Cubby's - Hackensack, NJ - Review

Like many others in the area, I was and still am looking for a decent BBQ joint.  This place did not fit the bill, at least not for me.  I was very hopeful after reading some yelperviews and the place was packed when we got there.  I soon found out the wait of 20 minutes was more to the fact that there are not many tables, none the less, people were coming and going, picking up and ordering out, so I thought, maybe we have a winner.
The menu was vast, but in my eyes missing a bunch of BBQ, from which you would expect to be at a BBQ joint.  Now I am not a BBQ expert, aficionado or anything like that but, NO cornbread and NO sausages?  Correct me if I am wrong but having been down south they kind of seem like staples to me.   Anyhow, we are called and go straight to the counter to order shortly after, I mean like almost fast food timing, we are called for our food.
1/2 rack with mashed potatoes.  My wife gobbled down the 1/2 rack and I could see they were tender since they fell off the bone.  I think I saw a nice smoke ring on them, but don't quote me.  The mashed were bland and pasty...I think someone forgot to add butter, cream and salt.  They were simply O.K after I seasoned them with the salt and pepper at the table.
Rib-eye Steak Sandwich with onions, mushrooms and cheese, along with a side of onion rings and mac & cheese.  The rib-eye along was cooked well and very tender, but it was about 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick slapped on garlic bread.  I really thought it would have been thin sliced, since there is a decent amount of chunky fat in the rib-eye (which is why it's so tender and flavorful).  However, you don't want to bite into a large chunk of gristle on a sandwich, it doesn't sit well.  I pulled it off the bread and ate it separately with the mush and onion since the garlic bread did nothing to enhance the sandwich.  By the way, the bread was nearly twice the size of the steak.  The onion rings were actually pretty good, they could have been sprinkled with salt at the end, but they were crunch and cooked to a nice golden brown.  The mace & cheese, jeesh, can't anyone get this right.  The only part worth eating was the layer just under the cheddar cheese melted on top.  Again, everything else was bland. "0" flavor.  I think they ran out of salt in this place.
All in all.......I would not go back, especially for the $54.00 dollar bill I got for what I can only construe as your average  BBQ
Many will probably disagree with my review, but I write what I eat and I wouldn't eat there again. The two stars are simply there since my onion rings were good and my wife said the ribs were good as well.

Goldent Dynasty - Franklin Lakes, NJ - Review

This is a sit down Chinese restaurant not a takeout joint and they also have a sushi bar and some run of the mill Japanese dishes.  We went here for a birthday and I, never having been there was looking forward to it, since many have said how good it was.  The party was of 9 people so I won’t into detail of everything that was ordered.  I will instead just list what I tasted or had and make comments....this one really doesn’t require me spending a lot of time.

Edemame - overcooked, mushy and needed salt

Shumai - well done with a nice flavor to them, the accompanying sauce was the same as everywhere else you would have shumai

Uni Sushi (Sea Urchin) - very good and very fresh

Rainbow Caviar Roll - tasty, light and fresh

Shrimp with broccoli - tasty but not exceptional as you would expect it to be better than takeout

Shrimp with Cashew nuts - bland and not nearly as good as takeout.

Many other things were ordered and everyone else was pleased, so they said, with the meals they had, but nothing really jumped out and yelled "WOW!”  Unfortunately everything was as if you had takeout from the local joint, but you ate it in the restaurant.  I must say it is better than Tommy Chengs takeout but not by much.   The sushi everyone had at least was very fresh and of high quality, but the Chinese part of the restaurant was subpar for an eat in restaurant.

I don’t really know if I would recommend this place, other than the fact that the service and sushi were good and the ambience was nice.

For Chinese food, you’re better off going to the Bamboo house in Ridgewood for takeout.

Lu Nello - Cedar Grove, NJ - Review

Sorry, this has been my first post in a while...

How do I start off with this review........? (Scratches head)......I really wanted to like this place from the get go, with so many great reviews I figured "How could we miss?"  Well I guess the perfect, yet cliché, analogy would fit here "it was a roller coaster ride."  Let me explain......we (myself, my wife, friend and his wife) called at 12:00 noon for 8:00 reservations and got them.  However, when we got there, they didn't have them but said that a table would be available shortly...about 15 to 20 min....ok, we could handle that, the roller coaster begins its decent.  45 min later we get seated with the house buying us a drink for the mishap,  coaster starts going back up.

On to dinner:

Apps- Caesar salad, spiedini, shrimp with spec and mushrooms and arugula salad.  All were on par, I had a taste of the spiedini which was done with the traditional anchovy sauce, very tasty.  I had the Caesar, tasty dressing but still disappointing. Although the dressing was homemade, there was way too much and it caused the lettuce to go limp, 0 crunch to the what is usually very hearty crunchy romaine lettuce and down we go.

Dinners - Veal with mushrooms

Veal with spinach an black truffle

Fettuccine with shrimp an mushroom art scallops

Lamb shank osso bucco

Again everyone said that their dinners were good, but not great,  some were lacking flavor, some components were cooked perfectly others were not.  I had the Lamb shank Osso bucco, which was cooked perfectly, they gave me a steak knife but never used it, good sign.  It was very tasty, but the sauce was salty, it was all I tasted in the sauce, which had a perfect consistency, the side of mashed was kind of bland and could have been a bigger portion, its mashed potatoes people not mashed gold.  With that said I believe we level off on the ride.

Deserts-Bread Pudding

Cookie monster

Sticky bun

I will tell you now the coaster goes back up, deserts were very good, delicious even.  Probably some of the best bread pudding I have had, since most mess it up royally, the sticky bun was light and the perfect balance of crunch from the nuts and sweetness from the honey, lastly, the cookie monster was good, but pales in comparison to the others,  not very cookieish, but more cakey, still nice flavors and ice cream to compliment.

Some other nice touches I forgot to mention, a cup of chicken broth to start before the bread came, unfortunately it tasted like Lipton’s cup of soup, we all thought that by the way.  After dinner a homemade ice cream cone was sent as well, which was a very nice finishing touch to the dinner, shows they really try to cater to the customer.

The final drop was when the bill came $270.00 with tip, $135.00 a couple, $67.50 per person was a little steep, especially with only 1 bought appletini.  Although anticipated, not worth it, in my eyes.

All in all the experience was, again a roller coaster ride, the place was very nicely decorated and chef seemed to be very adventurous, judging by the menu and long specials list, but fell short in some of the execution.  With that said, I do not think I would go back, I would recommend trying it and confirm your reservations as well.  This place is very "goomba", if you will, and it seems many are regulars, and if you’re not a regular, you may find yourself in my shoes.