California Food and Wine Blog

We ventured into Galway 10/15/2012 for a good ol’ Irish Breakfast. The Front Door is much bigger than it appears and we later realized it has a side and back door entrance as well.

Nathan ordered a Guiness and Shepard’s Pie (Beef and Guiness Stew for €10.95), and Jessica ordered an Irish Coffee and Seafood Chowder for €5.45.

The Irish coffee was amazing and came with a biscotti, and the chowder had great flavor with a hearty helping of fish. We also licked the bowl of Nathan’s Shephard’s Pie but not because we were still hungry.. for the first time about halfway through the meal Nathan was full!

Rating:

Flavor 5/5

Price 3.5/5

Service 4.5/5

Overall 4.5/5

After a long wet day exploring the exciting city of Dublin in the rain and navigating our way back to our Hotel Area via the local bus, we found one restaurant that was open and serving traditional pub food!

Slevin’s was serving beer and pub food, and we wanted both. Nathan ordered the 10 oz Prime Irish Sirloin for €18.98, and Jessica ordered a quiche from their daily specials board for €6.

The steak was a flat iron flank heavy on the salt with not much else. The quiche hoewever was fluffy and flavorful and came with a side salad. Jessica was nice and shared with Nathan 😉

Review

Flavor: J4, N2

Price: J4, N2

Service: 3

Overall: 3

We wandered the streets of New York and found a few recommended Mexican restaurants from Foursquare that were completely empty, so instead tried the happening Patron Mexican Grill.

We started off with a 12 oz Guava Margarita to share; it had good flavor but very little alcohol. The service was fast and we enjoyed chips and salsa while we waited for our food.

Nathan ordered the Carne Asada Tampiquena for $18 and Jessica ordered Grilled Chicken Tacos for $13. The entire menu was a bit pricey but the portions were decent.   The skirt steak was cooked great and tasted as good.  I rarely care for red enchilada sauce, but I really enjoyed the enchilada that accompanied the steak.  All around a good meal and quite the departure from Californian Mexican food. Jessica’s tacos were enjoyable but nothing out of the ordinary.

Rating

Flavor: 4/5

Price: 2.5/5

Service: 3/5

Overall: 3/5

On a Foursquare recommendation we tried Don Antonio which was awarded “Best Pizza”  by New York Times’ Best of New York.

Walking into the restaurant we immediately noticed the classy modern decor and the place was packed with customers. They may have still been overstaffed though because there were a few employees standing on the stairwell talking throughout our lunch. I wanted to tell them to clean something or take a break!

On a recommendation by the waitress (which was helpful since the menu was huge), I ordered the Montanara Starita for $12. This is their award winning specialty pizza with dough that is baked and lightly fried with tomato sauce and mozzarella cooked in a wood-burning oven. The crust was much lighter than I expected and had a very unique taste and fluff that was quite enjoyable. Their sauce was definitely on the sweeter side and was too much for Nathan, but overall I thought it was a tasty pizza.

Their Award winning pizza with crust that’s baked and fried

Nathan ordered the Bianca with Arugula Pizza for $14.  This wasn’t so much a pizza as it was an arugula salad.  To even taste the pizza I had to remove about 2/3 of the arugula.  The crust was doughy not cooked all the way through, and the sauce was nice but very thinly spread.  Cheese was a creamy mozzarella and it was cooked very well.  However they need to practice portion control and perfect all their pizza crusts, not just their specialty, in order to make a better pizza.

Basically a pizza with a salad on top.

The pizzas seemed a bit on the small and pricey side, and the cooking and flavor was inconsistent likely due to a menu that’s too large to ensure quality control. Their original pizza was worth trying, but I honestly don’t know if their restaurant as a whole deserves the ‘best of New York’ title.

Rating

Price:  2.5

Flavor:  3.5

Service:  3.5

Overall:  3