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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

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!!

We stopped in for lunch for the cheaper menu for our first try of this place. What we found was excellent food at a reasonable price. For the portions and prices I would call the lunch menu a great value. The rolls were fantastic, everything was very fresh. I requested a vegetarian teriyaki lunch (not on the menu) and they complied beautifully.

The facility is very trendy in decor, and the service is a little on the pretentious side, but polite and helpfull.

The dessert was decedant, and it was quite small for the price, but well worth it.

When you come in they ask if you would like hibatchi or dining, and you only get the one menu. I didn’t ask for the hibatchi menu but they might have let me order off it if I had asked. I always perfer if both menus are given incase someone in the party wants something different

They offer take out, which several people got while we were there.

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.

I usualy stop in the Bagle Basket on weekday mornings, it never takes more than 5 minutes to get in & out with a bagel & cream cheese and a beverage. They have a self serve coffee station, or a couple fridges of bottled drinks.

The bagels are a bit fluffy, and not the real dense and chewy new york style. They offer the usual variety of bagel flavors, and a couple duplicated in whole wheat – I always get the Honey Whole Wheat. Any day they offer maybe five to 10 cream cheese flavors. Muffins and a variety of other baked goods are also offered, they change every time I visit. They have breakfast sandwiches made to order, these will take a few minutes longer to make, so maybe a 10 minute stop.

The place has a pretty varied deli menu, with all sorts of sandwiches and salads. There are some tables inside and out to eat there.

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.

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.

This location is in the mall, on the upper floor & they’re closed on Sundays.

The ingredients are some of the freshest you’ll get at a fast food chain, they have salad & side item options to make for a healthier lunch. That said, the milkshakes are fantastic! The lemon aid is ‘homemade’ style and very good, available in a regular or sugar free version which is good as well.

This was my first, and so far only venture into Chicago Deep Dish Pizza, and I’ve been craving it ever since. There is way more cheese than is reasonable, and I didn’t even notice the sauce, but none of that matters because the crust is fantastic.

We visited on a Saturday night during dinner hour and we were told the wait would be 90 minutes. The pizza takes 45 minutes to make, so they allow you to preorder your pizza while waiting for your table. We ended up waiting less than an hour for our table, and once we were seated it was only about 10 minutes until our dinner was served. My part was pleased at how efficient service was in such a busy atmosphere.

I have a fairly large appetite, and I was able to eat 1.5 slices of the small cheese pizza, I’m not quite sure how this is a 2 person dish – I would call it a 6 person dish as there are 6 slices. Leftovers would be fantastic if I lived in the area, but don’t work for a out of town visitor.

They do offer to ship their pizza overnight, the prices are comparable to the cost in the restaurant, but the overnight shipping fee is quite a bit.

As I’m not from the area, it would be fantastic if anyone wants to recomend some other pizza place to try next time I’m in town.

Portobello’s is take out / delivery only, there’s just one patio table outside and a few benches. I believe they have been in buisness for a while as a catering company, and just recently opened this resturant location. I’ve been twice durring weekday lunch, and both times the service was quick and friendly. They accept credit cards.

My office got take out lunch here, and everyone was very pleased with their meals. The garlic knots and garlic bread are outsanding, next time I’m going for the Bruchetta. The menu covers all the usuals for an itallian place, with the standard large menu. To the usual fare they’ve added Wraps, Soups, and Desserts. They have a pastry desplay case with everything from tiramasu to cupcakes to creme brule and rice pudding, and durring the warmer months they serve Ice Cream & Italian Ice.

They are now open at 6:30 AM, serving breakfast sandwiches, bagles, pastries, and basic coffee.

There are a handfull of items I absolutely love at Cosi – anything with the sundried tomato spread, the margarita flatbread pizza, and the signature salad. I would happily eat any of these items on a daily basis.

The tomato sauce on the pizza is very plain, it’s like watery crushed tomotoes, but I don’t even care because the crust is so amazingly good! I have asked them to substitute their regular tomato sauce for the sundried tomato spread, and every time they have happily complied. This makes for a very rich tasting food, so I don’t get it this way every time.

I would say most items on their menu are boring, and it would be easy to walk in, order something that sounds good, and never come back becuase it’s unexceptional and over priced. So if you do stop in make sure you ask for the sundried tomato spread.

Cosi is a franchise restaurant; the most similar restaurant I can think of is Panera. While Cosi doesn’t sell loafs of bread, they do make their own flatbread on site where you can watch while waiting to order. The flatbread is very good, and it’s used as the base for both their pizza and sandwiches. I had a tomato, basil, and mozzarella melt sandwich which was very good, and just the right size for a satisfying meal without feeling stuffed. But for a $7 sandwich I’m usually expecting to take half of it home for another meal. The menu includes breakfast items and dessert items, note on the dessert menu there are smores where they bring a setup to your table to roast your own marshmallows.