Favorite Restaurant and Favorite Dish

[REWahoo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by califdreamer Along those lines, has anyone eaten at a Luby's cafeteria? I think they're pretty much in the southwestern states. The food is really good and the prices reasonable. My fave is the jalapeno cornbread.

I'm guessing it's been a while since you've been to a Luby's. They were once a great regional cafeteria chain with excellent reasonably priced meals. They began to fall on hard times in the mid-90's, some say after the tragic murder/suicide that killed 25 people at a Luby's in Killeen Texas in 1991. http://www.rotten.com/library/bio/cr...eorge-hennard/

In a bizzare twist, Luby's CEO committed suicide in 1997 by slitting his own throat:
http://www.texnews.com/texas97/lubys032097.html

The chain continued to go downhill until it was taken over by the Pappas brothers in 2001. They "redesigned" the cafeterias and the chain continues to struggle. (And the food is just so-so...)

[LakeRat]

Matt's in Dallas. I can't get past their chile rellenos. The Dallas Morning News labeled them "the food of the Gods", and I must say I agree. The most wonderful Tex/Mex dish I have ever had.

[MRGALT2U]

Quote:

Originally Posted by (Cute Fuzzy Bunny) Sometimes its not just food that can screw up your palate.* I remember doing a little wine tasting in napa and after trying a 'symphony' grape from some winery (might have been clos pegasse before they 'became' anything), every other wine tasted weird and unpleasant to us.* For hours. A few days later I bought another bottle at a grocery store just to see if that was the cause.* Indeed, after just a few sips, any other wine just tasted hideous.

Oddly, many of us have the same reaction to your posts vis-a-vis
others posting here.

JG

[Ed_The_Gypsy]

Marshac,

(Are you still there? Damn, this is an old thread!)
We agree. The pepperoni pizza at La Fiamma (Bellingham, WA) is the best I have ever had anywhere. My boy agrees, too. I think he only eats pepperoni pizza and milk. He even tried to eat one in Tivoli, in Copenhagen. Big mistake. Danes have NO concept of proper pizza. (On the subject, if'n y'all get homesick for 'Merican vittles in Copenhagen, DO NOT go to the Hard Rock Cafe at Tivoli. We also went hunting for a taco once. Failure. The Danes thought the red sauce was supposed to be French dressing. Guess they had only seen pictures? When we lived there years ago, the best we could do was a burger at Burger King once a month.)

Uncle Mick,

Agree totally on the shrimp at Pasqual's Manale. Nice bar out front to eat ersters while waiting to be seated. Is it still there?

We had muffaletta at the Central Grocery once. Disappointed. We lived in Red Stick at the time. The best were from a little Swedish sandwich shop somewhere behind the big post office building (go figure). Really good ones from The Library tavern across the street from LSU, too. The cafeteria at the Exxon refinery made good ones, too. I bet that has been closed for 20 years now..

Favorite restaurant in Louisiana: A little Texaco gas station on River Road, south of Red Stick. I forget the name. Spillway crawfish (very large!) and the best bread pudding I ever had. The whisky sauce was smoking hot and so sweet youor teeth hurt. You could buy your tractor tires and dinner and put them on the same Texaco card.

For those who ain't been there, if you like to eat, you wil love Louisiana. Shrimp, oysters, crawfish, etc., etc. I am going to see if I can get a webcast of KBON from Eunice (www.KBON.com) now. I am missing La a lot at the moment, mourning the late, great city of NO.

Yes, I try to recreate my favorite dishes at home. Damned hard to find Cajun food some places. (There IS going to be a Jambalaya cook-off at a pub down the street here in Downtown Calgary this coming week. I hope I am not up at Ft Mac that day.) I whipped up a very popular bread pudding with genuine whiskey sauce at Xmas.

Favorite Cajun restaurant in Canada: Da-De-Ohs on Whyte Ave in Edmonton, AB.
Good for jambalaya.

Favorite Cajun restaurant in Tennessee: The Crazy Cajun, between Kingsport and Johnson City. Great bread pudding.

LRS,

Agree on Czech beer. Pilsner Urquel is my favorite bottled beer. It is ON TAP (!) at the Archer Ale House in Fairhaven (Bellingham), WA, however. The Archer is one of my all-time favorite watering holes. Another is the Ups-and-Downs, a British-style pub in Sarnia, Ontario.

Best steak: The best steak I ever had was reindeer at Hereferd Beefstow in Copenhagen.

Best barbecue: World-famous Peeble's in Auburndale, Florida. No question about it.

Best coffee: Believe it or not, the coffee out of the machine at the restaurant in IKEA is exceptional. Reminds me of the coffee in Denmark, which also was exceptional. I have never been able to come close on my own. Don't know what the secret is.

Best espresso: At the Blackwater Cafe in Sarnia, Ontario. Never found one in Seattle that didn't taste burned. They say that Seattle is not a coffee town; it is a milk town (lattes, etc.) Tony's in Bellingham is OK.

