Stevo's Pizza (Downtown) - Erie, PA (A Mid-Week Update!)

Stevo's Pizza - 1019 State Street, Erie, PA 16501

http://www.stevospizzeria.com/

We were downtown taking care of some errands when we decided to go to lunch at the main location of Stevo's Pizza, the Presque Isle location of which was our first review on this blog. The Presque Isle location has limited hours during the non-Summer months, we were craving their pizza, and we were already here, so we figured, why not? Plus, by coming here, it meant that we got the opportunity to order our beloved Broccoli Cheese Soup... we'll get to that soon.

For this location, much of their business comes from takeout and delivery orders, but we always see more people eating in here than at the Presque Isle location as well. I'm not really sure why, though. There is limited parking out front, but that's what happens downtown so you just get used to it I guess. 

If I had to pick which location has my favorite pizza, it would more than likely be the Presque Isle location, however it could depend on who is making it and what day you visit, since I've had some very enjoyable pizzas at both locations. The one that we had when we visited the downtown location recently was also a very good pizza, and their ranch dressing was also very tasty and was definitely a homemade dressing. 

This pizza's got a piece all ready for you...and did I mention previously that at either location you could order pizza by the slice? I don't know why you'd want only one slice of pizza, but that is their lunch deal (one slice and a drink)...perhaps best suited if you are in a hurry and need something fast.

One thing this location has that the Presque Isle location is missing is their legendary (ok, it's only legendary to us) broccoli cheese soup:

They have several soups of the day available on any given day. If any of the others are as good as this one, you will love them. We don't know how Stevo's makes their broccoli cheese soup, but we suspect they might use white cheddar, chicken broth (we detected a slight flavor of it), and maybe flour for thickening the soup up. They use fresh (not frozen) broccoli, and that makes a huge difference in taste and texture. We also suspect they make their soups in small batches because we had one soup each to dine in and we took one each home to have for dinner and those that we took home seemed to be a thicker consistency than the ones we had when we ate in. 

The downtown location also has several menu items not found at the Presque Isle location (due to the PI location not wanting to be competition to Sara's restaurant next door). These items include hamburgers, hot dogs, a number of appetizers, and subs. They've also expanded their pasta selection at this location as well, it appears. 

Maybe sometime in the future, we will check it out further and report back on something we ordered other than "the usual". Until next time, we'll catch you on the flip side.

This is Crissy and Tom Diehl, signing off....

Russ' Dinor - Erie, Pennsylvania

Russ' Dinor - 2902 Buffalo Road, Erie, PA 16510

https://www.facebook.com/russdinor

We had heard that Russ' Dinor (rather than Diner) was an Erie, PA landmark (though their menu says their address is Wesleyville, PA), and having lived here for more than a year, we pass by the restaurant often. We finally decided to go check it out after saying "we really should check that place out" one too many times. 

I can't believe we hadn't checked this place out sooner! We love these kind of places. You almost step back in time by coming here. As soon as you enter the door, you go find a place to sit down, and you'll be greeted by the waitress as soon as she's able to get to you. Most of the clientele seems to be made up of regulars who must have been coming here for years, but we observed a number of younger people eating here as well. There was a lot of back-and-forth banter from the locals with each other as well as the waitress, and it was a lot of fun to just sit back and watch and listen to everything.

Like the restaurant in our last review, this place only accepts cash, but they also keep their prices fairly reasonable by doing so. A lot of the food seems to be made fresh, and it is very delicious. A number of people seem to stop in for just coffee and pie. We aren't coffee drinkers (Crissy will have one every now and then but only when necessary), and we'll get to the pie later.

While they seem to be best known for their breakfast foods, we came here during lunchtime and decided to go that route for our meal. We hope to be back soon to try some of their breakfast items and even some of their dinner items in the near future. We'll concentrate on lunch for now, though.

Tom had their bacon cheeseburger, which he says had an excellent taste to it and he says it contained a fairly hefty amount of bacon on it (almost the size of the burger patty itself), Tom also could not stop raving about the hot dog he had at Russ' Dinor, saying it had an amazing taste to it, reminding him of hot dogs he had when he was growing up that were made fresh by a butcher shop that had a little restaurant set up inside a building at the fairgrounds near where he grew up. We aren't sure what kind of hot dogs they serve here (we suspect they may be Smith's, which seems to be what 99% of Erie restaurants serve, being that it's the local brand of hot dog), but we know we'll be back for them often. The fries were fairly typical diner fries which tasted good with their ketchup. 

