Condado Tacos (Oshtemo Township)
1750 S. Drake Road, Suite EI finally get some time off this year.
It’s been a year. I’ve had to use the bulk of my vacation days one at a time. If the kids had an event in the evening, I would take the day off because there was no guarantee I could make it. If J was out of town, I had to take a day off because I can’t get to daycare before it closes. I didn’t get an actual vacation this year. The kids both played baseball/softball in the spring and that ate in to a lot of my vacation days. 6:00 games don’t work with my work schedule.
I had four days left and I decided to try to save them for the week between Christmas and New Year’s. The Christmas holiday being a Monday actually gave me a full week off. Unheard of.
We spent the first several days, starting with the Friday before Christmas hunkered down at home. J had done a lot of shopping in case we got stuck at home with the blizzard. We were never trapped here but we had enough food that we could actually eat at home and not go out for dinner.
I was starting to get a little antsy spending so much time at home not really doing much so by Tuesday night, I asked J if we could go out to eat. There’s a spot nearby we haven’t been to yet that we’ve both been wanting to try.
Condado Tacos opened in November on Drake Road in the Corner at Drake shopping center next to Costco. The restaurant takes up the corner spot with the big curved glass windows near Firehouse Subs and Nonla Burger. This is Condado’s seventh restaurant in Michigan including two in Grand Rapids.
Read more…Taco John’s (Wyoming)
1730 28th Street SWI have a weird relationship with fast food. I don’t really like most of it, but it seems to be a necessity a lot of times.
There are a few chains out there I really like. There are also a few chains that really bring back the nostalgia from my childhood.
My family was a chain restaurant family. We very, very rarely ventured outside of the comfort of the big chains. We ate at Arby’s a lot growing up..especially during their 5 for $5 roast beef promotions. We also ate at Ponderosa and Old Country Buffet more than I’d like to admit.
The 80’s and 90’s were a weird time. A couple of big chains ran promotions to get families in the door with school aged children…seriously, it’s no wonder I’m…..uh…big boned….now.
Pizza Hut‘s Book-It promotion was great but the one I always looked forward to was Taco John‘s Taco’s for A’s promotion. You’d literally bring in your report card and they’d give you a taco for every A on it.
I really like Taco John’s and always been bummed there isn’t one in Kalamazoo. There was one in Stevensville for a while but that one closed. Now, Meritage Hospitality is bringing Taco John’s back to West Michigan starting with a store in Wyoming.
Taco John’s opened up earlier this month on 28th Street near Burlingame in Wyoming. The site is where Main Street Pub in Wyoming used to be but that building was torn down and a new design Taco John’s was built in it’s place.
Read more…The Wing Hut
2913 Howard StreetMy late shift is usually only on Monday’s. I like this schedule. I work nights on Monday’s which sucks but I also get to take a nap after I get the kids to school. Weekends are usually pretty hectic and I don’t always get a ton of sleep. Monday mornings are my recovery day.
I got a bonus nap day on Thursday a couple weeks ago. They needed me for a night shift and while I didn’t really want to do it, we didn’t have anything going on that I needed to be present for so I only put up a little bit of a fight before giving in.
I got the kids to school then headed back to bed. Of course, I got a constant barrage of texts from work that I tried to ignore but they kept dinging and I kept waking me up making me even more cranky than I already was about having to work a night shift.
I eventually gave up and got out of bed. I didn’t really have anything I needed to get done at home so I got myself ready for work then decided to go get lunch before heading in to the office.
I’m trying to get to some newer places in town that I’ve been neglecting. One of those places is The Wing Hut near Western Michigan University.
The Wing Hut is on Howard Street in the Campus Pointe Shopping Center. The small restaurant is snuggled between The Den Party Store and Insomnia Cookies where The Pita Pit used to be. The restaurant is kind of a sister restaurant to Ty’s Joint in Washington Square. Same family and a lot of the same food but the restaurants have their own uniqueness.
Read more…Greg’s Gourmet Dishes
806 Riverview Drive, Suite 4Seems like the traveling for work has calmed down some. It kinda sucks because I really like traveling for work but also kinda great because I’m home. Before I got married, I was leaning towards a career that would have me on the road every weekend. That wasn’t something I wanted with a family I know some people do it, but that wasn’t the life I wanted. Getting some weekend trips with the rare weeklong out of town assignment keeps me home most of the time but gives me a chance to do things I like to do.
There have been a lot out of town posts on the blog recently. As I’ve explained many, many times, I use this blog as a journal. It’s fun to go back and read posts over the years and see what was going on in our lives and how I worked it into a blog about food.
Now that I’m back in town, I’ve got some Kalamazoo area restaurants that I need to get to.
I had some time on my lunch break last week so I could actually order food and go pick it up. My lunch breaks, far too often, are spent at City Centre Market or Jimmy Johns.
Greg’s Gourmet Dishes is a place I’ve been wanting to get to for a while. The restaurant is on Riverview Drive next to the 13 1/2 Party Store on the corner with Bridge Street. This location has been many things over the last several years. TNT-Lil’ Brothers BBQ, Burger Bros., and most recently, Burger Boss. Greg’s Gourmet Dishes opened in October.
Squealers Barbeque (Indianapolis)
5515 W. 86th StreetOur big work day in Indianapolis was going to be long one…but we were going to get a late start.
I was up around 8:30 after a decent night’s sleep in another hotel. I actually wanted to run downtown to do some things on my own before I clocked in for the day and I figured I had enough time to do so.
I got back to my hotel in northwest Indianapolis right around 11:00. As I’ve mentioned in my previous two blog posts, there were a ton of food options around where we were staying. There was also a place claiming to be the best BBQ in Indianapolis. I had to see for myself if it is as good as they say it is.
