Local Food Review

I was lucky enough to have lunch at Hurricane Grill and Wings earlier this week in Jacksonville Florida. Not knowing before hand that they were a chain I did not know what to suspect. For a chain restaurant they sure did a great job looking like they were local. We arrived at the peak of lunch hour. With four of us sitting together. The wait staff got our drinks quickly and took our orders.

As I was watching the staff I noticed everyone was helping one another out. While our waitress had the biggest tables other wait staff made sure that food was making it to the tables and drinks were being re-filled.  I had the Mahi Sandwich which came spicy priced at $9.99 with choice of fries. The sandwich was excellent. The iced tea was $2.29 and included refills.

One of the guys had their wings and said they were great as well. For me it was a perfect lunch with a portion that left you satisfied. I will be going back again. Hurricane Grill & Wings 5907 Roosevelt Blvd. Suite 700 Jacksonville Florida

Earlier this week I was picking up a few items from a local convenience store on BayMeadows Rd and asked the clerk if she had a recommendation for dinner. She said that Sam’s Pizza & Italian Cafe was great. It was next door to the convenience store I decided to give it a try. The restaurant was small and not very modern but do not let that fool you.  The owner was waiting tables very friendly and accommodating.  I asked him what was good and he walked me through the menu.

His biggest recommendation was the pizza. I ordered one slice of Pizza and the Spaghetti and meatballs. Pizza was .99 cents a slice and the Spaghetti and meatballs was $7.00. It came with 4 piece of garlic bread and man oh man was it good. The pizza was very good as well, I could tell they made the dough fresh in house, I really like the sauce they put on the Pizza which was different in texture than the spaghetti sauce. Overall Excellent meal at a excellent price.

This place is now on my list of little hole in the wall restaurants to go to.  Economic times has  hit all of the restaurants on this particular strip but you have to check them out.  Sam’s Pizza and Italian Cafe is located at 9551 Baymeadows Rd #24 Jacksonville Florida across from Bailey’s Powerhouse Gym.

While Shoko and I have been planning on starting this website for over a year, I decided to do my first couple of reviews while I am on travel. Traveling like I do gives me a chance to see how restaurants treat single diners as I often eat alone. This first review is by far not a positive one yet, I want to make it clear from the beginning that this site will be fair to all eating establishments that have good food, service and value.

Being I live in Hawaii it is tradition for my family to eat Dim Sum every Sunday. Today being Sunday I decided to try Bamboo Creek Asian Bistro in Jacksonville Florida at 8532 BayMeadows Road.

Upon arriving at 12:15  pm I was seated promptly and ordered Tea. Upon receiving the Hot Tea $2.00 I waited poured a cup and it was clear as water. Checking the pot there indeed was tea in it so I decided to wait for it to darken up or at least get some flavor. I am not sure what the deal was, but even after my 60 minute stay at the establishment the tea color only improved by a slight degree. So for a chinese restaurant epic fail on there tea.

Second I told the waiter I wanted dim sum and one item of menu. The item off the menu that I ordered never arrived, even with a nice reminder twice to the waiter his excuse they were backed up in the kitchen.

They had one lady with a Dim Sum cart for nearly 40 guest tables. It took her 21 minutes to get to my table. With only 4 items left on the cart, I took a spring roll and ordered three other plates.  The other three plates took 27 minutes to get to my table, and when the arrived two of the items were cold. I ate the food and asked for the check which they were very fast to bring me and cash me out. Total bill was $15.20 and I left no tip. Only 3 times in my life have I never left a tip.

I was not the only unhappy customer. The hostess was apologizing to everyone saying they were so busy. I saw what appeared to be kids clearing the table and the owner was heard several times yelling in the back. Who knows if this is the way they operate everyday but they were not ready for customers and seemed surprised at the number of people showing up to eat.

Personally I will never ever go back to the Bamboo Creek Asian Bistro in Jacksonville Florida.

On our last day at CES 2010 we took the team to dinner at d.vino at the Monte Carlo in Las Vegas. I want to share with you our dining experience.  d.vino does there best to set a romantic atmosphere in keeping the restaurant very dark. Many of us had to use our iPods to light up the menu’s. One of the guys actually had a flashlight and used that much to the dismay of the staff. But if you can’t read the damn menu whats the use.

Not being a wine expert I let someone else order that knew what they were doing. We ordered a 2007 Chappellet Cab priced at $75.00 which has a street price of $43.00 the wine was excellent and for what little I know I would buy a bottle for the misses. Cocktails from the bar were pricey. Jack and Coke was $9.00. Apertizers run $12.00 with entrees running $20.00 to $30.00 at least on our bill. Desert ran around $7.00

Food overall was average, I am not sure what I was expecting, but for a primary restaurant in a hotel you would expect the quality to be quite high. I think we could have found just as good or better Italian restaurants at a lower price off the strip.

Overall the total bill for 7 people was $378.50 with a 20% gratuity which they added after adding the tax! Gratuity was $75.70. Since when do restaurants get off on putting a automatic 20% gratuity. I understand a standard 15% for a group of people. If the food and service is excellent then I will tip more. But the server and food was not worth 20% So after tax + tip the total bill was $484.60

Honestly I don’t think we will be going back. They are gonna have to kick it up. I do not mind paying $500.00 for a meal for 7 people but I do expect to get a much better meal than what d.vino provided.  Our visit was on 1-9-2010.