geeks.rate(food)

Sam's Italian Villa

2010-07-02T14:51:00.003-05:00

Restaurant: Sam's Italian Villa

Address: 3312 West Broadway, Council Bluffs, IA

Website: http://samsitalianvillacb.com/

Genres: Italian

Check Constraints: None

Chain: No | More Omaha Locations: No

==NinjaDebugger==

Ordered:

Garlic Bread ($3.95)
Soda ($1.95)
Prime Rib Dinner ($16.95)

Baked Potato
Bread
Salad
Spaghetti w/marinara

I have a history with Sam's Italian Villa that does not actually involve eating there. See, when we finally moved into our house across town, I had the opportunity to get myself a job, so I took myself around to the local fast food places, naturally, and got myself a job slinging tacos. It was a good job, and I am still willing to eat there, so overall, it worked out pretty good, except when I had to quit because they kept scheduling me to close on school nights.

In any case, on the path to and from work, I would be forced to walk past Sam's Italian Villa. Now, being poor, my money pretty much all went into either helping with the bills or purchasing a computer, for I had decided I wanted to be a programmer, so while I was sorely tempted by the wonderful smells wafting forth from the vents of Sam's Italian Villa, I was never actually able to simply go have a meal. Other concerns came first. But someday, I would. That day was today.

Unfortunately, it started off poorly. The bread from the dinner came out first, and was old was swiftly hardening into a Breadstick of Indestructibility +5. This was followed swiftly by the garlic bread, which was burned on top, underdone on the bottom, and lacking utterly in any form of garlic. This was swiftly followed by the salad, a mass of iceberg lettuce with a smattering of carrot, straight from a bag, accompanied by two cucumber slices and two cherry tomatoes. It was quite evident, especially from the wilted, dried out look of the cucumbers, that it had been sitting out a while, and the accompanying vinagrette was bland and uninteresting in spite of the many herbs. Then the cup of spaghetti with marinara came out. They didn't fuck up the pasta, at least, even if the marinara was the most bland, uninspiring marinara I have ever tasted in my life.

Then came the baked potato and the prime rib. The potato came with a side of sour cream, thankfully, but was very slightly underdone. A forgivable sin, next to all the others. The prime rib was, um... immense. As big in girth as the monsters we had at the Drover, but half again as thick, it was mightily impressive... until I realized that at least a third of it was either gristle or massive chunks of fat.

Overall, I have to say that I would rather eat out of the Drover's dumpster than go back to Sam's Italian Villa, and that opinion is not in the least colored by my high hopes for it. For the same price I could go to Cascio's Steak House or the Drover, and get food that is quite literally better in every way. Sam's Italian Villa is much better experienced from the outside, where it smells simply divine.

Wohlner's Market

2010-03-04T11:00:00.000-06:00

Restaurant: Wohlner's Market
Address: 2289 S. 67th Street
Website: http://www.wohlners.com/
Genres: deli
Check Constraints: Short-order.
Chain: No. | More Omaha Locations: No.

==Chamelaeon==
Ordered:

Grilled Roast Beef Sandwich ($7.99)

Pasta Salad

Cup of Chicken Tortilla Soup ($1.99)
Fountain Drink ($0.99)

Some (not-too-longish) time ago, Wohlner's moved from its Leavenworth location into the new Aksarben Village "modern urban living center (possibly of doom)", one of those newfangled "planned" communities where there are apartments mixed with commercial offices with shopping and restaurants below, and everyone pretends that it's a vibrant tiny neighborhood of some dense urban metropolis which was airlifted here overnight. Or they would, if the economy hadn't prevented a good number of the retail and commercial slots from filling up. Regardless! Wolhner's is there to serve as the local neighborhood corner grocery store, like the Mr. Hooper of Aksarben.

... what? I can make non-geek references from time to time. Anyhow. Inside its new interior, Wolhner's sports a deli! It was to this deli that we descended like a horde of hungry code monkeys, and when the food finally came out, we all realized one thing more or less simultaneously; this place isn't just a deli. It's a bistro-deli hybrid.

That's not necessarily a bad thing, mind. The sandwiches here were definitely tasty, and everything was held to a good quality standard. What it does mean is that the food is artfully arranged on a plate which makes the quantity look rather small, and that your dollar will not go as far here as you think it will. With a bistro, you're paying the price for the high-quality food you're consuming, and the same goes here.

The sandwich, for instance, had a healthy amount of roast beef, a slice of good cheddar, and a tapenade spread across it which was delightful. There was supposedly a horseradish sauce, but though I got hints of it from time to time it was generally too weak to make a difference. I got with the side of pasta salad, which was al dente in all the right places and firm in the remainder. I also ordered a cup of chicken tortilla soup, which stood head and shoulders above the yellow-flavored liquid I remember being served in my university cafeteria.

It seemed the consensus that the winner here were the sandwiches (no shock). I feel remiss in posting this without a review of the pizzas they do here, but we weren't certain how long they'd take to cook, and we were under time pressure that day.

==Mecha==
Ordered:

Pizza Burger (w/Slaw and Chips) ($7.49)
Cup of Soup of the Day (Tortilla Soup) w/Bread ($2.99)
Fountain Drink ($0.99)

The soup was definitely strong here, plenty of chunks and tasty bits, as was the bread (White, Wheat, or Rye options, I chose Rye) that came with it. I think they only offer the one soup of the day, though, so your soup may vary.

The pizza burger, unfortunately, was not as good as the sandwiches turned out to be. The place advertises 'Kobe burgers', and I can't disagree with the quality of the meat itself, but it was cooked to medium-well/well, I'm fairly sure, and it was not particularly large. To be fair to them, it's hard to compete with some of the excellent burgers available elsewhere in this town, and it's not bad. It just might be better to pick one of the sandwiches. Several of them looked very good. The place also has a lot of strong competition, with Blue Planet, Amatos, Gandolfo's, and Jini D's all basically within walking distance. Also, I don't like slaw and didn't eat it, so someone else will have to talk about that.

There is something to be said for eat-and-shop, and it's among the better of those, but personally I don't think I'll be visiting much for the food. The placement is fairly convenient, though, and they've got a good selection of groceries and alcohols and such. I think it'll do fine.

==NinjaDebugger==
Ordered:

Grilled BBQ Chicken Sandwich ($6.49)
Cup of Soup of the Day (Tortilla Soup) w/Bread (included)
Homemade Chips ($1.99)
Fountain Drink ($0.99)

I'm going to be quite brief about this one. The chicken sandwich was good, with nicely done chicken and a bbq sauce that was a level of heat or so above BWW's honey bbq. It didn't drip too much, it didn't slide around too much, but was a bit small for the size, and especially for the price.

The tortilla soup was probably quite good, but it was less chicken and more veggies, which means it's very much not to my taste, so buyer beware, on that.

The chips weren't chips so much as they were crisps, to steal the terms, and the best they got was when the not-quite-done ones were nice and soft and reminded me very much of my mother's homemade jacket fries.

All of this was overshadowed, though, by the incredibly uncomfortable seating, which was actively painful for me. I can bear a lot of different seating arrangements, but those fucking chairs are not only not comfortable if you fall into the "large" category, they are actively uncomfortable. So basically, screw that place. I'll be back, but only because they're one of the few places locally that carries Sprecher's, and it's in the grocery section, so that's where I'll be grabbing it from, and fuck those damn chairs.

It's worth noting that almost everything on the menu is also available in take-out form, if the dining-in option won't work for you for whatever reason. This also makes it a decent work-lunch destination.

==Moogle==
Ordered:

Wohlner's Reuben Sandwich ($6.99)

Tortilla Soup

Fountain Drink ($1.17)

I'm not sure what the deal is, but I just noticed I have the price for my drink written down as just a little bit higher than the others'.. In any case, ordering food at a grocery store to eat there at the store always seems a little odd to me. Here though, they have a kitchen in the back, menus, glassware, fountain drinks, and a section for seating. Yes, the chairs are not great. They are metal with arms that are a bit tight even for the "medium" category. The parking nearby is not great either. There are two lots on the side of a relatively busy street out in front. People around there don't seem very willing to let others who are parking or leaving go ahead.

The food was pretty good. I thought the reuben was a reasonable size. It came on a different bread than the others did, which I thought was pretty good. It had plenty of meat, sauerkraut, and sauce. The flavor may not have been as strong as it could have been, but I still enjoyed it. The soup was ok. It did have a lot of vegetables and only two or three bigger chunks of chicken. The next time around, I would probably try the pasta salad Cham got, since it looked pretty good.

Peru Mucho Gusto!

2010-02-04T11:00:00.000-06:00

Restaurant: Peru Mucho Gusto!
Address: 7755 L St.
Website: None.
Genres: Peruvian, Asian
Check Constraints: None noted.
Chain: No. | More Omaha Locations: No.

==NinjaDebugger==
Ordered:

Papa a la Huancaina (4.50)
Chicken Chaufas (8.50)
Crema Volteada (3.00)

Peru Mucho Gusto is a tiny place that is not exactly hard to find, but is unfortunately not very noticeable. It's tucked back in a tiny strip mall, in the hinterlands of L street between 72nd and 84th, and the interior of the place actually reminds me a lot of the Lithuanian Cafe and Bakery, but unlike that place, Peru Mucho Gusto has almost nothing BUT ethnic food, and oh what food it is.

Papa a la Huancaina is basically a baked potato, chilled and sliced, then doused liberally in a cheese sauce made with some Peruvian hot pepper. There is also half a hard boiled egg and an olive on the plate, but really... potatoes and cheese. It has just the right amount of heat for me, too, enough that I really can say "That's hot." but not so much that I can't devour half the freaking plate.

Other appetizers you'll be hearing about include this killer fried pork stuff and papa rellena, which bears little relation to the not so great dish I had at the Cuban place. Papa rellena is, uh... well, mash a potato, then form the mashed potato around a mixture of meat, raisins, and some other stuff, deep fry the whole damn thing, then coat it with that same spicy cheese sauce from the potatoes above. It's so good we had it twice.

We actually came here twice before doing the review, because the first time we forgot to write down what we had. Turns out, first time up, I had aji de gallina, which is a lot like papa a la huancaina, only there is an almost curry-like mixture of cream, cheese, shredded chicken, and hot peppers atop the potatoes. Also, a side of killer spiced and peppered rice that must be tasted to be believed.

This time, I went for Chicken Chaufas, which is a Peruvian/Chinese fusion dish, basically a Peruvian take on fried rice. It seriously blows regular fried rice out of the water any day of the week. The spices used really give the chicken an amazing flavor, and the rice and veggies go with it amazingly well. As a side note, the dish is huge, and even I was unable to finish it. It's actually something a whole table could consider grabbing as a side dish for everybody, it's just THAT BIG.

They did not have any cheesecake, which I had a craving for, so I ended up trying crema volteada instead. It was described as "Peruvian flan", which didn't help much, as I have never actually had flan. When flan was described to me as "custard", that was also not helpful, as the closest thing I had ever had to custard was pumpkin pie. I had very limited dessert choices when I was growing up and got dessert at all (holidays). Turns out, I can't really describe this stuff very well, aside from saying that it has an interesting texture, like pudding only much more firm, but it's delicious, if a bit cloying after a while. I'd suggest splitting one with somebody unless you have a real sweet tooth.

So yeah, that's pretty much Peru Mucho Gusto. We went here twice, you should too. At least. Every appetizer on the menu is pretty much pure gold, the main dishes are high quality, and there's a bunch of random stuff you can try, so just go eat. With, uh, mucho gusto, or something.

==Chamelaeon==
Ordered:

Iced Tea ($1.79)
Tamal ($3.50)
Seco De Carne Con Frijoles ($10.00)
Creme Volteada ($3.00)

My uncle and I once had the good fortune to actually go to Peru, on what should probably best be termed an "ecotourism" trip. Most of our time was spent at a lodge on the perimeter of the Tamshiyacu Tahuayo Reserve (if you're curious, the company we booked the trip through is here), so it's not like I spent a week in Lima for the cuisine or anything. Most of our meals were cooked at the lodge, actually, and were very good if not extravagant (as an aside, if you ever get a chance to try red-bellied pirahna, don't pass it up. They look bony but they're good eats). However, on the several-hour-long trip upriver to the lodge we stopped at a village along the way for lunch. I regret that I was tired enough I never caught the name of the village, or the name of the restaurant we ate at, but we were served a large plate of rice and about half a chicken each.

I mention that story so that I can tell you this - the first time we came to Peru Mucho Gusto, I ordered the arroz con pollo, a fairly standard chicken and rice dish. The first bite of the chicken caused a flashback like I thought only happened in movies; the taste and expression of the dish were almost identical, and for a moment everything about the trip came rushing back. Now, I'm the first to admit that a sample size of two makes for really poor statistical significance, but it lends credence to the restaurant's authenticity, at least.

The seco de carne, also a traditional dish, was also excellent, though I don't recall having it on the trip. It's a beef stew, made with Inca corn beer, and as you may well know through cooking adventures of your own, beer plus beef is almost always delicious. As with most dishes at Peru Mucho Gusto, it's pricey, but you could actually order multiple dishes and do family-style dining, if you wanted, and probably come out ahead. The tamal was basically a tamale, as you may have already guessed. They're not identical; primarily the same elements are used to construct them, but the spicing's different, as well as the texture. The custard was firm and delicious - perhaps a little worse for the wear from being in the fridge for a while, but still very good.

I should mention here, after having found out post-eating, that you can apparently request a heat level when you order your food; this is not made apparent by the menu or the staff. Hopefully you have as good a time here as we did - it's nice that Omaha has such a wide variety of ethnic cuisines, and we should attempt to keep the ones we have thriving.

==Moogle==
Ordered:

Papa a la Huancaina ($4.50)
Lomo Saltado ($9.50?)
Arroz con Pollo ($8.00)
Chicha Morada ($2.00)

No, I did not eat two lunches at once, but I do remember what I ate both visits. The first time around was the Papa a la Huancaina and the Lomo Saltado. The Papa a la H. were decent. They are as ND has described, and the heat creeps up on you. I would probably pick one of the other appetizers we had ahead of this on my own though, such as the Papa Rellena. That was some good stuff. Definitely give that a try. There were also some Yucca Frita (fried yucca) around the first time. It was ok, but I wasn't really a big fan of that either.

The Lomo Saltado was really good. Tender beef strips, tomato, pepper and onion on top of french fries. The sauce/juices were tasty. They made the side of rice really good and had a bit of spice to them. The dish was very filling with lots of potato and rice. The prices on some of the beef dishes may have gone up a dollar or two since that visit, but they also have more options.

I had the Arroz con Pollo on the second visit. It's the same dish Cham had the first time around. The rice had a fairly strong cilantro flavor at first. It was mixed with various cooked veggies and came with chicken on top. The color of the chicken made me wonder if it was cooked through, but it appeared to be. The whole thing had good flavors and was plenty of food.

The Chicha Morada was a very interesting drink. It was made from corn (blue corn, I assume) and pineapple, and you could definitely taste both in it. It was a dark blueish purple and the flavors made it a little odd to drink. Though, it did go well with the food.

==Mecha==
Ordered:

'Seafood Sampler w/Rice' (9.50?)
Chicharron con Camote (8.00)
Arroz con Pollo (8.00)
Chicha Morada (2.00)

I will note that I cannot remember at all the name of the seafood dish I got the first time, but it was a rice deal run through with all sorts of minor seafood, including a shrimp with the head still on it and an oyster and... well, it was not wholly to my taste, but it wasn't bad, all the same.

The second visit is a bit more vivid. The Chicharron con Camote (ND's aforementioned 'killer fried pork') was an incredible pork dish that came, I believe, with sweet potato chips, but the important thing is the fried pork, which tasted so very good. Browned normally then fried, I think. Definitely a strong appetizer. The first time we went we couldn't get it, though, so there may be availability issues (the menu hints it's more a weekend deal, but we didn't go on a weekend, so.)

I also went with the arroz con pollo, and while there were no flashbacks, it was good all on its own without misty memories of South America. Moogle is right about the cilantro, which was pretty well balanced, in my opinion (you want unbalanced, let Cham make you food with cilantro in it). I think this is a reasonably solid dish for anyone to get here, but I think I'd want to try some of the beef dishes next time.

The chicha morada was thick in the mouth (think grape juice, but a little thicker) and had an incredibly unique flavor that I really liked. I don't think I could drink it every day, as it stands, but I'll be drinking it next time I go back.

Grisanti's

2009-09-24T13:00:00.000-05:00

Restaurant: Grisanti's
Address: 10875 West Dodge Road
Website: http://www.grisantis.net
Genres: Italian
Check Constraints: 15% gratuity for parties of 8 or more
Chain: Regional.| More Omaha Locations: No.

==Chamelaeon==
Ordered:

Diet Coke ($2.19)
Oven-Baked Mushrooms ($6.79)
Chicken Fra Diavolo ($7.99)
Garlic Bread
Salad

One of the random reviews that showed up on the internet for Grisanti's while we were doing reconnaissance said, rather cryptically, "Good food, there are lots of appetizers that come out before the meal". I was rather confused by the statement. Was the writer shocked that his appetizers were delivered prior to the entree? Did the restaurant offer an antipasto platter? Was, perhaps, it just the meaningless ramblings of someone on the internet?

As it turns out, it's the closest to the second case. Grisanti's entrees come with, not unlike an Olive Garden, salad or soup, and unlimited garlic bread. Unlike Olive Garden's breadsticks, however, their garlic bread is eight slices of a butter-and-garlic-soaked loaf, served on a metal plate over a votive candle, so it remains warm as it sits on the table - not that it's going to sit there for long. The stuff is fantastic, and when the butter comes off on your fingers when you pick up a piece, you know there's some delicious times ahead. I opted for the salad with my entree, and wasn't disappointed, but wasn't really wowed. Unless you've got a serious yen for roughage I recommend going with the soups - there's enough dressing on the salad you'll probably net about the same calories.

ND ordered an appetizer sampler, which was good, but between the salad, the bread, that and the mushrooms I'm about to discuss, I was nearly full before I even saw my entree - next time we'll be more prepared for the onslaught of food. The mushrooms were, by the by, excellent - they were stuffed with a cheese sauce and a mixture of meats. It nearly overpowered the mushroom, but there was enough flavor there to make it more than just a carrier for the stuffing. It's a tad expensive, coming six to an order (so approximately $1.10 per), but they're pretty delicious. If they came on top of some fettuccine alfredo, I would probably have just eaten it as an entree.

Speaking of. I've had chicken fra diavolo before - chicken and penne in a garlic and bell pepper sauce - but Grisanti's was the first place to include lobster in the sauce, which gave the entire dish a new twist of flavor. It also had a mild (to me, at least) heat to it which was pleasant. I would probably have sopped up the sauce with the remaining bread, but for starters there was no remaining bread, and I was too full to do it anyhow.

The prices here seemed appropriate for the level of food, and everything I tried was delicious. I heavily recommend the place, but only if you don't have an important afternoon meeting in a warm room - otherwise I won't be responsible for the carb-induced coma you slip into at about 3:00. I should also mention that the web menu appears to not be complete when compared to the menu in-restaurant; there are far more appetizers than just soups.

==NinjaDebugger==
Ordered:

Coke ($2.19)
Gusto Gusto! (appetizer sampler that doesn't involve shrooms) ($9.00?)
Chicken Parmesan ($7.99)
Garlic Bread
Tomato Tortellini Soup
Tiramisu (special)

That garlic bread cannot be exclaimed over enough, honestly. This is the first place I can recall that had endless bread, and it wasn't crappy, it was a large, round loaf, cut in half, with each half cut into four pieces, and the whole thing was slathered with enough garlic to to choke a vampire from across the room, to say nothing of the copious amounts of butter. There was even a delicious, slightly chunky marinara for dipping.

The main parts of the Gusto Gusto platter were the calimari, which was excellent, tender and well breaded, and the cheese and meat breaded ravioli, which were perfectly cooked, and may even be something approaching handmade. They certainly weren't the average Sysco breaded ravioli you get at most places.

It was around this time in the meal that one of the waitresses accidentally dropped a pitcher of ice water right next to me. I didn't get super wet, thanks mainly to my slightly water resistant fishing shirt I wear as a pocket-vest, but they still offered a free dessert by way of apology. Everybody else was way too full by the end of the meal to partake, though, so I got it to go. Sad to say, though it may have been the drive that did it, the tiramisu wasn't anything to be falling over yourself to get.

The best parts of the meal, aside from the garlic bread, were the soup and chicken parm. The chicken parm was a lovely concoction, though the portion seemed a bit on the small side. That may just be my Omaha prejudice talking, though. It was quite good, though not Spaghetti Works good, and the marinara and spaghetti on the side was also decent, but the real star was the simple bowl of tomato tortellini soup.

A bit of background for you. My favorite dish, since I was a young sprout, has been beef stroganoff. But not the beef stroganoff you know. My mom's beef stroganoff, a recipe that has been passed down in our family, which consists mainly of cheap beef boiled for a long time with a bunch of spices, plus tomato paste, water, and sour cream. It's a virulently orange sauce that tastes simply amazing. The tomato tortellini soup here reminded me a LOT of this stroganoff. It's clearly a tomato and cream soup, with a bit of basil and a few other spices, with perfectly done cheese tortellini in it for an extra touch of awesome, but really, I'd have eaten just the soup, with no pasta. For under five bucks, you can get a bottomless bowl of this tomato tortellini soup. In hindsight, it would be worth every freaking penny.

I approve of Grisanti's, of the alfredo I stole a taste of from Mecha, and especially of that tomato tortellini soup. This is by far the best italian we've been to in ages.

==MapleSyrup==
Ordered:

DietCoke ($2.19)
Eggplant Parmesan ($7.99)
Baked Onion Soup

Firstly, to echo everybody else's praises, the free bread was amazing. The bread was soft and had butter, garlic, and olive oil slathered into cuts into the top so it would sop and soak deeply. They also gave each of us a small cup of a respectable marinara for dipping. The butter and oil was a bit messy, but that's perfectly forgivable.

The Baked Onion Soup reminded me of a french onion soup. The toasted bread and cheese came melted on top. The beef broth had a rich beef flavor with a pleasantly noticeable taste of the sweet onions. The cheese went mostly unnoticed, however the crouton added a welcomed bit of extra texture. Overall, one of the better french onion soups that I've had.

The Eggplant Parmesan came with a side of spaghetti with marinara and steamed brocolli. The steamed brocolli was lightly buttered and perfectly crunchy. The spaghetti with marinara was spaghetti with marinara. The pasta was well cooked, but the marinara was nothing to get excited about. The eggplant parmesan itself was an immense vertical slice of eggplant lightly breaded then smothered in cheese and the same marinara. Unfortunately, they just sliced it too thin. There wasn't enough eggplant there to appreciate its texture or taste and what taste of eggplant there was was drowned out by the marinara and cheese.

==Mecha==
Ordered:

Taste of Italy ($13.99)
Tomato Tortellini Soup
Garlic Bread

As the designated reheater, the bread is not just very good, it reheats well. We really are suckers for bread.

Since it's review time, I went with the Taste of Italy, which is to say, Chicken Parm, Fettucini Alfredo, and Lasagna. I'm not usually a huge fan of alfredo, but this was very good for me. I might even be able to eat it as a dish here. The Chicken Parm was fine, certainly, but it didn't really stand out. Which is a shame, because the lasagna, while not the massive crazy brick of Spaghetti Works, was also pretty good. And again, as designated reheater, the parm and the lasagna both reheated pretty well. Not that that's surprising, but it's good to know when you get hit with a whole bunch of appetizers and some really good bread that if you take it home, it'll work. (I did not leave any alfredo behind to check, but I figured that's for the best. Also, it was good.)

This place seems like it's reasonably costed and has a lot of good offerings. If they stepped up their game on a few things, it'd be amazing. As is, it's still a place I'd enjoy hitting again, maybe when the family's in town.

Bob Monkey's Noodle Zoo

2009-09-09T13:00:00.000-05:00

Restaurant: Bob Monkey's Noodle Zoo
Address: 4950 Dodge St.
Website: http://www.noodlezoo.com/
Genres: Deli, Cafe, Pasta
Check Constraints: Short Order
Chain: Regional. | More Omaha Locations: No.

==Chamelaeon==
Ordered:

New Orleans Muffaletta ($8.50)

Cup of Baked Potato Soup

Diet Dr. Pepper (can) ($1.00)
Lemon Bar ($2.00)

Bob Monkey's Noodle Zoo is tucked away on a side street just to the east of the Dundee Theater, so it can be a little hard to find. Since most of us are fans of noodles, we decided it was worth checking out. Unfortunately it turns out that the name "Noodle Zoo" is a bit of a misnomer - it would be rather like calling the Omaha Zoo "Gorilla Zoo" because there happen to be gorillas there. The predominate part of the menu was taken up by sandwiches. This is not a horrible thing, but I wanted to address the fact that we all felt this was false advertising of a sort.

The sandwich itself was delicious. Good cuts of meat on foccacia (not strictly the muffaletta bread required for the sandwich, but an acceptable alternative), with a delicious olive salad on the bottom. The foccacia, I might add, was garlic foccacia, which had been toasted with parmesan and garlic butter on it. That lent a fairly strong injection of flavor into an already strongly-flavored sandwich - if it had been anything more subtle it would have been completely overwhelmed, but as it was, it was well matched. The baked potato soup, on the other hand, was a one- or two-note concoction which was solid but not, perhaps, worth a bowl.

The lemon bar was not on the menu proper, but in a basket next to the cashier. I can only hope these are made in someone's kitchen and sold to Noodle Zoo for resale, but even if they're not, they were pretty good and were likely made on-site, or at least somewhere regional. It had a firm lemon flavor and a crumbly crust - the only thing that could have made it better was a slightly thicker dusting of powdered sugar.

The only downside to Noodle Zoo was the cost, which I felt was fairly high for the amount of food I got. Still, it's not out of the viable range for "bistro sandwiches", so if you're prepared to pay that sort of money you could spend it a lot worse places than here.

==NinjaDebugger==
Ordered:

Noodles Alfredo ($7.50)

Cup of Baked Potato Soup

Buttered Noodles ($6.00)
Bottle of Darjeeling Tea ($3.50)
Bread Pudding ($3.50)

Moogle and I got lost on the way, which was annoying. The place is set back, and the sign doesn't stick out at ALL, so it's really hard to find if you don't know exactly where you're looking.

Okay, right up front, I was planning on going with the herbed chicken and white sauce, but when I got there and saw my two favorite forms of noodles on the chalk board, I switched. I was wrong to do so. The alfredo wasn't terrible, but it needed parmesan badly. Luckily, the buttered noodles came with a plastic shot glass of parmesan, half of which went towards making the alfredo decent. Not only were said buttered noodles not what I was hoping for (something like the lovely herb mixture that Noodles & Company uses), they were nothing but buttered, and there was nothing but salt, pepper, and parmesan to put on them. Certainly not worth the six dollars I paid for them, even if it was a "full" order. The order taker seemed confused that I wanted to order a side of noodles without the soup/salad on the side, and had to subtract them manually.

On the other hand... I would come here just to order the bread pudding. Cham had a bite and said that there must be like four sticks of butter in there. Then he had another bite. It's a pretty big lump of bread pudding, with raisins in, with hand-whipped sweet cream on the side, and it's really to die of. I'd go here again, I think, but I'd be much more careful of my noodle selections.

==Mecha==
Ordered:

Thai Chicken Wrap ($8.50?)

Cup of soup

Bottle of Ginger Peach Tea ($3.50)

Okay, so. Everything I got is not actually on their menu, which makes it a little problematic since I'm doing this so late after the fact. And Cham and I drove past the place too, first shot, so really, it's just a little hard to find. Also, the picture on the website of the internals is the Omaha location (or all of them are the same!)

I liked the wrap a lot, but it wasn't particularly unique to the place in my recollection. It wasn't ice-cold like, say, Paradise keeps theirs, and it had a bit more spice to it. The smallness of it really surprised me, too, I was expecting something a little larger on my plate (they actually use really big plates, that might not help them.) I remember the soup being decent, but except for being meat-based and chunky, I can't remember the exact contents. The dangers of being distracted for long periods of time. The tea was bottled from the Republic of Tea, so you know pretty much what you're getting there if you're familiar with their tea.

I don't really remember anything to recommend this place significantly. I have the same rough price concerns as Cham too: I enjoy a sandwich from Gandolfo's about as much as I'd enjoy this one, and there's much more to it. It's not bad, just not anything amazing, and a bit expensive for it. I get a feeling of inconsistency comparing our results, so maybe you just have to search for what works.

==Moogle==
Ordered:

Italian Beef Sandwich ($8.50?)

Salad

Bottle of Blackberry Sage Tea ($3.50)

The sandwich I had was named "Italian beef". I barely remember what was on it at this point, but it probably won't be what you expect from a typical Italian beef sandwich. It was beef and veggies on a fairly large wedge of focaccia. The sandwich was pretty good. It went well on the focaccia bread. I do think the large plates throw off perceptions slightly. What I had was fairly filling. It did feel a bit pricey, but it also felt like a bit fancier fare. The salad was interesting. I think it was their house salad. It was like a caesar salad, but more peppery and had a few noodles thrown in. The tea was fairly unremarkable, except for the types of flavors offered. This one wasn't very strong, but it had an interesting flavor.

Special Post: KFC Double Down Chicken Sandwich

2009-08-31T16:52:00.003-05:00

To hell with the header on this one. NinjaDebugger here, carving off a year of my life for the edification of my viewers. The KFC Double Down chicken sandwich is demoing in Omaha, apparently, and I could not let this opportunity pass me by. It is, after all, three of my favorite things, with no bread to get in the way.

As I eat this thing, I can taste the months rolling off me. It's crazy, but holy shit, it's also good. Like, really good. I'm led to believe that the Colonel's Sauce on this is the same stuff they use on the regular chicken sandwich. I don't care. It's just barely spicy, kinda tangy, and goes incredibly well with the breading and bacon flavor. It's like someone turned my favorite chicken dinner into a sandwich without getting all that bread in the way to kill the meat flavor. I'm not even sure this sandwich could get better with pickles on it.

This is why America is going to fall. Because we can't stop killing ourselves with new and ever more delicious things. I just finished one, and I already want another. Cooks just keep getting better at targeting our tastebuds. We're all going to hell, and the stuff in this handbasket couldn't taste better.

McFoster's Natural Kind Cafe

2009-08-10T19:00:00.000-05:00

Restaurant: McFoster's Natural Kind Cafe
Address: 302 S 38th St
Website: http://mcfosters.com/
Genres: Vegan/Vegetarian/Organic
Check Constraints: No split checks, 18% gratuity for 5 or more
Chain: No. | More Omaha Locations: No.

==Chamelaeon==
Ordered:

Coconut Curry Nachos ($7.95)
1/2 Falafel Sandwich ($6.95)

Cup of Lentil Soup

Carrot Cake ($3.95)

To call McFoster's "unique" is grossly understating the point. Located in a renovated 1930's gas station with a Tudor fronting - and oddly enough, a tower - the restaurant has been serving up an eclectic blend of vegetarian, vegan, organic, and generally planet-and-diet-friendly meals for over a decade now. Full disclosure requires me to say that I eat here fairly regularly. In fact, this is the first restaurant in Omaha I ate at, when I was visiting Moogle ages ago.

Almost every aspect of this place is in a realm somewhere outside the normal dining aesthetic. There are almost always fresh flowers on the table. Their drink menu includes not only wine and beer, but a wide range of smoothies and teas. Their menu, while not as expansive as Wheatfield's, still covers a lot of culinary ground. The decor trends somewhat activist, with posters on the walls advocating ecologically-sound living and a generally populist mystique. It is an extraordinarily difficult place to review, precisely because it seems to exist in some space outside the spectrum, in some zone where they're proud to be exactly what they are, with or without approval from the populace at large.

To some extent it's a shame that they don't promote themselves more, because the food here is pretty darn good. Like the rest of the place, it's all a touch removed from the normal conception of the dish. For instance, the falafel here is (I am pretty sure) baked, not fried, and has a different texture and slightly different flavor from the Platonic Ideal of falafel (the Ur-Falafel, if you will). Does that mean it's bad? Not in the slightest. The half-sandwich comes with three falafel balls and a half-pita full of dressed lettuce. Like most dishes from McFoster's it comes with a selection of random edible goodies on the side - in this case pickled onions, pickled parsnips, cabbage strips, and two waffle-cut carrots. These little bonuses vary from dish to dish; I'll let the others tell you about theirs. The falafel here can be a little crumbly at times but this day it was moist and just perfect.

The appetizers here are split into vegan and non-vegan. Having had the nachos here before I opted for the curry coconut ones this time - it wasn't much of an improvement. The curry sauce didn't add much flavor and mostly pooled at the bottom of the plate - still, the salsa was freshly-made and delicious, and the blue corn nachos do well with the cheese and serrano peppers on top.

The soups here (like most places) vary from day to day - in fact, I should mention that all specials get written on the chalkboards at the end of the two wings of the building, from soups to entrees to desserts. I went with the lentil today, and I enjoyed it quite a bit. It was very hard to tease apart the flavors of the dish. You'd expect lentil, but I think there was artichoke in there, as well as some other tantalizingly familiar flavor that I couldn't quite place (but you could say it was on the tip of my tongue). The carrot cake, which I got with the lemon mousse frosting, was moist, full of currants and/or raisins, and delicious. All their desserts are made on-site (by our server, in fact), and they're almost always worth getting.

I consider McFoster's to be a kind of Omaha institution. It's been here for a while, it does its own thing and lets people take it for what it is, and hopefully it will be here for a while longer. It may not be your cup of tea, but I encourage everyone to give it a try.

==NinjaDebugger==
Ordered:

2 sides of Garlic Bread ($5.50)
Chicken Sandwich ($8.95)

Cup of Lentil Soup

Chocolate Tofu Cheesecake ($4.25)
Chocolate Rice Milk Malt ($3.95)

The first time I went to McFosters was after a long day of walking around the Henry Doorly Zoo. Unfortunately, this meant that I was hot, sweaty, and beyond exhausted, so I wasn't able to properly consider the menu and order something that I would like. This time around, I had carefully considered my options ahead of time, and had a much better experience.

Those nachos, frankly, would be absolutely fabulous as nothing but chips, the cheese, and the well blended salsa. Other toppings are absolutely unnecessary, as this is one of the few salsas that I have ever actually liked. The garlic bread, unfortunately, had barely a hint of garlic, and I couldn't even taste that, and it needed some butter pretty badly. It's not so much "garlic bread" as "BREAD with a subtle brush of parmesan and garlic flavor". It was also either badly overpriced, or I got double charged. I'm not sure which. It doesn't matter, I won't be getting it again.

I was also not a fan of the lentil soup, which I found overly gritty, in addition to the odd and unpleasant aftertaste. The other appetizer, the Happy Red Pepper Hummus, was damn good stuff. Wheat flatbread and a nicely textured hummus that was just right on the moistness, with a very strong red bell pepper flavor. I liked it even better than the strongly cumin-flavored hummus that I tried the first time I came here.

Luckily, the soup and garlic bread were pretty much the only bad parts. I am officially granting Rice Dream the status of "acceptable for use in malts", as I could barely tell that there was any difference between the malt and a proper moocow malt, and it certainly wasn't a bad difference, it was just different.

On the other end of dessert, tofu does not make an excellent cheesecake. It does, however, make a pretty good mousse, which the cheesecake tasted more like, and even if I didn't expect to get mousse, I was satisfied with it. Tofu is made out of magic, I am pretty sure.

And that leaves just the main course. I did not expect a hell of a lot from the chicken sandwich. I am pretty satisfied if I get a bun and a reasonably sized chicken breast that isn't burnt, and is possibly breaded. What I -got- was a breast that came off the godzilla of chickens. Free range chickens must be immense, because this is the first chicken I have had in a long time that was larger than the leaf of lettuce that came atop it. It was cooked plain, grilled with no seasoning whatsoever. Normally, that would be very uncool, but there was this little metal shot glass of dill honey mustard, and holy fucking shit, the stuff was "grab a bottle to take home" quality. In fact, I think they'll give you a discount if you bring your own bottle. I know they do for takeout. In any case, this dressing was so good that I would happily have just eaten a spoonful of it. In fact, I -did- eat a spoonful of it, after using the spoon to spread the stuff over my chicken. An astounding sandwich, much better than you'd normally get for the price.

Do yourself a favor, go here and try some things you wouldn't normally try, even if you're usually a carnivore, like I am. It's worth every penny. I spent like thirty dollars here on lunch, and I don't regret it at all.

==Moogle==
Ordered:

Curry Tuna Sandwich ($8.95)

Cup of Dahl Soup

Slice of Pineapple Rhubarb Pie ($5.95)

Since everyone's telling their stories, I actually found this place through a friend of mine way back in high school. She was a big fan of the smoothies and other drinks.

The salsa was really pretty good. It had a nice cool flavor before the spicyness hit. The veggies/beans in with the nachos were also pretty fresh and crisp. The hummus I don't remember as having a strong or otherwise outstanding flavor or texture, but it wasn't bad either.

The dahl soup reminded me of some of the hummus from the Mediterranean place, actually. It probably had similar spices and a reminiscent texture. The soup had a thicker consistency, but not as thick as hummus. Despite the long list of spices the server mentioned, it had a fairly subdued flavor, which was pretty good. I don't think it would have worked as well if the flavor was much stronger. I would probably get this again over the other soups.

The curry tuna sandwich was a lot smaller than I expected. It came on bread smaller than your average sandwich bread. I got the soup instead of a side, which made the plate seem a little meager. If you're hungry, it might be wise to get the soup in addition or get an appetizer or dessert. The curry flavor was not very strong, but it made the tuna a strange yellow color. I had to stop and remember what I got that would be yellow. The bread was pretty good. It was a multigrain, so it had lots of texture. There were some veggies on top of the tuna. The tuna is made with "veganaise" (vegan mayo), which has always sounded frightening to me. I had avoided it so far on other visits, but I really couldn't tell any difference. The vegetables on the side included a small, yellow, edible flower. It turned out to be quite peppery.

The pineapple rhubarb pie was quite tasty. It was less sweet than your average pie (and pretty tart), but it was still delicious. The crust was a little crumbly, but still good. It may have been wheat based as well, but Cham brought up a good point that they don't make the crust with butter/dairy. The texture is going to be different, but they still make a good crust.

==Mecha==
Ordered:

Tropical Green Goddess Smoothie ($5.95)
Avacado Deluxe Sandwich ($8.95)

Cup of Roasted Tomato Soup
Sour Cream + Chive Fries (+$1.00)

Slice of Pineapple Rhubarb Pie ($5.95)

As the only one who went after a Smoothie, I must note that they are both very tasty, and... kinda expensive. The Green Goddess was pinapple and banana, less banana flavor than for thickness/creaminess. There was a note I couldn't quite pick out that had to be wheatgrass (which I'm not actually sure what it should taste like.) I liked it a lot, but my mind shies away from a six dollar smoothie. It's very conflicting.

ND is right about the salsa, it was very good for the nachos. I liked when I could get a real taste of the coconut curry, as I'm a fan. The hummus was stellar, as always (I came here once the same previous time ND did) and the Roasted Tomato soup was so very good. It still surprises me how much I enjoy the flavor of roasted tomato soup nowadays, given my childhood. Why did nobody give me these decent foods when I was younger?

