A return to Shoney's

When my truck was broke down in Greensboro, having a Shoney's next door to the hotel meant I had several opportunities to try offerings at a place I had never been to before. As you may (or may not?) recall, last time I was there, I loved the Kentucky Hot Brown and had a surprising disappointment with their strawberry pie. This time the opposite happened: dinner was slightly disappointing but dessert was phenomenal.

That night I decided to try their steak. I've had what passes as 'steak' at truck stop restaurants so I was longing for an actual steak. So I ordered what to me would be an average size cut (8oz I think?) with mashed potatoes. I think the soup and salad bar was included in that.

It arrives and it looks perfect...until I cut into it.

Now I order my steaks medium rare. This thing was still rare, which tells me the grill was too hot. The outside, again, looked perfect, the inside, not so much. So I worked on everything else on my plate first hoping the server would come back around to ask how things were so I could send it back for a couple more minutes on the grill.

Finished the rest of my salad, nothing. Started on the potatoes. Nothing. Finished said potatoes, nothing. Finally I figured he just didn't care to check back on me so I ate it. I've had rare steaks before, not my preference, but whatever. The outside was well seasoned but to some it may be a little too peppery. It was one of those rare times that I didn't need A1, which is always a good sign to me. That's pretty much how I judge how well seasoned and cooked a steak is: if I need A1 with it or not. So I'm happy to report that they at least did get this part right and sauce wasn't necessary. Now if they could have just cooked it right, I would be doing cartwheels and singing their praises. Ah well, can't win 'em all.

However, dessert was a different story. Forget the strawberry pie, this should be the dessert they promote the most. It's a hot fudge cake. 2 pieces of chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream in between with hot fudge drizzled/poured on top. It...was....HEAVENLY. And I'm not just saying that because I'm a woman and therefore have the "Any kind of chocolate is amazing" gene. A few friends do not have this gene so therefore, your argument is invalid. Wait, you weren't even having an argument? Well now this is awkward. Let's just move on to the picture then....

Just look at that piece of magnificence right there. It's tantalizing. It's appetizing. *ahem* It looks like the picture in the menu (I had to throw that jab in there). It tastes as good as it looks. No actually it tastes even better than it looks. It was heavenly. It was wonderful. It was delicious.

You should really try this. It's incredible. It could create world peace. It's just that good.

Subway's Apple Orchard Chicken Salad

Now, I don't know about you, but I'm not a big fan of complex tastes. Simple dishes usually turn out the best and adding too many things to a dish can actually ruin it. With that in mind, let's go over to Subway and try their Apple Orchard chicken salad.

Chicken salad, by itself, is pretty easy to make. Diced chicken, mayo, maybe some celery for crunch. However, Subway felt a need to kick it up a notch and add fruit. Why? I'm not exactly sure. How does it taste? I'm not exactly sure.

So take that basic chicken salad and add in: diced apples, yellow raisins and cranberries. Voila! You have Subway's Apple Orchard chicken salad. Who in their right mind adds raisins to anything? I can see the apples if they would have taken out the celery, but now you're getting a little too crunchy in my opinion with both. The raisins and the cranberries though, I'm not exactly sure why those were mixed in. The mayo it's all mixed with kind of washes out the flavor of both. It adds some interesting texture, that's for sure, but I really couldn't differentiate what was what while I was eating it. It all kind of ...blended together. I could taste the chicken, I could taste the mayo, I had some crunch that I determined was either apple or celery and then I had these mushy things that just seemed to add some bulk to the mix.

It wasn't the best, it wasn't the worst. Would I order it again, most likely no.

Arby's Spicy SantaFe Sandwich & Other Offerings

"Holy cow my lips and tongue are burning!"

That's my last thought of this limited time burger from Arby's. According to the website, it's limited time and limited availability. Green peppers, onions, pepperjack cheese and a spicy red jalapeno ranch sauce on top of roast beef and gently cradled (or slapped depending if the cook's in a hurry) on a sesame seed bun.

Here's a picture and info (including nutritional info): Arby's Spicy SantaFe Sandwich

This sauce packs a punch! While I was slightly wincing from the spice and reaching for my lemonade, I was also enjoying the fact that this sandwich was actually spicy. I can't tell you how many times I've tried something labelled as spicy and it's hot for a second and then it fizzles away. This hit me at first bite and I was both loving it and hating it.

While this won't replace my usual beef and cheddar (or reuben if I'm in the mood), it was a pleasant break from the norm, so my suggestion is: if you're in the mood, try it!

Another more recent menu offering of theirs is their house made chips, sprinkled with their Arby's sauce seasoning. Last time I asked for them, the lady behind the register told me they were out. Guess they ran out...of potatoes? This makes me question what part of it is 'house made'. Do they actually start at the beginning in-house and slice the potatoes, or do they get potato slices in frozen, then fry and season them in house? It's a mystery to all of us on this side of the counter, really. I was able to try them today and I am happy to report my reaction was....blah. They didn't bowl me over. They weren't 'omg amazeballs!' but they weren't awful. They're better than soggy, limp, clumped-together-because-that's-how-they-fried curly fries.

Nutritional info and pictures are also available on their website if you just follow the link from above. The chips are also listed on the Limited Time menu.

Now here's the kicker. These chips come in at 450 calories, and it's a one-size bag. So you can have these, or a small order of curly fries, which comes in at 400 calories. I would say this bag of chips is probably similar in size to a medium fry which is like 540 calories, so I guess they might be the better option? I dunno, I'm no nutritionist (by any means), I'm just looking at the numbers and making comparisons.

