The Grotto

At the behest (I really wanted to use that word) of our wonderful readers (that's you) we went to The Grotto for our weekly lunch.  You guys are the awesomest.  Seriously.  We especially love you this week because The Grotto was a pretty neat little place.

The first thing that hits you right in the face when you go to The Grotto is that there isn't any servers.  There are menus on the wall, you grab one, decide what you want, order it and then go sit down.  They call your number and you go pick up your food.  It's not a bad thing, and it fits really well for lunch in particular, but it is different.  It's like a super high quality fast food place.  It is also different for the purposes of our blog as they are obviously not going to get a service rating.  Our food was done pretty quickly and the girl at the register was nice, but that is just about all the service that you get.  Once again, I want to stress that it's not a negative, it's just different for our purposes.

The menu has a good variety of food.  There are burgers (which I'll talk about below), sandwiches (which Sarai will talk about below), salads and pizzas.  This place struck us as somewhere that you go specifically for lunch.  The food on the menu, aside from the burgers, was very light.  You could eat here for lunch on a work day and not be completely useless afterwards.  The prices were all very reasonable, especially for the serving sizes.  We both ate there for under 25 bucks and we can't go to Sonic for less than 20.  So it's really high quality food for really reasonable prices.

The restaurant itself was clean and not overly crowded.  I do have to admit that, with a name like The Grotto, I was expecting it to be dark and dungeon-like.  However, it wasn't.  This is a positive for most people I'm sure, but I was looking forward to eating in a cave.  Oh well.

Overall, this was a good place to grab a friend and have lunch.  The menu can suit just about anyone's tastes and the price is right.  We both absolutely loved our meals as you will see below.

Thanks again for voting on the poll and a special thanks to Jeff Winters who was the inspiration for the poll this week.  It is really great getting feedback from all of you.  Make sure you comment and let us know what you think about the places we are eating at.  We both get a warm and fuzzy feeling when there are comments we can respond to.  I'm also going to shamelessly plug passing this along to any of your friends here in Springfield or the surrounding areas.  The more people, the better!

Overall Experience  ★    ★    ★    ☆   ☆  

Food  ★    ★  ★  ★    ☆  

Atmosphere  ★    ★    ☆   ☆   ☆  

Justin's Impressions:

As I stated above, I wasn't sure what to think about this place when we were on the way there.  Thanks to what most adults would consider an overactive imagination, I was hoping for a dark cave with really exotic food.  What we actually got was probably way better in most people's opinion.

I went boring and ordered the bacon cheeseburger because we ran into a friend there that said the burgers were awesome.  I took the challenge, assuming the burger would be just ok.  It wasn't, it was really good.  I love places that ask you how you want your burger cooked.  I asked for medium, I got medium and it was delicious.  I also love places that give you a lot of bacon on a bacon cheese burger, The Grotto delivered the bacon.

The highlight of the meal wasn't the burger, it was the side that I got with my burger.  Anyone who has had the misfortune of spending a Thanksgiving dinner with me knows that I love sweet potatoes.  They are far superior to their less sweet cousins in pretty much every way.  The Grotto had the best sweet potato fries I have ever had.  They also had cinnamon and sugar available to sprinkle on them.  The flavor of the fries, mixed with the great burger and the $1.50 Schlafly's Coffee Stout pretty much made this one of the best lunches ever.

Alright, I've rambled enough.  The Grotto is a great place for lunch and I was pleasantly suprised by the food.  It was the last place I expected to have one of the best burgers in town.

Sarai's Impressions:  

This week, I ordered the Avocado Chicken Club Sandwich. It sounded appetizing for a late lunch. This sandwich is something that I wouldn't normally order... but Justin was already getting the burger. In a panic to order something different than Justin, I ordered this.

I was actually shocked at the prices, first off (in a good way). The passed few places we have been were not easy on the ol' pocket book. The Grotto was very reasonable for the style of food they have. 

They called out our number, we got up to get the food. Much to my surprise, everything comes sort of disassembled. The dressing for the sandwich was off to the side of it leaving you to put it where you want it. Some people may not like this about them, but I am they type of girl that likes things a certain way. Putting it together was no big deal to me. For the record, it was wonderful ! Great flavor combination, very well cooked. I'm not saying a sandwich is really hard to make correctly, but you certainly can screw up chicken if you aren't careful. 

All in all, I would definitely visit The Grotto again. I am loving the fact that it is so close to my work and I can call in my order. I can confidently recommend The Grotto to you and your family.

 Thanks for reading, see you next week!!!!!

