Café Du Monde - New Orleans, LA

The Café Du Monde is going to be the first place that I go to every time that I visit New Orleans for now on.  It is an absolute "must visit" destination in my opinion.  It is not really a restaurant so much as it is a traditional cafe where coffee is primary on the menu and everything else is optional.

The coffee is smooth, flavorful, rich and has a heavy viscosity.   You feel like you are really getting your money's worth.  From their web site, I learned that the secret to their special coffee formula is that they add chicory.  They learned this trick from the Acadians from Nova Scotia around the Civil War time.  The chicory takes the bitter edge off of coffee and gives it a chocolate flavor.

In the case of Café Du Monde, the baignets are the co-stars of the show.  Baignets are little French doughnut like pastries buried beneath a blanket of powdered sugar.  It is like what you would expect from a cafe in France; you feel like the quality of the pasties is one of a kind.  In the case of France, they are all exceptionally good. 

Café Du Monde is not a triple-D restaurant.   I don't think that it would make sense for Guy to visit here anyway because the menu is very basic.  There is no cooking per se going on here.  It is coffee brewing and doughnut baking.  

The atmosphere is really something extra special.  It is an outdoor cafe right in the French Quarter of New Orleans.  So, you get to experience the beat of New Orleans while you are sipping some really good coffee and licking the powdered sugar off of your fingers. 

I'll give the Café Du Monde a 9.8 out of 10  because the experience is great, the coffee quality is great.  I really enjoyed it.

Café Du Monde
800 Decatur St
New Orleans, LA 70116
(504) 525-4544
www.cafedumonde.com

Morin's Diner - Attleboro, MA

I think that Morin's might have moved up in the world after Guy paid them a visit because the official name of the restaurant has the word "diner" in it but the sign on the door now says "restaurant."  Morin's wasn't a diner, a drive-inn or a dive.  I'd call it a bar/restaunt because you walk into the bar area and can either eat and/or drink there or walk further into the dining area.  Definitely too nice to be called a dive.

I was resetting my expectations downward because it was shaping up to be another middle of the road okay restaurant when I first approached.  The sign might not say TGIFridays or Chilis but the pattern for these types of places is all a cut from the same cloth.

Luckily, that didn't turn out to really be the case.  In terms of atmosphere, there really isn't anything anywhere else in the country like a good Boston area bar.  I like the Boston people.  They laugh like they mean it.  They talk with conviction and know how to really tell a story passionately.  They just seem to do a better job of living out loud than the rest of us.  I think that I have a pretty neutral American accent but, when I'm in New England I find New York accent words from my earlier years rolling off my tongue un-commanded.  It's like it's okay to let everything about yourself hang out here.

I started off with a cup of the seafood chowder.  Evidently the Rhode Island chowder is red and the Massachusetts style is white.  Who knew?  This was the white creamy chowder with huge chunks of potato and big chunks of fish.  Both the potato and fish tastes really popped out without being too salty.   It was really good.  They must have used some wine or something else in the chowder sauce because even though it was creamy, it was also light in viscosity.  I would go back and just have a larger bowl of chowder next time.  It was that good.

I ordered the baked Atlantic scrod for the main course.  They bake it with crushed ritz crackers on top served in a stainless steel dish with cole slaw, mashed potatos and gravy.  The presentation was completely "diner." 

The gravy was beef gravy.  This was a little bit of a disaster because I started out sampling everything and found that the beef flavor was competing against the fish flavor and not in a good way.  Verdict: Abandon beef gravy.


The scrod was really very nice.  The ritz cracker flavor was immediately evident.  I wasn't expecting much out of the cheap crackers but, it really added a nice buttery, salty flavor that complimented the scrod and kicked the scrod flavor into high gear.

Because the fish was baked and served all in the same dish, it kept all of its juices which was like a gravy of its own.  I was back in business with the mashed potatoes.  I mopped up the juicy, ritzy juices out of the stainless steel dish with the potatoes.  Delightful.

I'd give Morins a 9.2 on my ddd-scale.  Worth checking out if your in the neighborhood.  I wish that I had more time and wasn't driving.  It might have been fun to hang out for a while here.

Morin's Diner
16 S Main St
Attleboro, MA 02703
(508) 222-9875
http://www.morins1911.com

Leo's BBQ - Oklahoma City, OK

I think that I have found a new favorite restaurant.  It's not often that I get to  rate a restaurant an honest 10 out of 10 on the Bill's Triple-D scale.  Leo's was without a doubt a 10.  It was everything that you expect out of a triple-D restaurant.  Let me explain.

Despite having the address of Leo's programmed correctly into our GPS, we drove right past it.  We thought that it was an old abandoned gas station.  That's because it was an old abandoned gas station.  There were pipes sticking up from the old gas pump islands, the faded signs telling motorists which credit cards they could use were still there.