The Avacado Deluxe sandwich is on a surprinslgy small piece of bread, but it's packed with a lot of soft, smooth flavors. I got the real cheese, because sure, and even the broccoli worked well with the overall flavor of the sandwich. It's a strange experience for a sandwich, I'm not sure what to compare it with, but I do know it was good. The sour cream and chives fries were extra, so I figured them a specialty. I don't remember the flavor being too strong, but the fries themselves were fine. Maybe less with the extra dollar next time.

I finished up with the pinapple rhubarb pie, and continued with the weird difficult to describe experiences. It was indeed tart, and getting ice cream on top helped make that work out reasonably well. On the overall, I'm pro this place, but getting the variety and the experience does mean laying out the cash. Pick carefully for your tastes, and I don't think you will end up disappointed.

==MapleSyrup==
Ordered:

Veggie Lasagna Special ($8.95)
Happy Red Pepper Hummus ($4.25)

To follow suit: I was introduced to this place a while back by Cham and had an unfortunate encounter with the carrot cake. However, I snagged a forkful of Cham's carrot cake from this time around and that was apparently a one-time mistake on their part.

It's called Happy Hummus because--well--it has a smile. By my recollection, they use olive slices for eyes, a bean for a nose and a waffled slice of carrot for a mouth. The hummus was made with garbanzo beans blended with red bell pepper and served with whole wheat pita triangles. It had a good hummusy flavor with a hint of olive oil and a pleasantly strong taste of the red bell pepper. The pita triangles were denser than pita I've had in the past and had a flavor of their own which accented the hummus very well.

I was surprised at some of the ingredients in the veggie lasagna--things that don't layer well. There were bits of green and red bell peppers, yellow squash, and zucchini (but notably no eggplant), but there were also crunchy chunks of broccoli and cauliflower and crunchy, crinkle-cut slices of carrot. It was more tomatoy than cheesy, so unfortunately it didn't cohere very well and was difficult to eat, but I still managed to find the bottom of the dish.

Jim's Rib Haven

2009-07-23T11:00:00.001-05:00

Restaurant: Jim's Rib Haven
Address: 3801 Ames Avenue
Website: http://www.jimsribhaveninc.com/
Genres: BBQ
Check Constraints: Short order.
Chain: No. | More Omaha Locations: No.

==Chamelaeon==
Ordered:

Pulled Pork Sandwich Combo $8.75
Coleslaw
Drink

Jim's Rib Haven is a fairly small place up on the North side of Omaha. We'd probably never have found it if we hadn't lucked into it on a random Google search for "Omaha BBQ" (see, we're Real Bloggers! We do research and everything). I'm glad we did, because it was a fairly unique take on barbecue, especially for an area where Kansas-City-style seems to be the de facto standard.

For starters, when I ordered my sandwich, I was asked if I wanted mild, medium or hot sauce. Frequent readers will already know which one I picked - for infrequent readers, the answer is always "hot". Once I said this, I got a look from the woman behind the counter which I roughly translated as "You poor fool." She actually gave me a second chance, telling me "The hot is really hot..." to which I could only respond "Then I definitely want the hot." Just in case, I got coleslaw as my side in case I needed some quick heat reduction.

As it turns out, I didn't need it, but the heat in their sauce is palpable and enjoyable. It's a sweet sauce, and after a bit of tasting the three heats, I arrived at the conclusion that it is not unlike Arby's Sauce in its flavor profile - but with a fresher spice flavor to it, and of course the heat. I should mention that despite the three-tiered experience here, none of their three types are devoid of heat, and I could actually taste the heat in the mild sauce (once I had cleared the hot from mine, of course). Anyhow, in summation, the sweet heat of the sauce is an excellent switchup from the standard KC-style sauce. There was a fair bit of it on the sandwich, but it didn't feel like it overwhelmed the meat at all, and I was eating remnants off the wrapper with my fork by the time lunch was over. It should be noted that the "pulled pork" sandwich was more like "sliced pork", with fairly thick slices overlaid on a kaiser roll. The roll was almost not up to the task of containing both meat and sauce (and the whole thing was served piping hot, which didn't help) but it didn't suffer a structural failure. The coleslaw only deserves one line of comment - it was standard wet coleslaw with nothing to recommend it but not much to complain about either.

There are two possible reasons not to go to Jim's, one of which I will address and discard here, and the other of which everyone else will probably touch on, so I'll leave it for them. The reason I'll touch on is price - at almost $9 for a sandwich combo, I would have expected a little more food. On the other hand, for $3 more, you can get one of their rib combos, and get a lot more food for the price. It's not "sold out of the back of a truck" cheap, but it's enough value for the money. Heck, for a sauce like this, it's a bargain.

==NinjaDebugger==
Ordered:

Pulled Pork Sandwich Combo $8.75

It was a crappy day for me to go anywhere, so they brought me back some takeout, and I would like to say that I am very impressed by the fact that the sandwich maintained its integrity all the way here. I'm not a huge fan of the sauce, but it was a very pleasant heat, even to my weakling tastes, and I also tasted the similarity to Arby's sauce. I suppose at heart, I'm really a KC-style boy, on account of having grown up on the stuff. It didn't help my evaluation that it really tore me up that night, either. Even with all that, though, it was still some of the best BBQ I've had in town, even if I wouldn't opt for it over a trip to McKenna's.

==Mecha==
Ordered:

Half Rack? Back Ribs w/Baked Beans, Fries $13.49?
Bottled Drink $1.10?

Alas, I have not the receipt and it's been a while, so I'm roughly guessing. Total with tax was $15.60. I also don't remember exactly how many bones were involved, but they were loose bones.

So I got the medium for my sauce heat. As Cham mentioned, all the sauces had heat, and medium was about as much as I could stand. The actual flavor of the meat and sauce were really good, the heat not overwhelming it at all, and some excellent smoke (it took me my whole drink to get through it, though, on the heat.) The ribs were, unfortunately, surprisingly tough and took some real pulling to get off the bone with my teeth. I'm not sure why, it's actually kinda surprising given the excellence otherwise.

For me, baked beans have been an acquired taste... and these were really, really good. Brown sugar and molasses style baked beans, really deep delicious flavor, I'd recommend them to anyone. The fries were pretty normal, and good for soaking up sauce. Mine also came with toast which served the same purpose.

It still feels a little expensive, even for the ribs I got, but if it weren't for the toughness I would say that simply the uniqueness of the flavor, to me, would make it worth another visit or three anyway if I were down there. As is... I still might give it another shot if I'm in the area. And maybe go for the mild so I'm not guzzling liquid.

==MapleSyrup==
Ordered:

Half Rack Spare Rib Combo w/ Coleslaw and Potato Salad $12.99

To start, Jim's Rib Haven is very much a takeout joint. The customer area inside the restaurant couldn't have been more than six by ten. They had shallow counters along the walls where they could, but were only able to accomodate about six stools. They fully intend for you to eat elsewhere.

So after hearing Cham's conversation with the bbq jockey about the hot tier of sauce, I went for the mild. It had a pleasant heat that wasn't overhwhelming. I didn't get the note of arby's sauce that the others did, but that's probably because I'm a horsey sauce man. After doing some research, I've realized that I've only ever gotten the St. Louis cut in the past when ordering spare ribs. Here they give you true spareribs: the St. Louis cut plus the ribtips. Each "rib" was as long as my forearm and very meaty. The meat had a good smoke taste, but as Mecha noted was a bit hard to get off the bone. The coleslaw and potato salad were unremarkable.

It does feel a little expensive, but I don't think I'd mind coming back a couple more times.

Sam & Louie's Pizzeria

2009-07-15T11:00:00.000-05:00

Restaurant: Sam & Louie's Pizzeria
Address: 7641 Cass St
Website: http://www.samandlouiesnyp.com/
Genres: Italian, Pizza, Pasta
Check Constraints: Short order.
Chain: Yes.| More Omaha Locations: Yes.

==NinjaDebugger==
Ordered:

Cheese Bread (5.49)
Cheese Tortellini Alfredo (10.99) w/Chicken (2.49)
Soda (1.99)

I'm gonna get right down to the nitty gritty on this one. The cheese bread here is solid middle-of-the-road cheese bread. There is cheese, there is butter, there is bread. It's nothing adventurous, nothing worth raving over, not terrible, but also not really worth the price.

The alfredo was a real surprise, though. It seems to be a recurring theme in our lunches that I find the best alfredo at places that specialize in other things. Usually pizza, strangely enough. I'm going to try hard not to think about that. Anyway, I went with tortellini because there is no such thing as too much cheese, and this didn't disappoint at all. Properly cooked tortellini with an alfredo whose only sin was being just a touch too salty.

Unfortunately, the prices here leave a lot to be desired, even if I was ordering off the dinner menu with the appropriate portions. I could have had food just as good, if not better, at Lansky's, for half the cost, or double the portion.

==Chamelaeon==
Ordered:

8 pc Cheese Bread ($5.49)
2 Slices Specialty Pizza Meal ($7.99)

Buffalo Jack Pizza
Drink

It should be noted that we had in mind a different pizza joint for the review, but it apparently isn't open for lunch, which is a distressing development. Regardless, we were all primed for pizza, so we headed to Sam & Louie's. I don't much like reviewing chains, for reasons I've stated before - on top of those, it somehow doesn't feel fair to pit something so supremely generic against something with flavor and character. But I'll do it anyhow.

The operating word here is "adequate". The cheese bread? Adequate. The price? Perhaps a bit on the high side, but generally adequate. The pizza in general? Adequate. The pizza I got, however, should be avoided; for something that was supposed to be spicy, it was basically a more tasteless version of a barbecue chicken pizza, sans even the barbecue flavor. According to the descriptions there was Frank's Red Hot involved somewhere in the construction of this pie, but they have to have been adding it by the cubic centimeter - I couldn't taste it at all. The red peppers and onions were diced into oblivion, and I wound up dipping the slices in the marinara from the cheese bread to get some well-needed flavor into it. Honestly, if I'd just had some pepperoni or something on the cheese bread I'd probably have had a better meal. I suppose it's fair to mention that it's likely that the pizza had been sitting out for a bit, and you would probably wind up with better quality if you ordered a whole pie. Not worth the risk in my opinion, though.

If you stick to standard pizza formats you'll probably find something decent to eat here. Sandwiches might work as well - they had a sampler for their stromboli under a heat lamp, and after accounting for that maltreatment it was pretty decent.

==Mecha==
Ordered:

Salad ($1.99)
2 Slices Specialty Pizza Meal ($7.99)

Thai Pie
Drink

This place is a fairly common stop for a certain group of people at the company, so I guess I knew the place most. I usually get the 3 slices of 1 topping, because 6 bucks for a lunch's worth of pizza and a drink is fine. I wanted to try one of their specialties this time, and boy, it was special.

The garlic cheese bread was indeed adequate, but better than some places. The salad was also fine, not wilted or anything. The pizza... exactly as advertised. The sauce base was, of all things, peanut, instead of tomato or BBQ. Then cheese, chicken, red peppers, broccoli... it had a little heat and good flavor. I really think they did a good job putting thai flavor into a pizza format, and that's really enjoyable to me. Also not something that's done often.

The pizza seems to be more or less on par with prices to me, although a little expensive for specials by the slice. I would never really go out of the way for the place, given how close there's other options for me, but it's pretty fast and convenient. The other pizza options in the immediate area that are equivalent or better for lunch tend to be a heck of a lot more busy (and just as expensive.) But the Lansky's or Roman Coin treks (slower, but better) tends to favor them for anything but a solid quick lunch.

==Moogle==
Ordered:

Salad ($1.99)
2 Slices Specialty Pizza Meal ($7.99)

Hawaiian Luau
Drink

Most has already been said. The salad was simple, and the poppy seed dressing pretty good. Sweet and not too strong/heavy. I thought the cheese bread was decent. For the pizza, I picked the Hawaiian style specialty pizza. Ham and pineapple has been one of my favorite pizzas for a long time, but I rarely get a chance to order it these days. This one had a little bit extra with ham, pineapple, bacon, and red peppers. However, the bacon tended to drown out the other items, with those items being a lot less flavorful.

It wasn't bad, but it wasn't really what I was looking for. It was also a bit lightweight for $10. It may have been better value to go with the single-topping special.

Spaghetti Works

2009-06-29T16:35:00.000-05:00

Restaurant: Spaghetti Works (Ralston)
Address: 8412 Park Dr.
Website: http://www.spagworks.com/
Genres: Italian
Check Constraints: 15% Gratuity on parties of 8+, only one coupon per table.
Chain: Yes | More Omaha Locations: Yes

==NinjaDebugger==
Ordered:

Italian Soda, Strawberry (2.79)
4pc Cheese Bread (3.99)
Soda (1.35)
Fettuccini Alfredo (7.99) w/Chicken (2.49)

Garlic Bread
Salad Bar

About forty years ago, Spaghetti Works started here in Omaha. Since then, it's expanded slightly, to Lincoln and Des Moines, but there are still only four stores, total, two of which are in Omaha. This particular spaghetti works is decorated vigorously with old time advertisement signs and such, much like Billy Frogg's, only in much lower quantity. The salad bar is on the back of an ancient truck (probably a mock up) and there is an inexplicable and unidentified bust, which someone has painted badly. It is cross eyed, and if you were trapped with it in a dark room, it might kill you.

Of course, none of that is food, which is what matters, so we'll start at the top. The italian soda (we tried a number of varieties, as the intern decided to get a new flavor every time he got a refill) was pretty uniformly not to my taste. The strawberry, which I actually paid for, wasn't horrible, but it reminded me of my mom's wine coolers, which I used to sneak drinks off when I was a wee lad. Thus, I refute the accusations of my peers that I enjoy girly froo-froo drinks.

The cheese bread needs some help. The garlic bread part of it was quite good, but something in the cheese seemed off a bit. I didn't feel it so much, but Cham will likely harp on it for a sentence or two, and this may well be the only place where I advocate getting the garlic bread instead of the cheese bread. Luckily, garlic bread comes with every meal, along with the salad bar. Toasted ravioli was also ordered, with the beef being of superior quality, while the cheese was, strangely enough, cheese and hot pepper. Unfortunately, the beef was slightly overdone, while the cheese was slightly underdone, and in light of the fact that your pasta and garlic bread are endless, I suggest eschewing appetizers in favor of the higher quality entrees.

The alfredo here was not quite so excellent as Lansky's, but it was still quite good. A tad on the thick side, but definitely lacking in the bitter, and it didn't require any additional parmesan, which is always a step up. I kind of wish I had gotten the monster combo that Mecha got, though. Thirteen bucks, and he got a platter of food that was downright Mexican in its portions. He ended up taking home half of what he got in a box, it was that much, and it was, hands down, the best chicken parm I have ever tasted. I regret only getting one bite, because with more I might have managed to figure out how they made the breading so damn good.

==Chamelaeon==
Ordered:

Diet Coke ($1.99)
Garlic Cheese Bread ($3.99)
Hot Italian Pie ($10.49)

That bust was terrifying, all the more so because our flighty and scatterbrained server did not know who it was. Frankly I don't think I could work in those conditions - it's like some sort of bearded Big Brother. Incidentally, the decor didn't sit badly with me, with the exception of the rather inexplicable truck. On top of its inexplicability, it was also all the way across the building from the bulk of the seating, so hitting the salad bar almost required a guide, porters, and an elephant for success.

The salad bar itself was decent (it includes beets!) though there was nothing special about the dressings. I would like to say that I have absolutely no idea how I was expected to get at the middle row of salad toppings - that is to say, the ones buried in the center of the cart. I am not a short person, so the process of liberating some cucumbers involved me trying hard not to mush my face into the sneeze guard while overextending my shoulder to get under the damn thing. I'm not OSHA, but that is hardly an ergonomic design. Maybe they can hire a small child on a stepstool for people six feet and above?

As ND has predicted I will spend some words on the cheese bread. First, the cost is fairly high, at a buck a piece; secondly, something about the cheese blend they use here is off. I'm apparently the only one at the table who could taste it that strongly, but there is a strange metallic tang to the cheese, which just utterly destroyed my desire for the bread. I would chalk it up to a one-off experience, but I've eaten here when it was at the old location and it tasted the same then. Very sadly, they used the same blend for the hot Italian pie, though, as I will explain in a second, that's not the drawback it might appear to be.

One might have expected something called "pie" to resemble a more lasagna-like or baked spaghetti concoction, heavy on the cheese and with a density to it, but instead it's little more than a collection of penne, black olives, sausage, pepperoni, and their spicy sauce, topped with a smattering of the cheese blend and put under a heat source long enough for the cheese to barely melt. It wasn't horrible by any means, but I found myself wishing they'd added more sauce to it; it honestly was more or less bone dry, and without any cheese to hold it together I might as well have ordered one of the the bottomless plates and gotten some quantity.

On the other hand, their alfredo tasted nice, and the chicken parmesan was the best I'd tasted in a long while. It may be the case that there are a few other gems on the menu, but you might have to sacrifice a few visits to the god of the Doggy Bag until you find them.

==MapleSyrup==
Ordered:

Toasted Cheese Ravioli (5.99)
Alfredo Chicken & Mushroom Bake (10.99)
Soda (1.99)

I still maintain that it was a bust of Karl Marx and that the restaurant owners may be communist sympathizers. I'm not saying it had any direct effect on the quality of the food, but be aware of the proprietors' political persuasions when patronizing this pasta-ry.

I went to check their online menu because I'd forgotten the exact names of what I'd ordered (I was fairly certain that I didn't ask for Chix Mush Bake by name) and their prices are actually slightly cheaper at this location than what they list there. The salad bar was standard fare: some lettuce with random accoutrement and standard dressings. The toasted cheese ravioli was filled with a creamier cheese and jalapenos, so they were more like jalapeno poppers. They were nothing special and I agree with ND that you should just skip the appetizers and go straight to the entree.

The alfredo chicken & mushroom bake was a mix of button mushrooms, chicken, mostaccioli, and alfredo. The mushrooms were cooked nicely, firm with an almost sauteed flavor. The chicken was inconsequential with chunks so small and scarce that I rarely noticed them. The alfredo was good, but a bit too thick and heavy for my tastes. I would have preferred it lighter. Overall though, it worked and I enjoyed it. However, after spying what Mecha got for $13, I'm not sure I'd get it again.

==Mecha==
Ordered:

Italian Soda, Kiwi Cream (2.79)
3 Dish Combination (13.99)

Lasagna
Chicken Parmesean
Manicotti (red sauce)
Garlic Bread
Salad Bar

So apparently I won Spaghetti Works. This particular Spaghetti Works moved kinda just across the street from its older position and modernized a bit. I liked the old place a bit more, what can I say, I'm a sucker for old timey atmosphere and wood.

The kiwi cream soda was definitely kiwi and cream both, pleasant, but not amazing. Although it seems that refills were freeish, and I might have sampled around a bit more if I'd have known, since usually drinks like that are full price refills. I'll have to do that next time. Appetizers wise, the meat ravioli was the winner of the two raviolis, the cheese bread was okay but not amazing, oddly.

As for the main dish, it was their 3 dish combination. Now, on the dinner menu at that link put it at 14.49, but I'd swear mine was, on menu, at least 13.99 if not lower, as Maple mentioned, the prices are different. Like everything here, pretty much, salad bar (decent selection, reasonably fresh, don't know what those other guys are whining about with respect to the sneeze guard) and garlic brad (yay) came with it, but the thing that made everyone agog was the proportions. The chicken parm was a full sized single breast, not mushy in the slightest with good breading, and is probably some of the best chicken parm I've ever had anywhere. The lasagna had a lot of layers, was fairly dense, and still very delicious. No dried parts, cut pretty easily, held together well when cut. Both of these are things I'll get again next time I go for sure. I felt like trying the manicotti, and while it wasn't bad, it wasn't really my thing. As usual with cheese-stuffed tubes, it was a bit annoying to get both tube and cheese in the same forkful. I took half of the chicken parm and the lasagna home as leftovers, reheated a day later, they still stood up pretty well on the flavor front. Good job, Spagetti Works.

==Moogle==
Ordered:

Meatball Sandwich (7.99)

I'm pretty sure I heard that the truck was a real truck. If you had heard beforehand that the salad bar was in the truck, you'd see it as you enter the restaurant, so it's not really that hidden. I thought there was more seating on the other side of the truck, but if not, it is kind of out of the way. I do agree that the bust is creepy.

In any case, as has already been said, the appetizers were just OK. I had to ask Mecha if he'd gotten some kind of pureed cucumber drink, because that's really what it looked like. I didn't hear what he actually ordered.

I ordered a meatball sandwich, which came on flatbread covered in sauce and cheese. I'm not sure I could have eaten it like a real sandwich, so the knife and fork were used. The meatballs were pretty tasty, and were actually quite soft. I got fries with it, but it seems you can get pasta instead. The salad bar is actually extra for sandwiches. I was reasonably pleased with the portions, but looking back at the $8 in my notes, it might have been a tad pricey, especially with a $2 optional salad bar. While not bad, I'd probably try something else next time. There are plenty of options, and previously I'd only tried the create-a-pasta bowls (which are great).

Chicago Dawg House

2009-06-23T14:10:00.000-05:00

Restaurant: Chicago Dawg House
Address: 3113 N. 108th St
Website: http://www.chicagodawghouse.com/
Genres: American, Hot Dog
Check Constraints: None
Chain: No | More Omaha Locations: No

==NinjaDebugger==
Ordered:

Traditional Chicago Dog (2.99)
Cubby Kid (Corn Dog) (2.49)
Side of Cheese (.49)
Soda (.99)

Chicago Dawg House is tiny. It's mocked up to look kind of like a Wrigley Field concessions stand, I guess, and they went so far as to have actual fence put up on the bloody wall, so I suppose you can't fault the atmosphere. There is, however, a distinct lack of seating. All the seating consists of a single row of stools under a large counter along one wall. I was less than pleased with the seating, and while the food didn't quite make up for it, it was good enough that if they fixed the seating issue, I'd go back.

The deep fryers seemed to be running a bit on the hot side when we went, because everything was a bit on the crispy side. Not burnt, mind, which would definitely have ruined everything, but definitely crispy. For the corn dog, it was a bit crispier than I like, but because of the heat, it still managed to not ruin the inside, even if it was too hot to eat for a while. Pretty good corn dog, too. Not immense, but good enough, especially when dipped in the cheese sauce.

Everybody wants to know about the chicago dogs, though, I guarantee it. A chicago dog is a monstrosity, really. It's a collection of toppings that I still do not understand someone coming up with, and that I certainly wouldn't have tried had my friends not recommended it most heartily a few years back. Being who I am, unfortunately, I cannot eat a standard chicago dog, so I have them remove the onions and tomato slices, replacing them with cheese, delicious cheese. This has not steered me wrong. I have exactly one beef with these hot dogs, and that's that unlike Portillo's in Chicago, they use very large sport peppers, which changes how the flavor hits. Instead of tasting the other toppings, then getting a burst of heat as you bite into the pepper, you get the heat up front, dulling the taste of the other toppings. If they were to change that one little thing, I would call them pretty close to Portillo's equal, which is, to be sure, a high compliment.

Also, I sampled some of Mecha's chili and Cham's catfish, and let me say, that's some damn good catfish, and the chili is properly beanless, so thumbs up on those.

==Chamelaeon==
Ordered:

Traditional Chicago Dog ($2.99)
Catfish Po' Boy ($4.25)
Fries and Drink Combo ($1.99)
Cubby Kid ($2.49)

Personal disclaimer: I am from the Chicagoland area. That means, if I wanted to, I could replace this block of text with a one sentence review that should tell you everything you need to know: "The hot dogs at Chicago Dawg House are adequate." Though that sounds like damning with faint praise, it's not - people from my neck of the woods take their hot dogs very, very seriously. Luckily for you, Chicago Dawg House does as well. Their traditional sports the... well, traditional... array of toppings, laid out by the great gods Ditka and Caray in the beforetimes, with the all-hallowed commandment; "THOU SHALT NOT SUFFER KETCHUP UPON THY CHICAGO DOG."

Perhaps it's not that worthy of melodrama, but finding someone willing to give me a taste of home is reasonably hard. Most "chicago dogs" are lacking in key elements like the sport peppers or the all-important kosher pickle spear, but they're all here, including the celery salt and optional poppyseed bun. In fact, my only complaint was that the actual dog (which was the required all-beef version) was only the standard dog size. That said, their online menu claims you can pick a larger version for 50c more, but it's "skinless", which I assume means it's missing a thick casing. So there's a trade-off there; the size vs. the snap of the casing. Either way, this is definitively the best Chicago dog I have had outside the actual city.

Their po' boy was very good as well, especially with the hot sauce (make sure you ask for it). It wasn't anything extremely special, but the catfish breading was delicious and it was served piping hot - as ND mentioned they must have had their deep fryers ratcheted to 11 that day. Some coleslaw on the side (or on top) would not have gone amiss, but they don't have any on their menu. The corn dog was good - and large, and also amazingly hot - but expensive. Hard to tell if they're hand-dipped on site, but it seems reasonable to assume they're not.

In conclusion, then, I have finally found a place I can get a good Chicago dog that is not approximately 500 miles away. If the seating's cramped, well, then there's always takeout.

==Mecha==
Ordered:

Traditional Chicago Dawg ($2.99)
South Side Chili Dawg ($3.25)
Onion Woo Woos (rings) ($1.79)
Drink ($0.99)

The seating is pretty cramped and all along one wall, and extends way into the back. It's in the narrowest of strip mall spaces I've ever been in, and that makes it rough.

Having gone to Portillo's in mid May, I have to say that this place definitely satisfies on the dog front. Cham gave you the technical description, thankfully, so all I have to add is that they put it together right in my opinion, given my experience. I'm not from Chicago, unlike Cham, so I don't have a long history with the flavor, but it's one I enjoy. Big plus.

The chili 'dawg' I chose, without thinking, was onions and chili, not chili and cheese. A thought to remember for next time. Their chili was high on the cumin flavor, not so high on the heat, which was enjoyable, and all around a great thing to slap on the traditional tube of meat.

Their rings are extremely light on salt and breading, leaving it mainly with light onion flavor, which you may or may not go for. Their cheese was okay. The lack of shakes, in my opinion, is a serious detriment, because I really do enjoy a pair of dogs, fries, cheese, and a shake as Portillos lets me have it, but unless you are really into that combo yourself, you don't have to worry. The service (place is short order) was fast and I have no real complaints. If you want a taste of the real experience, this will serve you well. Kudos.

Lansky's

2009-06-04T13:00:00.000-05:00

Restaurant: Lansky's
Address: 50th & L
Website: http://www.lanskys.biz
Genres: Pizza, Pasta, Phillies
Check Constraints: Short order.
Chain: Yes | More Omaha Locations: Yes

==NinjaDebugger==
Ordered:

Chicken Alfredo (7.69)
Cheese Bread (3 pieces, 2.69)
#1 Giant Chicken Philly (4.95)
Soda (1.79)

Lansky's is not hard to find. It has what was, once upon a time, a prime location, and is now still a pretty good one. It also has parking lots on both sides of the restaurant, and an entrance for each lot. In fact, the place is pretty stretched out inside, with the kitchen and half the seating at one end, and the rest of the seating stretched down along the way. Of course, people tend to congregate at the end with the kitchen and the soda machine, but what else did you expect?

More importantly, Lansky's is a local chain, with a restaurant each in Omaha (this one), Bellevue, and Council Bluffs. The Lansky's menu is kind of a mix of Italian, pizza, phillies, and sports bar, as you'll see with the selection of appetizers we ordered. For the record, the cheese bread is excellent, and comes with an oversized cup of handmade marinara for dipping, as do like, half their appetizers.

Lansky's has three ways to order their phillies. You can get them plain, just meat and cheese, which is how I like mine, or you can start heaping onions, peppers, shrooms, and other such nastiness on them. For my money, a giant hoagie with two or three pieces of quality cheese over which is heaped a huge helping of well seasoned chicken and nothing else, just cannot be beat. I couldn't even -start- on it this time, so I took it back to work, threw it in the fridge, and had it the next day, and it was every bit as good as fresh.

The chicken alfredo, though, oh man. I ate it there, of course. Every last bit of it, nearly down to licking the plate clean. I have been to actual professed Italian restaurants in Omaha, and not one of them has given me an alfredo quite so delicious. They only have grated parmesan, but you won't need it at all, the sauce is nearly a perfect blend of garlic, cream, and parmesan, very much unlike the overly creamy and occasionally slightly bitter stuff I've had elsewhere. It comes with two big chunks of garlic bread, which also goes well with the alfredo, and it's made with a huge helping of the same chicken as they use for the phillies, which really just puts the whole thing over the moon.

I got two excellent meals for eighteen bucks, and I gave most of the bread to other people. Go to Lansky's. Eat. Enjoy.

==Chamelaeon==
Ordered:

Regular Chicken Philly Meal ($6.99)
#3 Style, (Peppers, Onions, Mushrooms)
Regular Drink, Fries
Regular Fried Ravioli ($3.95)
3pc Garlic Toast ($1.85)
Beer Cheese Dip ($1.25)

"Nastiness", says ND. Delicious, says I. The only right way to enjoy the phillies is with the full complement of sauteed toppings, including green peppers, onions, and mushrooms. If you're desperately in need of more flavor I would support getting a tub of the marinara for them, but ketchup is for french fries. And heathens. The food here is what I would call "generally solid". Could you find a better cheesesteak in Omaha? Probably. Will you pay more? Possibly. The advantage here is the known quantity factor.

Their fries are seasoned, but nothing overwhelmingly special. The ravioli can probably be avoided - it's not burnt to a crisp like some places, but it's essentially nothing but a taste-free carrier vehicle for the pretty good marinara - or the beer cheese dipping sauce. This stuff is worth it, but eat it fast, because as it cools down it rapidly moves from "delicious" to "government cheese" status. Their garlic toast is also decent, but there's no reason not to get the with-cheese version like ND did.

Last point - the menu is expansive. It's not Wheatfields-big, but it's sizable. I know businesses that order work lunches out of here, which not a bad option, because it's good, cheap, and there's really something for everyone on their menu.

==Mecha==
Ordered:

Build it your way Calzone ($4.75 + $2.00 for 4 toppings)

Canadian Bacon
Pineapple
Green Peppers
Roma Tomatoes

Regular Drink, Onion Rings ($4.44 as a combo)
Regular Spicy Pub Pickles ($4.45)

Knowing Lansky's has parking in the back is important for first-time visitors, because the front parking lot is kinda tight. I went with the pocket pizza option, as Lansky's will not only do pizzas by ingredients, but the calzones as well (with the same price as a personal size pizza.) This is good because their actual standard calzone selection, while containing a few delicious options, is very limited, and I didn't want to double up with anyone's choices there.

I think that next time, I'll sub out the tomatoes, which were admittedly good, for more cheese, as the calzone didn't seem to have quite enough cheese binding it on its own. The ingredients were solid (what do you want from pineapple?) and the crust itself tasty. This calzone, as prepared, was not hugely messy or difficult to cut, but I'm sure that can vary based on what exactly you get. They come with dipping marinara/pizza sauce, as there's not a lot (or maybe any inside), and I think that's the largest reason why this calzone, at least, wasn't a mess factory.

On the appetizer front, I actually liked the ravioli and could taste flavor in it, but it wasn't amazing or anything. The spicy pub pickles were as advertised, not too spicy though. Onion rings were fine too. The Beer Cheese sauce was pretty good as well. Cham's estimation of 'solid' for this place is not wrong, although I have to admit that this place has an excellent Aloha pizza (I like their topping choices) as well. And, having done it, the calzones reheat well enough, too.

==Moogle==
Ordered:

Italian Sausage Calzone ($5.95)
Regular Drink, Fries ($3.08 as a combo)

If I had seen the build-your-own calzone, I probably would have gotten exactly the same one Mecha did. I spotted the Hawaiian pizza option in the menu and thought that looked good, but wanted something more like the calzones. Italian Sausage was a fine choice, however. The calzones are pretty good sized. Due to work, I ended up taking home a corner of the calzone and a handful of fries. I could have finished there, but I felt like I needed to get back to work sooner and didn't really want it sitting in my stomach all afternoon anyway.

The calzone was pretty crumbly. It definitely could have used more cheese to hold it together. This style calzone had an awful lot of green/red peppers--maybe a little too much for my tastes. The marinara was a little hard to use with the calzone guts spread all over the plate. Still, it was tasty enough that I was pleased with it. The fries were actually pretty good. They weren't too dry or greasy. They were also lightly seasoned. The calzones reheat well enough, but the fries are another story. They were edible, just not nearly as good as the first time around.

==MapleSyrup==
Ordered:

Vegetable Calzone ($5.25)
Regular Drink, Onion Rings ($4.44 as a combo)

I was originally going to try the Reuben, but then I made the mistake of asking Moogle what he was getting and my fate was sealed. Unlike ND, I loves me some peppers and onions, so I went with the Vegetable Calzone. It was the size of a medium pizza folded over. The crust was a nice tasty crispy and chockful of mushrooms, green and red bell peppers, onions, and black olives. The peppers were cooked so they weren't soft and were on the verge of crunch. The onions didn't overpower any of the rest of the filling. Unfortunately, as Mecha lamented, the filling didn't bind together well. It could have used a good amount more cheese. I ended up cutting off a piece of calzone, scooping some crust and filling into my mouth, then shoving a half forkful of marinara in there to taste. It was a very good calzone, though next time I'll probably roll my own because a Hawaiian Calzone sounds really good.

It was a good price and a good calzone. I'll be going back.

Billy Frogg's Bar & Grill

2009-05-27T10:34:00.001-05:00

Restaurant: Billy Frogg's Bar & Grill, West
Address: 8724 W Dodge Rd
Website: http://www.menuism.com/links/show/bfd6xEjW0r3BqKaby-t3N_ (Unofficial menu listing)
Genres: American, Bar & Grill
Check Constraints: None.
Chain: Local. | More Omaha Locations: Yes.

==NinjaDebugger==
Ordered:

Chicken Parmesan Sandwich w/Fries ($6.95)

The inside of Billy Frogg's feels like a young rich dude trying to impress you with how much old stuff he's collected. The place is -saturated- with old time signs of all sorts, from Standard Oil to old tavern signs to a giant baking powder sign or something. I forget exactly what, but there's so much of the stuff, and it feels so inauthentic, that it's really kinda sad. What it -really- is is a sports bar, and it shows in the kind of food they have available.

The appetizers will be listed later, but for my part, the cheese balls were preprocessed mass produced stuff, and the potato skins, though not bad, were also preprocessed mass produced stuff and could have been so much better, if only they'd had real bacon instead.

As for the sandwich, it was surprisingly good. A nice sized chicken breast, on a nice thick bun, with two types of cheese and lots of (I think) handmade marinara. It was definitely not the super-processed marinara dipping stuff you get at most sports bars, and unfortunately, it was a bit on the wet side, so if you get this, be careful when you pick it up, as it's going to leave a mess on the plate and possibly your shirt. On the other hand, it was pretty damn good, with all flavors working together in harmony.

My only other note is that damn, that hot dog was HUGE. You'll understand when you get to Moogle's post. I am really kinda sad that I didn't order that instead.

==Moogle==
Ordered:

Chili-Cheese Hot Diggity Dog ($6.00)
Cheese balls ($6.00)

They charged me $6 for each item, but I'm not sure that's what was printed on the menu. It was close, though, and may have been something like $6.25 and $5.75. Either way, I got a good deal on the dog. The fried cheese balls were nothing special. You got reasonable number of them, but a runny ranch dipping sauce. The potato skins were pretty plain.

I was a little worried ordering the hot dog that I'd be hungry afterward. When this beast came to the table, I quickly decided it was a great choice. This thing was a footlong (as they said in the menu), but it was no wimpy, skinny dog. It was an inch diameter. The whole top was burried in cheese. The bun was splayed out to about 5 inches wide and almost all you could see was cheese. There really wasn't a lot of chili compared to the cheese, but to me, it didn't really matter. It was enough. I think more chili might have just made it a hot-dog soup. It was a fight to finish the last bits of it. I left at least half of my fries. This monster also comes without chili-cheese for a little less cost, but I think it's worth the extra charge. Impressive and delicious.

==Chamelaeon==
Ordered:

Patty Melt ($6.95)
Side of Onion Rings ($2.95)

I think ND's being a little uncharitable in his characterization of the decor. It's true that the place comes in about halfway between a "Crap On The Wall" restaurant (e.g. TGI Friday's, Applebee's, &c) and a sports bar. It's also true that the signage felt like someone was trying too hard. But it's not an uncomfortable place to be in - in fact it reminded me of a bar & grill I used to visit in Terre Haute, Indiana (side note: Go there, the patty melts are delicious).

In fact, it was partially due to the memory of that bar & grill that I decided to go for a patty melt today. And while I was abandoning the pretense of eating healthy, I decided that some additional onion rings wouldn't be out of place. I should start with the onion rings, which were clearly dipped and fried on-site, but which were nothing special. That sentiment was echoed in the other appetizers - avoid them unless you're just looking for something to nosh while you drink.

The patty melt was surprising. The construction was the same as any good melt - a generous patty, some good marbled rye bread, and some cheese which may have been Swiss but was probably Monterey Jack (if it was Swiss it might as well have been MoJack, since it had no bite). This one eschewed any additional dressing, which was fortunate, as it would have overshadowed the melt's one unique contribution, which was a strong black pepper taste. I have to admit that recently I have been ... rediscovering black pepper, for lack of a better word - it's such a ubiquitous condiment that sometimes one can forget it's really quite a nice flavor when given some real prominence. So, returning to the melt, I will comment that the pepper flavor was a nice twist on a good execution of the patty melt, and it's recommended. I should mention there is a Fuddrucker's-esque condiment bar with pickles, lettuce, etc over by one of the walls, but the patty melt didn't need anything of the sort.

The prices here may be a little overinflated, but to be honest they're cheaper than something off TGI Friday's menu, and the food is decent enough if you're in the mood for the bar and grill genre. I'd be interested to try one of the other locations - there's one downtown, and a newish one on 72nd in La Vista (near the husk of the old Walmart, in the place that used to be Boston's).

The Drover

2009-05-18T10:10:00.001-05:00

Restaurant: The Drover
Address: 2121 South 73rd Street
Website: http://www.droverrestaurant.com/
Genres: Steak
Check Constraints: None seen
Chain: No. | More Omaha Locations: No.

==Chamelaeon==
Ordered:

Pork Chop ($13.95)

Salad Bar
Cottage Cheese

It is clear - both from the website and the context of the paper menus we received - that the Drover's lunch menu is a pale and pitiful reflection of its dinner one. The flimsy paper forerunner for lunch concerned itself mainly with sandwiches and moderate fare, but as is evident from their site, the robust dinner menu prides itself on having $30 steak. Let me tell you this, though; if the dinner's as good as the lunch? It's probably worth it.

In all seriousness, the lunch menu is probably an excellent way to get a good meal out of the Drover without paying high prices. The steak on the lunch menu, as Mecha will attest, is only $12, and there are several other grilled favorites there in that price range.

Since I am currently - still? again? whatever - watching my food intake, I opted for the pork chop with the salad bar and the relatively healthy option of cottage cheese. Well, initially I opted for the prime rib, but they were out of it. A mild interrogation of our server revealed that they receive the meat daily in time for dinner, and then cut it as necessary. If there's any remaining, it's sold at lunch the next day. The tone in her voice indicated this is a rare occurrence, with the notable exception of Wednesdays, when Whiskey Prime Rib is the special. If that Thursday was like any other, the special then was meatloaf with mashed potatoes.

