Maybe This Will Shut Her Up

Video of Paula Deen getting smacked in the face with a flying ham.

Actually, I like Paula Deen. In fact I hate when the Barbara Walters types out there attack her for making fattening food.

Getting Milk at Walgreens

It says homo. Snicker.

Reader: What are you, twelve?

Butter Lover: Yes.

Long Island Restaurant Week Nov. 1 -8

Hey, I finally checked my email at the right time for this thing! I've partaken of Restaurant Week in the past but am always too late to let people know about it on this site. Below is everything you need to know about it, plus a contest from Dishing On Dining (a pretty cool website, with much more resources than the staff at Long Island Food Blog have):

WHAT: Fourth Annual “Long Island Restaurant Week”
WHERE: Restaurants on Long Island, NY
WHEN: November 1st – 8th, 2009

Fourth Annual Long Island Restaurant Week
November 1st – 8th
Dine at Top Long Island Restaurants at an Affordable Price!

(Long Island, NY . . . October 2009) The Fourth Annual Long Island Restaurant Week (www.longislandrestaurantweek.com) is scheduled to launch Sunday, November 1st through Sunday, November 8th, 2009. The eight-day promotion features a special prix fixe dinner offered by all restaurant participants. The idea is simple: for eight days, Sunday to Sunday, all participating restaurants offer a three-course prix fixe for $24.95 all night, except Saturday when it will be offered only until 7 p.m. Each restaurant offers their own unique menu. So far, 204 restaurants have signed on with new establishments signing up daily.

From West to East
Nassau County: Crabtree’s Restaurant, Jameson’s Bar & Grill and Villa D’Este Restaurant in Floral Park; Burton & Doyle Steakhouse in Great Neck; Caffe Laguna, Coastal Grill, Lola’s Kitchen & Wine Bar, Nick DiAngelo, Sutton Place, and Swingbellys BBQ in Long Beach; La Marmite in Williston Park; La P’tite Framboise and Tava Restaurant and Bar in Port Washington; Sanibel Chophouse in Lynbrook; B.K. Sweeney’s Uptown Grille, Calegero’s, Legal Sea Foods, Rein at The Garden City Hotel, and Seventh Street in Garden City; Uncle Bacala’s in Garden City Park; Besito, Bistro Citron, Poco Loco, and Thyme in Roslyn; Mim’s Restaurant in Roslyn Heights; Sole Restaurant in Oceanside; Gabrielle’s Brasserie & Wine Bar and George Martin The Original in Rockville Centre; Bistro M Restaurant and On 3 Restaurant in Glen Head; Fishermans Catch Restaurant in Point Lookout; E.B. Elliot’s in Freeport; Prime Seasons in Uniondale; Wild Harvest Restaurant in Glen Cove; Nicholas James Bistro, RS Jones and Surf N Turf Mediterranean Grill in Merrick; Chi Dining Lounge and City Cellar Wine Bar and Grill in Westbury; The Carltun, Puglia of Little Italy, and Ruby’s Famous BBQ Joint in East Meadow; Antonette’s Restaurant, Bayou Restaurant, and Cafe Symposio in Bellmore; Peppercorns and West East Bistro in Hicksville; Coolfish, Fulton Prime Fish & Steak House, and Testarossa in Syosset; Butera’s Restaurant of Seaford, Cara Mia Due, and Catfish Max Restaurant in Seaford; Hemingway's American Bar & Grill, Snaps American Bistro, and Thom Thom Steak & Seafood in Wantagh; Il Felice Ristorante in Seaford; Luce Ristorante in East Norwich; Canterbury’s Oyster Bar & Grill, Coach Grill & Tavern, Fiddleheads, and Wild Honey Restaurant in Oyster Bay; HR Singletons in Bethpage; Bistro Cassis and Red Fish Grille in Plainview; Mim’s Restaurant and Rachel’s Cafe in Syosset; Big Daddy’s in Massapequa; La Casuccia, The Library Café, Palmer’s American Grille, and Verona Ristorante in Farmingdale; Butera’s Restaurant of Woodbury and The Delano Mansion at The Woodlands in Woodbury.