Another limited time menu option is their Triple Berry Milkshake.

GET IT!

Who cares about what berries, and what it looks like and what it comes with and what that swirly crap is on the inside of the cup. Doesn't matter. Just get it. Get it! Get it! Get it! Oh here it is: blueberry, strawberry, blackberry. Hey, how often do you get blackberry anything at a chain fast food joint? Exactly. Get it! Does it need the berry swirl crap on the inside of the cup? No. Chances are you're going to down this thing in no time so all you're left with is a clear cup with red lines around it. You can take a spoon and get it out but who has time for that unless you're stuck at a long red light. You can try to scrape it off with your straw but now you're treading into distracted driving territory and nobody wants that.

Once again, a rather tantalizing picture and info is available on the Arby's website and this one can be found under Shakes and Desserts.

So in conclusion:
Arby's Spicy SantaFe Sandwich - Yowsers! Try it if you're in the mood, has a pleasant kick to it.
House-made chips - Take it or leave it. Healthier than the fries (unless you order a small fry).
Triple Berry Milkshake - GET IT! GET IT! GET IT!

Why pictures aren't actually necessary here.

I've noticed that for food blogs, in order to be considered for some groups, there must be pictures on 80% of the blog posts. I'm sure that's all well and good for food blogs of local restaurants and such but um, I'm only focusing on restaurants and fast food chains within truck stops. And the beauty of such places is that they already have pictures on their menus of many of their items. Therefore, I don't really feel it necessary to take pictures of what I'm eating because someone else already did that and it's up on the menu. They pay professionals to do that. I could take pictures but to me it seems redundant. Also, how often does the item you unwrap look like the picture?

Now granted I'll take a picture if it's bad. That Shoney's Strawberry Pie is a good example of that. But if it looks close to what's on the menu or if you can go to said restaurant and see it right up there on the menu, I don't see a reason why I need to post a picture as well.

If that's going to keep me out of food blog circles, then I guess I'll just deal with it.
I could be lazy and steal pictures from the company websites but I think that's copyright infringement and I like staying on this side of the prison walls, thank you.

Welcome to Moe's!

I think the hardest part about writing a glowing piece talking highly of a restaurant is trying to not make it sound like a blatent advertisement for the place. I could go on and on about fresh ingredients and meat choices and so on and so forth to give a detailed description of the place but it's all going to sound like an advertisement and that I got paid to write about the establishment, which I haven't. In fact I haven't been paid by anyone to write good articles about them. So there you go.

Anyway, on to Moe's Southwestern Grill. I love Moe's. I really, really love Moe's. I guess southwestern grill would be better than calling it Tex-Mex. They have the usual southwest faire. You can get tacos, burritos, quesadillas, you can get your burrito in a plastic bowl which makes it a lot less messy to eat (my preference) or you can get a taco salad. They even have a limited breakfast menu but, psh, I'll stick to my Ear Muffs with chicken.

Oh, yeah, that's another thing about Moe's...the names are kinda...odd? I mean a burrito named the Homewrecker? A vegetarian burrito bowl named the Art Vandelay? I know that's a Seinfeld reference but I don't get the connection. When I go back in for dinner tonight I'll ask and see if I can get an answer.

You may have heard about Moe's. They were on Undercover Boss. They also do that signature "Welcome to Moe's!" when a guest walks in. Thankfully since it was 7am they nicely said it instead of yelling it. It's too early to be yelling anything.

Another thing I love about Moe's is their staff. Now the location I'm speaking about specifically is the Flatwoods WV Moe's at the Pilot. The manager there is very energetic, very nice and very upbeat. Always quick to start a conversation while making your lunch/dinner. He's fantastic, I wish every manager I came across was like him. This morning I believe I was helped by the assistant manager and she remembered me from last time and not just by recognition but vaguely remembered what I ordered. For a place I only get to come to maybe once every couple weeks, I love feeling like a regular and having the staff remember me even if it's just "that tall chick who orders the burrito bowl"

Yet another thing I love about Moe's is that they offer tofu! How many chains do you know of offer tofu? It's grilled with some southwestern seasoning. I tried it once and I enjoyed it! Granted I enjoy chicken more, but tofu was a nice change and it gives the vegetarian crowd something else to have. Now I don't know if they cook it right next to the beef or chicken, thus negating the vegetarian concept (I hear Burger King does that when cooking their veggie burgers) but I'm not a strict vegetarian. Actually I'm not any kind of vegetarian, but if you are, you'll probably want to ask just to be safe.

They also have a salsa bar! Their offerings range from mild to hot. So far I haven't tried a salsa that was bad. I prefer some over the others but that's personal. I did try the one labelled hot and while it had a little zing to it, it wasn't "omg my tongue is on fire!" hot. There's one that I particularly enjoy, and of course curse me for not remembering names, that I swear has a little touch of fruit in it. It's quite good, I get a cup of it for my burrito bowl all the time. The hot salsa I tried with the complimentary chips they give you.

Oh..yeah..the chips. They're a little generous with the chips. Everything you get comes with a side of tortilla chips. They have a little chip oven so they're toasty warm and I think just about everything you order comes with chips and a choice of queso or guacamole. The queso is good, it can thicken a little bit when left out, but it's good. If you get a side of queso, you get a nice amount of chips to go with it. If you get the larger cup of queso they practically give you a full bag of chips. If you get the larger container of queso, I think they have a dump truck full of chips pull up next to you. They're a little generous with the chips. I'm not even kidding, I ordered the cup of queso last time. I had so many chips left over, they were my snack while driving the next day. By the end of that day, I didn't want to see another tortilla chip for about a week.

