‘Detroit’
One of the greatest regrets of my life is failing to capture a better picture at lunch at Little Daddy’s. You see, Little Daddy’s is a Greek-style diner in Southfield, Michigan, with locations in Taylor and Bloomfield Hills as well. It’s kind of like a Coney Island, but more Greek, which means they serve up saganaki. Saganaki is not a misspelling of the Japanese city of Nagasaki. No, it is a flaming cheese.
Milford, Michigan might be out there, but it has a pretty cool main street with shops and restaurants. One such restaurant goes by the name of Palate and kind of does the gastropub thing. I had heard good things about their mac and cheese, but I wasn’t up for that as a full meal and needed to find the main course.
The Detroit area is populated with some pretty amazing Middle Eastern food. This is due, of course, to the high population of people from that region. Thus, I operate under the impression that you can’t go wrong with any place because of the big time competition. So when I stepped into Shawarma Kingdom in Birmingham, I walked in with expectations.
The Royal Park Hotel in Rochester is home to a restaurant called the Brookshire Restaurant, which apparently has one of the best brunches in the metro Detroit area, so we set out there to finish off a whirlwind Detroit food weekend that took me to more than one place I had never even considered visiting back when I was a Michigan resident.
I don’t exactly come from a family that is into fancy food. This may be apparent in my reviews, but if not it should be apparent in the fact that for my mom’s 60th birthday all she wanted to do was eat at Heroes in Waterford, Michigan. You see, Heroes isn’t in any way a bad place, but it is at its basest level a bar and grill. A bar and grill, however, with whitefish that is too good for its own good.
Clarkston is not a part of Michigan I ever found myself in while spending the first 22 years of my life in the state. Yet, Union Woodshop wasn’t there for any of those 22 years either. It’s there now though, a modern BBQ spot fully endorsed by hometown hero Kid Rock (although not owned by him in any way despite popular contrary opinion), and thus I finally made my way there as well. And it should probably be noted that while I don’t really listen to Kid Rock’s music, he does seem like he would like the same food as me.
Down under the Ambassador Bridge that connects Detroit to Windsor is a wait that challenges that of the border crossing. It’s called Green Dot Stables, on the Detroit side, and when we arrived we were told the wait would be more than an hour. Considering the fact that the majority of Detroit is abandoned, we were shocked, but also excited by the prospect of people finding more excuses to head into the city.
Uptown Grille in Commerce, Michigan is pretty much the most popular place in the metro Detroit area. It’s all at once a bar, restaurant and cafe and somehow draws an absurd number of visitors. So absurd, in fact, that when we dropped in on a weekday for a late lunch, we literally got the last table available. The menu is pretty vast, containing everything from salads to burgers to sandwiches to pizzas and in-between. And each of these items had a ton of options, leading me to worry that Uptown Grille might fall victim to trying to do too much.
EDIT: While this location is now closed, FUB can still be found up in Flint.
Once upon a time on Orchard Lake Road between 13 Mile and 12 Mile in Farmington Hills there existed a Burger King. It was a source of joy in my childhood, not just for the food, but for the magician that sometimes appeared for birthdays and such. Yet, at some point that Burger King lost its purpose and was recently replaced with the second rendition of Freakin’ Unbelievable Burgers (the first rendition being located in beautiful Flint).
On the way to the Palace of Auburn Hills there wis very little good food to be had. I can usually count on the Moose Preserve, which is at least relatively close. On my last visit, however, a snowstorm ruined any chance we had of taking the time to get to that lovely restaurant. Instead, we ended up at The Lodge in Keego Harbor. It had been at least a decade since my last appearance at The Lodge and pool tables seemed to have been exchanged for regular eating tables, making it easy to find one.