Welcome to my new miniseries called Brief Bites/Tasty Tidbits, where I showcase more than one restaurant that I’ve been to recently with a quick synopsis and experience of the food and atmosphere. This is a little different from my more traditional long form of restaurant reviews as I am highlighting more than one restaurant briefly and describing my experience with it. Here are some top places I went to in February!
Won BBQ (O2 BBQ)
I’m always down for Korean BBQ, with O2 BBQ being no exception. Located in Queens, New York, this all you can eat Korean BBQ restaurant offers all you can eat meats for dinner at $39.95 per person. Some meats included that I ordered were marinated chicken, spicy chicken, soy pork ribs, pork skin, pork belly, beef bulgogi, brisket, kalbi marinated steak, top blade steak, and more. There is also a vegetarian menu option for dinner for $27.95.
You can order 3 meats at a time and can order more once your first “round” of meat is done grilling at your grill. You are not cooking any of the meat, but you can pick up any pieces with tongs or chopsticks once it finishes grilling. Enjoy your kBBQ with Rice or Lettuce to wrap, but feel free to ask for sides like steamed egg as well. Meat quality is delicious, juicy, and tender coming hot right off the grill and flavorful mixing in the sauce. Pair your meat with ssamjang, gochujang, salt, or salt with sesame oil. Come with friends and be sure to order plenty of soju for a fun dinner and a great time. Vibe to music provided in the restaurant and watch KPOP videos on TVs displayed everywhere.
While it is all you can eat, there is a 100-minute seating limit during peak hours, and a 30% upcharge per additional 30 minutes, so many rounds of meat and sides for dinner for about 2 hours is not a bad deal at all.
CAFÉ Volo
This is just a little cozy small café/diner in Westhampton Beach, NY, located right in front of the Francis S. Gabreski Airport. The interior of the restaurant gives it a quainter, diner-like feel, but still makes you realize that you’re near an airport thanks to the sounds of planes whirring sometimes. It has relatively decent food, with a good choice of breakfast options and occasional specials not listed on the menu. You can’t go wrong with breakfast classics such as pancakes, eggs, bacon, potatoes, and fruit. Although, one special they had, the huevos rancheros, seemed to have a more decorative plate than food available on it. Good food, otherwise, and stay to watch planes take off from the airport every now and then.
Horace and Sylvia’s Publik House
I was not to particularly fond of eating here and unsure if I would come again. It is a bistro and bar located in Babylon, New York. Horace and Sylvia’s Publik House had some food items that look good on paper and in your mind, but ultimately failed to live up to reality and just sparked disappointment in me. I only ordered two things, but those two things enough were off putting enough to have me not finish my food.
The shrimp risotto left me feeling a bit sad. Before eating it, I’d like to think the yellow color was because of a hint of saffron or something, but once I tasted the rice, I caught the all too familiar taste and chew of Goya’s Yellow Rice, but with a more gummy, overcooked texture. The dish itself felt too rigid and hard, from how stiff and firm the rice looked to the still attached shrimp tails decorating the side of the plate. The shrimp tails were overcooked, and it felt weird pulling out shrimp tails from a dish that just uses a fork. The white, cheesy sauce that coated the shrimp tails and part of the rice was under seasoned and just tasted like nothing.
I do know that there are certain restaurants where you know to get certain items if you’re expecting some level of quality, so this next item might be my fault for getting. You typically go to a southern restaurant for good, authentic fried chicken, an Italian restaurant for pasta, etc. Now here I’m not expecting totally authentic given that the restaurant is not specialized in this, and we are in the northeast, but I somehow just expect the most basic or bare minimum for certain foods.
That being said, my already low expectations were just destroyed eating their “Southern Fried Chicken.” When I think if Southern Fried Chicken, I typically think of a nice, seasoned fried Chicken Breast, leg, or thigh, not two gigantic pounded out chicken breasts. Seeing two giant chicken breasts sitting atop a very shallow plate covering everything below and sitting a op a pool of gravy certainly was an odd and confusing plating choice.
Cutting into the breasts had me worried like I was going to spill the “gravy” on my plate all over myself, but we will get back to the gravy later. I could have forgiven the chicken breasts because it had a decent crunch to it, but it had not an ounce of seasoning at all, as if it were literally just dredged, floured, and fried. Not a speck of seasoning anywhere to be found, inside and out.
Maybe the pool of gravy below would help, right? Wrong. The gravy did not have any flavor to it, and you could still taste bits of earthiness as if the flour and butter weren’t fully incorporated together for this sad display of a gravy. This gravy had the same color as an off-white paint, and probably tasted like it too. The biscuits inside of the gravy just tasted soggy and not fresh, while the spinach just tasted like oil and gravy.
I do want to add that I did go to this restaurant in early February, but I will most likely not be going again. If you’re ever in the Babylon Area, proceed with caution going here.
That’s all I have for this installment of Brief Bites/Tasty Tidbits. Stay on the lookout for another article at the end of March for new restaurants!