Now this is new to me, but it's starting to become "a thing". One last feature of Moe's is their customized drink machine. I really don't know what else to call it. It's touch screen. It has the thingy you push with your cup for ice, then you set it down on the metal grate. Then you go through the touch screen menu to decide what drink you'd like. After deciding on which Coke product you'd like, THEN you also have options for flavored syrups. Do I want an orange Coke? Maybe a raspberry lemonade? Maybe just Dasani water. Oh, or cherry Diet Dr. Pepper? There are so many choices that while I stood there dumbfounded, the menu actually reset. I usually end up getting Minute Maid lemonade and whichever flavoring I haven't tried yet. I think today I had the fruit punch. :)

However, there's a tiny catch and it's based on location. (there's always a catch). When I was in Greensboro NC, one of the malls had a Moe's. It was not the same as a regular location Moe's! There was no salsa bar. There was no custom Coke machine. Even the chips and queso were already pre-portioned out for maximum efficiency. As I said in my review on Yelp, it was like Moe's Lite. Coincidentally, the manager of that Moe's read my Yelp review and thought "Moe's Lite" was awesome. But yeah, a mall food court Moe's doesn't do justice to a regular location. So, if you want to get your Moe's on, go to a regular location. If you just want some of the goodness, go to a Moe's Lite.

Oddly enough this mall also had a Sonic in their food court. How do you have a Sonic without servers on roller skates?! That's ridiculous!

But this isn't about Sonic, this is about Moe's, and I love Moe's. You should really go here.

..no really, you should.

Moe's Southwest Grill. Flatwoods, WV. I-79 Exit 67. You'll see the signs.
Check out www.moes.com for more information and locations. They also have a smart phone app.

Off the Beaten Path - When fantasy meets reality...at Shoney's.

Since it was my first time at Shoney's, I wasn't quite sure what to expect. I heard good things about their buffet but it wasn't ready when I stopped in there today. I had arrived a little bit early. Other patrons arrived early, too, and they started on the salad bar while waiting for the dinner buffet to start at 5p.

I decided to try something from the menu first: the Kentucky Hot Brown. Sounds like a dirty sex act but it's not and it's actually quite delicious! Turkey and more turkey and more turkey piled up with some tomato slices and cheese and some brown gravy over toast and cooked in a hot skillet. It was quite delightful and very good. Yes I know I've complained about the use of two sauces in a dish before but in this case I didn't care because it was really really good. However, a knife was required to slice through everything and I felt really guilty about using a knife on what looked like a cast iron small skillet. I mean, you're not supposed to right? Couldn't it scratch the metal and ruin the seasoning that you do after you get one before you start cooking with it?

According to their website, they're known for their strawberry pie. In fact they even made the world's largest strawberry pie and it was on some TV morning show. The menu states that it's fresh, made from scratch, and something they're well known for. So naturally, I had to try it to see what all the hype was about. The picture in the menu and table card made it look scrumptuous with strawberries and their special glaze and whipped cream and a flaky crust. One slice, please!

....and then it arrived.
For your convenience, the top is from the table card, the bottom is what arrived at my table.

I don't recall ordering the strawberry soup.

So to recap:

Kentucky Hot Brown - great! order it!

Strawberry Pie - bring a straw.

Denny's Red, White and Blue Plate Specials (July 2013)

Recently, I stopped in to the Denny's located at the Flying J in Peculiar MO. Funny name for a city, isn't it, Peculiar. That always struck me as interesting. Anyway, where the heck is Peculiar? Why it's south of Kansas City on US-71 aka the NEW! I-49. Well, I-49 isn't new I mean it runs north/south through Louisiana. Then I think it stops in Arkansas and goes back to US-71 and somewhere around Joplin Missouri it starts back up and runs up to Kansas City.

But I digress. Denny's has a new special menu for July and while I've only tried three items, they're worth mentioning.

First and foremost, if you want to try something new at Denny's this month. Even if it's the only thing new you try at Denny's this month, make it the Bourbon Chicken Skillet. Y'all, this was incredible. I'm pretty sure it comes with mushrooms but you can ask to have it made without. Unlike some restaurants (*ahem* T/A) they can do that. Honestly, it's not a complicated dish by any means and that adds to it's greatness.

Copied right from the Denny's website:
"Two grilled seasoned chicken breasts covered with a delicious sweet bourbon glaze topped with mushrooms and fire-roasted peppers and onions. Served with broccoli and seasoned red-skinned potatoes on a hot skillet."

This dish was incredible. The sauce totally makes this dish awesome. I don't know who makes it, or if it's their own recipe (must be because they don't give credit to anyone in particular) but this bourbon glaze was one of the best things I've had this year. I couldn't get enough of it! I was dragging my broccoli through it. I was dipping my potatoes in it. I was scooping it up and trying to get more of it onto the chicken I had cut up. It's like they put crack in it, I could not get enough of this sauce it was phenomenal.

Denny's started a good thing when they introduced their skillet dinners because many of them are really good and this one is no exception. Try it! Hey if you want it with mushrooms, get the mushrooms!

