Saraj - The Home of the Gyros

While I love Ted's Coney Island for my gyro fix, I've been wanting to try out Saraj, which is about 3 miles closer than either of the two Ted's locations. They painted on the side of the building that Saraj is the Home of the Gyro, so I figured they had to be pretty good. The first time I went there, I saw they had two varieties of standard gyro, so I knew I had to try them both, but not in one sitting.

First trip -- Gyro on a Greek pita
Massive. This isn't a bad thing, but apparently you can't order a Greek gyro without ordering fries. I got it to go and the container weighed about three pounds. Once I got home, I opened up my prize and saw that it looked just like what was pictured on the menu -- huge, barely able to close, and slathered in tsatsiki sauce. It was delicious. The fries were acceptable. I've never encountered the perfect French fry, but I knew these weren't it.

Second trip -- Gyro on Bosnian bread
Also massive, but without French fries, but for good reason. There was no picture for this one, so I had to guess what it would be like. The Bosnian gyro filled the entire to-go container! Imagine an 8-inch gyro hamburger on fried bread. Also delicious, but I have to say the Greek gyro is better.

You should go there right now and get one.

Cafe Su - 1/30/09

Ever since the Mandarin in Beaverdale closed, I've been kind of at a loss for quality chinese food. In the current economy, I've seen constant restaurant openings and closings in the local free papers. Its hard to even know until you even get to the restaurant if it will be open.

After a little research, I determined Cafe Su was a sit down chinese place that had been in business for quite a while and was, in fact, still open.

When we drove there, I was excited to actually be driving through historic Valley Junction since I had normally just driven past. The cafe was in an older building so I was surprised to see how modern the interior decor was. The first words out of my mouth were "It looks so trendy...". It seems to have been fairly recently redone in this sort of industrial look. There were metal walls and randomly shaped neon lights. Also they had bubble wrap hung around their cash area... seriously. I can appreciate some creative design but it all seemed a bit surreal for Iowa.

They have a pretty nice bar set up there but I stuck with water and Tim had a thai iced tea. We still aren't 100% sure what the ingredients in that are but I'm thinking tamarind is added to the stuff we've seen around here because thats the only thing that explains the flavor.

The average price of a main course was just over $10 so I was a little concerned that we were "paying for the trendiness", but the food was really great. All of the vegetables were extremely fresh and you could tell that a lot of work went into making the dishes just right.

At the end we had some green tea ice cream. I overheard as we were leaving that the owner makes it. They brought a generous portion and helpfully two spoons. It was weird because on the first bite you really get that acidic green tea flavor but then after that you get kind of generic creamy ice cream flavor and then as your mouth warms up afterwards you get it really strongly again. I also had green tea burps :-\

I think we would definately go again. It was really quiet and empty for a saturday night. Good for a date night.

Texas Roadhouse: The quickest visit evar and why its the best for steak while wearing a sleeveless racing t-shirt

The following image best represents the reason for going to Texas Roadhouse exclusively for steak:

This is a medium done ribeye. Normally when you order a medium you get medium well or medium rare or some weird strata of the two. TXR not only defines the doneness levels in their menu but you get the exact doneness you asked for. Period.

Also, tonight was awesome because as we were looking for a place to sit to wait our projected 20-30 minutes, our number popped up on the screen. 30 second wait is win. So apparently you should never go to TXR in groups larger than 2 if you are in a hurry.

Also, you can totally go there in your most extreme casual. Yes, we did in fact see a sleeveless racing shirt on a guy two tables over.