Toyko Steakhouse -- Genji Special

 

In South Nashua, there's a showdown among Teppanyaki Japanese restaurants between the old school in Tokyo Steakhouse and the new school in Takumi.

Takumi is hip and trendy, with a coy pond in the lobby and a vodka bar annex and a shinto rock garden next to the luncheon buffet. Tokyo Steakhouse doesn't have much more than what you see on the menu and what you see being cooked in front of you on the tables.

Both provide fairly decent food, and I already reviewed Takumi's lunch buffet, so I figured it was Tokyo Steakhouse's turn.

Fortunately for me I got there for lunch, because the prices skyrocket after dark. It was fortunate for them too since there were only two other customers there besides me, despite the fact it was the height of the lunch rush.

My order for this visit was the Genji Special, three pieces of shrimp along with fifteen or twenty quarter ounce morsels of terriyaki chicken, grilled in front of you of course, with vegetables, sprouts and a broth of mushroom, scallion and french fried onions for an appetizer.

I considered going for some sushi, but the extra dollar fifty for fried rice instead of white rice seemed to be enough here. That extra dollar fifty might be the difference for some patrons in choosing between here and Takumi, but it wasn't a make or break.

All in all, I left satisfied, but I would be worried if I owned the Tokyo Steakhouse. Both this restaurant and Takumi are quality choices and there are only so many restaurant dollars from consumers to go around, and I don't think there's any real key selling point that would bring me here versus Takumi. Both are pretty good, I would leave it to chance given their proximity.

Cantine -- Steak Burrito and Sundae

As I mentioned earlier in an earlier review, I have really gotten into the 2010 World Cup, and I wanted to see the game between the US and Ghana, but I needed to be in Peterborough almost right after the game.

Putting two and two together, this seemed like a perfect opportunity to get a bite to eat before my engagement, but where?

If you're driving by Cantine just south of downtown Peterborough, you wouldn't get an impression that it was a sports bar, but it did the trick for me on this occasion, and I would be more than happy to come back for the food.

The main course (pictured at top), was a coffee and ancho braised beef burrito, stuffed with cilantro, rico, black beans and a side of pico de gallo. The bartender/waitress was more than happy to also lend me their hot sauce, which had a piquant but balanced spicy melon flavor to it.

I would have been set right there, but the game went into extra time (overtime for us American sports fans), so I ordered their Blondie vanilla gelato sundae. The butterscotch and mint was a nice touch, but the thing that made this dish unique was the pepitos, or small shucked sunflower seeds.

This was a very pleasant experience. Even without the game, the atmosphere is a mix of worlds between the authentic Mexican decor to the little trendy touches like the avant garde (for rural New Hampshire anyway) menu design. Even the price, which was a little higher than I wanted, was within acceptable levels for the food quality.

If you get lost, Yen Yen is in the same plaza, and Cantine is a better option by far.

Meal: Steak Burrito, Sundae and Ginger Ale
Price: $19.24
Speed of Service: 10 minutes
Time of Day: 2:30 PM, Weekend

Mama Lena's Pizzeria -- Chicken Tender Sandwich

On the way back from Portsmouth one day recently, I figured I'd get something to eat just before I hit 101 in Stratham. On my left was a shopping plaza with a Burger King, a pizza place, and a Chinese place.

I needed something better than Burger King, the Chinese place was closed, so choice number three was this place: Mama Lena's Pizzeria.

This is a fairly typical "pizza and related Italian-American-esque food located in a shopping plaza" establishment.

Not sure what to say other than that. My meal, a chicken tender sandwich, was fairly mundane. Not good, not bad, not really anything other than breaded chicken in a bun.
I think the most memorable part of my experience here was that Slovakia beat Italy in the World Cup on this place's large television and a kid sitting in the next table over wondered "where is Slovakia?" For those of you who don't know, Slovakia is the eastern half of what was once Czechoslovakia, just south of Poland.

