I'm a big fan of clam sauces, both red and white. If you're not familiar with clam sauce, it's a sauce that's either butter/cream based or tomato based with clams and is served over pasta. It's a pretty common item in the Northeast and almost any Italian restaurant serves their version of it. Like a lot of sauces, everyone makes a variation to suit themselves or their customers. I've had great clam sauce and I've had very mediocre clam sauce in restaurants that otherwise have good food. I've made several variations of it over the years and I think I've honed my recipe down to an acceptable product that I served for dinner tonight with fettuccine.
Ingredients:
3 ea. Cape May Chopped Clams, 6.5 oz. can, drained but reserve liquid (from Dollar Tree!)
1 ea. Hunt's Diced Tomatoes, 14.5 oz. can, drained
1 stick Butter, salted or margarine
1 tsp. olive oil
3-4 ea. garlic cloves, chopped
1/4 cup dry Sherry or Chinese rice Wine
1 tsp. sweet basil, dried
1/4 tsp. oregano, dried
1/2 tsp. Tony Chachere's Original Creole Seasoning
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. black pepper, fresh ground if possible
Method:
In a sauce pan or non-stick skillet, gently melt butter or margarine and then add the garlic. Simmer for about five minutes or so until the garlic starts to get clear. Then add the diced tomatoes, sweet basil, oregano, Tony Chachere's, salt, black pepper and all of the reserved clam juice you saved from when you drained the clams. Simmer for about fifteen minutes, stirring often. Then add the rice wine and the olive oil and simmer an additional two to three minutes. Next add all of the clams to the sauce, stirring in well. Let simmer for about five minutes as you're only heating the already cooked clams and then serve over freshly prepared pasta. Enjoy!
Notes: I decided to try the Cape May clams this time after noticing they were made in the USA. I'm afraid to use most canned clams as they are almost always from Southeast Asia and who knows what kind of water conditions they were harvested from. Cape May's are also cheaper than many of the canned clams you'll find in the grocery. I'm sure if you live in an area where live, fresh clams are available, they would be very superior to the canned varieties. I also always use Hunt's Diced Tomatoes as they are about the best you can buy and were the favorite among several major brands recently tested by a well-respected food testing institute.
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
Restaurant Review: Huck Finn's
Huck Finn's Catfish, Chicken & Steaks
3330 Parkway
Pigeon Forge, TN 37863
Phone: 865-429-3353
http://www.huckfinnsrestaurant.com/
We had a delightful dinner at this rustic-looking restaurant over the weekend. It's interior looks straight out of a old farmhouse rather than a Cracker Barrel. Seating is at tables with gingham tablecloths and straight back chairs that were reasonably comfortable.
Our server was a 'mature' lady who was very cordial and accommodating and explained their dining process. The food is brought out in a family-style sort of way (think Farmer's Daughter or Shirley's). The first bring you out bowls of white beans, tasty coleslaw, real hushpuppies, dill pickles with sweet onions and your choice of skin-on mashed potatoes & gravy or fries. One thing I must warn you about is not to overindulge in the 'Vittles' as they call these offerings before your fish or chicken comes out or you'll not have room for them! I'm sure the restaurant brings out these temptations first so that you won't have too many second or third helpings of the fish and chicken.
They specialize in all you can eat dinners of fried catfish, fried chicken or a combo of both. Individual dinners are available with quite a choice of other items including clams, shrimp, steaks, trout, even gator tail and frog legs. I'm sure most people opt for the catfish and/or chicken as an all you can eat dinner is only about $2 more. Prices aren't too bad considering the quality of their food which is quite good. Their all you can eat catfish, chicken or combo dinners are $14.95.
The catfish is boneless, grain-fed fillets rolled in a seasoned meal mixture that they bring in from Superior Fish of Macon, MS. If you like catfish, they are really good. I must say also that their fried chicken is some the best I've eaten anywhere. They use fresh chicken that's been deep fried and is amazingly moist even on the breasts and our server assured us that it's not pressure fried.
Our daughter ordered the Shrimp Calabash ($10.95), which was a half-pound serving and were quite tasty. The rest of our party ordered the catfish/chicken combos. A second helping of the catfish and chicken was all I could handle without being miserable. All of us came away with the feeling that we made a great food discovery in Pigeon Forge. My daughter and her boyfriend had eaten a few months ago at a newer similar establishment in PF called Bullfish Grill and came away very disappointed over the food quality, high prices and poor service. They said there was no comparison to Huck Finn's as it was superior in every way.
Take this from me as I'm picky about food: give Huck Finn's a try. With so many dismal restaurants in the Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge area along with the usual chain restaurants, why would you go out of town to eat at the same places you could eat at home or pay resort prices for bad food? That's something we try to avoid whenever possible.
3330 Parkway
Pigeon Forge, TN 37863
Phone: 865-429-3353
http://www.huckfinnsrestaurant.com/
We had a delightful dinner at this rustic-looking restaurant over the weekend. It's interior looks straight out of a old farmhouse rather than a Cracker Barrel. Seating is at tables with gingham tablecloths and straight back chairs that were reasonably comfortable.
Our server was a 'mature' lady who was very cordial and accommodating and explained their dining process. The food is brought out in a family-style sort of way (think Farmer's Daughter or Shirley's). The first bring you out bowls of white beans, tasty coleslaw, real hushpuppies, dill pickles with sweet onions and your choice of skin-on mashed potatoes & gravy or fries. One thing I must warn you about is not to overindulge in the 'Vittles' as they call these offerings before your fish or chicken comes out or you'll not have room for them! I'm sure the restaurant brings out these temptations first so that you won't have too many second or third helpings of the fish and chicken.
They specialize in all you can eat dinners of fried catfish, fried chicken or a combo of both. Individual dinners are available with quite a choice of other items including clams, shrimp, steaks, trout, even gator tail and frog legs. I'm sure most people opt for the catfish and/or chicken as an all you can eat dinner is only about $2 more. Prices aren't too bad considering the quality of their food which is quite good. Their all you can eat catfish, chicken or combo dinners are $14.95.
The catfish is boneless, grain-fed fillets rolled in a seasoned meal mixture that they bring in from Superior Fish of Macon, MS. If you like catfish, they are really good. I must say also that their fried chicken is some the best I've eaten anywhere. They use fresh chicken that's been deep fried and is amazingly moist even on the breasts and our server assured us that it's not pressure fried.
Our daughter ordered the Shrimp Calabash ($10.95), which was a half-pound serving and were quite tasty. The rest of our party ordered the catfish/chicken combos. A second helping of the catfish and chicken was all I could handle without being miserable. All of us came away with the feeling that we made a great food discovery in Pigeon Forge. My daughter and her boyfriend had eaten a few months ago at a newer similar establishment in PF called Bullfish Grill and came away very disappointed over the food quality, high prices and poor service. They said there was no comparison to Huck Finn's as it was superior in every way.
Take this from me as I'm picky about food: give Huck Finn's a try. With so many dismal restaurants in the Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge area along with the usual chain restaurants, why would you go out of town to eat at the same places you could eat at home or pay resort prices for bad food? That's something we try to avoid whenever possible.
