Shade Bar and Grill

Shade Bar And Grill

Nashua, New Hampshire

Shade Website

Shade on Twitter

Shade on Facebook

**First off, i would like to apologize, I had forgotten my camera in my rush out the door to get to this one, so I have to use pictures off the website, so the pictures of the food won't completely match, sorry for that.**

Now, about a month ago, I was watching the local news broadcast at noon, and normally i dismiss their cooking segment, I never really understood the point of a cooking segment on a local news program, it doesn't make sense like weather or sports report, its just a local restaurant chef rushed through showing you how to cook a dish from their restaurant, it normally doesn't make much sense, and normally they're from the same few places, popular eateries in Manchester or Portsmouth or the lakes region or something, but this day, they had a chef from a place that wasn't to far from me, a place called Shade, and upon a quick googling, it turns out its literally right nextdoor to where my mother works, which instantly put it on the must check out list for both her and me alike. So after about a month of research and discussion, today was the day I decided to check out Shade, and I must tell you, I am so very glad i did.

Shade Bar and Grill is located in the western wing of the Radison Hotel in Nashua, above the Atlantis Sports Bar, its important to note that though the name is on the side of the building, and the entrance to Atlantis is clearly marked, the main doorway that leads to Shade, does not have the name on the door, but it is right inside on the right side, I found it slightly confusing personally, but maybe thats just because it was my first time there. Shade, like most american bar and grills is basically a sports bar/pub with better quality food and less we'll kick your ass if you don't like the local team feel. Seriously, we need to stop that. Anyway, the dining room is roomy and bright and honestly, has the most comfortable chairs I have ever sat in at a restaurant ever, seriously, i didn't wanna get out of them they were so comfortable. The staff, though only two girls on duty when I went in, seemed polite and friendly, my waitress, who's name I couldn't make out on her name tag, and forgot to ask for, was very friendly and talkitive, even talking to me and my mom after we'd paid and were leaving, some might find such things abit annoying, but, i love a friendly waitstaff, they make you feel like friends and like you matter, thats a big thing to me, but maybe I'm weird, I dunno, stuff like that leaves an impression on me, a good one normally.

As for the food, its actually alot better then i was expecting. Normally when you see a restaurant thats latched onto a hotel, you tend to get hotel level food, you know that its passable but not something you would travel to where ever you're staying just for. Let me be clear on this, Shade's food is phenomenally good, my only issues would be personal taste nit-picky stuff, but I'll get to that as i explain what we ate.  We had to start, an order of potato skins, fried mozzarella wedges, and barbecue chicken wings. Now, the potato skins, though they were very large, there was only 4 of them on the plate, and though they were nice and crispy and full of cheese and bacon and chives, and tasted lovely covered in sour cream, i did find myself wishing for atleast 6 of them on the plate for the price they were, and similarly with the fried mozzarella wedges, I wish for the price there was maybe afew more, five not so large wedges really isn't enough of how good they are, but again thats small personal nitpicks, they were over all delightful. The highlight of the starters, and really the whole meal over all, was the barbecue chicken wings, I ordered a large, which was 12 wings, that could be served either hot or mild buffalo, barbecue, or teriyaki, thinking first they they'd be those microscopically small wings that most places serve you, you know the kind that look like they came off a baby chicken or something, and then thinking you can get buffalo wings and teriyaki wings just about anywhere, i'd go for the barbecue, and let me tell you, that was the RIGHT choice, now let me be clear on this, these chicken wings, not only where they amazingly flavored, and fried to a nice crispy outside and a juicy tender inside, but they were HUGE, seriously, as i said to my mom, i could see a group of friends going there and ordering a large of each of the three flavors you can get and that filling them all, these things were so big i almost asked for an order to go, and i'm thinking the next time we go, i just might get one to go after we eat, because they are simply amazing and a must try, i don't say that lightly either, so you know its gotta be a true statement.

As for our main courses, I, being the burger guy i am, got the Shade Burger and my mother got a Chicken Parmesan, both are made completely in house, my burger's meat is ground in the kitchen, and the chicken for the chicken parm is pounded out and prepped to order, and the sauce and pasta that go with it are also made on properly as well, you have to love that sort of detail. The Shade Burger was rather good, you could tell it was freshly ground, freshly ground meat has a certain flavor to it when its cooked right after grinding that is unmistakable, it was topped with some swiss cheese, really crispy bacon, and served with some delightful double fried fries, i love when a burger is so juicy when you bite it, the juice runs down your arm, this was one of thoe burgers, i enjoyed it a great deal. As for the chicken parm, it was giant, it was a whole large chicken breast, not the little kind you find at a grocery store, a the larger, free range ones that you find at butcher shops size breast, breaded, seasoned, and fried to a nice crisp, then covered in mozzarella and provolone cheese, placed ontop of in house made noodles, and covered in a house made thick and chunky marinara sauce. Now i will admit i tried a bite of the chicken and the noodles, and they were amazing, but sadly, the sauce, though i'm not a fan of thick and chunky tomato based sauces in general, was slightly bland and abit watery, my mom said she could probably get better out of a can, or that the sauce made by our local pizza delivery we order from alot was exceptionally better then the one she had on her meal. But as I've said with other negatively aimed things, they are just personal nitpicking things, and by all means, try them yourself and make up your own mind.

