The best pizzaria, period, has been closed by the Department of Health. I can’t believe that they closed this place.  It had the best pizza anywhere.  I understand that the Department of Health is under scrutiny lately, but closing every small mom and pop shop for every little thing seems like they are going overboard.  I really hope that the Demarco family is able to get things resolved with the Board and reopen. Check out NY Times article here.

My friends took Ru, Nan, and me out for some dinner at Dinosaur BBQ. Those that know me know I LOVE BBQ so it was a nice treat. Byron made some reservations for us through OpenTable so we didnt have to wait too long.

The food was always good, as usual. We started off with some Honey Bar-B-Que and HOT Wango Tango Chicken Wings. Both were good but I liked the Wango Tango flavor better. When our main course came, we all enjoyed the feast. I had a 3/4 rack of ribs with Creole Potato Salad and French Fries. The Creole Potato Salad was pretty damn tasty, and this is coming from someone that doesnt like potato salad that much. Some of my friends ordered the combination platter so they can sample a little bit of everything. The chicken wasnt as good, but everyone agreed that the ribs were excellent.

With that said, I did like the chicken wings better than the ribs. Dont get me wrong. The ribs were excellent, and you wont be disappointed with them. I just found the wings much tastier. Is Dinosaur my favorite? No. In my opinion, I think Famous Dave’s BBQ has slightly better ribs and much better chicken. You wont go wrong going to Dinosaur, but I still give my number one slot for BBQ to Famous Dave’s. For pics, look at the albums section or click on the picture to the right. For those of you interested, here is the info on this BBQ place:

Dinosaur Bar-B-Que
646 W 131st St
New York, NY 10027
(212) 694-1777
Google Maps

I haven’t been able to blog much lately because I’ve been meeting up a lot with my girlfriend lately. She’s going away to Hong Kong again for Cantonese Opera. She might be gone for a whole year, but I hope not. In case she is, I’m trying to hang out with her as much as possible so I’ll be a bit slow on the blogging.

Anyhow, we had dinner yesterday at this pasta place called Il-Corallo Trattoria that she’s been dying to take me to. For those of you who don’t know me, I don’t normally like pasta too much. However, I have to admit, the food was great, and the price was just right. You can get an entree for under 10 bucks.

If you look at the menu, they have a 2 whole pages of pasta dishes all reasonably priced. I got the Fettuccine Carettiera, which i enjoyed and didn’t enjoy. Huh? I’m I confusing you? Well the fettuccine was great. It was fresh and cooked just right. However, the sauce was kinda plain. It was good, but not as good as my girlfriend’s dish. She had the Black Ravioli Seafood. That was delicous. The cream of tomato sauce was delicious. The ravioli was good, but not as great as the fettuccine. If I had the fettuccine with her cream sauce, I would have loved it.

You can also download the pdf version of the menu from MenuPages by clicking here.

Here is the info for this place:

Il-Corallo Trattoria
176 Prince Street
New York, NY 10012
(212) 941-7119
Google Maps

I went to Long Island today to go to the Black Eyed Peas concert with some friends. On the way, we decided to check out Famous Dave’s Legendary Pit Bar-B-Que. Those of you who knows me knows that I’m a pig. Even if you don’t know me, you should have figured that out from the number of posts about food. Well oink oink then. I thoroughly enjoyed my food there.

We started off with some BBQ chicken wings since my friend, Chickenbutt is a wings fanatic. They were fantastic. I never tasted such sweet and delicious wings. They might have tasted good because I didn’t eat breakfast or lunch. Chickenbutt would say it’s because I’m a pig so if that’s the case so be it. Oink oink it is. Being the pig that I am, I ordered their award winning St. Louis-Style XXL Ribs, “The Big Slab.” Of course, I made it a platter with 2 sides, corn on the cob, some corn bread and fries. J.Ho ordered the same, while PaperThin only ordered half a rack. Chickenbutt and his cousin shared a BBQ feast for 2. We all enjoyed our food. At the end of the meal, I had 4 ribs left, but I finish everything else. J.Ho tried beating me by trying to eat more, but I think he learned his lesson. Don’t mess with a pig like me.

Anyhow, after eating and stuffing ourselves, we headed off for our concert, which I’ll post about next.

Famous Dave’s Barbeque
1050 Corporate Drive
Westbury, NY 11590
(516) 832-7300
Google Maps

Note: The names in this post have been changed because of a certain anal friend who is afraid he is going to get stalked.

Edit: I changed the logo to a scanned image from their menu I picked up. I also added the scanned picture that was on the front of the menu.

Life’s a pain, as the saying goes. My stomach’s been acting up lately, and I’ve been feeling a bit queasy every time I eat. Whenever that happens to me, some spicy food helps relieve it. I know that seems contradictory, but it just does for me.

After I got home from work, we tried to figure out what to eat for dinner. It was already late so cooking was out of the question. We finally decided to eat Thai food. I figured Thai food is pretty spicy so it should help my stomach. We went to small Thai restaurant called Chao Thai, and boy, was I surprised. It was actually really spicy. I’m not talking American spicy, where you get a hint of spiciness. I’m talking so damn spicy i’m going to shoot fire out of my ass spicy.