But I ordered the pork chop, and that is what I will review. First I should mention the salad bar, though. If forced to pick a single term to define it, I'd go with "traditional". It had iceberg lettuce, green peppers, cucumbers, and olives, among a few other toppings, most notably beets. I'm not sure at what point my brain classified these as "traditional" salad bar fare, but it seems to me that when I was a child all salad bars seemed to have these dark red taste-bud landmines. Of course, now that I like them, it's actually difficult to find them anymore. Regardless, the salad bar's only real failing was the iceberg lettuce. The fresh cracked peppercorns (located on the top of the bar itself) were an extra plus that should not be ignored.

The pork chop, which at the server's suggestion was cooked to medium, was delicious. There was good flavor to it, and just enough fat remaining around the edges to give an added boost of flavor at times. It was bone-in, though the bone wasn't obtrusive, and the meat had a good amount of moisture still in it. If I were a man who truly feared trichinosis I'd have ordered it sent back and scorched, but I never saw the need to cook all the moisture out of an already lean meat. Regardless of personal preference, if you like your pork cooked to death, the plate comes with cinnamon applesauce for added moisture. Nothing too special about it, but certainly not bad. It also comes with two slices of grilled toast, and - as garnish, apparently - a slice of what we surmised was spiced apple. A strange rarity, and though you're probably not supposed to eat it, we all did.

In short, it's definitely worth a visit here at lunch, and if you've got the scratch for it, probably dinner as well. That said, I know that one's choice of steakhouse is a matter of often no less than religious import in this city; keep in mind that I didn't have the steak here. I'll leave it to the others to tackle that.

==NinjaDebugger==
Ordered:

Beefy Cheese Sandwich ($9.25)

Cottage Cheese

Cup of Beer Cheese Soup (Soup of the day) ($3.25)

Those apple rings were standard Christmas apple rings. If they're not made to be eaten, nothing is. Delicious. What's also delicious is their beer cheese soup, by the way. It was very thick, nearly to the point of forming soft-peaks, and it was fabulous. Thick and cheesy, with strong smoky flavor and bits of very good ham, with just a tiny bit of celery, and a good beer flavor throughout. I don't think I could take a full bowl of it, but as a cup of soup, this is as good as it gets.

I grabbed cottage cheese with my beefy cheesy sandwich. I continue to be amazed that Mecha didn't realize that serving cottage cheese with a pineapple ring was traditional. I don't know how he could not know this. It was a little less than properly cold, but it wasn't warm like I got at McKenna's. If you do not love cottage cheese as much as I do, go with the fries, because the plate comes with a big dipping cup of quite good barbeque sauce, and you are NOT going to want to put it on the sandwich.

The sandwich is on toast, just crisp enough to more or less withstand the onslaught of melted cheese and prime rib juice. The meat is a reasonable portion of prime rib, cooked medium rare or so, and sliced thin, with swiss cheese on one side and cheddar on the other. All the flavors blend together superbly, with the cheese managing to always be there without even coming close to overshadowing the flavor of the prime rib. If you want a sandwich, get this sandwich. It is king of cheese and beef sandwich. If I ever taste a better sandwich, I may die of the explosion of awesome in my mouth. And if you put barbecue on it, then may whatever god you believe in have mercy, because I will not.

Lunch, dinner, if you want steak, this is a good place to go. Well worth the money.

==Mecha==
Ordered:

Luncheon Steak ($11.50)

Fries

Beer Cheese Soup

Pineapples are from the tropics! Cottage Cheese isn't! I don't know how that doesn't seem weird to anyone else. Ahem.

The Beer Cheese Soup was a 'Soup of the Day' as well, so it's unclear what kind of soups they have other days (although Chili seems always on the menu.) The soup, however, had a strong beer flavor note (which not all beer cheese soups have!) as well as the smoky cheese and ham flavors ND mentioned above. It kind of reminds me, texture-wise, of a thick cheese salsa, complete with blobbing on the top instead of just flowing back together. It's very good, though. Hopefully their other daily soups are as good.

The steak was a fairly small portion (7 oz) but as steaks go, this is about as well made as it gets. A thin layer of browned/blackened on the outside, and then a large area of medium-rare inside (I ordered it medium-rare). It had excellent flavor for a steak, and I ate it in thin slices, slowly to get the most out of it. The fries are normal long squareish fries, neither too thick or too thin, and tasted like the fries at a chain of steak houses back in my home town, so I'm figuring it's standard steak house fare on that front (as opposed to big honkin' steak fries) and they went well with ND's BBQ sauce. I also got the candied apple (and it was good) and some buttered (and maybe garliced lightly? We theorized it might have tasted garliced from what was cooked in that oven earlier, it was so light on the garlic flavor to ND and Cham's taste.)

On the overall, it was a good place to go eat a lunch and get some real flavor. The speed was a little slow (not annoyingly so, just noticeable) but that probably happens sometimes. I really am curious what the dinner looks like, though. Another time, perhaps.

==Moogle==
Ordered:

Beefy Cheese ($9.25)

Coleslaw

Texas Chili ($4.00)

The chili was good. You have the choice to add onions and cheese. I picked both, but could have done without the onions. They ended up a bit overpowering. It was nearly a beanless chili, and not too thick or runny. It's not a bad choice, but you could probably do better for the money with the cheese soup, from what I hear.

The Beefy Cheese sandwich was amazing, and disappeared way too quickly. It came on two regular pieces of buttered toast, didn't seem terribly large. It had plenty of flavor, however. It came with a side of BBQ sauce as ND mentioned. It wasn't bad sauce, but it was way too strong for the sandwich. I tried maybe a third the sandwich with it (I'm a fan of BBQ), but it really overpowered everything else. The sandwich has a really good flavor all by itself. The coleslaw was pretty bland and not terribly creamy. I would pick fries as the side next time.

Blue Planet Natural Grill

2009-05-14T10:22:00.001-05:00

Restaurant: Blue Planet Natural Grill
Address: 6307 Center St. Suite 101
Website: Blue Planet Natural Grill
Genres: Cafe, Organic
Check Constraints: Short Order
Chain: Sorta| More Omaha Locations: No

==NinjaDebugger==
Ordered:

Macaroni & Cheese Bowl (5.49)

Chicken (1.00)
Beef (1.00)
Bacon (1.00)

Sun Baked Fries (1.49)
Apple Muffin (1.99)
Orange Muffin (1.99)
Drink (1.49)

If you like eating outdoors, Blue Planet has a nice looking outdoor patio area for you to eat in. I do not like eating outdoors, especially in the heat, so screw that crap. The inside is nice and roomy, though, which I can get behind.

In any case, this is really about the food. The apple muffins are really more wheat or bran than apple, the apple flavor is very understated. Instead, opt for the orange muffin, which is better than any place short of Wheatfields.

The sun-baked fries are cooked via hot air instead of oil, and it shows. They're reasonably crisp, plenty good, but you're going to want to make use of their three different catsup blends. I am especially fond of the garlic catsup, and would not recommend the pineapple-mango. The sweet potato fries (with just a bit of cinnamon) are also excellent, and give an odd but not unpleasant flavor when combined with the catsups.

The macaroni and cheese is not really macaroni and cheese. It's penne rigate in a light cream sauce with a bare hint of cheese. If you come here expecting to get CHEESE, you are going to be disappointed. On the other hand, if you order the right meats with it, you can get a good flavor going. I suggest avoiding the ground beef, as it tends to overwhelm other flavors, but if you went with, say, chicken and ham, you could get a good not-quite-chicken cordon bleu going. On the up side, though, they are VERY generous with the grilled chicken, it's in large, tasty chunks and there's plenty of it. Well worth the buck it costs to get it.

I'd definitely eat here again, though it wouldn't really be my main choice, but being at around 60th and center makes it nice and accessible for a lot of people, at a pretty good price for what you get.

==Chamelaeon==
Ordered:

Santa Fe Salad ($7.99)
Drink ($1.49)
Edamame ($1.49)

As near as we can tell, this is the only Blue Planet Natural Grill in existence. Their website mentions franchise opportunities but doesn't list any additional locations, so I feel fairly safe in saying this is not only a new restaurant for Omaha, but a new restaurant in general. I also feel safe in saying it's a good thing it's here.

The thematic gist of the place is natural/organic and/or healthy food which does not beg unpleasant comparisons to giant bricks of shredded wheat or overcooked brussels sprouts. That puts it, culinarily, in the same vein as McFoster's Natural Kind Cafe, which is pretty much an Omaha staple as far as I'm concerned. Still, this place is to McFoster's what Chipotle would be to a good Mexican restaurant; a streamlined, more publicly-accessible version of the food.

That's not to say it's a fast food joint, but it's quite definitely short-order. You get a number at the counter and wait for your food. Personally I think the inside of the place can get a little cramped when it's full, but there is actually room to sit down, as opposed to Worker's Take-Out. While you're waiting I suggest you avail yourself of the ketchups, all of which are organic. They've got original, and as ND mentioned, garlic and then pineapple-mango. They also have a chipotle ketchup. They're all pretty decent, but the garlic is the clear winner, and it's tough not to put it on everything.

It's pretty easy to eat healthy at Blue Planet (not surprisingly). Their salads double as wraps - or is it vice versa? - and they're tasty. What might be called the one downside to the Santa Fe salad is that there was too much stuff in the bowl to get it properly mixed. Additionally, it was an entirely spinach salad, which I usually find too monotonous but which in this case worked pretty well. as ND mentions, they're not shy about the chicken, and I got a fairly large serving for something on top of a salad. Their dressing selection, if you care beforehand, is Newman's Own.

The edamame side dish was interesting - it comes in-shell, and to be perfectly honest I wasn't certain if one was supposed to eat the shell or not. If you're supposed to be able to, then Blue Planet needs to cook it more, as I found the shells tough and fibrous; this leads me to conclude I was supposed to do what I wound up doing, which was squeezing the beans out of the pods individually, like a legume Push Pop.

I've eaten here maybe a dozen times before, and danced around the menu quite a bit. Their pizzas are good, if you can get one - they have a tendency to sell out of the materials by dinnertime (they may have fixed this, but I don't know for sure) - but the thing I like most on their menu is probably their bowls, which combine a decent amount of food with some good tastes. Definitely better - and better for you - than a trip to Burger King.

==Mecha==
Ordered:

Asian Style Chicken Burger ($7.99)
Orange Kick Smoothe ($4.49)

Their burgers come, by default, with the sun fries. The 'problem' with them really is lack of any seasoning or spicing whatsoever. They just end up very dull to my tastebuds (who just eats potato with no flavor? At least butter or something!). That's why the others went for ketchup, and I'm not a huge ketchup fan. The sweet potato fries, much more flavorful, and probably worth it even though they're a 79 cent substitution on the basic fries (according to the page.)

The burger itself had a very large chicken patty (overlarge, really, for the burger, but you can take care of that with some preemptive eating), and a very good mix of flavors. The wasabi mayo in particular had just a hint of wasabi, that I for one would have liked a little more of. The pineapple and teriyaki and everything worked together extremely well. It's definitely something I'd like to have again. I'm not sure it would work as well with the beef, with all the kinda subtle flavors, due to overpowering flavor on the part of beef. The pineapple also needs, perhaps, to be a bit smaller/some help with sticking, as it and the teriyaki were the two things most likely to leak/slip.

The place advertises their smoothies, so I had to give one a try. The orange kick was pretty simple in description, orange, cream, sugar. And that's exactly how it came down. The orange part was surprisingly sharp, like lemon instead of the nice unobtrusive orange most people are used to. The cream was very noticable (in fact, the only word I could use to describe that flavor/texture note was 'cream') and added an enjoyable lightness. The sugar cut that sharpness down to tolerable levels, I think, was the point. However, we are not talking a huge smoothie here, which makes the price point a bit unfortunate (there are a lot of other generally expensive drink flavors I enjoy at various resturants that are less expensive than this/have more flavor).

The place has a lot of options that seem worth pursuing, and I'd definitely consider it a second and third time. My main curiosity is how well it works for pre-order/takeout, since it has to compete with Gandolfos for me there (they're in the same minimall area), and Gandolfos is no slouch.

Crystal Jade

2009-04-20T13:07:00.008-05:00

Restaurant: Crystal Jade
Address: 7255 Cedar Street
Website: N/A
Genres: Chinese, American, fusion
Check Constraints: None
Chain: No | More Omaha Locations: No

==NinjaDebugger==
Ordered:

General's Chicken (7.95)
Eggdrop Soup (w/main dish)
Crab Rangoon (2.95)
Thai Iced Tea (2.50)

Howdy, true believers. We've skipped lunch for the past few weeks, for various reasons, and even worse, there are some places that we went to, but won't be reviewing until we go again, mainly because we got owned by work and can't remember what the heck we had. This is one of those revisits.

Tucked back behind the Omaha Tower, trapped inside an old Village Inn, is where you'll find Crystal Jade. Outside, it's... well, it's a Village Inn. Inside, it's a surprisingly nice place, with well padded chairs with steel backs and no arms (a blessing if you're larger than life). More importantly, though, there's a simple two page menu, half of which is filled with American food. barbecue ribs, chicken alfredo, stuff like that. We went there for Chinese, though, so no alfredo for me. The other half of the menu is a somewhat truncated selection of traditional Americanized Chinese food.

I've now had the General's Chicken twice, and this is sort of important, because General (whether Tao or Tso) chicken is always a tossup. One version of the dish is basically chicken McNuggets in corn syrup. The other version, the one that Crystal Jade serves, is chicken McNuggets in corn syrup and lots and LOTS of spice. Okay, that LOTS is probably overkill, because while it's at the top of my spice range, Cham still couldn't taste it at all, which I teased him about mercilessly. On the other hand, I'm going to be joining him in the spicehag club, eventually, I think. Mostly thanks to my growing love of horseradish.

The first time I was here, I actually got TWO bowls of soup. The eggdrop I got this time, and the creamy potato on the other side of the menu. I'll tell you now, to be complete, that the creamy potato is nothing special, and if you're out for potato soup, go to Petrow's or Brazen Head. The eggdrop soup, on the other hand, is pretty good stuff, enough that I grabbed it a second time.

The crab rangoon, everybody pretty much agrees, are above average, and both times I've been there, they came out piping hot straight from the deep fryer. Ditto the fried wontons, which Cham ordered twice, and both appetizers are quite affordable, at 4 or 6 for three bucks. There are also carafes (syrup bottles, no kidding) of sweet & sour at each table, for dipping. It's pretty good sauce, too, no catsup base here.

And then there's the thai iced tea. I love thai iced tea. Unfortunately, there's no refill on it here, but I gave strong consideration to getting a second glass anyway. If you love thai iced tea, you will not be disappointed, and the milk in the tea makes a good way to kill the burn of a spicy dish.

In any case, Crystal Jade's a great restaurant, and I hope anybody who reads this gives it a try, because it's totally worth the money. Give them a shot, you won't regret it.

==Moogle==
Ordered:

Mongolian Beef Sandwich (8.95)

I've been a little sick of Asian food lately. There's no real good reason for it, but it caused me to take a look at some of the non-traditional food items here. The have some American-type dishes, like ND mentioned, and a couple of things listed under "fusion". I went for a bit of a fusion dish. The sandwich was really just mongolian beef on a ciabatta bun. It was hard to hold due to the soft bun and quite messy, but it was actually pretty good. The mongolian beef worked well as sandwich innards. The look reminded me a bit of a cheesesteak, but there was no cheese and an Asian flavor of course. I thought the mongolian beef here was really good by itself. The last time I had the dish, it was from China Garden, and it was overrun with (probably yellow) onions. I couldn't stand it. Here they were green onions, and they faded into the background, providing more of a look than a taste.

A bad mark on the service, however: the sandwich was supposed to come with fries, and I never received them. I didn't really notice they were missing until we had left, but it did seem a bit strange to see just the lone sandwich get delivered to the table. I considered ordering eggrolls (because the meal seemed so light), but the waitress was never at the table long enough for me to ask. She'd quickly drop something off, then take off again for who knows where. I believe they also forgot something of Maple's. I don't think there was any issue last time we went, however.

==Chamelaeon==
Ordered:

Wontons ($2.00)
2 Eggrolls ($1.50 each)
Chicken Rendang ($7.95)

Hot & Sour Soup
Steamed Rice
Side Salad

ND's characterization of the place is spot on. It's actually a bit of cognitive dissonance to walk inside what appears to be a Village Inn and find a restaurant with place settings and tablecloths. So don't let the exterior fool you, this really isn't someplace you should walk in with flip-flops and a shirt with the arms cut off. Not that you should do that anywhere; there's sanitation to be concerned about.

I am pretty sure this is exactly what I ordered the last time we visited, and I am pretty sure I had exactly the same experience, so the place has that going for it. Their wontons were crispy and had a delicious nugget of pork in the middle; though some at the table weren't fond of them, I liked them enough to get them again. The eggrolls seemed off to me, however, though I couldn't put my finger on why. They were fairly large in size, though at $1.50 they really ought to be. A small note; the "salad bar" here is a chilled pot of salad mix sitting on a table at the middle of the restaurant. They don't tell you this, so if you're waiting for them to deliver a side salad to your table you'll be waiting a while. Though honestly it's not worth getting up for unless you're hard up for iceberg lettuce in your diet. The only interesting thing are the wonton strips you can add, and perhaps the sesame dressing. On the other hand, the hot and sour soup is good, if not much above the average.

Despite my mixed reviews on the appetizers and sides, I can unequivocally recommend the chicken rendang. It's a curry-like concoction, and though I wasn't able to pick out many of the components of the sauce, it's pretty good. It comes with rice, either fried or steamed. I've gotten steamed both times so I can't speak to the quality of their fried rice. Still, when ladled out over the rice it's a tasty meal and while it's more filling than you'd expect, I'm still glad it comes with the extras.

==Mecha==
Ordered:

Thai Iced Tea (2.50)
Lemon Chicken (6.95)

Hot & Sour Soup
Fried Rice
Side Salad

I actually missed the first visit here, due to something a long while back. Place is pretty solid on the overall, though, so I'm glad to have given it a shot. The Thai Iced Tea came in a big mug, actually, it's worth noting, as did the water and I think the other drinks. They do alcoholic drinks too, but it being lunch and us being responsible, we didn't have any. I agree with ND, it's very good. I need to not keep forgetting to look up how to make it myself.

The Lemon Chicken dish came with Hot and Sour of the good variety, and Cham is right about the salad bar: iceberg to fill up on. The dish itself was breaded chicken absolutely covered in a bright yellow lemon sauce. The sauce was exceedingly strong, sweet, and bitter, (and lemony), to the point where someone who wasn't huge on lemon couldn't have eaten it. I was expecting something with a lighter lemon flavor, so I was surprised. I still ate quite a bit of it and enjoyed, but be forewarned, this is not 'chicken with some component of lemon flavor', this is lemon chicken, heavy on the lemon sauce like general tso's chicken is usually heavy on the sauce.

I don't think the place will be supplanting as my favorite chinese anytime soon, but the increase in options and difference in styles gives me the option of a slight break in ordinary chinese food, and that's a good thing.

Editor's Note: MapleSyrup is being a huge tool and refusing to write his post. I am posting this anyway.

Gusto Cuban Cafe

2009-03-12T09:00:00.000-05:00

Restaurant: Gusto Cuban Cafe
Address: 7910-7920 Harrison Street
Website: Gusto Cuban Cafe
Genres: Cuban
Check Constraints: $3.50 for splitting an item. No checks. 15% gratuity for 8+ people.
Chain: No | More Omaha Locations: No

==NinjaDebugger==
Ordered:

Papa Rellena a la Gusto ($12.95)
Congris
Black Beans
Fried sweet plantains.
Bread Pudding ($3)

More or less halfway down the block around 80th and Harrison, Gusto is not as small as it looks on the outside, but they crammed so many tables into the area that it feels smaller than it looks, and that's unfortunate. Also unfortunate is the mix of seemingly-homemade seating and somewhat uncomfortable... I'm not sure what to call them. Porch chairs, maybe? They have somewhat flexible seats, and stiff arms, and are not at all comfortable for people who are significantly wide, and even if I wasn't, I couldn't imagine being quite comfortable in them. They seem the sort of chairs I would tolerate, at best.

In any case, the waitress was reasonably attentive, and we took a long, LONG time for this lunch. Like, two hours. Mecha has the price on the appetizer sampler later on, but we all devoured it, of course. For twenty three bucks, it was a heaping monster platter of food. It wasn't even a platter, actually. This is the first place I've been to that actually served their sampler on an honest-to-goddess big wooden lazy Susan. It was incredibly convenient, and I kinda wish more places would do that. Aaanyway, the sampler is basically damn near every appetizer they offer. It costs a boatload of money, and you get a boatload of stuff to try. When the menu says "...etc" in the sampler description, it is NOT kidding. Almost all of it was good, too, a rarity among appetizer samplers. Be on special lookout for the roast pork bits, which are a tad try, but are cooked in an awesome vinegar and lemon based sauce. Mecha got that stuff as his main dish, and I'd eat it for both appetizer and main dish.

After that, though, this ended up being a spectacularly bad lunch for me. When I ordered the main dish, I was under the impression that the menu was not lying to me, and that I was ordering a baked potato stuffed with heavily seasoned ground beef and topped with a bunch of cheese. What I actually got was that, plus a bunch of onions, olives, and tomatoes, which more or less ruined my lunch. The congris turned out to be black rice with bits of pork, beans, and heavy spice in it, which was not particularly appetizing to me. The black beans were more like a soup, but were so beany that I couldn't stand them, and the plantains were, well... plantains. They practically define the word 'plain'.

We had already taken two hours by the time dessert time came, and I had wanted to try the bread pudding, so I gave it a shot and had them box some up to take back to work with me. That was a mistake. It was bitter. Not as bitter as, say, the alfredo at Indigo Joe's, but bitter like "We put so much cinnamon in here that you can't even actually taste cinnamon anymore."

I say, if you're going to go here, get the stuff the other guys got. Or the appetizers. Unless that potato sounds good to you. Honestly, I'd have preferred getting some Taco Bell. Or the stuff the other guys got. Man, that fried chicken was good. Not as good as mine, but damn good nonetheless. And those roast pork bits were to die for.

==Mecha==
Ordered:

Gusto Cuban Cafe Sampler Platter ($2?.??)
Masitas De Cerdo Fritas ($?.??)

Congris
Black Beans
Fried sweet plantains.

I have been so, so fried mentally. Hopefully, I will find the receipt for this place, as the online menu lacks prices.

So. Cuban food, a first for me, but I do like trying things. The Sampler Platter had a huge amount of stuff. One we identified as a sort-of crab-cake-like seafood item. It had three different plantain/banana looking chips, some very thin crisps, some longer sweet fried, and another type. The lime/lemon and such fried pork bits ND mentioned above. There was some sort of BBQish beans-flavored thing. Homemade thin potato fries of some sort. There was really nothing on this sampler that was bad, but they warned us that we were looking at a half-hour+ to make it beforehand, and they weren't wrong. I wish I had better descriptions, hopefully Cham will be able to shore this up in his section, and I'm sure the menu at the place describes the individual items better. If you've got the time and the people, you would be foolish to not give this a try.

The main meal was actually oddly disappointing in its size/delivery. Not that I didn't walk away full, but that it seemed small for its price. That said, it was all the fried pork with citrus undertones that ND talked above, for the main dish, and that is delicious. A little bit tough, but not too tough, the texture reminding me muchly of the 'teriyaki chicken' skewers that you get at various Chinese restaurants, but as pork. The flavor is fairly complex, and has those citrus notes (I think of them as lime, but ND clearly thought of them as lemon. Not really the crucial points) that really give it some bite. I don't know if I'd eat it as much as ND wants to, but I was glad to eat a good portion of it. The black beans actually had a very strange flavor, with the first note of it being cooking sherry, and then into the black bean flavor. Not my thing. The Congris was advertised as having pork, but there was no real pork flavor to it. Not bad at all, though, to me. Now, the fried plantains, those I would definitely go for again.

The place bills itself as having many a drink, but as usual, that's not something we got to try. It seems to more bill itself as a fun place to drink and karaoke and have unique good food at a leisurely pace, and the lunch we had supports that theory fairly well. It doesn't look like it would necessarily be too slow if you came in for lunch fare, either.

==Chamelaeon==
Ordered:

Mango Shake ($4.85)
Kidney Beans ($3.85)
Chicharrones de Pollo ($11.99)

This has not been the best winter for any of us. There has been plenty of mental frying to go around, and additionally I just purchased a house, so when I sleep at night, I dream of boxes, and when I wake up, I am in a valley between two walls of boxes, rising like a canyon around me. It is dark, and there may be grues. This is my flimsy excuse for my part in letting posts slip for weeks.

I am not 100% positive when the restaurant in question opened in this location. I dimly remember this being the previous location of, perhaps, something called Mimi's? But such memories are lost in the fog of time. Regardless, there has been time enough for the Omaha World-Herald to perform a review and for the review to be on the wall, so I feel fairly safe in saying that the restaurant has had time to work out the kinks. The service was decent despite there being only one waitress there, and the food was prompt (with the exception of the monstrous sampler platter).

The sampler platter had an extremely vast array of food. I will do my best to dredge recollections up from underneath the horrific visages of cardboard, but you should expect at best a faulty list:

Thin cut yucca fries, rather moist and oily, but possessing good flavor. It pretty much required a fork to eat them, though.
Plantain chips; these devices were fried cross-sections of plantain, allowed to cool. They were, essentially, the same as banana chips, but as expected were not sweet. Their primary application at the table seemed to be a delivery system for the next entry in the list.
Garbanzo beans with chorizo. Said beans had more than a hint of "BBQ" sauce in their flavor profile, but that may just have been due to molasses or other flavorings in the sauce. Regardless, they were fairly good.
Taro fritters. These objects were essentially pressed and fried cakes of taro, though everyone else at the table swears they could taste corn in the mix as well. They were perhaps a tad bland when compared with the rest of the heaping platter, but would probably have stood up okay on their own.
Fried plantain slices. These slices, unlike the chips, were warm (not to mention cut on a diagonal). They did well at playing to the plantain's strengths; namely, being a potato substitute with a slightly different flavor.
Roast pork in mojo sauce. These were quite clearly the star of the show, at least as far as our table was concerned. The bright citrus/herbal taste of the mojo sauce was a very high soprano paired with the pork's baritone, and the juxtaposition made for some delicious eating. If you're going with a single appetizer, pick these. For reference, I am pretty sure there was both lemon and lime in the mojo sauce, along with cilantro and some other herbs.
Papa Rellena Cubana; these devices were fried balls of mashed potatoes, stuffed inside with ground beef. They were excellent - we almost forgot they were there because of how fast they disappeared off the platter.
Ham and chicken croquettes; I suspect these were the items we thought were seafood (though those could have been the cod fritters). They were deep-fried to a brown crisp, and they went quite well with the mojo sauce we got on the side.

I am fairly sure that was everything, though with the large degree of fried foods arrayed before us it would have been easy to misidentify something. The only real solution is to go and check it out yourself.

On to the kidney beans, which were in the "soup" section of the menu. They were reminiscent of creole-style red beans, though with more liquid and with a more complex flavor. I can recommend them, though I'm not sure it would be worth it to get more than a cup.

The entree I got was, the menu assured, a Cuban version of fried chicken. I wasn't disappointed, though I was perhaps pleasantly surprised when the plate arrived and I was served pieces of bone-in-chicken which had been cut into smaller chunks, just the right size for picking up and then devouring down to the bone. The chicken was very flavorful; either brined or properly seasoned before frying. The biggest shock was perhaps the breading - a breadcrumb-based substance which had a sort of Shake 'N' Bake feel to it, but which was far better executed than anything from a box. The serving size was perhaps a bit small. Had I not stuffed myself to the gills with the monstrous sampler platter I could probably have gone through two of these, no problem. Still, the entrees are served with sides.

Everyone seemed to dislike the black bean side but me. I admit that after my initial taste I wasn't too keen on eating the rest of them, but the taste grew on me as I worked my way through the cup. As Mecha mentions, they had a very, very heavy bean taste, shored up by a rather strong wine flavor; initially I thought it was cooking sherry or some other intended-for-cooking-wine but as I was digging the last bean out I came to the internal conclusion it was just a very strong red, like a Shiraz.
Comparatively, the congris had a far lighter taste, and with the other strong flavors on my plate, it wound up being not much more than filler for me; which I definitely didn't need.

I'd be more than willing to go back here several times, eating around the menu and exploring various flavors. Though it'd be tough not getting that chicken again. Or just the sampler platter.

==Moogle==
Ordered:

Ropa Vieja sandwich ($8.99)
Columbiana ($3.75)

Plantains. So many plantains. The appetizer plate was a fun thing to get, but it's definitely for more than four people. The pork was great. The BBQ-ish garbanzo bean stuff in the middle was pretty good. I liked the sweet plantains--the soft ones. The regular plantain chips weren't anything to go out of your way for, but they were good to munch on. I almost forgot there was a smashed plantain patty-thing too, but that's because it was rather bland. You could really tell which items were the seafood ones because they were pretty strong (but not bad). Anything else on the plate has blended into the mix in my mind by now.

The sandwich was delicious and pretty filling. I had a hard time eating it all with the huge appetizer plate. It was tangy and simply sauced brisket on a bun. I asked for plantain chips as the side, and it came with a SERIOUS load of them. No, more than that. It reminds me a bit of the potato chips I had at Dundee. I ate maybe a third of them. If I had known I would get so many, I wouldn't have eaten any chips off the appetizer plate. As it is, we didn't finish all of the appetizer chips either. The Columbiana was an interesting experiment. I had originally asked for the Pineapple drink, but they were out of it. It turned out to be a can of orange-colored cream soda. It reminded me a lot of the Barq's Red Cream Soda I used to have often when living in Indiana. It still had a slightly different flavor than that. For the price, it isn't worth a repeat buy for me, however. To me, those drinks are probably a try-once deal. It was good food, but it was a very long wait. I'm glad I wasn't in a hurry.

Worker's Take Out

2009-02-11T14:02:00.014-06:00

Restaurant: Worker's Take Out
Address: 1317 S 50th St
Website: Worker's Take Out
Genres: Cuban, Deli, Sandwiches
Check Constraints: Nada
Chain: No| More Omaha Locations: No

==NinjaDebugger==
Ordered:

Cuban Pork Roast ($6.50)

When these guys say take out, they mean take out. You get your food in a styrofoam container, and there is no seating. None. The guy working said after we ate out in Moogle's van that we could have sat down in the bar next door, since it was closed, but really, plan to take it and run. It looks pretty much like the little grill below my college dorm, actually. Music on the radio, a TV/DVD player for the employee to watch, and a youngish guy who was probably college age behind the counter working the grill.

I didn't get much, because it was take out and I didn't feel like awkwardly trying to hold a lot of stuff like Cham did. I did try a bit of Cham's hummus, and it was better than most of the other hummus I've had. The sandwich came with an optional pickle spear, which automatically makes me like the place a little more, because it was a decent pickle. The sandwich wasn't great, but was one of those sandwiches where if you change a little bit to suit your taste, it'll be outstanding.

The base of the sandwich is cuban bread, buttered and topped with a bunch of shredded roast pork. The pork is pretty well peppered, just the way I like it, and very good. Top that with provolone, ham, pickles, and mustard, then squash it flat and grill it for a few minutes. My recommendation? Take out the pickles and ham, and just let the roast pork and provolone speak for itself. Totally worth the price on that.

The place itself? Would eat again, now that I know what to expect. If you're gonna send one or two people out for take-out, give this place a shot.

==Chamelaeon==
Ordered:

Franco ($5.79)
Texas Caviar ($2.99)
Hummus & Chips ($3.99)

It's hard to look at a menu with some interesting-looking appetizers and then, once you've arrived at the place, realize there's nowhere to put the dang things while you eat, and you have to scale back. As it was I wound up doing a lot of balancing on my knees inside the van, and at one point I flipped the styrofoam container my sandwich was in and it did an awesome 1080-flip directly onto the van's floor. Totally my fault, of course, but ND's advice is good, here. Grab the sandwiches and head back to work (or home).

ND mentioned this in passing but I wanted to point it out more explicitly... there was one (1) person manning the place. From orders to cooking to cashiering, there was only the one guy. And it's not like there were spots for people to hide, either. In one sense, this is good, as he didn't screw up any special orders and remembered what each of us had ordered. On the other hand, it means the process here is rather linear, and if you come in with an order for 15 sandwiches for your office, only one sandwich can be assembled at a time, and only two put on the sandwich press simultaneously. Hopefully there are more people here most of the time, but honestly you shouldn't let this dissuade you. Bring a book, read a chapter or two, then truck the delicious back.

Speaking of the delicious. The hummus here was very heavy on olive oil, a flavor I am immensely fond of, so I could find no fault with it. It made for a smooth hummus, but the other flavors in it shone through quite well. I do have to say that this is the first time I've had hummus with corn chips, but it worked reasonably well. The hummus is lower on salt than it would be if I'd made it myself, but the chips added the last bit of sodium I wanted.
"Texas Caviar" was a new thing on me; it was a construction of beans, onions, sweet bell peppers (the orange and yellow ones), and perhaps a hint of spice in a sweet vinegary sauce. As I read about the dish on the internet I am informed that sweet Texas Caviar is "a New Jersey imitation", and that the "real thing" always includes hominy and black eyed peas, but honestly it was good, for what it was. Not that I'd turn down "authentic" stuff either. The appetizer's served with the corn chips, making for a sweet/salty blend.

The sandwich was good stuff. When you press a sandwich like this it can be hard to discern individual flavors from the mix, which is to be honest part of the point. I received a constant blend throughout the sandwich, with the salami and pepperoni riding herd on the rest of the flavors, but with everything making its own contribution. The bread gets crisped excellently by the press (though it's actually clear that one side of the press is hotter than the other), and the end product would take a Quizno's or Subway sandwich out in the back alley and beat it with a panini press until it admitted that "fresh" is not an FDA-controlled keyword, and that there really is no excuse for horrible sandwich bread.

All of which should be taken as a recommendation for this place. One of the only ways it'd get better is if they delivered.

==Mecha==
Ordered:

Cuban Pork Roast ($6.50)
Hummus and Chips ($3.99)
Butterscotch Shake ($2.99)

Man, Maple did all that crowing about Butterscotch shakes, and then doesn't write anything about it. So sad. It wasn't a strong butterscotch flavor, but it was noticeable. Not too thick to deal with with a straw, which is what they gave me, so hooray for that. I'm not sure it was good enough that I'd get it often (3 bucks? Aiyah.) but it ain't bad if you're in a shakey mood.

The hummus was indeed fairly smooth, and I agree that the chip choice was a little weird. I would have probably preferred more interesting chips, but the hummus is supposed to be the star, and it's good as it was. The 'Texas Caviar' was also a flavor I really liked. I'd probably take it over the hummus if I go again, so it's my dip recommendation for the place. The menu does not note that the caviar comes with chips and IS a dip, so now you know.

They make an excellent Cuban here. Not super-messy (as one would hope), and a good blend of flavors. These are good sized sandwiches too, in my opinion. Since ND got the same dish there, I don't have much to add to his notes, although I wasn't bothered by the pickle, and the ham did not completely dominate in the flavors for me. That said, I'm sorely tempted to try out the Reuben next time, because I need to figure out this Reuben thing.

Everyone's covered the layout of the place fairly well, but I don't believe anyone mentioned that this week, the guy was out of hot dogs, which is a shame because I know we wanted to try them. They say they've got Chicago dogs, and Cham's never too full to turn down an available Chicago dog. I believe he said his shipments come in on Monday, so perhaps it would be good to plan ahead if you want a meat tube. But you'll find a good meal even without.

==Moogle==
Ordered:

Spicy Tuna Melt with Pepper Jack on Wheat ($4.29)
Coleslaw ($1.09)

We ate in the van partly because it took quite a while to get to all of us and partly because I was worried that the food would get cold on the way back. I'm pretty sure I didn't have to worry about that. The sandwich nearly burned me. You could pick the bread and cheese for this sandwich, and I picked pepper jack on wheat. Once I got past singing my mouth (I have a bad habit of just eating through the heat when I'm hungry), the sandwich did have some spice heat to it. I'm not sure if it was all the pepper jack or not. The sandwich may have been left on the grill a bit longer than the others because it was nearly blackened but thankfully not burnt. It actually made for a home-made feel. There was plenty of tuna and cheese as well. Some sandwich places seem to skimp on the tuna these days. I thought it was a good sandwich for a pretty good price. The coleslaw was ok, but not impressive. It was slightly peppery, but generally bland. I would probably get something else as a side next time.

==MapleSyrup==
Ordered:

Cuban Reuben ($5.49)

As everybody else has intimated, this was the kind of place you'd expect to be in the back of a mobile vending truck. It was a very straightforward operation with just the one guy, a sandwich press, some meat and bread, and sauerkraut and such on warmers.

This wasn't your standard reuben. It was salami, ham, swiss, pickles, sauerkraut, and special sauce on a good-sized, hot-pressed roll. Of the flavors, the pickles were unfortunately the strongest. The ham still managed to make an appearance, but the sauerkraut and special sauce (I'm guessing it was Thousand Island. It's always Thousand Island.) didn't show through very well. I'm generally a fan of pickles, but I'd recommend passing on the pickles on this one.

The sandwich was assembled then put in a flat hot-press, so a good crisp was added to the top and bottom, but the bread itself wasn't toasted or made hard. This also, as Cham said, melded the flavors (which may have been part of why the pickels came through so strong).

I look forward to going back, but I'll probably try the Cuban Pork Roast that the others got.

Petrow's Resturant (Visit 2)

2009-01-29T15:25:00.001-06:00

Restaurant: Petrow's
Address: 5914 Center Street
Website: http://www.petrows.com/
Genres: American, Homestyle, Fried
Check Constraints: Split checks work fine (in contrast to Cham/ND's last experience)
Chain: No. | More Omaha Locations: No.

Hey! This is one of our first "revisits". All other reviews of this restaurant are available here.

==Mecha==
Ordered

Steak Sandwich ($7.79)

Steak Fries
Two onion rings

Bowl of Cheesy Potato and Ham Soup ($3.49)
Hot Chocolate ($1.39)

Cham and ND were both unavailable this week for various reasons, and so we revisited Petrow's as, conveniently, none of us made the original review a year ago for reasons we can't quite remember. It's unfortunate that I think the sum-up is 'Not quite as good as they experienced.'

Getting it out of the way, the hot chocolate was decent warm hot chocolate, and it was a cold, cold day, so nothing wrong with that, but nothing to recommend it other than the sheer face-numbing cold. I went with a full bowl of the soup, as I'd rather have extra soup left over than not have enough of the good stuff. And this was pretty good potato soup. It actually reminded me, personally, of potatoes au-gratin as I had when I was younger, which is a fine starchy/filling flavor. Some hammy notes, but not a strong taste thereof. Fairly thick. Ultimately good, and sizable for the price (we guessed that I got two or three times as much as Maple did, for nowhere near two or three times the price.)

