East Brainerd restaurants Archives - Page 3 of 3

Gollywhoppers-April 13, 2013

April 14, 2013

Gollywhoppers was a popular sandwich shop on East Brainerd Road that has closed since this review and been replaced by Greg’s Sandwich Works.

Recently I have been trying so hard to find my own photography “style”. I have a pretty good understanding of how my camera works, lighting, etc….but propping and styling is a weakness. When I look at the photos of food bloggers and food photographers that I really admire, I notice that they seem to have a “signature”…for example, Deb of Smitten Kitchen usually photographs against her charcoalish countertop, Melissa of The Faux Martha against an all-white background (which I’ve been experimenting with), and Heidi of 101 Cookbooks has an unreal white and gray marble countertop that provides an amazing backdrop for the majority of her photo. Well, I have an unattractive laminate countertop that was installed in 1977 and my, um, “backsplash” is a painted wall. I refuse to spend a billion dollars on props and we eat everything that I cook so a lot of my photos are taken in the Corelle stoneware we bought several years back. Keepin’ it real. I want a signature of my own…something that people recognize as Chattavore just like I can immediately spot a Smitten Kitchen photo on Pinterest or wherever else. I think if I can find my own propping/styling….style I can then focus on increasing the quality of my photography.

Anyway, the hunt for a signature style led us to Southeastern Salvage on Saturday in search of tile, wood, textiles, etc. We walked away with a market basket to replace the one that I bought at Target last year that is on its last leg and one of these days one of those milk jars is just going to come bursting out. But anyway….Lee Highway is not really a road where you want to make a left turn not at a light, so we ended up turning back toward Hamilton Place as we left. If you haven’t noticed, there are not an awful lot of local restaurants around HP (I suspect that the rent is too high for most mom & pop operations) so we knew we were going to end up somewhere on Brainerd or East Brainerd Road and finally decided on Gollywhoppers.

Gollywhoppers has been around for a long time (since 1997) but because we don’t spend an awful lot of time in that part of town we’ve never eaten there. They are located in a fairly large strip mall sort of building on East Brainerd Road as it nears Brainerd. When you walk in, there are menus on the table as well as menus by the entrance so you can decide what you want to order before you walk up to the counter if you’re like me and you can’t stand to feel like the cashiers are staring at you while you try to decide what you want to order off the menu over the counter. We sat down at a table to decide what to order.

The menu includes sandwiches, of course-half sandwiches or the Gollywhopper whole sandwiches, each available on French, cracked wheat, rye, or pumpernickel bread, each baked from scratch (they also serve hamburgers and a hot dog that they claim is the best in town). They have baked potatoes, including the super-stuffed potato topped with all sorts of things, including chili and cheese as well as a barbecue stuffed potato. Their salad menu includes a taco salad, a southwest grilled chicken salad, a stuffed tomato, and their salad bar. They serve several soups including soup specials on certain days and chili, of course, which can be made into chili pie, a ubiquitous Southern dish (known in some parts of the country as Frito pie and in other parts “walking tacos”) of corn chips topped with chili, cheese, and onions-theirs also has slaw, sour cream, and jalapeños. They also have a handful of homemade sides: baked beans, slaw, pasta salad, and potato salad. Finally, their dessert menu includes a laundry list of made-from-scratch bars which are showcased in a case by the registers, including red velvet bars, lemon bars, peanut butter swirl bars, Special K bars…..the list goes on. You can purchase a whole (very large) bar for $3.99 or a bite-sized (more manageable for one person) bar for $0.99.

I love a good, messy, overstuffed baked potato so I seriously considered ordering the super-stuffed potato, but I really wanted to try a sandwich so I finally settled on a half pimento cheese sandwich on cracked wheat bread (I thought about French bread but wasn’t sure how “crusty” the French bread would be and pimento cheese doesn’t really pair all that well with crusty bread) with taco soup (served with crackers or cornbread….I decided on cornbread). This is served as a combo that comes with a drink, so I got sweet tea (as did Philip). By the way, when they say “sweet tea”, they mean it. We ended up cutting it with unsweetened and I added a lot of lemon (as I always do). Here’s a fun Chattavore fact…..I used to drink “sweet tea” (as everyone likes to make fun of us Southerners for saying) constantly; it was pretty much the only thing I drank. In 2006 when Philip had a surgery and had to water up to prep for anesthesia I joined him in the water deluge and we’ve never looked back. I haven’t made iced tea in years except for a party….but it’s still an occasional dining out treat if real brewed tea (not nasty Nestea) is available.

