Bland Thai Food IS Possible!

August 26, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Taos Oriental Cuisine – Restaurant Review

I keep looking for great food north of town, but I haven’t found it yet.

I decided to try Taos Oriental Cuisine with a friend. When I pulled up in the parking lot, there was a big banner on the building that said, “Taos Oriental Cusine” (note the spelling). The same lack of attention to detail that went into the banner was a sign of my meal in general.

The waiter was friendly, and funny. He joked about borrowing my motorcycle, and was generally a nice friendly fellow. No complaints about the service. I ordered Chicken Pad Thai and Thai Iced Tea. I asked for my Pad Thai hot and was told “three stars is the hottest we can make it” – I decided to go for it.

The Thai Iced Tea was good, but very small. The glass was very thin, so although it was tall, it didn’t hold much volume.

Despite the three star rating, my Pad Thai wasn’t that hot. I was able to eat it while barely breaking a sweat. Overall, it was bland. There was nothing exceptional about this meal. I’ve had worse Pad Thai (Hello, Noodles & Co.), but I’ve also had MUCH better (Bhan Thai, for instance).

For what its worth, I enjoyed the crab rangoon that came with my meal more than the entree.

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Cinco de Mayo Letdown

May 5, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Jorge’s Mexican Restaurant – Restaurant Review

Jorge’s Mexican RestaurantMy buddy Sean asked if I wanted to try out Jorge’s Mexican Restaraunt – in the old Henri’s location. I’d never been there, so I readily accepted.

Considering its location, parking was surprisingly plentiful and easy to find. We parked around back. The front door kind of sticks, so it was little bit hard for me to open – I actually thought it might be closed, but one of the diners inside noticed and got up to help push the door open. My friends and I came in and stood there for a few minutes while we were ignored by the one waitress on duty. Finally, we decided to grab a table, and hope somebody noticed us.

Eventually, an apologetic waitress came to help us. Mark ordered cheese enchiladas, Sean got the chicken taquitos. I wanted the tostadas, but couldn’t decide if I wanted chicken, beef, or chorizo. I asked if I could get different meats on them, and was told that it costs “a dollar extra per meat.” Ouch! Talk about nickel and diming you for no real extra work. I went ahead and just got two chicken tostadas. I ordered mine with beans instead of rice.

When it arrived, the first, obvious thing I noticed was that I had rice. I told the waitress, and she rushed back to get me a side of beans. Mark was happy to take the rice off my hands.

The food was really just ok. The chips and salsa we ordered were good – the salsa has a kick, so if you’re a wuss, be careful! My tostadas were pretty plain, and the chicken was fairly dry, and very bland. Sean agreed that the chicken in his taquitos was nothing special. It was certainly edible, but it didn’t knock our socks off.

Mark, on the other hand, was very happy. He claims to personally make the best enchiladas in town, and whenever we eat at a new (to us) Mexican place, he always tests the waters with cheese enchiladas. Inevitably, he complains that they aren’t as good as his own – especially the sauce. At Jorge’s, however, he was content. Their enchiladas and sauce was the closest to his own that he’s found. He gave Sean and I each a bite, and I have to admit – it was very good. Definitely better than my chicken tostada!

The price here is about average, unfortunately, so is the food. The bright side is that its right next door to the chocolate factory, which is a great place to go for dessert – which we did!

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Pizza Buffet At Billy’s

July 26, 2008 By Leave a Comment

Billy’s Old World Pizza – Restaurant Review

Billy's Old World PizzaAs few as 5 years ago, Billy’s Pizza was consistently fantastic, but somewhere over the years, they have lost their touch.

I came here with my family on a Saturday afternoon, right when the lunch rush should have been, but it was dead. There was only one other group in the dining room. We all ordered the buffet.

 

The buffet was well kept, and offered a pretty wide variety of food, especially for how small it is. There were four types of pizza, including what used to be the main reason to come here – the Chicago style pizza with mountains of cheese, and the sauce on top. Also on the buffet are rolls, Italian sausage, meatballs, spaghetti, salad, chocolate cake, along with several other items.

Billy's Old World PizzaAfter an initial helping of pizza, I managed to put together this Italian sausage sandwich, with some red sauce, and a nice pepper mix.

So.. the bar is nice, the problem is that the pizza’s weren’t fresh. I was here at noon, and it was dead, if nobody is eating the pizza, there’s no reason for them to put new ones out, and old pizza makes me sad. Additionally, the sausage was fairly bland.

I’m not much into chocolate cake, but my daughter loves it – and she swears the cake here is the best (she once ate 5 pieces of it – no lie!). A couple of years ago I talked to the owner about her fanaticism for Billy’s cake, and he told me that they put pudding in it, which keeps it nice and moist. If your into chocolate cake, this alone may be reason enough to come here.

 

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Wooglin’s Pastrami = Meh!

July 7, 2008 By Leave a Comment

Wooglin’s Deli – Restaurant Review

Wooglin's DeliI met my friend Sean for lunch at Wooglin’s Deli today. It’s a small place in an old brick building on North Tejon, at Cache la Poudre. It has a pretty nondescript sign out front and is easy to miss if you don’t know where you’re going. I didn’t see anywhere to park, so I fed the meter.

There’s a large menu on the left wall, just before the register with quite a bit of stuff on it. Sean told me that Country Club was good, and thats what he ordered. I opted to try the pastrami sandwich. I ordered it grilled, which (amazingly) costs 50 cents extra.

Now granted, even a really great pastrami sandwich probably wouldn’t photograph well, but trust me, this one was pretty poor. Having paid extra for it to be grilled, I expected a nice golden brown moderately crisp grilled sandwich. The bread on my sandwich seemed like it had been thrown in a toaster for 20 or 30 seconds – there was no evidence of it having been placed on a grill at all. Also, the bottom piece of bread was fairly soft – almost soggy. The pastrami was pretty bland. The upside is that it came with two packets of Grey Poupon mustard, which I used liberally

Wooglin's DeliSean’s sandwich looked great, and for my entire meal, I wished I had taken his advice and ordered that too.

The restaurant has a very warehousey feel. One side of the main dining room sits directly beneath the AC unit which was creating a pretty strong breeze on our table. I literally couldn’t put down my straw wrapper without it blowing off of the table. We had to move to a more comfortable location.

Another oddity is that after filling my drink at the soda fountain, I couldn’t find the straws. It turned out that they were on the other side of the dining room – at the coffee station (who uses plastic straws to drink coffee?). It was definitely a bit organizationally challenged.

Finally – the restaurant has a very hippy-ish vibe. Lots of weird paintings on the wall, and Simon & Garfunkel was playing while we were there. This wasn’t a problem for me, but if you think our current political regime is the best ever, you may not feel comfortable here.

I might try Wooglin’s again, but I won’t get the pastrami.

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