Category: Restaurant Reviews

With Covid now in the rearview mirror (except for some). the food/meal reviews are back. 

I came across this “Old El Paso” Stacked Queso crunch kit at my local grocer.  It was on the “closeout rack” marked down to $2.  I bought it for a couple reasons. First, I was going to cook tacos and secondly, I had no shells or taco dirt (aka the spices) so I decided what the heck.

The taco kit contains, 6 soft taco shells, 6 hard taco shells, a packet of taco dirt, and a packet of nacho cheese sauce.  The point of this kit is to essentially to make a hard shell taco (you must buy the meat, and fixings) and then put the nacho cheese on the soft shell and wrap it around the hard taco.  The hard shells are flavored with nacho cheese dust, quite similar to the Taco Bell Doritos Nacho Cheese Loco Taco.  I cooked the meat, seasoned it with the dirt, got my fixings ready, and made a few of these for myself. 

Honest assessment?  Not great, ok at very best.  The nacho cheese sauce was a garden variety high school basketball/football game melted plastic type cheese.  There were some pepper flakes in it, so it had a vest.  The soft shell was fine.  The taco dirt was your garden variety dirt, nothing special.  The hard shell was an odd choice.  The shells have a flat bottom so you can “stand and stuff them” a nice change from the old, you have to hold it and stuff it, but the flavoring was odd.  I would describe this meal as eating nachos but with nacho cheese Doritos instead of tortilla chips.  2.5/5

Price point:  $2 is a steal, I went back to the scene of the sale and found the item on the shelf a week later (likely this had to do with expiration dates) retailing for $6.99.  Yikes.  Based on $2 4.7/5.  Full retail? Even a Biden voter would say this economy is causing these shells to be a rip off.  Seriously?  12 taco shells, a package of taco dirt and nacho cheese for $7?  That’s whack.  Hell, a pound of ground beef cost me just $3.

Aftermath: This was not great.  I ate the entirety of the shells.  They were not large, think basically fast-food sized tacos.  The meat, fixings, and shredded cheese were not an issue.  The nacho cheese and hard taco chemical shell caused some issues.  Let’s just say I haven’t seen a blow out that bad since Tampa Bay played the Raiders in a Super Bowl about 20 years ago.  The processed cheese product and the hard shells I would definitely pass on in the future.

Johnnie Does

PS I was able to report back to my doctor that I am able to delay my colonoscopy another year because this taco kit cleaned everything out down there. If you’ve ever considered a cleansing routine and like mildly spicey food this may just be your ticket to better health.

Friday night, Johnnie Does and a male friend (both are straight) got together to share a meal and get caught up on recent happenings in our lives. We decided to break bread at the Macaroni Grill. I use the straight term as my co-worker made a comment that Macaroni Grill is an odd option for a couple of fellas to grab dinner.  He wasn’t wrong.  Some background on Macaroni Grill, it’s an Italian chain that is a rival with Olive Garden.  It offers typical Italian faire, here is the review and my commentary.

Ambiance:  It has a cool, wine cellar/Italian castle vibe to it.  It’s a dark place, but that’s ok. It seems like a “take a girl out on a date prior to prom place.”  They place a white piece of butcher paper over the table to simulate a white tablecloth dining experience, this was cool.  For a typical table, if you ordered wine, they draw a glass on your table, and after placing the wine on the table, you keep track of your glasses.  I would give it a 6.5/10 as our table had no butcher paper and while the place was basically empty it seemed we were an afterthought.  At 7:30 mind you, closing time is 9.

Food:  As I mentioned, its classic Italian faire; pasta, fish, steak, ravioli and the like.  The chain 86’d its pizza during Covid for who knows what reason as they have a fired pizza oven in the kitchen.  We both had create your own pasta, you get a choice of noodles, sauce, you pick 3 veggie/type toppings, and meat if you would like it.  You also get a loaf of “peasant bread” and oil and balsamic to dip it in.  Overall, I give the food selection 6.1/10.

