Does Home Cookin Exist in SLC?

Hi, I still exist even though the blog has gone kaput... just a lack of time and communicating the minutiae of my life by other means.

Anyway, I had this idea for a while, and I'm just now getting around to writing it. I noticed while I was eating out in Salt Lake City that good side dishes were hard to come by. Even self-proclaimed "diners" only offered the ever-ubiquitous "grilled seasonal veggies." Does anyone seriously like that tasteless side? Where are my green beans and baked apples? So I went on a quest for southern-style food out west... and became even more frustrated haha. Below are short descriptors (loosely organized in no particular order) of the restaurants I visited that generally offered "homestyle" food. I've been gone from SLC for over 3 months, so bear with me as I pull this out of my memory.

Cracker Barrel
For those who don't know, this is the chain version of what I was looking for. Always yummy, except I can't endorse the "BBQ." And there was only one, way out in West Valley City.

Jim's Family Restaurant (local chain)
I only ate here once, but at the very least I got a choice of glazed carrots as my side dish. If I recall correctly, the food wasn't anything great, but about what you'd expect for the price.

Dee's Restaurant (local chain)
The blinking neon sign and interior decor scream old-timey family restaurant. I ate here only once, shortly after I arrived in SLC. One thing I do remember was that the food portions were appropriate... no getting stuffed or needing a box. I think the food was OK, but don't remember much about the menu selection. The strawberry pie was good.

Village Inn (regional chain)
I decided to toss this one on the list because I believe they do offer corn or some other veggie as a side dish. Otherwise a great place for brunch, or apparently, a 2 AM sober-up gathering. Think of it as an IHOP with good pies.

Chuckarama (regional chain)
Technically this is just a buffet, a smaller version of Golden Corral (the new version). I think the selection was OK, but the food was naturally lower quality. It reminded me of the dining hall at NC State. As with the case with these restaurants, some of the bakery items were quite delicious though.

Ruby River Steakhouse (regional chain)
I'm just giving them a shout out because they offer a loaded sweet potato as a side. Yum.

Famous Dave's BBQ
This is a national chain, but I'm throwing it in here to say, "avoid." North Carolinians would thumb their noses at both their excuse for BBQ and side dishes (frozen corn on the cob, really?).

Pat's BBQ (off W. Temple near 2100S)
This place is OK and is definitely a BBQ "dive." I think this is the one with a juicier BBQ. Anyway, from what I recall, the side dishes weren't that great, and they only had thick brown BBQ sauce.

Sugarhouse BBQ (700E/~2200S)
This would be my choice for best BBQ in SLC (although I never made it out to Q4U). Pulled pork of the correct consistency - check (brisket is great too). Cornbread - check (although often served cold). Sweet tea - check!! NC-style vinegar based sauce - check!!! Awesome side dishes - bwah wah. Their one downfall. I can best describe the potato salad and cole slaw as "yucky."

Red Rock (200W/~250S)
This is a microbrewery/restaurant. The food I've had there was good, but I'm throwing it in here because one of my dishes came with green beans. Crunchy unseasoned green beans are not what I'm used to.

Bayou (~650 S. State)
Who doesn't like the Bayou? Maybe not on a regular basis, but it's more of a class-it-up place. The huge beer selection is a plus. And you probably can't get Cajun food in many other places in SLC. But while it's good and unique, it still wasn't precisely what I was looking for.


Blue Plate Diner (2100S/2100E)
This is one of SLC's more famous restaurants. I went 3 times, and came away with the same impression... meh. The decor is classic diner but the atmosphere is decidedly hippie (not a bad thing, I liked it). As for the food, I thought it was kind of bland and didn't really differentiate itself from other restaurants. They did serve a roll with my dinner, but it was hard and cold. People rave about their breakfast, but there are only so many ways to fix omelets. Biscuits anyone? Not here... fail. Prices aren't very diner-like either (although the portions are large).

