Everything Reno

The weekend has only just started. My father is having a birthday and both my sisters are visiting from California. This presents the opportunity to enjoy what fine dining Reno has to offer. After narrowing down a few nice restaurant’s in town, Bricks Restaurant & Wine Bar in Reno seemed to have fit the bill (Something I will explain a little later).

As we entered the establishment, our maître d’ showed us to our table. Their dinner menu is only two pages but with an ample amount of appitizers, salads and main courses. Some main course examples are the filet mignon, rib eye steak, shrimp scampi, new zealand rack of lamb and others. They also have specials that the wait staff will announce before ordering. Please note that the wait staff is well informed about each dish so feel free to ask questions.

Whoever has been to this restaurant usually orders the stuff mushrooms with the escargot and bleu cheese. The other three occupied tables ordered them. Each order has six pieces of those ever so tasty morsels. We all thoroughly enjoyed them. It was my sister’s fiancee’s first time trying escargot. He liked them very much.

I ordered one of the specials which was the Elk chops cooked medium with the lobster soup Manhattan style. I was expecting it to taste gamy but there was no hint of it. It was a nice tender piece of meat. The presentation was also good. The soup on the other hand was perfect. It had a fair amount of lobster in the tomato based broth. An adequate amount of salt and spices rounded it out.

This is a very good restaurant that a lot of people aren’t informed about. But from us at everythingreno, we recommend this restaurant. If you’re going out for a very nice dinner, and you don’t mind spending a bill and a half for the both of you, this is a great place. Appetizers run in the 10 dollar range while the main courses run from 20-50 dollar range.

Bricks Restaurant & Wine Bar

1695 S Virginia St
Reno, NV 89502
(775) 786-2277

p.s. Check out their wine list also.  You’ll be pleasantly surprised.

Yesterday, I was meeting my friend Mary at Amendment 21 Grill and Sports Bar before heading out for a night on the town.  I’ve passed this place more than I can count and now was the time to check it out.  It’s right across from the Federal Courthouse or that funky holy cheese fish art.

So with three inches of snow on the ground and slipping a few times, I finally arrive inside the restaurant/bar.  There was a seat yourself sign and I found who I was meeting up with.  So a very friendly waitress greets us and hands me a menu.  I’m pleasantly surprised at the way the establishment looks.  Dark wood everywhere spells classy in my book.  There’s an upper level room that overlooks the whole bar.   The place doesn’t seem like a sports bar type but it is. You’ll also find two pool tables if you find the need to impress your friends.

We didn’t want to eat too much so we decided on a chicken caesar wrap and a seared ahi tuna salad.  The food didn’t take to long to get out to us.  As I bit into the wrap, I could only think about unpleasant experiences.  I pushed aside those thoughts when to my surprise, the wrap tasted good.  There is a delicate balance between too much dressing and not enough.  This had that right combination.  Mary loves seared tuna and when I asked her how her dinner was, she had a big smile on her face.  I sampled it and found it very delicious.

If you want some good food and some good atmosphere, try out Amendment 21.  It’s also a great place to bring a date.  I recommend this.  On the plus side, this establishment is non-smoking.

Amendment 21 Grill and Sports Bar
425 South Virginia Street
Reno, NV 89501

Ok.  I’m a Pho Junkie.  I admit it.  This was the only restaurant left in town in which i haven’t tried out their Pho.  Saigon 88 restaurant is located in Sparks and I think is the only vietnamese/thai restaurant in that area.

I arrived in the restaurant and was the only person who ate inside, besides the employee’s who situated themselves at the front most table.  I really like the decor of the restaurant.  Granite table tops and vietnamese style art.  They can really ditch that lame Kenny G music though.

I ordered the S-3 which is their Combination Pho Soup.  It was 6.95.  Beef balls, rare steak, tripe, and brisket is what I found to be in the soup.  So I’m waiting for what seemed like forever thanks to a to-go order that was placed a minute before I arrived.  Thumbs down on that aspect.  The condiments that arrived before the Pho was meager.  A small amount of bean sprouts, basil leaf, and jalapeno slices.  That didn’t bother me as much as when the Pho eventually came out.

The Pho arrives and I’m about to dive in when it struck me that I have to taste the broth first which is habit.  Hmmm this is an odd combination.  I tasted hints of chicken.  Chicken flavor in a beef broth or what is supposed to be all beef?  A cost cutting measure?  Or maybe a different recipe to stand out from the rest.  To me it was weird but they make their broth with chicken stock also.  They could have added a touch more of star anise, cardamom, and cloves to balance it out.

So in comparison to how many types of meat were added.  This soup was lacking in the amount of flank steak, tripe and brisket.  The beef balls were very soft and spongy with an added salt kick to them.  A sign of cheap beef balls.  Another notch down in my book.  I ate the rest of the pho and came out disappointed.  This restaurant’s pho rates lower than Pho 21 in NW Reno.  Yikes.

