I'll take Potpourri for $1200.00, Alex.

You haven't had much luck with sauerbraten lately, it seems. I remember you being disappointed the last time we were in Milwaukee.

TTM-
Maybe sauerbraten is one of those dishes that because I grew up with it the way my father made it, that I probably just won't like any version that deviates too far from what I am used to.  Maybe it is time to stop ordering it in restauarnts, because I am almost always disappointed.

Before going to Josie's, we visited the Hershey Museum and one of the things they offer is a chocolate tasting. 

You get a shot glass full of liquid chocolate from six different places.  The six in order is Mexico, Ecuador, Sao Tome, Madagascar, Tanzania and Java.  They really are six distinct different flavors.  And they ran the gamut from extra thick (Tanzania) to thin (Java).
 
The fact that we enjoyed the food at Josie's as much as we did, less than an hour after a chocolate tasting speaks to just how good it was. 

Buffetbuster
 
Josies sounds like a great find. 
Now if I recall, you liked the Sauerbraten at Jacob Wirth's in Boston- yes? 
 
I still say that chocolate sampler reminds me of the "beer sampler" at many of the craft brewpubs. 

WJ-
The sauerbraten at Jacob Wirth's was okay, which puts it far ahead of most.  I really need to stop ordering it in restaurants.
 
Having never seen a beer sampler before, I will take your word for it.  But, it is a great idea.

Its funny, no one I know likes sauerbraten. Both Milwaukee visits by my favorite travelers found them "meh".
Give me a good schnitzel anytime.........

BB,
Don't give up on Sauerbraten quite yet until you make a return visit to Phoenix and try Haus Murphy's out in Glendale's version. When DDD visited the place, that was the featured meal on the show. Guy liked it, but Guy likes everything he eats on camera. No kidding though, it's good! 
http://hausmurphys.com/Home_Page.php

I saw one where Guy was not crazy about the tripe in a bowl of menudo he was being served, but he ate it like a good kid.  That plum cake looks to die for Cliff.  I'm taking notes as I'm supposed to go to a local German place soon.

annpeeples-
I would agree that most restaurant sauerbratens are "meh" at best.  But, the version my dad (and now my brother) made was just about my favorite dish growing up.
 
Foodbme-
I wouldn't think to look for German food in Arizona, but if you say it is that good, then I need to reconsider. 
 
Nancypalooza-
The interesting thing about that plum cake was that Johnny and Mariton didn't like it nearly as much as I did.  No problem, that just left more for me!  Have fun and eat well at the German restaurant you are visiting.
 

After touring the Eisenhower home, we decided to have dinner in Gettysburg.  The Farnsworth House

appeared in one of the Stern's older books and cousin Johnny and I had a wonderful meal here about a decade ago.  Whenever the occasional Gettysburg thread would come up, I would recommend it, but since it had been so long, I was now less inclined to do so.  We were curious whether it was still good.
 
The dining room is closed for the season, but the tavern is still open.  According to the website, they offer a different menu than the dining room, so we really didn't know if our favorites would be available.  Once we were handed menus, we were relieved that everything we wanted was there.
 
Both cousin Johnny and I started with the peanut soup. 

We are both big fans of this soup and have enjoyed it multiple times in Virginia.  But this peanut soup was dreadful.  It lacked the slight sweetness that onions provide and tasted bitter.  No way I would get this again.  Luckily for her, Mariton's french onion soup was much better.
 
For our entrees Johnny went with one of the dishes they are best known for, game pie. 


This includes turkey, pheasant and duck meat, along with mushrooms, rice, red current jelly, all inside a wonderful, light, flaky crust.  The presentation in the old fashioned aluminum bowl is also nice.  Johnny thoroughly enjoyed this deal and received lots of help from Mariton and myself.  Since we were so close to Lancaster, I went with what the menu describes PA Dutch Chicken Pot Pie (Slippery Style). 

No doubt, this is the first time in my life I have ordered food called slippery style!  This was a very simple dish, consisting of just potatoes, chicken and thick noodles and I was glad I got it.  Still full from the huge lunch, Mariton decided she would just nibble at our entrees.
 
