Food: Also-Rans Part II

Sorry for the long hiatus, guys - things are always a little crazy around the holidays. Anyway, here's a post I've been meaning to put up for some time:

I try out one or two new restaurants every week. Some are good, some are bad, but many are simply "also-rans;" that is, they're not quite good enough to earn a repeat visit from me, but they're not really bad, either. Here are a selection of Gainesville also-rans with my thoughts:


Haile Village Bistro


Restaurants morph and change all the time, even in an upscale district like Haile Plantation. You might remember "The Third Place," a restaurant I visited earlier this year. Nowadays, it's under new ownership as "Haile Village Bistro."

The menu was quite different, with a big emphasis on pastas and seafoods rather than steaks and burgers. The two tortellini dishes my friends and I ordered were mediocre-to-bad (the sauce was so sweet it was like eating Chef Boyardee), but the fish and the appetizers (like a Persian chicken salad) were decent.

El Rancho Viejo


My favorite Mexican place in Gainesville is La Tienda, but it's so easy to start a Mexican restaurant that there are inevitably new ones that spring up. The latest is actually around my neck of the woods, right near the student apartments on 20th. It's called "El Rancho Viejo."

This is a classic Mexican greasy spoon, with low-grade tacos, enchiladas, and burritos all ready for consumption. I'll give it one thing - the main dining area has a big screen LCD TV that broadcasts CNN, which is convenient if you're a newshound. The counter service is fine, too, but all that doesn't outweigh the humdrum food.

Firehouse Subs


The sandwich business is a tough one, and Firehouse Subs tries to make the mark by delivering a sort of "Quizno's-lite" experience - they melt the cheese and warm the meat, but they don't toast the whole sub.

On the whole, although their subs aren't awful, I think both Subway's and Quizno's has them beat. Subway serves up fairly cheap subs, and Quizno's has the higher-end toasted sandwich market - meaning Firehouse Subs is stuck in the middle. There is no queue for producing sandwiches, either, which usually translates to longer wait times for your food.