Ok Y’all this place was amazing! It’s four hours from the Colorado state line and so delicious! It gets 5 exclamation points!!!!! Number one, it had adequate outdoor seating. Number two, the view of the mountains was pretty good. Number three, the food was great. Number four, staff was friendly. And Number 5, we felt safe, which is a big deal with COVID. Now, on to the food. I had the taternator. It is a baked potato with pulled pork, slaw, bbq sauce, cheese, and sour cream. It is AMAZING! I would definitely recommend it. The pulled pork was soooo tender and juicy. The slaw wasn’t drenched in sauce either, which was good. The bbq sauce was very flavorful. 10/10 would stop here again.

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Ok. So we are on a long weekend trip to my grandparents camp in near Toledo Bend LA. After having to get off the water due to weather we decided to visit my great aunt and uncle and cousin’s camp (social distancing observed). We left about 7:30 pm and we were getting hangry. We decided to stop at a restaurant that we had visited when I was a toddler. YALL it was amazing! We stopped at Southern Classic Chicken. It gets four exclamation points!!!! The only reason it doesn’t get 5 was that the employees were not wearing masks. Anywho the food was amazing. I had to chicken tenders, not chicken on the bone. They were extremely tender and moist. And they were super crispy. I also had the rice and beans which I didn’t care for but other people might have different tastes. And considering that it’s the day before 4th Of July, you can’t have more American food than fried chicken. So overall, it was great food and extremely good timing on the type of food 😜

Since I can’t actually eat out right now, I thought I would remember some places. Middendorf’s is the home of Paper Thin Catfish. To give you an idea of just how thin this fish is, I held it up and could see the light through it. My mom and I shared a platter that had catfish, of course, coleslaw, stuffed crab, and shrimp. It was amazing! It gets 5 exclamation points!!!!! This is not just because of the food but also the service as well as experience. For example, it had a small beach for kids in the summer, outdoor seating and a private dock so you could pull up and have a place to eat. My fish was cooked perfectly and the coleslaw was delicious. And even though I usually don’t eat crab I tried it and it was really good. My dad had the shrimp salad with catfish “croutons” that was really good as well. Overall this was a great family friendly place!

Our next stop on our Grand Floridian Vacation was the Florida Keys. I won’t review all the restaurants, but I’ll review the highlights.

Havana Spice

This was a Cuban Restaurant in Homestead, Florida. We had a pretty big party and it was a small restaurant but the managed to fit us in. There toaster bread was really buttery and crispy and liked by everyone. We also got fried plantains and empanadas as an appetizer. The plantains were kind of bitter but that was because they didn’t have any sugar or sweetener at all. The empanadas were flavorful but a little spicy. The kids menu had good sized portions. I left feeling full. I had the kids steak and it was super tender. I tried my sister’s grilled chicken and it was good too. Because of the kids menu it gets four exclamation points!!!

The Fish Camp on Geiger Key

Now this place illustrates “Don’t Judge A Book by It’s Cover”. It is a little odd looking. It is literally a fish camp. We were about 3 steps from the water and we were at a picnic table. You could bring whatever you caught and they would cook it (we didn’t do this). We even saw a (nurse) shark. Despite the safety concerns, we had some toddlers with us, it was really good. I had the Coconut Mahi salad. It was amazing and I’m not a salad person. I’m also not a fish person, but it was fried perfectly and the salad had tons of fresh fruit. The dressing was a raspberry vinaigrette and wasn’t tart, but a mild sweet, which wasn’t what I expected. This place gets 4 exclamation points as well because it definitely shows that if it’s not perfect on the outside it can be on the inside.

Our first stop on our Grand Floridian Vacation was Walt Disney World. We were on there for two days so I only have two reviews.