Monday, February 20, 2012
Restaurant Review: Ozzy's Gyros
Ozzy's Gyros (Greek and Mediterranean Cuisine)
Kingsport Town Center (Ft. Henry Mall)
Kingsport, TN 37664
Phone 423-392-1170
Online Menu - http://www.kingsporttowncenter.com/pages/main/documents/OzzysMenuonly_000.pdf
Ah, the Ft. Henry Mall on a Saturday night. I've not been there for at least a year and still mostly tweens and teens in clusters everywhere. Still, it was worth visiting to experience Ozzy's. Ozzy's Gyros is a Greek and Mediterranean restaurant that opened in the Kingsport Town Center, which to everyone but it's owners' is the old Ft. Henry Mall in the split of the old Roller Woods between Memorial Blvd. and Ft. Henry Drive. The restaurant originally opened in the Johnson City Mall a few years ago in their food court area where I had my first encounter with them. From what I recall several years ago from a newspaper write up when they first opened in JC, the owner is an Israeli that somehow ended up in Northeast Tennessee. They had a pretty good product, as I love Greek-style gyros and about the only other place in the Tri-Cities that has them that I know of is the Mad Greek in Bristol not very far from BIR.
This restaurant is the second Ozzy's Gyros in the Tri-Cities. They have moved out of the JC Mall and very recently moved into a new location at 2203 Mckinley Rd. in JC which is just off State of Franklin Rd. near ETSU and the JC Medical Center. From what I overheard from one employee telling a customer, they moved out of the JC Mall because the rent had been bumped up to $5K a month! Considering they had just a typical mall's fairly narrow food court walk-up counter, I was amazed at that kind of rent money. Of course the JC Mall has probably four times the traffic at any given time compared to KTC, it would still require selling a huge amount of food just to cover the rent not counting the other overhead such as food costs, payroll, insurance & etc. No wonder they moved out of there. Johnson City Mall's loss is our gain. They moved last September into the old Chick fil-A location near Charlie's Steakery and Auntie Annes on the lower level and they also have inside seating which they didn't have in the JC Mall.
Greek as well as other Mediterranean cuisine is something that most in our area aren't familiar with unless they've either been to that region or bravely tried new foods in bigger cities. It's nothing like Italian and for the most part, it's a much healthier selection of foods compared to what we're used to. Ozzy's claim to fame is the Gyro, which is NOT pronounced "Gy-ro/Ji-Ro" nor "He-ro". It's pronounced "Ee-Ro". This is the original sandwich wrap that's common throughout Greece and the entire eastern Mediterranean area including the Middle East. In the UK it's known as a Doner Kebab and is a popular late night meal after pub crawling. It basically consists of a sizeable pita flatbread filled with a beef/lamb combination that in Ozzy's case has been vertically rotisseried on a real Kronos broiler and shaved off the loaf at the time you order. It usually has accompaniments of lettuce, tomato, onion and a wonderful dressing called Tzatziki sauce. Everything's wrapped up nicely in paper so that you can eat it without ruining your clothing. Tzatziki sauce is something that's a bit hard to describe but wonderful to savor. It's something like ranch dressing and yet so much more. It's made with garlic, diced cucumbers, yogurt and sour cream, olive oil, black pepper and a few other seasonings and is absolutely delicious. It also makes a wonderful salad dressing and there are many recipes on the internet if you'd like to try making it yourself. Greeks like to make it really heavy on the garlic, which I very much like but Ozzy's doesn't make it that intense so that you don't have to worry about offending your co-workers after lunching there!
Unlike many places (not around here) that serve gyros, Ozzy's puts a whole lot more meat on theirs than veg. I've had it other places where the veg was probably 75% and 25% meat. Not Ozzy's, they reverse it to about 75% (maybe more) kebab meat and 25% or less of veg. The way the meat is seasoned before it's rotisseried, the larger percentage of meat makes it wonderful. All of the small amount of grease/fat is drained off the meat during the cooking process so that it ends up being a quite lean meat product. The pita flatbread that they use is nothing like local grocers sell: it's thicker and of much better consistency and they have a panini-like press that lightly grills them before they assemble it. These are excellent gyros people!
Their prices are quite reasonable for what they serve. A beef/lamb or chicken gyro with fries and a large drink is only $6.24. The same choice of gyro with two sides and a large drink is only $6.74. They don't put the fries in to cook until you order, so they are about as fresh as you can get. My son ordered the lamb/beef gyro with the single side of fries and that was a lot of fries on his plate. The fries they serve are on the thin side, maybe slightly thinner than McDonald's. Sides are such diverse offerings as roasted garlic or roasted red pepper hummus with pita bread triangles, falafel, baba ganoush, dolma, fries and tzatziki sauce with pita bread triangles, tabouleh and Greek salad. Before I saw the chilled table that contained their cold sides, I had ordered the tabouleh but quickly changed it to the falafel. Their tabouleh looked to be at least 90% flat-leaf parsley with just a smidgen of bulgur wheat, which just isn't right. It should be at least half bulgur with parsley, onions, garlic, olive oil, mint & etc. The dolma looked good but were pretty small (finger-sized) and what can you say about hummus? You have to taste it to determine if it's good or not. My wife initially ordered the baba ganoush as one of her sides but they were out of it. Done right, baba ganoush is a wonderful seasoned eggplant spread. I was pleased to see that like the french fries, they also didn't put the falafel into the fryer until after I ordered and this side was of two pieces approximately two inches round, sort of like big hushpuppies. They had a noticeable amount of cumin in them, along with the foundation of fava and garbanzo beans and were quite tasty, if not tasting a bit more Indian than I expected. Even drinks are a bargain considering: $1.49 for a large drink, although they do charge for refills. Even their baklava was in a pan looking as if it was homemade instead something frozen, shipped in, thawed and put on a fancy plate as most places offer.
Overall, I'm quite happy with Ozzy's and so glad they are now a lot closer than JC or Bristol so that I can get a gyro fix satisfied without having to drive so far! The restaurant needs to spend some $$ to improve the ambiance of the place as it is a bit dreary with grey walls and bare concrete floors. It needs some posters, photos, paintings or something on the walls and some nice Greek or Middle Eastern music at a reasonable volume being played would also help out a lot. I have no complaints about the employees we encountered. They were quite friendly and even asked how our meal was as we left. All things considered, I'd give Ozzy's Gyros a strong 8 out of 10 rating based upon just the food. It wouldn't take much for them to bring it up to a solid nine if they made the investment. They're also on Facebook: just search for "Ozzy's Gyros" and give them a 'like'. I definitely liked them!
Kingsport Town Center (Ft. Henry Mall)
Kingsport, TN 37664
Phone 423-392-1170
Online Menu - http://www.kingsporttowncenter.com/pages/main/documents/OzzysMenuonly_000.pdf
Ah, the Ft. Henry Mall on a Saturday night. I've not been there for at least a year and still mostly tweens and teens in clusters everywhere. Still, it was worth visiting to experience Ozzy's. Ozzy's Gyros is a Greek and Mediterranean restaurant that opened in the Kingsport Town Center, which to everyone but it's owners' is the old Ft. Henry Mall in the split of the old Roller Woods between Memorial Blvd. and Ft. Henry Drive. The restaurant originally opened in the Johnson City Mall a few years ago in their food court area where I had my first encounter with them. From what I recall several years ago from a newspaper write up when they first opened in JC, the owner is an Israeli that somehow ended up in Northeast Tennessee. They had a pretty good product, as I love Greek-style gyros and about the only other place in the Tri-Cities that has them that I know of is the Mad Greek in Bristol not very far from BIR.
This restaurant is the second Ozzy's Gyros in the Tri-Cities. They have moved out of the JC Mall and very recently moved into a new location at 2203 Mckinley Rd. in JC which is just off State of Franklin Rd. near ETSU and the JC Medical Center. From what I overheard from one employee telling a customer, they moved out of the JC Mall because the rent had been bumped up to $5K a month! Considering they had just a typical mall's fairly narrow food court walk-up counter, I was amazed at that kind of rent money. Of course the JC Mall has probably four times the traffic at any given time compared to KTC, it would still require selling a huge amount of food just to cover the rent not counting the other overhead such as food costs, payroll, insurance & etc. No wonder they moved out of there. Johnson City Mall's loss is our gain. They moved last September into the old Chick fil-A location near Charlie's Steakery and Auntie Annes on the lower level and they also have inside seating which they didn't have in the JC Mall.
