Regular Joe's Guide

Last visit: Jun 2016 First visit: Jun 2015 We've been a few times over to Main Street Cafe, including very recently. A consistently good place, though the non-distinctive name and location keeps it out of the memory bank when thinking about places to dine. Of course, it tries to replicates the main street town diners of old, but that's hard to do without a grill that's been cooked on for 70 years... Breakfast is the main draw, but they also serve lunch and dinner every day (except dinner on Sunday and Monday). We would categorize their breakfast as a "cut above" the ordinary places such as Denny's or IHOP. In the past, the RJG frequently questioned the variation for breakfast, as eggs and pancakes are often too similar to differentiate. But with the advent of skillets, creative omelettes, and artisan breads/meats, breakfast has become much more interesting in modern times. While we've yet to discover a standout dish, we've been more than satisfied w...

Looks like they've added a location in Roanoke as well. This appears to be independent of the restaurants in California, so I'll leave as is. Interesting that I went in a 2 week time span, and never returned. Huh. Latest visit: Jun 2016 First visit: Jun 2016 THIS... this is what I've been talking about in regards to artisan pizza and craft beers. The craze that is taking hold in America is reflected quite well here at Wise Guys. Though the pizza isn't really in the same category as Grimaldi's or Spin!, it's still a fine blend of well made pizzas and a superb local beer selection. Mrs. RJG and I had visited two weeks ago, and when Mr. Music and I planned a day of food, drink, and tunes, I decided this would be the perfect lunch location. Following that, I would enter it here into the blog. Pizza is the main draw,  but they also have a fine selection of pastas, sandwiches, salads, and soups. We've only sampled the pizza so far, but based on the sauce that c...

First visit: Jun 2016 (Southlake, TX - closed) They're still open in Richardson and Frisco. Most of their locations are in the Kansas City area. Spin! represents the latest fad sweeping America: Artisan Pizza meets Craft Beer. Something akin to Grimaldi's , but with more focus paid to locally made beers. In fact, we tried two such places while in West Virginia last week: Backyard Pizza and Raw Bar in Huntington and Pies and Pints in Charleston. It's the latter that is most like Spin! in that it's both a small(ish) chain, and that their menu offerings are similar. If you've read these pages long enough, you'll know that Mrs. RJG isn't the biggest pizza fan you'll encounter. But she likes these kind of pizzas. The Napoletana style, that we first spoke about long ago at the now closed Campania , just a few blocks away. For our two visits so far, we tried the Italian Sausage and Onion 12 inch pizza. It was just the right texture and crispiness, while t...

First visit: Jun 2016 Mrs. RJG and I just returned from a week long road trip through the southeast, culminating in West Virginia, before heading back through Kentucky, Tennessee, and Arkansas. It's tempting to write about all the places we ate, as all of them were uniformly excellent - and all very much "local". But I fear readership would be small, and not of much use for most of you. Perhaps I'll pen a few notes on Trip Advisor for each of them. But I didn't want to exclude Lou Viney's, since Sulphur Springs is in the vicinity of DFW, and it's definitely worthy of a destination drive. I think we've been to Sulphur Springs once, and I remember little about it. But times have changed, and the downtown area is revitalized, and quaint, with many restaurants, shops, etc... throughout. It's nice to see small town America have that same sense of relevancy as you would find in Europe for example. I wish our country would have competitions for "...

A small delay, as I had a couple of other projects to attend to. In the meantime, Mr. Music sent this one in recently. It looks like a restaurant nearby to our Indian Godfather. I'll have to ask him if he's been! --- Kumar’s South Indian Village in Plano is a unique experience. They are located in an OLD strip mall on Custer Rd in Plano. They serve home cooking and offer all you can eat on weekends. It’s not really a buffet, it’s much more fun than that! I went there with my friend on Saturday. We had to make reservations because it is very small (12-15 tables) and gets very crowded quickly. Our table was set with a tray covered in a banana leaf for each of us. We sat down at our table and I noticed in the middle of the room were these giant receptacles filled with fresh cooked basmati rice. The staff brings a big bowl of it over, and shovels a mountain of it in the middle of our tray. Then, servers come by with buckets of curries and other goodies. Depending on what you...