Tag: reuben

Food Review: Mountain View, AR Restaurant Visits- Spring Break

Over this spring break, we went camping around Mountain View. What’s new? 🤣 Here are the run-downs of all the restaurants we tried:

The Rusty Cup

The outside of The Rusty Cup, downtown Mountain View

This new restaurant is the one I was MOST impressed with. It is adorably decorated with plenty of tables and booths inside, though I got my order to go.
The menu, while it is not posted anywhere online for me to link, is full of breakfast items and lunch items, as well as many coffee and other drink options. The breakfast looks very tempting! From traditional items, such as country plates with eggs, steaks, bacon, or sausage, to more healthy options including avocado toast. There are also great looking pancakes and breakfast burritos.
For lunch, there are mostly sandwiches and some salads that are delicious!
For coffee, they have it all! There’s also specialty cold drinks, like a wild strawberry lemonade, and even scoops of ice cream!

Reuben with no cheese from The Rusty Cup

I went for the reuben, which was delicious! (And I’m pretty picky about my reubens). The meat was tender and juicy. The homemade dressing was divine. I loved this sandwich and will definitely get it again. In fact, I may not try anything else. It comes with your choice of side, and I got the coleslaw, which was colorful and not too mayonnaise-y, which I like.

I also really wanted to try a new salad, so I went for the Asian Chicken salad. It was awesome! For less than $10, this is great! A large salad, full of different textures and flavors. It is very pretty as well and had enough chicken to make a meal of its own. Again, their homemade dressing made it fantastic!

The Asian Chicken Salad from The Rusty Cup

Overall, this place brings a few new food additions plus the country, homey food we all love. It is cute, the service must be great because my to-go order was ready early and made a fast and flawless check out. I love it!

Sasquatch Cave

Inside of Sasquatch Cave in Mountain View

Directly next door to The Rusty Cup is Sasquatch Cave, a new coffee, smoothie, and panini lunch spot. It’s interior has only one table and a bar at the window to sit at, but most people get items here to-go.

When I saw the menu pics on their Facebook page, I got very excited because they have an acai bowl! I love acai bowls and they are very hard to find anywhere in Arkansas. So, props to this place!
Besides an acai bowl, there are so many delicious-sounding smoothies, to which you can add protein powder or collagen. There are also a few paninis and wraps to pick from, and even breakfast sandwiches served all day.

As for the coffee, there are frappes!

Acai bowl at Sasquatch Cave

My acai bowl was beautiful and filled with plenty of fruit, granola, and an edible flower. If you aren’t sure what an acai bowl is, its just a smoothie bowl. However, the smoothie part is a thick blend of strawberries, blueberries banana, and acai with almond milk. It was huge! While the fruit was a little sour, I think in the summer months when fruit is more in season, this bowl will be perfect.

The Roast Beef Reuben at Sasquatch Cave

Even though we ate inside, all food was put into to-go containers, which works great for leftovers. I had to order the reuben, but this one is made with roast beef instead of corned beef. It was a panini, so the bread was crispy, which I loved. The roast beef was tasty, and the regular sauerkraut. I was surprised when it wasn’t dressed, but came with a Ken’s Thousand Island on the side. Using a store-bought dressing would usually be a negative, but Ken’s is the best. So, I am not complaining. For to-go orders, this is perfect. Keep your sandwich crispy until you’re ready to drown it in the dressing and gobble up. The sandwich came with a side bag of chips of your choice as well. Overall, this isn’t the best reuben I’ve had around these parts, so I’ll probably try something else next time.

Overall, the people are so friendly here. You can watch the smoothies being made while you wait. Though, the seating is an issue with only about eight chairs total? Before I can give any more of an opinion, I’ll need to try more off their menu. Have you tried any of their smoothies? What’d you think?

Mountain View Donut Factory

Mountain View Donut Factory

Damn you, Mountain View Donut Factory. I have spent years not eating donuts. Now I’ve been for a box of donuts TWICE this week! Y’all….this place is awesome.
There are SO many donut options and they are all at a very affordable price. From crullers, to cake donuts, to regular yeast ones with tons of different toppings, to stuffed donuts you can fill with whatever filling you choose, and even savory kolaches and biscuits and gravy.

The first visit, I got a $2.50 massive apple fritter, a plain donut, a chocolate long john filled with bavarian cream, and an “original” blueberry cruller (not pictured above). Everything was good, but that blueberry cruller was the best donut I’ve ever had. That’s why I had to go back for more.

On the second visit, I got three blueberry “original” crullers, two plain, and a chocolate donut stuffed with the white cream. The white cream is hands down delicious! It’s like whipped cream mixed with a little icing, fluffy and delicious. I’ll continue to stick with this filling forever.

Overall, this place is a gem. Its owners are so kind, the prices are so right, and the donuts are so delicious.

Food Review: Best Sandwich Ever? I think so….Heidi’s Ugly Cakes in Norfork, AR.

Update: I have since been to Heidi’s about 4 more times since I wrote this. I am updating and adding what other awesome desserts we have had.

