I am happy to see that you have found yourself reading my blog! Allow me a moment to tell you a bit about myself and how I came about creating this blog.
I am a 30-something year old (hey, a woman never reveals her actual age, right?) who loves food. I mean, who doesn't love food? I am just willing to admit it. I'm not the girl who goes out to dinner and orders a simple salad because I want to watch my figure. Yeah, sure, I should probably watch what I eat a little more closely, but when your tastebuds enjoy the food you eat, that is a hard task! I have never been a picky eater. Heck, my mom once told me that I would eat anything placed on my plate... including vegetables at a very young age! To this day, I still love green veggies! :)
Now, as for the name of my blog; that is a bit more complicated. You see, my middle name is Latina. One day at church (when I was a teen) our discussion somehow turned to our given names. My Sunday school teacher misheard me, and replied, "Oh, like Queen Latifah?" Don't I wish I was as cool as her! So, one of my dear friends shortened Latifah to 'Tifa.
Then to add on to that, I had a habit of bringing up weird facts. Stupid things that make no difference to know in every day life. Things like: giraffes have blue tongues because they have very few blood vessels in it. So, whenever I mentioned some off-the-wall fact, my friend called it a Tifa Tidbit.
Because of that, I decided to call my blog Tifa's Tidbits. I will be presenting to you the facts about restaurants that I visit. Things such as how much time it takes for my food to arrive and if it is correct upon it's arrival. Those are facts. They can be accurately measured. Now, added to these facts will be my personal opinions on the service and quality of food.
Why did I decide to do this? I have discovered very few places where I receive an an overall enjoyable dining experience. I live in Anchorage, AK, and there are some chain restaurants as well as unique to here places. I wanted to help spread the word of places where I feel the customer receives high quality service and food as well as places to where I will never step foot in the establishment again.
With each entry, I will state the date and time I was there. I do understand that some nights of the week will be busier than others. But I will state that I feel that on the busier nights, the staff should be on top of their game. All too often, I'm finding this is not the case.
So, for my kick-off blog, I'm going to review Lone Star Steakhouse. They are located at 4810 C Street in Anchorage. I visited there on August 8, 2013. My date and I arrived at 7:35pm and we departed the establishment at 9:05pm.
I was impressed that the restaurant appeared busy, but I was able to easily find a parking space. When checking in, I was told that there would be about a 20-25 minute wait. No worries. If the food was good, it was going to be worth waiting. The seating in the waiting area was along a hallway near the entryway to the bathrooms. At least no foul odors were permeating from them. The walkway was used frequently by patrons either needing the bathroom or exiting the business. People could not walk side-by-side. I feel it would have been better to have a more open waiting area rather than feeling like I was sitting in a main travel area.
We were seated 25 minutes after checking in. At least they were accurate about the wait time. That's good. I hate waiting longer than the anticipated wait time. Our server came to our table about 5 minutes after we were seated. We ordered a Pepsi and a Diet Pepsi along with a couple appetizers. We decided on the fried green beans and loaded potato skins.
These appetizers took 30 minutes after ordering to arrive to our table. The green beans were bland. I'm guessing it was supposed to be a spicy ranch dressing (they called it Texas Ranch dressing), but it was bland. I have had plain ranch with more flavor than the dressing they provided with the green beans. I ate a few and took the rest home. My dogs liked them. Then again, as my boyfriend tells me, my dogs would eat a cyanide pill if I gave it to them.
The loaded potato skins weren't bad. There was nothing remarkable about them. I was glad to see they were loaded with cheese. I LOVE cheese. But the skins on the potatoes themselves didn't look as clean as I would have made them if I created this at home. Only 2 of the skins were left uneaten.
We each ordered a different type of steak for our meals. I ordered an 8 oz filet mignon, while my boyfriend ordered the 14 oz ribeye. I like my steaks cooked medium-rare, whereas my boyfriend prefers his medium-well. We both got salads and I ordered a loaded baked potato with my steak.
Our salads came out 3 minutes after our appetizers were delivered to the table. Our steaks followed after the salads 3 minutes later. Horrible timing! I like to enjoy one course before the next one arrives. They really need to work on their timing.
Here is a photo of my salad:
I've had better. But at least the lettuce was crispy and not wilted. Again, the ranch dressing had very little flavor.
Here is my 8 oz filet mignon with a baked potato. The steak was bacon-wrapped, which provided a nice flavor to the steak. My steak was cooked medium-rare. However, I did notice that my steak was cut into before it was brought out to me. You would expect that a steak restaurant would know how to tell the doneness of a steak without the need to cut into it! That is very amateurish! Even I know how to discern that when I'm grilling out my own steaks at home without cutting them.
The steak had a good wood-grilled flavor to it. The only complaint I have is that someone cut into my steak before it was served to me. The potato was good. Again, the skin of the potato didn't look as clean as I thought it should be. Of course it had to be cleaned appropriately or else they couldn't serve it, right?
Here is the 14 oz ribeye:
At least it wan't cut prior to serving. I forgot to take a photo of the medium-wellness of the steak. It was cooked appropriately. I will admit that this was the first time I have enjoyed a steak at a restaurant where my steak was served at the correct level of doneness (is that a word?) on the first try. Most times, my steak is over cooked. So, this was a pleasant surprise.
We did not order deserts, as we were not able to finish our meals as it was. Our dogs got to enjoy steak and green beans. I swear, my dogs are spoiled!
The total cost of our meal was $74.02 before the tip. There is no sales tax here in Anchorage, so that is always nice. Everything here in Alaska is more expensive than places in the "Lower 48" (continental US). But, for the price, we both got full tummies and we had plenty of food for home. The leftovers fed 3 dogs.
Will I return to this restaurant? Probably. Despite the ill timing of the food delivery, our server was nice and the steaks were good. I would give this place a 3 out of 5 stars on my Tifa Tidbit scale. It was average. Nothing spectacular. But I would recommend it to someone if they wanted a steak cooked correctly on the first attempt. I do not recommend the fried green beans. So, the next time I go there, I will order a different appetizer.
Keep tuned for another Tifa Tidbit in the future. I do eat out a lot (I need to stop that!) so my reviews will come fairly frequently. Enjoy!
