Jon A.'s Profile

This is a very nice place to stay. The staff is friendly and the hotel and rooms are nice and clean. They seem to give that extra effort to make your stay a pleasant one.

The bar in the hotel lobby was nice and the drinks are very reasonably priced. If you are staying on the weekend, the underground parking in the adjacent tower is only $5 per day (but you will have to pay each time you leave, so plan accordingly). Otherwise, I think it's $22 per night on the weekdays.

The sushi restaurant on the second floor is described as the best in the city, but I would disagree. It was decent, but nothing special.

Some people said they did not like the rooms that lacked a view of the city. We had one of these rooms and I didn't mind it. Since it was January, there's really not much to look at outside anyway. Instead, there is a fake patio setting with benches and fake trees and flowers. It's enclosed and you cannot go out onto it, but it's better than looking out onto an alley or another wall of a neighboring building.

I would definitely stay here again.

Why do I keep eating here? It used to be a good place for a quick lunch. I recently stopped to eat at Bravo for lunch again while shopping at Bayshore. Now every time I eat there I receive the slowest...service...ever.

The food here is pretty decent. I would recommend their version of Chicken Parmesan. At this particular location, the quality of food seems to have remained pretty high, but the  painfully slow service means it often shows up cold.

They do serve fresh baked bread, but you'll be lucky to get some right away. The servers usually fill your drink orders and say they will be back with some fresh bread only to return 10 minutes later stating that they are out and fresh bread and more will be ready in 5 minutes. Ultimately, you end up getting your bread 5 minutes before your food comes out and sometimes not until your food actually arrives.

Overall, the dining experience isn't completely awful here, but there are some service issues that need to be worked out. Just be aware of what to expect of this place.

I can think of bad Italian places and great Italian places. Buca falls in between these two categories. Aside from the large portions, it is painfully average food.

I had the chicken parmesan, which came with a side of weak marinara sauce thin enough to almost be a soup. The chicken was nicely breaded, but I bit into tendons and fat three times. My wife had the manicotti, which was also pretty bland.

The friendly and attentive service was the only redeeming quality. However, if you are looking for a place that has an abundance of family-style seating that can easily handle large parties, this place is neutral enough for just about everybody.

I'm surprised I had not thought to eat here sooner, since I live in the area. The place is pretty big, with high ceilings. The beers they offer are also pretty tasty. The food is what stands out here, in my opinion.

This place is located on Center St. in the SoLo area of Riverwest, so much of the clientele is of the hipster persuasion, particularly the neo crunch variety. This is not a bad thing (I'm just reminded of how unhip and preppy I am when I come here). It's a good thing because a lot of uber hipsters tend to be vegetarian or vegan. As a bonus, they also have menu items that will appeal to the 'meat and potatoes' eater. I had the catfish po'boy and my wife had the tofu & tots. Both were very good. I really liked how firm and flavorful the tofu was. The catfish on the sandwich was lightly breaded and fried, with a nice helping of shredded romaine and roma tomatoes on top. And who can say no to some tater tots as a side? (If you can, they've got other side options) You can tell that the ingredients here are really fresh. The service was pretty shaky, but we were there around 5:30pm on a weeknight. Still, if you've got the time to sit and have some nice craft beer, try this place.

I will have to return here soon to try out some of the more heart attack-friendly dishes, like their Brats & tots.

Went back yesterday and had the Center Street Spinach Salad. It was delicious. The honey mustard dressing was very light and had a great onion flavor to it. Highly recommended.

Ate here last night and the food is still as wonderful as it has ever been. This is probably my favorite restaurant in the city. Everything they serve is prepped, cooked and presented beautifully.

I started with the Salade au Roquefort, which consisted of  Roquefort blue cheese with thinly sliced Granny Smith apples,  chopped endive, raddicchio and walnuts in a red wine vinaigrette. Not only was the salad delicious, it was also surprisingly larger than some of their other salads. My wife had the mussels  steamed in a creamy white wine sauce with shallots and herbs. They were very flavorful and had a nice mellow garlic taste to them. They also came with a cone of thin shoestring bistro fries.

I have  a soft spot for hanger steaks, so if there is Steak Frites on the menu, I will almost always get it. While it can be less tender than other cuts, it has way more flavor. The one I had was cooked a perfect medium rare and served with Roquefort butter and a huge pile of bistro fries. The fries were alright, nothing special. But the steak was so flavorful and tender I couldn't stop talking about it afterward.

As always the crème brûlée they serve for dessert is excellent. Their recipe has a thicker layer of caramelized sugar than others I've tried, but it's still very nice.

Their menu tends to be seasonal and changes often enough for you to want to return. (Personally, I hope they bring back the goat cheese ravioli for winter)

Overall, you will not be disappointed in this place. The executive chef here is a real pro and we are lucky to have him in the city. Do yourself a favor and visit this place at least once, even if it's just for lunch or a weekend brunch.

