Bazil - Empire Boulevard Edition

Every Friday my wife and I go out to eat. For a long time, we had a rotation of restaurants that we would always hit up: Charlie's, Maria's, Dino BBQ, Tap & Mallet or The Gate House. Recently, though, we've made it a point to start expanding our horizons on our Friday Date Night.

This week, we went to Bazil (located on Empire Boulevard). 

Bazil styles itself as a place for casual Italian fare. In other words, it's going for the Olive Garden crowd. You know, people who confuse an overabundance of salt and cream with superb dining. (The same people who call Applebee's their "local" bar and grill.)

So going into Bazil, I was prepared for the worst. 

Our waitress gave us our menus and a few minutes to look them over. 

The menu was relatively simple. It was one page with all the meals on the front. It was divided into appetizers, salads, pasta and sea meat options. I really like when restaurants do this because, to me, it shows that they are allowed to concentrate on fewer dishes, thus making them better. Olive Garden, on the other hand, has a large menu and it scares me because what if I order the dish that no one else has ordered in a long time? How deep into the freezer/refrigerator must they wade to find my ingredients? Needless to say, I was pleasantly surprised. 

We ordered the Sicilian calamari appetizer (flash fried calamari with pepperoncini peppers and marinara sauce) and I ordered their vodka pasta (rigatoni with vodka sauce, shrooms and chicken). My wife created her own pasta dish (basically spaghetti and meatballs). 

In no time, the waitress brought our family-style bowl of salad. I silently dreaded the way this was going down. This is Olive Garden's schtick. While I was mixing the ingredients and dressing, we were presented with breadsticks. A little more dread creeped in. 

We munched our salads down and I can't say anything bad. It was salad with Italian dressing. It's hard to mess up. Could I quibble about how tangy the Italian dressing was? Sure. It wasn't that big a deal, though. 

Very shortly after we received our salad and breadsticks, our calamari appetizer arrived. This was, by far, the highlight of the meal. The calamari was delicious. I have no idea if it was authentic or Sicilian or whatever.. it was good, crispy and complemented well by the marinara sauce on the side. 

Our meals arrived and, by this time, we were both kind of full from the calamari appetizer. My pasta dish was good. And that's it, really. I liked their take on the vodka sauce. It was very creamy and not too salty. It complimented the chicken, mushrooms and pasta very nicely. 

All in all, our meal was very good. I didn't hate myself when I was done and my insides didn't feel like they were being cured from within by all the salt. In other words, it's kind of like this blog post. It did it's job but isn't going to win any awards. 

Would this be a place I went again? Maybe, but only if someone else insisted. I, personally, wouldn't go out of my way for a return visit. Don't get me wrong, the food was tasty and the service was adequate. If I'm ever in a dining party that suggests Olive Garden, I will push hard to get us to Bazil, instead. In the end, I think that would make Bazil's day. 

Tim Horton's (University Avenue Edition)

I got my bachelor's degree attending the University at Buffalo thus Tim Horton's was an option for breakfast, lunch and dinner that I often used. Buffalo is overrun with Tim Horton's like it's overrun with Mighty Taco, Jim's Steakout and horrible, crippling urban blight that no one really cares to do anything about. The food at Timmy Ho's was decent, the prices were fairly low and service was fast.

So when the Tim Horton's on University Ave. opened, I was hesitant. I didn't have fond memories of Buffalo and Timmy Ho's was a link to a place that I vocally disliked. Dunkin Donuts was fulfilling my breakfast needs just fine, thank you very much.

But then one day, on the way to work, I was like, "Bah!" and I stopped by to reminisce over the old days of eating so goddamn many of those breakfast sandwiches that I could pick out how long the egg patty sat in a chemical bath to kill all the nutrients and bacteria that might grow while it's sitting, unrefrigerated beneath a pile of dirty dishes.

First off, I was taken aback how friendly the staff was. They repeated my order and they got it right (the first time!)! The service was fast and the coffee was just as delicious as I had remembered.

Clearly, the staff must be comprised of Canadians from the Tim Horton's Mothership because they are just so nice and, seemingly, happy to have you come to their store to get a drink and a bite.

Fine, I thought. They bring in the heavy hitters at the opening so everything goes smoothly and they establish a good reputation. I can't wait until I pull up and hear something like, "Whaddyawant?" spoken in the most loathsome, please-don't-know-me tone the 18 year old who's doing this can muster up.