The steak sandwich was actually a pretty decent strip steak as the base (although not medium rare, nobody's shocked.) But it just did not have a strong enough flavor/mass to overpower any sort of additions of vegetables (which it came with, tomatoes, pickles, onions, lettuce), let alone the steak sauce the waitress offered me and I didn't put on, which made it a very meh sandwich. It actually came with damn fine steak fries, and very, very heavily breaded onion rings that just didn't appeal to me. I joked that they'd be the kind of onion rings ND would like, because they didn't taste like onion at all. Filling, but I was really hoping for some real flavor from the sandwich (if I just wanted a meat base for vegetables, I'd have just gotten a burger!)

If/when I go back, I'll have to try to hit something with a more obvious flavor component (maybe the pork Cham had such luck with), and definitely keep with the soup. And maybe hit a dessert this time. They looked like they had a great selection of dessert.

==MapleSyrup==
Ordered

Chili Cheddar Burger($7.79)

Steak Fries
Two onion rings

Cup of Cheesy Potato and Ham Soup ($2.59)

As Mecha said, it was an extremely cold day out, so I suggested we hit some place with warm-your-bones food and that's how we arrived at Petrow's. The parking was a bit scarce. We ended up having to squeeze Moogle's car into a space a little up the hill in the back.

I made the mistake of ordering the cup of soup instead of the bowl. Hopefully I'll learn sooner than later that it's always better to go with a bowl. The Cheesy Potato and Ham Soup was a thick and cheesy "broth" with a generous, but not overpowering taste of ham. The potatoes were cubed with the skin left on and cooked perfectly. They weren't mushy at all.

The Chili Cheddar Burger was disappointing. It was a meat patty smothered with meaty chili with lettuce, pickle, and onion on the side. The bottom bun was soggy, the chili had no real flavor, and what little flavor the burger itself had was easily overpowered by the little bit of pickle and onion on top. The steak fries were passable. I left them until after the burger, so they were a bit more soggy than I would have liked. The onion rings weren't very onion-y, but the breading was nice and crunchy, so I can forgive that.

If I go back, I'll definitely be getting a full bowl of the Cheesy Potato and Ham Soup and I'll probably be avoiding any of their burgers.

==Moogle==
Ordered

Monterrey Chicken Sandwich ($7.79)

Substitute a cup of potato/ham soup in for fries

The others have described the soup pretty well, so I'll just say that I liked it a lot. The ham was not too strong but added nicely to the cheese and potato. I probably could have/should have gone with a bowl as well, but I decided to swap out my fries for the soup.

The sandwich was pretty simple. It had a flattened grilled chicken breast, two somewhat thin grilled slices of ham (not deli-thin), and swiss cheese on sourdough. I'm not sure if there was a dressing of some sort on it as well, but it came with pickle slices on the side. It made for a good sized sandwich lengthwise but wasn't terribly tall. I suggest slapping those pickles on there because they went really well with the sandwich. I was kinda surprised the others were disappointed because my sandwich was delicious. You could taste all the flavors. The swiss didn't stand out as swiss to me, but it might have been mild. It wasn't terribly filling, so it had me considering dessert. However, by the time the waitress came back, it had settled and I was ready to head out. Fries might have made it more filling.

I would come back to hopefully try some more of their soups and sandwiches. I'd probably avoid the chili burger at first, even though it sounded interesting from the menu. My wife had come along with us and ordered the chili cheddar burger as well. Her opinion of it was about the same as Maple's.

Saigon Resturant

2009-01-17T16:00:00.000-06:00

Restaurant: Saigon Resturant
Address: 12100 W. Center Rd.
Website: N/A
Genres: Vietnamese
Check Constraints: None known
Chain: No | More Omaha Locations: No

==NinjaDebugger==
Ordered:

Egg Dropsoup ($2.15)
Five Spice Chicken Wings($3.50)
Five Spice Chicken ($6.25)
Strawberry Bubble Tea ($3.25)

I do not like bubble tea. Well, that's an exaggeration. I kinda like the -tea- part of bubble tea, but the bubbles just will not do. I got some anyway, because the glass of water here came with a slice of cucumber in, and that's just not something I can go through a whole meal with as my only drink. Unfortunately, rather than 'strawberry', the flavor tasted rather strongly of strawberry bubble gum.

I also bear nothing but hatred for the egg dropsoup (that's how it's listed on the menu). Rather than the bowl of delicious liquid omelette that I expected and wanted, there was a pile of green onions floating on the top, and -regular- onions lurking in the bottom. The few spoonfuls of soup that I got were decent, but the onions just completely ruined it. On top of that, the five spice chicken wings were less than impressive. There were six of them, which is a plus, but I could hardly taste anything there. There was a bit of chicken flavor and a bit of spice, but it just wasn't that good.

From the appetizers other people ordered, the egg rolls were excellent, the spring rolls are something I need to remember I don't really care for, and the crab rangoon was good enough, if not outstanding.

After the wings, I was a little wary of the five spice chicken (once I got it, anyway. There was a wee mixup with the dish delivery and my first bite was a chunk of Cham's ginger chicken. Delicious, btw) but my concerns were entirely misplaced. There was only a modest serving of veggies, consisting of what we think was pickled daikon, plus pickled carrots and tomatoes. The tomatoes, obviously, went to a side dish, but as it so happens, I adore pickled carrots, and if that was daikon, I like pickled daikon, too. The chicken itself was a boneless breast done up in a five-spice glaze, rather than the dry, roasted surface of the wings, on top of a generous bed of rice, and it was high quality. Like, double plus would order again high quality.

In fact, the only thing here that I liked was the entrees, which I'm pretty sure we all sampled of each other's, because damn, it was high quality. MapleSyrup's barbeque wasn't as good as Moogle's, which was heavenly, but it was still pretty good, and came with the same helping of veggies as mine did, along with a delicious meatball of some sort. Mecha also ordered a plate of fried rice, which turned out to be freaking huge, and we pretty much all had some of that, and it was just as good as everything else.

My final recommendation here is dead simple. Skip the drinks, stick with the cucumber water. Skip the appetizers, just order a plate of fried rice to share among everybody. And then get as much in the way of main dishes as you think you can put away. They're delicious well beyond what their price would indicate.

==Mecha==
Ordered:

Spring Rolls (4) ($3.50)
Lemon Grass and Pepper Beef ($6.50)
Combination Fried Rice ($6.25)
Jasmine Bubble Tea ($3.25)

The spring rolls were fairly neutral, unfortunately. Strong cabbage and/or cilantro taste depending on the bite, not strong on other flavors. I actually did like the crab rangoon, which I'm not a huge fan of, but I will certainly admit that I could use some better examples of it to know what 'great' is, if this isn't it. It's certainly superior to what I've ever gotten in takeout, and equivalent to what I get at most sit-down restaurants. The five-spice wings were pretty decent, although I found them reminding me of the 'teriyaki' chicken appetizer I get from China Garden in texture and a bit in flavor. The egg rolls were delicious, but so few came. It was sad.

Also, I loves the bubble tea (and the cucumber water. Moogle's right. So crisp.) And jasmine is a flavor I do not get nearly enough of in everyday life. Oh, their bubble tea made me happy. On the other hand, I agree with ND's analysis of his, and I wouldn't much like it either with that flavor. Bleh. So good luck finding a bubble tea flavor you enjoy.

I've been getting in a bad habit of not managing breakfast recently (that I need to break. Again.) So I was hungry and made sure to get a couple dishes (to your great benfit, dear readers!) The combination fried rice had a really fantastic, deep flavor. I dare want to call it wok-hay (or like it), but I'm not enough of an expert in the subject to be sure. It might simply be the effects of a well seasoned pan. Either way, it was definitely the kind of fried rice you actually want to eat, not just, 'Well, it's on my plate and I'm not full yet.' Always a plus.

My lemongrass beef was also fantastic, as lemongrass is a flavor I've come to appreciate where I find it. It can be soft, or it can be powerful, and I really like it when it's used well as they did here. Just enough of it, mixed in with the other flavors. They do it with chicken and other dishes too, so no matter what your meat, I think they'll have you covered. Cham's chicken was pretty good, although it could use a little something in my opinion. Their pork they seem to do well, given Maple and Moogle's experience/dishes, and I don't think a pork dish will disappoint.

This is definitely a place to visit again when I can spare the time. Service was a bit inconsistent/slow with a slight mixup, but the main dish flavors are worth the trip. Bring a friend or a book for something to do while you wait!

==MapleSyrup==
Ordered:

Crab Rangoon (6) ($3.25)
Vietnamese Barbecued Pork Chop ($7.95)

After commenting on the rather cheap soda prices ($1.25), I was told of a vicious rumor that they serve cans of soda (a particular peeve of mine), so I went for water this time. The water was actually interesting. Below the ice that filled only 1/4 to 1/2 the glass was floating a slice of cucumber. I'm not sure if it's a Vietnamese thing or just an attempt to be different or higher class, but the taste is noticeable and not necessarily a bad thing.

The Crab Rangoon were ok. The shell didn't taste of old grease and wasn't too hard, however I prefer my filling a bit sweeter. The spring rolls were spring rolls. They came with a peanut sauce (that's what Cham and Mecha claimed it was. I didn't taste any peanut in there) which had a definite kick to it. I'd say it helped the spring rolls along a bit. Overall, I agree with the others. Skip the appetizers and get a dish of fried rice for the table.

The Vietnamese Barbecued Pork Chop was a Vietnamese Barbecued Pork Chop on a bed of white rice with a slice of beef ball and some pickled daikon and tomato and cucumber slices for garnish. The slice of beef ball was delicious. It was juicy with a mild and not overpowering taste of beef. The next time I go to this place, I'll be looking for a dish that is nothing but 4 or 5 of these things. The pickled daikon, as ND said, was good. The Chop itself had a nice teriyaki taste. It was a thinner piece of meat about the size of my hand. It wasn't too dry and I generally liked it. It came with a side of some very thin, transparent orange sauce. I'd recommend staying away from it unless you're a spicehag. I did a quick dip of my fork into the sauce and took a taste and felt it in my throat for the next couple minutes.

==Moogle==
Ordered:

Egg Roll and BBQ Pork Vermicelli ($6.99)

The cucumber water was really interesting. It wasn't overpowering, but you could definitely taste it. It had a really clean taste to it, and I wish more places would actually do that. The chicken wings were ok. They were mostly all actual wings, which is only somewhat surprising because "chicken wings" doesn't usually mean chicken wings any more. There are better things to get for your money though. Same goes for the crab rangoon. They were ok, but I'm not a fan of them in general. The spring rolls didn't impress me, but the egg rolls were good. They had more meat in them than you usually get. If you are getting an appetizer, go with these or, as was said above, a plate of fried rice.

Vermicelli is a type of short, thin noodle for those who didn't know (like me). There are so many types of noodles out there it's hard to keep up. I picked this dish because I overheard someone at the next table say they had good vermicelli, the BBQ pork dish sounded interesting, and Maple claimed the BBQ pork first. It came in a fairly large bowl with a side of the same or similar spicy sauce. I got the egg roll and BBQ combo for variety, but it didn't actually add anything to the dish. In fact, I think it reduced the amount of pork, and I am sad I didn't have more pork. It was in small pieces and was thoroughly cooked, but that made the flavor that much stronger. It was really good. I'd suggest only going for the straight BBQ bowl. The noodles were good and mixed with various spears of vegetables. I'm sure there were a few daikon and some bean sprouts. I forget what else. The problem is that the noodles and veggies are fairly plain by themselves. The sauce gives it a bit of kick and the pork gives it a bunch of flavor. If you want the egg rolls, get them on the side.

I have to mention that the service was a little slow, but only because there were maybe three people manning the building. I didn't see more than that. There may have been more cooks, but there wasn't nearly enough waitstaff.

==Chamelaeon==
Ordered:

Mango/Pineapple Bubble Tea ($3.65)
Egg Rolls ($3.25)
Ginger & Pepper Chicken ($5.95)

First off, I should mention that we decided to try Saigon based on the recommendation of a commenter to our Vietnamese-Asian Restaurant review! Thanks for the suggestion, and everyone feel free to suggest your favorite restaurant. We'll get around to it eventually!

Echoing what Moogle was saying, the service was pretty poor. It's my guess the waiter was new, as he couldn't identify some of the dishes when they came out, and we wound up almost sending Maple's entree back to the kitchen because some of the dishes went to the wrong people and we wound up with something nobody thought they'd ordered. It all got put right in the end, though, so nothing was lost but a little time. That said, the restaurant was clearly understaffed for the lunch rush. No telling whether that's from bad management or someone just calling in sick and them not having a replacement.

Still, the food was definitely worth the wait. I have to side with Mecha on the bubble tea issue, as mine had a good flavor. It was probably on the average for bubble teas I've had, so it winds up just being a question of finding the right flavor. For what it's worth, I've never had a citrus or mango bubble tea wind up horrible. The appetizers were all pretty forgettable... nothing bad, and nothing overly good, though I will say that the egg rolls were more full of pork than of cabbage and other stuffing substances, which made for a strong flavor you don't usually get. Also, I totally disagree with ND on the issue of the Five Spice Chicken Wings; they had a very excellent chicken flavor, a crispy outside, and a very light hint of five spice powder, rendering out into a flavor combination which I think I'm going to have to replicate with a roast chicken at some point.

It's tough making a call on my main lunch dish. The ginger chicken tasted very, very much of ginger. I like ginger - I really like ginger - but the flavor was pretty much a unilateral thing, swamping chicken, vegetables, and all the other ingredients in the dish. This wound up not being too much of a problem, as the portions here were pretty small for the main dishes, so I didn't get bored with it. The dishes are still a good value for the price, I think, but if you're here with a group, go for the family-style meal: order a bunch of stuff and taste bits off everyone else's dishes, like we did. You'll wind up fuller and you'll experience a lot more of the deliciousness here.

For the record, the dinner menu offers a far larger variety of food, the prices increase by about $1.20 per dish, and the portions increase accordingly. It seems they even offer the "dinner menu" for weekend lunches, so that's a great opportunity to try some interesting dishes without having to risk Saturday night traffic at Center and 120th.

Gerda's Bakery and Restaurant

2009-01-01T15:30:00.002-06:00

Restaurant: Gerda's Bakery and Restaurant
Address: 5180 Leavenworth St.
Website: None.
Genres: Bakery, German
Check Constraints: None.
Chain: No. | More Omaha Locations: No.

==Chamelaeon==
Ordered:

Diet Pepsi ($1.00)
Wienerschnitzel Special ($8.00)

Potato Soup
German Potato Salad
Red Cabbage

Black Forest Cake ($3.00)

Just to get it out of the way for the sake of the search engines out there: the restaurant is named Gerda's Bakery, but the sign on the side of the building calls it Gerda's Bäckerie (hint: that's German for "bakery"), and the menus themselves call the place Gerda's Bavarian Stube ("stube" translating to "room", more or less). That's a lot of names for a single restaurant, but trying to pin Gerda's down to a single role is a tough task. Like the Lithuanian Kafe and Bakery, Gerda's has a bakery attached to it; said bakery will sell you fresh donuts, breakfast breads, and a nice cup of coffee in the morning. When you come in for lunch, you're handed a small menu - which lacks prices - giving you your pick from several types of sandwich or the daily special. As you might note, Thursday's special is the wienerschnitzel. Based on the dinner menus, which we mistakenly grabbed first, at night the place turns into a much more involved affair, offering several types of schnitzel and several other classic German dishes, as well as a reasonable selection of beers. It seemed very clear to all of us that writing a review of the lunch dishes was going to give us a mere taste of the possible experiences here. Still, we're primarily a lunch blog, so until we all head there for dinner (spoiler on this review; that dinner's an inevitability), all we can do is report on the lunch offerings.

Don't get me wrong when I say there's only sandwiches and the special, here. There's a decent array of sandwiches, and as I mentioned the special changes daily, so you can still experience quite a bit. The special appears to have the option of soup or salad; it's starting to get cold out there, so I chose soup. The potato soup here is different from that of Petrow's or other such places. There, the potato flavor often melded with the cream and cheese or ham flavors, if such existed. Here, the potato sat up, grabbed you by the tongue, and forced you to acknowledge its position as primary flavor in the soup. That's not horrible, by any means - the soup was delicious, and the chunks of potato in it were well-saturated with the background flavors of butter and cream. If you're a fan of baked potatoes without all the overloading of toppings that can go on, then this soup is definitely your deal.

Once we'd finished with the soup, it wasn't long until the lunches started coming out. The wienerschnitzel special, as I noted at the top of the post, comes with a German potato salad, and some red cabbage. The cabbage was tender and flavorful, with a light vinegar taste to it - it was served room temperature, but that wasn't any impediment to the deliciousness. The potato salad was good as well, presenting a nice tangy flavor to the tongue.

The wienerschnitzel itself was - and you may be sensing a trend - also delicious. In a lesser restaurant you might expect such a piece of pork meat to have been heavily breaded and then casually deep fried, but here it was instead lightly coated in breading and pan-cooked until delicious. It eschewed spicing in favor of letting the flavor of the breading and pork shine through, which I think was an excellent decision. Don't look for an overwhelming taste power like chili or pizza here - instead, let the ingredients speak for themselves in their simplicity. Trust me, you won't be bored.

It would have been criminal to not try something from the bakery, so I opted for a piece of the Black Forest cake. And let me tell you, I was not disappointed. It was a generous piece, constructed out of homemade chocolate cake and glued together with hand-whipped cream... and that isn't even the best part. The cake was dotted with brandied cherries, and from the taste of it, they had not been shy about the brandy part of the equation. In fact, the brandied cherry taste seeped throughout the entire cake - I passed around pieces of nothing but the chocolate cake part, and everyone agreed that the taste was not only there, but strong. You might consider it a peculiar sort of German tiramisu, in fact. The alcohol is not uncommon in Germany, but it's decently rare in the US. Definitely grab a slice of this, but you might not want more than that if you're driving.

Gerda's is a fantastic culinary gem, and you can be sure that at some point we'll be back to review their dinner offerings - and their beers. There's sure to be a lager there with my name on it.

==NinjaDebugger==
Ordered:

Turkey Club ($7.25)

Potato Chips
Pickle

Bowl of Potato Soup ($3.50)
German Chocolate Cake ($3.00)

First things first. The soup came out early, and though I much prefer the Petrow's or Brazen Head ham + bacon + cheese potato soup, this was an excellent potato soup and I happily devoured the entire bowl. It was worth every last penny, especially after a light dose of salt and pepper. At least one person was disappointed at not having more of the soup, and jealous of my comparatively large bowl. Personally, I'm quite glad I learned from my prior mistake and opted for the bowl instead of the cup.

The club was very, very impressive. A double decker sandwich, for starters, on your choice of bread, and this being a bakery, their selection is pretty large. The sandwich was essentially nothing but tomatoes, bacon, and turkey. A LOT of turkey. No, more than that. An entire turkey was slaughtered just to make this sandwich. It was definitely an upper class turkey, too, possibly having worn a monacle before its slaughter. The bacon was done just well enough to be easy to bite off, but not so well done that it tasted even close to burnt. And the tomatoes, well, they stayed on the plate, sadly, but we all have our little foibles.

The german chocolate cake does not include alcohol, so it's safe for the designated driver, unlike the black forest cocktail Cham got. I actually turned down a refill of water for a moment while ordering the cake, but quickly rethought my decision. As it so happens, I didn't actually need the refill. The cake was as moist as it could be without falling apart. It was, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the most delicious german chocolate cake I have ever had the pleasure to eat, and I took considerable pleasure in doing so.

Really, the only bad thing about Gerda's was the parking. I would be most happy to return here to try the dinner, as there were a number of things on the menu that looked enticing. Unfortunately, it's probably going to have to be after the holidays.

==Moogle==
Ordered:

Wienerschnitzel Special ($8.00)

Potato Soup
German Potato Salad
Red Cabbage

Apfelstrudel ($1.50?)

I opted for the special as well. Most of the other options aren't necessarily German, unlike the daily specials. I echo the sentiments above. It really is a pretty simple but delicious soup. It's almost like a bowl of diced potato cooked until extremely soft with just a bit of cream and butter.

The potatoes that came with the dish were actually pretty similar. They were a bit firmer and had more of a tangy flavor that Cham mentioned. It might surprise you if you're not expecting it, but this type of potato side seems typical. Edelweiss in Bellevue had them as well. The cabbage was delicious. It had a bit of a sweet taste along with the very light vinegar taste. The schnitzel was just right. There wasn't any topping with it, but it didn't need it. It had a good flavor by itself.

From the bakery, I got an apfelstrudel, a pastry with apple filling and powdered sugar on top. It came somewhat chilled and was tasty. It was light and flaky, and there was just enough filling. It is a fairly lightweight dessert, and the price is pretty lightweight too.

It's a pretty nice place. The people are friendly. The parking is a little awkward. They have only four or five spaces in front of the actual restaurant, but they have a parking lot with their name on it a little ways east of the building. Now that I know where it is, I'll be sure to stop by now and then. I was afraid that there weren't any more German restaurants after Edelweiss closed.

==Mecha==
Ordered:

Reuben ($7.??)

Potato Soup
Chips

German Chocolate Cake ($3.00)

I am the aforementioned one who wished I'd gotten more soup. It was such delicious soup. It's been nice to have things that I hated in my childhood (fish, potato soup, etc) done right, and tasting delicious.

A note: Getting chips, don't bother. They're a bag of fairly standard chips, and I won't be making that mistake again! Now, on to the sandwich. The Reuben was a substantial sandwich, exactly what it seemed. Corned Beef, Sauerkraut, Thousand Island. Couldn't really taste the swiss, if it was there, that is apparently in some. It was on rye, and it was really hard for me to look at and eat at the same time, but it was fantastic. I've tried reubens here and there in town, and they've always been a bit different. My guess is that this is the most 'traditional' Reuben, and I guess I like tradition. Lots of meat, reasonably messy as such things go, pretty well balanced with a lot of strong flavors, which is something I always appreciate. If there was swiss, as I said, I missed it, which I guess is a ding, but there was no obvious swiss to my eyes from the side. Just the mass of meat and kraut and dressing.

The german chocolate cake was, as ND pointed out, very good. I always expect these to be dense and difficult to eat, but this delivered on a better chocolate cake experience.... although I'm going to have to go with the black forest next time. I like cherries, and I like brandy, and nobody lets me drive anywhere anyway. All in all, the parking's the only thing that makes this a downer for me, and there's a lot nearby as Moogle pointed out. Oh, also. You do not pick up the dinner menu at lunch. Do not make Gerda angry at you. (This is also why we have to go back another time.)

==MapleSyrup==
Ordered:

Diet Pepsi ($1.00)
Wienerschnitzel Special ($8.00)

Potato Soup
German Potato Salad
Red Cabbage

The lunch menu is unfortunately scant, comprising some sandwiches and then the daily special. Feeling a bit Germany and having never had it, I opted for the Wienerschnitzel that was on special. The potato salad and red cabbage that accompanied the special had a refreshing, mild pickled flavor to them. The potato soup was very simple, not featuring any ham or bacon or cheese, but was still delicious.

As I said, I've never had Wienerschnitzel and have actually never had occasion to find out what it is. All I knew was that it was some preparation of pork--maybe. I've spent the last 25 years in Indiana. I've been to many state and county fairs. I've been to many family and hole-in-the-wall restaurants. This Wienerschnitzel was the best breaded pork tenderloin I've ever had. The breading was light and had a delicious buttery flavor. The meat inside was tender and had just the right amount of give as I bit into it. And despite it looking like a medium-sized portion it was filling and satisfying.

Besides the parking, the only other issue I had was that it was a can o' soda. I can understand being a small business and not wanting to bother with the fees and trouble of getting a soda fountain, but say on your menu what you're offering! Nevertheless, I look forward to going back for dinner.

Omaha Food Blog Shenanigans

2009-01-01T12:15:00.005-06:00

First off, let me say Happy New Year, Omaha.

There, pleasantries out of the way. It's been a little over a year since the four original geeks started typing their thoughts out and sending them into the ether under the assumption that other people might give a damn about what we thought about food. Since that time, we've added a fifth to our number, seen our daily hit counts trend upward, and been lucky enough to have some big names from the Omaha blogging scene drop by and leave comments (snekse from http://www.gastronomicfightclub.com/ and The Critical Wife from http://omahacritic.com/, to name-drop). Snekse in particular has been very welcoming, and has been pushing for a while in an attempt to meld the disparate pieces of Omaha food culture on the internet into some kind of coherent whole.

In that vein, I present a link to Gastronomic Fight Club, where snekse announces the creation of the Omaha Food Bloggers blogroll. As he notes in his post, most of the food bloggers for Omaha aren't professional critics (this makes G.R(F) the Pee-Wee Football of food blogs, I suppose). Since a lot of us we do this in our spare time, updates can be occasionally sporadic as the demands of Real Life rear their ugly head. With the amalgamated blog roll, you're guaranteed to get the fastest delivery of content without having to find and set up feeds for each individual blog.

When I've recovered a little more from last night's celebrations, we have a review of a truly interesting restaurant to post, and I will get the feed set up on the sidebar of the blog. I'm sure I speak for all the geeks when I say we thank you for your readership, and we look forward to eating our way through another year of Omaha cuisine, and then telling you all about it.

Fuddrucker's

2008-12-15T13:00:00.000-06:00

Restaurant: Fuddrucker's
Address: 7059 Dodge Street - At the corner of 72nd and Dodge.
Website: http://www.fuddruckers.com/
Genres: Burgers
Check Constraints: Short-order.
Chain: Yes. | More Omaha Locations: Yes.

==Chamelaeon==
Ordered:

#2 Combo ($9.29)

2/3rd Lb Burger
Fries
Drink

Black & Bleu Specialty Burger ($1.00)

I admit to feeling guilty each time we review a large chain restaurant for this blog. In some sense the restaurants clearly fit within our bailiwick, since they are restaurants, they are in Omaha, and you could eat at them as easily as we do. But on the other hand these places are already well-reviewed and, excepting quality issues, they're pretty much homogeneous between locations. On the gripping hand, however, we could look at these reviews as sacrifices, of a sort - us throwing ourselves on the hand grenade of food construction manuals and paper hats, screaming "Find somewhere else to eat!"... or perhaps a less dramatic metaphor would work.

Regardless, we went to Fuddrucker's this week. We have eaten here before - in fact, before we'd started the blog - so we weren't going in blind. The location is slightly new, though. They revamped the building, and in the process they seem to have decided that the solution to the parking problem in that entire retail corner was to add more stores alongside it. It might be because I was trained as an engineer, but that seems hardly ideal.

But we are here to review the food, and so we shall. Mecha ordered some nachos, which arrived early as an appetizer should, but which were thoroughly underwhelming. In fact, you might call that the theme of the meal itself. I initially attempted to order a 2/3 lb buffalo burger, but they only do the buffalo and turkey patties in the 1/2 lb sizes, so be forewarned. It also turns out that you can add special toppings to the meals for not much, so doing that's a better price option than trying to assemble a combo around a specific burger. The order-takers will helpfully do this for you - at least, ours did. As is usual at Fuddrucker's, ordering was a pretty painless process.

I only wish the same could be said for the burger. I recieved a heaping helping of blue cheese on top of a large patty of beef, with a sparse scattering of caramelized onions on top. It sounds like a delicious combination, doesn't it? That's what I thought, until I bit into the burger and realized that the whole deal was mostly tasteless. Once I got to the midpoint of the cheese pile, where it was roughly half an inch deep, I finally got some rather empty blue cheese flavor which completely overpowered the already-weak beef. I didn't put any ketchup on the thing, and I'm glad, because if I had I would have tasted little else but ketchup.

It was probably a mistake to review this place with the memories of Brewburger's so fresh in our minds - certainly when comparing it to, say, Burger King, I'd claim that Fuddrucker's wins without a moment's hesitation. But it suffers from the inconsistency and lack of quality ingredients that a lot of chain restaurants have, without really dropping its price point much.

==NinjaDebugger==
Ordered:

Bacon & Swiss Chicken Sandwich($9.29)

Fries
Drink

Strawberry Shake (3.50?)

They forgot to give me a flasher, and took my recipt when I went to get my food, so I'm a little fuzzy on the prices, but this sounds about right. Mecha ordered some chicken nachos as an appetizer. I think we all sort of regret that. The chips were on the stale side, the chicken had an undertone of fish, and didn't have much taste otherwise, and the cheese sauce was awful. I didn't try any of the other assorted toppings, but given the way they continued to sit on the pile of untouched nachos, they can't have been much better.

As far as the fries go, they're solid fries, and I identified the spice coating them liberally as Lowry's seasoning salt, or a variant thereof. They're very sturdy fries, about halfway between 'fries' and 'steak fries', and frankly, they were one of the best parts of the meal, especially given Fuddrucker's excellent selection of things to dip them in.

The shake was a classically prepared one, rather than from a fast food shake machine, which is a tick in their favor. It filled the glass and had plenty left over in the metal shake cup, and was made with real strawberries, putting it in the "worth the money" class of shakes.

Unfortunately, that takes me to the sandwich. It is very, very difficult to get a chicken, bacon, and swiss sandwich wrong, but somehow, Fuddruckers managed it. the swiss cheese was fine, their toppings bar was fine, but the bacon didn't taste like bacon, and the chicken didn't taste like chicken, and both of them were hard to get a solid bite out of, making the sandwich a tasteless chore to eat. For the price I paid, I'd much rather have gone back to Brewburgers and tried another meat that I've never had before.

That's pretty much the conclusion we reached halfway through the meal. Fuddruckers costs about the same as Brewburgers, but has worse appetizers, worse burgers, worse drinks, and a worse atmosphere.

==Moogle==
Ordered:

1/2 lb Chipotle BBQ burger meal ($9.59)

Fries
Drink

I had actually forgotten about the nachos, and that's about all I have to add about them. The poor burger looked so small in the giant bun it came with. It had a little bit of "chipotle" bbq sauce and a couple strips of bacon on top. I ordered it medium-well, and it came with no pink in the middle, which is fine with me. I threw on some lettuce, pickle, and pico de gallo from the topping bar. The ketchup pumps were out, but they still had some bottles of ketchup there. The burger itself was decent. I didn't really taste the chipotle part of the chipotle bbq. The fries were decent steak fries with a little seasoning. For the price, I wasn't impressed. It's a little more expensive than an equivalent burger at some place like Applebee's or Chilli's. I didn't go to Brewburgers, so I can't compare there. I suppose the draw for Fuddrucker's over another chain with burgers would be the number of options and speed. You can get any burger (well, beef burgers, apparently) anywhere from 1/3 to a full pound and can order it at your preferred level of doneness. There are plenty topping options as well. I would eat here again, but it probably won't be my first choice.

==Mecha==
Ordered:

Tricked-Out Chicken Nachos ($7.??)
1/2 lb Chili burger meal ($9.59)

Fries
Drink

Okay, need to get this done. Moogle and the others are right, really, on the nachos front. They were just not that good. Standard 'tough to get stuff' problems. Very meh. Figured we should give it a shot, though.

The chili burger isn't on their online menu list that I can find, so I'm guessing on the price. The chili on the burger actually kinda looked decent, but the flavor was awful weak. Tough to get a good consistent bite of flavor on it. Not unlike the fries at Brewburgers, in that respect, but the difference is that this is a big mouthful of burger, not a fry trying to pick up a meaty cheesy chili. It should be more flavorful or consistent. The fries were okay, but just fries. The actual burger was solid, to my tastes, but... well, I didn't just get a burger, I got a burger with stuff on it. I think it had cheese on it, but I don't remember much about it.

The overall is more or less how ND put it. Coulda gone to Brewburgers and gotten better for the same cost. I remember the place as much better before the change. The big plus here is the easy basic fixings addition, and that's nice, but.. yeah. If I go again for whatever reason, I'm getting a bog standard cheeseburger, putting some normal stuff on it, and calling it a day.

Brewburger's Burgers and Brew

2008-11-25T09:15:00.000-06:00

Restaurant: Brewburger's Burgers and Brew
Address: 4629 S. 108th St. - In the same parking lot as the Holiday Inn Express
Website: http://www.brewburgersomaha.com/
Genres: Burgers, Sports Bar
Check Constraints: None that we noticed.
Chain: No | More Omaha Locations: No

==Chamelaeon==
Ordered:

Diet Pepsi ($2.00)
Tableside Guacamole ($7.95)
West Texas Burger ($8.95)

Fries

Brewburger's, located just inside the I-680 loop, used to be a steak restaurant that I never got the chance to eat at before it closed. In its place, Brewburger's was built. On its surface, the restaurant doesn't look like someplace I'd be very inclined to eat; I am fairly indifferent to sporting events in general - especially football - and the exterior of the restaurant makes absolutely no bones about the fact that it was conceived of and executed by people who like sports, and especially the Nebraska Cornhuskers. Thankfully for us cultural transplants, the restaurant owners also seem to like food.

As should probably not be shocking, the menu items at the forefront of the restaurant are their burgers, of which they have a fairly large variety, including buffalo, salmon, tuna, lamb, turkey, a vegetarian patty (of mostly mushroom) and of course beef. They also seem to pride themselves on their appetizers - perhaps rightfully so. The Tableside Guacamole (as the name might suggest) is made right at your table, and you have the option of what you want to add into the mix with the base avocado flavor. The server then grinds it in a large mortar and pestle, which results in a very nice textural counterpoint between avocado paste and avocado chunks in the finished guacamole. Available ingredients include onion, cilantro, salsa, jalapenos, and several more options. This kind of thing isn't new by any means (I have had it before but cannot precisely recall where) but it is delicious. You get a large amount of guacamole to pair with the homemade chips, and because you picked the flavors, it is more than likely delicious. However, I recommend using more ingredients than you initially think you might need, as there is a lot of avocado in that mortar.

The West Texas burger was topped with a heapin' helpin' of fried: fried jalapeno and onion strips fought for dominance on top of some cheddar cheese and a beef patty. Oddly enough, the strongest flavor in the whole burger was the beef - I could barely taste the cheese, and the fried toppings provided little but crunch. I can't lie, the beef itself was excellent, and cooked medium rare exactly as I requested... but I was expecting a little bit more from a $9 burger. I suspect I would have been happier ordering one of the more exotic burgers in their repertoire, or just building one myself off their menu (though that is definitely more expensive). Still, the decision of toppings aside, it was a good burger and deserves recognition as such.

I did not try any of their alcoholic beverages, but they had a rather impressive beer list (predictably most of it is bottled) involving most of the regional favorites like Fat Tire and Boulevard. It also isn't cheap, but you can definitely find something that strikes your fancy - or you can rely on the menu to suggest a beer that matches the meal for you.

If you find yourself of a mood for some interesting meats, have some extra cash to spare, and a football game to watch, definitely drop in. If only the first two apply, you should still give it a try, if you think you can ignore the college sports team logos on the ceiling tiles.

==NinjaDebugger==
Ordered:

Bison Burger ($9.95)
Garlic Parmesan Fries ($1.45 upgrade)
Lemonade ($1.95)

Today, I added two more meats to my list of things I have eaten. They were both pretty good. The deep fried alligator reminded me mainly of somewhat tougher chicken bites, with just a hint of turkey, but you could pretty easily tell that it wasn't either of those. I declined to sample the guacamole, as I have tried many variations and never even come close to liking them, but the deep fried white cheddar curds were good, as was the dipping marinara they came with, and I'm pretty sure they were breaded there, rather than purchased as-is.

The garlic parmesan fries are... well. I will not say they were bad, but you have to be careful with them. Most especially, do not get these at lunch. Your coworkers will hate you, because they apparently see fit to top the fries with equal parts garlic and parmesan. There had to be at least a dozen cloves, minced, on that plate. And it wasn't a very big plate! The first bite, I did NOT expect that much garlic, and it was like a kick in the nose. Not even a cookie and some root beer could adequately get the taste and smell out of my mouth for the rest of the work day. Aside from that, if you like garlic and parmesan, go for it.

The bison burger actually did come out the medium rare I ordered it, just like Cham's texas burger. The meat reminded me mainly of a very lean beef that somehow didn't sacrifice any juicy goodness. it was quite good, though the smattering of gorgonzola on top really didn't do it any favors. I thought it clashed quite badly with the bison, and would have been far better if replaced with feta, like the lamb burger got. The barbeque sauce wasn't anything outstanding, but also didn't get in the way of tasting the meat, so that's sort of a point in its favor, and aside from the fairly hefty price tag, it was a pretty damn good burger.

Brewburgers' schtick pretty much seems to be a lot of very good burger options, plus a lot of beer options, plus sports bar. I don't know about the beer, but the burgers part, it does damn well, if a bit on the pricey side. Okay, a fair bit on the pricey side. On the other hand, the sheer variety of meats available may well make it worth it. Just... not very often.

==Mecha==
Ordered:

Lamb Burger ($9.95)

Chili Fries ($1.45 upgrade)

Alligator Bites ($9.95)

Guacamole: Fantastic. Oh man, was it fantastic guac. Fresh and full of deliciousness, made at the table? Oh yes. Cheese curds: Pretty good, and I think part of why they are made there is that they're made with Nebraska cheese. I doubt that one can buy generic cheese curds with Nebraska cheese. The alligator bites were pretty enjoyable, and they came with a nice sauce. I assume that the price premium of 10 bucks is due to rarity/distance/etc, but all the appetizers were a bit on the expensive side. On the other hand, all solid, which is something we don't generally get from our appetizer sampling. And plenty of them, too, none of this 'six pieces for 7 bucks' stuff. Definitely worth giving them a shot yourselves on these.

The Lamb Burger was lamb (they didn't ask me how they wanted it cooked), topped with a ridiculous amount of feta and cucumber sauce (AKA, tzatziki or a close relative). I was glad that it came with lettuce, tomato, and onion. Anything to blunt the strength of the feta, to me. Good meat, and good burger on the overall, but perhaps a little strong for me with the feta. ND pointed out that it was a bit of a lesser version of the Greek Isles burger, and that may be worth considering: If you like lamb and feta burgers, they might be a better choice if you're striking out for it. The two resturants are pretty far apart, though. I'll probably try something else next time I go, but don't let that steer you away from it if you're in the area and like your feta.

I used the upgrade option to go with Chili on my fries. They had a fairly meaty chili here that made for some pretty darn good chili fries. It wasn't the best at binding to the fries, so it took a bit of work to get chunks of meat or bean with your fries, but the flavor was all there. I'll probably try some of the other fry modification options when I go back.

On the overall, the place is definitely a cut above, and the price is also a cut above. In the sense that it's kinda high. It looks like they have several deals throughout the week, and those might help various people enjoy things more without hitting the wallet quite so much. We also did not sample any of the 'brew' part of the equation, which may also help. Also, the sports bar component seemed reasonably strong, but Thursday Lunch does not give you a huge opportunity to feel the Husker fans, among any others. Give this place a shot in your rotation, and I don't think you'll regret it.

==MapleSyrup==
Ordered:

Maverick Burger ($8.50)
White Cheddar Cheese Bites ($6.95)

The Guacamole was delicious and well worth the price. It had a fresh and cool taste with a hint of salt and a tiny, tiny kick. Be sure to eat it while it's still fresh though. It suffers a little getting warm. The cheese curds were also delicious. I'd wondered where they managed to get their cheese curds, since you rarely see them this far out from Wisconsin because they lose their luster in transit, but Mecha's probably right. I didn't bother with the marinara. They were good enough on their own. The alligator bites tasted like a gamier chicken bite. They were served with what I still maintain was hoisin sauce. If it wasn't, it was something damned close. They were good, but you could have gotten the same amount of appetizer for $3 less by going with the cheese curds, so you're paying extra for their exotic nature.