We actually used our noses to find the restaurant.  Our initial thought was that maybe the place didn't exist anymore but, our noses told us otherwise.  We could smell this terrific scent of smoking meat luring us back.

I couldn't imagine how they stuffed tables and a kitchen into the tiny cement block building but, it is much larger inside than it appears from the outside.  You definitely get that Alice in Wonderland sense when you step into it.  My first impression of the outside of the building was that the only people that we might find inside might be squatting homeless folks.  Luckily that was far from the case.

As you walk in, you get even more of the BBQ smoke flavoring the air.  There is a rhythm of heavy knives chopping meat on a butcher block while 60's Mo-Town music plays in the background.  I still have "Mr. Postman" playing in my head.  The tables are covered with red and white checkered picnic table tablecloths.

I was enchanted from the very beginning.  I remember thinking to myself that this was a 9.5-9.8 restaurant before even seeing a menu or trying a bite.

I ordered Leo's Special Grad Slam which was 2 ribs and 2 links; one bologna and the other beef.  She said that they were out of the bologna so, she made up something else.  I'm not even sure what the plate was a mix of.  There were a couple of ribs, some chopped beef and a link of what I thought was bologna. So, I was a bit confused but, there was no sense in over-thinking this.  It was all served hanging over a base of potato salad and beans.  I'm not much of a bean person but, I was savoring the experience so decided to try the beans.  If I didn't like them then I could just isolate them on the plate to be ignored.

For someone who doesn't like beans, I really enjoyed these.  The beans were kind of crispy in a way.  They kind of snapped when you ate them.  The sauce was not over-salted and bitter-sweet like a lot of beans.  They were more barbecue flavored and had a smooth slightly spicy taste.

They had two types of  BBQ sauces on the table.  One was mild and the other one would hurt you, and it did.  Luckily I didn't pour out too much of the punishment sauce.  The smoked meats were great.  I slid each forkful into a bath of the BBQ sauce and enjoyed each bite until the last. 

All of the people working there were wonderfully sweet folks.  They act like they are genuinely glad to have you in their home and they really want you to be comfortable and enjoy yourself.  Our waitress even apologized for taking too long to take our order (she wasn't) and gave us some free cake to eat there then a to-go bag with a couple of more slices.  Nobody has ever given me free cake in a restaurant before. 

The whole free cake concept is really nice, even though one slice of cake actually came with one of the meals that we ordered anyway.  It was strawberry vanilla cake with fresh slices of strawberry and hot vanilla sauce all served warm. 

We had stopped to have lunch at "The Diner," another triple-D restaurant in Norman, Oklahoma a few days earlier.  A group of guys that we saw there were coincidentally here, too at the same time as us.

Leo's is a 10.  My new favorite DDD restaurant. Try it if you can find it.  You won't be disappointed.

Leo's BBQ
3631 N Kelly Ave
Oklahoma City, OK 73111
(405) 424-5367

Val's Burgers - Hayward, CA

If London has the Clock Tower and Paris the Eiffel Tower then Hayward, California has Val's Burgers. The famous Papa Burger is a giant tower of meat that dwarfs ordinary hamburgers and is the first thing that makes Val's awesome.

 Warning: A papa burger is not for the faint of heart. It is a full pound of ground beef. As you are eating, the juicy goodness is dripping down your hand and wrist. Leave your wristwatch in your pocket. It is not just huge buy tasty.  You know in your head that this is four times as much beef as any human needs but, it is so good that you can't stop until you are left with nothing but licking your fingers.  You can order up your burger however you want.  Every burger is a special order.

Val's is an icon in my family. When my own need for meat rises then I unroll a mat, face west towards California and chant in a low rumble "mmmmeat...."

Val's is not a triple-D restaurant, but it is probably one of the most quintessential diner/dives that I have ever been to. It has everything going for it. It has a lot of character, the food is great and it is just a fun experience.

Val's is a family tradition.  My brother-in-law introduced me to Val's many years ago. Im quite certain that if I had failed the Val's initiation that he would have called for my marriage to his sister to be annulled on the spot.
As if the burger was not enough, the shakes are really exceptional as well. They are old time hand dipped and spun shakes, the real deal.  They show up with the big glass and the metal cup that it was spun in also, just like the good old days.

Your credit card is no good here.  Val's is still cash only.  Be prepared to wait in line to get in.  Your patience will be rewarded.

The service is always friendly but, in the rough around the edges diner kind of way.

Val's holds a special place in my heart.  I give Val's a 10 on both solid Triple-D appeal and on just being a special place for me personally.

