Cakes on Walnut

We visited Cakes on Walnut the other night for book club. We got there about 8 o'clock and there was one other group in the place. It was nice to basically have the place to ourselves and we all hopped in line for food and drinks.

Starting out, Cakes on Walnut has a few marks against. First of all, it is in my second least favorite part of town (downtown, first is campus). Because of it's location, there is little or no parking, which is another black mark. There are various parking lots in the area and if it had been daylight or I had been with a group, I would have felt more comfortable walking a further distance. As it was, it was 8 pm and I was alone and wanted to park as close as possible. Finally, there were no signs identifying what the place was. I circled the block 3 different times looking for it, until I finally saw a car I recognized and figured it had to be close by.

My next issue was that they were out of everything I ordered(mini Mexican Hot Chocolate cupcake, Japanese Cherry and Earl Grey tea). I was able to make substitutions but it wasn't exactly what I wanted. Of course, we were there at 8pm but if they are open, I expect them to have a full selection available. I was also unimpressed with the service and the knowledge of the products by the employee. She moved very slowly and despite the fact that we were nearly the only people in the place, managed to develop quite a long line. I also realize that tea isn't their main product, but if they sell it, their employees should know some tea basics. Like that strawberry white probably isn't the closest to the Japanese Cherry black. Just because they have fruit flavors, doesn't make them the same or even close.

The tea also had some problems. It is brewed hot and poured over ice to make iced tea. This has two issues. One, it melts all the ice in the cup, leaving you with tepid tea and no ice. The other problem is that it melts all the ice and waters down the tea. I will occasionally make tea that way home but I know to make it stronger than normal and use a ton of ice.

In short, not the place to go for tea.

I got a small Mexican Hot Chocolate cupcake which is a cinnamon cupcake topped with chocolate icing. The cake was quite dry. It could be just the way they are or it could have been because we there at 8 at night and the cupcakes had been sitting out all day. Either way, I could have done without the cupcake. The icing was absolutely delish though! It was a light, whipped icing and was not too sweet.

The cost was really high too. The small cupcake is $2.75 (the mini is only $1) and the tea was $2.50. That is about on par for other coffee shops in the area but for that kind of price I expect something better than what I can make at home.

In my opinion, you should save yourself the hassle of trying to park downtown, grab a six pack of cupcakes from the grocery store (or make yourself a couple dozen at home), hit Walnut Street Tea Company and get yourself a whole box of Twinnings flavored tea for the same price as one cupcake and glass of iced tea. Share it with someone you love.

Final verdict? 1 stars because the icing was fantastic. It merits a star all on it's own and carries the whole place

Houlihan's

We went to the new Houlihan's resturant last week for lunch. Despite it being 12:30 by the time we got there, they were amazingly empty. We were seated right away and had drinks for everyone by the time I got back from taking the kids to the bathroom. After much perusing of the menu, MT settled on mac and cheese (big surprise) and the rest of us got cheeseburgers. The food was kind of different, although for someone that doesn't eat like your average 4 year old, it probably would have been ok.

The food tasted ok but was overpriced for what you got. TB ordered the "Itsy Bitsy Burgers" (picture was taken after he had eaten the first one)

that was $4.99 and came with 2 mini burgers, fries, veggies and dip, a drink and ice cream (we passed on the veggies and I didn't mention the ice cream to them) and a kid sized drink. MT got mac and cheese that came with the same things.

RF and I ordered the "Mini Burger platter"

which was $7.95. It came with 2 mini burgers (same size as the kid mini burgers), an order of fries and either soup or salad. The soup was ok, nice and thick but BLAND! I had to pour on a ton of salt to get it to taste right. The burgers we also ok. The bread was kind of sweet, which gave them kind of an odd taste. Also, if you get these, keep in mind that the "ranch style greens" basically means "coleslaw". The lettuce and tomatoes are chopped up and mixed together with some kind of sauce (possibly mayo) and dumped on your burger. It wasn't good and I scraped most of mine off.

Although I doubt there will be a next time, if for some reason we go back, I will make a point of ordering off the kid menu. The adult menu isn't worth it.

The atmosphere was nice, although I would bet that it morphs to more of a bar at night and wouldn't be very family friendly. It is big and open with lots of light from high windows.

I give it 2 out of 5 stars for atmosphere and prompt service. The food and prices left much to be desired.

Winconsin Dells - Crabby's

First up, Crabby's. This is an all you can eat seafood buffet with a pirate theme. As some of you know, we are very into pirates and also as some of you know, I'm very into "all I can eat" so this sounded like a win win. Sadly, it was not a win win but instead pretty much a lose lose :( First of all, the price was pretty high (you will find this is a common themes in all my Dell's reviews). It is $29.95 a person for adults and only slightly less for children. We had a free coupon for The Boy so it made it slightly more bearable. We got seated and ordered drinks and when they arrived, all of them were supposed to be in souvenir glasses, yet none of them came that way. We told our (non-English speaking) waitress who told us they were out of the adult glasses but that she would take some off the bill for the cost of the glasses. We went to the buffet and found that although it was all you can eat, it was basically "do all the work yourself" as well. The shrimp was peel and eat, the salmon was a nasty looking fish that you had to dig pieces out of etc. As it turned out, not only was it labor intensive, none of it was very good. The mashed potatoes were bland, the mac and cheese was running, the Mahi-Mahi was dry and over cooked, etc. Another issue we found was that 2 people in the entire resturant spoke English. This made asking questions such as "Is the sushi cooked or raw" quite difficult. I finally managed to hunt down the manager, who was able to answer my question. The best part was the all you can eat crab legs, which takes forever to crack and eat and you probably can't eat enough to make up the cost of the meal. The drinks were also not good. Heavy on the ice, low on the alcohol and quite expensive. In the gift shop, the problems continued. I found a shirt that I wanted for Radioactive Freak, only to be told that they didn't think they had it in the right size. They eventually did but I had to wait for quite a while while they looked for one. The "animated pirate show" was also completely lame. It was a crusty, dusty animatronic pirate and parrot that talked very softly to each other. I was able to make out about every 3rd or 4th word because it was so quite and garbled. Tough to get the joke when you can't hear it :( I wondered if they were on the verge of going out of business since everything seemed pretty run down and they were out of a lot of stuff. I wish now that I had looked it up online before we went because they rated about 2 stars and those reviews are not wrong.