Ruth's Diner (Emigration Canyon)
Originally a trolley car diner run by a spunky woman, it has been remodeled over the years and morphed into more of a yuppie eating establishment. Patio dining on a warm evening is great, and the location is a good escape from the city. The food was definitely good... for example the meatloaf has a very original glaze. Alas, no variety on the side dishes though. And again, don't expect diner-like prices here.

Cowboy Grub (Foothill/Parley's)
They do offer cornbread and other yummy baked goods. The menu is traditional homestyle fair, but again, a lack of side dish choices. The food was decent, but I thought a little overpriced compared to similar restaurants I've visited. The serve-yourself salad bar is well stocked though.

Lion House (Temple Square downtown)
This is a cafeteria/a la carte style restaurant, so obviously it reminded me of K&W. Unfortunately they offered none of K&W's numerous side choices. In fact they actually had two versions of mixed veggies the day I went. Their homemade rolls are pretty good though. I think hours may be limited.

Lamb's Grill (Main St. downtown)
I can best describe this as an old-school nice restaurant. You almost feel like you're back in the 1950's or something. I liked it a lot. The food was good and the prices reasonable. I got some sort of squash casserole with my dinner, which was a nice change of pace. Not the redneck diner I was searching for, but a good find nevertheless.

Mama's Plantation (Redwood Rd./~5000S)
This restaurant seemed out of place in SLC. It definitely felt like a southern plantation. There was even a sign in the kitchen with the popular saying "if mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy." The place was dead on a Saturday night... I'm guessing because of a poor location and little in the way to suggest it's there... or maybe people just don't like it? The menu is somewhat limited, with chicken, ribs, and fish being the main offerings. Fortunately they do offer yummy sides like blackeye peas and candied yams. They even shoved free food in our face when our meal took a few minutes longer than expected (plea for business, or too much food from lack of business?). However, the quality of the food wasn't that great. In fact, they served a slice of loaf bread with my chicken... but my mama might do that haha. Prices were fair though.

Bayleaf Cafe (Main St. downtown)
What an interesting place! The husband is from Alabama and the wife is from Japan, so the menu is a combination of delicacies from those two places. And they're open 24 hours on weekends. They offer many of the standard dishes like grits, meatloaf, and catfish. Side dishes include hoppin john, collard greens, and slaw... and they serve real country sausage gravy. And they have banana pudding, which for some reason Utahans have never heard of. The topper is that they serve sweet tea in mason jars! It appears they have jacked up their dinner prices since I ate there, but breakfast and lunch are still reasonable. In addition, there is a lack of cornbread or biscuits. The atmosphere is closer to eclectic than Southern, but I'll let that slide. Otherwise there's nothing to complain about, an awesome restaurant.

So in the end, Bayleaf saved the day, but there's still something to be said for eating in a redneck restaurant. Luckily I have found my place in Ohio, by way of the 68 Family Restaurant. :-)

mid-Fall updates

The trip home was good. I got to see mom's family the first weekend I was there. Then mom, dad, and I went on a Labor Day picnic. Tuesday-Thursday were spent in West Virginia. Dad and I stopped at Seneca Rocks and Dolly Sods on the way up. We spent the night at the cabin then went to Blackwater Falls and took a short bike ride with Grandfather in Thomas the next day. The remainder of the time was spent visiting in Kingwood. Friday I had a dentist appointment and then went down to Raleigh to have dinner with Casey and Kristin (who was in town for a wedding). They both were busy afterwards, so I went and hung out with Austin and Drew for the evening. Sunday I had a tight connection in Atlanta, but other than that, it was a good trip.
Home pictures can be seen here.

For the week of September 21-25, a guy I work with at NWS Western Region went on office visits to Sacramento, CA and Pendleton, OR. I was lucky enough that they let me tag along. It was an interesting trip and I got a feel for the kind of things they work on in the forecast offices.
Business trip pictures can be seen here.

I defended my thesis on October 9. Everything went well except it was a little long. None of the questions were too tough. I still have a lot of major editing to do on that. In addition, the journal article we submitted came back with major revisions, so those will have to be done some time, too. And one of my committee members wants to write a short article with me. Not to mention I will start having to work four days a week at the NWS in November in order to finish my hours by Christmas. So I will have a busy next few months, but the goal is to get a job in January or February whether everything is fully completed or not.
See the announcement here.

