Pink Slime Sucks!

I felt the need to weigh in on this issue, because I'm really tired of hearing companies talk about how "finely textured beef" is healthy and the same as regular beef.  Well, it's not!

I used to live in Louisiana, in a small area where I couldn't get a lot of healthy foods (at least that I could afford).  My main source of meat was beef in those 5 lb. "chubs."  Those long tubes of meat.  I ate that for several years, until I moved to Northwest Arkansas.  Here, I started shopping at Harp's, which actually has butchers and doesn't add solutions, etc. to their meat.  Imagine my surprise when I tasted the beef - it was wonderful!  I couldn't believe that it tasted so much better than the chubs I used to get. 

After a few years in Arkansas, I went shopping one day and saw the old chubs that I used to buy.  One of them had been opened and sliced into thick patty shapes.  And it looked so disgusting I couldn't believe that I used to eat that crap!  Now, I don't know for certain that it has pink slime in it, but that was the only reason I could come up with for the difference in taste and look.

Another reason for no pink slime - health.  My health has improved dramatically since I moved to NWA.  So if you want my tips for a healthier you:

• Stop drinking sodas!  High fructose corn syrup is not healthy, and neither are artificial sweeteners.
• Stop eating fast food.  Or at least limit it to once a week.  If you can go for a solid month without fast food, your taste buds will start working again and you may never eat fast food again!
• Buy meat from somewhere with a butcher, and No Pink Slime!

It really does make a difference.

O'Charley's

Monroe, LA

This is one of those chains that I generally try to avoid, but my mom said they had some good salads.  I ordered the Southern Fried Chicken Salad that comes with honey mustard, and mom had the 1/2 Club with a side of Chicken Tortilla Soup.

I don't know if the picture shows how truly massive this salad was.  We were there a little after 2 pm, after the lunch rush, and I think someone in the kitchen decided to just dump all the salad leftovers into my bowl.  My salad was part Southern Fried Chicken, part Pecan Chicken Tender salad, and part California Chicken, and came with the latter's balsamic vinaigrette.  Don't get me wrong, it was pretty good!  Just not what I expected.  It had fried chicken tender pieces, romaine lettuce, cranberries, mandarin oranges, pecans, and bacon pieces.

My favorite part of places like this has to be the bread though!  I love those yeasty bread rolls.

The ambiance is fairly generic for these types of chain restaurants, but I did appreciate the mural on the back wall, depicting local history and schools.  (Bet you didn't know Delta Airlines started in Monroe!)

Overall, it was okay.  Like a said, it is a chain in the eastern US (except for the Northeast).  The salad was pretty good, but mom's soup was only okay.  The tea was slightly bitter too.  Say 3.5 stars.

Red Top Bar & Grill

Tallulah, LA

After a long day of genealogy, I stopped by with mom and her sister.  Unfortunately, I was so hungry that I forgot to take photos.  The Red Top has wood paneling, a bar, and a fireplace.  The floor is cement, and there are booths and tables.  There's old tools on the wall as decoration.  They use those little individual wine bottles if you order a glass.

I ordered the shrimp salad, grilled, with honey mustard.  They were 6 large shrimp on my salad, and I mean actual Louisiana large shrimp, not the ones you see in the super market that are bite size.  The lettuce was ice berg and romaine, and there were tons of tomato wedges on it.  They also brought me 4 of those little plastic tubs of salad dressing!

Mom had the cheeseburger.  She said it was okay, but the texture was too fine.  It tasted more like a pre-made patty, not a home-made patty.

My aunt had already eaten, so she had the fried asparagus, which turned out to have a dipping sauce of crawfish bisque.  She said the asparagus were lightly breaded, and crispy not soggy.  And really good!  I guess they must have been because she wouldn't share!  I've never had fried asparagus, but now I really want to try it!

Overall, not bad.  My salad was good, asparagus great, cheeseburger okay.  3.5 stars.

Rowdy's Family Restaurant

Vicksburg, MS

I went there with my mom in the middle of the week, during the lunch rush.  This is where my grandparents always ate when they were in Vicksburg.  And according to the menu, Rowdy's was voted Best in Vicksburg from 1996-2012.

This is a catfish joint, so, of course, we had the catfish.  You get two options though: regular or thin and crispy.  We both ordered thin and crispy, with fries, cole slaw, hush puppies, and cornbread.  And unsweet tea.

The catfish was excellent!  The fries were great too.  I didn't like the cole slaw as much - it was sweet and a little generic.  The hush puppies were good but not great - they were a bit dark on the outside like they were borderline burnt.  The tea was good too.  We were so full by the end that we couldn't eat the cornbread!

It was a little noisy inside, but it wasn't very crowded.  They have old newspapers on the walls, in frames, as decorations.  I mean, actual newspapers from the 1950s and such.  There are booths and tables, and both are wooden.  As a larger woman, I found the booth a bit tight.

