Buffalo's Cafe

Location: Creedmore NC

Stopped in this establishment after a bike ride with my buddy Tony. It's located in a strip mall, but a fairly big place with a patio. Us smokers love patio's now, since NC has banned smoking inside resturaunts. What a crock of horse dung.

Anyway, I'd read a lot of review on this place. Everything from saying it sucked, to it's the best place in the entire universe to eat anything at.

Tony and I rolled up about 12:15 on a Sunday afternoon, and walked in. We were seated as soon as we walked inside, and drink orders were taken minutes after. A few minutes later, our food orders were taken. This is one of the few places that have a "wing combo". I really wish more places would do that. Ordering an order of wings, and a order of fries usually ends up costing more than I want it to.



The combo comes with 8 wings, fries, grilled corn on the cob, and a piece of garlic bread. Quite the combo for only $7.99!

After taking the pic, we dug in (Tony had his own plate ;) ). Garlic bread? Great! Grilled corn? Awesome! Fries? Good. Wings? Well....I'd have to call them average.

Once again, I got the hottest wings available. They weren't the hottest I've had by any means. Probably around a 7 to 7.5 on the hottness scale. The sauce taste was average. A fair amount of heat, but a little more vinegary than I normally care for. The wings themselves were slightly overcooked. Neither was terribly, and I'd definately go back again, but based on the wings alone, this will not replace Wild Wing Cafe in Brier Creek as my weekly place to eat. I'd definately like to go back and try some of their other stuff. They have a pretty good looking menu, with lots of stuff I'd like to try!

The service here was average. Waitress was on top of stuff, until we got our food. She'd come by about every 10 minutes to check on us, but each and every time I'd have to ASK for a refill. I hate ASKING for refills. I shouldn't have to in my opinion. She should notice when she walks up that I'm out, or nearly out of drink, and offer to refill it. Running out of drink is a pet peeve of mine. Letting my drink run dry repeatedly is a sure way to get NO tip. She did come by and check on us as I said though, so I can't be too hard on the girl.

The other thing she did was bring my back only a 5 dollar bill for my change. No one dollar bills. It kinda annoyed me, and had Tony not had a few ones he loaned me, she probably would have just got the loose change she brought back (maybe 40 cents). Does she really think I was going to leave her a 5 dollar bill? It seems as a lot of waiters and waitresses hope that will happen by only bringing back larger bills for change. Sorry, but not with this guy! I'll tip very well if the service is very good. Average service however, will get an average tip.

Overall, I'm rating this place around a 8.5. Average wings with average service. If the rest of the menu didn't look so promising, I'd rate them a little lower, but it looks so good. :D

Sparks Wings & Ribs

Location: Apex, NC

I've been on the hunt for some new wing places in the area, and stumbled across this place on the local new channels website. Went to the Sparks website, and the place has a pretty decent menu. Looked promising.

So after a NCS (NCSportbikes.com) meet and greet at the Raleigh Fairgrounds, a few of us decided to head over to Sparks. It's a small resturaunt and sports bar in a strip mall in Apex. Pretty cool feeling place, and I dug the atmosphere of the place.

We sat ourselves, and within a few minutes our drink orders were taken. It took a while for the waitress to take our food order, but to her defense, not all of us showed up at the same time. About the time she was ready to take our food order, 2 more people would show up and she'd have to get their drink order instead....then 2 more would show up.

I ordered wings....smoked wings actually. The taste of these are quite a bit different than normal (fried....or even baked or grilled) wings. Very good in taste and fairly tender as well! These wings don't come with sauce on them, but you get sauce on the side instead. As always, I got the hottest sauce. The sauce, while pretty spicy, was no where near being in the top 5 of hottest sauces I've had. On a scale from 1 (coldest) to 10 (hottest), I'd rate these around a 6...maybe 7.

The service at this place was average....maybe slightly above average. I can't really complain too much about it. The food came out in a timely manner, and orders were taken in a timely manner as well. Drinks did run dry on occasion, but I never had to wait any ungodly amount of time for a refill. The one big complaint I have is one of the guys paid with cash, and the waitress didn't bring him any one dollar bills with his change...only a 5. Only when he asked her to make change for the 5 did he get it. When service is only marginal to begin with (I'm not saying it was this time), it's a good way for *ME* to not leave any tip at all. If they're not smart enough to bring ones, they get nothing. Luckily, service was better than marginal (as I said, slightly above average), and his attitude may not be the same as mine. ;)

Now, there is something to note about this place. 2 of the 6 of us got sick after eating at this place. One guy puked up everything a couple hours later, and the other guy said he couldn't get off the toilet all night. The other 4 of us were perfectly fine. The 2 that got sick, that could have been purely coincidental, but it sure is a hell of a coincidence. Neither of them ate the same thing though, and neither of their food shared anything in common. Different sauces, one had wings and the other didn't, 2 different kinds of fries, etc. Maybe one cook that had something on him touched those 2 plates and another cook touched the other 4. Who knows. May have not even been related to the place, but I feel it's note worthy. Both of the guys said they would go back to try it again though, and both said the food was VERY good.

