Jersey Burgers - Restaurant Post

Our next restaurant review is more of a take out place. Jersey Burgers is a small burger joint located in downtown Ramsey that we've enjoyed from our early weeks here. 

About (What it is): Jersey Burgers. A classic burger joint - a place you can stop to pick up some "road food", but better quality than the fast food joints you're used to.

Location (Where it is): Located just off Main Street in downtown Ramsey. It's in a shopping center just off Main Street, across from the movie theatre. Less than a 5 minute drive for us. In the summer, it's even walkable.

Atmosphere (Why we go there): Jersey Burgers is a small restaurant. You walk in and the counter is just to your left. There are a couple of stools and round tables in the window and a little bar against the wall with some seating, and there's a TV playing, too. They cook the burgers right in front of you, behind the wall. So you can dine in if you want, but we often pick it up on the way home from work for a weekday dinner.

The food (What we ate): We always go with the burger - though they have other things like hot dogs and chicken fingers. Charlie goes with jalapenos on his burger; Katie usually gets the classic Cheeseburger. If you're hungry, we'd also recommend the pizza fries. This is an order of french fries with pizza sauce on top and mozzarella melted into the sauce. Very good. We've tried the chili fries, too, and they are also good. But the pizza fries are kind of unique and we'd recommend them. This isn't the kind of burger you'd get at a bar - it's a good-sized "road burger", but it's probably the best we've had - somewhat similar to Five Guys, but a little better!

The verdict (What we thought): Our favorite place to get a quick burger in New Jersey, and for us it's practically right next door! A relaxed atmosphere, friendly folks, and a great price for how good the food is. We'd recommend it for sure!

Snow snow...go away!

For most of January and until just recently in February, we have spent every week digging ourselves out from snow storm after snow storm.  We knew the East coast could have some pretty powerful blizzards ... but even the Jersey lifers have been shocked by this much snow.  It started with the blizzard after we came back from our Holiday trip home to Ohio. On the day after Christmas that left 2 feet of snow.  Over the next couple of weeks, three more storms came delivering 6 to 10 inches of snow each. And a two weeks ago we got an ice storm which left a coating of ice on top of all the snow.  Luckily the house that we rented came equipped with a snow blower...so we have gotten a lot of use out of it (except for the ice storm - note to self, snow blowers do not work with sleet). Needless to say, we are really sick of this snow.

Poor Griffey is hating this winter as well; he hasn't been able to go on many walks because a lot of sidewalks are not clear. And he really misses his backyard ... he can barely see over the mounds of snow where we have dug him an area.  However, when the ice covered the snow he got adventurous and realized he could walk on top of the ice-covered snow and not sink into it.  It was really funny watching him glide around on top of the 2 feet of snow.

We are all looking forward to spring.

Pretty soon...the snow is going to be higher than the pool.

Cleveland's Benedict Arnold follows us to New York

As Bengals and Reds fans, we generally dislike teams from Cleveland, particularly the Browns (“Mistake by the Lake”) and also the Indians. But we kind of rooted for the Cavs when they won the NBA lottery and drafted LeBron James.

When LeTraitor left Cleveland last year, he kind of shunned all of Ohio, too. Cleveland much more than the rest of the state, but it’s easy to root against the guy right now. I think the world has overreacted to this – but part of that was the high pedestal he was on. And joining forces just seemed so un-Jordan-like!

We’ve kind of adopted the Knicks after moving here, and on a Thursday night toward the end of January, we went to Madison Square Garden (MSG) for the first time. And the Knicks were playing LeBron, DeWayne Wade and the Miami Heat. MSG is not historic like old Yankee Stadium was or Fenway Park is, but you could tell it had some old-school character about it. We bought new Knicks t-shirts and sported them to the game - Charlie's is of new Knick member Amare Stoudemire and Katie's is of young fan favorite Danilo Gallinari.

The Knicks came out strong, but were 3-5 points behind for most of the game. They came back to grab a lead in the 4th quarter – and the arena was electric! It was a great game for the Knicks, and a great comeback win. Stoudemire kept them in it early, and Gallinari and rookie Landry Fields pulled them through to victory in the 4th quarter. This is a good Knicks team that will finally make the playoffs and could at least compete for a first-round series win.

Spike Lee watching Danilo guard LeTraitor

Danilo driving on the whole Heat team

Magic Johnson was sitting in court side seats – that’s him in the Light Blue sweater. Two seats to the left of him is Tracy Morgan. There were quite a few celebs in the Garden. Carrie Underwood of American Idol fame was Katie's favorite celeb in attendance (they show the celebs on the big screen).

Katie pointed out some inconsistencies of the arena's name. The venue is called “Madison Square Garden”. But it is not on Madison Avenue, it is not a square, and it has no vegetation on site. At this comment, Charlie rolled his eyes...

Candlelight Inn - Restaurant Post

The next restaurant we'll write about is our first outside of New Jersey. It's a bar / wing joint near our friends' Brian and Adrienne's former home in White Plains, NY called the Candlelight Inn. Brian and Adrienne just moved to Somers, NY, but this restaurant is about halfway in between, so we met them there last weekend for dinner.

