We're Back

Its been a while, I apologise for my neglect on this blogsite for the last 4 months or so. I suppose I felt a little disappointment from the lack of visits on my site. For a long while, I thought about shutting this one down too (I also had a detox site for a little while); then I thought, if I close this, then I'm taking a big risk in the brand new site becoming a quick bore as well. So, what I've decided to do is revamp and rebuild this site. I'm going to do some reconstruction in order to make it more interesting to all of us.

The changes that I'm going to make are going to be pretty big, and I'm asking all of you for some ideas on how to make it more interesting. So far, I have several ideas. The absolute first of these is to ask my darling wife and soul mate to help me rebuild the site, she has created a real knack for websites. Also, I'm going to start my reviewing of beds and breakfasts in the south, she and I are huge into B&Bs. Then I'm going to recreate the whole scoring system, I'm not quite sure how to right now, but I'll look into this. Finally, we're going to evaluate full vacations. Creating better labels for the posts I write will draw larger crowds. I'd love to receive your ideas. If you have any ideas, please post your comments below.  Thank you for your ideas, your support is very helpful.

Announcement

I just came on real quick to let you know two things...

First, I will come back to bring a new review soon. We are right in the tournament section of the PGA Masters at this time and its difficult enough trying to do my usual vocation. I want to come back refreshed and open-minded so that I can judge these restaurants to the best of my ability to be fair.

Secondly, my father's birthday is tomorrow, so I just wanted to wish him a very Happy Birthday. Love ya' dad!

Mellow Mushroom

Mellow Mushroom
1167 Broad St
Augusta, GA
(706)828-5578

Food 4.5/5
Staff 2/5
Price 3.5/5
Cleanliness 1.5/5
Ambiance 4/5
Overall Rating 14.5/25

I have rated Mellow Mushroom before on a different site, but that was over a year ago and it was rated under a different system. I decided to do a follow-up and re-review this fine dining establishment. Upon this last journey to one of my favorite pizzerias, I noticed that it had obviously gone into a downward spiral of filthiness. The floors were nasty! Although they hard floor concrete, which is easy to clean and keep clean, there was food crumbs here and there. A syrupy stain from possibly a soda or beer. I probably would have been more lenient if it were lunchtime, but we went around four pm. The dishes and tables at least were clean, so we stayed.

The wait staff was friendly enough, but they were definitely amateurs at best. Our waitress never asked if everything was okay. There was no asking about desserts (points off for that of course). I ran out of drink. We weren't asked if we wanted a box to take with us, which forced me (via conscience) to finish off my meal.

I never thought we would get our pizza. It took a good 25 minutes to get a pizza pie in the middle of the afternoon with maybe only a dozen other tables filled. As for the pizza itself, the vegetables, kudos! Each one of the veggies were a delight to the senses and I truly do love a good vegetable and I was very happy about this here. The meat was up to par, neither great nor terrible. The sauce is light, very light, hardly noticeable and its like this on most of their pies, so keep this in mind if you care one way or the other. I do happen to like a light sauce, so it was a good thing. The dough was a little oily and undercooked, NOT GOOD! The dough that I so looked forward to eating was a little raw! The dough is whole wheat, which is really a lot better than the dough you might get from any high volume pizza chain, the only stipulation to this is that the dough, MUST BE COOKED!!!!

The ambiance, not considering the entire menu that covered the floor in bits and pieces, was warm and inviting in that strange, hippy decor. It was fun to see statuettes of characters shaped like each of the ingredients and make funny little stories about them. The music they pipe in through the speaker is not too loud and it is really good.

The price of the food is a really good value. Drinks and food came to around $10 per person and that is about average for any of those crappy pizza chains that advertise on the telly. So even for the floor being nasty and the crust being underdone a little, price should still not enter much into your equation of choosing this as your favorite pizzeria.

As my final thought, I'd like to say that I'll definitely go back to Mellow Mushroom, but probably at another branch. Mellow Mushroom is a smaller franchise that can be found almost all over the southern states, also a few in the southwestern states, and a one in Indiana. They have a fantastic website that you should check out if you're interested in trying some good pizza. If you're coming to the Augusta area for the golf tourney next month, then maybe you should try the one in Evans, GA, they are cleaner and more experienced with food than the one I went to on Broad Street.

Special Thanks to ruby13_2006 from photobucket for allowing me to use the beautiful mushroom photo seen above.

A Lamb Recipe

I made a new dish last night that I feel that I must share because it was so delicious. Its a crock pot recipe made with lamb and veggies.



Lamb Stew

3 pounds of lamb

1 garlic bulb, roasted

1 cup snow peas

2 cups baby carrots

1 large Yucca root, about 3/4 lb

1 large red onion

2 Tbsn Salt (sea salt is best)

1 Tbsn Pepper

1/4 cup Olive oil

1 cup filtered water



I used lamb shanks and it was very good, but ribs or chops would also be good. Shanks were cheaper, but they were a little fatty. Lamb chops are slightly leaner, and ribs are the leanest, although rack of lamb is slightly on the pricey side, they are great for stews.

To roast a garlic bulb, I bought a bulb at the grocery store, cut off the top 1/8 inch (3 mm), exposing the most and natural oil of the garlic and drizzle olive oil over the top. Bake at a low 275 degrees Fahrenheit for 45 minutes to an hour. After the garlic is well roasted, you can easily squeeze all the roasted sons from the garlic. Place the sons into the crock pot whole, you can throw the whithered part of the garlic away.

