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Das Dutchman Essenhaus (Indiana, USA)
by catsholiday Das Dutchman Essenhaus 240 US Highway 20 Middlebury, IN 46540 We spent the day exploring the Amish towns and the countryside with Amish farms so we thought it would be good to have an Amish meal at an Amish restaurant in the area. WE chose this one as it was advertised in lots of the brochures and it was on our way ... back to Elkhart where we were staying. We had seen it on our way to Shipshewana and it looked fairly impressive. The restaurant is open Mon - Thur breakfast 6am-1am Dinner 11am - 8pm Fri & Sat open to 9pm Closed every Sunday, New Year, Christmas and Thanksgiving This restaurant is part of a huge complex that has a hotel, shops and the biggest restaurant I have seen for some time, in fact it is Indiana's largest restaurant with 1,100 seats . The complex also has a bakery and other shops with gifts and a special quilting shop too. Outside in the grounds are nicely kept gardens and a couple of Amish horse carriages that you can take a tour in if you pay. We entered the restaurant and we greeted by a young man who asked if we wanted family service or a buffet. We were not quite sure what they meant by the family service and his explanation was a bit unclear so we opted for the buffet. We were shown to a table in the huge restaurant a bit like a canteen or like one of those in a garden centre. A young Amish lady came to ask us if we would lie to order anything to drink, no alcohol of course but we had an iced tea each. She then pointed us in the direction of the buffet. There was a choice of hearty looking soups, a Chili tomato and bean soup, a vegetable and beef soup and a chicken noodle with thick noodles. The first island of food had a range of salads which were all nice enough but nothing very exciting or different. Amish food is good fresh home cooking which is fair enough but this was the sort of salad that showed no imagination at all. There were bowls of lettuce, another of sliced tomatoes, another with cucumber, another with corn kernels, coleslaw , potato Salad , pickled red beets, three bean salad and so on. There was nothing very different at all, I think there was pickled cabbage and other pickles but there was absolutely nothing that was anything different or interesting but it was fresh and I was quite happy as I like salad but would have liked a bit of variety. The next island offered good old German style home cooking. Here we had a choice of boiled cabbage, boiled potatoes, boiled beans and other boiled vegetables and mashed potatoes. I hate overcooked boiled to death vegetables so was unimpressed with these. There was also some macaroni cheese, some stewed meat, German sausages, Homemade Beef & Noodles and similar very indistinguishable dishes and that was about it. Not really very exciting at all we felt. So what puddings did they offer? Well as someone who likes their desserts I was hoping for something a bit unusual such as whoopie pies or even donuts or cookies but there was stewed fruit medley, a mush that was a sort of trifle which not only looked like mush but was pretty bland too and some sort of fruit pie and a jelly. We found it all very disappointing. According to their publicity the buffet menu offered: "Their world famous crisp broasted (yes that is correct) chicken, roast beef .....and a complete salad bar." "Using genuine Amish recipes passed down through the generations create old fashioned family traditions in the 21st century. No visitor to Northern Indiana should miss the delectable home style cooking that awaits their discovery." We had paid a reasonable price for this meal as we thought it would be a really tasty fresh home cooked hearty meal. I believe it was about £15 each in our money which in America is quite a lot to pay for a lunch and we had certainly had better meals for less in America on this trip. The decor was simple pine tables on wooden polished floors and huge with high beamed ceilings a bit like a high barn ceiling. Around the top of the walls were hanging quilts as well as dried flowers in jars and various other dolls and country sort of decorations. It was a sort of cross between a German beer hall in size and furnishings and American country style decor. Service was reasonably friendly but not the usual American style "I'm so and so I will be your server today etc." The staff members we met were not overly friendly or wanted to spend time taking ti you as we had found in a lot of restaurants we had eaten in when in America. After we finished our meal we had a look at the gift shop which leads from the restaurant. I was not tempted with anything apart from the scented candles and toiletries but as they are heavy I had to be good and not buy them. We then went to check out the bakery which had the most amazing array of huge cakes. I was very tempted but as I had already put on weight over this holiday I decided I really didn't need to try a whoopee pie! I was taken with a display of fun facts: "Essenhaus Foods makes up to 42 tons of noodles in 1 week and purchases bulk flour in 2,000 pound totes. Our noodles may be purchased in supermarket chains in 46 states in our Bakery and on our website." " In only 1 week, our Restaurant-Bakery may use up to: * 2,100 dozen eggs * 2,700 pounds of white sugar * 60 gallons of apple butter * 3.5 tons of potatoes * 3,600 chickens * 3,090 pounds of roast beef * 2,990 heads of lettuce" " Our Restaurant seats 1,100 at once, and on a busy day will serve over 7,000 guests and use 5,225 pounds of ice." " Our Bakery produced a record number of 2,103 pies in one day." Those are staggeringly huge figures and maybe that accounts for the fairly average food as catering in bulk never really produces the finest food. We continued our exploration visiting the other shops which are all located in original Amish farm buildings from the early 1900's. The quilt shop was full of