The first, Hoop-Dee-Doo Musical Review is located inside of Disney’s campground, Fort Wilderness. It gets 4 exclamation points!!!! The reason it didn’t get five was because of the menu. It was good food, BUT, the main dishes were ribs and fried chicken. Now, my sisters and I eat chicken and BBQ, but not on the bone. And I speak for all us kids when I say that chicken nuggets are just better! Despite that, it was really good food and it’s all you can eat, great after a loooong day.

The second was in Disney World, on Main Street, at the very front. It doesn’t have good reviews on Yelp, but don’t let those stop you from coming! It was great Italian food and it stuck to the Lady and The Tramp theme really well. I had the Chicken Alfredo and it was amazing! I also tried my dad’s Chicken Parmesan and my mom’s Ravioli. The spinach dip and bread was really good too. It gets 4 exclamation points as well!!!! This is because of the good food and the waiting area. There’s usually a wait, so there’s Lady and The Tramp coloring sheets and the Lady and The Tramp movie playing nonstop.

We just got back from a great vacation to Florida. We started in Orlando, Disney World to be exact. Then we did the outline of Florida. We did Everglades, Biscayne,and Dry Tortugas National Parks. Then we went up to St. Augustine. We ate out a ton. It’s going to take me a while to review everything. I will post reviews in the next few weeks. Please standby……

While in Big Bend, we went to a Mexican town called Boquillas. (Bo-key-us). It is called the safest town in Mexico due to it’s remote location. Once we crossed the Rio Grande, we rode horses into the town. At every house there is a little booth where there are handmade items for sell. Everything from bracelets that kids made, to aprons made by the women. We bought a few things, then went to eat lunch at a place called Jose Falcon. It had amazing views and great food. I’m going to give it four exclamation points because the food was not only delicious, but generously portioned. The service was great too. The restaurant also had two gift shops with more items than the stands.

I just have one more thing to say, Boquillas’ only source of income is from the American tourism. When the government shut down the crossing, it hurt the people of Bouquillas terribly. They all struggled to survive. When it was reopened in 2013, it seemed like everything was good. Until the recent shutdown, which made it hard again. While I support President Trump, and trust his decisions, I don’t think that he should put The Wall up. At least, not here. You see, if there was a wall here, all of these people would have to leave. They wouldn’t have income. Boquillas would no longer exist.

So, if you ever come to Big Bend, make sure you stop in at Boquillas, and Jose Falcon.

We are on our way into Big Bend National Park. We stopped to grab some lunch before getting into a park the size of Rhode Island that has only two gas stations. We found a little place called Burrito Express in Fort Stockton, Texas.

Now, from the outside, it didn’t look like a very good place. It looked a little like a shack, you know, the kind your grandparents went to school in, uphill both ways in the snow.😁 It was, a greenish brown color. It serves Spam burritos. But despite all these things, it was good. You could tell it was one of those ol’ family recipes. I’d give it two exclamation points!! Because it was not the best that there is, but you could tell they tried.

I know you’re thinking, Wow! That was a short post. But I’m not quite done. While I’m fully aware that this is a food blog, this deserves to get into this post, because it is completely unexpected.

We saw a sign that said we were 107 miles from Big Bend. Then, we noticed that everything was white. Curious, we pulled over and looked ( this is kinda what we do on road trips). It was ice through the whole valley. Now, we are in a dessert. It is not normal. Or expected. But it shows how God works. Even if it seems impossible, God can do it. He will do the unexpected.

“The only thing I like better than talking about food, is eating” – John Walters

What’s a minor critique? By definition, it is a small criticism, but in this case, it means food reviews by me, a kid. As I travel, I’ll be checking out the restaurants we visit and secretly reviewing them.

Most restaurants don’t notice kids, but we notice most restaurants and we have opinions on EVERYthing! So, here you’ll find an honest report of the good, the okay, and the terrible for the most discriminating palates…kids’!

To rate restaurants, I’ll use a scale of 1-5 exclamation points. Five exclamation points means drive here and eat right now!!!!! One means eat here only to avoid hangry siblings!

Thanks for deciding to read these “minor critiques”!!!!!