Overall:  It’s a chain, and I have blistering commentary at the bottom here.  The open concept kitchen was cool, the décor was nice, but the menu was just ok.  It’s a typical chain, and as I mentioned, it’s a “take your date there prior to the dance” place.  6.3/10.

Scalding hot-take commentary:  Your experience may vary, but mine was bizarre.  The hostess seemed more interested in texting on her phone than trying to seat us.  We were seated at a barely made-up table.  Our waiter seemed pretty off, like maybe he had a hit or two on the devil’s lettuce during his break.  We placed our order, and he almost immediately came back with our food, like disturbingly quickly.  My friend’s order was perfect, mine was served sans meatballs.  When I made comment, I was told they are there.  Okay, I guess I’ll dig around.  When I confirmed their absence, the waiter ran the whole plate back to the kitchen to have the applicable 4 meat balls tossed on the plate.  Not a big deal, but I mean where is the quality control?  Also, no offer of parmesan cheese!? I figured the waiter likely forgot, or got the munchies and ate it all.  Also, there was a wild move with an employee walking around serenading every single table.  I would have had him more like a “for hire” guy because he just kept walking around the store.  Kind bizarre actually, like you could serenade a table for tips, but oh well.  Oh, and in addition, at the top of the bill, a $2 inflation fee?  F*** outta here!  Make Biden pay it, his dementia laden a** caused this.  The only thing I want to see inflated are Jen Aniston’s tots……okay that’s it, Troll. Quit photo bombing my post.

It’s not fair, but Macaroni Grill is in a lot of trouble as a chain, they only have 41 locations left nation-wide.  They challenged Olive Garden mocking their unlimited salad in an ad, but yikes.  The chain has been sold more times than Troll changes his underwear.  Most recently, in 2015 Red Rock Capital bought the whole chain for 8 million.  The chain filed for BK protection in 2017 and is struggling badly today.  If you have a gift card, use it.

Final note:  I did describe this place to the Blog Father as a poor man’s Olive Garden but it costs more.

Avoid.

Johnnie Does

We are back, Covid is declared over….er I mean Putin invaded Ukraine.  But anyways here we go with food reviews again!  Blog Father tripled our salary so we will get these more often.

A new place opened in Elk Grove near the Costco called “Nick the Greek” we love Greek people and Greek food on this blog so here we go.

Ambiance:  It’s a typical fast casual (order at counter, be seated, food brought to you place).  Lots of décor and an outdoor eating area.  Its new, and trendy, but very small.  Think like a Chipotle but smaller.  You can watch the cook crew make/assemble the meals.  Overall, it’s a cool concept 7.2/10

Food:  Typical Greek faire, Gyros, kabobs, souvlaki, bowls, and sides.  Basically, it reminded me of Ariana’s.  I went with the chicken gyro pita, fries and a coke.  This meal sets you back about $15.  The fries I chose were the regular fries, they came with sea salt and herbs.  You also could choose Greek fries, which include feta cheese, or Nick’s fries which include meat, garlic and spicy yogurt.   The chicken gyro pita was solid, it was quite large, and I got a very generous portion of chicken.  I also thought the fries were a generous portion.  A patron next to me got a chicken kabob plate over rice, which I also thought looked great.  Call it 8.7/10.

Overall:  It’s a small regional chain. I learned that they have shops in Roseville and Davis among other locations.  I hope they make it and wish them well.  They were very busy since it was opening weekend, and they had quite a crew working there.  The owner was greeting folks at the door and explaining the menu, I thought this is a needed touchpoint.  Some folks are not as cultured as others and if the menu’s not familiar to them it could cause confusion and a back-up at the order kiosk.  Solid 8.3/10.  We will be back.

Johnnie Does

We are back in business!  Folks we had to wait an agonizing few days prior to our benevolent king Gavin Newsom reopening the state, but we are back to doing restaurant reviews. 