To celebrate being done with the defense (and due to the fact I had Columbus Day off at the NWS), Jess and I took a vacation to southern Utah. I figure this may be my last opportunity to go there conveniently. Our destinations were Zion and Bryce Canyon National Parks. We did some short hikes, picnicking, and camping, but nothing to crazy or strenuous. It was a good trip and some of the scenery was rather amazing.
See the southern Utah pictures here.

As you noticed, I linked the pictures to albums on Facebook (although these should be viewable by everyone... just not any additional personal info). Uploading pictures takes a lot of time, and Facebook is more user-friendly (and better viewing interface) than Webshots. I may eventually upload these on Webshots, but I may reserve that for more "random" pictures and use Facebook for the "big events" so it's easier for everyone to see. Hopefully this doesn't cause any problems for the few non-Facebook people who want to look at my pictures. You can still click on the photo to view the caption, etc.

Summer Summary

If you couldn't tell, I've more or less lost interest in this blog. However, I'll try to post major highlights from time to time. Summer has been busy and uneventful, but here are some snippets:

- I have now increased to three days a week at NWS. It's mainly programming/research/development, which isn't all that interesting. I've been working on a climatological probability of precipitation program, and am about to start exploring putting forecast information into GIS maps. I think I'm going on a "business trip" to CA and OR later in September.
- The thesis is almost done. Due to timing constraints, I may have to defend the first part of October, or not until November or later (that would be a bad thing). However, no one told me about a paperwork deadline, so I won't officially get my diploma until Spring.
- There really haven't been many group get-togethers or hikes, until busting out three in the last three weeks.
- I went to my first major league soccer game in July. It was pretty boring.
- I attended a mesoscale meteorology conference that was being held here in SLC a couple weeks ago and was able to see two of my former NC State professors.
- I'm going home next Friday!!

Pictures have been posted: lots of hikes, a little weather, the soccer game, and cooking stuff.

Trip to Omaha (and more)

Really long post here, but just to get caught up on everything. First things first.

My trip to the Weather Analysis and Forecasting/Numerical Weather Prediction Conference began with a relatively early flight on Sunday so I could travel with Jim, Trevor, Matt, and Greg. Of course with Frontier's seating rules, we couldn't sit near each other, but they were short flights. I thought overall it was a worse flying experience than Delta, except for cheap fares and comfy seats. We got into Omaha by mid-afternoon, which allowed for time to settle in and a quick nap. Ironically, we ended up on the same hotel shuttle as Carolyn (my thesis committee member from Monterey). I went out to dinner with the Utah people, and then afterward we walked along the Missouri River. There was a little carnival set up, and we learned they had just opened a new plaza at the base of the almost-new pedestrian bridge across the river. While strolling, we had a nice view of a towering severe storm to our south. We walked far enough to say we went to Iowa, and then turned in for the night as the sun was setting.

Monday was the first day of the conference and nothing eventful happened. We decided to come back to the hotel after dinner since it began raining and a squall line was threatening (although it never quite made it to Omaha).

Tuesday morning was an adventure. Levi (my office-mate and roomie for the conference) is Mormon, and there was a Mormon historical site and museum (where they spent a winter while traveling west) in Omaha he wanted to see. Since the morning's talks consisted of modeling updates, I agreed to go. I always hate going to conferences and the only thing you see is the hotel and airport. While there was nothing exciting about the museum, there was an old-fashioned diner (Harold's) next to the bus stop where we ate lunch. It reminded me of something from home (not to mention the tree-covered hill we walked down to get to it)! The waitress was sweet, and the food was homemade and awesome (I had chili, cornbread, and lemon meringue pie)! But here's the cool part: we randomly sat in the booth where Jack Nicholson sat in a scene for the movie "About Schmidt"! They had posted a small plaque commemorating the movie shoot. I took a picture of the plaque but unfortunately didn't think to take one of the booth itself.

