Shady Gators

Over the 4th of July weekend, my in-laws took my family to the Ozarks.  We drove separately but we all stayed in their condo, which is cool, because there are no expenses really, on our part.  While there, on Friday afternoon, we took their boat out and went for a ride up and down the lake and finally settles at Shady Gators for lunch.  This place is huge.  It has its own dock to park your boat as well as parking lot for those taking cars.  It looks like a three story deck, sticking on posts out of the lake.  This was the view from our table:

On Friday, it was sunny, warm (not hot) and a nice day to sit back, wait for food and take in the view of the boats and the lake.  The area that we sat near, was across from a bar, with people there, but everything looked rough, unclean, and very lazy, which is part of the theme.

So, we order some fried fish, for the table to snack on as we wait for food and I ordered the chicken gumbo.  The fish comes out first.  It is a sweet white fish, covered in corn flakes, and served hot, dripping in honey.  I ate more than I normally do, of fish.  It didn't taste of fish.  It tasted of honey and corn flakes.  It was good and I'd give it a 4 out of 5 stars, because I would go back and order it and eat it all.

My dish, was the chicken gumbo.  They had some alligator items on the menu, and I think they thought they should also stick with a Cajun style because most people associate alligator with Cajun food.  I didn't order any of that.  But I did order the chicken gumbo and it came with a small salad and a piece of cornbread.  Now, I'm thinking to myself that I should have no problem eating the appetizer fish and my course, because for the prices, it can't be that big.  My dish was huge.

I know it looks small, because it is just a picture, but I would say that the center area where the gumbo was, was actually about 8 inches across and an inch down.  This was just filled with perfectly cooked rice, big chunks of chicken, a piece or two of sausage and a rich and flavorful tomato broth.  It was shocking both how large this entree was and how tasty it was.  It also received a 4 out of 5 from me. 

http://www.shadygators.com/
(573) 365-6464
Located on the Lucky 7MM
at Lazy Gator Point!

10 things I am for sure sure about food.

Last Saturday night, as Alton Brown took the stage at the Fox, in St. Louis, he gave us his redone rendition of 10 things he was sure about food.  He complained about the list because he first made it 23 years ago and every day, he thinks of something where he changes it and so, it is never the same list twice.  That list, his ten, have been replaying over and over in my mind as I think of different ones that apply to me and my life.  Some of my 10 things, are the same as one of his and and such, I bet the same as many other chefs around the world.  So, my list, of 10 things that I am for sure sure about food, here we are:

1.  Just a pinch of salt.  Salt is and was always the most important item on Earth.  Wars in Ancient times were fought over salt.  Salt when added to a hot bath can make it hotter before it gets hotter. I know that I have added salt to a humidifier in my children's room, so it can get a hotter point and create steam easier.  When people didn't have salt, or refrigerators, they had to bury their food in the ground, in order to save it.  Salt, allowed people to save and preserve their food without keeping it in a cellar.  Salt is a natural enemy of bacteria.  Salt is used in mouthwashes after dental visits and is even used as an aid in cleaning wounds.  It even was considered to be such a pure thing that Lot's wife was turned to a pillar of salt in the Bible.  Salt is added to baked goods as it helps to retard the yeast and slow it down.  Salt has a chemical makeup that enables it with the power to pull water.  Chef's add salt to a pan of vegetables in order to pull moisture out and "Sweat" them.  Have you ever salted a driveway before a snow storm?  Have you seen the moisture around each piece of salt?  The salt pulls moisture out of the concrete or blacktop of a driveway.  When salt is added to food, it allows the food to taste more like itself by concentrating the flavor.  This is why salt is added to everything.  Furthermore, salt SHOULD be added to everything.  Remember, just a pinch of salt or even a light sprinkling will do.

