Around $3.50
420 calories
180 calories from fat
340 grams
About 8 minutes cooking time

Stouffer’s has apparently caught wind of what other frozen meals have been doing lately regarding marketing. You can see on the front of the box they’re selling this frozen ‘delight’ as a healthy choice (note their billing of: 1.‘No Preservatives.’ 2. Olive Oil and Sea Salt. 3. A fresh Carrot on the box! My response: 1. It’s frozen. 2. Rachel Ray bandwagon. 3. That carrot looks nothing like what I got in my frozen meal.). While I laud making a healthier frozen meal, I think they’re going a little overboard with the “Farmers’ Harvest” tag. If you make something that’s good you don’t need hyperbolic packaging.

The chicken is pretty good despite not resembling what’s advertised on the box. No cartilage thus far (none of the chicken wound up with that Chicken McNugget “suprise” where you take a bite of what looks like normal chicken and you get a fist-sized chunk of gristle or cartilage. Definitely one of the most unappetizing aspects of reconstituted chicken, you know, aside from the whole process of reconstituting chicken parts into the proverbial ‘chicken boot’ [of course I couldn't find a picture of the proverbial McNugget boot shape, but suffice it to say that McNuggets are shaped like little boots. Next time you have one, look for it.]), and it’s kind of moist. Their blend of herbs and spices, primarily parsley and sea salt, are satisfactory. You won’t be calling your mother telling her about your amazingly flavored frozen meal, but I have had far worse. The bowtie pasta is alright, nothing stands out positively or negatively. The vegetables (green beans, carrots, and red pepper) are actually some of the best I’ve had from a frozen meal. The veggies taste fairly fresh (considering their circumstances), retaining a bit of crispness and they’re a little bit buttery (I’d hazard to guess that’s the vegetable oil that the box lauds).

I tasted each component seperately for the purposes of this review, but as you can see above I like to get all of the pieces together in a war of textures and flavors. You can certainly eat this meal without adding anything to it, but I’m a fiend for hotsauce so after my initial impressions I added a little bit of Louisiana Hot Sauce on top. Considering this is a frozen meal, and not freshly prepared I would recommend this for anyone that needs an easy meal they can heat up in the microwave.

Stouffer’s you get a Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars for this one (based on quality of components, flavors, and cost). Neither great nor bad, but totally edible.

-Matt in Tampa

IMPORTANT UPDATE! Here are the boot nuggets:http://www.flickr.com/photos/kingpowercinema/89053032/

Wicked Wiches pulled up to the office where I work recently. I was intrigued when I first saw them as I’m interested in the food truck business model. What restaurateur would thumb their nose at the thought of virtually no overhead (no brick and mortar location with rent/mortgage) and being afforded the ability to relocate if one particular area does not provide the necessary customer traffic? The lower overhead means you can likely show a higher profit margin in a shorter period of time and soon go from red to black in your startup costs. The downside to the model is that your food must shine as you don’t have any other accoutrement to give the customer a positive experience (aside from the general customer service experience). Based on my coworker Nook’s humorous review of Wicked Wiches, and their appetizing menu (http://eatfreshdaily.com/wicked/menu.jpg) I decided to give them a shot.

I like the look of their truck, it has a very clean look that instills you with confidence that their kitchen is clean as well. While a car wash doesn’t equate a clean kitchen, it’s a great tactic. They’ve installed green lights that attract your eye and help passerby notice the truck. The canopy is a thoughtful addition in Tampa to afford customers a moment out of the sun while waiting for their food.

Rob ordered the Bourbon Mango Pork ‘Kota’ (for some background on ‘Bunny chow’ aka the ‘Kota’ or quarter check the Wiki article; in short it’s a South African specialty) which looked delicious.  Rob has shown great taste in restaurants and food in the years we’ve worked together and he spoke well of the Kota he ordered.  On the initial perusal of the menu I was tempted to order the Curry Coconut Chicken Kota, in retrospect I wish I had.