The bread is not sliced bread but rather individual rolls. Since the half sandwich is actually served on a full roll the same size that I’d serve if I was making sandwiches on rolls at home, I’m dying to see what the whole sandwich is served on and should have asked but didn’t even think about that till just now. The cracked wheat bread was fresh and soft, obviously not 100% whole wheat but the perfect texture for pimento cheese. Their pimento cheese was not a spread like I made but more drippy with whole shreds of cheese. It was clearly homemade with large chunks of pimento. Quite delicious, and I could have eaten the whole sandwich if I hadn’t forced myself to stop. The taco soup was not like any I’ve had before (the taco soup I make has beans and corn in it, this did not) but quite tasty with lots of tomatoes, ground beef, and shredded pork, shredded cheese, and crushed tortilla chips at the bottom with perfect seasoning. The cornbread was sweet and was pretty good as sweet cornbread goes, but you know I’m a savory cornbread girl. They did get points for serving it with real butter as opposed to “buttery spread”.

Philip decided on the Reuben, which isn’t actually listed on the menu. He was going to order corned beef with whatever on it….as he started ordering he asked the cashier what came on the corned beef sandwich and the guy told him that it was up to him unless he ordered the Reuben…so if you want a Reuben, know it’s available to you. Philip decided on that with rye bread (he was given a choice of rye or pumpernickel) with chips and a drink. They have a wide variety of chips available and Philip decided on jalapeño flavored. He liked the Reuben, saying it was good, not the best he’d had, but good. I tasted it….I’m not really a judge of Reubens because I don’t care much for rye bread (it’s the caraway) but I liked it. The corned beef was tasty, the bread fresh (of course), the cheese a little melty, and the dressing and the sauerkraut brought everything together just like they should on a Reuben. I need to learn to love caraway.

After we ate we were a bit too full to sample any of the bars but I did look at the case just a little wistfully as we walked out. A red velvet bar with cream cheese icing would have ended my day perfectly yesterday but instead I ended up eating Ghirardelli chocolate chips out of the jar from my pantry at 9:30 last night. Oh well. Live and learn. The total for our two combos was about $19. The food was fresh and quick but not too quick, and the service was friendly. There were plenty of people in the store even at almost 2:00 on a Saturday afternoon, so Gollywhoppers has definitely made its mark on the area.

Gollywhoppers closed in late 2014 and has since been replaced by Greg’s Sandwich Works.

Gollywhoppers is located at 6337 East Brainerd Road, Chattanooga, TN 37421. You can reach them at 423-855-2001. You can also “like” them on Facebook and check out their website at http://www.gollywhopperstn.com. They are open Monday-Friday, 11 a.m.-8 p.m., Saturday 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., and Sunday 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. They also provide catering with at least 24 hours advanced notice.

The Palms at Hamilton-September 29, 2012

October 1, 2012

Saturday I felt like we went all over the world in one day. We had dinner with some friends Friday night (at a local restaurant I decided NOT to blog about-wouldn’t you like to know where!) and then came straight home because we were both on the verge of crashing. Saturday, though, we did our usual traipsing around Northgate (seriously, we do that almost every Saturday, even though usually the only thing we leave with are some used CDs from FYE), then went to Books-a-Mill because I mistakenly thought that the Smitten Kitchen cookbook had been released and wanted to flip through it, then McKay (because I hadn’t been in a couple of months), then to a late lunch, then Target. All before 4 p.m.

We were getting hungry around the time that we were in the East Brainerd area at McKay (where I scored United States of Arugula and Nigella Lawson’s bio on trade credit). Surprisingly, with a million and one stores and restaurants in that area of town, there is only a tiny handful of local places. I suspect high overhead is the reason for that. There’s a Chinese place near Hurricane Creek that Philip loves, then there’s Bones Smokehouse (which I have been told I must try), and a few other places, most of which I have already reviewed…or don’t care to. Philip suggested The Palms, which I never even think about. I’d guess that it’s pretty likely that you never think about it either. The Palms is located on Shallowford, near Sonic. It used to be The Oasis. Philip once played at a songwriter night there and thought the interior was pretty nice and some of the stuff on the menu looked pretty good (albeit a bit pricey). We decided to go there.