Overall, I'd rate the place around a 8.5. Fair service, great food (as long as it doesn't make you sick), and a pretty good atmosphere! If no one gets sick the next time we go, and the service and food is the same, I'll bump this place up to a 9 or so, but I probably won't make another post about it. If someone does get sick again, I'll be rating it a 1, and will surely post it up.

East Coast Wings

It's been a while guys. Since I last posted, I've sold my bike, bought a boat, sold it and bought another bike, sold it and bought a quad, and finally back on a bike again. Back on another 2007 SV1000S actually. Not setup exactly like my old one, but close enough for now.

Anyway, I at at ECW on 2 different occasions, at 2 different locations.

ECW #1:
Location: Winston Salem, march-ish 2009

This place was pretty darn good. It was located in a strip mall in Winston Salem, and appeared to be a fairly new location.

I got there with my wife, and a few friends. We were promptly seated, gave our drink orders, and I then ordered up some wings (as an appetizer), and a burger. As always, I ordered the hottest wings they have....Insanity I think they're called. This was another one of those "You have to sign a waiver" kinda deals. I've had to do that before at Quaker Steak and Lube, but I always thought it was just a novelty kind of thing. NOT at this place. I've never had wings so hot I couldn't eat half a dozen of them with ease. Absolutely not the case here. These wings were PAINFULLY hot. All I could do was 3 of them. After those 3, I went outside in the cold trying to make my mouth cool down, splashed cold water on my face, drank everything the waitress would bring me, etc. Nothing helped. On top of that, it had my stomach in knots the rest of the day. FInally! A place that makes wings so hot that *I* couldn't eat them!!! I was impressed! :D Aside from being extremely hot, they were actually very good. Had a good flavor, and weren't overcooked!

Onto the burger I ordered. This was quite possibly one of the best burgers I've ever had in my life! Very tasty! Cooked how I wanted it (well done), but not burnt at all!

The service here was pretty good as well. Waitress was prompt seating us, taking our drink order, taking our food orders, and never let my drink run empty! I thought I had found a new favorite wing joint, until...

ECW #2 - Winston Salem, July 2010

This ECW, as I said earlier, was a different ECW than the one above. Complete opposite experience from the one above as well.

We pull up to this old looking building that looked a little run down on the outside. We walk in, and while it doesn't look run down on the inside, the place is tiny. There might have been 15 tables to sit at.

Once we get inside, we wait for a hostess to seat us like the last ECW did. When some of the staff looked at us like we were stupid for standing there, we sat ourselves. Keep in mind, this place was dead when we got there. There was one other person eating when we got there, and maybe 3 or so employee's that I saw out front.

Several minutes later, a waitress gives us menus and takes a drink order. Several minutes after that (10ish?) we get our drinks and she takes our food order. Probably 25 minutes later, we get our food. In the mean time, another group of people have been seated, ordered and received their food, finished eating, and left about 5 minutes after we got out food.

The food. Ugh. I forgot how my wife liked hers, but mine was pretty....eh. I ordered a steak & cheese sandwhich and fries. The bread was stale, the meat was dry, and the half a slice of cheese wasn't enough. At best, I'd call the food below average. I can't really say anything good about it.

The service....well, it was below average as well. I can't remember the exact location of this one, but I can assure you I'll never stop by it again. Absolutely nothing good about this place. Food sucked, service sucked, atmosphere sucked....it all sucked!

ECW #1, I'd rate at around a 9.5. ECW #2 gets a rating of about 3. Only reason I'm rating #2 that high is because it didn't make me sick, and I did actually recieve food and a drink.

Nothing new...

With winter around, I've turned into a puss and haven't been riding much lately. Haven't been to any new resturaunts either, but am open to suggestions of places to go.

As soon as I find a new place to try, I will, and will post up a review on it....

Geno's Steaks!!!!

The place can be seen here: http://www.genosteaks.com/
Location: Philly, Pa

For those not in the know, this is one of the two most famous cheese steak places in Philly. This place isn't exactly a "motorcycle friendly" joint...it's more of a tourist type joint. Who cares though? :)

A friend of mine and I went on a motorcycle tour back in may, and ended up lost in Pennsylvania. Way off our route, and not knowing which direction to go, Jason said "Lets go to Philly for some real cheese steaks!". With me liking food as much as I do, who am I to say no? :D

We wake up the next morning, and drive something like 2.5 or so hours over to Philly. Let me say that I've never been to a BIG city. City traffic was an eye opening experience. Parking further opened my eyes. Once we got to Geno's I circled the block several times trying to find a spot, and finally one opened up directly in front of Geno's (curb side parking only).