2. Taste your food.  You may think or be the best chef in the world, but if you do not taste your food and properly season it (see number 1), then no one will like or even take a second bite of your food.  Taste is often tied to memories and those memories replay when the edible item triggers them.  People would most surely have different memories on whether they had a good hamburger seasoned with salt and pepper versus a bad hamburger that just had ground beef.  Furthermore, a person is more likely to remember when they had that good food that tasted good versus one that tasted bad.  People think of these fond memories and it comforts them: comfort food.  Those nice feelings and memories and most often tied to good tasting food.  No one talks about how they had fond memories of eating hamburgers that tasted like dog food and smelled like manure.  If you prepare any type of food, make sure you taste it at least once.  Anyone, from a professional chef to a home cook needs to know what to change or add to a dish in order to make it the way they want.  If you own a restaurant, make sure that everything you send out is from something you tasted so you know that you are serving only the very best.

3. Food is fun.  Don't let anyone ever tell you that cooking is hard work, alone.  Yes, peeling 20 potatoes and cooking them, ricing them, mixing them with other things to make mashed potatoes is work, but the end result is so much better than the work. Think of it this way: Do you like money?  Does having money enable you to have fun?  Do you work for your money?  Is work fun? (maybe not)  Therefore: the reward from work, lets you have fun.  The same applies to cooking.  No matter how much work you are doing for the food, even if you grow everything and cook it all yourself, it is work.  However, whether it is the joy of tasting and eating or the joy from watching others taste and eat, that work should give you fun.  I like food, I love to eat food.  But even more so, I have fun doing things to food.  I like to try to cook new things and place new combinations together.  I think that is fun.  I like to cook tasty things and give them to people and watch them enjoy the food.  Good food should fill your heart, soul and stomach.  It should make you feel like doing a happy dance.  Food is fun.
  
4. The best cook in the world is....  When Alton Brown came up on stage to explain a statement, he suggested that "your wife is the best cook in the world".  The idea being that within 6 months of his marriage, he mentioned that his wife might need to add some oregano into some pasta sauce and she was so flustered that she left the kitchen and "didn't come back for 6 months".  Now, while I understand that husbands always tell their wives that they are the best cook in the world, this example doesn't work for me and my wife.  My story is this:  I have been an avid cook, huge fan of cooking, ever since I was a kid.  I was sad when I went to school because they stopped the "home-ec" courses and there wasn't a cooking school to be found in the area.  So, I self taught and learned on my job.  Now, while me wife and I were engaged, she did cook food for me, but when I went to her house, she wasn't allowed to cook, only her mom was.  Now, when we were married, she cooked almost all of the time, as every once in a while I was allowed to cook.  She made a really good pasta sauce and everything she made was honestly really good.  But, when she became pregnant the first time, she obviously didn't cook.  (I personally believe any husband who makes his pregnant wife cook is just being a ;%#.)  So, I took up the reigns and started cooking every night.  I cooked foods for dinner and lunch to take to work.  When my wife had our first child and she was home with him, I still cooked so she could recoop.  Then when she was pregnant again, I kept cooking.  I like to cook and can take criticism about my food if someone doesn't like it or if they do.  That being said, I do believe that the best cook in the world still isn't me.  I think for anyone and all of us, the best cook in the world who is someone who cooks with love.  The last thing you want, as a husband, is the competitiveness by telling your wife that she is the best cook in the world, thus making your mom and mother-in-law and any other females in the family, go complete Cutthroat Kitchen on each other to be better.  