Lambert's Cafe

Welcome back!  We did something a bit different on a couple of fronts this week.  The awesome Dustyn Covert just returned from Japan and wanted to go to Lambert's, so that is where we went.  We are aware that it isn't exactly a local restaurant (they have three locations), but it is something that everyone from the area knows about and talks about.  We figured that was good enough.  They also don't take credit cards.  If you don't take credit cards then you are about as much of a mom and pop shop as you can be.  On to the blog!

Lambert's claim to fame is that it is just like sitting down at eating at a big family dinner.  The food is all you can eat.  There are "pass arounds" like fried okra, fried potatoes, macaroni and tomatoes, and black eyed peas that are served to you throughout the course of the meal as well as a crazy guy throwing hot rolls at everyone who is eating.  The atmosphere is what makes Lambert's great.  It's like Thanksgiving complete with your crazy uncle throwing food at everyone (or is that just at my house?).  One last thing to notice while you are there.  They always have a cute and bubbly girl handing out the awesome pass arounds like fried potatoes and sorghum for your rolls.  In contrast, they always have the most bored and pitiful looking person handing out the macaroni and tomatoes and the black eyed peas.  It's pretty funny.

There are a couple of things that you need to know about eating at Lambert's before you go.  First, as I mentioned before, they do not take credit cards.  So bring cash or a check.  There's an ATM at the gas station across the parking lot, but they seem to be keenly aware that Lambert's doesn't take cards and their fee proves it.  Second, they will not seat you until the whole group is there.  This can be a big deal.  We also found out that they can't seat more than about 10 people together.  Now you know, and knowing is half the battle.

The menu is exactly what you would expect.  It is pretty much southern comfort food.  Everything from pork chops, chicken livers, ribs, catfish, and chicken fried steak is on the menu.  It is all pretty good and all you can eat.  More on Sarai and I's dishes below!

I'm going to break a rule and bring up that the service this time was an anomaly.  Usually the service is great but this time it took a while to get drinks refilled (establishing myself as a drinker really hurt me here) and the server seemed to think he was working at Dick's Last Resort.  He wasn't being outright mean, but he was trying to hard to be funny and sarcastic and it just came across like he was a jerk and didn't want to be there.  He did pull a really funny joke that involved an empty cup and accidentally spilling it on a friend of ours, but that was definitely his one shining moment.

Overall, Lambert's is a really fun place to take a large group of people.  The sheer volume of food they throw at you is pretty intimidating and the atmosphere is a lot of fun.  Thanks for putting up with us changing it up a little bit, but it's not really a food blog about the Ozarks without a post about Lambert's.  We would also like to thank everyone for following what we do and apologize for this post being a bit late!  You guys are awesome.

Overall Experience:  ★    ★    ★    ★    ☆  

Food:  ★    ★    ★    ★    ★   

Service:  ★    ★    ☆   ☆   ☆  

Atmosphere: ★    ★    ★    ★    ☆  

Justin's Impressions:

I love Lambert's.  I had the BBQ Pork Steak with some mashed potatoes and corn.  I also ate a ton of rolls and fried potatoes.  It is almost worth the money just to sit at Lambert's and eat the rolls.  The food itself is not the best food you've ever had.  It's definitely good, but not great.  That is made up for by the fact you can eat as much of it as you can handle.  This can lead to some awesome things in your group like the "Pork Chop Challenge," where several people order the pork chops and see who can eat the most.  I believe it was a tie this time.  However, there have been some epic battles in the past.

I wouldn't really recommend Lambert's as a place to just go with a couple of people.  Part of the charm of Lambert's is that it accommodates large groups very well and is a great atmosphere to have a bunch of people in.

 Sarai's Impressions: 

As much as I love Lambert's, there is always one thing that holds true. Although  it's a true testament to how great the place really is, they are ALWAYS super busy and you always have to wait. So keep that in mind if you were thinking about a quick dinner. This trip was no exception. I don't really mind waiting, especially when there is adequate seating in the waiting area.  

The service was (as Justin mentioned) a disaster. I felt like the guy didn't really care too much about refilling drinks etc. He was rude, but it was hard to tell if it was the sort of "rude" that you laugh at or the sort of "rude" that you get upset about. He rode that line all the way through the meal. I have only been to Lambert's a handful of times but it's never been this way with the service.

I thought the food was pretty good, as always. It's hard to beat all-you-can-eat. I had the pork chops (one fried, one grilled) with mashed potatoes and sweet potatoes (and yes, I know I got two kinds of potatoes) (well, three. I had a few fried ones too.) In any case, the food was good, Lambert's is great for large parties, and I will be making more trips there in the future.

