Eating Out On the Road

"If you reject the food, ignore the customs, fear the religion and avoid the people, you might better stay at home."

We eat out more than we should.  We especially like trying new restaurants but other times like going back to old favorites.  The little privately owned hole-in-the-walls with packed parking lots draw our attention.  We have been surprised more times than not with fantastic meals.  We’ve also learned there are other places we don’t like to go back to so much.   We used to think if we liked something at one well-known chain that we’d like it at the next chain.  Well, that’s not so much the truth.  After all, they have different managers and different chefs.  Even though the food is supposed to be standard, it isn’t so much.

Chinese Buffets have never been our favorites.  It’s not that we don’t like Chinese food, we do.  I think it’s because we’ve been to too many buffets where the food appeared to have sat there too long, the restaurant wasn’t clean or …. one of my pet peeves, the shrimp (or prawns)  not deveined.  Most shrimp or prawns are scavengers eating particles of whatever they can find.  If the vein isn’t removed, you could end up with gritty sand or who knows what else as part of your meal.  That’s definitely not appetizing to me.  Anytime I order shrimp and this vein hasn’t been removed, it goes back.  I’m actually amazed how many restaurants do not bother to remove the “poop chute”.  Chinese restaurants are the ones that seem to remove it less than others.

One place we were really looking forward to returning to though was a Chinese buffet in Mesa.  It was the No. 1 Eastern Super Buffet.   However, we won’t be eating there anytime soon …. if at all again.  Sandie sent me an article about this restaurant.  It had been shut down  by the Health Department for many reasons.  Some of those reasons weren’t as important to me as the one indicating a large population of roaches lived there including in the dishwasher.

Shrimp and prawns are similar but not the same.  Here is the difference.

The Health Department inspects restaurants all over.  In order to stay open restaurants are required to be up to certain health codes.  These inspections are public records.  Most of the reports can be found on the internet.   I checked out the report for the month of October in Phoenix.   Restaurant failures in Phoenix for October.

A couple of our favorite shows are Kitchen Nightmares and Restaurant Impossible.  We’re always amazed when the kitchens are discovered to be filthy but yet seem to have passed previous inspections.  Perhaps, some inspectors aren’t quite as thorough as others.  The restaurants on the shows are always independently owned and run by folks struggling for customers.  Does that mean the big chain and franchise restaurants are safer?  Not necessarily.  I noticed on some of the prior inspections that a few well-known restaurants were also temporarily shut down while they cleaned up too.

There is no way a restaurant will let you inspect the cleanliness of their kitchen before you order.  Wouldn’t it be fun if we could?

Terry loves going to Cracker Barrel.  He especially loves their dumplings.  Most of the time they are perfect.  However, on a recent visit at a new location for us, the dumplings were runny.  That was certainly enough to turn him off.

Another restaurant we visited a while back with my cousin was Coco’s.  They had a prime rib special.  That’s what we ordered.  The vegetables were cold and so was the prime rib.  However, the baked potato was piping hot.  How do you deal with this?  If the prime rib went back it would have come back hot but well-done instead of medium rare.  The bigger issue is that you know the food has been sitting back in the kitchen and the correct temperatures have not been maintained.

Here’s another one for you.  While in Scottsdale we visited JJ North’s Buffet.  It used to be part of the Hometown Buffet.  We now joke that if we want yesterday’s food today, that’s where we’ll go.  Much of the food looked as though it was already developing a crust from sitting out. However, when driving by the parking lot is always full at noon.  I guess that just goes to show that sometimes a full parking lot isn’t a good indicator of what we might like.  Just because someone else thinks it's great doesn’t necessarily mean we will.

I’ve mentioned some places we’ve gone where we haven’t been happy.  There really are places we love going to around Phoenix.  We really like Joes’ BBQ in Gilbert.  For steaks Texas Roadhouse is our absolute favorite.  The Elephant Bar not only has fantastic food but their service is out of this world.  Then, another recent favorite is Charleston's.  They have the most amazing glazed carrots served as an appetizer.

Now that I’ve done nothing but talk about food.  I think it’s time to fix something to eat.

‘Tis life on the road.