Tops China II

Ah yes, the Chinese Take out fall back.    Well fellow foodies, I don't usually do Chinese (due to stomach issues that always seem to occur after take out...), but I cannot pass up chicken teriyaki and those chinese doughnuts that Mrs. Doctor Who introduced me to.    Yes, those doughnuts taste like fluffy fried love.     The people that own it are rude and uncaring for the people, they only accept master card and visa, and they fry everything in egg.   But oh how they put love into their food.   Even the foods I don't like like the shrimp in an omelette type thing put over veggies and beef in some kind of sauce tasted like it was made with love.    No one sits in the waiting room either.   Have you ever noticed that in chinese places that actually serve take out AND eat in that no one eats in the restaurant?  The chairs that are there are just there for you to sit at and wait for your food to come out. They literally don't even ask if you want it there or not.  It would be nicer to eat in your car than in there anyway, but it doesn't matter because the food is so addictively tasty!!!!

Red Dog Saloon - Norfolk

Well, my husband and I , unable to go to busch gardens, decided to go bar hopping in Norfolk the other night.    Let me tell you that right by the Naro theater in Norfolk is a little place called the Red Dog Saloon. (1421 Colley Ave
Norfolk, VA 23517-1705)
They are a bar serving beer, wine, Red Dog cocktail mixes (and I'm sure any other mixes you could want) and good foods.  On Friday and saturday they have two different "happy hours" (they deem themselves the "happy hour heroes") in which you can get up to 50% off on two appetizers.   Pretty much you can get buy one get one half off OR buy one get one free on appetizers.  We got the Jerk Wings and Fries Mountain.   The Jerk Wings are ... well your average Jamaican wings.   The fries mountain was a mountain of good fries with melted cheddar cheese and bacon bits on top.  (Luckily for me I had my Lactaid earlier that day...)    The fries were my favorite!      Lee ordered the Mangy Dog drink (after a Guiness), and I had a "the hair of the dog" followed by a sprite that I mixed into it because it was too strong.   They definitely have some good mixed drinks! 

The atmosphere was really cool - a lot of red furniture and red lights but not too over kill.   They had a few large flatscreens along the bar with sports on them but you could also sit in a booth and be a little away from the bar.  It was very nice.   The bar experience without the atmosphere headache!   I liked the entertainment- there was a couple of buisness post college guys doing bar tricks.    LOL. 

I really liked being able to sit in a booth and observe the bar ish ness without having to completely take part in it.   The drinks were fun even though mine was neon blue and really strong.  Oh!  There were cherries in my drink but when I tried to eat it it tasted like a cherry bomb of rum and vodka!  YUCK!  Lol.     I really wanna go back and try some different food items and see if it could actually be worth eating real live food there.  Oh and I wanna try sitting at the... gulp.... REAL BAR.    I'm not really a bar person.  I don't feel like I have an outgoing personality in a new area.   We'll see.

Any girl friends of mine wanna go out there?  

Be warned:  the waitresses are dressed well... as waitresses.  Kindof like hooters but a little more conservative.  They had hooter type shirts, but they were all actually wearing tank tops under that covered most of the cleavage.  

Anyway.   It was good.   I give it Four and a Half Chicken wings!     And I'm definitely gonna try and go back.    If we can get out of the hole going there put us in....

El Toro Loco - Chesapeake Battlefield Blvd.

*insert sigh here*  El Toro Loco.   I had never been there before a year and a half ago when I began dating Lee.   After I married him I realized how awesome the restaurant really is.   Our family went there every friday it seemed.  And if you know anything about me you know I don't do mexican unless its Chipotle.  But that's a post for another day.   Well, these people are so great.    The restaurant is owned by a family and I suppose they have help from friends in running it, but they know my husband's whole family by name and they were there to see my nephew grow into the strong little boy he is.    Well, it had been about five months since my husband and I had been there but last night they remembered us right to our drinks and my order!   I usually stick with the same one or two options.      I ordered the steak soft tacos.  They come just steak in the tortillas and comes with beans on the side and pico del gallo (spellinggg????).  IO order sour cream with it too of course.  BUT the best part is by far the chips.  Mmmmmmmm bottomless fresh chips with the white sauce of mystery.  Ohhhh its so good.    If you really want a good hot down to earth meal and you're not afraid of the spice, I'd say go there.   They always have coupons you can use too and their prices are already pretty good.  Oh and if you are a sweet tea lover - theirs is the best sweet tea you will ever come across.  EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ruby Tuesday - Hampton

Yes, this is the restaurant that started it all - started my craving for the word to be out.      Ahhhhhh where to begin.   Of course I had been to a Ruby Tuesday in the past year so I knew that things had changed (for the worse in my opinion) but do I really need to feel.... POSH.... when I'm at a restaurant getting a burger and ultimate salad bar?     Its very ... mod.     I can understand trying to ritz up the place but I liked when they had cool old things on the wall and brought you bread on a cutting board and had honey butter.   Anyway.....   First off, I am not fat.   I am slightly overweight but by no means huge.   I could not fit iin the booth.     The Table came right up under my chest squeezing my ribs and basically making me very very uncomfortable.    Then, the waitress brought out too little ball things.   When i asked what they were she said "Oh those are our Cheddar Garlic Bisquits" with a tone as though "what else would they be".    Believe me, the biscuit was good.  They should have left the cheddar and garlic out though.  Now as always the salad bar was AMAZING!!!!!!!!   Oh how I love a good Salad Bar.    The burger was greasy, slimy, and undercooked.  The fries were spectacular!!!!!     But overall it just felt like they tried so hard to look high class that they forgot to cook high class.    Ah well, I got a great salad out of the deal!  And I had a really nice server.

Intro...

Well, here I am attempting to start another blog online about FOOD.    But I am not a food critic.   I am in fact one of the worst normal people food critics you will ever invite over to your house because I am so darn picky.  I cannot drink more than a glass of milk a day, any melted cheese that is not paired with some form of tomatoe makes me sick, any type of alfredo makes me sick, and fried foods just kill my stomach.    And those are just my medical excuses.     Well, recently I went to a restaurant completely by myself and found myself pretending to be a critic while I was there. I thought it would be fun to have a blog on every restaurant I go to in town.     Who knows, people may be online looking for great Hampton Roads places to eat and see my blog and think "I wonder what this random person thinks".   So here it goes -  my jump into the world of food and service.    

~Sarah Kate