Tuscany Grapes Cafe

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Also check out the Tuscany Grapes website - it's the next best thing to actually being there!

Curb Appeal & Location: Brian R.

This particular phrase can be heard in many scenes and settings. You could probably find it somewhere at a wedding or maybe it comes out in a long overdue conversation with an old friend. Whoever it may be is probably going on about their husband or wife and finally gets to the part where they affirm that he/she is “their better half”. We have all heard the saying and sometimes it’s heartfelt, but other times it’s more than apparent that the claim is false and the speaker clearly believes they are actually the better half by a long shot. Well, Tuscany Grapes, our most recent dinner venture, was definitely the better half... of 7-11. Other businesses attached to 7-11’s? Laundromats, Check Cashing establishments, Bail Bonds and crime scenes.

If your going to eat here you should probably just look for the 7-11, but to be a bit more specific Tuscany Grapes was off of Lee Highway on Rogers Road. The less than classy low-lit lot was garnished with a pulsing “OPEN” sign that left us all second-guessing whether or not the sign was actually telling the truth, but the door opened and we found that the establishment was open. Other outside décor included a white board held by steel cables and bolted into the building that advertised the name of the establishment. Really nothing else worth mentioning as far as curb appeal goes.

Rating: 2 Thurbs

Food & Beverage: Brian P.

I first noticed Tuscany Grapes Café as I traveled down Lee Highway in Tommy’s car last week. Perpendicularly attached to a 7 Eleven, it may not be the first place one looks for fine Mediterranean cuisine. Intrigued by the name and online menu, the Thurber party ventured inside this restaurant/hookah bar Monday night with somewhat high hopes. In all honesty, our group was eager to forget the disappointment of Victor’s Grill weeks before. Prior to our trip, we had the luxury of perusing a rather extensive menu on the Tuscany Grapes website. Boasting such dishes as Baba Ghanouge, Kibbi, Fatoush, and Khyar B’Laban, Tuscany Grapes certainly appeared to be an establishment steeped in authenticity. To our amazement and delight, Tuscany Grapes Café delivered!

Our rather eccentric and talkative waiter took our order and delivered a variety of well-prepared Mediterranean foods. I had the chicken kabob and hummus (to compare to Lahori Kabob,) Matt ordered falafel, Tommy enjoyed a massive ricotta/pepperoni calzone, and Brobinson had a chicken parmesan sub. Three waters and a Diet Coke were the beverages for the evening. Unfortunately, these drinks were delivered in bottle or can only preventing free refills. We sipped conservatively. To cap off the evening, Tommy, Matt and Brobinson enjoyed Strawberry Al Fakher served in one of the tallest hookah’s I’ve ever seen. Yet another crowd pleaser. I’m trying to quit.

Although we didn’t try some of the more exotic choices mentioned above, I can confidently say everyone enjoyed their meals and we will return. I also believe we Thurberites did a fine job of sampling a diverse array of what Tuscany Grapes Café has to offer. Hopefully, dear readers, you can carve out some time to make a trip right off Lee Highway on Rogers Road and visit this restaurant. It is sure to please.

Rating: 3.25 Thurbs

Service & Cost: Tommy

The entrance to Tuscany Grapes is where I would’ve designed it, had I the unfortunate luck of opening my business on “opposite day.” Although there is no sign welcoming you through the door of my preference, there were also no tables blocking entry. When I got about 10 feet away, I could see the other guys already inside, watching to see if I made the same blunder I assume they already had. As I walked inside, a very cordial man greeted me (turns out he owns the restaurant). Both the manager (who doubled as a waiter) and the owner were very friendly and made small talk with us about sports, current events, and the occasional borderline-inappropriate joke. Although I can’t give TG an excellent rating for cost since they had no soda fountain, gave only cans of soda and bottles of water (with no refills, obviously), it was a very fair price for the food itself. All in all, if you’re looking for a place that has no qualms about being the place you grab a pizza and eat it in the restaurant at 3am, Tuscany Grapes is worth a try. Completely unassuming, and I don’t think anything would’ve rattled these guys. I wanted to test my theory by laying down on a table and eating my calzone with my hands, but I didn’t want to push the limits of their generosity.

