The Farmer’s Daughter – An Ozark Eatery – Cassville, MO

This picture and the next were taken during our first visit to The Farmer’s Daughter restaurant back in the Fall of 2018. That was the first and last time we’d eaten there until last night. There are a couple of reasons behind that… one we don’t live in Cassville. We usually just pass through on our way to the lake. And it’s not just right around the corner from our house either. And 2, our first experience there wasn’t so great. But that all changed last night! (more…)

Dinner Club – Taste of Italy

Back in 2009 a group of friends and I decided to start what we called Dinner Club. I have mentioned this a few times I know. It was a lot of fun. At that time we had a few “rules,” 

  1. A non-chain restaurant
  2. Local – within about an hours drive or so
  3. The dress was business casual or dressier

That was about it. Business casual consisted of the ladies in dresses of some sort and the guys in khakis and at least a polo or button-down. We had a few dinners where the guys wore suits. This is why my husband owns a suit. Although he never wore it to a dinner club.

Side story:

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Chuy’s – Rogers, AR

What is the significance of this picture? To prove that hubby was HOME! Wait, what?

Let’s back up… So 2 weeks ago hubby was in Boston for work. He was supposed to be home Friday, August 3, 2018. I state “was” because his flight got canceled as did every flight Delta had that night within a 150-mile radius of Boston. There was some storm and instead of postponing like Southwest Airlines did, Delta just canceled and apparently that’s what they always do. UGH!

Why did I really care? Well because Sunday, August 5th we were supposed to be leaving on vacation. Nothing like waiting until the last minute, right? So hubby and his co-worker who were traveling together looked into multiple routes to get home and both didn’t get home until Sunday. Hubby left out of KCI (Kansas City) and finally found a flight into XNA (Northwest Arkansas) at noon on Sunday. His co-worker got home Sunday at 4 pm into KCI.

Hubby was looking for every route to get home on Saturday and couldn’t do it. Our plans included us leaving between 5 and 6 on Sunday evening. It was a fuster cluck. With him rerouted through XNA, my parents and I drove up to KCI to get his truck because that’s a 2ish hour trip. Then Sunday morning we headed to XNA to pick him up and bring him home, quickly do laundry, finish packing him, and leave here on time. It was stressful! But we accomplished it, even with eating lunch at Chuy’s Tex-Mex.

Chuy’s Tex-Mex – Rogers AR

Chuy’s actually originated in the early 80’s in Austin, Texas. For what feels like months, our friend Jared has been telling us we needed to try this restaurant. A week earlier my parents tried this restaurant and raved about it too. So when they found out we were going to XNA, he suggested going with us and we could try Chuy’s. They raved about it so much they said we needed to find one in San Antonio (which there are like 3 or 4 locations). (more…)

The Pineville Grill {Pineville, MO}

If there’s one thing I can tell you about myself on this rainy morning, it would be, I like Breakfast food. There, I said it. This coming from the person who is not now nor has ever been a morning person. I seriously can’t tell you my favorite breakfast food either. I like biscuits and gravy, I like omelets, I like pancakes, I just like breakfast food and sometimes it is difficult to go eat breakfast and make up my mind what I really want. I’m glad we got that out of the way :).

I woke up this morning and laid in bed watching it storm like crazy. Last weekend we were under flash river flood warnings and this weekend we are too. The only difference is we live on top of a hill here and last weekend we were camping at the Trails for Kids held at Crag O’Lea in Pineville, MO.

My husband Mark and I along with a bunch of our friends are on the Trails for Kids committee so we started camping on Wednesday evening so that we could be there to help check people in. Little did we know what our weekend was going to have in store for us. WOW!

But Thursday morning we woke up and we were all hungry so we decided to drive into Pineville and eat breakfast at the Pineville Grill.

The Pineville Grill

As I said, the girl who isn’t a morning person likes her breakfast food! This was an omelet that had pretty much everything. eggs, bacon, sausage (although I had them hold the sausage), ham, cheese, onions, bell peppers, and more cheese. Mine came with a side of either toast or biscuits and gravy or something else… I went for the biscuits and gravy. I’m actually glad I did because my darling little ate quite a bit of my biscuits and gravy. Apparently she’s a biscuits and gravy fan too.

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Eagle Drive-In {Joplin, MO}

Eagle Drive-In. Must I say anymore? I think the pictures can do the talking for themselves!

This is the JoMo Po’ Boy. Calamari, Eagle Sauce, Tomato, and a whole bunch of other stuff. I obviously didn’t eat it, I don’t eat seafood. Mark though, he LOVED it. Oh and Eagle Sauce they say is similar to Thousand Island dressing, but better. This came with a side, fries were the obvious choice. Then there is the choice of sauce to go with the fries. That is Eagle Sauce.

