The best BLT & home fries in Alaska (and any where else too)

- Josephines: Long gone as a restaurant. The space is still there and used occassionally, but I've not been up there for a long time.
- Crows Nest: Still there; Private Club: still there, but often opened up for other events when people buy the space
- Whales tail has moved into the basement: updated and remodeled, it's pretty neat
- The BBQ place is gone (LD's? JD's? JT's?), unfortunately, hard to find decent BBQ in Los Anchorage
- Darwin (of Darwin's Theory) has/had/is having a running fight with ABC and the Anchorage Assembly over any number of issues relating to alcohol service, hours, responsible serving ("TAM" Cards), etc. IMNSHO, Darwin's Theory is a bit of a hole-in-the-wall place.
- Snow City is a great place for breakfast...if you're a Republican Conservative, they sense that as you walk in and are obliged to give you a snarl before their usual pleasant service :)
- Moose's Tooth: Nice enough pizza and a wide variety of pizzas and related menu items. That being said, overpriced, and the physical location is overcrowded. Good problem to have if you're the owner; I haven't eaten in there for 3-4 years, when I get MT pizza, it's to go.
- Piccolini's: Great place...unfortunately located in Chicken Creek (when you grow up in Alaska, you're entitled to use mildly derogatory names for places that weren't incorporated when you were a kid)
- Sicily's: I can't help but compare Sicily's to CiCi's in Ewe-stun: CiCi's wins on decor, age, brightness. Sicily's wins hands down over any other pizza joint in Houston for the food, although some of the Italian restaurants will have better pizza and pasta.

Moose's Tooth for unique and AMAZING pizzas and beer. In Anchorage. Heck, even Sicily's Pizza beats all the typical lower 48 chain store pizzas!

Hula Hands for Polynesian/Hawaiian food. Also in Anchorage.

Wasabi Garden in Eagle River has the best sushi we have ever had anywhere.

Piccolinos in Eagle River for Greek/Mediterranean food.

joe b wrote:
With the city being so multicultural in population, there is a different place for every night to eat out, it seems. Think I read the figure, of 685 licensed eating establishments in the town/borough. Some of my favorites were those with an Asian type menu and ambiance, of which there were many. At one time, while I was living in the Interior and visited Anchorage, way too often with my work, it was in the paper, that Japan Airlines was keeping 58 aircraft crews in Anchorage. Most had their families with them and the airlines even operated a school for their children, in the Japanese language and traditions. Japan Air, was one of the major carriers, that used Anchorage as a stop for fuel, crew changes, resupply, etc. on their way to Europe, and south down the west coast. Many of their flights were freighters, hauling everything from live cattle to boxes of wine, some headed back to Japan and some over the north pole to Europe. So it was not hard to find a place that served excellent Asian foods, from most of the cultures from that part of the world.

Anchorage is a great meeting place for freighter pilots from all over. I used to be one of them for a few years back in the nineties. If you fly freight and haven't seen someone for a few years, your best chance of meeting up with them will probably be in Anchorage or Narita Japan. At that time, some favorite haunts around the Anchorage Hilton were, F Street Station, Darwin's Theory, Blondies for breakfast, Sweet Basil for a good soup and sandwich, and Simon and Seaforts for something more up scale.

The Hilton also had a pretty good pub style sports bar with decent food but got remodeled and became a little too trendy for mere freight dogs.

For a great BLT and soup in Lynden WA, try Dutch Mothers. The sandwiches are so big, DW and I split one with an extra order of soup.

Gosh, when I was in Anchorage for five days in March, I visited the food court at the top of the Fifth Avenue mall many times.

Snow City Café for breakfast, the food court for lunch, then Fred Meyer's deli for supper. This kept my expenses in line with the per diems I was being paid.

Not fancy, but affordable!

A couple of places not mentioned in Anchorage, that may no longer be in existence, but did serve some decent meals, one being Josephine's at the top of the Sheraton Hotel, the Captain Cook Hotel had the Crow's Nest on the top, as well as a private club of which I was never in, and on the ground floor, the Whale's Tail.

With the city being so multicultural in population, there is a different place for every night to eat out, it seems. Think I read the figure, of 685 licensed eating establishments in the town/borough. Some of my favorites were those with an Asian type menu and ambiance, of which there were many. At one time, while I was living in the Interior and visited Anchorage, way too often with my work, it was in the paper, that Japan Airlines was keeping 58 aircraft crews in Anchorage. Most had their families with them and the airlines even operated a school for their children, in the Japanese language and traditions. Japan Air, was one of the major carriers, that used Anchorage as a stop for fuel, crew changes, resupply, etc. on their way to Europe, and south down the west coast. Many of their flights were freighters, hauling everything from live cattle to boxes of wine, some headed back to Japan and some over the north pole to Europe. So it was not hard to find a place that served excellent Asian foods, from most of the cultures from that part of the world.