You do get a couple of sides here and luckily for us, pumpkin fritters

were one of the choices.  These spheres were quite large and came three to an order.  The inside was warm and very soft, with a strong pumpkin flavor.  It also reminded me, both texture-wise and taste-wise of a spice cake.  All three of us loved these pumpkin fritters and it was easily the highlight of the meal.
 
As to be expected, the inside of the room is decorated in Civil War knickknacks, memorabilia and the waitresses wore period dresses.  Other than the soup, we had a very successful meal at Farnsworth House.   

Buffetbuster
 
There doesn't seem to be much around Gettysburg in terms of  good roadfood, it appears
that Farnsworth house is the oasis in the desert.
 
Glad to hear the Farnsworth house is still good. It's still one place I've never visited but have been dieing to try. I'll just skip the soup.

Part of my weekend was spent in central Indiana.  I had previosuly read about a place in the city of Anderson, NE of Indy and it sounded great.  It went on my list of places to try and I stopped in on Saturday morning. 
 
The name of the place is the Lemon Drop Restaurant.  They have an excellent old vintage sign out front,

that surely looks even better at night.  The building itself is small and unsurprisingly, painted a bright yellow. 

I also loved the tear shaped sign

on the roof.
 
The inside holds only about 25 customers at a time, between the four booths and the counter seats. 

I grabbed one of those counter seats at the far end.  Adding to the old fashioned atmosphere is a toy train,

making a constant circle on tracks overhead. 
 
No menu was given to me, but the menu boards


were hanging on the wall close by.  When the young lady came over to get my order, I told her this was my first time here and asked for recommendations.  To drink, they offer different flavors of coke, which I believe is just added flavored syrup to a regular coke.  They offer vanilla, cherry, strawberry and lemon.  Since I had never tried it before, chocolate coke was my choice. 

While the taste of this combination of flavors was fine, it left me thinking I should have ordered the cherry or vanilla instead.  Much better was the excellent lemon milkshake,

which they make by hand on one of those old mixers.  This is the first time I had a lemon shake, but it just seemed appropriate at a restaurant with this name.  It had the perfect thickness and a strong lemony flavor, despite the fact that it was not yellow colored at all.
 
Since this is Indiana, I had to start with the pork tenderloin. 

They do offer it grilled, but I had to order it breaded.  When she asked me what I wanted on the tenderloin, as usual, I had no idea how to respond.  What goes good on a BPT?  I asked her how to a true Hoosier likes their BPT and she said everyone gets it different.  Another woman walked by, so I asked her what her recommendation was.  She said if it was grilled, she eats it with grilled onions.  While I love grilled onions, that doesn't seem right on a BPT.  Finally, I just went with lettuce and mayo.  Once again I ask.....what goes good on a BPT?  This wasn't one of those oversized BPTs, but it tasted like it had a buttermilk crust and it wasn't overly crunchy like others I have had.  This wasn't as great as say, the BPT at Nick's Kitchen, but I would definitely still recommend it.  Davydd, it you haven't been here before, this could be a worthwhile stop.
 
Next up was the toasted cheeseburger.  

According to my waitress, this is one of the most popular menu items here.  This is simply a hamburger patty in between two toasted slices of bread.  This came with lettuce, tomato and mayo.  The meat to bread ratio was a little off and this should probably be ordered as a double, but was still a nice change of pace.
 
The #1 seller at Lemon Drop is the famous onion burger. 

Now, when I think onion burger, I think of a burger smothered in lots of grilled onions, or even better, the onions grilled right into the beef patty.  A good example of this would be the great onion burger places in El Reno, Oklahoma, like Sid's.  Apparently, it is popular to get the onion burger between slices of toast, but since I was already eating a toasted cheeseburger, I went with the regular soft bun.  When it was delivered to me, it looked like just any hamburger, with some lettuce, pickles and raw onion on top.  What a disappointment!  If you look at the photo again, you can clearly see some onion sticking out of the inside of the burger, where a little chunk is hanging off.  I did not notice while taking the photo and was greatly surprised when I bit into it.  The middle of the burger was loaded with lots of onion and all was forgiven!  Unusual and a real pleasure to eat.  I loved this burger.
 
