Citris Grill

Citris Grill off 12300 S. in Draper is one of my favorite places to hang out with the girls. Last night Laura, Dana, Wendy, Robin, Amy, Gwendolyn, Kay, Nancy, Ashleigh, Dawn, and I were all there.

The food is delicious, and I'm particularly fond of the Ham and Havarti sandwich, the sweet potato corn chowder, the artichoke dip and chips, and practically all of the desserts. The wraps, salads and pizzas are also amazing. Portion sizes are enormous, so be prepared to take some home, or split the meal with a friend.

The only minutely annoying thing is that Citris is spelled with an "i" not a "u". Not sure why. Maybe I'll ask. Or not. What do I care as long as the food is yummy?

Thanks for the good friends and good conversations last night, girls!

Sweet Home Chicago

We had a blast at Sweet Home Chicago on Tuesday.

Thanks to Julia, we had a coupon that got us a large pizza, salad, and garlic cheese bread to split between Dana, Erin, Kaye and I. Yum. The thin crust pizza is my favorite.

What's not to love about pizza? I mean, out of all the foods in the world, you have to try pretty hard to mess up on pizza (although Godfather's manages to do just that-usually by leaving them out too long after the noon rush. Don't EVER go there at 2:30 in the afternoon b/c all you get is the nasty lunch rush leftovers and they haven't yet started on the fresh pizzas for the early dinner rush).

I digress. SHC has really good pizza, good salad, good garlic cheese bread, good prices, good decor, and an all you can eat lunchtime buffet. It's worth checking it out next time you're in the area.

One of the biggest bonuses is that Joe, the owner, lives in SunCrest, and consequently THEY DELIVER TO SUNCREST!

The only drawback is the location. It's tucked away behind a bunch of other stuff and it's not very visible unless you know where it is.

The conversation drifted between Breaking Dawn, Sarah Palin, kids starting school, which teachers the kids all have, Obama, conservative vs. liberal philosophies, and back to the vampires in Breaking Dawn.

Thanks for the brilliant conversation, girls!

PS We missed everyone who was unable to come!
PSS Where are we going next month?

Just gets better!

I am having so much fun with dinner club. It's not about the food or the restaurants at all, just wonderful meeting so many new people and friends. This was the biggest yet I think, were there 11 of us there?

Cafe Trang was perfect for the night. The service was very non-obtrusive, things just got done without me even noticing. She just slipped in then out. Even when they were closing they never told us to leave. They just nicely brought us receipts and cleaned up until we got the hint.

I really enjoyed my dish. It was beef something, I waited too long to blog and now I can't remember a thing. Even though I enjoyed my dinner, next time I'd get the lemon chicken. That's the dish that has stuck in my mind after we all passed our plates around. Everything else has faded away in my memory after a mere 10 days, but the lemon chicken still lingers.

We are quickly running out of restaurants in Draper, at least interesting sounding ones that we haven't already been too. It will be fun to see what we come up with next time, I can't wait!

The Best Yet

I thought Cafe Trang was our best dining experience yet. The food was absolutely delectable. The Pad Thai was great, the shrimp salad was incredible and the Mongolian beef was spicy and flavorful. One of my favorite dishes was the walnut shrimp. It had a light and fluffy sauce that was just sweet enough to make it rich and satisfying. It was fun getting to try several different dishes and not one was disappointing. The service was great and the atmosphere was vibrant and interesting.

Great conversation. It was so much fun it was hard for us to leave even after we closed the place down.

I'd highly recommend Cafe Trang!

The early bird

gets the Pad Thai, and the girl who comes an hour and half late gets a cast-off bowl of some of THE best rice ever (thx Angie!), with a little soy sauce to flavor it up a bit.

I typically prefer dry rice to sticky rice, but Cafe Trang's rice is unbelievably both. Dryish and sticky, and incredibly yummy.

The waitress DID give me two fortune cookies since I arrived too late to dine, and who wouldn't have a good impression of a restaurant after receiving a nifty fortune like: "You will be successful...someday."

I'll have to go back sometime when I can try the real food too!

As always, the company is the very best part.

Mi Rancho Grande

I'm going along with the rest of the gang here. It was ok. Adequate. Nothing special. Just food.

The tamales were a big disappointment, very flavorless. I ate everything DeLaina ate, so I don't have much to add in the food arena. Bland and edible. I was thinking the green flecs were pumpkin seeds? I love the fried ice cream at Los Hermanos so that's what I'd be geared up for. I was let down big time.

I liked the atmosphere. It was relaxed and easy for us all to be loud and obnoxious without disturbing anyone. I should have looked around better because I know the sign says they have a live band at times. I always thought from the outside it was a little dive hole in the wall, now thatwould have been fun! I was hoping to find a hidden hang out with a bar and band, but definately just another average family restaurant.

Come on Draper, can't anyone give me a great place to go hang out on the weekend? I'm tired of going downtown all the time to play.

I say the golf course too! That can still be in our international tour because we can act like it's a rich, snobby place, and that would be a different culture for me since I'm not rich and never snobby. I've done IKEA, I would rather not repeat that indigestion tummy pain again from those meatballs.

