HIRES BIG H

Where: Hires Big H, 427 S 700 E, Salt Lake City

Who Went: Owen and Chelsey

Number of Visits: 1

What We Ordered: Fish & Chips, Blue Cheese Burger, and Raspberry Milkshake

What It Cost: $24.90

What We Thought: 

An old, classic Utah establishment with retro decor, friendly service, and seriously good food. 

Also, can I just say this is like one of the least expensive halibut fish & chips I've seen in Utah?? And it's totally a good value because the fish was excellent (moist and not too fishy), the tartar sauce was the bomb (as tartar sauce usually is), and the fries were top notch. Fish & chips can easily go down the "way too greasy" road, but this managed to be just right. YUM!

The burger had all of the components of a classic, old-school burger (fresh, local bun, great tasting patty, etc.) but was pumped up with the blue cheese and bacon. I was stoked that they used gorgonzola, which gives a great mild blue cheese flavor without overpowering everything. The bacon was thick and crispy, and altogether, it was just a great burger.

And this milkshake was just one of the best I've ever had. Fresh raspberry, but without any annoying frozen berry chunks. It was the perfect consistency (not so thick that it's basically ice cream, but not soupy), and seriously the best end to our meal. Although, let's be honest, it was the first thing we tasted...

What You Should Do: I was totally surprised with the mixed reviews with this place -- we had such a great experience! The owner personally greeted us as we came in, rang out our check, and thanked us sincerely for coming. The food came quickly and tasted great. We will definitely be coming here again!

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LEATHERBY'S FAMILY CREAMERY

Where: Leatherby's Family Creamery, 1872 W 5400 S, Taylorsville

Who Went: Chelsey & Owen

Number of Visits: 1

What We Ordered: Amy's Hot Fudge Brownie with Mint Cookie Ice Cream and Jill's Cookie Concoction 

What It Cost: $15.46

What We Thought: 

Let's just start with the pictures...

I need to make a disclaimer -- we only came for the ice cream, and didn't try any of the other food. So this review is ONLY ABOUT THE ICE CREAM.

And wow, the ice cream! I mean, just looking at the photos above is enough to get me salivating all over again. The restaurant is a very vintage, retro style ice cream parlor, with unflattering lighting and pretty crammed seating, but the staff is so friendly, that you totally feel comfortable and ready for a good time. I can totally see this place as being the awesome reward for scoring a home run in your baseball game as a kid or something - it just makes you feel good. Well, until you eat WAY too much ice cream...!

These ice cream sundaes, though a little pricey, are amazingly over-the-top, gorgeous, and a LOT of ice cream! It is such a fun treat, and the ice cream is all homemade :) Owen thought his mint cookie ice cream was a little too intense -- the flavor was super rich, especially considering how much ice cream they served! I love both of my flavors -- one was a classic cookies and cream, which was super smooth and delicious, and the other was peanut butter ice cream with caramel and cookie dough! Talk about indulgent! The cookie with my sundae was surprisingly soft and tasted SO good, and wow, the hot fudge. If I hadn't been in a total ice cream coma after our experience, I would have bought a bunch of this to take home! What an amazing and scrumptious treat!

What You Should Do: We went here for Owen's birthday, and it was the perfect place to go for a special occasion treat! The ice cream was super delicious, the presentation amazing, and the brownie/hot fudge/cookies were incredibly good as well. The only recommendation I have (besides, obviously, you should go!) is the first time, you might want to share! Neither Owen nor I could even make it through half of our sundaes, so if you can agree on a flavor, you may want to save the money :)

Smashburger

Where: Smashburger, 542 E University Parkway, Orem

Who Went: Chelsey & Owen

Number of Visits: 1

What We Ordered: Beehive Burger, Spicy Baja Burger, Smash Fries, Chocolate Malt Shake

What It Cost: $19.37

What We Thought:


We're always on the look out for our next favorite burger place, and when we heard rave reviews about Smashburger's fries, we decided to give it a try. We immediately loved the atmosphere (and convenient location next to Yogurtland :) with it's giant text on the walls and visually appealing menu. I decided to go with the Beehive Burger and Owen started to do a make-your-own, but then we realized it was basically the same ingredients as the Baja Burger, so we went with that. I've been craving a plain chocolate milkshake for a while, so we got the malt, and then took our number and were seated.

Our shake arrived first, which is always a dangerous thing. It was absolutely perfect - a little small, but at least they gave us some in that metal cup behind as well. We basically inhaled it, and fought over the final slurps.

The service was very attentive - almost to a level of annoyance. It was pretty slow since we ate around 5, but we had three people come and ask us how our food was, which seemed a little bit of overkill for a couple of burgers. Also, one of the girls asked me if everything was "yummy," and for some reason that word drives me crazy, especially when we you are talking to anyone above the age of 5.

Our burgers arrived and we were pretty excited thanks to the milkshake. Let's start with the fries. Their trademark "Smash Fries" are made with rosemary, olive oil, and garlic - three things I love. Which was why I was so surprised when I didn't think the fries themselves were all that great. They were the skinniest fries I've ever had, which isn't a personal favorite because I found them too crunchy and starchy. The rosemary flavor was nice but I hardly tasted any garlic, and just wasn't really blown away.

