My wife and I are not complete slaves to the ADVG, especially if the kids aren't along for the meal. We also work in close enough proximity that we can meet for lunch at least once a week. This afternoon I surprised my wife by inviting her to lunch at the Gate City Chop House at 106 South Holden Road.
The Chop House has a wonderful, moderately priced lunch menu (it will probably be an eon or so before cheap-skate me invites my wife to look at the dinner menu). The dearest item I spotted on the lunch menu was $20. Most of the other dishes are around $10. The portions are gargantuan; the service is professional and lightning quick, and the food is fantastic. If you haven't tried the Gate City Chop House for lunch, you've really missed something (I'm not saying that to make you feel bad; we all need goals in life, and lunch at the Gate City Chop House should be one of them).
It took us a few minutes to settle on our orders--my wife from her unfamiliarity with the menu, and me from my familiarity with all of the great options. My wife ordered the crab cake sandwich with house veggies on the side, while I ordered the fried flounder with a fruit salad and onion rings on the side.
We passed on the She Crab soup, one of the Chop House's best dishes. Our only excuse for this grievous sin was that we really wanted the dishes that we ordered and knew (or in the case of my wife, was warned) that they wouldn't leave room for much else. On previous visits I've had the soup and get teary in wistful remembrance.
A distinquishing feature of the crab cake was that it had, um, lots of fresh crab. The cake was lightly fried, thick, moist, and sweet and served on a toasted, buttered roll with fresh lettuce, ripe tomato, a pickle (I grabbed that), and a pecan and mustard remoulade on the side. The steamed veggies were perfectly done and an excellent compliment.
The flounder was also lightly fried in a spiced batter and served on a bed of steak fries. The onion rings had the same light touch.
After two enormous plates, dessert was out of the question. Next time--and there will be a next time--we might opt for the soup and salad bar and leave room for the dessert.
My wife says the company could have been better, but otherwise it was a memorable meal (and in a good way).
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Friday, April 25, 2008
Shane's vs. the teenagers
Wednesday's are pretty crazy for us. Son #1 goes to the gym, while son #2 has music lessons. This Wednesday you could add an unexpected e-mail assignment at the office at 4:55 for me and some after-work errands for my wife. As everyone returned home, we faced two very hungry teenagers--walking garbage disposals, really--and a shortage of quick fixin's in the house. A two-for-one full rib platter ADVG coupon for Shane's Rib Shack, 4217-A West Wendover Avenue, saved our, um, bacon.
Shane's is a growing chain. A new store is set to open soon on Westover Terrace (great, as if we needed one more thing to add to the grand Wendover-Westover confusion).
The stores offer good food, big portions, and quick service in a clean setting--well, as clean as a rib shack can get--and at good prices. Sons #1 and #2 really like the place, and CWS Mom and Dad are growing to like it. Given the chain's growth, we're not the only ones.
This night we used one of the coveted coupons from the prestigious "dining" section at the front of the ADVG. Not casual dining, mind you, but regular dining. Very likely the same section of the ADVG that Bill and Melinda Gates clip their coupons from.
The teenagers both got the full rack rib platters, while my wife got a chopped pork BBQ sandwich and I got the chopped pork platter.
The teenagers' platters were enormous. The ribs for each platter were stacked on one plate, and the sides were stacked on another. I had a moment of panic, as visions of the ribs tipping the table over like the Flintstone mobile came into my head.
(Quick aside: Think about the theme from the Flintstones. Flintstones, meet the Flinstones. They're a modern Stone-Age fa-mi-lee... Okay, now stop thinking about it. You can't; nobody can.)
I also thought I saw just a hint of fear in the eyes of the teenagers, especially Son #2, who has only recently come into his teenage appetite.
It turns out that it wasn't fear at all, but most likely hunger pangs. The boys finished their huge platters about the same time as my wife and I finished our human-sized dishes.
From the little that I could see of them, the ribs looked great. We asked the boys about them while a few were still on the plate. Son #1 nodded enthusiastically with his cheeks stuffed like a chipmunk's. Son #2 was more prosaic, answering us with a full-mouthed "gorf." And who can really argue with that?
Shane's is a growing chain. A new store is set to open soon on Westover Terrace (great, as if we needed one more thing to add to the grand Wendover-Westover confusion).
The stores offer good food, big portions, and quick service in a clean setting--well, as clean as a rib shack can get--and at good prices. Sons #1 and #2 really like the place, and CWS Mom and Dad are growing to like it. Given the chain's growth, we're not the only ones.
This night we used one of the coveted coupons from the prestigious "dining" section at the front of the ADVG. Not casual dining, mind you, but regular dining. Very likely the same section of the ADVG that Bill and Melinda Gates clip their coupons from.
The teenagers both got the full rack rib platters, while my wife got a chopped pork BBQ sandwich and I got the chopped pork platter.
The teenagers' platters were enormous. The ribs for each platter were stacked on one plate, and the sides were stacked on another. I had a moment of panic, as visions of the ribs tipping the table over like the Flintstone mobile came into my head.