Tuesday evening was the AMS-organized trip to see the Omaha Royals-Round Rock Express baseball game. This is the stadium where the college world series is played. They rented a limo/party bus for us, which seemed like a waste of money for the short distance, but maybe that's all that was available. The stadium was virtually empty. Not many students went, both teams were pretty terrible, and Omaha lost 3-2 in 10 innings.

Wednesday was another typical day. Dr. Lackmann from NC State gave a presentation, and it brought back so many memories of undergrad! There was an organized student dinner that night. However, I was hanging out with the NC State people, who only chose to go and stay for a short time. We then went to another restaurant for a sort of NC State alumni dinner. The only person I was really friends with was Adam, who graduated with me and is still in grad school there.

I had my presentations on Thursday, but not until late afternoon. The poster went OK; only a hand full of people showed interest. The presentation wasn't terrible, but it wasn't excellent either. I only left time for one question, and it wasn't mean. Feedback was mostly positive. That evening I finally felt like I could relax and went out on the town with a group of students from various schools. Omaha has the "Old Market" area, which is a revitalized area with numerous restaurants, bars, and shopping. It was just a 10+ minute walk from the hotel, with not much in between (Omaha is a small city after all).

Friday morning was split between a few talks and getting ready to leave. Dan, Levi, and I had the same flight back. Once we got to Denver, we discovered our flight was delayed just over an hour. We already had a 2h15m layover. So I did a lot of reading, walking around, and watching planes and clouds (a tornado watch was in effect one county north!) since my laptop battery died and my charger was packed. I hear there is some sort of shopping mall there, but its location wasn't advertised that I could see. I sat down in a dead gate area to eat supper, and a pilot nearby saw my NC State shirt and said he went there too and was from Raleigh! After another short delay getting our plane into the gate, we were on board. But then we sat on the taxiway for a while. The pilot finally announced there were storms nearby that had delayed takeoffs, and we were somewhere between 15 and 30 in line! Like in any good traffic jam, we pulled a u-turn and went to another runway. After a little more waiting, we were finally in the air for a bumpy ascent. We made it back to SLC almost 2 hours late, but I was still in time to attend a friend's birthday party.

Omaha was nice, not nearly as bad as some made it out to be. It definitely reminded me of home more than SLC does. The weather was great, especially Wed/Thu, although I wished there would have been some big storms. The Doubtletree Hotel and conference center seemed subpar compared to previous experience. It wasn't really a dump, it just seemed like nothing had been updated since the 80's. The conference itself wasn't too bad, with a number of good talks. Overall, a very nice trip, and pictures have been posted.

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The internship with the National Weather Service has started. I am working with the scientific services division, which basically does research and development to help improve operations at the forecast offices. Right now they're working on some verification projects involving precipitation forecasts, which I have started processing some data for.

Our clunky old dryer finally died. The landlord said he wouldn't replace it because he doesn't plan to rent after we move out. Luckily we found a nice used one on Craigslist, and the person actually delivered it!

The weather pattern the past week has been unusually cool, moist, and unstable. We have had thunderstorms almost every afternoon, and east-coast-style ones at that! Thursday morning was interesting in that a rotation formed in the cloud base (mini wall cloud?) right over the university! I never imagined that I would be able to witness something like that in Utah! See pictures of that (and a nice double rainbow) in the weather section of Webshots (up to pages 9-10 now).

Visiting Kristin in California

I've probably mentioned this to most everyone who reads this, but here it is anyway.

I arrived late Friday afternoon to a steady rain. It honestly didn't let up completely until midday Sunday. While the weather put a huge damper on our plans and ability to see sites, I still saw a lot and had an awesome time (it's Kristin, how could I not?).

Friday was Davis day. I saw campus, downtown, and ate at Burgers and Brew (which was a good bun short of B&D quality here in SLC). Everything looked so green! Of course SLC is barely into Spring, and it was rainy there instead of sunny and 100 degrees, but I still liked all the farm country.

