November 3, 2009
Dissapointing
It took me a long time to go into Melt as I had always heard reviews of ‘not worth the price.’ The assesment is spot on, based on the quality of the food they should be charging about 1/2 of what they do. When we finally stopped in it was for lunch.
I had house ravoli – 5 cheese ($15). The dish was so salty I couldn’t eat it. I had the pistachio cake ($9) for dessert, which was a giant portion size. There were two thick slices of pistachio pound cake, which were chilled (or not fully defrosted) with a scoup of vanilla ice cream and some white chocolate sauce drizzle. It was just okay, it was both cold and dry. I left 3/4 of the dish on the plate.
My partner had the italian sausage sandwich ($9) which was to come with grilled sweet pepers and onions. The sandwich was very dry, and he stole some of my marinara sauce to add to his sandwich. The best part of the meal was the fries served on the side.
If I had food like this every day I’d be a size 0! It’s not worth the price or the calories. The atmosphere and decore is great, they had very pleasent music playing at a reasonable volume. We had at least four servers visit our table, which we found to be pestering
Kome Fine Japanese Cuisine
2880 Center Valley Pky
Center Valley, PA
(610) 798-9888
Cuisine:
Japanese, Sushi, Desserts
September 15, 2009
Terrible Hibachi Experience
After my first visit I rated Kome 5 stars, after my last visit I’m downgrading the rating dramatically to 2 stars. What was the differance? I tried out the Habachi for the first time. Looking at other review here, it seems unnanomous that the hibachi experience is bad.
We sent on a Saturday night with no reservations and were seated immediately. I understand the habachi chef taking a while to come around, but there is no excuse for the waitress to not come around and take drink orders for 30 minutes. We had two waitress come around within 2 minutes of eachother, and then we didn’t see either again for a while. We recieved almost no service, no refills, after waiting for our check for about 10 minutes, the hostess whom had walked by several times stopped and asked us if we wanted the check.
I had the mixed vegetable hibachi dinner with a side of fried rice. Everything I was served was too salty and too oily, it was barely ediable. My partner ordered the shrimp and chicken hibachi dinner, which he said was just okay, but too salty & oily as well. For $60 for two (no appetizers, no dessert, no alcohol) I can think of countless better places to have a meal.
I might go back sometime to the regular dining section, but I will never be going back for hibachi. AVOID!!
Dishes I tried:
Vegetable Hibachi Dinner
Salty, coated in oil, left a sensation of oily residue behind. AVOID!
Peach Blossom Chinese Restaurant
8862 Navajo Rd
San Diego, CA
(619) 465-8190
Cuisine:
Chinese, Buffet
Shady Maple Smorgasbord
129 Toddy Dr
East Earl, PA
(717) 354-8222
Cuisine:
Buffet, Home Style Cooking, Breakfast
September 24, 2009
Worth the Drive
Shady Maple is a destination worth the drive. The buffet is huge, although part of the size is the food stations repeating. The building itself is absurdly large for a restaurant establishment, bus tours frequently pull up; however no matter how busy they look to be, I’ve never had a significant wait to be seated.
They offer some PA Dutch food offerings you might not find regularly along with standard offerings. As far as a buffet goes, I’ve found their food to be fresher than any other I’ve been to. I usually rather go to a restaurant with a menu than a buffet because I feel I’ll get better quality and freshness – not so here. They have several large stations where food is cooked to order. I usually go for the breakfast hour and the cooking stations will make omlettes and pancakes to order with whatever you like added in.
On the level below the smorgasbord is a giant (20,000 sq ft) home goods & gift store, I frequently make this a Christmas shopping trip. There’s also a small cafe down there for people that don’t have an appetite for the buffet.
In the parking lot next to the restaurant is a grocery store, where you can find pretty much everything offered at the buffet, incise you need some extra to take home. I usually take home a loaf of apple crumb bread which I first had as french toast at the buffet. A trip here is a cultural experience – you’ll run into Amish and people speaking Dutch. And you’ll find some great regional food dishes.
Closed every Sunday & major holidays.
Dishes I tried:
Breakfast Buffet
All the usual breakfast foods plus some, pancakes and waffles made to order.
Lunch Buffet
46 salad bar items, soups, breads & rolls, meats & cheeses, vegetables, holt & cold desserts, sundae bar, ect.
Dinner Buffet
Nightly specials change the price of the dinner, everything at lunch + featured grill items (steak night, rib night, seafood night).
