I’m a big Gene Wilder fan. He’s done such wonderful movies such as “Young Frankenstein”, “Hear No Evil, See No Evil”, and my personal favorite, “Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory”. His classic portrayal of the demented Mr. Wonka will forever be near and dear to my heart. I love that movie to death. One of his more underrated movies that I’d like to talk about is “Stir Crazy”. Gene Wilder mistakenly goes to jail along with his friend (played by Richard Pryor) and it just gets ridiculous. There’s a famous scene where Gene Wilder’s character Skip Donahue is forced to ride a mechanical for the warden. He does an amazing job and the warden is pleased. Ever since seeing that scene, I’ve always wanted to try riding a mechanical bull myself. “Stir Crazy” came out in 1980, so it took me 20 years, but I finally got that chance at Johnny Utah’s.
Yep, Johnny Utah’s, located near Rockefeller Center, does indeed have a mechanical bull. Excited out of my boots I rode the bull before any of my meal arrived, the first time in my life mind you. I don’t know if it’s in my genes or whatever, but I feel I may have missed my calling. I rode that bull like a champ. Squeeze with your thighs and flop with the bull. If I had a mustache maybe I’d consider a full-on career change.
During my time as a restaurant reviewer, I have never seen an eatery designed this cool. Johnny Utah’s was originally an old bank. They kept the marble floor, different lock boxes, and many gadget throughout the joint still linger. The coolest part kept is the vault. It is completely intact and still bomb proof. Instead of heaps of money, the giant door now swings open to a private dining room. The walls are completely donned with the original lock boxes. So cool.
Ah yes, then there’s the food. Sure the place looks good, but how’s the eats? As usual, I have to try the nachos from every single place I go to. Here Johnny Utah’s refers to this plate as the Rattle Snake Nachos.
It consists of short rib chili on a bed of chips with three cheeses, jalapenos, sour cream, salsa, guacamole, and black olives. Of all the nachos I’ve eaten thus far in New York, this one is served, in it’s natural state, as one of the spiciest. Bonus points! It also happens to have to biggest amounts of toppings per chips ration that I’ve seen yet. More bonus points! One hell of a filler.
The Monster Burger and Fries killed.
It’s a half a pound beef grilled with a choice of toppings with seasoned fries. Wow, I can see why the call it “Monster”. This beast of a sandwich oozes with taste and bites with ferocity of a grizzly bear. Flavor packed meat kicked into gear with some of the best tasting fries making an all-together awesome meal.
We got into a great conversation with the owner about how they are adding a bar area to the venue as well as roughly 70 more items to an already amazing menu. So excited about his new dishes, he brought out a few of the yet to be released appetizers just for us. First was the Chicken Quesadilla. Great marinated chicken, cheese blend, and jalapenos. This was to die for. The second teaser was the Fish Tacos. Legit corn tortillas with fish, lime, onions, tomato, and cilantro. To be honest, I’m not really a fish eater, but this was damn good. If I wasn’t so full at this point after my original meal, I’d probably even eat a few of these. I can’t thank the owner enough for doing such a cool thing.
Near the beginning of March Johnny Utah’s menu and renovations will be complete. I HIGHLY recommend stopping by. Say hi for me and ride the bull. I dare ya.
Johnny Utah’s
25 West 51st Street
New York, NY 10019
Prices: Rattlesnake Nachos $14, Monster Burger $11, Hushpuppies $9
Hours: Mon-Fri 11am-1am, Sat 4pm-2am
Access: B,D,F,V Trains To Rockefeller Center; E,V Trains To 53rd Street; N,R,W Trains To 49th Street
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]]>Florencia 13. Interesting choice of a restaurant name. Florencia 13 also happens to be the name of one of the largest Hispanic gangs in Los Angeles County. This gang got it’s name from Florence Avenue in LA and the ‘13′ came from it’s tight affiliation with the world famous MS-13 gang. If you don’t know about them, read up. They are some crazy dudes. So I suppose if this restaurant, Florencia 13, wants to have the same name as a really tough gang, let’s do the review like the tough gang of its namesake.
Yo, dis place be havin great nachos, right? They call it da Nacho Treche and be havin beans, cheeses, guacamole, pico de gallo, jalepenos, olives, and homemade green chile n stuff.
Me n my crew loved dis plate. Dat green chile was mad hot and mixed in wit everythin else so well. It was bangin. Lots and lots of toppings yo. Spicy too, word.
At F-13 (dats what I callz it) what do ya get? Well of course, da Florencia 13 Burrito son!