Cosi is a nice place that has some good food that's pretty fresh. However, the setup leaves much to be desired. There are two lines; one for salads and one for their flatbread pizzas. Generally, the line for the pizza is 3 times longer than the one for salads. While the pizzas aren't anything special, the salads are pretty darn good. Plus, there are a lot of different varieties. For those who like salads, but find that most establishments put them on the bottom of their priorities in lieu of meats and fried foods, this is a plus.

The only thing about this particular location is that it tends to be crowded and a bit disorganized inside. The customers also seem to have a hard time figuring out the whole 'two lines' concept. Often, this can lead to delays and frustration as you wait for a person to argue with the people at the salad station as to why they can't order a pizza. Also, if you go there with more than one person and some order pizza and some order salads, the salad eaters will be almost finished with their food by the time your pizza arrives. This is to be expected because of the short cooking time needed, but it just makes the store's concept seem all the more odd. Still, the salads are great and I would recommend trying this place at least once.

I had 7 new windows installed last year. Their windows are $189 installed. With a couple extras, I paid about $240 per window for everything, including installation and removal of the old windows. It only took them about 9 hours. The person who did the install was nice and did an excellent job of caulking them.

Are these the best windows on the market? Probably not, but they're light years better than the old wood windows that were there before. Plus, it was one of the only window dealers that offered windows without the gaudy fake lines in them.

All of the windows are double hung, and they were custom made to our specifications. They came out and measured and were ready in about 4 weeks. We live in an older building, so the windows are much wider than those you will find in more modern homes. However, we weren't charged extra for the size. It was included in the price, which was nice.

Considering that the windows are double hung and flip out for cleaning and are energy star rated, they were a great deal and have reduced our energy costs significantly. So far, they have been wonderful.

My wife has been wanting to go here for a while. Despite the fact that she doesn't eat steak, she likes steakhouses because of their side dishes and relish trays.
Obviously, the restaurant sits in a neighborhood that has seen better days. It's not exactly scary; it just seems desolate. They mention valet parking, but it's more like a monitored lot. The guy told us to park and leave the keys in the ashtray and the doors unlocked. Unfortunately, my car automatically locks itself after 5 minutes, so I had to leave the driver's side window down so they could reach in and get my keys if they needed to move it. Don't get me wrong; a private, monitored lot is better than parking on the street, but this is not valet.
Once inside, we checked in and were directed toward the bar where they take your order over some cocktails. I've never been to a place that does things like that and thought it was kind of cool. While it was nice to have a martini while we waited for our menus, we had to wait about 20 minutes to be served. The bar seemed understaffed with just one bartender. It was a Wednesday night, but it seems that everybody showed up at the same time and overwhelmed the bar.
After another 15 minutes, our table was ready and we were taken into their delightfully kitschy dining area. Waiting for us at the table was a big bowl of salad, salad dressing, a relish tray and a warm sourdough baguette. All were delicious and there was enough to keep us occupied for a while, because our server was extremely pokey. She stopped by about once every 20-25 minutes. The dining room was only about 30% filled, so I'm not sure why she was so slow.
Our entrees arrived and were wonderful. I had the Filet Oscar with a side of asparagus and my wife had the jumbo shrimp scampi. I ordered my steak medium and it was perfectly cooked. The Bernaise sauce was excellent. I sampled my wife's shrimp and it was some of the best scampi I have tasted. The shrimp were big and tender and the garlic flavor was nice and strong.
After we finished, we waited about 20 minutes for the server to stop by and remove our plates. Perhaps this is the norm here. I can see them doing this for groups or people who want to linger after a meal, but even if we had wanted another drink we would have had to wait. We were just sitting there with empty drinks and plates, twiddling our thumbs.
I can't say enough good things about the food here. It is exactly what you would expect from a good steakhouse. I just wish the service had been a little more evenly paced. That is the only reason I can't give it a full five stars.

I've never had a bad cheesesteak here (get the 4 cheese!). I've also never had bad customer service. In fact, the workers there are friendly to the point that you think they might be up to something.

The beef on the cheesesteaks isn't frizzled like in traditional Philly Cheesesteaks. This stuff is more finely chopped. It doesn't matter though. In fact, the word "Philly" is only referenced on one of their sandwiches, so it's doesn't make sense to try to compare them to a sandwich that can only be made well in a city a thousand miles away (according to those people who like to try and make themselves feel worldly by comparing such mundane things).

While the cheesesteaks are a tad on the pricier side for how big they are and the quality of the meat, you can always fill up on their excellent seasoned fries. They also sell the Mexican Coca-Cola in the glass bottles.

While having the same name as its twin on the East side, this location is far superior in every way. It has a large, clean dining room, the food is fresher and the service is better. This place can afford to put forth the extra effort, however, because it is not located in the epicenter of drunkeness.

If you're in the area and have a hankering for some Greek food, this place is pretty good. Aside from their gyros, which are huge and can be a bit on the greasy side, I really like their veggie pitas.