Meal: Chicken Tender Sandwich
Price: $8.32
Speed of Service: 5 minutes
Time of Day: 10:30 PM, Weekday

Sake - Sushi

I have traveled all across this state, and there are few, if any places that serve sushi that can hold a candle to Sake in Portsmouth.

Take for example the Ume-shiso roll (on the upper left hand side of the photo). An Ume-shiso roll is a mixture of a paste from ume, or pickled plums, and leaves from the Perilla plant, which are called "shiso", or literally "stems" in Japan because of their long stems, but are also known as beefsteak leaves.

When made well, the ume is very bitter, creating a huge contrast with the sharp mint like flavor of the shiso. Most sushi places in New Hampshire do not serve Ume-shiso. The ones that do generally only do an adequate job. Sake not only does it superlatively, but it is one of the least expensive items on their menu, under $4, which is generally where most sushi restaurants put their "budget" items.

That is Sake in a nutshell. Their budget items are in a higher league than nearly everything else in the state. Their higher priced stuff would not be out of place in Manhattan.

The problem on this visit was the waitress. She got me order wrong, and was kind of snooty, but it was worth the wait because the food is that damn good.

Meal: Tempura California Roll, Ume-Shiso Roll, and Green River Roll
Price: $16.62
Speed of Service: 20 minutes
Time of Meal: 2:15 PM, Weekday

Twelve Pines Deli

The Twelve Pines Deli is less of a deli and more of a trendy food marketplace for Peterborough's art community. And if you're not from the Peterborough area, let me tell you, the McDowell Art Colony has grown quite a little art community in Peterborough, and I suppose this is where those people go grocery shopping.

Usually, a half diner/half market arrangement is kind of a caution flag, but in this case, the atmosphere only adds to the high quality food.

I got a tomato and mozzarella panini, as pictured here. It cost about a dollar more than you'd find in a similiar panini at Panera or some other national chain, but at Panera they don't give a rat's ass about the ingredients. Twelve Pines just exudes the opposite, at least from the local chefs in the back preparing all the ingredients for the kids up front who....probably had to flip a coin between working here or some Panera-like establishment and probably don't give a rat's....ok fine, the service wasn't superlative. It wasn't bad either though, unlike many chain places. In the end, with over the counter meals, service isn't a huge deal.

What mattered here was the fact that I probably could have picked a dozen other choices they had and left happy. This place caters to the connoisseur, everything feels and tastes fresh, unlike the fast food places or even the faux-fast food places like Panera.

The problem is the price, but when you enter a place that says "no photography allowed inside" on the door, you know what you're getting into. Yes, I do understand the irony of that given the fact that I took a photo of my sandwich, but I can only assume they were talking about the antique barn that this place is housed in.


Meal: Tomato and Mozzarella Panini, Ginger Beer and Chips
Price: $11.00
Speed of Service: 10 minutes
Time of Meal: 12:30 PM, Weekday

Vinnie's Pizzaria -- The Super Combo

Is it Pizzaria or Pizzeria? I would assume Pizzaria since you order pizza rather than pizze, (which sounds like what you'd call urine if you were trying to market it as a high end beverage of some sort), but I digress.

Vinnie's Pizzaria in Concord does not sell pizze, but they do have a few sandwiches and I got one called the Super Combo.

It was a fairly standard hero/submarine/hoagie/whatever. Small loaf of bread filled with stuff, mainly chicken and bacon in a kind of a club sandwich kind of deal.

It wasn't bad, don't get me wrong. But it's nothing to write home about. I would say it's above average, and not much more. Then again, that's better than alot of lunches you can get when you're out and about.

For some reason the walls are filled with boxing paraphrenalia. Maybe Vinnie was a boxer.


Meal: Super Combo sandwich with Dr. Pepper
Price: $9.23
Speed of Service: 10 minutes
Time of Day: 11:30 AM, Weekday

Hermano's -- The Alex Burrito and a Dos Equis

To my knowledge, there are two full service, sit down Mexican restaurants in downtown Concord (Dos Amigos is more of a fast food place).

