Archive for November, 2007
November 25th, 2007
This group-friendly restaurant, which has been located at Perryville and Spring Creek for a while now, is known for their excellent Japanese cuisine. We love it for the excellent service that comes with the unbeatable food.
This time, we went for lunch, which is something we haven’t done before. When we got there at noon, it was pretty quiet - an odd situation for JMK. It did fill up at about 2:00, so get there early if you want to be seated quickly.
The lunch menu is a little more limited than the dinner menu. For main entrees, you get the choice of steak, chicken, or shrimp. We’re chicken people, and the only type of chicken on the lunch menu is sesame chicken. It had good flavoring, but we wish we had tried the hibachi steak or the teriyaki steak.
With lunch you can choose between getting the lunch special, which includes soup, salad, and ice cream, or just the entrée. With the entrée you have to choose between soup and salad, but, as with the lunch special, you get mixed vegetables, including zucchini and onions, and rice (fried or normal.) If you don’t choose the lunch special, we definitely recommend the soup. The onion broth is so good; its one of our favorite parts of the meal.
Your meal at JMK comes with a fun little show. The chef flips the egg around, makes an onion volcano, and performs tricks with the knives. It is very entertaining to watch!
This is one of the pricier restaurants in town, so if you’re short on cash but you still want to try it, it’s a good idea to go for lunch. For the sesame chicken meal without the special, it was only $11. The meal only cost $3 more. It’s a fair price for a decent amount of food.
Besides eating there for lunch and dinner, JMK is also a great place for sushi. Their sushi bar is very popular and, from what we’ve heard, possibly some of the best sushi in town. We have never eaten there, so let us know what you think of their sushi.
JMK is more than the great food you get there. The atmosphere is very tranquil with the koi pond under the walkways in the lobby and the waterfall outside of the front door. It definitely gets you in the Japanese mood with the beautiful decorating and calm music.
JMK is becoming a Rockford tradition when it comes to fine dining. You can go for the entertainment, but it’s the great food that brings you back. Check out JMK Nippons for a nice meal in an enjoyable environment.
November 24th, 2007
As previously posted, we hosted a benefit concert on November 21. We thought it was important to let you all know how it went, because we were very pleased with the turn out.
We had seven bands play at our concert, mostly local bands but some coming from Wisconsin and Chicago. The show began with Village Idiot, and they were really entertaining! They aren’t that old, being about 15-years-old, but they acted as if they had been playing for a while. Next came Imaginary Heroes, one of our favorites. Their performance drew a lot of devoted fans, and it was really fun to watch. The other bands, Hoamaloanto, The New Disasters, Omega Battalion, Starlite Radio, and Scatteredtrees finished off the night. We were so impressed with how good they all did. Rockford has a lot of great local talent!
Many people began arriving during Omega Battalion’s performance, which was one of the most high-energy performances of the night. The crowd kept increasing after that set, most likely in anticipation for Scatteredtrees. Scatteredtrees is a really awesome band. They are from Chicago, and are probably most known for being on the Starbuck’s “Off the Clock” CD, which features their track “Sparrow.” They definitely drew a big crowd for our concert. We are keeping our eyes on them, because we feel like they have a lot of potential in the music industry.
Thanks to the help of all those who donated to our causes, we were able to raise a good amount of money to help our charities out this holiday season. The charities we donated to are Rockford Rescue Mission, MELD, and Barbara Olson Center of Hope.
Probably the best part of this experience was giving our donations to the charities. They are such kind, grateful people and it made us feel really good. We want to thank all of these charities for their devoted work in the Rockford area; they truly are blessings to our community.
If you did not get a chance to come out to this event, but are still interested in donating to these great charities, we encourage you to do so. Finally, thank you to all of you (including the bands and those at the Rock Box) who came out to support this event. Without you, it would not have been a success.
Happy Holidays!
[All of the amazing bands can be found on myspace.com. For more information about the charies, you can contact Rockford Rescue Mission at 815.965.5332, MELD at 815.965.8336, and Barbara Olson Center of Hope at 815.964.9275.]
November 18th, 2007
A few months ago, we began planning a concert to benefit local charities. This was something we have always wanted to do, and we felt it was a great way to give back to the community, especially during the holiday season. Plus, it is a really fun way to get
other teenagers involved in some great causes.
We started out by picking the charities we wanted to donate to. We decided on Barbara Olson Center of Hope, Rockford Rescue Mission, and MELD. We chose Barbara Olson because of the great work it does for the disabled in our area. Rockford Rescue Mission helps the homeless in our community so much that we felt it was important that they have some extra help during the winter months. For our final charity, we chose MELD. Their focus on building strong families is really inspiring to us and we appreciate all of the work they do to help Rockford.
Our next task was finding a suitable location. This was pretty difficult. We thought of a few places and went to go check them out. Our favorite was The Rock Box. This is an all-ages concert venue run by the good people of Guzzardo’s music. We had heard about it from some people who enjoy going to their concerts and when we visited, we knew it’d be perfect.