My Beehive Burger was supposed to come with a honey barbecue sauce, applewood smoked bacon, cheddar cheese and haystack onions on an "artisan" egg bun. What is the deal with the term "artisan" these days? I swear everyone is just throwing around the word "artisan" to make things seem a little fancier and make them more expensive - it's one of those new buzzwords like "nano" and "synergize" and "network virtualization" (none of which apply to hamburgers of course...or do they?) Anyway, the artisan bun was actually my favorite part of the whole burger - the cheese was real, which is nice, but was pretty skimpy, I thought that they forgot the BBQ sauce until I was two-thirds done with the burger, and the haystack onions really were a disappointment. I was initially stoked about the idea of little individually fried onions, because I hate that moment when you are eating a burger with an onion ring on it and you take the wrong kind of bite and end up having to eat the whole onion that has slid out of the crunchy shell. This seemed to solve that problem. But unfortunately, it also totally detracted from the onion flavor, so it just tasted like little crunchy things on top of an average burger.

Owen's burger was a little better - all of the flavors were there at least, and it certainly was spicy. But something about the overall burger was just lacking. It didn't satiate the way a delicious burger should, you know what I mean? I think it might have been the actual burger - it wasn't very juicy, and by the end of the meal, we were still wanting more. We were full, but not satisfied.

What You Should Do: If you are a serious burger lover and are looking for a new place to try, then maybe give this place a go (and get the chocolate malt). I think that if I ever went here again, I would probably test out one of their chicken sandwiches - their ideals about fresh and artisanal ingredients seem better suited for chicken than a greasy burger. But if you've got that kind of craving that only a juicy, meaty burger can satisfy, you'd be better off at JCW's.

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Sammy's Cafe

One reason I really wanted to start this blog is because I am tired of reviewers always agreeing with what's popular. What kind of food critic just agrees with what everyone's saying on Urbanspoon or something else? Some restaurants are popular because they are actually good. But there are a few restaurants that are popular for no good reason at all -- they are just trendy and receive a lot of hype, but are either overpriced, or have poor service, or just aren't worth it. And I want to warn you about these ones so you don't get your hopes dashed like I did! Here is one of those hope-dashing experiences...

Where: Sammy's Cafe, 27 N 100 W, Provo (just off of Center street, between Univ Ave and Freedom)

Who Went: Chelsey & Owen

Number of Visits: 1

What We Ordered: Raspberry Cheesecake Shake, Sweet Potato Fries, The Promo Burger, El Paso "Burger" (WARNING: They sneak chicken burgers in there on the menu and you may not even notice it, just like me, and you will be very sad when what you ordered is not actually a burger, but a sissy sandwich instead)

What It Cost: $19.50

What We Thought: 

Let me just say that I was really excited to try this place. BYU students are crazy about a few restaurants -- J Dawg's, Cafe Rio, The Pie (even though it's in SLC...), and Sammy's is one of those few. We went on a pretty warm day in the summer, which was the first of our mistakes. The tiny place was PACKED -- even the crappy picnic tables they set up outside were full, and it was way hot in there. I'm pretty sure that the place would not pass general health code standards because while we were waiting for our food, we noticed fruit flies cruising lazily from the garbage can (which was open and right next to where we were supposedly going to eat) to the kitchen and to the restaurant guests. Not very appetizing.

We started out with a Raspberry Cheesecake shake, since they are "famous" for their pie shakes. What an underwhelming experience. The only thing different between this shake and something you might pick up from McDonald's is the price. There was no evidence that this beverage once was a pie, and it was super runny and overall disappointing for the $4.29 price tag. We slurped it up in 15 seconds and then proceeded to wait in the fly corner for another 15 minutes until some more food was ready.

Then we got our fries, which I fully blame for Owen's hatred of sweet potato fries (fortunately, this was recently remedied by Guru's...more on that later!). These were too thin, too crunchy, and too flavorless. The fry sauce was okay, nothing special but not gag-inducing, but Owen refused to eat any more of the fries, much to my great sadness. I am a huge sweet potato fry lover, and this was Owen's first time having them. Bummer.

Owen ordered "The Promo" burger, which was pretty much your basic bacon cheeseburger. Meh. Everything tasted fresh at least, but nothing blew my mind. The burger itself was a little overdone and dry, but it was alright. And it was served with sweet pickles -- when will restaurants learn that EVERYONE PREFERS DILL? Sorry, personal vendetta there...

And I got El Paso burger. Like I mentioned previously, I had a blonde moment and didn't realize this was a chicken burger, so I was pretty put out when it arrived. For a chicken burger it was fairly decent I guess -- the avocado mash on it compensated for the lack of flavor in the chicken, and I really wish I could have tasted that pepperjack cheese I paid for. 

What You Should Do: Go if you have to. It's not BAD really, it's just not that great. Just because you throw the word "Famous" in front of your restaurant's advertising campaign doesn't make you have good food, I'm sorry. I think people just go there for the hole-in-the-wall, I-went-there-before-anyone-knew-about-it appeal, and sometimes people just think food tastes better if it's more expensive. If you want a pie shake that actually tastes like it contains pie, drive down the road to The Malt Shoppe instead and order the Jumble Berry Pie shake. Nothing else on their menu is really that spectacular, but the Jumble Berry Pie shake is a diamond in the rough my friends.