Time to fill 'er up!

My husband and I were in Central New Jersey for a family wedding and went in search of food.  I opened up my Yelp! app on my iPhone to see what was nearby and saw Quaker Steak & Lube.  Just the name had us interested, and we saw it was well reviewed, so off we went.  We arrived to find what looked like a former service station, with all of the accouterments to match, including door knobs in the shapes of gasoline dispenser handles and a faux gas dispenser outside.  Inside there are race cars suspended from the ceilings, motorcycles, and motor-themed memorabilia.

We were seated by the manager who welcomed us to the restaurant, explained the menu, and told us about upcoming events.  Then our server came and exhibited the same hospitality, but we told her we couldn't attend the upcoming events as we were from Los Angeles.  Well the next thing we know, the manager is returning having heard we were out-of-towners and hands us two complimentary t-shirts, making sure to apologize for any size assumptions, as he'd like us to provide free advertising.  We were both overwhelmed by his kindness.

We placed our food and drink orders and then I checked us in on Facebook to report the kindness of the establishment.  When I did so Facebook then showed me photos from other check-ins and I saw that they have a drink that comes with a rubber duck.  I'm a rubber duck collector and immediately regretted ordering their Unleaded Lube-N-Ade (freshly squeezed lemonade).  So when the manager walked by again I simply asked if I could have one of the rubber ducks.  Within minutes he returned with two rubber ducks provided I give him Likes on Trip Advisor and Yelp!  Consider it done!  If only he knew I was an amateur blogger!

Quaker Steak & Lube is known for their wings which come in all kinds (traditional, grilled and breaded boneless) with over 25 choices of sauces to match.  I decided to go with one of their Custom Built Combos as my husband and I were craving their pretzels.  So I picked the 4 grilled boneless wings with their Award winning zesty garlic sauce Golden Garlic and 3 premium pretzels served with beer cheese dip.  My husband loved that the pretzels were appropriately salted, but personally I thought there was too much sauce.  But I loved the beer cheese dip.  And the chicken wings were moist and the sauce was perfectly garlicky.  I also loved that the wings were served on top of grilled pita wedges as the wedges absorbed some of the tasty sauce and I could enjoy it even more.

Custom Built Combo: premium pretzels and beer cheese with 4 grilled boneless wings

My husband decided to go with their Texas Cheeseburger Melt which is a 1/2 pound Steakburger on grilled Texas Toast with melted American cheese and bacon and their Boom Boom sauce, which is a creamy garlic and red pepper sauce.  My husband asked for Lube Chips, instead of fries, and it also came with a fried pickle wedge.  Apparently it was a very good burger and the Boom Boom sauce had a nice kick.

Texas Cheeseburger Melt (Steakburger, Texas toast, American cheese, bacon & Boom Boom sauce)

Our experience at Quaker Steak & Lube was unlike any other casual dining restaurant we've been to.  The service was over the top, and yet genuine.  The food was good, and the ambiance was exactly what you would expect.  We were disappointed we couldn't have dessert, but we did have a wedding we needed to get ready for.  If you're near Central Jersey and hungry, head over to the Quaker Steak & Lube in Brick for a good meal without all the fuss.

Beef, and nothing but beef

A few weeks back some friends of our tagged themselves at a restaurant that looked intriguing.  I think I might be using the term restaurant loosely with Top Round as they probably belong on Diners, Drive-ins, & Dives.  So an opportunity presented itself and we took a trip down there for lunch.  The restaurant is located on the southeast corner of a busy intersection, so making a left into the establishment was no easy task, but we were pleasantly surprised to find ample parking.

Ordering is pretty simple.  Outside is where you order your meal based off of the menu posted to the wall, and then inside is where you order your dessert.  There is covered seating outside, and ample seating inside as well.

First up were the dirty fries.  It should be noted that their fries are hand cut in their kitchen and cooked in 100% beef fat.  I can't say I noticed the difference with the cooking liquid, but maybe its because my fries with smothered with so much yummy stuff.  Provel cheese is created through a combination of cheddar, Swiss, and provolone cheeses and has a low melting point.  According to Wikipedia you don't see it outside of St. Louis, but I guess they are wrong.  Anyway, back to the fries covered in a hearty gravy full of beef bites and glazed with their in-house Round Sauce, which is similar to Arby Sauce, but yet, not the same at all.  I actually found myself going up to their condiment bar to get more Round Sauce.

