Michelle "Not W!" P.'s Profile

For $4 on from 4-7 on a weekday you can get a gigantic pile of onion rings, fries and homemade chips.   This is a steal!

The staff is amazingly friendly... sit at the bar and i know they will take care of you.  The TV structure is also a lot more "bar friendly" and you'll see lots of people in here on weekends trying to catch their out of area football teams.  

And while nothing spectacular... the food is way better than the Falls Church location.

I do love this place.... especially since i can walk there :)

I will admit that Kora is definitely a little too snazzy for my typical taste, but the idea of having dinner here with three very lovely ladies, made me give it a shot.   And i'm very glad i did.

The staff was very friendly.  From the moment i sat down, my glass of water was always full and they were bringing and removing plates in a matter of minutes.   I will say that sometimes we ended up with extra knives, forks, and even plates, but its better than being without i guess!

I was overwhelmed with choices so when the waiter was asked what the "best pasta" was and he said "Lasagna" without heasitation, i was sold.    I LOVE lasagna and this is now one of my all time favorites.  Ricotta is such a hard cheese to melt, yet this lasagna was ooey and gooey and delicious.  The tomato sauce was pure heaven.  I wanted to dive into it.   It was definitely the best lasagna i've ever had.

So why 4 stars??  Well for $16 i got a piece of lasagna that was amazing...... and amazingly small.  They come out with this grand plates and then a small square of lasagna.   Or a ceasar salad with two gigantic romane leaves and a splatter of dressing.   maybe I'm just not dignified enough, but when i pay $16 for something, i want it to fill me up.  

Definitely worth checking out...  but make sure you eat a lot of bread

Gordon Biersch does not scream "Girls Night Out" to me, yet this is where i found myself for dinner with the ladies one friday night.  Having never been here before i was excited to check it out.  Needless to say i was disappointed (although not in the company!)

The star of the meal had to be the sangria.  Why did i order sangria at a beer place?  Cause as my boyfriend pointed out "Its not Sangriersch".  I like sangria and it sounded good.  And it was!  I was pleasantly suprised. We also got the pretzel appetizer that was very soft and the mustard was delicious.

For dinner i ordered the grilled chicken salad with a side of garlic fries.  Well the garlic fries were kinda gross.  My garlic loving friend who helped me eat them, even acknowledged there was just too much garlic.  I didn't know that was possible!   My salad... well the chicken was decent and the portion was huge.  But it was advertised in the menu having "other veggies".  To me that means, tomatoes and cucumbers... maybe a red onion or two.  They did not say there were olives and artichokes and peppericinis.   I may have changed my order had I known that.  I spent my whole meal dodging the minefield of vegetables.    I will say that the mashed potatoes i tried on another person's plate were good.... not the best ever but decent.

Our waitress was VERY friendly and made it a pleasant experience.  However, i was slightly dissappointed and would definitely think about going somewhere else to enjoy the next ladies night

Reasons why this place is 5 stars

-extrememely friendly staff everywhere you go
-breakfast entrees are very inexpensive at the restaurant and therefore you can order multiple (like three!)
-they dont have splenda at the restaurant for your coffee.  Its either the real deal or not at all
-i wanted to eat pretty much everything i saw
-i could get a cheese stuffed pretzel, or one with egg or pizza or ever bacon
-there were about 35 different types of sprinkles including football helmets, leaves, ghosts, clear sprinkles for my snowflake cupcakes that i can never find and the absolute perfect ones for the next SuBQ.  
-I bought the biggest bag of cinnamon i've ever seen and every time i open my pantry it smells like cinnamon.
-every salad at the "salad" bar was mayonaise based.
-they have a pudding bar, which excited the boyfriend
-I bought a recipe book with 15 different meatloaf recipes and 11 chocolate chip cookie recipes... all of which include lard.

I seriously would gain 10 pounds a week if i could come here regularly, but it would definitely be worth it

3.5  stars

On my visit to Cleveland, there really wasn't a whole lot of happening nightlife, but we decided to head to the winking lizard to watch the Virginia Tech/Alabama game.   I didn't have high hopes for this chain, but the fact it had TVs and got the game, was good enough for me.

we started at the bar as we waited for a table and i was completely overwhelmed with the beer choices... wow.  I couldn't decide what i wanted cause everything looked so good.  I eventually got an octoberfest, that ws GIGNATIC.    And not ridiculously expensive... i love the midwest!

When we got a table, we opted to start with some appetizers, since we would be there for the long haul.  Jeff and I got the deep fried ravioli, which was good.. not fantastic but good.  I got the taco salad for dinner, which was gigantic and full of chili and other yumminess.  It was very good and very filling!  I had a really hard time chosing because i wanted at least 1/3 of the menu.  They have so many good looking things... bring a group and make sure to share!

Our waitress was friendly and the service was prompt.  They easily switched on the game for us and let us hang out and watch for as long as they wanted.  Plus they didn't seem to mind little haf on the table!  Overall i would say it was not the best food i've ever eaten, but definitely worth the cost :) If i'm ever looking to watch a game in cleveland, the winking lizard is where i will be

When a place is famous for something (ie having the best burgers in Pittsburgh) thats what you should order.  Theres a reason it has that distinction.  

But in an effort to keep my waistline from increasing, i decided NOT to get a burger at Tessaros.  Instead i got the chili and the side grilled veggie kabob.   To this day i can not tell you why the side of grilled vegetables cost me $5 but it did.   It wasn't bad, it just was not a lot and nothing special.