The prices aren't all that bad if i'm being honest, all together with drinks it cost me just abit over $65.oo for three apps, two meals and afew sodas each, which really isn't all that bad for a non-fast food type meal, and honestly is good enough that i would happily come back over and over, I mean the wings alone were enough to make me wanna go back to Shade, and knowing that its really not that far away from home is ofcourse a plus as well, so is that the staff is friendly and fun and enjoyable. If there was anything that i had to find as an over all downside about my time there, i would say the service was slightly slow, but, to be fair, we did show up on a saturday afternoon in that downtime between the lunch and the evening crowds, so maybe that had an effect on it, and also, that they don't list their deserts on their website, they have a chocolate cake that looks like passing it up might be a criminal offense, had I known about it before i went, i would have made sure I had room leftover to eat some, because, hey, house made chocolate cake, the simplest looking, but hardest to perfect thing there is. No, seriously try to make one, you'll see what i mean.

See what i mean? Look at that, and the hot fudge caramel moose next to it, don't those look just amazing? Seriously though, if you are ever in the Nashua area, or are up for a drive to the area for any reason or another, Shade really is a must try, you will leave so full that you'll get home and slip into a happy food coma, but it will be so very very worth it, i honestly am planning on returning soon, even if just for those wings, because seriously they are a must try.

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Chris

Grill Em All

Grill 'Em All

Alhambra, California

Grill 'Em All Burgers

@GrillEmAll 

Yesterday, myself and 5 other drove down to Santa Monica to the beach. We laid around in the sun, watched the ocean, and later walked the promenade a bit, nursing our mostly horrible sunburns. Later four of us decided to drive to Alhambra and visit a burger joint called Grill 'Em All. If the name doesn't give it away, this is a heavy metal themed burger joint and it totally lives up to it!

Grill 'Em All began as a food truck, and after winning a Food Network competition, they opened up a brick and mortar store, which makes them even easier to find! We couldn't hear much of the music playing inside because there was something going on outside that was pretty loud, but the atmosphere was good. Lots of metal themed stuff, like paintings, posters, and concerts playing, and the menu was just insane. All items on it had a metal twist- things such as the Napalm Death, Behemoth, Immortal, and Dee Snider. The burgers are big, with a ｽ pound of meat in every patty.

The Napalm Death Burger with Primate Fries

It took me about five minutes to decide on the Napalm Death, and a side of Primate Fries. My boyfriend ordered the Behemoth and the Pomme Fries, which we were about to find out really was a behemoth. I've had some good burgers, but this was easily the best burger I have eaten.

The Behemoth Burger with Pomme Fries

I started with a few bites of the fries, which are basically like In n Out's Animal Fries, but so much better. Then I took a bite of the burger, which was nothing short of amazing. The Napalm Death features pepper jack cheese, jalapenos, cream cheese, pickled jalapenos, jalapeno poppers, and habanero aioli. It was nothing short of amazing. Every bite I took resulted in more cheese oozing out from somewhere, and the heat was just right

My boyfriend has a tremendous appetite, but the Behemoth won. He managed to eat about 2/3rds of it but had to stop. The Behemoth is basically a big bacon cheeseburger, but with grilled cheese sandwiches as buns. Three sandwiches in one. Mattie vs Behemoth! Behemoth wins! The Pomme fries are just regular fries and he did quite a bit of damage to them.

The burgers are cooked medium rare unless you request otherwise, and are big, and juicy. Yes, its pricey for a burger joint but these burgers are worth every penny! We spent about $40 for our two burgers, two orders of fries, and 2 drinks. We got soda but they also have beer on tap and in cans, and margaritas. Service is friendly, outgoing, and very good. The owner came out and socialized with us, and the cashier who took our order hooed over my awesome lobster earnings. We had no complaints with anything there. Bathrooms are clean and single occupancy, and the place is nicely decorated staying with the heavy metal theme. We can't wait to go back again! 

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Deb

 

Kings

 

Kings

Back Bay, Boston, Massachusetts

Kings Boston

Last night I went out with my family for my cousin Casey's 21st birthday party, I was rather excited to go, because we were going to place I'd only heard of recently, and thought would be a great place to try, after all I do love all in one locations, where you can eat your food and then have all your entertainment right there in one spot, places like this are starting to pop up all over the food landscape here in the United States, and though by design that can be, for lack of a better term, Chuck E. Cheese for adults, thankfully, Kings is no such place. Also, if you are from outside of the United States, or from somewhere other then the east coast, and don't get the Chuck E. Cheese reference, please, be grateful, you're not missing anything other then terrifying foam rubber mice and a history of even more terror inducing early animatronic anthropomorphic animals singing country jamboree songs that will haunt your nightmares for decades to come.

The Main Dining Room, if you look all the way to the back on the left, that is where we sat

The Main Dining Room from the opposite end of the room.

