The Capitol Grille - #17

While spending the day at the state House of Representatives, I had the opportunity to have lunch with my rep at the Capital Grille (kind of a fitting name, huh?), which serves here as restaurant number 17!

(Flags over Wesley Bolin Plaza, near the House of Representatives)

Ok, if you've clicked on the link for the Capital Grille here and have noticed that their website is waaaay flashier than any other I've referenced on this blog, then you understand the difference between the restaurant itself and every other one I've been to for this little experiment. From the rolls they bring to your table when you're seated to the exquisite dessert menu (even at lunch!), this is a restaurant that was designed to impress - and it did!

And to follow the free ice cream...

We headed just around the corner to Euro Pizza Cafe, on the recommendation of the owner of the Scoop Shop we had just visited. Their food was simple, but very good - a massive chef salad, the cheesiest garlic bread I think I've ever seen, and a monster sized calzone! Both of us took over half our meals home and ate for days! With such a prolific menu and the price being right, I'm definitely headed back...

Free is very, very good!

Ok, so some may say that my #15 isn't exactly a restaurant, but to them, I say this - Ice cream is a meal, dammit!!

Nothing is better than free ice cream - Especially free Ben & Jerry's! On Ben & Jerry's birthday, they are kind enough to offer free cones to anyone who comes into one of their Scoop Shops, so that's exactly what we did! A fellow starving student and I headed down on the first day of reading period - a well needed break, to be sure! A scoop of Coffee Coffee BuzzBuzzBuzz and Phish Food, and we were two happy campers.

Ok, now that we're in order..... #14!!

Yup. That's all that was left after we all decided to celebrate our second-to-last day of classes with a well-deserved trip to the new Long Wong's!

Yes, after shutting the doors on their famous Mill Ave. location, the operators of the original Long Wong's have re-opened just down the street. Although I had been to the original to have a beer and listen to some music, somehow I had managed to never try the famous wings!

We all plowed through mild, barbeque, and even the odd-looking, yet tasty, garlic parmesan wings. I even managed to get in a Long Wong hot dog (and yes, it's as promising as the name would indicate!). While the beer and bands that originally called me to Long Wong's are gone, the wings will bring me back again and again!

And, to finally get caught up...

Another downtown Chandler restaurant - The Bistro at Kokopelli Winery!

I had the fortune of eating at The Bistro during their famous Italian-American festival, and it was a hoot! The day was marked with Councilmen playing bocce ball in the "backyard," a special Italian menu, and the place was packed full of people having a great time. We were able to bookend our great Italian lunches with tastings in the barrel room - a treat not to be missed!

Two for one...

These two restaurants can be easily combined into one post, for a few reasons. 56 East and 98 South are sister restaurants that both offer up fabulous food, wine, and ambiance.

I first visited 98 South with my mom for lunch in the afternoon. Aside from her surprise that white chili is not, indeed, very white, we both very much enjoyed the lunches that we ordered. My cream cheese and cranberry stuffed chicken was excellent, and the pinot grigio on their wine list was a great pairing - even though I don't usually like whites!

While 98 South was a fabulous lunch, 56 East was a phenomenal dinner. Starting off with the cheese plate was a delight, and following it up with the following entree nearly killed me with deliciousness:
8 OZ FILET MIGNON roasted purple potatoes, asparagus, balsamic syrup and Bleu Cheese Fondue
Oh... my.... God....
I was literally giddy with glee while I ate. This was one meal where I tried to eat as slowly as possible to try to savor every moment. With a beautiful bottle of shiraz and a jazz band playing in the corner (complete with a roaming trombonist), this was easily the best meal I've experienced in trying to complete my little resolution.

Dilly's Deli - Yum, Yum, Yum!

How to recover from a boring Property review? FOOD! And better yet, new food!!

A few of us headed over to Dilly's Deli to give it a shot - hoping that it would be a little different and a lot quicker than our favorite sandwich haunt, Bison Witches (excellent, but Mill on a Saturday afternoon? Don't think so.).

After waiting in line at the counter for less time than I had imagined on a Saturday, I managed to get one of the most bacon-y BLT's I've ever seen, and the pasta salad was a great little side. Their menu is quite extensive, so I'm definitely going to have to go back...

Ted's Hot Dogs

Ok, so how long does it have to be after you've visited a restaurant before it becomes new to you again? Certainly fifteen years is enough, right?

The first time that I went to Ted's Hot Dogs was when I was a teenager, after having spent the day at ChicagoFest - appropriate, no? I thought that since it had been such a long time since I'd eaten there (and honestly, I'm getting to a point where I could barely remember the experience!), I figured that it would be a good time to give Ted's a fresh try.

Ted's seemed like a good place for a mid-school day lunch, especially since its only a couple of miles away from campus. Our experience there was as simple as Ted's is itself. We had a couple of Ted's signature char-grilled hot dogs and an order of their phenomenal onion rings. Bringing that quick little meal out into the sunshine and pigging out right before Property class? Nothing better.

Sweet, indeed

In January, I completed another goal - I ran my first 5k! While I was very excited to have finished under my goal time (43 minutes, thank you very much!) and to not have been the last person across the line, I was also stoked to have won one of the door prizes - gift certificates to Sweet Tomatoes! So, I gathered up a fellow starving college student and we headed out to the local Sweet Tomatoes to stuff ourselves as full as possible - gratis! Whee!