It was about 2:15 when we arrived (they open at 2:00). The place was deserted when we walked in. An employee vacuuming in the front directed us toward the bar. We found a table and the server, Lydia, (who was also tending bar) brought us menus and took our drink order. We checked out the menu and decided to order some chili con queso for $5.95. I was actually a little confused by the menu….on the front there’s a “to start with” section on the front of the menu that includes items like a “jumbo shrimp martini” and “cast iron seared & blackened prime rib strips”. All of the items in this section are $9.95 and up. On the back of the menu, however, there was a “just use your fingers” section with more standard sides like the chili con queso that we ordered, chips and salsa ($4.95), and wings. The chips & queso came out quickly…it was pretty much a standard white queso dip with chili mixed in. It tasted pretty good but I did think that for almost $6 the portion size was very small, and the chips were definitely not as fresh as they could have been.

I knew before I even walked in the door that I wanted a burger (no matter where we went) so I had two choices: a standard burger or the mushroom, bacon, and Swiss burger. I decided on the mushroom burger, which I ordered medium-well. It was pretty much a gigantic burger with sautéed mushrooms, melted Swiss, peppered bacon, lettuce, tomato, and onion (which I swiftly removed after snapping the pic) on a grilled bun. Lydia brought out mayo on request. The burger was good, cooked just like I asked. The mushrooms were well-cooked and at least tasted like they were cooked from fresh (you know, canned mushrooms just always taste bad). I really feel like lettuce, tomato, onions, pickle, etc. are unnecessary on a mushroom-Swiss burger, but whatever. It was fine. I liked the burger but it wasn’t anything “special”. The steak fries served on the side were pretty good but obviously made from frozen. Unfortunately, this is the rule, not the exception. Philip and I had a discussion as we were eating about fries and why more restaurants don’t make them from fresh. We concluded that not only is it more work, but people have become so conditioned to frozen fries (which are precooked and sprayed with some sort of starchy something that makes them cook up super-crispy) that they usually don’t like house-cut fries. Another reason to feel sad for our society. I love handcut fries and I wish everyone did, because my fry-eating experience would certainly be enhanced.

Philip considered the Baja fish tacos but ultimately decided to order the Reuben. He was a little nervous about it, as he always is when he orders a Reuben at a place he hasn’t eaten before. In case you don’t know, a Reuben is corned beef brisket, melted Swiss, Russian or Thousand Island dressing, and sauerkraut served on grilled rye bread. This particular sandwich was served on marble (rye & pumpernickel) bread. I’m guessing the corned beef was deli-cut (as I am quite certain they are not brining and slicing their own) and the sauerkraut (basically lacto-fermented cabbage) was not extremely strong. You should be proud of me…I am a little scared of sauerkraut but I tasted the sandwich (sauerkraut and other fermented foods are actually very good for you). It was good and there was no reason to be afraid! The grilled bread was not extremely greasy. Overall it was a pretty good sandwich, although I’d be willing to be it wouldn’t hold up against River Street Deli’s Reuben (I’d almost put money on it).

The interior here is nice, with dark wood and dark carpeting, and it’s very clean and well-kept. It is a 21-and-over joint, so unfortunately smoking is allowed (and there were 2 patrons smoking at the bar while we were there) so that’s definitely a con for us. The sandwiches, fajitas, and most of the fish and chicken dishes are fairly reasonably priced, but their steaks and salads are as pricey as if not more so than some of Chattanooga’s nicest upscale restaurants (salads are $7.95 and steaks are priced up to $32.95). I appreciate the fact that they support local music, and they have a pretty expensive drink menu (although, interestingly, only bottled beers-no draught). They serve brunch on Sundays, which I’d be interested to try (honestly, I judge restaurants much more harshly on their breakfast/brunch items than their lunch and dinner items. Frozen biscuits? Sorry, try again!) and have different “specials” (ladies’ night, date night, seafood night, etc.) every night. I wouldn’t call it my favorite restaurant (but then, it’s really a bar….), but if you have thought about checking them out, it’s worth a try.

The Palms is located at 6925 Shallowford Road, Chattanooga, TN 37421. You can call them at 423-499-5055. Check out their website at http://thepalmsathamilton.com/. You can also find them on Facebook.

