Neighborhood Eats

So we've recently been on a mission to eat at our neighborhood restaurants.  When we first moved into our house, we noticed how many places there were to eat at the intersections near our neighborhood.  So we ate at a few local places and really liked them, but then we kind of fell into a rut of eating at our normal places--Chili's, Chipotle, Raising Cane's, Pizza from Papa Johns.  So a couple of months ago, I mentioned to David that we needed to try again to eat at some local restaurants.  

We spent a Saturday afternoon driving around and making a list of every place to eat within a mile or so of our house.  The first list we made had over 70 restaurants on it!  I deleted lots of the chains that we eat at a lot (like the ones I mentioned above as well as things like McDonald's, Starbucks, Dairy Queen, the 3 Subways within a mile of house).  I left a few chain restaurants that we haven't been to and a few local places that we've tried once and I made a spreadsheet of all of the places to try.  And we now have a list of 54 places to try out!  So we decided to try to eat at about one a week and work our way through the list.  So I thought I'd post about a few of the places we've tried in the past month.

First up was Noodle Wave

We went out to dinner here the week the kids left.  It's a Thai place that is close to us.  I tried the traditional Hot Pot and even though I asked for it to be very mild, it was still too spicy for me.  I am a wimp when it comes to spiciness, so most dishes are too spicy for me.  But David had a great meal and we enjoyed getting to go out together and try somewhere new!

Next up was the Taqueria at La Michoacana

We walked around the market there and then ordered our dinner.  David had mini tacos and I had regular tacos.  They came with beans and some aguafresca.  We both enjoyed our tacos and loved how inexpensive it was to get dinner for both of us!  We'll have to go back another time to try their breakfast tacos too.

Then we tried out Pizza Patron 

I went one evening to pick up pizza.  Neither of us had every had Pizza Patron before, so we were excited to try it.  We got a great deal on the pizzas and tried both the Pepperoni and the Cheese.  It was not great in either of our opinions.  I'm glad we checked it out, but we will probably stick with our typical Papa Johns for Pizza :)

Last up was Haystack Burgers

We have been to Haystack before and David really likes their burgers.  Our Community Group went for our dinner night in June.  I was babysitting for a friend that evening, but David was able to enjoy dinner here along with several of our friends.

It's been fun trying new places together.  I tend to eat the same things over and over.  I go to the same few places to eat and I almost always order the same things when I go somewhere.  So this mission puts me outside of my comfort zone a little bit and pushes me to try new dishes.  We love getting to support businesses in our neighborhood and look forward to trying some more this month!