The Porter’s Neck store has the “Best Sushi” i love their Dragon Roll!!

We went here for “date nite” Husband had Cheddar bacon burger w/steak fries. I had mushroom swiss burger w/skinny fries. I not to keen on “well done” where you were not asked on how you want it done! Well it is!! Only problem I had was fork enroute to mouth with food still on my plate!! Argggg could she take my plate???? What, excuse me, like I’m still eating, like NOT done, Ya I was DONE after that!! Check please!! Which took forever to get!!

This is not my Mama’s cooking if it was I’d think about slapping her!! Food was bland, pasty & just down right not good! Everything tasted the same ewwww Thank goodness we had a coupon for buy one get one free!

We were not to impressed with Luigi’s! Reservation’s are must on Friday or Saturday nites itВ fills up fast. Except if you want smoking, you get to sit at the bar with your back to all the going’s on?! Their homemade pesto bread & bruschettaВ were fabulous! My husband had spaghetti & meatballs ya a daring soul! LOL I had their special which I can’t spell or say but was a chicken breast with a portabella mushroom in a balsamic vinegar sauce covered with mozzerella cheese. The sauce was overpowering to me. We both hadВ 2 beers & our bill was over 50 bucks! We both think it was over priced & not worth the money! Service was not great either!

I love the tomatoes from this guy!! Taste’s just like he imported them from Jersery! I always get some when I go to my Mom’s, he’s along side the post office.

Had the pleasure of going here Saturday nite. Didn’t have much for the landlover’s just a grilled chicken dish. I ended up with their crab dip which was ehhh could taste most was the mayo. Also ordered the house salad which was hugh!!! Not many choice’s on the salad dressing, so I tried the Cucabsai one & yummmm I was not sorry I did. Just the right amount of cucumber & wasabi paste. Not over powering at all. You could still taste all of your food! As for a smoking section you could sit outside or at the bar, along with one wobblieВ table in the back right near the restrooms:( which is where we sat. Husband the landlover is not in a hurry to go back, I on the other hand would like to back & sitВ at the tables outside & dig into some oysters & crablegs!В 

Five Guys is a chain, but I never hard of them until I came to Wilmington. It looks like they are mostly an east coast deal.

Great burgers. None of that frozen fast food perfectly homogenized stuff…hand made and cooked fresh.

Roudabush is an anomaly….a buffet that is actually good. As a general rule, buffets cater to people who are cheap, and finding cheap and good at the same time is a rare treat. Roudabush is a notable exception, and I have eaten lunch there several times. However, what I didn’t know was that Roudabush ALSO has breakfast only on Saturday and Sunday from 9 am until 3 pm. I was craving an omelet today, and showed up at Roudabush to try to satify that craving and see if they could do breakfast as well as lunch.

Arrived at 9:07 am, and got excited to find that parking meters are free on Sundays. We were able to park right outside the restaurant for free and were seated in under 30 seconds from the time we stopped the car. (Okay….feeling a bit lazy on a Sunday morning…what of it?) We were the first customers, but by the time we left, the place was about half full.

The first thing I spotted were strawberry crepes…NOT your usual buffet fair. Mmmmmm, were they good…had to have another the second visit to the table (what…you think I was only doing one trip through?) The crepes were done proper….nice and thin, and the strawberries were freshly cut and mixed with cream cheese filling. Not a heavy grocery store filling, but very light…one of the highlights of the meal.

A second highlight was when our waitress, Amy, filled up my orange juice glass. “FREE REFILLS ON JUICE…ARE YOU MAD?” I asked. Amy agreed that the owners were mad to offer free refills on orange juice, but free it was nevertheless. I didn’t abuse my privilege…I only had two glasses. Still….free refills on juice? Gotta love it!

Their breakfast buffet was NOT limited to just breakfast. It had their sandwich/deli, baked chicken, pesto penne pasta, five kinds of potatoes, stuffing, soups, and their vegetarian and middle eastern dishes you see at lunch sometimes. All were the usual high quality you get at lunch. Technically, I guess they were serving a “brunch”, but whatever you call it, the variety was excellent.

In addition, they had your traditional breakfast items: bagels, grits (nice and thick like proper grits), bacon, sausage, biscuits, sausage gravy, and some kind of empanada stuffed with breakfast/mexican fillings. I didn’t identify all the ingredients in the empanada….it was too good to leave sitting around for analysis.