Rating: 3.0 Thurbs

Ambiance & Entertainment: Matt

How can I possibly explain what it feels like to spend a Monday evening at Tuscany Grapes? Have you ever had a weekend night where you’ve gone with someone you know over to a random dude’s apartment that you don’t really know and found yourself in the company of a bunch of other random dudes that all seem slightly sketchy but also very friendly and everyone is just lounging around, watching TV, making a few jokes, being slightly inappropriate, acting like you’re all good friends and then leaving at the end of that night never to see any of those people ever again. Maybe that’s not a scenario everyone can relate to, but I had a sense of déjà vu the whole night at Tuscany Grapes about that very type of thing. I think that says something about their friendliness and hospitality of the restaurant staff and patrons. It also says something about the disheveled Mediterranean living room décor at Tuscany Grapes, complete with flat screen TV on the wall, hookahs and ashtrays on the tables and several people hunched over laptops while checking up on their Myspace pages in the middle of the dining room. It also says something about that fact that the whole social situation that developed there was all just a little bizarre. Thirty minutes into our meal we were watching Monday Night Football with the owner, manager and cook as well as three other random customers stopping in for who knows what. Somewhere along the way it switched from eating dinner at a restaurant to hanging out with all these random dudes watching football. All of that makes for a fun time but also a bit of a surreal dining experience.

Rating: 2.5 Thurbs

Tuscany Grapes

Overall Rating: 2.7 Thurbs

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Victor's Grill II

To view the entire Victor's Grill II photo collection click here

Also check out the Victor's website - including YouTube videos!

Location & Curb Appeal: Brian P.

Although lacking any aesthetic appeal to random passersby, Tommy’s Acura found physical curb appeal as his bumper scraped against it upon our arrival at Victor’s Grill II. Located on Lee Highway (see map) in the same shopping strip as El Tio and not far from Bubba’s, the Thurber party found themselves repeat victims of the all-too-familiar Salvadorean/Argentinian combo. The only thing to attract hungry locals is a large, red, neon sign amidst other neon signs in the same strip of stores. If memory serves me correctly, a dry cleaners and some other “tienda” are Victor’s neighbors. However, it gets tough to keep track of these restaurants that have the uncanny ability to offer identical fare. Sorry, readers, not much to report on the obscurity of Victor’s. Perhaps the name of the restaurant is somewhat strange. We have also discovered, as many of these South American restaurants go, there is a common necessity to include some sort of dance floor no matter how small or large the space. Additionally, karaoke must be offered at least 3 nights a week.

Rating: 2 Thurbs

Food & Beverage: Tommy

While trying to decide on what restaurant to go to, I selfishly suggested Victor’s Grill in the hopes that we would avoid a place with bad food. Now normally I’m not a believer in karma, but in this case I would be willing to entertain the idea of it. How else can you explain picking a restaurant with the title of “Grill”, in hopes of avoiding another blasé El Salvadorian restaurant, only to find that Victor’s “Grill” is actually just what you were hoping to avoid?

To be fair, the fried steak sandwich may not be their specialty, but if you want me to try your specialty, you can’t make it $28. This isn’t Ruth’s Chris Churrascaria. As such, I was relegated to the C-list of Victor’s menu (a hilarious menu, I might add). I can only assume that this menu was not done in MS Word, as the amount of red highlighting would’ve been impossible to miss or continue without spell-checking. As such, they had “chucks” of beef, both “Johnnie Walker” and “Jhonnie Walker”, as well as literally probably 30 other typos.

I chose the Milanese, or lightly fried steak sandwich. In a meat house, we knew Matt was going to have a rough time, and he opted for the salad and cheese/rice, which actually looked just like grits. Brobinson got the steak and cheese, or as I like to call it, “the poor man’s Milanese.” BP stepped out on this one, and flexed his gustatory muscles. He stepped up and ordered the Pique Macho, and macho it was. Chucks[sic] of beef, hot dogs (what?), tomatoes, and hot peppers, all arranged in a circle on the plate. I don’t even know what to say about this dish…you just read the description so you probably are thinking the same things I was. I have to give him credit, BP chose this dish on his own, it was not a blind “point at the menu and pick” type of deal. All in all, none of us could bring ourselves to pay Fogo de Chao prices in a Denny’s-like restaurant, so we may never know the true quality of Victor’s.

Rating: 1.5 Thurbs

Service & Cost: Matt

I left “Victor’s Grill II: The Churrascaria” (what it would be called if it were a movie sequel) with one thought weighing heavily on my mind – “How did I end up spending so much money on food like that? I can’t believe this has happened again.” Here’s the full list of what I ate at Victors: rice, cheese and salad. Now here’s the full price that I paid: $12. How/why is this possible?! Even my meat-eating cohorts suffered an inordinate blow to their pocketbooks at Victor’s, paying sizable amounts of money for food that didn’t quite measure up. Of course, I often get the feeling that we’re not ordering the best items on the menu at some of these places we visit and therefore are not experiencing the best of what they have to offer. But then again, at Victor’s, those “top notch” things cost $20, which is a lot of throw down if you don’t entirely trust the place from the very moment you walk in.