So, if you aren’t during anything Wednesday afternoon-night, please come check it out. The admission is only $7 and it starts at 4p.m. and will probably end around 11p.m. The lineup is pretty awesome, including seven great bands. The lineup is: Village Idiot, Imaginary Heroes, Hoamaloantoo, The New Disasters, Omega Battalion, Starlite Radio, and Scatteredtrees. We would really appreciate your support for these great causes, so please make some time and stop by!
[The Rock Box is located at 317 W. Jefferson. If you have any questions, send us an email at gogirls@rrstar.com.]
November 12th, 2007
Hidden just off of the restaurant-chain dominated State St. lays a small pizza parlor. No, we’re not talking about Pizza Hut or Papa Johns; we’re talking about Gerry’s Pizza. Gerry’s Pizza opened in Rockford 29 years ago; however, their good service and tasty dishes keep Rockfordians coming back for more!
When we arrived at Gerry’s Pizza Friday night, we were quite surprised to see it pretty filled inside. It just seems like one of those restaurants people mostly order carryout from. Anyways, the interior of Gerry’s Pizza is nothing spectacular, in fact it is pretty basic. Booths outline the walls, filled with tables in the middle with one of those “put in your money and pick the toy you want” machines when you first walk inside. The tables did have a variety of pictures under the glass, which provided a little more interest, and kept us looking for a good five minutes.
Then came the hard part: ordering. They had so many selections to choose from it seemed hard for us to just order a pizza. We balanced it by ordering two entrees. We decided on the Margherita Pizza (a 10″ for about $11) and the Pesto Ravioli for just under $10. We also started with an order of their breadsticks for $5 while we waited for out entrees.
Our food was actually really tasty. The breadsticks were strongly Italian with the very obvious garlic butter. They were really flavorful, though, and were a great starter, probably feeding between 2-4 people. The Pesto Ravioli was our favorite dish. The yummy noodles were filled with pesto sauce, a combination of herbs with Italian seasoning, and cheese. It was topped with a marinara sauce. The portion was more than plenty for the two of us; we couldn’t even finish! The Margherita pizza, with cheese, tomato, and basil, was also decent; however, we felt it could have been cooked for another five minutes to compensate for the doughy consistency of the crust and cheese.
Overall our meal at Gerry’s was definitely great, but it was not the best pizza in Rockford. Upon this realization, we are now on the quest for such a dish. We don’t want to try out chain-pizza places. We are looking for the best “Rockford-dish” pizza, and we need your help. Let us know of your favorite, and we’ll try some of them out and let you know which we feel is the best. As always, you can post your comments here or email us at gogirls@rrstar.com with your suggestions.
[Gerry’s Pizza is located at 7403 Argus Dr. Call them at 815-399-2031.]
November 4th, 2007
A few scary movies came out around Halloween this year. Of the choices, 30 Days of Night looked the most promising. While it definitely wasn’t the worst scary movie ever, it did have its disappointments.
The movie is set in Barrow, Alaska during the month of no sun. The plot is pretty simple: vampires come and kill a lot of people. There are some other minor details, like the people that are trying to survive the attack, but that’s the basic gist of it. The whole movie is action between vampires killing people and people killing vampires. If you do decide to see it, you should expect to see a lot of fake blood.
The main problem with this movie was the high expectations we had. A lot of people saw it on Halloween and then said it was the scariest movie ever. We got really excited and decided we had to see just how scary it was. You can imagine our disappointment when “scary” turned out to be “gory,” something we don’t appreciate nearly as much. Aside from a few startling moments, we were just shielding our eyes from the people-eating that was occuring.Our review is slightly affected by what we thought the movie would be, so let us know what you thought of it. Overall, we would say it was not super scary, but it also was not completely lame. And it came with a good message to anyone considering moving to Barrow, Alaska: first of all - don’t move there, and second of all - if you do, watch out for vampires!
November 4th, 2007
One fall tradition that we never overlook is our annual trip to the apple orchard. Edwards Apple Orchard is definitely our favorite apple orchard in the Rock River Valley area, because you can’t beat their winning combination of awesome apples, fudge, and cider!We had many reasons for going; however, the first one we took care of was heading to the cellar for a snack. On this trip, we chose to have an apple cider donut and split some caramel apple slices with a glass of hot apple cider. The donuts are probably the best donuts we’ve ever had, and nothing beats crisp apples fresh from the field. Their apple cider is also amazing! All of their delicious snacks are also fairly inexpensive.It would be fairly odd to go to an apple orchard and not get any apples, so be sure to pick up some of their delicious fruit. When we visited a week ago, the orchard had Golden Delicious and Fuji apples. We picked up a bag of Fuji’s and enjoyed them last week for lunch. Call them to see when your favorite apples are in season, although we honestly think you won’t be disappointed with any of them.Ironically, next to the bins of healthy apples is a counter of the most delicious-looking fudge. Besides the normal fudge and fudge with peanuts, they have some fun flavors like raspberry and Snickers. We tried the mint chocolate fudge, which tasted just like a Mint Meltaway from Fannie May.We highly recommend visiting Edwards Apple Orchard before it gets too chilly outside. Their hot apple cider will help warm you up, but it’s no fun picking out apples when it’s too cold. Take a quick trip soon and enjoy all of the treats they have to offer![Edwards Apple Orchard is located at 7061 Centerville Rd in Poplar Grove. Call them at 815.765.2234.]
