Date Night at JTK

Posted on April 1, 2008

Don and I are both bartenders at a very upscale restaurant in the Lincoln Haymarket, JTK. Monday nights the restaurant runs an excellent special known as the “Date Night”, which consists of:

• An appetizer for two
• Soup or salad
• Two entrees
• A dessert for two
• A bottle of wine

All selected from a limited, but excellent, menu. Being as we both had the evening off, Don and I decided to take advantage of this offering. In a totally hetero way of course. And I brought the camera.

We started the evening off with a nice glass of amber Laphroaig 10yr, of which I keep a private supply behind the bar:

So delicious and smoky. Naturally this led to a discussion of scotches, a common subject for us.

Next up, our lovely waitress Amber brought out the appetizer. We decided on the caprese:

Slices of tomato and mozzarella cheese, drizzled with balsamic vinaigrette. Sooo good, and so very simple.

Amber then brought out our wine. We selected the Stump Jump, a blend of shiraz and grenache:

An excellent basic wine from d’Arenberg in Australia, it’s not as strong as most shirazes (Shiraces? Shirazii? I’ve had this discussion before…), and is maybe a little fruitier and more balanced? I dunno, I’m usually talking out of my ass when it comes to wine, and I was already half lit up from the scotch anyways.

I should probably put a jump in here, because I’ve got a bunch more photos to go.
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Howard’s Pantry

Posted on January 25, 2008

Went out to eat at Howard’s Pantry the other night, one of my favorite eateries in town. The Pantry is an excellent source for good home cooked food at an excellent price. Located on 48th street between Normal and Van Dorn, it is a local institution that has been around for basically forever.

Stepping into The Pantry is really like going into grandma’s living room. The decor clearly hasn’t been updated since the late ’60s. And that’s a part of the charm.

The dining room.
It’s a restaurant that’s relatively unknown among those under the age of 70, but because it’s been around for so long it is beloved by the elderly. It is not uncommon to hear a comment about those damn dimmycrats or the colored or whatever.

Your typical Pantry patron.
The menu is your good old home cooked fare, a few different burgers and sandwiches, an amazing tuna melt, a fish sandwich, and their daily specials. Be sure to come in for the smorgas board buffet as well.

So many deals!

Their weekend specials.
I opted for the roast beef and potatoes on a slice of bread, along with a trip to the salad bar and a Green River soda. It was awesomely delicious, and they use these ancient metal plates for the salad bar that are probably made of lead or something. The food there is never disappointing though.

Mmmm. Roast beef, potatoes, gravy, and bread.

Green River soda. It tastes like green.

Be sure to give them a visit. The food is great, my dining companion and I both walked away full for less than twenty bucks. Good times at the Howard’s Pantry.

Crabby Bill’s Mini-Review

Posted on January 3, 2008

Disclosure: Among Crabby Bill’s employed staff, one waitress, one bartender, and something like four or five cooks are friends who used to work at the country club with me. I’ll try not to let that color my review.

Crabby Bill’s opened up this autumn in the Lincoln Haymarket, at 8th and Q. As the name implies it’s mostly a seafood menu, with a delightfully tacky decór with a seaside shack theme. My only complaint about the atmosphere was the awful reggae music, but with a set theme for your restaurant satellite radio you are limited in your selection. And they are unaffiliated with the chain of Crabby Bills restaurants in the south.

Being as I work just around the corner from this place, and I know a bunch of people there, I thought I’d stop in after getting out of work early (sorry Tyler). Steve already reviewed the place and said it was nummy, so that’s good enough for me. Oddly enough, they remembered him too, because he was taking pictures.

It was a pretty slow night there (and all over the Haymarket, really) so I just decided to have a seat at the bar. I ordered me a greyhound, as we were having a discussion about them at work earlier that evening, and I could use the vitamin C.

Looked over the menu, saw some good options but ultimately went with the grouper ($17.95). I probably should have taken notes, but I’ll do with what I can with my vodka- and cold medicine-addled brain. The fish was massive, filling up the big plate shaped like a fish. It was definitely more than I was expecting. It came with a side of sauteed carrots and some “spuds”. The grouper was doused in a citrus-y buttery sauce that if I recall right, had white wine in it as well. It was damn tasty, and almost more than I could eat. The “spuds” as they call them, were big chunks of potato in a creamy-cheesy-oniony-bacony au gratin affair that, apparently got some bad reviews but I thought they were quite good. I’d eat ‘em again. And the carrots, so gooood, made exactly like my grandma used to make them. Like for real, she prepared them exactly the same as these were. I have to say I was impressed with my fish, though I was told by the chef that next time, I have to try the tuna. So I will be going back, after I hit up a couple of the other Haymarket restaurants for sure.

Mmmmm Sammiches at Roost

Posted on August 21, 2007

Foxspit and Beerorkid over at Beeorkid.com decided to have a luncheon at Roost Sandwiches yesterday, and invited the rest of the gang along. Being as it’s been a while since I’ve eaten lunch downtown, and being as I love sandwiches, I went. Though I had to stop at a car wash to get some quarters first for parking, ‘cuz I forgot to bring some.