Greek as well as other Mediterranean cuisine is something that most in our area aren't familiar with unless they've either been to that region or bravely tried new foods in bigger cities. It's nothing like Italian and for the most part, it's a much healthier selection of foods compared to what we're used to. Ozzy's claim to fame is the Gyro, which is NOT pronounced "Gy-ro/Ji-Ro" nor "He-ro". It's pronounced "Ee-Ro". This is the original sandwich wrap that's common throughout Greece and the entire eastern Mediterranean area including the Middle East. In the UK it's known as a Doner Kebab and is a popular late night meal after pub crawling. It basically consists of a sizeable pita flatbread filled with a beef/lamb combination that in Ozzy's case has been vertically rotisseried on a real Kronos broiler and shaved off the loaf at the time you order. It usually has accompaniments of lettuce, tomato, onion and a wonderful dressing called Tzatziki sauce. Everything's wrapped up nicely in paper so that you can eat it without ruining your clothing. Tzatziki sauce is something that's a bit hard to describe but wonderful to savor. It's something like ranch dressing and yet so much more. It's made with garlic, diced cucumbers, yogurt and sour cream, olive oil, black pepper and a few other seasonings and is absolutely delicious. It also makes a wonderful salad dressing and there are many recipes on the internet if you'd like to try making it yourself. Greeks like to make it really heavy on the garlic, which I very much like but Ozzy's doesn't make it that intense so that you don't have to worry about offending your co-workers after lunching there!
Unlike many places (not around here) that serve gyros, Ozzy's puts a whole lot more meat on theirs than veg. I've had it other places where the veg was probably 75% and 25% meat. Not Ozzy's, they reverse it to about 75% (maybe more) kebab meat and 25% or less of veg. The way the meat is seasoned before it's rotisseried, the larger percentage of meat makes it wonderful. All of the small amount of grease/fat is drained off the meat during the cooking process so that it ends up being a quite lean meat product. The pita flatbread that they use is nothing like local grocers sell: it's thicker and of much better consistency and they have a panini-like press that lightly grills them before they assemble it. These are excellent gyros people!
Their prices are quite reasonable for what they serve. A beef/lamb or chicken gyro with fries and a large drink is only $6.24. The same choice of gyro with two sides and a large drink is only $6.74. They don't put the fries in to cook until you order, so they are about as fresh as you can get. My son ordered the lamb/beef gyro with the single side of fries and that was a lot of fries on his plate. The fries they serve are on the thin side, maybe slightly thinner than McDonald's. Sides are such diverse offerings as roasted garlic or roasted red pepper hummus with pita bread triangles, falafel, baba ganoush, dolma, fries and tzatziki sauce with pita bread triangles, tabouleh and Greek salad. Before I saw the chilled table that contained their cold sides, I had ordered the tabouleh but quickly changed it to the falafel. Their tabouleh looked to be at least 90% flat-leaf parsley with just a smidgen of bulgur wheat, which just isn't right. It should be at least half bulgur with parsley, onions, garlic, olive oil, mint & etc. The dolma looked good but were pretty small (finger-sized) and what can you say about hummus? You have to taste it to determine if it's good or not. My wife initially ordered the baba ganoush as one of her sides but they were out of it. Done right, baba ganoush is a wonderful seasoned eggplant spread. I was pleased to see that like the french fries, they also didn't put the falafel into the fryer until after I ordered and this side was of two pieces approximately two inches round, sort of like big hushpuppies. They had a noticeable amount of cumin in them, along with the foundation of fava and garbanzo beans and were quite tasty, if not tasting a bit more Indian than I expected. Even drinks are a bargain considering: $1.49 for a large drink, although they do charge for refills. Even their baklava was in a pan looking as if it was homemade instead something frozen, shipped in, thawed and put on a fancy plate as most places offer.
Overall, I'm quite happy with Ozzy's and so glad they are now a lot closer than JC or Bristol so that I can get a gyro fix satisfied without having to drive so far! The restaurant needs to spend some $$ to improve the ambiance of the place as it is a bit dreary with grey walls and bare concrete floors. It needs some posters, photos, paintings or something on the walls and some nice Greek or Middle Eastern music at a reasonable volume being played would also help out a lot. I have no complaints about the employees we encountered. They were quite friendly and even asked how our meal was as we left. All things considered, I'd give Ozzy's Gyros a strong 8 out of 10 rating based upon just the food. It wouldn't take much for them to bring it up to a solid nine if they made the investment. They're also on Facebook: just search for "Ozzy's Gyros" and give them a 'like'. I definitely liked them!
Friday, February 17, 2012
Restaurant Review: Saltwater Willy's Bayou Cafe
Saltwater Willy's Bayou Cafe
121 Jack White Drive
Kingsport, TN 37664
phone 423-765-1665
http://www.saltwaterwillysbayoucafe.com
Tonight my wife and I decided to get something out for dinner outside of the usual burger or pizza as she had worked quite late at her medical office. After picking her up, knowing that the usual wouldn't be very well received, I suggested we try Salt Water Willy's Bayou Cafe. It's located in the old Amato's building at the end of Jack White drive, which is directly behind Grand Furniture's building on E. Stone Drive.
This restaurant is owned by Wayne Michelli, who also owns Riverfront Seafood and is known to his fans as well as detractors as, "The Fish Nazi". He's a picky guy when it comes to seafood and you will pay for that quality.
When we arrived at the restaurant this evening at about 7:30PM, we had to search the parking lot over for a parking place, which we did find pretty fast. I thought this was a good sign as a busy place is normally doing something right as we're not in a tourist area. It also can mean that meat and seafood get a rapid turnover so you're less likely to get something less than reasonably fresh.
We entered the restaurant with some pleasant Zydeco music playing both outside near the door and inside the restaurant. The variety of Lousiana-flavored music at a reasonable volume level played throughout our meal was very pleasant and enjoyable. Our friendly hostess seated us quickly and didn't give me any crap for requesting a table. As some of you may know, I have mobility issues that causes me to avoid booths if possible. Unlike a previous trip to another nearby restaurant that was recently reviewed, she was quite accommodating. Surprisingly, there was almost no one in the restaurant that we could see. We found out that a local business was having a party in a private room and that explained most of the cars outside. We only
noticed one other couple in the main dining room with another that came in not long before we finished our meal.
Our cordial server, Brandy, quickly arrived at the table with our menus, took our drink order and asked us if we'd seen the appetizer listing posted on the board in the lobby. We had noticed one of them: fish tacos on special for $1. Being a fish taco lover, I asked her about them. She explained that they were pieces of fried tilapia with lettuce and pico de gallo on a soft taco and of a reasonable size. That sounded good to me and considering what some of the local Mexican places around here pass off as fish tacos, I was interested and later ordered one. I had a question about how the prices were listed on the menu. In the entrees, it would show something like: 9/13. She explained that the lower number was for a smaller portion and the larger price was for a serving that was twice the size. Fair enough.
http://www.saltwaterwillysbayoucafe.com/Menu.html
They've lately had an advertised special in the Thursday dining section of the Kingsport Times-News of "Two Can Dine For $20", and she explained it to us and gave us the special menu for it separate from the main one. Basically, you get an appetizer off the list, two house salads with choice of dressings and two entrees for $20. The selections of appetizers and entrees were reasonable compared to the regular menu offering. She neglected to tell us that the appetizer and entree portion size were on the modest size compared to the full price version.
