Steak & Shake

Steak & Shake's GCB

Let me start by saying that I usually try to avoid reviewing chains.  Not because I don't eat at plenty of them, but because they are everywhere, and the general public has usually tried most of them already, so what's the point of a review?  (Okay, yes, I also did one of Waffle House, but I felt the need to advocate for it.)

But when I heard that Steak & Shake was offering a Garlic Double Cheeseburger, I had to try it myself and then share the results.  You see, I went to a certain university here in Indiana that's near a restaurant named Marvin's, which is famous for its Garlic Cheeseburgers (GCB's, for short).  They're a bit of an obsession for most of us alumni.

The original GCB

As you can see from the pictures, Steak & Shake's version is pretty different from Marvin's good old GCB in the looks department.  I will give S&S props for a pretty good bun (not their standard steak burger bun), and the meat is probably of higher quality than Marv's.  However, at S&S  butter is the featured ingredient on top of the bun (and throughout, really), rather than the garlic salt.  The original is much more dry and garlic salt heavy, in a good way.  S&S's was greasy and strangely tangy, possibly from something in the garlic butter spread they put inside.  Kind of odd. Both had standard American cheese on them, although I couldn't really taste it beyond the butter on S&S's burger.

Overall, the S&S burger was pretty good, even though I could feel my arteries clogging as I ate it.  But it was really no substitute for the original GCB, which in my unbiased opinion, is perfection.

Website:  Steak & Shake and Marvin's

Thai Taste: Revisit

Awhile back, I did a review of our favorite Thai restaurant, Thai Taste.  At one point, I mentioned that I also love the Basil Fried Rice.  Well, Tim and I went there the other night and that's what I got, so I thought I'd post a quick picture and review.

The rice is a bit spicy--that's standard (I asked if it could be medium, and the waitress assured me that it always came fairly spicy).  You can see bits of red and green bell pepper mixed in, along with strips of beef (you can choose beef, chicken, pork, or a combo).  The price for one type of meat is around $10, and the combo is closer to $12.  And of course, the star of the dish is Thai basil--whole leaves that are wilted into it.  It gives the whole dish a yummy, herby flavor.  I'm not sure what type of sauce the whole thing is stir-fried in, but it's delicious.  I highly recommend it!

Website:  Thai Taste

Sahm's Place

 Tim and I knew we wanted to go to one or two of the Chow Down Midtown restaurants, but we like to be sure we're getting a good deal.  A lot of the restaurants on the list you could easily eat at for $30 a person under normal circumstances, so you're really not saving any money, and that misses the point of the event.  Luckily, several of the restaurants were offering 2-for-$30.  That's much more our speed.  Sahm's Place was one of those, so we decided to give it a try.

Peppy Naners

 Sahm's was actually a pretty great deal.  For $30 we got one flight of Bier beers to share, a starter to share, two salads, two entrees, and a dessert.  Not too shabby.  The beer was great--Bier is by far our favorite local brewery, and to be honest it was one of the factors in our decision to eat at Sahm's.  There were tasters (from right to left in the picture) of Special K Kolsch (a German style lager), Weizengoot (a Hefeweizen), Smoked Brown (an American style Brown), and CLA (an American pale ale).  I liked all except the CLA, and that's because I don't care for the hoppiness of pale ales; Tim loved it because he does love hoppy beers.  The Weizengoot is one of our all-time favorite Bier beers (we've had it many times before), and the Special K is a solid and very drinkable lager.  Brown was good, too, with a definite smokiness to it (guess they named it well).

Hoggmann salad

On to the food...we got the Peppy Naners to start:  banana peppers stuffed with Smoking Goose garlic sausage and cream cheese, then wrapped in crisped bacon and topped with melty Muenster cheese.  These were pretty insanely rich, but delicious.  Think of a jalapeno popper on steroids.  There was some ranch dressing to dip them in, in case they weren't already enough to give you a heart attack.  The portion was one pepper per person, but it was enough, and was a great way to start the meal.

Pickled Belly

We both opted for the Hoggmann salad:  mixed greens with roasted tomatoes, small slices of capacolla, chopped cucumber and radishes, basil, and a parmesan vinaigrette. I would never have thought to put those items together (well, most of them), but it made sense and turned out to be a tasty and coherent salad!  Room Four often puts basil in their salads, and I liked it here, too.  Just adds an extra something.  The radishes were nice and crunchy, the tomatoes a bit sweet, and the capacolla a touch spicy.  The vinaigrette was also very good.  Thumbs up.