I typically review meals as a whole, but in this case there were three discrete parts of this meal and thus I will review them seperately. I will start with the chips as they were my favorite part of the meal. The chips are a skinny kettle chip that has a great charred and caramelized flavor (if you have ‘Better Made’ chips in your area, you can get something akin to Wicked Wiches’ chips called ‘Rainbow’ chips). For some people this might be an acquired taste (so if you’re 5, you might not like them) but I loved them. They topped the chips with a thinned out honey-based sauce (there was a hint of caramel, but it may have just been the caramelization on the chips). The richness of the sauce set off the flavor of the chips; this is something I would gladly order a small bowl of by itself. The chips got a Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars, and would merit a great snack.

Next I ate the ‘Panino.’ The first few bites of the sandwich left an odd acidity in my mouth that wasn’t appetizing. As I continued to eat the sandwich, the oddness seemed to resolve itself, it may have just been something fickle with my palate. The meats tasted pretty good, but the baby greens didn’t marry very well with the richness of the salami and prosciutto (I think something like arugula would have gone better to really provide contrast). I would prefer a bit rougher or drier bread with this sandwich, I suspect that the prevalence of Cuban Bread in Tampa may play a role in why most restaurants here serve sandwiches with soft breads. My favorite aspect of the samich were the sauteed onions, carrots, and roasted peppers. The Panino got a Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars, I wouldn’t necessarily recommend this to particular item to anyone but I would eat it again if someone gave it to me.

Finally we arrive at our unfortunate turn of events, the Smoked Ruben. I was curious if there was a South African, Texas, or frankly any reference to ‘Ruben’ as a sandwich that I hadn’t heard of it, but the top results for a Google search of ‘Ruben’ only brought up Ruben Studdard. Ruben Studdard is a big guy who seemingly enjoys his share of eats, so perhaps this ‘Ruben’ is his favorite iteration of the more traditional ‘reuben’. Whatever the case may be, I was not a fan of this Ruben. The concept of the sandwich was sound, making a ‘barbeque’ version of the reuben by using a chipotle russian sauce; an idea that I haven’t seen/tasted before. As I ate the Ruben last, the bread had started to get quite soggy. The primary issue I had with the sandwich was the beef brisket as it wasn’t cooked so that the fat and tissues and had broken down. Each bite felt like I was fighting with the sandwich and at a couple of points I had to take the chewier parts out. While I don’t scoff at chewy things or connective tissue, they need to be presented in the proper context. This sandwich was being delivered as a decadent, comfort-food, gooey mess but the ball is dropped on that when you’re fighting to bite through the sandwich and have to get all Primal Rage to claim your bite. This is not a sandwich I would recommend to anyone until they really nail down how to cook the beef brisket like a traditional corned beef (which requires time, some more time, and then just to make sure give it a little bit more time). This sandwich got a Rating: 1 out of 5 stars, mainly for the concept.

From what I had seen, there appeared to be some tasty items on the menu at Wicked Wiches, I just happened to choose poorly. Unfortunately, if something doesn’t shine, it really shouldn’t be on your menu. Overall Wicked Wiches got a Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars, chips can only take you so far but Wicked Wiches definitely has a vibe that they could redeem themselves… just don’t get the ‘Ruben’.

-Matt in Tampa

Dan and I made our very first trip to the monolith of Swedish consumerism called IKEA.  We were both looking for new beds.  Dan was recently in the market for a bed because you can’t really fit a queen sized bed into a Suzuki Esteem; especially when the car is already laden with instruments and clothing.  I was looking for a bed that would keep me from waking up with a sore back every morning.  We had both looked around in traditional furniture stores and found a lot of mediocre crap for exorbitant prices.

Yeah, you’re not getting a queen sized bed into that bad boy.

As part of our virginal IKEA experience, we decided that we should go all out and eat whatever ‘Swedish’ food they were serving there.  A former coworker used to wax poetic on the quality of IKEA’s Swedish meatballs. I was a bit reluctant to believe this line of thought as said coworker’s tastes were heavily in question.  Either way, we were ravenous from wandering around a warehouse filled with boyfriends/husbands being led in tow by their signifigant others searching for things that would soon need to be assembled with Pictionary-esque instructions.

Yes, we sat down to eat mediocre food in Logan’s Run.  I don’t know that these chairs are particularly flattering for that Lady’s ass.

