Foodie

Here is a list (fairly complete) of restaurants I have to been to in Ann Arbor, Michigan (with a select few that are outside of AA). The ratings are given based on my experience at the restaurant and I revise it occasionally if my opinions on the place change. A more detailed review on a few restaurants come after this table. I've always love taking pictures of food and this also gives me a chance to use them. Enjoy!

I would love to hear what your experiences at these places are also! (what dishes are good, the service, price, birthday specials, etc).

Per entrée on average:  $ = <$10      $$ = $10-$15      $$$ = $15-25        $$$$ = 25+      

Angelo's Restaurant: This is an Ann Arbor classic, famous for their brunch. I have been here twice for breakfast. Their pancakes are delicious - with the perfect amount of fluff. The freshly squeezed orange juice goes well with any breakfast meal. However, as good as the food is, it's nothing too special. I would say it's slightly overrated because everyone gushes about this place (why I went in the first place). It's pretty crowded in the mornings on the weekends so I would make a reservation. Caution: the portions are big so don't over order.

Ajishin - Best Japanese food in Michigan!! I've always stuck with the Japanese restaurants in Ann Arbor where the Japanese food is on the pricier side. The first time I came here, I was so shocked by the cheaper prices that I over ordered. Their classic udon noodle bowl is big and it's only $5! I also got their curry rice (this item is not on the menu but if you ask them they will make it) - I am a huge fan of their curry and I get it almost time I go. Be careful, the curry comes with a huge bowl of salad beforehand. The first time I was there, I thought the salad was for our whole table because it was ... so big (probably 8 times the normal amount that you get at any other Japanese place). Although I am not a huge fan of fresh sushi (raw fish), my friends who do says Ajishin has some of the freshest fish around MI. I have also tried the himura noodle and the grilled fish (I got salmon) that comes with a bowl of udon and it was very good also. Their menu is not big but each dish is ... amazing.

As you can see from yelp, this place is popular...I would recommend on making reservation before you go because the restaurant isn't that big and it fills up quickly. Sometimes, even if I make reservations I have to wait - but it's totally worth it!

Great Lakes Chinese Seafood Restaurant: I've been here countless times for dim sum and several times for lunch and dinner from their menu. Although the dim sum here is not as fresh as Asia City - I would recommend it for several reasons: less waiting time, you order off the menu so you do not have to wait until the push carts gets to you to get the items you want, much better deep fried squid!! If you get there early, around 11am, the dim sum more fresh and is delish. However, if you get there later around 1pm or 2...don't have high hopes for the quality.

Sadako Japanese Restaurant: This is by far the best sushi place on campus. The prices are reasonable, the quality is good, and the portions are bigger than all the other sushi restaurants around. Some of my favorite rolls are the green grass roll, spider roll, and sadako crunch roll. The udon is good, but not great. If you go during their lunch hours, be sure to get the lunch special - salmon bento box - it's delicious. During the school year it is gets pretty busy so make a reservation before going!

Pacific Rim: My favorite restaurant around the downtown area. It is definitely on the pricey side, but the food is amazing and the service is impeccable. I love the ambiance and although it can get crowded, it is not very noisy. The menu is on the smaller side, but I like it better this way - makes it easier to narrow down the dish I want. I definitely recommend the 'thai-styled calamari' for starters, the calamari is good, but the best part is the dipping sauce - tangy and sweet, with the right amount of spiciness to it. I have tried the 'Korean marinated ribeye', 'Quinoa-crusted scallops' and the 'Thai basil pesto fettuccini", "salmon dish (#1 on menu), "pork chops". All of them are excellent (especially the pork chops!) except for the Thai basil pasta dish. I did not like the flavor or texture of the pasta that much and I told the waiter that when he came around to see how we were doing. He apologized and we ended up getting the dessert we had ordered on the house! I would have went back even if they did not do that -  excellent customer service. The dessert we got: warm chocolate cake was amazing...sweet, warm, and chewy (the cake was more like a soft brownie...). I would highly recommend Pacific Rim for any special occasion!