Val's Burgers
2115 Kelly Street
Hayward, CA 94541
(510) 889-8257

Lone Star Taqueria - Salt Lake City

The atmosphere at Lone Star Taqueria was pretty cool. They had Mexican music playing in the background. The first thing that you see when you drive up is an old station wagon with dozens of snowboard and skateboard stickers on it to remind you that you are very close to some of the best skiing in the world in the winter and of their edgy attitude. Of course all of this takes place with the incredible Rocky Mountains in the background.

I had the fish tacos. Usually, you don't know exactly what kind of fish are in fish tacos but they had a sign up telling you. They were really good; light and fresh with a citrus undertone. I went pretty light on the avocado dressing but, it was equally good.

Some of the people working there didn't speak very much English. It was almost like a place that caters to local South Americans except all of the patrons there looked and sounded gringo to me.

I'd give lone Star Taqueria a DDD score of 9.2. Well worth a visit.



Lone Star Taqueria
2265 EAST FORT UNION BLVD.
SALT LAKE CITY, UT 84121
801-944-2300

lonestartaqueria.com

The Fly Trap - Ferndale, MI

The Fly Trap was kind on an unusual place.  The outside is painted a bright yellow-green color.  You could imagine yourself a fly walking into a venus flytrap plant.  When you first walk in you notice the reggae music turned up kind of high.  There are  people eating strange piles of grass in these huge bowls that could be mixing bowls except for the fact that they are a little too delicate.

I found it to be part normal American diner and part vegan restaurant.  It seemed to me that a diner would be the last place a vegen would want to eat.  But, they had a lot of Thai dishes made with tofu that the non-meat eaters like.  Not me though.

I got the red chili salmon burger and a salad with blue cheese dressing.  I started with the salad.  The salad was more like what you would find in an upscale restaurant.  It had several types of greens. I could not identify all of them.  The blue-cheese dressing was really nice.  It was obviously fresh made, not out of a bottle or can.   I'm not quite sure what kind of magic the cook used but it was at the same time like a normal blue-cheese dressing in that it was creamy and had the distinctive sharp blue-cheese taste yet, it was also somehow light. 

The salmon wasn't a slab of salmon but actually a salmon patty.  I didn't see that coming.  The salmon sandwich had a splotch of mayonnaise with some cucumber slices on it. The mayonnaise was their garlic lime aioli.  I tried it first just the way that it was set down in front of me.  It was nice but, a little on the bland side.  The cucumber add a light crunchy taste to the fish.  I really didn't pick out the aioli taste.

The waitress offered a jalapeno and a habanero carrot sauce.  I dabbed on some of the green habanero sauce which made a huge difference.  It just picked up the whole sandwich experience.  It added just a little pepper kick and somehow made the whole sandwich more exciting. 

The service was pretty good.  There was just one waitress working but, she seemed genuinely excited about the menu and eagerly asked how I liked everything as I got to it.

I would give the Fly Trap a 9 out of 10.  I would eat there again.  I'd like to try some of the Thai food next time.


The Fly Trap - Ferndale, MI
22950 Woodward Avenue
Ferndale, MI 48220
(248) 399-5150
http://www.theflytrapferndale.com

The Red Iguana - Salt Lake City

The Red Iguana was everything that I am looking for in a triple-D restaurant.  The food was original and amazing and the atmosphere was really enjoyable.

The service was exceptionally friendly even though I showed up during their peak dinner rush. I came in and got seated up front.  I initially thought that the restaurant was really small because I only saw about eight tables.  I later found the other 80% of the place.  There was even one table for two wedged into a former closet big enough for 1 1/2.

The mole plates caught my attention.  I had never heard of it before.  A quick wikipedia search says that mole is "Mexican Spanish, from Nahuatl mulli or molli is the generic name for a number of sauces used in Mexican cuisine, as well as for dishes based on these sauces."  They had seven different types of mole plates.

They let me try a dish with a sample of all of the mole sauces. They were all quite excellent.  The yellow Mole Amarillo sauce was kind of hot, the mole colaradillo was kind of nutty-chocolatey, the mole poblano was more like regular mexican sauce, the mole verde tasted like avocado, the mole negro had a banana chocolate taste, the red pipian was pumpkin and the lomo de puerco en mole de amendras tasted good but like 
The pumpkin sauce was the most original to me so, I tried it

The pumpkin red pipian mole was really excellent. It is tough to describe the taste because it didn't really taste like anything else I've ever had.  The pumpkin flavor was really evident but, not like pumpkin pie or a pumpkin muffin either.  You'll just have to try it.

The place seemed to be a hit with the locals because it was pretty much packed and there were people flowing through for their take-out orders.

I'm giving the Red Iguana a 9.8 on the triple-D scale.  I liked it that much.

The Red Iguana
736 W N Temple
Salt Lake City, UT 84116
(801) 322-1489
www.rediguana.com