Pie-Off: George’s Cherry v. Bob & Ellie’s Chocolate

Been awhile since we had a Fort Smith Eats Pie-Off. Let’s rectify that.

In case you missed the first one, here are the rules:

The rules:

1. The pies must be commercially available in the Fort Smith area.

2. The pies do not have to be from the same restaurant.

3. The pies do not have to be the same kind of pie.

4. There shall be no more than two pies in a Pie-Off.

5. In the end, there can be only one.

Meet our contestants:

CHERRY PIE at GEORGE’S

CHOCOLATE PIE at BOB & ELLIE’S

Fort Smith Eats Valentine’s Day Contest

Valentine’s Day approacheth, and our poetic muse hath overtaken us. Ahem:

Roses are red,

Violets are blue

We love taking pics of good food

And so do you …

Valentine’s Day is for lovers. Way we figure it, not everyone has found the One Great Love of Their Life yet, but we figure everyone who reads our blog is likely to have found a long and fulfilling relationship with at least one irressistable food. Be it a guilty pleasure cheeseburger or a heartsong of a filet mignon, everyone has some Fort Smith food they love. So here’s your chance to show ‘em off and win a bona fide gift certificate in the process.

Expert Pics: Snow Version

It’s been a little while since we posted an Expert Pics blog (last one was your awesome Thanksgiving pics!), and we thought after viewing all ya’lls great snow-food-apalooza pics on Twitter, that it’s long overdue.

Viva la snow, Fort Smith!! Viva la “snow food!”

Via @LaurenHendricks, Snow Cream!!

Fast Food Filler: Charbroiled & Fruit Salad @ Chick-Fil-A

Chick-Fil-A

6810 Rogers Ave

Fort Smith, AR 72903

479.484.5152

Every so often in addition to featuring local independent restaurants, Fort Smith Eats will post short write-ups on fast food finds. Why? Because sometimes we don’t have time to do a full post, and because, honestly, we  have to admit we still eat at these places more often than is wise, we suspect you do, too, and sometimes we have something to say, good or bad, about what we’ve eaten there. (We’ve also previousl blogged about fast food in a mocha-off.)

It’s pretty well established that Chick-Fil-A is the hot young thang on the Fort Smith fast food scene, as well as everywhere else nationwide fortunate enough to have a franchise. What was once an unexciting mall food court standby has in the past few years achieved this weird cult status with some crazy Chick-Fil-A-lovin’ fans. We’d pay cash money to see a fierce game of Red Rover between Chick-Fil-A fans and Apple fans. Except they’re often the same people, so maybe that wouldn’t work.

You could count us among the semi-rabid Chick-Fil-A fans. We’re not putting on cow costumes or getting Eat More Chickn tattoos, but if you suggest going to Chick-Fil-A for a quick bite, we’re probably going.

We are sometimes guilty of getting stuck in a rut, getting a craving for something we’ve had before and then only ordering that. There are about three items on the Chick-Fil-A menu we get over and over and over: the original chicken sandwich (plain, no need to tart it up with lettuce and tomato), the Chick-N-Strips, and the surprisingly-yummy-though-weird-textured chicken salad (in a cup, with crackers).

We love these items. They are solid, dependable. They make us happy every time.

But then we watched Up, and got that Spirit of Adventure. So we ordered something different. We ordered the Charbroiled & Fruit Salad.

Fort Smith Eats @ Facebook

We’re sometimes slow to catch on, but there’s one place that practically everyone we know (and a handful of people we don’t) in Fort Smith hangs out these days, a little virtual cafe called “Facebook.”

In an effort to keep our little blog and Twitter feed on the absolute cutting edge of Web 3.0’s media suite of next-generation cybertechnologies and mainstream virtual socio-interfaces (we totally just threw a bunch of words together there), Fort Smith Eats is now on Facebook.

Yes, we have a “friend page,” but mainly we want to hang out at our Shiny New Fan Page. The Fort Smith Eats page will feature regular updates, shout-outs, tags and links to other people and restaurants on Facebook, and bunches of photo albums of Fort Smith FOOD.

Even better, it’s another place for you to post your thoughts, questions, and we’re really hoping pictures of your favorite Fort Smith eats.

So if you’re on Facebook, become a fan of Fort Smith Eats and spread the word. Post your pics. Bring your friends. There’s always room for one more at this dinner table.

Meal-Atta-Glance: Pulled Pork Sandwich @ Art’s BBQ

Art’s BBQ and Grill

4620 Rogers Ave.

Fort Smith, AR 72956

479.452.2550

People ask us what we think about Art’s, and we always start to say something along the lines of, “Well we think they’re definitely an important part of human expression and an invaluable component of education to promote the continued success of our species by instilling an appreciation of the intangible, metaphorical and some might say purest realms of human experience, while fostering the collective and individual creative spirit of our people in our constantly changing and challenging world, today and ever forward.”