the most beautiful fabric and amazing but extremely expensive hand made quilts. These are an investment really, not something you just toss on any old bed. Apparently each year, the staff decorates 40 Christmas trees in the complex so I expect it looks pretty festive at that time of year as the Americans generally decorate their homes to a very high standard for the Christmas celebrations. WE did think of taking a horse and carriage ride but most of them are for a few hours because the horses obviously cannot go that fast and they take you out into the countryside to see the Amish farms. We had already done that ourselves in the car but it would have been nice to have an authentic Amish carriage and also to have a bit of information from the Amish man driving the carriage. WOULD I RECOMMEND? Well not for the food unless you like plain and rather over cooked food. It was interesting to visit the restaurant and all the shops but I do wonder how authentic the food was. Surely over cooked vegetables are a thing of the past as it kills any goodness and also any flavor too. Not the best food we have eaten in America. Thanks for reading. This review may be posted on other sites under my same username. ©Catsholiday . Read the complete review |
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Papa John's
by kiss_me2070 Why I chose Papa John's = = = = = = = = = = = = = = PaPa Johns in the third largest pizza chain in the world with 3200 stores across 29 countries. They currently have over 100 stores in the UK with many more on the way. I knew they had just opened a new store in my local town and I really fancied a pizza, so I decided to take a ... look at their website to see what took my fancy. Living just outside a rather large town there are lots of pizza and take away restaurants, how-ever I always find that some a better quality than others. I had heard of Papa Johns before and knew their products were of good quality. The person whom I was ordering pizza with wanted Stuffed crust and a lot of the restaurants which are local to me don't do stuffed crust pizzas, which is why we decided to order from Papa Johns instead. The Website = = = = = = = As soon as the website loads it's bright and colourful with the main being a dark green colour. On the main page you can see any special offers which may be available. You can also find a store local to you, look at other offers and read their success story and how the company started. On the right hand side there is a box saying 'Why Not Order Online' here you simply type in your postcode to find your nearest store. You can also choose to search by county by using the drop down menu underneath where you type the postcode, or you can choose an area on the map shown. The website is attractive and very colourful with different offers changing on the main page. I typed in my postcode into the box and it came up with the details of the closest store to me. With this information it states whether the store is open and whether they deliver and payment types that they take. You can choose to view the menu or view the offers. It also lists other nearby stores as well, should the one you want to order from is closed. I clicked on the view menu button and it took me to another page where I had the choice to register my details or not. On this page is a large list of different pizzas that you can choose from. You can also add sides, desserts and drinks to your order as well. If you know what pizza you want you can select it from the drop down menu. On the left hand side is a list of current offers and a list of pizza sizes and how many slices each pizza contains. You can also view allergy information, nutritional information per slice and nutritional information per 100g. It states on the page that they aim to deliver the pizza within 30mins. All collection orders are ready within 15mins. On the right hand side of the screen is your basket where you can see any items you have put into your basket and how much they are. A small selection of available Food = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = Pizzas - Piri Piri Chicken, Chicken BBQ, Grande Italia, Garden Party, Pepperoni, Hot Pepper Passion, Half and Half. Sides - Chicken Wings, Chicken Dippers, Potato Wedges, Cheesy Bites, Garlic pizza bread. Desserts - A selection of Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream, Cheesecake, Banoffee Pie. Drinks - Fizzy drinks such as Coke, 7UP and more. Also a selection of water. Ordering Food = = = = = = = = The person whom I was sharing the Pizza with wanted a stuff crust pizza and we both wanted something like a 'Meat Feast' pizza, so we looked at the selection available. You can choose to have the pizza with an original crust, thin crust or stuffed crust. There are a total of 15 different Pizza's to choose from. Each pizza has a name and shows you a picture and lists the ingredients which are on the pizza. We decided to get the 'All the Meats' pizza which included Ham, pepperoni, sausage, bacon and spicy beef. The stuffed crust is only available in a large pizza which has 10 slices so we went for this one which cost us £19.49. Simply click on Add+ and this item will be added to your basket. You can choose to customise your chosen pizza simply by adding other ingredients (this will cost more). We also added a large bottle of coke to the order as well. Once we had everything in our basket we entered a special code which gave us 33% off, as it was our first order with them. We got this code from a leaflet which was posted through our door. We clicked on checkout and you had chance to double check your order before it was submitted to the store. You can then choose to pay online or pay cash when they deliver the pizza. We decided we were going to pay on delivery by cash. You need to fill out some information such as your address and a contact number, also an e-mail address so they can send a confirmation to your e-mail