A Review of the Bonefish Grill Restaurant

We traveled out toward Syracuse recently, and I had the opportunity to try out the new Bonefish Grill Restaurant out there. I was asked by my sponsors to try out this new restaurant and compare it with another local seafood restaurant. Bonefish Grill wanted me to “take the challenge”! Well, I’m an adventuresome kind of gal, and I am NUTS about seafood, so I said yes!! Here are my findings.

The Bonefish Grill closest to my residence is located in Fayetteville, NY, a pleasant drive for me. We decided to get our dinner before the traffic rush and evening crowd, so we went on a Monday before 5pm. It’s a new restaurant, and the impression is great upon walking in.

The atmosphere has a lot of the Floridian style to it (the Bonefish Grill was founded in St. Petersburg, Florida, about nine years ago now). There are palm trees and a lovely cafe outside the restaurant. Inside, it’s “fish” decor, with more palm trees and various fish paintings and images on the walls. There were only a few other guests when we arrived, so I enjoyed getting some extra attention from our server, Erica, who was extremely attentive and offered us some suggestions. Read more

Cooking Season Begins

I consider autumn and winter my “cooking seasons.” I hardly cook at all during the summer (I usually slap meat or veggies on the grill, and serve lots of salads); but come cold weather, I’m a cooking fiend! I bake, I broil, I braise, I boil! I am always on the prowl for new recipes and cooking techniques, too (seeing as i have a cooking blog, and all).

How about you? Do you find yourself cooking more frequently now that our attentions are turned indoors? If you are a cooking aficionado, you may like to know about a superb opportunity coming to the Hilton Branson Convention Center Hotel: it’s a Cooking School Weekend, starring Chef Nathan Read of the Branson Convention Center. Chef Read is renowned in the Hilton circles, having served as head chef in the Vancouver and Portland Hiltons before coming to the luxurious resort at Branson Landing in Missouri. I’m familiar with his exceptional cooking style, and his food looks and tastes SO amazing!

The Cooking School Weekend at Hilton Branson Convention Center Hotel is being held October 16th and 17th. Guests will arrive to enjoy an elegant wine tasting event, followed by a class taught by Chef Nathan Read. The reception will feature a sumptuous four-course feast (my stomach is growling). And the weekend will close with a class by Chef Read, teaching the guests how appetizers and meals are made and prepared. It’s a wonderful way to enjoy a relaxing weekend at the gorgeous Hilton on the beautiful Branson Landing (the capital entertainment center of the Midwest). Something like this makes an amazing gift for a cooking fan in your life, too (hint hint). Check out the website for more details. Manja! Manja!

Finding Restaurants When You Travel

I really like small, local restuarants; I prefer them to the “Big Box” chain restaurants when I take the family out. But when we travel, we really prefer to visit the larger national chains. I feel that there is a little more accountability than some local place, and there is also something comforting about a familiar place to eat while visiting a strange place. So, when we travel outside of our local area, it is great to find a familiar, more well-known national restaurant.

The obstacle is finding them. I’ve been building a small list in my travel laptop of restaurants that have websites. I keep the list bookmarked in my browser, so that when we travel, all I have to do is check the list, open up the websites, and browse the locations, hours, and menus. It’s extremely convenient, and I find it much better than relying on hotel-recommended pizza joints, or the ads in the yellow pages of the phone book. We tend to prefer seafood restaurants or burger joints than pizza and pasta when we travel.

One such restuarant I’ve recently discovered is McCormick & Schmick’s. They are a superb seafood restaurant with locations across the U.S. in numerous states. Plus, their website has detailed descriptions of menu items! Yum! Menu items may vary, because McCormick & Schmick’s choose fresh seafood depending upon local availability– so you can really get a “taste” for the local diet while still enjoying the comfort and reliability of a national chain. Check out the website, bookmark it for future use. Looks great!

Eating Local

Here’s a great little resource I found today: Where the Locals Eat. I don’t know about you, but when I am visiting a different city, I feel very lost when it comes time to choose a place to eat. Some hotels offer suggestions, but is pizza and pancakes really all there is?! The phone book isn’t much better. Online references are much better, as they usually have user input, detailed directions and maps, and sometimes you can see the menu and prices online. I usually carry my laptop when I travel, and I have a folder of bookmarks for just this purpose. One note about the site, though– they don’t seem to have any small towns or even small cities listed, only large cities in the U.S.