Thanks for giving this a read! Next week, we are going where you want us to so keep your eyes on the blog for your chance to vote!We'll see you next week.

Mille's turn of the century cafe

This week we continued our tour of all the cool local places downtown by heading to Mille's.  I had been there once for a wedding reception a couple of years ago, but neither of us had actually dined there.  It was also a pretty big change from Maria's from last week.

The restaurant itself was a really neat little place.  The first room you walk into has a big bar and there is another room that is more a traditional dining area.  Lining the walls are all kinds of different prints, old political cartoons, and signs.  We were greeted by our server and seated immediately.  She was incredibly friendly and our experience was off to a good start.

We sat down at our table and looked at the menu. I am going to sound like a cheapskate here but the first thing I noticed was the prices.  It was significantly more expensive than any other place that we have went.  The sticker shock was lowered a bit when we found the lunch menu on the back side of the menu, but the lunch stuff wasn't nearly as exciting as the standard menu.  So this week (because I'm cheap) we skipped out on our usual appetizer and dessert since most of the meals were in the $15 plus range.  There were burgers and lunch specials for about $10 a plate as well.  So it's possible to eat a bit cheaper there but it's not a place you'd just grab a quick inexpensive bite to eat.

Now that I've complained about the price of the food, let me tell you that the food was totally worth it.  The portions were huge and absolutely incredible.  Sarai ordered Chipotle Pork Chops and I ordered their Monterrey Chicken.  Both were awesome and really unique.  Sarai's meal had this ridiculously good citrus salsa sauce on the chops themselves that neither of us had ever tasted anything like before.  My chicken was also very well cooked and had a great flavor to it.  More on those later.

Our server was consistently good.  I established myself as a drinker and she kept up admirably and was always happy to answer any of our questions.

Overall we'd definitely recommend Mille's to anyone as long as they are aware that the prices higher than a lot of other places downtown.  The atmosphere is nice and quiet and the service was very good.

Overall Experience:  ★    ★    ★    ★    ☆  

Service:  ★    ★    ★    ★    ☆  

Food:  ★    ★    ★    ★    ★   

Atmosphere:  ★    ★    ★    ☆   ☆  

Justin's Impressions

So I ordered this Monterrey Chicken thing because it had all the ingredients to make something awesome.  Chicken, cheese, vegetables, cheese sauce, all cooked into a bread crust.  It was awesome.  It made me think of a high class pot pie.  Everything was incredibly well cooked, even the asparagus that came with the meal was great.

I also stole a couple bites of Sarai's pork chops and thought they were great.  The fruity taste was a lot stronger than I expected but it was really good after you got over the initial punch in the taste buds.

Mille's has Schafly beers on tap which made it difficult not to order one, but I had a date with five awesome kids to jump around at Wacky World, so I passed.  Uncle Justin would not have been as much fun if he had drank a couple beers.

Overall, Mille's was a great place.  Our service was awesome and every person on the staff was nice to us every chance they got.  I'm pretty sure it's because people are realizing we are becoming really important people.  I mean we are bloggers now.  That means something right?  That's what I'm going to tell myself anyway.

Sarai's Impressions

I ordered the Chipotle Pork Chops. I have had very few dishes with the unique flavor combination that this one had. Grilled pork chops covered in a citrus salsa served with rice and asparagus. I did, however, order mashed potatoes instead of the rice.

I am really skeptical when it comes to covering pork with anything because I am traditional when it comes to food. ("Picky" is how some people choose to describe me.) So when I tried this dish I was blown away. My taste buds didn't know what to do, but in a good way. I immediately insisted that Justin try it. It was sweet, salty, and tangy. Also, it was cooked just perfect.

I thought the server was very friendly. She was nice, helpful, and offered specials (which we love). I don't down my beverages as fast as Justin, but she always made sure I had a fresh drink.

Cost was one of the only issues I seemed to find at Mille's.  My dish was $17.00. Whew. It was worth the money paid for it, but considerably higher than most of the places we have visited. Maybe that's why we were only one of three small groups there during what should have been lunch rush.

Overall, I would say that I want to go back because I want to try most everything on the menu. After grabbing a bite of Justin's I realized that most items on the menu must be just mind blowing. We will return, possibly when we have the money to do so.

Thanks for reading this week. Stop by soon for a special posting. This will be fun, you won't want to miss it!