Since I'm playing boss and we have three votes I'm posting it. See you all next month! (PS, Delaina, where are those pictures! You are going back into the dog house ;), I can't believe you have better things to do then blog and download pics, lol.)

Come on in, the food is fine

I want to say something fun and clever about Mi Rancho Grande, but the restaurant is really neither all that fun nor all that clever. It's okay, it's not bad, it's just kinda forgettable I guess. I liked the margarita, they did a great job with that. The food was fine, I can hardly remember it. The fried ice cream was a little weird with the green flecks and kinda tasteless topping. But overall it's a restaurant that is as hard to complain about as it is to compliment. Plus I was so loud and obnoxious I'm sure no one else could even concentrate on their food. Someone should have just told me to pipe down!!!

I love the idea of going to the golf course club! We could dress up all swanky and make up stories about all the rich people. But either the French bakery or IKEA would be fun to go along with our international theme.

Oh, and don't forget about the Arctic Circle on 123rd. :)

Mi Rancho Grande

In a word: Predictable.

And not necessarily in a bad way. Considering the fact that I have been here three times this week, I would definitely say it's not a bad thing at all!

The ambience is great, and the music is at just the right volume. The service is generally good and the food comes out quite quickly.

Guadalahonky's is just down 12300 so we wondered how Draper can support two Mexican restaurants? I think I prefer Guad's food but the wait can be cumbersome, and sometimes, when I want a quick night out, it's just more simple to go with fast, easy and satisfactory as opposed to slow and crowded but extraordinary. (That philosophy is reserved for food only...)

The chips are non-descript, and yet we ate several bowls worth, and the salsa is la ittle too thick, dark and heavy, but not enough to keep me from eating a bunch of it.

Laura and I split an order of Carne Asada and Tamales. I preferred the Carne Asada to the Tamales because the tamles were a bit soggy. As a big fan of Costco frozen tamales, I like them drier and crumblier with shredded meat, not chunks of meat. Personal preference. The carne asada was grilled with Pico de Gallo which made it fairly flavorful, and it was served in a warm tortilla. I added rice, beans and sour cream and it ended up tasting more like a grilled fajita burrito thing. Yum.

Then, SOMEONE (other than me, if I'm remembering right,) INSISTED that we all order dessert so we got fried ice cream. It had green things in the coating that looked suspiciously like zucchini specks. One doesn't expect to find veggie impersonators lurking in the coating of one's dessert. But I ate it anyway, so obviously it wasn't too big of a deal.

Oooh, I almost forgot-their pina coladas and strawberry daquiris are scrumptiously smooth. I got a virgin pina colada and that was my favorite item of the whole dinner.

They have reasonable prices too, so if you're looking for quick, easy, and relatively cheap, this is the place!

Hey guys-there's IKEA with Swedish food, and a new little French patisserie/bakery up by Sweet Home Chicago. I picked up a baguette and a mille-feuilles last week and they were pretty close to authentic. And, like all of you, I'm sure, I've been dying of curiosity about the South Mtn. Golf Course Cafe that IS open to the lowly public.

Somebody pick a place for next month and I will TRY not to eat there twice during the week of our Dinner Club date.

Ginza...mmmmmm

Ginza was fabulous! After eating there I have been craving a "X-Roll". It was DELICIOUS! I was surprised that I liked it so well. The service and atmosphere was great, and company was phenomenal!

Our International Tour of Draper

I just noticed our theme and I love it! Seems we are doing our own little international epicurean jaunt without having to leave those hallowed boundaries of Drapertown. First we visited Italy (or a somewhat bastardized version of it), then Japan and next is Mexico. Good thing we have DeLaina to translate the languages for us!

Wendy

Good Grief Ginza

I posted these comments under Laura's post, but then she helped me figure out how to do a regular post, so I thought I'd just copy these into a real, grown-up post of my very own.

The company at Ginza was spectacular! Great conversation and fun stories. And the service was terrific. It's hard to separate bills at a sushi restaurant, but our server did it anyway (with a little resistance.)

However, I'm a sushi LOVER! Given a choice between sushi and any other food I'd always choose sushi. In fact, I think even grocery-store sushi is usually better than many other choices. Because of my ongoing sushi craving, I've tried a lot of it. It's one of my major food groups.

My standards for sushi aren't incredibly high, but I do expect certain things. I thought the nigiri sushi at Ginza was good, especially the unagi. But the maki rolls were warm and loose and very sub-par. In fact, although I did help Bonnie eat her shrimp rolls, they were not very tasty at all!

The maki choices were limited and very Americanized. I was a little disappointed. I didn't try the sashimi, but because of the way the maki was served I might be afraid to try it there. I'm not sure I would go back to Ginza without the promise of interesting company because of the many other superior choices for sushi in the valley. I might have to drive farther, but I know the quality will be there at places like Ichiban, Samurai Sushi, and Kyoto.

Can't wait for the next girl's night out! Did we pick our next place?

