The Yard House, Rancho Mirage

We went to The Yard House yesterday, for the second time. My husband kept telling me that I needed to write my review for them for weeks, but I told him that I needed to eat there again to refresh my memory on how good it was. That was just my excuse to go back! I love that place!

When we first went there, my husband told me, "it's all about the beer and sports first, and food second." I was very surprised when there was gourmet food on the menu, when I was expecting hot dogs and burgers! This is what we ordered:

*Shrimp Ceviche Spoons* These were like heaven in your mouth! We loved them so much that we figured out the recipe and made it today. Their presentation was very sophisticated. The ceviche was served in four spoons lined on a plate. The ceviche itself was very beautiful and colorful. The baby shrimp was cooked in lime juice and then mixed with a mango and papaya salsa and topped with slivers of colorful tortilla chips. The fruity flavor along with the shrimp were the perfect light "snack" while we waited for our appetizer. This is a picture of the ceviche spoons:


*Lettuce Wraps with Chicken* The lettuce wraps come standard with a tofu filling, but you order it with chicken, shrimp a mushroom duo. I liked that the lettuce was a leafy green variety, possibly romaine, instead of the standard iceburg lettuce. I really appreciated that the stir fry wasn't spicy since my daughter was eating it too, but came with three different spicy sauces on the side. The pine nuts added a welcomed crunch to the soft chicken and tofu. Here is a picture of the lettuce wraps:


*Blue Crab Cake Hoagie* Two crab cakes on a toasted french roll with applewood smoked bacon, avocado, tomato, swiss cheese and cajun aioli, and served with french fries on the side. I ordered mine without tomatoes, and bacon. The crab cake was light and flakey. The creaminess of the avocado complemented the crispy outer crust of the crab cake. The flavor of the avocado also mellowed out the spiciness of the cajun aioli. I felt that the bread was a little dry, and could have used a lot more ailoi. The Swiss cheese was the only part of the sandwich I did not care for. It had the consistency of melted plastic. Rarely, do I like Swiss cheese on anything. If you order this sandwich, I suggest ordering it with Provolone cheese instead...unless you like Swiss cheese. Here is a picture of the hoagie:


*Parmesan Crusted Chicken* The chicken was stacked on top of garlic mashed potatoes surrounded by a sun-dried tomato and 3 mushroom sauce. I love when food is stacked. It makes me feel that the chef is making the food look as impressive as it tastes. It definitely tasted impressive too! The Parmesan crust of the chicken held in all the juices, making it very moist. The sun-died tomato and three mushroom sauce was also delicious. The flavor of the tomato was very assertive in the sauce, without overpowering the flavor of the mushrooms. My only criticism is that I couldn't taste the garlic in the mashed potatoes at all, and there was not nearly enough salt in them. Here is a picture of the chicken:


*Mac & Cheese* We ordered this for our daughter because she will always eat it. Most restaurants just serve Kraft macaroni with the fake powdered cheese, but not The Yard House. They make their own cheddar cheese sauce, which is so much better, and healthier than the processed powdered cheese. It tasted great, like homemade macaroni. My daughter ate it by the handfuls!

*Porcini Crusted Halibut* I had this my first time eating at the Yard House, and I had to talk about it in this review, because it was probably the best fish I have ever eaten! I am sorry that I don't have a picture of it, because the presentation was beautiful, and your mouth would water just from looking at it. The fish was placed on a bed of Parmesan mashed potatoes, steamed asparagus and bok choy, which was surrounded by a Porcini cream sauce with a white truffle oil drizzle. I think I moaned with every bite I took! It was a very rich meal without being overly heavy. The Halibut was cooked perfectly. It was very moist, tender and flakey. The Porcini crust added an amazing savory and salty flavor to the fish. I strongly recommend this dish!

Review Summary:
*Taste of the food - On both visits, the food was divine! My mouth is watering right now, as I am writing this!
*Appearance of the food - The chefs really do a great job on the food presentation. It is almost artistic how they design their plates, and their attention to the colors and structure of the dish.
*Service - The service is decent. I really hate when I have to wave down my waiter, because I have been waiting for my iced tea to be refilled for 15 minutes, which has happened both times we were there. I also don't like it when I have empty appetizer plates all over the table, and nobody even asked if you would like them to take the plates.
*Price - It is pricey. Both times we have been there, our bill was about $90, but that also included a few drinks.
*Atmosphere - It's a sports bar, so it is loud, but pretty laid back.
*Whether or not to take your kids - I love taking my kids here! I have a 6 month old and a 2 year old, and both of them can get very vocal. No matter how loud my kids get, no one is giving me that "shut your kid up" look because everyone is loud and cheering for some kind of sporting event on TV. They also have a lot of good food choices on the kids menu.