Ambiance:  Hungry Pecker opened about 9 months or so ago “allegedly” since all bars were ordered closed by King Newsom.  The place is an old warehouse I think they used to refurbish hot tubs out of it.  However, it was very nice inside, they had a few seating tables, a high-top bar area, and a separate room where the beer making process is located.  They also had ample outdoor seating.  This seems like a cool place to grab a cold one with the fellas after work.  While the outside could use a little fixing up, I call it a work in progress, and I give a slight pass.  4.3/5

Drinks:  They had about 8 beers on tap, with typical varying alcohol amounts.  A couple took the names of local streets in Elk Grove.  I tried, I believe it was called the Porto Rosa Porter, it’s about 8% alcohol and it was quite good. 

Johnnie Does Sr. had a light beer, he felt the same, even ordering a second.  I would give it a 4.5. Just a note, I am not a drinker, basically gave it up years ago, I’ll have a cold one with my father every so often, but I choose to “hoof it home” as the kids say.

Overall: It’s a cool local joint, has some potential… quite a bit actually.  I would argue between this joint, Waterman Brewing Company, Tilted Mash, and Flatland–just to name a few–my home zip code is more than covered with local brew pubs.  I seriously would wonder about cannibalization.

My overall grade will look bad, and this is not the intention, but man a couple things need to get cleaned up here…. badly…..and pronto.  First, the bartender gal (likely owners’ daughter, wife) had a “what do you want” attitude rather than a “welcome in” one.  This was largely off putting, and she couldn’t be bothered to explain the drinks to us.  We only asked about which beers are lighter vs darker.  She served us and pointed to a couple tables over yonder.  She came by later to check on us and lamented the very sparse crowd for a Saturday at 6pm.  She said they had tried everything, axe throwing, corn hole, and even have BBQ here every Saturday, nothing has been working.  Might be due to having no atmosphere and very little in the way of customer experiences.  In many ways this reminded me of a fundraiser bar for a crab feed.  What do you want?  Ok, here ya go.  NEXT!  1.5/5  Gotta get this turned around quickly.

Bonus Review: JP B QUE located in the Hungry Pecker as a food option.  It’s an Indy BBQ guy, who judging by his size, looks like he loves his own cooking.  He had menus out on the tables and had a buffet type set up outside.  I was actually looking for some decent BBQ. Had a taste for it.  There was no BBQ, smoker, or grill anywhere to be found.  Odd, since, well half the experience is the smell trying to draw you in or make you crave BBQ.  Weirder yet as the owner walked to the restroom right near us; he said under his breath “Its leftover from an event earlier today”.  Yikes 0/5 avoid this place like the black plague!  This is not a surprise as most “mobile” operations do this, rather than cook fresh they offer to re-heat after taking the leftovers from another gathering.  This is a dangerous practice, first it was quite hot outside, and the pans were half covered.  This causes very serious food borne illness bacteria to form.  As much as I hate to say this, JP B Que will never get another look from this reviewer.  Quite frankly I do not think the owner fully understood what he was doing. He could get folks extremely sick.

Full disclosure:  I have seen a smoker out there on the patio before, not sure why he changed it up this day.  But Yikes.

Johnnie Does

P.S. I saw the attempted clean shot by the “Troll” calling me a waste of time and resources on this news site, well let me fire a clean shot at him.  Dear Troll: maybe Jake the Snake would like to discuss “Thou shalt not commit adultery” with you, as you seem to love a married woman, Carli Lloyd.  Stick to what you do best; namely, ogling celebrities in your basement and cranking out 1 blog a month when your mom’s not home.

Blogger Note: no business names will be used at all during this review as to keep Comrade Newsom, Fake Dr. Beilensen and their ilk guessing.

While we respect all laws here at Reallyright.com, we love small local businesses!  We do.  Be it the salsa bar, or the new salsa bar.  All the places I review are local, some may be chains, but it’s a local flair.  We recently went under a lockdown where restaurants cannot do indoor or outdoor dining, only take out.  Even after fake, racist, alcoholic Dr. Beilensen admitted only 7% of folks were identified as catching the rona at a eating establishment.  Good luck staying in business doing take out only, unless you’re a Chinese restaurant. 