Wendy

Ginza...ooolala

I was pleasantly surprised by this restaurant. I was expecting great company, and got fabulous food too!! The service was prompt and attentive. The atmosphere was very relaxing, and though it is a smaller restaurant, the use of space was very appealing. I ordered the X-roll, soup and salad, and let me tell you the X-roll is the BOMB!! Ever since eating there I have been craving the X-roll. Maybe is had drugs in it??? With pms I usually want ice cream and pizza, and now I badly want...sushi?? Something strangly odd about that! But, okay so if you want to try it out, I am ready to go! Yum yum!

Ginza

I can't believe I didn't know this restaurant was in Draper and have never been?! Is it new?

I really loved this place, the food was wonderful. I am not a fan of seafood or by extension sushi. So I can't vouch for that specialty. I had the teriyaki beef and tempura. Wow! Seriously, it was fantastic. I figured I'd be getting the token Ceaser Salad or chicken strips that I typically do at a seafood place, so perhaps my enthusiasm was colored a bit in that light.

Service was even great. Friendly, happy, and did an order substitution for me with no questions (didn't want the shrimp tempura so they brought me extra veggie tempura).

I'd go back anytime, I really enjoyed the whole night. And as would be expected, the company was best of all!

Buona Vita

Physical Facilities: It's a beautiful building with a lot of potential, but the lack of ambience was definitely a distraction. Several of us thought some booths, and candles could cozy it up a bit. I felt a bit exposed b/c it's such a large space with such high ceilings and we were just sitting there in the open. The views were nice enough, with the exception of those horrid SunCrest McMansion monopoly houses purposely stuck so rudely on top of the mountain.

Service: Can we just say "disinterested third party"? Slurping the small amounts of water that melted off my ice cubes every few minutes as the only way to quench my parched throat was certainly not enjoyable for me, nor for the people sitting next to me. Sorry gals! There were only two other tables there during the excruciating amount of time, two hours, we spent there so the excuse is not that they were super busy. I too felt that they would have been perfectly happy for us to all walk out the door and let them get back to whatever it was they were doing that was so much more pressing than...their jobs.

Food: OK. I am not a gourmet chef by any stretch of the imagination. Occasionally I will make a zippy meal like roast in the crock pot, or I'll get all fancy and make BBQ meatloaf or Poppyseed Chicken. Most of the time it's Mac-n-Cheese, Quesadillas, stuff my kids can also make etc. So, when I do go out, I expect to get something of a little higher quality than a dish my 10 year old can throw together, which is exactly what I got at Buona Vita. Spaghetti, mushrooms, peas and a little cream sauce with not a lot of flavor. The dessert was so memorable that I have already forgotten what it was.

Music: The finale of every song became at least 50 decibels louder than the previous sections and had us bursting into fits of laughter every few minutes as our conversations would halt mid-comment while we waited out the 48-measure baritone vibrato song ending.

That being said, perhaps it's just growing pains and I will give them a second chance several months from now when they've had some time to work out the kinks.

Company: I love my friends! We have a fantastic time regardless of ambience, service, or music, and it's always a delight to spend time with them. I can't wait for next month-Ginza, here we come!

Bueno Vita

I was so excited to try this restaurant. I am always on a lookout for a good Italian restaurant; especially in Draper. I have to say my hopes were dashed. My dish was okay, but nothing to write home about. I typically don't salt and pepper my food, but I had to this time to get any flavor out of the dish. The dessert was good, but not good enough to make a special trip.

The service was terrible. The server didn't check on us at all even though we were pretty much the only show in town. I kind of picture all the workers in the back of the restaurant kickin' it and wishing we would get the heck out of there so they could go home. "Maybe if we deprive them of water, they will leave!" Well their ploy worked. We did eventually leave, and we may never come back!

Bueno Vita

Our first venture out as a Diner Club was this week to a new restaurant in Draper called Bueno Vita. My initital thoughts - good bone structure, but needs a lot of work.


I was very excited to try this restaurant. Draper just doesn't seem to have many nice date night restaurants (hopefully as we progress through them with our dinner club I'll be proven wrong). I was very surprised at the lack of ambiance. It's a big open space with no booths, plants, any privacy screens at all.

Food - Some people seemed to like theirs. I had the Gnocchi Bolognese or something like that. The waitress recommended it. Very unimpressive. No special flavors. I could have made it at home with a pound of ground beef and a can of stewed tomatoes. Maybe that's a bit harsh, but I was disappointed. I did LOVE the chocolate cake dessert. I'd stop in and get that to go. Yum.

Service - Wow, this was the biggest problem. My immediate impression is she had to be a relative or friend of the owner. No talent for this at all. Water wasn't filled. Even thought the restaurant was empty except for our table she barely checked in on us.

Birthdays? - A strange funny little quirk of the night. This was my birthday and the ladies were so sweet to inform the waitress. She apparently told them they could do something for my birthday, like a dessert. So as the waitress gives me my check which includes the price of the chocolate cake she simply says "Happy Birthday". That's it. No candle in the cake. Nothing. It was strange.

Interestingly after eating here I had someone else talk to me about their experience and they remarked on the awful service. In there case it was a teenage boy. He told me they had actually remarked that he must be the son of the owner.

All in all, an OK FAMILY restaurant, but definately not the place to take your next date for a romantic little get away.