We will definitely be going back again! Hopefully soon!
Thanks for reading!
Molly

Little Italy Italian Cafe, 29 Palms

I went to this restaurant with high hopes for some good Italian food. How can you screw up Italian food? Well, when corners are cut during the food prep process, it is really easy to make bad Italian food!

Tonight, I was supposed to make grilled flank steak stuffed with basil and Prosciutto with a red wine reduction, but I forgot to marinade the steak, so we had to figure out what to do for dinner. I was enticed to Little Italy because of the picture of their hand tossed Margherita pizza on the home page of their website, shown here:

I should have just hung up the phone when I had to explain to the girl what a Margherita pizza is. For those of you who don't know, it has a very thin crust, light sauce, thick slices of Mozzarella, a few tomato slices and whole fresh basil leaves. My husband and I both spent some time in Naples, Italy (where pizza originated) and we basically lived off Margherita pizza. So here is what we ordered and prices:

*Eggplant Parmesan - $9.50* The eggplant parmesan was ok, but way too small of a portion. I prefer my eggplant to be sliced very thin, and baked rather than fried. I also only got one small slice of eggplant. It was about 3 inches in diameter and an inch thick. The sauce was no doubt a canned variety that you could buy at Costco. What really upset me about the dish is that instead of some nice, gooey, melty Mozzarella cheese, they put one slice of Provolone sandwich cheese! The cheese was not even melted.

*Chicken Parmesan - $9.50* The chicken parmesan was just plain BAD, and again too small of a portion. The chicken was just a chicken patty that was fried. It was essentially like eating one large and over cooked chicken nugget, covered in marinara. The patty was about 3 inches in diameter and about 1/4 inch thick. My husband actually had to use a steak knife to cut his chicken. It also had the same canned sauce and unmelted sandwich cheese.

*House Salad - included with both dinners* It was the same cheap, bagged salad that you would buy at the grocery store. It had iceburg lettuce, red cabbage, carrots, fresh tomato slices and croutons. Iceburg lettuce has absolutely no nutritional value or flavor. Romaine lettuce should always be used in salads. Also, the salad looked like it was probably close to its expiration date, because I had to pick some pieces of slimy, wilted lettuce out of my bowl.

*1/2 Margherita Pizza* Now that you know what ingredients are on REAL Margherita pizza, I will tell you about the one that they made me. First of all, it was so greasy that you could see through the box before I even got the pizza home. On the pizza was huge, thick slices of tomatoes, completely covering the whole pizza. There was no tomato sauce on it at all. There was barely any cheese on it. Instead of fresh basil, they sprinkled dry basil all over the top. In my opinion, dry basil should never be in anyone's kitchen! When I saw this pizza I lost my appetite! My little girl, who loves pizza and tomatoes, wouldn't even eat it! Here is a picture of the pizza we got.


*1/2 Greek Pizza - $10.99* This pizza had black olives, feta cheese, red onions, and artichoke hearts on it. This pizza wasn't too bad. I think feta and mozzarella taste kind of sour. With other vinegar preserved toppings such as the olives and artichokes, it was just too sour/salty for me to enjoy.

Review Summary:
*Taste of the food - Not great.
*Appearance of the food - The food was actually depressing to look at! You just knew it was going to be bad as soon as you saw it. When I saw the pizza, I lost my appetite.
*Service - I called in for take out, so I really did not experience much service. However, on the phone I was told that my order total was $20, and when I got there she charged me $30.
*Price - Cheap, but you get what you pay for. They have some pretty inexpensive internet specials.
*Atmosphere - There is no atmosphere. There are at most 5 booths in the whole place. The only thing remotely Italian in the decor were a few computer print outs of cartoon "Italian looking" chefs.
*Whether or not to take your kids - For the whole restaurant, there is one highchair. I would not recommend taking your kids unless they can sit and eat in a booth.

All in all, the food is edible, but you won't catch me eating there again!
Thanks for reading!
Molly

Denny's in 29 Palms

Just say NO! I have nothing against Denny's, in fact, when we go on road trips, Denny's is a great respite from the road. The one here in 29 is awful though! The food has been horrible and not made the way we ordered it anytime we have gone there.

The last time we went there for a quick breakfast before taking our toddler to the park, we ended up being stuck there for 3 hours! The room we were seated in was completely filled up and emptied 2 times before we even got our food. They brought our toddlers food about 1 hour before we got our food, so she was upset and ready to be out of the highchair before we got our food. The food wasn't even worth the wait. My mom ordered a skillet, and everything was so burnt on the bottom that it was charcoal! My husband ordered his omelet without onions and bell peppers. His omelet had both onions and peppers in it. My french toast was burnt on one side and soggy on the inside. I don't know why we didn't just walk out after more than 30 min of waiting. Needless to say, I complained to the manager, and ended up getting a big discount on my bill.