Maria's Mexican Restaurant

Welcome back!  This week, thanks to you guys being so awesome and voting on our poll, we decided to try a oldie but a goodie, Maria's!  We've been there before but we both wanted Mexican, and it wasn't on the site, so we decided to go for it.

We went for lunch as usual and were greeted and seated immediately.  We sat in the bar area on the high topped tables there.  Maria's feels like a Mexican restaurant.  I know that seems obvious, but as far as atmosphere goes it is a pretty standard Mexican restaurant.  It's nice because it's not so obviously Mexican it's tacky, but it just feels like a Mexican place.  That might not make sense to anyone, but thats how we feel about it.

We were immediately greeted by our server and before we knew it our drinks and chips and salsa were on the table.  The salsa at Maria's is pretty unique.  It has a strong flavor of what I believe is cilantro.  Regardless, it is really good fresh salsa with a pretty unique flavor to it.  We also ordered the queso because everything is better with cheese, especially chips.  The queso was pretty standard but mixed with the salsa it was really good.

Sarai ordered the Sergio and I ordered three fried tacos.  More on those later.  Our service was good, I wouldn't say it was great but he was talkative and recommended things off the menu.  He also was running the bar as well.  He did a pretty good job bouncing back to check on us.  Our glasses were never empty and he brought us all the sour cream we could handle.  It was refreshing to have good service after last week.

The menu was pretty standard Mexican stuff with names in Spanish that make you feel like an idiot when you can't pronounce them right.  They do get big props for their menu doing a great job explaining exactly what you are getting.  The price is really good for the amount of food you get.  The portions aren't so gigantic you can't eat all of them, but it is enough food that you can be satisfied.
  

Overall Experience:  ★    ★    ★    ★    ☆  

Service:  ★    ★    ★    ★    ☆  

Food:  ★    ★    ★    ★    ☆  

Atmosphere:  ★    ★    ★    ☆   ☆  

Justin's Impressions:

First off, thank you guys for giving me an excuse to eat Mexican and drink beer on my day off.  I mean it, thanks.  You're the best blog followers ever.

I'm a big fan of fried stuff.  I'm also a big fan of tacos.  So I obviously got fried tacos.  I ordered a three pack because I thought, "I'm a man, a man needs three tacos."  The tacos won, I only ate about two and a quarter tacos.  I almost felt defeated, but I was so full and happy it didn't matter.  If only eating a little more than two of those tacos makes me less of a man, so be it.  I tried a chicken taco, a taco with carnitas (marinated shredded pork), and a seafood taco.  All were really good.  They were a little dry because its just fried meat, cheese, and lettuce, but I just threw some sour cream and salsa on them and voila!  I'm still full.

I ordered a beer for lunch this week too.  They have pretty much everything you would want from Boulevard Brewing Company on tap, including whatever their seasonal is at the time.  They also have a "Daytime Drinker" special on margaritas before 5 PM.  So it's obviously a good place to have lunch and a drink on your day off.

I'm a  huge fan of Maria's and think it's definitely the best Mexican place in town.

Sarai's Impressions:

I admit, I have been to Maria's once before, and was pretty excited about the poll going that direction. It was a great experience once again. Thank you to those who took the poll to make this week everything that it was :)

Now, about the food. I always recommend the Queso dip with your free tortilla chips before the meal. It's fantastic at Maria's. Their chips are also "freshly fried" which means that they have that great restaurant style taste and consistency.

This week, I ordered the Sergio. It's a large flour tortilla stuffed with shredded seasoned beef and FRIED! That's right fried. Then, they cover it in Queso con Chile Verde. They serve it (as they do with most dishes) with a side of refried beans and rice. It's just the right amount of food for me, and the taste was terrific. Unbeatable. I have yet to have Americanized-Mexican food that matches the flavor of Maria's.

The atmosphere rating for me was on the low side. Generally, this rating is based on how accurate the atmosphere is versus what they are trying to portray. (ie: If it's a Mexican restaurant, I want to see something Mexican on the walls, tables, etc.) It's also based on cleanliness. The restaurant was clean, no doubt. But I felt  like they were trying to pull off something with the decor that doesn't work.

Service was great, so kudos to this guy for making up for last weeks experience :)

*To find out more about Maria's and other local eateries that we have visited, click the "eateries visited" tab located at the top of this site. Thanks a million for following our site. Have a great week, everyone.

Nonna's Italian Cafe

Welcome back!  First of all, we would like to say a big thank you to everyone who has been following our little journey.  It's already been a lot of fun and we are excited to keep it up!

