Press Release – For the Love of Cans
From a Millennium Restaurant Group press release…
Chicago Hood Spot
605 Franklin Street SEIt seems like it’s been a while since I’ve been back to Chicago to get a good Italian beef sandwich. Lucky for me, I happened to see a Tweet the other day linking to an article about Five Hidden Gems in Grand Rapids which included a place that 1.) I’ve never heard of even though I’ve drove by it several times and 2.) the Italian beef was the featured sandwich.
Chicago Hood Spot is on busy Franklin Street SE in Grand Rapids between Madison and Eastern. The old building really doesn’t have a lot to distinguish from some of the other buildings in the area, but they put a sandwich board out front with a special on it and that’s what caught my attention.
Since the place has the word Chicago in the name, you can expect a few things on the menu. You know they have Chicago dogs as well as Italian beef and Polish sausage. Also, rib tips….delicious smelling rib tips which really tempted me, but I was in the market for Italian beef.
There’s an order counter in the middle of the space which is surrounded by about half a dozen tables. The menu was on the counter and their were some daily specials written on a dry erase board next to the cash register. My eyes went straight to the top left of the menu and I ordered my Italian beef. Read more…
The Buck Burgers and Brew
412 State StreetLast weekend, J and I asked our parents if they wanted to meet in St. Joseph for Mother’s Day. The restaurant I really wanted to eat at decided not to be open on that day, so we had to come up with a Plan B. Fortunately for us, there are a lot of great places in St. Joseph. Unfortunately, they were all doing a brunch instead of their regular menus.
We ended up eating at Silver Beach Pizza, which everyone loved, then playing at the Silver Beach Carousel and Curious Kids’ Discovery Zone before heading home.
J’s mom came home with us from St. Joseph for the week which means she didn’t have a car here. We needed to meet back up with J’s dad so J’s mom could get home.
We decided to meet again in St. Joseph. This time, eating at the restaurant we had originally planned for Mother’s Day.
The Buck Burgers and Brew is a restaurant that has been on my radar for a long time. Seriously. Burgers and Craft Beer. Does that not describe me?
The restaurant is in the heart of St. Joseph’s downtown on State Street. There’s a modest facade on the downtown building but there’s a big outdoor patio which is visible from Lake Boulevard.
We were pulling in to town just a little before noon which turned out to beat the rush by mere minutes. A hostess showed us to a booth right next to the front door which seemed a little odd considering we needed a high chair. I thought the chair seemed to be in the way, but that’s where we were put. J wasn’t super happy at first because there didn’t seem to be a lot of space between the booth and the table and we like to hold L until we get food. We realized the table could move so we pushed a little towards J’s parents so L could fit in the booth on our laps. Read more…
Atlantic Fish ‘n Fry Market
900 28th Street SE- Grand Rapids, MI 49508
- (616) 247-7777
- No Known Website
- Menu
Man, was I craving chicken. I really didn’t know what kind of chicken I wanted, but I knew I wanted chicken.
I was sort of driving aimlessly down 28th Street when I remembered a small ‘you buy, we fry’ place near the intersection of 28th Street and Eastern. I assumed they had chicken as most of the places like that do really whole wings.
Atlantic Fish ‘n Fry isn’t a whole lot. It’s a waiting room with cases of fresh fish on ice and a small grocery section. The deal with these kind of places is that if they are classified as a market and not a restaurant, they can accept EBT. The grocery section only consists of condiments. There’s a lot of hot sauce.
There wasn’t a menu posted anywhere, but I saw what appeared to be a paper menu on top of one of the counters. I picked it up and found what I was looking for.
I ordered the 10 Piece Wing Meal which comes with fries, slaw, and bread. The bill was just a hair over $10 and I was told it would take about 15-18 minutes. I took a seat on one of the chairs along the wall and checked Twitter for the next 15 minutes. Read more…
Pizza Vera
Various (Food Truck)- Kalamazoo, MI
- (269) 779-4967
- Website
- Sample Menu
There isn’t a better way to spend a Saturday morning than at the Farmers’ Market. We were a little late getting to the Kalamazoo Farmers’ Market this week because L had one more swimming lesson left. We would have liked to have gotten there earlier, but it turned out we didn’t pull in to the Bank Street market until about 12:30.
Most of the vendors had already packed up for the day, but we still found a few things we couldn’t live without. J had suggested we just grab some lunch as there were still three food vendors set up and serving. All of them sounded good to me, but I was looking for something specific.
A few weeks ago, I blogged about a new brick oven pizza food truck that has set up shop at the Oshtemo Township parks. Not long after posting that blog, I got a Twitter message about another brick oven pizza food truck that was planning on setting up shop at the Farmers’ Market on Saturday mornings.
It didn’t take long for me to spot what I was looking for. In the interior section of the Farmers’ Market was a white tent with a brick oven serving up pizzas.
