| rev:text
| - I can't decide if I love this place, or just kind of like it. I'm wavering back and forth...
The boyfriend and I discovered this place while wandering around the area trying to figure out what some lights were on South Mountain. Despite driving past hundreds of times, we hadn't noticed them before and were trying to find their source. In the process, we came across T-Bone... and the delicious smells emanating from it. Intent on our search, we pressed on to learn the lights were from an unknown-to-us parking lot/trailhead... and we came back to T-Bone the next weekend for dinner. I was hoping it'd be wonderful, since it seemed like a great, unique to Arizona, place to take the parents when they come to visit.
It has a wonderful atmosphere. Very rustic and homey. That some people had come by on horses simply added to the charm. I loved it. It also has a beautiful view - just high enough up on the mountain that you can see the city and most of the valley.
The source of my indecision is on the food. They have a very limited menu. That's fine with me - I'd rather have a restaurant with only 10 menu items that they do REALLY well than one with 100 items that are so so. You basically pick your meat off of the menu on the wall, and... that's that.
Everything is served with the 'salad bar' - lettuce, bagged croutons, chopped tomatos and onions, and 3-4 kinds of dressing - beans and bread. They have a handful of extra sides you can order a la cart. I didn't try any of those, but the included sides were... ok. The bread was bread; nothing special. It was served with butter that was so cold it was almost unspreadable on the soft bread. The beans were... alright. I ate them because, well... there wasn't anything else to eat.
So, that's the part that has me going 'eh...' part of the reason the rating is down to 3 stars. BUT... I ordered fish and it was really delicious. They didn't do anything fancy with it - just pan fried it with a little seasoning - and it was wonderful. It was a celebration of the flavor of the fish, not any fancy sauces or such. Simple and delicious.
I can't comment on the steak, which I assume is their signature dish. The boyfriend ordered ... I think it was a T-bone... and found it too fatty for his tastes. Neither of us know whether that is characteristic of the cut (i.e. they served good meat, and he just ordered the wrong cut) or if it was not a good piece of meat.
On the very plus side, they have GREAT beers. Not a lot of them, but they are apparently brewed at their northern Phoenix location, and are quite tasty.
The service was good - our waitress was friendly and the wait wasn't too long for our food. Our waitress didn't have any trouble with our moving outside to eat dessert (something in the restaurant - maybe the smokiness from the grill - caused the boyfriend to have an allergy attack). The dessert - apple pie & ice cream - was very tasty.
So... overall, I'm torn. Great fish, beer and pie... so so sides and a wildcard steak. How do you rate that? I guess three stars for the moment....
We'll definitely go back (I want to try their smoked chicken entree) and hopefully have a more definitive experience.
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)
![[cxml]](/fct/images/cxml_doc.png)
![[csv]](/fct/images/csv_doc.png)
![[text]](/fct/images/ntriples_doc.png)
![[turtle]](/fct/images/n3turtle_doc.png)
![[ld+json]](/fct/images/jsonld_doc.png)
![[rdf+json]](/fct/images/json_doc.png)
![[rdf+xml]](/fct/images/xml_doc.png)
![[atom+xml]](/fct/images/atom_doc.png)
![[html]](/fct/images/html_doc.png)