La Dolce Vita - a dessert place situated Gratzi and The Chop House on Main Street in Ann Arbor. I have been here 7 or 8 times. It is a great place to go just to hangout with the girlfriends or on a date. :) Their menu is surprisingly small, with only about 9 desserts (I have tried all the regular ones, they usually have a couple seasonal desserts).  My favorite desserts are the tiramisu and creme brulee. The ones I get are good 80% of the time, not sure what happened but this one time when I got the tiramisu, I could still taste the ice pieces - making me think they just took it out of the fridge or something. Palio's has better tiramisu. I guess since it was just a one time occurrence, I will definitely still go back to La Dolce Vita because it is probably the best dessert place in Ann Arbor. They used to have a birthday special where you get a free dessert but not anymore...sad.

Asia City - I had their buffet several times, their dim sum numerous times but never ordered from their menu. Buffet is nothing special, but there are a lot of variety (sushi!) and it is probably one of the better buffet places around. The best one in Michigan is Tokyo Buffet in Southfield. I usually go for the dim sum, which is served everyday. They actually push around the carts and you choose the dim sum off of them (more authentic). The dim sum are pretty tasty - fresher than other places. I really like the shrimp balls, chicken feet, and BBQ pork buns. The food is fine but the service isn't the greatest, but it's fine since it's the only place nearby that serves decent dim sum. They are pretty busy on the weekends.

Gratzi: Went here for Restaurant Week in January of 2011 and I did not like their menu for that at all. I got Gnocchi and it was way too salty. Also the service was not that great and it was noisy. Went back again in June 2011 and had a much better experience. We got the calamari appetizer and I liked it. It is quite different from the one at Pacific Rim, especially the sauce - it is a spicy tomato cream sauce...pretty tasty. I got the Linguine del Golfo and I really liked it! Then again, I love pasta and everything that's covered in pesto sauce so it was a no brainer decision for me to choose this dish. However, the Filetto di Manzo was not anything special and definitely not worth $31 - I feel like it's something you can get at a chain restaurant like Outback Steakhouse. Also, the goat cheese and tomato just made the whole dish...mushy. Ok, moving on to the dessert - the canoli...it tasted fine to me? Nice presentation, but I am not a expert when it comes to canolis because I normally go for the chocolate dessert :)

Gratzi: Calamari Fritti, Linguine del Golfo, Filetto di Manzo, Canoli

Seoul Garden - Hands down the best Korean restaurant in Ann Arbor and the prices reflect the better quality. I love the barbeque, especially the bulgogi and their side dishes. They give you a lot of food so it's worth the price. So delicious...I have no complaint about this place.

Melting Pot - I like the concept of having fondue styled meals. I have been here for their 4-course meals but I went back more often for the dessert fondue. Personally, I didn't like the main course fondue very much - we got the seafood one and it was quite bland to me. I have always enjoyed their dessert fondue, especially paired with white wine. My favorite chocolate fondue is the tiramisu, but everything's delicious! You can also ask them to customize the chocolate with milk, dark or white chocolate. I wish it is possible to choose the dippers though...I do not really like the marshmallows and they give you a lot of that (cheaper for them probably). Sometimes the dippers taste stale too, but covered with chocolate you can't tell :) If you go after 9pm on a weekday and sit at the bar, you get 50% off of the chocolate fondue so it's $7 for the regular platter - a great deal for college students who want to have a classy night out but do not want to spend a lot

Ying Yang Chocolate Fondue

Vinology: This place is a hit or miss (probably miss most of the time), I hear they have really good wine but I only tried it one time. First time I just got appetizers and I really enjoyed the duck wings and pizza. Although it is pricey, the atmosphere is nice.  The second time I went for an event that was held in the basement of the restaurant and it's really nice! Very intimate setting. Third time I decided to and try their main course...not good at all. This time I got the tofu tempura appetizer and it not great, especially the sauce. The presentation was probably better than the actual food. Anyway, moving on to the food...the pasta dish (ricotta gnocchi) I got was terrible! However, the other dish - short rib was delish, especially the mash potatoes. Finally, the dessert - I got peppermint stick brownie? In the description it said it was a warm brownie but it was far from being warm...it was cold and hard. I will also give the service a two star out of five. They didn't bring us water until 15 minutes later and we waited a while until the waiter came to take our menu. Since I have never tried the food, we asked for recommendations and he was unhelpful as he said every dish was delicious.

