Restaurant Review - Mara's Homemade, Syosset NY

A few weeks back, a buddy of mine texted me asking if I had been to Mara's Homemade yet. Not only had I never been there, but I had never even heard of it.  A former NYC hotspot that moved out to the Island, serving New Orleans-style grub and Arkansas Barbecue?  Sign me up!

We stopped by there two weekends ago for a drink at the bar and to have a couple of appetizers. We settled on a Bloody Maria made with jalepeno-infused tequila, something called a Crawfish Cheese Cake and some fried pickles.  The Crawfish Cheese Cake was like a souffle with cheese, crawfish tails and Andouille sausage.  Everything was delish!

Crawfish Cheesecake, fried pickles and a Bloody Maria

That experience was so satisfying, we knew we had to go back for a full meal.  Something we did this past weekend.  And it didn't disappoint. We started off with another Bloody Maria (it was sooooo good the first time around) and a Cajun martini made with tobasco and gin. Both were excellent. The spice on the rim of the Cajun martini, something I usually don't go for, was a nice addition.

Bloody Maria and Cajun Martini

For our round of appetizers, we settled on something called Crawfish Stuffed Bread, some fried green tomatoes and a 1/4 rack of their dry-rub ribs.  The Crawfish Bread was a hollowed out piece of crusty French Bread filled with a delicious mixture of cheese, crawfish tails and spices.  It was so good, I'm thinking it would've made a fine meal all in itself.  The fried green tomatoes were some of the very best I've ever had, and I'm obsessed with finding the best fried green tomatoes.  You didn't even need any of the Remoulade sauce they served with it. And we were dying to try the barbecue, so we had a little taste with the dry-rub smoked ribs, which were moist and excellent. Fell right off the bone. All the appetizers were outstanding!

Crawfish Stuffed Bread

Fried Green Tomatoes

Smoked dry-rub ribs...Arkansas-style!

For our entrees, Gia went with one of the specials...fried catfish served with a cheese sauce smothered in crawfish tails and shrimp and a side of collared greens.  I went with a serving of Crawfish Etoufee (actually a large side dish) with a side of Smoked Levi Beans.  Both were big hits with us. The cheese sauce on the catfish was actually much lighter than we expected but full of flavor, and the collared greens were cooked just right.  The Crawfish Etoufee was hot, spicy and wonderful, as were the smoked beans.

Fried catfish in a cheese sauce with crawfish and shrimp and collared greens

Crawfish Etoufee (foreground) and smoked Levi beans

We were pretty damn full at this point, but we had to try some dessert as well as some after-dinner drinks.  We went with the Chocolate Pecan Cake, a Bulleit bourbon on the rocks for Gia and a Sazarac made with absinthe and apricot-infused bourbon for me. Perfect ending for the meal.  I also accidentally ordered some beignets, but I was too full to eat them so we had them bagged to take home.  I didn't get a picture of them, but they were delicious!

Sazarac (foreground), Bulleit on the rocks, Chocolate Pecan Cake

All in all, it was a wonderful meal.  And the wait-staff and owners were all really nice people.  If there were any negatives it was that the food was so rich we didn't feel like eating for the rest of the weekend.  That and the menu has too many choices.  You find yourself wanted to order one of everything.  Then they add the specials on top of that and it's appetite overload. 

Next time we go, we are going to orders strictly from the Arkansas BBQ menu.  The link on their site calls it a cross between Texas and Memphis-style barbecue.  If the smoked ribs were any indication, then we can't go wrong.

If you are ever in Syosset, NY area you should check it out.  Highest possible recommendation!

Old is New

Don't ya just love it when a seemingly defunct or tired restaurant in your neighborhood gets a clean overhaul and actually IMPROVES on the previous establishment?  Me too.  That's what happened this past weekend at Old Fields in Greenlawn, NY.  Just minutes up the road from our home.

source: NY Times

The joint near the railroad tracks in Greenlawn used to be called the Old Fields Inn.  The new owners, local restauranteurs David and Christine Tunney, trimmed the name a bit and really cleaned up the place that has been a mainstay in our neighborhood for over 50 years.  And pretty much everybody used to say the same thing about the place.  Great marinated steak...and not much else.

Well, they've kept the great marinated steak and done an overhaul on the menu that is one of the finest pub-food restaurants I've seen in a long while. 