There was even an excellent bar b Que place on the old Seward Hwy, went by two initials of the owner, LDs or something like that. The owner was also an Ozark American (formerly known as an Okie) that grew up about 30 miles, from where I was raised. I had eaten there for 10 or 12 years, when on one trip to Anchorage, I found the business had been sold. A few years later, I was in Oklahoma to visit my parents and was driving through the small town of Stratford, just west of Ada, and saw a sign on a bar b que place with the same name, so I had to stop and check it out. Turned out to be the same guy from Anchorage that I knew. He had moved back home.

Double Musky makes a decent version of Cajun cooking....there are some places in and around Ewe-stun, and particularly a couple hundred miles to the East that do it better....but I've never been a fan of the ambience at Double Musky and (for me) its a distraction from the food.

That being said, the Double Musky Pepper Steak is about the best pepper steak in Anchorage (that I can think of) and (whether pepper, Bearnaise, truffle, mushroom, or otherwise) Double Musky offers uniformly excellent sauced foods; without a doubt, Double Musky offers the best cajun food in the Anchorage area, although I think they would style themselves as more creole than cajun.

Since Girdwood is almost exactly 45 minutes door-to-door from my Anchorage house, meaning Girdwood, not just the turn-off, Double Musky, Seven Glaciers, Chair 5, or even the Sitzmark are often worth the drive, particularly (for Seven Glaciers) near the end of their season when the tourist crowds have died down a bit.

OK, PA12DRVR and Joe, you've both left out one of the better places. What about the Double Musky in Girdwood? PA12DRVR got the Seven Glaciers at the top of the ski slope tram, but down at the bottom is the Double Musky which has Cajun cooking and two of the best steaks out there.

They have a pepper steak for those that really like a pepper steak. It's 2" thick and covered in a pepper sauce. I like it, but can only eat about three bites of it so I have to steal those off of someone else's plate. The other is a New York with a Bearnaise sauce on it. While Simons has a good steak (but better known for their prime rib) but they don't have a Bearnaise sauce for the steak. It's worth the drive to Girdwood for either the Double Musky or the Seven Glaciers.

And if you make reservations at Simons for the prime rib and you want fresh horseradish, let them know when you make the reservation.

Bill

This thread has SO MANY opportunities to comment for a Los Anchorage boy:

- Gwennies is a bit of a local landmark; they have a good BLT, good home fries, generally good menu; don't waste your time looking for high-fiber/healthy entrees ...or a good steak for that matter...but for a comfort food breakfast/lunch/dinner place, hard to beat Gwennies;
- Peggy's: Started going there as young lad many decades ago. It was a bit nicer/newer/cleaner then, but was still notable for pies. I wanted to grow up to be just like my uncle who had chicken fried steak and chocolate cream pie EVERY Tuesday night at Peggy's
- An old gathering spot in Anchorage that often gets lost in these sort of discussions is the Traveler's Inn: it was THE place for the 1960's and early '70's construction movers and shakers to gather for a cocktail after work
- Mush-Inn: How hot those sheets have become.
- 'Koots or other lack of taste spots. I'm bothered by the lack of taste assertions: when I had beer at 'Koots, it was always the King of Beers. I thought I had arrived back in the day when the bouncer told some poor guy to move because he was on my stool at K****s bar station. K*** was real cute.
- Simons is nice for the other end of the spectrum: for a better steak, Club Paris used to be hard to beat, but it's sort of running downhill now. If I have my 'druthers, time, and its the right time of year, I usually go to Seven Glaciers at Alyeska for high-end dining. Otherwise Kinleys or the Crows Nest, although the Crows Nest is beginning to ride a bit on reputation and views rather than food and service.
- Of course, hard to avoid mentioning F Street. It really ain't the same as it used to be but still a great place for a burger and a cold one.

At the other end of the Anchorage food scale is Simon & Seafort's, where we celebrated our 45th anniversary last summer. We generally try to eat there when we first get to Anchorage, then again when we leave. Or. as last year, when we came back through from the Kenai heading north to Denali.

However, it's best to time your Simon's visit when the tide"s in since the mudflats detract from the views through the Cook Inlet-facing windows. The views are especially good at sunset when Mount Spurr is smoking across the Inlet.

One of the few redeeming qualities that Anchorage has, is the large number of great places to eat. World wide cuisine is available , from 5 star dinning to fast and greasy. Gwennies is good and then go to Peggy's, across the street from Merrill Field for the best pie in town. I used to fly my Super Cub into Merrill for yeary inspections, often staying at the Mush Inn Motel, also across the street, and down a bit from Stoddard's Aircraft shop. I have been known to stop into Peggy's 3 or 4 times a day for pie, while waiting for my plane to be maintained. The Mush Inn seems to change names every time in drive by there with our RV, on our northern trips.

For high class entertainment, a person of sofistication and good taste may wish to check out Chillkoot Charlie's and for the real essence of Anchorage, the Great Alaska Bush Company. Anchorage has something for every taste or lack there of.. LOL especially the Spenard area of town. At one time, Spenard was a separate town from Anchorage, up until the unification of the City and Borough of Anchorage, came into existence.