(Quick aside: Think about the theme from the Flintstones. Flintstones, meet the Flinstones. They're a modern Stone-Age fa-mi-lee... Okay, now stop thinking about it. You can't; nobody can.)
I also thought I saw just a hint of fear in the eyes of the teenagers, especially Son #2, who has only recently come into his teenage appetite.
It turns out that it wasn't fear at all, but most likely hunger pangs. The boys finished their huge platters about the same time as my wife and I finished our human-sized dishes.
From the little that I could see of them, the ribs looked great. We asked the boys about them while a few were still on the plate. Son #1 nodded enthusiastically with his cheeks stuffed like a chipmunk's. Son #2 was more prosaic, answering us with a full-mouthed "gorf." And who can really argue with that?
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Pie Works
My wife and I had an appointment after work on Friday afternoon that ran a little long. When we phoned home at the end of the appointment, son #1 answered and quickly offered that we would be much better parents if we arrived home with pizza. The dinner we'd planned for that night wasn't going to be fancy, and the ingredients would keep, so we gave in to the nudge. Because the appointment had taken us into northwest Greensboro, we decided to grab two take-out pizzas from Pie Works at 3700 Lawndale Drive (coupon in the ADVG "casual dining section).
I should say up front that I'm deeply and passionately ambivalent about chain pizza restaurants. There's nothing especially wrong with them, but they typically fall far enough down in the rank orderings of places to eat that we seldom find ourselves in one. Pie Works is such a chain, and I'm still ambivalent.
We hadn't been in a Pie Works before and weren't familiar with the menu. Pie Works' claim to fame is "pizza by design," which means that you can select every single one of the ingredients--crust, sauce, cheese, and toppings. They also have several pages of recipe pizzas.
Being a little tired and having come to the restaurant to avoid our domestic responsibilities, we were now confronted with the need to work out pizza recipes start to finish.
We're simple folk and have two standard orders: regular cheese pizza and a sausage and mushroom pizza. Son #1 occasionally tries to drag us toward the more exotic, like chicken or artichoke, but he wasn't along and would just have to put up with the standards.
My wife spotted a CheeseWorks pizza on the menu. She asked the girl at the order desk whether the pizza came with sauce and was assured that it did. Unfortunately, this turned out to be misleading. When we got the pizza home, we weren't able to detect any sauce. Mind you, I'm not saying that the sauce wasn't there. Like those senior Pentagon sources, I can neither confirm or deny its existence. Either way, the pizza was very dry.
We ordered the sausage and mushroom pizza from the design-your-own menu and got that with regular crust, tomato sauce, mozzarella and provolone cheeses, spicy Italian sausage, and fresh mushrooms (there were actually other sausage and mushroom choices). This pizza turned out closer to what we expected and better, having among other things, sauce.
Both pizzas had ample crust, about the same thickness as a Papa John's pizza or a Pizza Hut hand-tossed. Both also had ample crust bubbles and the accompanying bubble bald spots (yo, cooks, you can lance those things while they're in the oven).
Son #1 was very positive both about the pizzas and about our performance as parents. Son #2 was also positive, comparing the pizzas favorably to Elizabeth's and Napoli, while my wife rates them below that. I remain stubbornly, doggedly, and fiercely ambivalent.
With another nudge, we'll probably go back and eat in.
I should say up front that I'm deeply and passionately ambivalent about chain pizza restaurants. There's nothing especially wrong with them, but they typically fall far enough down in the rank orderings of places to eat that we seldom find ourselves in one. Pie Works is such a chain, and I'm still ambivalent.
We hadn't been in a Pie Works before and weren't familiar with the menu. Pie Works' claim to fame is "pizza by design," which means that you can select every single one of the ingredients--crust, sauce, cheese, and toppings. They also have several pages of recipe pizzas.
Being a little tired and having come to the restaurant to avoid our domestic responsibilities, we were now confronted with the need to work out pizza recipes start to finish.
We're simple folk and have two standard orders: regular cheese pizza and a sausage and mushroom pizza. Son #1 occasionally tries to drag us toward the more exotic, like chicken or artichoke, but he wasn't along and would just have to put up with the standards.
My wife spotted a CheeseWorks pizza on the menu. She asked the girl at the order desk whether the pizza came with sauce and was assured that it did. Unfortunately, this turned out to be misleading. When we got the pizza home, we weren't able to detect any sauce. Mind you, I'm not saying that the sauce wasn't there. Like those senior Pentagon sources, I can neither confirm or deny its existence. Either way, the pizza was very dry.
We ordered the sausage and mushroom pizza from the design-your-own menu and got that with regular crust, tomato sauce, mozzarella and provolone cheeses, spicy Italian sausage, and fresh mushrooms (there were actually other sausage and mushroom choices). This pizza turned out closer to what we expected and better, having among other things, sauce.
Both pizzas had ample crust, about the same thickness as a Papa John's pizza or a Pizza Hut hand-tossed. Both also had ample crust bubbles and the accompanying bubble bald spots (yo, cooks, you can lance those things while they're in the oven).
