Eating Out

Ol’ South Pancake House and a funny story

I’m learning quickly that having a toddler around creates for some interesting stories… case in point…

Last Friday morning when we woke up, my dad asked if we wanted to go eat breakfast. So it came down to Ol’South or IHOP. We chose Ol’South. Mom got her German Pancake, dad and Tbug got Pancakes and bacon and I have no clue what hubby got. Abug got 5 silver dollar pancakes. I wasn’t hungry. So I was cutting up bites of pancakes for Abug to feed herself because that’s really the only way she’ll eat these days. She grabbed the fork just right and pancake went flying across the restaurant. It was kind of like Pretty Woman when she sent the fish thing flying and she said slippery little suckers and the guy said, happens all the time.

Sunday we met up with my aunt who lives in the area and one of her friends. Those 2 plus dad got pancakes with bacon. Mom went for the German pancake again. Abug ate my pancakes that came with my omelet and hubby and Tbug got omelets with pancakes as well.

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Somedays I’m Mean (Pappadeaux Seafood Kitchen, Ft. Worth, Texas)

Some days I get a mean bone in my body… lol. Well… I use the word mean loosely though! Let me explain. First off, did anyone notice I hadn’t been around these parts basically in over a week minus one post? Last week was finals week and then we headed to Ft. Worth for the weekend. After I turned in all my papers on Wednesday night, I didn’t touch a computer for 4 whole days because I was tired of my computer!

So anyway… I mentioned we went to Ft. Worth for the NCHA Futurity. Saturday night after the Open finals, we went to grab a bite to eat and wound up at Pappadeauxs. We ate there for the first time last year and it was good. So this year hubs wanted to go again.

He’s gotten in the habit of asking the waiter what’s the best thing on the menu when trying to decide what to order. I typically don’t eat fish, don’t care for the taste, but there wasn’t much chicken on the menu other than chicken strips. One of the things the waiter suggested was the shrimp. I decided to go for it.

These were huge shrimp stuffed with Monterey Jack cheese and a sliver of jalapeño wrapped in bacon and chargrilled. I’ll do shrimp as long as they don’t taste shrimpy/fishy! These, these were good! Then I went with a loaded baked potato for the side (instead of dirty rice).

Bacon Wrapped Shrimp

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Men’s Ride

Yeah, like I know what happened on the Men’s Ride. Heck… I’m not a man last I knew, but the other day one of hubby’s friends did call me bro. I have no idea… whatever.

So here’s what squirrel girl and I did while hubby was off with the Missouri Governor’s Mounted Guard Men’s Ride.

I finally, finally got my picture door hung in my kitchen. Now I just need to decide on photos. Ack!

Dad had to go to Kansas City on Friday. He had a rental car. Hubby forgot the keys to the horse trailer at our house so I met him at my parents and my parents invited baby girl and me to dinner. When we left the airport (taking the rental back) we were going to go to one restaurant for dinner.

Didn’t happen. Long story short, we were ignored for 5 minutes, waitress walked past us 4 or 5 times without acknowledging us. Finally a server came over and basically said the kitchen was backed up and we needed to leave. Really, it’s a local business, not a chain restaurant. How do they plan to stay in business like that?

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Are you jealous? Be jealous!

As we’re approaching lunch time, isn’t it a good time to blog about food? I think so :). And it’s my blog after all so that’s what I’m going to do. I really think this weekend evolved or maybe that’s revolved around food. You be the judge :).

Friday night after hubby loaded the trailer with hay, we decided to run into town to go to dinner. I really wanted Italian and there’s a new Italian restaurant so we decided to check it out. It’s a good thing we did! Vito’s Italian Restaurant.

Since they are a new restaurant they are still ironing out the hitches… Our waiter forgot to bring us bread, but the hostess fixed that quickly. Our server had quite a few tables too so no big deal. The bread was good. I agree with hubby it would have been nice to have oil to dip it in, but the bread was very good. Oh and it was good dipped in the cream sauce from my entrée.

Speaking of my entrée, here’s what I had. I can’t remember what it was called but it was fantabulous. Yes I said fantabulous. It was ham and black olives sautéed with tortellini in a cream sauce with a touch of red sauce. Oh wow. And Abug even ate this up.

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A Thank You, A Restaurant Review, & Auction Items… oh my!

If it weren’t for my family and friends I’d probably be bald by now. Yes, I just said that. Let me explain. Fall of 2013 I was presented with an opportunity that lead me to the road back to school to work on my Master’s. (I am forever grateful for this opportunity too!) My Bachelor’s Degree is in Agriculture, my Master’s will be in English. I sometimes get asked what I plan on doing with that…

Now first, before I give you my answer… when I was an Agriculture major I used to smart off that I could talk about Cows, Sows, and Plows. Sometimes I’d use it to the advantage of, Well at least I can talk about Cows, Sows, and Plows. Other times I’d smart off that I could talk about more than Cows, Sows, and Plows.

So now when people ask me, as long as they know my smart aleck side, I’ll smart off that I will now be able to eloquently write to Cows, Sows, and Plows. ha!

Some days I need to just learn to keep my mouth shut :). What am I going to do with this… well there are lots of plans in the making, hopefully one of them pans out!

