Category: Reviews: Other

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Great American Grill

Tucked away in the back corner of the James Island shopping center at the corner of Maybank and Folly is a little family owned and operated diner called Great American Grill.

Over the years the location has been home to at least 2 other restaurants that I know of, none of which lasted very long. Great American Grill has been around for just over 2 years now, so they’re probably doing something right. It’s the kind of place where unless you work or live in the area, you probably wouldn’t know it’s there. There’s a pretty local crowd, and a lot of regulars.

It’s a diner, so the food is pretty basic and uncomplicated, but tasty. They serve breakfast (which you can get all day) and lunch. Everything is cooked to order, and if you sit at the counter, you can watch all the action. Portions are generous and as it says on the menus, “You’ll never leave hungry”. Service is always friendly, and you can pretty much order anything and get it cooked the way you want.

If you’re there on a weekend, the Country Style Breakfast is hard to beat. Two giant buttermilk pancakes, biscuits and gravy, eggs, and sausage links, patties or bacon. It’ll keep you going pretty much the entire day.

Great American Grill is located at 1739 Maybank Hwy on James Island.

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Comfy new bed

A new Pooch Planet ThermaCare memory foam pet bed was one of the items I won in the CSCLRC raffle at the dog show today.

Nala’s been curled up on it ever since I brought it home this afternoon. She hasn’t even gotten up to follow me around the house like she usually does. I think she likes it.

Nala’s new bed

It’s a pretty nice pillow that contains chips of memory foam (the package calls it MemoryLoft™) that would otherwise have been disposed of in a landfill, making it a reasonably green product. The pillow is baffled with about 5 chambers to prevent the foam chips from getting bunched up and lumpy. The outer cover is removable and can be machine washed.

I think the fact that Nala hasn’t gotten off the bed in the past 4 hours attests to the comfort of the bed. It’s quite a comfortable bed, and I’m halfway tempted to use it for myself.

I may have to find a couple more of these for the other dogs.

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The Baker’s Dog: Taste Testing

The dogs received a present courtesy of Paul Reynolds at The Baker’s Dog today: a sample of Paul’s new doggie Oreo-type cookies for taste testing and a mixed gift bag of dog biscuits.

Baker’s Dog surprise
Doggie Oreos

Note: the dogs would like to say that the mixed gift bag had absolutely no influence on how well they enjoyed the doggie oreos (I suppose I should call them sandwich cookies or something to avoid trademark infringement). They happily enjoyed all of the treats equally.

The new sandwich cookies are pretty substantial: two of the lamb and rice cookies dipped in carob with a solid yogurty type filling between them. They look pretty tasty, and I have to admit I was tempted to nibble on one because they looked so good. I’m not sure how many calories each one would come out to, but these probably aren’t something you want to give your dog lots of or you’re likely to end up with a very chubby dog. They’ll definitely appeal to dog owners looking for a tasty wheat/corn free treat (me being one of them) to reward their dog with.

Doggie Oreo

On to the taste testing. Simba and Barkley aren’t exactly the most discriminating eaters, so they gobbled down their cookies right away and came looking for more. Simba did pause a little bit to lick the carob coating before eating his though. Nala is much more discriminating and had to sniff and lick her cookie a few times before eating it.

Nala’s new treat
Nala eating her treat

Nala’s a pretty messy eater and ends up dropping crumbs all over the place, which Simba is always more than happy to help clean up.

Simba cleaning up

Nala making sure to get all the crumbs she dropped.

Cleaning up the crumbs

Final verdict: based on how fast the doggie sandwich cookies disappeared, two paws up. Barkley is still sniffing around looking for any crumbs that might have been missed.

Paul, the dogs will be very disappointed if these don’t become a regular item.

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The Baker’s Dog: Doggie noms

Baker’s Dog packages

The dogs have thoroughly enjoyed their treats from The Baker’s Dog, especially the Lamb and Rice ones. The lamb and rice cookies are small hard cookies that the dogs seem to really like. First they crunch crunch crunch, then sniff around for any crumbs they might have dropped and lick them up. Then they look at me hoping for another one.

Baker’s Dog lamb and rice cookie

Nala was a little sceptical about the PB and Honey treats at first. When I first gave one to her, she took it, then dropped it out of her mouth as if to say “what the heck is this?”. She usually does this any time I give her something new though and eventually decided it was good to eat. The other dogs didn’t hesitate at all before downing them. I’m not sure they even chewed.

Baker’s Dog peanut butter and honey treat

While The Baker’s Dog probably won’t replace The Good Dog Bakery as my dog treat source, mostly because they’re just down the road from me (and they also sell some pretty rocking treats that the dogs love), Baker’s Dog will definitely be on my list for regular purchases. Paul Reynolds has done a great job setting up the online store and making the online purchase experience fun and easy, especially with the custom labels. In fact he made it almost too much fun and I ended up sending out gifts to a few dog owning friends before I made myself stop.

Sending out bags of treats with a picture of your own pet(s) couldn’t be simpler. Create an account for yourself at the store and add the treat of your choice to the shopping cart. Adding a photo is as easy as uploading the photo and selecting the region that will be printed on the label. There’s a one time fee of $4.99 for each photo, and after that you can use it on as many bags as you like and as often as you like. You can even share the photo with others (they won’t have to pay the fee) so they can use it for their purchases.

Two paws up (any more and the dogs would fall down) for The Baker’s Dog. Go visit them, online or in person if you happen to be in the Myrtle Beach area.

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Review: ingenuiTEA

I’m not a huge tea drinker. I used to be years ago. Now that I have one of these ingenuiTEA cups (courtesy of my brother), getting back into the tea habit will be made that much easier.

Using it is super easy.

  1. Add tea leaves
  2. Add hot water
  3. Steep
  4. Put ingenuiTEA over cup
  5. Profit!Drink!

ingenuiTEA holds 16 oz of water, so you can make 2 or 3 small cups of tea to share with others, or one big cup to enjoy all by yourself.

Pro: If you like loose teas (which I prefer), it makes brewing single cups really easy. The strainer part is fine enough that you don’t end up with tea leaves in your cup (unless you like that sort of thing). It’s also fun watching the tea drain out. Also comes with a little dish to catch drips. Microwave and dishwasher safe too!

Con: Because ingenuiTEA sits on top of the cup, you can’t really see how full your cup is getting (unless it’s clear) so you’ll kind of have to guess from how much has drained out. You’ll have to be quick because ingenuiTEA drains pretty quickly. Of course if your cup is bigger than the amount of water you’ve put in, this isn’t a problem.