Hook Line & BBQ

Another Bella Vista restaurant, of the BBQ variety.  It's not bad.  You walk in, past the food prep area with its tin "paneling" and order at the cash register, and then go sit in the restaurant section.  They have BBQ and Catfish, which I haven't tried yet.  We got ours to go.

I had the Pulled Pork Sandwich with Cole Slaw and Frank had the Pulled Pork Platter with Brown Beans and Potato Salad.  And of course I got an ice tea to go.  The tea was fine.  The pulled pork was actually good.  Not great, but perfectly decent BBQ with a good sauce.  The cole slaw was a bit sweet, but it grew on me more and more as I ate it.  The potato salad was mayonnaise-based, and a bit bland.  The beans were really good.  They seemed to be mostly pinto beans with some red beans thrown in and they tasted great.

Overall, 3-1/2 stars.  Like I said, not great, but perfectly decent BBQ and I would eat there again.

Dairy Queen

This is the Dairy Queen in Bella Vista.  We were passing through and stopped by a few times on our journeys back and forth.  This is one of the only drive-thrus in Bella Vista.

Chicken Strip Basket
I remembered them from my youth and thought, why not?  The basket comes with 4 chicken strips (tenders), french fries, Texas toast, and warm white gravy (country gravy) for dipping the strips.  It was good.  I mean, yeah, it's a bit generic, but it is fast food.  The gravy was peppery and warm and went well with the strips.  And I'm a sucker for Texas Toast!

Cheeseburger
I got it the way it comes, with the cheese melted and ketchup and pickles and lettuce.  And I think it had onions.  The fries are okay, nothing special.  But the burger is flame-cooked!  You can taste the smoke.  I remember when Burger King had "flame-broiled" burgers, but I haven't seen those ads in a while.  Is DQ the home of the flame now?

Overall, it's fast food, but it's edible fast food:  3 to 3-1/2 stars.

Casey's General Store

Normally I don't rate convenience stores, but in this case I'm making an exception.  We were wandering around Bella Vista over the weekend and a new store had popped up at the corner of Lancashire and Forest Hills.  We stopped for gas and then Frank ran in for some coffee.  There was a huge line inside buying donuts, so Frank bought some.  Let me say right now, that Casey's has the best cake donuts in Northwest Arkansas!

I was amazed!  The regular donuts were very good too - they were moist and yummy.  But the cake donuts were fabulous!  The plain cake donuts were moist and tasty, with a hint of nutmeg.  Or, as Frank says, "that's how they're supposed to taste."  I usually don't eat cake donuts because they're so dry, but I loved these.  I also had a chocolate covered regular donut.  It sat around till late afternoon, and when I finally ate it, it was still moist too.  The donuts from Harp's and Royal are usually dried out by then.

We also tried the apple fritters.  I haven't had a good one in years - usually they're too sweet or too glazed.  The ones at Casey's were pretty good.  You can actually see apple chunks in the fritter, and it's not too sweet.  We were pleasantly surprised by that.  Overall, I'd have to rate Casey's as one of the best donut shops in the area.  Four stars.

Edit:
We finally ate something besides doughnuts.  Cookies:  I thought they were a bit generic, but the icing is good.  Brownies:  Fairly generic.  Subs:  Not bad.  At least as good as Subway/Quizno's if not better.  And the pricing is similar - $5 for regular 12" subs, $3.79 for regular 6" subs.  And they seem concerned about the quality.  The last time I ate at Quizno's I got sick, and ditto Frank for Subway.  I still say 4 to 4-1/2 stars for doughnuts, but 3-1/2 for food.