This is the Black and bleu Burger. It was also thoroughly enjoyed. Now I don’t eat Bleu Cheese either, but my mom LOVED it. She went with a side of fries too. Her sauce of choice, Garlic Aioli.

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Andolini’s Pizzeria {Tulsa, OK}

Last month my aunt who lives in Southern Oklahoma came up to see the girls so we decided to have a girls day. We debated where to go shopping… Fayetteville, Tulsa, Springfield… Decisions decisions. Eventually we decided upon Tulsa. I’ve spent a lot of time shopping in Tulsa, my aunt actually lived there while in Med school. The one down side to Tulsa is when it comes to food. No, there are a lot of restaurants in Tulsa, but we tend to stick to the same ol same ol restaurants. I was kind of in the mood for something new. Aunt Connie had recently been in Tulsa for a convention and learned about a few new places down around Utica Square. Since we were going to Utica Square first, it was perfect. Eventually we decided upon Andolini’s Pizzeria. Let’s just say, this was an AWESOME choice.

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Fish City Grill {Rogers, Arkansas}

Happy President’s Day. Hopefully you were lucky enough to have the day off but if not, there are still lots of great sales going on for President’s Day at least, right? I’m not a huge shopper, I just hear the commercials on TV. Okay, anyway, moving on….

Over the weekend I went to Rogers, Arkansas with my mom. She wanted to go shopping… maybe to take advantages of those President’s Day Sales…. But first we eat! When we got down there, we decided to go ahead and eat first. There is a restaurant called Fish City Grill that used to be right inside the Pinnacle Hill’s Mall area, but they move to just behind the mall complex. So we used google to find the exact location and off we buzzed to Fish City Grill restaurant.

This time around I got the Blackened Chicken Sandwich with a side of Cheesy Grits. This sandwich had just the right amount of heat and taste to it. Yum! The grits were even better.

Now, the real reason to come here is for the Bread Pudding and I don’t like bread pudding, but we didn’t get any dessert this time. My little one was throwing a complete major melt down type fit and I think they just wanted us to leave… maybe not because all the wait staff were excellent with her and helping me try to calm her down. They even gave her a fun Mardi Gras type necklace.

So let’s just say, this is my 3rd or 4th time eating here and it’s totally worth it! And I don’t even like fish. LOL….

 

*Pulled from my old blog Paved Dirt Roads

Los Cabos Mexican Grill & Cantina {Independence, MO}

Last Friday my friend Karen and I went to Kansas City. There is a Duluth Trading Company store up there and she needed to return/exchange some items. We started out in downtown KC and ventured out to the suburbs to find Duluth. Um… let’s just say we had an adventure. You could see all the stores you wanted to go to, but actually getting there was another story so we’d take roads that would lead us in the right direction, and eventually, we got there. Yes, I know, we could have used our GPS, but what’s the fun in that?

We got out to Independence around lunchtime and seeing as though we were hungry, we decided to find lunch. We passed this restaurant, Los Cabos, and eventually decided to stop and try it. So impressive things about this restaurant, it was HUGE! There was a sign in the door that said max capacity 285. That’s a lot of people. Second, the view. No, I didn’t take a picture, but where we sat, we had a gorgeous view over the lake out back. And it was cold enough that there was a thin layer of ice over half of the lake. Beautiful. I’ll bet it’s even prettier in the fall when the leaves are changing colors, but another trip for another time, because we’re now in January. Gloomy old January.

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Jose Peppers – Belton, MO

It was the day… The day to head to Kansas City to watch the Chiefs in the Playoffs. They were divisional Champions and now it’s time to claim victory… I’d like to say the day went as planned, but sadly, it didn’t…

If you follow baseball at all (which sadly I don’t) you’ll remember that about the time of the World Series in 2015, Kansas City was painted up blue to support their team. Well this year as the Chiefs made the playoffs it was time to swap out the blue for Red.

Our noon thirty game against the Pittsburgh Steelers was pushed back to a 7:35 game so we had plenty of time to make it to Kansas City. Other than the fact, you know… they opened gates like 4 or 5 hours before the game where normal game its like 2 hours or something like that. Don’t quote me on times, I’m just usually where I’m supposed to be when I’m told to be there.

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Dude’s Daylight Donuts {Joplin, MO}

I’ve been on the hunt for the best donuts. Have I found them? Maybe… But I can tell you one thing for sure… these donuts are AWESOME! And they’re Daylight Donuts so they should be like the ones we get from Daylight Donuts in Carthage, but they aren’t.

A while ago I asked my dad where his favorite donuts were from and we got into a huge discussion. Then last week he had to be in Joplin for some work training. On his way from training to work, he brought a donut by for us to try from Dude’s Donuts. The next day was Wednesday. That’s Donut Day :). So we decided to try donuts from there.

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