Hixson restaurants Archives - Page 6 of 7

Dixie BBQ-August 14, 2012

August 15, 2012

It’s a rare restaurant post in the middle of the week! This was actually supposed to be a post about spaghetti squash with sage and brown butter, but you guys will have to wait a few days for that one. Tuesday was the first day of school, and here’s how it goes down-every year: I tell myself that I’m going to cook…then I get home and I can’t even think about cooking. Today was no exception, unless you consider the fact that I told Philip on Monday night, “I have something planned to cook tomorrow night, but I’m under no illusion that I’m actually going to cook.” So….we went out to eat. No big surprise.

On Sunday there was a Groupon for Dixie BBQ-$6 for $12 worth of food. I had $5 in Groupon bucks, so I got the deal for $1 (by the way, I’m not really sure how one earns “Groupon bucks”. They just sent me an email a while back that I had some….)! My family has been eating at Dixie BBQ for years, but somehow I have never been here, even though it’s only about 10 minutes from my house. I guess I just kind of forget about it. I recently added it to my “list” on my iPhone, which I maintain to help us remember the places that we still need to go when we are out places. Tonight seemed like a perfect time to go….not very far, and we could pick it up and bring it home to eat.

By the time we walked away from the ordering window we reeked of smoked food (not a bad thing, at least in our opinion!). They have your normal BBQ restaurant fare….sandwiches, plates (meat, bread, & two sides), stuffed potatoes, hamburgers, cheeseburgers, and I think there might have been chicken tenders but I can’t remember. The meats were pork, beef, and smoked chicken, and the sides that I can remember were slaw, baked beans, fried okra, potato salad, tater logs, and tater tots. I think there were a few more, but I don’t remember what they were!

I knew before I got there what I was going to order….the “killer potato”. Everyone in my family swears by this potato. I decided to order it with pork. I was not disappointed. It was gigantic and covered with cheese, butter, sour cream, pulled pork, and barbecue sauce. The pork was delicious, tender and SO smoky. I really liked the barbecue sauce….it was sweet (but not too much so) and not overly spicy. This was a great potato. The only thing I would change would be to add some chives or chopped green onions…but it really was a great BBQ potato.

Philip decided on the pork plate with fried okra and coleslaw. It also came with Texas toast (which Philip hates, no matter where it comes from, and threw in the trash). He thought the slaw was “meh”…he really loves Rib & Loin’s slaw (so do I, and I generally hate slaw) and just didn’t feel like it was quite up to par in comparison. He did like the okra, though. I tasted it too and thought that it tasted really good. We couldn’t decide if it was frozen, though….and suspect that it might be. Like me, he loved the pulled pork as well as the sauce.

The only real issue that I had on this trip was the fact that they do not take credit cards-cash or check only. I looked at the cash lying on my dresser before we left the house and thought, “Nah, I won’t need it….” I’m just so used to everyone taking cards these days, so I was a little taken aback when the girl told Philip that they don’t take cards. By this time she had already redeemed my Groupon so it was too late to back out of the order…so we ended up going to the Kangaroo station next door to visit the ATM. No big deal, though. We should have known better than to assume that they took cards-a lot of small, local businesses don’t because of the additional cost. Besides, we needed cash for the farmers market, and we needed gas, so we killed three birds with one stone (and didn’t get charged an ATM fee!). The total on our order was $13.11, which means that the total out of our pocket was $2.11.

So, if you are looking for some great smoked meat in the Hixson/Soddy-Daisy/Middle Valley area, check out Dixie BBQ. They are located at 1530 Boy Scout Road, Hixson, TN 37343. You can call them at 423-842-4025. I did not think to check their hours of operation and I couldn’t find the hours online. I believe that they are closed on Sunday. They do not have a website or a Facebook page.

Lupi’s Pizza Pies (Hixson)-August 1, 2012

August 5, 2012

So yesterday’s post mentioned “those nights” that you just can’t quite bring yourself to cook. Wednesday night was one of those nights for me. I think it was the whole “last night of summer break” thing. Philip was going to be late getting home and all I wanted to do was make my lunch, take a hot bath, paint my toenails, and hang out on the couch with my laptop.

