Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
If you are craving some decent Italian, the new Vines Italian Restaurant in downtown Portales is very good for home style Italian. We can't wait until they get their beer and wine license. Way better food than Olive Garden, sorry.
Oooo I have never heard of that place! Where is it in Portales? I am so gonna go there.
Yeah I've never been a huge fan of Olive Garden. I took italian in college and my professor was born and raised in Italy and she had many colorful words to say about OG lol.
Maybe I'll call Vines and see if they would be interested in offering some GF pasta. It's actually the easiest for italian places to be GF since they can easily sub rice pasta.
If you are craving some decent Italian, the new Vines Italian Restaurant in downtown Portales is very good for home style Italian. We can't wait until they get their beer and wine license. Way better food than Olive Garden, sorry.
I haven't heard of this place. Where is it? Do you remember The Pasta Kitchen? An old small house next to ENMU campus converted to a resturant. It had the best food. I wonder if it is the same owner? I hope so.
I disagree heartily with Desert Sun. There are many Portelenos and probably Clovis people who would love more health food, organic food, gluten free and low carb/low calorie options. Those who originate in Clovis and West Texas have to understand that there are special needs and tastes out there that are not related to eating chicken fried steak, french fries, and grease, and that iceberg lettuce and ranch dressing is not a salad.
Having said this, God the beef is good here. In Portales we have the following low gluten options:
1. Hong Kong Buffet- The best Chinese buffet in the area has a few items that have zero gluten and a lot of items that taste good and are not fried
2. Salad Bar at Cattle Baron - This is as good as it gets around here for obvious low gluten choices that you can fill up on over and over
3. Retail store at Sunland Peanuts - Sells plenty of gluten free organic peanut butters in regular and exotic flavors, and has cheap boxes of Arrowhead Farms cereals like Quinoa and Flax Seed (not sure if these are totally gluten free)
4. Wal-mart in Portales FINALLY has a small stock of organic food and quite a bit of non-gluten food
5. Carne Asada without tortillas at El Rancho, La Paz, or Juanito's
6. ENMU has a great big nice cafeteria on campus and for $7 you can stuff the salad plate with good non-gluten food
7. The downtown farmer's market from June through November is the best source of local organic and gluten free food at cheap prices, Mondays and Thursdays just south of the town square, and you are helping out local retired people and small farmers
8. Check out the custom meat processors (assuming you are not vegetarian) like the one next to the RV park north of Portales and down in Elida.
9. There are people selling fresh farm eggs and other items which you can find by word of mouth
10. Do Drop Inn has some decent salads, as does the Bread Basket downtown and Vines Italian Restaurant. Nothing spectacular like a real salad place, but at least decent
I get what your saying and Im not doubting that there are some people who want organic stuff, I like collard greens but Im definetly in the minority on that one, they sell it here in ABQ but Im sure its not in high demand. There will always be someone who likes something that isnt too common in an area.
and like you said "people from Clovis and West Texas have to understand that there are special needs and tastes out there that isnt chicken fried steak,french fries and grease", but why should they need to understand that , that is their home, they do things their ways.
I dont tell people in Georgia that they need to understand that some people dont want fried chicken all the time(and I ate alot of it there) and greasy foods.
Portales is not Closed-Minded and you need not Adapt
Quote:
Originally Posted by desert sun
a town being close minded is something that you have to adapt to, you are in another part of the country and in a new town, would you like people going into your town complaing that the people are too progressive, I doubt you would, so you should be accepting and tolerant to the ways and people around you, sometimes you just got to suck it up if you dont like it.
and not being accepting of a place because it has no Target is very close minded, I like Target better than Wal-Mart too but Im not gonna complain about it if I were to move to some small town that didnt have it, you got yourself into a situation dealing with the Military so you have to accept the obstacles in your way now. You dont have to like Clovis, most people dont, I dont even care for it all that much but dont knock the poeple and the town but rather just put up with it and make the most of it. Sometimes its some of the most progressive people who are the most close minded and yours and Fickles post proves that.
Portales is far from closed-minded in our experience so far. It is a small town, has its usual assortment of old-timers who remember when it was even more Mayberry than it is today, and fear change (or just are not used to it). Then you have this huge population of educated professionals, students, and professors from all over the planet, with all types of backgrounds, wearing everything from punk rock suits to cowboy duds.