We started out at the bar for cocktails. Hendricks gin martinis straight up with 3 olives.  Gia's dry, mine not so much.  I like to taste a little vermouth in my martini.  They were both excellent.  I can't stress enough how important it is to have tasty olives (or onions or whatever) in the martini.  A bad batch of olives can ruin an otherwise hard to screw up cocktail.  I tend to judge a joint on how well they make a martini. Old Fields passed with flying colors.

Then we moved to a booth in the bar room near the fireplace.  Very rustic and cozy.  We each started out with a salad.  A cucumber and tomato salad made with fresh lemon and extra virgin olive oil for Gia, and a nice Caesar salad for me.  I tend to judge a joint on how well they make a Caesar salad.  Old Fields passed with flying colors.

For entrees, Gia went with the marinated strip steak served with creamed spinach and a twice-baked potato.  I went with one of the specials for the evening.  A Guinness stew with big chunks of pot roast and root vegetables, served with crusty bread.  It was really, really good.  I tend to judge...aw, you know the drill.

We topped it off with some strawberry shortcake for dessert.  I'm not a fan, but I tasted it and it was fresh as all hell.  Very nicely done.

One of the things I'm dying to try on the menu the next time I go back is a big burger served between two grilled cheese sandwiches.  Oh yeah!  That, my friends, is comfort food.

I guess my point is, sometimes you can be more than pleasantly surprised by trying a local joint that you had previously overlooked.  I doubt any of you will get to Greenlawn, NY anytime soon. But if you do, Old Fields is a great options for an excellent meal.

Restaurant Review: The Tattooed Moose, Charleston SC

I was down in Charleston again this past weekend.  And no trip to Charleston is complete, for me, without a visit to one of my favorite bar/restaurants, the Tattooed Moose.

Source

We usually go right from the airport directly to the Moose.  It's the first and last place that I want to eat when I arrive.  It's a roadhouse-style bar grub kinda joint.  But Oh-What-Grand-Grub it is!  And the service and staff are top-notch.  A bunch of pierced, friendly tattooed freakies.  My kinda folk.  The music is great too!  While we were sitting down for brunch on Sunday, we enjoyed a selection of great 60's Motown, funk and soul. But it ain't always like that.  Psycho-billy, punk, folk, country and whatever gets played here.  Plus, they often have live music at night on the weekends.

One of the things they are most known for is their Duck Club sandwich.  Duck confit, apple-smoked bacon, smoked cheddar, garlic aioli, lettuce, tomato, red onion on three pieces of sweet Hawaiian bread.  The menu states that it has been said to be the greatest sandwich of all time, and I'm not one to disagree.  We first heard about this joint on talk radio on XM, and we just knew we had to try it.  If you ever get down to Charleston, you have to try this sandwich.  It might change your life.

Oh, and duck is something that they take seriously at the Moose.  The make a hash with it for breakfast/brunch.  It's crazy good.  They even fry their french fries in duck fat.  Seriously! Sooo good.

This past Sunday, I had the Low-Country Cuban sandwich with a side of cilantro/lime cole slaw.  Just to try something different. Their Cuban had roast pork, ham, swiss, brown mustard and these awesome pickled green tomatoes on a pressed buttered roll.  A little twist from a traditional Cuban*, but a delicious twist.  The cilantro/lime slaw was just...sublime.  Just the right amount of red onion and vinaigrette.  Gia went with the smoked chicken salad BLT.  I had a bite, and I hate to admit this, but it's better than my own chicken salad.  Which is great! She also tried the gazpacho, which was really, really good.  Especially on a hot afternoon.

Choked it all down with some PBR pounders (for me), some spicy Bloody Marys (for her) and some Jim Beam on the rocks (me again!).  All in all, a perfect Sunday afternoon.  We weren't quite done yet.  We still had to hit downtown Charleston to visit the Bar at Husk, but that's a post for another day.

If you are ever in Charleston or surrounding areas, make the trip to the Tattooed Moose.  Especially if you like great sandwiches, great fries, great beer, cheap beer, good people, bourbon and fun.  It comes with the highest Earl Seal of Approval.


*By the way, the best Cuban sandwich in the world is at a takeout joint in a laundromat on White Street in Key West.  Seriously.  I don't know the name of the joint, but if you are ever down there have someone point your way toward it.  You won't be sorry.