Stillwater Grill

22 04 2008
  • 3544 Meridian CrossingStillwater Grill
  • Okemos, MI 48864
  • (517) 349-1500
  • Website
  • Menu

I ended up at Stillwater Grill on an interesting night.  Every year, the Michigan State University football team plays a spring football game called the Green and White game.  Each side drafts players and they play against each other.  They also draft local media members to each side.  The winners get steaks.  The losers get beans.  A friend of mine who anchors sports at one of the Lansing TV stations invited me along to meet a friend of his.

SInce I wasn’t part of the bet, I ordered off the menu.  My friend was on the losing team and had a meal of baked beans.  He also ordered the hot spinach artichoke dip to go along with his beans.  The dip comes seved on a platter of tortilla chips.  It’s a pretty large portion and he tore through it like it was going out of style.  He mentioned to one of the other guys sitting at our table that he really liked it when one of the other guys was eating theirs.

I went simple and just got the Stillwater Burger.  I forgot to say “cheese” so it was my fault, but the burger was pretty good without it.  It was a fresh angus beef patty served medium with a side of seasoned fries.  The burger was actually more on the medium rare side than medium.  That doesn’t bother me because I actually think there’s more flavor if the burger is a little pink, but most people are so paranoid about beef they probably would have sent it back.  The fries were really salty.  Almost too salty, but they were fresh cut fries and they were really crispy.

For dessert, they brought out a piece of cheesecake.  The other guys at the table were at desert while we were eating dinner and they were all salivating over the cheesecake, so there’s no way we could turn it down.  The cake met the hype.  It was really good.  Probably the best since the cheesecake I had at Jimmy’s on the Park in St. Louis (review here)

The atmosphere at Stillwater was a “somewhere between Applebees and a shirt and tie place” (my friends words).  There’s a nice big horseshoe bar to the right when you walk in and a large dining to the left.  The kitchen is semi-open as there are windows so you can see into the prep area, but they are high enough you can’t really see what the line cooks are doing.  Another interesting feature is the ceramic giraffe that has a permanent seat at the bar.

My dinner and two pieces of cheesecake ran right around $20.  The rest of the menu at Stillwater looks good and worth a second trip to try out one of their entree’s and a good alternative to the highly commercialized Okemos area.

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Categories : Local Flavor, Michigan, Okemos, Restaurant, Reviews

Iron Chef to Open Restaurant in Detroit

22 04 2008

I love the show Iron Chef America on the Food Network.  I’ve been a huge fan since The Food Network began airing the original Japanese version in the early part of this century, so this headline in the LSJ really caught my attention.

Cleveland chef Michael Symon’s new eatery will open on the ground floor of the historic hotel. He tells the Detroit Free Press it tentatively is called Roast and will be more than a steakhouse. It will feature two huge rotisseries and wood-burning grills where chefs will roast pigs, baby goats, spring lambs and other items.

OK, so it’s not Bobby Flay whose Mesa Grill restaurant in New York City I have eaten at (review here), but Micheal Symon is an Iron Chef after winning The Next Iron Chef.  And, as an added bonus to you foodie TV fans, Symon will be taking over Dinner: Impossible after former host Robert Irvine was fired for lying about his credentials.  According to Symon’s blog, there will be a few changes to the show.

To make it even more exciting DI will be going to a one hour format and I will have a bunch of my close friends as sous chefs, which should make the show very entertaining and fun.

Should be interesting…..


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Categories : Detroit, Food News, Michigan

The Rising Cost of Food

22 04 2008

We’ve all heard the stories in the news about how gas prices are driving up the cost of food.

“Our distributors have to ship all the products to our food and distribution centers, so they tack on surcharges,” (Jeff) Rinke (of Hungry Howei’s Pizza)  said. “We, in turn, have to pass those costs along and down the line to our franchisees, and then ultimately to our customers.”

He said the Madison Heights-based chain has cut back on discounts it typically offers through coupons and promotions. Franchisees have raised the typical customer delivery charge from about $2 to about $3 so they can reimburse drivers for their fuel costs.

And it’s no better at the grocery store.

The latest data show cereal prices rising by more than 8% a year. Both flour and rice are up more than 13%. Milk, cheese, bananas and even peanut butter: They’re all up by more than 10%. Eggs have rocketed up 30% in a year. Ground beef prices are up 4.8% and chicken by 5.4%.

So I found it interesting last night when I saw a farmer on WLAJ defending himself.

One area that most families notice right away is the cost of millk. We went to a local mid-michigan dairy farm, where they want consumers to know, don’t blame the dairy famers because they are not reaping the benefit of the rising prices

“It upsets me because this is a 24 hour 7 day a week job, business, lifestyle,” says Nathan Brearly of Brearley Farms in Lake Odessa.  “I want to produce the best quality product for the consumer at the most reasonable price.” 

You can’t blame the farmers.  They’re doing everything they can to feed their families.  The myth of Ethanol is taking valuable corn away from farmers that should be used for feed and not a fuel that costs more to produce than gasoline and gets worse gas mileage.  Unfortunately, there’s nothing we as consumers can do.  We need to eat. 


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Categories : Agriculture, Food News, Lansing, Michigan

Can you survive on $1 a day?

22 04 2008

That’s what one woman in Grand Rapids is trying to do.

If a field of dandelions sprouts in your yard over the next few weeks, you might want to call Maria Gajewski. She has scaled back her food budget this month — to $30.

She will be foraging for edible plants, working on the family farm for payment in eggs and eating lots of brown rice and lentils, all to call attention to the hardship of eating nutritiously on a limited budget.

The remainder of the approximately $250 she usually spends on food and beverage for 30 days will go to her favorite nonprofit: Blandford Nature Center & Mixed Greens in Grand Rapids.

Is it possible to only spend $1 a day and forage for food?  For me, no freakin way, but for Maria, a vegetarian, that’s the challenge.  She started on April 9 and will go 30 days without spending more than $30.  According to her blog, Rice, Beans and Mixed Greens it hasn’t been easy.

was pretty ugly for a while.I REALLY wanted to quit this whole project, but I’m sticking in there. Thanks to everyone for their support and encouragement. Without all of you, I don’t think I’d make it.

This whole experiment is for charity.  Maria is donating the other $220 she would normaly spend on food to Blandford Nature Center and Mixed Greens.  Along the way, she’s hoping to get others to eat for just $1 a day and donate the rest of the money they would normally spend on that day to the same cause.

You can follow Maria’s progress on her blog Rice, Beans, & Mixed Greens.  The challenge ends May 10.


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Categories : Food News, Grand Rapids, Lansing