Chus On Chow

Could it have been any better? To just about anyone living in Syracuse, you already know the answer because chances are very good that, if you’re reading this, you were there.

Perfect weather both days (now that is a miracle!), more restaurants than ever, with a new space opened up on the far side of the (atrocious) Federal Building. Music – okay, it was pretty bad at times, but fairly good at other times. Nothing to write home about (unless you love Kevin Costner) but the crowds loved it.

Crowds! At last count it was over 170,000 for the weekend. That’s a lot more than basketball games get! What a great diversity of people we saw there, most of them having a fabulous time. Food is the great uniter. We all love it, and a lot of us are willing to brave the crowds to taste all sorts of things for just a buck. Folks, it doesn’t get any better than this, not in any city. Parking was free (yes, you may have had to walk a few blocks, like in Real Cities) and all sorts of Syracusans got to get a good look at each other while stuffing their faces. What’s not to love?

Our favorite restaurant booths were those belonging to Little Thai House, Ambrosia, Eva’s, OIP, and the Jerk Hut.  It seems I just cannot get through a festival and feel satsified unless I’ve had several Jamaican beef patties.  Melis over at the Wandering Through Syracuse blog has her own take on it. What were your favorites?

Many people have already discovered that OIP pizza is very good.  But their wings are exceptional.  We enjoy regular Buffalo wings, but they’re everywhere now.  OIP’s char-grilled wings are a very nice alternative, and they are what we prefer nowadays.   Getting twelve for dinner has become a frequent meal for us, and it’s right over in Eastwood Plaza, so we can easily walk over, a big selling point for us.  At this time, it’s our favorite “walk-to” Eastwood meal.  If we’re especially hungry, we’ll supplement it with pizza slices.

The staff is quite friendly.  The lighting is somewhat lurid fluorescence, so it’s definitely not a dating spot.  For the sports freaks out there, they have a huge TV.  For us, the lighting and TV aren’t our preferred decor, but the dining room is still nice enough that we like eating there.

Don’t just take it from us.  My brother is from Buffalo and lives about a mile from the famous Anchor Bar, home of Buffalo wings.  After having the OIP wings, he said, “I like these better”.

There are several OIP’s in central NY, and I’ve heard vague rumors that they differ in quality.  This can happen with any chain.  While we think the Eastwood one is great, I’d be curious to hear more about this.

A friend has been following this blog but it’s lacking something he’s looking for: a restaurant where he can consistently get a really good steak or other such meat item with a good glass of red wine. My first reaction was, “Uh, like just about everywhere.” But since we don’t tend to order plain chunks of meat, we don’t focus on that part of the menu, nor on restaurants that specialize in that. So we need the Syracuse community to help us out. Got a favorite? Tell us in the comment section, and let us know why you like it so much!

This is what we came up with, but I’m sure it could stand some correcting or updating:

Justin’s Grill
Scotch & Sirloin
Saratoga Steaks & Seafood
Kitty Hoynes
Danzer’s
Delmonico’s
The Retreat
Redfield’s
Genesee Inn

So … what did we leave out?

Syracuse in winter can give you cabin fever.  When I complained about having it on Friday night, Lonnie had the excellent idea of making a jaunt over to the west side of Syracuse for some barbecue.  I usually don’t say no to barbecue, unless I’m just finishing my third portion.

No serious discussion of barbecue in Syracuse can take place without mention of the Dinosaur, which has become the de facto standard of Syracuse BBQ.  Its excellence is taken for granted, and we go there a lot.  I don’t even bother to mention it much in my blogs, as it has mountains of publicity already.  But, as Yogi Berra might have said, it’s so crowded that no one goes there anymore.  So on this particular night we decided to try something new.

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Philly is such an amazing place for food.  People there feel that it’s comparable or superior to New York!  Though that’s a sure way to start a big argument, I will say that someone could pretty easily have a great restaurant meal every day in Philly for a year and still have a whole lot of great places left to try.  Here are a few little victual vignettes.

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