Old Mexico of Washington
250 Oak Spring Rd
Washington, PA
(724) 250-7899
Cuisine:
Mexican
Cassatt's
4536 Lee Hwy
Arlington, VA
(703) 527-3330
Cuisine:
New Zealand, International, Breakfast
Blue Monkey
1094 Howertown Rd
Catasauqua, PA
(610) 266-1550
September 25, 2009
Sports Bar and Night Club, with Good Food and Great Beer
The menu is just a bit more exciting than an average sports bar with a lot of appetizers & sharables. I could have easily eatten off the appetizer menu alone, but other stuff looks good so we tried a variety. We had Southwest Egg Rolls, Mesquite Cheesesteak, seasoned chips, and a veggie quesadilla. As far as the meal goes, the appetizers were much tastier than the entrees which were just average. Both appetizers came with really good dipping sauces – sun dried tomato for the chips and sweet pineapple for the egg rolls.
They have an extensive beer menu, tap and bottle. The beer list is about 4x as long as food the menu.
There are tvs all around the dinning area, some tables even had personal tvs. A party near ours took up two tables, one for adults and one for kids, and the kids had cartoons on their tv.
The staff was very friendly and accommodating, and very knowledgeable about both the menu and beer list.
The facility has a club area on the second floor, which we did not visit. They regularly have concerts and djs, with a calender of events on all the tables. We didn’t go upstairs but it was fun to look at the calender while waiting for our meal.
Sipz Cafe
5501 Clairemont Mesa Blvd
San Diego, CA
(858) 279-3747
Cuisine:
Vegetarian
Pigpen Sports Bar & Grille
702 Union Blvd
Allentown, PA
(610) 432-6774
September 29, 2009
Come for the entertainment, not the food
I had a really good time at the Pig Pen, but not for the food nor the service. The Pig Pen took over the building that was formerly a bowling ally, they’ve kept about 12 lanes, and is very affordable bowling and no leagues, so anytime they’re open you can come by. The rest of the building has been converted into an arcade room, and a restaurant/bar/club. They have a giant projector screen, behind which you could see a stage for live entertainment. Some nights after 10PM there is a cover charge. Anyway, the place itself is fun, a great place to go to entertain guests or hang out with friends.
We got there for happy hour, which is suppose to be 1/2 price appetizers but only 4 items on the menu counted as the ‘featured appetizers’ subject to the discount. We were a bit off put by this, especially as the place can barely be called a restaurant and they are charging up to $11 for an appetizer.
I came with a party of 8, and the food we had ranged from good to okay to bad. The good dishes were the ribs, salad, and pulled pork pig fries, onion rings. The okay and the bad were the burgers, depending on who you asked. Some complained their burgers were too dry and burnt, others said they were fine. They want to put mango bbq sauce on everything, but they will substitute regular bbq which seemed to be a key in people enjoying the burger – go with the regular. I had the cobb salad as an entree, the ingredients were fresh, the flavors worked well together (they added on chopped mango which was really good.) I liked the amount of dressing on the salad, but I think most people would want to ask for extra.
Service was almost nonexistent. we had a leisurely meal, which we were okay with, but the occasional check up would have been nice. One entree was forgotten upon service, and we had to yell across the restaurant to get our waitress’ attention to come back. Drinks were never refilled which was a problem for several people at the table. I don’t know if service is always like this or we just had bad timing. There were only about 3 or 4 other tables occupied and there were a lot of employees walking around, so I’m not sure what was going on that we couldn’t get any attention.
The restaurant floor is the former bowling ally floor, and it’s sticky. We were advised this by the clerk at the bowling area, to make sure we don’t take the bowling shoes into the restaurant area or we’d be sticking to the floor when we tried to bowl.
They have a full bar, and you are allowed to take drinks anywhere in the facility, it reminded me very much of a Dave and Busters, but kids are welcome here. The arcade games take a mix of tokens, quarters, and game card that is very confusing and should be scouted out before exchanging your money. They have fun group games – billiards, air hockey.
Parking is across the street on the West side of the building.
I’ll definitely be back, but I’ll have dinner somewhere else first.
French Valley Cafe
37552 Winchester Rd
Murrieta, CA
(951) 600-7396
Cuisine:
Breakfast, Cafe


PalateMan
09/21/2009I agree. My opinion? Eh. I’ve been to many of these types of places for business and family functions. This one is too pricey for what I though we all got at the Hibachi table. After many visits to places of a similar nature, I am not impressed by high tech fancy decor. You pay for it one way or another and usually the food is the first to suffer. There was nothing remarkable or unique here. The waiter was attentive and enthusiastic but his efforts could not diguise the fact that after I got the bill, I felt that I got snookered. I won’t be back.