Mister Mike’s Pizza

Mister Mikes
Greensburg,PA

So I don’t have pictures again cause technology is a dickface and my phone broke. Anyway I was out of town with fellow blogger chairs for work, also with us was josh( of Headacher fame) and the Steve (of slam circus fame). We ended up at generic ass Applebee’s for lunch and then and there we decided pizza was for dinner. So we asked out waitress about good local pie spots. She suggested mister mikes almost immediately so we asked for directions finished our lunch and went back to work for another grueling eight hours or so. After a 14 hour day of work we finished up and were all starving so we headed to mikes.
We walk in and it looks like a local sports bar, which is fine I like spots like that. I look to my right and there is a wall covered in Pittsburgh steelers memorabilia and above it all is a huge sign that says “ the steel curtain”…….super hard! We sit and I grab a Budweiser bottle and start looking at the pizza menu. Menu is pretty standard but you can smell the pizza cooking and it smells great. We move tables for some reason I don’t remember and by that time I am ready to order another beer. I realize we are in Pennsylvania and I can get yuengling, and I can get it on draft. So I excitedly order a beer and a shot. I got my brew and it is delicious, time to order the pie!
We get an extra large pepperoni and anxiously await it’s arrival. When it finally  arrived  we crushed it, just smashed the damn thing. It was delicious the sauce was spicy and sweet the ingredients were high quality and the crust was great as well. We all decided we were still hungry and noticed that the table next to us had chicken wings that were the size of baseballs. We all decide we need a medium pizza and 12 of those wings. The  wings arrive and they are good as well. Its hard to screw up chicken wings you just have to have good bbq sauce, and mister mikes does. Sweet and spicy not unlike the pizza sauce. We get a medium pizza and its better than the extra large , not sure if it was because the XL was just to spread out but the medium was nothing shirt of pizza perfection. We had a couple more drinks and head back to the hotel. If I am ever back in Greensburg it will be breakfast lunch and dinner at mikes.

Keep on mealin on

Party Tim

Barley’s Smokehouse

new entry by our new blogger Chairs

I’m really not sure how I missed this place. Barley’s Smokehouse is a barbeque joint right down the street from my house and I have never seen it before. I feel ashamed. So, a boring Sunday night turns into a GB&G outing with fellow blogger, Party Tim and our buddy Beefario Stomp and myself.

         We get there and the place is huge. The patio out front is pretty nice. A little too chilly to be eating out there so naturally, nobody was. As any good barbecue place would, as soon as you walk in the door the delicious smell hits you. The place is very nice and had a lot of old tin beer signs on the walls and a shelf running across the top of all the walls with tons of old beer bottles on it. Pretty alright décor for the type of place. To the left are a bunch of tables, booths and the bar. To the right looks to be the degenerate part of the joint. Naturally, the hostess walks us back there. Turns out, this is the best part of the entire place. There are giant booths that will seat 6 to 8 people and two pool tables!!!!! Amazing. They also had a corn hole arcade game. No doubt trying to appeal to the OSU crowd.

            The menu was very simple. I love that in a place. Too many menu items means you have a greater risk of getting something that nobody else does and the ingredients might not be so fresh. We notice that the also brew their own beer. Being the only one that drinks, Party Tim had to be the one. He opted for the pale ale, which was more like an English crème ale similar to New Castle. It was darker than most pale ales but that didn’t work against it at all. “Very delicious” he says and would not hesitate to order a second round.

 

            Now, on to the food. They have a few other menu items but we go directly for the barbecue. Party Tim and I order the “Boy, oh boy, BBQ” Platter. It is basically a sampler of all of the BBQ sandwiches. It has a pulled chicken with their “Kansas City” sauce on it, a brisket with their “Texas” sauce on it and a pulled pork. Also comes with your choice of side and a taste of slaw. We both also got fries as the side and I also got a side of mac and cheese. I went for the pulled chicken first. It was literally falling apart in my hands. The meat was so juicy and had just the right amount of BBQ sauce. Like I said it had their “Kansas City” sauce on it which kind of sweet and had a little too much vinegar. Didn’t bother me though and was really good. Next, I went for the brisket.