Son #1 was very positive both about the pizzas and about our performance as parents. Son #2 was also positive, comparing the pizzas favorably to Elizabeth's and Napoli, while my wife rates them below that. I remain stubbornly, doggedly, and fiercely ambivalent.
With another nudge, we'll probably go back and eat in.
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Not so positive on Positano
We took a break from the Attractions Guide this week and made a return visit to Positano, an Italian restaurant at 2605 Lawndale Drive in Greensboro. To answer the first question, yes, there was a coupon involved, but it came from the Grapevine advertising mailer.
My wife and I had been to Positano last fall and thought that the food and service were pretty good. The restaurant compared favorably to some other moderately-priced Italian restaurants in Greensboro. It seemed worth a return visit, so a few months later, I brought some business colleagues over. That visit was more marginal (and cost me my restaurant picking privileges at work for a month). With one good experience, one so-so experience, and of course, the all-important coupon, we decided to give Positano one more try.
We were seated right away but were immediately interrogated about our drink preferences (having an opportunity to crack open a menu, look at the wine list, or consult our lawyers would have been nice). Finding ourselves unexpectedly placed in the drink order lightning round, the kids and I shot back orders for waters and iced teas. However, the pressure was too much for my wife. As the waiter's gaze spun to her, she cracked, stammered, then went with the last response she had heard--a glass of water. As we took a breath and opened our menus, the waiter to snatched the untouched wine list from the end of the table.
We were ready with our appetizer choice when the waiter returned and also sought permission to look at the wine list. A few minutes later, when ordering the meals, we asked for a bottle of prosecco. The waiter trotted off, but was back a minute later to tell us that the last bottle had been sold the weekend before.
The appetizer was fried calamari with a tomato sauce on the side. I write "tomato sauce" because there were two giant chunks of tomato in a tiny bowl with a little bit of accompanying sauce. The tomato proved quite effective in blocking our otherwise reasonable attempts to apply sauce to the fried squid.
The entrees can be best described as the good, the bad, and the ugly. The good: My wife got the smoked mozzarella and chicken ravioli, and son #1 got the chicken parmigiana. Both of these were very good.
The bad: Son #2 got the linguini and clams, usually a safe bet. Positano gets good marks for using real clams, real lemon juice, and real garlic, but loses points for not cleaning the clams properly, not straining the lemons, and not tracking its garlic usage. A better description of the dish would have been linguini and clams and grit and seeds and garlic and garlic and garlic.
The ugly: I ordered the rotisserie chicken and received a somewhat unusual cut that included a huge portion of neck.
Eventually, activity slowed then stopped with our plates, and this neatly coincided activity slowing then stopping with our server. When the waiter finally did return, we passed on dessert. He was gracious about the coupon.
One must always look on the bright side about these things. In this case, the big plus is that the visit to Positano has cured son #2 of a nasty teeth-grinding habit.
My wife and I had been to Positano last fall and thought that the food and service were pretty good. The restaurant compared favorably to some other moderately-priced Italian restaurants in Greensboro. It seemed worth a return visit, so a few months later, I brought some business colleagues over. That visit was more marginal (and cost me my restaurant picking privileges at work for a month). With one good experience, one so-so experience, and of course, the all-important coupon, we decided to give Positano one more try.
We were seated right away but were immediately interrogated about our drink preferences (having an opportunity to crack open a menu, look at the wine list, or consult our lawyers would have been nice). Finding ourselves unexpectedly placed in the drink order lightning round, the kids and I shot back orders for waters and iced teas. However, the pressure was too much for my wife. As the waiter's gaze spun to her, she cracked, stammered, then went with the last response she had heard--a glass of water. As we took a breath and opened our menus, the waiter to snatched the untouched wine list from the end of the table.
We were ready with our appetizer choice when the waiter returned and also sought permission to look at the wine list. A few minutes later, when ordering the meals, we asked for a bottle of prosecco. The waiter trotted off, but was back a minute later to tell us that the last bottle had been sold the weekend before.
The appetizer was fried calamari with a tomato sauce on the side. I write "tomato sauce" because there were two giant chunks of tomato in a tiny bowl with a little bit of accompanying sauce. The tomato proved quite effective in blocking our otherwise reasonable attempts to apply sauce to the fried squid.
The entrees can be best described as the good, the bad, and the ugly. The good: My wife got the smoked mozzarella and chicken ravioli, and son #1 got the chicken parmigiana. Both of these were very good.
The bad: Son #2 got the linguini and clams, usually a safe bet. Positano gets good marks for using real clams, real lemon juice, and real garlic, but loses points for not cleaning the clams properly, not straining the lemons, and not tracking its garlic usage. A better description of the dish would have been linguini and clams and grit and seeds and garlic and garlic and garlic.
The ugly: I ordered the rotisserie chicken and received a somewhat unusual cut that included a huge portion of neck.
Eventually, activity slowed then stopped with our plates, and this neatly coincided activity slowing then stopping with our server. When the waiter finally did return, we passed on dessert. He was gracious about the coupon.
One must always look on the bright side about these things. In this case, the big plus is that the visit to Positano has cured son #2 of a nasty teeth-grinding habit.
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