The Maverick Burger was a beef patty with sliced onions mixed in topped with jack cheese. I ordered mine medium-rare and it looked to be cooked through. The onions mixed in with the meat made the burger crumbly and didn't contribute any flavor, so I'm not sure how much they contributed to the burger as a whole. They could have added some juiciness (it was a juicy burger), but unfortunately I can't empirically conclude that. It also came with a horseradish sauce on the side which I smeared generously on the upper bun. The horseradish sauce was disappointingly tame. I was hoping for a good nasal kick on each bite but never got it. Overall, it was a very good chunk of meat, but all of the fancy didn't contribute to that at all and it was a rather small burger for the price.

Shuck's Fish House and Oyster Bar

2008-11-10T17:00:00.000-06:00

Restaurant: Shuck's Fish House & Oyster Bar
Address: 1218 S. 119th Street
Website: http://www.absolutelyfresh.com/
Genres: Seafood
Check Constraints: None.
Chain: No. | More Omaha Locations: No.

==Chamelaeon==
Ordered:

Diet Coke ($1.95)
Shuck's Sampler ($16.95)

Fried Clam Strips
Fried Oysters
Fried Shrimp
Fried Calamari
Baby Cake Potatoes

Louisiana Gumbo, Cup ($3.95)
Catfish Po' Boy ($7.95)

Coleslaw
Baby Cake Potatoes

I am continually amazed that the transportation infrastructure in this country is good enough to get fresh fish delivered to a city and state several thousand miles away from the nearest salty body of water. Amazed, and made very hungry. Seafood was not something I liked in my youth (unless it was square, coated in batter, and deep-fried into unrecognizability) but as my palate's matured I can definitely say that I am way more into our finned friends than I used to be.

Shuck's, I am told, arose out of a Wednesday night food tasting that the Absolutely Fresh fish company used to hold. The food was apparently good enough they were turning away people until one of them had the bright idea to open a restaurant - and so they did. You actually enter the restaurant through the store proper, giving you a good opportunity to wander over and examine what may be your imminent meal. The restaurant itself emanates a very "crab shack" feel to it, with the tables being covered in butcher paper and the walls being made of faux planking, and despite being a little crowded it's a reasonably nice place for lunch.

The sampler platter was a heaping helping of fried. Shuck's boldly claims on their menu that they have "the thinnest breading in town", and the platter certainly helped their story - the breading on everything but the clam strips was thin and delightfully crunchy. The clam strips were still delightful, but the breading on them was rather thick. The platter came with ketchup, cocktail sauce, and some unnamed Asian-flavored concoction which went well with the shrimp but was not as good as the Kowloon sauce (as Mecha will later attest).

The gumbo had a very thick flavor to it. It was served with a dollop of rice in the middle, which was then dusted with what I think was filé powder. Both okra and chunks of sausage were visible in the bowl - and it was very much a bowl, despite me ordering a cup - but I think the dish had been cooked so long that all the flavors in it had melded into a single note of flavor. It wasn't bad, but it didn't make for much variety when eating. A couple jots of Louisiana-style hot sauce improved the bowl a lot, if only by lightening the flavor a little.

The catfish po' boy was very good. Their catfish was fried much the same was as the sampler, with very thin batter that still managed to give some good flavor to the fish - not that the fish needed much help. I'm pretty sure I've not had catfish that fresh since my grandmother used to fry up the ones my grandfather and I had caught that day. The po' boy came with remoulade sauce, and the menu claimed it came with "muffaleta relish", which I assume is meant to be the olive-based relish in the muffaletta sandwich. Sadly, I could find no trace of such, and instead recieved only chopped romaine lettuce in mine. Still, it was some good stuff and the remoulade paired well with the catfish. The whole deal came in a sub bun which had been quite liberally buttered and then grilled on a flat griddle, so that it tasted quite a bit like a correctly-done grilled cheese sandwich (minus the cheese). I will state for clarity, though: do not order this sandwich if you don't like the taste of grilled buttered bread. It is very prevalent in the sandwich and I had to adjust my perceptions of what I thought the sandwich should taste like before I really started to enjoy it. Again, though, some hot sauce really took the sandwich to the next level. But then, if you've been reading the blog for a while you are not surprised that I would say that in the slightest.

One last note before I pronounce verdict: the drinks here are a little more expensive than some places, but the glasses are gigantic, and there are free refills.

Schuck's is by no means a "classy" establishment (all the dishes are disposable), and you can find other seafood around town that's just as fresh (though not for retail sale), but the prices here for the quality absolutely cannot be beat. The speed at which you get food isn't shabby either. This has just become my first choice for good seafood.

==NinjaDebugger==
Ordered:

Mr. Pibb($1.95)
Shrimp Alfredo($9.95)
Small Salad ($1.95)
Baby Cakes ($1.95)

Let's get this out in the open. I'm not a born seafood fan. I like seafood, as a general sort of thing, but it doesn't come naturally to me. Like I said in some of the sushi posts before, at some point while I'm eating a seafood heavy meal, my stomach will catch up with reality, wonder what the hell I am feeding it, and demand retribution. In spite of this, I like a fair variety of seafood. When I say in a review that my stomach couldn't take the dish after a point, it's not an indictment of the dish, it's my stomach being itself.

Okay, from there, I'm ready to proceed. The baby cakes are small potato patties, what we called "hash browns" (the non-homemade type) when I was a kid. They're small, they're fried and potatoey, and they're lightly herbed. Not bad, but not worth two freaking bucks, either.

The small salad is, for once, actually not bad. I wasn't a fan, because it's got large portions of tomato and onion, but it had NO iceberg lettuce, instead consisting mostly of romaine. If you're the sort, you can try their vidalia onion based house dressing. I went italian. If you're a salady sort, go ahead and grab it.

The shrimp alfredo was the second time in a row that I've had alfredo. Luckily, this one left the bitter at home, and had a decent amount of parmesan flavor. A superior alfredo to the ones I've been having lately. There was, however, a surprise in addition to the shrimp. Namely, artichoke hearts. Properly prepared, artichoke hearts are pretty good, I remember having something involving them at another italian restaurant a while back, with a bunch of other stuff in, and it was decent. In alfredo... not so much. It was a decidedly unwelcome burst of artichoke flavor, and it was really strong, like a kick in the teeth. the little tinge of flavor it added to the alfredo itself was good, but the bits of artichoke themselves got left on the plate. So did some of the shrimp, but again, that's because of my angry stomach, not because they weren't good. The shrimp were a little on the chewy side, so I'd probably grab something else, like the jambalaya I was considering instead, if I went back, but it's certainly better italian food than I expected to find in a seafood bar.

==MapleSyrup==
Ordered:

Diet Coke($1.95)
Clam Chowda ($3.95)
Jambalaya ($8.95)

The Appetizer Sampler was a good choice. My favorite bit was the calamari. It was lightly breaded and when dipped in the sweet & sour-like sauce that came with it was great.

For my entree, I went for the Clam Chowda and Jambalaya. The Clam Chowda was unfortunately lacking in clam flavor and the little bits of clam you usually find in there. It was also unfortunately abundant in potato chunks. It was decent enough, but I think they could have benefited from shifting around some of their ratios. The Jambalaya was a mixture of rice, andouille sausage, little bits of chicken, and spice and was a little drier than what I'd expected. The sausage was tasty, but the whole dish was way too peppery. I ended up putting on a good dallop of the Louisiana hot sauce to add some kick and cover up some of the pepper.

Overall, I look forward to going back. All of the items on the appetizer sampler were delicious. I popped a couple of ND's alfredo shrimps and they were cooked perfectly. And the po' boys looked scrumptious. However, I won't be getting again what I ordered this time.

==Mecha==
Ordered:

Fried Kowloon Shrimp ($8.95)
Louisiana Gumbo ($3.95)
Trout Amandine ($10.95)

So, I got the quite expensive (for a handful of shrimp) Fried Kowloon Shrimp. Now, they were well done, certainly, and that's not a problem. But the thing of most note, and a positive note at that, was that they came drizzled with (and served with) a sauce with complexity and spice and sweetness. Upon table reflection, it might have been two sauces, but it wasn't completely sure. Similarly, the sampler came with a sauce kinda like it, but again, the table disagreed. Whatever I got was the best, in the group opinion.

The sampler, by the way, was a good variety of fried stuffs, of a decent size for 4 or 5 people. The clam strips were the oddest, with a little bit of grindy crunchiness that slightly turned me off from the otherwise decent flavor. The gumbo was indeed thick and I agree that it looked like a dusting of file atop rice atop the main gumbo.

Now, like ND, I am not a huge fish person traditionally (although am much better with random seafood), but a well cooked fish (or well uncooked fish, in sushi's case), can appeal to my tastebuds, and this was a very well cooked fish. It fell apart as it should, the skin was edible and not a huge ugly burst of fishy flavor, and the almonds provided a little crunch. My biggest problem with the trout amandine was a thorough lack of almond flavor. Not even really subtle, just not there. I'd like a little more to add to the flavor (although not too much), but it was still well done, and it gives me a bit more confidence to try some of their other fish-based offering. It came with some veggies that were covered with powered parmesean to the point of reminding me of alfredo. Okay, but I wasn't quite willing to finish them over the fish or other things.

Ultimately a very positive and relatively fast experience, and there's plenty more to try. Maybe even room for dessert next time. (Also, I'm making sure to put the word 'dessert' in almost every entry, to anger Cham when I mispell it (because it amuses me) until I don't.)

==Moogle==
Ordered:

Shrimp Po' Boy ($8.95)

Coleslaw
Baby Cake Potatoes

All the fried appetizer items were quite tasty. None of it was rubbery. I didn't find the grittiness in the clam that Mecha did. They were actually one of my favorites. The fried calamari was probably the best calamari I've had, and even though I haven't had it from many places, I think I'd be hard pressed to find much better. The others were good, but didn't catch my attention as much as the clam and calamari. Due to the size of the platter, I'd say it's a great appetizer to share with four or more.

The po' boy was good as well. There were fewer individual shrimp on it than I expected to see, but they were enough. The shrimp were breaded, and it had the shredded lettuce and a sauce. I can't remember exactly what the sauce was. The bread was fairly prevalent in my sandwich as well. That bread to shrimp ratio would be my only complaint, but it's a minor one. The sandwich was filling and tasty. The coleslaw is worth mentioning as well. This may be the best coleslaw I've had in a restaurant for a long time. It was the creamy style served chilled. I also liked having the baby cake potatoes as a side instead of the usual fries.

Though the dining area is a bit cramped, I will definitely come back. The good news is that they are opening an new restaurant further out west. Hopefully space won't be an issue there.

Caniglia's Venice Inn

2008-10-28T13:00:00.000-05:00

Restaurant: Caniglia's Venice Inn
Address: 6920 Pacific St
Website: http://canigliasveniceinn.com/
Genres: Italian
Check Constraints: 17% Gratuity for 6 or more
Chain: No. | More Omaha Locations: No.

==Chamelaeon==
Ordered:

Escargot ($8.50)
Pesto Linguini w/Chicken ($10.90)

Salad Bar
Beef Vegetable Soup

As I learn more about the restaurants of Omaha and the history thereof, I have come to realize that it's impossible to trace said history without mentioning the Caniglia family. From Caniglia's Original Restaurant to Mr. C's, the family has a long history in Omaha, and I can honestly say I regret that we didn't start this blag before several of these restaurants closed. Still, there are some still operating, and Caniglia's Venice Inn (started by Eli Caniglia in 1957) is one such place. On what was more or less a momentary whim by ND for Italian, we selected this as our destination and boldly marched forth in search of history.

I suppose you could say we found it. I ordered the escargot because I thought it would make for a good blag experience (such things we do for our readers! It's so hard to eat food), and to be honest it did. The small land snails are served out of their shell, so there's no need to fish around with a fork for them or anything difficult. They arrived in a largish ceramic dish with five small depressions around a sixth center depression, in each of which was nestled a piece of escargot, veritably swimming in butter and garlic, which wikipedia assures me is the traditional service for such edible beasts as this. Additionally there seemed to be at least a small amount of Parmesan scattered over the dish, though it wound up not being very taste-able. There was actually a mushroom on the top of the center depression, which fell to Maple to eat, and he seemed to think it delicious. At any rate, around the outside of the ceramic dish were toast points of a sort. The whole deal was very hot when it came out of the kitchen, and I recommend a moment or two of cool down before trying to eat one like ND and I did. I actually had two pieces, as nobody seemed to want the last one, so I got one very hot and one that was far more temperate - I ate both of them on toast, and I think my general opinion of the appetizer was: good, but expensive. Granted, this was my first time trying it so I am no connoisseur of such things, but the butter flavor went well with the subtle taste of the escargot, and it was certainly no more rubbery or hard to eat than your average deep-fried calamari. I'm glad I ordered it once, but it's unlikely I'll get it again - at least here.

The salad bar was better than many, but I've been severely spoiled by salad bars at places like Whole Foods, and thusly I am not the most impartial judge of variety. Still, I was able to assemble a decent salad, and the greenery was not composed of entirely iceberg lettuce. Their signature Sicilian dressing was sweet with a very light vinegar taste, and well worth getting over anything else I saw there. The soup was actually very good; the beef in the name came from ground beef the soup was tomato-based, and the vegetables weren't cooked entirely to death while still imparting a lot of flavor to the overall cup. Both soup and salad come with a lot of the entrees, so you'll likely get the chance to try them.

A brief mention: there is olive oil and balsamic vinegar on the table for the bread which also comes with entrees. I recommend using it - the bread is good, but it's hard for me to pass up some balsamic goodness.

The pesto chicken was good, but not overwhelmingly delicious. It was little more than linguine slathered in pesto, with diced tomato, black olives, and chunks of chicken. The chicken wasn't as flavorful as it could have been, but the pesto made up for that a lot. The single downside was that it could have greatly benefited from some fresh-grated parmesan. The table shaker helped, but the flavor zing from fresh would have definitely done more for the dish.

I have heard good things about the steak here, and I might try that at some point. The dinner menu here looks like it has a lot more culinary stars on it, and I'm positive that you'd have a much better ambience and probably experience overall at dinnertime. I fully intend to come back for said dinner at some point, but from what I hear I'll likely need to make reservations. One thing's for sure - if you like the food here, you'll probably like it for a long time. I know of at least one person who has been eating here for 30+ years.

==NinjaDebugger==
Ordered:

Garlic Bread ($4.25)
Fettucini Alfredo ($8.25)
Cannoli ($3.95)

Okay, first things first. I really don't know what the heck to make of the escargot. I didn't actually get much taste out of it, in part due to the heat. I don't think I'd do it again, but not because it tasted terrible or had a bad texture, but just because it's pretty expensive.

The garlic bread here is actually pretty good quality. A bit charred around the edges, but when you get past that into the gooey center, you're looking at a very nice blend of multiple cheeses and garlic that can top most places, though obviously not my favorites.

I have never had cannoli before, but the essence of my thoughts on the stuff here is that it's rather like eating a cinnamon stick dipped in chocolate sauce and whipped cream. There was a LOT of cinnamon flavor, and it was overpowering in the cream filling. If I had to choose between getting this a second time and getting, say, the tiramisu, I'd go with the latter without hesitation.

Unfortunately, this brings me to the fettuccini alfredo. I am a man who loves his alfredo. This alfredo, it did not love me back. It was bitter. Not so much as, say, Indigo Joe's, which remains a travesty beyond compare, but it had a good helping of bitter. It lacked parmesan flavor entirely, and the somewhat stale shaker of grated parmesan at the table didn't help at all. Worse, when I didn't eat it all promptly, as it was not delicious, it congealed into an awful mess that wasn't even worth taking with me. Heed my warning, and stay well away from the alfredo.

==Moogle==
Ordered:

Sausage and Pepper Sandwich ($6.95)
Tiramisu ($5.00)
Iced Tea ($0.95)

The escargot was a fascinating thing. I gave it a shot since I'd never had it before. I was a little afraid of another gizzard incident, but that wasn't the case. It did have a pretty strong flavor and was a bit chewy, but it actually wasn't bad at all. It's one of those things where it looks and sounds a lot worse than it tastes. It's a bit hard to describe the flavor, however. Cham mentioned that it was better with the lemon squeezed over it.

The garlic bread was pretty good. The bruchetta wasn't bad either. I'm not normally a fan of tomatoes, but this actually had a lot of other stuff on it as well. There may have been more of the olives, onions, etc than tomato even. The topping doesn't like to stay on the bread as you eat it, however. Both came with six pieces, which seemed pretty good for the price.

The sausage and peppers sandwich turned out to be "hot dog style". The sausage came uncut on a hoagie bun with the peppers and sauce topping it. It still had to be eaten with a knife and fork because it was so messy. It was an interesting option, and I've never seen it done like that. It was good, but hard to eat. It also came with thin fries, which were average. A lot menu sections mentioned that you could get tea or coffee (free refils) for 95 cents with your meal, so I gave that a go as well. The waiter kept my glass fairly full.

The tiramisu was pretty good. It was a fairly large piece with fresh whipped cream. The bottom bready portion seemed a little dry, but it didn't detract much from the rest of it. The whipped cream was very light and delicious.

Overall, it was decent food with reasonable prices, but you may have to look for some of the dishes that they do best. I would come back to give it another shot.

==MapleSyrup==
Ordered:

Fettucini Alfredo ($8.25)
French Onion Soup ($4.25)

The escargot reminded me somewhat of an oyster. Like the others, I've never had escargot before, so I'm not sure how it compares to what other places might offer, but I can say it was only ok and not something I'd get again at the price point.

I opted to pay the upcharge for a bowl of french onion soup with my meal and was sorely disappointed. The soup not only had the standard bit of cheese on top, it also had a generous sprinkling of parmesan which overpowered everything until you got through the crouton. Once through the crouton it tasted mostly of beef broth and, despite seeing lots of onion, there was very little onion flavor or texture. The Fettucini Alfredo, as ND has already said, was bitter and needed a big helping of parmesan added. I left the place with half of my serving still on the plate.

==Mecha==
Ordered

Bruchetta Bread ($6.50)
Lasagna ($8.50)
Onion Soup ($4.25)
Cannoli ($3.95)

What a smattering of random stuff we got!

The s-car-go was a really unique taste, but split between 5 people there wasn't much of it to go around. It did have its own subtle flavor, and I can definitely see why people in general would like it. It really isn't my cup of tea, though, especially at that price. I'd take sushi over escargot for weird expensive deliciousness anyday. The Bruchetta was very full of vegetation, from the tomatoes to the strong olive flavor to some other herbage. Not a huge fan of olives, but it worked reasonably well for the appetizer itself.

I also hit the salad bar, which was pretty light on options (although it had some other independant stuff you could get, a pasta, something that looked like mousse?) and went with their 'house' special dressing, which was a twist on italian. I vaguely remember it as being sweet and interesting, and so wasn't disappointed. The garlic bread was also pretty good. I got one of the pieces that was just the right amount of browned for my tastes, and it was a slight cut above in my opinion. The onion soup that I went with had VERY strong cheese flavor, and almost no onion flavor, which was disappointing. I am a fan of cheese, but no balance makes for a tough dish to want to go through all of it.

My Lasagna went the 'extra sweet' route, for the sauce. This is fairly common in higher end italian places in my experience, and is not generally my preference. That said, the actual body of it was very good, if small, with plenty of meaty and slight cheesy flavor to try to balance against the sauce. I'd probably try something else, but if you enjoy the sweet version of lasagna, this may be a place to take a shot at.

The dessert options were fairly small, but I felt like trying the cannoli here. I actually really enjoyed the cinnamon flavor (and am not a fan of Tiramisu), so it worked well for me and I might have it again were I to return (I am a fan of eating tubes of things.)

With (forced) tip, we averaged 20 bucks a person, which is certainly decent in theory, but there were so many inconsistencies that drove people away (eg: the alfredo). On the overall, I have to agree with Cham. Lunch may not be the best time to give this place a shot (it was fairly sparse in people, which almost always seems to be a problem), and it may smooth out some of the inconsistencies to give it another shot at dinner.

The Market Basket

2008-10-28T09:18:00.000-05:00

Restaurant: The Market Basket
Address: 911 S 87th Ave, in Countryside Village Shopping Center
Website: http://marketbasketomaha.com/
Genres: bakery, deli
Check Constraints: Unknown
Chain: No | More Omaha Locations: No

==Moogle==
Ordered:

New York Reuben ($9.00)

If I don't start this review now, it may be forgotten. The Market Basket is hidden away in the back corner of a small shopping center near 90th and Pacific St. It has an upscale sort of feel to it. The prices have an upscale sort of feel as well, however. They have a wide range of foods and plenty of healthier foods on the menu. They have an assortment of items displayed in a case in front of the counter and some shelves of jellies or preserves as you walk in. They also had some non-food items that looked like haircare, skincare, or soaps.

The reuben was a pastrami sandwich with shredded fresh vegetables and thousand island dressing. It was a bit different than what I was expecting, but it was decent. It came with potato chips that Market Basket makes themselves. The chips were large slices of potato, far less greasy than average chips, and came to us unsalted. I thought they were a bit bland, honestly.

Market Basket has a unique atmosphere and decent food, but I think the higher prices keep it off my "must return" list.

==Chamelaeon==
Ordered:

Herb Roasted Beef Sandwich ($9?)
Cup of White Tuscan Bean Soup ($3?)
Brownie ($2?)
Lemon Bar ($2?)

As Moogle says, this review was about to be lost to the sands of time; it has clearly already started happening, as I seem to have utterly misplaced the receipt and so my prices are only approximate.

Market Basket is a strange blending of what you would call a "bistro" and a bakery/restaurant not unlike Wheatfields or Panera. It's a lot closer to the latter of the two, but it's striving for the upscale feel more than anything. The dining area is split into two parts, one of which is near all their display cases and isn't especially distinctive, style-wise, but the other part is done in a very modern style and appears to be meant a lot more for couples or small groups than the five-to-six people we usually eat lunch with.

Still, being on the side with the bakery display is interesting in and of itself. The bakery here puts out quite a number of interesting things, including a large number of intriguing cakes. Like a lot of bakery/restaurants, you can purchase these over the counter. It's probably worth mentioning that they seem to have a lot of chocolate confectioneries, including some rather curious fudges which I have heard are good but didn't actually try at this visit.

What I did try was the herb-roasted beef sandwich. It's served on ciabatta, which in this case was toothsome but not overly chewy like some ciabatta tends to be. The beef was tender but chewy enough that you're almost better off cutting off bites of the sandwich, or you're going to pull a lot of beef out of the sandwich with that first bite. It was topped with Swiss, red onions and tomatoes, making for a flavor combination I've had before and which I feel works very well for roast beef sandwiches. More importantly, though, the entire sandwich was spread with very very coarse-ground mustard. Seriously, there were almost more seeds than actual spread. Which isn't to say that this was bad; it was actually not overwhelmingly mustard-y, and the rest of the flavors of the sandwich did a good job balancing the strong flavor. It would have been amazing if it was served warm, but cold it was still very good. I'd get it again, but I think it would be absolutely best on an early fall afternoon.

The Tuscan white bean soup was, to be honest, not very memorable. It had the flavor one would expect, the seasoning one would expect, and the texture one would expect, so it's fairly safe to say if you've enjoyed this soup elsewhere, you'll like it here. The desserts, however, were damn good. The brownie had a large hit of chocolate flavor and was appropriately dense for what it was - which is to say, a brownie, and not a piece of chocolate cake. It was also fairly moist inside, a good bet that it was baked fresh that day - not that I expected anything different. The lemon bar, on the other hand, was good but not nearly as excellent. If you really dig lemon bars, go for it, but otherwise wander elsewhere in their catalogue of sweets.

The cost here is definitely high - you're paying in part for the "bistro" classification - but it comes down to what you place value on in a restaurant. If you think it's worth it for fresher ingredients and some more interesting taste experiences, you'll enjoy it. If you're looking for a quick sandwich on a busy Saturday, stick to a slightly less upscale restaurant.

==Mecha==
Ordered:

Chicken Pita ($9.50)
Cup of White Gazpacho ($3.50)

I am smrt, I wrote my prices down on the intertubes.

The environment was more or less as was described, although it looked like they had a darker more 'dining room' environment off to the right, but we got seated in the brighter section right near the bakery case. I was going to order two soups, but sadly they were out of a delicious squashy soup, so I just went with the one White Gazpacho. It was white and tasted very strongly of cucumber and sour cream. Which was not a bad flavor (Cham assures me that that flavor occurs elsewhere in the world, such as in sandwiches) but I couldn't quite manage the whole cup of it. The Chicken Pita had a lot of similar notes, but was far more complex and an extremely well put together dish. There wasn't much 'pita' to the chicken pita, and once it was gone it was a bit harder to manage the blend of chicken, fresh vegetables, and IIRC a light dressing. I vaguely remember strands of squash, lettuce, tomato, cucumbers, and more, but it has been a long time. My overall impression which I noted down, though, was that it had a very good balance, and for a dish to have a lot of complex notes that could all be tasted and also all worked together means it's a dish you should try. Just be careful managing your pita.

There's a lot more to try here that I was interested in, with a large variety of fresh seeming fare, so I'd definitely go back, even with the high price. Unfortunately for it, the place competes fairly strongly with Wheatfields and maybe Paradise in its proximity, both of which do similar things at good prices, but give it a try for its variety.

==MapleSyrup==
Ordered:

Fish 'n' Chips ($10.50)

I'm a fan of Fish 'n' Chips, so I ordered the Fish 'n' Chips. It came with a very large helping of coleslaw. I assume it was made in house, since it was unlike any I'd had before. It was a little less than dry and barely sweet, composed of (I'm going from a long distant memory here, so forgive me) julienned cabbage, red cabbage, carrots, zucchini, and yellow squash. I prefer my coleslaw a little wetter and a littler sweeter than what they offered, but it still had a really good crunch.

The chips were definitely made in house. They sliced potatoes the long way into about 1/16" thick pieces and fried them to a very hard crunchy. The level of crunchiness didn't work for them at all. You'd bite into one and, instead of giving you a clean cut, it would break into a bunch of smaller pieces that would dribble down your front. They were also pretty bland and had a slightly burnt taste to them. They definitely could have used some salt.

The fish had a classic light batter. They didn't offer any malt vinegar and by the time I'd thought to ask, the waitress had already disappeared and wasn't to be seen for a short time. The fish was still good though. The batter was flavorful and the fish wasn't too fishy.

Mecha's right that there were a lot of other interesting things on the menu that I'd like to try, but I find the prices a bit off-putting. And if I were to ever return, I'd definitely go for a side other than their chips.

Gandolfo's New York Delicatessen

2008-10-20T15:45:00.001-05:00

Restaurant: Gandolfo's New York Delicatessen
Address: 6303 Center Street
Website: http://www.gandolfosdeli.com/
Genres: Sandwiches
Check Constraints: None
Chain: Yes| More Omaha Locations: Yes

==NinjaDebugger==
Ordered:

Small Soup (Wisconsin Cheese) ($1.99)
Cheesecake ($3.49)
Drink + Chips ($1.99)
12" Dagwood ($8.99)

If that seems like a lot of food, it's because it is. I was coming off a nasty bout with something or other last week, and my appetite was voracious, to put it mildly. This is a new location in town, it just opened last week, and it opened within very easy distance for us, and they were offering a discount, so we kinda had to try it. It's a pretty standard sandwich place inside, except that instead of waiting at the counter, they have you sit down and they'll bring the sandwich out to you. Everything else, you get to carry yourself. The place is a little small, so if they get decent amounts of business, it's gonna be crowded.

All of this is pretty secondary to the food, though. The Wisconsin cheese soup was a tad heavy on the ham, but the entire taste was ham and cheese, pretty much like eating a ham and cheese sandwich, only without the sandwich. For those who don't read ND-speak, that means it was delicious and you should get some if they have it when you go in.

The cheesecake was very cheesecakey, and I can't say that the slice was undersized. In fact, it was pretty damn formidable, but coulda used some strawberries, as it was a tad on the dry side. Other than that, it was quality, though.

The dagwood... oh man. The dagwood is a monster. Four or five types of meat, a bunch of cheese, mayo, mustard, pickles, onions, tomatoes. It's a big sandwich. If you like a big sandwich, get this. If you like a really big sandwich, get this with extra meat. There is only one sandwich that can compare to this, really, and that's the monster called the Gargantuan, at Jimmy John's. And this one has pickles. Man, I love pickles. If you love pickles and meat and cheese, get this sandwich.

==Chamelaeon==
Ordered:

Whole Coney Island Gyro ($8.89) (sans mayo)
Soup (Wisconsin Cheese) + Drink Combo ($2.49)

The servers at the restaurant called the sandwiches 12", but the online menu and the paper one I picked up call them "whole", which I think is a better term for them since I'm fairly positive the sandwich I ate clocked in over 12". Even given that amount of food, though, the prices here are fairly expensive. It certainly outclasses Subway and Jimmy John's in terms of price per sandwich, but when you're making that consideration you have to take a couple things into account.

I have eaten many a Subway sandwich, and while they're filling and some of them are certainly better for you than a bushel of potatoes in a deep-fryer, you're not going to find the sandwiches themselves winning taste or innovation awards anytime soon. Given that standard, the sandwiches at Jimmy John's come out on top almost unilaterally. The bread's better, the toppings are better, and their only failings when put up against Subway are that customization is lacking and that they do not do any kind of hot subs. Gandolfo's seems to be capitalizing on variety, offering more sandwiches than both the other places (possibly combined, especially since Subway cut back on subs to offer crap like horrible pizzas), and offering them in both hot and cold varieties. The quality of the bread and toppings is at least approximately as good as Jimmy John's, though it would take a few more visits to really determine that. So is it really better? It beats Subway, certainly. When pitted against Jimmy John's that's a harder call for me to make, as I had a hot sub. I certainly enjoyed it more than Quizno's sauce-soaked contraptions.

I suppose I should talk about the sandwich itself at some point. The Coney Island Gyro is roast beef, mozzarella, cheddar, parmesan, lettuce, tomato, onion, butter, and oil and vinegar... it comes with mayo but I ordered it without as too much liquid on my sandwiches is always distressing to me. As a result it came out very good - not too soggy at all. The bread had a flavor, which is nice, and the meat was cooked and seasoned well. The oil and vinegar added a nice little kick, to boot. If you closed your eyes and squinted, it did almost taste like a strange sort of gyro.

The soup was passable, with obvious chunks of bacon giving it a nice ham flavor, but not really wowing me much overall. They rotate soups, but only do one per day, so you've got your pick of a couple over the course of a week. Stick to medium drinks here, as they have a fountain in the dining area and you get refills. I'll eat here again at some point, though in the future I'm more likely to stick to their cold chicken sandwiches, just out of personal preference toward such things.

==Moogle==
Ordered:

Half/6" Manhattan Transfer ($5.24)
Soup (Wisconsin Cheese) + Drink Combo ($2.49)
Chocolate Chip Cookie ($1.29)

The Manhattan Transfer is a hot, Italian-type sandwich with cappicola, salami, cheese and other toppings. The menu mentioned butter, which I thought was odd. You didn't really taste it, but I'm sure it made the sandwich a bit more drippy. I do like the bread, and it seemed like a more quality sandwich than any of the other standard sandwich chains mentioned above. It was bigger than most, but it still seemed a tad more expensive for the size. The quality may be worth it however.

The drink combos were a nice change. You could get your drink with either the soup, a deli salad, or your standard bag of chips. The soup was pretty good, but uneventful. It was a much better option than chips, even if it was kind of a small bowl. I might have to try the deli salad next time. The cookie was fairly large. They had a few options under a glass cover on the counter. I doubt they made them there, though.

The next day for breakfast:

Radio City ($3-4?)
Orange Juice ($1.29?)

[Editor's note: The Radio City and OJ are $3.29 and $1.29 solo, respectively, but there's a combo for any sandwich plus orange juice for $3.99]

Now, the Radio City is a breakfast sandwich with ham, eggs, and cheddar. This wasn't part of lunch that day. They had a special event the next day where you'd get a free sandwich when you dine in. I decided to give it a shot and am glad I did. This is also why I don't remember the prices that well. The only sandwich they had for free was the Radio City, but that was not a problem. It was a fairly good sized sandwich with plenty of egg and ham. It could maybe have used a tad more cheese, but it was great anyway. The service was pretty fast, but I think it was because they were just cranking those puppies out that day. This was definitely worth the under-$4 you would normally pay. The orange juice bottle was maybe a bit small for the price, however. If I need to get breakfast on the way to work, I know where I'm going next time.

==MapleSyrup==
Ordered:

Whole Philly Cream Cheese Steak ($7.49)
Salad (Egg Salad) + Drink Combo ($2.49)

I've never had egg salad before, so I can't say how it compares with mama's. It was nearly ice cold and tasted like deviled eggs, but a bit milder. I like deviled eggs, so I liked the egg salad. They give you a full half-pound of it in a small styrofoam bowl, which looked a bit small, but it turned out to be a good amount.

The Philly Cream Cheese Steak sandwich was roast beef shaved/shredded like you would expect in a philly cheesesteak with cream cheese, mozarella, lettuce, tomato, green pepper, onion, steak sauce and butter. The bread it came on was great. I think it was actually better than Jimmy John's. It had a nice crust and was a touch flakey. The sandwich itself worked better than I expected. The cream cheese and steak sauce gave it a bit of a tang and nothing was too overpowering.

The prices are comparable to Penn Station. I'd go there and get a medium reuben and a medium fry and pay about $9. Here I got a large sandwich, a deli salad, and a drink for $10 (before discount). Though I must grant that the medium fry at Penn Station was actually a medium cup of awesome.

Fernando's On Pacific

2008-10-17T09:40:00.000-05:00

Restaurant: Fernando's On Pacific
Address: 7555 Pacific St
Website: N/A
Genres: Mexican
Check Constraints: None
Chain:Yes | More Omaha Locations: Yes

==NinjaDebugger==
Ordered:

Appetizer Sampler ($8.95)
#5 combo (Two chicken enchiladas) ($9.95)

Fernando's is a hard place to miss, on account of the gigantic table on the roof. We briefly considered asking if we could have that table, but thought they probably heard that way too often and opted not to be lame. There's outside seating, though it wasn't in use when we went, and inside there's plenty of room, in general, though we had to have another table brought over, on account of several of us being large and in charge.

We've had pretty good experiences with mexican restaurants in Omaha, so I was kinda hopeful walking in. I'm just going to make a quick note here, everything, and I do mean -everything- came out blazing hot, like they had just pulled all the plates out of the oven. I burned my hand, though not enough to blister, and if you don't let things sit for a minute or two, you're probably going to regret it.

The appetizer section wasn't anything amazing, so we opted for a sampler and some chicken nachos. The chicken nachos were a bit on the crumbly side, but other than that, they were simple and clean. There were chips, copious amounts of cheese and chicken, and some hot peppers, and nothing else. They were pretty good, too, and once they cooled down a tad, they were devoured at speed. Most of the stuff on the sampler didn't really appeal to me, but I'll let others cover that, because I can't remember any of it.

I figured out before I ordered that this place was like the good restaurants and not the bad ones, so I ordered a tad light, going with two enchiladas. MapleSyrup and I opted for the same combo, so I took chicken, and he'll be talking about the beef and seafood. The chicken enchiladas were high quality. The chicken was juicy and just a little spicy, there was plenty of cheese, and quite frankly, it's the best I've had in quite a while.

If it weren't for the somewhat lackluster appetizer menu, I'd easily rate this above my favorite, Senor Matias, but as it is, it's just a tad short. It's still a damn good choice, though, and if you're not up for appetizers or a bit of non-mexican food, I'd come here without hesitation.

==Chamelaeon==
Ordered:

Iced Tea ($1.75)
Pork Green Chili Stew ($3.95)
Tamale Plate ($7.95)

Beans
Rice

To be fair, the appetizers are only lackluster because we're all so very sick of dips. They're an appetizer staple, and we've had far too many of them to truly appreciate a good guacamole or bean dip at this point. The sampler was decent if a little sparse for five people, and the nachos were certainly adequate.

You may wonder why we order so much soup or stew; I know in my case, the primary reason isn't necessarily to get more food, but to experience a broader range of the restaurant's flavors for not that much more money. If a place offers cups of soup, I recommend you try the same thing, especially if you come across an interesting or unique variety of soup. In this case the soup was good, if not especially outstanding in any category. Keep it to the cup, though, since I think a bowl would be too much of the flavor.

Unlike ND, I actually thought the portions here were on the average size, as opposed to the immense portions occasionally offered up elsewhere. The tamale was good, as such things go, though as mentioned the size was a tad small. If you're looking for the highest "food for your buck ratio" you'd probably be better off to get the Tamale Combo instead of the Tamale Plate - it's $2 more and you get an extra item. Also, as I make this post I realize I am stuck in a tamale rut and likely need to order something else next time we hit a Mexican place.

My verdict is Would Eat Again, especially with the free suckers they give you with the check.

==Mecha==
Ordered:

Chicken Nachos ($7.50)
#3? combo (Burrito, Taco, Tamale) ($9.95)

It's been a long time, but I haven't forgotten everything.

As for appetizers, the sampler had wings, cheese, what one might term 'mexican eggrolls'... good flavors, but yeah, for 5-6, not enough so everyone gets a taste of everything. The salsa that came with was pretty tasty as well. The nachos were good, and not quite as difficult to pick apart as some others that we've talked about, although still with the big block o'melted cheddar issue to a point.

I'll second the 'hot plate' mention with a note that the servers use oven mitts to bring out the food. They seem to go for cooking things right on the plates. In some cases, it shows more than others. My combo actually was difficult to pick out the burrito on, as it seemed to be buried next to the tamale. The tacos here are pretty solid on the beef front, good vegetation to go with flavorful beef, and using the folded pita-like 'soft'ish shells. The flavor of the tamale was fairly well mixed, not overpoweringly corn as I am used to, and the meat of the tamale and the beef burrito were both very good. The beans and such were fairly standard, but they're refried beans, what do you want from them? I do tend to agree with Art that the size was not huge, but my perspective on that is more that I want a large 'main' piece, and less of the sides. This was not so much with the large main dish in my opinion. Contrast with Giant Burritos of Doom from other places. Still, reasonable prices and good flavors. I'd want to mix it up next time, but I'd give it another shot.

==Moogle==
Ordered:

Fernando's Favorite ($8.95)

The "Fernando's Favorite" is a combo plate with a taco and an enchilada with your choice of fillings. I got beef for the taco and chicken for the enchilada. I don't remember a whole lot about it, but none of it was dry. The bottom of the taco did get a bit soggy from sitting on a bed of lettuce. The chicken enchilada was pretty decent. The sides it came with were average. It was good, but it didn't stand out in my mind.

What did stand out were a couple of things in the appetizers. There were some fried pepper things that looked a lot like jalapeno poppers, but had a red pepper and were a bit more spicy. Those I thought were pretty good and fairly unique. The dip was pretty good. It was a pico de gallo salsa, which I'm not usually interested in. The chicken wings and other sampler items weren't otherwise impressive. The nachos were good. They were probably more worth the price than the sampler. They had good flavor and weren't terribly hard to eat. Their chips, in general, seemed extra salty.