with your order details. As I was very local to the area and I had spent over £10 I didn't have to pay for any delivery charge. I don't think you qualify for delivery unless you spend over £10. I received an e-mail with a confirmation of my order and another e-mail with a password on if I wanted to use the website to order from again. It stated on the order confirmation e-mail that this wasn't a confirmation that the order had been received by the restaurant. I waited for another 10/15mins until I received another e-mail stating the restaurant had received the order and that it would be processed shortly. From this I timed how long it would take for the pizza to get to me as I was interested to see if they really did deliver within 30mins of an order being placed. Receiving the Food/Eating the Food = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = After receiving the last e-mail from the restaurant the pizza was delivered within 30mins, which I was very impressed by. The delivery driver handed me a Papa John's bag with the bottle of cold coke inside and then took the pizza out from the special keep hot bag and handed it to me. He told me the total amount to pay and I paid him cash and he handed me my change. The driver was very polite and smartly dresses in black trousers and a t-shirt. The coke was cold which wasn't expected as we thought this would be warm as when I have ordered pizza from other restaurants before they take the drinks from the shelf rather than the fridge. I opened the pizza box ready to tuck in. The pizza was correct and looked delicious. It had shifted about in the box a little during transit but it smelt and looked delicious. There was a pit of Garlic sauce with the pizza as well. I took the first slice and bit a piece off the end. The pizza tasted delicious and was still very warm but not too hot. There was plenty of topping all over the pizza and the stuffed crust was really cheesy and delicious. Normally when I have stuffed crust pizza's the cheese tastes very weak, how-ever in this pizza it was a little stronger and there was plenty of it in the crust. The crust wasn't too crispy which was nice as I like to dip this into some sauce and then eat them at the end. The pizza was very filling but was delicious and tasted great with all the different mixed meats on top. Overall Opinion = = = = = = = = = I will definitely be ordering from this restaurant again. The food was delivered within the time stated on their website and the food was delicious and tasted great. In terms of value I think it's probably about the same as other pizza restaurants in the area, how-ever I don't mind paying a little more for good quality which this pizza was. As I had to fill in my details on the website such as e-mail address it means I will now get sent different offers, which is great as it's always good to save a bit of money. The delivery driver was smart looking and also very polite. I don't think I can actually fault this restaurant on anything as everything was just perfect. If you happen to have one of these in your areas I would highly recommend them to other to try as their pizzas taste much better than other restaurants such as Perfect Pizza. I will be using this restaurant again in the future and I think they deserve 5 shiny stars. (review also on ciao) Read the complete review |
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Porta Romana Italian Restaurant (Spiesen-Elversberg, Germany)
by PeaceLoveTravel On a recent trip back home to visit my parents we got caught up in a small cards tournament. Now, I am a terrible looser but an even worse winner. Having had a lucky streak that night I bet a dinner paid by me if I was to loose the final game. And of course I lost - and deservedly so given how cocky I had been all night. Our ... choice fell on the Porta Romanaa Italian Restaurant in Spiesen-Elversberg. Spiesen-Elversberg is a tiny 16000 people community in the southwest of Germany. The region of Saarland is famous for its extensive broadleaf forests as well as good beers and wine. Traditional food here is, well, I would say it is very German - sausages, potatoes and cabbage. The Porta Romana is a lively Italian restaurant just off the main road through town that offers a tasty alternative to the usual German dishes. We did not pre-book a table as we assumed that the restaurant would not be too busy mid-week. Surprisingly it did turn out to be quite full but with it being a lovely summer's night I guess most people felt more like going out than staying in and watching TV. When we arrived we were given a choice between sitting inside or in the conservatory that opened up to an outdoor area. With it being the height of summer we opted to sit in the conservatory which turned out to be very tastefully decorated and having a lovely view on the garden area. The rest of the restaurant was equally nice with light wooden furniture and plain colours. Thankfully the owner did not feel the need to use red and white checkerboard fabric or gaudy pictures of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. The waited that greeted us was perfectly lovely and had a gorgeous Italian accent. He took our drinks order and then quickly bought us the food menus. The soft drinks were all reasonably priced with around 1.50£ each for a big bottle of water and a medium coke. The restaurant also sports an extensive wine menu but with all of has having to get up early the next morning we stuck to soft drinks all night. The selection of red and white wines (mostly Italian for the former and German for the latter) were priced between 10£ and 30£ per bottle with a few cheaper house wines thrown into the mix. We were enjoying our evening so far and I was pleasantly surprised by the low volume of the music. I just hate places where you have to scream to be understood over the cheesy pop music coming from the radio. Here we all really enjoyed the relaxed atmosphere with