Ooltewah restaurants Archives - Page 2 of 2

Aji Peruvian Restaurant

May 4, 2016

Aji Peruvian restaurant, located in Ooltewah, Tennessee, serves delicious, fresh Peruvian food and beverages with friendly service!

Since we decided to eat in for 30 days (starting after spring break) we decided that our spring break strategy would be to eat at some restaurants that are not open on the weekend. Back when we ate at Thai Chili, we had actually tried to go to Aji Peruvian restaurant only to find out that they are closed on Saturday. Since it’s in Ooltewah, it’s a little bit of a drive for us to try to visit on weekday evening, so spring break was a perfect opportunity.

We arrived at around 12:00 on a Friday and were immediately seated by Sakei, who was our server as well. There was only one other table occupied, so I assume that they do most of their business at night. Sakei gave us our menus and gave us a few minutes to look over, then came back and answered questions and made recommendations.

While I ordered water, Philip decided to order a chicha morada ($2.15) – Andean purple corn juice blended with apples, pineapples, quince, lime juice, and spices. I didn’t take a picture of it because I didn’t think I’d get a good photo in the low lighting, but it was a deep purple color and it was delicious – it tasted like a very fruity spiced cider.

We considered ordering the choclo a la huancaina – Andean corn with a side of mild or spicy fresh Aji amarillo cheese sauce ($4.50), but we decided instead to order the empanadas al horno – five savory stuffed pastries from Aji’s bakery stuffed with your choice of chicken, three cheese and spinach, or tofu and spinach ($4.25). We decided to get two chicken, two spinach and cheese, and one tofu and spinach. The empanadas are basically small hand pies, filled, brushed with egg wash to give them a beautiful sheen, and baked until golden. They had just the right amount of filling and were amazingly not so hot that the filling scorched my mouth. The chicken was nicely spiced, the spinach and cheese very well balanced, and the tofu and spinach had a nice curry flavor.

For my entree, I decided to go with Sakei’s recommendation of lomo saltado ($9.65) – steak strips sautéed with onions and tomatoes, served on a bed of fries with a side of rice. Sakei said that this was one of her favorites and a very traditional Peruvian dish. The steak strips were tender and the sauce rich and savory…it definitely had some sort of seasoning like Maggi in it. The vegetables were nicely cooked and I loved how the fries soaked up the sauce. The rice was well-cooked and paired well with the meat mixture.

Philip couldn’t decide between the arroz chaufa ($9.15) – Peruvian style fried rice with sautéed steak or chicken, green onions, and eggs, seasoned with ginger and soy sauce – or the frito ($8.95) – deep-fried fish (tilapia) fillet served with rice and salsa criolla. Sakei suggested that, as a compromise, he could sub arroz chaufa for the rice that was included with the frito for an additional charge, so he decided to do that. The chaufa was delicious, with lots of egg and green onion and a strong ginger flavor. The fish was perfectly cooked, gorgeously golden and crispy, seasoned wonderfully, with onions and cilantro on top. Sakei also brought us some spicy Peruvian sauces made with Peruvian peppers, one medium that was similar to a salsa, and one hot that was creamy and green and delicious but a little too spicy for me to eat much of it.

Because we were pretty stuffed, we begrudgingly decided against dessert, but we would have loved to have had an alfajores (shortbread cookie filled with dulce de leche) or flan (custard topped with caramel). Our total pre-tip for Philip’s drink, the empananadas, and our two entrees was $29.50…not a bad value. The people were very friendly – Sakei and a sweet older lady who didn’t speak English but came out of the kitchen to greet us. The restaurant was nice, pretty basically decorated but clean and well-kept. The menu was full of delicious-sounding dishes, and I can’t wait to go back and try more.

We will definitely be back to Aji Peruvian Restaurant!

Aji Peruvian Restaurant is located at 5035 Ooltewah-Ringgold Road #123, Ooltewah, TN 37363. They are open Monday-Thursday, 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., Friday 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., and Sunday, 12 p.m. to 8 p.m. You can call them at 423-396-3919. Check out their website, www.ajiperuvianrestaurant.com. You can like Aji Peruvian Restaurant on Facebook and follow @ajiperuvian on Twitter.

Thai Chili Asian Bistro

February 17, 2016

It may seem unassuming and out of the way, but Thai Chili Asian Bistro serves excellent Thai food in Ooltewah, Tennessee!