So, I pulled up the Lupi’s menu on my computer. For some reason, even though it’s been in Hixson since 1999 (and since 1996 downtown), I always forget about Lupi’s. I have no idea why. Philip and I were talking about it over the weekend and I added it to the list on my iPhone (actually, it’s a set of lists, divided up by regions of town). Wednesday night seemed to provide the perfect excuse.

It didn’t take me long to settle on an order. They’ve recently added housemade mozzarella to their menu, and they feature a margherita pizza with this mozzarella, local tomatoes, basil, and coarse salt. They also have a “take and bake” option, so I ordered that in a 16-inch with a whole wheat crust and headed on out to pick it up, thinking that would give me more flexibility as far as time went (so I wouldn’t have to go out at 8 p.m. to pick up a pizza).

Sadly, when I got there, I was handed an already baked pizza. I chose to not say anything…I wasn’t in the mood to hang out, and it really wasn’t that big of a deal. Mistakes happen, and the pizza did look and smell amazing. I decided just to take it and reheat it for a few minutes on my pizza stone (which I preheat at 400 degrees before placing pizza on it. Ten minutes and cold pizza is perfect and crisp again. This trick also works for fried chicken and French fries. I am not joking.).

I kind of underestimated how large this pizza was going to be. I think I could have gone with the 12″ and we would have had plenty of pizza for Wednesday night and plenty to have leftovers for dinner Thursday. Oh well. It was so good I didn’t really care. I was not expecting the pizza to have tomato sauce on it (since it had sliced tomatoes) but it did. Lupi’s pizza sauce is pretty sweet, but I liked it and appreciated that they didn’t put a ton of it on the pizza. The fresh mozzarella was amazing, and I liked the basil sprinkled evenly over the pizza. Believe it or not, the salt really added a lot to the pizza….it’s amazing what a little salt can do to bring fresh tomatoes to life. My only issue is that to me margherita pizza should have a very thin crust….this is the traditional way that it is served. This crust was fairly thick. I really, really liked it-it tasted great and did not have a cardboard texture like so many wheat crusts do-but just would have preferred a thinner crust here.

Here’s my favorite thing about Lupi’s: it’s about as local as you can get. Their flour comes from Sonrisa Farm, the local farm from which I buy my wheat berries at the farmers market. The tomatoes are local. I don’t know where they get their milk, but they made the mozzarella with their own hands. They buy local products whenever possible-including produce, ground beef, honey, etc.). And I love this: the money that would be contributed to advertising campaigns instead gets contributed to local schools, charities, and organizations. And you know what? I am pretty sure that they are doing okay without advertisement.

Lupi’s offers pizzas in slices as well as 12″ and 16″ whole pizzas. They offer an interesting variety of toppings…the usual assortment of meats and a wide range of vegetables, including more unusual options like roasted corn, zucchini, and avocado (I must try this). They also offer calzones and a small but fresh assortment of appetizers like bruschetta, garden salad, and homemade mozzarella drizzled with balsamic vinegar. You can also purchase a ball of mozzarella or a ball of pizza dough. They also feature catering and the option to buy a whole lasagna, bulk salad dressings, and a large salad (but they do request a day or two worth of notice for these items).

Know this: if you eat at Lupi’s, you’re going to pay for it. My pizza was about $18….but it was gigantic, and it made two meals for two people….two hungry people. People with smaller appetites (I admit, I eat like a horse…I’m sure you aren’t surprised) probably could have stretched it even farther. My rationale is that I would spend this much if we ordered Domino’s (because inevitably I’d buy that wretched cheesy bread….it’s so addictive with its burnt, crust ends) and if we order from Lupi’s we are supporting so many local businesses and getting much fresher, much more delicious product than if we went to the big D. It’s worth it to me.

Lupi’s Hixson is located at 5504 Hixson Pike, Hixson, TN 37343. You can call them at 423-847-3700. Their website is lupi.com; they also have a Facebook page. They are opened Tuesday-Thursday, 11 a.m.-10 p.m., Friday, 11 a.m.-11 p.m., and Sunday, 11:30 a.m.-9 p.m.

