Mi Burrito II

Last Saturday night, I made my first trip to the new Mi Burrito in Sherwood. It's in the old Mazzio's building near the Neighborhood market, if you're not familiar. Apparently it's not the first "Mi Burrito" as their sign actually reads "Mi Burrito II". I couldn't tell if the "II" was Roman numerals for 2 or an 11, so there is somewhere between one and ten other Mi Burritos somewhere out there.

When we got there around 7:30 on Saturday, there were only about four other groups of people seated, although one group had 6 people in it. I was surprised to see so few people on a Saturday night.

Decor/Layout: The walls had been painted bright colors, in glorious contrast to the white ceiling and trim. It was lively without being garish. There is a small bar area in one corner and booths all around the outside walls. The entire center is tables with no partitions or half-walls to break up the area. The booth I sat in had a big lump in the middle of the seat, so I sat a little to the side. The tile floors are no doubt easy to clean, but when the person bussing tables came through with a push-cart, the sound of the dishes rattling as the cart bumped along the tile was distracting.

Prices: I thought the prices were about average. I didn't notice the lunch menu, but my Chimichanga dinner was $7.25. I can't find a menu online, but two dinners (One chimchanga and one Mi Burrito) plus two frozen margaritas came to a total of $28 before tip.

Food: I tend to judge Mexican restaurants on two criteria: 1) Rice and beans 2) Chimichanga. I realize this may be neither scientific or fair, but the Chimi is almost always what I order when going to a Mexican restaurant for the first time. As for the rice and beans, those are the staple sides, so if they can't get those right, it doesn't bode well for the rest of the meal. At Mi Burrito, the rice was good, but the beans were a little runny. The flavor on both was good, but I would have preferred the beans to be more substantial. I got the chicken chimi and it was very good. It was cooked to a perfect golden brown and was just crispy enough. My companion had the Mi Burrito dinner and had no complaints. The chips and salsa were tasty, but we only got one bowl between us, so we kept bumping chips.

Bar: We didn't sit at the bar, but the drink page on the dinner menu had lots of varieties of frozen and mixed drinks. We both ordered a frozen margarita. I got peach and my dinner companion got a specialty one whose name I can't recall. Mine didn't have a very noticeable peachy flavor. The specialty one had some sort of extra alcohol added and ended up being MUCH stronger than my peach one was. I'm not sure what the price for each one was since the ticket was hand written with no breakout on prices, but the total for both drinks and two dinners was $28 before tax.

Overall impression: The food was good and the atmosphere was agreeable. It's convenient location may be enough to get me back for another day, but with the wealth of excellent Mexican restaurants around town, if I had my choice, I'd probably head to El Porton or end my long hiatus at Casa Mexicana.

Morningside bagels in Maumelle

Last Saturday morning, I was out towards Maumelle so I decided to stop in at Morningside Bagels. I've always thought it was a shame that there aren't more bagel shops around Arkansas. Maybe there are more than I know about, but Morningside was the first bagel shop I've ever been to in Arkansas. I heard there used to be one out around Bowman but no more. In any case, I took the opportunity to stop in and try it out.

They make their bagels fresh every morning, and even have a glass window overlooking their baking area so you can see it firsthand. Check out their website to see a fully menu, but they have 17 different kinds of bagels ranging from plain to spinach parmesan. They also have 5 different kinds of cream cheese, plus peanut butter, honey, jelly, or even lox. They even have breakfast sandwiches (on bagels, of course), soups, and basic latte choices.

We got there around 8:15 on a Saturday and although there were a steady stream of people through the door and the drive through, nothing seemed hectic or rushed. Everyone there was extremely nice and helpful.

I started off by ordering an Everything bagel with vegetable cream cheese and my companion got spinach parmesan with plain cream cheese. I also had a hot chocolate. Both bagels came out perfectly toasted and generously schmeared. I got to try the spinich parmesean and it was very good without being overpowering. I ate the bottom half of my everything bagel first and it was delicious. The vegetable cream cheese was actually much better than I expected it to be. I would definitely order that again. When I got to the top half, I got to taste the "Everything" part of the bagel. Everything bagels are usually my favorite kind of bagel. They're topped with a mixture of all the toppings that get put on the other bagels, so there's usually poppy seeds, onion, sesame seed and whatever else. At Morningside though, they have a salt bagel that's topped with big pieces of salt (not sure if it's kosher, sea salt, etc). I like salty, but the addition of salt to my everything bagel kept me from being able to taste anything else, including the vegetable in my vegetable cream cheese. If I go back again, I'll definitely skip the salt or everything bagel.