This weekend, Philip and I decided to head out to Ooltewah to try Aji Peruvian restaurant…it’s been on my list for quite some time now. When we got there, we discovered that they aren’t open on Saturday. Oops. I guess I should have check the hours!

No matter, though, because we had a backup plan. A friend had recommended Thai Chili a few weeks ago, and since it was just a couple of miles away we just zipped over there to check it out.

When we walked in, there was only one table occupied (it was 2:00 in the afternoon, so no big surprise that they weren’t crowded) and Kristen, the server working, seated us immediately. It’s a small space, maybe 10 to 15 tables (that’s just an estimate) and is decorated very nicely. Plus, their restaurant inspection is hanging on the wall and the score was 100. Nice.

They were still serving lunch, which is served from 11-3. The lunch menu consists of appetizers, entrees, rice and noodle dishes, and curries. We ordered waters and spring rolls, which are vegetarian crispy fried spring rolls served with a sweet chile sauce. They came out very quickly – impressively so – and were very hot and fresh. Kristen confirmed that they are made in-house (they were that perfect…they looked like they must have been made by a machine!). The chile sauce was very sweet and just a little bit spicy. Our meals were preceded by coconut soup, which is a perfectly flavor-balanced mixture of coconut milk, broth, lime, mushrooms, and green onions. It was a wonderful combination of sweet, sour, and salty. Delicious.

Since pad Thai is my standard Thai restaurant order, I decided not to buck tradition for my post. I ordered shrimp pad Thai, which was $1.00 more than chicken, beef, or tofu pad Thai. Pad Thai, for those who aren’t familiar, is thin rice noodles stir-fried with eggs and scallions, served with bean sprouts and crushed peanuts. As with our spring rolls, we were amazed at how quickly our food came out – we were still eating our soup! It was a good-sized portion, but not outrageously so. Everything was perfectly cooked, with noodles that were just a little firm and nicely cooked shrimp. Thai food is really all about balance, and like the coconut soup, the pad Thai was wonderfully balanced with sweet, salty, and tart (from a squeeze of lime) flavors and lots of contrasting textures from the rice noodles, the shrimp, the bean sprouts, carrots, and peanuts. This pad Thai was as good as any pad Thai I’ve been served in more established Thai restaurants in Chattanooga.

Philip typically orders Panang curry, but today he decided to go off script and order pad see-ew instead. Pad see-ew is wide rice noodles sautéed in a sweet light brown sauce with egg, broccoli, carrot, and your choice of meat (Philip chose chicken). He took one bite and declared that this was now his favorite Thai food order, replacing Panang curry. I was shocked, as he has been eating Panang curry pretty much exclusively when we visit Thai restaurants for 10+ years. When I tasted the dish, though, I completely understood. The brown sauce was very flavorful, with fish sauce clearly being the prominent flavor component (please don’t let the name fish sauce scare you…it gives an amazing, complex “umami” – that is, savory – flavor component to anything you add it to). As with my pad Thai, the textures and flavors all had amazing contrasts and balance. It was delicious.

The prices weren’t bad either. With the spring rolls costing $2.95, my shrimp pad Thai costing $7.99, and Philip’s pad see-ew costing $6.99, the total before tax was just under $20 pre-tip. The atmosphere was nice, the food came out incredibly quickly, and Kristen was a great server. She told us that she eats there every day, including on her days off, and that she loves every item on the menu.

Thai Chili Asian Bistro is located at 9203 Lee Highway, Suite 12, Ooltewah, TN 37363 (in the Food City plaza). It’s a very unassuming location and very easy to miss – it’s between China Rose and Liberty Tax. They are open Sunday-Thursday, 11-3 and 5-9:30, and Friday-Saturday 11-10. You can call them at 423-777-5055. They do not have a website, but you can like Thai Chili Asian Bistro on Facebook.

Couch’s BBQ – Ooltewah, Tennessee

September 7, 2015

Couch’s BBQ is a popular, family-owned barbecue restaurant in Ooltewah, Tennessee, near Chattanooga.

When Philip and I were trying to decide on a place to try this past weekend, I had two criteria: it needed to be somewhere that I would not regret not ordering the burger (I’m taking a month or so off from burgers after writing the list) and I didn’t want to have to walk any sort of distance to get there, as grass or ragweed or something that is blooming is killing me. That second caveat effectively killed just about any place downtown. We went to McKay’s to peruse their used books (where I found Sarah Wu‘s Fed Up with Lunch, about which I was pretty excited) then decided to head over to Couch’s Bar-B-Que in Ooltewah, just a few short miles away.