Yucca root is a brown tuber with a white center, its from central America and after its cooked, has a sweet taste that resembles coconut. Its tougher than a potato while raw, but it must be peeled before cooking. Cut yucca into french fry sized stick and throw into the crock pot.

Slice onions, wash peas and carrots and throw them into the pot and mix thoroughly. Add water, salt, pepper and olive oil and cook on high for 4 hours and simmer on low for 2 hours.

Rendezvous Grill (North Charleston, SC)

Rendezvous Grill North Charleston, SC
Location: 7832 Rivers Ave
N Charleston, SC
(843) 572-1566
Specialty Restaurant: Bar/Grill
Food 2/5
Staff 3.5/5
Cleanliness 3/5
Price 2.5/5
Ambiance 3/5
Overall Rating 14/25

When I heard about this place, I didn't know what to expect. The bar and grill Rendezvous is situated in one of North Charleston's most hectic shopping districts and it has changed management 4 times since its opening, and in one instance it completely cleaned out its kitchen. Now, in a lot of normal businesses, the changing of management usually means a huge difference in how things are ran, double this for a restaurant.
All kinds of crazy crap lines the walls. Odd signs and other bizarre curio line the walls, which can be either good or bad. In a drunken haze, the curio would be fascinating source of comedy, while sober, such as I was, it was distracting. However, I must say that the decorations were not nearly as distracting as the guitar soloist/singer in the corner, the tenor that tried his best to sing a Johnny Cash song and some other various hits from other rock legends. He could play his guitar on some and he could sing some, but it didn't seem like he could do both at the same time very well. Hire a drummer and you'll be better.
The food from Rendezvous is imaginative for a bar and grill. They consist of several vegetarian dishes, including my wife's dish, a panini of basil and mozerrella on a croussant, it was $7.50 and too small for that price, but I had a bite and it was very delicious. I ordered their fried seafood platter with oysters, scallops, and shrimp and I was pleasantly surprised at its freshness. I received about 1/2 dozen of each type of fish that was lightly breaded and fried to perfection in some VERY fresh oil. The scallops were about the diameter of a 50-cent-piece and about an inch thick. I had onion rings on the side and they needed to cooked earlier and kept warm in the kitchen to drain the oil from them. They were rather greasy. Their sauces on the side (tartar, cocktail, and bloomin) was tasty, but a little on the spicy side. I had green beans and they came out great. A salad was order for my other accompanyment, and I must say, for a $10 salad, it seemed to be quite disappointing. It was very undersized and I was told that the peaches had turned sour.
The waitress was attentive and patient with our order.
Cleanliness was nothing to write home about. I didn't see any huge bits of food on the silverware, but at the same time, there were smudges. The carpet in the dining room seemed to show every bit of garbage thrown onto it from its customers. Its an ugly carpet. The furnishings however are quite lovely and there is a very nice lounge that is adjacent to the foyer. So, thumbs up on the suade couches and wrought iron/stone tables in front.
To sum this experience up, I'm going to have to say, by all means, if you're looking for a nice drinking experience, this is it for you, but if not steer clear, you won't find the food you're looking for here.

Monterrey's

Monterrey's
Location: 436 E Martintown Rd.
North Augusta, SC
(803)441-0000
Specialty Restaurant: Tex-Mex
Food 2.5/5
Staff 4/5
Cleanliness 5/5
Price 4/5
Ambiance 3/5
Overall Rating: 18.5/25

I classify all "Mexican" restaurants in the Augusta area as "Tex-Mex". As a close Mexican friend of mine pointed out, actual Mexican food is not what we think of here in the states. Taco Bell has about as much grip on true Mexican cuisine as Kentuky Fried Chicken has a true hold on sushi. Still, as far as Tex-Mex is concerned, Monterrey's holds the top rung of their specialty.
To the management of Monterrey's: DON'T get too excited! Its not too difficult to be at the top in your specialty, and you still have a lot of room for improvement.
Okay, let's start with the food. I once had authentic tortilla chips made fresh, I longed for them at the beginning of our meal. Their salsa is delicious, but they were difficult to enjoy since the chips are obviously from a bag from the supermarket. We got our additional appetizer of queso cheese on the side. The cheese was good, but ordinary, so much opportunity is wasted there. With some very cheap additonal ingredients, queso can be made more exciting. I ordered the "Burrito Grande", a big burrito of beef, chicken, lettuce, onion, tomato, cheese, avacado, and topped with cheese and red salsa (I asked for the green salsa, they messed it up). I took some of the burrito apart, eating it ingredient by ingredient. The vegetables could have been fresher, even though they did look nice, they lacked that certain crisp that you expect. The chicken was as bland as any number of styrofoams that one could imagine. The beef, however, was the saving point on this dish, it was outstanding!
As far as the service is concerned at Monterray's, they are friendly and clean in appearance. However, they won't ask you about dessert and evidently, they have trouble hearing the word's "green salsa, please".
The restaraunt is very, very clean. A wonderful point about this place is that they have NO carpet in the dining room. A kitchen that can be seen into is clean. Even the mirrors that line the walls are clean. I trust this place and if there is nothing else good about Monterrey's, I don't feel affraid to enjoy a meal here.
The menu offers something for every budget, which is nice.
There is a very nice looking and centrally located bar in the center of the restarunt.
Overall, I'd have to say, that if you absolutely have to eat Tex-Mex in Augusta's area, do so at one of three Moneterrey's Mexican Restaurant locations.
4018 Washington Rd Augusta, GA (706)855-9949
4352 Washington Rd Evans, GA (706)228-3645
436 E Martintown Rd North Augusta, SC (803)441-0000 *the one I reviewed.