Rain Thai Bistro-April 20, 2012

April 22, 2012

Dinner out on a Friday is such a rarity for us….we don’t do crowds or waiting very well, so the only way we will go to a “sit-down” place on a Friday or Saturday evening is usually if we have reservations. I was planning on making one of my farmers market meals Friday night for dinner (roasted chicken, potatoes, and salad) but Philip needed to head over to the Bonny Oaks area to pick up his paycheck so we decided to go to Hamilton Place. We were trying hard to think of somewhere local to eat in that area-there are not many places (I guess the rent’s outta control!). I suggested Sweet Basil Thai, but Brainerd Road is not a fun place to drive on Friday or Saturday night (well, it’s never a fun place to drive, but especially not on a weekend night) so we decided to go to Rain instead.

The atmosphere at Rain is pretty fantastic. It is beautifully decorated. We were seated in the bar area at a table that we felt encouraged people to be that couple (that’s what we call couples who sit on the same side of the booth when dining out together-no offense if you are part of one of “those” couples!) because it was a large booth with a large table, made more for 3 or 4 people than 2. We worked it out, though. They have an area where the tables are sunk down into the floor…you sit on a cushion on the floor around the table but you put your legs down under the table. I’ve sat in that section when I’ve gone to lunch with colleagues but Philip never has….we should have asked to be seated there. There were not a lot of people there when we arrived, but our section filled up very quickly after we got there. Good timing!

Our server, Angelia, took our drink orders (water, duh!) very quickly, and we also decided to order some spring rolls. The funny thing is, I always think of spring rolls as soft (not fried) rolls wrapped in rice paper, but Sweet Basil and Rain both serve fried spring rolls. The wrappers are not as thick as one would find encasing a traditional Chinese eggrolls, but rather thin and very flaky, and they are vegetarian, containing cabbage and carrots. They are skinny and rolled up super tight and served with a slightly sweet and slightly spicy dipping sauce. Very tasty, though I’ll have to try the unfried rice paper version some time.

Here’s the problem I have when I go to Thai restaurants: I love pad Thai. I love it so much that I can’t seem to bring myself to order anything else. I just can’t do it! Well, I think I ordered fried rice at Rain once because I wanted to try Thai fried rice, but then I spent the whole meal wishing I had some pad Thai (even though I liked the fried rice). I looked over the menu about ten times trying to pick out something else to order, but I kept coming back to pad Thai. Of course, it also seemed like every time I found something that sounded interesting it would have the word “spicy” in the description. I know a person as obsessed with food as I am “should” be into spicy food, but I’m not. Weakness, I suppose. So, I broke down and ordered the usual. Interestingly, they ask here if you want the pad Thai “mild, medium, hot, or Thai hot”. I’ve never been asked what heat level I wanted my pad Thai at any other Thai restaurant. I justified my order by saying that “a lot of people order pad Thai….I should review a popular dish, right?????”

Pad Thai is basically medium-wide rice noodles with a sauce that is sweet, salty, and sour all at once. It has chicken, shrimp, tofu (in a very small dice and fried crisp), bean sprouts, scallions, and crushed peanuts. Lime wedges are included on the side for squeezing over the top. This is a huge plate of noodles (as you can see) so I probably only ate about half. Delicious and fresh. (On a side note, I love to make Thai-style rice noodles at home. I’ll have to post that recipe some time.)

Philip usually orders pork Panang curry, which is pork and vegetables in a coconut and curry sauce (too spicy for me) and it took him a while to decide not to order it this time. He decided instead to get the sweet and sour chicken, after our server assured him that it wasn’t just like the usual sweet and sour chicken served at every Chinese hole-in-the-wall in America (not that there’s anything wrong with that). This dish definitely didn’t have the same “Thai” feel as the Panang curry, but it wasn’t the usual suspect either. It was a fried chicken breast, sliced into thin strips and served with onions, peppers, carrots, and pineapple in a red but not Technicolor sauce. The sauce was not the candy-ish sauce usually served alongside or poured over sweet and sour chicken…it was actually a ketchup or chili-sauce based sauce that was spicy but not too much so (I took a bite). Philip said that it didn’t get spicier as he was eating like the curry usually does….he has a pretty high tolerance for spicy but usually has to stop at some point because it just gets too hot to handle. He too got full well before the plate was empty.

Angelia offered us dessert but we were definitely too stuffed for dessert. At some point I’m going to have to do a soup/salad combo so I can fit some sticky mango rice pudding or fried bananas in….we got a good laugh out of the “brownie and ice cream” on the dessert menu. Is that a Thai brownie? Ha. They also have a kid’s menu which includes chicken strips and cheesy noodles, which is always a little odd to see on an ethnic menu, but I guess they have to have something for everyone.