I asked why they didn’t use tendon’s in their combination and they stated that “1-2 people out of 25 requests tendons.” Ummm seriously?  You must not know the demographics you’re catering to here.  Add more pho selections then.  They asked me what I thought of the pho and I was honest.

I came in expecting good pho but came out disappointed.   I wouldn’t recommend this restaurant for pho.

Overall Grade - C-  (Closed on Sundays)

Saigon 88 Vietnamese & Thai Restaurant
654 N. McCarran Blvd., at Prater Way in the Mervyns shopping center

Sparks, NV  89431

What a thought.  A Mexican restaurant review.

My friend Jenn came in from Redondo Beach with her boyfriend to visit our fair city and surrounding areas.  He wasn’t available at the time because on their way up to Virginia City he became ill.  Sounds like a case of Geiger Grade syndrome.  So the night started out with meeting up with Amanda and Kevin who i haven’t seen in about a decade.  After bowling and showing the new Grand Sierra Resort to Jenn, it was time to eat.  I recommended Murrieta’s on Neil Rd.

Everything fell into place right after that.  We arrived a little late but a little over an hour before they closed.  The warm chips and salsa came out.  Two big bowls of pico de gallo and the traditional hot salsa to appease one’s palate.  I ordered the Pambaso’s combo with Lengua.  Amanda ordered chicken enchilada’s combo, Jenn ordered the chicken enchilada with a chicken tamale combo, and Kevin ordered two enchilada’s.  I didn’t think you could order that many in such a big group.

It didn’t take that long before the food came out.  Twenty minutes passed and after a second bowl of chips made it to our table, the food arrived.  The combo meals include spanish rice and beans with a pinwheel-type cracker in the middle.   The pambasos came out delicious.  Instead of a corn tortilla found in the taco’s.  It is a fried bread stuffed with the meat, onions, cilantro, and salsa.   Watch out though, the pambasos are reddish in color and stain your fingers.  The rice was fluffy and seasoned with just the right amount salt.  The beans were typical with a dusting of white cheese.  Overall the rest of my party thought the meal was delicious.  We opted out of getting margarita’s which was fine with me.  Next time though.

Overall Grade- B+ (Easily beats their rival (Bertha Miranda’s))

MURRIETA’S
Mexican Restaurant
4385 Neil Rd #109
Reno, NV 89502
775-827-3585

Oh my oh my. While driving in south Reno, I wondered what got into me. It was a very cold Tuesday night and my friend and I had to get to Bed Bath and Beyond. Then from out of nowhere, there was this big sign that read “The Green Onion.” Whoa, I’ve never been to one of those. What kind of place was it I asked. Amy said, well it’s like a Sweet Tomatoes. I replied, you mean like a Sizzler’s? No dummy, it’s not like a Sizzler’s because they don’t have steaks.

The Green Onion is a buffet restaurant with a clean simple interior. As you enter, the salad bar is right in front of you. You grab your plate, get your salad, and pay the 8.99 for lunch or 10.99 for dinner. Add an extra 1.99 for all you can drink soda. I had a spinach salad with broccoli and sliced carrots. Tasted like veggies to me. Nothing to write home to your mom about.

There was four soups to choose from. Egg drop soup, baked potato soup, mexican chicken tortilla and vegetable minestrone. I tried the first three. The egg drop was ghastly. Not exactly what i had in mind but the tofu in it was good. The baked potato soup was decent to par. There wasn’t any potato pieces in it. The mexican chicken tortilla was salty, albeit tolerable. I didn’t get to finish all the soups and Amy just laughed.

After the soups, it was on to the main courses. One look at the pasta bins and I was wide eyed. Not only did the naked pasta look old but it was probably sitting there for more than an hour. The sauce didn’t fare the same either. I took a pass. So after the pasta area was the bread and pizza station. There was the garlic bread twist and ciabatta bread. I actually enjoyed the ciabatta bread because it tasted fresh. Corn bread was also available. The pizza was a thin crust cheese with italian seasoning. Btw the heat lamp caused the brownie muffins to dry on the outside, not particularly delicious.

We arrived at 7:45 pm and there was probably three tables that were occupied. Maybe if there were a lot more people, the turnaround on the food would be better. Besides having to leave my soup bowls and brownie half eaten, overall it was average. I won’t go out of my way to eat here but most people may like the convenience of having the all in one salad, bread, soup and pasta.

Overall Grade - C-

The Green Onion

199 Damonte Ranch Pkwy Suite 8m
Reno, NV 89521 (In the South Reno Super Wal-Mart shopping center)

p.s. You have to physically be in the shopping center to see the sign on the outside of the building.