Crissy also had their grilled cheese sandwich, which she says was the best grilled cheese she's ever had. You'd think she would have had tomato soup to go with her grilled cheese, but she didn't. Did I mention in a previous review how much we both love broccoli cheese soup?

Yeah, we both ordered their broccoli cheese soup. It surprised both of us, though, as in addition to the broccoli, it had carrots, celery, squash, and onion in addition to the broccoli and cheese, but boy was this one of the best tasting broccoli cheese soups we have ever had. I think both of us were a bit sad when we had finished our bowls. 

I failed to mention that we started off our meals with some chocolate shakes, which were pretty large, but they sure don't last long! If you get one, make sure to wait until you've got your food before you start drinking it or else it will be gone in no time!

While we were having our meal, a couple of guys came in and sat down at a table, ordered their coffee, and asked what kind of pie they had. As soon as we heard the waitress say that one of the pies was butterscotch pie, we both looked at each other and went "ooh I bet that is delicious!" We were deciding on whether or not to have dessert, but it didn't take any convincing for us. We just had to try it. In fact, we anticipated it so much that we jumped the gun and started into our pie before we had a chance to get a picture to share! However, we stopped before we got too far along (which was no easy task, one taste of it and we were hooked!):

The pie had a fantastic flavor that was not overpowering, with a nice graham cracker crust and a topping of either pecans or walnuts for texture. I've never had anything else quite like this pie, and you could tell that it was definitely homemade. In some ways, this pie reminded me of those frozen Reese's Peanut Butter Cup pies that can sometimes be found in convenience stores, but this being homemade (and butterscotch being one of my favorite flavors overall) was a much better tasting pie than any of those. Not to mention the size of this piece of pie was huge for the price they charged for it (around $3.25). Now that's a deal if we ever heard of one. 

It's time for us to be hitting the road again. We'll check in again next week with our next review. If you have comments about this restaurant, please let us know your thoughts by leaving a comment on this post. If there's a restaurant in your local area (whether or not it is local to us) that you'd like us to check out for a possible review on our blog, let us know by emailing us here. 

We'll be branching further out of our local area soon with reviews from around the country, but until the next time, we'll catch you on the flip side.

This is Crissy and Tom Diehl, signing off....

Double Dragon Chinese Restaurant - East Greenbush, New York

Double Dragon - Columbia Plaza, 501 Columbia Street, East Greenbush, NY 12061

(No Website, but a partial menu can be found here)

As we mentioned in our previous post, we did not have an update for last week as we were living up to our blog name by being out on the road. During some of our time away from home, we were visiting family in East Greenbush, New York. While we were there, we made it a point to stop at a few of our favorite restaurants in that area. For the first of our two updates for today, we will spotlight one of those restaurants.

Now, I know what you're thinking. If you've had Chinese food from one restaurant, you've had them all. Not so. There can be good Chinese food and there can be bad Chinese food. Naturally, it's really all Americanized Chinese food anyway, but there are different ways of preparing the dishes. 

Why is this place any different from any other Chinese restaurant? Well, for one thing, they're cash-only, which keeps their prices low. How low? Well, we frequent this place for their amazing $3.99 lunch specials. Those come with your main entree, your choice of rice (pork fried rice, plain fried rice, white rice, and probably other variations), choice of soup (wonton, egg drop, hot & sour, chicken & rice, and maybe one or two others) or a can of soda (whatever they have in stock at any given time, which seems to change from time to time). 

If you aren't in the mood for a full lunch special and just want an entree, or if you come for dinner, the rest of their prices are extremely reasonable for the amount of food you receive, and it's all very tasty as well. You tend to get the same amount of food whether you dine in or take it to go. 

When we stopped here for our meal, we met up with a longtime friend of ours named Doo Wop Pete. On this trip, Pete got the shrimp lo mein with pork fried rice and he had a soda to go with his meal instead of a soup:

Crissy had a variation on the same meal. Hers came with white rice and she also was able to special order the shrimp lo mein to have no vegetables, as she has an intolerance to onions, which seems to be a lot more common in people these days than it used to be. She also ordered her meal with the egg drop soup, which she enjoys a lot.