Before we left, I wanted to split a chocolate chip bagel with chocolate cream cheese. I love chocolate, so I didn't want the chance to pass by without trying that. I already had my hot chocolate, but I was still waiting for that to cool down, so I ordered the bagel. It came out very quickly, and was fairly good. The cream cheese with chocolate mixed in was an odd combination, but I suspect some people might like it. I probably wouldn't order it again.

Overall, my experience was good enough that I'll definitely stop in again if I'm out that way around breakfast time. If you like bagels, stop in and give it a try. It's a nice departure from the usual donut choices that usually dominate the weekend breakfast circuit.

Google Streetview comes to town

On March 27th of this year, Google added Street View data for Little Rock and surrounding cities. According to Wikipedia, it covers the following cities:
* Alexander
* Benton
* Bryant
* Cabot
* Carlisle
* Conway
* Greenbrier
* Heber Spring
* Jacksonville
* Mayflower
* Maumelle
* Pine Bluff
* Searey
* Sherwood
* Stuttgart
* Ward
* White Hall
I think that's a pretty impressive coverage area for an initial offering. Some roads are missing, especially newer subdivisions, but most of what I've looked for has been available.

If you're not familiar with Google Streetview, it's basically another layer of information that's been added to Google Maps. Before, when you looked up an address on Google maps, you could either use a satellite view, a street map, or a combination of the two. Now, they've added Streetview, where you can actually view a three-dimensional picture of the area. You can see anything that would be visible from the road. When you have the StreetView activated, roads that are covered are highlighted in blue.

To gather all the data, they got cars equipped with cameras on top and drove all over town. Then Google complied that information so that when you look up an address, you can view what the camera saw when it drove by. Once you're looking at an area, you can use arrows to move down the street or scroll the camera view in any direction for a better look. I'm not sure when the data was collected, but gas was $2.59 at the time:



The one complaint I do have is one I also have with google maps. The location you're at when you pull up an address is not always right in front of the address. This means that if you search for an address, you might have to move down the street a couple of houses to see the one that's actually at the address you entered. The service is still wildly useful for all sorts of things.

Redbox

This past weekend, I finally tired out one of the Redbox movie rental kiosks that have been popping up around town. There is one in the Neighborhood Market, and at McDonald's off the end of Kiehl, across from McCain Mall, and on JFK and N. Hills. You'll know it when you see it. It's literally a big red box.

The way it works is that you swipe your credit card and it dispenses movies. You pay $1 a night and you just have to return it before 9pm the day after you get it. If you don't return it in time, they just charge you another dollar for each extra day.

The movie I was looking for had just been released the previous Tuesday, but the Redbox had a copy, so I swiped my credit card and entered my email address and zip code (to verify my billing address). The movie came sliding out and I was on my way. The whole thing took a couple of minutes and the dvd came in a hard plastic case.

I wish I'd checked to see whether entering an email address was optional, but at the time, I just wanted to see what kind of confirmation email they'd send. I ended up getting three emails from them: one verifying my rental, one verifying its return, and one showing the charge. Three emails over one rental seems a little much, but I can see why each one is useful.

I currently subscribe to Blockbuster through the mail and return them in the store, but I actually liked Redbox enough that I might suspend my blockbuster subscription for a month or two and try Redbox instead. My blockbuster plan is $16 (plus tax) a month, which would buy me 16 Redbox rentals if I manage to return them all on time. If you use Netflix or Blockbuster Online and always send the movies back through the mail, Redbox probably seems like a huge inconvenience to you. On the other hand, if you're like me and you usually swing by a Blockbuster to return movies in the store, Redbox only adds the inconvenience of having to pick up the movie ahead of time.

