archives, compressed photo files crammed onto my external hard drive, etc., etc. I’m trying. I am an incredibly organized person at work, but once I hit my garage all that fades away and I melt into a complete slob with no sense of household organization. I’m working on it, though. My fridge looks pretty good right now (though my pantry and deep freeze are going to have to wait until winter break) and there’s the list. See, picking a restaurant for my bi-weekly review can be a bit of a task when we aren’t really sure of all the places we need to go, so I made a list. I posted it on Facebook and my Facebook followers added to it. If you have anything to add, speak up! This week, when we consulted the list, we decided on Root Kitchen & Wine Bar.

I got an email a few months back inviting me to come in and try Root, but the email didn’t elaborate on exactly where the restaurant was located. A little investigative work revealed the Elemental had closed and Root had opened up in its place. I was a little surprised because it hadn’t been that long since we’d eaten at Elemental. Somehow I missed that they had closed. Root pretty quickly occupied the space, changing up the decor with different tables and chairs (at least I think they’re different…but I could be wrong), moving the big tractor to the back corner, adding some flowers…but the space was nice, so it didn’t need much work.

We arrived around 2:00 p.m. on Saturday and they were serving a brunch menu with starters, several breakfast specialty items, omelettes, an assortment of “Benedicts”, sandwiches, and salads. I skipped the $1.00 mimosas and stuck with water. We also skipped the starters, though the Southern nachos with Maytag blue cheese, bacon, green onions, and maple jalapeño reduction sounded pretty tasty. I struggled with whether to order the Cobb salad (herb roasted chicken, hard boiled egg, heirloom tomatoes, Maytag blue cheese, Benton’s bacon, Lee & Gordon greens, and red wine vinaigrette) and the fried green tomatoes BLT (fried green tomatoes, pimento cheese, applewood smoked bacon, Lee & Gordon lettuce, and aioli on toasted bread). When I asked our server, Erin, for her recommendation, she emphatically told me that I should get the BLT, which I ordered with parmesan-herb fries (other side options were grits, potatoes-breakfast potatoes, I assume-and root vegetable chips). The fries were delicious, hand-cut, skin on fries, perfectly cooked with chopped herbs and grated parmesan. The sandwich had a good balance of ingredients-a couple of strips of thick-cut bacon, two fried green tomatoes that were hot but not mouth-searing, a slightly spicy pimento cheese that was melty under the hot tomatoes, and buttery leaf lettuce. I didn’t detect the aioli; it just sort of blended in to the rest of the ingredients, which was fine with me because there was a lot going on in that sandwich (in a good way).

Philip quickly decided on the shrimp and grits. I was concerned that he wouldn’t like it because he is a fool for grit cakes with creamy sauce and this dish had neither. Rather, the shrimp & grits (made with Falls Mills grits and andouille pan gravy) was thick and tomatoey. The grits were spooned into the bowl and topped with a sauce made with tomatoes, sausage, and mushrooms (creminis and perhaps some shiitakes). There was a decent amount of shrimp and the dish was well-seasoned. While Philip lamented that they were not as good as his favorite, which was served at the now-defunct Market Street Tavern, he liked the shrimp and grits here a lot and would order it again. He was also very impressed by the fact that when he very much did not like the beer that he ordered, Erin brought him a different one and only charged him for one. That’s customer service, people.

Root Kitchen and Wine Bar is a beautiful restaurant with a small but varied menu. The service was good and the food was fresh and delicious. We look forward to going back to try their lunch and dinner menus.

If you happen to be on the North Shore looking for a great meal, Root Kitchen is a great place to try.

Root Kitchen and Wine Bar is located at 313 Manufacturer’s Road, Chattanooga, TN 37405. They are open Tuesday-Friday, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., Saturday 11 a.m.-11 p.m., and Sunday 11 a.m.-3 p.m. You can call them at 423-648-9160. You can “like” Root Kitchen and Wine Bar on Facebook and check out their website, http://www.rootkitchenandwinebar.com.

Other restaurants in this area: Chato Brasserie, Food Works

Chattanooga Brewing Company

November 24, 2014

Chattanooga Brewing Company is serving great bar-style food and fantastic micro-brewed beer on Chattanooga’s South Side, by Finley Stadium.

I’ve posted about Chattanooga Brewing Company before, but I didn’t have much to say because I don’t drink beer and at that time they didn’t serve food. However, last week a reader responded to one of my Facebook posts and told me that she’d eaten at the new CBC location and had some very tasty chicken tenders. Some of you may know that Philip recently started a blog, Path of Brews, to chronicle his journey into home brewing and post beer reviews. Seemed like a perfect opportunity for a great tag-team blog post to me, so we headed down to the new Chattanooga Brewing Company location (across from Finley Stadium and next door to the Chattanooga Jump Park) for a Saturday lunch.