Victor’s II also seems to be scraping for any source of revenue that they can possibly muster up. For example, if you ordered more food than you can eat, you can have one to-go box for free, but any additional Styrofoam boxes will cost you 99 cents. At the register, they looked to be selling greeting cards and a few other knick knacks that might appeal to the occasional impulse buyer. Want a refill on that soft drink? Sure, as long as that means buying a whole new drink at full price. There was even a very ambiguous disclaimer written on the menu that said, “Prices may be changed without prior notice.” As in, after you receive the check? I guess their financial motto at Victor’s is “whatever it takes.” I’m just thankful our forks and spoons and the table we ate at were included with the cost of our meal.

Rating: 1.5 Thurbs

Ambiance & Entertainment: Brian R.

The name Victor’s Grill was deceiving at best. What was by day a sparsely frequented restaurant turns popular dance club by night. Well, no I wasn’t there last Friday night, but judging from the disco ball and speakers on the wall it definitely has potential. I’m not saying you should cancel your weekend plans and expect to find Ricky Martin electrifying the dance floor, but the owner definitely did not skimp on TV’s or speakers. Nor is he looking to have any of those stolen, given they are being watched by six security cameras throughout the dining room.

Don’t let me raise your anticipation too much though. Just to wet your palette with a small example of Victor’s interior decorating efforts, our table was located perpendicular to a picture (see above) seemingly meant to be a 4x6, but transformed into a poster with stretched pixels of what most likely used to be a pig roasting on a fire with John Wayne looking on in the background. The bar, on the other hand, seemed like the only remnant of what used to be a five star restaurant. As for the rest? There wasn’t.

Potential for a romantic date? Not here.

Rating: 1 Thurb

Victor's Grill II

Overall Rating: 1.5 Thurbs

Guest of Honor Review: David Garber

Victor's Grill, Roman Numeral 2, was among the most lackluster culinary experiences of my adult life. Imagine it with me: it's a "park in front" type of restaurant, which is never my first choice (something about the too-often characteristic charmlessness of worn out strip malls...), and is flanked by used car dealerships and a mega-graveyard. Inside is the church basement glare of fluorescent lights, two or three employees scurrying around the two (of thirty) occupied tables, and ivory-iridescent floral-theme wallpaper suited more for an unrenovated family dentistry lobby than anyplace I'd enthusiastically choose to eat. White floor, white walls, no less than 12 security cameras, and one lonely, silver (but glimmering with the metalic blink of every color in the South American meat-focused wall hangings) disco ball - a hint of the post-dinner crowd .. or is there one?

They didn't have plantains, which was pret-ty much the only thing I wanted, so I got yucca fries and a chicken and - surprise! - green olive pastry with what appeared to be a dash of red sharpy across it: demarking chicken as opposed to, say, beef or pork. Lick your lips appetizing.

In sum, dinner here was an experience worth having for this singular life lesson: trust your instincts - don't waste your time or your stuffed-in-jean-pockets greenbacks on the ol' Vic deux.

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This Week's Lottery Winner

Upon random selection from the names entered into the TP4 Guest of Honor Lottery, we are glad to announce THIS WEEK'S GUEST OF HONOR...

This week's lottery winner lesson: Apparently it pays to consistently enter your name in the lottery with some sort of sarcastic, no-way-i'll-ever-win type of nickname included - i.e. John "why do I even bother?" Doe ... or Joe "no chance of winning" Smith. This week's winner did this very thing for weeks, and his sardonic self-deprecation has finally proven to be a lucky charm.

Come back Friday for this week's full review.

SPECIAL NOTE from TP4 - We know we've been pretty spotty with our updates over the last few months. I guess even blogs need an extended summer break. But that inconsistency is a thing of the past. You can count on us, America! We won't let you down. Even in our absence, great things have been happening with TP4. And you'll just have to stick with us to find out what that entails. Thanks for reading.

** You could be the next Guest of Honor! We have reset the names for the lottery and you must enter your name again each week. To enter, scroll to the bottom of this page and look for the Guest of Honor section. No duplicate winners will be selected until everyone has had a turn. Remember - official Thurber Party of 4 "followers" will have their entries counted twice in the drawing!