The Rice Boxx-June 9, 2012

June 12, 2012

As I mentioned in my Serendipity Cafe, we attempted to go to the Rice Boxx last month. Unfortunately for us, we went on a Monday night, and they are closed on Mondays. So, this past weekend we decided to go there for lunch on Saturday. In case you didn’t know, The Rice Boxx is located in the Bi-Lo complex in the Lupton Drive/Rivermont area. There were not very many people in the restaurant, so we were seated immediately. Our server quickly took our drink order and left us to peruse the menu.

The menu is pretty large with a section for Chinese/Thai and a section for Japanese (including a section only for sushi). I’m going to be honest, I am always a little bit suspicious of places that serve several different types of Asian cuisine under one roof….but I was a sport. One thing that I noticed that I found interesting was that, while they had a kids’ menu, the items on the menu were not typical kids’ menu items…they were child-sized portions of some of the items off of the regular menu.

We ordered a Thai spring roll (vegetarian) and a pork egg roll to start our meal. Turns out that Philip’s meal came with a spring roll, so we did not have to pay extra for that. As we were eating the rolls, we simultaneously noticed that there was no pink meat in the egg roll. I cannot stomach pink meat in egg rolls. That just screams processed to me, and I assume that the pink hue comes from the “pink” curing salt (nitrites) that are used. Anyway, this egg roll just had plain old ground pork. The rolls were both very crispy but not mouth-searingly hot (hot enough to be well-cooked but not hot enough to remove the skin from the roof of your mouth). My favorite was the spring roll, with its rice noodles and cabbage and flaky rice paper wrapper…but that’s just me.

I decided to order off of the “Japanese” section of the menu so I ordered teriyaki chicken and shrimp (menu options are available as hibachi-with soy sauce-or teriyaki-obviously with teriyaki sauce) with fried rice and white sauce (ginger sauce is also available, but I’ve never been a fan….and I have openly declared my love for white sauce here before). The server got mixed up and brought me chicken and steak, but the error was quickly corrected. I probably won’t bother with the shrimp again….it was a little bit chewy. The chicken was nicely done with no fatty or chewy pieces, and there were a lot of vegetables on the plate, which was nice. The rice was cooked nicely, but it was bland…forcing me to douse it with copious amounts of soy sauce. I can’t deal with underseasoned foods! I did like the white sauce….actually, I liked it more than Ichiban’s or Kyoto’s, but not as much as Typhoon’s or the sauce I make myself.

Philip decided to order General Tso’s chicken off of the Chinese/Thai menu. He got this with fried rice, and it also came with broccoli and soup. He decided on egg drop soup, which came with a bowl of fried wonton strips (which I happily helped him eat-I love those things!). His comment about the soup was, “Tastes like egg drop soup.” Thanks for the description. Wow. We cracked up at his plate when they brought our meals out….it was a gigantic pile of chicken, a mound of rice….and three broccoli florets. I was concerned that he would gorge himself on broccoli. But anyway….Philip too thought that the rice was bland, although he does not love soy sauce like I do and just ate it that way. He said that the broccoli was underseasoned (unseasoned?) as well, and only ate one piece (I needn’t have been worried). He did really like the chicken, which I tasted. General Tso’s chicken (which is an Americanized Chinese dish that you would not find in China-but then, aren’t most of them?) is usually similar to sesame chicken but with a slightly spicier sauce. I could taste the chilies in the sauce, but it was not overpoweringly spicy. Philip’s favorite thing about it was that while it was sweet, it did not have the usually tooth-aching quality you find in most Chinese restaurants.

If you decide to visit the Rice Boxx, you should definitely visit the restroom. The hallway leading to the restroom has a flashing light that changes colors…red, yellow, purple, orange, blue, green….very kitschy. It made me feel like I was trapped in an eighties horror flick. Too funny.

So, the verdict is that The Rice Boxx is not my favorite, but it definitely wasn’t bad. The prices were decent, as was the amount of food that we got. On this day, seasoning was a bit of an issue….and I wouldn’t bother with the shrimp if I were you. We didn’t try the sushi, but if you were so inclined you could sit at the small sushi bar and watch him make your sushi, which always make me feel better about restaurants that serve sushi, and I read several positive comments about the sushi on Urbanspoon. If you are in the area and you are craving some sort of Asian food, it’s worth a stop in.