Pizza Vera is a fairly new catering company that has set up their oven on a trailer that can easily be pulled from place to place. The small menu consists of three pizzas and a couple of drinks. There are no size options and there didn’t appear to be any custom toppings. Just a handful of delicious sounding gourmet brick oven pizzas. Read more…
Wing Doozy
3916 Plainfield Avenue NEEvery now and then, I’ll troll the Interwebs looking for new restaurants. Since I work in Grand Rapids, I always check the “recent restaurants” section of Urbanspoon (I do the same for Kalamazoo, but don’t find too many surprises)
Last week I was adding a couple of reviews to the Grand Rapids section on Urbanspoon and decided to see what restaurants have opened recently in Grand Rapids. I’m always looking for new dinner stops and lucky me, there was one that jumped right out at me.
Wing Doozy is on Plainfield Avenue NE in Plainfield Township. It’s just to the northeast of the Meijer between I-94 and the Beltline on the south side of the road.
The small wing shop has only a half dozen tables and the kitchen full of deep fryers is on display as you walk in. Since the place has just recently opened, there are menus all over the place. There was a laminated one on each table although there is no table service. The far end of the kitchen opens up just enough for a cash register to peak out.
The menu has both boneless and regular wings as well as chicken strips and fish. I don’t get the appeal of boneless wings. The bone seems to be where all the flavor is. Read more…
Bell’s Eccentric Cafe
Bell’s has changed the way their cafe is operated. Please check out the most recent blog post.
355 E. Kalamazoo AvenueWhen J and I first moved to Kalamazoo in 2009, one of the first restaurants we went to was Bell’s Eccentric Cafe. At that time, I really hadn’t gotten in to craft beer yet. We loved brewpub’s for the food and while we liked Bell’s, we weren’t blown away by the food.
Since that time, Bell’s has drastically redesigned the Eccentric Cafe and upgraded the menu quite a bit. With a little one, we don’t have a lot of time to just hang out and drink like we did in the pre-baby days. We’ve been saying for months we need to go back to Bell’s.
Bell’s Eccentric Cafe is on Kalamazoo Avenue behind the General Store at the site of the original Bell’s Brewery. The small parking lot and entrance to the cafe is actually on Porter Street. The redesigned cafe actually gives you a choice when you walk in the door. To the right is a great outdoor patio area. To the left is the original part of the Cafe with a slight redesign.
On our first trip to Bell’s, we were really confused about how to order. It took a good ten minutes before we figured out there was no table service. That hasn’t changed, but now, you walk right by the kitchen on your way in whereas before, you wouldn’t have passed it. Read more…
Voting For Beer City USA Starts Today
After a write in campaign, Kalamazoo is in the finals for the Beer City USA title. Ann Arbor and last year’s co-champion Grand Rapids are also in the running.
There’s a kick off part tonight at Bell’s Eccentric Cafe at 5:00 and the voting opens today and runs through 11:59 Friday (Mountain Time….so, 1:59 AM Saturday here in the East). The winner will be announced May 13 at 2 PM
Kalamazoo’s beer drinkers have organized a website at http://www.votekalamazoo.com as well as a Twitter account
VOTE IN THE BEER CITY USA POLL HERE
#Beer4Kzoo
Panera Bread – Gull Road
5627 Gull RoadSaturday is swimming lessons day. L loves the water and we decided that we should get her used to the water as soon as we can. We actually started swimming lessons at Borgess Health and Fitness last fall when she turned eight months old. We skipped the next session but then decided to put her back in this spring. J mentioned to a friend of hers that we were doing it so said friend signed up as well. After the most recent session, friend asked if we would like to take the kids out to lunch. Like I’ve said many times, I never turn down lunch.
The restaurant of choice today happened to be a chain J and I are familiar with. It’s our go to when we don’t want a burger.
The Panera Bread on Gull Road is one of three locations in the Kalamazoo area. There’s also one in Portage which is always packed and one on Main Street in Oshtemo.
The Comstock location is a little bit smaller than the other two. The dining room is much smaller and the order area is a little more compact. The thing I don’t really like about the Oshtemo location is that the drinks are on one side of the cash register and the food pick up is on the other. At the Comstock location, everything is right there together so if you’re doing carry out, you don’t have to try and guess which is going to be done first.
J’s friend got a table and a couple of high chairs for the girls before we got there, so J got in line to order while I took L and put her in the chair. Something new Panera is doing is kind of a table service when you dine in. It used to be you picked up your own food from the kitchen counter, but now they give you a number and tell you to sit down. Read more…
Mr. Quick Restaurant – Norton Shores
4190 Grand Haven Road #BI’ve spent a lot of time in Muskegon County this week. Unfortunately, I haven’t really had time to explore many of the dining options that I would like to. If I got a lunch break, it was most likely a gas station sandwich (which I ate three times this week).
On Friday night, I actually got a proper dinner break. I could have went anywhere I wanted as I was by myself, but I narrowed it down to three quick service places. A coney dog shop, a drive-in, and a burger joint.
The burger joint ended up winning out because it’s connected to a gas station. I needed gas and a restock on my Pepsi supply for the night. I glanced at the menu board as I was grabbing a pop and I saw everything I needed, so I paid for the pop, moved my truck away from the gas pump and went back inside to order dinner.
Mr. Quick Restaurants is a small Muskegon area chain that specializes in burgers. There are five locations in the area. The spot I ended up stopping at is the Mr. Quick on Grand Haven Road near the corner of Airport Road in Norton Shores. The restaurant shares space with Jack’s Corner Store which is a BP gas station. Read more…
SW Michigan Dining 