Greetings Eaters and Readers!

This month’s New Food Friday (NFF) pick was:
Finicky Franks
9520 Calhoun Road
Fare: American with a focus on authentic, locally sourced ingredients
Cost: We both spent $30 on drinks, shared appetizers, dinner and shared dessert.

A few things were discovered during this month’s NFF — our first since the blog launch:

• We haven’t yet mastered how to eat, chat and take notes all at the same time.
• We eat a lot.
• Our shared devotion to always – ALWAYS – having dessert with our meals.
•  The necessity for an escape plan should we ever NOT have dessert options.
• And the realization that sometimes, the city’s best places to eat are just outside city limits and found by wrong turns.

Situated on edge of Ponca Hills, Finicky Frank’s prides itself on its unique take on traditional favorites and its commitment to locally sourcing ingredients and inspiration. The extra work and touches the cooking staff puts into each dish is what makes going out of your way so worth the drive. If you don’t enjoy this hidden gem, we’ll either put some gas back into your tank … or seriously re-evaluate our friendship with you. Maybe both.

Drinks

We asked our server what “Frank’s Pick” was on the beer menu. She informed us its a rotating/seasonal pick, which was Sierra Nevada Orta Vez at this time. It sounded good and quite frankly (pun intended), the price was just as appetizing. So we both ordered one and enjoyed the light-bodied profile and grapefruit agave flavor.

Appetizers

Our appetizers were the least exciting part of our experience. And they were, in all honesty, good. But the rest of our meal was so much better. We decided either we ordered the wrong apps or we just didn’t have enough time to enjoy them. Service was fast and prompt (always one of the most important things!), but our main courses came so quickly that we hadn’t fully enjoyed the appetizers. The guacamole was a little heavy on taco seasoning and we both felt the Romano and truffle fries could use a little more Romano. They were just ‘fries’. Nothing crazy or mind-blowing about them.

Main Dish

Here is where we fell in love with the food and frankly (again!) the restaurant as a whole.

Jaclyn, who is on a quest to find the best Rueben in Omaha, got The Finicky Rueben. And it did. not. disappoint. It had everything you’d expect out of a typical rueben, but what made it truly stand apart was the homemade 1000 island dressing. It had more sweet than tang and it was downright delicious.

Martha ordered the pork tenderloin with a side of onion rings. This ain’t your mama’s run-of-mill, factory made tenderloin. No surprise here – the pork is hand-shaped and breaded right at Frank’s. It came out perfectly hot and juicy with Frank’s Special Sauce (hand ground mustard and mayo) to top it off. It eats like a thick chicken breast sandwich – only better. The onion rings were a perfect compliment to the sandwich. Thickly cut, hand-battered and prepared on site. The onion rings are also on the appetizer menu – and we know which app we’ll get next time!

Dessert

After having our dessert options listed three times, we landed on a delight called Aunt Moochie’s custard pie. We may have ordered it as much for the name as we did the delicious list of ingredients our server rattled off. It had a gingerbread and graham cracker crust (hearty and balanced, not thin and wimpy like many graham cracker crusts) with a cinnamon vanilla custard filling. Funny name aside, it was the perfect way to cap off our already brilliant meal. It is exciting and satisfying to have something for the very first time, sit back and realize: “Aunt Moochie’s Cinnamon Vanilla Custard pie is one of my favorite pies ever. I just never knew it.”

Fork Rating

Martha and Jaclyn give it two giant Forks Up!

Until next time – we hope a bunch of happy things for all of you:

We hope you try Finicky Frank’s and tell us what you think.

We hope you take a wrong turn and find something SO right – like we did!

And we hope you order dessert. Always. Order. Dessert.

Cheers,
Martha and Jaclyn

Best Quotes of the Evening:
“Pork tenderloin sandwiches almost always have that chicken nugget pudding…pudding?…breading.”
And almost after every bite or nod of delight, a comment about the food. And then:
“We should probably write that down.”

The eating and blogging thing is harder than it looks…

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Feature Image Credit: Omaha Pizza Kings