After all of this, I was stuffed.  The service was excellent.  After I finished my chocolate coke, within two minutes, three different waitresses asked me if I wanted a refill, before the cup was taken away.  A woman sitting next to me with her young son, bragged that this was the first place she had ever taken him for french fries.  Looking at their food, the long, skinny fries did look good.
 
You pay at the cash register and they have lemon drop candies

if you need something sweet on the way out.
 
If you ever find yourself in Anderson, Indiana, Lemon Drop Restaurant would make for a worthwhile stop.

Some Amish call those thick noodles in the Pot Pie "slicker noodles". Have a friend that makes them very well and I LOVE them!!

Buffetbuster
 
The lemon milkshake seems right up my alley. What was the tartness/sweet ratio?
 
My personal experience with BPT's in Indiana is lettuce tomato and mayo, however on the other hand in Iowa, it's pickle, onion and mustard. I'm not sure if these are regional preferences or just "just luck of the draw"
 

kevincad-
Instead of "slicker noodles", are you sure they aren't sneaking snickerdoodles in there?  That would make them taste even better!
 
WJ-
There was very little tart to the lemon shake, almost all sweet.  Thanks for answering the BPT toppings question.

This is going back a few months.....
 
Mariton and I spent New Year's Day in Myrtle Beach.  We had an early afternoon flight home out of Raleigh.  After an hour taking photos on the beach, we started the three hour drive.  We bypassed the seemingly dozens of pancake houses in MB and were hoping to find something interesting along the way.
 
By the time we had almost reached I-95, it wasn't looking too good.  Finally, I spotted this sign

on NC HWY 87 near the tiny town of Tar Heel.  BTW, isn't Tar Heel a great name for a North Carolina town?  Despite this being a Monday morning of a holiday weekend, the Roadfood Gods were smiling on us and the place was open.
 
The name of the restaurant was Anderson's Grill. 

Mariton was in the middle of a phone call, so I decided to just go in and get the food to go.  I opened up the door and walked right into the kitchen, causing confused looks from the staff.  That's when they told me that all ordering is from the outside window.  Whoops!
 
The menu is four pages long.  If you squint and possess 20/20 vision, you may be able to read it here: 


There are all kinds of things on here I would love to try.  Here is what we got:
 
Mariton loves pork chops, so I got her a pork chop sandwich.  And this was one seriously good looking, bone-in pork chop sandwich! 

When asked what to put on it, I went with lettuce and mustard.  I really thought we were going to love this sandwich, but it ended up being ridiculously salty.  Now, both Mariton and I are more sensitive to salt than most and we often think a food is too salty.  But this was way beyond just salty.  It tasted like the Atlantic Ocean was in the sandwich.  The only way something could be this salty is if someone just made a simple mistake.  We were hoping all the food wasn't going to be the same way.
 
Next up was the fried bologna sandwich. 

This was much better!  The bologna was thick cut, with maximum piggy flavor.  I got no toppings or condiments on this and it didn't need any.  The pork bbq sandwich was another winner. 

They asked if we wanted slaw on it and of course the answer to that is a big yes!  Surprisingly, the slaw was the mayo-ey kind and I would have guessed that it would be more vinegary in this part of North Carolina.  Anyway, it was a great counter balance to the moist, tender pig meat.  This really was an excellent sandwich.
 
Still, the item we liked best was the fried shrimp. 

Though the shrimp were on the small side, the portion size was shockingly big for the price.  The shrimp had a delicious golden coat and neither one of us could eat these fast enough.  More of the creamy cole slaw came on the side, but the green beans were obviously canned.  To drink, a couple of fine sweet teas.
 
The food did take a while to get to us, but that just meant it was made to order.  The restaurant appears to be run by one family and they were very friendly.  The young lady who took our order couldn't have been older than 13. 
 
We didn't like everything from Anderson's Grill, but there were more hits than misses.  If you are in the Fayetteville/Lumberton area, this place is worth checking out.
 