About (What it is): The Candlelight Inn in Scarsdale, NY.  The Inn has a tavern atmosphere with classic bar-food / finger-food, and is known best for its wings.

Location (Where it is): Located on Central Park Ave. in Scarsdale, NY - which is about 45 minutes north or Manhattan and very near White Plains, NY. To get there, we drive East on I-287 across the Tappan Zee Bridge.

Atmosphere (Why we go there): This restaurant is in a red building that certainly could have been an Inn at one time. There are two rooms - the first room you enter is the bar area. The bar is immediately to your right, and there is a clipboard on the wall to sign in for a table. Expect to wait a little bit - both times Charlie has been there it's been crowded and there's been a wait. Even the bar area is usually crowded. It adds to the atmosphere, though - and, clearly, the place is popular. We recommend getting a beer or two and watching one of the 3  TVs in the bar area while you wait.  Once you're called, you're seated in the next room and there are more TVs in here if you want to continue watching the sporting event from the bar area. We've always had friendly service that was pretty quick for how crowded it's been.

The food (What we ate): The Inn has a menu with typical bar food, and most of it's good. The Candlelight Inn is most famous for its wings, and if your a buffalo wing fan, go with those for sure (see Charlie's thoughts below). Katie got the tacos on Adrienne's recommendation, and thought they were very good. The nachos are a really good appetizer to consider as well - they come with the white cheese sauce.  Brian said their burgers are also very good, and they have other sandwiches as well. The food is fairly priced; wings and sandwiches will run you $7-$15, depending on what you get.



Charlie's Wings Test - ***** (5 / 5 drums)
The buffalo wings and drums come connected - so when you get an order of "5" or "10", you are actually getting 10 or 20 wings. Don't worry - the menu makes this abundantly clear. There are 4 classic sauce options - mild, hot, xtra-hot and chernobyl; there is also teriyaki and barbeque options, and you can mix and match sauces. The wings are big, and the buffalo sauce is excellent. It's thick and tangy, and goes great with dipping sauce as french fries, too.


I went for the order of "10" xtra-hot wings, and it's the perfect spiciness for me. I've tried the chernobyl on the side, and it's extremely hot. The hot isn't too hot - Brian isn't huge into spicy stuff but thinks the hot is just right. , but it looks like there is just one option. These are easily my favorite wings that I've had since we've moved here - if you ever make your way here, this should be your pick!

The verdict (What we thought): It's far for us to get here, but the food (wings) makes it very worth the drive every now and then. It's a fun atmosphere, and the wings are possibly the best I've ever had. Since the other food is really good, too, it comes highly recommended.

Driving Miss Daisy on Broadway - Weekend of January 15th

The weekend of January 15th, we took the train into the city to catch a broadway play and lunch.  We had been scoping out which plays currently had famous actors in them during the previous week and we decided for this weekend we would go see "Driving Miss Daisy" starring James Earl Jones.  Before the play, we ate lunch at Ruby Foo's in Times Square which is an Asian Fusion restaurant with everything from sushi to chinese to thai.  We tried the "duck nachos" for an appetizer and we were very impressed.  The entrees were also very good with very big portions.  Charlie ordered the special which was some sort of spicy thai chicken with noodles and Katie ordered the Pad Thai.  It was more than we could both eat!

After lunch we hurried over to the Golden Theater on West 45th Street which was only a few blocks from Times Square.  The play was only 90 minutes and therefore did not have an intermission and only had 3 actors...Daisy (Vanessa Redgrave), her son and her driver (James Earl Jones).  The production was excellent - it had been a long time since either of us had seen the movie, so we forgot parts of the plot but we both really enjoyed it.  It is a very cute story about a very stubborn elderly lady from the south and her African-American driver and the unique friendship that forms between them.  At 80 years old, James Earl Jones was truly remarkable and made the play very enjoyable.

After the play, we leisurely walked back to Penn Station (about 10 blocks) to catch our train back to Ramsey and we both thought how incredible it is that we live so close to Manhattan and can have an afternoon date on Broadway.

Happy New Year from the Big Apple!

We were very excited for New Year's Eve this year because 2 of our very good friends, Craig and Ashley, were coming to visit us and we planned a very festive night out in the Big City (no, not Ramsey - Manhattan).  They arrived Thursday morning, Charlie picked them up from the airport and right away they had plans to go on a walking tour of the City while we went to work.  They definitely got their fill of NYC during their 6 and half hour walking tour and saw just about everything (everything except for the Rockefeller Tree) and even witnessed the remnants of the 2 feet of snow that fell the day after Christmas.  Later that evening, the 4 of us went to dinner at Dino and Harry's Steakhouse in Hoboken.  It had been highly recommended by one of Charlie's friends, however we felt like we needed a "local" to get noticed by the waiter, and were pretty sure are order was forgotten.  The service that night was a bit of a deterrent to the overall experience, and maybe by the time we got our food we probably would have eaten anything.  But the steaks were excellent! And although the waiter decided to go with the avoidance tactic, he partially saved himself by giving us a free dessert.

