Tag: north little rock

Food Review: Newfangled Love Kitchen in NLR

Newfangled Love Kitchen is a brand new restaurant that opened up next door to North Bar on JFK Blvd. in North Little Rock. It is owned by the same people that own North Bar and Lakewood Fish and Seafood Lounge. Pretty much,  these people are running all of the local restaurants in NLR these days.

The thing that makes this restaurant stand out is its menu:

       

The menu features mostly breakfast/ brunch items, along with a few burgers.  This is great for people like me that love breakfast for lunch and dinner, because they serve these dishes all day.
More importantly, there is a large selection of gluten free options and vegan options.

I decided on the gluten free eggs benedict.

This dish replaces the typical english muffin with a hash brown cake. I am not gluten-free, personally, but I love hash browns! These were crispy and mixed well with my pan seared ham, perfectly poached eggs, and the large amount of tangy, rich hollandaise sauce. I thought it was delicious! Plus, it was only $10. I’d definitely get this again.

My friend ordered the Kung Pao steak salad, which I also had my eye on.

At $12, she got a pretty large salad with a good amount of medium-rare (as she requested) ribeye. However, there wasn’t much seasoning on it and there was no spice whatsoever in the salad nor the dressing. She ate it, but would not order this again. It needs some heat and more flavor to be considered “Kung Pao”

Overall, everything ran very smoothly for a restaurant that opened officially about a week ago. The service was good, the food took about 20 minutes to get once ordered, and our waters were refilled in a timely fashion.

There are many other menu items I’d like to try, so I’ll definitely be giving this place another try soon.

Crawfish and Snow Crab and Shrimp, Oh my! Review of D’s Cajun Cuisine Food Truck

D’s Cajun Cuisine  is a food truck that is currently parked in front of Tommy’s Meat Market on Highway 365, just outside of Maumelle.  It is only open on Fridays (4-9) and Saturdays (11-9), though. We love crawfish and gave this a shot. Here’s our take:

ENVIRONMENT

The owner couldn’t be nicer, nor busier. The first time I stopped by this place was at 4:30 on a Saturday, and they were already completely sold out of everything! The owner, Micah Dingler, gave me a card and said to call in orders ahead of time to ensure we get some food. So, that’s what we did the following weekend.

THE MENU

There are only three things on the menu: crawfish, snow crab, and shrimp. So, we got all of them! If you get any of these in a meal, you also get a sausage, corn, and a potato. Also, they only take cash. Good news: the tax is included on the menu prices.

THE FOOD

We’ll start with the good stuff, the snow crab!

 This was the best snow crab I have ever had. First off, these crab legs were very large, so I got a lot of meat in the 1 lb serving. They were cooked and seasoned to perfection. The crab meat was very tender and there was enough spice to give it a great kick, but not too much to cover the sweetness of the crab. I will be getting this again.

We each got a crawfish meal, that comes with 3 lbs of crawfish. It came in a plastic bag, so we put each meal on a large tray…that is a lot of crawfish!

 While the crawfish was cooked perfectly, I felt it lacked in spice. The tail meat was pretty bland. This would be considered perfect for someone who doesn’t like any heat, but I love spicy seafood…and this was not spicy at all.

The most disappointing item was the shrimp. These are beautiful, large shrimp, but they are peeled prior to being boiled. And they are extremely overcooked. The rubbery texture was off-putting, though the flavor was better than that of the crawfish. Yet, again, I would prefer my shrimp a little spicier.
The sides were fine, nothing special. The corn was nice and spicy. The potato was a potato. The large sausage links included in the meals were very flavorful, but very fatty.

OVERALL

We loved the crab, I will definitely get more of that in my future. However, for crawfish or shrimp, I’m going to Eat My Catfish.  Their version is much spicier and is always cooked perfectly, as well.