Dirty Fries (curly fried cooked in beef fat with gravy, provel cheese, caramelized onions & round sauce)

The sandwiches come simply wrapped with identifying stickers on top.  My husband and I couldn't decide between two sandwiches, so we got both and shared.

Our sandwiches

First up was the Horse & Hole.  An interesting name, but perfectly describes the simplicity of the sandwich: horseradish and mushrooms.  I loved this sandwich.  Everything was in the right proportion and the roast beef was freshly cooked to perfection.

Horse & Hole (provel cheese, horseradish cream, roasted mushrooms, sesame bun)

I was a little nervous about ordering the Beef on Weck because I wasn't exactly sure what Atomic Horseradish was.  Ironically, I think they forgot to put it on our sandwich because I didn't notice any horseradish at all.  My husband actually had to go up to the condiment bar to serve himself some of their freshly grated horseradish for the sandwich.  Yes, I said freshly grated.  No horseradish cream at the condiment bar, Hooray!  I found the caraway seeds and salt a little overwhelming for the roast beef, personally, so I spent more of my time on the Horse & Hole.

Beef on Weck (atomic horseradish, caraway & sea salt bun)

We passed on any dessert this trip, though I am curious to try their frozen custard.  All in, this was a good meal.  We thought it was more out of the way then it ended up being, so our likelihood of returning is high.  Its a great place to go if you want a simple, good roast beef sandwich without all the fuss.

Oh My!

About six weeks ago I received an email from L.A. Weekly with the subject "Steaming burnt miso ramen."  Naturally I was curious and clicked to open when I saw that there was a review of restaurant called Ramen by Omae.  Now, I know of an Omae, but when I clicked on the link I was surprised to find out that it was the very Omae I was thinking of. Chef Omae is famous to the average American foodie for his role as sous chef to Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoto, but to true international food connoisseurs he is a twice-awarded Michelin starred chef.  So what's he doing in Sherman Oaks?

Serving the most amazing ramen I have ever had in my life.  I told my husband that I don't even think I can enjoy Pho after eating Omae's ramen.  We had actually eaten ramen twice before in this very same location under a different name, and the name is the only thing that changed about the place.  The old restraurant was dark with booths, and Chef Omae's has literally lightened up the joint and added crystal chandeliers above the table tops.  Its a better atmosphere to be dining in, to be quite frank.

First up my husband ordered some edamame.  Two things to note: 1) it comes cold, and 2) juice squirts out of it like nobody's business.   Other than that, its your basic edamame.

Edamame

In choosing your ramen, you only have a few choices: pork, chicken or veggie and then kogashi (burnt miso) or not.  Here's the description of what burnt miso ramen is according to the L.A. Weekly article. "Exactly what it sounds like. Order it and, behind the counter in the kitchen, cooks set explosive, leaping fire to the red fermented bean paste in a wok, before adding it to a tonkotsu broth that has been cooking for 40 hours. The milky, fatty, porky broth takes on a charred but sweet flavor, a lingering smoke almost like mesquite. It's absurdly seductive."  Yes, that's exactly what it is.  When selecting your ramen you also choose the type of noodle (yellow thick or white thin) and then how cooked your egg is (hard or soft boiled).  With no originality my husband and I both selected the pork kogashi ramen with yellow thick noodles and a soft boiled egg, and its probably a good thing we did as there was not going to be any sharing at the table.

After a few minutes one of the bowl of ramen appears and smells amazing.  I took my soup spoon and dipped it into the broth to take a sip, and was overwhelmed by the flavor coming from a broth.  I had died and gone to ramen heaven.  I then used my chopsticks to pull of a small bite of the pork, and in my mouth I tasted quite potentially the most flavorful pork ever.  My husband compared it to bacon, with its sweet and salty flavor, but it reminded me a little bit more of what Chinese barbecue pork should taste like.  Sadly the bowl only came with two slices.

