Eating and drinking with Franny and Zo!

Here I am again, doing what I hate most... Telling people that a place in a Casino is good. Why do I hate doing this? First of all it is rare I like any food from any casino unless you are in one of their top tier restaurants. Secondly I hate supporting Casinos when their are great local places to eat. Finally I hate doing it because I have such a hard time convincing people that my taste-buds are not broken! But tucked away in the Silver Legacy is a restaurant that I really enjoyed.

Thai Lotus is one of my new favorite places to catch lunch in Reno. You get not only great tasting but beautifully presented food. Your meal comes out on a large ornate platter with a small salad, a rice paddie, your main course and an egg roll each on their own dish. The effect along with the friendly servers makes you think that you should be paying far more than the usual $8 bucks!

The Firkin' chain of British Pubs is owned and operated by a British Canadian company. Confusing? YES! Although we usually do not stop in huge corporate chain restaurants we were looking for something we had not had and had burgers and brews.

Polar Bear Frozen Treats in Reno is one of Zo and my favorite places to get frozen treats! Zo is a big fan of the Turtle Sundae (hot fudge, caramel, and salted pecans!) and I like trying the flavor of the day! My favorites have been peanut butter with chocolate peanut butter cups, s'mores, lemon pie and chocolate chocolate with fudge! I am sure there have been others I loved but going their most every Wednesday and Sunday makes it hard to remember what all we have had. That is how much we love it, we go almost every Wednesday and Sunday.

Why does it cost so much for a burger I have to stand in line and make myself? Are the burgers good? Yes. Are the servers friendly? Yes. Does that make up for having to pay just as much as a normal burger place for the novelty of making the burger my way? Not really. I could make it at home.

I am not saying that Fudruckers is a bad burger place, I just do not get it. You are paying regular restaurant prices to stand in a line waiting to hurriedly throw together your burger with various items, bumping into others also trying to do the same thing. I think that it would work a lot smoother if they would just increase the condiment tables size. Spread it out a little so that you are not bumping into everyone else trying to pick between the hundreds of choices.

The burgers taste pretty much however you want them to because you make them so I will focus on the patties and buns. They are pretty good, not the best not the worst. They remind me of playground grilled burgers at those big family outings.

What Francis says: If you like the novelty of making your own burger, try it out.
What Zo says: Good burgers for a chain, wedge fries are pretty good kind of made her mad they called her ZoHan.

I hate 1000 Island dressing, so you know it is a bad burger when I drown my burger in it. Zo and I have been making fun of how the outside of Cheeseburger Island Style here in Reno looks since it was built. I kept saying it looked like a bad Veags Casino! After months of making fun of it I said, "Hey babe why don't we give it a chance?" So we did.

When you walk in you are greeted by hostesses wearing really bad imitation grass skirts and a friendly "Aloha!" These Alohas get old about the 3rd, 4th one and make you grind your teeth by the 8th or 9th! For being an Island themed burger joint it sure is dark. I do not know about the two girls that opened it after wanting a burger in Hawaii but I've never been to a dark dank beach in bright sunshiny Hawaii. The menus are sticky and grease with way too many items. I shouldn't have to have a waiter tell me to open to page 17 for drinks and page 13 for appetizers... I should be able to easily find them myself.

The menu states all of their burgers come with 1000 island dressing and the onion rings are unforgettable, if my unforgettably plain then they are right about that. The burgers... UGH, the burgers. The first thing Zo noticed when they were brought to us were that they were school cafeteria grey (real bad sign) and the first thing I noticed when biting into them was that they tasted like sausage breakfast patties from a fast food joint. I decided there must be something to the adding 1000 island to the burgers. i had it put on the side because neither of us is a huge fan of it, Zo likes it sometimes. I dipped my burger in... if you dip it in the 1000 island dressing, sprinkle pepper over it, pour ranch on it and pretend you are eating a breakfast sandwich you can kind of enjoy it I suppose.

What was good? The service was pretty darn good (other than they try to up sell you with every sentence when makes Zo and I order less.) The seasoned fries are also pretty good. Nothing to write home about but good enough that you would eat a plate of them!

What Francis says: AVOID!
What Zo says: Avoid!

We do not usually frequent casinos but the Atlantis In Reno has Gelato! They also have brick oven pizzas. Those two things combined plus the fact the Atlantis is one of the casinos you do not walk out of smelling like a total ashtray makes this a fun place to stop by now and then.