This blood-orange, plastic chair just cries Preschool aesthetics for adults. Clearly, I chose to sit at this table.

Unfortunately, I didn’t take a picture of the cafeteria line where you pick up the IKEA mass-produced food.  There were some fairly ambitious fish dishes on the menu, but I decided to go for something I thought would be fairly difficult to screw the pooch on.  Dan and I both ordered a Buffalo Chicken Wrap. We also ordered the Meatballs to get the full IKEA effect.  The wrap was inundated with cheddar cheese, and the ‘Buffalo’ sauce was mainly just orange food coloring without any kick. Either way, for around $3 it wasn’t too bad.  We also hedged our beverage bets by getting a water and a Pear drink. The water tasted like water, amazing right?  The Pear drink tasted like it was slightly fermented.  It had an odd edge to it that left me unsure of whether I liked the drink or hated it.  IKEA Pear-drink was interesting either way.

Lingonberries? More like Dingleberries. ZING!

Ahh, and now onto the IKEA meatball goop.  The meatballs were passable Swedish-style meatballs; nothing to phone home about. As you can see, they weren’t exactly the most impressive looking meatball specimens. The potatoes were a bit of a let down as they tasted like out of the box Potato-Buds.  Despite the stellar performance of the meatballs and the potatoes, the real standout of the dish were the overly sweet, jelly-like Lingonberries.  Really, the Lingonberries are like some kind of awful tie-in to a desert. They reminded me of those pathetic attempts at desert that you find in Microwaveable meals (oh yeah, give me some of that ‘peach cobbler’… who doesn’t want a desert that tastes like rotten bananas?).  Why include it?  Is there some unspoken rule that desert needs to be represented, however poorly, in a meal? Is IKEA like a public school, where they’ll lose Federal funding if all food groups aren’t properly represnted? In all cases, I would rather have another piece of meat or some more potatoes.

Either way, IKEA’s food gets a rating of Rating: 2 out of 5 stars for their passable Buffalo Chicken Wrap and their low prices.

On the plus side, Dan and I both found beds which didn’t break the bank.

Cheers,

-Matt

I’ll leave you with this confused shot of an IKEA light:

Anyways, Matt and I wanted to catch some lunch.. and I couldn’t for the life of me think of anywhere near our work that had quesadillas so Matt suggested Chilis. It took us 5 minutes to get over there, the service was great and the decor was awful.  The food was  subpar.  My Jalapeno Steak Quesadillas were entirely passable but not worth the $10 or so they cost.  Matt ordered the “large” nachos.  Apparently “large” at Chilis constitutes 10 chips covered with beans and cheese.  I’m not sure how this is large, I’m afraid to find out what the small nacho is.

Our server was kinda furtive but really on the ball with getting our orders, bringing refills and bringing our check.  He didn’t pester us with any nonsense which was nice, but his tossing the check down with our food was a little odd.  Did I smell?  Was he encouraging us to leave?  Or did he recognize a “business” lunch since I was wearing my shitty polo and jeans. I’m sometimes afraid that I push business casual a little too far.  Do cut off jean shorts count as business casual?

I was really jonesing for a quesadilla and it must have clouded my judgement.  I mean, I know Chilis is just lackluster.. but why did I hope to have a stupid awesome quesadilla?  I think the key when eating at Chilis is to manage your expectations.  If you’re looking for a great experience with amazing food, keep walking.

I give Chilis a Rating: 2 out of 5 stars rating.  Perfectly passable over priced food.  If your company is paying it might be more enjoyable. If you really like Crapplebees you’ll probably enjoy Chili’s.

P.S. – So what, no pictures. I’ll leave you with this cat instead..

Visiting the Brickhouse was basically an accident.  My coworker Mike had a doctor’s appointment in the area prior to lunch and happened to drive past this joint.  There were girls out front with signs stating that “We’re Open”, or something to that effect, and surprise surprise pretty girls caught his eye.  When the  matter of lunch was brought up he mentioned this place, and after a quick jaunt to Google we saw on their online menu that they had Chili Cheese Tater Tots. With thoughts of greasy, cheese-laden, potato bits dancing in our heads we loaded up the car and headed over to the Brickhouse.

