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.

The Mighty Meatloaf

What is it about meatloaf, that when you make and eat it, everything seems a little more just place?  I have to say Meatloaf with mashed potatoes and some type of veggie, normally lima beans, is the quintessential comfort food.  The king of comfort food, in my opinion. 
I was turned onto this, what seemed like simple peasant food, at a very young age.  Who else, but my mother, like so many others around the word makes "THE BEST" meatloaf.  I can hear everyone out there right now, "No way, I guarantee, MY moms is better".  It’s almost comical, there should be a meatloaf cook off somewhere, if there already isn't.  I have yet to replicate her take on the dish, even with the exact recipe at my fingertips.  I guess it's the "love" that goes into it or maybe it's the different oven, whichever works for you.  However, I have stumbled across many different variations of what my mother cooked, by messing her recipe up, or just by playing around with it.  Changing simple things can make a totally different meat loaf, instead of what I call a traditional meat loaf, I have made it with mozzarella cheese, oregano and basil, for an Italian flare.  I have added manchego along with chile powder and smoked Spanish paprika for a, well, it’s a really big molded taco style meat loaf.  Anyway you have it, whether is smothered in brown gravy, dripping with tomato sauce or dipped in ketchup, they are all good.  The ends being the best part of course, crispy almost burnt ends, mmmm, my mouth is watering just thinking about it.  I can’t say enough about my favorite dinner of all time, but please feel free to share your favorite meatloaf recipe, I am always on the lookout for a new better Mightier Meat Loaf.  I will even dig up my mom's recipe and post it here in the future.  But I doubt anyone needs a meat loaf recipe.

The Old Homestead - New York, NY - Review

I will try to keep this as short as possible, but there it a lot to get out when it comes to reviewing this steakhouse.  We went for a night out on the town, limo, and reservations the whole shebang.  We entered the Old Homestead and were seated promptly at 8:00.  We are greeted by our waiter and a round of drinks are ordered, Johnny Blue, Patron Silver and a French Martini - Not long after we would tear through 2 bottles of Toscana wine (cant remember the name, but it was damn good) a cognac and a port.  The "main waiter" was not to my liking, he screws up as you will read, and the other attendants were excellent though.

We start off with some apps and oysters, now the oysters were very very good, we chose Malpeque, Royal Myagi and Emerald Cove, leaving out the ever boring blue point.  Now I know there is no preparation in oysters that reflect the chef or anyone in the kitchen other than the guys shucking them and not getting any shell in the oyster itself, but I must say, the Emerald Cove Oyster is probably one of the tastiest oysters around...anyway, back to the food they make.

Bang Bang Shrimp, nicely done EXTRA LARGE JUMBO deep fried with a spicy sauce drizzled on top.  Crab Cakes, these were tasty, more crab than cake and not over seasoned, the crab really took center stage, I have a nice sear on it which leads me to believe its pan fried not deep fried.  Beet Salad, apparently good, as far as beet salads go, I don’t know I didn’t have any.  The Caesar salad was simply O.K  I always get a Caesar when I go out, and I knda judge or gauge, if you will, the experience off the salad, why?  Well, I guess when you get it right the salad is delightful and chances are the rest of the meal will be as well, but when you get it wrong, man oh man.  This one - sorry to say, they got it wrong, WAY too much dressing, the romaine was drenched, it was very heavy, but kind bland, tough when you have ingredients like, anchovies and parmegiano reggiano in the bowl.

The steaks, ah the steaks, here’s where I get  a little annoyed at this high caliber steakhouse, my wife and I had the 22 oz. Gotham Rib Steak on the bone, my favorite cut.  I order mine Pittsburgh Style, (charred outside rare inside, sorta like a black and blue but cooked a tad more), the waiters asks "How would you like the inside?"  Hmm, what did you just ask?  I have been to many steakhouses and never asked this question, Pittsburgh is Pittsburgh correct me if I am wrong please.  My wife orders her medium.  The come out, mine is cooked but not "charred on the outside" my wife's is flat out rare, not medium rare and certainly not medium.   Obviously something went awry.  The other two steaks were a New York strip and a T-bone, the strip was cooked rare and asked for medium and the T-bone was cooked the specified rare.  Two strikes on the steaks, they had to be sent back.  Once corrected they were very good, not the best I have had but very good.

We had mushrooms - tasty typical, creamed spinach-good as far as creamed spinach goes, onion rings-had some cayenne in the batter not a kick I was looking for, truffle mac and cheese-tasty but no truffles, obviously just mac and cheese with truffle oil,  garlic mashed-tasty and just the right amount of garlic.

Deserts - crème brule - wife said it was good, cheesecake-very good, it was heavier than the average, but I really liked it, chocolate cake-very good as well, big chocolate goodness.

$1080.00 with tip, I know that sounds crazy and it is but this was a spare no expense meal as payment for some lawyering done on my behalf.  It was slightly pricier than you average steak house in Jersey, but not more than I expected from the city.  I think most would probably be at least half of that for a party of 4.  Give it a shot, I would go back, but would probably try another steakhouse in the city first.

Website to tempt you

http://www.theoldhomesteadsteakhouse.com/

Oceano's Fair Lawn, NJ - Review

I have been coming here since it opened many years ago and have always loved the food.  We decided to have a 40th birthday party here for a group of 12 so we made the reservations for 7:00 and received a confirmation call the day of and off we went.  The service was good as I would have expected, but I was a little disappointed when we were sat in the main dining area as opposed the small out-cove to the back, which I asked for.  Everyone had a great time, lots of food and drink going around with a bill of $1090.00 with tip I was not shocked at all.

Everyone seemed to enjoy the food which ranged from salads and calamari for apps and scallops to crab claws for dinner.  I can only truly comment on what my wife and I had.

Apps we had the sampler, grilled octopus and a Caesar salad. The sampler was good, a nice light hummus, a hearty cheese spread, eggplant spread and a feta with roasted peppers.  The octopus was good, but prepared differently from the way I remember it not a few months ago and same goes for the Caesar, a little too much dressing and it didn’t have the usual "bite" I am used to.  My wife had the lavraki whole fish filleted and de-boned, but this time it had a lemon butter sauce drizzled on it as opposed to the usual olive oil.  I had the grilled lobster for the first time and it was cooked very well, soft delicate texture, not rubbery at all.  My only complaint is that I didn’t get it steamed, since I like the sweet meat from the smaller legs, having been grille they were mostly dried out. 

All in all yet another delightful experience at Oceano's, there were a couple hiccups with missing drinks, missing deserts and an extra app but I tend to give a little leniency to large parties.  I also can’t help feel that maybe there was a chef change here in accordance to some of the dishes we had and I also noticed a "slower" than usual business than in the past, but maybe it was due to school being out in the area and people skipped town for a vacation.   I would definitely recommend Oceano's for a nice night out.