14 | December | 2008 | Mid-Michigan Dining

Max & Erma’s

14 12 2008

2515 Lake Lansing Road
Lansing, MI 48912
(517) 316-7477
Website
Menu

Max & Erma's near the Eastwoode Towne Centre in Lansing Township

Another lazy Sunday. J and I were laying on the couch watching a Fox News Channel special about corruption in Illinois. We didn’t learn anything that we didn’t already, but it’s fun to see the rest of the country coming to the same conclusions we had five years ago about the current political situation in Illinois. Neither of us were in much of a hurry to do anything, but my tummy was really growling. I was hungry. We needed to run a few errands, so we just decided to eat out. I asked J what she wanted and she said a nice big salad with dried fruit, nuts, and cheese. That really narrows it down. Nothing was coming to mind.

I went to Google and typed in “Restaurants in Lansing, MI.” I do that a lot for out of town meals because it gives you a list of all the restaurants in town. I started clicking on website links figuring the chain restaurants would have what she was looking for. I clicked on a couple and got a “yeah, those look ok” response. When I clicked on Max & Erma’s I got a “YES! That’s what I want!” Off to Eastwoode.

Max & Erma’s is one of many chains located around Eastwoode Towne Centre. Even though they have several locations throughout the country, I had never been to one nor had I ever seen one anywhere else. J had never heard of it, so I didn’t go in with my preconceived notion that all chains are evil. Read the rest of this entry »

Comments : 2 Comments »
Tags: Burgers, Chains, Lansing, Max & Erma's, Michigan, Restaurant, Reviews, Salad, Soup
Categories : Burgers, Chains, Lansing, Michigan, Restaurant, Reviews

Applebees – South Lansing

14 12 2008

6270 S. Cedar St.
Lansing, MI 48911
(517) 882-8320
Website
Menu

Applebee's on South Cedar Street in Lansing.

We got lazy. After a brutal day in Novi, we crashed on the couch and watched a little TV just killing time until Saturday Night Live came on which we knew had a skit harpooning Rod Blagojevich. Doing nothing made me hungry. We didn’t have a lot of food in the house and neither of us wanted to get dressed up again to go out for dinner. That made carry-out or delivery the top choice. Neither of us had cash to tip a pizza delivery boy and for some reason we both thought of the same thing. Applebees Carside-To-Go.

Yeah, it’s a cookie-cutter chain that I can’t stand, but the prospect of not getting out of the car was what sold me on it. We got on Applebees.com and I found a burger that sounded good. J’s done the Carside-to-Go a few times at work and Applebees used to be a hangout for her and her friends when she lived out West, so she knew what she wanted. I let her do the hard work and call in the order. I hate talking on the phone.

After fifteen minutes or so, we paused America’s Funniest Videos and went to pick up our order. The way Carside-to-Go works is you give the person taking your order a description of your car. You then park in one of the designated spots and they see you on a closed-circuit video system. An employee comes out with your food and you pay right there at the car. Usually, they have a Wi-Fi credit card machine, but their system was down tonight, so the employee ran the card in and came back for a signature. When we pulled in, our order was ready and our food was in our hands almost before I could get the window rolled down. It went pretty quickly. Read the rest of this entry »

Comments : 1 Comment »
Tags: Applebee's, Chains, Lansing, Michigan, Restaurant, Review
Categories : Burgers, Chains, Lansing, Michigan, Restaurant, Reviews

O’Toole’s of Novi

14 12 2008

24555 Novi Rd
Novi, MI 48375
(248) 349-7038
Website
Menu

O'Toole's of Novi on Novi Road down the road from Twelve Oaks Mall

Our tour of Michigan continued today as we made our way East to Novi. When we woke up, the choices were Ann Arbor or Novi. I chose Novi. I shouldn’t be allowed to pick things.

Let me back up and explain a little. The goal today was to find a new shirt for J. She had something from H & M that she really liked and wanted to go there again. The closest H & M stores are Novi and Ann Arbor. She talked about Zingerman’s many times this week. I should have just took the hint. Instead, I wanted to go someplace new. Things were fine until we got five miles from our exit. MDOT decided to START construction on a Saturday two weeks before Christmas. We sat in traffic for 40 minutes….20 of those were at a complete stop. Crews were painting lines. It was ridiculous. That just set the day off on a bad note.

After finally making it to our exit, we took a right on to Novi Road and headed away from the mall and big commercial area. About a mile down the road, we came up a little bar set back quite a ways. It’s not what you would expect in such a highly commercialized area.

When walked in around two o’clock on a Saturday afternoon. There were a few people at the bar watching basketball, but the dining room was mostly empty. Around the bar, there are some pub tables. On the other side of the room, there are some booths and regular four tops. I chose the pub table hoping we’d be close enough to the bar that the waitress would be on top of things. Again, I was mistaken. Read the rest of this entry »