I like many of the dishes I've tried at this restaurant, including the chicken lo mein, sweet and sour chicken, fried wontons, boneless spare ribs, honey chicken (which can be ordered on the lunch special menu or on a specialty menu hanging on the wall of the restaurant - but be cautioned in advance that this dish comes with peppers mixed in as well, which I am not a fan of so I order the dish without them), beef with broccoli, lemon chicken, and so many others. However, in my opinion, what absolutely sets this place apart from any other Chinese restaurant I've tried is that they have a dish called Peanut Butter Chicken, which is just about the greatest thing on earth:

I have to thank Vanessa, a former boss of mine from when I used to work at Target, for suggesting I give this dish a try. It's been my absolute favorite thing on the menu since then. The chicken is cut up into strips and seems to have a different kind of breading on it than, say, their sweet and sour chicken, and is covered in some kind of peanut butter sauce that is just absolutely astounding (and this is coming from a guy who is not a big fan of peanut butter)! In fact, I miss this dish already and wish we could go back for more immediately. 

I mentioned that we met a friend for lunch so we ate in at this restaurant. It's a rather small storefront, but they have five tables inside for people to either eat at (on dishes like these) or to wait for their order to be ready to go as a takeout order, which is what most people seem to do. They don't do delivery which is also another reason why they've been able to keep their prices so low (their lunch special price hasn't changed in all of the years I've been going there - and it seems that most websites claiming to have a menu for this restaurant do not actually have the correct menu information at all). 

With the amount of food you get for the cost of the meal, this is definitely one of the better deals on the road that the Diehls have come across in our travels. We highly recommend you give this place a chance if you happen to be in the area and are looking for a delicious and filling meal for a very low price. I've never found another Chinese restaurant that compares to this one, and more places should strive to be as fantastic as this one has always been to me.

If you have comments about this restaurant, please let us know your thoughts by leaving a comment on this post. If there's a restaurant in your local area (whether or not it is local to us) that you'd like us to check out for a possible review on our blog, let us know by emailing us here. 

We'll be posting our review for our next restaurant shortly, but until then, we'll catch you on the flip side! 

This is Tom Diehl for Diehls On The Road, signing off....

Stevo's Pizza at Presque Isle - Erie, Pennsylvania

Stevo's Pizza - 35 Peninsula Drive, Erie, PA 16505

http://www.stevospizzeria.com/

As far back as I can remember, I have been a pizza hound. It wasn't until I was in college that I started branching out away from chain restaurants like Pizza Hut and Domino's and started eating more pizza from local joints. When I did, I discovered that local restaurants could make pies just as good or better than the chains could.

Case in point, Stevo's Pizza. In particular, their Presque Isle location. Now, I haven't lived in this area for a long time, but I was introduced to this place almost immediately upon moving here and it struck me as being the absolute best pizza I've ever eaten.

I must reiterate the point that I'm a pizza hound, that I generally eat pizza a minimum of one time a week and sometimes as often as four days out of a week. My favorite topping on a pizza is pepperoni. If they can't get that right, they probably won't get anything else right, either.

When we come here, we love to split a medium (14") pepperoni pizza. We order some of their delicious homemade ranch dressing to go with it because it's just the perfect compliment to such a wonderful pie, and it's always a religious experience for us. There just is not anything better. I would put this pizza up against the best that Brooklyn has to offer.

But wait, there's more. We also love to order their french fries (we prefer getting a single basket to split between the two of us because that is more than enough fries for two people) which come with what seems to be homemade ketchup. If you're in the mood for them, they also have pretty good wings (with normal tossing sauces or even plain). If you're a fan of bread bowls, we recommend their grilled chicken alfredo bread bowl, but they have a few other bread bowls as well.

One of our favorite things to order at this location was the broccoli cheese soup (which also is homemade), however they stopped carrying it at this location, which to us is a shame. They do still have their broccoli cheese soup available at their other location (1019 State Street, Erie, PA 16501) along with a larger selection of foods not available at the Presque Isle location, but that will be another review for another time.

If you have comments about this restaurant, please let us know your thoughts by leaving a comment on this post. If there's a restaurant in your local area (whether or not it is local to us) that you'd like us to check out for a possible review on our blog, let us know by emailing us here.

Until then, we'll catch you on the flip side!

This is Tom Diehl for Diehls On The Road, signing off....

An Introduction to The Diehls

Hi! We're Tom and Crissy Diehl! We're from Northwestern Pennsylvania. Some of our passions include old cars, old tv shows, old music, and (perhaps most importantly) good food.

With this blog, we will present the best deals (or is that Diehls?) we can find on the best food in the nation, as well as our reviews on our favorite foods at the places we visit.

We welcome comments from people who have visited the same places we have, along with your suggestions of places we need to try. If you have your own pictures or reviews you'd like us to post, send them along to us and you just might find your pictures or reviews on our blog as well.

Our reviews will kick off soon, starting with some restaurants in our local area that we enjoy. Until then, we'll catch you on the flipside!