Shalimar  - Best Indian restaurant in town! I love love their food - They catered for one of the events I organized and it was wonderful. I love the chicken tikka masala and their curry. Went back to the restaurant and got their lunch sampler which was excellent because I got to try 4 different type of curry?, their rice pudding dessert, fried chicken, naan, rice and samosa. Also, get their mango lassi - perfect beverage to go with the sampler. They give you big portions - even though I was hungry I couldn't finish the whole platter. Finally, another reason I recommend this Indian restaurant is that it does not have the strong aroma that most other Indian restaurants have so you don't have to worry about going back to class or work smelling like food. 

Kosmopolitan: A casual Korean place with an American flair. Tucked inside the Sparrow Market in Kerrytown, their food is surprisingly good. One item that I highly recommend is twigim, their interpretation of the tempura. Personally, I think it is amazing and so much better than the tempura that's served everywhere else. Also, I think the kimchi here is better than all the other Korean restaurants in town (well, maybe not Seoul Garden) - another reason to try their kimchi burger. The prices are reasonable and it is a great place to stop on a Saturday morning after you have visited the Farmer's Market right next door.

Weber's Restaurant - I don't really have anything good to say about this place...The caesar salad had too much dressing. Calarmi was mediocre - I have high standards for calamari and it is one of the appetizers I always go for when I try new restaurants. The calamari here was too soft and the dipping sauce was kind of sour... I got the gnocchi entree - I really need to stop getting this one because so far (I've tried it at Vinology, Gratzi and Weber's), I haven't liked any of them. The bow-tie pasta dish was also terrible - the sauce tasted like tomato sauce from a can and I could've probably made better ones at home. Dinner was so bad we didn't even want to try the dessert.  

Marnee Thai - I've always been hesitant to try this place but I decided to do it during Restaurant Week. Not bad, I would go back and try their regular menu. I love their thai iced tea and the spring roll dipping sauce. The noodles are decent. I got the drunken noodles and I got the "medium" spicy and it was almost too spicy for me! Also, it was very flavorful (too much salt?), can't really tell because it was so spicy ... my mouth was numb. Although, I didn't really mind because I like to over season my dishes. 

Jolly Pumpkin: I loved the truffle fries the first time and that's why I went back. However, when I actually tried their food....it was disappointing. We got the truffle fries (of course), and it was so good that we got a second order of it...the dipping sauce was tart and went well with the fries. We also got the truffle pizza, margherita pizza and grilled chicken with brie. It was...bad. The truffle pizza was way too oily (the plate was pretty much soaked in oil) and the truffle flavor was undetectable. The magarherita pizza didn't have much flavor...and the sandwich was average (something you can probably make easily at home). We sat on the patio, which was pretty nice...I liked the simple decor. 

Grange Kitchen and Bar: The food is average...Not going back again. We got the scotch duck eggs (hard boiled duck eggs wrapped up in sausage and then deep fried - this was delicious! I loved the mustard dipping sauce :) Although $6 for one egg is quite expensive. I wasn't too happy with the menu either, all the entree prices were around $25 and when we got the food, the quality/quantity was so-so. I got the pasta with pesto sauce and three pieces of shrimp...and some local grown vegetables like zucchini, radish and spinach. I didn't really like my food because there wasn't much flavor and it was just way over priced. Desserts were pretty good...chocolate truffle cake and blueberry panna cotta. Agian, it was over priced for the quantity. Sigh. The layout of the restaurant itself is not that great either, the bathroom was all the way downstairs through this narrow staircase and then only one stall. 

Mani Osteria & Bar I love love this place! In my opinion, the food here is much better than all the restaurants on Main Street (except for Pacific Rim). The food is a little pricey ($15 on average for a pizza) but it is delicious. I love their drinks - my favorite is Life is Beautiful (taste like grapefruit)...I would drinks this for breakfast everyday if I could. Their calamari appetizer is very tasty and it is a nice change from how calamari is usually prepared at restaurants. Perfectly deep fried calamari in a creamy tomato broth...Yum. My favorite wood fired pizza is the Tartufo...the truffle flavor is nicely balanced and much better than the truffle pizza at Jolly Pumpkin. One pizza is enough to share between two people. Pasta dishes are amazing (especially pappardelle and gnocchi), but the portions are incredibly small...almost appetizer size! :( Dessert is good, but not worth the price.  If you need more recommendations, read the reviews on Yelp. 

The only complaint I have is that Mani can get very noisy when it is busy...and most of the time it IS busy.