*Taste of the food - Very poor!
*Appearance of the food - The food was burnt...not pretty!
*Service - Horrible! The waitresses kept avoiding us and ignoring our questions about why the food was taking so long.
*Price - You couldn't pay me to eat there again!!!
*Atmosphere - Like any other Denny's.
*Whether or not to take your kids - Yes, it is appropriate for children of all ages.

We will not be going back.
Thanks for reading!
Molly

Bistro 29

This Saturday, my husband and I went to Bistro 29 to celebrate our 5 year wedding anniversary. We had been planning this date for weeks. I called about a week in advance to make reservations for Saturday. The woman on the phone told me that unless we were coming with a large party, we would have no wait. So at 7:30, we get to Bistro 29 and there are three empty tables. The hostess asks if we have a reservation, and says if not, the wait would be at least 30 minutes in the hallway/lobby. We put our name on the list and told her that we would be back at 8pm. When she heard that we would be leaving and not waiting the 30 minutes in the hallway/lobby, she actually seemed happy!

We came back at 8pm, and immediately were seated. I had previewed the menu online, and I already knew that I wanted to have the prime rib for dinner, which is a Saturday special. They were sold out of Prime rib already. So here is what we ordered:

*Crab cakes - $10* They were delicious! They were flaky, while still very moist. You could taste all the different ingredients in the cake, but the flavors blended beautifully! The mustard aioli was also a perfect compliment to the crab cake. However, there was nothing spicy about these crab cakes at all.

*Calamari - $9* My husband and I both love calamari, and have eaten it at probably every seafood restaurant we have been to. This was by far my favorite. The breading was perfectly seasoned, and fried to the perfect golden brown. The rings were the most tender I have ever tasted! They were also served with the mustard aioli, but you could have marinara if you asked. The only drawback to the calamari was they put a bunch of the fried tentacles on the plate, and I just can't eat those.

*Filet Mignon - $30* I ordered mine without bacon, and cooked medium. It was perfectly cooked, and so tender that I could have cut it with a butter knife. The filet was covered with a red wine-Gorgonzola cheese sauce. I felt that the flavors of the sauce were conflicting with each other, but it was still good. It think that a red wine jus would have complimented the meat better. The meal was served with potatoes au gratin and some sauteed vegetables. I could not taste any cheese in the potatoes at all. I also thought that the food needed a lot of extra salt.

*Chicken Picatta - $18* My husband ordered this and I did not get to taste it. He said that it was very yummy, but very rich.

*Creme Brulee - $6* The vanilla custard was absolutely decadent! I found the caramelized sugar shell to be way too thin. I traveled in France for a month, and when you eat creme brulee there, you are supposed to hit the sugar shell and it cracks like a glass window. When I tried to crack my sugar shell on this creme brulee, it just mushed into the custard.

Review Summary:
*Taste of the food - Taste overall was delicious.
*Appearance of the food - The food was presented nicely on the plate. No pics, sorry!
*Service - Lacking. I had to ask for my iced tea to be refilled each time. They should have told me to make reservations when I called the week before.
*Price - Expensive, but for the quality of food, it is worth the money.
*Atmosphere - Cozy but refined. Doesn't look like it belongs in 29 Palms! It was nice!
*Whether or not to take your kids - Not a good place to take children. Great place for a date night!
Additional note: They had no mixed drinks on their drink menu. They had mostly beers nice wines.

We will for sure be going back!
Thanks for reading!
Molly

About This Foodie

My name is Molly, and this is my first time blogging, so bear with me. I am an aspiring foodie with no desire to become a professional chef, just to eat a lot of delicious food. My husband and I live in 29 Palms, CA. If you live here or have ever been here, you know that there are not too many restaurants to choose from. My goal for this blog is to eat at and review every restaurant here in 29 Palms and as many as I can in the surrounding areas, such as Yucca Valley, Joshua Tree, The Morongo Basin, and areas around Palm Springs.

In my reviews, I will be writing about as many of the dishes as I can. The more people who go with me, the more food I can taste. My reviews will touch on:
*Taste of the food
*Appearance of the food
*Service
*Price
*Atmosphere
*Whether or not to take your kids

I hope you find my blog helpful in deciding where to eat dinner. Feel free to comment, or tell about your experiences at the places I write about. Also, let me know if there are places you would like me to review. I hope you enjoy!
Molly