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