Famous Dave's

After taking a tour of the Hermitage, Home of President Andrew Jackson while down near Nashville in November, we were all unbelievably hungry and wanted to stop somewhere to grab some dinner. I'm a sucker for good BBQ and have never been to a Famous Dave's (I live in the UP of Michigan, give me a break!), and of course I want to visit somewhere that slathers half of their menu with BBQ sauce, I would be crazy not to.

For an appetizer, we ordered two different things that looked mouth-watering on the menu. The picture on the left is of their "Burnt Ends". They weren't as burnt as I thought they would be. I love char from BBQ or when they let the BBQ sauce caramelize until almost black on the edges. These were pretty tasty pieces of Brisket though. They were tossed in a sweet and zesty BBQ sauce and also came with a side of pickles, pickled onion, and shoestring onion rings.

The picture on the right is of their BBQ Nachos. The crispy chips were loaded with beans, Famous chili, jalapenos, their "Rich and Sassy" BBQ sauce, cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, sour cream etc. You can choose your meat and we decided to go with the brisket. It was such a weird combination that it worked fantastically. So good in fact that I was told I need to try and re-create these at home.

I ordered the "Two Meat BBQ Combo", which comes with your choice of two meats, two sides and a corn bread muffin. For my meats, I ordered the BBQ roasted chicken breast and the Texas style brisket. The brisket was smoky and tender and amazing. You could see a nice pronounced smoke ring and a little bit of char on the outside crust. I wish I would have ordered something else instead of the chicken. It wasn't bad, but for some reason in my mind I was hoping or thinking it would be pulled chicken off of the smoked breast. The meat was slightly dry, and I hate dealing with chicken bones but I doused it in different kinds of BBQ sauces that they have at the table and it was good. For my sides I ordered the mac and cheese, which was gooey and cheesy like it should be, and the garlic red-skin mashed potatoes. I am also really picky when it comes to cornbread because although it's supposed to be slightly "crumby", I still like it to be sticky enough that it holds together when you try and eat it. This corn muffin did just that.

I don't remember what my husband ordered exactly, I just know that I think his eyes were bigger than his stomach in this case, bless his little heart. It was two slices of bread topped with brisket, ribs, corn bread muffin, corn on the cob, potato wedges, baked beans, and coleslaw. He ate a pretty good chunk of it, which I was impressed with, and ended up taking the rest home, along with about half of my brisket that was left. I don't like coleslaw normally but I stole a bite of his and it was really creamy and not overwhelmed by mayonnaise. 

 

For dessert, we ordered the bread pudding that was doused in a pecan praline sauce and served with vanilla bean ice cream. Yum!

How did we fit in any kind of dessert you ask? I really have no idea. I do know we ended up practically rolling out of the restaurant but at least we had a 45 minute drive in the car afterwords to process this giant meal. My hometown that I grew up in is slowly expanding in the stores and culinary world department and if we ended up with a Famous Dave's (which is pretty far fetched), I would not be sad in the least. My stomach might hate me, but man would it be worth it to have a BBQ place like this!

Famous Dave's Facebook Page
Famous Dave's Main Website

Don Pancho

While helping renovate a house for my sister-in-law in Kentucky, we had to get the heck out of the house and into the real world, even if just for a meal. She asked what my preference was and I told her one of my favorite cuisines is Mexican food. When she used to live in Kentucky, she and her friends used to go to Don Pancho's frequently, and so it was decided. The Don Pancho in Oak Grove, which is the one we went to, is one of four locations. The original opened in 2002 in Clarksville, Tennessee. In 2004, they opened the second restaurant in Jackson, TN, a third location in Ashland City in 2006, and then finally a fourth location in Oak Grove in 2007. They have plans of continuing to expand to other areas in the near future.

For an appetizer, we ordered the cheese dip. It was amazing, and cheesy? I don't really know how else to describe it. I don't know if it was made with melted Queso Blanco or Fresca, or if they used a white cheddar like some other Mexican restaurants use, but it was a damn good cheese dip. We went through a whole basket of chips and then some.

My sister-in-law and husband both ordered the Armando Special. It is a grilled piece of chicken topped with white cheese and ranchera sauce (they forgot to add the cheese sauce to  my husband's). It came with a side of mixed veggies, rice, guacamole, pico, sour cream and shrimp on a stick. I tried a bite of my husband's chicken and it was really good. The only catch is that he got his fifteen minutes before we got the rest of our food. The waitress kept coming to our table and apologizing for the wait, but he waited as long as he could to start eating his before it was technically cold, and we still were waiting on our dinner.

I ordered the Monster Chimichanga with chicken. Monster size you say? Challenge accepted. It came topped with a white cheese sauce, salad, guacamole, pico and sour cream on the side, and a side of rice and refried beans. I'll hand it to them, it was pretty big. It came wrapped up inside of a 12 inch tortilla shell. They say it was "deep fried" but mine wasn't crunchy, or greasy, so I'm not complaining on the latter half of that situation.

Don't mind the red sauce, it's just salsa that I added on top. The picture gives you a better view of the inside mixture of the chimichanga that had sauteed onions, and what I believe was spinach? Regardless of what the green stuff was, it was a great chimichanga. I'm proud to say I finished a little over half of it and took the rest to go.

For dessert my husband ordered the special which was a Snickers Burrito (or chimichanga?). I stole a bite from him and it was well, very rich for starters but how can you go wrong when you wrap snickers up in a tortilla bundle and deep fry it? It was topped with whipped cream, a caramel, chocolate and cherry drizzle, and a maraschino cherry.

Us ladies decided to split the churros. They were light and fluffy and topped with the same toppings as the snickers burrito. Perfect sweet ending to an already massive meal.

As far as the service goes, our waitress was wonderful. She answered our questions while ordering without being condescending, and frequently apologized for our food taking very random times to get to our table. Someone in the kitchen was either overwhelmed by orders (we were one out of four tables because it was past 8 PM when we got there), or something was messed up and they lost our ticket for a while. Whatever the scenario was, it was a delicious meal and I almost had to roll myself out of the restaurant.

Don Pancho's, Main Site
Don Pancho's, Oak Grove Facebook Page