‘Wings’
Pennsylvania has some crazy alcohol laws. One of these is that places that sell six packs of beer also have to sell immediately consumable food. You know, like a restaurant. Clever, enterprising humans in Pittsburgh have realized that the easiest and cheapest way to do this is through selling hot dogs, so Pittsburgh is full of crappy little hot dog spots with overpriced beer. Despite the name, D’s Six Pax & Dogz is not one of these places.
In Pittsburgh, there is a big time restaurant group called Big Burrito. One of their spots is Kaya, which I reviewed recently, and another is Mad Mex in Shadyside, which I had high expectations for based on the name of the restaurant group. A look at the menu made it apparent that this wasn’t your traditional Mexican meal, but I hoped the creativity would shine like it did in LA at places like Tinga.
While Walnut Street in Shadyside is the typical haunt of my fellow students, Highland is another street in Shadyside that has a lot to offer. One of those offerings is Buffalo Blues, a sports bar with a fair amount of food options that you might expect at such a place. Wings dominate the menu, but there are also burgers, sandwiches and a few other things for those not so inclined towards the wings.
There is a certain awesome feeling that comes with flying thousands of miles and arriving in a place with the food comforts of home. Such is The Waterfront of Cape Town. The place has just about every type of food imaginable, and on our first day we made our way to Ferrymans for a drink and a bite.
You know that feeling when a musician you “discovered” finally gets some radio playing time? In the food world, the equivalent is finding out that one of your favorite restaurants was featured on an awesome Travel Channel or Food Network show. I’d like to say this has happened to me before, but certainly it happened to my brother-in-law in New York. While I was visiting in Brooklyn, he took me to his favorite local BBQ place, which had just been featured on Drivers, Drive-Ins and Dives. It’s called The Smoke Joint, and as soon as I entered I felt at home.
The Corner Door is the most recent snazzy new restaurant to help make a once-strange corridor of Culver City one of LA’s best food hotspots. But with the likes of A-Frame, the Alibi Room and Waterloo & City, the competition is undoubtedly intense. To find out if The Corner Door could stand up to its competition, I had to check it out for myself and see if it could handle the unvegan.
The first thing I noticed was that the place was packed. But not packed with diners, rather it was full of people hanging out for an after work drink. I was a bit surprised, but despite all these people we were seated immediately. I also noticed that the acoustics weren’t especially good. As our awesome waiter told us, the space had previously been a law office, so the walls weren’t really made for drunken yuppies.
Just about every restaurant claims to be the best at something, but they typically have to have a track record before making such claims. That’s why I was pretty surprised when I drove by Venice and saw a brand new sign claiming the “Best Wings in Town” and an equally new, but slightly smaller sign that said Wings World. I decided the place was worth a try, if only laugh at the outrageous claims of a new restaurant.
It’s hard to believe that in the year-plus of writing for my meat blog, I have managed to not step foot in Hooters. Yet, somehow, I have avoided that magical land of orange booty shorts and ummm owls. But fear not, because after a little birthday reminder attached to a free entree coupon, I went back to visit my old friend. I took with me one of my only friends who actually appreciates Hooters for what it has to offer.
When we walked into the Santa Monica location, we were greeted by friendly faces. Now to be honest, I didn’t actually find the women working there that impressive. They were definitely friendly and cute, but there are just so many beautiful women in LA that these just didn’t impress too much. This only helped me concentrate on the food to make sure my review was unbiased.
To expand my ever-growing knowledge of what kind of food the valley has to offer, I set off for Big Wangs one night after work. For a long time I thought that the place was actually called Big Wings, since everyone seemed to talk about their wings. Then when I was corrected, I assumed the place was called Big Wang’s, presumably under the assumption that it was owned by a large or tall Chinese man named Wang. Again, I was wrong and learned that it was actually called Big Wangs. No possession here, just plural, so I was a bit apprehensive before entering what I now expected to be a large sausage fest. Well, luckily it wasn’t one of those. Instead it was a semi-divey bar and restaurant that still managed to specialize in wings, which I’m sure continues to promote the general misunderstanding of the name of the place.
Some bars are known for their food, some bars don’t have any food (losers) and some bars happen to have food, but aren’t exactly known for it. Capitol City, a semi-new sports bar in Hollywood is one of the latter. Nonetheless, there was a football game to be watched and it happened to fall during happy hour, so Capitol City became my dinner and drinks destination for the night.
First off, their happy hour is pretty badass by the looks. It includes some pretty decent beers, including Blue Moon for four bucks, which is as good as you’re gonna get in Hollywood. Drinks aside, they have some great-looking $5 appetizers, so after downing a couple Blue Moons, I decided to order their wings.