The Blue Plate Diner - Salt Lake City

I'm starting to understand the Salt Lake City vibe.  It's kind of a funky, hippie, sporty, chilled-out attitude.  I think that I understand what John Denver meant by the "Rocky Mountain High" that he sung about years ago.  The Rockies hang in the background like a tapestry to remind you where you are.  There are relatively few overweight people walking around and a lot of people with backpacks and riding bicycles.  They seem to be connected to the earth and like their food to be natural, too.

I went to the Blue Plate Diner for breakfast.  I don't think that I've ever reviewed a restaurant for breakfast.  So, another DDD review first.

I ordered the verde chili breakfast burritto.  The plate came out absolutely piping hot and the waitress with the asbestos fingers moved it over to me.  It looked appetizing enough but, the verde sauce didn't look very green to me. It was more of an earthen brown. Not sure what was up with that?

Once I dug into it, any previous hangup was gone.  It had a nice initial spicy hot kick to it that didn't persist.  It was really tasty and damned large.  You could have split it between three people.

I liked the fact that you could substitute egg beaters© for eggs, which I did.  The taste really didn't suffer because of it.  I think that it might have been too heavy cooked with real eggs.  Real eggs also have more of a dominant flavor to them.


I've just recently discovered that I like avocado sauce.  So, I'm a poor judge of avocado dips or anything but, this avocado sauce was pretty good.

The atmosphere was that vibe that I just mentioned.  The crowd leaned more toward hippie. There were normal neighborhood people mixed in with lots of tie dye, tattoos and dreadlocks. I could smell
Marijuana in someone's clothes as they walked past me.  They had an old Honda motorcycle and some old bicycles chained to the building.   It was classic diner with the old fashioned soda fountain and stools around a Formica bar with stainless steel piping. I counted seven pictures of Elvis Presley.

I'd give bps a 9.3. I liked it and I think you would, too.

The Blue Plate Diner
2041 South 21st East
Salt Lake City, UT 84108

Hard Eight - Stephensville, TX

The Hard Eight is hands down my favorite barbeque joint anywhere.  I've been coming here for the past six years and I will continue coming here for a long time. 

The Hard Eight is not a triple-D restaurant but, it should be.  It's got everything that a triple-D restaurant should be.  First off, the food is "off the hook" fantastic.  The meats are cooked in outside smoking pits over local mesquite wood.  They keep a twelve-foot high mountain of cut wood in the parking lot to keep those fires going.

Second, it is a fun destination.  It is a very popular place with the Harley crowd.  There are usually at least a half dozen Harley Davidson motorcycles parked outside.  It is a great destination because it is about a two hour drive from Fort Worth through some pretty Texas countryside.  I sometimes see poker run signs in the parking lot.

It is also a popular destination for the private aviation crowd, which is how I found out about it.  Private pilots all over the country frequently head out for short flights for the proverbial "$100 hamburger" which is supposed to be the cost of the flight plus the food.  In Texas it is more like the "$100 barbeque."   The Clark County "Stephensville" Airport is very close to the restaurant.  I'm not sure that I know a DFW metroplex pilot that doesn't at least know about the Hard Eight if they aren't regulars there.  I've probably flown there 8 or 9 times.

It's a bit of an adventure for those of us who fly in.  After you land and tie the aircraft down, you could walk over to the restaurant.  It is about a 10 minute walk.  But, the restaurant also has golf carts at the airport with the keys in them.  You can just hop in an available golf cart and follow the path through the woods and park in the National Guard armory right across the street.   If you have kids with you, they LOVE driving the golf carts.  If the carts are all gone then just call the restaurant and they'll send someone for you.

The single runway is in good shape.  The government built a nice new terminal building in probably 2009.  The restrooms are always clean and the local guys are friendly and ready to help you out.  They also have self-serve jet fuel and 100 octane low lead avgas for the rest of us.  There are plenty of tie-down spots for transient pilots.  There is a sky-diving school on the airport.  So, you sometimes get to watch the jumpers landing on the grass area.

You order your food before you even step inside the building right from the open barbecue pits.  They put the meat on butcher paper on plastic trays that you then bring inside.  You pay for the meat by weight.  They have everything else on the tray line inside.

Today I got the smoked turkey sandwich on jalapeno sour dough bread.  I got some cole slaw and two shrimp poppers.  The "brush poppers" are either shrimp or chicken wrapped in jalapeno, onion and bacon with a toothpick holding it all together.  Not exactly heart healthy but, boy they are delicious.  The bacon is still a little chewy and the whole thing is smoked thereby causing the pepper and bacon flavors to blend into the meat or fish.  They do just slide down easily.