Have you heard of Norfork? Me neither. However, it is about an hour away from  Mountain View, where we were camping this weekend. We went on a day trip to see some places in-between, but the lunch we had at Norfork was the highlight. If you Google food in Norfork, Heidi’s pops up…multiple times. Apparently she has the best reubens around, so clearly I had to stop in. And it was SO worth it! Here’s the breakdown:

Environment

This quaint town is a perfect place for this quaint restaurant….but there’s one problem. It is too far from Maumelle, where I live. But the restaurant is small,  decorated with tons of cute decor I’m sure Heidi picked out herself.

Heidi used to be in a different building, but now she is right in the middle of downtown Norfork, on the main highway. With the pandemic, she added on a very large outdoor eating area, with spaced out tables. She even has an outdoor window for contact-less ordering!

You can still walk in, order, and eat indoors as well. On my last trip (which is probably the 5th time I have visited Heidi’s), dhe let us know that it was “bake sale day” and all baked items were half off. I believe this is every Saturday!

The Menu

As small as this menu seems, it definitely will find a hit with any picky eater. I, personally, find no reason to offer anything other than the two sandwiches we tried…more on that in a minute, but I always find a smaller menu means each of the items are perfected. And they are. Sandwiches is what you will find mostly here, besides a ton of ridiculously luscious desserts.

The Food

Fried Bologna Sandwich with chips; $6.50, comes with whatever toppings you want.

I have had a pretty great fried bologna sandwich with a medium egg at Skinny J’s in Argenta, I would definitely get that again. But this one was even better. Every aspect was perfect. Buttery, toasted bread, thick, griddled bologna, “yolk-y” egg, crisp veggies, perfection! I couldn’t put it down to even try my half of the reuben, it was too good.  Definitely order this!

The Reuben with chips, $6.99

When I made it to the Reuben, with high expectations, it did not disappoint. Even without cheese, it was so juicy and tender and buttery…ugh, I’m drooling now just thinking about it.  It was definitely the best (or tied for the best) Reuben I have had. The only other contender is the Burger Barn in Ozone, AR, though the owner, who has recently passed, was a hard man to deal with…and who knows how their food is now that he isn’t cooking it? Drew agreed this was the best Reuben he has had.

Now where I got in trouble was with these desserts. There was a refrigerator full of cold “ugly” cakes and pies and also a shelf of baked hand-pies. I am not a dessert person. I never order dessert. But they were half off (originally $4.50 a slice…a huge slice) so for this review, I had to. It’s your fault.  Since I couldn’t pick just one, we ordered three.

We tried (and ate for 2 days) the coconut cream cake, the peanut butter pie, and the “holy cow ” cake.

The coconut cream cake was my favorite. It was like a tres leches cake, sooo moist, not too sweet, but utterly decadent. The peanut butter pie was very dense and rich and definitely hit the spot. The “holy cow” cake was chocolate cake with a delicious caramel, topped with a great vanilla icing (again, not too sweet) and butterfinger crumbs. While it was my least favorite, it was still delicious! If you visit Heidi’s, you MUST try a dessert, you won’t be disappointed.

Past Trips Food Report:

I ALWAYS get the fried bologna with an egg. I have decided I like that better than the reuben, so that’s my official favorite sandwich here.
As for desserts, I can’t pick a favorite, but I’m working on trying them all!
One time, this was our line up:

Cinnamon roll, “holy cow” cake, and banana pudding cake.

This was, no doubt, the BEST cinnamon roll I’ve ever had. I don’t like even one bite to be missing out on icing. This one was encrusted (it was fresh earlier that day) in a perfectly large amount of sweet cinnamon-y goodness. The roll is thin, but soft, so you get bites full of bread, cinnamon, and icing. It didn’t even need to be reheated it was so good. I’ll get these everytime!

The holy cow cake was still rich and delicious!

The banana pudding cake is my favorite cake now. It was SO moist! It tasted like the perfect banana pudding mixed with a delicious yellow cake. It blended wonderfully.

On my last trip, we got the coconut cream cake again, the peanut butter pie again, and tried the lemon icebox cake and the amaretto carrot cake.

The peanut butter pie cake was still super rich and tasty. The coconut cake was a little drier than previously. I think I’ll stick to corner pieces from now on. The amaretto carrot cake- wow! I have never liked carrot cake, but this was a dense, moist, flavor bomb. Delicious! The amaretto paired perfectly with the spices in the cake. I’ll have to make a carrot cake with almond extract to replicate this! The lemon icebox cake was exactly what you’d expect, in a good. Sour, moist, and very light!

Overall, I will drive here if I am ever within an hour again. It was the highlight of my weekend and Heidi was the best. While the reuben was amazing, I am longing more for that fried bologna sandwich, so I’ll probably never try anything else.

Those of you close to me know that I have been dieting all year and this may seem like I “fell off the wagon”. Don’t worry, I didn’t. I jumped off the wagon! And it was worth it.