Then, they say, “No, Art’s BBQ. On Rogers. Any good?”

Oh, Art’s. Not arts. No one ever pronounces the apostrophe, so you can see why we’d get confused.

Adding to the confusion, is that every time you go there, right inside the door of Art’s is bona fide Art. Not the owner — he may be there too, but it’d be sort of creepy if he ALWAYS was, you know?

No, Art as in “a painted work on canvas that is an important part of human of human expression and an invaluable component of education to promote the …” Oh, whatever. It’s not actually good enough to warrant a capital A.

However, being a Painting of a Place that Hangs within the Place Itself, said painting IS mos def good enough to make us go, “Hey, meta, dude…” and stop and appreciate it each time. Admire, boys and girls, the art of Art’s:

 

Another entry into our happiness-inducing series of Paintings of Places Inside the Places Themselves.

 

Fort Smith Eats @ Pho 21

Pho 21

2100 Rogers Ave.

Fort Smith AR 2901

479.494.7447

Here’s the way things work in Fort Smith. If you’re going to be a kick-ass Vietnamese restaurant, you’re probably going to need to be in some building that was once quite obviously something else. Pho Vietnam, for instance, is in the old gas station. Green Papaya is in an old Dairy Queen. Pho Hoang on the other hand, is in what we think used to be a Mexican restaurant, but at least was something less iconically restaurant-shaped than the others. This is why Pho Hoang, while awfully good, is not quite as good as the others. If it were in, say, an old Pizza Hut, the food would taste that much better.

That’s why it’s lucky that Pho 21 is in a building that we think was originally a Church’s Chicken, though it still looks to us like the KFC we remember. You can paint a roof turquoise, but that shape ain’t ever going to look Vietnamese. But see, according to our Fort Smith Eats Law of Vietnamese Restaurant Buildings, this means the food’s pretty solid.

Meal-Atta-Glance: French Onion Soup & Salad at Varsity Grill

Varsity Sports Grill

318 Garrison Ave.

Fort Smith, AR 72901

479.494.7173

Been a bit nippy lately, hasn’t it? Whenever the wind sends a chill right to the very marrow of our bones, Fort Smith Eats starts thinking soup. Mmm. Soup.

Have you ever known someone who didn’t like soup? We have. They were strange, unnerving, off-balance folks, the soup-haters. Coincidence? We think not.

Soup haters (started to make that one word, but then it’d be Souphaters, which does that phreaky PH thing and we pheared you might phumble over the fonetics, thus disrupting the natural phlow of the sentence, so we lepht it two words. You’re welcome.) might have a hard time hanging out with us. We eat a lot of soup. And one of our all-time favorite kinds of soup is French Onion. We don’t know why the onion has to be French. Maybe any nationality of onion would do. Canadian Onion Soup? Burmese Onion Soup? We’d try them. But since Ivory Coast Onion Soup isn’t on the menu anywhere in town — trust us, we’re the experts — when the weather got into the single digits we had a craving for some French Onion.

If there’s a better French Onion Soup in town than at Varsity Sports Grill, please let us know and we will literally drop everything and rush over to try it. Because Varsity may not be high-falutin cooking, but they do a reliable soup.

Fort Smith Eats @ Cara’s

Cara’s at Brunwick Place  

115 N. 10th St. Ste. E101

Fort Smith, AR 72901

479.434.5045

Charm. That’s what Cara’s is really about, we think. A charming little café in a charming little set of shops. Food that’s somewhere between foodie fare and comfort fare. An owner who makes a point to learn your name and never fails to welcome you back or gently berate you for not coming more often. It’s a place that you might have quibbles about this or that, but it’s really almost impossible not to like. They charm you.  

Cara’s opened in the red brick old-time shopping center, Brunwick Place, earlier this year. It’s got an appealing atmosphere that manages to be bright and dark at the same time. Deep colors and warm lights, and a casual vibe set the mood.   

The old Landry's locale received a nice update before Cara's opened for business this year.

 

When Cara herself isn’t back in the kitchen making the magic, she’s out on the floor working the room. Her broad smile and Southern openness combine to engage anyone and everyone in conversation till she’s learned your name, profession and family history, and given you a hug and possibly a taste of something new she just whipped up for the menu.

Expert Pics: Your Photos, Thanksgiving Version

Our most awesome Twitter peeps tweeted about some drool-worthy Thanksgiving meals yesterday, and we just had to share some of them. (Check our inaugural Expert Pics post.)

Yes, we love Fort Smith restaurants and we can’t wait to continue sharing our thoughts and photos with you. But, there is just something about grandma’s homemade dressing or Aunt Lula’s special chocolate pie that no restaurant experience can replicate. And we are ever-so-thankful for our Fort Smith Eats readers — you guys are the true experts!

Happy Holidays!

via @Rachael_Davis Pies Galore! (Looks yum!)

via @AaronRodgers That's a plate-full of delish.