Your Favorite Restaurants (1 Viewer)

[PNGBill]

I prefer to sit in the company of my own home with a good chinky and bottle of wine

You can't beat home cooked food and seldom can a restaurant make basic food, say a roast, taste like home cooked.

What is chinky?

 

[Vassago]

I prefer to sit in the company of my own home with a good chinky and bottle of wine

I second the sitting at home, but let's not limit it to a bottle of wine.

 

[ShaneMan]

Really hard to pick just one so I am not. I'll talk about two.

In South Dallas there is a BBQ place called "Sweet Georgia Brown's" Great food and large portions. Some of the best down home Southern country cookin'. Most BBQ places have only a few vegetables to choose from but this place has a very large variety and they are all good. Really good sweet potato pie.

The second one is in Irving, "Po Melvins". The sign says "down home southern cookin' New Awlin's style". Very, very good food. Not a huge amount of choices but what they do offer is really good. The back of the tee shirts that the staff wears says, "food so good it make you want to slap your Moma."

 

[The_Doc_Man]

Bob, forgive me for slightly redirecting the thread, but I think it is within topic...

I'm curious about other cities and their level of culinary competitiveness.

One of the things about New Orleans area that I believe is NOT common to all areas is the intense competitive nature of the restaurant trade - at least, I think it is less intense elsewhere. If you open a restaurant here, you had better serve pretty decent food or you will be out of business in a week from having NO clientele. Word of mouth here is awesome as a way to weed out the trash restaurants. We have a couple of local tabloid newspapers and lots of local web sites that very quickly spread the word about new restaurants. The critics are anonymous by permission of the tabloid management. So we have the "Mr. Food" or the "Underground Gourmet" or similar names on the by-lines. The only way that mediocre restaurants survive here is to specialize in a rare cuisine, but even then, if you are bad, you are bad - and word gets around quickly.

I think part of our uniqueness in the New Orleans food industry is because we have so many choices that any of us could very easily eat at a different restaurant of reasonable quality every night of the year if we wanted to, and still miss over half of the good restauarants in the city.

If you give people a good flavor for their hard-earned dollar, they will come back for more. If you give people dreck, they will never visit you again - and they will tell their friends. I've seen restaurants open and close again within a month, not because they were terribly underfunded, but because their culinary staff had no particular talent.

From places I have visited around the USA, I have noted that the number of restaurants per capita is lower elsewhere than cities like New Orleans, San Francisco, or New York. Have any of you noticed this condition or am I way off in my observation?

 

[rainman89]

Bob, forgive me for slightly redirecting the thread, but I think it is within topic...

I'm curious about other cities and their level of culinary competitiveness.

One of the things about New Orleans area that I believe is NOT common to all areas is the intense competitive nature of the restaurant trade - at least, I think it is less intense elsewhere. If you open a restaurant here, you had better serve pretty decent food or you will be out of business in a week from having NO clientele. Word of mouth here is awesome as a way to weed out the trash restaurants. We have a couple of local tabloid newspapers and lots of local web sites that very quickly spread the word about new restaurants. The critics are anonymous by permission of the tabloid management. So we have the "Mr. Food" or the "Underground Gourmet" or similar names on the by-lines. The only way that mediocre restaurants survive here is to specialize in a rare cuisine, but even then, if you are bad, you are bad - and word gets around quickly.

I think part of our uniqueness in the New Orleans food industry is because we have so many choices that any of us could very easily eat at a different restaurant of reasonable quality every night of the year if we wanted to, and still miss over half of the good restauarants in the city.

If you give people a good flavor for their hard-earned dollar, they will come back for more. If you give people dreck, they will never visit you again - and they will tell their friends. I've seen restaurants open and close again within a month, not because they were terribly underfunded, but because their culinary staff had no particular talent.

From places I have visited around the USA, I have noted that the number of restaurants per capita is lower elsewhere than cities like New Orleans, San Francisco, or New York. Have any of you noticed this condition or am I way off in my observation?

Another slight redirect.... Doc have you seen any change in seafood prices/availability because of the oil spill thats going on there?

 

[ColinEssex]

Another slight redirect.... Doc have you seen any change in seafood prices/availability because of the oil spill thats going on there?

I would think more food is now cooked in oil down there.

Col

 

[rainman89]

I would think more food is now cooked in oil down there.

Col

Haha. That made me laugh! Even though its a very serious situation....

 

[kevlray]

I do not know if these qualify as restaurants.

Superior Dairy in Hanford, CA. Best store bought ice cream. Very large portions. Single scoop can feed two people.

Don't remember the name, but there was once a bakery that the Menonites ran in Butler, MO that makes donuts with potato flour.

Excellent root beer at the Louisburg cider mill in (actually near) Louisburg, KS. Called Lost Trail Root beer. You can go online and get the order form.

 

[Fifty2One]

mmmm rootbeer!
Breuvages Marco also makes great root beer, it even comes in the old bale top bottles which is very unusual to see. Root beer is called Racinette in Quebec, they as well make Biere d'epinette (spruce beer) and Biere de bouleau (Birch beer). It is for sale in various places in Canada and a lot of places in Quebec.

I do not know if these qualify as restaurants.

Superior Dairy in Hanford, CA. Best store bought ice cream. Very large portions. Single scoop can feed two people.

Don't remember the name, but there was once a bakery that the Menonites ran in Butler, MO that makes donuts with potato flour.

Excellent root beer at the Louisburg cider mill in (actually near) Louisburg, KS. Called Lost Trail Root beer. You can go online and get the order form.

 

[Vassago]

I love Birch Beer, but it's not very common here in Florida.

 

[Fifty2One]

Perhaps someone imports Marco in the SnowBird zones where the Quebecois culminate for the winter... look for restaurants in CondoVille [Miami or Tampa] with fleur de lys flags and poutine on the menu!

I love Birch Beer, but it's not very common here in Florida.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

As to changes in the price of local seafood... right now we are holding our own but that is because the main local supplier fisheries are to the west of the spill. We expect a certain lag time in seafood price changes based on availability. I'm afraid that we are going to end up with a dead zone to the east of the spill. The oil is blanketing the bottom "ooze" where a lot of phytoplankton normally live. They are the bottom of the food chain. Only time will tell whether this will ever be cleaned up enough to restore the seafood industry.

Colin, forgive me if I don't laugh at your attempt at a bon mot. It's just too serious a problem for me to find the humor yet. It doesn't help that it is BP as a major player. What's the matter, couldn't you guys forget about the trouncing you got in the late 1700s and early 1800s? So you waited 200 years and then fouled the seacoast through your BP flunkies?

Just trying to kid around like Colin does... but honestly I'm still not at all optimistic. We just saw on the news that the top-kill attempt failed. So it's back to the next plan. That would have been plan C or D. I hope they have a few more contingencies available.

 

[Dick7Access]

My wife and I travel in a RV from March to Oct. We get to eat at lots of places in lots of states. Our favorites are Chinese’s buffets, and BBQ. We have eaten at Chinese’s buffets in 33 different states. The best we like is in our home town, Ocala, FL. It is called “Super buffet” on Pine St., right near the police station. They not only have one of the biggest selection of Chinese food, including snow crab and steam clams, but off to one side they also have a small “Mongolian BBQ” which has on it all the usual veggies and meats, but also have small steaks which they will marinate for you any way you like it. All for one price, all you care to eat. For a big “Mongolian BBQ”, Lord willing in July we will be visiting “DB Mongolian BBQ” in Columbus, OH. It is on Saw Mill. It’s worth trying. In a few days we will be in Jefferson City, MO. Can anybody recommend something special there?