One is Margarita's, a chain located throughout New England, and the other is Hermano's....which is not a chain located throughout England.

Should it be a chain located throughout New England though? After the meal pictured here, I would have no issues with answering yes to that.

And that meal was an Alex Burrito, described by Hermano's website as "a combination of black bean veggie burger, refried beans, tomatoes, scallions, green chilies and cheese rolled in a whole wheat tortilla and topped with our red chile sauce and sprinkled with cilantro." I describe it as a filling and savory meal that goes well with a beer.

And don't think for a second that it's some tiny Taco Bell-esque burrito either, this thing is hefty, it's more than certainly a meal. Is it hefty enough to warrant the price? That's a better question. Depends on how much you want a burrito and whether you're interested in live music and an authentic Mexican feel, the building literally looks like they plopped it from a small village in Oaxaca and put it in downtown Concord, and the interior has a similiar feel as well.

On its own merit though, I would have felt better if this burrito were a dollar or two less.

The choice is in your hands my friends. But if you do decide to take the plunge and money isn't an object, you'll leave satisfied.


Meal: Alex Burrito and a 12 oz. Dos Equis
Price: $16.34
Speed of Service: 15 minutes
Time of Meal: 8:30 PM, Weekday

Milford Fish Market

Milford, New Hampshire is not a seafood mecca by any stretch of the imagination. Yet, it still has a seafood restaurant that can at least be called adequate.

The Milford Fish Market is only partially a market really, it has some nautically themed items in the front near the cash register, and you can get take out from that area as well, although the place also has a server for some reason. There was one other person in the dining area, maybe the server had just begun her shift or was just ending it.

The food I got was the small Clam Strips with Fries, Cole Slaw and a Doctor Pepper. There was nothing special about it to be honest, just clams, breading and grease. The real story here was the quantity. By the time I was nearing the end of the plate, I was wondering if I could make it. By the end of the meal, i'm not sure how I did.

I can't say it was particularly good food, but it wasn't particularly bad and the price was appropriate given the quantity of the meal and the fact that seafood usually costs a little bit more than other styles of cuisine.

Oh, there's unlimited tartar sauce and cocktail sauce as well. Can't forget that.

Meal:  Clam Strips with French Fries and Cole Slaw

Price: $11.92

Speed of Service: 10 minutes

Time of Meal: 4 PM, Weekday

Taipei and Tokyo -- Hunan Chicken and Oshinko Roll

Taipei and Toyko just across the Manchester line in Bedford is a peculiar customer when it comes to the divide between fancy versus mom and pop American-Chinese restaurants. When you look at the staff or location or decor, it's hard to tell which side of that divide they fall into.

They offer Chinese and Japanese dishes, so I figured it was fair to try one of both. And the Hunan Chicken and Oshinko Roll was somewhere between decent and above average.

I would say the only significant problems foodwise were the portion size and the price. If I had gotten a little bit more food though, i'd say neither was really a problem.

In terms of the incidentals, there were a few minor issues. The wait was fairly long, even for dinner time, and especially for the fact that some of the wait staff seemed to be on their break.

I also saw that the people at the table next to me got better chopsticks than I did. That's not a huge deal, but it made me feel as though I was not as important as those other people in the restaurant's eyes.

To be honest, I could not get a good read on this place, but I didn't get a bad one for certain.

Meal: Hunan Chicken and Oshinko Roll
Price: $16.66
Speed of Service: 20 minutes
Time of Day: 7:15 PM, Weekend

Eggroll Cafe -- Thai Basil Salad and Buffalo Chicken Egg Rolls

If you don't live in Lowell, you'd probably never know about the Eggroll Cafe. Hell, even if you do live in Lowell you might not know about it.

Nestled within the neighborhood of Pawtucketville, this little trendy bistro seems to cater mostly to UMass-Lowell students nearby, and it is a shining light on an otherwise dilapidated neighborhood.