Friday morning, Charlie took Craig and Ashley to a New Jersey Diner (while Katie had to go into work).  They all seemed to enjoy the over-abundance of food that the diner always dishes out.

We took the 4:45pm train into the City for our big night out, but before dinner and drinks, we had a very important stop to make first...the Rockefeller Tree!  We got to the tree and, although Charlie thought it should be bigger, the rest of us felt that our holiday season was complete!

After our tree excursion, we tried to make our way to Bocca di Bacco, an Italian restaurant where we had reservations. However, getting to the restaurant became quite a challenge.  While Katie was trying to talk on the phone to the Emergency Veterinarian (more on this part of the evening below), we noticed tons of people starting to run past us.  We stood there for a little while trying to figure out why everyone was running....should we be running from something?  Apparently everyone was running to get into 7th Avenue because the NYPD was blocking off each cross street. Miss the cross-over, and you would have to go many blocks North before being able to cross to the other side of Times Square.  They do this to control the crowds and funnel the people down toward the ball dropping, but we started to panic about getting to the restaurant. Fortunately, technology saved the day! We told the police that we had dinner reservations on the West side of 7th, and Charlie could pull up the email on his phone to prove it!

The restaurant was really cute and decorated for New Year's Eve and served some very delicious italian. After dinner we killed some time at a random pub and then made our way to The Stone Rose at Columbus Circle.  We had pre-bought tickets for an open-bar party at The Stone Rose, which over-looked Central Park and Columbus Circle.  The 4 of us had a great time ringing in the New Year while definitely getting our money's worth at the open (top-shelf might I add) bar.

In typical NYC fashion, we had pre-arranged for a car service to pick us up at 2 AM and we were  thankful that we did.  The car was waiting for us and even had bottled water for the ride home.  Charlie chatted it up with the driver while the rest of us passed out in the back seat.

Aside from all the fun that we had, the evening started out with a bit of a scare.  Katie had taken Griffey to a new Vet on Thursday morning to get his updated Rabies Vaccine.  That evening, the poor little guy's stomach became upset.  He threw up several times but then seemed to be acting normal.  Friday morning, we gave him a little bit of food and he seemed fine.  We were having him stay at Best Friend's Pet Care ("Camp") where he stays when we are out of town. At 5 PM we got a call that he was sick again.  We were concerned so the good people at Best Friend's agreed to take him to an emergency animal hospital.  They gave him some IV fluids and something to calm his stomach and thought that he probably had a reaction to his vaccine.  Charlie and I could not wait till the morning to go get him and make sure he was ok.  They took very good care of him and the IV fluids and medicine seemed to help and he was back to acting like his old self.

The next day, the 4 of us and Griffey just hung out watching New Year's Day bowl games. We cooked pulled pork, vinegar-based cole slaw, hot cookies (recipe courtesy of Charlie's mom), and jalapeno dip. Charlie's hangover was not helped by Michigan's poor performance in the Gator Bowl - they were blown out by Mississippi State, but overall it was still a great weekend!

Kinchley's Tavern - Restaurant Post

Kinchley's Tavern is a pizza joint right around the border between Ramsey (our town) and Mahwah (the town just north of us). We've had a bunch of different pizza places since we've moved here, but this may be our favorite, at least in New Jersey.

About (What it is): Kinchley's Tavern. A classic pizza joint; they don't have a website, so we don't know the history, but the place was recommended by someone form Katie's Junior League.

Location (Where it is): Located on Franklin Turnpike on the North side of Ramsey. 5 minutes from our house, so we're glad we found this one!

Atmosphere (Why we go there): Another "tavern" - this term is again appropriate. Though "pizza joint" seems most correct. The place is located in a red building that kind of looks like a barn from the outside. There's a statue of a Clydesdale on top of the side entrance, which adds a nice touch. Inside, there is a small bar with a couple of TVs in the back that was fairly crowded - which made sense for a Friday night. We sat there and had a beer while waiting for a table. The tables and booths have the classic red and white plaid table covers. The place was crowded, comfortable and festive - it reminded us of Planks back in Columbus, though a bit smaller.

The food (What we ate): We split two small pizzas to try a little variety. Katie got one with sausage and tomato, Charlie got one with pepperoni and garlic. Both were excellent! The pizza isn't typical New York style - it's thin crust all the way around, including the edges (New York style pizza is thin in the middle, puffy crust at the end). The crust was crispy, too. It's closer to the Midwest style pizza we're used to, and that's a good change. Kinchley's also had some other options (pasta, etc.) but if you ever find yourself there, we'd recommend staying with the 'za.

The verdict (What we thought): Probably our favorite pizza place in New Jersey. Outside of Lombardi's in Manhattan, the best pizza we've had since we moved. The atmosphere was fun, and it's a good place to go for some pie and a few drinks.