5. Breaking bread is the best welcome ever.  What I mean by that, is that the best way to welcome someone into your family or just your house, is to feed them.  I have been in houses where you enter and stand there, literally, standing around, or sitting around and talking.  I have even been to family events from my past like this.  Nothing lets people relax like the addition of food.  I think the best example of this, is when my family went to Lebanon.  (Going to Ireland was a close second.) In Lebanon, we visited people who were cousins of cousins, didn't speak a lick of English and the only one in our group that spoke Arabic, was my father-in-law, who was from Lebanon.  So, here we are in people's houses, in the middle of no where, not another house as far as the eye can see in either direction and out of no where, someone come sin with a small platter of food.  The hospitality of people in Lebanon simply astounds me.  When Andrew Zimmern goes to Middle East countries on his Bizarre Foods show and you see him go to a random tent in Ethiopia and get treated like a king with a pillow to sit and food to eat, that is how it is in real life.  People know that giving food or at least offering food is a great way to open up and start discussion as well as tell the person who is being offered "I don't know you, but I care enough about your health that you should have a bite," I think.  Think of it as if you ever had one of those grandmothers whom every time you visited would offer you a bite of something or a something to eat.  Always offering in a good natured grandmotherly sort of way.  From as far back as ancient times to stories in the Bible, breaking bread is always something that people do, to bring them together.  Alton Brown suggested that the greatest tool in the kitchen is a kitchen table.  It is that table that brings families together.  I change my statement as such because while a kitchen table is important to bring families together, if you don't have a table, or are without your family, any sharing of food will bring people together.  

6. Organic, gmo, vegan friendly and gluten free are all just names of B.S..  Here are some fun things to know.  First of all, to be labeled by the organic food club, you have to become certified.  That cost will run you anywhere from $200 to over $1,500.  That certification also has to be done every year.  So, you may be a farmer, who has used the same seeds for generations, never used chemical pesticides and even talks nicely to your plants.  But, if you don't pay to be certified, you cannot be organic.  There are many other producers who make food as healthy and even more healthy than "Organic" labeled ones, but they just didn't get the label. The term "GMO" refers to a "genetically modified organism".  The term has lately been considered a derogatory term for Monsanto products.  I have a friend who works at Monsanto and some of the things that he is proud of, that the company has done, is making a seed of rice, that will grow and yield in less water.  What about corn plants that will produce the same amount of corn, no matter the type of climate?  Imagine how famine in the world could disappear.  It isn't a conspiracy, but from what I have seen in science sites, articles and journals, there hasn't been any real proof that a GMO corn kernel, from a GMO grown corn seed and plant, can harm or kill a human being.  If a corn plant has been genetically modified so that it will grow into a mature and vegetable bearing plant with half of the water of a normal one, how will that affect a human?  Will the human be able to drink and survive only on half of the water than a normal person?  Also, in regards to GMO pesticides, most plants have a natural pesticide develop in them, that does harm some insects and not humans.  Vegans are a variety of people of whom I have no understanding.  If you are staying away from ALL animal products because of the harming or injuring of animals, then are you wearing vegan friendly items or using vegan friendly items?  Is your shower soap vegan friendly?  Do you wear or use anything plastic?  Plastic comes from oil, which in turn comes from animals.  What type of car do you drive?  Gasoline comes from animals as well.  Do you wear jewelry?  Is there any shells, elastic or plastic in that as well?  Gluten-free is not an allergy.  There is a real condition where some people who cannot digest Gluten can become sick from it.  But that condition is rare and most likely the people who claim to be gluten free could have something else wrong with them, like diabetes.     

7. Kids will eat what you eat.  My kids do not eat.  We sometimes joke that they grow from photosynthesis.  Yeah, if we go to St. Louis Bread Co. or over to Noodles & Company, they will eat large amounts of food, but it seems everywhere else, that they mostly pick and complain about their food. When I would go out of my way and make extra nutritious things for my wife and she would sit near the kids and eat them, we are always amazed at how my kids will ask if they can have a bite and then sometimes finish off her whole plate.  I never before saw a child so eager to eat some mushrooms or brussel sprouts.  Kids watch what you eat as well.  So, when you give your kids some healthy sandwiches from Quiznos and you are eating a a double quarter-pounder with fries, then they start to wonder why they have to eat healthy and you do not. Like the above example, I have seen that if you want your kids to eat or eat healthy, then you should too.

