Lake House Waterfront Grille

My favorite summer evening was spent sitting and enjoying this miraculous view at sunset while savoring the most delicious food Muskegon has to offer. The Lake House Waterfont Grille is probably my #1 favorite restaurant in Michigan so far. The wait staff is exceptional. They even offer blankets if you get cold. The environment is nice enough to go on a special anniversary date or hold a nice business meeting yet the outside deck is causal enough to make families with children feel welcome.

We had my mom in town from the West Coast. She insisted we try truffle fries since we'd never had them. These were mind blowing. Bacon, malt vinegar/tarragon aioli , Parmesan... fries have never been so decadent. 

 Their crab cakes were made to perfection. Not only do they taste incredible but look at them! They are beautiful!

 I had the lobster roll. Not only was this the most delicious thing I've eaten in a long time but the quality was exceptional. The chunks of lobster were huge! The amount they stuff into a sandwich is impressive. This dish right here, is the reason I'll be back sooner than later.

I took a look at the menu as I wrote this. It looks like these are summer items that are not on the menu now that it's fall. I did notice they have a pumpkin ravioli though. I might have to stop in and give that a try.

Fricano's

I dislike writing negative reviews. I wish I could just write positive reviews but, that's not what critiquing is about. When we moved to West Michigan, we had a few people tell us to try Fricano's. I love pizza and Fricano's is on the lake so I thought this would be a special night out.

I don't think I can even begin to express how disappointed I was with our Fricano's experience. To put it nicely,  Totino's Party Pizza is better.

First of all, our waitress greets us by asking "What will you have?". We looked at her confused. We explain that we have no way of knowing what they serve as we received no menus. She explains that they only have 5 toppings and one size pizza so they have no menu. At this point we don't know how much or how big a pizza is. How much would it cost to have this information printed onto a little place card to set on the tables?

So Fricano's only offers 5 toppings. You can choose from sausage, peperoni, anchovies, green peppers or mushrooms. 

We tried a sausage and mushroom pizza and a peperoni pizza. The peperoni here is fine. It seems like a good quality pepperoni. The sausage too seemed to be pretty decent. I was really shocked and disgusted by the canned mushrooms. Maybe it's a Michigan, thing but I've never been to a restaurant that serves canned mushrooms. I wish they'd use fresh!

I especially didn't like the crust. It may just be a tortilla. I don't know, but it's not a good pizza crust.

I am so sorry Fricano's and Fricano's lovers.

Oh, the one positive... the view is wonderful!

Toast 'N Jams

I will start off by stating that I will be back to give Toast 'N Jam a second chance. To be fair, rumor has it that the chef was out on the day I went in and tried to enjoy a nice breakfast with my family.

I ordered the Strawberry Cheesecake pancakes. I've heard they are amazing! I love strawberries. I love cheesecake and I expected this dish to be a good combination of both. What I got was some pancakes that were fine. The topping was the awful though. It was a foam that literally tasted like freezer burn with a hint of banana. The first flavor that hit my mouth was actually banana. I'm not picky! We were in the middle of moving and I was starving. I couldn't even get myself to eat these.

I understand it's a little mean to post a review of a restaurant on their bad day. You know what though? It's also mean to open shop when you can't preform well. It's rude to expect your customers to pay full price for food that isn't what it should be. In my opinion, that isn't very good customer service. Shut down for the day or hire a substitute cook that can do a good job.

Don't worry Toast 'N Jam. I will gladly give you a second chance and update my review. I have high hopes though and I hope and pray I will not be let down a second time.

Handsome Henrys

I had heard a few people mention Handsome Henry's. I didn't know it was a pizza place, nor did I know it was within a mile of where I was currently staying. Most importantly, I didn't know just how amazing Handsom Henry's would be or I would have been all over this place!

A couple weeks into our stay, I finally made it to Handsome Henry's. We were seated at a squishy little center table. I hate center tables. They shouldn't even exist. Booths are so much easier and a lot more comfortable. Anyway, I wasn't pleased with our seats.

Our waitress came out and got our drink order in a timely fashion. She quickly returned with drinks. My little girl's drink was in one of those cups you get to take home that came with a lid and the waitress made the coolest little design with the extra long curly straw. Simple details like that seriously win me over!

We ordered and waited the perfect amount of time for our food. I ordered the Crab Rangoon pizza. My husband got the Sirloin Steak pizza.

I usually write about my favorite item last but the Crab Rangoon pizza was SO amazing I have to write about it first. Imagine heaven in your mouth. There you have it. Crab Rangoon Pizza. Not good enough? Ok... Crab Rangoon pizza is a pizza made with "Garlic cream cheese, imitation crab, green onions, mozzarella, crispy wonton strips and sweet chili glaze". If you love crab wontons like I do, you will die. This is basically a giant pizza version of a crab wonton. The creamy sauce is outstanding. The subtle crab flavor adds a uniqueness but fun edge to pizza and the sweet chili glaze as a final touch makes this pizza thee very best pizza that I have ever eaten in my life. Now to be fair, it's hardly "pizza" but I don't care. This is my favorite food. Numero uno. Best food I've ever put in my mouth. That's how good it is. Just a warning, it's incredibly rich. I could only eat once piece before I had to steal my second and third slices from my family to make up for all the goodness of this creamy, sweet dish. I'm afraid this pizzas only downfall is that you really can't eat this as a meal. I'm afraid of the painful stomach ache that would follow.

The Sirloin Steak Pizza was almost as delicious. The biggest difference here is that you can actually consume a few slices of this one without feeling sick. The Sirloin pizza is made with "Sliced tender sirloin steak, tomato sauce, chopped green peppers, sweet onions and diced tomato topped with provolone cheese". The steak pieces are good size and good quality. The sauce wasn't actually tomato sauce as they claim however. It's half tomato sauce half BBQ. I think that's not only a creative idea but I thought it was pretty great tasting too. My husband really isn't a fan of sweets though so he was off put by that and was pretty frustrated that the menu didn't state that. Don't let that deter you though. This is an excellent pizza! As I said, the meat is divine, the sweet onions are perfect the tomatoes add the perfect touch of acidity to the mix.

Mr Scrib's Pizza

My family and I just moved from Denver to Michigan on what we are calling our 3 year vacation. We're here for work and are already falling in love.  We have heard that locals hold strong opinions in regards to pizza so naturally as food bloggers, we ventured out and tried a few different joints as soon as we had the chance. Mr Scrib's was the second we tried.

We drove up to this particular location and were shocked and excited to see a drive through! A drive through pizza shop! Are you kidding me?! How neat! The lady at the window was very friendly and kind. She explained how things work, for example... you order at the window and go away for a while till your pizza is ready. Once it is ready you drive back up to the window. You can pay when you order or when you pick up, your choice.

We ordered a pizza for us and a pizza for the kids. Ours had sausage and peppers. The kids' had pepperoni. I wasn't very impressed with the pizza until I snuck a bite of the pepperoni. That one was pepperoni and cheese perfection. The cheese was the perfect consistency. The pepperoni was bursting with savory flavor. It put our bland, boring sausage pizza to shame.  No pizza should be bland or boring. Needless to say, if we go back we'll be sticking to the basic and simple pepperoni. More than likely though, we won't be back.

I like to add a link to restaurants websites but looks like they forgot to renew their domain. Oops!