Suffolk County: The Bulldog Grille, and Vittorio’s Restaurant in Amityville; Grasso’s in Cold Spring Harbor; Abel Conklins, Besito, Bin 56, Bistro Cassis, Black and Blue Seafood Chophouse, Café Buenos Aires, The Clubhouse, Honu Kitchen and Cocktails, Jonathan’s Ristorante, Mac’s Steakhouse, Osteria Da Nino, Osteria Toscana, Porto Vivo, Red Restaurant, and Rookies Sports Club in Huntington; City Café and Legal Sea Foods in Huntington Station; Four Food Studio and Cocktail Salon in Melville; Argyle Grill & Tavern, Babylon Carriage House, Post Office Café, and Ristorante Gemelli in Babylon; Café Il Villaggio in Babylon Village; P.J. Lobster House and Ruvo Restaurant in Greenlawn; Ludlow Bistro and Popeis Clam Bar in Deer Park; Ciao Baby, Jackson’s Restaurant, and Maize Cantina in Commack; Captain Bills and Tula Kitchen in Bay Shore; Brookwoods in Islip Terrace; Irish Coffee Pub in East Islip; Butera’s Restaurant of Smithtown, Casa Rustica, The Garden Grill, and Union Station in Smithtown; Butterfields Restaurant,The Grill Room, and Pace’s Steak House in Hauppauge; Riverview Restaurant and Snapper Inn in Oakdale; O’s Food and Wine Bar, Villa Sorrento, and Vintage Steak House in Saint James; Bliss and Raga Indian Restaurant in East Setauket; Mamma Lombardi’s in Holbrook; Blackbirds’ Grille, Café Joelle, Cu 29, la Tavola, Oysterman’s Restaurant & Pub, and Popeis Clam Bar in Sayville; Le Soir Restaurant in Bayport; Blue and Bliss Squared in Blue Point; Bella Vita City Grill, Mirabelle Restaurant, Mirabelle Tavern, and Pentimento in Stony Brook; Murtha’s Steak House in Bohemia; The Catch, Costa de Espana, The Fifth Season, Lombardi’s on the Sound, Pasta Pasta, Pace’s Steak House, Ruvo Restaurant, and Wave Restaurant & Lounge at Danfords Hotel & Marina in Port Jefferson; Harbor Crab Co. Restaurant, Lombardi’s on the Bay, The Oar Steak & Seafood Grill, and PeraBell Food Bar in Patchogue; Chachama Grill and South Country Inn in East Patchogue; Avino’s Italian Table, The Bellport, and Porters on the Lane in Bellport; Blond Restaurant in Miller Place; Popei’s Clam Bar in Coram; Mill House Inn in Yaphank; Cooperage Inn in Baiting Hollow; Legends Restaurant in New Suffolk; A Mano and A Touch of Venice Restaurant in Mattituck; The Inn Spot On The Bay and Oakland’s Restaurant & Marina in Hampton Bays; Amarelle, Blackwells Restaurant, Desmond's Restaurant & Lounge, La Plage Restaurant in Wading River; Villa Michelangelo in Manorville; Jerry and The Mermaid, Stonewalls at the Woods, and Tweeds Restaurant in Riverhead; Jamesport Manor Inn and Jedediah Hawkins Inn in Jamesport; Bayview Inn & Restaurant in South Jamesport; Annona, Casa Basso, The Patio at 54 Main, and Westhampton Steakhouse in Westhampton Beach; Stone Creek Inn in East Quogue; MUSE Restaurant & Aquatic Lounge in Water Mill; Pierre’s and Copa Wine and Tapas in Bridgehampton; 75 Main and red/bar brasserie in Southampton; Elbow East, North Fork Table & Inn, and Seafood Barge in Southold; Porto Bello Restaurant and Scrimshaw Restaurant in Greenport; Vine Street Café in Shelter Island; Blue Sky Mediterranean Lounge, Fresno, Oasis Waterfront Restaurant, and Tutto Il Giorno in Sag Harbor; The 1770 House, Café Max, Della Femina, Laundry Restaurant, Matto Restaurant, Michaels’ at Maidstone Beach, Nick & Toni’s, and Rugosa in East Hampton; and Gulf Coast Kitchen at Montauk Yacht Club and Gurney’s Sea Grille in Montauk.

