First Watch - St. Louis, MO

Date of dining experience: December 22, 2016

Place: First Watch - The Daytime Cafe

Location: Woodbine Center, 491 S. Kirkwood Rd. in Kirkwood, MO

Meal: The Traditional - Two fresh eggs (over medium) with a choice of meat (grilled ham steak). Served with an English muffin and fresh, seasoned potatoes. Fantastic!

Great breakfast food with great friends at a great place with great coffee for a great price. You can't beat it! If you have never tried First Watch, look one up and add it to your next trip to the city. Let me know how it turns out. Enjoy!

Dhafer's - Dexter, MO

Date of dining experience: December 20, 2016

Place: Dhafer's Mediterranean Steak House

Location: 117 S. Locust St. in Dexter, MO

Meal: Barramundi! Okay, so sea bass is my favorite fish dish and Dhafer makes the absolute best sea bass I have ever eaten in my life! That being said, the way he prepared his barramundi has made it my second favorite fish dish ever. I never would have thought to add cumin to fish! Add the green beans and the roasted red potatoes, on my! Dhafer is a genius.

I'm not going to go into too much detail here because I've already written some blogs about Dhafer's, but if you haven't tried this place yet, you really must! Let me know what you think. Enjoy!

Honada - Kenosha, WI

Date of dining experience: December 17, 2016

Place: Honada Shushi and Hibachi

Location: 8501 75th St. G in Kenosha, WI

Appetizer: Famous Roll ($7.95) - Tuna, avocado, salmon, cilantro, and crunch, with spicy mayo sauce. I really love sushi. It was nice to try a roll that I had never eaten before.

Meal: Hibachi Chicken and Scallop Combo Dinner ($20.95) - I love grills like this. They always provide great entertainment and soup and salad before your meal. The salad dressing is always fantastic!

Beer: Sapporo is always a good choice at a restaurant like this.

I definitely recommend this place and others like it! Try one of them out and let me know what you think. Enjoy!

Various Restaurants - Chicago, IL

My wife and I attended the Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic in Chicago in December (2016). Below are our dining experiences that week.

#1: Ruth's Chris Steak House

Date: December 14, 2016

Location: 431 N. Dearborn St. in Chicago

Steak: Filet - 11 ounces of the most tender cut of lean, midwestern beef. A filet is always a wonderful cut of meat, but Ruth's Chris knows how to prepare a steak better than any restaurant I can think of. Add a nice red wine and you have a wonderful meal!

Side: Creamed Spinach - Chopped spinach in a New Orleans style cream sauce. A Ruth's Chris classic. As far as I can think, this is the absolute best way to prepare spinach!

#2: East Asian Bistro

Date: December 15, 2016

Location: 333 S. State St. in Chicago

Appetizer: Alaskan Sushi Roll ($5.95) - Salmon, avocado, and crab meat, topped with black tobiko. A delicious sushi roll. The black tobiko added an amazing flavor!

Meal: Rama Chicken ($8.75) - Chicken sauteed in a lemongrass peanut sauce, garnished with Chinese broccoli. This was very good! The waitress was worried that I wouldn't like Chinese broccoli, but I assured that I loved it. Asian food is my thing!

Beer; Asahi - Always a good choice at an Asian restaurant. 

#3: Miller's Pub

Date: December 16, 2016

Location: 134 S. Wabash Ave. in Chicago

Meal: London Broil - A very good dish, but the meat was a bit dry. It probably didn't help that our waitress was just awful. She would ask us a question and before we could answer, even while still in the middle of the question, she would be reaching to take away a plate that still had food on it! Anyway, the food was good enough to go to this restaurant again if I'm ever in this area of Chicago again.

Beer: A nice Belgian beer is good any time of day! 

#4: Pittsfield Cafe

Date: December 17, 2016

Location: 55 E. Washington St. in Chicago

Meal: Corned Beef Scramble - The perfect blend of eggs, corned beef, and hash browns. One of the best brunch meals you could possibly ask for!

Drink: Coffee that was slightly old, with a very bitter flavor.

Various Restaurants - New York City, NY

Over Thanksgiving (2016), my wife and I went to New York City where we saw Chicago on Broadway and we to a couple comedy clubs. We ate a few restaurants, some okay and some really good. I thought it would be best to list them all here at the same time.

#1: Foxy Diner

Date: November 20, 2016

Meal: Pan Seared Atlantic Salmon - Seared salmon served with wild rice pilaf, mixed vegetables, and creamy mustard herb sauce. It sounds good, but it really wasn't. Everything was slightly soggy and bland. It tasted as if it had just been heated up in a microwave prior to coming out. I would have thought this was an accident, but Audry had a pasta dish and said the same thing. Overall, probably a tourist trap and not worth the time.

Beer: Stella Artois - always a good choice.

#2: Pure Thai Cookhouse

Date: November 21, 2016

Location: 766 9th Ave. #2 in NYC

If you know me at all, you know I love Asian food. This place was exceptional. It was a little out of the way and definitely a tiny little restaurant. We felt comfortable going here because we figured it wouldn't be a normal tourist trap restaurant. Audry saw that they made their own noodles and thought it would be fantastic. She was right!

Appetizer: Vegetable Spring Rolls ($7) - Shitake mushroom, jicama, glass noodles, and Thai chili plum sauce. Extremely tasty. We were so sad when they were gone. 

Meal: Pad Thai with Shrimp ($11) - Rice noodles, dried shrimp, peanuts, egg, bean sprouts, scallions, and tamarind sauce. Delicious! This was definitely the best Pad Thai I have ever eaten.

Daily Special Drink: Longan Juice ($4) - This was absolutely delicious. 

Beer: Singha (lager) from Thailand ($4.50) - We asked our server which of the beers from Thailand were the best and she recommended this. It was very good!

I absolutely loved this restaurant and would go back here if I ever find myself in NYC again.

#3: Ipanema Restaurant: Brazilian and Portuguese

Date: November 22, 2016

Location: 43 W. 46th St. in NYC

I wanted to eat here to experience some of traditional foods from this region of the world. I was not disappointed! And my experiences were verified as traditional by another graduate student here at Penn State who is from Brazil.

Appetizer: Salgadinhos Sortidos ($10) - Sampler of traditional Brazilian and Portuguese croquettes. These were all very good. Audry and I split each one to taste them all and we had no complaints about any of them! 

Meal: Moqueca de Camarao ($18) - Sauteed shrimp in a tomato, pepper, and onion stew. This was absolutely gorgeous and the flavors were amazing! I will have this again, hopefully if I ever get the opportunity to visit Brazil!

Drink: Guava Juice ($4) - This was very good. It served as a nice complement to the meal.

Dessert: Doce da Casa ($8) - Portuguese egg custard pudding topped with a coffee soaked cracker and fresh homemade whipped cream. This was one of the best desserts ever! It was the perfect amount of sweetness. American desserts are often entirely too sweet, but this one was perfect.

Coffee: Cafe ($3) - Some black coffee was great with the dessert. 

I would love to go to this restaurant again if I ever find myself in NYC. I highly recommend it!