Couch’s BBQ came highly recommended, as Amanda from Dish T’Pass had told me a while back that it was her family’s go-to barbecue joint and Southern Living recently proclaimed Couch’s Bar-B-Que one of the top fifty barbecue joints in the South. Besides, it’s been around since 1946, so they are clearly doing something right.

It was around 2 when we arrived but there was still a fairly hefty lunch crowd (though we didn’t have any trouble finding a seat). A friendly server brought us our waters while we checked out the menu and we ordered fried pickles because, you know, I have a rule (i.e. if fried pickles are on the menu I’m required to order them). I was a little disappointed when they turned out to be the same frozen fried pickles we were served at Choo-Choo BBQ and Kevin Brown Burgers, but oh well. Fried pickles are like pizza…even when they aren’t great they’re still pretty good.

I considered ordering a barbecue sandwich. The sandwiches here are topped with lettuce and tomato, which I find to be an interesting concept and I’m certain one that I would enjoy. In the end, though, I decided to order the pork “Couch Potato”, which apparently is somewhat of a claim to fame for the establishment as they have several signs stating that they are the “home of the Couch Potato”. In my opinion, the potato here is a cut above most other places around town-they are crusted in salt then topped with a generous but not exorbitant amount of butter, sour cream, shredded cheese, and whatever meat you choose. They are also served with a couple of rolls (pre-packaged).

One thing about the pork here, as you may notice in the picture, is that it is not pulled or even sliced but rather shaved. According to Grant, who writes the blog Marie, Let’s Eat!, Couch’s BBQ uses uncured hams rather than the usual Boston butt (aka pork shoulder), smokes them, then shaves them on a deli slicer. It is definitely a different barbecue experience, but not different bad or even different good-just different. We liked it; the meat was flavorful (if maybe just a smidge dry) and paired well with both of the housemade sauces (signature and sweet, which had a telltale molasses hit). The fact that they make their own sauce here is a huge advantage, as I have found very few places around here that do. There is nothing that I hate more than walking into a barbecue joint and being greeted with a food service container of sauce sitting in plain view.

Philip decided to get the pork plate, which is served with three sides and rolls. He decided to get the slaw, baked beans, and fried okra. Honestly, he was fine with all of the sides but didn’t think that they were anything outstanding. The okra was the familiar frozen okra and he couldn’t really tell if the other sides were homemade or not. I will say, again, that Grant touts their hot slaw on Marie, Let’s Eat! as delicious albeit “magically weird” (actually, in his first review of the spot he says, “It has a smell-the-back-of-your-brain kick and leaves a sharp and very strong aftertaste. It is all kinds of fantastic. I have no idea what is in it. I am absolutely clueless, but they don’t list it as a side on the menu so you have to know to ask for it.”) I’m not sure if Philip forgot to ask for it or just decided against it.

If we hadn’t been so full, I would have loved to have had a slice of one of their homemade pies: coconut, pecan, buttermilk, key lime, and (I think) chocolate. We just. couldn’t. do it. So, instead, we paid our bill ($21.03 pre-tip) and headed back toward home.

Couch’s BBQ was good, but it’s quite a drive for me so I don’t think we’re going to become regulars anytime soon. As seems to be par for the course, they pay a little less attention to their sides than to their meat, which I guess makes sense for a barbecue restaurant but good grief, I just want to find a spot that fries their own okra. Still, I’d definitely go back to Couch’s Bar-B-Que, and I highly recommend the Couch potato.

Couch’s Bar-B-Que is located at 8307 Old Lee Highway, Ooltewah, TN 37363. They are open Monday-Saturday, 11 a.m.-8 p.m. You can call them at 423-238-4801. You can check out Couch’s website, www.couchsbbq.org, and like Couch’s BBQ on Facebook.

Disclaimer: This post contains an Amazon affiliate link for the book Fed Up with Lunch, because I think it’s so eye-opening that you should read it if school lunches affect you in any way. If you click through and buy this book from this link, I will make a small commission. For more information, read my disclosures/privacy policy.

Countryside Café (Ooltewah, TN)

May 2, 2015

Countryside Café is a very popular Southern cooking restaurant in Ooltewah, Tennessee. They serve all of your Southern favorites!