Unbelievable! The meat was cooked just right and had soaked the bun with the juices. It had the “Texas” sauce on it, which was way more thick than the Kansas City and was kind of spicy with a smoky flavor. I liked this sauce much better. All that was left was the pulled pork. Party Tim says his was a little dry but mine, much like the others, had soaked the bun from being so juicy. All three sandwiches were amazing. The fries were typical frozen fries but were fried just enough to be kind of crispy and were totally full of flavor. Home made mac and cheese was also very delicious.

          Now on to Beefario Stomps meal. He ordered the Smokehouse BBQ Combo. This meal was a quarter chicken and a quarter rack of ribs. He got the Kansas City sauce and home made potato salad and baked beans as his sides. I wish I ‘d gotten this. The chicken was exploding with juices and the ribs were perfectly pink and falling off the bone. I have to admit, I was a little jealous. I’m not really into potato salad but it looked really good. He was so impressed with how good his meal was he said he was going to bring his old lady there again this week. Man, I wish I had gotten this meal.

After the meal Party Tim and I played a quick game of pool to top off the evening. I won on a technicality. If you are ever in the mood for great barbecue, I highly recommend Barley’s Smokehouse. It is located at the corner of Dublin Rd and Grandview Ave. Call me if you do. I’ll probably want to go.

                                                            -Chairs.

Gorilla Biscuits and Gravy Presents

DJ Mikey Papageorgio will perform immediately after the show. This will be one for the books.

Wholly Joe’s

First and foremost this place was recommended by my a fellow GB&G staffer whose taste i trust completely. When he informed me that there was a place in columbus to get a good italian beef sandwich(a chicago staple)
i was pretty excited. So Chris(fellow GB&G staff member),Ethan, Scott, Josh and I all headed up to polaris to get the skinny. Josh apparently thinks the only serve hot dogs so he is already pissing and moaning. this is a win win for most
of the group, if we don’t get italian beef sandwiches maybe we can get a killer chili dog. We get there and we walk in and i’m already skeptical about this venture because its a chain and its REAL obvious. There is goofy shit on the walls,  and everybody is wearing a uniform. So i love and trust my co-writer but I’m not getting my hopes up. We head up to the counter and the customer service is great, everyone is real nice and the manager is even running a register. I order my sandwich and see they have onion rings and get those as a side. the woman who took my ordercomments that i am smart for getting the whole sandwich dipped in the juices and apparently the onion rings are good too. i head over to get my tasty fountain beverage and i see they have Coke AND Pepsi products! ……Now im not one for peps, not even a little bit,  but to have both so the customer can get whatever their prefrence is pretty cool.
i get a Coke (cause im a real man)and soon enough my food is ready. i first try an onion ring and they are breaded not battered, onion rings are kinda hard to screw up but breaded makes all the difference to me. they are delicious.
i can’t hold back from my sandwich anymore, i unwrap the foil and take a bite and it’s awesome.
any hope i lost when i walked in the door was restored.  Although i know these aren’t t the “real deal”
you have to remember, i don’t live in Chicago, you dicks! The sandwich is packed with meat and sweet peppers and the juice is spicy, it’s subtle spicy flavor doesn’t hit you till a little bit later, but it’s there. I will go back for sure, i hear they have good chicago style pizza so i gotta get down on that.
i apologize for not having pictures but it did not occurr to me at the time.

keep on mealin on,

Last Floorpunch Show Part 2

We had secured 2 of 3 tickets by the time we arrived at the venue, shortly therafter we figured out that we could still buy tickets at the door. The show was great, even if there was some weird stuff going on stage during down to nothing’s set. This post is about food so we will leave the show review for another reviewer at another time. After the show we were tricked into going to taco bell instead of the grease trucks with promise of hangouts and quick eats. This is a decision that I regreted right away and still regret now as I have still never eaten at the grease trucks in New Jersey. I got one of the new diet steak tacos, which sucked. The next morning we started on our return trip home we stopped off in Bedford, PA at Ed’s steakhouse

This was one of the last remaining holdover from the late 70′s early 80′s eras of steak houses. It had a lot of different rooms, and was easy to get lost in. We looked pretty rough after our stay in a slimebag motel the night before so I wasn’t too surprised that the waitstaff wasn’t particulalry cordail with us. The first thing that was brought out was some warm  bread that came with a delicious apple butter, this was one of two things that we ate here that were really good.

My entree here was pretty over priced, and even more over cooked, everything was dry as bone and then soaked in gravy to mask it. I was  pretty hungry though so as usual with the GB & Gravy staff I left my plate clean.