If you get a pizza be picky. If it looks like something you can get anywhere it is going to taste like a pizza you can get anywhere. If it has an interesting name like; Island Delight, Fire-Roasted Chipotle Chicken, Chef Bob's Favorite, Spicy Meatball, Sonora, ect. It is going to be interesting and good.

When it comes to Gelato there is only really one flavor to avoid. Banana, it tastes like banana laughy taffy not bananas. Other wise they all taste great, some of our favorites are; Wine custard, Amaretto, Carmel, cookies and cream, truffle and vanilla. Everyday they have different flavors so you may have to drop in a few times in a row to get the flavor you are looking for.

We hope to see you there! http://www.atlantiscasino.com/dining/cafe-alfresco-menu.asp

Beef Fajitas, Tacos, Cheese Enchiladas, Salsa, beans, rice, Quesadilla, Carne Asada, Chile Relleno, Margaritas everything I have had here tastes authentic and great!

I have been telling Zo about this place for probably a year and a half and saying we have to go. Then we would end up going somewhere else for one reason or another. We finally popped in Monday night and the food was just as good as I remembered it and I got a, "Everything tastes SO good," from Zo!

We split an order of beef fajitas and a cheese enchilada and it was oh so good.

Being that it has been a while since I have been there, I noticed they have redone the decor and menu's. I remember there being mariachis as well but maybe they are off on Monday nights. Treat yourself to some yummy Mexican at El Sazon II on Oddie Blvd :)

No website so here are some reviews:
http://local.yahoo.com/info-14995488-el-sazon-mexicano-restaurant-alcoa
http://www.menupix.com/reno/restaurants/2800635/El-Sazon-Mexican-Restaurant-Sparks-NV

What Francis says: Love it when the mariachis are there, great place for some authentic Mexican cuisine.
What Zo says: Good place to take your family for Mexican food.

Being the pizza lovers we are we scour our local area for good pizzerias. We had seen the sign for Eclipse a few times and decided it was time to try it out.

The menu is full of pizza's with fun names and we settled on the Downieville, an Eclipse House salad and Two Orange blossom beers. You can sit outside on the patio, down stairs or in the loft. We chose the loft as you can look out the windows at the beautiful Reno Valley mountains.

When our order was ready they popped upstairs and dropped us off our food. Pizza is always good but man this pizza is as fun your mouth as they are named. It was flavorful with quality ingredients and best of all the crust was great tasting. Too many places have pizza crust that is as bland as cardboard. The crust could have been eaten on its own it was so good.

We highly recommend this place for its fun food and atmosphere!

http://www.eclipsepizza.net/

What Francis says: Darn good pizza, just eat it there the crust is not as good once it cools.
What Zo says: Tasty pizza and tasty crust, fun environment.

A very pleasant surprise! Zo mentioned seeing the commercial for this Fresh Mex on our way home from my parents. We thought it would be fun to stop in and get some quick food to eat as we lounged around at home.

Zo and I wanted to go out to a fancy shmancy dinner, somewhere we could dress up and not look completely out of place. In Reno your selection of this type of restaurant is pretty small.

Deciding to pop into Beaujolais Bistro reservationless we were seated right away. The restaurant has a very nice ambiance, quaint with a touch of regal. This is due to it being a converted cottage.

The first thing I noticed about the menu was the small dinner selection, this usually shows that you will be having a quality meal. This assumption was completely correct! I loved the roasted duck that was the special of the night. Zo's choice was exquisite! The wine selection was also adequate. What was not adequate was the service. Our waiter seemed to hover around the tables with more mature (older) couples and groups. We figured he must feel that due to our youth we would be bad tippers. The bad service continued through dessert. Speaking of dessert every spoonful of our creme brulee was mouthwateringly good.

When it came time to tip we were torn, do we tip poorly to show how upset we were with the service or would that just make the waiter believe he was right in assuming that we would tip poorly. I do not care if I am paying 10 dollars for a meal or over 100 dollars for a meal I expect good service. In the end we settled on 15 percent due to the food being so wonderful. If there was not a lack of service we would have gone with our usual 20-25 percent tip. That waiter really needs to learn that young couples do not equate to poor tipping.

What Francis says: Go for the great food but bear in mind you have the chance of having poor service.
What Zo says: Good food and environment, they must hate young couples because they think they don't tip well.

http://www.beaujolaisbistro.com/history04.html