But for now, I rely heavily on my family and friends to keep me sain, especially this fall as I prepare for Comps. I’m not going to lie, I’m scared of general comps.

Thankfully my mom is able to watch baby girl for hubby and me on Tuesday’s, Wednesday’s and Thursday’s. I’ve stated in the past that when I was growing up I got the opportunity to spend a lot of time with my grandparents and I wouldn’t have traded that for the world. Well, this is one of those opportunities that my baby girl is being blessed with also.

So last Wednesday I made plans with my mom to get her the squirrelly girly and she offered to meet hubby and me for lunch. We took her up on the opportunity. When the restaurant she suggested didn’t pan out, we opted to try another one. Joe’s Pizza, Pasta, Sub Italian Restaurant. Upon first impression of the name, we assumed it would be fast food Italian but it was in fact the opposite. It was a sit down meal.

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Multiple Stories – We’ll call it confession Friday :)

I really like stories, so today I have quite the story for you :).

Back in 2009 I had a big group of friends that got together every month and we referred to ourselves as The Dinner Club. Our goal was to go to local restaurants that weren’t chain restaurants. Usually we liked Business Casual or dressier but we made a few exceptions every now and again. Okay so one night we went to Bayou. This was like in May.

Okay now jump forward, I think to October that year…. Hubby had moved home from Ft. Campbell and it was my dad’s birthday. We thought it might be fun to take him to eat for his birthday at Bayou but we didn’t want to tell him where we were going. I jumped in the driver’s seat, had him get in the passenger seat and everyone else got in the truck. Then we drove to Monett. He asked me where we were going and for some reason we all said, Mazzio’s in Monett.

So Mazzio’s in Monett has been the joking answer for a long time to a lot of What’s for Dinner questions.

Now we’re in the year 2015, my dad has recently gotten a new job, and when Tbug found out it was in Monett she said, “So we can meet grandpa for lunch at Mazzio’s in Monett.”

Last week Tbug was with us from Wednesday evening through Sunday evening so I thought it would be fun to drive down and meet up with my dad for lunch. I mentioned it to my mom and she was game because she likes Mazzio’s so it was set.

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Hello Yum!

Some friends of ours that we dive with own this little fast food restaurant. It must be stated it’s the Original and they only own this one… it’s not the same as some of the other’s that are around the area.
And every once in a while we just have to have Gringos.

Their tacos are out of this world YUM! I prefer a crunchy taco. They fry their own taco shells. That right there makes it all worth it.

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I Like to Eat

Hahaha that title really explains it all I think. I guess there are those out there who don’t like to eat or don’t like food, but I’m not one of them. I’m not sure how you forget to eat a meal. I’ve not had time before but I don’t think I’ve ever forgotten…

Anyway last weekend my parents asked if we had any plans for dinner. We said no not really so they told us to meet at their house and we’d go to dinner.

The roadways were flooded around here due to all the rain so early afternoon when we all got tired of sitting in the house, we loaded up in the car and went driving around admiring all the flooding. No we didn’t drive through… We aren’t those people, but I saw some of those people.

Toward the end of our drive we planned on driving over to my parents house a bit early when my mom sent me a text and said we should come a few minutes early because dad had something to show us.

Hubby and I looked at each other and said, Dad got a new truck. Yup, sure enough he bought a new truck. And Abug just HAD to drive it…

I took her picture in the front seat and sent that upstairs to dad in a text. He laughed.

Hubby programmed a few things into the truck for dad while I went out and helped mom do chores. (Dad normally does them and I’d have helped him but he’s hurt his leg, please pray it isn’t anything too bad!!). Once we were finished dad, hubby and Tbug got in the truck while mom, Abug and I followed in my car and we headed to the Red Barn Cafe. We’d never eaten there and mom was looking for some place new to try. Hey blog post for me, right?

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Pappadeaux Seafood Kitchen – Ft. Worth, TX

Normally when we go to Ft. Worth we eat Mexican food pretty much for every meal… or at least TexMex. I mean you’re in Texas after all, right? This year was different though… I mentioned that we always eat at the same places when we’re down there so my mom made it a point for us to eat at different places.

The last night we were there after the finals were over, we were trying to figure out where to go have dinner when it was suggested to go to Pappadeaux. Now there’s a couple, but we wound up at the seafood kitchen. Not being a huge fan of seafood I told them no problem, I’d find something to eat which I did.

We entered the restaurant and they seated us. Said it had been a crazy night. When the waitress got to our table and we asked how she was (after she asked us of course) she told us not very good she’d been lied to. Then the service wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t outstanding either. I have a feeling she was told she could go home and then they seated someone at her table? But I’m just guessing.

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Macaroni Grill – Ft. Worth Texas

So a restaurant in Ft. Worth that is very near and dear to my heart is Macaroni Grill. Why you may ask, especially because it’s a chain restaurant, Well… when I was younger, in fact, the first year I showed at the AQHYA World Show we ate here. I absolutely LOVE Italian food. This restaurant is on University Drive just down from the Will Rogers Coliseum.  Perfect in my opinion :).

When we got there they brought water to the table for everyone. We hadn’t had anything to drink for a while so we all gobbled up the water but look how cute their water jugs are they left on the table. (more…)