8. Anyone Can Cook  It not only was the name of a fictional book in the Disney movie :Ratatouille, but it is a motto that I truly believe.  I have seen all manner of people who can cook and you always hear stories about people thrust into situations and then in order to survive, they had to cook.  I think that cooking is the easiest thing to do, now.  When I first started at a restaurant, several years ago, I avoided the cooks line because I was afraid that I was going to screw up something with food.  Well, my manager threw me back there one day to cover a cook who called in and when I started to panic he pulled me aside and showed me a recipe.  We had all of the recipes laminated so they wouldn't get messed up on the line.  He explained it to me straight "you look at what the recipe calls for and put it in and do as it says; an idiot can do it.  Its not rocket science," he said.

So, as simple as it seemed, it just didn't hit until then.  If a recipe calls for a cup of this and 1/8th cup of that, as long as you put the right amounts in, then it will turn out just fine.  That instantly set off a switch and since that day, I have been able to look at about any recipe and make the food.  Because of this, I believe that if you can follow instructions, exactly, you can cook.

9. Always try new foods.  My wife and I have been pushing this ideology since my oldest could eat food.  I grew up in a household in St. Louis which had the same thing for breakfast every day and then the same meal for lunch for school every day and then dinner followed a schedule.  So my mom would cook pot roast for dinner on Monday and then on Tuesday it would be spaghetti and so on, ending with fish sticks on Friday.  It was never real fish and the only idea I ever had of seafood was from Red Lobster.  So, my family, which oddly enough came from a German/Austrian side and a German/Scottish side, didn't do that much in terms of food experimentation or new foods to us, for that matter.  You would probably guess that with those 3 cultures, we would have something new, but no.  My parents were stuck in a cuisine rut and had no interest in trying new foods.  This made it difficult for me, as I was willing to expand my thoughts and palette and I was trying everything I could.  I was trying real seafood, different cultural foods and even strange ingredients.  I tried everything and just like Andrew Zimmern, I will try anything at least twice.  Just as number 7 shows, your kids will be more apt to try new foods, if they watch you try new foods.  If you try something and you do not like it, don't say things like "ewww" or "yuck", because that will give others the predisposition that it is how you describe it; nullifying any want to try it themselves.

10. Foods are holistic.  I took some classes back in 2008, for a degree in Holistic Nutrition.  While it may have seemed like a questionable course and much less a not accredited college, the theory and that little bit of proof and research shows that something that are wrong with us can in fact be treated and cured with food.  It is called holistic nutrition or holistic healing and it is an idea or theory that food can be supplanted for medicine when it comes to healing the body.  Think of the #1 cold remedy: chicken soup.  If you go to a doctor over a cold, they will tell you that there is nothing they can give you.  You can always go to a pharmacy and take some decongestant or ibuprofen or something to help ease pressure if any.  But, people always say to take chicken soup.  The fact is that lately scientists have done the testing and found out that chicken soup, when homemade, is filled with an amino acid that is found in chicken, which helps the body loosen mucus.  Not to mention all of the antioxidants and all sorts of vitamins in the vegetables that are in the soup as well.  What is important to look for and watch, is that every year scientists make a discovery where they find some plant somewhere, which has been shown to help with [blank].  It could be a plant extract that helps treat AIDS or a type of legume that helps fight cancer or something like that.    

So, that is my 10 things.  It took me a week to come up with.

Worst restaurant in a while

There are good restaurants and bad restaurants.  The problem is that most of the time, the bad restaurants get by unnoticed.  Did you ever wonder how there can be so many bad restaurants on shows like Restaurant Impossible?  Last month, I went down to the Ozarks and while coming back from a day at Miner Mike's, my kids wanted something other than BBQ for lunch.  So, as we are nearing the intersection of 54, we came to a small strip mall with a nice looking place called Shell's Pasta Emporium.  We parked out front and went inside.

The first thing that could be noticed was the color.  The walls were painted this ugly dirty yellow color and there were stenciled phrases and sayings on the wall which had nothing to do with pasta or food.

"Laughter sparkles like sunshine." Really?  On one wall of the restaurant, there are at least 6 or 7 sayings which makes me think that someone just took every saying they could find in one of those inspirational books and re-wrote them on the wall.