First things first…there’s parking on the street or you can park in the big gravel lot behind the building, which is what we did. Of course, the first thing that we noticed was how gigantic the new location was in comparison to the previous location on Frazier Avenue, where there were maybe four tables. The new building has upstairs, downstairs, and outdoor seating and you just seat yourself. There were quite a few other people there, but still plenty of open seating. We picked a two-seat table by the downstairs windows. Our server, David, brought us each a beer list and a food menu.

Of course, I don’t care for beer, so I just had water. Philip decided on a 5-sample beer flight including Imperial Pilsner, S.A. IPA (infused with habaneros), Dunkel Vice, Winter Warmer, and Hefeweizen. I can’t tell you much more about that, but you can read his post on Path of Brews about our visit here.

Since my reader mentioned the Chickbock-battered chicken tenders, we decided to order those as an appetizer. There were three nicely browned, crisp-crusted tenders in the basket. The batter had quite a bit of spice to it, but not so much as to make it difficult to eat-instead it just added to the flavor. The tenders were perfectly cooked through and the honey mustard served on the side was a nice, cooling complement.

I had a hard time decided between the CBC burger and the Rivers sandwich (grilled sourdough with applewood bacon, lettuce, tomato, mayo, and balsamic Vidalia onion jam) but finally decided, since I’m trying to decide on my top ten burgers so I can update my list one of these days, to get the burger. With beer cheese for good measure. Since David told me that the waffle fries were not housemade (I asked) I decided to get house chips instead. The burger was good-sized but not grossly oversized, served on a fresh bun (Niedlov’s, I’m pretty sure) with lettuce, tomato, pickles, mayo, and the beer cheese. The portion of chips was basically gigantic. The chips were delicious and fresh, perfectly crispy and seasoned with salt and pepper. The burger was cooked just right with a great grilled flavor. The beer cheese had a great beer flavor (interestingly I do not like to drink beer but I like the way it tastes in food preparations).

Philip decided to try a stuffed pocket, AKA a homemade hot pocket. He had a hard time narrowing it down to one because he thought they all sounded good, but finally decided on the Hot Chick, with mozzarella, Buffalo chicken, blue cheese crumbles, and ranch dressing. It was all stuffed into a pizza-type dough. It was pretty messy because the ranch and buffalo kind of flowed out a little bit, so he had to use a fork for a lot of it. However, it was very tasty, with good seasoning and a nice balance of spiciness from the Buffalo sauce, creaminess from the ranch, and tanginess from the blue cheese. The dough was nicely crisp around the edges. Philip decided to get sweet potato waffle fries, which, while they may not be housemade, were well-cooked, crisp, hot, and tasty (particularly dipped into the honey mustard that I saved from the chicken tender basket).

In case you’re a new Chattavore reader, you should know that I’m pretty low-rent as far as my food preferences go. I love an upscale restaurant from time to time, but I definitely prefer bar food, burgers, and the like for an average meal out.

There isn’t a huge food selection here at Chattanooga Brewing Company, but there’s definitely something for everyone and the food has good flavor and does a great job of incorporating the house brews.

And if you like beer, you definitely need to go here for some great (so I’m told, anyway) local beer. The prices aren’t too bad either-for our appetizer, two entrees, and Philip’s flight, it was $31 and some change pre-tip.

Chattanooga Brewing Company is located at 1804 Chestnut Street, Chattanooga, TN 37405. You can call them at 423-702-9958. They are open 4 p.m.-10(ish) on Wednesday and Thursday and 11 a.m. to 10(ish) Friday-Sunday. Check out Chattanooga Brewing Company’s website, like Chattanooga Brewing Company on Facebook and follow @chattabrew on Twitter.

Clyde’s on Main (South Side)

September 22, 2014

Clyde’s on Main is a fun and trendy bar on Chattanooga’s South Side owned by Mike and Taylor Monen of Taco Mamacita, Urban Stack, & Milk & Honey fame.

When I read an article from TFP months back that the Monens (of Taco Mamacita, Urban Stack, Community Pie, and Milk & Honey fame) were turning Clyde’s Auto Glass on Main Street into a restaurant, my interest was piqued. Mike and Taylor Monen know how to start a new restaurant, and that area of Main Street is turning into a boom town. As Philip and I headed to Grocery Bar on the weekends, we would notice how the place was coming along. We don’t often go to new places pretty much immediately after they opened, but we couldn’t resist quickly checking out Clyde’s on Main, especially after seeing lots of pictures on Facebook and having one friend text me to let me know how tasty the food was. As one friend captioned his Instagram photo of Clyde’s bar: “And our next conference session today will be led by the Monens: ‘How to open dope $*&! and generally kick @$$.'” Yep.