The Rice Boxx is located at 3600 Hixson Pike, Chattanooga, TN 37415. You can call them at 423-305-0855. You can also visit their website at http://www.riceboxchattanooga.com.

Glen-Gene Deli Hixson-June 2, 2012

June 5, 2012

Glen-Gene Deli holds a special place in my heart. It’s been around forever, or at least as long as I can remember. Until several years back, it was located inside of Northgate Mall (and, if I am not mistaken, there was also a location in Eastgate Mall). Since there have never been a ton of places to eat at Northgate (which, despite Hamilton Place’s ability to boast about being the largest mall in Tennessee, is far and away my Chattanooga mall of choice-I avoid crowds and traffic like the plague), I ate at the Northgate location more times than I can count. I ate there with my mom and my grandmother as well as with my friends on many a mall excursion. It’s funny to remember those days…it was back before the days of the smoking ban in Tennessee, and inevitably the place reeked of smoke. We usually sat out in the seating area in the mall. The mall has changed, and Glen-Gene is no longer there, having moved to the Oak Park Town Center (by the Hixson Wal-Mart) in a freestanding location. The food, however, has not changed.

Philip and I went there together on Saturday for the first time ever. I am not kidding. Now, I’ve been there a million and one times in the thirteen years we’ve been together, but he never wanted to go. For some reason he didn’t care for the food and he referred to it as “girl food”. He used to say the same thing about Chick-fil-a, but he is a Chick-fil-a convert now. While we were eating at Glen-Gene, we were talking about the whole “girl food” opinion. He formed this opinion because “it always seemed like only girls wanted to go there”. My explanation for this was that it was, after all, in a mall-as was the only location of Chick-fil-a when we were growing up. Besides, he and his friends pretty much lived at Taco Bell, so of course they didn’t want to go to Glen-Gene (or Chick-fil-a, for that matter).

I remember that when I was a kid/teenager, I used to order different things. Usually a cheeseburger, I think, but I seem to recall some chicken fingers in there too. When I was around 17 or 18, I tried their teriyaki chicken sandwich….and I don’t think I’ve ordered anything else since. It kind of makes me laugh….this sandwich is on the “10 grams of fat or less” menu, but on this gigantic bun I am sure that it’s got a pretty hefty amount of calories. You know I don’t get too worked up over that sort of thing….I’ll make up for it later. It’s basically a butterflied chicken, boneless/skinless chicken breast half basted with teriyaki sauce and served on a sesame seed bun. It’s consistent and tasty, not dripping with sauce, and always tender and well cooked. You can dress your own sandwich at their bar (when I was a kid, this wasn’t an option, and I seem to recall that they chopped their onions up into little pieces so they were impossible to separate from the lettuce. Ugh.). Philip decided on the bacon cheeseburger. It too is gigantic, served on a sesame seed bun. It’s a fairly thin patty. After at least 13 1/2 years since eating here (because I know he hasn’t touched it since our first date in 1999), he was won over. I doubt it will become his favorite restaurant, but he’s willing to eat there now.

We shared an order of fries. The fries are pretty average. They’re skin-on, but I have no idea if they’re made there or if they are frozen. One thing that bugs me about them is that they are unsalted, or at least they taste unsalted. I always have to salt them at the table (because really, who wants to eat unsalted fries) and you know salt doesn’t stick as well to fries when they aren’t fresh from the fryer. They also have a little shaker of seasoned salt by the toppings bar that you can add to your fries.

Glen-Gene has a variety of deli sandwiches, burgers, chicken sandwiches, and veggies sandwiches. They also have a large selection of “pita sacks”, including steak, gyro, chicken…you get the picture. They have a handful of “dinners” like chicken fingers or fried shrimp and fries. They have a surprisingly varied menu of sides, including fries, chips, tots, fried mushrooms, and mozzarella sticks. They also have several dessert offerings. You can check out their entire menu at http://glengene.com/. I checked them on Urbanspoon, and they have a “77% like it” rating. Like I said, I order the same thing every time. I encourage you to give it a try and decide for yourself. Glen-Gene isn’t haute cuisine, but it’s a quick bite to eat when you’ve been out shopping and you want a break from the usual. They feature a reusable coupon every year in the Hamilton County Schools Kids First coupon book.

