Good Eats

On the way to Plano Son and I thought we'd stop for lunch in Roanoke, Texas. We had a couple of ideas on where we'd like to eat.


One was Babe's Chicken Dinner House. It's been a favorite place of ours for several years. We used to make a point of it to eat there once during NASCAR week. Roanoke is just a hop, skip and a jump from Texas Motor Speedway.

At the Babe's in Roanoke there's no need for a menu. You have two choices - fried chicken or chicken fried steak. The sides are served family style - mashed potatoes, cream gravy, green salad, corn, and biscuits.

The last time we were there in November 2008 three of the Nascar drivers showed up for dinner - Greg Biffle, Clint Bowyer and Kenny Schrader.


There's a lot of growth going on in this little town and one of the new eating establishments is the Twisted Root Burger Company.

It turned out to be our choice for lunch because the original one was featured on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives.

It's safe to say the food is not in the category of healthy eating but it was nice for a treat.

You order at the counter and the place was already packed that day at about 11:15. So we grabbed a table and Son stood in line to place our order.

According to all the markings all their plastic cups, plastic wear, to go boxes, etc are environmentally friendly. Our water cups were a corn product. Pretty interesting.

I'm assuming the paper towels that hang on the wall for customer self-service were made from a bio-degradable material.



Son and I split a buffison burger. That's part buffalo and part venison. It was kinda expensive but we split it so it wasn't that bad.

We decided to split the burger - not because of the price - but because we wanted to try the "Fried Ride", a sample basket of all their fried veggies.

There was enough in that basket to feed at least 6 to 8 people. There were onion rings (THE BEST I've had in a long, long time), green beans, sweet potato chips, dill pickle slices and twisted french fries.

The to-go box was filled to the brim with the leftovers.



Their special shake that day was Girl Scout Cookie Mint. I love frozen Girl Scout Thin Mint cookies so that was a no-brainer.

Another shake on the menu is an Amaretto Oreo shake. Of the two, this was Son's favorite.

The food was good and it was a fun place to try.

But honestly, I think the next time we're back in Roanoke, I'd choose to go to Babe's. Maybe it's nostalgia but I think it's the fried chicken.