We showed up not knowing what to expect.  From looking at their website, we thought that maybe they’d have an emphasis on scantily clad servers or broads in general (with a desert entitled “Double D Cupcakes”, and references to “Man Food”), but the website was fairly oblique. After walking in, our suspicions were confirmed.  The place looked like Tim Allen and Christian Audigier popped a couple boners and went around getting all “Home Improvement” meets “Ed Hardy”-style zealous on this place.  There is a large and very unnecessary fireplace, open air ceilings, gothic script announcing the restrooms, and lame “inspirational” phrases on the walls.  The only inspiration I derived from that was wanting to take a blow my nose on their decorations.

To our surpise (and chagrin) the Brickhouse had just opened up today (June 22nd).  All of the servers were new, and likewise their cooks were all brand new to the Brickhouse way of doing things. They weren’t doing their full menu when we showed up, but instead a pared down version of their menu.  Oh, did I mention that all of the food (and non alcholic beverages) are all FREE?  Oh, I didn’t?  Well they were, and are until Friday June 25th 2010.  As much as I don’t like the thought of TimAl-Stianidigier’s renob all up in my face, it’s hard to thumb my nose at free food.  We ordered the Buffalo Wings for our free appetizer.  I would’ve taken a picture but I forgot to due to being endlessly interrupted by a never ending stream of servers asking fairly inane questions.  I can appreciate pretty girls as much as the next guy, but when you keep hearing “What are you drinking?”, “Have you heard of Brickhouse before?”, “How is everything?”, again and again and again and again my eyes start to glaze over.   In writing it doesn’t sound nearly as annoying as it was in person.  We literally had a girl come up asking, “How is everything, how are you guys?” and literally as she was stepping away from our table another girl came and asked the exact same thing.  As I’m writing this, I feel like I sound like a complete asshole because I’m basically saying, “Oh man, it was so annoying how these girls were being very attentive and basically waiting on us hand and foot.”  The thing is, when I go to a restaurant I don’t want to feel pressured into talking, shooting the shit, or doing anything aside from ordering my food and eating said food.  As peculiar as it sounds, I think a good server is nearly prescient or just very observant.  They keep an eye on your drink getting low and then offer you a refill, or they see that you’re just sitting around picking-at/not-eating your food and offer to take your plate.  If someplace is very busy I of course scale back my expectations, but when the reverse happens it’s fairly startling and somewhat unsettling.

After all of my bitching we’re onto a highlight.  The food.  They served up very large portions, and the prices on the menu were very reasonable for what we received ($7-$10 for most entrees).  All 3 of my coworkers ordered the Prime Rib Sandwich.  As you can see it appeared to be topped with shoe-string onion fries/straws.  They were given a side of au jus sauce, and from some appreciative murmurs I gathered that the samiches were alright.  They do come with a horseradish sauce, so those with a tempermental palette may want to ask for the samich sans the horsey sauce.   I ordered the Chicken Parm samich, and it was huge.  The fork and knife were apparently crafted for Paul Bunyun so you can’t really appreciate the size of the samich I received.  Within the samich were 2 filets of fried chicken, and I was unable to finish the beast. The marinara on the samich was tasty, it had hints of oregano and other ‘Italian’ spices; the flavors were very balanced.  They also heaped an order of fries on the plate. While the food wasn’t breathtaking, I would certainly eat at the Brickhouse again.

We came on opening day on a whim, despite not knowing it was opening day. The servers applied a little too much pressure as most of us felt inundated with repeated pleasantries, but I suspect as the Brickhouse breaks into the full swing of normal operations the servers will calm down and the atmosphere will be more pleasant.

If you do want a free meal and to see what this joint is all about you might as well stop by before this Friday rolls around and cop a free meal (speaking of coppers, there were quite a few officers of the law coming around to gawk and grab a free bite, apparently those radio waves aren’t just used to communicate crimes).

Food: Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Service: Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars (this would be a little higher without the over-attention)

Atmosphere: Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars (I’m a hole-in-the-wall bar guy, so this kind of presentation is a bit over the top for me)

Overall: Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars (I think this has a chance to go up with a second visit when they’re under normal operation)

-Matt in Tampa