Glen-Gene Deli is located at 5748 Highway 153, Hixson, TN 37343 (they also have a location at 7025 Shallowford Road, Chattanooga, TN 37421). You can call the Hixson location at 423-877-9997. You can visit their website, http://glengene.com.

China King Hixson-February 4, 2012 (CLOSED)

February 5, 2012

Note: China King Hixson closed sometime in the later half of 2013. Somehow I totally missed this until a reader pointed it out to me! There’s now a Workout 24/7 there. Shows you how much attention I pay, since I grocery shop in the Publix plaza at least once a week!

All right, I railed against going to this place for quite some time. Call me a snob, I don’t care. I just have this “thing” about hole-in-the-wall Chinese places….I’m suspicious. I can’t help it. Sometimes I am pleasantly surprised, and sometimes I’m not. There’s one very close to my house that we went to once and my eggroll had some sort of mysterious fluorescent pink meat in it. Never again.

Anyway, Philip went to a different hole-in-the-wall Chinese place in East Brainerd with a friend last week and loved it, so he wanted to try this one. One of my friends and her husband really like it and go there frequently, so I figured it was worth a shot. When we were racking our brains trying to think of something to eat on Saturday night, Philip suggested we go. So we did.

It was around 7:30 when we got there. There was one couple that was actually eating in the restaurant, and 4 or 5 people waiting for orders (2 more came in to pick up while we were there). The decoration was sparse, as you would probably expect, and they did have the required slightly creepy looking photos of different meals that are available hanging about the counter, like a menu. The menu is huge, but that’s generally pretty standard at a Chinese restaurant…..122 menu items plus “Chef’s Specialties”, “Special Combination Plates”, and lunch specials. Since we are partial to fried rice, we went for the special combination plates, which included the meat, pork fried rice, and an eggroll for $6.95. Philip got sweet and sour chicken, and I got sesame chicken. I won’t go into too much detail about what is available…it’s again pretty much the standard Chinese restaurant menu…plus you can check out the menu at the bottom of the post.

Philip took the first bite of the eggrolls….he’s a little bit braver than I am. Okay, he’s a lot braver than I am. Anyway, there was no pink mystery meat in the center of the eggrolls, just cabbage. We were in business. Since we had about 15 minutes from the time we got our food to the time we were actually eating it, it wasn’t overwhelmingly hot….just perfect. I’d be willing to be you’d burn your mouth eating one in the restaurant, though!

Interestingly, the sesame chicken smelled super-garlicky. It didn’t taste super-garlicky, though, so that was good. It was sweet, not overly sticky, and not spicy like you occasionally find (General Tso’s would be considered the spicy version of sesame chicken). I had two random pieces of broccoli, which I got a good laugh from. Philip’s sweet & sour was pretty much the average sweet & sour….not too much breading and not too greasy; that was a plus. The rice was fine, maybe not as sticky as I really like my fried rice to be. That’s the problem with making things at home…you end up liking what you make more than what you get at restaurants. I guess that’s why so many restaurants are terribly disappointing to me. Still, I didn’t have to cook this, and it’s nice to have the night off from time to time. There were not a ton of veggies in the rice…a few carrots, onions, and peas-but interestingly there was actually a fair amount of diced pork, which tasted pretty good. Can someone explain to me why the rice at some Chinese restaurants is yellow? Some, not all. I would love to know.

In the end, we had enough left over to have it for lunch today as well. Again, that’s always nice, and it makes me feel less guilty about the amount that I spend when I go to a restaurant. Of course, there were the requisite fortune cookies at the end of the meal, and our fortunes were so boring that I don’t remotely remember what mine said. I think Philip’s said something about going fishing. I was more intrigued by the one that Philip picked up off of the table where we were waiting….it said something about modifying your plans. But I digress.

Okay, in the end….China King is not the ultimate be all and end all of Chinese restaurants. It was decent food, though, and inexpensive, at least when you consider that we got two meals from it. I doubt will eat there often, but I am sure we will eat there again. Perfectly acceptable for a no-cook Saturday night.

China King is located at 5922 Hixson Pike, Hixson, TN 37343 (in the Publix complex, between El Metate and BiBa’s). You can reach them at 423-842-0666.

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