I'm still waiting for that day and it's been almost a year since I've started going to Timmy Ho's for my coffee in the morning. In fact, it's the same staff that's been there from the start. And they remain as friendly as ever. I'm wondering if their Canadian families are missing them, yet.

Cam's Pizza (Mt. Hope Edition)

Well, would you look at that.. I'm staying late at work AGAIN! Funny how I'm the only one who's staying late tonight! What, this is like the 6th or 7th night in a row that I've had to stay until 8pm? I don't know, actually, because I've lost count. Oh, and I had to come in on a Saturday for the nth weekend in a row. This is not what I thought I was getting into when I got my degree. I had dreams of working with great minds and thinkers and movers and shakers; coming up with big ideas. Instead, I'm at the low end of the sausage making factory and everyone is just trying to get through 8 hours without being responsible for anything. Why didn't they tell me this in school? Oh, wait.. I think my advisor was trying to tell me that I was going to be a glorified designer if I didn't get my Master's/PhD. Was he right? Gosh, my mission was to prove him wrong. And I graduated school on the worst of terms with this guy.. I mean, what if ever want to go back and get my PhD? I'd have to crawl back to this guy. I can't get a PhD in Rochester! There are no schools that even offer a Master's program in structural engineering in Rochester. I'm trapped with all these bills, responsibilities and.. and.. sigh.

Anyways... It's 5pm and I need something to sit like a rock in my gut until I get home. In walks Cam's Pizza on Mt. Hope.

Oh, I remember the old days, when I worked in Webster and would head over to Cam's to grab a slice at lunch. I loved that stuff. And I felt like I was the only one who really noticed how good it was. It was my little secret. Obviously, things have changed at Cam's.

Where once they served up thin slices with proper topping proportions, now they've gone thick on the crust and thick on the toppings. This isn't necessarily bad if they do it right.

But, in my mind, they've turned into just another Mark's/Salvatore's/Pontillo's. Their pizza doesn't distinguish itself from any other pizza. It's got the dough. It's got the sauce. It's a biggie, fatty slice. Meh. We've all had this same pizza before.

This hasn't stopped me from making multiple visits when I'm hungry. I'm just sad that I'm not getting the same pizza that I used to get at Cam's.

Wendy's (Mt. Hope Edition)

So I'm working late again. At around 5pm, I start getting the hunger gurgles and my productivity hits a wall. Thus, I head out and say to myself, "You know, I'm in the mood for something fast and fairly tasty." I head for Wendy's on Mt. Hope. (It's the nearest Wendy's that I trust. I pretend the Main Street one isn't there.)

I drive up. I order my food. I pay. I pull into one of the spots and eat.

I hate myself when I'm done.

That's Wendy's, in a nutshell.

Back to work!

Campi's

While I'm on the Man vs. Food thing, I'll have you know I finally made it to Campi's (out by the airport). The sign says that Campi's is where "sandwich is king." Oh yeah? I'll be the judge of that.

My sister and I walk in and the place is loaded! The MvF Nation episode highlighting this place must have aired.

The space there is cozy and unrefined. Signs are brown from all the grease and lack of cleaning. That's not necessarily a bad thing, I'm just setting the mood. The woman who took our order (who I can only assumed is a primary stakeholder in Campi's) was super nice.

I ordered a steak sandwich, Campi's style. My sister ordered that big, mega-steak sandwich that was on MvF.

The wonderful woman who took our order brought our food out and placed it in front of my drooling maw. But what do you do before you eat the king of sandwiches? Do you say a silent prayer? Do you think about it? Do you start turning the sandwich and inspecting it like a hanging chad? I went up and refilled my drink cup.

I took a big bite. First impressions: salty meat with spaghetti sauce. Second impressions: salty meat with spaghetti sauce. Third impressions: salty meat.. no spaghetti sauce.. give me my drink! You get the idea. The sandwich is good. It's meaty. It's hot. But it's not, by any means, king of sandwiches.

If I were a hungover college student who needed to soak up last nights jager-bombs and Keystone Ice, this place may very well be king. However, I'm an adult (at least age wise) and, for me, I needed the sandwich to be more than what it was. I needed to see some mastery of the sandwich. I, sadly, didn't see that. I saw a bun with meat piled on and some proprietary pasta sauce dribbled on.

Meh. I probably won't be back, but if I am, it would be because the service was so friendly. I'd like to try more selections on the menu just to see if, somewhere in there, the king resides.