So anyway, Johnnie Does on a Friday mind you, went to a local shop to order take out.  This place has been around for a while, and it’s rare to see a place on this side of town (sparsely populated) in business hopefully they survive the rona.  The owner asked if I would prefer dine-in, and I said only if it’s ok.  He responded saying if Newsom can dine at The French Laundry you can dine in here, and I did.  I ordered my typical takeout meal here, but it seemed to taste better, maybe it was rona infected as here in CA the rona gets you between 10pm and 5am, also if you dine out or in, and seems to avoid you at Wal-Mart, Home Depot, and the like.

I was not the only one dining in, the place was packed, roughly 50% capacity and all were vigilant.  There was joy and a lot of don’t give an f*** going on, I loved it, why should we become slaves to a group of folks (I include both R & D here btw) saying what we can and cannot do, based on wild science that makes no sense.

The food was great, I tipped well, and I will be back.  I may even bring the Chief, Troll, and William here too at some point. 

Sadly, what I wish to point out is this.  These places spent $$$ to buy plexi-glass partitions to go between booths, made staff wear masks, adapted to take out only, and then spent a ton of $$$ on outdoor heaters, custom over hangs, etc.  Now they must go to take-out only.  Money wasted or money well spent?  I say the former.  The rules change here in California literally every 10 minutes, and these folks have adapted, but now the push back is real.  Why are these folks being punished?  This will be the final nail in the coffin of most of these places, before you say; Chilis, Applebee’s, and Olive Garden are going to be ok, those are chains, the parent likely took PPP money, or gave the operators a break on fees.  The small business folks will perish, and it will not be pretty.  Retail will follow them down the drain, likely after the Christmas season.  For context, the end of year blog party was charged $1.50 for using more than 2 bowls of salsa, folks that means this is real!

It’s sad, and I have no way of putting this lightly, the Blog Father, his better half, child, and dog all know my beliefs on this, but it’s going to get very ugly.  Support your small business nearby, and tip for takeout, it may not be tradition, but these folks need it.  Sadly the 90-Day Guy and others think closing businesses and ending livelihoods is the best way to beat this infectious disease.  Think of someone else not yourself for a couple minutes.

RIP Local eateries.

Johnnie Does

BTW Gavin Newsom, 90-Day Guy and others, you’re jerks!  Closing stores and altering lives solely for your own gain?  Think of others, some of us don’t work in government.

Editor’s Note: Just to prove that Johnnie Does is right, California’s chief health official admits that closing restaurants is not related to science. Here’s the meat of the article.

… California’s health and human services secretary, Dr. Mark Ghaly, addressed the matter to the press. According to this expert, science has nothing to do with it.

“The decision to include, among other sectors, outdoor dining, and limiting that, turning to restaurants to deliver and provide takeout options instead, really has to do with the goal of trying to keep people at home, not a comment on the relative safety of outdoor dining.”

“We advise against anything that you can do in another way, in a lower risk way, that avoids you leaving your home…”

So, there’s no science saying that outdoor dining is unsafe. It’s just unsafe for you to leave your house in the first place. According to experts. The same experts who told us fifteen days to flatten the curve. Nine months ago. The outdoor dining ban isn’t about science. This “expert” confirmed that. It’s all about control. California doesn’t want you to leave your house. So they’ll take away reasons to leave your house. You know, for your own good. But only some places.

California Health Secretary Admits Real Reason for Outdoor Dining Ban. HINT: It’s Not Science …

Cicada Cantina is a new joint that moved into the old Logan’s Road House near the Best (expensive) Buy in Elk Grove.  They are what appears to be a family owned joint with the legacy store being in Redding, CA.  Cicada serves Mexican food with a traditional style as opposed to American style.  They had a tent set up outside to be Covid compliant, a garage area, and an outdoor dining area. 

Here is the review.  (Blogger’s note: we go easy on places due to it being Covid and all)

Ambiance:  we will leave this blank since outdoor was all that was available.

Food:  Cicada Cantina offers traditional Mexican food such as tacos and burritos, but in addition, they have some cool things on the menu, such as seafood plates.  It’s what you would expect from a chain restaurant based in California. However, …

This place charges for chips and salsa. Yeah, they claim if you buy a food item, they will reverse the charge but that is petty.  By the way the chips and salsa is listed as costing $7.99.  Covid or not, you are a Mexican food joint, that is standard and to be expected.  How about a Chinese place without fortune cookies, or an Italian place without bread.  SAD! 