I’m not going to mince words here….Rain is not my favorite Thai restaurant. Sweet Basil is and probably always will be (although there are a couple of places I’ve yet to try). (Funny that I haven’t reviewed Sweet Basil yet, but we actually went there for a blog post almost a year ago and lots of factors resulted in me never writing the post.) Still, the food is tasty and the atmosphere is lovely. I hear their sushi is good as well (the idea of sushi at a Thai restaurant has always made me snicker a little) but I haven’t tried it myself yet. If you are in the area, skip the chain restaurants and give Rain a try!

Rain Thai Bistro is located at 6933 Lee Highway, Chattanooga, TN 37421 (in the Rush complex). You can call them at 423-386-5586. You can also visit their website, rainthaibistro.com.

Taco Roc-March 24, 2012

March 26, 2012

Last week, I asked for suggestions for some places we could go to eat for this review, and, while there were many great suggestions, I ended up going somewhere that wasn’t suggested. We needed to go to a few places in the Hamilton Place area, so we decided to go to Taco Roc…we’d been wanting to go there for a while. We’ve heard many wonderful things about Taco Roc for several years, but after we heard that they were owned by the same people who own Delia’s, we knew we had to go!

When we arrived, there were only a couple of other tables filled…but, hey, it was not even 11:30 in the morning, so no surprise there! Sure enough, the menu was the same menu from both Delia’s locations. Unlike the sit-down Delia’s in Dayton, you don’t place your order at your table…you walk up to the counter and order, then they give you a number and bring the food to your table. There is a drink fountain (we got water, of course) and you can also order beer, a bottled Mexican soda (those things are GOOOOD if you’ve never had one!), and there were a couple of homemade-looking beverages in large beverage dispensers behind the counter. One was white, one was orange, and I wish that I had asked what they were…but I didn’t. There is also a little condiment bar with a few types of salsa (salsa verde, some sort of roasted tomato salsa, and a red, presumably hot sauce), shredded cheese, sliced jalapenos, some sort of whole pepper, cilantro, and a few other things.

I decided to order the flautas. I’ve seen them on the menu at Delia’s and wanted to try them, but since we always have to bring it home and flautas are deep-fried, I wasn’t too sure they would taste great once I got them home. I decided to have mine with steak (the other options were chicken or a mix with steak, chicken, and shrimp). Anyway, flautas are meat and cheese rolled into a flour tortilla and deep fried, then halved and topped with pico de gallo and queso fresco. The flautas were served on a bed of lettuce with a chipotle cream sauce. The steak at Taco Roc is seasoned and grilled perfectly. The cheese fried in the flautas was nice and melty, gooey, and stringy. I love queso fresco, which is very similar to feta. The chipotle cream sauce was quite delish, but a little spicy for my wimpy taste buds, so I didn’t eat a lot of it. I really liked the pico de gallo. It’s interesting, I hate raw onions but they don’t bother me in pico! This was a great dish, and I ate 3 of the 4 pieces of it!

Philip decided to order the tacos platter with Mexican sausage (chorizo). The menu says that the tacos platter comes with ground beef or chicken, but the cashier told Philip that he could choose any meat that he wanted. He has tried the steak and the barbacoa (shredded beef) and liked both of them, but he loves their chorizo. He decided to have them with flour tortillas. The tacos were what I would almost call overstuffed. Philip couldn’t finish them because they were so full of chorizo! He loved the beans, which, as I have mentioned before, are very fresh with no nasty skin on top. The rice was good too, but unlike Delia’s rice it had peas in it. I guess each location has its own approach! Anyway, we were both completely stuffed once we were finished.

The only (sort of) negative thing I can say about Taco Roc is that their chips were not quite as fresh as the ones we’ve had at Delia’s. They definitely weren’t bad, but at Delia’s they always taste like they were just fried. These tasted like they had been fried, I don’t know, maybe the day before or first thing in the morning. Oh well….we still ate them all!

So, we have completed the trifecta. Delia’s Soddy-Daisy, Delia’s Dayton, and Taco Roc. So far, the three best Mexican restaurants we’ve been to! I strongly urge you to try them-all of them!

Taco Roc is located at 6960 Lee Highway, Chattanooga, TN 37421. You can reach them at 423-653-1001. You can find them online at http://eltacoroc.com or on Facebook. They are open from 10-9 Monday through Saturday and 10-8 Sunday.

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