Not-so-good-restaurants

I've visited a few restaurants lately, but they haven't been the best, so I haven't had much of a reason to post. Hopefully, these next few will provide better results.

That and the semester...

Cracker Barrel

     Today, me and some friends went to a nearby Cracker Barrel. Despite having six people in our party, we got seated fairly quickly. The waitress came over and asked if we were ready to order our food or if we just wanted to put our drinks in. Two of us (including me) got a hot chocolate with a ton of whip topping. Everyone else got tea. Later, nearing the end of my meal and hot chocolate, I ordered a cold glass of water.
     No matter what you order, you get a basket of biscuits, corn bread and butter. I usually have some, but I didn't this visit because I was too full to have anything except the main meal that I ordered. However, we did take the leftover bread with us.

     At Cracker Barrel (depending on the meal), you get to choose a certain amount of sides. The choices of sides are Mixed Seasonal Vegetables, Baked Sweet Potato, Brown Rice Pilaf, Low-Fat Vanilla Yogurt, Hashbrown Casserole, Macaroni n' Cheese, Fried Apples, Steak Fries, Mashed Potatoes, Breaded Fried Okra, Coleslaw, Fresh Steamed Broccoli, Cucumber, Tomato n' Onion Salad, Fresh Seasonal Fruit, Fresh Sliced Apples, Cottage Cheese, Dumplins, Country Green Beans, Sweet Whole Baby Carrots, Whole Kernel Corn, Turnip Greens, Pinto Beans, and Cheese Grits. I got most of this list off their website because I couldn't remember them all, but it should be noted that they don't have every single one of these at each location, though they do have the majority.

      I got the Saturday special Chicken n’ Rice which comes with two side. I chose cottage cheese and fried apples. I hadn't had cottage cheese lately, so I was glad to have it. I get too full for dessert, but the fried apples make a good dessert; that's why I get them as one of my sides. My meal had a mushroom sauce which I especially liked because I'm a mushroom fanatic (I actually have a box of mushrooms currently in my refrigerator). My friend directly to my left, Eli, got the chef's salad which was huge. It has three different kinds of meat: oven-roasted turkey breast, sugar-cured ham, and hickory smoked bacon. He really enjoyed it, as seen by the fact that it only took him 17 minutes to eat it. Below is a picture of what Eli got that I found on Cracker Barrels website. They didn't have a picture of what I ate on their website.

The Chef's Salad Eli got.

     After everyone in our party had finished eating and I killed my hot chocolate and ice water, we all just sat around and chatted. The waitress was only too happy to give me a second glass of ice water, despite being finished eating. The Cracker Barrel employees didn't rush us out of our table after we had finished eating.
     Later, after we left the table, we walked around the gift shop.
     On an ending note, Spring Break is over, so I probably won't have time to post for a while.

Applebee's

     Today, me and three friends went to lunch at Applebee's. I got the Shrimp 'N Parmesan Sirloin and Frozen Mango Lemonade. Dale got the Ultimate Trios which is an appetizer where can pick three appetizers; the three appetizers he chose were Steak Quesadilla Towers, Mozzarella Sticks, and Boneless Wings with buffalo sauce. He also got a strawberry limeade. One of my other friends got Applebee's
signature chili. He gave me a taste and later gave me the rest because he wanted to save room for his main meal. It had of been the most flavorful chili I had ever had. My friend who had ordered the chili and Dale thought that it was rather spicy, but I thought that the heat was just right.

This is a picture of the Applebee's
signature chili. As you can see, it had a few jalapenos.

     My Shrimp 'N Parmesan Sirloin had a rather interesting cheese on it. The steak I got was cooked well; Sometimes I have steak sauce on my steak, but the cheese and how well it was cooked made it fine without it. It was nice to have shrimp in a different way then I usually have it. (Generally, the shrimp I have is just breaded because I wanted to be able to taste the shrimp.) In this dish, the shrimp was imbedded in the cheese sauce that was poured on top of my steak. My vegetable side I would have preferred if it was just zucchini instead of mixed vegetables, but I mainly wanted the steak, so I ignored that. Besides, there was still a good chunk of it that was zucchini, but also carrots and I like carrots [I gave the broccoli to a friend (not the friend who had the chili.)] I wanted a baked potato with with my steak, but they don't serve them until past 4:00 P.M. I ended up getting red potatoes instead as my starch. It was hard to tell if my drink tasted like mango, but it was certainly good. 
     Two of my friends got steak, but they said that they thought the steaks were to fatty or something. I wasn't really paying attention because I was eating my steak. Anyway, the waitress offered for the chef to cook another one, but one of my friends didn't want to be waiting and resume eating after Dale and I had finished, so he turned down the offer. Later, however, the waitress took a few dollars off his steak.
     I really enjoyed myself and the food and drinks while I was there. I'd go there again even if I have to leave those to friends a pizza place or something.

Introduction to Brody's Good Restaurants

     If you've been following my other blog, Good Eats than you know how over there I talk about food I've eaten and good qualities in ingredients used to prepare the food. I've been running that blog in my free time sense mid 2013 and, now that we are in 2015, I believe that it is time to start another blog, this blog.
     This blog will also have to do with food, after a fashion. Here, I'm going to talk about restaurants that I visited and liked. I think I'll end up editing out the restaurants that I visit and don't like. I want to compliment restaurants on their food and service and avoid criticism. The worst I'll ever say would probably be if a restaurant had one thing worth mentioning for good reasons, even if another could have been better. My posts should, hopefully, give you some ideas on which restaurant would be worth a visit.