They also had posted on the entry door another special running Monday-Thursday 5-8PM where if you bought two non-alcoholic drinks and an entree off the menu, the second entree would be free if equal or lesser in price to the first entree. A difficult choice between these two. After studying all this for a bit, we decided on the "2/$20" deal. We'd already ordered ice tea for drinks and selected the Calamari with Cajun Sauce for the appetizer. I went with bleu cheese for my salad and my wife chose the ranch dressing. I selected the Shrimp, Chicken and Sausage Jambalaya for my entree, which was supposed to come with a baguette. Sherri selected the Grilled Tilapia on Wild Rice with Broccoli. She chose the Cajun seasoning for the fish from a selection of plain, lemon & herb, cajun or you could have it blackened for $1 more.
The appetizer of calamari came out in a few minutes and I was quite impressed with the quality and taste of it, although not the portion size. It was barely enough for even what one person would normally expect for an appetizer and when I quizzed our server, she said the specials reduced the portion size. I told her I would've been quite upset to have been served such a small portion for $8, which was the price quoted on the menu. I wish I'd known about the reduced portion sizes of everything in advance of ordering. Still, the squid was cooked just right, not too done nor rubber band-like as most places manage to ruin it. Nicely breaded and quite tasty by itself, although a slice of lemon to go over it would've been a nice complement. The Cajun sauce served with it was a small ramekin of what looked and tasted like diced tomatoes with diced bell pepper that had been simmered together. Not what I was expecting at all for Cajun. It was okay in taste but not something I'd consider serving with a squid dish, mackerel maybe. Plain old cocktail sauce would probably have been a better choice, at least in my opinion.
The salads came in smaller salad bowls heaped up with the dressing on the side in little cups. The mixture of ingredients in the salads was nice but because of the small bowl sizes, it was difficult to mix the dressing in without flipping out salad onto the table. They would've been better to serve the same amount but in somewhat larger bowls. The bleu cheese dressing was very "bleu", which was a good thing as so many places bleu cheese dressing tastes mostly of ranch with a few crumbles of bleu cheese thrown in. The ranch dressing was deemed acceptable to my wife.
The entrees came out in a few minutes. My wife's Grilled Tilapia consisted of a good-sized and thick fillet of seasoned tilapia on a bed of mixed mostly white and a bit of wild rice barely bigger than the fillet. There was a number of good-sized florets of steamed broccoli accompanying it. My Shrimp, Chicken and Sausage Jambalaya came out on a plate layered only to the depth of the few small shrimp that were on it. I never did really notice the pieces of chicken that were supposed to be in it and can only assume they were there. The few pieces of Andouille sausage were thin slices that had been quartered. Possibly six small shrimp, neglible chicken and maybe three thin slices of andouille with rice, tomatoes and bell peppers. I guessed the actual serving size to be about two cups, maybe. It was pretty tasty though. The so-called baguette didn't arrive with the entree and I was almost finished with it before catching the server's attention to request it along with some butter. It wasn't a baguette at all that was brought out but a split-top hard roll with a chewy interior along with a small cup of margarine. Hmm.
Our server did come by with tea refills a couple of times without having to be asked which was nice. After finishing our entrees, she did tell us about the desserts and we chose the "Jimmy Lee Pie with Ice Cream", which was something one of the owners of the original Salt Water Willy's on New Beason Well Road of many years ago came up with. It was something like a chess bar in a 4" pie shell, drizzled with chocolate sauce and with a side dish of quality vanilla ice cream. While it was obvious that the pie had been microwaved (it was very hot inside), it was a nice dessert and the perfect size for us to split.
There was an abundance of staff on hand, along with the owner who did stop by to ask us about our meal and wishing to avoid a possible confrontation, I just said it was tasty. Considering the amount of customers, I'm sure most of the staff were on hand to deal with the private party. Our server was most congenial and among the best we've encountered lately. I guess I shouldn't have expected too much for our meal considering iced tea was like $2.29 per glass and if we'd ordered off the menu, we'd have spent close to $50 but had larger servings. As it was, our bill was $33.49 before adding a $6 tip. I would give this restaurant a 7/10 rating based upon my experience this evening.
I know that the owner has made it pretty clear to several I've spoken to over the years concerning Riverfront Seafood, that he doesn't really want, nor is looking to bring in the more budget-conscious customers that places like the new Fisherman's Dock in Colonial Heights, readily serves. I assume the same mindset also goes for Salt Water Willy's. However, I do know that every time I've been in Fisherman's Dock lately, the place has been full almost to capacity with customers lined up out the door for Sunday lunch. Several nearby restaurants employees, including a family member have told me that they've really taken a lot of their business since they've opened. I guess time will tell who has the better business concept.
121 Jack White Drive
Kingsport, TN 37664
phone 423-765-1665
http://www.saltwaterwillysbayoucafe.com
Tonight my wife and I decided to get something out for dinner outside of the usual burger or pizza as she had worked quite late at her medical office. After picking her up, knowing that the usual wouldn't be very well received, I suggested we try Salt Water Willy's Bayou Cafe. It's located in the old Amato's building at the end of Jack White drive, which is directly behind Grand Furniture's building on E. Stone Drive.
This restaurant is owned by Wayne Michelli, who also owns Riverfront Seafood and is known to his fans as well as detractors as, "The Fish Nazi". He's a picky guy when it comes to seafood and you will pay for that quality.
When we arrived at the restaurant this evening at about 7:30PM, we had to search the parking lot over for a parking place, which we did find pretty fast. I thought this was a good sign as a busy place is normally doing something right as we're not in a tourist area. It also can mean that meat and seafood get a rapid turnover so you're less likely to get something less than reasonably fresh.
We entered the restaurant with some pleasant Zydeco music playing both outside near the door and inside the restaurant. The variety of Lousiana-flavored music at a reasonable volume level played throughout our meal was very pleasant and enjoyable. Our friendly hostess seated us quickly and didn't give me any crap for requesting a table. As some of you may know, I have mobility issues that causes me to avoid booths if possible. Unlike a previous trip to another nearby restaurant that was recently reviewed, she was quite accommodating. Surprisingly, there was almost no one in the restaurant that we could see. We found out that a local business was having a party in a private room and that explained most of the cars outside. We only
noticed one other couple in the main dining room with another that came in not long before we finished our meal.
Our cordial server, Brandy, quickly arrived at the table with our menus, took our drink order and asked us if we'd seen the appetizer listing posted on the board in the lobby. We had noticed one of them: fish tacos on special for $1. Being a fish taco lover, I asked her about them. She explained that they were pieces of fried tilapia with lettuce and pico de gallo on a soft taco and of a reasonable size. That sounded good to me and considering what some of the local Mexican places around here pass off as fish tacos, I was interested and later ordered one. I had a question about how the prices were listed on the menu. In the entrees, it would show something like: 9/13. She explained that the lower number was for a smaller portion and the larger price was for a serving that was twice the size. Fair enough.
http://www.saltwaterwillysbayoucafe.com/Menu.html
They've lately had an advertised special in the Thursday dining section of the Kingsport Times-News of "Two Can Dine For $20", and she explained it to us and gave us the special menu for it separate from the main one. Basically, you get an appetizer off the list, two house salads with choice of dressings and two entrees for $20. The selections of appetizers and entrees were reasonable compared to the regular menu offering. She neglected to tell us that the appetizer and entree portion size were on the modest size compared to the full price version.