A friend of mine ordered the Cabo Salad, it consisted of a typical cobb salad, just very little outside of wilted lettuce greens.  The price for this?  $14, not only did my friend say it wasn’t worth it, but it took 40 minutes to come out during lunch.

Here is an experience shared by someone near and dear to me: 

“We dined there in mid-November and since its local we figured we would give it a chance. Since it opened about the time Covid shutdowns began, we didn’t know much about the place. Boy was it a disappointment.  Not having been there before, we looked the menu over and asked our server questions before ordering.  An item that caught my wife’s eye was a spinach enchilada that was listed on the menu as coming in a corn tortilla. My wife asked if she could change to a flour tortilla but was told by our server that it only came in corn. Disappointed, she ordered the chile relleno (think large stuffed jalapeno pepper) for a cool $17.29.  The portion was large, and the pepper appeared to be deep-fried but after a bite or two, it was still icy in the middle and required to be sent back.   I don’t like saying this, but icy food, and unable to change meaningless parts of a dish such as choosing corn or flour tortillas, means only 1 thing, their food is frozen.  Its very expensive freezer food warmed in microwaves and toaster ovens. My chicken fajita looked to be more of the same, processed, frozen, and precooked. There is no excuse for food to come out cold. It’s even more disgusting at the prices that this place has. We are charged for fresh food and get frozen. I expect better.”

Oh, in addition to being microwave meals, my friend’s the total ticket, sans alcohol came to $50 after tip.  Whoa!

I have spoken to a couple other dissatisfied customers that said they were less than impressed and based on the experiences  described above, “unimpressed” is the understatement of the year!

I am going to attach photos of a couple shots of the menu and while some food looks good, look at the prices.

I am sorry it ain’t just Covid, this place is actively ripping off everyone it serves.  This place is basically a very expensive TGI Fridays, where the entire menu can be found at the freezer section at your local grocer.  I see no reason to visit this place.

0/0 seriously, don’t go.

Johnnie Does

Sabor a Mexico is a family owned restaurant that changed ownership from one family to another a few years ago. They offer classic Mexican food such as tacos, burritos, salads, fajitas etc. It’s a small location in a not so easy to access shopping center, here is my review.

Ambiance: This place is not very big. It has a nice old school authentic almost hole in the wall feel. (Considering the original tenant was a New York themed specialty sandwich shop, the remodel to a Mexican themed place was pretty good–Editor) This business has adapted nicely to Covid by having ample outdoor seating which is pet friendly. There is nice artwork on the walls and windows to make you feel in an authentic Mexican food joint. Since reopening under Covid rules, the manger has furnished authentic music for outside diners. You get full service at your table, like a typical sit down place, in addition to a small bar area, and they have a brisk take out business. Small, comfortable, and homey. 4.3/5

Food: Again, typical Mexican fare on full display, tacos, burritos, salads, fajitas, etc. They had ample meat selection including ground beef, shredded beef, chicken, pork, etc. I went with a 2 item lunch special and ordered 2 shredded beef burritos which came with beans and rice on the side. $10. The food was great, not greasy at all, and I felt this was a great bang for the buck. Only gripe is the chips were over salted, but that’s ok, and the salsa was lacking in the heat department, but again that’s ok since I tend to prefer hotter things than most. 4.7/5

Overall: The food was great, the service even better. It is family owned and it appears family does it all at this place. It was refreshing to hear the words “my pleasure, or absolutely” after speaking to the wait staff. It felt like Chic-Fil-A in many ways, like we were welcomed not a bother. The owner was very engaging, and you could tell he is worried about the Covid lockdowns and the toll it will have in the future. Uncertainty is not your friend in the food business right now. 4.9/5 I definitely recommend this place.

Johnnie Does

Blogger note: The order included a $2 upcharge for the burritos I hadn’t encountered before, that being said $14.55 after tip didn’t seem like a bad price, certainly better than $18 plus for a salad and soda at a certain other place.