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.