I'd visit again. It didn't think it stood from the crowd terribly well, but it was a good meal. They do have some other, less-standard options as well as some non-Mexican choices.

==MapleSyrup==
Ordered:

Soda Pop ($1.75)
#5 combo (Beef Enchilada, Seafood Enchilada) ($9.95)

Thinking back on it, Mecha is probably right. I bet they cook the food right on the plate and that's why they were so deathly hot.

I was fairly impressed with the portions, especially in light of Margarita's, the last Mexican joint we went to. The enchiladas were a good size. There was a heapin' helpin' of refried beans with a dash of cheese and a heapin' helpin' of mexican rice. The beef enchilada was unremarkable, though good. I can't even remember if it was shredded or ground beef, unfortunately. The seafood enchilada, on the other hand, was delicious. The innards were a mix of crab (most likely with a k) meat with some small shrimps. They were perfectly warmed and not at all fishy. I bit in and chewed and got the nice little pops of the shrimp and a not overpowering taste of the krab. I would definitely order it again.

Overall, I liked the place and would advocate going back. The bucket of suckers that came with the check, of course, had absolutely no effect on that opinion *cough*

Noodles and Company

2008-10-03T09:38:00.003-05:00

Restaurant: Noodles & Company
Address: 203 South 72nd Street - 72nd and Dodge, in the minimall with Chipotle and Gamestop
Website: http://www.noodles.com/ (Warning, flash)
Genres: Pasta. And that's about it.
Check Constraints: Short order.
Chain: National. | More Omaha Locations: No.

==Chamelaeon==
Ordered:

Indonesian Peanut Saute, Large ($5.25)

+ Chicken ($2.00)

Fountain Drink ($1.35)
Cucumber/Tomato Salad ($2.50)
2 Flatbread ($1.50)

Noodles and Company is a national chain, centered mostly in the Midwest. Back in the days when we used to go to Buffalo Wild Wings a lot, Noodles and Company was the restaurant we went to when we needed a break from breaded chicken. When work piled up again, we needed a quick destination that would still serve as a respite from beating our collective heads against unworking code - Noodles and Company definitely fits the bill.

It's a short-order joint, so once you place your order at the counter you get a little number to take back to your table. You won't be waiting long, however - I don't think we've ever waited longer than 15 minutes for food here, even if it was packed to the gills. One of the advantages to having the primary ingredient in most of your dishes pre-cooked, I suppose. But as usual, I ramble on about things of secondary importance when I should be talking about the food.

I have eaten many a dish here, and I don't think I've come across a single one that's bad. The Indonesian peanut saute is a personal favorite of mine, not the least because it has a decent spicy kick and some excellent peanut flavor; it's not equivalent to good Thai, but it'll hold off the cravings for a week or so. I usually prefer the asian-style dishes here with added tofu, but I went with chicken this week for a change of pace. If the spice or flavor doesn't quite meet your expectations, they have sriracha on all the tables (it is especially good on the Japanese pan noodles).

The tomato/cucumber salad is practically a must-have for me. It plays a little loose with the most common definition of salad, since it is essentially a plate of nothing but cucumber, tomato, and red onion dressed in what I think is rice wine vinegar, a little oil, and some spices. The goodness of this dish varies proportionally to the ability of the restaurant to secure good tomatoes, so I have occasionally been burned by that. Still, the odds are in your favor, and it's a good pairing with most of the pasta dishes they serve. The flatbread (or the rolls, they're both $0.75 each) is also a must-have for me, since it helps make sure I get the last bits of every dish here.

I can honestly say I've never felt sorry to have eaten a meal here. It is an excellent speedy destination, if you can find parking in the hideously-designed minimall they have there. Even if you're in an extreme rush, their takeout is fast and just as good, as I'm sure ND will attest.

==NinjaDebugger==
Ordered:

Macaroni and Cheese, Large ($5.25)
Buttered Noodles, Small ($2.50?)

I had to work through lunch this time around, so I got them to grab me some noodles as they were leaving. My ability to eat at Noodles & Company is extremely limited. If you are allergic to mushrooms, about half their menu is off limits, and my inability to stomach whole bits of tomato wipes out much of the rest. Luckily, what's left of the menu is absolutely outstanding.

EDIT: New information from a commenter indicates that this is incorrect, and any ingredient can be left out of Noodles and Company sauces. This is doubleplusgood.

Their takeout dishes are sturdy plastic with sealing lids, so you can pretty much guarantee that your takeout's gonna get to you intact. They cook their takeout noodles a bit less done than al-dente, so by the time they got to me, they were just done enough, and could've taken a couple minutes longer and still not been mushy. If you're in a bit of a rush, or have to work through lunch, sending one guy to Noodles after calling ahead is a very good option for a whole team. Definitely a better lunch than ordering pizza yet again.

The actual food is the same thing I get pretty every time, though when I eat in I get some buns (to mop up the delicious sauce) and potstickers (because they are excellent). Like I said above, what's left of the menu for me is damn good. The buttered noodles are cheaper than their other dishes, on account of being butter, noodles, a sprinkling of parmesan cheese, and a mix of delicious herbs. The macaroni and cheese is the same price as other dishes, and they take your average cream + cheese type macaroni mixture and then sprinkle herbs and even more cheese on top. Both of these are, frankly, the best damn iteration of their type that I have had anywhere. Better than I can make at home, really, and I've been working on them for twenty five years.

That's really about all there is to say about the place. They specialize in noodles, they do noodles very well, and if you don't get yourself some bread, you'll regret it, because you'll have to leave so much delicious sauce on the dishes.

==Moogle==
Ordered:

Macaroni and Cheese, Chicken, and Caesar Salad Trio ($7.25)
Fountain Drink ($1.35)

They have an option for a "trio" dish, which is a combo meal. You get a small noodle dish of your choice, add meat/tofu, and a small garden or caesar salad. I tend to take this option and usually end up getting the mac & cheese trio listed above. I've tried other types, but that one impresses me the most. The drink is extra, but you get reasonable portions and it comes to about $10 for a total.

The mac & cheese is one of my favorites here. I tried it early on after ND had said how good it was. It's a bit different take than I normally think of mac & cheese. The sauce is more liquid and starts out at the bottom of the bowl. The noodles are "dry" with extra cheddar on top. Mix 'em up and you've got a great bowl o' noodles. The chicken comes sliced on top of the noodles for this one.

==MapleSyrup==
Ordered:

Japanese Pan Noodles ($5.25)
Cucumber and Tomato Salad ($2.50)
Fountain Drink ($1.35)

I opted for my usual this week of Japanese Pan Noodles and a Cucumber and Tomato Salad. Cham described the salad accurately. The mildly sweet vinegar and whatever spice they sprinkle on there reminds me of a yummy vinegar, cucumber, and onion concoction my grandma used to make -- but amazingly better with the sweetness.

The Japanese Pan Noodles have been good and reliable in the past, however I was disappointed this go around because they had a burnt taste to them. They were still palatable, but not as satisfying. The pan noodles are long, firm, girthy noodles with some bean sprouts, black seed things, and a spicy asian flavor. They weren't wet with any sauce, but they weren't completely dry either. I'm not a spicehag of any sort, as I'm sure I've mentioned in the past, so I found my tongue burning a little by the time I finished the plate, but it wasn't anything unbearable or terribly uncomfortable.

==Mecha==
Ordered:

Indonesian Peanut Saute w/Chicken ($7.25)
Potstickers (3) ($2.95)
Fountain Drink ($1.35)

Girthy. Really.

Well, I also got the Peanut Saute, but first, potstickers. These are pan-fried and heavy on the being full of meat, and a bit above average as potstickers go. They come with a very flavorful dipping sauce, along the lines of most potstickers. Usually worth a buy.

As for the peanut saute, I'm a sucker for peanut sauce, and Noodles generally puts up a good show on that front. As Cham put it, it's not the thai you're looking for, but it is pretty good for its price and speed. A fairly busy dish with a lot of contrasts, as Maple noted, between the fairly firm sticky noodles and the bean sprouts. I'll note that it's really hard to work in the very large chunks of chicken they give you and make that chicken mix even. They essentially just cut up a (nicely cooked and flavored) breast and slap it down on top, as an add-on for any dish. I get the chicken in addition every time anyway, for the added flavor/meat, but it still bugs me.

Out Of Town: Kyoto Japanese Restaurant, Rolla MO

2008-09-25T08:31:00.014-05:00

Restaurant: Kyoto Japanese Restaurant
Address: 1002 N Bishop Ave, Rolla, MO
Website: None that I saw.
Genres: Sushi, Chinese
Check Constraints: None noted.
Chain:No.

==Chamelaeon==
Ordered:

Dumplings in Red Oil ($4.95)
Sushi Set B ($12.50)

4 Sushi (Chef's choice)
Spicy Tuna Roll
Soup
Salad

Once again, we were in Rolla, Missouri for our twice-annual visit. We only reviewed one restaurant this time, since we took things a little easier - Mecha, ND and I were all trying to decompress from work. It's almost a two-for-one deal, though, since Kyoto doesn't just do Japanese food and sushi, but does some interesting Chinese food as well. In its newer location along the "main drag" of Rolla, Kyoto has plenty of room inside, if not necessarily plenty of parking. The interior is fairly traditional in style, with several booths providing you the option of sitting with your legs underneath you.

But enough about the building. Onto the food! The dumplings were essentially large circular potstickers - meat and cabbage inside a layer of dough. They were steamed, and served in a bowl with a spoon, much like some sort of strange meatball cereal. They were also extremely hot, so be careful and let it cool before you spoon one into your mouth whole with eager anticipation, like I did. The "red oil" portion of the appetizer is a chili-flavored sesame oil, with which the dumplings were dressed. It added a nice peppery flavor and though I could have (of course) stood more heat, they were still deliciously spicy. Definitely Would Eat Again.

As with a lot of sushi places, the dinner I ordered came with soup and salad. The salad was good, although suffered from the "iceberg lettuce is the only lettuce" problem a lot of places have. Still, you get your fiber where you can. The soup was good, with what seemed to be an onion base - it had a deliciously oniony flavor to it. Still, a cup of it was probably enough. I don't think I'd opt for the bowl.

The sushi here was good. I wouldn't classify it as fantastic, though it's certainly not the worst sushi I've ever had. But given the circumstances - a college town in the middle of Missouri - it's got some remarkable tastiness to it. Granted, I have a very liberal hand with the wasabi so I'm not usually the best to comment on the subtle tastes of the nigiri. I can, however, say that both the nigiri and the rolls were well-crafted, and that the composition of the rolls made for some delicious eating. I sampled off a lot of people's plates and dishes, and they all fell into the "good" range for me. I don't think any of our party strayed off into the Chinese section of the menu, but I imagine the food is at least as good over there.

Someone at the table ordered red bean buns at the end of it all as dessert. I don't remember who that was, since I was kind of in a food-induced coma at that point. Regardless, they were chewy, delicious, and a good topper to the dinner.

We've been to Kyoto once before, and it's likely we'll be back. You don't have many choices when eating sushi in Rolla, but take heart in that your one choice is, in fact, enjoyable.

==NinjaDebugger==
Ordered:

Triple Dinner ($16.95)
- Chicken Teriyaki
- Tekka Maki
- 6 Sushi
Rainbow Roll ($9.50)
Inari ($3.00)
Barley Tea ($2.50?)

I finally learned the proper way to have wasabi on your sushi. For the record, that's to mix it into the soy sauce in a dish, then dip it. I didn't know that. I'm not sure why.

In any case, the tea I had, which was roasted barley tea. It's their standard tea, and not listed as such, but now that I've figured out what it is, I looked it up, and the stuff I saw sitting in the tea was definitely barley. The first time I went there, we all got the stuff, practically, and wondered what the heck it was, and didn't like it very much. Now that I've figured out what it is, I can appreciate it as barley tea and not the green tea that I expected. Unfortunately, I have no basis for comparison of barley tea, so all I can tell you is that if you're not expecting green tea, it's decent tea. I think. It's also a pot plus a cup, and the pot's pretty good sized, so you're not going to run out quickly.

Inari rolls are a siren call to me. They're so very simple, reasonably priced for just grabbing to nosh, and are just plain good. I always get them now, wherever I go that has them. I prefer them hot, but cold seems to be the standard, the hot ones must have been an anomaly. These were the best cold ones I've had, though, as they were barely greasy at all, something that has plagued the cold rolls in the past. For those who are reading this as their first sushi review, Inari rolls are a blob of sushi rice with a tofu skin wrapped around it, then deep fried. I usually eat one straight up, and then dip the other in soy/wasabi mix, and they're both quite good.

The triple combo's a pretty good value. More substantial than a bento, for not a hell of a lot more price. The chicken teriyaki was nothing special, as far as I can remember. The tekka maki I'm remembering as quite a bit better than most of what I've had, and the sushi assortment, well. I had to pass off a piece on account of not being able to stomach shrimp, but other than that, it was decent to good.

The real star of the dinner, for me, was the rainbow roll. I had never had one of these before, but now, I'm thinking I'm gonna have it more often. Take a nice long california roll, which I mostly tolerate, but don't go out of my way to get. Now layer along its entire length maybe half a dozen types of fish, with multiple types overlapping on any given area, and cut it into delicious chunks, and arrange to look kinda like a rainbow, only with stripes the wrong way. Okay, my description skills suck, but the rainbow roll doesn't. It was wonderful, from beginning to end, and even my somewhat touchy stomach ate it up.

As for the red bean buns... well, they were delicious, and now ND just wants to go outside and take it easy.

==Mecha==
Ordered:

Triple Dinner ($16.95)
- Chicken Teriyaki
- Tekka Maki
- 6 Sushi
Hamachi (Yellow Tail) (4.25)

I actually can't remember if I got Maki or not. Is very long ago, and I can't find the recept despite paying. It's a shame I went to Hiro after this, because it kinda overrides my impressions.

The dumplings Cham got were at a good and not unedible heat, so all could enjoy. I got some a la carte sushi, as I often do, this time opting for the yellow tail. It's definitely a fish I could go for again, and unlike Cham I do not destroy the subtle flavors with more wasabi than should ever possibly go on that fish. The a la carte comes by 2 pieces here, as it seems most places do (making Sakura Bana the exception to Matsu, Hiro, and Kyoto's rule.)

Their triple dinner came in a bit of a bento box format (I think?) and was definitely comparable. It came with an appetizer of a salad, and while being full of iceberg, the dressing was a bit off what you usually get, and pretty good. I'm remembering sesame, but it's been a while. The 'chef's choice' sushi was, as is pretty much standard, tuna, whitefish, shrimp, salmon, etc. This has to be tougher to get in with good time than Omaha's sushi places, so their ability to have comparable sushi to Sakura Bana is definitely a positive note, and it isn't as if there's huge competition in the town. The chicken teriyaki, I think, was actually better than it was at Sakura Bana, at least slightly. It definitely delivers, and at similar price as well. And the dessert of red bean buns, I nipped at a bit before biting in. Very sweet, enjoyable. And then the check. Whuu. Mid 120s, if I remember, for 6 people, pre-tip. Which isn't bad at all (20 bucks a person, with some sharing? Yeah.)

The overall on the place is that it's a good place to eat, does good sushi even in the middle of nowhere, and the prices are perfectly reasonable. If you're the type, in the area, and you can find parking, I don't think we've got a reservation about sending you to Kyoto. Missouri.

Jack and Mary's Restaurant

2008-09-24T09:14:00.011-05:00

Restaurant: Jack & Mary's Restaurant
Address: 655 N 114th St - In the minimall to the east of 114th, look for the sign with a chicken on it.
Website: None I could find.
Genres: Home-Style, Chicken. (Yes, that's really a tag.)
Check Constraints: 18% gratuity for 6 or more. $1 split plate charge.
Chain: No. | More Omaha Locations: No.

==Chamelaeon==
Ordered:

Iced Tea($1.49)
Onion Rings ($4.99)
Regular Chicken Dinner ($7.99)

Salad Bar
Chicken Noodle Soup

We're not dead yet! Much as happened last month, the dire specter of work has arisen and laid claim to huge amounts of our time. Rest assured, we're still eating at places, we just haven't told you about them yet, so you as the reader should expect there to be a minor surge of reviews sometime in the next two weeks. But right now we have a restaurant to cover.

In looking around on the web I saw two competing addresses for Jack & Mary's. Whether this means they've moved or that they have two locations, I'm not sure, but since both of them are around the Dodge and 114th St area, I have to say it's more likely they moved and the internet hasn't entirely caught up with that fact yet. Regardless, there's a location off 114th St, and that is the one we ate at. We were actually shooting for Feta's Greek Restaurant, which is in the same minimall, but the place was so packed with lunchgoers we opted to try to find another place to eat.

Jack and Mary's is a restaurant which has a very broad love affair with chicken. A good 90% of their dishes are chicken-based, and some of the non-chicken items still wind up chicken-fried. So you can cease wondering what the rest of the geeks got, because we all got chicken of one form or another. We tried a couple appetizers first, though, one of these being the onion rings (thankfully free of chicken). They were good stuff, too. Remarkably reminiscent of the ones at Mama's Pizza without the interesting salt, the onion rings had a good helping of onion flavor paired with a crispy batter that didn't overpower or smother the onions at all. They don't come with ranch, but there's ketchup at the table. Verdict here is definitely Would Eat Again.

Their salad bar is perhaps a little lackluster compared to some, but it's serviceable. You won't find multiple types of greenery and the bar seemed to be missing staples like cucumber, but there were pepperoncini and olives, which always makes me a little giddy about my salads. It's filling, if nothing else, and one has to ingest one's vegetables somehow. The soup was adequate but nothing special. For a restaurant which prides itself on its chicken, the soup seemed to lack a good chickeny base to it. It wasn't horrible by any means, but I don't think I'd go for it again.

The fried chicken, which seems to be the bread and butter of this establishment, was simultaneously a surprise and a let-down; a duality of food, not unlike some kind of chickenish Tao. The chicken itself was the most moist and flavorful fried chicken meat I had ever tasted. I have brined and roasted chicken breasts before, which results in very juicy and properly seasoned breast meat - the fried chicken breast here was very similar. Were it a piece of grilled chicken, I suspect I would have been ecstatic over the meal. Alas, I ordered it fried, and the real letdown was the breading and the process used. The chicken was fried with skin, but I confess I initially remembered it as skinless - there was some remarkably uneven breading and even some almost bare spots. In addition, the breading was essentially flavorless, so that it was nearly superfluous. Its sole purpose seemed to be to give the chicken a crunchy texture, which I have to admit it did admirably - no soggy breading here.

In summation: the chicken here was better than at a lot of "country-style" restaurants, and I wouldn't even be averse to giving it another shot, in the hopes that it was just an off day for the chicken. Most of the rest of the geeks seemed satisfied with the meal, so giving the place a total writeoff's not a good idea. I suspect if I go again I'm going to try to get a piece of fried and a piece of grilled, and see what comes of it.

==NinjaDebugger==
Ordered:

Iced Tea($1.49)
Hot Chicken Sandwich ($7.99 ish)

Salad Bar
Cheese Soup

Work has been so busy that I can't really remember prices here, but it was all pretty close in price, so anyway, food. I tried one of the onion rings, and one bite was more than enough for me to know it was about a hundred times too oniony for me. What Cham calls a pleasant oniony flavor, I call "someone stuffed an onion up my nose."

The salad bar was decidedly lacking in anything resembling Italian dressing, so I was forced back to ranch, but it had enough of the standards that I got a good salad that was worth the money. The cheese soup wasn't so amazing as I had in other places, but it made an excellent dip for the bread that was placed before us in generous baskets. I approve of restaurants that give bread baskets, as a general rule.

The hot chicken sandwich was exactly as advertised, and as expected, mostly. A big slab of bread with chicken, mashed potatoes, and a thick coating of gravy. The chicken gravy wasn't the best I've had, or even close, though. It was very thick, and not really chickeny enough. The blandness didn't go well with the potatoes and chicken. Unless you're a fan of a big platter of bland, I wouldn't go for it. I know I would go for something else if we went back.

==Moogle==
Ordered:

Hawaiian (Chicken Sandwich) ($6.99)

I actually liked the onion rings here better than those at Mama's Pizza. Maybe the others were too salty for me. If ND got an end-piece instead of an actual ring, I can see the "onion up the nose" argument. I did have one of those and it was pretty strong. Your average ring, I'd say, isn't so bad. The other appetizer ordered was a plate of way too many fried gizzards. I'd never eaten one before, and I will likely continue not eating them. I don't think it's the restaurant's fault, but I am not nearly qualified to judge gizzards. The flavor was very strong and not my favorite. The texture was unpleasant. I barely ate the one, but I gave it a shot at least.

The sandwich was pretty good. It was a grilled chicken breast marinated (or otherwise infused) with teriyaki, a pineapple ring, and a bit of cheese in a bun. I think it came with fries, and if so, they were forgettable. The chicken itself was good and tender inside with a bit of a tougher outside. The flavor of the sandwich in general wasn't very strong. It sounds like most dishes were relatively bland. The strongest thing I encountered were the gizzards. In general, I'd say it's pleasant but not amazing food. The price was ok. I would be willing to give the place a try. It'll be on my mental list of places for chicken or country/home-style food.

==Mecha==
Ordered:

Regular Chicken Dinner ($7.99)

Salad Bar
Cheese Soup

Mmm. Chicken. Ahem. Pretty much everyone else nailed the comparison to Mama's, with less of the popcorn salt and more of the onion flavor. I was very pro-these-rings, although I think just a little less salt would do a better job of bringing out the flavor without having the obvious salty flavor. Still, salt makes things good. The cheese soup was thick and tasty. Not amazing, but a good choice. And the salad bar was okay for providing, well, salad. No real ew to it, which is the reak thing that salad bars risk. Also, totally avoided gizzards. No thanks.

As for the chicken, Cham is right that the meat itself was juicy and likely brined, and also right about the lack of skin/breading flavor, which is a real surprise. They definitely do a good job on the meat, but the outer coat is not just for crispiness and contrast, in my mind, it's for taste. You can do so much more with skin/breading, and it may be just because they're home-style/traditional that they haven't moved that way, but I really wish they would. Still, there's a good variety of other things to try (I'm really interested in the burger Moogle got), so another go wouldn't be a problem with me.(Unfortunately, it's competing with a lot of other enjoyable places in that same area that I'm a sucker for (Thai Pepper and the Taj), so I don't know if it'd be my first pick on my own.)

==MapleSyrup==
Ordered:

Chicken Fried Chicken ($7?)

Wisconsin Cheese Soup

The cheese soup was surprisingly good. There were chunks of celery in there for a nice crunch and there was a spice to it that gave it that little extra that I've never seen from a cheese soup. The Chicken Fried Chicken was a bed of mashed potatoes with a large chunk of chicken fried chicken on top with white gravy on top of that. I thought it was delicious. The Chicken itself was fried crunchy but not crack your teeth hard and overall it worked and it filled. I don't recall whether I ordered the special or just off the lunch menu, but regardless, I'd get it again.

McKenna's Blues, Booze, and BBQ

2008-09-03T08:34:00.021-05:00

Restaurant: McKenna's Blues, Booze, and BBQ
Address: 7425 Pacific St
Website: http://www.mckennasbbb.com/
Genres: BBQ
Check Constraints: None.
Chain: Yes (sort of). | More Omaha Locations: No.

==Chamelaeon==
Ordered:

Ten-Hour Smoked Brisket Sandwich ($7.99)
Red Beans & Rice
Jalapeno Cornbread ($1.39)
Drink ($1.99)

A while ago, the ownership of McKenna's... changed hands. It was closed for a couple months, and during that time business apparently fell off. We had heard several good things about its barbecue, and we all felt that we wanted to give them a fair shot at serving up some goodness. For that reason we held off, and tried some of the other BBQ places in town, to mixed results. However, the BBQ bug struck one Thursday morning, and we swiftly decided that it was time to try the restaurant.

It doesn't smell very much like wood smoke outside McKenna's, but there's a very good reason for that. The clever yet evil people seem to vent the delicious smells directly into the restaurant. Now, don't get me wrong, it's not actually smoky inside, but when you walk in and the aroma hits you, you suddenly feel like ordering a lot more food. I actually did smell a bit like I'd been near a campfire when I got home from work that day, which was kind of an interesting effect. Regardless, the agony of waiting for food while that smell just hangs in the air is pretty intense. We ordered appetizers as per usual, and though I'll let the others hold forth on those I will say that I preferred the black eyed pea dip - it was definitely a notch above a generic refried bean concoction.

You would hope that with the good smoke aroma hanging around, McKenna's would have a good smoke on their meat. This is quite definitely the case. The brisket, sans sauce, was deliciously meaty and was tender without being overly dry or falling apart. It could have perhaps been a little more moist, but since it's being eaten with barbecue sauce that's less of a complaint. The sauce was deliciously tangy, with strong hints of molasses, and it went pretty well with... well, with just about everything at the table. All McKenna's sandwiches are served between thick slices of what appeared to be an egg bread. The sandwich, then, was several folded strips of brisket, a splash of sauce (not enough to drown the meat, which is a huge thumbs-up), and the bread. It was absolutely delicious, although the size of the bread slices versus the layout of the brisket on the sandwich meant I got some bites that were mostly bread. It tasted good, though, so I didn't much mind. The verdict here is quite definitely Would Eat Again.

I couldn't taste the jalapenos in the cornbread, but it was good... for Northern-style cornbread. It was perhaps a little dry for northern-style, but I repurposed some of the butter delivered to the table and it helped a lot. The butter had some kind of green herb or spice in it, but we couldn't taste anything. It may have just been parsely.

The red beans and rice deserve their own paragraph. Now, I've not been to Louisiana, so it's hard for me to speak to authenticity. I will say that of the red beans and rice dishes I have had, this one was very different. The beans were not cooked until they fell apart, for starters, and so the appearance of the dish was much more a "beans on top of rice" affair, as opposed to a bean-based sauce. There wasn't much attempt to overspice them, either - the bean flavor shone through. I might have used a shorter-grain rice for a little added stickiness, but that's not that big a complaint. Most importantly, the bean flavor was accompanied by a delicious heat which came out of nowhere a second or two after taking a bite. It was probably out of the heat range of everyone else at the table, but man, it was fantastic for me. I can say it with 100% certainty; unless there is an all-you-can-eat ribs special on the next time we go - and there will be a next time - I'm going to get their red beans and rice/smoked sausage platter. Probably with some cornbread to sop up some of the delicious leftovers.

For the price, it's damn hard to beat this much bbq at this quality. McKenna's brings blues acts through the area, and I am positive that between the food, a good beer, and some good music, you'll have trouble finding a better time on Saturday nights.

==NinjaDebugger==
Ordered:

Brisket Dinner Platter ($11.99)
Jalapeno Cornbread
Cottage Cheese
Corn on the Cob
Drink ($1.99)

I've been okay with the idea of hitting this place for quite a while. Our adventures in barbecue so far have been disappointing to me, with Ozark Smoked Meat Company coming closest to being actually good. I was pleasantly surprised by McKenna's, for the most part, though I have a maxim to impart that will be good for your dining experience.

The brisket was well smoked, with a readily visible and thick smoke line. Mine came without bread, so I was eating pure meat and sauce. The meat was just tender enough to be edible without falling apart, except for one slice I got that was way too thin, and when rolled up, they were great for dipping.

The corn cob was half a cob or so, and utterly unremarkable. It did remind me of why I don't eat corn on the cob often, though. The cottage cheese was apparently prepared and then let sit out while the rest of the dish was prepared, because it was warm. Not lukewarm, but actually warm. Warm cottage cheese is a travesty and a crying shame. Also, don't listen to those other knuckleheads about not tasting the jalapenos in the cornbread. You can taste them if you're not in the habit of regularly torturing your mouth with absurd amounts of capsaicin. The cornbread is, however, VERY dry. If you don't get butter, ask for some.

The appetizers selected were, strangely, both chips and dip. Mainly because they didn't have much -but- chips and dip. The black eyed pea dip was quality, but not something I can really expound on. The chicken nachos were quite good, and had whole beans rather than refried, but they came layered under a quarter inch of melted cheddar. Well, it HAD been melted, anyway. It was a quarter inch sheet of solid cheese by the time we got it, and it was actually work to get a chunk of nachos out. Aside from that, it was good, and not bogged down with things like tomatoes and onions. If they switched from cheddar to cheddar sauce, they would be perfect.

So anyway, the moral, for your dining enjoyment at McKenna's is this: If it involves barbeque sauce, it will be delicious. If it does not, it will probably be much less so. It was still far and away the best barbeque place we've done thus far, and I would willingly eat there again. I'd just get much different sides with the dinner.

==MapleSyrup==
Ordered:

BBQ Smoked St. Louis Spare Rib Basket ($8.99)
BBQ Baked Beans
Drink ($1.99)

It took me a while to find the smaller/cheaper portion of ribs which resides in the "Sandwiches" section. I suppose, if you wanted to stretch a bit, you could call it an open faced rib sandwich--it was a rack of 5 or 6 ribs served on top of a large piece of bread. Nevertheless, they were delicious. They had a good smoke; they didn't have any chunks of char; they were very tender and just fell off the bone; and they weren't drowning in sauce (but they did come with a small side of bbq sauce you could apply yourself). The sauce itself worked really well. It wasn't very sweet and had a a nice little kick and a smokey flavor to it. The BBQ beans were a bit too much. I think they could have gone with about half as much bbq sauce in the beans and been fine. As it was, it was like eating the barbecue sauce.

The appetizers were surprisingly good for just chips and dip. I particularly liked the Smoked Chicken Nachos. Once you got through the quarter inch layer of cheese (I'm disappointed that I have to complain about such, really), you could get a delicious scoop of beans, chicken, and some nice green tomato-y pico de gallo.

The service was pretty good. The waitress got a bit confused with ordering our drinks because the other four of us arrived about 10 minutes after ND, but I can excuse that. She kept our drinks filled. And she was actually able to go through Mecha's rib platter and tell him which was what (and seemed eager to do so).

I'm eager to go back. I'd probably go in the evening when they have their blues acts going.

==Mecha==
Ordered:

Chicken Nachos (~$7.50?)
Ultimate Rib Dinner Sampler ($25.99)
Jalapeno Cornbread
BBQ Baked Beans
Corn on the Cob

I decided to go whole hog, as it were, and get the largest sampler of ribs they had. It was probably about 1.5-2 racks worth of meat, so it was a given I would not finish it.

First, though, the appetizers. The Black Bean Dip + Chips was pretty good. The chips weren't anything amazing, but the dip really did have a pleasant flavor that isn't too common in dips. The chicken nachos were definitely good, and I probably ate too many of them given what I had to deal with. They came with a good chunky salsa, and were indeed buried under some difficult to manage melted cheese, but if you're not too afraid of getting your hands dirty, you can get all the flavors together on a chip.

As for the rib sampler, they had 5 types of ribs. The featherbones were something I'm not familiar with, but apparently they're not only an Omaha thing (see the google for the associations) but supposed to be a good way to get good meat on the cheap. Unfortunately, these were pretty darn tough. The flavor was good, but tough. The Country Pork Ribs were pretty darn juicy, being boneless, although perhaps a bit fatty for some. Think real boneless BBQ with big pieces of meat. The BBQ smoked pork baby backs came a bit tough, but again, the sauce was decent and the flavor decent, just old/overcooked. The St. Louis style, which I'm also not particularly familiar with, was again somewhat tender and easy to get at, and I remember it as a bit more pure.

The shining part here, which I've waited to describe until we were through the the batch of lunchtime inconsistency, was the Hawaiian. The Hawaiian style ribs were exactly what ribs should be. Fall off the bone tender, flavorful, smoky, and they came with a plum-based sauce which 1) worked extremely well with them 2) most of the table was convinced was 80 proof. I refused to leave a single bit of that particular flavor on my plate, and you should as well. On the overall, the platter was decent, but if it had not had inconsistency issues, it could have been amazing on a scale I'd never had before on both scale and flavor. The place was sparsely populated, and I imagined few people were getting what I'd gotten. Nothing was too particularly spicy, but that's not a bad thing. Just a note.

Red beans and rice is not something I have a lot, but this had both strong heat and a good flavor for the beans. A bit too strong on the heat, but the place unabashedly sells milk (which is good to keep in mind if you head for something spicy.) The cornbread I didn't really get through, due to the large plate of food.

I would definitely try this place again, and I want to try it when it's busy enough and I'm not in a rush, because I think then it'll move away from 'frustratingly inconsistent' into something... well, hopefully as good as those Hawaiian-style ribs hinted that they could be.

==Moogle==
Ordered:

BBQ Smoked Badwich ($7.99)
Coleslaw
Black-eyed-pea Dip with Chips ($5.29)
Lemonade ($1.99)

The nachos were tasty. There were a lot of interesting things mixed in. It was a little bit dry though, so it was harder to keep things on the chips. That seemed to be the style, though (as opposed to accidentally dry or overcooked). The chicken was good and the flavors mixed well. The dip was really good. This one seemed a little too soupy, but it didn't end up being a problem. The peas were whole and the dip held together well enough. The flavor was pretty mild, and made for a great change from regular refried bean dips. The lemonade was pretty good too. It wasn't too sour or too sweet. You get unlimited refills with it too. That may mean it's fountain-style, but I didn't really notice.

The main attraction, the Badwich sandwich, was an interesting beast. It's a pulled pork AND beef sandwich. It was slightly over sauced, but that was about what I was looking for that day. It definitely wasn't flooded, which is good. It came between two large pieces of bread and was a pretty good size. The meat was pretty tender. The BBQ sauce was good, but I didn't taste the meat too much over the sauce. It had a good amount of heat to it. I had a bit of the jalepeno cornbread too. I couldn't detect any heat due to the sauce, but I could taste the jalepeno peppers. The creamy coleslaw was a little light on the "creamy". I didn't realize before, but after ND mentioned that his cottage cheese was warm, I noticed that the coleslaw wasn't very cold. I wasn't a fan.

I would come back. I'd say stick to the intentionally warm side dishes, and go for some of their more unique dishes. They have plenty of interesting options that are off the beaten path.

Buffalo Wild Wings

2008-08-28T08:19:00.009-05:00

Restaurant: Buffalo Wild Wings
Address: 205 North 76th Street - Between Chuck E Cheese and Toys R Us
Website: http://www.buffalowildwings.com/ (Warning, flashriffic)
Genres: Buffalo wings, American
Check Constraints: None.
Chain: Yes | More Omaha Locations: Yes

==Chamelaeon==
Ordered:

10 Wild Boneless Wings ($6)
10 Spicy Garlic Boneless Wings ($6)
Basket of Buffalo Chips with Cheese ($4.59)
Drink ($2.19)

Work is slowly returning to normal levels, but we were ready for a little bit of a rest, so we went somewhere safe for the week. It was kind of a homecoming for us, since Buffalo Wild Wings is what helped us start this blog in the first place. That doesn't make much sense at first, I'll admit. It's hardly a restaurant that screams "Omaha". But if you'll give me a moment, I'll explain.

In the before-times, in the Long Long Ago... I hadn't even moved to Omaha yet. MapleSyrup and I were still living in Indianapolis, working at a horrible job that had one large perk - an extra-long Thursday lunch. A great deal of the time, the lunch destination of choice for the office was the downtown Indianapolis Buffalo Wild Wings (or BW3s, if you're cool). That preference possibly even dates back to most of us in the office having gone to college in a town where one existed, but that's reaching back a little too far for comfort. When I moved to Omaha, it turned out my new job had a similar informal lunch policy, and so Thursday Lunch continued. For a year or so. With most of those Thursdays being spent at a BW3s. So you can imagine that we were all really rather sick of it.

I can't remember which of us proposed we first start eating around at other restaurants in Omaha, but we were all very ready for the idea. That decision led pretty directly to the decision to start up first a Google Map and then a blog about where we were eating. So it's not a large stretch to claim that BW3s is the reason we're doing this at all, and thus last Thursday's lunch should have been a triumphant homecoming.

Unfortunately it just reminded me why we wanted to branch out in the first place. First off, the prices at BW3s are just this side of ridiculous unless you go on a day they're running specials (Tuesdays for 35c regular wings, Thursdays for 60c boneless wings) and even the specials are more than some places have wings for normally. Secondly, the boneless wings here are always far too dry. There's no flavor of the sauce and to be perfectly honest that's the only reason to get the things because the breading's not that good and it drowns out any chicken flavor. That may only be a problem at this location, though, which leads me to point three.

The biggest problem I have with large chain restaurants is that their ostensible purpose - in fact, the whole reason places like McDonald's have page upon page of food documentation - is to deliver the same food in multiple places. Unfortunately that's so hard to do it's nearly impossible. BW3s suffers from this in a large degree - since most of their food is made in batches and then the sauce is added, you can wind up in a situation where not only did your order get overcooked and undersauced, but so did everyone else at the table's.

To be fair, there's some delicious to be had here or I wouldn't have kept coming back as long as I did, even considering the inertia. The chicken tenders are the best item on the menu, as they just come with a cup of sauce (and extras are only 60c, so you can mix and match flavors) which allows you to control your own sauce application. They're also the most consistently cooked item, in my experience. They're even one of the "value menu" lunches so you can get some potatoes of your choice and a drink for a reasonable amount. Their sauces are also good. I'm sure they're horrible for me, but even the Wild sauce has a good amount of flavor paired with the heat. Blazin' is just a stupid level of heat and there's no point to it unless you're trying to display your huevos for all those people in the restaurant to not care about.

My verdict on this place is Would Eat Again, as a safe destination for business lunches when I'm not sure my colleagues are going to be into, say, baba ghanouj.

==NinjaDebugger==
Ordered:

10 Spicy Garlic Boneless Wings ($6)
10 Honey BBQ Boneless Wings ($6)
10 Garlic Parmesan Boneless Wings ($6)
Basket of Buffalo Chips with Cheese ($4.59)
Drink ($2.19)

The really sad part about that list of food is that it wasn't all that much actual food. Back when we were doing this place every week, I could do a basket of Spicy Garlic and be okay. My capsaicin muscles have not been working out, unfortunately, and I am no longer able to do so, not even with ranch.

On the other hand, the honey barbeque and the garlic parmesan are just as good as I remembered them. They have a bit of lingering heat to them, which is fine with me. The honey barbeque is not as good as someone blending it at home, really, but it's damn good for a mass produced sauce. The garlic parmesan, though, is really great stuff. I've never had anything quite like it anywhere else, not even at home. It's actually kind of hard to describe, it's almost like they took a caesar salad dressing and then added a bunch of parmesan and hot pepper, only it's not at all tangy. The flavor is pretty much all parmesan, garlic, and hot.

Other than that, I really don't have a hell of a lot to say. I wasn't part of the group Cham was talking about, having gone to school in merry old fatass-ville, where you can get anything at all delivered right to your door. I'm afraid that having eaten at so many other places now, this one doesn't seem so appealing anymore. Except that garlic parmesan sauce. I might have to go buy me a bottle or three.

==Moogle==
Ordered:

6 Honey Barbecue Boneless Wings ($3.60)
6 Cajun Jerk Boneless Wings ($3.60)
Regular Wedges with Cheese ($?)
Drink ($2.19)

I wanted to have this on the blog mostly to show our roots, and Cham has done a fine job of it. We actually started on Wednesday 50c Leg day, but they dropped that long ago. We switched to Thursday when that happened. This revisit went a little better than a previous revisit, I think. Quality of food items varies from visit to visit as Cham had mentioned.