They also had posted on the entry door another special running Monday-Thursday 5-8PM where if you bought two non-alcoholic drinks and an entree off the menu, the second entree would be free if equal or lesser in price to the first entree. A difficult choice between these two. After studying all this for a bit, we decided on the "2/$20" deal. We'd already ordered ice tea for drinks and selected the Calamari with Cajun Sauce for the appetizer. I went with bleu cheese for my salad and my wife chose the ranch dressing. I selected the Shrimp, Chicken and Sausage Jambalaya for my entree, which was supposed to come with a baguette. Sherri selected the Grilled Tilapia on Wild Rice with Broccoli. She chose the Cajun seasoning for the fish from a selection of plain, lemon & herb, cajun or you could have it blackened for $1 more.
The appetizer of calamari came out in a few minutes and I was quite impressed with the quality and taste of it, although not the portion size. It was barely enough for even what one person would normally expect for an appetizer and when I quizzed our server, she said the specials reduced the portion size. I told her I would've been quite upset to have been served such a small portion for $8, which was the price quoted on the menu. I wish I'd known about the reduced portion sizes of everything in advance of ordering. Still, the squid was cooked just right, not too done nor rubber band-like as most places manage to ruin it. Nicely breaded and quite tasty by itself, although a slice of lemon to go over it would've been a nice complement. The Cajun sauce served with it was a small ramekin of what looked and tasted like diced tomatoes with diced bell pepper that had been simmered together. Not what I was expecting at all for Cajun. It was okay in taste but not something I'd consider serving with a squid dish, mackerel maybe. Plain old cocktail sauce would probably have been a better choice, at least in my opinion.
The salads came in smaller salad bowls heaped up with the dressing on the side in little cups. The mixture of ingredients in the salads was nice but because of the small bowl sizes, it was difficult to mix the dressing in without flipping out salad onto the table. They would've been better to serve the same amount but in somewhat larger bowls. The bleu cheese dressing was very "bleu", which was a good thing as so many places bleu cheese dressing tastes mostly of ranch with a few crumbles of bleu cheese thrown in. The ranch dressing was deemed acceptable to my wife.
The entrees came out in a few minutes. My wife's Grilled Tilapia consisted of a good-sized and thick fillet of seasoned tilapia on a bed of mixed mostly white and a bit of wild rice barely bigger than the fillet. There was a number of good-sized florets of steamed broccoli accompanying it. My Shrimp, Chicken and Sausage Jambalaya came out on a plate layered only to the depth of the few small shrimp that were on it. I never did really notice the pieces of chicken that were supposed to be in it and can only assume they were there. The few pieces of Andouille sausage were thin slices that had been quartered. Possibly six small shrimp, neglible chicken and maybe three thin slices of andouille with rice, tomatoes and bell peppers. I guessed the actual serving size to be about two cups, maybe. It was pretty tasty though. The so-called baguette didn't arrive with the entree and I was almost finished with it before catching the server's attention to request it along with some butter. It wasn't a baguette at all that was brought out but a split-top hard roll with a chewy interior along with a small cup of margarine. Hmm.
Our server did come by with tea refills a couple of times without having to be asked which was nice. After finishing our entrees, she did tell us about the desserts and we chose the "Jimmy Lee Pie with Ice Cream", which was something one of the owners of the original Salt Water Willy's on New Beason Well Road of many years ago came up with. It was something like a chess bar in a 4" pie shell, drizzled with chocolate sauce and with a side dish of quality vanilla ice cream. While it was obvious that the pie had been microwaved (it was very hot inside), it was a nice dessert and the perfect size for us to split.
There was an abundance of staff on hand, along with the owner who did stop by to ask us about our meal and wishing to avoid a possible confrontation, I just said it was tasty. Considering the amount of customers, I'm sure most of the staff were on hand to deal with the private party. Our server was most congenial and among the best we've encountered lately. I guess I shouldn't have expected too much for our meal considering iced tea was like $2.29 per glass and if we'd ordered off the menu, we'd have spent close to $50 but had larger servings. As it was, our bill was $33.49 before adding a $6 tip. I would give this restaurant a 7/10 rating based upon my experience this evening.
I know that the owner has made it pretty clear to several I've spoken to over the years concerning Riverfront Seafood, that he doesn't really want, nor is looking to bring in the more budget-conscious customers that places like the new Fisherman's Dock in Colonial Heights, readily serves. I assume the same mindset also goes for Salt Water Willy's. However, I do know that every time I've been in Fisherman's Dock lately, the place has been full almost to capacity with customers lined up out the door for Sunday lunch. Several nearby restaurants employees, including a family member have told me that they've really taken a lot of their business since they've opened. I guess time will tell who has the better business concept.
Thursday, January 12, 2012
O'Charley's, Oh My
O'Charley's
1920 North Eastman Road
Kingsport, TN 37664
(423) 246-8868
I got a $10 discount card in the mail today for O'Charley's restaurants. The way it worked was $10 discount on any dine in or take out bill over $25 not including their "2 can dine for $15.99" special. I hadn't eaten there in probably two years as none of us cared for the food or the attitude of the staff the last time. Unfortunately, not a lot has changed after our visit this evening.
We were met inside by the hostess who seemed to get pretty upset when we asked for a table instead of a booth. It was about 5:30PM and the place wasn't 1/4 full outside of a private birthday party in one of the side rooms. She took us to the tables section of which none were occupied and proceeded to look around for a bit to decide where to seat us, which seemed strange. She finally chose a table, plunked down our menus and walked away to get a dish cloth to clean the table off which already looked okay. She wiped the table and just walked off. No, "your server will be so and so", no, "have a good meal", nothing. In a few minutes our server arrived and seemed pleasant enough but all through the meal continued to address me as "Buddy". I was plenty old enough to be his dad and I wouldn't have been offended with "sir" or anything slightly more respectful than "Buddy". To me that's almost as bad as some of these younger servers calling everyone at the table "you guys", especially if there are older females in the party.
We looked the menu over and after placing our order, we had to ask him for silverware while we waited after he brought out a basket of some large puffy rolls and sweet butter. We all ordered water with lemon as our beverage and he brought out the glasses of water and a small bowl of lemon wedges. That was the last time he mentioned our drinks and never once offered refills even when we were all empty by the end of the meal. Hmm.
We ordered a spinach and artichoke dip appetizer, which came out in a few minutes. Compared to Cheddar's, it was a lot smaller serving at the same price and my wife got a surprise in the second bite: a long, very wavy brown hair was hanging from her tortilla chip with dip! The server was alerted and he called the manager and they offered to give us another serving, which we accepted. At the time, the older lady manager was hardly cordial or apologetic until after the replacement arrived. After our entrees arrived, she did come back and said they would remove it from the bill, which was okay by me as it wasn't that appetizing anyway.
Our daughter had her wisdom teeth out a couple of days ago, so she ordered a chicken noodle soup and a side order of "smashed" potatoes. I ordered a "Grande Sirloin", which was a smaller than expected seasoned steak which came on a bed of the smashed potatoes with some tiny fried onion rings. The plate, which wasn't large, looked pretty empty. I had inquired about getting a side order of cole slaw with it and to my amazement, they don't offer coleslaw as a side even though they have fish and chips and burgers. My wife ordered a chicken bleu cheese and bacon sandwich. My steak was pretty good although I and my daughter couldn't help but notice that the smashed potatoes had chunks of potato in it that weren't quite done. My daughter did like the chicken noodle soup but wasn't feeling well and had it packaged to go. I tried a bite of my wife's chicken sandwich and while it tasted okay, the chicken was noticeably dry and overcooked. The manager came back out and said we could have a dessert on the house and we decided to try a mini order of their apple cobbler ($1.99), which was quite tasty. Still with empty glasses and no offer of a refill the server brought out the check and after laying the discount card along with my credit card on the bill, it took over ten minutes for him to come back with the ticket. He did come by once during that time and said they were still trying to figure out the bill. Hmm, I wonder what they'll do when they get buried with these discount cards over the weekend.