This week's entry is about Nonna's Italian Cafe on South Street.  We decided Italian sounded good and we had been inside Nonna's before but had never actually eaten there.  Nonna's is a very cool little restaurant.  There is plenty of seating and the atmosphere is pretty awesome.  The walls are lined with art from local artists that you can actually purchase on one side and the other side is a ton of old family photos.  It has a really homey feel and is very comfortable.  We once again went for lunch and were told to seat ourselves.

Our server approached us and gave us our menus.  The only big knock that we have against Nonna's was the service.  It wasn't the worst ever, but it wasn't good.  It took a long time to get drink refills the entire time (which is something that is a big pet peeve of mine) and there generally wasn't service available a lot during our meal.  Our orders were taken promptly and there wasn't a big delay on our food, but there was just no real attention paid to us other than those two times.  We were one of only two occupied tables in the entire restaurant.  This was pretty disappointing considering how great the atmosphere was as well as the food.

The menu had a lot of the standard fare you would expect for a Italian restaurant, but there were also several dishes that you would normally not see as well.  I tried the Ratatouille (more on that below) and Sarai ordered the Chicken Parmesan.  On a side note, Sarai ordered the Chicken Parmesan because I picked on her for wanting to order the Fettucine Alfredo, which she always orders.  Everywhere.  All the time.  She told me that she was going to order something different just to spite me.  She did, but the Chicken Parmesan comes with a side of Fettucine Alfredo.  Touche.

Overall Experience:  ★    ★    ★    ☆   ☆  

Service:  ★    ★   ☆   ☆   ☆  

Food:   ★    ★    ★    ★  ☆  

Atmosphere:  ★    ★   ★   ½   ☆  

Justin's Impressions

The first thing I have to say about Nonna's is that I love the restaurant itself.  It is just a very comfortable place to grab a bite to eat.  We passed on an appetizer for salad and I was really glad we did.  I tend to like a lot of dressing on my salads and restaurants tend to not put a lot of dressing on salads.  This can be a problem.  It wasn't at Nonna's.  I ordered the Caesar Salad and they put a ton of dressing on it.  This was awesome for me, but might not be for you.  So just a heads up.

As stated above I tried the Ratatouille.  I wanted to try it solely because I spent a significant amount of time while babysitting my niece Kylie watching the movie and I always said I'd order it if I saw it on a menu.  I was pretty impressed.  Ratatouille is a pasta dish with squash, zucchini, peppers, mushrooms, onions, tomatoes, garlic, herbs, and white wine over a bed of pasta and topped with mozzarella.  It was really good, however, it is not the kind of dish that I would normally order.  I like meat.  The fact that I like this dish really surprised me.  It was light and delicious.  I'd recommend it for lunch any time.

My only complaint is that their glasses are really small.  My motto at restaurants is to, "Establish yourself as a drinker."  Small glasses coupled with lackluster service meant my glass was empty most of the time.  That is not an awesome thing.  However, I'd still recommend Nonna's, maybe we just caught the service on a bad day.

Sarai's Impressions
First impression of Nonna's was the quaint atmosphere. It's warm and inviting. I love that local artist are welcomed and encouraged to display their art on the walls there for all to enjoy or purchase. I love the idea of local businesses supporting other local businesses and artists.

The server was friendly enough. Not too great in the personality department, but he seemed nice enough. He is what I like to call "The bare minimum" type.  I ordered the Cesar Salad for my appetizer, and had the bread they put out on the table for us. It was pretty average, as bread and salad can go.  I had the Chicken Parmesan for my main course. It came with Fettuccine Alfredo on the side (Which, everyone knows, is my favorite.) I thought it was incredibly tasty.  I can get pretty picky when it comes to fried foods covered in sauce, but they were somehow able to keep the crust on the chicken crispy after slathering it in their fresh red sauce. The Alfredo side dish was amazing, but more garlicky than I am used to. All the same, quite tasty in my book. I recommend Nonna's for another go around one day. It seems like a cute place for a lunch date with friends, or a night out with your honey :)

One down side?- Gratuity had been calculated (not included, but calculated) on the bottom of the check. I don't really think that's classy at all. It's a little rude to presume that you  deserve the average tip automatically, or to assume that someone doesn't know how to calculate how much  they owe you. Does any one really use the old '10% of the check' rule anymore? What year is this?

For more information on Nonna's and other locations we have visited, click the "Eateries Visited"  tab located along the top of this page.

Thanks for reading! Can't wait until next Wednesday.