The next dinner I tried was the BBQ Pepper Jack Country-Fried Steak. I would have gone with the crack laced bourbon chicken skillet again but I thought, no, let's try something else. So I went with this. It's not a skillet, it's a regular dinner.

Here, once again, from the website:
"Our dinner-sized Country-Fried Steak smothered in Pepper Jack cheese sauce, topped with fire-roasted peppers and onions and Onion Tanglers.™ Drizzled with BBQ sauce and served with your choice of two sides and dinner bread."

Well, it wasn't as good as the chicken skillet, let's just get that out of the way right now. Overall, it was..okay..but it wasn't my favorite. It didn't win me over. The onion tangler thingies on top kind of got in the way and made cutting up the country fried steak more of an interactive experience. The cheese sauce plus the BBQ sauce, I think, is another example of them trying too hard. They did this last month with the macaroni and cheese bites. Either sauce, I feel, would be just fine on it's own. Pepper jack cheese sauce on top, fine. BBQ sauce on top, fine. Put them both together on top and it seems a little too much effort to go above and beyond.

The plus side to this dish is, like most of their dinners, you can choose what two sides to have with it. I opted for broccoli and the cheddar mashed potatoes. It comes with dinner bread, too, which is a simple way of saying "cibatta bread cut in half and buttered." Yeah the same bread that buffalo chicken sandwich and the smashed meatball sub come on. That's how we save on food cost and help our profit margin, people!

The disappointment came in the form of a Lemon Icebox Pie milkshake. They have 3 new milkshake flavors this month, strawberry cheesecake, blueberry cheesecake, lemon cheesecake icebox pie. I mean that's really what it tasted like, a lemon cheesecake. It had the little cheesecakey crumbles in it along with lemon ice cream or lemon flavoring to the icecream. In my opinion it needed more lemon, which could be attributed to either not enough lemon ice cream in the mix, or not enough lemon flavoring mixed in. I don't want to be bowled over by lemon every time I take a sip of this, but enough to where I think, "mmm, lemon" would be nice.

Here's what Denny's says about it:
"Made with premium vanilla ice cream blended with lemon, cream cheese and real cheesecake with a dollop of whipped cream."

So there you go, just call it lemon cheesecake and be done with it! Like I said, I felt it was lacking. It could have been better. A little more lemon I think would have been perfect.

Speaking of lacking, let me rant about the dinner service. Well first, let me talk about lunch. Lunch is where I tried the bourbon chicken skillet. Again, phenomenal. The lunch service, also phenomenal. My server was very attentive, very nice, and she stayed on top of things...mostly. I can't blame her, it looked like they were short staffed for lunch service. I saw one cook, two servers and one manager, so this poor girl had to handle most of the dining room by herself and she did a fantastic job. Well she tried to. If there was a delay with my order, which there was, she brought it to my attention, told me they were making it and it will be just a few minutes, and apologized for the delay. I can't get mad at someone who's being upfront and honest with me about that. She knows they're backed up and trying their best with who they have available, I can see their short staffed and trying hard, so I let it slide, it was no big deal. The manager was trying his best, too, running food or helping to expedite plus running the cash register when needed, plus seating people. Luckily he asked me how my lunch was so I got to rave to him about how incredible this bourbon chicken skillet was.

Now. Let me talk about dinner service. I'm pretty sure this was at the same location but my mind is drawing a blank and of course I can't find the receipt to compare store numbers. It may have been a different location, now that I think about it. Can't tell you where, I'm trying to retrace my steps and coming up empty. No maybe it was the same location. I don't know, let's move on. So I was seated. Wait, I remember on FourSquare someone left a tip that the service was really bad here. Okay sorry, back to the story. So I was seated in a different section from lunch. They were doing an actual rotation for dinner. And I noticed it was taking a long time to even be greeted by a server. Unusual for Denny's standards. The lady finally took my drink order and asked if I need a few minutes, to which I said yes. So she came back a few minutes later to take my order and I ordered the cheese quesadilla as an appetizer (I did this a lot the last few months, it's great as an appetizer and only $2!), then the new country fried steak special. She verifies my order and leaves to put it in. About 5-10 minutes later she comes back with my appetizer, sets it down and says 'enjoy'. (there's something still missing here, have you guessed what it is yet?)

A few minutes later she comes back to check on me and to ask how everything is. By this time my inner bwitch has come out and I flat out told her, "Look, I hate to be a b**tch about it but..." and then I pointed to where my drink would normally be THAT SHE STILL HASN'T BROUGHT ME YET! She immediately says "Diet coke!" and I respond, "Could you please? I'm dying of thirst over here." So she runs off and comes back with two.

A short time later my dinner arrives and during the course of the meal she brings a drink refill. She seriously saved her ... rear by being very friendly and conversational with me after she brought the drinks and let me chill for a little bit. I was ready to tip her nothing before the drink arrived but since she made an effort to talk to me and have some nice conversation, I decided it was fair to give her 15% (I normally tip 20%). Sure 10% would have sent a message, but I think after knowing she screwed up and seeing that 15% I'm sure she realized that she got lucky and was fortunate I was able to forgive her.

So what have we learned from reading this today?
-Bourbon Chicken Skillet = good.
-BBQ Pepper Jack Country Fried Steak = okay
-Lemon Icebox Pie milkshake = needs improvement
-Don't forget my drink order

Just a little announcement entry

Nothing major here, just making a few announcements of some changes.