I couldn't believe that I hadn't actually been to ST before, but I was very happy that I finally made it there. As my dining partner and I hit the front door, we were a little disheartened to find that it was pineapple month - normally, this would be great, but a drop of pineapple juice magically turns my poor friend into a blowfish. So, with some caution and a careful eye, we made it down the salad bar line, loading up our plates with as much lettuce, pasta salad, and baby corns as we could. Just about everything was very, very tasty - the only exception being the pineapple jell-o that I tried.... ew. I lost count on how many trips we each made up to the various bars, but suffice it to say, we practically needed a crane to get out of the booth to finally go home.

Abacus Inn

So, in an effort to find a nearby Chinese place that I haven't tried, and also to kill an hour before The West Wing was to start, I resorted to doing a quick google search. The Abacus Inn won for two reasons: it starts with an "A," so it was near the top of the list, and their menu was online at Delicious Deliveries! I know, I know, not a great way to choose a restaurant, but it worked out very well.

I stopped by the restaurant to pick up my order (again, just killing time until TWW started), and felt like I had stepped into some kind of time warp. The place is more reminicent of a seventies lounge than a hip Asian-fusion bistro. Seriously - think paisley and powder blue vinyl. However, the food was phenominal! We got a few staples - chicken fried rice and crab puffs - that didn't fail to satisfy. We also tried the Abacus Special Chicken, and while it was much simpler dish than I had anticipated, it was very, very tasty. Since we picked it up for take-out, we got an enormous tub of the garlic and onion sauce, which we wound up putting on every other dish that we had ordered. Tasty, tasty stuff.

Next time I need a huge Chinese pig fest, this is definitely the place I'll be calling to deliver....

Ok, not a new restaurant per se, but.....

Oh, yeah, the Sugarbowl. Nothin' says lovin' like two pregnant women at an olde fashioned ice cream shoppe.

Men with meat

One of the more interesting new restaurants that I've had the opportunity to try during my little experiment was Fogo e Brasa. With a visiting friend in town, Rachel and I thought this would be a great place to try - although I wouldn't recommend ice skating immediately afterward. The food was fabulous - cute latin men walk about with roasted meat on swords (couldn't make this up if I wanted to) and carve it for you at the table. With extra goodies like grilled pineapple, the oddest salad bar you ever saw, and a wine rack that they roll to your table, this is a fabulous place for a group of friends to go. Check out the price list before you go (a mistake we made) and plan ahead - but it's worth it!!

(Photo courtesy of http://www.fogoebrasa.com/)

How hard could it be to take a picture?

So, starting this blog, I thought that I would try to document everything with pictures as well, and that's turned out to be a lot more difficult than I thought. First of all, I rarely have my camera with me. Obviously, makes things a little difficult.

However, I didn't realize that restaurant owners would freak out if I tried to take a picture of the place from the outside. That's what happened when my friend, Rachel, and I decided to make Lucy's Place/My Wine Cellar restaurant number 5 of this little project. After having a pretty good dinner (gnocci that were to die for and a great glass of wine), we left and, on the way out of the parking lot, I tried to take a picture of the facade of the restaurant. Well, I'm a bit of a novice with the night settings on my new-fangled digital camera (as evidenced by the blurry picture to the right), and it took me a couple of tries to get anything. The waitress?/owner?/barista? came outside to ask if she could help us. I let her know that I was starting up a blog about restaurants, but I don't think she quite got the concept. She mumbled something about the flash, which, frankly I ignored, and Rach and I took off.

On the bright side, the staff was conducting a wine tasting course (Wine 101) while we were dining - it looked like a lot of fun, and I might just find myself back there to give it a shot!

More restaurants on my trip to California...

Since I went to California just a few days after the beginning of the new year, it was a great opportunity to get some new restaurants under my belt...

Uva Bar wasn't the only new restaurant at Disneyland that I tried on my little trip. My cousin and I also had dinner at La Brea Bakery in Downtown Disney. The best part of the whole dinner was the fact that we could see the fireworks from the special "Remember the Magic" show that Disney put on in honor of their 50th birthday celebration. We had a couple of killer sandwiches and all the tea we could drink, then waddled on home...

The next day I actually managed to make it to two new restaurants: Foxfire in Anaheim Hills, and King's Fish House in Lake Forest. We hit Foxfire for their Sunday brunch, and managed to stuff ourselves silly. After spending a few hours recovering from the early morning champagne (not exactly high caliber, unfortunately), my cousin and I went to King's for dinner. It was pretty good (kind of a better-quality Joe's Crab Shack) with a killer all-California wine list.

Four new restaurants in as many days? Not too shabby....

My first new official restaurant of the new year!

Drumroll please.....

And the first new joint that I visited this year was Uva Bar at Downtown Disney, in Anaheim, California. I have to say, I've been to Downtown Disney many, many times, and always wanted to try this place - this New Year's resolution was the perfect excuse to! The food was pretty good (one of the better Caesar salads I've ever had, and I'm not really a fan...), and the fact that my cousin and I could polish off a bottle of wine in the view of kids carrying around Mickey ear balloons was fun. Can't wait to go back and hit the wine list again...

Talk about procrastinating....

Yup. 14 weeks since the new year began, and I am just now beginning to record all of the new restaurants that I've been visiting... and I have been going to new places, indeed. I was a little nervous, since I haven't officially been keeping track, that I would be behind, but I'm actually pretty much on par! I'll be posting the first thirteen new restaurants that I've been dragging friends and family to, and as I go to new places, I'll hopefully be keeping current. We'll see.....