All and all, I'll have give them a 'C' grade on this visit. If I'd had to pay full price for everything and they hadn't comped the spinach dip, I'd be more than a little unhappy with the general service, quality and quantity of their food. They need to have Gordon Ramsay come through or something as they intentionally or not violate many of the things a good restaurant, chain or otherwise, should be about. I guess I'll be going to Cheddar's next time I feel the urge to eat at a casual dining establishment. They've rarely disappointed me over the years.
1920 North Eastman Road
Kingsport, TN 37664
(423) 246-8868
I got a $10 discount card in the mail today for O'Charley's restaurants. The way it worked was $10 discount on any dine in or take out bill over $25 not including their "2 can dine for $15.99" special. I hadn't eaten there in probably two years as none of us cared for the food or the attitude of the staff the last time. Unfortunately, not a lot has changed after our visit this evening.
We were met inside by the hostess who seemed to get pretty upset when we asked for a table instead of a booth. It was about 5:30PM and the place wasn't 1/4 full outside of a private birthday party in one of the side rooms. She took us to the tables section of which none were occupied and proceeded to look around for a bit to decide where to seat us, which seemed strange. She finally chose a table, plunked down our menus and walked away to get a dish cloth to clean the table off which already looked okay. She wiped the table and just walked off. No, "your server will be so and so", no, "have a good meal", nothing. In a few minutes our server arrived and seemed pleasant enough but all through the meal continued to address me as "Buddy". I was plenty old enough to be his dad and I wouldn't have been offended with "sir" or anything slightly more respectful than "Buddy". To me that's almost as bad as some of these younger servers calling everyone at the table "you guys", especially if there are older females in the party.
We looked the menu over and after placing our order, we had to ask him for silverware while we waited after he brought out a basket of some large puffy rolls and sweet butter. We all ordered water with lemon as our beverage and he brought out the glasses of water and a small bowl of lemon wedges. That was the last time he mentioned our drinks and never once offered refills even when we were all empty by the end of the meal. Hmm.
We ordered a spinach and artichoke dip appetizer, which came out in a few minutes. Compared to Cheddar's, it was a lot smaller serving at the same price and my wife got a surprise in the second bite: a long, very wavy brown hair was hanging from her tortilla chip with dip! The server was alerted and he called the manager and they offered to give us another serving, which we accepted. At the time, the older lady manager was hardly cordial or apologetic until after the replacement arrived. After our entrees arrived, she did come back and said they would remove it from the bill, which was okay by me as it wasn't that appetizing anyway.
Our daughter had her wisdom teeth out a couple of days ago, so she ordered a chicken noodle soup and a side order of "smashed" potatoes. I ordered a "Grande Sirloin", which was a smaller than expected seasoned steak which came on a bed of the smashed potatoes with some tiny fried onion rings. The plate, which wasn't large, looked pretty empty. I had inquired about getting a side order of cole slaw with it and to my amazement, they don't offer coleslaw as a side even though they have fish and chips and burgers. My wife ordered a chicken bleu cheese and bacon sandwich. My steak was pretty good although I and my daughter couldn't help but notice that the smashed potatoes had chunks of potato in it that weren't quite done. My daughter did like the chicken noodle soup but wasn't feeling well and had it packaged to go. I tried a bite of my wife's chicken sandwich and while it tasted okay, the chicken was noticeably dry and overcooked. The manager came back out and said we could have a dessert on the house and we decided to try a mini order of their apple cobbler ($1.99), which was quite tasty. Still with empty glasses and no offer of a refill the server brought out the check and after laying the discount card along with my credit card on the bill, it took over ten minutes for him to come back with the ticket. He did come by once during that time and said they were still trying to figure out the bill. Hmm, I wonder what they'll do when they get buried with these discount cards over the weekend.
All and all, I'll have give them a 'C' grade on this visit. If I'd had to pay full price for everything and they hadn't comped the spinach dip, I'd be more than a little unhappy with the general service, quality and quantity of their food. They need to have Gordon Ramsay come through or something as they intentionally or not violate many of the things a good restaurant, chain or otherwise, should be about. I guess I'll be going to Cheddar's next time I feel the urge to eat at a casual dining establishment. They've rarely disappointed me over the years.
Thursday, December 22, 2011
Fettuccine with Shrimp and Basil Cream
It's been quite some time since I've posted to this blog but I haven't forgotten about it! I had about 3/4 lb. of frozen raw shrimp in the freezer and thought I might make some of it in a butter and wine sauce with fettuccine that I had on hand. After looking at the back of the pasta box, I noticed it had a couple of interesting recipes using shrimp and the fettuccine and this is the one I decided to prepare tonight:
Fettuccine with Shrimp and Basil Cream
1 lb. package Fettuccine, uncooked
4 Tbsp. butter
3 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped or 3 tsp. garlic powder
1 lb. shrimp, deveined
1 cup fresh basil leaves, packed or 1 Tbsp. dried basil
Salt to taste
1-1/2 cups heavy cream
Cook pasta according to package directions (I did 12 minutes), drain. Meanwhile, in a large skillet, melt butter over medium heat. Add garlic and saute until lightly browned. Add shrimp cooking 4 minutes or until shrimp is pink (not quite done). Stir in basil, salt and cream. Let simmer 5 minutes. Pour sauce over pasta and serve immediately.
One thing I noticed was with using sweet cream unsalted butter, I had to add slightly over a tsp. of salt to the cream. Another thing to remember about sauces with pasta is that extra salt is often necessary as once the sauce is added to the pasta, it may not be salty enough. I added an additional 1/4 tsp. to make up for this and once poured and mixed into the pasta, it turned out just right.
I slightly modified the recipe by chopping about 1/4 of a small white onion and adding to the butter along with the garlic. I used dried basil as I can't justify the price of fresh basil at almost $2. While the sauce was simmering, I added about 4 tsp. of dry Chinese Michiu rice wine a couple of minutes before it was done and 1/8 tsp. white pepper just before pouring the basil cream sauce over the pasta. I thought it turned out pretty good to have come off the back of a Walmart Great Value brand pasta box! Even my wife said it was good instead of just okay which is her usual response to my cooking. Feel free to play around with this, you might come up with something even better. Fear no food!
Fettuccine with Shrimp and Basil Cream
1 lb. package Fettuccine, uncooked
4 Tbsp. butter
3 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped or 3 tsp. garlic powder
1 lb. shrimp, deveined
1 cup fresh basil leaves, packed or 1 Tbsp. dried basil
Salt to taste
1-1/2 cups heavy cream
Cook pasta according to package directions (I did 12 minutes), drain. Meanwhile, in a large skillet, melt butter over medium heat. Add garlic and saute until lightly browned. Add shrimp cooking 4 minutes or until shrimp is pink (not quite done). Stir in basil, salt and cream. Let simmer 5 minutes. Pour sauce over pasta and serve immediately.
One thing I noticed was with using sweet cream unsalted butter, I had to add slightly over a tsp. of salt to the cream. Another thing to remember about sauces with pasta is that extra salt is often necessary as once the sauce is added to the pasta, it may not be salty enough. I added an additional 1/4 tsp. to make up for this and once poured and mixed into the pasta, it turned out just right.