Pork burnt kogashi miso ramen with yellow thick noodles and a soft boiled egg

My husband finished his bowl, but I brought half of mine home to enjoy later.  We immediately declared that we would be returning, and only half-joked that we would be back tonight for dinner.  There are many other ways to enjoy your ramen either with add-ons or their "make your own ramen" menu selection.  I can't imagine having anything except the kogashi again, but I should try to branch out and who knows, maybe I'll find that Omae has even more up his sleeve.

Other items should be noted.  The restaurant is honest about the hours its open.  For example, its open from noon to 3pm for lunch, but that means the last serving is at 3pm as they close the restaurant at 3:30pm.  Also, on the chalk board wall decoration they advertise that if you pay for your meal with cash that they will give you a 5% discount.  And as I explained to my husband when he noted by $1.20 savings, I can buy a cup of coffee at McDonald's with that.

So in summary: Go directly to Ramen by Omae.  Do not pass Go.  Do not collect $200.

Country food in the desert?

For years I have driven past a restaurant along the 10 between Los Angeles and Palm Springs thinking that someday I gotta go there and try the food.  Well, that day finally arrived.  If you're familiar with the interstate route, then you know that in the city of Banning they have a KFC Buffet and a Starbucks drive-thru, but they also are home to Gramma's Country Kitchen.

If you read the Yelp reviews you think you are walking into a Cracker Barrel, but I wouldn't agree. I felt more like I was walking into a grandmother's home with all of the knick knacks on the wall, and the brick fireplace in the middle of one of the dining rooms.  They also have a display case showing off their homemade pies and cakes which I so desperately wanted to try, but my diet wouldn't allow.  Instead I was excited to see what was on the menu.

The general look and feel of Gramma's

I ordered the open faced meatloaf sandwich for my dinner.  It automatically came with mashed potatoes, but I had a choice for my other side and surprisingly chose carrots.  I say surprisingly because I really don't like cooked carrots, but these were extremely tasty.  They weren't overcooked and they weren't sickenly sweet, two of the things I hate most about cooked carrots.  Should I mention that I like baked carrots, as in carrot cake?  I digress.  The mashed potatoes were made from scratch and you could tell because they had whole potato chunks in them.  The meatloaf itself was thinly sliced (not sure how one does that) and sat on top of two slices of white bread and smothered in gravy.  It was exactly what I needed, though I realized on the car ride back to LA that the meal had been very salty and that I needed fluid and/or something sweet to take the salty flavor from my mouth.

Open Faced Meatloaf Sandwich with carrots and mashed potatoes.

 

My husband, on the other hand, decided to go with breakfast.  He selected an omelette with his two sides being hash browns and biscuits and gravy.  I snagged a bite of the biscuit and it seemed more cakelike than flaky, but I'm not complaining.  The gravy didn't seem to have much flavor though, and there weren't any sausage nuggets inside.

 

Biscuit with country gravy

 

 

As for the omelette, my husband told me it seemed more like a scramble than an omelette, but that it was still really good.

The Kitchen Sink Omelette (country ham, crispy bacon, tender beef, sausage, green onions & cheese)

If you want a simple, good meal and are driving on the 10 near Cabazon, I recommend pulling over at Gramma's.  I personally can't wait to go back once I'm off this diet and really get to enjoy the menu.  I'll be sure to post a new story when I do.

Bibim-YUM!

I love Korean food.  I grew up with Korean food as our neighbors were Korean.  And it saddens me that Korean food is not nearly as popular or as accessible as it should be.  But there are oftentimes when I just crave it.  So I used Yelp to try and find the closest quality Korean restaurant near my home one Saturday and found myself at the Greenland Market Shopping Center in Van Nuys.  There are many restaurants there, but the one stuck in the corner with the sign with two Korean letters and the word Evergreen is the one to choose.  In Korean the restaurant is called Cho Eun 조은, but it also goes by its English name, Evergreen.