This place is definitely all about atmosphere. It’s loud, I’ll warn you of that. Don’t go there to have a deep and meaningful conversation. However, if you just want to go to hang out and have fun, yes. There are ping-pong tables complete with brackets for tournaments on a blackboards. You can sit at a regular table, a booth, a high-top, or a pinball machine. That’s right, you can sit on a sofa placed at a pinball machine as a table. The lighting is low and the music is loud, and while I don’t remember what they were playing I know that it was good. Old school pop culture pictures hang in the restroom and an assortment of witty coozies hang at the bar. Every employee that we spoke with was extremely friendly and the vibe was great. There were plenty of families with children in the place for lunch on a Saturday (though some Facebook commentors on Meghan Pittman’s TFP review stated that they saw a poster with an “f-bomb” on it, so proceed with caution if this sort of thing concerns you-also, some of the commentors said that children are not allowed on weekend evenings, which makes sense to me as it is a place with a bar atmosphere).

I have to apologize for the menu photos. I know that they’re a little warped and there’s a shadow of my phone on them…but the ink was too shiny to take a straight on photo. Also, remember that the lights were low. But you get the point. Take your pick: appetizers, soups/salads, sandwiches, plates, and barbecue…an interesting and fun menu a little bit off the beaten path but not so far off as to be weird. There was also a list of craft beers and the old standards and a full bar including several signature drinks, with a nod to the college crowd with features like “Hunch Punch” and “Jungle Juice” (which I don’t think tastes too much like the fuchsia drink I used to get in a carton on extra special fun days in my elementary school cafeteria). While I really wanted to try some pork candy or some soft pretzels with homemade cheez whiz, we decided to pass on appetizers (and it’s probably a good thing we did, because I basically cleaned my plate). (If you’d like to see a better image of the menu, check out the menu link on their Facebook page-I tried to directly share the link here but for some reason it wasn’t working.)

Choosing an entree was a little bit daunting. The bahn mi was tempting and you guys know that I love a good burger and (since I need to revise my list) I needed to see how theirs fit into Chattavore’s top ten. I came very close to ordering the buttermilk fried chicken sandwich (buttermilk brined and hand breaded southern style chicken with lettuce, house pickles, tomato, melted American cheese, and sweet hot sauce on a Kaiser roll). However, when the manager (who was helping out our server by getting us started) told me that they still had barbecue, which they serve until they run out, I knew I had to give it a try. The friend that texted me about the food told me that when she went they were out…better get while the gettin’s good, I figured. I decided to get the pulled pork plate with barbecue baked beans and beer cheese house chips. The pork was perfectly seasoned and extremely moist and tender. I loved the rub. The baked beans were a little bit spicy and had an interesting flavor that we are fairly certain was cloves. The pickles were fresh, tangy, and just a little bit spicy. I love a good house-cut chip and these were awesome, dusted with a mildly beer-flavored cheese powder. And I was enthralled by the presentation of the barbecue sauce: six sauces (Original Red, Sweet Lily’s, Mexican Coke, Red Hot, “From Here” Mustard, and Alabama White) served in a six-pack carrier. I tasted them all (except the red hot) and decided that the creamy mayo based Alabama White was my favorite, but I also loved the tangy “From Here” mustard and the sweet Mexican Coke sauces. I loved having options.

Philip decided on the buttermilk fried chicken plate with Clyde’s Power Greens and hot mustard slaw. The chicken was served with the sweet hot sauce that came on the buttermilk fried chicken sandwich. It was indeed sweet and Philip didn’t think it was extremely hot at first but it was definitely a building heat and he was breaking a sweat by the end. He was served two pieces of boneless chicken with a perfectly seasoned and crispy crust, cooked through and juicy. The slaw was fresh with a light mustard dressing that Philip pronounced was “good not great”. However, he loved Clyde’s Power Greens: kale, spinach, and collards, cooked until tender, well-seasoned and just a little spicy.

Look, we basically loved Clyde’s on Main.

The only thing that we might have changed was the noise level, but even that was definitely not a deal-breaker. The decor was great, the food was fantastic, and the staff was accommodating and friendly. Our server, Kaitlunn, was very attentive and chatty (but not in a bad way)! The prices were pretty much par for the course for a place like this. Our total was $31.31 pre-tip, which included our entrees and an IPA.

Clyde’s on Main is located at 122 Main Street, Chattanooga, TN (next to Mean Mug Coffee House). They are open Sunday-Wednesday 11 a.m.-12:00 a.m. and Thursday-Saturday 11 a.m.-2:00 a.m. You can call them at (423) 362-8335. Check out their website, http://www.clydesonmain.com. You can also like Clyde’s on Main on Facebook and follow Clyde’s on Main on Twitter.

Other restaurants in this area: Mean Mug Coffee House, Blue Orleans, Terminal BrewHouse

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