Phillips Avenue Diner Sioux Falls, South Dakota

Phillips Avenue Diner:  A throwback to a simpler time with an upbeat menu.  The decor is reminisce of an small town diner with counter seating, booth seating and the modern addition of outdoors seating.  We were seated as soon as we entered and our waitress was there almost instantaneously to take drink orders.  The menu is varied with a few old diner favorites like Milk Shakes served in a tall glass with the extra still in the mixing cup, hamburgers and french fries.  But they also had a few items that set them apart from the standard diner.  The appetizers covered the gamut.  They had Diner Chislic, Fried Pickles, Poutine (a Canadian favorite of fries,meat, gravy and cheese curds), Cheese Curds, Hummus, Chicken Quesadilla and Tomato Bisque.  The entrees give everyone a choice from sandwiches to salads to full plate dinners.  

During our visit we had the Diner Chislic which was described as marinated Flank steak pieces, lightly fried with marinated tomatoes, a red pepper cream sauce and Tabasco Onion Rings.  The dish looked great and tasted fine.  The steak was more than lightly fried and the tomatoes were not marinated but the sauce and the onion rings were obviously home made and delicious.  We then had the Apple Jack Waffle which also looked great and tasted very good.  The apples were cooked without being overcooked and the pecans were toasted beautifully with a light sugar coating.  

Phillips Avenue Diner is definitely worth a visit.

Phillips Avenue Diner 

Diner Chislic

Apple Jack Waffle

Ratings on a scale of 1 (lowest) to 10.  

Cleanliness  8

Service 9

Presentation 8

Value 9

Until we meet again: Live Well, Love Much, Laugh Often

Turning a new page

Since Jackie and I are so blessed to be able to travel this great country and experience not only the sights and the people but also the food, we want to try to share with our family and friends what we find.  With this blog I, with Jackie's help, will try to capture the food side of our travel experiences.  We will do reviews of restaurants, diners, drive-ins and dives and stores .  Also I want to share some of my  own recipes and experiences in learning new recipes and techniques while cooking in an RV.  I invite questions concerning cooking or cooking in an RV (which is a an adventure in itself).   Also if there is a restaurant you think we should try, let us know and we will do our best.  We also welcome comments concerning the format of the blog.   Enough blabbering, let's get started.

Aunt Jean's dinner

My Aunt Jean asked me a while ago about doing a dinner for her and some of her friends.  So I have been studying the menus at "The French Laundry", Thomas Keller's restaurant and decided I would do a dinner similar in approach to Keller's.  There will be 9 courses 2 appetizer, 2 seafood, 1 vegetarian, 2 red meat and 2 dessert.  One of the dessert courses will be a Rootbeer Creme Brulee'.  My interpretation will include a bottom layer of Rootbeer Panna Cotta with a top layer of vanilla Creme Brulee'.  I made my firt Panna Cotta this weekend and It came out great.  There will be some interesting challenges trying to do very small courses but it should be fun.
 

Learning new things - Gastriques

Last night on Master Chef one of the people made a Gastrique.  Well it has intriqued me all day and I decided to look up exactly what is a Gastrique.  Well it turns out it is a reduction of Vinegar and Sugar.  The claims are that it will brighten and intensify the flavors of other sauces, such as tomato, or it can add to a dish such as a Black Berry Gastrique for Pork.  Gastriques are not limited to entrees, they also can be used on desserts.   I have decided to begin learning about Gastriques and how to properly use them.

If anyone reads this and is familiar with Gastriques or wants to learn about them, let me know and we can learn together.  I will post my experiments both good and bad.

Live Well,  Love Much,  Laugh Often