It’s be havin homemade green chile, beans, and a slow simmered beef. And yo, check it, it uhh…….*cough* cough*. Sorry, i feel dumber just trying to type that way. We’re back to normal now. Florencia 13 offers what is known as “Wet”. And getting this “Wet” means oven baking and topping with homemade sauce and melted cheese. You’d be crazy not to add something as awesome as that. Big fat burrito with lots of meat. Tons of gooey cheese and delicious spicy sauce combos for a great burrito.
The tacos are small, but overflowing with toppings.
Granted the tomato, cilantro, and onion was great, but the authentic corn tortilla and delicious meats brought this all together. Fresh and crispy were the two words constantly running through my head in each bite.
Florencia 13 is a teeny tiny place. It fills up really quick. I can’t even begin to imagine trying to go to this place on a Friday or Saturday night. Try going on a weekday, you’ll enjoy.
Don’t forget to add me on twitter @HurleyGraham. See where we’ll be dining next and up to the second thoughts on the food.
Florencia 13
185 Sullivan Street
New York, NY 10012
Prices: Nacho Trece $12, Florencia 13 Burrito $13, Suavecito Tacos $13
Hours: Mon-Thu 4pm-3am, Fri 4pm-4am, Sat 10am-4am, Sun 10am-3am
Access: A,B,C,D,E,F,V Trains To West 4th; 1 Train To Houston; 6 Train To Bleecker; B,D,F,V Trains To Broadway/Lafayette; R,W Trains To Prince Street
Sphere: Related Content]]>When I was a little kid, I loved things like apples, American cheese, milk, playing with dirt, and eating boogers. I also despised stuff such as onions, peppers, reading, chick flicks, and rice pudding. My how times have changed. I now can’t stand fruit, American cheese, milk, getting dirty, and well, I certainly don’t eat boogers anymore. Yet, on the other foot, I love onions and peppers to death, I’m a big book worm, and chick flicks are still terrible. That leaves us with rice pudding.
Rice To Riches’ menu consists entirely of ride pudding.
This is the true test. And to tell you the truth, I actually haven’t even eaten rice pudding in eons. I was heavily persuaded to go and decided to keep an open mind. The place itself was very welcoming. A “futuristic decor” along with funny jargons and jokes plastered to the walls, windows, and doors, was very fun.
The rice pudding has silly names such as Sex Drugs and Rocky Road, Take Me To Tiramisu, Fluent In French Toast, and a slew of others.
Not knowing what the hell some of these flavors are, you are allowed to sample many different puddings before you make your final pick.
My choice: Chocolate Chip Flirt which is basically chocolate chip rice pudding.
And can honestly say, I can scratch it off the list of things I don’t like. I’m a changed man and now very much like rice pudding now. Soo much lighter than true pudding with a twinge of a chunkiness. The chocolate was top notch. Thanks Rice To Riches for changing me into a rice pudding liker.
For one dollar more you can add a topping.
Once again, the choices have creative names such as Remedy (caramel vanilla sauce), Flourish (toasted buttery pound cake), Heart Throb (tender loving jelly), and others. To top my Chocolate Chip Flirt I chose Mischief (buttery graham cracker blanket). It indeed was buttery. It was indeed graham cracker perfection. A perfect blend to the rice pudding.
The rice pudding is served in different sized dishes from Solo (serves one) all the way to Moby (serves 10). The moby is seriously the size of a bucket. I could fit my head in this thing. That’s a lot of rice pudding! The dishes are so rad looking, one would be crazy not to wash this sucker out and use it at home to keep (I did).
I never thought I’d like rice pudding, but Rice To Riches made a believer out of me. So good.
Don’t forget to follow me on twitter @HurleyGraham
Rice To Riches
37 Spring Street
New York, NY 10012
Prices: Solo $6, Epic $7.75, Moby $40, Toppings $1
Hours: Sun-Wed 11am-11pm, Thu-Sat 11am-12am
Access: 6 Train To Spring Street; R,W To Prince Street; B,D,F,V Trains To Broadway/Lafayette; J,M Trains To Bowery
Sphere: Related Content]]>God I hope the Jets lose. This is the team that just won’t seem to go away. The scab on your knee that never seems to heal.
They’re that tricky booger stuck so far up your nostril, you’ll need your pinky and a long finger nail to get it out. They’ve made it all the way to the AFC Championship game and because I live in New York, my eyes and ears are flooded with both Jets fans and bandwagon Jets fan (that’s most of you) touting their team to the fullest. It’s funny, before this season I never heard a peep from these guys. Needless to say, this weekend will be the first time in my life I’ll be rooting for Peyton Manning. I feel ill.
I made sure to go to the Waterfront Ale House on a non-football day to avoid all that pain.
As a matter of fact, it was a complete 180 with good food and a nice atmosphere. The WAH, as I’ll call it, describes itself as being a neighborhood bar and boasts of having one of the most amazing beer selections one can find. I don’t drink, but I suppose this is good to know to spread the word.