Saturday was going to be a toss up anyway. We had considered going to the Sierra foothills to do a short hike and see California's tallest bridge (due to a lake that was never made). Obviously this was thrown out, so we went to Napa Valley. Our route there included the "back roads," which made me very happy. I think Kristin found two of the coolest wineries there. One (Rutherford Hill) had an elaborate cave system to store and age their wines. The other (Sterling) was on top of a hill and had a gondola tram up to the top. Kristin also noticed what looked like an Oscar Award placed on one of the counters in the tasting room. The hostess noted that they supplied the wine for the governor's Oscar ball, and brought us a sample of that specialty as well as an "Oscar" to pose with. Very cool! We had planned for a stop by the Jelly Belly factory, but were running short on time and skipped it. That evening one of her friends was having a dinner party, so we went to that. Believe it or not, they had pulled pork with vinegar based sauce!

Sunday we headed to San Francisco. We started off with a ferry tour around the bay. However, with the fog, most of the sites we were supposed to see were virtually invisible. This included when we sailed under the Golden Gate Bridge, of which we could only see the roadway (barely). We did get a nice view of Alcatraz. Then we went on a motorized cable car (which I forgot to take a picture of... oops) tour. This was an excellent way to see a lot of SF in a short period of time. We started in the Fisherman's Wharf area and then went through Presidio. We crossed the Golden Gate Bridge (which still wasn't very visible), and had a stop so we could walk around. Kristin and I subsequently delayed the tour a couple minutes by getting back late. The tour then went through North Beach, near downtown, by Union Square, through Chinatown, and of course we saw a few "real" cable cars along the way (the line was really long to ride those). After the tour, we did some walking around and shopping at Pier 39, Ghiradelli Square, and then to Lombard St. (the alleged crookedest block in the world). We then hopped on a bus to Alamo Square. Luckily the skies had cleared by then, because that view of the skyline with the Seven Sisters in the foreground is just classic. After dinner in a Southern-style diner we headed back to Davis. Then it was (sadly) back to SLC on Monday morning. Pictures are on Webshots.

The NWS internship is getting finalized... more on that soon!

Happy Easter!

Great weather, great church service, and great lunch (chicken, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, cake) with a couple of the other grad students. I still miss being with family though.

Speaking of family, I had a great trip home. Probably close to 200 people showed up to Susie's birthday party. I hope I have that many good friends when I get that old. Otherwise it was a bunch of relaxing with the family and doing my taxes (haha). Since my flight arrived late at night, I spent the night with Austin, and then ate breakfast with Lydia and fellow 2007 meteo grads Patrick and Carrie... it was good to see them.

Birthday 24 was nice... spaghetti dinner and a "I Love You Man" with friends and a prospective grad student.

I went to my first NBA game last night. The Jazz stunk it up against the Warriors but it was still a good time.

No official word on the internship, although I hear if I get it, I'd be lucky to start by June with all the government bureaucracy... which means I'd probably be here through at least December.

The WAF-NWP Conference is the first week of June in Omaha. I have a poster and a talk, each on the segments of my research. The poster is largely done (unless my adviser tells me I need to overhaul it) because it needs to be presented at the field experiment meeting (which I won't be attending) the first of May. And also because I'm still awaiting my adviser's revisions on the journal article and what exactly I'm going to do next in research.

In other looking ahead news, I finally have my trip planned to visit Kristin and CA!

Skiing

I finally went skiing for the first time last weekend, so I guess I should give a report. I stayed on the bunny hill and didn't make a whole lot of progress... mainly practiced snow-plowing, and I never fully got the hang of it. Obviously I was rather sore afterwards, but apparently one of the pains was a bit more serious. I went back to try again today, and realized it was painful for my hip to go through a full range of motion. So I just ended up watching. Oh well, at least there was someone else learning so it wasn't a complete waste for everyone. I'm not extremely motivated on this subject, so it doesn't matter to me if I end up going back or not.

On the work front, it's more of the same. We are still working to finalize an article to submit to a journal. I also will likely be attending a conference in June. I have an internship opportunity that I've applied for, but am still waiting to hear about. Details on all of that later if it comes through. I'll be home next weekend for Susie's 90th birthday, so I am looking forward to that.