When we got there, there was probably 60 - 80 people in front of us. I was thinking it was going to be ATLEAST an hour before we gave anyone our order. 15 to 20 minutes later, we were sitting down, eating our food! AWESOME!



The above makes my mouth water just looking at it. Geno's Steaks has the best damn cheese steaks I've EVER had in my life. You WILL NOT find one as good, anywhere outside of Philly. Period. It's not going to happen. If everything else about our 7 day sucked, the trip to Geno's would have made the entire trip worth while.

Now, normally a place like this you wouldn't really rate on service. It's a tourist, fast food joint. That said, with only having to wait 20 minutes (at most) for food, when ~70 people were ahead of us, the service was damn good. As good as the food itself. I'm rating this place a perfect 10. Nothing could have been better. The ONLY thing I wish were different about the place, is that I'd like for them to be about 500 miles closer to me. ;)

Wild Wing Cafe - Take 2!

Location: Briar Creek in Durham, NC

So after my last review on Wild Wing Cafe, I was told by several people that I was WRONG. The place simply could not suck, and they had some of the best wings around. Period.

I decided last Saturday that I'd give them one more shot. I HOPED the food was going to be good, but was expecting more of the same junk I got the first time.

This time, a couple friends of mine and I went on a Saturday afternoon. As soon as we walked in the door, we were seated, and within 5 minutes we had our drinks. MUCH better than last time!

We order our food and had it within about 10 minutes. Tony (one of the guys that came with me last time), Random (sorry, I forgot his real name), and I all ordered wings. I ordered the hottest wings they have (Braveheart), Random ordered 3 steps down from that (Chernobyl), and Tony ordered ...umm....I forgot what flavor he ordered. :)

Upon receiving them, all of us noted that they looked like they didn't have enough sauce on them, and it appeard the sauce was cooked on them. However, after eating one, I decided my wings had just the perfect amount of sauce on them. This time, the wings tasted GREAT! Not overcooked and the sauce wasn't burned onto them. Last time the wings simply tasted "HOT", with not much other flavor. I also noted last time, they were the hottest wings I've EVER had. This time however, they didn't seem as hot, and they had an awesome taste to them! Very suprised, and was definately glad I gave this place another shot!

Random seemed to come to the same conclusion as I. While his wings weren't as hot as mine, they still made him sweat. I'm pretty sure he thought the sauce was just right, cooked just right, etc. I got no complaints from him, and he was glad he tried them out (For the first time) as well.

Tony had a couple comments/minor complaints on the place. First was even after trying them, he wanted a little more sauce on them. This didn't seem to slow him down from eating them though, so I didn't take it as a major complaint. The second note he made was that Buffalo Wild Wings wings were "easier to eat". He further elaborated and said they were more "tender".

Overall, this place was nearly great. The service could have been a hair better, and the wings MAYBE could have used a touch more sauce. For the total experience, I'll rate this place a 9.1. A hair better than BWW... mainly because the service was better than BWW (I never ran out of drink). As of now, this place comes second to Quaker Steak and Lube for some awesome wings. I'll definately be going back soon.

Locked and Loaded

Location: Garner, NC

Locked and Loaded is a motorcycle specific sports bar/restaurant. Their menu is similar to that of Scooters Bar and Grill (Hamburgers, wings, misc. sandwiches, etc). Primarily a Harley joint, but like Scooters, I've always felt welcome.

Both times I visited the place, I ate a hamburger. Both times, the quality was the same, and food tasted the same. Their burgers are pretty good...not the best in the world, but not bad either.

They've got home made chips that they call "buffalo chips". They're thin sliced potatoes, deep fried, just like you'd expect a home made chip to be. After frying, they put buffalo wing sauce, and parmesan cheese on it, if you want. I tried them this way the first time, and they were terrible. Quite possibly, the worst thing to ever go in my mouth. Ugh. The second trip I made to the place, I got them plain. This was was MUCH better than with the other stuff on it.

Both times I went, I went with a group of my buddies. I didn't hear any complaints from them about the food.

Their service one time was average, and the next trip it was slightly above average. Good enough that I'd go back, but...

For some reason, I haven't went back in a while. It's probably been 3 months or so since I've been. Normally anytime I'm on that side of town, I want wings, so I go to BWW. If I'm in the mood for a burger, or similar, I go to Scooters. L&L is a pretty cool place, with average service, and decent food, but it just didn't leave a "I've gotta go back there!" kind of impression on me.

Overall I'd rate this place a 6 out of 10. Slightly above average, but nothing to write home about. Definately worth checking out though if you're in the area, and I'd probably eat there more if they were a little closer to me.