The place has kind of a East meets West vibe, with an assortment of Egg Rolls (which is expected given their name) along with a variety of other pseudo-Asian/"post" Asian offerings.

Along with a bottle of water, I tried their Buffalo Chicken Egg Rolls and their Thai Basil Salad. While the salad needed a little bit more of the peanut dressing it came with, it was nothing to complain about.

The Buffalo Egg Rolls though, they were fantastic. You can't make a meal out of them alone, sure, but they're priced to be part of a larger meal, and there are several other styles of Egg Rolls that i'd like to try at at later time at this place.

The Eggroll Cafe is worth travelling to, just make sure to lock your doors when you park.

Meal: Buffalo Chicken Egg Rolls, Thai Basil Salad and Water.

Price: $10.65
Speed of Service: 10 minutes

Time of Meal: 12:00 PM, Weekday

China Express in Pepperell -- Chicken Fingers and Beef Terriyaki

Basically the only reason I went to China Express was because I needed some geographic diversity. It's becoming difficult to find places I have not reviewed within my regular area, so I wanted to stretch things out and try a new place that was fairly close when I got the chance.

So, let's get the one good thing about this place out of the way -- they had a little portico with oriental stucco inside their tiny place which added some charm.

That was it. Now for the rest.

This place definitely looked worn down, so I lowered my expectations. They still weren't low enough. I don't know how anyone's expectations can be low enough for this place -- the unsanity obscenities scrawled over the notice in the bathroom exhorting employees to wash their hands should have been a dead giveaway to that.

What you see above was my meal: Chicken Fingers and Beef Teriyaki with Fried Rice. The Fingers were mostly dough, which seemed to be for the fact that the chicken itself was fairly stale. The Beef Teriyaki was rubberry and flavorless, again the meat was probably not exactly fresh there either. But what took the cake was the Fried Rice.

Let's forget the fact that it was a thousand degrees and burnt my tongue, the chef left egg shells in it. When I felt that on my teeth and saw it in there, I demanded my money back. I think they knew if they didn't give it, I would have reported them to the health inspector and probably would have had enough evidence to shut them down.

Meal: Chicken Fingers and Beef Terriyaki Special
Price: $8.45
Speed of Service: 10 minutes
Time of Meal: 12:30 PM, Weekend

Annabelle's Ice Cream at Brookdale Farm

There are few things that say "it isn't winter" in the Souhegan Valley more than Brookdale Farm. I still think of the place more for its cider and Christmas wreaths sold in the fall during the crisp chills from the autumns of my youth, but when it comes to summer, there's the homemade fudge and the small Annabelle's Ice Cream stand just to its side in the parking lot.

I'm not sure what else to say other than the fact that it hit the spot. I got the cookie dough flavor, which they called "Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Monster", and i'm wondering if I should have gotten the waffle cone, but regardless it was a good treat just outside downtown Hollis.








Food: Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Monster
Price: $2.30
Speed of Service:Instant
Time of Food: 3:00 PM, Weekday

Hong Kong Island -- General Tso's

Back when I worked in Concord, one of the places I went to for lunch often was Hong Kong Kitchen on Manchester Street, a greasy, MSG filled little hole in the wall sharing a plaza with a gas station.

Technically, you can't usually eat there, there's only one table, so normally you'd be getting take out. On this trip to these old stomping grounds though, the table was open and I dug in right there and then.

I was unsure whether or not to get the General Tso's lunch special, i've grown weary of ordering General Tso's I know will be bad and instead see the dish as kind of like a weight class in boxing: it isn't fair to compare older, MSG-centric, usually Polynesian-centric (think Chicken Fingers and Pupu Platters), to generally newer non-MSG focused places. With the latter, ordering General Tso's is fair because they can afford or choose to afford white meat in General Tso's, which is generally much better, even though ironically the dish started as a way to get rid of dark meat.

My sentimentality for the old days may have blinded me here. The sauce was watery, and the croquettes were made up of different meat pieces and pieces of fat. I'm surprised they didn't put in some pieces of old menus in with the meat byproducts.

