The Dillard House, Dillard, Georgia

On our trip to the mountains, we stopped by The Dillard House in Dillard, Georgia, where you don't just eat dinner, you experience it.  I was introduced to this restaurant by my husband on a trip in 2009 when we ate there for breakfast, but we wanted to try their dinner menu this time.  On the way in I told Richard that I sure hope I didn't over eat because I had been doing so well on our trip so far.  After he laughed his head off at my statement, we went in and were seated, then were greeted by a sweet grandma-looking waitress in a cute little apron.  Her grandma buddies must have been in the kitchen cooking up our meal because that's what it tasted like--grandmas cooking in the kitchen.  This is country food at it's finest, people.

From 2009

From 2009

The casual dining room is open and full of windows, with a spectacular view.

You don't order at the Dillard House.  You just sit.  Your server will begin bringing bowls, baskets, and plates of food to your table.  It's all served with a smile, family-style.

For starters, we were served some fresh melon, sliced tomatoes, slaw, apple sauce, and a chow-chow type relish.  The tea was perfectly sweetened, which is really important to me.   I don't like it when my sweet tea isn't sweet enough or it's too sweet.  I'm kind of picky like that.

Then the food started coming.

Virginia ham, fried pork chops (the best I have ever had), and fried chicken.  There was a sweet potato casserole that made my non-sweet potato loving husband proclaim "I think I like sweet potatoes now!"  Do you think those are hush puppies in the picture?  They are actually pineapple fritters.

The corn on the cob melted in our mouths.  There was a cabbage casserole with cheese that I have never had before--to die for.  Creamy homemade macaroni and cheese.  Fried okra, green beans, lima beans (or some type of bean), and all perfectly seasoned.  Someone there knows how to add just the right amount of salt.  And the bread basket?  Corn muffins, biscuits AND yeast rolls.  With all the butter and jelly you want.  I think I may have missed a few items.

Yes, coffee and dessert too.  A homemade cobbler a la mode. I was so full by then I couldn't even push the shutter on my camera to take a picture.

There's much more than just the restaurant.   The grounds and buildings there are just beautiful. 

Go there if you are in the area.  But wear loose clothing.

Smoky Mountain Trout House, Gatlinburg, Tennessee

My husband loves trout.  Me?  I like it, I don't love it.  But there is one restaurant that we always go to when we visit the smoky mountains that makes us both happy--the Smoky Mountain Trout House in Gatlinburg, Tennessee.  We discovered it on our honeymoon and have been going there for thirteen years.  They know how to do trout.  It's casual dining with a variety of trout dishes to choose from.  Let me tell you about the meal we had while we were on vacation last month.

Trout Fritters

We started with the trout fritters.  We always start with the trout fritters.  Do not go there without getting the trout fritters.  Do it.  They are fried golden balls of trout and potatoes with peppers and onions, incredibly moist on the inside, crispy on the outside with a creamy dill dipping sauce.  These fritters are what inspired me to send in my very first entry into a recipe contest years ago.  I tried to recreate them at home.  The waitress told us there was a secret ingredient in them.  Then she cautiously looked around and whispered it to me under her breath as she was walking away.  Unfortunately, I did not catch it because apparently, granny needs a hearing aid.

I ordered the trout cakes for my entree, which were delicious also, but basically it was the same mixture as the trout fritters but in cake form.  I wished I would have branched out.  Richard ordered the Smoked Mountain Trout.

Smoked Mountain Trout.  And yes, I know this is the worst picture ever.

I'm not sure I have ever tasted a more flavorful piece of fish.  Hickory smoked with sauteed mushrooms and onions and a little cup of bacon pieces in butter for dipping.  Sweet mercy it was delicious.  I will say that I wasn't all that impressed with the hush puppies and coleslaw, but I'm from Mississippi--we KNOW how to do hush puppies and coleslaw--so my standards are quite high.  But everything else was wonderful. 

Go there.

Dos Caminos, New York, New York

I was going through my pictures today and I realized I forgot to blog about Dos Caminos, the restaurant we ate at on the last night of our recent New York trip.  Now I know if you live in a big city, you may have access to many wonderful, authentic Mexican restaurants, but where I come from, the selection is limited.  Very limited.  And I'll be honest, almost everything around here tastes the same from restaurant to restaurant, and from menu item to menu item.  The chimichangas don't taste a whole lot different from the enchiladas, and it's all covered in the same cheese and sauce.  The plates are always filled with refried beans and orangey-colored rice, with a pile of shredded lettuce and pale tomatoes for garnish.  Now don't get me wrong, I love me some cheesy refried beans and orangey-colored rice, I brake for deep-fried chimichangas, and I'm all about some shredded beef enchiladas, but it's nice to break out of the rut.  It's nice to taste food that is out of the norm from whatever your norm normally is.  (Yeah, that sentence confused me too.)  So after some recommendations from some of the staff at the Cooking Channel (and they ought to know, right?), we walked down the street from our hotel to Dos Caminos with the high hopes of getting a table without a reservation.  And the place was packed.  But, they just happened to have a small table outside and we were able to get seated right away.