I checked out the Redbox website and I really like that you can see what movies are available at a location prior to leaving the house. You can even reserve a movie and have it on hold for you when you get there. The one thing I can't believe is missing is a quicker way to locate movies. You basically have to look through screens showing 10 dvd covers at a time. They're sorted by title, release date, or availability, but you can't just view a list of all available titles at once or even search for a movie title and see what locations nearby currently have it. I can definitely think of some basic features that would make the website more useful, but the very fact that you can check a Redbox inventory and put movies on hold before driving down there makes the website worth using.

The one disclaimer I will add is that Redbox's inventory of movies is (from what I've seen) exclusively new releases. If you're into foreign movies, or seasons of tv shows, or old classics, don't count on Redbox to have anything you're looking for.

Schlotzsky's got a makeover

I went to Schlotzsky's for lunch this past weekend. It's been around for as long as I can remember, so I'm not going to even bother telling you where it is. If you don't already know, I'll let finding out be part of the adventure. It'll build character and be worth it. You'll thank me.

I don't go there very often, but their fresh-made bread is worth the trip. I don't know baking, but the bread is the perfect density and is full of air pockets. There is probably a name for this type of bread, but I just call it "delicious". I always think of them as being on the expensive side for a sandwich, but I don't think it's any more than Jason's Deli or McAllister's. Plus, you can check out their website to get some coupons (.$50 - $.75 off a sandwich, depending on size).

Schlotzsky's also has the best chips around. They have their own chips, in all sorts of tasty flavors, so don't go in hoping for Dorito's or Lay's. I always get the Cracked Pepper ones, which are probably my favorite kind of chips ever. You can also get Schlotzsky's chips at some grocery stores around town (Walmart Supercenter on McCain carries them last time I checked) so pick some up even if you don't make it by for a sandwich.

But like I said, this place is been around forever, so I hate to act like you don't know anything about it. If you haven't been, go. Nuff said. The reason I'm posting is because if you haven't been in awhile, they've redone their dining area. It used to be a big open area and you could see everything from everywhere. Now they've added a brick divider so that you can't see the front counter from the seating area. It looks a lot nicer than it did before, so check it out. It'll be a good excuse to go. It also looked like they were working on adding a back patio area, but it was still under construction as of about a week ago.

Crazy Hibachi Review

Last Friday night, I decided to go out for dinner and a movie with a couple of people. To be honest, we usually drive out to Rave to see movies, but we wanted to save some time, so we went to Lakewood 8 instead. We bought the tickets first, then drove around looking for a restaurant with a short wait time. We ended up at Crazy Hibachi in Lakewood Village, where they were able to seat us immediately. I went to Crazy Hibachi not long after it opened a couple of years ago, but for no particular reason, haven't been back since. This time, we ate at the Mongolian Grill.

If you're not familiar with Crazy Hibachi, it's got three different areas. There is a sushi bar (which I've never been to), there is an area where groups of about 6-8 people sit around a chef while he fixes your meal and does tricks along the way, then there is the Mongolian grill. At the Mongolian grill, there is a buffet with various kinds of meats, vegetables, and sauces. You pick whatever you want, throw it all in a bowl together, then give it to a chef next to the buffet. He throws your food on a giant grill and cooks it while you wait. It just takes a minute and your food come out hot and fresh.

Selection: The buffet had a very nice selection of meats to choose from. The choices included: beef tenderloin, pork tenderloin, chicken, shrimp, sausage, calamari, mini scallops, and crab (imitation). The other half of the buffet included lo mein noodles, and vegetables of all kinds. I'm not big on vegetables, so I don't remember everything they had. I know there were two kinds of bell peppers, carrots, broccoli, onions, and probably about 15 others I didn't eat and therefor don't remember. To all this, you can add at least 8 different sauces, peanuts, salt, sugar, garlic or an egg. In addition, the chef will add your sauce of choice right before taking your food off the grill for that extra bit of flavor.

Atmosphere: Nice decorations and ambiance. My only complaint was that as the tables filled up and the chef was grilling up a storm, the constant clanging of his tools on the grill was a little annoying and made conversation harder to maintain. We were only a couple of tables from the grill, but the area for the Mongolian grill is such a size that you couldn't get too away if you tried.