First, you may notice that pretty red truck at the top. Thought this place could use a little style along with substance. Still working on finding a layout I like, but that may take some time.

Secondly, I added a few things to the right including links to many of the places I've mentioned in the blog. I figured that would just make things easier for you.

Third, you may have noticed I've referenced Denny's a few times but I've never devoted any time to them. Trust me, it's coming. I've got opinions about their food and the service at a few places. Mostly the monthly promotional foods.

Fourth is that there is no #4.

Fifth, I updated the description of the blog (which is right below the picture)

Sixth, made some slight changes to the appearance of things on the right.

Seventh, added a disclaimer at the bottom. You know, just in case.

Lastly, I think I need a different background image. It was supposed to be that of a highway and a horizon but when scrolling down all I see is the sky. Weird.

If your truck breaks down and you're in a hotel...

I found this out by accident, actually, due to circumstances where my truck broke down in Greensboro NC. After dropping my truck off at the dealership, I hopped into a courtesy van to a nearby hotel. I'm not going to go into much detail about the hotel but it was one of the cheapest in the area, the weather stripping on the door was worn off and the bathroom counter came up to my knees. Oh and it had 2 electrical outlets, one behind the bed and a power strip by the TV and mini fridge. Needless to say, all my electronics were plugged into one of those two locations and fortunately the power strip never caught fire for being overloaded.

But I digress, after being tired of eating pizza and Chinese food (this is where the duck sauce incident happened), I happened upon a laminated flyer in the room for a local Italian restaurant. I looked them up online and they had a large variety of food to order. Italian food. Greek food. Mexican food. They had pizza, stromboli,  gyros, burritos, and .... BAKLAVA! I ended up ordering from there frequently (I was broke down for over a week) just to get the baklava.

As it turns out, this restaurant, along with a few others, were part of a network serviced by EatStreet.You go to their main website, eatstreet.com and put in your address and it comes up with a list of restaurants that deliver (or you can pick it up but what's the fun in that?) to your location. At the hotel I was staying at there were 2, so I alternated ordering from them. They had similar items but with slight differences. One place offered gyros, the other place offered gyros, felafel and chicken kebobs. Each store has their own minimum order requirement and delivery charges. When I looked up just what was available in Greensboro there were a larger variety of restaurants including a sushi restaurant!

I've encountered this once before when I was broke down in Denver and there the restaurant network was GrubHub, so definately try both of those websites out if you're broke down in a larger city to see if you have other dining options besides pizza and Chinese.

eatstreet.com

grubhub.com

EatStreet also has coupons where if you order 5 times you get like $$ off I think your next order. I believe you get a coupon after your first order to use on your next one, also.

I'm pretty sure the Dominos and Pizza Hut delivery people were getting tired of seeing me, too...

T/A Salad Bar Hits (from a few locations)

I guess we'll just make this a trilogy of T/A reviews?

Along with the burgers I just reviewed, I tend to include the soup and salad bar. Some times the dinner I order it comes with it. Other times when I'm just getting a burger or sandwich I'll add it on. There have been a few surprises, both good and...interesting..at T/A salad bars and I just wanted to touch on a few.

First since it's fresh in my mind because I ate there twice in the last 24 hours, the T/A in Hurricane WV (west of Charleston on I-64 if you need some kind of reference point).

Oh before I forget, here they offered crumbled blue cheese that you could put on your salad. Unless this is a new item chain-wide, I've never seen it before so of course instead of the regular shredded cheese I opted for this instead. Loved it!

While browsing and assembling my salad I noticed a very peculiar item that once again, I had never seen before. It was bright pink and by buffet and salad bar standards it looked like it could have been some kind of pink butter. or a thick strawberry flavored whipped cream. The serving spoon was seriously stuck in the container to where I had to use two hands to get it out! One hand on the spoon, the other on the edge of the container. Then when I tried to put some on my plate, it was sticking like glue to the spoon. I couldn't get it to fall, drop or even plop (is that a good word to describe consistency, how ploppy it is?). I had to load up the spoon and then scrape it off with the edge of my salad plate (actually soup cup is what I used but you get the idea). Back at my table I tried it...it was pudding! Well, it was pudding-like. It didn't look like pudding. The strawberry had a great flavor to it, it was actually really good. The following day brought the return of the pink stuff and an introduction of brown stuff too which turned out to be chocolate pudding....ish. Both, despite their weird appearance and thickness and texture, were actually pretty good. Two thumbs up!

Next is a T/A I seem to stop at regularly on the way up to Canada: Binghamton NY (I-81 near the NY/PA border). The photo of what I lovingly called "Loch Ness Soup" from an earlier blog entry came from this location. It had a cheese base but then whatever was lurking under the surface was a mystery to everyone. Veggies, maybe some form of meat  in small pieces. I think there was a lone piece of diced potato in there as well. The soup was labelled "Chef's Special" which to me means 'this stuff is going bad soon, we have to get rid of it some how'.

On the flip side, a few weeks later they had a fantastic soup that blew me away. It looked to me what I thought was Italian Wedding Soup. I found out later real Wedding Soup has green veggies and this soup had a variety. It also had meatballs, well, halved meat balls but it was still in there. It was seasoned well, it had a good meatball count, it had a nice pleasing mixture of veggies that weren't cumbersome of tried to shove other veggies off the spoon. It was fantastic! I had seconds of it, I couldn't get enough. I loved it so much I even sent a tweet to T/A and raved about it. It was, in fact, that good.