I tried to be polite when the owner asked me how it was and talked to him about dark meat versus white meat, and he said his customers were fine with the dark meat. It was a reminder of how I try to write these reviews, I dislike too much subjectivity because everyone's tastes are different. You might like the dark meat style, I find it to be too grisly, and requiring multiple pieces of meat which creates a strange texture like in what was served here.

The meal came with Fried Rice and Crab Rangoon as you can see, and that was fine, but I left disappointed. It's funny, they had some kind of mystery diner thing on the wall applauding the food, and while it was unfair of me to order what I ordered given what I knew would probably happen, I can't agree with their assessment.











Meal: General Tso's Lunch Special
Price: $6.80
Speed of Service: 15 minutes
Time of Day: 2:00 PM, Weekday

Tortilla Flat -- Flautas

The town of Merrimack, New Hampshire is technically made up of three towns: Reed's Ferry, Thornton's Ferry and the central part of Merrimack, sometimes called Souhegan Village.

And what Lobster Boat is to that central section of town, Tortilla Flat is to Reed's Ferry.

This restaurant has been around for umpteen million years. It's Mexican with a slight Tex-Mex flair, but the dank decor has always seemed geared towards cheap cervezas in their bar while watching a game rather than a meal.

So, my expectations were not high when I came here for lunch. And I apologize for this photo of these flautas, but the low price made me think that the price to value ratio was fairly high out of what I got.

The flautas were an appetizer, yet filling enough for a meal. Filled with multiple kinds of meat, covered in some melted jack cheese, and accompanied with cilantro, shredded lettuce, tomatoes and sour cream, this dish really hit the spot.

Prior to the meal, Flat's nachos were warm, but not microwave warm and the sauce was fairly fresh. Maybe the sauce was canned and the nachos were from a bag somewhere, but I could not tell. Maybe give me another few hundred of these reviews and I will, but I couldn't today.

The service was adequate as well, but I think what took the cake was that it was about half the price of El Tapatio with nearly as much food. There are only three Mexican restaurants in Merrimack. We'll have to see if the flautas at Amigo's Cantina can take the prize away here, so far Tortilla Flat is in the lead in the Merrimack Mexican Flauta Challenge.

In the meantime though, Tortilla Flat certainly exceeded my expectations even if those expectations were low and they did themselves alot of favors with the low price. If I had ordered something more substantial, I have a feeling I might have been so favorable here.

Meal: Flautas
Price: $6.53
Speed of Service: 15 minutes
Time of Day: 12:45 Weekday

Chen's Kitchen -- General Tso's

Today we head to Second Street in Manchester, a strip stretching from the Bedford Town line to the Granite Street Bridge that is filled with fast food and slower food that will clog your arteries just as quickly once you eat it.

So, I was in the area recently and expected to be partaking in some of that greasiness, but instead found myself at a packed in Chinese joint right across from McDonald's named Chen's Kitchen.

It appears to be located inside a repurposed residential building, but has been resigned inside to be a couture fancy Chinese-American place. On that note it doesn't do too terribly, even though it falls a little short of the mark. The wallpaper is the only real thing destroying the delusion of being in a place that has food priced far higher than what is served.

On that note, I cannot complain. Here you can see the General Tso's Lunch Special. It certainly isn't a heaping amount of food to be sure, but it is tasty and passes the General Tso's stringiness test. If you're a fan of Tso's sauce, you might be disappointed here since it's a gelatinous coating rather than a sauce scattered over the plate and the croquettes.

The wait staff was not bad either, so we've gotten the good things out of the way. There were two bad things that came up during this meal.

The first one was the free Hot and Sour soup that came with the luncheon special. It had far too much stock in it, there was an overly musky aftertaste at first that eventually you had to plow through with your tastebuds. By the fourth or fifth spoonful, the taste went away, but it was awkward at first.