I slightly modified the recipe by chopping about 1/4 of a small white onion and adding to the butter along with the garlic. I used dried basil as I can't justify the price of fresh basil at almost $2. While the sauce was simmering, I added about 4 tsp. of dry Chinese Michiu rice wine a couple of minutes before it was done and 1/8 tsp. white pepper just before pouring the basil cream sauce over the pasta. I thought it turned out pretty good to have come off the back of a Walmart Great Value brand pasta box! Even my wife said it was good instead of just okay which is her usual response to my cooking. Feel free to play around with this, you might come up with something even better. Fear no food!
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Restaurant Review: Golden Dragon Chinese Buffet & Hibachi Grill
Golden Dragon Chinese Buffet & Hibachi Grill
2404 Memorial Blvd.
Kingsport, TN 37664
phone 423-765-9588
fax 423-765-9589
I apologize to my readers for the lack of recent posts. I've got a couple of other restaurants to review besides this one that I hope to post soon. Back to the Golden Dragon: this in no way is related to the venerable Golden Dragon Chinese Restaurant that was in Kingsport for many years at the corner of E. Sevier St. and N. Wilcox Dr. It appears from their advertisements to be part of a chain. The building they're in is directly behind the Ft. Henry Mall/Kingsport Town Center in the former Ryan's Steakhouse/Red Apple Chinese Buffet that's in front of Ross N. Robinson Middle School.
We went there this Friday evening (7/8/11) with my wife, daughter and her boyfriend. As I had only a light late breakfast about 10 AM, I was ready to try as many things as my appetite could handle! The first thing that you notice when entering this fairly large restaurant is the large number of well-lighted steam table buffet stations. In addition to these it has a couple of cold stations as well as a "Hibachi Grill" where dishes can be fixed to your choosing in a giant wok from meats, vegetables and sauces of your selection. This is a feature that my friends Emily & Daniel Wong first featured in Kingsport as a "Mongolian Grill" at their nearby Ming Garden restaurant that's currently celebrating their twentieth anniversary.
After being seated by our friendly hostess (who knew our son), we were attended to by our cordial but basically non-English speaking waitress and placed our drink orders. This went somewhat awkwardly due the language issues as my daughter asked if they had Mr. Pibb which she didn't quite comprehend. After she gave us the list of available drinks (I requested ice water with lemon which ended up coming without lemon), we placed our orders and everyone proceeded to hit the buffet. We did have problems with our waitress keeping up with our drink refills and waiting for our cheque. I suspect she's not been long off the boat with her poor English comprehension.
As my daughter and her boyfriend had eaten her a couple of weeks earlier and told me about some of the offerings that were unique from other local Chinese buffets, I started on one side and quickly had a look around. One of the first things that caught my eye were oysters on the half-shell complete with a plate of lemon slices next to it. I selected three large good-looking oysters and a cold green mussel topped in a sweet-hot chili sauce. On a hot table I selected three green mussels with cheese sauce which seems to be pretty common at Chinese buffets at least locally. I also went to the sushi/sashimi table next to the hibachi grill and selected about six different sushi selections that surprisingly included Ahi tuna and salmon amongst several other types. We are so far from the coast and oysters are so expensive that I had a brief moment of nirvana enjoying them drizzled with lemon juice and salt. If only they'd had some Tabasco sauce to put on them! They were quite tasty and I could've easily eaten a coupe of dozen but wanted to have room to try the other offerings. If you notice my obituary in the paper in the next day or two, you'll know the oysters are what did me in as they are a bit risky! The mussels with cheese were okay but China Star's are definitely better. The sushi was quite good as I like Nori seaweed in a lot of things but the Ahi tuna was wonderful with just a bit of soy sauce without having to swish in a wasabi/soy combination. I also tried one of the fried dumplings with sauce that was pretty good. My daughter said their fried cheese wontons weren't too good but I didn't get the chance to try them. Another intersting dish on a cold table was the whole baby octopus in a sweet and slightly spicy sauce. They were quite tasty but frightened a couple of people at our table! I would really love to have hot squid dishes available at a buffet like this. There's much more to squid than just calamari, trust me. The Chinese have come up with some amazing dishes made from these critters!
Other notable items sampled were the roast duck. It was basically roast duck, skin on, chopped into various pieces and a plate of orange slices and a bowl of a fairly tasty soy/five spice sauce to ladle over it. I'm a big fan of duck and really miss the old Peking Restaurant that used to be in Johnson City, TN. They had a fabulous roast duck that sets the standard for any I've tried since. This duck was cooked pretty well, you just had to be selective about the pieces unless you like picking duck ribs which results in little meat but a whole lot of ribs and fatty skin. By and large I was pleasantly surprised by their roast duck. Another poultry dish I tried at the boyfriend's suggestion was the Hong Kong Chicken. It was chunks of boneless chicken in a somewhat orange, sweet and seasoned glaze that was pretty tasty.
Another dish I love is frog legs and Golden Dragon's didn't disappoint. They were complete hind leg sections cooked in a light seasoned batter coating and were pretty tasty with a lot of meat. If you've never had the nerve to try frog legs, let me tell you that they are quite delicious. If you like chicken, you'll be okay with frog. Same with turtle but that's for a different time. Many Chinese buffets around here at least offer snow crab legs on their dinner buffets especially on weekends. Surprisingly, these weren't available but instead they had basically chopped up sections of blue crab, also with a light seasoned batter. While these looked good and the batter was interesting, there was almost no crab meat left to pick in these sections. As you may know, blue crabs have almost no meat in their legs like their larger cousins the snow and king crabs. Unfortunately, these had almost no meat even in the claws which was a big surprise and a bit disappointing. They also had cooked whole crayfish which were okay, it's just peeling crawdads is such a pain for the small amount of meat in their tails. They did have a number of shrimp dishes and the couple I tried were good. They also have several boiled and fried fish dishes. Another surprise was the small steamed clams. I'm not sure what type they were but looked a lot like Manila clams and were definitely not Cherrystone's. Unfortunately as I rummaged through them, there were a lot of pretty open shells but only a couple that had the clam inside. I don't know if people had picked the clam out and left the shells or what. It was pretty strange and I passed them over.
As I was rapidly getting full from the aforementioned selections, I wanted to try some dessert to round out the meal. They have the usual selection of odd cakes and such but also a large selection of cold fruits like watermelon, grapes and so on. Some I wasn't expecting were there and that I really like including loquats and lychee. Loquats are unique to Asia and have a round orange fruit about the size of an apricot that contains a single large seed. Canners peel the fruit and remove the seed leaving the fruit with a single noticeable hole in each fruit. They taste something like a peach and apricot combination and are very expensive if you ever find them available. Lychees are also an Asian tree fruit that has a somewhat hard red armored exterior and are about the size of a large grape. Canners remove the shell and the single large seed leaving a round white fruit also with a single hole and they taste something like a grape and strawberry cross. Either of these should be tried if you ever encounter them. They also had slices of kiwi fruit on the bar which you don't see too often. On the hot table where they keep the soups, they have the sesame bean balls. I'm not sure what the proper name of these are but they are round, about the size of a quarter, covered in sesame seeds and consist of a pastry that's filled with slightly-sweet adzuki bean paste. This is an old-time dessert as the Chinese until recent years didn't eat very much really sweet things like we've done in the West for way too many years. This particular dessert in pretty much an authentic flavor from the past and are somewhat chewy and I like them!
The biggest problem with the Golden Dragon is that they have so many selections that you would have to make at least a half dozen visits to sample most of their offerings! While I've stated in a previous post that I'm not a big fan of Chinese buffets due to the food almost never being as good as individually prepared dishes, this one does have mostly okay food from what I've tried and nothing was really hideous as has occurred at a few other local Chinese buffets. They do offer a number of American items so that surely everyone in your party can find something they'll find acceptable. For the adventurous eater, I think you may be pleasantly surprised! I'm going to give them a 3 out of 5 stars rating based upon what I've tried thus far and the fact that it's a buffet which is an automatic one star deduction by my methodology. I'd recommend you give them a try and come up with your own opinion that I'd be interested in hearing. Fear No Food!