I am a bit of a Type A. I have no idea if any of that comes through in my blog, but I am a classic overachieving first born Type A. Exhibit A: I haven’t missed a single day of work this year…I have managed not to get sick (no noses to wipe this year) and, as I almost always do, I have saved my personal days to the very end. This week was the week of the dreaded TCAP (state-mandated testing, for any of you who don’t live in Tennessee) and I couldn’t do very many school visits, so I decided to take a couple of days off. That gave us a chance to visit the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville (and a jaunt to Wish You Were Beer), finish painting our kitchen (except the trim…almost done!), and go to Countryside Café in Ooltewah.

Actually, we probably would have gone to Countryside Café this weekend even if I hadn’t taken the time off. I had excellent food catered from there years ago and have been meaning to get back since the inception of this blog…but Ooltewah is kind of a drive so I have to plan to go out there or I won’t think about it. This was a perfect opportunity! After sleeping in a little, eating breakfast, and doing the first coat of paint, it was almost 2:00 by the time we go out there. You’d imagine that on a weekday a place so far out would be dead at 2 p.m., but you’d be wrong. While we were seated immediately, there were plenty of other diners in the place. Plenty.

There are several dry erase boards stationed in different areas around the restaurant announcing the specials (meatloaf, wood-roasted chicken wings, wood-roasted chicken breast) and the desserts (too many to name, but the highlights included strawberry shortcake, Reese’s peanut butter cup cake, and chocolate chip walnut (ahem, not Derby) pie). A chalkboard on the hostess stand alerts you that the servers work as a team and that you can ask any one of them for anything that you need, and indeed this turned out to be true. Different people took our orders, filled our drinks, cleared our plates, checked up on us. It seemed to be a very efficient way of handling things!

I decided that in order to truly judge a country cooking type restaurant I needed to order sweet tea. It was quite good, pretty sweet but not cloying and just the right strength. I love sweet tea…I used to drink it all day long but somewhere in my late twenties realized I needed to replace my sweet tea with water and I’m sure my kidneys thank me for it. I decided to get the fried chicken filet with white gravy. Each meat is served with three vegetables and cornbread or a Sister Schubert’s roll unless otherwise noted. I ordered cornbread, mashed potatoes, green beans, and fried okra. The chicken was a gigantic boneless breast, breaded and fried and served smothered with peppery white gravy. It was deliciously seasoned and perfectly cooked and-this is important-there was no skin on the gravy. Gah, I hate being served gravy with a skin on it. The potatoes had a good flavor but were a little bit thicker than I prefer. The green beans were cooked until soft (true Southern style) and well-seasoned, and the okra…well, when I saw the okra the heavens opened and the angels sang. It was cornmeal dredged and pan fried, just like your momma or your granny (or I!) would cook in her Lodge skillet. Perfect.

Philip decided on the country-fried steak with white gravy (brown gravy was also a choice), mashed potatoes, white beans, and okra. The steak was well-breaded, nicely seasoned, and cooked just right and he liked the gravy as well. He agreed with me about the potatoes…good flavor but a little thick. He also did a little jig (not really) over the fried okra (it’s just so rare to find okra in a restaurant that isn’t fried!). He thought that the white beans were cooked well but a little under salted.

The cornbread muffins were also delicious. They were soft and moist and, like Southern cornbread should be, 100% savory and 0% sweet. And they were served with real butter. Amen and amen. Real butter and non-frozen fried okra alone are just about enough to make me declare this one of the best Southern cooking restaurants in which I’ve ever eaten.

We were stuffed to the gills by the time we finished our meals (not cleaned our plates…there was not way) but we couldn’t possibly leave without dessert, so we decided to get it to go. Buttermilk pie and Italian cream cake were our Friday night, um, dinner (we were nowhere near hungry enough for me to make the King Ranch casserole I’d planned to make for dinner). The Italian cream cake was a delicious, buttery yellow cake with a rich cream cheese frosting, coconut, and pecans. It was wonderful and didn’t have so much icing that it was overwhelming or caused me tooth pain (darn those sensitive teeth!). The buttermilk pie was creamy and custardy and had a beautifully crimped crust. Both were fantastic!

If you are willing to go a few minutes outside of Chattanooga to get amazing Southern food, you will not regret going to Countryside Café. The prices are reasonable (ours was $30 and some change pre-tip for 2 meat and three plates, two desserts, and a drink). They serve a wide variety of food with rotating specials and much of it is made from scratch. The desserts are out of this world! The people were friendly and the service was amazingly fast and efficient.