And the chili... there was something weird about it that i couldn't put my finger on.  Until i realized what it was.... KETChUP!  There was a distinct ketchup taste to it.  Which was actually good!  I actually did enjoy the chili because it was very unique... and i also love ketchup.

Overall it wasn't bad.. prices were decent, staff friendly and the table cloths made of jeans!  But definitely next time i will forget about my waistline and go ahead and get the darn burger!

Yay i love Elite Events!

After missing last week's event, i was excited to go this week.  I was also excited to see the amount of food, since i had heard about the saga of not having enough food last time.  The sliders were actually fantastic!  I really enjoyed them.  The quesadilla was way too spicy, so i looked for a drink to wash it down.

And couldn't find one.  I didn't like a single of the drinks i tried.   Oh well.   I'm just not a liquor person.  The event was still fun and the people were great (especially Alicia's parents!)

Big shout out to Kevin and Tara for a great event... and to Alicia for some classic photos!

I feel bad giving this hotel a low star rating since it was part of a weekend getaway with the BF.  But its not his fault that hotwire gave us this hotel!

For starters, the elevator smells weird.  I dont know why but it does.

I also dont understand why hotels still have rooms with double beds.  I understand that because we got a cheap room, we can't pick  the preference of beds, but come on.  My 6 foot tall  bf doesn't even fit on one by himself, let alone with another person.   So much for romance!  Just put in queen beds!

Our room (on the second floor) was not really close to the elevator, yet i could hear it all day.  Plus i could hear the people talking in the hallway.  

But the biggest reason for only 2 stars is that i was trying to make this weekend special and had added an amenity.   Since my bf loves the Champange i had gotten the champagne and chocolates package as a suprise.  Well when i booked it they asked "when is it arriving, we'll have it delivered".   I told them around 3pm.   Then when we got there, there was some hushed discussion about whether it had been delivered.  We were sent up to the room and i was sad to see it not there.  So when he went to get ice, i called down and they assured it would come up then.  Nope!   So we watched the hokie game, went to dinner and a movie and then came back.  I was all excited for it to be there.... and it wasn't.  i eventually had to call down again and ask.  Ruined the suprise.   I was pretty upset.  So while the overall situation worked out and we got our champagne, i was still highly disappointed i had to ask for it repeatedly.

definitely sure that this place is worth teh amount of money they regularly charge you but not sure if its even worth the hotwire rate

When you think of brunch, most people think of Saturday mornings.  As do most restaurants!   So it was not suprising when walking around Gallery Place at 1030 AM, that we couldn't find a place for brunch before our 12:00 Shakespeare show.   As we walked past Clydes, we noticed the lights on, and people sitting at the bar.  We tentatively tried the door and were pleasantly suprised to see it open!  We were two of the total 8 people in the restaurant, but hey it was open!

Now i normally think of Clydes as being overpriced and snooty.  However i was suprised with the reasonably priced breakfast entrees.  I ordered an omelet with egg whites, cheese and veggies.  It also came piled high with potatoes and toast.   I will say that while it was probably the healthiest option on the menu, it was amazingly buttery.  I couldn't believe how much butter was dripping everywhere.  it was honestly somewhat gross.   I was only able to finish about half of it because i was pretty disgusted by the amount of butter that it yielded.    We also ordered biscuits, but they were out so brought us coffee cake (and didn't charge!).  it was REALLY good.  I was somewhat impressed.

Overall i was suprised by Clydes and wouldn't be opposed to returning... if in need of brunch on a saturday in gallery place

REALLY 4.5 stars, but i just can't give you the 5th star CP!

I feel like going to Cedar Point has been a life long dream of mine.   So when i finally made it here i really expected to be blown out of the water and feel like i was at Disney world.   It wasn't a disneyworld like experience, but it was pretty darn awesome.  

There is so much to do and so much to see that it really takes two days to counquer this place.   Especially since the park didn't seem that crowded, but almost every major ride had at least an hour wait.  Still, once you wait that hour, you're totally blown away with the ride.   Maverick, Millenium Force and Magnum were all amazing and most of the others were great as well.  I was a little disappointed in Mantis, Iron Dragon and corkscrew, but i seriously wonder if i hadn't been on the others, if i would have been all that disappointed.   I was pretty impressed with the maintence of the park and restrooms... normally they can be gross, but these were great.  And i was also impressed with teh prices of the food/drink.  While naturally they were inflated and 'overpriced', it definitely wasn't as bad as i have seen at other parks.

Here are my two reasons for not giving five stars

#1: Food selection.   Pretty much you have hot dogs, hamburgers, chicken or pretzels.   Most of these you can also get deep fried.   I ended up at Subway, just to find something not fried!   I was really disappointed in the food selection.   Their "frozen custard" really tasted just like TCBY.  

#2:  Bags on rides.   So i'm a girl.  I have things that need to be carried (phone, camera, wallet, snacks, little haf) but girl pants do not have the pocket structure for carrying things.  Therefore i decided to bring a purse.   I thought "worst case scenario if i can't bring it on the first ride, i'll lock it up and leave it all day". Well the first ride we went on had the most genius bag storage system.   The had little bins that were labeled based on what car you were on.  When your car left, they closed it so nobody could steal.  GENIUS!   I was pleased.  But then three rides later i wasn't allowed to even bring my purse in line!   And had to lock it up.  Then a couple rides later, i could bring my purse in line, but i had to ride with it on the coaster.  Get some consistency!   I dont like not knowing what to expect.

All in all, it was a fantastic trip and CP is by far the best amusement park i've ever been to!