Long Island Restaurant Week is presented by WordHampton Public Relations, the creators of Hamptons Restaurant Week. The event is sponsored in part by Zrii. Media sponsors include EastofNYC.com, liparentsource.com, Long Island Pulse, News 12 Long Island, Newsday, Walk 97.5, DishingonDining.com, Lenndevours.com and SpotonLI.com. The First Annual Long Island Restaurant Week won the SABRE Gold Award Certificate of Excellence and was recognized for its superior achievement in branding and reputation by the leading public relations industry analyst, The Holmes Group. The Second Annual Long Island Restaurant Week garnered the prestigious Big Apple Award in the Marketing Consumer Services, Travel and Tourism/Hospitality sector by the New York Chapter of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) for excellence in research and situation analysis, planning, execution, results and evaluation.
If your Long Island restaurant would like to participate in this year’s event or to view a current list of participating restaurants, visit www.longislandrestaurantweek.com. For more information about Long Island Restaurant Week, please call (631) 329-0050. For press inquiries, contact the Long Island Restaurant Week Executive Committee at WordHampton Public Relations at (631) 329-0050.


WHAT: Dishing on Dining’s “Biggest Long Island Restaurant Week Fan” Contest
WHERE: DishingonDining.com
WHEN: Deadline for Entries – Sunday, November 8 at Midnight
Winner Announced – Monday, November 9 at Noon

ARE YOU THE BIGGEST LONG ISLAND RESTAURANT WEEK FAN?
Grand Prize is $200 Gift Certificate at Long Island’s Newest Four-Star Restaurant
Mirabelle at Three Village Inn

(Long Island, NY . . . October 2009) Do you love Long Island Restaurant Week? DishingonDining.com announces the “Biggest Long Island Restaurant Week Fan” contest. The grand prize winner will receive a $200 gift certificate for dinner at Long Island’s newest four-star restaurant, Mirabelle Restaurant at the Three Village Inn (150 Main Street, Stony Brook, NY (631) 751-0555 www.threevillageinn.com). Runners up will receive gift certificates to other notable Long Island Restaurants. Entries may be submitted online at www.DishingonDining.com. Tell your story in writing, photos or video. All entries must be received by midnight on Sunday, November 8. Winners will be announced on Monday, November 9 at noon on www.DishingonDining.com.

About Long Island Restaurant Week:
Long Island Restaurant Week, running from Sunday, November 1 through Sunday, November 8, is an eight-day promotion where participating restaurants in Nassau and Suffolk counties offer their own unique $24.95 three-course prix fixe dinners. So far, 190 restaurants have signed on with new establishments signing up daily. To view a current list of participating restaurants, visit www.longislandrestaurantweek.com. Long Island Restaurant Week is presented by WordHampton Public Relations, the creators of Hamptons Restaurant Week. The event is sponsored in part by Zrii. Media sponsors include EastofNYC.com, liparentsource.com, Long Island Pulse, News 12 Long Island, Newsday, Walk 97.5, DishingonDining.com, Lenndevours.com and SpotonLI.com.

About Mirabelle Restaurant:
For 25 years, Chef Guy Reuge and his wife Maria operated Mirabelle in St. James, considered by many discriminating gastronomes to be the very best Long Island has to offer. They now operate Mirabelle and Mirabelle Tavern at Three Village Inn. The all-new Mirabelle combines innovative French/American cuisine, superb presentation and world-class ambiance. The restaurant garnered a four-star rating from Peter Gianotti of Newsday and four-and-a-half stars from Long Island Pulse reviewer Richard Scholem, the former New York Times food critic. Gianotti commends, “The reborn Mirabelle, haute in cuisine and refined in style, improves on the original and in a handsome, serene setting.” Meanwhile Scholem declares, “There are many excellent restaurants on Long Island—none are better than Mirabelle.”

About DishingonDining.com:
Long Island’s newest resource of food news, DishingonDining.com, provides the island’s foodies with up to date information on restaurants across the Island. Everything from food news, dining deals and foodie events to holiday happenings and celebrity sightings, DishingonDining.com offers breaking news for some of the Island’s top restaurant openings. DishinginDining.com’s blog “Steve’s Sense” offers insight and dining experiences of restaurant publicist Steve Haweeli as he dines around Long Island.

For more information about Long Island Restaurant Week or this contest, please call (631) 329-0050 or visit www.DishingonDining.com. For press inquiries, contact the Long Island Restaurant Week Executive Committee at WordHampton Public Relations at (631) 329-0050.


Lindsey Jaffe, Account Executive and Emerging Media Specialist
WordHampton Public Relations Inc.
512 Three Mile Harbor Rd.
East Hampton, NY 11937

Office (631) 329-0050
Cell (631) 804-4983

lindsey@wordhampton.com
www.wordhampton.com

http://www.facebook.com/lejaffe
http://twitter.com/LindseyJaffe
http://www.linkedin.com/in/lindseyjaffe

Grilling Tip

...that I discovered late in the summer. If you have a charcoal grill (I'm a charcoal man) that has grates you can raise and lower, and a front gate sort of thing, like above, instead of using starter fluid to get the charcoals going, use newspaper. Keep feeding newspapers in that open area under the grates until you feel heat coming from the coals. You'll get a fire going faster, and probably the less starter fluid you use, the better.

