Sunday, April 10, 2016

April '16- Casteel's

Last night we went to Casteel's for dinner.  Casteel's is a casual dinning place in the Aberdeen neighborhood in Valparaiso.  For those of you unfamiliar with Aberdeen.  It is a little town within a town.  It's a neighborhood with expensive houses and it's own church, gas station, and a couple of restaurants.  Brian pointed out that all they need is a giant fence and it would be like the little town in The Walking Dead, haha.  Anywho, back to Casteel's...

The reviews on their facebook page made it seem like it was going to be a super small space and there was going to be a long wait.  When we got there, we were happy to see that the space wasn't too small at all and there was no wait.  The restaurant is comfortable and has a family dinning room and two bars.  We were seated right away and our waitress was super nice and attentive.  From here my enjoyment of this place goes down...


We ordered the pierogies for an appetizer.  They were good, but I have had creamier pierogies before which I prefer.  Our meals came with a choice of soup or salad.  We both got potato soup.  We should have stuck with the salad.  We both agreed that it had a funky taste to it.  Speaking of funky taste, I usually get a baked potato whenever I get a big meal at a restaurant, but I saw that baked mac and cheese was one of the options.  I asked the waitress if it was any good, and she was very honest with me.  She said that she liked it, but she has had complaints about it before.  She said she thinks people don't like it because they are used to the creamy mac and cheese out of the box.  Well, I thought I like baked mac and cheese and am not a big fan of Kraft mac and cheese, so I will go for it.  I shouldn't have.  At first I thought that it just didn't have strong flavor, but then it started to leave a funky taste in my mouth.  For our main dishes Brian had steak (he said it was good but nothing special), and I had ribs.  The ribs were good (probably the best part of either of our meals), but if you want a recommendation for good ribs in the area, I would send you to Wagner's in Porter.

This restaurant has a great staff with just mediocre food for our experience.  At first we were saying we wouldn't go back, but this place has a lot of really good reviews on Facebook and a lot of people on Facebook were saying how wonderful their hamburgers are.  If we do go back, that's probably the route we would take.

Overall Experience: 3 STARS
Price: Have your boyfriend pay.