That was minor though compared to the parking. If I owned this restaurant, I would go to the next door houses every day to see if they wanted to sell so I could expand the parking. This restaurant must be next to impossible to fill unless there's alot of carpooling or Manchester decides to add a bus stop to this restaurant, and I doubt people who use the bus would go to such a hoighty toighty place as this.

Still, I think it deserves another meal. They have a wide array of Japanese offerings as well, and this meal certainly convinced them that they know what they're doing.

Meal: General Tso's Lunch Special
Price: $7.58
Speed of Service: 10 minutes
Time of Meal 12:00 PM Weekday

Red Arrow Milford -- Buffalo Tenders

Well, when everything else is closed, you're left with little option I suppose. The other day I was at the Oval and Milford and wanted to review someplace new, but the two places next to where I parked apparently did not want to follow the hours on their door. That left a old tried and true open 24 hours a day alternative.

The Red Arrow in Milford was my first review at this blog, but I doubted that review would by my last of this restaurant. They may still technically be a chain, but they're a Southern New Hampshire institution as well, and one of the finest purveyors of comfort food anywhere to boot.

So, since they're masters of comfort food, I figured i'd order the Buffalo Chicken, since it is rapidly becoming my favorite dish it seems. I had originally wanted to order the Buffalo Chicken for my first review, but they were all out of Chicken that day. On this day they were out of that recipe and trying a new one.

The new Buffalo Chicken is kind of a glaze, it's fairly unique among the Buffalo Chicken I have eaten, and it is not half bad. The problem lied in the price. With a soda (Moxie in this case), the price was far too high for what you got.

And I don't really know what to make of the service. I know it wasn't the waitresses fault, but they really need three people to cover tables and the counter at lunch time. She was overstretched and stretched to the limit of what an acceptable time to wait between ordering and eating. Maybe the wait time differs elsewhere, but I'm going by local standards here.

Days like the one I was at on this review are a good reason why multiple reviews are a good idea: sometimes you catch a peak at the bad side of a good establishment, and this was certainly one of those times.

Meal: Buffalo Tenders with Moxie
Price: $13.34
Speed of Service: 25 minutes
Time of Visit: 12:45, Weekday

Kowloon Wasabi -- General Tso's and Oshinko Roll

Usually a dumpy strip mall is a clear sign that any restaurant inside it is going to be a poor quality dive establishment. But you can't judge a book by its cover, because there are always exceptions to the rule.

Sometimes the exceptions are just adequate, and then sometimes like in the case of Kowloon Wasabi on 101A in Milford, in between the Oval and the Milford Bypass Junction, you get much better than mere adequacy.

Kowloon Wasabi is a pan-Asian restaurant, well Japanese and Chinese, but that's "pan" enough to be classified as "pan" I suppose. The interior is not as bad as the plaza looks on the outside, but what I was pleased with was the food.

It was lunch time when I went there, and I figured I'd subject this place to the General Tso's test, because even if they failed, I could order some Chicken Fingers. If a Chinese-American restaurant cannot get Chicken Fingers right, it should be shut down by a health inspector, let alone a food critic.

But, suffice it to say, they passed the test. On top of that, the sauce balanced well with the Fried Rice and Chicken Fingers, which were both also fairly good. And this was just the main course.

They also offered Hot and Sour Soup as an accompaniment to the meal, and I ordered an Oshinko Roll as well to get a taste of the Japanese side of things at the restaurant as well. Both were well recieved by my taste buds.

I'd be happy to recommend this establishment to anyone who is looking for good Chinese food in the Milford area and can judge a book by more than its cover.

Meal: General Tso's Chicken Lunch Special with Fried Rice and Oshinko Roll

Price: $10.30

Speed of Service: 10 minutes

Time of Day: 11:40 AM, Weekday

Joey's Place -- Buffalo Chicken

On the border of Amherst and Merrimack (and technically Hollis if you want to split hairs), there's a 50's theme diner called "Joey's Place". I believe it may have had other names over the years, I can't remember to be honest. Either way though, for awhile it's been a 50's diner, and that has made me wary of it because restaurant gimmicks just seem like excuses to skimp on taste, service and price.