London Broil

 I got the "Pickled Belly" as my main--pork belly that was crispy on the outside but tender inside sitting atop pickled veggies (cauliflower, cucumber, and carrots) and a soy-sauce based broth, and topped with wontons that were stuffed with a spinach-cream cheese sort of thing.  Overall, it was really pretty good, although the pickled veg were cold--they clearly hadn't been warmed through--which was a bit jarring.  The broth was good but borderline salty if you got too much.  They had a good start on creating this dish, it just didn't come together completely.  Tim, on the other hand, loved his London Broil with fingerling potato hash, Swiss Chard, asparagus, and parsley butter.  He gave me a bite, and it was truly delicious.

Fortune Cake

  For dessert, we got the "Fortune Cake."  It consisted of a fried wonton that was stuffed with a sweet cream cheese mixture, and the whole thing was topped with chocolate sauce, whipped cream, and strawberries.  It was a nice combo of sweet and creamy and fried things.  My only complaint was that it was a bit tough to cut because wonton skins tend to be a little tough, and so all of the insides squished out.  But it still tasted great, and wasn't a deal breaker by any means.

It looks like Sahm's has some good weeknight deals, and they do a Tap Takeover with Bier Brewery every once in awhile.  Tim and I agreed that we'd have to give this Sahm's location another try sometime!

Website:  Sahm's Place

Waffle House

Yup, you read that right!  I am doing a review of Waffle House.  My family loves Waffle House, and we go there even when we're not on vacation.  I know most people recoil when they think of it.  No, it's not always the cleanest place on Earth.  But the breakfast food is solid, and it's incredibly inexpensive.  Our kids LOVE going there.  In fact, on this occasion, it was our eldest's choice for his birthday dinner.  

We do stick with the breakfast foods there, even when we go for dinner.  The regular meals might be just fine, but we go with what we know.  So I got a Texas Toast sandwich with ham, egg, and cheese ($4.40).  And it is just as it sounds.  It's a fried egg (I'm sure you can request the egg how you like it--I've had it over-easy in the sandwich before and it's delicious, if messy), a thick slice of ham, and American cheese all on two thick slices of bread and grilled with copious amounts of butter.  Not great for you, but certainly tasty.  I also got a side of hash browns (can't remember how much they are, but they're pretty cheap--definitely well under $2 for a side).  Theirs are the shredded kind, and are usually browned nicely on top and bottom.  On this occasion, they could have been browned a bit more on the bottom--the browned part is my favorite part--but they were still good.  You can, of course, order your hash browns a myriad of ways--chunked (with ham), covered (cheese), country (sausage gravy), etc., though I opted for plain on this visit.

Tim got the biscuits and gravy, which he always enjoys.  He got the smallest order, which is 2 grilled biscuits, split, and covered with sausage gravy ($3.30).  He also got a side of bacon for a couple dollars more.  Our youngest got the kid's waffle, which includes bacon or sausage and a drink for $4.00.  It's a regular-sized waffle, and he got chocolate chips on it for just $.25.  The birthday boy opted for a cheese omelet ($5.05), which came with toast (or a biscuit) and a choice of grits or hash browns.  He opted for extra toast instead of the sides.  (Didn't get a good picture of his, but it just looked like a cheese omelet and a tall stack of toast).

Even getting drinks for the kids (well, one drink was included in the waffle meal), our bill was a whopping $16.94.  I don't know many places where a family of 4 can eat for under $20, including most fast food places these days.  Pretty excellent!

Website:  Waffle House

Room Four and Black Market (Redemption!)

I know I review these places often, but since the menus change daily I am going to continue to give you reviews on them when we go there. For one thing, I want to promote them (especially Room Four) since we get excellent meal after excellent meal there. 

A week or two ago, Tim and I were out and about on a Tuesday night and wanted to grab dinner.  After debating several other locations, we turned to our favorite:  Room Four.

I got a tomato salad ($10) that was outstanding.  It doesn't look like much, but it was packed with flavor!  There were three thick slices of tomato which were ripe and tasted like actual tomatoes.  Then they were topped with some grated pecorino cheese, sweet vidalia onions, and red wine vinaigrette, and then sitting on top of all of that was an arugula/basil combo.  The vinaigrette was incredibly bright, and when it combined with the pecorino, which was salty, it just made the tomatoes taste unreal (clearly I never get any good, ripe tomatoes around here).  Basil is a no-brainer when it comes to pairing things with tomatoes, and the arugula added some peppery-ness.  $10 is a bit steep for some tomatoes and greens, but I can't regret something that tasty.