Squealers Barbeque has two Indianapolis locations. The one closest to me was the location on West 86th on Indianapolis’ northwest side. The restaurant was the second Squealers location, opened in 2004, after the original was opened in Mooresville in 2001. This building is a stand alone restaurant on 86th near Zionsville Road east of the I-465 interchange.
Read more…Monical’s Pizza (Indianapolis)
6010 W. 86th StreetI’ve said it many times. Friday night is pizza night no matter where I am.
I had to spend a couple of nights in Indianapolis a few weeks ago for a job assignment. My colleague and I got to Indianapolis Friday afternoon, completed a couple of tasks then called it a night. She was meeting up with her parents who were also in town for dinner. I went looking for pizza.
Our hotel was in a pretty commercialized spot in northwest Indianapolis. I had plenty of pizza options to choose from but one jumped out at me right away. An old childhood favorite I just don’t get to have anymore.
The Monical’s Pizza Indianapolis location is on 86th Street near the I-465 interchange. The restaurant is part of the Traders Point Mall which is more like a series of strip malls with a couple of anchor stores. The restaurant is near the back of the property closer to the AMC theater than 86th Street.
Read more…Philadelphia Steak and Fries
5745 W. 86th StreetYup. Out of town for another weekend. This time, Indianapolis.
A co-worker and I made the drive to Indianapolis late Friday morning for jobs scheduled Friday evening and Saturday night. We were late booking hotels and they were pretty expensive due to an event going on downtown so I looked around and found something reasonable within about a 20 minute drive of downtown. We decided to go to the hotel first, get some stuff down there, then head downtown for our evening assignment.
We got checked in to a hotel on 86th Street on the northwest side of Indianapolis. This is a really commercialized area right off of I-465. There were several restaurants within walking distance. We had grabbed breakfast from Dunkin Donuts in Texas Township before we left but I was already getting hungry again around 2:30.
There was an Arby’s, a Taco Bell, a Wendy’s…all within walking distance. But there was also a local joint too…and you know me and local joints.
Philadelphia Steak and Fries is on 86th Street west of Zionsville Road on the northwest side of Indianapolis. The restaurant looks like any other fast food joint in the area but it’s a locally owned Philly Steak sandwich shop that also serves up breakfast.
Read more…Raising Cane’s (Grove City)
1944 Stringtown RoadOne last meal before heading home.
My co-worker and I had a pretty long day of work in Columbus a couple of weeks ago. We got moving around 7:00 AM and it was bout 7:00 PM that we were packing up for the day and heading home.
She had a job in Detroit before meeting me in Columbus so we had separate cars. It didn’t make sense for us to drive around in two cars all day so we left her car back at the hotel in Grove City. Once we were done for the day, we headed back that way to get her car and go our separate ways home.
I dropped her off around 7:30, got gas from a nearby Speedway and saw a restaurant across the street for dinner. We don’t have many Raising Cane’s in Michigan (there is one in East Lansing) so I jumped across five lanes of traffic to get some chicken fingers.
Raising Cane’s restaurants are all over the Columbus metro area. The one I stopped near the corner of Stringtown Road and Gantz Road in Grove City just to the west of the I-71 interchange. The area is very heavily commercial with a number of chain restaurants and big box store shopping.
Read more…Tommy’s Pizza (Upper Arlington)
1350 W. Lane AvenueFriday night is pizza night. It doesn’t matter where I am or if I’m with my family or not. It’s pizza night. That’s just the way it is.
I’ve had a lot of really good pizza lately so the bar seems to be getting pretty high. I typically look at Google reviews and pictures when I’m on the road looking for a pizza place and that seems to work out pretty well for me.
I was in Columbus for work a couple of weeks ago. The co-worker I was with had friends in Columbus so her plan was to go to dinner with them. My plan was to grab a six pack from a nearby gas station and order a pizza.
I had seen reviews for Tommy’s Pizza and the place looked good. There is a location on Ohio State’s campus that I was trying to order from but they close at 3 PM? The online ordering didn’t work and no one answered the phone.
Luckily there is another location not too far away.
I picked the Upper Arlington location of Tommy’s Pizza. This restaurant is on West Lane Avenue near North Star Road just to the west of THE Ohio State University. The restaurant is a standalone building near the intersection. I actually passed it at first because there is a Speedway on the other side of the intersection and I needed gas. When I got out of my car to get gas, I could smell the delicious pizza making a half a block away. The building has kind of old school pizza joint look to it with a green awning above the door with the name “Tommy’s” written in white cursive lettering.
Read more…PJ’s Sandwiches
15 Frambes AvenueYup. On the road again. This time a quick two day trip to Columbus, OH.
I met a collleague in Columbus on Black Friday. She had spent Thanksgiving in Detroit and I spent the evening (after working a full shift) in Sturgis at my in-laws.
Saturday was going to be our long day of work but we still had a few tasks to accomplish Friday afternoon. We met up at our hotel in the southwest part of Columbus then headed downtown together to knock out what we needed to do.
We worked for a couple of hours then had a lull. We were just sitting in a parking lot waiting and I was getting kind of hungry. I had looked at some places to eat before getting to town near the Ohio State campus. College towns always have good food and I wanted to see what I could find that screams Columbus.
There was a sandwich shop not too far from where we were at. I asked my co-worker if she minded if I grabbed something to eat. She said she wasn’t hungry but that shouldn’t stop me.
We headed over to PJ’s Sandwiches on Frambes Avenue near North High Street on the Ohio State Campus. I don’t know much about this campus but High Street looks to be the main commercial district that serves the campus. There are restaurants, bars, and shops up and down this street with what clearly appears to be student apartments all around it. PJ’s was just off High Street right before the street turned into apartments and multi unit housing.
Read more…
SW Michigan Dining 