You know how you can tell if you picked the right ethnic restaurant?  Look at the customers and if they are of the same ethnicity, then you picked correctly.  The restaurant isn't fancy, but I enjoy that aspect as it minimizes the "stranger in a strange land" experience since the restaurant is a true Korean restaurant owned by Koreans and serving food to Koreans, and not a franchise operated by someone whose family came over on the Mayflower.

As is traditional in any Korean restaurant, once you are seated and order food the servers immediately come out with a tray full of side dishes to nosh on while you wait for your meal, or to complement your meal.  In Korean its called banchan.  Banchan varies from restaurant to restaurant and probably even from day to day, but it almost always includes at least one form of kimchi (traditionally fermented cabbage in chilis).  It also often includes some form of bland soup, which I sometimes appreciate depending mostly on the weather outside.

Banchan (side dishes, including kimchi, bean sprouts, among others)

On this particular day I was craving glass noodles, or transparent noodles, also known as jap chae.  Jap chae is a Korean dish made from sweet potato noodles, stir fried in sesame oil with various vegetables, sometimes served with beef, and flavored with soy sauce, and sweetened with sugar.  I found Cho Eun's glass noodles a little on the sweet side, but it was still delicious and hit the spot.

Transparent noodles with vegetables

It might seem odd that I'm making a point of discussing the rice and even showing a picture of it, but because it wasn't the traditional white or brown, it deserves mentioning.  I'm not sure what gave the rice its purplish hue, but it certainly was tasty.

Rice

BBQ spicy pork is one of my favorite Korean dishes.  At Cho Eun its served sizzling hot like Korean fajitas on top of onions on a hot iron pan shaped like a cow.  Shaped like a cow?  Yup, shaped like a cow.  Well, its definitely a statement to serve hot pork "inside" a cow.  When we ordered two servings for lunch (one for each of us) our server made a point to state that they are large servings as if to change our minds, but to me it just meant "Yay!  More leftovers!"  And so I got to satisfy my Korean cravings for a few more days.

BBQ Pork in Spicy Sauce (marinated in special soy sauce and served in a sizzling hot pan)

If you want traditional Korean food that actual Koreans eat, then I highly recommend Cho Eun.  Its a friendly simple atmosphere with an easy to decipher menu.  Be careful not to be lured in by the fancy signage of the all you can eat Korean barbecue in the same shopping center and find the simple sign in the corner.  You'll be glad you did.

Mac and Cheese, Please

I can't recall how I learned about Elbows Mac n' Cheese, but when I did, I couldn't wait for the opportunity to try it out.  I mean, an entire restaurant dedicated to macaroni and cheese, its got to be good.  But the restaurant is in Cerritos which is closer to Disneyland then it is Los Angeles, so it wasn't somewhere that we could go to easily.  And then Alton Brown came to town.  If you didn't know, Food Network personality and host of Iron Chef America Alton Brown is doing a national tour and his Los Angeles stop was in Cerritos.  Hooray!  Dinner at Elbows is in order.

Before we headed south I did do a small amount of research on the restaurant; well, at least enough to determine that I didn't need a reservation and that it was casual dining.  What I didn't realize until we arrived was that the restaurant was more of a fast food establishment like a Panda Express or a Baja Fresh, then it was a traditional casual dining restaurant à la Claim Jumper or TGI Fridays.

We approached the counter and perused the menu above the ordering station.  It should be noted that the posted menu varied from the paper menu that they had available for you to take home.  I also didn't notice the menu addendum on the side wall that offered up combo options and a make-your-own mac n' cheese option.  So if I could make one suggestion to them it would be to shore up the menu so that its clear and concise to those who are new to their establishment.

I saw the green bean fries and turned to my husband to inform him we would be ordering them.  When they arrived they looked like they had come directly out of a frozen package and into the fryer.  They tasted like it too.  They had so much breading that it was impossible to taste the actual green beans.  And the breading itself didn't have much flavor, so it was necessary to eat them with the two sauces they were served with, but that were never described.  Presumably the sauces were ranch dressing and cheese sauce, but the ranch was from a bottle and the cheese sauce quickly hardened and even it was lacking flavor.  We didn't even eat half of the green bean fries as they were just a waste.