I agree that the boneless are on the dry side. You may be able to get that extra sauce Cham mentioned for these as well, but nobody here has tried. Honey Barbecue is a good, flavorful sauce with what I think is just the right amount of heat to it. The Cajun Jerk is on the upper end of my heat tollerance/bravery. I think it has decent flavor to it as well, but a few boneless with that starts to make me sweat. They have two shapes of potatoes. I tend to favor the wedges while the other guys get chips. I don't think there's much difference. You can get cheese on either for a little extra.

==MapleSyrup==
Ordered:

12 Honey Barbecue Boneless Wings ($6.00)
Regular Wedges with Cheese ($?)
Drink ($2.19)

Actually, the whole BW3's thing at our old company started before the company even moved to Indianapolis. Through some happenstance while we were still in Terre Haute, it became weekly ritual to head to BW3's on Thursdays for their 60c chicken tenders special (this was where we found out one of our coworkers was deathly disgusted by ranch dressing and its ilk and would rather be lowered into a vat of human waste than a vat of ranch). This carried over when we moved to Indianapolis as a general Thursday company lunch policy, which usually ended us up at BW3's in Indy.

I hadn't eaten at a BW3's since they got rid of the one in downtown Indy and replaced it with a Badaboomz. The HoneyBBQ sauce was just as good as I remembered it. It was a little sweet with a not overpowering medium heat, which I killed slightly with a cup of ranch dressing. I echo everyone else's complaints about how dry the boneless wings usually are. And I also echo the price complaints: it was 60c for a whole chicken tender a couple of years ago and now it's 60c for a boneless wing.

Overall, I'd still eat there again. It's a tad pricey for what you get, but what you get is good enough.

P.S. We discovered very early in Indy that it was a bad idea to take advantage of the full service option at BW3's. I was very amused to find that they'd discovered the same thing here in Omaha.

==Mecha==
Ordered:

5 Honey Barbecue Boneless Wings ($3.00)
5 Teriyaki Boneless Wings ($3.00)
Regular Chips with Cheese ($?)
Drink ($2.19)

It may be a bad idea to take advantage of full service, but that doesn't keep a number of the people from our office who go each week from doing it.

No disagreement on the boneless being sometimes very surface dry, but the flavor of the sauces usually seems to carry for me, barring phase of the moon. Cham nailed the weirdness of the inconsistency dead on here: National chains are supposed to be, to some degree, consistent, and this place isn't even consistent with ITSELF, let alone other restaurants in the chain. And the price is definitely a bit impressive. 10-15 dollars for a lunch is a decent meal in many other places that aren't quite so bad for you, and a fast food meal for 5-6 bucks is just as obtainable, just as large, and just as american.

I am not sure the 'Teriyaki' flavor is really what I'd consider teriyaki, especially compared to a place such as Sakura Bana, but I do enjoy it, even though it's not spicy. The Honey BBQ is a good goto sauce with a bit of heat that rarely steers you wrong. I've had a number of their sauces as well, and they are, on the overall, enjoyable. What this place really has is 'options with nonobjectionability'. The food does not impress, but it's 'there' enough, and customizable enough to fit the Average American Palate. Also, if you're a fan of bar games/trivia, BW3s tend to have those (as this one does), which can be a draw for some people. (Cham didn't go into his depressingly large Players Plus numbers.) Of course, alcohol as well, as BW3s is also theoretically a sports bar, so TVs and alcohol for people who want to be anti-social or social, (mostly) respectively. It's not a bad place to go socially, but there are better food places in the world. And probably even in your city.

Margarita's Mexican Restaurant

2008-08-19T16:12:00.011-05:00

Restaurant: Margarita's Mexican Restaurant
Address: 3636 S 72nd St - attached to the Howard Johnson
Website: None
Genres: Mexican
Check Constraints: If there were any, we missed them.
Chain: No. | More Omaha Locations: No.

==Chamelaeon==
Ordered:

Enchiladas Suizas Lunch Special
Tamale
Sopapilla with Ice Cream

Last week's lunch feels like it happened in some kind of fugue state - I remember trying to decide where to go, and then somehow we were there. Work had started to taper off, but the accompanying brain fuzz had not yet been dispelled... as a result, the whole experience seems fairly dreamlike, and the quality of the review suffers for it. We offer our apologies in advance. We also lost the receipt - since there's no known website for the restaurant that means we're even lacking prices. Mea culpa.

Margarita's came about sometime last year, replacing the "Dreamers Bar & Grill" previously in the same location. I'd always intended to try it, but it somehow never managed to come up until last week. The place wasn't crowded, but we did show up at 11:30 since one of our number needed to be back at work for a phone meeting. Seating was fast, and though it took a minute to get drinks, chips and salsa, it wasn't overly long. Unfortunately, none of the above ever got refilled during the meal. It's a restaurant's prerogative to limit it to one basket of chips, I just wish they'd put that on the menu somewhere. There's little excuse for the drinks, though.

It being lunch, I ordered a lunch enchilada special. I also ordered what I thought were three tamales, that being the only number listed on the ala carte section of the menu. However, only one came out - I'm not sure if it cost less, since we lost the receipt, but I imagine it did. Anyhow, the enchiladas were chicken, and coated in a green sauce. They were kind of tiny for examples of their species, but they did taste good. Oddly enough, they were topped by what looked and tasted like pregrated parmesan instead of some more traditional Mexican cheese (Oaxaca comes to mind). It actually went pretty well with the flavor of the enchiladas, I just remember being tired enough I did a doubletake when it wound up on the table. The tamale was also a little small, but good as well. Like a lot of its kind it came unwrapped from the corn husk already, and instead of just being covered in red sauce it was served under what was almost a chili; lots of cumin and beans.

We ordered sopapilla with ice cream, but unfortunately Mecha and I had to skip out before they arrived at the table because the whole dining process was taking quite a while. We'd have made it an hour lunch if we hadn't done the ice cream, but ordering 5 of those added an extra half an hour to the meal, easily. The rest of the guys brought us our desserts in to-go boxes, and I wish I'd had time to eat it while it was warm (if it ever was). The sopapilla itself was not as sweet as it could have been, which was honestly a plus in my eyes, but it makes the ice cream a necessity if you're looking for a typical American sugarbomb dessert. Forgoing a spoon and using the pieces of sopapilla to scoop up and eat the ice cream is definitely the way to go with this dish, by the way.

Given my state of mind at the time, I am wary of condemning the restaurant for the speed or the portion-size, especially in the absence of the receipt. I will say that I'm not especially eager to go back and verify our experience - not when there are places I know are much better and new places to try, as well.

==NinjaDebugger==
Ordered:

#19 Lunch Combo (Enchilada, Burrito, and Chalupa)
Sopapilla with Ice Cream

It's actually my fault we have no recipt, but I can tell you that for the five of us, with dessert, it came to 66bux. Not surprising, for a mexican restaurant, but I can tell you that the portions were surprisingly small for one. I ordered a triple combo, which at the other mexican places we've done was enough to defeat, or nearly defeat, even my capacious stomach. This place didn't even come close.

Worse, the lunch combos are ground beef only, and while the ground beef was good quality, and the cheese and cheese sauce over the top were quality, the chalupa left something to be desired. It came out more like a tostada. I didn't even recognize it as anything but a side salad, as the shell was soggy by the time it got to us, and was invisible under the beans and salad on top. It was very much a waste of money, and I definitely should have ordered something else.

It seemed to take half an hour for them to get us the sopapillas after they were ordered, so much so that by the time I had to flag down the waitress and ask for them to be boxed, they hadn't even actually started working on them. The sopapillas themselves were... bland, I suppose is the term. I mean, a fried tortilla with cinnamon, sugar, and chocolate sauce is something I am inclined to like, but this was lacking, even with the ice cream on top.

This isn't a place I'd willingly go to again, not with places like Senor Matias and Jonesey's Taco House around.

==Moogle==
Ordered:

Margarita's Burrito Lunch Special - Spicy Chicken (Somewhere between $6 and $7)
Sopapilla with Ice Cream

I know that my dish was somewhere in the upper $6 range. A lot of the lunch specials were about the same, plus or minus a dollar or two. I think my plate was almost a reasonable size for the price. It was a medium sized burrito filled with "spicy" chicken and sauce. It was buried under lettuce, a little cheese, and a big blob of sour cream. There were fried rice and refried beans on the side. The chicken itself was pretty good, if not very spicy. It wasn't dry like I've seen in other places. The rice was pretty bland and the beans were ok.

The sopapilla didn't impress me at all. It was pretty bland, as the others have said. To me, it was just eating ice cream with a crunchy, unappetizing tortilla. It wasn't even like having an ice cream cone. It was just "meh." I couldn't taste the cinnamon or chocolate... I could, however, taste black pepper. It was the stranges thing, but I think it was due to the to-go utensils we were given. Even though it did take forever to get our desserts, they were well prepared with special to-go containers and pre-packaged plastic utensils. Now the thing is, the utensils came with a packet of salt and pepper inside. Clever, but not useful for ice cream. I had eaten a few bites and was wondering why it tasted like pepper when I realized the pepper packet was right under my nose. I thought removing it from the area would help, but it seems that the spoon became infused with pepper. That may have had a hand in ruining my sopapilla experience, but it was probably just the icing on the bland tortilla/ice cream dish. (Not cake. I would have rather had cake.) However much this thing cost me, it wasn't worth it.

A note on the service: It looked like our server might have been the only server. I can't remember if she seated us as well or not. When food came out, it seemed like the chef(s) brought the dishes out. It wasn't terribly busy, but there were enough people that one server would not have been enough. It may not have been 100% the waitress' fault, but she certainly didn't look like she was in a rush either.

I don't think I'd visit again unless it was with friends who really wanted to go (and these guys don't seem too enthused with the idea). The food was unremarkable, the prices were not the best, and the service was really slow (which may or may not be typical).

==MapleSyrup==
Ordered:

#15 Lunch Combo (Enchilada, Burrito, and Tamale)
Sopapilla with Ice Cream

As ND said, the only option for the meat for the enchilada and burrito was beef. The burrito was pretty good. It was smothered with cheese, but was terribly small at about the diameter of a half-dollar. The enchilada had something off about it. I think it was missing the sauce you normally get with such and it came in at about the diameter of a quarter. The tamale came unwrapped with lettuce and some sort of chili bean concoction on top. It almost resembled what you would get from a can of chili beans (though I don't contend that was where it came from). The tamale was actually pretty good in retrospect. That was the entirety of the platter. There were no refried beans or anything else. The portions were grotesquely small for the $7.79 I paid for it and I didn't even have the option of chicken or cheese as every other mexican restaurant in existence gives.

The sopapilla was a bit plain. It could have used a touch more cinnamon and sugar and I think they would have been better off serving it nacho style--quarter it then third those quarters and scoop up the ice cream with your "chips."

As others have hinted, the service was atrocious. The whole experience ended up taking well over 1.5 hours. We only got one basket of chips and a small caraffe of salsa for 5 of us. We never got a refill on our drinks. And we ended up having to get our desserts to-go, because it had been 20 minutes with no sign of them.

I don't think this will be a place that I return to. The service was terrible and the portions were way too small for the prices.

==Mecha==
Ordered:

Some Lunch Combo (3? 5?) (Beef Burrito and Enchilada) (~5.50)
Sopapilla with Ice Cream (~2.50)

I can add to price analysis by pointing out that my mind said, with tip and tax, that 10 bucks would cover my piece.

The place actually had some interesting flavors in their dishes, which gave both Cham and I a little pause, IIRC, but ND and Maple are right: the portions were surprisingly small for a mexican place. The place did have more than one _person_ there, as they also tried to ask us for our drink orders, but the service was still incredibly slow.

I'm not sure I'd go back to this place either, all things considered. The chips/salsa were standard fare, the meat actually worked for me, the sauce was a little odd but okay, and the sopapilla I really would have liked warmer (that phone con really didn't help)... but there are a lot more solid options around. Looking for a place to eat is a bit of a competition, and this place really doesn't compare.

El Basha Mediterranean Grill

2008-08-05T11:17:00.006-05:00

Restaurant: El Basha Mediterranean Grill
Address: 7503 Pacific St. - In the mini-mall just west of Tires Plus
Website: None
Genres: Mediterranean
Check Constraints: Short order
Chain: No. | More Omaha Locations: No.

==Chamelaeon==
Ordered:

Falafel Appetizer ($5.50)
Chicken Shawarma Wrap Combo ($7.75)

Fries
Drink

Work recently has been positively crazy. As a result, the lunch destinations of late have been picked with an eye towards speed, distance, and the most bang for the time - also as a result, we had to skip a week due to an utter and total lack of time. But El Basha is fairly close to where we work, and it's been long enough since AFK that it was judged a worthy destination. I'm rather glad about that.

Despite being short-order, the restaurant is rather intriguing and has plenty of space for people. Their menu seems to pull a good balance between being fast and offering a wide variety of Mediterranean flavors. Unlike AFK, El Basha is far more towards the traditional side of the ethnic restaurant scale - that's not a dig on either restaurant, they both have their upsides and honestly very little downside. It's just a different take on the same kind of cuisine, and all that matters is what suits you the best.

The falafel appetizer came over a salad, dressed with a very thin creamy garlic dressing. That made it a little hard to share anything but the falafel themselves with the rest of the geeks, so I wound up with a heaping helping of salad to start off the meal. It was rather good, and if you were perhaps hunting for a slightly lighter lunch that is where I'd suggest you start. The falafel, while perhaps a little small, were moist and flavorful, and went pretty well with the dressing. I would have preferred the dressing to be a little less watery, perhaps, but sopping it up with the falafel worked pretty well. I'd eat this again, especially if I were trying to be calorie conscious.

Brief comments on the other appetizers: The hummus was far smoother than I am used to, but it was delicious nonetheless. The baba ghanouj had a very sharp taste to it, but was darn tasty as well.

The chicken shawarma wrap came wrapped in foil, which was goobord as it had the garlic dressing inside, and trying to eat it without the foil resulted in a very drippy (if delicious) mess. It had onions inside, and not much else that I could tell, which resulted in a fairly solid if unvarying flavor. Given the option, I'd probably go for the gyro or something a little more interesting next time.

Most importantly, though, the time it took to order, get the food, and eat it was less than an hour by far, which is good for when you're in a crunch but want to avoid "fast food". All in all, I might start suggesting it as a regular destination for meals, even if I did wind up having had a little too much garlic for even my comfort.

==NinjaDebugger==
Ordered:

Hummus Appetizer ($5.50)
Gyro Platter ($8.75)

Lentil Soup
Drink

I'm afraid I don't have much good to say about this one, unfortunately. Luckily, not much outright bad, either. I did not, in fact, understand what hummus was when I ordered it. I actually thought I was getting falafel. What I got was excellent tortilla-thickness pita bread and a bowl of extremely smooth hummus. Cham says that it is good hummus. It was a taste I could take or leave. Not something I'd ever go out of my way to get. The falafel, though, that was good stuff.

The lentil soup appeared to not have a name, but it is very easy to describe. It was quite heavy on the cumin, making it taste like a good chili as a starter. Then, instead of meat and beans in that chili, add potatoes and rice. That is essentially the soup. I ate it, and enjoyed it. Also, it was a damn good size bowl for coming as part of a combo.

The gyro platter came with that funky potato salad, a very sour taste which was not pleasing to me at the time. The gyro was mounded pleasingly high with meat, but the toppings were not on the side, and as I am not a huge fan of the sauce slathered all over it, it was somewhat less appetizing than I would normally find a large pile of good meat (that is to say, om nom nom). As it was, I still nearly finished it, but just couldn't bring myself to take the last few bites.

I really don't think I'd come here again, given a choice, but if you like the more authentic foods from the area, go for it.

==Moogle==
Ordered:

Beef Shawarma Wrap Combo ($7.50)

Fries
Drink

Due to the hectic nature of the past couple of weeks, I don't remember an awful lot from this place. Luckily, the beef shawarma is very similar to the chicken shawarma that Cham had. It only had a few things in it with a good amount of beef. The sauce does accumulate at the bottom of the foil, so grab a pile of napkins for those last few bites. It was also fairly filling. The fries didn't stand out one way or the other.

They were actually out of another item that I (and MapleSyrup, I found out later) attempted to order. I forget what it was called. The bit of falafel I had was good and less dry than AFK. I'd eat there again, especially since I'm in the area fairly often. It'd be worth another visit or two to try a few other items.

==MapleSyrup==
Ordered:

Gyro Platter ($8.75)

Lentil Soup
Drink

It seems that I ordered the same entree as ND, so there isn't a whole lot for me to add. I wasn't as great of a fan of the lentil soup as he was. It was ok. It wasn't vile. But it isn't something that I'll be getting again. The Gyro Platter came with a big scoop of "mashed potato stuff." We're not sure what it was, but it was delicious. It had a mildly sour taste, reminding me of lime and cilantro. Cham claims there was some sesame oil in there. I could have eaten much more of it than what they gave me. The addicting nature of it kind of reminds me of that of Salt & Vinegar potato chips. The Gyro itself was overflowing with meat and fillings. I barely finished it.

==Mecha==
Ordered:

Baba Ganoush ($5.50)
Gyro Platter ($8.75)

Lentil Soup
Drink

Talk about busy. Took us a while to even get the review out. Cham nailed the Ganoush (or however it's 'properly' spelled) with being sharp, but also fairly complex. The hummus was incredibly smooth and tasted good, and both had a lot of similar notes, unsurprisingly. The lentil soup I don't remember much of at this point, but I remember liking it quite a bit.

Something I think the others didn't mention about that weird potato-salad-like-thing is that Cham and I think it had sesame flavor/oil in it, making it extremely interesting. I'd never had anything like that that I remember, and it seemed unique for a mediterranean place. The gyro itself had a large amount of meat, and ended up making this all an extremely filling meal.

I have to agree with Cham that the place's speed and flavor makes it a good place for a lunch visit when you actually have to do it in an hour (or maybe even just over a half an hour, if you're close enough), and while it may seem a bit expensive compared to a value meal or whatnot, there's a lot more here than you'll get in a fast food paper bag.

The Taj

2008-07-23T11:51:00.008-05:00

Restaurant: The Taj
Address: 668 N 114th St - In the mini-mall just off of Dodge
Website: http://www.tajofomaha.com/
Genres: Indian
Check Constraints: 15% for 5 or more people.
Chain: No. | More Omaha Locations: No.

==Chamelaeon==
Ordered:

Lamb Vindaloo Lunch Special ($8.99)

Rice
1 piece Pakora
Salad

Paneer Kulcha ($2.99)
Diet Dr. Pepper ($1.99)

We haven't eaten lunch at an Indian place since our very first review way back in December of 2007. Man, we have eaten a lot of places since then, and it seems like it was such a long time ago. Regardless, when an associate informed us that The Taj, which used to be crammed into a fairly small place next to the Dodge Street HuHot, had reopened in a larger facility in the same mini-mall... we couldn't pass up the opportunity.

The new location is much, much larger, though perhaps a little lacking in decor. That's fine though, since you're not going to be sitting around waiting for your food very long. As usual we took a while to sort out who was ordering what, but it seemed like it wasn't very long at all until the appetizers were out. We'd barely finished those before the lunch was on the table. It left us with a little less time to talk than usual, but since traffic in the area can be a real pain I didn't mind the extra time in the slightest.

I ordered my lamb vindaloo at a "5", which is "very spicy". I wouldn't say it quite delivered on the "very" part, but it came out at a heat level which perfectly matched the strong taste of the lamb and the vindaloo sauce, even if it overwhelmed some of the more subtle flavors. Taking a cue from the associate who'd been there before, I dumped it out on the rice it was served with, and the whole thing became a very rich-tasting and filling lunch. I ate the accompanying salad first, but it wasn't much more than lettuce dressed with a light vinaigrette. The single piece of (potato) pakora had a good taste to it as well, and I'd consider making a meal of it next time if I weren't so determined to try a curry. At almost $9, the meal felt a little expensive for the size, but I did order lamb, and I felt the extra cost was worth it for the flavor. The chicken vindaloo lunch special was a more reasonable $7. I'd definitely eat this again.

The paneer kulcha (which transates to "cheese bread") was excellent - the perfect complement to the vindaloo. In fact, I used it mostly to gather up and devour the excess vindaloo sauce. It's not overwhelmingly cheesy like your average garlic cheese bread, but is instead subtly laced with a cheese which has permeated its flavor throughout the entirety of the naan-like structure. Once you hear what ND has to say about the garlic naan, I'm pretty sure you'll find it unthinkable to go here and not order some kind of bread with your meal. And for $3 it's worth it.

The Taj isn't the kind of restaurant to go the first time you meet your girlfriend's parents, but if you've got a hankering for Indian while you're at work, you'll be hard pressed to come up with a better option.

==NinjaDebugger==
Ordered:

Chicken Korma Lunch Special ($6.99)
Mulligatawny Soup ($2.99)
Garlic Naan ($2.99)
Soda ($1.99)

I'm not going to talk about the restaurant today, I'm just going to talk about the food, because damn, the food merits talking about. Okay, first up, Mulligatawny. It's a brothy type soup that I've had twice now, and I'm sad to say that while the version I had here was edible, it was nothing to crow about. It was about the same on the quantity of rice in the bowl, mind, but the broth itself, rather than being fairly thick, was thin and greasy. There was a visible film of oil on the broth, and that came through in the taste. It was the same general soup, as opposed to the variants that wiki tells me about, a virulent turmeric yellow with a considerable but not overwhelming spice to it, it's just that one of them was crafted so much better than the other.

That, however, was the first and only low point of the meal. The drinks flowed freely, a change from the somewhat inattentive waiters of other places. I opted out of getting lassi this time, having been not particularly pleased with the yogurty flavor of the last one, but Mecha will have an opinion on the one he got. Two appetizers (aside from the naan) were ordered. One was a sort of fried cheese. I have no idea what type of cheese it was, but it was excellent both with and without the brown dipping sauce that came on the side. the other was a sort of dumpling filled with ground beef and peas. It was much like a Runza, only somewhat less bready. It was also quite difficult to divide among tasters without making a mess, making it one of our less intelligent choices. Still, it was good, and the sauce for it will make you happy if you are a fan of sauces that slap you upside the head and scream "IT IS DELICIOUS CILANTRO. YOU MUST TASTE IT."

The chicken korma is an orangish yellow sauce with immense cubes of chicken, served in a bowl on a plate with plenty of rice and a bit of salad. I have a feeling that the base used for it is extraordinarily spicy, because the dish is cream based and yet still manages to have a considerable heft to its spiciness. On its own, the sauce is a little sour, but quickly grows on you, but more importantly, if you take a cube of chicken, some rice, and the sauce all together, it blends into a delicious flavor. It is not, however, a sauce so good that I would pour the whole thing onto the rice, as they did with the vindaloo. It was much more my speed to carefully manage the amount of sauce involved, because the spice was very nearly too much for me. Also unfortunate was a chicken bone inside one of the chunks of chicken, but at least it was a large bone.

Last, and greatest, though, is the garlic naan. Two such dishes were ordered, and I think I ate more than my fair share, even though I ordered one strictly for myself. I am, as should be quite obvious, a big fan of things that involve bread, butter, and garlic. The garlic naan here is as good as a combination of those three ingredients can get without adding cheese. I'm not even sure how good it could get with cheese. Flat, pita-style bread comes out from the kitchen piping hot, brushed with butter, and with garlic baked in. It's just enough garlic to give you the flavor without making your cubicle-mates go home early. I would happily go here and order nothing but three flats worth of garlic naan and something to wash them down. If you go, and do not order at least some sort of bread (they have six or seven options), you do yourself a grave disservice.

==Moogle==
Ordered:

Lamb Saag Lunch Special ($8.99)
Paneer Pakora ($5.99)

The paneer pakora is the fried cheese appetizer mentioned above. I didn't know until looking those links up just now that paneer is actually the type of cheese, which is a South Asian cheese. It's a little hard to describe, but it seemed more fluffy/airy than typical cheeses. It came as six flat pieces which were about two bites. I don't remember them having a ton of flavor, but they were good. The beef and peas item was decent too. The sauce was quite strong though, so be careful with it. There were two of them, but they were big enough for each of us to have three or four bites worth.

The saag is a curry dish that's heavy on the spinach and greens. It came out looking like a brownish-green mush, but there were nice big chunks of lamb in it. It was also a slightly creamy dish. It wasn't spicy (and I didn't expect it to be) and both lamb and sauce were quite good. I also put mine on the rice, and it turned out to be really filling.

I thought the appetizers were reasonable, and if you're a fan of spinach, a saag variant is definitely worth a try.

==Mecha==
Ordered:

Lamb Curry Lunch Special ($8.99)
Mulligatawny Soup ($2.99)
Meat Samosa ($4.99)
Mango Lassi ($2.99)

The aforementioned dumpling filled with meat that came with the ridiculously cilantro-y sauce is the Meat Samosa. Also, the ambiance is about as generic as it gets. Bright fluorescent lights, orange walls, the most generic of standard chairs? I realize it's a new place, but it is a bit of a downer that it is so generic. With this food, though, you can only care for so long, and the food coming quick like Cham said also makes not worrying about it too much easy.

The Mango Lassi was a very large cup of lassi for 2.99. Frankly, most other places when you order a few bucks of Lassi do not hand you a huge cup of it. 20 oz? 24? More? Not sure. Too much for me to drink through. I just wish they'd have had Rose Lassi. A much more subtle enjoyable flavor. Anyway, asiding. If you like smooth heavily mango drinks, Mango lassi here is a great buy.

I did not get a crack at any of the bread, but I trust that it was good. The Samosa did have a fairly nice complex flavor which the sauce overrode a bit, so if you're not a huge fan of cilantro, stay light on that sauce. Also, they're difficult to split, as they come in large shells (a-la runza.) The cheese pakora was fine, and ND pretty much nailed the soup: lackluster. It was a shame because the last time we'd had it it was so good.

The lamb curry was a very, very nice flavor, although I should have poured it out on the rice like Cham did. Some good heat, which the lassi helped cut back, and a wonderful complex flavor. Same price bump for lamb, but I don't mind it.

I'd definitely avoid the soup, and might try the non-mango lassi next time, but the main dishes or any of the non-soup extras were good to great, and that's definitely worth coming back to.

==MapleSyrup==
Ordered:

Lamb Keema Lunch Special ($8.99)

Rice
1 piece Pakora
Salad

Soda Pop ($1.99)

I was reading over the menu and saw that the Lamb Keema was basically ground lamb and peas and thought to myself, "That sounds like shepherd's pie," then thought further, "I like shepherd's pie!" And thus was the order. As Cham said, the salad was nothing special--just a little bit of lettuce with a light vinegarette on it. The potato pakora was delicious but far too small and short in quantity. The rice had some yellow bits and some green flakes in it, but was unremarkable. It tasted pretty much like rice. The Lamb Keema itself was pretty good. It was finely ground lamb spiced with some peas mixed in. The peas weren't rendered into mush, so they added a nice pop to each bite. The dish overall ended up, as I expected, tasting like spicy shepherd's pie sans mashed potatoes. However, despite all of this, I was underwhelmed. The dish just didn't offer anything new or interesting. The next time I'll probably try something different. Maybe a heaping plate of potato pakora ...

Jimi D's Food and Spirits

2008-07-22T16:59:00.008-05:00

Restaurant: Jimi D's Food and Spirits
Address: 6303 Center St.
Website: http://www.jimidsfoodandspirits.com/index.html
Genres: Italian-American, American
Check Constraints: 18% gratuity for parties of 6 or more.
Chain: No. | More Omaha Locations: No.

==Chamelaeon==
Ordered:

Gnocchi Bites ($7.95)
Old School Sausage and Peppers Sandwich ($7.95)
Andouille Soup
Fries ($2.95)

Jimi D's is part of the new development happening around the area of the old Ak-Sar-Ben track. The minimall it's located in was only finished a few months ago, so the restaurant is fairly new; it doesn't even show up on Google Maps proper (though you can find it off the geeks.rate(food) map.) It also has zero web presence, which I'm slowly coming to the conclusion is a really bad idea for a restaurant. But! It's new, and we decided it was worth trying out, even having no clue what kind of food it served.

A short meta-note before I go on: We're going to start trying to take pictures of food at the places we eat, and we'll try to get shots of the menus for places which don't have them online (or have not updated them in forever). We have to work out who's hosting what where, but hopefully we'll have it sorted before we post this Thursday's adventure.

I'll leave the discussion of the actual building to someone else; I'm on to the chow. Jimi D's has a strange sort of menu... it could most accurately be described as "upscale-ish Italian-American", but even that doesn't quite cover the bases. Regardless, I have never seen gnocchi on the menu at any place that has the bar in the main seating area. And it was good - really good. Gnocchi are little dumplings, in this case made from potato. They were cooked through, likely via baking as they had just a tad of browning on them. Instead of deciding on a topping for you, the gnocchi come naked with a side of marinara and a side of ranch. I'm not entirely certain about the gnocchi/ranch combination, but the marinara was decently tomatoey and went well with the gnocchi. I have to confess I also just ate a handful without any sauce at all. They were pretty darn good, and I would definitely eat them again. Actually, if I were to go again I would get the gnocchi entree instead. I'd also like to add my two cents about the antipasto platter: Holy delicious.

The soup, which I picked as my side for the sandwich, was not what I was expecting. It was a light soup, not tomato-based at all, and it had both pinto beans and what tasted like collard or mustard greens in it along with the andouille. The combination of greens, beans, and a pork product came off as very Southern-tasting to me, but that may just be my grandmother's cooking talking. It was pretty good, though I'm not sure I'd like more than a cup of it at a time since it was really quite salty.

When I ordered the sandwich I figured that I would go with something simple, on the premise that I'd been adventurous enough picking the appetizer and soup. That plan fell flat on its face when I actually saw the thing. It's pretty hard to screw up a peppers, onion, and sausage sandwich, but Jimi D's managed it twofold: the sandwich was drenched in a thick tomato sauce, and the sub bun they served it in was woefully structurally deficient. The sauce, which seemed to me to be thicker and slightly different than their marinara, killed most of the actual pepper and onion taste, and while it didn't taste bad I felt like I might as well have gotten the sandwich on pasta instead. Especially because the bun was made from a very soft white bread, which made trying to hold on to the sandwich a losing proposition. All in all, I really wish I'd ordered one of their pasta dishes instead. They could be just as bad, but with the success on the gnocchi front I'd have more confidence in those.

I've rambled long enough, and it's someone else's turn, but I'd like to make one quick comment: the service here at lunch was really, really poor. I can't speak to their dinner service, but I'll definitely think twice before coming back for lunch, for that reason alone.

==NinjaDebugger==
Ordered:

Antipasto ($11.95)
Fettuccine Alfredo w/Chicken ($11.95)

Andouille Soup

Iced Tea ($2.25)

First off, the place reminds me of the Firewater Cafe, which I believe we did review earlier. Not in the menu selections, mind, but in the way the place is set up. There's a large central bar, generally semicircular, with tables all around. Menus were pre-distributed on the tables, and there were no condiments of any kind, not even sugar for the bloody iced tea, or salt and pepper for general spicing.

I agree with Cham on the gnocchi, that stuff is delicious, double plus would eat again. I paid for the antipasto, and it was worth every penny of the twelve bucks it cost. A decent sized platter, with three small bowls containing olives, a horseradish/mustard mix that was reminiscent of wasabi, and, amazingly, a reduction of balsamic vinegar. Undoubtedly the cheap stuff, but even cheap imitation balsamic is very good. Arrayed around this bounty were a plethora of cheeses and meats, too many to remember, along with some small pieces of grilled bread and some pseudo-pickled vegetables (probably actually a marinade). If you actually go to Jimi D's, you may spend your money on the antipasto as either an appetizer or a meal with confidence that it will be worth the money.

The fettuccine alfredo is another matter. Okay, I'm going to say up front that it wasn't anywhere near the worst alfredo I've had (that dishonor belongs to Indigo Joe's). The plate was large, and came well arrayed with three more pieces of grilled bread, and a surprisingly large helping of chicken breast. The alfredo sauce, however, needs work. It was essentially a pure cream sauce. As far as I could tell, there was no parmesan in it, nor did it have an array of parmesan around the plate, like the Firewater Cafe did.

I was forced to grab the last chunk of parmesan from the antipasto and clumsily grate it with my butter knife in order to get any parmesan flavor at all. Once it had some parmesan, it was passable, though it still needed quite a bit more to be good. Before you order this, should you choose to, ask if you can get a chunk of parmesan to grate onto it, or something. Otherwise, it simply isn't worth getting. Try something like the carbonara instead.

As Cham noted, the service was abysmal. There appeared to be, at best, a single waiter for the entire lunch rush, and his service was even slower than you would normally expect for a situation like that. If you insist on coming here, I say you should stick to the appetizers, especially the antipasto.

==MapleSyrup==
Ordered:

Philly Steak ($8.95)
Soda Pop ($2.25)

The Gnocchi were absolutely delicious. They were firm, but not hard or starchy and they had a wonderful taste with a hint of butter and some herbs. Like Cham, I tried them with a daub of ranch and without and they were great either way. I was very surprised by the the horseradish in the mustard that came with the Antipasto. I was the first to try it and was not expecting any heat at all like that and choked a bit. I found the marinaded vegetables interesting as well. It was an assortment of carrots, cauliflower, and celery marinaded to taste like bread & butter pickles. The vegetables were still crisp and had that nice, sweet flavor.

The Philly steak consisted of shaved ribeye, green peppers, onions, and provolone on an 8 inch roll. It tasted as you would expect of those ingredients and, overall, was a pretty good sandwich. The only complaint I might have is that the meat was a bit stringy, making it hard to take a real bite. I ended up with food dangling out of my mouth on most efforts.

And as the others have mentioned, the service was pretty bad. We waited forever for drink orders, food orders, the food itself, and refills and when I did get a refill it was the wrong thing and I had to wait another stretch to get it fixed.

==Moogle==
Ordered:

Monte Cristo ($8.95)
Andouille Soup

I did find a website for them the other day. I've added the link above (as well as a link to Firewater). Anyway, on with the food. I fourth the sentiment that the gnocchi was great. I've had them before, and these were well cooked with great flavor. I preferred either the marinara sauce or none. The antipasto was an interesting mix of things. I think it's well described above, but Cham did mention he could taste a bit of curry flavor on the marinated veggies. I could taste it as well. It wasn't very strong though.

A cup of soup was actually an option for the side to go with your meal. I don't see that too often, and the andouille sounded interesting. It was pretty good, but I don't know that I'd go for a whole bowl either. It was a little spicy with a lot of vegetables and not so much sausage. I had forgotten what a Monte Cristo was. It was the strawberry sauce that intrigued me. When it came out, I thought it was going to be too heavily fried, but I was surprised with a lightly fried and very delicious sandwich. It had a bit of powdered sugar on top, and the strawberry sauce on the side was really light as well. It was more like juice than syrup and went really well with the sandwich. It also looked an awful lot better than the picture on Wikipedia. I was kinda surprised to hear that the others' dishes weren't that great, because mine left me wanting more . (Though, I didn't need it. Maybe it's my sweettooth.)

Though my food was good, I'll add emphasis to the slow service. This ended up being an hour and a half lunch, and it really didn't need to be.

==Mecha==
Ordered:

Andouille Soup (Bowl) ($5.95)

Unfortunately, I was feeling ill this week, so I went light. The antipasta plate had a good variety of things on it, cheese, meats, olives, a surprising hot mustard (think chinese mustard) sauce and was, at least, close to worth the high price. The gnocci really was quite nice, although I didn't get too much of it.

The bowl of soup came with twice the bread, and enough soup to make it a significant difference over just getting a cup. I did like the flavor of it, and it wasn't too spicy, but it did have a bit of warmth to it that helped (unsurprising, given the sausage.) Cham has a better description of it in detail. I couldn't finish it for whatever reason, but I'm not willing to chalk it up to much more than being ill. I'll agree on the service being pretty weak, although there was a nice note in that the server didn't force us into the single check 18% gratuity (as we did have the requisite 6 people.)

They had some other interesting food options for the happy hour/dinner hour which I can't exactly remember, but I'm imagining that if you want to go here even then, don't do it if you're on a time budget of any sort. Their webpage also recommends some things we didn't try, which might be worth pursuing if you do end up going here, such as their meatball sub. (We seem to be finding a pattern of slow service at local bar places. Mmm.)

Dundee Dell

2008-07-14T11:04:00.014-05:00

Restaurant: Dundee Dell
Address: 5007 Underwood
Website: http://www.dundeedell.com/
Genres: american, pub
Check Constraints: No checks. Separate checks for 20% gratuity. 6 or more people, only one check, 18% gratuity.
Chain: No. | More Omaha Locations: No.

==Chamelaeon==
Ordered:

Pint of Smithwicks ($5.50)
Crab & Artichoke Dip ($7.50)
Hot Pastrami Sandwich ($7.00)
Chips ($1.75)

It's pretty hard to eat around Omaha without running into the Dundee Dell eventually. It's been there for a long time, though it has changed locations in the last ten years or so; outside of the Old Market area it's probably the most well-known pub; and it boasts what it claims is the largest offering of single malt scotches in America. So you know we couldn't pass that up for long. Unfortunately, working lunches don't tend to lend themselves to a leisurely stroll through many, many pages of scotch, some of which cost $300 per dram! (These are not your standard drams; here, they refer to the ancient measurement of scotch, the actual value of which I can't find anywhere.)

To be perfectly honest, I've eaten at Dundee Dell several times since moving here in 2005, so have actually had the chance to sample their scotches. If you're perfectly content looking like an idiot and have very little clue about scotch, feel free to ask the waitstaff or bartender since they're often fairly knowledgeable about such. I've found a peg is enough to let two to three people get a good taste, but if you're sharing between more people than that you might want to up the size. My favorite thus far is probably the Laphroaig 15-year, which is an Islay malt with a pretty distinctive flavor. I should also note this is one of the increasingly-common places in Omaha to get Smithwicks on tap.

But we're supposed to talk about the food. The crab and artichoke dip was a little small for $7.50, I thought, but had a leg up on the standard "too much spinach in some cheese" concoction in that it actually tasted of crab instead of just spinach. It's served with toast points and corn chips, and the former outclass the latter in my opinion. To offer a brief summary of the other appetizers ordered; the fried pickles are nothing special, the BBQ quesadilla was very muddled in flavor, and the fried yams started off rather bleh until I salted them, at which point they became much tastier. So the appetizers rank in at a 2/4 Would Eat Again ratio, or 50% if that makes more sense to you.

The hot pastrami sandwich was excellent. It was distinguished from a Reuben by not being topped with sauerkraut but instead loaded with grilled onions, which made a mellower counterpart and let the flavor of the pastrami and dark rye bread shine through. The dressing on the sandwich was not Thousand Island, but might as well have been. It offered moisture and more tang than mayo would have done, but it was properly subdued. There was quite a lot of pastrami, to boot. It was served with a pickle, but like all sandwiches at Dundee Dell, you have to spend $1.75 for chips (proper British chips - think fried potato discs), actual fries, potato chips, pasta salad, or coleslaw. I almost always get the chips because increased surface area means more browning and thus more yummy, but I've seen people say their normal fries are also very good. Verdict: Would Eat Again.