For my main, I got another one of the starters--roasted sockeye salmon with asparagus, roasted garlic, and pistachios in a red pepper sauce ($13).  There were also some microgreens sitting on top. It was a pretty small portion since it was a starter, but it was plenty for me when combined with that salad.  The salmon was well-seasoned and really good in the red pepper sauce.  I liked the pistachios because they added a nice crunch.  The asparagus was just asparagus, but it was well-cooked.  I mixed some of the roasted garlic cloves into some bites, and it added a nice sweetness.  Not the tip top fish I've had there (because salmon isn't my favorite), but still, a super solid performance.  As I've said, they do fish very well.

The second part of this post is just a few lines about our last trip to Black Market.  I forgot to take pics until late into the game, plus it was super dark where we were sitting, so I have no pictures.  But I have to comment on it, because they completely redeemed themselves in Tim's and my eyes after the last visit we had there (with the Beef Barbacoa that wasn't actually beef barbacoa).

We went with the specials for our entire meal.  They had a starter of morel mushrooms and ramps that had been 'melted' down to form an incredible tasting topping for bread--buttery and meaty and delicious.  It felt a little wrong to eat morels this way--I grew up eating them dipped in milk and flour and then fried--but the flavor was delicious.  For my main, I got the special Pad Thai of the day, which had salt-and-pepper fish fillets in it (can't remember the type--sorry!).  I am still dreaming of that fish.  It was well-seasoned and crispy but tender inside, and with the Pad Thai just tasted amazing.  Loved it.  Tim got yet another special, a type of fried rice that had pork belly in it.  He also loved that.  Additionally, one of our friends got the caprese salad (I think it was also a special) with the most amazing tomatoes (where are these restaurants getting their tomatoes?  I need a hook-up, please) and in-house made mozzarella.  It was also super good.  We kept saying, "THIS is what a tomato is supposed to taste like!"  I think our starter and the tomato salad were in the $10 range, and Tim's and my mains were each $23-24.  Not cheap, but certainly tasty.

Websites:  Room Four and Black Market

Food Trucks: Tacos Without Borders and Gigi's Cupcakes

Last week I was at a professional conference, and they called in food trucks to sell lunch to us since there are no restaurants in close proximity.  Genius!  There were about four trucks there, and they had to have made a killing.

One of the trucks was Tacos Without Borders.  I am all about tacos with an Asian twist--I enjoy West Coast Taco's flavors and really loved Tacorean when we visited DC (not to mention my most recent review--La Chinita Poblana), so I was excited by this Thai spin on tacos.

The tacos were $3.75 each or 3 for $9; I opted to just get two because I had dessert plans (second half of this post).  I chose the mild flavor (Sweet Chili Chicken) and medium flavor (Thai Chicken).  Both were topped by roasted tomato salsa, veggie slaw, green onion, and cotija cheese.  The mild was pretty sweet; I liked the medium better, I think.  It was a little sweet but had a nice spicy kick to balance it out.  I wasn't super impressed by the chicken, though.  It was all white meat, but some of the chunks were a bit large and a touch dry, making it harder to eat.  I suspect all of the chicken was cooked together ahead of time, and that the sauce they apply to it is done as they're assembling, because the chicken in both was similar.  I probably would have liked it better if the chicken had been slow cooked in the sauce.  But, overall, they were tasty.  I liked the veggie slaw a lot (I think there was broccoli and cabbage and maybe a few other vegetables in there), and the cheese added some saltiness.  I'd be willing to try these guys again; looking at their website, they apparently cook from scratch and offer a changing menu of different tacos.  I suspect they kept it simple (all chicken) to deal with the large crowds on this day.

For dessert, I got a Gigi's cupcake.  They had a long list of flavors, and I opted for the strawberry lemonade.  First of all, look at the frosting on that puppy.  It was really an obscene amount.  This wasn't my first time to have a Gigi's cupcake, and it's my main complaint with them.  No human can or should eat that much frosting on one cupcake!  Tim absolutely hates it when cupcakes have that much frosting--he rejects it on principle.  I do find it ridiculous, but it doesn't stop me from just knocking most of the icing off and then eating it.  I love me a cupcake in almost any form!

The cake portion was a fairly standard lemon cake--no fillings or anything special--but it was really moist and very tasty.  The icing was super sweet without much strawberry flavor, which made it more just a 'lemonade' cupcake than a 'strawberry lemonade' one, but that was okay.  The icing was topped with large-grain decorating sugar and a chewy lemon candy (love those).  I cannot remember the exact price, but I'm pretty sure it was, as all of those cupcake store cupcakes are, severely overpriced--I'm thinking it was around $4.  But I suppose I'm the sucker in this case, since I paid it!  Like I said, I like cupcakes.


Websites:  Tacos Without Borders and Gigi's Cupcakes