The food is prepped behind a bar area and there is every possible kind of fake plant or flower in the area.  There are fake potted plants, fake flowers all over and even fake ivy stuck behind the bar, on the wall, near the ceiling.  You can also see the whole service area, where you can see two microwaves, a shelf where all of the soda syrup boxes are as well as the prepping area.  Note: I did not see any pasta machines, bowls or even flour, but we will get to that later.

 The place was very sparse and the only staff consisted of two people, presumably Shell and her son, a child less than 10 years old.  So, it was this child, who brought our table silverware, explained how the ordering went and then took our orders and delivered our drinks.  Shell, stayed behind the counter.  I should have looked around the restaurant first before ordering because there wasn't a single award on their pasta, they had one on 'best new pasta restaurant concept' and one for 'best traditional pizza', but none on the quality of their pasta. The way that you ordered, was by taking this slip of paper, filled with options on your meal, checking the boxes with your pencil, and then giving them to the child so he could give them to Shell.  So, one of the things we ordered was some pasta, since they are called "pasta emporium", I figured that I should try their pasta.

I marked the box for Bow Tie noodles, at $5.99 and then added a simple sauce of garlic and olive oil at no cost.  Then, I was really hungry and added some sliced, seasoned, spicy, baked chicken for an additional cost of $2.99.  So, we are looking at my meal alone, at costing $8.98; before taxes.  It doesn't sound like that much, for pasta, but what I received a few minutes later, was not worth more than $1.00.

This is what was delivered, to me about 5 minutes after I had ordered it.  I watched the woman behind the counter work, expecting to see a show of making fresh pasta.  I was expecting to see her mix flour and eggs together, make a dough, and start turning it through a pasta machine, rolling it thinner and thinner each time.  Then, finally taking that ribbon and slicing it into squares and bunching them at the center to create bows.  I wanted to see someone do this from scratch.  The problem is: at this place, even though it has the words "pasta emporium" in the name, they do not make their own pasta.  Now, I guess it was my fault, because while on their website (http://www.shellspastaemporium.net/) and menu, even though it says that they offer "Mouth watering Italian pastas" and they state that they offer "authentic homemade Italian food", they never actually state that the pastas are authentic or homemade.  So, I guess that is my fault for reading too much into this.

I would bet $100 that the pasta was from a box.  It had no taste of egg or flour, so I know it wasn't homemade.  It definitely wasn't authentic either.  We watched the woman make the chicken, which meant that we watched her take something from the freezer, place it on a dish and into the microwave for 2 minutes and then onto my pasta.  She delivered it to me like she was the proudest person ever for making some great pasta and chicken.  Really?  You thawed out pre-cooked and seasoned chicken and placed it over my store bought dried and boiled pasta and you call this a restaurant???

I thought this place was a joke, until you look at their Facebook page and it appears that this restaurant stays in business by cooking store bought and boxed pasta and then adding microwaved items to it, while charging a huge amount.  They even have a bunch of photos of them celebrating their grand opening.

I have tried to contact the restaurant and ask for clarification as to why they say they make homemade and authentic pasta and then it is neither homemade or authentic and I had no response.  Here is my thoughts:  If you want to eat there and help support a local restaurant owner with her restaurant, go ahead.  If you want to feel as though you get some sort of edible food for your money, I suggest finding something else to eat. Or you could also go to Paul's and get your own box of pasta and store bought frozen chicken.

Savannah Grille in the Ozarks

Hidden away, on Horseshoe Bend Parkway, on the way to the resorts in the Ozarks hills of Missouri, is a nice little restaurant named Savannah Grille.  While this nice cottage-looking restaurant look quaint on the outside it is the exact opposite on the inside, with Chef Robert Sills using modern techniques to perfect traditional food and dishes.  Chef Robert grew up in New York, then moved to South Carolina where he learned and gathered more culinary intelligence.  Finally moving to Missouri, he decided to partner up with the local farmers and the Farmer's Market, in the Ozarks, to create deliciously fresh, seasonal and sustainable dishes, that help show off the great and wonderful foods that can be found nearby.  Now, while not everything is found within a 10 mile radius or close to that, I think he said the eggs came from Tennessee, but everything did come from a farm and is fresh and doesn't use any GMO's or anything bad.