Second, slightly more stupid tip. I was playing around like an idiot and stuck a piece of cold pizza in that open area after the coals got going. Holy shnert! It's like a crazy hot broiler and oven in there. So it was pretty cool.

Review: Tuscany

I am PISSED OFF at Todd English for this pathetic, shitty, rip off of a meal. Seriously. Totally pissed off.

Tuscany is, I guess, the centerpiece restaurant at Mohegan Sun. Like literally a centerpiece. It's inside a big waterfall there.

That thing is fn loud, so I don't know why anyone would want to sit at these outside tables, but whatever. We ate inside where it was dark and quiet.

We had seen the tasting/wine pairing menu online, and that sounded interesting, so we got that. In fact I was really looking forward to it. This meal was going to be the highlight of the trip for me. Celebrity chef, Mohegan Sun, high rollers, lots of cash flying around. Surely the restaurant would be good, right?

Nope.

There were 4 courses: (1) Caprese salad; (2) seared salmon over chickpeas; (3) beef tenderloin topped with sauteed onions and red peppers; and (4) a "fallen" chocolate cake for dessert.

The food was bow-ring, mediocre, and underseasoned. And the portions were tiny. Holy shit. It was like a lunch tasting menu. Hey, Groucho, if you're gonna serve portions that size, make sure the tasting menu is 17 courses or something, like at Maroni Cuisine.

What is especially annoying is that the a la carte dishes looked HUGE. Some chick next to us got the filet mignon, and it was the size of her head. Our filets were small and flat and shaped like a hamburger. What the f*ck is that?

The stupid onions and red peppers made the dish taste like something from Lean Cuisine. Know what I mean? Lean Cuisine puts red peppers on everything to give the bland food some kind of flavor since they can't use fat.

And those assholes really skimped on the wine. Each glass was about two sips. For the entire meal we got the equivalent of one decent-sized glass of wine each and had to pay $35 a piece for it. The food was $47 a piece.

We should have ordered a la carte and bought two bottles of wine. At least then we would've gotten our money's worth.

Normally the crap fest that we had would earn this place 2 out of 5 stars. But because the meal was such a rip off, the restaurant is getting 0 stars.

That's right, Todd English, 0 stars. So screw you and your shitty restaurant and your giant Groucho eyebrows.

Review: Mystic Pizza

I've never seen the movie. Only about 5 mins. of it, probably. But this place is famous because of the movie, so when the wife and I were in the area we had to stop here.

Mystic is split into different sections. There's the stupid, touristy Old Mistick Village, which is completely phony and just a bunch of shops that have nothing to do with the area's history. (So, of course we spent like an hour there.)

There's Mystic Seaport to the south, which is on the water, and you have to pay $24 per adult to get into.

Then there's the downtown area of regular, old Mystic to the south and west, where Mystic Pizza is.

It's kind of a boring, gray building on the corner of a street. Nothing that would catch your eye. Inside, there is a decent-sized eating area, which is nice. We didn't eat there, just got take out from the counter.

The employees were very nice. And they have to deal with idiots like us all day long. A waitress took a picture of a family eating in one of the booths.I know what you're thinking, and no, I didn't ask any stupid questions about the movie.

We ordered a large half plain/half Grecian pizza. The crust is thick and bready. It reminds me of a Pizza Hut pan pizza, but with a softer crust. The cheese even looks the same. There is a pleasant hint of garlic, and I thought I tasted some Parmesan.

The Grecian part was awful. The wife wanted it. Lots of olives, some feta, some hot peppers. Yuck. She loved it though.

We were there on a nice, sunny Saturday in the summer. So the area was packed silly. We just parked by the bank across the street and were in and out fast.

4 out of 5 stars (for pizza)

Mystic Pizza

56 West Main Street

Mystic, CT

Connecticut Food Bloggin

Spent the day up in Mystic and Mohegan Sun yesterday. We stopped at a couple places to eat, most notably Mystic Pizza and Todd English's Tuscany (at Mohegan Sun). I have a lot to say (esp. about Tuscany), so I'll be blogging about those as restaurant reviews.

Highlights: coming out $130 ahead on the stupid slots and watching Night Ranger sing Sister Christian in the casino theater.