Another hit from another T/A is in Earle AR (I-30 between Little Rock and Texarkana but closer to Texarkana if that makes any sense). Two surprises here is that first they offered a ceasar salad on the soup/salad bar along with the regular salad. And if you needed more dressing, they even had a little tub of  ceasar salad dressing next to it if you wanted extra. What I really loved, and it's not much but it was an interesting touch for me, was different kinds of butter. Along with the regular plain butter they also offered a honey butter which was fantastic and a cajun butter which had potential for sure but I didn't really see anything it would go with other than the rolls. I'm more of a honey butter fan myself but I did try the cajun butter which was also good, just not exactly my cup of tea.

I know it's not a T/A but I'd like to give a special mention to the Petro in Atlanta GA for putting hominy on their salad bar. I've never had hominy before and it looked like someone took white corn, peeled off the outer hard layer and soaked it in water to make it bigger. As it turns out, that's exactly what hominy is..who knew? I didn't really detect any kind of flavor to it, but it was still interesting and fun to try nonetheless.

Also a weird quirk of mine for the last year or so has been adding a small slice of pickled beet to my salad. Last year I thought it would be a good idea to try a few other things, add some new-to-me items from the salad bar onto my plate from time to time, who knows maybe I'll like it. Well, I've been adding a small slice of pickled beet onto my salad for a year now and let me tell you...I still don't like it. Why do I keep doing it? Habit! It doesn't feel like my trip to the salad bar is complete unless that little slice of picked beet is sitting there waiting for me to try it and remind myself that I don't like pickled beets. My dad does though. He can have them. I also tried a little bit of green bean salad today in Hurricane and, yeah, no. Not a fan.

So yeah, I can say nice things about T/A restaurants when it's warranted and deserving!

T/A's Bacon Jalapeno Burger on NEW! Pretzel Bun

This time in my defense, my phone was almost dead so I left it behind in the truck.

On my way out today, still at the same truck stop I was from last entry, I decided to eat lunch before heading out. The WV Turnpike doesn't have many viable, or cheap for that matter, food options for truckers going south. There's the big service plaza at Beckley and...that's it. There's 3 (that's counting Beckley) going north but south there's 2 rest areas and Beckley. Bummer.

So back into the T/A I went, determined to try something else from the special menu. I eyed that pickled onion burger like before but I just could not do it. I went with some more bold. More brazen. More could-they-pull-this-off?! The bacon jalapeno burger on their new pretzel roll...with regular fries.

The server brings it out to me and the thing just looks a mess. There's no much going on. There's the burger, there's the cheese melting and dripping off, there's the fried jalapenos...fried jalapenos?!..piled haphazardly, not arranged but thrown on almost like a "oh sh--, I almost forgot about those!" There's the other half of the burger with the lettuce and tomato (again, hold the pickle please). Then to be nice there was a cup of mayo placed on top of the cold side.

First thing's first, off came the cup of mayo. Won't be needing that, plus the burger had a chipotle mayo sauce on it already. Let's just eat the slice of tomato, otherwise it's going to get in the way and make the burger slide all over the place. I was tempted to try a lone fried jalapeno to see how much heat those pack after deep frying but I thought "No, let's be surprised". So I carefully assembled my burger and prepared to dig in.

Once again, like before, I noticed no heat. There was the crunch of the jalapeno but there was no heat from the jalapeno. Was my tongue numb? Was I immune to it? No, that's not likely, I'd notice the spiciness. The next thing I noticed was the lack of anything the bun brought to the burger. It's like it was just there. It didn't add anything, it didn't take away anything. You could probably have put this on a sesame seed bun and got the same result. I'd like to think it was made with pretzel dough and baked. It was a little greasy, both the top and bottom, I did notice that. It didn't seem heavy. It didn't seem like anything really, it was...just there. It held together pretty well, it just started to separate a but toward the end with the way it was rolled and baked.

Then you had the chipotle mayo..and the fried jalapenos..and the bacon..and the burger..and the cheese...and then with the bun. I....I just don't know. It's like they're trying too hard. "Let's put all these flavors together and it's going to be amazing!" When in execution it all falls flat and, yes, I'm just going to say it again, it feels like they're trying too hard.

Couple things I would do that I think could improve on this. First, axe the current bun. Go back to a regular bun. Second, axe the bacon, it's unnecessary. Third, axe the fried jalapenos and instead arrange a few regular sliced jalapenos. More heat and a little better since they're not fried. I'm thinking frying the jalapenos killed the heat from them. Keep the chipotle mayo, keep the pepperjack. Just make those few little changes and I'm sure you'll have a better burger. Well I think they would anyway.

T/A's Buffalo Burger w/ seasoned fries

Curse me for not taking my camera in with me yesterday for this!

TravelCenters of America, loving referred to as T/A by me, has a new special menu this month. The offerings are...interesting. One side of the special insert are burgers, the flip side are the same items but with chicken. I guess logic being if one side doesn't sound good with ground beef, flip it over and hey, that sounds better with chicken! Or something. I've been avoiding this menu like the plague ever since I first laid eyes on it. Nothing about it sounded appealing. The most confusing item in my mind is a burger (or you can get it with chicken!) with pickled onions on top. I've seen pickled items on the buffet a few places and it just doesn't sound good at all..which means for the interest of this blog I'm going to have to try it.

