WING BAR Jam

We snapped a picture of this place a week or two back when we heard it was opening in the old Paninoteca 275 space on Smith st:


Yesterday, after finding out it had opened last Tuesday, we made it over to close out a long day (that also involved the amazing Roberta's Pizza in Bushwick)

Frequent Jammer B was along for the trip and being an expert on these sort of matter I will let him do the jamming:
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The Wingbar

I've eaten more chicken wings than you. Way more. I'm a bit of a wing snob. This new spot on Smith St makes them well:


Not only that, but you can get pitchers of beer for $7.50:



I could probably ramble on about ambiance and the other menu items (one of our party had a BBQ tofu sub:



and I, in fact, enjoyed a gin lemonade) but honestly, the place is called wingbar. Good wings, cheap beer. Perfect.

Chapel Hill Mega Jam

Went down to NC for XXMerge last weekend and did some serious power jamming.
also forgot to take WAY to many pictures due to the relatively high temperature and need for power resting.

undocumented Highlights:
Exit 213 off of I85 in NC. COMBINATION BOJANGLES AND CHIK-FIL-A!!!
this is not totally true, but the exit does feature both restaurants in very close proximity so you can mix and match a meal. we got 5 chicken sandwiches from the CFA, and then went next store for some sides and beverages... Large Sweet Teas and PICNIC SIZE DIRTY RICE. so jammed.

Lantern restaurant in Chapel Hill - Gourmet goodness. Pickled plate rocked the mind.
Carrburitos - highly jammable
sunshine biscuits with chicken and neil's deli biscuits with pastrami(!?!?!) totally insane.

Wildest Biscuit experience goes to TIME OUT in chapel hill:


all told us to rock the chicken and biscuit w/ cheese. This means they take a full fried chicken breast, menacingly chop it off the bone in one shot, and put it on a biscuit. It is stupid and wonderful. The also offer a menu item called "bucket of bones" which answers the question of what happens to the rest of the chicken breast they just chopped up for your sandwich. also everyone there is drunk. also it was 3 am. but still we are talking intense blackout drunk in a fried chicken place that has TWO security guards on staff. impressive.

more fried chicken was consumed on something called the Picnic Plate at Carrborro's Crooks Corner.
impressive in scale alone, it was 3 pieces of chicken, 2 deviled eggs, a platter of egg/potato salad, loose tomatoes and Pepperoncinis, and a QUARTER of a watermelon. and i think a side salad. it was intense.
we jammed it:



and in the most jammable desserts ever category, special awards go to the astounding LOCOPOPS chain of North Carolina. I don't really even understand this place, but they just sell ice pops and they totally rule and they are crazy flavors like lime cherry and chocolate pretzel and lavender pancake and boysenberry unicorn and popcorn lithium rickey and laser fudge ripple and dr. house guest starring on CSI.

here are lots of them:


here is one of them:


thanks NC.
sorry we jammed you so hard.

juice'd

red hook ballfields agua fesca carts.
watermeon, mango, lime, cantaloupe (i have no idea what the 4th flavor was)



1 large agua fresca, ice, 4-6 shots vodka = 6 cocktails.

Return Taco Place Jam: B's Revenge

Sticking by his pledge to eat the entire menu, avid JIDYT reader returned to Yesterday's taco joint once more for further investigation.

B recounts:

Tonight I ordered the Steak Torta (Romaine, Pickled Onion, black bean
salsa on talera bread) as well as chips & guac & salsa.



The steak was much better than the steak in the tacos. It was cooked medium rare
and was much juicier which is impressive considering it appeared to be
just a thin skirt steak. My guess is this is due to the fact that the
steak destined for the tacos appeared pre-diced and therefore probably
simply dried out which seems like something that corrects itself with
increased business. The bread was good, though it could have been
toasted a bit more. The chips were a bit disappointing as they were
just generic tortilla chips whereas a lot of the mexican joints in the
neighborhood have fresh - or at least more authentic seeming -
chips...but then again, tostidos also kick ass. The guac and salsa
were both good. The meal, while good, didn't blow me away, BUT...I
heard the words 'soft opening' as I waited for my order, so I imagine
the few small negatives will probably be corrected.




Final verdict...I foresee myself eating this sandwich a number of
times in the future but ultimately I think this is going to be a taco
joint for me (until I try the other tortas which also sound good).
Considering I'm working from home tomorrow, and home is now
essentially Oaxaca, I'll probably test that theory out during lunch
tomorrow when I eat more tacos.

Tacos.

Whoa!! New TACO Place! Jam

You're walking down Smith St. and all of a sudden there is a taco place where there used to be half a trinket store? WHAT? who is this lucky?

"yo dude. I am your friend calling you because a new taco place opened.
No, i have no idea. It Just appeared, sick right?"

I am this lucky and am accompanied by B who lives above said taco place and saw it last night and got confused because he didn't think he was on his own block, but he was. WHOA. Dude, there is now a taco place right on your block. let's get tacos.

the kitchen - still doing work. place opened on sat. going to be a griddle where that oven is now (good idea)

Place is called OAXACA. Owner was in there serving the food and making sure all were happy. nice guy, seemed interested in everyone's opinon. gave us a free shot of Horchata after the meal which was delicious, and only seemed mildly suspicious of me photographing my meal.

went with the 3 taco rice and beans deal:
.
steak:

pork:

and chicken:


corn tortillas that will get better when they cook them on a grill top. Steak was big chunks, chicken shredded was my least favorite of the 3 and the pork was probably the best - shredded, pretty juicy and with a nice spicy kick from the sauce.