But clearly its the EDUCATION level that really helps Portales remain open to various cultures and relatively more tolerant than a lot of towns in this general area. Over the Texas line, in a similar town, you will NOT see such tolerance and diversity. basically, having a school like ENMU does wonders for this community. And it is good for regular country folk and even people from large cities to intermingle with people from all over the world. And the college has thousands of Lubbock and Albuquerque kids who are obviously pretty open minded and diverse and they are not afraid to express themselves in Portales.
Portales is far from closed-minded in our experience so far. It is a small town, has its usual assortment of old-timers who remember when it was even more Mayberry than it is today, and fear change (or just are not used to it). Then you have this huge population of educated professionals, students, and professors from all over the planet, with all types of backgrounds, wearing everything from punk rock suits to cowboy duds.
But clearly its the EDUCATION level that really helps Portales remain open to various cultures and relatively more tolerant than a lot of towns in this general area. Over the Texas line, in a similar town, you will NOT see such tolerance and diversity. basically, having a school like ENMU does wonders for this community. And it is good for regular country folk and even people from large cities to intermingle with people from all over the world. And the college has thousands of Lubbock and Albuquerque kids who are obviously pretty open minded and diverse and they are not afraid to express themselves in Portales.
I dont know what your getting at, but I agree, I never said Portales was close minded, to me, its probably more tolerant than ABQ, I think when you grow up in a small population with different kinds of people you adapt to people of different styles, wether it be the illegal immigrant, the bible thumper, the gangster, the asian,the mennonite,the farmer,the college professor,the gothic punk, or the old timer, everyone seems to live great together, in a city like ABQ you have different areas that are large and people dont have to leave their area so they dont mix with a little bit of everything like people do in Portales.
buit there are plenty of old timers in Portales that are stuck in their ways, and its been like that for as long as I lived there, the town dosent like change so much ,but the younger people do.
Desert Sun, you are right. At first I thought Portales was a 1950s "Mayberry" or some conservative place in North Texas, but it has a diverse undertone to it and a pretty tolerant population. Even some of the "old timers who don't like change" are some pretty cool people. I also found it takes time to see what Portales has to offer, because nobody is very flashy, no one advertises very well, and you have to get to know where to go and you will find your niche. The street layout does not help much- what a crazy patchwork! The main thing is that they keep the crime down and keep getting more homes, shops and restaurants that you can walk to.
ITALIAN FOOD: Vines is on Second Street across from the main entrance of the old historic court house on the downtown square - in the middle of downtown Portales. Good luck with the gluten-free suggestions, they do seem like they are listening and changing their menu still.
No it's only the people HERE that haven't known what gluten is. I've never encountered this elsewhere unless I'm talking to a teenager behind a cash register at a fast food place. And heck even the lady at Chick fil A in Amarillo a few weeks ago was able to help us quite easily find something that we could eat. I've lived in many many places from coast to coast. Some huge cities, some tiny towns smaller than this one. So yes, it comes as a surprise when the manager of a restaurant doesn't even know what ingredients are being used.
We're not asking for more options. We're just asking to know what options are available to us since half my family has this disease. We just want to be able to go out to eat and not get ill. I don't think that's asking too much.
From: [URL="http://celiacdisease.about.com/od/faqs/f/HowCommon.htm"]How Common Is Celiac Disease - How Many People Have Celiac Disease[/URL]
Educating others about Celiac Disease seems like a worthy cause to me. Instead of judging others try educating them....changing the way people think one person/restaurant at a time. If something is so important to you and your family try asking for what you need instead of judging them for their lack of knowledge. Most people in this area love catering to others needs....ask with kindness and see what happens. Don't expect over the top results but with time you might get what you need. People do care.
I live in the Portales area and know for a fact....once people know what you need....they deliver it with a smile and by my name. Give it a second chance....going out to eat is a pleasure of life....You deserve it too.
Considering that both my daughter and my husband get very ill if they consume gluten I don't have time for a restaurant to have a learning curve. My husband's xmas party was at Cattle Baron this year. We called ahead, asked for the manager, and he knew right away what gluten was, how to handle our meal, etc. Chili's has also been really good here - the manager is extremely helpful and knowledgeable about gluten and how to avoid it.
I don't want to sit there for 2 hours and educate the manager and the cooking staff on how to make a gluten free meal. In the end of they don't know about it they'll probably still flip my daughter's burger with the same spatula they used to flip the buns. And then I'll have a very sick 2 yr old little girl. It's not worth the risk.
Not gluten free, but Vine's Italian in Portales ROCKS!
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Portales is not Closed-Minded and you need not Adapt