I've read reviews online where people diss the new location as being too "upscale", but honestly I don't think it's that bad. There's plenty of space (although parking around the area's a bear), and though it doesn't really feel like a real pub, it draws a nice line between attracting people there for food and fun, and those there to drink incredibly expensive liquor. It doesn't feel like a neighborhood bar, no, but it doesn't feel like a Disneyland theme restaurant either. I think it's well worth the visit.

==NinjaDebugger==
Ordered:

Strawberry Soda ($1.75)
Chicken Sandwich, lemon pepper with provolone and cheddar-jack ($7.00)
Chips ($1.75)

My first experience at Dundee Dell was as part of a large group, with a severely restricted menu and not nearly enough space. It didn't impress me at all. This time was slightly more impressive, but the place still strikes me as a little cramped, a feeling that I do not like. In addition, their strawberry soda is terrible. None of the appetizers made me want to spend money on them, either. The crab dip tasted bland to me, the quesadilla tasted more like barbequeue chicken than cheese, a cardinal sin of quesadillas, the fried pickles tasted more like an unpleasantly warm and limp pickle than anything else, and the fried yams were, well, yams.

The sandwich, on the other hand, was worth the money. A solid bun with a large lemon pepper chicken breast, and I got two delicious cheeses on top, since you will rarely go wrong with more cheese. Toppings on the side, including enough pickles that I could actually taste them in every bite. The chicken was well done, cooked enough that it was easy to pull apart, but not cooked enough to be even close to dry, and the chips were pretty clearly made there, rather than bought. If I were to go again, which I'm not sure I will, I'd skip appetizers, and get alcohol, a sandwich, and a dessert.

==Moogle==
Ordered:

BBQ Quesadilla ($7.25)
The Grinder ($8.75)
Potato Chips ($1.75)

I thought the BBQ quesadilla was ok, but the sauce flavor overpowered the cheese flavor. You couldn't really see the sauce, but you could taste it. It was fairly sweet, too, which may have put off some of the other guys. The crab dip was the best appetizer, I thought. I agree that the dip went much better on the toast than the corn chips. The dip had a pretty mild flavor, but you could still taste the crab. The fried pickles didn't impress. They had two distinct flavors: Fried and Soggy Pickle. You'd have to really be into those flavors to enjoy them, I think. I also agree that the yams were pretty blah. I didn't bother trying with salt though. I couldn't find the salt and didn't care for another anyway.

The sandwich, again, was great. It was plenty of sliced meats on a hoagie bun. It was a fairly large sandwich, and quite tasty. I don't think there were many toppings, but it didn't need it. It was just right. The plate it came on was pretty big as well, and the rest of the plate was filled to the brim with ruffled potato chips. I couldn't tell you what brand, but I'm pretty sure they came in a bag. It also looked like I got the end of the bag, with half the pile being crumbs. It was likely too much. The roof of my mouth was still in pain days later from the shredding they got by eating too many. But, I got my money's worth, I'd say.

==MapleSyrup==
Ordered:

3 Piece Fish & Chips ($10.95)
Soda Pop ($1.75)

I was also a fan of the crab & artichoke dip and agree that it was better with the toast points than the chips. The chips just added too much of their own corn flavor and overpowered the dip. The fried pickles were very disappointing. It was pretty much just a hot pickle with some breading. The fried sweet potato slices (I don't remember what they were actually called), were fairly lackluster. They had a very gritty breading and didn't offer any real flavor. Cham is right that salt helped, but I don't think it helped nearly enough.

I ordered the fish & chips and, though they were a touch pricey, wasn't disappointed. They came in a foil bag with the chips at the bottom and the 3 planks of fish on top. I didn't get a plate with it, so I ended up laying the bag on its side and tearing the top open. The breading on the fish was light and smooth and had a nice crunch. It didn't have the dirty grease taste that happens some places. The fish itself was flakey and not too fishy. The only complaint that I might have is that the fish squirted me pretty good when I cut into the last plank with the side of my fork. The chips were your standard fried quarter-inch slices of potato. They were nice and firm, not mushy at all and they held up pretty good waiting for me to finish off the fish--they didn't get gritty and starchy as they cooled.

==Mecha==
Ordered:

Thomas Kemper Vanilla Cream Soda ($3.25)
Fried Pickles ($4.50)
Dell Burger ($8.50)
Chips ($1.75)
Breaded Sweet Potatoes ($3.75)

The place is a bit tight, but they don't have much area to work with, so whaddya gonna do?

I was driving, so I didn't even get to consider having a whiff of alcohol. Instead, I had a vanilla cream soda. Came in a bottle, cold, and was a solid vanilla cream soda. Not amazing, and 3.25 for a bottle? Probably not gonna order one of those again. What a markup. @_@

I'm the anomaly in that I like the spicy fried pickles, which is why I got them. A little soggy on the inside, the frying method basically makes a super-hard shell, which it is easy to have the pickle slip out of (which is a defect: you should be able to do better!) Although apparently I should consider just getting some for me in the future. I also enjoyed the fried sweet potato, and I really don't get enough sweet potato in my life. The crab dip didn't leap out at me when I tried it, so I left it to the people who really enjoyed it, although yeah, more toast points. I pretty much agree with everyone that the quesadilla was too strongly of BBQ sauce on chicken, not enough of anything else. They even have other things in it like black olives... and you can't taste those either!

The Dell Burger is one of their standard burgers with ham and bleu cheese on the burger, and it's a really interesting and enjoyable taste addition. I was a bit worried about not being the world's biggest fan of straight bleu cheese, but it didn't overpower the ham or the burger's flavor, and I would certainly have this one again. Their chips were indeed chips, solidly done as always.

It's strange that this place seems to have trouble with the appetizer/bar food side of things, but them managing to have decent entrees is very nice for what we were actually going for, which is to say lunch. It's worth mentioning that one time Cham/Maple/I went, we got the nachos which weren't bad at all. But still, very weird. Especially since they go out of their way to have a few things off the beaten path, you'd think that they'd be more impressive there. Nontheless, the place has good entrees to recommend it and you should at least give it a good solid try. (Also, there's an ice cream place next door that keeps changing owners, at least at the moment, which you can get some extra deliciousness at. Yaye ice cream!)

Midwest Mega-Review: Columbia MO, Terre Haute IN, Indianapolis IN

2008-07-10T10:01:00.012-05:00

Recently, my girlfriend and I went on a fairly long road trip back to our respective college towns, and through many a strange and random byway in the Midwest. We visited the Truman Presidential museum in Independence, MO; the Civil War battleground at Lexington, MO; and several other places. One of my goals for the trip was to try to eat at as few national chain restaurants as possible, with an eye towards experiencing new flavors if not necessarily ones local to the city I was in at the time. I did fairly well with the goal, given the problems inherent with trying to eat unique foods while still traveling on the US Interstate system. But! As a side benefit, I get to talk about several of the places we ate.

Restaurant: W.G. Grinders
Address: 33 North 9th Street, Columbia MO
Website: http://www.wggrinders.com/
Genres: sandwiches
Check Constraints: Short-order
Chain: Regional

Ordered:

Spicy Chicken Grinder ($6.50)
Tomato Basil Soup Combo ($2.75)

W.G. Grinders is a regional chain which looks to exist mostly in Ohio, but which has stretched out a questing tendril west through Carmel, IN and onward to Columbia. The store's located downtown, in a corner location that is, honest to God, entirely too large for it. The seating area seemed entirely dwarfed by the open space laying around. I suppose if they were going to host a sock hop or something they'd be ready, but it was a little disconcerting.

The sandwiches are good, though. Like most sandwich shops at this point, the grinders are made as you order, and toasted. The spicy chicken was "spicy" in the sense that it had spices on it, but definitely not "spicy" in the capsaicin sense. Also, I wish I could convince sandwich shops to avoid using a leafier lettuce on hot subs, since those have a tendency to wilt and generally clutter the sandwich with an unpleasing texture. That said, it was a pretty darn decent lunch. Good bread, acceptable chicken, and a good melding of flavors. The soup I could have done without, as it tasted like someone had taken Campbell's tomato soup and dumped fresh basil into it, but that's what I get for trying to avoid fried stuff.

Restaurant: Exotic Thai
Address: 1295 S. 3rd St,Terre Haute, IN
Website: None.
Genres: thai
Check Constraints: Unknown.
Chain: No.

Ordered:

Thai Rolls ($3.95)
Kang-Dang (red curry) ($7.95)

Exotic Thai may be a bit of a cheat, as I've eaten here several times before when I used to live in Terre Haute. Still, when we arrived in the Haute (as the people in the know call it) I was tired enough that hunting down something entirely new wasn't exactly sounding like the best option. Also, I was really in the mood for thai.

The Thai Rolls here are thin eggrolls, pretty much like a fried spring roll. They're delicious and served with a very good sauce, which has a sweetness to it that matches very well with the crunchy goodness of the rolls. The insides are filled with cabbage, other vegetables, and pork, pretty much like any other eggroll you might encounter. The curry can, like a lot of other thai places, be customized to your heat level - I went with a "four", a raise of two above what they claim the curry's at originally, and it was good. I could have gone hotter, but that raises the risk of gastrointestinal distress, and that's not good for a road trip. The curry itself is fairly simple - peppers and other assorted vegetables, chicken (or tofu), in a red curry sauce with a very heavy taste of coconut milk and a lot of other delicious spices. It's served with steamed rice, which works well as a mix-in if you decide you've ordered the curry too hot for you.

Everything they do here is made with fresh ingredients, and I've eaten around the menu enough to know it's pretty much all delicious. If you think Terre Haute couldn't possibly have good ethnic food, this place alone proves you wrong.

Restaurant: Scotty's Brewhouse
Address: 3905 E. 96th St, Indianapolis, IN
Website: http://www.scottysbrewhouse.com/
Genres: burgers, american
Check Constraints: Unknown.
Chain: Regional.

Ordered:

Diet Coke ($2.25)
7 Tidals Buffalo Chicken Dip ($8.75)
Atomic Mo'Fo' Burger ($8.75)

While in Indianapolis we visited with a couple different friends there, and had nice meals with both. The first was at a Denny's, mostly because at that point I was looking for something simple and was very happy to merely not be in the car. For the second, my girlfriend and I, and my friend Hardy, wound up at Scotty's Brewhouse. While being a regional chain, it's apparently very tightly controlled by the owner, and the feel of the place was rather welcoming. That said, the menu suffered very badly from the restaurant version of "feature creep" - too many items, far too many options. While not as overwhelming as the Wheatfield's menu, I was still flipping through it nonplussed by the time the waitress came over. I desperately wanted a beer to help relax some of the muscles in my neck, but I was tired enough that was a very bad idea, and we had to drive back to Terre Haute that night anyhow. So I settled on a Diet Coke and a very interesting appetizer.

Having never had chicken in a dip form before, the 7 Tidals dip intrigued. It was a combination of chicken, buffalo sauce, and then cheddar, blue, and cream cheeses. It had the perfect dip consistency, very firm and solid on the corn chips it was served with, and it tasted fantastic. The chicken was pulled, and there were large chunks of it in the dip. It was, at heart, the congealed essence of a buffalo chicken sandwich smothered in cheese. Without that pesky bun. It's definitely pricy, but it was well worth it.

The burger was less gratifying. It may have just been eclipsed by the dip, but I found it to be about on a par with an "upscale" burger chain - falling somewhere over Fuddruckers and somewhere under a hand-made sirloin patty grilled over hickory wood. It came with jalapenos and what is supposedly their spiciest sauce, and it was tasty enough, but didn't feel like anything special, especially when considering what I paid for it. It came with waffle fries, which merely served as another vehicle for the dip.

Given the expanse of the menu, I'm certainly willing to bet there could be hidden gems there. It may be worth another try, though I imagine when I'm back in Indy I'll have other restaurants to visit. I should also mention Hardy graciously picked up the tab, and I was so tired I actually let him do it. This means I probably have to bathe his cat (Badger, the World's Angriest Cat) sometime.

Restaurant: Yats
Address: Multiple, check site
Website: http://www.yatscajuncreole.com/index.htm
Genres: cajun
Check Constraints: Short order.
Chain: Local.

Ordered:

Chili-Cheese Crawfish Etouffee ($5.50)
Extra Bread ($0.50)

Hardy also went above and beyond the call of duty. When he learned that Yats was going to be closed on July 4th (the day I visited), he actually picked some up and stored it in his fridge for me. This meant that when I picked it up, it was a day old. I didn't get to eat it that night, so it sat in the hotel fridge until the next morning when I had it for breakfast.

Let me say this with absolute and utter clarity. Two days old and barely warm from the shitty hotel microwave, this was still the best Cajun food I have had in my entire life. No, I've not been down to the actual source of the style yet, and I'm certain if you've visited Louisiana you know someplace down there that's better. That's awesome (and tell me where it is, I would like to go someday). But Yats is located in Indiana, and if you are ever going through Indy (or by their new location in West Lafayette) you need - you are required, you have a moral imperitive - to eat there. The menu at each location changes daily, but the pricing runs as follows: half orders are $4.50, full orders are $5.50, and getting half and half of two things will run you $6.50. Extra bread? 50 cents. And you will want extra bread. It's coated with a spiced butter that is absolutely fantastic, and there is actually no better tool for eating the meal itself than the bread.

The dish I had, the Chili-Cheese Crawfish etouffee, is almost indescribably delicious. All the dishes at Yats blend together into a solid flavor - this one has the barest hint of cheese, some good chili flavor to it, and a solid backbone of crawfish (it could be actual crawfish or just shrimp, it's hard to say). It's served on rice, like most of their dishes, and it is magnificent.
But it doesn't matter what you get. I will almost guarantee that if you like the ingredients listed in the name of the dish, you will enjoy the best damn cajun/creole food you can get outside of the actual state of Louisiana. My only regret that there is not one in Omaha.

So that was the trip, or at least the one my stomach made. Hopefully we'll get to go again next year, and we can experience some new places along the way.

Matsu Sushi

2008-07-07T16:00:00.007-05:00

Restaurant: Matsu Sushi
Address: 1009 Farnam Street
Website: N/A
Genres: Japanese, Sushi
Check Constraints: No Checks
Chain: No

==NinjaDebugger==
Ordered

Crunchy Spicy Salmon Roll lunch (8.95).

Crunchy Spicy Salmon Rolls
Nigiri Sushi assortment (Tuna, Salmon, Whitefish, Crab, Shrimp)
Miso Soup
Salad

Chicken Teriyaki Bento (8.95)

Chicken Teriyaki
Rice
California Roll
Salad

Inari Rolls (2 for 3.50)

I got quite a lot of food, there, but I wanted to try a lot of things, so instead of actually eating all of it, I got a lot of food and shared, like the good little mental kindergartener I am. I found this place when randomly searching for sushi restaurants near my home, and since Thursday the third of July was a damn good day to take a long lunch, since nobody at work was going to give a crap, and we wanted sushi, I pushed this place.

The drive there is pretty easy, but it's old market, so parking is a little scarce unless you use the honor system carpark out back. Luckily, there's an alley beside the restaurant that clearly used to be a food area, complete with a serving window, so you don't have to walk around the long way. The place itself is long and narrow. Half a city block long, give or take, but only about fifteen feet wide, give or take. There's a relatively small seating area in the front by the windows, followed by a long bar, and more seating in the back. I wouldn't be surprised at all if they took this place over from a pub, but hey, they call 'em sushi bars for a reason.

I'm gonna start with the bento, because it makes a hell of a contrast with Sakurabana, our old standby. The bento is a couple bucks cheaper, but then, you don't get a nice helping of tempura, nor do you get three nice pieces of nigiri sushi, instead getting a full California roll, which is made the original way, here, rice on the outside. I'm not sure which I prefer. Sakurabana's traditional ones are very tightly packed and flavorful, but the ones here have a much more pleasing texture and crunch. Six pieces is probably too much for me, though, as I'm not a huge fan of avocado.

The chicken tempura tasted somewhat beefy to me, and I'm not sure why. Other people thought it was fine, but it tasted kinda off, almost overwhelmingly strong. It went much better with the rice, though, as the rice here is incredibly sticky. I approve of extremely sticky rice, it's WAY easier to eat with chopsticks. The salad, though, absolutely blows away Sakurabana's, and frankly, almost any other salad dressing I've ever had. it's a pretty average salad, but we concluded that the dressing was a sort of carrot ginger, light on the carrot and heavy on the ginger. And the pepper. It is a very nice, spicy salad dressing, and if I could get a bottle of the stuff for home, I'd have it right now. The finishing touch on the whole thing is, obviously, the seemingly ubiquitous half an orange, this time with a cherry on top. I have no idea what it is with bento and that half-orange, but I'm not going to object. I would, however, prefer if they used seedless oranges next time.

The miso soup was pretty much miso soup, though it seemed a tad on the weak side. We weren't offered a choice of soups, either, though that's hardly a loss for me, given that Sakurabana only has two types, one of which I can't eat.

And then there was the sushi. Oh man, the sushi. Okay, first up, inari rolls. Inari rolls aren't sushi. They're cooked rice, wrapped in a tofu skin and deep fried. They are, done properly, absolutely delicious. They are, however, best served hot. These were served at room temperature, after a long wait for our food. When served cold, all the grease collects at the bottom and the whole construct becomes kinda generically awful. I don't know if they'll do it, but if you want some, ask if they'll bring it out with the appetizers.

Then there was real sushi. The crunchy spicy salmon sushi is prepared inside out, american style (to disguise the taste of seaweed), and appears to have been deep fried slightly, that being the crunchy part. the inside is salmon and spicy. It wasn't very spicy, but it was spicy enough for me, in the mid upper range, and it's a very damage over time heat. There's no up-front heat at all, and then, after you've chowed down, the heat starts to grow. And grow. And grow. Okay, for all that, it's still good, though not really to my taste. I recommend a bit of soy and wasabi to add some initial heat and cut down a tad on the lingering. It doesn't get nearly as bad, then.

The tuna sushi tasted a little off, kind of a tad bitter, but that might have been how long it was waiting to be eaten. The salmon and whitefish were both excellent, though. Unfortunately, it's here that my review stops, because my next try was the crab, and that's when my lizard hindbrain caught up to what was happening and said "excuse me wtf r u doin?" After nearly losing my lunch twice, I proclaimed myself defeated by my lizard hindbrain and left of trying to consume more sushi. Unfortunately, as lunch was already running very long, we called it there instead of grabbing dessert, as we were all somewhat intrigued by their zen sundae, which is green tea liquer over green tea ice cream. Is it zen? Yes, but not in the way that you think.

Overall, the place seems a bit overcosted, and I'm really not sure that it's worth it over another place. The location is pretty bad for us, too, so it's probably a good bet we won't be going back any time soon. If you happen to be near the old market, though, it's not bad for a close option.

==Mecha==
Ordered

5 Nigiri + Spicy Tuna Roll lunch (8.95).

Spicy Tuna Roll (8 of the small 'Maki' type)
Nigiri Sushi assortment (Tuna, Salmon, Whitefish, Crab, Shrimp)
Miso Soup
Salad

Red Snapper Nigiri (2 for ~4.50?)
Squid Nigiri (2 for ~4.50?)

There is definitely a bit of oddness in the 'can only buy 2 nigiri at once' a la carte, and the costs do seem to be a bit higher on the a la carte, but the other lunch stuff is certainly comparable. A full roll itself costs in the 7-8 buck range as is whether Sakura Bana or here, so making a lunch out of it? Yes please.

The soup didn't seem as strong on the miso component, but was still pretty good to my taste. Couldn't figure out what was added in its place. The salad was definitely strong with a different type of carrot ginger dressing. Carrots, cucumbers, and tomatoes I remember in the salad along with the lettuce.

The Spicy Tuna roll lives up to its name. Very good, but even hotter than the salmon roll. I loved the taste of it, though. The 5 pieces of separate Nigiri were all fairly solid, and I've got a more solid stomach for the crab, although it's worth noting that there's a bit less rice here than at Sakura Bana. This may be a function of the stickiness. Also, there is definitely wasabi already in these, so there's no need to add your own unless you're Cham. I'm not a huge fan of the shrimp nigiri, in general, but their tuna, salmon, and whitefish were at least as good as other decent sushi places.

The squid sushi is actually a lightly scored bit of squid head flesh, which is an interesting texture and flavor, to be sure. The red snapper, I was less of a fan of, but it wasn't awful... I just think that red snapper's not my thing.

The service was a bit slow, even with the place not being hopping, but I think it's a plenty serviceable sushi place. It's worth noting that their lunch menu is completely separate from their dinner menu, so things may or may not change when dinner comes around. Also, there was a lot of non-sushi options which people around us seemed to be enjoying, of the traditional noodle variety, so it might be solid as a noodle bar as well. If it were closer, I'd consider a few more permutations, but with Sakura Bana already so close, it's not enough to draw me downtown as an alternative. But it's still another surprisingly solid sushi place in the middle of the great plains to me.

==Moogle==
Ordered

Red Snapper Bento (8.95)

Grilled Red Snapper
Rice
California Roll
Salad

I found the miso soup here more to my liking than at Sakura Bana. I suppose it is a bit more mild. The tofu didn't get in the way, and the flavor was good. The salad came with the bento box for me, but it was the same salad. I agree that the dressing was spicy and flavorful. I enjoyed it. The red snapper was simply grilled. It seemed like there was no seasoning on it, but it didn't really need much extra. It did come with lemon to squeeze on top, which I used. The California rolls were good. I did notice that they were "inside out" from the way Sakura Bana does them. To me, that didn't make any difference. They may have had a little more rice.

I also tried a couple crunchy salmon and spicy tuna rolls. Being my first non-California roll, I thought they were edible, and I wouldn't mind having them again. I didn't really detect much heat from the salmon, so if you can handle the spicier end of typical Chinese food, they should be no bother. They were rolled in something crunchy on the outside which gave it a good texture. The tuna had a bit more heat, but they weren't bad either.

Like the others have said, Matsu was a bit far out for us, but I thought the food was good. The prices on bento boxes are at least similar to Sakura Bana as well. I would stop in again if I were in the neighborhood and looking for sushi/Japanese.

==MapleSyrup==
Ordered

5 Nigiri + Spicy Tuna Roll lunch (8.95).

Spicy Tuna Roll (8 of the small 'Maki' type)
Nigiri Sushi assortment (Tuna, Salmon, Whitefish, Crab, Shrimp)
Miso Soup
Salad

I ended up ordering the same platter as Mecha, so have little to add to the reviews. As everyone has said, the salad had a delicious carrot ginger dressing on it, which is fortunate since you didn't have a choice in the matter. The Spicy Tuna Rolls had just the right level of spice and with a daub of wasabi and a touch of soy sauce tasted great. I enjoyed the assortment of Nigiri Sushi immensely, but be warned that there's some wasabi hiding between the fish and rice, so be careful adding your own. You'll end up with burning sinuses and watering eyes. Overall, I liked the food and the price.

Johnny's Cafe

2008-06-30T10:36:00.014-05:00

Restaurant: Johnny's Cafe
Address: 4702 S 27th St
Website: http://johnnyscafe.com/
Genres: steak
Check Constraints: 18% for groups of 8 or more
Chain: No. | More Omaha Locations: No.

==Chamelaeon==
Ordered:

Cottage Cheese Spread ($2.75)
Luncheon Steak with Mushroom Sauce ($8.95)

Fries
House Salad with House Dressing

Homemade Bread Pudding ($3.95)
Iced Tea ($1.75)

There are some places in Omaha, or in any city, where Time seems to have decided that its work there was done, and moved on. These places are isolated oases of tradition; living museums that persist due to an almost magical quality about them. Johnny's Cafe is definitely one of those places. Originally a cafe for cowboys and other workers at the nearby Stockyards, Johnny's used its location to reinvent itself as one of Omaha's first steakhouses, and has been around for 78 years since. That's quite a legacy.

When I say Johnny's is a living museum, I'm only partially exaggerating. The decor seems to have become stuck in the late 1970s, and though the air smells a little musty the building itself remains elegant. I particularly liked the bronze sculpture set into the door, and the carpeting, but I'll hold off on further critique. This isn't geeks.rate(interiorDecorating).
The menu retains a little of the same antiquity... I have never seen cottage cheese as a menu item not paired with a fruit of some kind, and even that is restricted to smallish cafes and diners. It doesn't overextend itself, nor try to upsell itself as a ritzy chop house. There's something to be said for maintaining your place in the world.

The cottage cheese spread was interesting. Small-curd cottage cheese was blended with herbs and served with an assortment of crackers, and it wound up tasting like a sharper and firmer version of what you might expect out of a cream cheese dip. It's more than enough to share among several people, and as ND will probably attest later, it makes their garlic cheese bread more delicious. Even if you don't like cottage cheese, you might enjoy the spread.
The steak came in a clearly-homemade mushroom sauce, which had a heavy beef flavor and was very, very full of gelatin from the rendered beef. With sauces and the like it's hard to say how the average quality will be based on a single visit, but if the sauce is always this way, it may put off people who like a more consistent and liquid gravy. Still, the flavor was delicious, and it paired well with the steak. It was also good for dipping my fries into. The one downside is that the actual steak taste was overpowered by the sauce - if you're looking for just an excellent cut of meat, go with one of their dinner steaks (which you can order specially even if it's lunch time, just ask). The house salad wasn't much more than a pile of iceberg lettuce. The house dressing was good, but in this case didn't taste like much more than a simple vinaigrette, very heavy on the vinegar.

The bread pudding, however, was fantastic. I confess to not having had many bread puddings in my day, but this was certainly the best I've had thus far. A surfeit of cinnamon, raisins, and general spice went well with the Jack Daniels they use for flavor, and the texture toed the delicate balance between firm and mushy very well.

Johnny's is an interesting place to get an interesting meal; as long as you understand that and don't come here expecting white linens and $40 strip steaks, you're going to get some good food and come away satisfied.

==NinjaDebugger==
Ordered:

Garlic Cheese Bread ($4.95)
Roast Turkey with Stuffing ($6.95)

Side Salad w/house dressing.

Strawberry Cheesecake ($4.45)
Iced Tea ($1.75)

Cham is right, the cottage cheese dip is good stuff, at a really low price. Definitely worth trying. Their garlic cheese bread has a lot of two things. Cheese and bread. The bread makes Texas toast look kinda skinny, and they put a hell of a lot of cheese on top, and just enough garlic. Adding the cottage cheese dip just makes it even better, assuming that you, like us, enjoy an orgy of cheese. The side salad was an ordinary side salad, though the house dressing, which I opted for after a description of "a vinagrette with lots of garlic", is exceptionally good.

I sorta wanted to try a steak, but with my options seriously curtailed by love of mushrooms, I opted instead for the roast turkey special. It is pretty special, I will say. While the turkey was nothing amazing, the gravy and stuffing are what made it really worth the price. I grew up with the unholy concoction that my extended family called "stuffing", which consisted of bread and whatever crap they could come up with to throw in with it. Apples, raisins, and other, less delicious things found their way into that stuffing. This stuffing is nothing like that. It is pure. Bread, delicious juices, and a heap of equally delicious spices, baked into a mushy, but not too mushy mass. I was considering getting a container of the stuff to go, if that was possible. It would have been worth the price.

The cheesecake was a damn good finisher, though I think it's not quite as good as the wine sundae or the bread pudding. The strawberry sauce was almost certainly not homemade, but the cheesecake itself definitely was. It's not quite like any other cheesecake I've had. It has the texture of a whipped cheesecake, but the density of a standard cheesecake. it was odd and also delicious, but definitely not as good as that bread pudding.

Looking back, I realize that I got all that food for less than twenty bucks, and I can't help but think I got a pretty good deal. Johnny's definitely doesn't jack up their prices on account of being an Omaha landmark.

==Moogle==
Ordered:

Stockman's Steak Sandwich ($7.95)
Apple Pie ($2.95)

Ala Mode: 1 Scoop ($1.50)

I kinda liked the decor, honestly. It gave the place a very unique style and mood, even if it was really quite dark. The cottage cheese spread was pretty good. It was definitely something I hadn't seen before. The menu says it's a Johnny's tradition. It's a bit thicker than I had imagined it would be, but that helped it stay on the crackers better. It was worth giving a shot, especially at the price. The cheese bread was simple and good. Nobody has mentioned the sauce yet, but I believe it came with a marinara-like sauce that they others thought might be pizza sauce. Nobody has mentioned the shrimp either, but that's probably because Maple was the one to put it on his ticket. We split the cost of a bucket of peel-and-eat shrimp. They came in an actual pail over ice and came with some cocktail sauce. It was one of the most expensive appetizers, but you do get a lot. They were also simple and good.

The main dish came with a side, and I chose noodle salad. It came out first, with the other salads. It was a small bowl, but it was piled high with a couple types of noodles and bits of veggies. It actually had a really sharp and kind of tingly taste. Cham likened the flavor to the kimchi we had a while back. I agree, but only slightly. The tingling was the main similarity, and it wasn't nearly as strong. I actually thought the flavor of the noodle salad was really good.

I couldn't have asked for more with the sandwich. It is described like a Philly on the menu, and it pretty much is. It had beef, cheese and onion, but the steak pieces were thicker and there was more cheese. It came on a roll that was only a bit wider and about as long as a hot-dog bun. It was just crispy enough, and just the right amount of sandwich. The steak was tender. The cheese was plentiful. The onions were mostly hiding and don't get in the way of the rest of it. I really liked this sandwich. It did come with fries, but they were not really noteworthy.

They claim their apple pie is "better than grandma's", but I wasn't quite so impressed. There was also an option for cherry pie. It may have been better warmed up, but since I didn't ask for it that way, it came cold. You could add one or more scoops of ice cream. I think it could have used a bit of something, like cinnamon, but still it was ok pie. I'd recommend asking for it warmed up, however.

==MapleSyrup==
Ordered:

Prime Sandwich ($11.45)
Bucket o' Shrimp ($13.45)
Soda Pop ($1.75)

Jay and I decided to split a bucket of peel-and-eat shrimp, because they had a bucket of shrimp on offer. It came out in a small metal pail. I think the menu said it was 1/2 pound. As Jay said, they were simple and good, however I found the cocktail sauce a little underwhelming. It was ok sauce, but just didn't have the kick of horseradish I would have liked. I was pleasantly surprised by the cottage cheese spread. It was the size of a normal portion of cottage cheese that you might see as a side for one person, but with the thickening they did to it and the use of crackers, it went a lot farther than I would have expected.

For my entree I got an open faced prime rib sandwich. This translated into a half inch slice of prime rib laying on top of a slice and two halves of toast with a side of au jus and a side of french fries. It was delicious. The meat was just a shade off of pink and tender. The bed of toast gave a touch of saltiness that was well received. I didn't make much use of the au jus, because it really wasn't needed. The french fries were ok, but nothing special.

==Mecha==
Ordered:

Onion Rings ($5.35)
Triple Decker Club (w/Chips) ($6.95)
Wine Sundae (1 scoop) ($2.15)

There's a line of resturants in Fort Wayne, IN, that tend to carry a similar 'dark old-timey' feel (Hall's Resturants) and so this place was actually a nicer version of said decor, and I really liked that.

As to the food, the Onion Rings here were pretty solidly done, not slippery. Cham asserted that they probably used their Catfish batter to do the battering, which didn't make them bad. More traditional and a bit more flavorful than Mama's, but it depends how much you like that salt on Mama's. The shrimp were shrimp, simply presented and with an okay sauce. I still maintain that a bit of the Jack Daniels type flavoring on their shrimp would work well... then again, see TGIFriday's mass market Jack Daniels Grill. The cheese bread was solid warm cheesy bread, and I really didn't get a strong taste out of the cottage cheese spread, but it wasn't bad, even though cottage cheese tends not to do it for me.

The Triple Decker Club might be more accurately described by some as a bacon sandwich to some people, because the flavor was so strong... but there really was a solid balance of textures and some flavors in it, tomato and turkey both. And I always thought of triple decker as requiring three sections of stuff, not three pieces of bread, but they went the second route with this one. Still sizable and it tasted very good. I'm glad they didn't take the tomato out despite the salmonella scare. The chips that come with it are at least decent bag chips, as they seemed too homogeneous for home made. They did an excellent job with the bacon, though, crisp without being burnt. Thumbs up.

The wine sundae was interesting. It tasted like sherry, to me, over vanilla, which was a very simple but delicious mix. And it's the kind of thing one could easily do at home! If they had, say, gobs of sherry for some reason. Not that I know anyone like that.

The sum-up here is positive, and you may feel a little bit underdressed in business casual given the place's atmosphere, and we didn't get to try any of the drinks (stupid work lunches) but that's no reason not to give it a shot for lunch if you're in the area. It was a long lunch for us, but that's because we aren't so much in the area, and you can probably get it in at around an hour, hour and a half if you're closer and don't order a billion appetizers.

Harkert's BBQ

2008-06-23T15:08:00.007-05:00

Restaurant: Harkert's BBQ
Address: 4865 Center St.
Website: http://www.harkerts.com/
Genres: BBQ, Italian
Check Constraints: Short order.
Chain: No. | More Omaha Locations: No.

==Chamelaeon==
Ordered:

Large Carolina Pork ($6)
Curly Q's ($1.50)
Meatball ($1.05)
Pickle (Appx $1)
Diet Pepsi ($1.25)

There have been several occasions when, while driving down Center, the delightful aroma of smoking meat wafted into the car and caused a spasm of me craning my neck in an attempt to triangulate the actual source of the wood smoke. Once I determined it wasn't nearby steakhouse Gorat's luring me in, I finally took the time to discover that it was a tiny barbecue joint tacked on to the end of a strip mall. They cleverly hide their woodpile inside a square fence plot, making them that much harder to actually spot. So after several weeks of anticipation, Maple and I finally coerced the rest of the group into going for last Thursday's lunch.

Sadly, we were kind of disappointed. Don't get me wrong, the food I had here was good, and the smoke smell both inside and outside the joint made me drool like a drugged English Bulldog. But from the reports of the others, the sauce they chose to use for barbecue was not exactly the best. I agree, but I'll let the others explain why - I have a Carolina Pulled Pork sandwich to talk about.

Carolina BBQ, if you're not familiar with the vast spectrum of BBQ out there, is kind of a radical take-off on what most people think of as "barbecue". Like traditional southern BBQ, it's pork-based, but it eschews a tomato-based sauce in favor of a vinegar-and-chile-based sauce. When served as a sandwich it's often topped with coleslaw, and it was that way here. Harkert's does their vinegar as a marinade instead of as a sauce added to the pulled meat at sandwich construction time, so the tang was diminished, and lessened even more by the coleslaw. I'd have preferred a little more heat out of it, both vinegar- and chile-wise, but it was good nonetheless, and was a fairly large sandwich for $6.

The Curly-Qs were curly fries, and I don't have much else to say. Moogle's side was a far better choice, in my opinion. The meatball, though, was kind of amazing. It was, estimated, 4 inches in diameter, and came in a bowl of marinara. The sauce was average, but the meatball contained hints of both onion and cabbage and was rather good. You could make a meal out of three and some garlic bread, I suspect. The pickles are served out of a jar on the counter and was pretty good, as pickles go.

I'd go again, but from what I tasted around the table I'd wind up with the same sandwich and perhaps a different side, if I didn't try something out of the Italian part of the menu. And we have too many other places to go for me to start repeating food.

==NinjaDebugger==
Ordered:

Regular Brisket Sandwich ($4.50)
Curly Q's ($1.50)
Large Pork Sandwich ($6)
Dr. Pepper($1.25)

Big note if you're planning on going as a group. This place is cramped. If it had been a little busier, we'd probably have been left without a decent place to sit. I made Cham buy the pickle because I went first and forgot to grab one. The pickles are immense, juicy, and just the right blend of dill and sweet. If you insist on going here, and you aren't opposed to the very idea of putting pickles on barbeque, get one of these, slice it up, and add it to your sandwich. It improves the flavor.

The curly fries were standard Arby's issue curly fries, really. If I were a fan of jalapeno flavor, I'd go with Moogle's side instead, by a long shot. Unfortunately, this is where my good comments pretty much end, because now I have to talk about the sandwiches.

I'm going to start with the brisket. The brisket seemed a bit tough, even for brisket, much more so than the good stuff I got at Ozark. I'd like to say something about the quality of the smoking, but I can't, because the stuff was coated in an awful, overly tomato-ey, sour excuse for barbecue sauce. I dealt with it, though, and finished the brisket sandwich, and it at least wasn't drowned in the sauce.

The same was not true of the pulled pork. The pulled pork sandwich was an abomination upon the land. If you have ever had a proper sloppy joe, the sheer liquidity of this sandwich is roughly comparable to that. There was so much of this awful, sour sauce on the pork that you couldn't even tell it was pork. They could have substituted chicken, beef, veal, or rat meat, and I wouldn't have been able to tell. I would love to be able to give an opinion on the meat in general, but I never actually tasted the meat at any point, it was nothing but sauce.

If you insist on going, go for the Carolina pork, or something italian. The bit of carolina pork I tasted was pretty good. You might consider asking if you can get some meat, with no sauce, slapped on a bun. Maybe add a bit of pickle, or bring your own preferred barbecue. I really don't care if anybody wants to give it a second chance or not, if we opted to go there again, I would probably opt out.

==MapleSyrup==
Ordered:

#1 Pork Rib Snack: 5 Spare ribs, coleslaw, baked beans, bread & butter ($8.75)
Mountain Dew($1.25)

I was glad to see they actually offered fountain soda, not just cans from a cooler. It always annoys me when I ask for a soda for $1.00 or $1.25 and they come back with a single can and no glass to even pour it in.

I ordered one of their specials. It was 5 Spare ribs, 2 sides, and bread & butter for $8.75--not a bad deal for the portion. I never got any bread & butter, but I didn't realize it at the time. I opted for coleslaw and baked beans for my sides. The coleslaw was actually pretty good. It was a little sweet, pretty wet, and not terribly spicy. The baked beans were also pretty good. The ribs...they came slathered in a gritty looking, bright red barbecue sauce, which I didn't at all like. It was way too tomatoey and didn't have any spice. At one point I was gnawing on a rib and had a huge puff of tomato smell go up through my sinuses. That isn't right. This was all very unfortunate, because the ribs themselves were nice and meaty with a delicious looking pink hue, no big chunks of char, and a nice taste of smoke, and were overall very good once I wiped the rancid tomato off.

I recommend that, if you choose to order something that has a remote chance of coming with their barbecue sauce, you order it dry and bring a bottle of your own favorite sauce to top it with.

==Moogle==
Ordered:

Regular Brisket Sandwich ($4.50)
Spicy Taters ($1.50)
Diet Pepsi ($1.25)

I had the brisket sandwich as well, and my initial thought was that the meat was a bit tough. I didn't really notice it later when I got more into it. It was pretty well drenched in the sauce. I agree that the sauce was too tomatoey, but it didn't bother me as much as the others. I had a bit of ND's pulled pork though, and the sauce on that was way, way too much and really sharp. I can see why he didn't bother to eat most of it.

The side was cheesy tater tots with jalapeno flavoring. I didn't notice any actual jalapeno bits. They were pretty good and came out very physically hot. Once they cooled down, I could actually taste them, and they weren't very spicy. They're decent, but there weren't very many of them compared to what you get with the fries.

It seemed to be a local techie lunching place though. Almost everyone there seemed to be dressed for and talking about some sort of technical position. If we end up coming back at some point, I'd try something different for sure. In general, I thought things were "just OK".