people having a laugh during a good night out. There were a few children eating there as well but nobody minded and the restaurant is spacious enough to not be bothered by the conversations on the tables next to you. Porta Romana is certainly a more casual place with a homely atmosphere. No need to dress up to enjoy your pizza but still nice enough for a more fancy night out or a date. Choosing food from the extensive menu was rather difficult given all the excellent sounding options. There is a big selection of starters, salads, meat dishes and of course pizza e pasta. We decided on a Chef Salad - I asked for a started size which was not on the menu but they were happy to prepare it for me; escargots in garlic butter and tomato bruschetta. All starters arrived within ten minutes and were all certainly much bigger than expected. My parents were happy with their choices and my salad was simply divine. The big bowl contained a mixed leaf salad with cabbage, carrots, salad cucumbers and boiled eggs. The whole thing was topped with grilled chicken stripes and warm mushrooms. The meat was perfectly flavoured and the mushrooms are certainly classed as an all-time favourite of mine from now on. However, the highlight of my salad was certainly the creamy dressing. By this point I was certainly regretting not to choose this as my main course. The mains turned out to be an equally hard choice. Eventually we settled for Tortellini a la Panna (filled pasta in a creamy sauce with ham) for my mother; steak and peppercorn sauce for my father and Rigatoni a la Chef for me. The wait was a tiny bit on the long side but they really did have a busy night and the waiters were doing their best to work as efficiently as possible. We were having a great time and with the enormous size of the starters the half hour wait went very quickly. The mains arrived all at the same time and were - just as expected - huge. I guess this is very typical German; portions are very hearty and quite big. If you are on a diet than a holiday on Germany is certainly the wrong choice. Anyway, back to the food. My pasta dish was one of the nicest tasting pasta dishes I had tasted outside Italy. The rigatoni were perfectly al dente and the creamy sauce incredibly tasty. It was flavoured with some sort of dark spirit (whisky, maybe brandy?) with grilled steak bites and mushrooms. No word of complaint here and even though it was a struggle I did finish the whole portion of it. Given that I was hardly able to walk back to the car after the huge portions I had that night it was a good thing that there was not more pasta on my plate. My mother enjoyed her pasta as well but found the dish to be slightly on the rich side. She did like the sauce a lot but said that she would probably choose it with an unfilled type of pasta to make it a bit lighter. Although my dad enjoyed the sides and the peppercorn sauce a lot he found his steak to be too well done although he ordered it medium rare. To be honest, I am sure that they would have prepared him a new steak if he would have complained about it but he was a bit stubborn and ate it anyway. Both of them finished their dishes and we agreed that there was no way of fitting any dessert into our well-filled tummies anymore. Towards the end of the evening we did not feel rushed to leave and staff did not push us to order further drinks or dessert. The bill came promptly when we asked for it. With under 50£ for three starters, three mains and various soft drinks we really could not complain about the value for money. All dishes were very tasty and prepared with fresh, high quality ingredients. I am not completely sure but I would say that all the pasta was home-made as well. The portion size was more than generous, making it almost pointless to choose starters. Next time we go we will probably have a couple of starters or a salad between us so we don't spoil our appetite for the main course. Porta Romana is definitely one of my favourite restaurants in the area and we will certainly go there again. Although it is a bit out of the way of bigger cities it is certainly worth a detour if you find yourself in the region looking for a good dinner option. The great food and the relaxed atmosphere made for a very enjoyable and not too expensive evening. Staff had been kind and attentative throughout the entire night. A couple of things that I would criticise are the toilets that are down a flight of step stairs. I pulled my calf muscle the week previous to our visit and manoeuvring the stairs was not fun. So unfortunately that is a No for wheelchair friendliness. My main complaint would be the lack of on-site parking. With it being a busy main road it can be a bit tricky finding a parking spot close-by. Quick info: http://www.portaromana.de/ Neunkircherstr. 70 66583 Spiesen-Elversberg Tel.: +49 (0) 6821 740880 Read the complete review |
Restaurant International |
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Chinese. The Oriental, 6 Raffles Boulevard, Marina Square, Singapore 039797 Tel: +65 331 0538 |
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1 review English. Goodwood Park Hotel, 22 Scotts Road, Singapore 228221 Tel: +65 737 7411 |
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1 review Italian. Grand Hyatt Singapore, 10-12 Scotts Road, Singapore 228211 Tel: +65 738 1234 |
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International. The Ritz Carlton, 2100 Massachusetts Avenue NW, Washington D.C. 20008 Tel: +1 202 659 8000 |
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Carribean. 1762 Columbia Road NW, Washington D.C. 20009 Tel: +1 202 234 4955 |
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American. 3236 M Street NW, Washington D.C. 20007 Tel: +1 202 333 9180 |
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Italian.1220 19th Street NW, Washington D.C. 20036 Tel: +1 202 835 0459 |
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