Green Bean Fries (seasoned and battered crunchy green beans)

I ordered the lobster mac, hoping it would be oodles and oodles of yumminess.  It wasn't.  First it was a game of Find the Lobster.  And then once you found the lobster, you couldn't really taste it as it was overpowered by the cheese sauce.  I don't know if it was the asiago or the garlic, but the sauce was so intense in flavor that even if I was hungry enough there would be no way that I could finish the dish.  It was just too one note and that one note was too strong.  I was happy every time I found a piece of asparagus as it broke up the flavor palate.  In the end I just gave up eating the mac n' cheese and searched for the remaining lobster and asparagus.  The dish was served with two tiny pieces of garlic bread, that while tasty, needed to be toasted a little longer.

Lobster Mac (real lobster and fresh asparagus in a rich Wisconsin Asiago and Parmesan cheese sauce)

My husband ordered the jalapeño mac which I was a little jealous of.  Actually when I saw that it resembled traditional mac and cheese I regretted not ordering the Elbows Classic.  My husband took one bite and exclaimed that it was very creamy.  I did get the opportunity to take one bite and it was a lot better than my dish, but I didn't want to commit to that much jalapeño flavor.

Jalapeño Mac (spicy jalapeño and Wisconsin cheddar cheese topped with jalapeño slices and fresh tortilla chips)

Overall I would say the dinner was a disappointment and not worth another trip, even if we did find ourselves in Cerritos in the future.  One positive I will say is that I liked that the mac and cheese was served in individual baking dishes that would be easy to take home as leftovers and reheat.  That's it.

Burgers, baby!

Michael Symon's last restaurant in Cleveland is a chain of casual dining restaurants specializing in burgers.  Most of the locations are in the suburbs of Cleveland, but there is one location in downtown Cleveland in the food court of the Horseshoe Casino.  I've heard that the menu is limited, but I didn't notice that as there were many options to choose from.  The downside of this location is that to enter the casino your bags are searched and you must prove that you are of age to gamble, so I'm not sure how you would be able to enjoy the food court if you're traveling with children.

In looking over the menu it was hard to decide which burger to choose, so I decided to go with the signature Lola Burger.  What's nice about the restaurant is that you can make any burger a turkey burger for an extra dollar which was great for me as I don't eat ground beef.  That said, this was the best turkey burger I have ever had as the patty alone was full of flavor and not bland as ground turkey is known to be.  The moment I bit into the burger the yolk of the egg broke and spread its yummy goo all over.  This was quite the filling burger and I should have probably only eaten half, but I didn't want to miss one decadent bite.

Lola Burger (burger with sunny side up egg, bacon, pickled red onions, cheddar cheese)

My husband, on the other hand, ordered the less traditional Kojak Burger topped with gyro meat and tzatziki.  I didn't try it as he went for the traditional ground beef option, but he told me it was amazing.  If I recall correctly there was an Mmmmm that emitted from his mouth as he chewed his first bite.

Kojak Burger (burger with gyro meat, tzatziki sauce, lettuce, tomato, onion, feta chees)

One order of Lola Fries (just like how they taste at Lola's) is more than enough for two people.  In fact, with us each eating our burgers in their entirety and sharing a milk shake, we couldn't finish the fries.

Drinks and an order of Lola Fries

We ordered the vanilla bean apple pie bacon shake because, where else are you going to get a milkshake made with apple pie and bacon?!  The shake is so thick that its served with a wide straw traditionally used for boba drinks.  The wide straw is also needed with this particular shake so that the actual bacon bits don't get lodged in the straw.  That's right - the shake isn't flavored with a bacon syrup, but rather with actual chunks of bacon.  Chef Symon, when are you expanding into California?  Of course as I type that, I think about my expanding waistline as a result of this trip and Chef Symon.

Vanilla Bean Apple Pie Bacon Bad A** Shake

I would highly recommend seeking out a B Spot Burger location if you're in the Cleveland area.  Heck, I would seek out any of Chef Symon's restaurants and am looking forward to our trip to Michigan next June for what will be labeled as a family wedding, but will really be an opportunity to try out his steak restaurant Roast.