Yesterday, however, I tried the Buffalo Burger. I think that's what it was called. Of course the T/A website doesn't list anything about their restaurant specials nor do they have pictures so this is going to be pretty boring. It's a ground beef patty (or you can have it with chicken!) coated in Frank's Red Hot seasoning, grilled, then served with lettuce, tomato, pickle (hold the pickle, please), cheese and a blue cheese dressing on a regular bun. It comes with fries that are also seasoned with Frank's Red Hot seasoning.

The first thing I noticed when I bit into this burger was...wow...this has no flavoring to it at all. Did the cook forget to put it on? Did it all cook off with the grease? Dude, where's my red hot seasoning?! Everything else was there so I'm guessing it was made correctly but there was no flavor in that burger of anything remotely close to hot or even a slight tinge. The seasoning was on the fries, so I tried a few of the fries to see how the seasoning was. After just one, yes, this seasoning does have some zing to it and it's completely noticeable so I'm really surprised it wasn't on the burger. My two theories are: it cooked off while grilling the burger or like when you season ground beef prior to grilling it, you just don't taste it after the meat is cooked.

It's not like my expectations were high anyway, I just wasn't sure what I'd expect out of this.

A warning about duck sauce

I love Chinese food. Wait let me re-phrase that. I love what we consider Chinese food here in America. There that sounds better. And what seems to come with Chinese food? Egg rolls! Now I don't know about you but I enjoy dipping my little fried tube of veggie and pork goodness into this delicious sauce. I'm not really sure why it's called duck sauce because it contains no duck. Maybe you eat it with duck? I don't remember seeing duck on the menu though, but I digress, I have a warning about duck sauce though.

..this is going to sound like I stole it from "Gremlins"..

Never. Ever. Under no circumstances. No matter how tempting it sounds. No matter how much of a good idea it sounds like. Ever. Eat duck sauce by itself.

I have done this, and I still regret it because now I can never eat it again on anything ever again.

It sounded like a good idea at the time (we've all said this, admit it). I looked at the label. It had apricot in it. Apricots are good! It has some other fruit, too, which is also good. So to see what it tasted like by itself I tore open the package and squeezed half of it into my mouth and swallowed.

Omg it was so gross! The consistency was like some kind of slime. The flavors were just 'ewww' and I shuddered a bit. Then I did a stupid bonehead move: I ate the rest of it! In my defense, I ate the rest of it just to make sure it's as bad as I thought it was and I wasn't dreaming or hallucinating. Also in my defense, I didn't have anything to drink. Wait, that doesn't help here. But yeah, it was gross, I didn't shudder the second time, I gagged. It scarred me mentally. The flavor lingered in my mouth until the next day. The feeling of the slimey substance lingered in my brain for two days after and every time I thought about it, I gagged and almost threw up. Weeks later when I'm typing this up, I still get ghost shudders about it.

A week after this incident happened I ordered Chinese food and in the bottom of the bag were packs of duck sauce. I briefly entertained the idea of having it with eggrolls once again. I picked the packet up and gently squeezed it between my thumb and index finger. Then I got hit by a flashback and I had to throw it away. The sauce, not the eggroll, I mean let's be realistic here.

So gross. Don't do it!

Off the Beaten Path - Toby Keith's I Love This Bar (and Grill)

Last year (here I go again with that but bear with me for now until I get caught up!), my truck broke down and it was a big hassle and blah blah blah, Greyhound, blah blah, cab ride, blah blah International dealership.

So I was in Aurora CO and had picked my truck up the night before. Had nothing going on that day so I thought, "Hey, there's an outdoor mall a little ways down, let's go check it out!" Plus I saw the JC Penney had a Sephora so of course, I had to go. After doing some makeup and perfume shopping I thought "Hmm, what's good around here to eat?" There were a few options but the one that caught my attention was Toby Keith's. Well why the heck not, I've never been to one before, this could be interesting! (with me it's always an adventure, I'm not really sure why that happens).

I walked up through the open air mall (had to leave the truck parked at JC Penney) and found Toby Keith's. I saw a huge open air but not totally uncovered outdoor patio area and of course the front doors. Walked in, told the really nice young lady that I wanted to sit outside, plus it was nice out. They do allow smoking but I didn't see anyone smoking at the booths and I didn't want to be that jerk so I kept them in my purse.

Perused the menu and decided on fried macaroni and cheese appetizer to start and a chicken sandwich. My server was a sweetheart and really nice but more on that later. The appetizer arrives:

I couldn't help but start drooling. Now I've had deep fried macaroni and cheese before but they were bright orange/yellow triangles and these actually looked more appealing and appetizing and they totally were! I loved them and the sauce they came with, which I think might have been ranch but I could be wrong. Maybe it had Horseradish? and ranch? Ranchradish? Now I'm just being dumb, nevermind me.

Then my chicken sandwich came.

Ya know, a little lacking on the presentation but it was actually really good. The fries were cooked just right to where they weren't overcooked and brittle not undercooked and soggy.

My server was a little sweetheart though. We got to talking periodically and she told me of a great accessory store across the street called Charming Charlie's and that's where all the girls that work here go and spend their tip money. Hey, that to me, sounds like a positive review. I was skeptical though because could a thin, busty, gorgeous young lady like her who is wearing a work uniform similar to Hooters but a little more classy and country have similar tastes to a makeup loving lady truck driver? Oh yeah. I loved that little store and told all my friends about it.

But anyway, yeah, hi, the restaurant. Toby Keith's I Love This Bar....and Grille...and mechanical bull drunk chicks in loose tops wearing no bra seem to gravitate to. Try it!