I've had the hot links, chicken, brisket and ham before.  It is all really very good.  If you are not flying then they have free beer.  There are some beer taps and if you ask then someone will come over and pull a draft for you.  That might partially explain the popularity of this place with the Harley folks.

The Hard Eight gets a 10 out of 10 on my triple-D scale.  It is my "go to" place to bring people visiting the area.  I take every opportunity to fly here whenever I can.  I think that everyone should check it out.  Unless you are a vegetarian, you'll be back too.

Hard-Eight Barbeque
1091 Glen Rose Rd
Stephenville, TX 76401
(254) 968-5552
www.hardeightbbq.com

Donatelli's - White Bear Lake, MN

When I walked through the door and saw an ice-cream parlor, I didn't expect to be dining on Italian food.  But, if you pay attention then you'll notice the daily specials posted on the wall which clearly have nothing to do with ice-cream.  Donatelli's was not a diner, I didn't drive-in so,  that leaves dive.   I didn't think that it was that much of a dive, just a little confusing.

Being originally from New York, I think that I have a pretty good handle on what an italian restaurant is supposed to be.  So, to add to my confusion, the smells of pizza from the ovens was noticably abscent. I could see the ovens on the way to the back of the restaurant but, no baking bread and tomato scents.  Still confused.

My patience with the place was well rewarded however.  First, hospitality to be really good.  In fact, I found the hospitality everywhere in Minnesota to probably be some of the best in the whole country.  People are just genuinely nice.

Then, I experienced my first bite.  I ordered the baked linguini carbonara.  WOW!  Very rewarding indeed.  It came out piping hot from the oven on a second cooler plate that you could actually look at without getting third degree burns.  It was cheesy, smokey and chewy all at once.  The smoke flavor coming from the bacon was perfect as was the amount of cheese charring from having been baked.  The peas added just a bit of color and chimed into the mix also perfectly.  OK, any previous dining sins had just been forgiven.

I've had linguini carbonara plenty of times before and it really wasn't like this.  I didn't get lost in Donatelli's carbonara sauce.  Usually, the carbonara sauce is the most dominant thing on the plate at most italian restaurants.  Donatelli's carbonara sauce just brought out the best from the homemade pasta, chicken, bacon and peas. 

I was enjoying this plate so much that I actually temporarily forgot how other restaurants prepared the meal.  This just seemed like the way it should be.

As the plate cooled down, you could start to really pick out the individual flavors. Chicken was sliced fairly thin and the bacon fairly thick so that they were both about the same size.  The bacon was more chewy than crunchy and it was very lean.  

There was no bread brought out before meal. But my meal came with bread.  I found it to be a bit disappointing.  It had the soft wonder bread crust instead of the hard Italian bread crust.  The taste was kind of blah also.  I only took one bit of bread.  I absolutely did not go away hungry though.  The linguini was really filling.  I couldn't eat all of it.

I'd give Donatelli's an 8.8.   The pasta alone is worth driving out of your way to find.  Go there hungry!

Donatelli's
2692 East County Road E
White Bear Lake, MN 55110
http://donatellis.com/
651.777.9199

Pat's BBQ - Salt Lake City

This was the first time that I'm reviewing a restaurant that I only did take-out with.  I did walk into the restaruant and even sat down.  The only thing was that I did not have a lot of time to spare and this seemed like a kick-back and take it easy type of place.  There's nothing wrong with that.  It just wasn't something that I could do today.

When you walk in you are first in a hallway.  It is unclear where the actual restaurant is.  There are signs pointing you in the direction of whatever you are looking for.  The first door on the right is the take-out window room.  Down the hall and to the left is a bar area.  Straight ahead and outside is an outdoor area with picnic tables set up.

 I sat down at a picnic table and judging from the cadence of the conversation that the only waiter was having with the only other people in the restaurant, I figured that I had better just do take-out.  So, I went back inside.

The meatloaf was one of the specials.  So, I went for it.  They used a BBQ sauce on it and the meat itself had a smokey BBQ flavor to it that was really good.  It came with cornbread, mashed potatoes and I ordered some coleslaw. The coleslaw was fresh, crispy and nice.  The mashed potatoes had a regular meat gravy on them.  I thought that the gravy and BBQ mix didn't quite work well together.  It should have been one or the other.

Overall, I thought that it was very good though.  I liked both the food and the atmosphere.  I was chatting with another guy waiting for take-out also.  He had been here many times before.  I got the impression that it was more of a night-time place when Pat's becomes alive.

I'd give it a 9.5 and would suggest anyone to try it out.

Pat's BBQ
155 W. Commonwealth Ave
Salt Lake City, UT 84115
Phone (801) 484-5963