It’s always random the hours that restaurants have on weekends. We failed at going to one place that wasn’t going to be open for a little bit, so we headed over to Pei Wei instead. I hadn’t been here in awhile. I don’t remember being able to get beer there before, but you definitely can. And you can get big ass beers.
We totally got bamboozled by the menu. We read Japanese Chile Ramen and totally thought this was going to be a bowl of ramen noodle soup. Total order fail! Instead, this just ended up being a noodle dish with ramen noodles in it. You cannot imagine the disappointment. Anyhoo, this was a heaping bowl of egg noodles with a slightly spicy soy mirin sauce, scallions, garlic, bean sprouts, carrots, onions, lime, cilantro, chile peppers, and tons of tofu that we’d picked. It tasted fine, but it was totally not what we thought it would be. So it made us a little sad.
This is the Thai Dynamite with crispy chicken. It’s cooked in a sriracha sauce withh lime, scallions, garlic, red bell peppers, carrots, and thai basil. While there were some visible scallions, the carrots and bell peppers were few and far between.
I’m a creature of habit with certain restaurants, so here’s my Japanese Teriyaki rice bowl, which is my favorite dish here. It’s got a nice thick sweet soy glaze, onions, napa cabbage, carrots, spinach, scallions, and sesame seeds. And as usual, I got mine with brown rice, some of the best brown rice, ever! Why would two people order three entrees? Well, we thought we were going to share a nice bowl of ramen. Cue the sadface! At least we got to drink the crap out of some mr. pibb.

Seriously though, I think the Luxury diner, where we went for lunch, is the only non-chain restaurant in Cheyenne. Really, I’m not exaggerating much at all. So in a sea of chains, I reached for the least of all evils. And this is how we ended up at Texas Roadhouse. And you know what? We had a great time and they were just about the nicest people on earth. Since this was S’s first visit to one of these, they just brought out three complimentary sides so we could try them and so she could decide what to pick. Who am I to say no to free samples? The chili? Ok. I was curious about it, so I’m happy we got to try it. The beans? Really sweet. The mashed potatoes? Delicous! And don’t forget their bread with the whipped cinnamon butter. Ok. I love the bread that they give you here. Like deeply.
S had wanted the portobello mushroom chicken, but they were all out of portobellos. Doesn’t quite work without them, I guess. So she got the smothered chicken instead which comes with sauteed onions and button mushrooms. I don’t know how they do it, but the chicken is amazingly juicy and tender here. But these steak fries? They look frightening to me.
I was still not feeling meat at all, so I got a country veg plate, where you can select 4 sides of your choice, one of which can be a salad. So here’s the house salad with the italian dressing. Ok, I know you’re going to think I’m crazy, but really, I love this salad more than I love most salads. Their italian dressing is just perfect. It really is. I could eat this salad with this dressing all day. My other picks were broccoli, seasoned rice, and baked sweet potato. The broccoli was just fine. My body was craving some green vegetables. The seasoned rice? Skip it. It tasted like it came from one of those bags. The sweet potato was great though. But then, it was slathered with butter and brown sugar, so how bad could it have been? The service was good and the girls were extremely friendly. I’ve eaten at one of these before and liked it. Honestly, it’s good food at low prices. When you have a sea of chains to choose from, this is certainly not a bad choice.

After we bonded with nature, we were starving. We hadn’t really eaten all day. So we drove around looking for some eats, and I spotted the Rudy’s sign! We had to go there! I hadn’t been to one since the last time I was in austin, and I’d been itching for some good bbq. It’s hard to find real texas style bbq around home. Even though it was totally the middle of the day, between normal meal times, there was still a long wait! This just always seems to be the way at Rudy’s! You can check out some of their bbq sauces. There’s regular and sissy. And you can take some home with you, if you like.
You queue for awhile, and you can grab yourself an iced cold jarritos or an iced cold beer. There’s also some fridges with cold sides, like cole slaw or potato salad.
When you do get to order, you order your meat by the pound. You can also order sandwiches too. There’s ribs, chicken, pulled pork, etc, but here at Rudy’s, it’s all about the brisket for me. Here is the moist. Moist means fat and the more fat, the more juice, the more taste. But don’t get me wrong, the lean was great too. But the moist is better! All the meat here is dry rubbed and then slow cooked and slow smoked in oak wood fired pits. When you get your meat, you get some pickles and they also give you as many slices of plain sliced white bread as you like. You can eat your meat however you darn well please. We also tried some sides. The cole slaw and the beans were both just ok. Neither of them did much for me. But that’s ok, because it was all about the meat! But we overdid it a bit. We couldn’t eat anything else for the rest of the day and we were pretty much turned off of meat for many days after that. Yes, meat coma struck hard! But it was totally worth it.