By now, savy breakfast eaters are going “How can it be breakfast without the eggs?” My thinking exactly…I rarely have a breakfast without eggs in it. Not to fear, they had that covered too. They setup a breakfast station in the back, and a chef (I use the term loosely) was cooking eggs to order, omelets and waffles. My nephew ordered scrambled eggs, and I got an omelet. For some reason, you had to order the omelet/waffles through your server; perhaps to avoid a line of people standing around. I didn’t mind going through the server, but the, uh-hum, “chef” was rather brusk about whisking us away when I asked about the omelets. He looked like a 20 something who was up at 9 am on Sunday because he needed the money but probably was out drinking really late Saturday night, and he was grouchy.

As luck would have it, my omelet craving brought me here, and my only real complaint about the whole meal was the omelet. First, it was cooked in a teflon pan. In case I haven’t covered this topic before: REAL CHEFS COOK IN METAL, NOT CHEMICAL COATED CRAP! Teflon leaves a flavor in the foods, especially at high heat. Don’t believe me? I have an easy test. Take three pans: aluminum, teflon, and a good quality surgical steel pan. Mix up some baking soda with a couple tablespoons of water, and bring it to a bubble in each pan. It only takes a couple minutes. Once it bubbles, let it cool, and then taste just a “little” of the water/baking soda using a spoon. The aluminum one will have a metallic taste like some well water….tolerable, but not great. The surgical steel will taste like baking soda and water….bland, since the steel deposits nothing in the liquid. The teflon will taste like you captured the fumes from a plastic fork you threw into a bonfire and liquified it….nasty.

So, first, the alleged chef used teflon, and then they used some cheesy vegetable oil (probably soybean oil, ECH!) Scrambled eggs taste best when you use butter, and fried eggs and omelets taste best when you use bacon grease.

Ok, let’s give the alleged chef the benefit of the doubt and say the owners made the choices on cookware and oil. The chef wasn’t through…he then waved the vegetables (onions, spinach, peppers, etc.) over the heat before putting in the eggs. As a result, the vegetables didn’t get cooked enough. I ended up with a teflon/soybean oil tasting omelet with crunchy vegetables.

On the positive side, the chef cooked straight scrambled eggs for my nephew, and he had no complaints.

So, other than the grouchy chef and the poor omelet, the rest of the meal rocked. Next time I go, I will try a waffle. The Sunday buffet was $10.99 for ages 13 and older, and $4.95 for kids.

I still can’t believe they refilled my orange juice glass!

My wife and I hit Flaming Amy’s for the first time. The place has a great name, and so we finally decided to see if the food was as cool as the name.

We arrived Saturday for lunch around Noon. When we pulled up, the place was a ghost town, and I started to get nervous. By the time we left around 12:45 pm, the place was packed. Guess that crowd doesn’t eat at Noon on Saturdays.

The menu for Flaming Amy’s is on chalk boards and one printed board. I highly recommend grabbing the small printed menus when you walk in…the wall signs are quite confusing to read and deciper.

First thing I noticed at the counter was that they have Pabst Blue Ribbon on tap. I was shocked…I didn’t think anyone drank that piss water anymore, and those that do usually buy it at the grocery store cheap and hide in their homes so no one will see them. Yet, Flaming Amy’s actually offers it on tap, which means someone actually orders it. Unbelievable. I saw later they had 75 cent drafts of PBR on Mondays…that must be an interesting crowd….don’t drop a quarter on the floor on Monday or you will start a fight.

The atmosphere is, for lack of a better phrase, biker bar wanna be. The workers all have lots of tattoos and body piercings. Not just the everyday stuff you see as part of pop culture, but the wild stuff like piercing the inside of your nose so jewelry hangs out each nostril. There are a few pool tables, and they had a list of rules that included “If the music is too loud, you are too old…go some where else!”. Yet, families were there, and there was a feeling that it was all for show. Sort of like my cousin who drives his Harley to biker week on a trailer, rides around in leather for two days, and then returns in his Lexus to his yuppie life. One of the workers had a Flaming Amy’s t-shirt with a logo on the back. The logo was “Amy” riding a burrito…it had a hint of naughtiness, but only if you let your mind go there. Truthfully, Hooters is less a family place than Flaming Amy’s, so I wouldn’t worry about bringing your kids here.

