This week we are in Commerce at the Benstein Grille.  The Benstein Grille is not a new destination. They have been around for over 8 years now . . . but it wasn’t until recently that we were able to get there to check them out.  Since they opened in April of 2015, they have gathered quite a following from locals in Commerce as well as the surrounding communities of Novi, Walled Lake, Wolverine Lake and Wixom.  The owners Mike Richardson and Glen Kaplan actually picked this location due to its proximity to all the surrounding communities. 

This week, we are in Detroit’s Midtown neighborhood, at its newest upscale Italian restaurant, Mad Nice.  While the name doesn’t scream “restaurant”, it makes sense once you have seen the place . . . It is Mad Nice!  From the outside, you don’t even think this would be a restaurant. It looks more like a nice modern office building.  The only signage is “Mad Nice” in bold letters along the front of the building, which is on Second Ave between Alexandrine and Willis. 

This week we are visiting Coriander Kitchen and Farms, in Detroit’s Jefferson Chalmers neighborhood of canals . . . sometimes referred to as “The Venice of Detroit”. Coriander is a farm to table restaurant that not only uses locally sourced food in their dishes, but they are also the farm that grows the food, making them the only restaurant in the city that owns the farm and the table.

We love good BBQ, I mean who doesn’t?  This weeks destination is definitely one worth talking about.  They opened their Livonia location back in the Spring of this year, over 2 years after announcing they were coming . . . Thanks Covid!  While it took a while to get open it was worth the wait.  Who are we talking about?  Well of course it’s Bad Brads BBQ.  Since we are avid BBQ fans, we are not new to Bad Brads. They now have  4 other locations: Clinton Township, New Baltimore, Shelby Township, Orion Township.

This week we are going to a little town, just outside of Kalamazoo, where husband and wife Dan and Brayden Bracken run their family owned restaurant: Chinn Chinn in Mattawan, MI. Brayden was 12 when her parents, John & Michelle Tsui, closed their original restaurant Peking Palace in Portage, MI in 2003. In 2004 they opened Chinn Chinn, and today Brayden runs the front of the house and her husband Dan runs the kitchen allowing her parents to step back and enjoy life.

This week we are visiting a Mid-town Detroit Burger Joint that opened it’s doors in 2017, in the heart of Detroit’s Cass Corridor: Royale With Cheese. Honestly, we have driven by this place a thousand times, yet we had never been here until recently. We thought “well it’s just a burger joint” which it is, but it is so much more than that. Sure they have burgers . . . . some damn good burgers!

This week we are going to the Hudson Cafe.   We have known of the Hudson Café for many years and have eaten at their downtown location a few times.  Just recently, they opened their 2nd location in Northville . A 3rd location is coming to Troy, later this year or early next year. 

They started in 2008 in Grand Rapids, aka Beer City USA, and are now opening their 11th location in Livonia on Monday July 24th. We are talking about Hop Cat. If you are not familiar with Hop Cat, you should definitely check them out. They are a craft Burger and Beer bar that features up to and over 100 beers on tap, many of them Michigan selections. They wanted a place where people could experience the “Michigan Beer Rainbow”.

In 1963 Dick Portillo invested $1100 (around $10,000-$11,000 today) in a 6 x 12 trailer and named it “The Dog House” in Villa Park, IL 2 miles west of Chicago. What started with hot dogs out of a trailer, has grown to the establishment they are today. With over 70 locations nationwide, Portillo’s is a fun and exciting destination for some delicious Italian beef sandwiches, Chicago Dogs and their famous chocolate cake and chocolate cake shakes.

What’s the saying? When life gives you lemons make lemonade? In the case of Ryan and Erin Cottingim, when life gave them lemons, they decided to make beer. It was around 2008-2009 when Ryan and Erin both lost their jobs and decided to write the next chapter in their lives. They wrote up a business plan and on December 26th, 2011, Witch's Hat Brewing Company in South Lyon was born. It was in the height of the real estate and banking crash of 2008-2013 and opening a new business had to seem like an insurmountable achievement . . . but here we are 12 years later and things seem to be going strong!

This past Tuesday, June 27th, Mitch Albom’s Say Detroit Charity hosted it’s 3rd Eat Detroit event downtown. Mitch started this charity following the Super Bowl in Detroit in 2006. His vision was that the city “should be super all the time, not just for one weekend” and helps Detroiters in need. Fast forward 13 years, to 2019, and Eat Detroit was born. This is an event where a number of local restaurants are involved and offers an evening of strolling and dining throughout the city. This year there were 25 restaurants on the list in the Downtown, Midtown and Corktown neighborhoods. Every restaurant offers 2-3 signature small plates, plus a specialty cocktail, which is all included in the price.

