Unfinished Object

Probably our only travel rule is to avoid main stream, big business restaurants whenever possible. Where’s the adventure in eating at a restaurant that is available to you every night of the week? Nowhere! Sure we ate at McDonalds and Cracker Barrel because there’s one at every exit, but we also managed a few, far more satisfying places like Zaxby’s. Yes it’s a chain, but not in our area so it was new to us. It was also very affordable, and dang tasty!

In The Dells, we ate at a little restaurant set over a gift shop called The High Rock Café. No, its not a play on “Hard Rock Café”, rather it is named after one of the more recognizable rock formations of the area, High Rock. D had a Monte Cristo, and I had pork tenderloin with saffron oil, cole slaw with apples and walnuts and German potato salad. More related to skillet potatoes, it was warm, brimming with bacon, onions and potatoes and so good I wanted to roll in it.

In Atlanta, my brother took us to Ria’s Blue Bird Café for breakfast. Tucked into a tiny store front with a four car parking lot, Ria’s is rough edged cute. Blue Birds adorn many surfaces, or are perched in windows, and much of the china appears to have been made at a ‘you paint it, we fire it’ type of place. The food is as eclectic as the decor, delicious common breakfast fare along side exotic frittatas and coffees. D and my bro sampled the pancakes (which they are famous for) and I had eggs, bacon and fried potatoes and all agreed that it was mighty tasty.

For dinner that same day we went to the Graveyard Tavern, near my brother’s house. D and I both had tenderloin with mushroom and black pepper sauce, mashed potatoes we both thought we some of the best we’d ever had, and a veggie. I don’t remember which one D had, but I mix of carrots, onions and mushrooms that was divine. Bro had a burger the size of his plate that he declared delicious. To top it off, they not only had a great selection of beer (Bro is very picky) and wine, but also two of the nicest pool tables I’ve seen in a long while. Unfortunately, dinner did nothing to improve my game, but we enjoyed ourselves nonetheless.

Our best, and probably most memorable meal, was at the Kaminski Brother’s Chop House, at Chula Vista Resort in Wisconsin Dells. We had spent a ‘too long’ day at House on the Rocks and D thought I’d enjoy more of the fine wine and potato salad at High Rock, so we headed back to the Dells. On the way we passed signs for Chula Vista, which D pointed out, his best childhood friend’s family owned and ran. In fact, he thought the friend might work there, so we decided to stop in and find out. Despite having ‘resort’ in its title it appeared pretty standard as hotels go, the lobby was packed with folks in shorts and bathing suits and we didn’t feel out of place. We spent thirty minutes looking for his friend (everyone we asked sent us somewhere else) before giving up. Figuring we were smack in the middle of no less than five restaurants we opted to eat at the resort rather than getting back in the car. D suggested the Chop House, which I readily agreed to - steak being a favorite food, and not seeing it directly off of the lobby asked where it was.

The “Upstairs, I think” answer we got should have been our first clue that something was amiss. But having successfully negotiated the ‘where do you want to eat’, ‘I don’t know, where do YOU want to eat’ dilemma we were dogged in our determination to reach the Chop House, so up we went. It was practically in front of the elevator doors, which further puzzled us over the answer to ‘where is it’. We walked up to the threshold of the thrown wide double French doors and peered into the bustling upscale restaurant to our left, and highbrow oak bar to our right. We shared a ‘we don’t belong here’ glance and started to leave when the hostess walked up and asked if she could help us. In all we tried three times to go back downstairs to one of the more casual establishments, and between her and the manager, we were arm-twisted into staying. Moreover, they weren’t even technically open, we had wandered into a practice night packed with invited guests and family. After a short time in the bar (where we giggled at our predicament and discussed slipping out) we were seated at a table overlooking the river. Thankfully the neighboring table of eight was so boisterous and loud (and great fun to watch) we realized anyone looking our way would be looking at them and not our white trash attire. Our server wheeled up a long narrow cart laden with wrapped examples of their various steaks and fish. I opted for a bleu cheese crusted fillet, and D for something called a baseball steak, which I suspect is simply a huge, four inch thick sirloin. We also ordered mashed potatoes, which are served family style and could have fed a small town. The next cart to arrive was basically a salad bar on wheels, and our server built us one to order; black olives for me, none for D. I won’t bore you with a bite by bite description of our meal but I will say it was outstanding, as was the service, management (a son of one of the brothers), and the owners neither of whom remembered D but both visited the table and were truly interested in our comments about the establishment.

Before the evening ended we’d been adopted by the 8-top next to us. They were family and friends of the dessert chef, to prove it they shared their dessert with us; a huge family style chocolate cake and a key lime pie. It’s a shame we got chummy with them so late, we could have shared the fish bowl sized Cosmopolitan they had, hee. If you’ve ever splurged by visiting Ruth’s Chris Steak House, you have a very good idea of both the service style and caliber, as well as quality of food and spirits. You’d also have a pretty good guess at our total bill, but there you’d be wrong. Since it was a practice night, and they felt the timing was not quite right, our bill was discounted 50%, even the alcohol. Part of me wishes we’d been dressed better, but in the end that too was part of the experience. If you’re reading this Kaminski Brothers, don’t change a thing! We loved every part of our visit; is was definitely a high point of our vacation!

Posted by Shan on 08/09 at 02:16 PM
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