A couple Saturdays back Scottie D. and I and his family hit up one of my favorite restaurants in Ames to try their tenderloin. That restaurant is Time To Roll. It is located in North Grand Mall and the reason I love them so much is they have a knock-off of the Crisp Meat Burrito that Taco Time used to serve before going the way of the dodo. Being a Boonie through and through, I have a very deep, nearly primal love for Taco Time and the Crisp Meat Burrito. I dare say that my favorite time, well it is Taco Time. Time To Roll has pretty much nailed the unadulterated greatness that is the Crisp Meat Burrito.
Perhaps, you never experienced Taco Time? Well if you are from Fort Dodge, imagine Taco Tico, but it doesn’t suck and instead is amazing. Dare I say, imagine it is amazeballs. If you are not from Fort Dodge, imagine whatever your local fast foot taco joint was amazeballs.
Recently, Time to Roll adding a tenderloin to their menu. However, it isn’t just any tenderloin. It is the Suburban Tenderloin. The Suburban was a restaurant in Gilbert, that back in the day served a tasty tenderloin. Or at least I am told, because I never experienced it. The one time that I tried to eat there with my #1 Tenderloin Buddy, Scottie D., it was closed. We ended up at BK’s and the rest is tenderloin history.
However, it certainly left a hole in the tenderloin resume. Which is cool, because now we were given the opportunity to plug that hole. Plug it with fried, greasy goodness.
Here are some cruddy cell phone pictures from this trip:
You’ve seen the pictures now, but how do I break down the experience. Well goes a little some like this… Hit it!
THE GOOD
+ Good bun.
+ Toasted bun.
+ Nailed the meat to bun ratio.
+ Good thickness on the cut of meat.
+ White onions.
+ Serve Pepsi products.
THE BAD
+ Standard has lettuce and onions.
+ Generally bland tasting.
THE UGULY
+ Breading has too much of a corn meal taste. It has a weird combination of being both very bland tasting and having a very strong taste of corn meal.
My final recommendation is to stick with the Crisp Meat Burrito. It doesn’t disappoint!
I don’t have any current tenderloin eating plans, but I do need to get another stamp on my Tenderloin Trail 2.0 Passport soon.
+++++++
This is your reminder that although I still haven’t published the submissions for Week 335 of THE WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE, also known as the BELIEVE photos, this week’s theme this week’s theme is STILL LIFE. At the time of the publication of this post, I will be sitting in the Charlotte, North Carolina airport waiting to board a plane to come back to the Cyclone State. If things break just right, I’ll be publishing the BELIEF images at some point on Saturday.
STILL LIFE
STILL LIFE? Sounds like a great theme, but what exactly is a STILL LIFE image?
STILL LIFE photography is photography of inanimate subjects. Subjects are frequently commonplace object. Subjects can be either manmade or natural objects (food, plants, rocks, shells). One of the joys of STILL LIFE photography is that you can arrange your inanimate objects any way you want!
Happy photo harvesting!
As someone who has strong childhood ties to both Ft. Dodge and Boone, I will concede that Taco Time is superior to Taco Tico in most ways.
Overall, the crisp chicken burrito and the crisp meat burrito were better than the best meal item on Tico’s roster. I will say that the crisp taco vs crisp taco standoff would be won by Tico, and their crustos are a far better dessert item than anything Taco Time had (which seemed to only consist of prefab Choco Tacos). I did not know that Time to Roll had this, so I’m for sure going to have to try their actual food instead of just their ice cream. Do they do a chicken version?
The coloring on the tenderloin itself looks a little anemic – like maybe it wasn’t properly fried, or there wasn’t maybe enough flour?
I think that is really just the breading. I have no qualms with the way it was cooked. They seemed to nail everything except the breading. My guess is somebody jacked up that recipe on that day. Cause nobody would every make a tenderloin that tasted that much like cornmeal.