Thursday, December 27, 2012

Dean & Deluca... not impressed




The Hubby 

Kansas City, MO
Upon rave recommendations from good friends in Kansas City, we opted to try Dean & Deluca for dinner on our way through Kansas City. It's a store that has a deli, bakery, and barista inside. Unique concept - well lit, well stocked, and had a feel of a New York style deli to us. After perusing the aisles of creative food items, we both ordered sandwiches from the less than friendly sandwich maker. He wasn't rude at all, just no smiles or friendly greeting, only 'what can I get you'. Strange for such a well setup place. No real hospitality.

The Hubby ordered the tuna and I chose the turkey and brie on sourdough. His tuna was chock full of onions, so much so that he took it back and ordered something different - roast beef. In his words - it's better than the tuna, not bad.

Mine was okay - it had an apricot mustard that overpowered everything else in the sandwich. After taking the sandwich apart and eating only the inside, it was... okay.

I picked out a snickerdoodle cookie and hot tea for afterwards and they were both good. Everything was over priced and had a stuffy feel to the whole thing. Will we go back, even if someone else was paying? Probably not. Next!

Friday, December 21, 2012

The Venetian for dinner and a movie

It's a movie theater, so no pictures. Not sure the 15 other people in the theater would have been too appreciative. ;)

The Hubby and I waiting until mid-week to see The Hobbit because we wanted to make sure we got a good seat in the theater. He had bought Groupons for the new dinner theater in Carrollton called the Venetian. It's an old grocery store that has been remodeled and in my opinion with too much gold paint (I mean like 50 gallons too much). Service was very 'wa-wa' although the Hubby enjoyed his burger thoroughly.

For chairs, viewing this 2+ hour movie, we sat in high back leather desk chairs. Yes, I said desk chairs. Like we didn't just sit in desk chairs all day. Not able to lean back or get reasonably comfortable, I would have rather dined at home and watched the movie elsewhere.

Hospitality was great at the front desk, but that's where it stopped. Bartender was less than thrilled to even be awake it seemed and our server was more mono-toned and straight faced than an IRS agent. They need some serious hospitality training in that place. At least the cook knew how to do his job. Blah...

Monday, December 17, 2012

Cattlemen's in Oklahoma City



Oh my yumminess... (is yumminess a word?)

The Hubby has been raving about Cattlemen's restaurant in the historic Stockyard City by Oklahoma City since we met, and on the way home from an Iowa trip, I finally got to sink my teeth into the most tender, delicious steak ever. From the picture you can see the juices on the steak plate, yes, it was that moist.

Note: This is one person's meal... thank goodness we shared

Setting: I'm not sure if anything has changed except for some basic updates since the restaurant opened 1910. However, it is very well kept and looks clean even behind the open counter setup.

People: There must be something in the air for the niceness that comes out of every worker. Besides being friendly at the table, they were friendly to each other, and other restaurant patrons. Classic thing that actually happened - a police officer walked in, said hi to the server by name as he sat up at the open kitchen bar, and   other server called from the other side - Hi Sam! Felt like we were in the cowboy version of Cheers.

I look forward to going back and enjoying the rest of the cute town!