The Silver Pig Bar & Oyster Room opened its doors in September of 2016.  It has that speakeasy vibe. Not only in the sense that it is hidden and only the “cool kids” know where it is located, but also in its off the main drag location, behind and part of Diamonds Steakhouse. It is a craft cocktail bar that serves brick over pizzas, small plate appetizers and fresh oysters along with other great raw bar seafood selections.

Baby back ribs are one of my absolute favorite things to make when cooking outdoors. Of course I love to smoke mine, but you don’t have to in order to make some delicious ribs for you and your friends. However, this preparation will be smoked ribs cooked on my barrel smoker.

I start with a pack of baby back ribs, which usually come 3 slabs to a package. The reason I like to use baby backs is because they cook in about 3 hours on my smoker, which is also the amount of time it takes the coals to burn on my smoker. You can use St Louis style, or full spare ribs. They just take longer to cook.

We love good success stories . . . and this one is definitely that! We know that any food or restaurant venture entails a lot of hard work and dedication. Nothing shows that more than Detroit 75 Kitchen.  Opened in 2014,  by 2 brothers Mike & Ahmad Nassar, in the parking lot of their family’s truck stop not far from the Ambassador bridge. Detroit Kitchen 75 is a must visit destination in the Detroit food scene.  They were named as one of the top 3 food trucks in Detroit in 2017 by ThreeBestRated.com and one of the top 100 places to eat in 2019 by Us Weekly magazine. We figured they must be doing something right. After trying their food, we agree that they are!

If you are not familiar with Chicago, you might ask...”What are the Goat Restaurants”? They are a group of restaurants in Chicago, that comprise of Girl & The Goat, Duck Duck Goat, The Little Goat Diner and Cabra (Spanish for Goat) which are Co-Owned by Chef Stephanie Izard. Stephanie was the winner of Bravo’s Top Chef Season 4 in 2009 and the Iron Chef Gauntlet in 2017 against Bobby Flay, Michael Symon and Masaharu Morimoto, which launched her into fame as a celebrity chef. Her last name Izard is a type of Pyrenees Mountain Goat in France, hence the Goat in all her restaurant names

This week we are in Ann Arbor being reminded of why we do what we do. We love finding unique and exciting places! In October of 2022 the husband-and-wife duo, Aaron & Miriam Orr, opened 1923 Taco Bus. It is a double decker bus, from England, that they brought here and turned it into a food truck. Why call it 1923? It is explained on their website as paying homage to when the first engine powered double decker bus was released in London in 1923 after World War 1.

It’s that time again . . . time to talk about how much fun it is going to Eastern Market. Shout out to Alex & Toni Aloe for introducing us to Eastern Market about 15 years ago! You seriously changed our lives!

This Sunday is the official Flower Day - the Sunday after Mother’s Day. While flower day is great for getting your summer flowers to beautify your home, our favorite day is the regular Saturday market which is every Saturday 6AM - 4PM year round. While there are so many great vendors to get your fresh veggies and other favorites, there are also a lot of places to eat and drink within the market as well. Whether it is an actual vendor, selling in the shed, or a brick and mortar building in the market district, there is something for everyone’s taste and new places keep popping up every year.

In 1989 there was a restaurant in Farmington called Rueben’s Rueben which I ran with my family for 3 years. It has been many different places since then, and is currently Taqueria Victoria. Rueben’s Rueben featured sandwiches and subs, burgers and fries, and homemade chili and soups. I’m not 100% sure how or when it started, but sometimes on Wednesdays my mom (being the southern woman that she was) would make chicken and dumpling soup. It was an instant hit and became so popular we made it our regular Wednesday soup. It was so popular that people would call the day before to pre-order it for the following day. We only made a certain amount and some days we would run out before noon…and we opened at 10:30.

I guess just like on St Patrick’s Day everyone becomes a little bit Irish, on Cinco de Mayo we all tend to become a little bit Mexican and this week we are doing it in Brighton at El Arbol Taqueria.

We came across Alex’s in Independence Township (Clarkston area) a while back and we were intrigued enough to make a special trip back to check out all it has to offer. After some research we found that while this location is relatively new, the market itself is not.  Alex’s original market is located in Holly and was opened in 2007 by the Nannoshi family, and this is their 2nd location.