Countryside Café is obviously a local favorite for good reason-they’ve been around for 25 years so they must be doing something right!

Countryside Café is located at 8223 Mahan Gap Road, Ooltewah, TN 37363. You can call them at 423-344-8646. They are open Monday-Saturday, 10:30 a.m.-9:00 p.m., and Sunday 10:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m. You can check out their full menu on their website, www.countrysidecafe.net. You can also like Countryside Café on Facebook.

Kevin Brown Burgers (Ooltewah, TN)

October 27, 2014

Kevin Brown Burgers is a popular hometown spot serving classic-style burgers, sandwiches, and barbecue in Ooltewah, Tennessee!
I’m a major homebody, you guys. During the week, I do my best to never leave the house after I arrive home from work. Usually I am successful. I kind of get stuck in patterns on the weekends as well, and we tend to stick close to home or to downtown when choosing places to eat. For that reason, Chattavore is heavy on reviews of spots in Soddy-Daisy, Hixson, and Downtown Chattanooga. Ooltewah and Cleveland have been terribly neglected. Sorry, guys. I didn’t mean to leave you out…you’re just so far away! In the search for new blog material, though, I realized what a large market I have yet to really venture into, so I started searching for some places in that area to try.

Since I have been planning for a while to update my burger list (I’m going to make it a top ten), I’ve been thinking that I need to make it to a few places that I’ve heard are great for burgers. It made sense, then, that I’d start my Ooltewah dining experience with Kevin Brown Burgers. After a Google Maps fiasco (really, it isn’t that hard to find! I’m just not very familiar with the Ooltewah area), we arrived at Kevin Brown Burgers around 2:00 in the afternoon and found a packed out parking lot. The tables in this tiny, quaint diner (formica tables, booths, a dining counter, and sparse decorations) were all full, but a couple of diners got up right after we walked in so we were seated quickly. A very friendly lady took our drink orders while we checked out the menu, which consists of appetizers, burgers, sandwiches, dinner plates, salads, and specialties (like nachos, barbecue, and stuffed potatoes).

We decided to order the fried pickles (served with a side of ranch) because, well….fried pickles. You know I always have to try out the fried pickles. The fried pickles were spears coated in a seasoned crumb breading. I have begun to recognize when I’m served a food service frozen fried pickle and, well, this was one of those times. I like those well enough, but it’s always a little disappointing when the fried pickles are frozen. I was here for the burger, though.

The large burger is an 8 ounce patty and the small burger is 5 ounces. The man at the table next to us had the large burger and it. was. gigantic. Like the size of my head, I do not kid. Now, I love a gigantic burger as much as anyone but I’ve set a goal for myself to be able to button my smallest jeans ASAP and that burger was not going to contribute to meeting that goal, so I went for the small cheeseburger-5 ounce patty with American cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion (which I skipped, of course), pickle, mayonnaise, and mustard on a small hamburger bun. It was a delicious burger, a classic burger-well-cooked, well-seasoned, with just the right amount of toppings and condiments-not so much that stuff was dripping or falling off of it.

Philip decided to order the brisket sandwich. It was a heaping pile of smoked, sliced brisket on a large hamburger bun with mayo, lettuce, tomato, onion, and pickle. The meat was perfectly tender, falling apart and very moist. It was seasoned beautifully and had a great smoky flavor. Philip did say that he would have rather had it on some other type of bread, but thought that the toppings, which one would probably not normally put on a brisket sandwich, went really well. We also ordered steak fries, which were the standard frozen variety.

While the sides and the appetizers were pretty much the same as you’d find in just about any other roadside diner, the burgers and the smoked meat at Kevin Brown Burgers are definitely worth venturing to the other side of town from time to time for. The people here were very friendly and this is clearly a neighborhood favorite-and an affordable one, at that. Pre-tip, our appetizer, sandwiches, and fries were around $16 and some change.

If you’re looking for a great burger on the Ooltewah side of town, give Kevin Brown Burgers a try!

Kevin Brown Burgers is located at 8228 Mahan Gap Road, Ooltewah, TN 37363. You can call them at 423-344-8344. Their Facebook page says that they are open Tuesday-Saturday 11-8, but when we were there we found out that they actually close at 3:00 on Saturday so that the owner can spend the weekend with his family (several Urbanspoon reviewers also caution that you might want to call first to make sure they haven’t run out of burgers…apparently it happens sometimes). They do not have a website, but you can like Kevin Brown Burgers on Facebook.

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