Clearly New York loved us.

So for starters, chips with three different salsas.  All smooth.  I really prefer a smooth salsa over a chunky one.  Except pico de gallo.  I love pico de gallo but I don't really consider that a salsa.  Richard and I looked deep into each other's eyes and we knew it was going to be a good night with three. different. salsas. before us.

There was a salsa verde, a milder salsa, and a hot salsa.  I really don't like spicy food so I steered away from the hot one.  But the chips were warm, salty, and slightly oily, just the way they should be.  I hate a dry chip.

And we couldn't help but order quacamole for two.  Guacamole for two cost us $14.  Yes, $14 for quacamole.  I think it was a tad high; however, it was made fresh to order, although, and I'm just being honest here, the quacamole I make at home is just as good.  Theirs looked like it had some pico de gallo in it just like I put in mine.  I will say that it had quite a bit of lime juice and I made a mental note to up my lime juice during my next guacamole making session.

The ceviche caught my eye on the menu.  (Like we really needed another appetizer.) But heck, we were on vacation and livin' it up, so the ceviche trio was ordered.  I was already getting close to full, but I'm nothing if not a food trooper.  I could push through my fullness to super fullness.  I'd done it before, I'd do it again.

Lobster, red snapper, and tuna ceviche.  The lobster was my favorite.  It was quite sweet and I believe our server said it was soaked in coconut milk.  The tuna ceviche tasted Asian to me, but it was totally delicious, and the red snapper was to die for. 

Can't get lobster ceviche in Buckatunna, people.

I ordered a grilled shrimp quesadilla with chili-marinated grilled shrimp, Mexican cheeses, smoked wild mushrooms, and oven-roasted tomatoes.  See what I mean about Mexican with a twist?  Smoked wild mushrooms?  I took about three bites and had to quit.  It was huge and I had already reached super-fullness, but, and I hate to be redundant, it was also delicious.

Richard ordered some tacos.  Honestly, I don't remember what kind.  I think they were steak and I certainly didn't hear any complaining from him.

Good times, good memories, good food.

Motorino Pizza, New York, New York

So on my recent visit to New York City I made a list of things I wanted to see and do and most of them started with EAT___________.  (Eat a bagel.  Eat Gelato.  Eat Cheesecake.  Eat street vendor food.  The list goes on and on.)  At the top of the list was eat real New York pizza. After some Internet research, I found Motorino.  (Why not Lombardi's or somewhere else?  I dunno.  All the reviews I read about Motorino were pretty much great and I just felt...drawn.) Yes, it was a tough choice because there were SO many to choose from, not at all like my little hometown where my options end with Inn and Hut.  I wanted to settle this issue before the trip, because I didn't want to haphazardly walk into any old pizza joint in New York and have a bad experience.

That would be tragic.

So Motorino it was.  And we took the subway to get there, then had to walk a little ways.  (Walking seems to be the thing in New York, no?)  It was not at all like I expected.  In fact, we walked right by it and had to turn around.  It was really small in there.  Very casual. We went in the middle of the day between lunch and dinner, so it was not crowded at all.

Richard got a root beer to start with, and right then and there I knew we weren't in Buckatunna anymore because none of our root beer bottles have a picture of Jesus serving beverages on the front.  (Seriously, at first glance I thought it was Jesus and I thought the name was "Virgin" like the Virgin Mary, and up until the end of the meal when I really looked at the bottle I thought he was drinking Catholic root beer.  Is there such a thing as Catholic root beer?)

Richard got the cremini and sweet sausage with fior di latte (it's mozzarella-- yeah, I had to Google it), garlic, thyme, pecorino and olives.  At least I think that's what he got.  I swore I would remember but now the details are a little foggy.  Whatever it was, it made us both very happy to be alive.

I got the the pizza margherita with mozzarella di bufala (another type of mozzarella) because I felt a simple, classic pizza would be best to really gauge if I had made the right restaurant choice.  I would have liked a little bit of fresh basil, not just basil that had been baked on top,  but really, that's just me being picky.  This pizza was excellent.  The tomato sauce was very mild to me, but mild in a good way, not in an unflavorful way.

The real star of the show was the crust.  The crispy, chewy, air pocket-filled, perfectly charred crust.  One pizza would have fed both of us, but I'm glad I got one of my own. After reading a lot of reviews, some people claimed theirs had a slightly soggy middle, but I didn't notice that in either of our pizzas.  I personally don't think a slightly gooey, cheesy, soggy middle would have been all that bad anyway. 

I was kicking myself for not trying their octopus salad, or another salad made of fennel that wasn't on the main menu, but where would I have put it?  Also, the brussel sprout and pancetta pizza sounded very intriguing, as well as their Pizza al' Uovo.  Menu here.  If I only had more time there.  We did share  tiramisu for dessert.  Not overly sweet and the perfect ending to the meal.

If I lived in New York, I could totally see this being a favorite hangout for me.