Anderson's Grill
14311 NC HWY 87 W
Tar Heel, NC
910-862-7717

Mariton and I were recently in Arizona over Memorial Day weekend.  We split our time between Tucson and visiting the Grand Canyon.  Tucson is one of my very favorite cities for Roadfood and we ate as well as usual on this trip.  The best meal we had was a new place for us called El Torero.  El Torero is set back a good distance from the road and it would be very easy to overlook this place,

despite it's bright pink exterior.  The interior is spacious and with a name like El Torero, no surprise that they have lots of paintings with bull fighting scenes.

 
By the way, I should note something about my pictures:  They stink!  When you turn my camera on, the outside door doesn't completely open.  So, I have to do that by hand.  And when that happens, it is very easy to accidentally touch the outside of the lens, which leaves blurry spots.  Unfortunately, I didn't notice this while I was taking the pics.  Sorry!  Please ignore the blur in these photos!
 
Once we sat down, our waitress came over and asked if we wanted to start off with a cheese crisp.  Of course we said yes and she went off to the kitchen.  I looked at the menu and realized they have cheese crisps with green chile on them.  I quickly flagged her down and asked if it was too late to get that one.  She took off for the kitchen and came back with this.

The flour tortilla is thin and obviously cripsy and loaded with melted cheese.  And the green chiles just add so much flavor.  This was excellent!  It was cut into eight slices, with me getting three and Mariton taking care of five on her own.
 
Mariton also made short work of the chips and salsa.

The chips were unmistakably homemade and the salsa was plenty hot.  Now, my girlfriend is capable of eating hotter foods than anyone I have ever met before.  Despite this salsa being too hot for me, she asked if she could get the real hot stuff.  The waitress, now impressed, just smiled and then brought back a smaller bowl of darker red salsa. Mariton dipped into it and was now much happier.  I knew better than to try it myself.
 
Having a feeling that the food here was going to be special, I wanted to sample several different things.  First up was a hearty bowl of albondigas soup. 

Thin, but possessing great flavor from the chiles, it also had lots of meatballs and vegetables.  Next up was a green corn tamale and the waitress gave me a look of approval. 

Oh my goodness, was this good!  Soft, sweet, with a strong taste of corn and chiles, now I know why green corn tamales are so loved.
 
Still needing to decide on an entree, I reread the Roadfood review.  The Shrimp Veracruz came highly recommended in the review, but they did not have it on this day.  Another dish with turkey in a mole sauce was mentioned and the waitress said that they could make.  I looked again on the menu and it wasn't mentioned, at least that I could find.  At least they were happy to make it for me.  And thank goodness they did, because it was spectacular.

First of all, this was real turkey rather than some cheap imitation meat that you see so often in turkey dishes.  And that mole sauce, so rich, so deep in flavor, was unlike anything I had tasted before.  We both swooned over this dish and finished it record time.
 
Our waitress seemed to really enjoy our excitement and enthusiasm over the food.  The fact that we were the only non-Spanish speaking people in the restaurant did make us stand out.  Before, we left, she brought over a business card with her name on it and I couldn't help but notice that her nickname was Shorty.  I asked her if we could get a photo with her and she was happy to oblige.

 
We had a truly special meal here at El Torero and I would be hard pressed to come to Tucson and not here.
 
El Torero
231 E. 26th Street
Tucson, AZ
520-622-9534

I don't go down to Tucson too often but next trip will include a meal at El Torero!
For all of younz that like to go to Tucson, might I suggest a little side trip down I-19 to Tubac AZ. It's about 30- 40 minutes south of Tucson. All interstate driving.
It's a quaint little village that has become Southern AZ's Artist Colony with over 80 galleries and shops with sculptors, painters, potters, artisans and jewelers  actively living there. It's the "Sedona of Southern AZ".
There's a beautiful Mission - Mission de Tumacacori, and it was the First European Settlement in AZ - Founded in 1752!
There's a Golf Resort & Spa and numerous restaurants there.
Here's one of the better ones -  http://www.elvirasrestaurant.com/default.htm
It sits at 3200 feet so it's generally cooler there than Phoenix and Tucson.