The burger was nothing to get excited about either, the vegetable were fresh though which is always nice when dealing with a dry burger. The fries were great, they had a little extra batter on them to make them even crispier than your average steak house french fry. What kind of steak house doesn’t offer steak fries?

The meal did end on a high note. The apple pie was great, warm and flaky with a side of ice cream to cool it down. This was easily the highlight of the meal. I would stop in to Ed’s just to eat this apple pie.

Although this meal was nothing to get excited about, not much could dampen our spirits after seeing the almighty Floorpunch one last time. We left with heads held high and returned to our lives in Ohio happier and fatter thinking about the next meal.

Last US Floorpunch Show part 1

January 16th the GB and Gravy staff headed out on a long drive from Columbus, OH to a church in Edison, NJ for the “last” US Floorpunch show, we got off to a super late start because we got lost before we even got out of the 270 loop (while my little brother had a map the whole time in the back of his car). We left with no tickets, even though the show was sold out already. After a few hours, once everyone had woken up we decided to stop off in Somerset, PA and see if we could find something to eat that wasn’t a chain restaurant. Sure enough, as soon as we pulled off we saw the sign for the Summit Diner.

The decor inside was typical throwback diner, 1950′s and 60′s with lots of coca-cola memorabilia around. We grabbed some seats at the counter and were almost immediately greeted by the waitress.  We ordered coffee, which was fresh, and cokes, which were tasty.

The food took a little while to come out but once it arrived it was all cooked more than adequately, and exactly as orderd, I had a simple breakfast of eggs, bacon and toast.

Tucker had the same breakfast but added hotcakes, subbed sausage and had wheat instead of white, we both decimated our plates in record time. The Hotcakes were amazing.

Our traveling companion ordered the Jakeinator (basically a pepperjack burger with bacon and jalapeno), and due to a sever hangover took a little while to polish off his average sized burger.

Summit diner also offered some ENORMOUS slices of pie, but we were pressed for time so we decided to forego dessert and get back on the road.  To be continued…..

Rubino’s Pizza

After hearing lots of good things about this pizza place in Bexley called Rubino’s, the GB&Gravy staff, and some friends decided to head out one cold January evening and check it out. First thing you notice about this place is the old timey neon outside, good classic look. Inside is about what you’d expect from the look of things outside, a no frills pizza joint, the kind of place I’m sure is packed after high school football on Friday nights. A few booths line one wall with 3 tables in the middle of the room that seat between 7 – 10. Along the other wall is the kitchen, which is open, with the cash register by the door. Really cool vibe, classic pizza joint.

Rubino’s pizza is Columbus style (for all my non Columbus readers, Columbus style pizza is real thin, with an almost crackery crust that is cut into small rectangular pieces instead of traditional pie slices), this is one of my favorite types of pizza so I was already stoked about this place off the rip. Sodas were served in a can, water was brought over in a tupperware jug, this place obviously has a no nonsense attitude.

I started with a salad, that was your basic neighborhood simple salad topped with an olive and pepperoncini. It was small, but pretty much exactly what I had expected. Next up we ordered 2 large pizzas, one pepperoni, and one with peps and mushrooms. We also had the spaghetti with a meatball, and spaghetti with mushroom sauce (for our vegan friend who would not be partaking in the pies).

It all came out relatively quickly and was all gone even quicker, let me tell you this place lived up to the hype. Both pizzas were perfectly cooked, with super crispy crusts that offered just a little bit of chewiness , and a sauce that was mildly sweet with lots of garlic and herbs to balance, really tasty stuff. The pepperonis were perfect, they were the little kind that can sometimes turn into little bowls of oil, but on the whole these really didn’t cup up too much, which was nice. Although the noodles in the spaghetti were a little over done, the sauce was good, as was the meatball, not as good as the pizza, but good nonetheless.

On the way out I realized that the mustached man by the register, who looked to be the owner was wearing a white t-shirt with “bino’s” across the chest, with american flag stars on the right sleeve and red and white bars on the left sleeve. This is the kind of man I trust to make good pizza, salt of the earth. I wish I would have gotten a picture of him.

After leaving no pizza uneaten, we headed to jeni’s ice cream to finish out the night with some local dessert. We will be going back to Rubinos pizza.