The restaurant is nice on the inside and has a wonderful view, from the side of a bluff, of the Lake of the Ozarks as well as some of the resorts.  The menu is incredible, everything is organic and the place is very friendly and great for kids.

So, here is what we had ordered:

First we had ordered the House Charcutrie Board, which was a board filled with house-made pickles and sausages.  It is huge and is well worth ordering for your party at your table while you wait for the main courses.  We ordered enough on here for 3 people and this was a large board filled with food.  Chef Robert told us that he had purchased a book on pickling and just started to play around with it, making almost anything into a pickle.  There were sweet pickles and sour pickles and the sausages and meats were just as tasty.  If you need a good board to calm your table down, get this.  I'd give the board a 4 out of 5.

Now, the next thing we had ordered was for me.  It isn't on the menu now, but that is because the menu changes daily, due to what is available and fresh.  I ordered a house made sausage, with greens and mashed potatoes.  Can you say "delicious"?  The sausage was tender and juicy and the mashed potatoes were creamy, buttery and full of flavor.  There was a bit of a micro green salad with a very rich and tasty gravy. This was the kind of dish that you could just sit there, relax, enjoy the view and eat.  I'd give this one a 4 out of 5 as well.

While these helped make the meal enjoyable, these were given to us, just like bread and butter is given to guests at other restaurants.  What is it, you may ask?  What these are, are sweet cornbread muffins, with chunks of andouille sausage in them.  With each bite you can taste the corn bread and a bite of spicy sausage or pork fat.  These are so awesome and even better with some of the herbed compound butter.  I'd give these things alone a 4 out of 5 stars.

Now, just when you think you can only get great dinner and lunch food here at the Savannah Grille, they also offer a brunch menu on Sunday.  The delicious menu has all types of great things, including this omelet filled with meat.

I was one of 6 adults and we had two children with us and none of us, had any issues or problems with any of the food we had ordered.  Usually BBQ is a must-have while we go to the Ozarks and now, we will have to stop in and check to see what else is new and fresh and delicious.

Savannah Grille
1622 Horseshoe Bend Pkwy
Lake Ozark, MO 65049
http://savannahgrillerestaurant.com/

More from the Ozarks...

I went to the Ozarks, last weekend from Friday-Monday and while there, I ate at a different restaurant for lunch and dinner each day, except for Friday where I ate on the road and Monday when we left before dinner.  But, with too many good places and too much to review and place into individually concise and simple articles, I have a bunch listed here.

Dog Days Bar & Grill is a nice place.  It has ports so people can pull their boats up and get served.  We took my kids there and the place is very kid friendly.  The food is simple bar food, in first appearance but I was told that the same owners of this bar, also own a Cajun style restaurant so there are some things on the menu here that sound like Cajun inspired.  I ordered their basic burger with a side of black beans and rice.  The burger was juicy and cooked as ordered.  The beans and rice were flavorful, albeit I had a few grains of uncooked rice.  I'd give this place a 3 out of 5.

Kay's is an all you can eat, home cooking restaurant.  It is very "traditional" in that not only does it have good food, but it also has a small selection of wares which you can purchase in the front of the restaurant.  The way that they do the all-you-can-eat way, is to make it so that all of the food is by order.  For instance, I wanted to start with some eggs and some biscuits and gravy.  Instead of going to a food line and plating this myself, I order it and a waitress comes out and delivers this to my person.  So, this seems to be a great idea because you can have all of the food you want, but the restaurant doesn't have to deal with food loss by having food sitting out on a hot line all day long.

The biscuits were light and fluffy and buttery.  The gravy was heavy and peppery.  The eggs were tasty and in this plate, I was happy.  I ate everything so I could move forwards to the next plate.  Off of the menu, besides the plate above you, I also tried the pancakes and bacon and sausage and grits and everything was delicious.  This would be like having an all you can eat meal at one of the last remaining IHOP's.  I would give Kay's a 4 out of 5.