Seafood. Hard to say. Having grown up in the Pacific Northwest, lived in Florida, Louisiana, Texas and Denmark, have had some sweet, sweet fish over the years. Oysters: All-time favorite is Olympia oysters, neat. I hope they aren't extinct yet. My dad introduced them to me at the Olympia Oyster House about 45 years ago. (More recently had wonderful 'red oysters' on Whidbey Island. Big, meaty. Five to the pound, shelled, swear-to-god. Weighed them for a lark. Made terrific oyster stew. Sorry, that was at a backyard party, not a restaurant.) Geoduc at The Oyster House on Chuckanut Drive, south of Bellingham. (Maybe the experience was more memorable than the 'king clam', but it was a package.) Ah! VERY good oyster house in Seattle called The Brooklyn. Get an education in oysters there. We made a pilgrimmage there every year for years.

Mexican food: Don't go out for that much. Get it at home. When visiting Colorado, the family feeds us like kings with the authentic stuff. Tio Plutarcho grows his own peppers. It works out; I make him dyn-o-mite margaritas.

Sorry. I got carried away. I have been incommunicado for a couple of months and am catching up, too. Hi there, guys.

Cheers,

Ed

[Ed_The_Gypsy]

Back again. Didn't mean to post, meant to preview.

Best barbecue in Seattle area: Dixie's Barbecue in Bellevue, under I-405. Three Pigs in Bellevue is close. Don't bother going anywhere else. Dixie's used to be Porter's Transmission Shop. Porter is a black man from Baton Rouge originally who cooked for picnics for his church and was finally persueded to open a lunch spot which became wildly successful. The Seahawks training camp is in Kirkland next door and they found Dixie's. They are the REALLY BIG guys at the corner table. Porter got tired of people telling him that his barbecue suace wasn't hot enough, so he researched the subject and found the hottest peppers in the world. Some kind of Scotch Bonnet, I think, from Korea, he said. Absolutely toxic. He calls it, "The Man". A bunch of us used to walk there for lunch. We were Porter's beta testers. Now you can get bumper stickers that say, "I met The Man at Dixie's Barbecue". His ribs and standard BBQ sauce are just fine, thanks.

Salmon dinner: Ivar's Salmon House on Lake Union in Seattle (they are closed for remodelling until March, I think). We love to eat there and watch the water traffic and the seaplanes take off. Any Ivar's has a pretty good clam chowder, too.

If Ivar's doesn't suit you, try Ray's Boathouse on Shilshole Bay in Ballard. At Ray's, get ice cream with blueberries for dessert. As I remember, it comes with an orange liqueur on it. Wonderful.

Cheers,

Gypsy

[califdreamer]

Quote:

Originally Posted by REWahoo! I'm guessing it's been a while since you've been to a Luby's. They were once a great regional cafeteria chain with excellent reasonably priced meals. They began to fall on hard times in the mid-90's, some say after the tragic murder/suicide that killed 25 people at a Luby's in Killeen Texas in 1991. http://www.rotten.com/library/bio/cr...eorge-hennard/ In a bizzare twist, Luby's CEO committed suicide in 1997 by slitting his own throat: http://www.texnews.com/texas97/lubys032097.html The chain continued to go downhill until it was taken over by the Pappas brothers in 2001. They "redesigned" the cafeterias and the chain continues to struggle. (And the food is just so-so...)

You are correct. I haven't eaten at a Luby's in over a decade. I had no idea they went through all of those unfortunate circumstances in the nineties. I'll try to keep my restaurant reviews more current

Best seafood: Water Grill in downtown LA.

Best sushi: Kevin in downtown Chicago.

Best Pacific Rim: Wild Ginger in Seattle.

[Ed_The_Gypsy]

Favorite cafeteria: Pickadilly Cafeteria, Baton Rouge. They used to serve a good crawfish etouffee on Thursdays, I recall.

Ed

[treypar]

Another great cafeteria is Bryce's in Texarkana. Of course why would anyone want to go to Texarkana?

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Quote:

Originally Posted by MRGALT2U Oddly, many of us have the same reaction to your posts vis-a-vis others posting here. JG

Got a bunch of mice in your pockets this morning then?

[BUM]

Quote:

Originally Posted by TromboneAl I've eaten at some incredible restaurants around the world, but I'm embarrassed to admit that my favorite is: Hometown Buffet Sheesh, I may as well just check myself into the old folks home.

Hi Al!

Yup went there. I couldn't help staring. Almost everyone was very fat and wearing a jogging outfit (here we call 'em run suits). Only jogging they were doing was back to the trough. Ever do any "double-dipping"? Get there and pay for a late lunch then hang around while they start serving dinner. Used to eat there every Wednesday... it was FIL's favorite.

[mickeyd]

Ed,

Quote:

I have been incommunicado for a couple of months and am catching up, too. Hi there, guys.

LOL, what have you been doing, eating all over the world? Very impressive list of eatries. I've only been to a few that you noted and they are gooduns.

[Ed_The_Gypsy]

mickeyd,

That is exactly what I do. Gypsy engineer, remember? I don't know the names of the places in Japan and ate mostly in hotels in South Africa. Ate in the guesthouse and hotel in India. I eat in a lot of hotels.

My wife and I like to seek out the local cuisine wherever we go and do what the locals do. We like to travel.

Actually, I would like to have a few more meals with the family than I do now. I make a decent living, but it is hell on family life.

Ed