Friday, November 30, 2007

Saigon Cuisine

6805 Cantrell Road
Little Rock

You all know by now that I likes me some Southeast Asian food as much as anybody. And we've been going to Saigon Cuisine on Cantrell for years. They have excellent lunch specials for under six dollars which include Vietnamese style eggrolls and soup. The soup is different every day and is always absolutely wonderful. But that's not what I want to talk about today.

What I had yesterday when my daughter took me out to eat was nothing less than a revelation. See, ever since I read about Bun Bo Hue at Noodlewhore, I've been dying to try some. And there it was, right on the menu - Hue style noodle soup. Wow, was this good. Spicy even without adding the chili peppers that came on the fixin's plate, it is a hearty broth with lots of lemon grass and meaty flavor. I wish I had taken a photo of it, but will borrow this one from NW (please don't mind...)


Saigon. Bun Bo Hue. Vietnamese beers. A must try, you'll thank me.

Monday, November 19, 2007

Zaxby's - Pub Food Without The Beer


Which is a good thing, or not, depending on how you roll. We tried the new one that just opened in Sherwood. It's on Brookwood (which turns into Brockinton on the other side of Keihl) across from the entrance to the Links apartments and down the street from Kohl's.

The first thing I noticed about the menu, other than it pretty much consists of buffalo wings and chicken strips, is how much more reasonable the pricing is than say, Wingstop. For $4.99 you can get a meal of chicken strips with fries, celery sticks and sauce. All this and a drink. Or, instead of chicken strips you can have buffalo wings, a broiled or a fried chicken sandwich (pick one).

They have Zalads which appeared to be decently portioned salads and Zappetizers ( a little too cute with the z's, don't you think?) that include fried onion strips, fried mushrooms or homemade potato chips. I tried the "onion peel" which is the fried strips, somewhat like the onion loaf at Shorty Smalls, and found it to be good if not just a bit too greasy. Okay, a lot too greasy. But it tasted good. I want to try the chips next time.

The buffalo wings were really good, I tried the original, which is Louisiana Hot Sauce. I also tried the teriyaki and the Hot Honey Mustard sauces, both of which were reasonably tasty. They have hot sauces that range from "wimpy" to "insane". So if you like some heat I'm sure you'll find something in your range here.

All in all, a good experience. It's clean, but it's new for crying out loud. Give them time, maybe it'll be dirty, though the management and all of the employees gave every appearance of being well trained and eager.

I recommend that you try this place.

Zaxby's
208 Brookwood Drive
Sherwood Arkansas

Thursday, November 08, 2007

Taco Bueno Doesn't Need Me to Say Nice Things About Them


But I will. The reason they don't need me is because it seems plenty of other folks have caught on to the fact that they are better than Taco Bell in so many ways. I won't even try to list all of them because, well, it's pretty much that they're better in all of the ways.

But here's a few. The food is better. They have tamales for crying out loud. They have enchiladas. They have real beans and rice. And they can make you a real meal or stick a to-go burrito in your hand to eat while driving down the road. They are faster, much faster - today they had my tamale platter ready for me before I could get my drink filled up, and they don't cost any more than Taco Bell.

And, every time that I've gone in there, they have gotten my order correct. Absolutely correct. Taco Bell leaves something out so regularly that I have gotten the feeling that it is a profit center for them to short you. A profit center that they take quite seriously.

I only wish there were more locations, at least here in central Arkansas, because it's a little far to drive from Sherwood to Maumelle or Baseline Road to eat there. But I do. And even though the line was out to the door at the counter, and out around the curve in the road on the drive through, they were cranking them through there, yes they were.

That's why I don't think that Taco Bueno needs for me to say anything nice about them. They're doing fine on their own.