B, in a move that totally does not benefit this post, got the exact same thing.
they have Jarritos too, that soda pretty much rules, and I got the grapefruit flavor which also tastes like that awesome soda Ting. Ting is a seriously good soda.


Bite me Menupages:



verdict: jammed.
will jam again. tortas are intriguing. these guys are just getting started.

she's my berry pie

kz rocked two insane strawberry pies with toasted almonds and cream cheese/almond extract/vanilla filling for a family birthday party. bonkers delicious.



Family jammed.

sorry, forgot about this. i'm back now and more interesting maybe.

Sunset from the front door of B61, Brooklyn, NY 6.26.09

NC's Roll-n-Roaster Beef Jam

(First time contributer NC checks in from the outer reaches of Brooklyn)

Roll-n-Roaster is a fast food roast beef restaurant in “the butt-end of Brooklyn.” As you might expect, the butt is full of Russians, Italians, and the formidable Italian-Russian mafia. It sits on Emmons Avenue across from Sheepshead Bay. There are boats that people party on. There is a Yacht Club, strange Russian-Turkish-Italian-Polish dance clubs and bars with unpronounceable names, seafood restaurants that look delicious, and hoodlums with crooked heads standing on the corner who talk shit to you when you walk past.

It also features a damn good roast beast sandwich.

Arby’s, Rax, Hardee’s, Carl’s Jr. and Lion’s Choice are the major players in the Country-Wide Fast-Food Roast Beef Wars. Arby’s has Beef n’ Cheddars, Horsey sauce, and 5 Regulars for $5.55. Lion’s Choice has au jus pumps near the ketchup and napkins but only about 3 known locations. Hardee’s has The Giant. Rax has…um, anyone?



Unlike the thin processed meat feel of Arby’s or Hardee’s, R-n-R goes for the thicker cut and the real feel. I started with a plain sandwich. It is rare to medium rare and seeping blood. I wouldn’t say that it is piled high, but the beef-to-bun ratio is satisfying without being gross like a Katz’s sandwich. The Kaiser bun is crispy enough on the outside to hold together even though its innards are soaked. Every bun is once dipped in their gravy and you can get a double dip for free. Plus, the bun has sesame seeds, which I have a preference for.

While R-n-R does not have cheddar, they do have “cheez” which outperforms cheese by every known statistical measure and can be “added to anything you pleez.” For my encore, I added the cheez to the beef sandwich:




And that, when eaten with our sides of corn fritters, cheez fries, onion rings, was, no surprises, the jam. The corn fritters were especially good, and were washed down with fresh-made sweet iced tea.

(Jammed)

Roll-n-Roaster builds upon early innovations and then goes ahead and brings them to a ringing crescendo knocking the huge neon hat off of Arby’s head and the worldwide leader off his lofty pedestal. Something to think about as we eagerly anticipate The Invasion. Which naturally leads us left to contemplate why R-n-R did not work in Manhattan.?

Who knows, maybe the Arby’s-Rax-Hardee’s-LC mafia is stronger than we all thought.

13th Floor 48 Egg Gumbo Jam

This pot is gigantic. look at the corona package in the background. and the blender lookin thing. those are full size. which means this pot is MEGA size. EXXXXTREME GUMBO JAM!


a dude from southern Louisana made it from his mother's recipe. supposedly it serves 800 people or something like that*
i have no idea how it was actually made, but i gleaned the following info, which is actually NOT made up:
48 eggs, 48 pieces of crab, 48 of some other stuff (oysters?) tons of crab meat, many lbs. of shrimp. it was delicious.

it looked like this, which gets points for presentation:


*no one said anything about it feeding that many people.

TRIPLE B's RI Clam Jam

jam it road report:


friday night on our road gig, my band went to iggy's doughboy and chowder house, supposedly the second best chowder house in RI. we talked to locals. they all sounded like peter griffin. they seemed more interested in our gig than the food, but they were lining up for takeout. most popular item was the 3 clam cakes and bowl of chowder combo. vinny the drummer had this meal, and a clamcake is visible in the center background of the pic. too doughey, not enough clam for our tastes. i had the clam and scallops dinner, which consisted of fried bay scallops, fried whole clam bellies (or strips for a buck less, but i chose bellies), french fries, and chowder. i also had one of their house-branded root beers. it was all pretty awesome. the fried clams were maybe the best i've had, ever. they were big and breaded and juicy and perfect with just some lemon juice. the chowder (red and white available, we all went white) was good but the clam/potato ratio was leaning a little too potato. somehow, i skipped the other specialty of the house, the doughboys. they looked like funnel cake blobs and i didn't want to fill up before our gig. we all agreed that we'll be back the next time we rock rhode island. special thanks to the guidebook at the holiday inn express in warwick (pronounced "werick") RI for the tip.