Donut holes and holiday pretzels

I'm combining what would have been 2 smaller entries into one. Plus I'm trying to get caught up on things so my entries can be more current instead of with "Well a year or so ago..."

Okay so first off is Sheetz. I love Sheetz about the same as Wawa (which there is one with truck parking just outside Allentown but it fills up fast because it's near an industrial park). I found these by accident and they were totally an impulse buy.

Chocolate mint donut holes. Hello! Omg mint powder dust on the outside so instead of orange fingers with Cheetos I'll have green fingers instead! But, alas, they were dry and therefore a disappointment. I really wanted to love these, I really wanted to! Everything about it was good: chocolate, good. Mint, good. Donut holes, good. Kind of like fruitcake. It has all the makings of something fantastic. Put it all together...blah. :(

Next up is this lovely special limited edition holiday item:

Peppermint. Dipped. White chocolate. Pretzels.

Let me say that one more time: PEPPERMINT. DIPPED. WHITE CHOCOLATE. PRETZELS.

These babies were...ahhmazing. They were fantastic, they where incredible. They were so delicious and so addictive and..crap I ate them all already? I believe I found these at Pilot. If you ever see these, GET THEM!

Subway's Broccoli and Cheese soup

Subway's Broccoli and Cheese soup, now with 20% more plastic wrap!

Loch Ness...Soup?

What could be lurking in this soup called "Chef's Special" at the T/A in Binghamton NY?

Why, T/A, Why?!

Why did you take the chicken/shrimp Fettuccine Alfredo off the menu?! It was my favorite menu item!! It's so simple yet so delicious, and pretty difficult to screw up.

Why is your Ultimate Grilled Cheese on the 'no reorders' menu? It's a simple sandwich. I'll take a reorder on a different kind of bread to save on cost (that on Texas Toast would be fantastic, just saying.)

Also why are some of your dishes pre-packed to where I ask if I can have a particular item without mushrooms I'm told "No because it's pre-packaged so they can't do that." How hard is it to open the package and pick out the mushrooms? I have an eagle eye for those suckers, it takes me under a minute to pick them  out of the dish in front of me. I just wish they were more accommodating.

And finally, I saved my best for last. Of course I don't remember which T/A I stopped at but again it's irrelevant. I ordered a steak..well..what they pass off as steak. It's not the best cut of meat, I'll just say that. I think myself and this steak were tied at fat percentage, I'll just leave it at that. I'm not a big fan of baked potatoes. They're dry, dull and boring and usually the toppings run out before the potato does. So I ordered mashed potatoes instead. A fair and more enjoyable compromise. Several minutes later my server came up to me and said "We're out of mashed potatoes, do you want a baked potato instead?"

Now correct me if I'm wrong, but if you have baked potatoes, wouldn't that mean you still have mashed potatoes? Couldn't the cook just dice the potato and smash it around a bit and voila: mashed potatoes?

Where did this idea come from?

Of course a blog like this wouldn't have been created if everything at truck stop restaurants was wonderful and delightful. It's those times, more frequently it seems, where you see an item on the menu and think "Who thought this was a good idea?" Or an item looks like it could be good but the execution falls completely flat.

Case in point, I was at a Flying J in Pennsylvania a few years ago back when Flying J had their own restaurant, Country Market, before they were all converted to Denny's or IHOP. One appetizer item looked very tempting. It was a deep fried...something, I don't remember exactly but it's irrelevant to the story. It was balls of...something..breaded and deep fried. Maybe it was cheese and broccoli. It sounded promising so I decided to order it.

A few minutes later my server came up to me with the appetizer in hand. "There was a problem with your appetizer." "Oh?" I replied. "Yeah, they broke open while in the fryer and all the insides melted out. The cook is making another batch but he wanted to know if you still wanted these."

She sets the basket down and staring back at me are half a dozen broken and empty breading shells. It was like someone took a hush puppie, cut it in half, scooped out the inside with a spoon and left the outer shell. Bonus: she still brought the dipping sauce.

I looked up at her and politely declined the current offerings in front of me and said I would wait for the next batch being made. As she took it away and walked back to the kitchen I couldn't help but think, "Who in their right mind would still serve that?!"

..thus the idea for this blog began stewing in my mind. It would take 3 more years and a lot more hit and misses before I finally said to myself that I should start writing about this. I'm not going to say all truck stop restaurant food is bad, some it is actually good, but I do carry a big bottle of Tums for a reason.

Plan, Vision and Focus

Hello there. As you can see this blog is brand new and I don't have a lot of time to work on it today because, well, I have a delivery to make. I've been truck driving for over 4 years now and I've eaten at a lot of truck stop restaurants. Some good, some not so good and some down right horrible.

My vision with this blog is to highlight both the good and the bad. What I find tasty and delightful and what I find to be down right horrid. What are my qualifications? None. I'm fat and I like to eat, that's about it. I don't have any formal training or experience as a restaurant critic, I'm just out here hauling freight and from time to time I like to have a nice meal, which I'm sure a lot of truck drivers feel the same way.

The focus of this blog is really simple: highlight the good and the bad at truck stop restaurants around the country. These include, but not limited to, TravelCenters of America (T/A), Petro Stopping Centers, Pilot/Fying J, as well as the occasional fast food limited time or seasonal items. I will also include local independently owned truck stops if or when I have the opportunity to stop at one.