Price: It was $14.99 per person to eat at the Mongolian grill. The food is only as good as you make it, but it's all-you-can-eat, so if you don't like what you make, you can try again. It was much better than anything I've had at other all-you-can-eat buffets, and I did get to control how much of my favorite things I got. The drawback was that apart from a cup of rice (steamed or fried) and a small salad, there wasn't anything to go with it. Maybe I'm missing the point of a Mongolian grill, but for $14.99, an egg roll would have been nice. Cokes or iced tea were $1.50.

Overall: The food was good, and while I would certainly go back for a special occasion, but I won't be adding Crazy Hibachi to my regular rotation of restaurants. If you're the kind of person who never needs a to-go box, Crazy Hibachi is for you. As for me, at most restaurants where I would pay $15, I end up taking home enough to make lunch the next day. At Crazy Hibachi, the food was good, but I didn't eat enough to make it worth what I paid considering my lunch the next day was back to tuna fish.

Miscellaneous: Since I was headed straight to the theater after dinner, I utilized the bathroom at Crazy Hibachi instead of taking a gamble with the theater's facilities. In hindsight, I should have waited. The bathroom smelled like smoke, I had to hold the handle down in order for the toilet to flush, and the stalls were about on par with what I would expect from a public high school. Nothing was dirty or broken, but it was certainly not what I expected based on how well decorated and maintained the restaurant as a whole was.

Update: Central Arkansas Hobby Shops

This weekend, I continued my search for local hobby shops. I couldn't find any in NLR or Sherwood, so I drove to Hobby Shack in Jacksonville. I found there hours online, so I didn't call to verify that they were open. As luck would have it, I picked the one weekend of the year where there was a regional scale model convention going on, so the Hobby Shack was closed in order to have a table there. I wish I'd had time to stop by Pulaski Tech and take a look around, but I had lunch plans in Cabot, so I couldn't make it there and back in time. Instead, I waited until after lunch and drove to HobbyTown USA in Little Rock.

From looking for them on the web, I found out that HobbyTown USA is a national chain of Hobby Shops. The local store is in a shopping center at the intersection of Bowman and Markham. They had a larger selection of model car kits than I found at Hobby Lobby, and tons of other scale model related items that I didn't even know existed. They also had a ton more options when it came to paint options. While I was there, I picked up a couple of the colors I'd been unable to find at Hobby Lobby (semi-gloss black, for example) and got to choose from spray paint colors in several different finishes. I went with a metallic finish for the spray, which proved more difficult when it came to getting and even tone, but after a little sanding and re-spraying, it came out alright.

The prices at HobbyTown USA were slightly higher than Hobby Lobby, but the selection in paint alone make it worth the trip. As for kits, there were several that caught my eye, but in the absence of a front-runner, I picked the only one I saw that was on clearance. It was a 2002 Camaro for $7, which was more than half off. I do love a good deal.

On Sunday, I decided to go out looking for some sort of organization box to hold my growing supply of paints and glues. I couldn't find exactly what I wanted at Target, so I drove across the interstate to Michael's. I don't go in Michael's very often, so I did a bit of wandering, and low and behold, they had half an aisle devoted to model car kits! They had about as many paints and supplies at Hobby Lobby, but they had a bigger selection of car kits than Hobby Lobby or even HobbyTown USA. In addition, they had 5 kits on extreme clearance. Even though the Camaro was sitting half finished at home, I bought three of the clearanced kits at a grand total of $20 before taxes. You can't beat that, considering most kits are around $15-$17 regular price. I don't know if Micheal's always has a couple of models on clearance, but I do know they almost always run an ad in the Sunday Paper that has a coupon for 40% off one regularly priced item. This ads up to a pretty steady flow of discounted kits.

While I'll probably still end up at a true hobby shop for paints and tools, I'll be surprised if I can find kits for a better price than what I've seen at Michael's. Hopefully there's a regular rotation in what cars are available, but in any case, it would take me a while to run out of options. I'll try to go by the Hobby Shack in Jacksonville some other weekend, and report back on what I've found. From looking around on google and viewing shop reviews, they're supposed to be one of the best around for hobbies from scale models to trains, so I'm looking forward to that visit.