We all ordered the Pad Kee Mao Noodles (aka Drunken Noodles or Spicy Noodles) and asked them to make it extremely spicy. Now, in most Thai restaurants I’ve been to, extremely spicy means it’s still very mild. Why? Because American people cannot take anything spicy. When our noodles came out, they were pretty tasty. It was a little too sweet but not too bad. Definitely not the same level as Sripraphai, but its still pretty good. However, what surprised me was that unlike other Thai places, the noodles were really spicy. I barely had to add additional spices to it. Most of my friends know that when I eat Thai food, I ask for additional spices and sprinkle buckets of it onto my plate. Not here. I didn’t have to sprinkle much. If I can admit that it was spicy, then it’s spicy.

Now my stomach’s feeling much better. The only problem is when I take a dump later, I’m going to feel it on the way out. Oh well, that’s the price you pay for enjoying spicy foods.

If you still want to check out this restaurant, the address is below.

Chao Thai
85-03 Whitney Avenue
Elmhurst NY 11373
(718) 424-4999
Google Maps

Update: Looks like this place was reviewed in the New York Times. Read the article here.

I had dinner with my girlfriend at MenKui-Tei, a Japanese ramen noodles resturant in the East Village. I ordered the curry ramen and I added a friend rice dish to my noodles for $3.00. The noodles were good and the rice was good. My girlfriend wasn’t too hungry so she had beef’s tongue appetizer and most of my small fried rice dish. Tongue is not exactly something I would eat, but if she like it, more power to her.

I think this is a chain of the original Men Kui Tei located on 56th St and 6th Ave. However, this new location seems to have more choices on their menus, while the original location is mainly noodles.

If your in the mood for some good noodles and you need to watch your wallet, check out this resturant.

MenKui-Tei
63 Cooper Square
New York, NY 10003
(btwn 7th and 8th Sts)
212-228-4152
Google Maps

I went to have some happy hour today with some friends. Yes, I know its a Monday, but Brother Jimmy’s BBQ has an all-you-can-eat wings, riblets and beer on Monday nights for $15.95.

We started the night off eating and drinking, of course. The wings were ok. There was nothing special about them. It was your standard wings with buffalo sauce. We would have enjoyed it better if the wings were battered before the sauce was added.

The riblets struck us when we had them. Considering how cheap it was for the special, I didn’t expect the riblets to be as good as they were. They weren’t the best ribs I’ve had, nor are they anywhere close, but for the price, pretty damn good. The meat was tender, had a nice smokey bbq flavor, and the meat fell off the bone nicely. There were some pieces of fat there that I did not care for, but with all-you-can-eat, you can just eat the parts that you like.

When we asked for more wings and ribs, we expected them to be stingy and bring out less food. Were we wrong. They brought out the same amount of food, if not more for our second and thrid rounds. We were so full that we could not eat another bite. Next time, we’ll skip the wings and go straight for the riblets only.
While we were eating and drinking, we were talking about life and the universe, making fun of Dave, and looking at some of the nice girls at the place. The place was pretty packed and there were some nice hotties at the place. Not too shabby. Not to shabby at all. All in all, it was a good night.
If anyone wants more info on the place, check out their website. They have other locations too.

Brother Jimmy’s BBQ
The Original
1485 2nd Ave
New York, NY 10021
(Btwn 77th and 78th Sts)
(212) 288-0999
Google Maps

I had sushi with my girlfriend at Ushi Wakamaru today. I’m not a big sushi lover, but I really enjoyed the food there. This is one of those places where the sushi is very fresh and authentic. My girfeind’s been there several times before so she knows on of the chefs pretty well. We sat at the bar and had a great time as he played around with us while preparing and serving us our food.

Last time I was there, we sat right in front of the chef. He prepared some sweet shrimp for us, soemthing I won’t forget. He took some live shrimp that were moving around and pretty much cut up the shrimps right in front of us. That took me quite by surprised. I don’t exactly like seeing my food moving in front of me right before I eat it. At least its fresh.

Our meal costs about $235 including tax and big tip. It sounds expensive, but for the quality of the fish, its not too bad. Idefinitly can’t afford to go here all the time, but I don’t mind going there once in a while to eat fresh good sushi (and after I save up enough money). My gilfriend is a sushi fanatic, and she loves that place. Check it out if your in the mood for some authentic fresh sushi, and you have a few (ok, a lot of) extra bucks saved up.

Ushi Wakamaru
136 W Houston St
New York, NY 10012
(btwn Thompson and MacDougal Sts)
(212) 228-4181
Google Maps

My friend sent me a link to NewYorkMetro.com’s 101 Best Cheap Eats. I know this list is Manhattan-centric but it does give u some nice places to get some good foods at a reasonable price. Some of my favorite places are on this list.

Here’s my pick:
• For Thai food, Sripraphai is great, but I hate the long wait times there. It used to be much better before it got yupified but its still damn good.
• For pizza, its Di Fara Pizza hands down. The only downside to Di Fara is the long, long wait times. It’s worth it though.
• Totonno’s is a nice alternative pizzaria, especially if you dont’ want the long wait times at Di Faras.
• Dinosaur Bar-B-Que is great for ribs. I love the ribs there. But then again, I love ribs in general. The New York location is almost as good as the Syracuse one.
• ’ino and ’inoteca are great for some panini’s. My girlfriend and I love the food there.
• If I’m feeling hungry for something Chinese, I love Grand Sichuan St. Marks. My coworker and I go there quite a bit for some spicy beef.
• If i’m broke, which is almost all the time, I love Grey’s Papaya for some cheap but delicious hot dogs. You can’t beat their special- 2.95 for 2 hot dogs and a fruit drink.

Check out the article at NewYorkMetro.com