Bukowski, East Coast Grill, and Toscanini’s!

I seriously think I gained a lot of weight this weekend and am full enough to not eat all week, but it was totally worth it!  This Saturday night, my friends and I wanted to go to East Coast Grill for dinner.  We had a party of 8 and they don’t take reservations, but we weren’t too worried.  Bukowski is right next door and a great place to grab a pre-dinner drink, but if I have to speak about the service, well that’s not so good.  The waitress pretty much ignored my friends who came in late and it took us forever to get her attention.  This wasn’t the first time this has happened, but for some reason we keep coming back!  Lucky for them they have some good beers, an interesting atmosphere, and are right next to East Coast Grill!  I got the Omegang Ale from NY and it was really good.  I definitely want to get it again!

I barely even got halfway through my beer and we actually got called by East Coast Grill and was told our table was ready.  They said they would give us 10 minutes to finish our drinks.  We did so and headed right over.

Since this was a special occasion of all of us getting together, we decided to splurge and get the Essential Raw Bar Platter and fried plantains.  The raw bar was simply amazing and the who doesn’t love a fried plantain with some homemade ketchup?!

For dinner I got Uncle Bud’s Trio which has Memphis style dry rubbed pork sparerib, Texas style sliced beef brisket, eastern North Carolina shredded pork, beans, cole slaw, watermelon and a humungus brick of corn bread for $18.50.  Not a bad deal!  I couldn’t eat the entire plate unless I literally wanted to be rolled out of that restaurant.

After we all finished what we could of our meals, we decided to be daring and try one of the spicy rib appetizers.  It was supposed to be really spicy.  We got two ribs and decided to pass them down the table.  I only took one small bite but that sauce was surely spicy!  I was glad I had some cornbread and cole slaw to help cool my mouth down a bit, but what I really needed was a glass of milk! Would I do it again?  Sure! Why not?!

We thought we were done, until my friend Greg said, “Let’s get ice cream!”  He really wanted to go to Toscanini’s.  I was SO full and almost had to turn it down, but Greg can pull off a pretty good sad face so we all decided to get some ice cream too.  It was a good decision.  Dave got a goat cheese and brownie ice cream which was definitely one of the more unique flavors and very good.  I was bland and got the mixed berry because I wanted something light and refreshing.  I am going to be frequenting this place more often, that’s for sure!

Do you overindulge when you have friends visiting that you haven’t seen in a long time?

Hm….YES!

What is the strangest ice cream flavor you have tried?

BACON!  I didn’t really like it.  It was a bit odd.  But I think I could try it again from another store.  I think it can be done a few different ways.