2404 Memorial Blvd.
Kingsport, TN 37664
phone 423-765-9588
fax 423-765-9589
I apologize to my readers for the lack of recent posts. I've got a couple of other restaurants to review besides this one that I hope to post soon. Back to the Golden Dragon: this in no way is related to the venerable Golden Dragon Chinese Restaurant that was in Kingsport for many years at the corner of E. Sevier St. and N. Wilcox Dr. It appears from their advertisements to be part of a chain. The building they're in is directly behind the Ft. Henry Mall/Kingsport Town Center in the former Ryan's Steakhouse/Red Apple Chinese Buffet that's in front of Ross N. Robinson Middle School.
We went there this Friday evening (7/8/11) with my wife, daughter and her boyfriend. As I had only a light late breakfast about 10 AM, I was ready to try as many things as my appetite could handle! The first thing that you notice when entering this fairly large restaurant is the large number of well-lighted steam table buffet stations. In addition to these it has a couple of cold stations as well as a "Hibachi Grill" where dishes can be fixed to your choosing in a giant wok from meats, vegetables and sauces of your selection. This is a feature that my friends Emily & Daniel Wong first featured in Kingsport as a "Mongolian Grill" at their nearby Ming Garden restaurant that's currently celebrating their twentieth anniversary.
After being seated by our friendly hostess (who knew our son), we were attended to by our cordial but basically non-English speaking waitress and placed our drink orders. This went somewhat awkwardly due the language issues as my daughter asked if they had Mr. Pibb which she didn't quite comprehend. After she gave us the list of available drinks (I requested ice water with lemon which ended up coming without lemon), we placed our orders and everyone proceeded to hit the buffet. We did have problems with our waitress keeping up with our drink refills and waiting for our cheque. I suspect she's not been long off the boat with her poor English comprehension.
As my daughter and her boyfriend had eaten her a couple of weeks earlier and told me about some of the offerings that were unique from other local Chinese buffets, I started on one side and quickly had a look around. One of the first things that caught my eye were oysters on the half-shell complete with a plate of lemon slices next to it. I selected three large good-looking oysters and a cold green mussel topped in a sweet-hot chili sauce. On a hot table I selected three green mussels with cheese sauce which seems to be pretty common at Chinese buffets at least locally. I also went to the sushi/sashimi table next to the hibachi grill and selected about six different sushi selections that surprisingly included Ahi tuna and salmon amongst several other types. We are so far from the coast and oysters are so expensive that I had a brief moment of nirvana enjoying them drizzled with lemon juice and salt. If only they'd had some Tabasco sauce to put on them! They were quite tasty and I could've easily eaten a coupe of dozen but wanted to have room to try the other offerings. If you notice my obituary in the paper in the next day or two, you'll know the oysters are what did me in as they are a bit risky! The mussels with cheese were okay but China Star's are definitely better. The sushi was quite good as I like Nori seaweed in a lot of things but the Ahi tuna was wonderful with just a bit of soy sauce without having to swish in a wasabi/soy combination. I also tried one of the fried dumplings with sauce that was pretty good. My daughter said their fried cheese wontons weren't too good but I didn't get the chance to try them. Another intersting dish on a cold table was the whole baby octopus in a sweet and slightly spicy sauce. They were quite tasty but frightened a couple of people at our table! I would really love to have hot squid dishes available at a buffet like this. There's much more to squid than just calamari, trust me. The Chinese have come up with some amazing dishes made from these critters!
Other notable items sampled were the roast duck. It was basically roast duck, skin on, chopped into various pieces and a plate of orange slices and a bowl of a fairly tasty soy/five spice sauce to ladle over it. I'm a big fan of duck and really miss the old Peking Restaurant that used to be in Johnson City, TN. They had a fabulous roast duck that sets the standard for any I've tried since. This duck was cooked pretty well, you just had to be selective about the pieces unless you like picking duck ribs which results in little meat but a whole lot of ribs and fatty skin. By and large I was pleasantly surprised by their roast duck. Another poultry dish I tried at the boyfriend's suggestion was the Hong Kong Chicken. It was chunks of boneless chicken in a somewhat orange, sweet and seasoned glaze that was pretty tasty.
Another dish I love is frog legs and Golden Dragon's didn't disappoint. They were complete hind leg sections cooked in a light seasoned batter coating and were pretty tasty with a lot of meat. If you've never had the nerve to try frog legs, let me tell you that they are quite delicious. If you like chicken, you'll be okay with frog. Same with turtle but that's for a different time. Many Chinese buffets around here at least offer snow crab legs on their dinner buffets especially on weekends. Surprisingly, these weren't available but instead they had basically chopped up sections of blue crab, also with a light seasoned batter. While these looked good and the batter was interesting, there was almost no crab meat left to pick in these sections. As you may know, blue crabs have almost no meat in their legs like their larger cousins the snow and king crabs. Unfortunately, these had almost no meat even in the claws which was a big surprise and a bit disappointing. They also had cooked whole crayfish which were okay, it's just peeling crawdads is such a pain for the small amount of meat in their tails. They did have a number of shrimp dishes and the couple I tried were good. They also have several boiled and fried fish dishes. Another surprise was the small steamed clams. I'm not sure what type they were but looked a lot like Manila clams and were definitely not Cherrystone's. Unfortunately as I rummaged through them, there were a lot of pretty open shells but only a couple that had the clam inside. I don't know if people had picked the clam out and left the shells or what. It was pretty strange and I passed them over.
As I was rapidly getting full from the aforementioned selections, I wanted to try some dessert to round out the meal. They have the usual selection of odd cakes and such but also a large selection of cold fruits like watermelon, grapes and so on. Some I wasn't expecting were there and that I really like including loquats and lychee. Loquats are unique to Asia and have a round orange fruit about the size of an apricot that contains a single large seed. Canners peel the fruit and remove the seed leaving the fruit with a single noticeable hole in each fruit. They taste something like a peach and apricot combination and are very expensive if you ever find them available. Lychees are also an Asian tree fruit that has a somewhat hard red armored exterior and are about the size of a large grape. Canners remove the shell and the single large seed leaving a round white fruit also with a single hole and they taste something like a grape and strawberry cross. Either of these should be tried if you ever encounter them. They also had slices of kiwi fruit on the bar which you don't see too often. On the hot table where they keep the soups, they have the sesame bean balls. I'm not sure what the proper name of these are but they are round, about the size of a quarter, covered in sesame seeds and consist of a pastry that's filled with slightly-sweet adzuki bean paste. This is an old-time dessert as the Chinese until recent years didn't eat very much really sweet things like we've done in the West for way too many years. This particular dessert in pretty much an authentic flavor from the past and are somewhat chewy and I like them!
The biggest problem with the Golden Dragon is that they have so many selections that you would have to make at least a half dozen visits to sample most of their offerings! While I've stated in a previous post that I'm not a big fan of Chinese buffets due to the food almost never being as good as individually prepared dishes, this one does have mostly okay food from what I've tried and nothing was really hideous as has occurred at a few other local Chinese buffets. They do offer a number of American items so that surely everyone in your party can find something they'll find acceptable. For the adventurous eater, I think you may be pleasantly surprised! I'm going to give them a 3 out of 5 stars rating based upon what I've tried thus far and the fact that it's a buffet which is an automatic one star deduction by my methodology. I'd recommend you give them a try and come up with your own opinion that I'd be interested in hearing. Fear No Food!
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