Overall, the food was good, the service was good, atmosphere was a little noisy.  Great catfish!  Four stars.

Five Guys Burgers and Fries

My mom was in town and we were running around Promenade mall, so we decided to try Five Guys.  She'd been to one before, so she explained to me that I probably wanted the Little Cheeseburger, not the regular Cheeseburger, because that has one meat patty instead of two.  We both got cheeseburgers, and they do have some good options.  I got mine with fried onions and fried mushrooms.  We decided to split an order of french fries, because they're big, so we ordered the Cajun Fries. 

Cheeseburger

Cajun Fries

We were there right after the place opened, so it took a few minutes for our order to get going.  The cheeseburger was good, with lots of toppings.  And the fries were fresh and good.  I didn't like the tea though.  They use Gold Peak tea in that separate machine, and you push one button for sweet, the other for unsweet.  I had unsweet and it tasted like your typical fountain tea, which means it sucked.

Overall, it was alright.  The burger was good, but it was nothing special.  Ditto for the fries.  My mom was upset because the music was too loud (it was) and it was tuned to a Spanish station playing pop music.  The place wasn't bad and I would eat there again, but I wasn't impressed.  3.5 stars.

[When I say I wasn't impressed, I should probably explain that to me, most fast food burgers taste like crap.  I generally don't eat them at all.  I'm guessing it's because of the pink slime.  I would eat Five Guys again.]

Ron's Hamburgers & Chili

It had been awhile since we'd eaten out, so we decided to check out Ron's, in Lowell.  We went there about 1:30 pm on New Year's Day.  It was fairly empty, and the server told us to seat ourselves.  The place looks like your typical generic restaurant, with booths around the outside and tables on the inside.  They also have 2 TVs.

The napkins are in a dispenser at the table, along with ketchup, Tobasco, and Louisiana Hot Sauce.  There was also something that looked like seasoned salt.  And of course, the usual salt, pepper, etc.

I ordered the 1/5 lb. Cheeseburger and Fries, with a sweet tea.  The burgers come with the option of regular onions or grilled onions, which I thought was great - I love grilled onions!  The tea was a bit odd.  It wasn't bad, but the sweet taste was a bit funny.  I'm really not sure how to describe it better.  The fries are homemade, with the skins still on.  They were alright.  My basket of fries didn't seem that fresh when it came to the table.  I think it was sitting on the counter for a bit while they finished the rest of our order.  The burger, however, was really good!  It had a nice quantity of lettuce and tomato, and small grilled onions on it.  Yummy!

Frank had the Chili, Jumbo Cheeseburger (1/3 lb.) with grilled onions, and unsweet tea.  He said the chili had a some warmth to it, not a lot, but a good flavor.  He put it as, he wouldn't go there just for the chili, but he would eat it when he did go there.  He also loved the burger!  He wasn't sure about the tea.  It had an odd taste.  It wasn't astringent like most tea is, so he wondered if maybe it was made from a syrup or something.  Or maybe it's a mild-flavored tea instead of the usual ones.

Here's a comparison of our burgers:

An interesting point about Ron's - they have the Who's ur Daddy?  It's a 2 lb. cheeseburger, 1 lb. fries, and a drink.  If you finish it all withing 15 minutes, it's free and you get your photo put on the wall!  Frank lamented not being 10 years younger so that he could go for it.

Overall, we liked the place.  It's got a kind of diner feel, the server was friendly, and it also has free Wi-fi.  Our total bill was about $17 which is pretty good these days.  I'm going to give a range of 3.5 to 4 stars, because the fries were okay, the chili was fine, but the burgers were really good.

Las Fajitas of Bella Vista

After eating at the Verde Limon, we figured we should finally try out the main Mexican restaurant in town.  We were there for supper, during a Hawgs game.  Their decor is very bright!  Below is a photo of one of their booths. 

The salsa was good, with a slow burn.  But I really loved the chips!  They had a different flavor to them, like they were from a sweet corn.  Very yummy!

We had ice tea, and Frank had the Chicken Chimichanga.  I felt a little gun-shy after my last chimichanga, so I had the Camarones a la Mexicana (shrimp).  The tea was a little bitter, but not bad.  The chimichanga was pretty good.  It had shredded chicken, and was seasoned.  And it wasn't dried out.

I loved the shrimp!  They were cooked in tomatoes, onion, and bell pepper.  There were about a dozen shrimp, and they weren't overcooked.  The dish came with 3 flour tortillas, so I made little tacos/burritos out of everything.

The beans and rice were okay.  Frank thought the guacamole was better here than at Verde Limon, but it tasted a little too salty to me.  Overall, I really liked the place.  The food came very quickly once we ordered, and it was cooked properly.  Four stars.