El Jimador, is awesome.  In St. Louis, there is a fair amount of Authentic Mexican restaurants which have the innate ability to cause GI issues or just taste really bad.  Real Mexican food isn't smothered in cheese, canned salsa or bad salty chips.  Real Mexican food cannot be hidden or should not be hidden with your choice of a dozen Margaritas.  El Jimador looks like a stereotypical Mexican restaurant on the inside, with roofing tiles over the booths to make it look like you are outside.  Yeah, it looks lame, but when the food comes, it is awesome.  I ordered something that was called "Tacos al Pastor" (I think, I can't find it on the menu now when I look online.)  It was awesome:

These tacos were filled with super tender pork and grilled pineapple.  I know, it sounds a bit Hawaiian, but this was great.  That dip/salsa, was made from Chipotle chilies and was so flavorful and not spicy.  Everything tasted good.  I went here with 4 other adults and two kids and I tried every one's food.  I didn't have an issue with any of them.  My in-laws ordered the soup: Caldo de Pollo, which is an awesome soup with chicken and rice.  They were told, the first time they went there, that no one ever orders the soup, which is quite sad because the soup was so good.  The only disappointing thing at the restaurant, was the bathroom.  I have seen cleaner bathrooms, on a hillside, in Southern Lebanon, than I did at this restaurant.  Still though, I'd give the food a 4 out of 5.

The final place that I have here, is called JJ Twigs.  This restaurant is huge and you can see it from any angle off of US 54.  It has a large sign on it saying that it is a great place for Pizza, but I am sorry to say that if their pizza is the best in the Ozarks, then I think all of the other pizza places should be razed.  I'm sorry, but this place is bad.  This restaurant is set-up like a rectangle, with a bar sectioned off on the two shorter ends.  It is decorated like a log cabin on the inside and there is a large fire place in the central seating area.  There is a very large amount of stuffed animals all throughout including a jackalope and a wooly salmon.  What is sad here is what is listed on the menu is not the same as what you get.  I want to be clear on three things, which myself and my group ordered.  First of all, I ordered the 16 layer lasagna.  Now, while this sounds like a huge item to plated and shown off, what I had received was this:

Now, I hate to be a stickler, but after I removed those two slices of bread, I counted and there was only 12 layers, not 16.  This wouldn't be a big deal by anyone else, but for those who see that being told that they have a piece  of lasagna that has 16 layers, is a huge selling point, then finding out that it doesn't ruins the joy behind it.  What did it taste like?  Not very good.  It was pretty bland, like the sauce had two flavors: tomato sauce and oregano.

My son ordered the pizza, since this is a famous pizza place.  This is what was delivered to us:

If you notice the cardboard, then you are with me on this.  No restaurant, anywhere, serves pizza in-house, on cardboard: especially white cardboard in the same and measurements of the pizza.  Now, I can't say whether the pizza was frozen and store bought and then heated badly or if this was made in house, prepped and placed on this cardboard and then not cooked thoroughly.  The pizza had a soggy crust towards the center and the sauce was the same flavorless sauce that was on my lasagna.  I would guess that if people think the pizza is awesome, they are most likely drinking as well and are too drunk to realized how bad the pizza actually is.

The last thing I wish to point out is when a salad says that it has "field greens", that does not mean "iceburg lettuce."  I just want to throw that out there.  Whichever the case, this JJ Twigs should not be confused with the one in St. Louis:  http://www.jjtwigsstl.com/beginnings.htm  .  I know that the pictures of the food look great at this website, but it could be the same restaurant but not the same food.  I'm sorry but if this restaurant is owned by the same people as the ones in St. Louis, which it is, I don't want to even waste my money at the St. Louis locations after a disaster like this one.  JJ Twigs, maybe gets a 1 out of 5.

So, besides the great BBQ spot, Fired UP!, this is what we did and what we thought.  If you don't believe me on any of these places, see for yourself.