I got a Presto Pesto chicken sandwich. Chicken, pesto parmesan sauce, lettuce, and roma tomatoes on an 8″ baguette. It was very yummy. I also got some baked pita chips that basically sucked. But the sammich was awesome, if not a little on the small side. Sandwich, chips and an Arnold Palmer all for six bucks. Not a bad lunch I’d say, combined with the good company I keep.

This was also my first time editing photos with the new iPhoto ‘08, versus with Aperture like I normally do. iPhoto’s photo editing capabilities are almost as capable as Aperture’s (though Aperture’s awesome spot removal tool is absent), except for the saturation adjustment, which adds a weird plastic-ness in addition to adjusting color. All in all though it’s handy enough for me to stick with iPhoto ‘08 for management and editing. As usual, check the Flickr stream for a few more pictures, as well as the storm pictures from last night.

Raising Cane’s: A Brief Review

Posted on July 31, 2006

Raising Cane’s is a new fast food restaurant that opened up in town last month. They’ve been around for 10 years (I think that’s what the cup said, their website is kind of uninformative) with locations primarily in the South and Midwest. Their focus is chicken fingers, with a menu consisting of: chicken fingers, and a chicken finger sandwich. Options for sides are: cole slaw, fries, and toast. A very limited menu. But what they do, they do well.

I opted for the Box Combo, which consists of four strips. fries, cole slaw, a piece of toast, and a cup of the Cane sauce. The strips were very good. They cut them from fresh chicken breasts on site and marinate them for 24 hours before preparation. The breading was soft, but not soggy, and not too thick or gummy. The fries were quite good. They weren’t too crisp or too wormy, and they were well-seasoned, which is a good thing because I didn’t have any ketchup. As for the cole slaw, it was very crisp and fresh; I’m guessing they prepare it on site as well. I am accustomed to (and prefer) a little sweeter slaw, but it was still very good. The toast was a little moist from the humidity inside the styrofoam container. The box has little vent holes at the four corners to counteract this, but some humidity is still there. Not exciting, but it’s a piece of toast.

Finally, there’s the sauce. The sauce was not nearly as Cane raising as I had expected. I thought it was going to be a hotter flavor, but as it turns out it is very mild, with a vaguely southwestern flavor. Very mellow.

There’s only one thing about the restaurant that bothers me. But it really bothers me. They have got to come up with a better trademark. It’s a dog. Wearing fucking sunglasses. That’s the best they could do. A picture of a fucking dog wearing sunglasses. That’s lamer than lame. I guess it’s the owners dog or something, and the restaurant is named for the dog or something, but still. It’s a fucking dog in sunglasses. It may as well be wearing a fucking Hawaiian shirt. Christ.

Why Chili’s Restaurants Suck

Posted on November 20, 2005

Short version: I had one of the worst restaurant experiences there.

Long version, commence! First off, I know, it’s Chili’s, so it’s not like I should expect Spago or something. But the girlfriend and I had never been, and when we were trying to figure out what to do for dinner, a commercial came on so I decided what the hey, I’ll give it a go. We show up, and naturally I get the rock star parking spot right up front, ‘cuz I’m a rock star and all. So I’m thinking good start. Go in, get a seat, and wait a few minutes for the waitress to show up. I ask if they carry Amstel Light, because the cocktail menu is labeled into sections like “Yumm” and “Mmm” and such, and I don’t know which one beer falls under. Score one for Chili’s menu designers. The waitress doesn’t know, so she’ll go find out for me. She returns to tell me that they do, but they don’t have any, so I order a Bass instead. This seems to confuse her, but she manages to find out that it really is a beer and brings me one. She then goes to get my girlfriend’s drink, a glass of chocolate milk that ends up being slightly warm. But I digress.

We order our appetizer, fried cheese, aka mozzarella sticks. The girlfriend orders a sirloin cooked medium, I order a ribeye cooked medium rare. Sweet deal. At this point we haven’t gotten waters, so I ask the waitress, and she brings them. Some other guy brings us our fried cheese. I note that the marinara sauce is better than Applebee’s, which always tastes watered down to me. I’m a pretty fastidious guy (how’s that for a fancy five dollar word?) and I like a lot of napkins; we don’t have any so I got up and went to the wait station to get some myself.

Our food arrives, again delivered by some dude, not our waitress. This is one of my pet peeves. The girlfriend gets a sirloin, medium rare. I get a sirloin, cooked medium rare. But I’m not fussy, so I dig in anyways. It is then that I notice the butter they put on the steak. This nasty lemon-butter-ass concoction that almost ruined the whole steak for me. Fortunately I was able to push it off the side before too much damage was done. But seriously, it was nasty. The french fries were pretty good, I even ate them without ketchup, which to me is a sign of a good french fry. The mash potato would be best described as “crufty”. It’s got a hardened outer shell, and some dried up burnt bacon bits on top. Yea, it sucked too. We decided not to get dessert.

Bad food, worse service, and that crappy chain restaurant atmosphere (although it did not look as though an antiques shop threw up in there, which I will give them points for) basically adds up to me never going there again. Seriously, it was worse than TGI Fridays, and I hate TGI Fridays.

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