Quaker Steak & Lube (Gates Edition)

I used to get a kick out of watching Man vs. Food for the first couple seasons it was on. Then, by the third season, you could tell that Adam just wasn't all that into bringing himself to the brink of vomiting for a career any more. His visits to restaurants devolved into him sweating, mouth-breathing and mailing in his banter with the staff. You could almost sense his hatred for what he had become and what he was about to do.

Which brings me to *horns* Quaker Steak & Lube. I learned of this place while watching Man vs. Food. Adam choked and gagged on the hottest wings they had blah blah blah. Needless to say, when I saw that this gag-inducing wing joint was making a foray into the Greater Rochester Area, I was intrigued.

Surprisingly, the wife was on-board with a visit to this place, located in Gates, near Tinseltown.

We went at around 6:00pm on a Friday and the joint was rockin' (Gates-style). Our host informed us that it was "ugly sweater" night and he was clearly partaking. This set off alarm bells immediately. Chotchkies, anyone?

I wasn't going to let the chain nature keep me from loving the wings tonight. Adam Richman loved this place, right? (Mental image of him crying, pouring milk on his face and gagging on the food in slow-mo...)

So we were seated. We reached for the menus and started looking. Very shortly after we sat down, our waitress asked us if we wanted drinks. I said, "Fuck yes," but without the f-word part. Luckily they had a local brew, Rohrbach's Scotch Ale, on tap and I put a check in the positive column.

While we were waiting I noticed that a waiter was sporting his ugly sweater, doing air guns with his index fingers and generally being the most annoying person you'd ever want to encounter while trying to eat your dinner. Then, a la Jason Lee in Chasing Amy (skip to the 3:13 mark), I had an epiphany and realized just what I had stumbled into: Jack Astor's Wing Shack. Gritting my teeth, I promised to not hold this guy against the food.

Eventually, we received our drinks, ordered our appetizer and our food. I had the Louisiana Lickers wings and Premium Pretzels Combo. My wife had some Asian style sauce on her wings and o-rings (onion rings).

In relatively no time, our appetizer was on the table. And, I must admit, I loved the nachos. The cheese was mega-liquidy and the beef wasn't completely ground but the whole thing worked. The corn, beef, liquid cheese and assorted chopped salsa veggies combined into one irresistible treat. I mowed those nachos to the liquidy, soggy bottom.

And, right as we finished our nachos, our food arrived. Of course, the food was burn-the-roof-of-your-mouth-off hot and inedible for a few minutes. So I tried one the "premium pretzels" on my plate. But they weren't fooling me. I had nuked enough of those frozen, mini Super Pretzels as a child to know that that's exactly what they gave me. Another check in the negative column.

Soon after, I dug into my Louisiana Lickers. Tasted like a dirty sock. I immediately regretted going with the Lickers. They had a trademark symbol by the name! Shouldn't that make them good or something? Luckily, our waitress brought us some bleu cheese to dip our wings into. And, wouldn't you know it, the bleu cheese made the wings palatable. I ate them all and tried one of my wife's wings. Her Asian wings were totally predictable: stir fry sauce, on the sweet side, with some sesame seeds thrown in. Bleh. Once again, though, the bleu cheese made them taste better.

On the technical side of things, the wings were not all that crispy. They weren't slimy but, since the sauce was slathered on the exterior, they were very messy. the wings were typical chicken wings in that they weren't all that meaty or large. The meat itself was rather juicy but very, very hot.

Overall, I wasn't impressed. I didn't particularly like the atmosphere. Our waitress was very nice and attentive but kept making excuses for the helter-skelter atmosphere. And the food just didn't stand out. If the wings can't stand on their own two feet, that's a failure, in my opinion.

Collegetown Bagels (Ithaca, NY)

On a recent trip to Ithaca for business, I had the great pleasure to visit Collegetown Bagels right outside of the Cornell campus.

I had been here before on business and had patronized this very same shop. However, I must have passed up the breakfast sandwich on my first visit because the I was simply blown away by how good their Tex-Mex Sandwich was.

It's super simple: Egg, mild cheddar and salsa on a bagel. The secret to it, however, lies in the salsa. It was salsa fresca (ie. not like watery, chunky ketchup) and it had some great flavor to it. It was like the perfect blend of onions, peppers, tomato and a touch of cilantro.

I don't know how the rest of their menu fares but I'm planning on trying to duplicate what they whipped up for me in my own kitchen.

And if you're in Ithaca, hunt this place down quickly.