Lunch at the Garden Cafe at Southern Homes and Gardens on Vaughn

I stopped in to get some plants, and had a bite to eat at their cafe. The Vaughn SHAG is even better than the Wetumpka location. It is all new and has cool spacious greenhouses. I had a chicken salad croisant, with chips and fruit salad. Their chicken salad has to be the best I've ever eaten. There were big chunks of seasoned white meat, mixed greens and seasoned tomatoes sandwiched between a firm croisant. The fruit salad was also quite good. It consisted of Blueberries, Strawberries, red grapes and muskmelon, all drizzled with a sweet dressing with poppy seeds.

Great food for a light lunch, patio seating available.

Lunch at Nobles

We went to Nobles for lunch recently, and were not very impressed. Let me start out by saying that I've eaten lunch there at least two other times before, and have never been dissapointed. This time was different, however. We sat down almost as soon as we walked in, and continued to do so, ungreated for at least 5 minutes. When our waiter did finally arrive, he joked about us having enough time to decide on what we wanted, and offered no apology. Besides the slowness of our waiter, his appearence left something to be desired as well. He was wearing the standard uniform of a open collared button down, but his T-Shirt underneath was old and threadbare.

I ordered the Blackened Tuna Sandwich with Wasabi Aoli and Sweet Potato Fries, and my guest had the special of the day, Spaghetti and Meatballs, with a side salad. After waiting an increadibly long time for our food to come out, I was sorely dissapointed. The blackened tuna was not blackened, only coated with very hot spices, that had not been blackened at all. The tuna was almost cool to the touch. It had the appearace that it had been cooked ahead of time, or at least seasoned ahead of time, and cooked on a cool stove. The sweet potato fries were all limp, as though they were cooked earlier in the day as well. My guest's spaghetti was watery, probably a result of insufficient draining. The balsamic vineagrette dressing and the mixed green salad was quite good however. We later split a layered strawberry cake which was iced with a wonderfull strawberry icing. It was almost as dense as a fruit bread, but still very good and eat-able.

Overall, I would have to say that either Nobles is slipping, or we just came on a bad day. Either way, that dining experience was bad.

Dinner at Outback Steakhouse.

It had been awhile since I've eaten at Outback, mainly due to my dislike of waiting 45+ minutes for a table. We got there at 5:30, and went straight to our table. I'm still not sure if that is because it was early, or if the new Prattville location has helped to take some of the damand off the Montgomery one.

We ordered the Bloomin' Onion, one of our favorites, aside from Bacon Cheese Fries, and were not dissapointed. We then split the Royal Port catch with the Toowoomba sauce, which is a cream sauce with crawfish tails and shrimp, and a side of steamed veggies. The only thing that dissapointed was the size of the filet, and the Outback standard of zero garnish.
Our waiter was always there when we needed him, and kept our drinks full. It wasn't spectacular service, but it was helpful, and there when needed, which, for Montgomery, is still above par.

Overall, Outback was what we expected from Outback, always great food, and a good dining experience.