restaurant review

Excited about Eating by Ernie Hiers

/ Dora Hiers / 4 Comments
This edition of Excited about Eating takes us north to the City of Salisbury and to Palms Cafe. 
This local neighborhood eating establishment offers breakfast, a large variety of sandwiches, and specialty coffees. You must order at the counter (no trouble seeing the menu, it is written all over the walls) and the food is brought to your table.
I chose the New York, New York hot sandwich, roast beef, corn beef, pastrami & turkey stacked high with Swiss cheese, 1000 island dressing served on grilled rye bread with a side of homemade potato chips. Hearty and filling, the different meats mixed well with the dressing. The chips were seasoned well and firm enough to dip in the ranch dressing. Overall, great!
New York, New York hot sandwich
Dora here. The Mandarin Orange Chicken Salad offered a generous portion of chicken salad, fresh greens, cucumbers, sunflower seeds and mandarin oranges with a sesame oriental dressing. I’m pretty picky about salads. I don’t like a lot of extra stuff, and this salad worked for me. The chicken salad was creamy, sweet and delish! I enjoyed the texture of the sunflower seeds, and the oriental dressing rocked! And what a value at less than $8! That leaves a little extra for dessert, right? Especially since I had my heart set on that Palms Java shake…
Mandarin Orange Chicken Salad
The Palms Java shake was a mixture of espresso, java chocolate chips and vanilla Gelato. I would have liked the shake to be a little thicker. 
Palms Java Shake
Dora here. I’m with Ernie on this one. I expected the shake to be thicker and more coffee flavored, but, hey, Gelato and coffee…:sigh: thick, thin, who cares? Nice way to cap off the meal. 

Palms Cafe is one of those comfort restaurants, the kind you go to after a long day and don’t really know what you want. They have a menu with options sure to please everyone.

We rate this restaurant 4 forks out of 5 for a family friendly restaurant serving great food.

What’s your go-to restaurant for comfort food?

Palms Cafe Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

Excited about Eating by Ernie Hiers

/ Dora Hiers / 6 Comments

This edition of Excited about Eating takes us to Hickory Tavern in the Northlake Mall area of Charlotte. This sports bar chain restaurant offers a wide variety of menu items from chicken wings to crab legs and steak, although they streamlined their menu since our last visit.

Outside
Dora here. Hickory Tavern is one of those go-to comfort restaurants for me. You know what I’m talking about, right? When you’re tired, don’t really know what you want to eat or you just don’t want to cook, Hickory Tavern offers an eclectic variety of choices for the whole family. And with all the big screens located on every wall, you can almost kick your shoes off and just relax. Almost. lol.

As you can see, we’re early eaters. Anybody else staring at the clock, ready to eat by eleven thirtyish? No? Okay, that’s why we beat the rush. 🙂

Inside-ample seating around 11:30 on a Saturday, but it gets crowded

The Shrimp Po’ Boy features breaded fried shrimp, lettuce, tomato, pickle, cajun remoulade served on a toasted hoagie roll with a side of my favorite tater tots. I don’t often order a Po’ Boy sandwich but after enjoying this one, it might just be back on my items to order more frequently. The shrimp was cooked perfectly, but the Cajun remoulade is what pulled this entire sandwich together.

Shrimp Po’ Boy

Dora here. Not sure why hubby’s short on words today. Hmmm. Anyway, the Chicken California Sandwich minus the mushrooms and avocado was moist and juicy and tender, and the bun soft and fresh. Delicious!

Chicken California Sandwich

Reminded me why I like this place so much, and I admonished hubby that we need to come back more often. It’s just a bit of a drive to make it a regular place. The food seemed to take awhile, but so long as the iced tea kept flowing, not a problem. 🙂

We would rate this restaurant 4 forks out of 5 for a family friendly restaurant serving great food.

What’s your go-to comfort restaurant? What makes it that way?

Dora here. We’ll be taking a short review break. Be back on Saturday, Nov 7th. Enjoy the next couple of weeks!

Hickory Tavern Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

Excited about Eating by Ernie Hiers

/ Dora Hiers / 3 Comments

This edition of Excited about Eating covers McKethan Brothers BBQ Restaurant in Boone, North Carolina.

McKethan Brothers BBQ serves smoked meats, homemade sauces, and southern sides. This family owned BBQ joint offers all the classics including baby back and St. Louis style ribs, chicken, chopped pork, and turkey.
Dora here. We’d been itching to try this place since discovering it over July 4th, but they were closed. It’s a bit off the beaten track and shares the same driveway with another business. Don’t be alarmed by the empty seats. As usual, we opened the restaurant. By the time we left, they were filling up fast.

We shared the Brothers Sampler Platter, a huge tray of pulled pork, chicken, turkey, St. Louis ribs, and baby back ribs with mac and cheese, Brunswick stew and a corn muffin. Huge, full of flavor, and a great example of southern BBQ! The star of this plate was the baby back ribs, juicy, tender, and fall off the bone. The St. Louis ribs were a close second, full of that smoky flavor that you look for in BBQ. The chicken and pork were great with the turkey being a little on the dry side. The Brunswick stew was outstanding with all of the normal ingredients found in the stew plus a little heat.

Brothers Sampler Platter
Sides – Mac & cheese and Brunswick Stew

Dora here. Delish!! We could’ve eaten for two days on this meal! The baby backs were killer, but I’m not a fan of St. Louis style ribs, so Ernie got lucky. I ate most of the turkey myself, so I was glad hubby thought it dry. lol. Love the zing that hit going down with the pork. If we lived here, we’d be a weekly visitor. Probably more than that in the winter because I’d order a whole bowl of the Brunswick stew on the off days. 


5 forks all the way!

What’s your favorite BBQ restaurant?

McKethan Brothers Barbecue Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato