Cappellini Marlon (pasta w/lobster, shrimp in saffron cream sauce
This is my second time going to Sava in Ann Arbor. They have a mixed menu of pub food, standards like steak and fish, pasta and Italian, and Mexican.
That seems all over the map, but everything I have had there has been good.
Fish and Chips (Icelandic cod beer battered)
Marlin special
Filet Mignon Steak with potato and asparagus
Enchiladas
Chocolate Lava Cake with Ice Cream
Creme Brulee
It is offical. Mark’s Carts are open for business. For the most part it is a lunch scene to about 2:00 PM. Show up later and some of the carts may be closed up for the day.
I have tried three of the six carts so far.
I had a tasty coconut vegan stew from the Lunchroom and a vegan chocolate chip cookie.
Humble Hog served up some good brisket BBQ and for the more adventurous Head cheese.
And Eat, which has been a mainstay at the AA downtown Farmers Market had a tasty pork confit with a mustard seed spread.
All offerings were great.
The Pork Buns offered by San Street are raved about, but I have yet to try them or Debajo del Sol chorizo corn dogs.
Article and photos by Jeff Pierce, Washtenaw Voice staff
Yong Kims secret location at 3220 Packard road
An odd looking structure sits on Ann Arbor’s southeast side, owned by Yong Kim and his wife Aggie. Loyal followers have flocked to this structure since Yong and his wife opened it back in 1982. Welcome to a restaurant named Mary’s Fabulous Chicken & Fish, located at 3220 Packard road, in Ann Arbor, Mich.
Yong and his family have proudly served the Ann Arbor area for three decades.
“I love Yong Kim’s gizzards. I’ve been eating here for years,” said Al Dungey, 74, a Ford retiree from Ann Arbor.
“Gizzards are healthy to eat. They’re rich in iron and protein like beef liver,” said Dungey, while eating in the two-table dining area.
Al Dungey at counter
CPA Pete Papadopoulos, 45, is a financial adviser in downtown Ann Arbor.
“I stop here once in a while for a pint of gizzards to take to work. They’re excellent,” according to Papadopoulos. He also ordered a 3-piece chicken dinner.
‘Brick’ Washington, 28, lives and works in Ypsilanti. He stops in Mary’s Chicken the time for carryout. “Yong’s gizzards are the best. I get them when I order chicken legs or a cheese steak hoagie,” said Brick, a patron since 1993.
Yong Kim stands in front of menu
L.T., 32, of Ann Arbor, has stopped at Mary’s since the age of 8. “Good gizzards are hard to find. I stop in at least once a week. It’s a cheap snack– $1.99 for a half-pint of gizzards,” said L.T., an unemployed southeast-side resident.
“Yong serves his gizzards in a Styrofoam cup ready to eat! When I’m done, I have a cup and fork to use later,” said L.T.
The carryout restaurant relies on chicken and cheese-steak hoagie sales. But shrimp, clams, French fries, onion rings, fried mushrooms and various sandwich styles are available, as well as chicken and fish combo dinners. All dinners, served in grease-stained boxes, contain french fries, coleslaw and a roll.
Gary McCall, 45, from Chelsea, a University of Michigan employee, stops for the convenient carryout.
“I’m picking up a few pints of homemade rice pudding for a dinner party tonight.” according to McCall.
Yong Kims south side Ann Arbor specialty: Gizzards
Yong Kim sells 80 pounds of gizzards per week. He buys frozen chickens pre-cut, but the gizzard demand forces him to buy additional 40-pound packages of frozen gizzards.
“Gizzards are small. Our chicken sales can’t generate enough gizzards. We buy frozen gizzards separately to bread, cook and serve,” according to Yong.
Don’t forget the gravy “I keep the price down for everybody,” said Yong.
Mary’s Fabulous Chicken & Fish is open Monday through Saturday 11 a.m. – 9 p.m.
Posted in Ann Arbor Restaurant Reviews
Tagged 3220 Packard road ann arbor, ann arbor food, Ann Arbor Food Blog, ann arbor food blogs, Ann Arbor Korean restaurant, Fried chicken ann arbor, Fried Gizzards Ann Arbor, Jeff Pierce, Mary's Fabulous Chicken and Fish Ann Arbor, Philly cheese steak ann arbor, Yong Kim Ann Arbor
Walk into Tienda La Libertad, a Mexican and Latin American grocer on 2231 West Liberty in Ann Arbor and you will feel like you have been transported to Mexico. That is the way Cesar Hervert, the owner Tienda La Libertad wants it.
Mariachi music plays in the back ground; there are smells of taco meat cooking on the grill and colorful piñatas adorn the ceiling waiting for a party.
In fact many of the customers and employees speak to each other in Spanish, so if you did not know it, you would think you were in another country.
A hand written sign next to the entrance advertises $1.59 tacos. For those who have not been to the grocer in a while, these are new as of this January.
For regulars like a tall Spanish speaking guy wearing a T-shirt with a soccer player in an astronaut suit, these tacos are comfort food.
He orders two beef tongue tacos, which are his favorite. He would like to see them offer tripe (beef intestine) tacos and beef brain.
“Beef tongue is very tasty. It tastes similar to raccoon,” he said with a smile. Tienda La Libertad does not serve raccoon.
He said that he had tried raccoon tacos, but it is not a traditional meat served on tacos in Mexico.
Famed food writer Calvin Trillin in his book, The Tummy Trilogy, notes the importance of seeing tripe on the menu of a taco joint. He is not a fan of tripe, but he sees tripe on the menu as a sign that the place is the real deal.
Tripe not withstanding, Teinda La Libertad is the real deal.
Hervert has big plans for the prepped food aspect of the business. They just installed a hot bar which features beans and rice, soup and three sections of meat.
“You come in. You get your meal and you are good to go,” said Hervert.
The hot bar was just installed the day before and Hervert is excited about it.
They currently can only offer take out, but Hervert says that will change soon.
Cesar Hervert
“We are going to have seating for 20 inside,” said Hervert gesturing to the open space near the hot bar. “We will also have tables outside for another 20.”
Hervert is working out the details with the city to offer seating, so he could not say exactly when sit down dining will be available.
For now there is a standing room only counter off to the side where customer orders tacos.
Prepared food is only one aspect of Tienda La Libertad. Their main business is groceries.
“I mostly get tortilla, refried beans, chips and the Mexican cheese Queso Fresco,” said Rita Nelson, a regular customer. “I do not get taco there. I make my own at home.”
They also have fresh baked goods, and other items like prepaid phone cards, Spanish language DVD rentals and Western Union money transfers for customers to send money to relatives living in Mexico.
Tienda La Libertad is located on Ann Arbor’s west side at 2231 West Liberty St, near W. Stadium Blvd.
Open Daily 9 a.m. – 9 p.m.,
Sundays 10 a.m. – 7 p.m.
Phone (734)585-5796
One of the best entertainment deals at Washtenaw Community College is Dinner and Movie*. For $15, you get dinner for two at Garrett’s Restaurant (located in the Student Center) Friday night dinners and two movie passes to Quality 16 theaters.
The restaurant is run by WCC Culinary Art and Hospitality Program. Chef Gary Marquardt runs the Friday night program.
*I am pretty sure Dinner and a Movie is only available to WCC students, but anyone can come for the dinner.
There was a full house of 43 dinners last Friday with many taking the Dinner and Movie offer. Tickets for Dinner and Movie are available at the cashier counter on the second floor of the Student Center.
The meals at Garrett’s are based on a theme. Last Friday’s theme was an all vegetarian meal, which included a vegan offering. The meals come with rolls/bread, an appetizer, choice of soup or salad, an entree and dessert.
Garret’s Friday night service also offers a variety of beverage service with some nights featuring wine, beer or specialty alcoholic beverage.
They do not offer alcohol every night, however. On vegetarian night, Garret’s featured a table side tea service and they will be featuring smoothies on another night this semester.
Seating for the Friday night service begins at 5:30pm. The cost is around $15 per person. Cash, check, Visa, MasterCard, and Discover Card are accepted. There is an additional cost of $4.95 for the beverage tasting. Reservations are encouraged, and you can call 734-973-3592 to reserve a table. Upcoming dinners include:
* March 11: Vegetarian menu with tea tasting
* March 18: St. Patrick’s Day beer tasting
* March 25: Catch of the day with fruit smoothie tasting
* April 1: Southwestern celebration with margarita tasting
* April 8: Spring into summer with BBQ and beer tasting
Here is a run down of the meal:
Entrees
Dessert
They offered nine different varieties of ice cream including blueberry, vanilla, chocolate, green tea, pistachio, strawberry…
Here is a quick video a did using a flip camera. It is of the WCC student run bakery, which is only open a few hours a week, Tues-Thursday from 12:00-1:00 p.m. They sell out fast, so get there early.
Tomukun is one of Ann Arbor’s newest restaurants. They specialize in moderately priced noodle dishes like ramen, pho, soba, and udon. They also offer rice dishes and a nice assortment of appetizers like pork buns, which come more open faced than the traditional cooked inside a bun.
The verdict.
The place was great. I ordered the deluxe pho and Emily had the spicy seafood ramen. Good Pho is hard to find. I thought theirs was worthy. Was it the best? The Pho I had out in Oregon kicked-ass, so I will not go on the record saying it was the best I ever had, but it was the best in town and I plan to make Tomukun my haunt for my local Pho fix.
What you want to see with Pho is fixings like lime, sprouts, hot peppers, sweet and hot sauce and fresh basil. Tomukun provided those fixings. Any place that cheaps out and does not provide them with your Pho is not worth returning too. (I will not say who you are…other so called Pho places in town…but they know)
What made this Pho a little different at Tomukun is the broth, which was pork not beef. I liked it. They also put slices of pork belly in the Pho Deluxe, which I never had before. I am not a big fan of intestines, which are common in Pho, so the addition of pork belly was welcomed.
At $11 is was on the pricy side for Pho, which usually runs about $7 in the out of the way places in Portland. But I figure you pay more to eat in downtown Ann Arbor.
I went to Cinco Lagos, in Milford, Michigan for my B-day meal this year. It is the newly themed restaurant by Brian Polcyn which used to be the Five Lakes Grill and featured upscale cuisine. The restaurant has now morphed into a fine medium priced Mexican eatery. We went on Friday night and the place was packed. There were not many people waiting to get in, but the place was full with a steady stream of people leaving, and others being seated.
The food was what one would expect at a Mexican restaurant. There are Tacos, Chiles Poblanos Rellenos, Enchiladas, Nachos, Fajitas, and as a nice surprise Pozole Soup (pictured above).
A big basket of chips comes to your table for free to start, with pico salsa, and a hot red salsa.
I order the Pozole, and loved it. It was rich, hearty, porky in a good way, and full of flavor. I am a big pozole fan, and make it every other week or so at home.(see my recipe) Mine is made with chicken, not pork, to please a family house majority.
The pozle is so rich, that I could have had it for my meal. At $3.50 a bowl it is a bargain. The next time I go, I might just order two bowls for my meal, along with the chips and call it full.
For our entrees, Emily and I both ordered the three taco platter, which consisted of three large chicken, pork, and beef tacos, each with there own sauce, which came with rice and black beans($11). They were some of the best tacos I ever had.
In general the place is very affordable, the service was very good, and the atmosphere nice yet with a lot of TV’s going made for a kind festive, sport bar like feel. The most expensive entree on the menu was a shrimp, chicken and steak fajitas($16)
They offered a only one special, mahi mahi with a tequila butter sauce, and manga salsa. It sounded great, but we both wanted tacos.
They were more like six tacos because they came with six soft taco shell. The idea being that you placed half the filling into one of the two shells provided with each taco.
The meal was very filling, and after my pozole, I only had three of the six tacos. The rice and beans are very good and worth noting. Most of the rice and beans I get at mexican restaurants were a filler and after thought, but these were expertly prepared and very tasty.
The big star of the place was the margaritas.($5). Every table besides ours seemed to be having a margarita party, which explains the business model for the place (sell great inexpensive food, and encourage margarita orders). But this is not a margarita bar with lame food. The food is excellent, and affordable. And considering the packed crowd, I felt that Chef Polcyn made a great decision.
For dessert I had the spicy brownie with vanilla sauce which was excellent. It was a warm brownie with a touch of spice for a pleasant, subtle back ground favor.
Emily had the Mexican flan, which I tasted and it was great, very smooth.
In general the food was great, and affordable. The check was $40 for two, with soup for me, a soda, and dessert for two and we took home a full meal each for lunch.
Some online comments mentioned that the menu was playing it a little safe with featuring the more familiar Mexican fare. The menu does seem very standard, but the food was all great. Maybe some additional special would satisfy the more adventurous crowd, which I encourage, but the people I saw seemed perfectly happy as was I.
I will definitely go there again. In fact if this place was in Ann Arbor, I would probable go there almost every day. (smiles)
It seems like a right of passage for any Ann Arbor, Michigan food writer to weigh in on Krazy Jim’s Blimpy Burger. The Road Food folks wrote a review and Guy Fieri of the food network film part of his show there. In fact there is a big poster signed by Guy near the grill. It was only a matter of time until I ventured in.
The first thing you notice is the overgrown vegetation blocking out the sign. I had to move some plants out of the way to get this picture. Basically, if you can’t read the sign, and do not already know where the place is, Krazy Jim does not seem to be worried.
The place is pretty small, with seating for about 20-25 people and some outdoor seating. Ordering is from the grill counter where you tell the cook what you want. The first question is if you want anything from the frier. I passed this time, but like Kosmo’s Deli in Kerrytown, Krazy Jim’s is a fried food lovers paradise. Krazy offers a range of fried veggies from onion rings, zucchini, broccoli to potato fries. I saw some of the the onion rings orders and they were impressive.
The big appeal of the place is the range of toppings for your burger. 
The blimpy burger web site claims 2,147,483,648 possible burger combination. The first thing you need to do is tell the cook the number of burgers. I ordered two, double burgers. The patties are not huge, and two patties make less then a 1/4 pound of meat. The cook throws four meat ball looking burgers on the grill, and ask what type of bread. They have several bun varieties to choose. There is plain, onion, kaiser and more that I forget. Then there are toppings from the grill, like grilled onions, mushrooms, bacon, and even hard salami. I choose the hard the salami to be different. Like the picture says, cheese comes later.
You wait on line pushing your tray forward and watch your burger being cooked. It has a gritty, kind of Top Chef aspect with watching your burger being cooked. The cook eventually, smashes the meat ball into a flat paddy. The burgers are all freshly ground on premisses, which makes all of the difference.
Eventually, you move up to your place in line and the cook ask for your cheese preference. I order swiss for my burger with salami and cheddar for my second for a traditional, but they also offer blue cheese, feta, american, and provolone. I am a plan burger guy, so a lot of the toppings are lost on me.
I get my burgers with mustard and pickles to finish and some onions for the salami burger. They have hot sauce, steak sauce, and malt vinegar on the tables. I grab for the vinegar for my salami burger to create a sort of Italian sub sandwich burger theme. The burgers are great. In fact they are some of the best burgers I ever had. The fresh grinding gives them a crumply texture which is juicy and flavorful. If you are a burger fan, and coming to Ann Arbor, make sure you get to Krazy Jim’s.
I have been passing by the Kosmopolitan Deli for weeks now. It is located in the Kerrytown shops in Ann Arbor, where the Wednesday and Saturday farmer’s market is located. I have been there years before for their Bi Bim Bop, Rice with veggies, egg and various topping. They make theirs with brown rice which was a treat for me at the time I was going through a macrobiotic vegetarian phase. Todays meal was far from vegetarian. I had the Seoul dog, a hotdog wrapped in bacon that is fried and topped with kim chi and mozzarella cheese. It sounded so crazy I just had to try it.
The Kimchi provided a spicy vegetable balanced. I am not sure the cheese worked.
I also had the twiggum, a tempura batter fried pile of fried goodness. I ordered the small, but it was a huge pile. Twiggum is a tempura clump. It is as if someone was making tempura and had a few pieces stuck together and decided, why not save some time and throw them all in the oil in small handfuls instead of individual pieces. It was served with a sweet and sour dipping sauce which help with the heavy friedness of the dish.
The Kosmo is a Korean version of an American greasy spoon. Burgers can be ordered with Kim chi. There is a teriyaki burger, and offerings a hot and sour so
up. Various sauces are provided like a spicy teriyaki sauce instead of ketchup. You can either go with a healthy a brown rice bowl with veggies and tofu or ordered a seoul
dog with a tempura pile. Both are good eats.
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