They have nachos on the menu? Well, guess we’re having nachos aren’t we? The item here is called the Super Nachos Platter and consists of warm tortilla chips piled with chili, onions, jalapenos, olives, tomatoes, cheese, and sour cream.
For a few bucks more you can also add venison chili, but we did not. I was very impressed with this plate. The chili had a smoky flavor and was quite meaty. It made for the scoop of each each nice and plentiful. So plentiful in fact that after all the nacho chips are gone, so much topping still remains on the plate.
WAH is highly touted in their sandwiches and bbq dishes. We had the pleasure of trying the Tuscan Chicken Club which was grilled chicken breast, fresh mozzarella, field greens and tomato on warm focaccia bread.
Such a simple sandwich with easy ingredients made perfectly well. Crispy, flaky bread and a juicy cut of fowl chomping down with soft cheese, yes each bite was wonderful.
On presentation alone, I’d give WAH a very high grade. Just look at the picture for the Hickory Smoked Turkey!
Splendidly arranged open-faced sandwich triangles plated with symmetrical side dishes complementing. Then there’s the ingredients: hickory smoke turkey served on open face farm house cheddar on 7 grain bread and jalapeno jelly. You’d think jalapeno jelly would spicen up the sandwich big time. Nope, rather it comes 0ut very sweet adding an interesting element to the fantastic pick of farm house cheddar.
You know that Southwestern Chicken Quesadilla looked pretty awesome on that menu. It was hard to say no to that one. Maybe another time for that any a chance to try other dishes as well. Booo Jets!
Waterfront Ale House
540 2nd Avenue
New York, NY 10016
Prices: Super Nacho Platter $10.95, Tuscan Chicken Club $9.95, Venison & Black Bean Chili $12.95
Hours: Mon-Thu 11:30am-11pm, Fri 11:30-12am, Sat 12pm-12am, Sun 12pm-11pm
Access: 6 Train to 28th Street or 6 Train To 33rd Street
Sphere: Related Content]]>It’s January 13th and a heated battle of peacocks is in full gear. No, not literal peacocks. Of course I’m referring to Jay Leno vs Conan O’Brien. I for one am outraged at how NBC is treating Conan in this matter.
The man is 1000 times funnier than Leno and is being shoved aside for the guy and his sad little 10pm ratings. Triumphantly Conan is standing up the broadcasting giant by threatening to leave. His threat has more merit than simply because after all the years he’s given, he finally makes it to the big dance, only to be shoved aside by the aging car tycoon. No, much of Conan’s argument is for the other guys: Jimmy Fallon and Carson Daly. He worries what will become of them. Fallon will be cast into the deep a.m. and Daly, well, who knows what will happen to him, and that’s what Conan cares about. Leno’s whining better not help him get his way. Should it happen, I hope everyone boycotts and his little show gets horrible ratings. Vicious? Maybe, but come on, who really laughs at Leno anyway?
Oh yeah, this is a restaurant review isn’t it? This one is for Phebe’s Tavern And Grill.
You know what I really really love about this place? It’s walking distance from my work. All kidding aside, I did enjoy this place.
As my quest for the best nachos in New York is still on, I absolutely had to try them here. The plate is called Fiesta Nachos is topped with a blend of cheddar and jack cheese and served with salsa, sour cream, and guacamole.
All ingredients are basic staples of a quality nacho plate. Every chip was crisp all the way to the bottom of the pile. The chips had a fresh-baked smoky taste to them, which I love. All in all a great plate of nachos.
Phebe’s offers a Bison Burger (made with low fat bison meat and served on an English muffin with lettuce and tomato). *Add on was cheddar cheese.
As a big fan of bison and/or buffalo, it’s hard to screw this one up. I’m a big beef lover, but what makes bison stand out over beef is it’s lighter and sweeter flavor. This burger lived up to my bison standards and did well. Decent juiciness and taste along with a good side of tater tots. Thumbs up to any restaurant that offers tater tots.
The Classic Burger with add ons of grilled onions and swiss cheese was decent as well, but nothing to write home about.
Yes the entrees were pretty good, but it seems that Phebe’s forte is with its appetizers. The Fiesta Nachos were slamming and many of the other starters looked great such as the Sliders, Chicken Quesadilla, Twin Chili Dogs, Chicken Tenders and a bunch more. This is def the place to snack out with a bunch of friends.
Remember to follow my on twitter at www.twitter.com/HurleyGraham
Phebe’s Tavern & Grill
359 Bowery
New York, NY 10003
Prices: Fiesta Nachos $9.95, Bison Burger $8.95, Classic Burger $10.95
Hours: Daily 11am-4am
Access: B,D,F,V Trains To Broadway/Lafayette; 6 Trains to Astor Place or Bleecker Street
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