Flaming Amy’s specializes in burritos. You are not limited to just chicken, steak, and ground meat. Their fillers include cuban pork, jerked chicken, grilled tuna, mushrooms, eggplant, cajun tilapia, marinated tofu…wow!

I went with Chipotle BBQ with fajita steak, and my wife got the Flaming Amy special. We also ordered a side of chips and guacamole.

The guacamole sucked. It was chilled and had obviously been pre-made. Guacamole is one of those foods that must be fresh, or its not worth it. For $4.95, it was our biggest complaint.

However, while waiting on the food, we get to choose a bunch of salsa’s from their salsa bar for chip dippin. This part is similar to Moe’s Southwest Grill, only there are even more choices and the salsa’s are better. We tried the chowder salsa (corn kernels and all….very good), the pineapple/jalapeno salsa (very good), and the ginger/peach salsa (AWESOME). I had a ginger based salsa at a restaurant called the Flying Fish at Carmel-by-the-Sea, CA one time (you know, the place where Clint Eastwood was mayor). The Flying Fish salsa was orgasmic, and while the ginger peach at Flaming Amy’s wasn’t QUITE at that level, it was still damn good. There were at least five other salsa’s, but I saved those for the next visit.

Before we get too far into the chips and dips, the burritos arrive. These things are HUGE! If you are going for quantity, you won’t have any compliants. I didn’t quite master eating them the proper way, and had to dump the second half on the plate and use a fork before it ended up on my lap. They came wrapped in foil, and when I go to Moe’s, I just rip off the foil and eat them straight up. At Flaming Amy’s, the foil isn’t just for filling up landfills, its for holding these monsters together, so don’t be stupid like me and take them off.

So how do you rate a burrito? Was it better than Taco Bell…hell yeah. Was it better than Moe’s Southwest Grill? Both my wife and I thought it was better than Moe’s. I like Moe’s so, that isn’t a critique by comparison. I am spoiled by Moe’s fish taco’s….not something you usually get elsewhere, but comparing everything else, Flaming Amy’s is better than Moe’s. The Chipotle BBQ seemed to get lost with the spicy black beans and variety of salsa’s, but it was still a great lunch.

Of course, one thing you get at Flaming Amy’s is a dining experience. They have a lot more seating than Moe’s, beer on tap (they do have real beer separate from PBR), and its a better place to socialize.

As we were finishing up, a group of losers rolled in dressed like the workers…tatoos and body piercings everywhere. One of the idiots had those earrings that stretch your ear lobes out, and his had about a 1.5 inch hole. His momma must be so proud of all the effort to mutilate his body like that. I bring it up because if that sort of thing turns your stomach, you might stick to Moe’s. If you can do like me, laugh at em and focus on sinking your teeth into a good burrito, its definitely worth the trip.

Service was okay…not a lot of the workers seemed happy to be there, but maybe they were all out late partying Friday night. They still got the job done.

Oh, if you have a tattoo, I think Tuesday’s are “show your ink for a discount night”. Happy eatin!

Had lunch Friday at Elizabeth’s on Market Street. My customer meeting went way over, so I had to blow in and out in a hurry, but Christina took care of me quickly.

I couldnt’ find the exact combo that I wanted, so I had their vegetarian stromboli except I added Italian sausage. Christina didn’t give me any grief about special orders, she took the order and had it out in a jiffy.

The stromboli was AWESOME BABY! Rivaled some of the best I have had in South Philadelphia in the Italian section. Dough was fresh, cooked enough, ingredients were fresh, and their marinara sauce that comes with it was like frosting on the cake.

Christina asked if I wanted dessert….I told her love to, but I was late for a meeting, and she brought out a to-go cup of my unsweetened ice tea without prompting. If you go there, definitely ask for Christina.

I look forward to heading back for dinner.

P.S. Only negative was that silly traffic light to get in and out of the place. I timed it…4 minutes before it turned green.

P.S.S.В  If anyone can give me a legitimate difference between stromboli and calzones, I am all ears.В  I used to think it was the ricotta cheese, but if you Google the difference, people are arguing about it at length.В  Love to hear your opinion of it.