Man, was I wrong.

I ordered the Buffalo Chicken. Yes, Buffalo Chicken hadn't been invented in the 1950s (It was invented in 1964 by Teresa Bellissimo, co-owner of the Anchor Bar in Buffalo, New York), and yes I have written alot of Buffalo Chicken related stories recently (I will write a comparison piece soon, I promise), but goddamn were these ones good.

As you can see from the photo above, there's a balance between the "dry" and "wet" style, but it grasps the all the strengths of each school of thought in the Buffalo Chicken pantheon. Fans of either kind of Buffalo Chicken will be happy there.

Its texture was also fantastic, adding a layer of crunchiness that did not detract from the sauce but only complimented it.

The price was great in comparison to similiar versions of this meal that can be found elsewhere, and the service was pretty good; I was seated quickly, I got my food quickly given the time of day, and the waitress got my check quickly after I asked and did ask every now and then if I needed something, but not too much.

And on top of that, they serve breakfast and lunch simultaneously all day.

I may just need another trip to Joey's. This is a hidden gem on 101A to be sure.

Meal: Buffalo Chicken

Price: $8.71

Speed of Service: 10 minutes

Time of Day: 12:30, weekend.

Poppa Joe’s Humble Kitchen

I've tried going here twice before, but it was closed despite the fact that the hours on their door said they were open. So, I was pleased that they expanded the hours they said they were going to be open when I tried them today.

Poppa Joe's Humble Kitchen on Route 13 in Milford used to be Humble Kitchen on Elm Street, and while I can't vouch for the old Humble Kitchen, I covered a story that brought me here and had me talking about their hamburger with hot dogs and onion rings on it.

While I didn't try that one, I did try a fairly good alternative called "Kelsey's Buffalo Burger".

I'd assume it's named after a staff member like the choices at The Seedling Cafe in Nashua, but I didn't bother to ask, all I asked is if I could put Jalapenos on this bad boy, and they were cool with it.

Despite the fact it was a million degrees inside (they have picnic tables, but it appeared that it was going to rain), they only had a counter, and the previous trips, I was really pleased with this burger. It was certainly comparable to any of those family style joints with the crap on the walls that charge a few bucks more for their burgers and the fast food joints that are offering premium burgers now but make you feel like a number.

And I think even if this burger wasn't appetizing, which it was, I would have given it more than the benefit of the doubt. If Hamburgers are like the Star Wars franchise, Chili's and Red Robin are like the prequel trilogy while Poppa Joe's is like A New Hope: with all the money put into those other guys, anything other than exceptional is a failure, but this was a pleasant surprise.

I may well come back and try that burger with the hot dog and onion rings on it.

Meal: Kelsey's Buffalo Burger and a drink
Price: $6.98
Speed of Service: 5 minutes
Time of Day: 12:30 PM, Weekday

Mehmaan Indian Restaurant

To my knowledge, there are two Indian Restaurants in Nashua: India Palace on Amherst Street and Mehmaan in South Nashua.

It's been said that immigrant communities are often like families, and that's true in this case because Mehmaan is kind of like India Palace's little brother.

Everything with Mehmaan is just slightly worse than India Palace, a sort of imitation in a way that just doesn't get it right. India Palace costs about a dollar less for its buffet*, has more items to choose from on its buffet, and better selections to boot (the Tandoori Chicken in particular).

I'm not saying that Mehmaan is bad, just that India Palace is better. It's strength arises from the fact that the two restaurants are across town from each other and if you're at the Pheasant Lane Mall, you may not want to hike all the way up to Exit 8 and change. Then again, even in that case Mehmann suffers, you can only get to it going southbound.

My heart and stomach go out to this little establishment, but I can't say that it's worth going out of your way for. If it is on your way though, then no problem.


*-Unless I forgot to include the tax, but I am almost certain I did.

Meal: Buffet
Price: $10.64
Speed of Service: Instant
Time of Meal: 12:30 PM, Weekday