Located in the Back Bay area of Boston, down the street from both The Berkley College of Music, and the often buzzed about Dillon's Pub, and attached to a parking garage for easy parking, infact, Kings is technically under the parking garage, which allows them a tremendous about of space for a location in Boston where everything is compact and ontop of everything else. From the moment you open the front door and see that giant disco ball that shines about as you descend the kind of steep stairs into the main seating area, you find yourself noticing two things, first, that the look of this place is sort Retro-1950s/Rockabilly meets modern Pub/Sports Bar, and that you kind of wish they would turn the lights up, because its very cave like, maybe they kept the lights low because the restaurant wasn't busy the night we went, apparently were were the only people in the area not going to see country singer Jason Aldean at Fenway Park, but i didn't mind that, I like to check places out when they aren't that busy, it allows you more time to relax and look around and truly think about what you want, instead of the order, eat, pay, tip and leave mentality so many busy restaurants give you, i am sure they have nights like that, but thankfully, for us, this wasn't one of those nights. The staff was very polite and friendly, and went out of their way to make us happy, which truly was impressive, normally i wouldn't mention such thing, but, two of our servers were in training, and one of them accidentally dropped two of the entrees, and though we didn't make a big deal out of it, because mistakes happen, they not only deducted the price of the two dinners off our bill, as well as knocked off afew of the appetizers as well, they continued to ask if there was anything they could do to make things better for us, as if we were the most important people in the place, infact, after finding out it was my cousin's birthday, they gave her a free slice of their triple chocolate cake free with a candle on it, and sang her happy birthday. I'm not sure if thats how they handle every single mistake, but their constant making sure we were ok after the incident and going above and beyond with the bill was very impressive, I've never seen a restaurant go that far out of their way to please visitors after that sort of accident. Truly a class act if there ever was one.

Mini Cheeseburger Empanadas

The last of the Buffalo Wontons

As for the food, oh my god! I wasn't expecting the food to be as good as it was, because again, lets be honest, this is a bowling alley/pool hall with a pub attached, you sort of expect pub level food, even though they want you to think they're high end. I started with a large order of mini cheeseburger empanadas, in a large you get six of them and what they call "fancy sauce" which is basically the big mac sauce with out the hot dog relish in it, they were abit to small for my liking and were mostly dough instead of cheeseburger filling, and you'd think you'd get more for the price, but, they are "mini" after all, so i guess i should have expected what I got. Don't get me wrong, they were excellent, I just wish there was more of them for the $12.oo price tag. My mother and one of my aunts split a small order of Buffalo Wontons, which is buffalo chicken and a creamy cheese sauce lightly fried inside of a wonton wrapper, served with a dill ranch dip, they both rather enjoyed them and happily gave me the last one for tasting reasons, I can tell you, i would much rather order those again then my empanadas, though i would order a large instead of a small, given their size, but for $8.oo for a small they were pretty nice sized and very tasty, i would go back just for them infact. For dinner itself, I had what is called a Texas Burger, which consisted of two 4oz. beef patties served on a bun and covered with bacon, a very large helping of pulled pork, a very large helping of coleslaw, pepperjack cheese, half and half pickles, and covered in a texas style barbecue sauce, OH. MY. GOD. was this a dish made in heaven, I am a burger guy, I always have been and always will be, but I must tell you, this might be, with out a doubt, the greatest non-fast food/national chain burger, I have ever had. Seriously, it was so flavorful and juicy, like a burger should be, and all the stuff piled ontop of it, was just so many excellent flavors ontop of other amazing flavors, I almost didn't mind that I had to pay an extra three dollars for fries to go with it, and though i would have liked a bit bigger of a burger for almost $9.oo, the taste truly makes up for the very few short comings for this, I was seriously in heaven, and can not wait to go back for another one as soon as I can. My mother had a meat pizza, which was a light thin crust style pizza with bacon, pepperoni, hamburger, sausage and mozzarella and romano cheese, to say my mother enjoyed her pizza would be an understatement, when she was full and slid the plate my way to try it, she did so very regretfully, because she truly loved this pizza, though everything was properly cooked and tasted amazing together, I wish it had just alittle more sauce, in bites you barely had any at all, and in a pizza, you need your sauce, that aside though, it was still very excellent for what is almost twice the size of a pizza hut personal pan pizza, and alot more flavor packed inside. 

My Texas Burger with crispy double fried french fries

The Meat Pizza, a thin crusted bit of Italian goodness

We seriously enjoyed our meal here, and are already talking about going back again as soon as we can get a group together to do so. Which, really is the best sign of just how good this place is, and how good the food really is as well. And if you're ever in Boston's Back Bay, and need a place to eat, please, make your way to Kings, you'll truly enjoy your time, plus, they've got bowling, skeeball, pool and shuffleboard too, you can't go wrong with that. My only complaint, if there is one at all, is that there is a very strict dress code, no work boots or steel toe shoes, no overly baggy cloths, nothing to trampy for the girls, and afew other things, i get the point of it, but, I always feel abit sad about dress codes in general.

----

Chris

Five Guys Burgers And Fries

Five Guys Burgers And Fries

Keene NH

Five Guys Website

About a year or so ago, my friend Chris started raving to me about this place in Keene he'd eaten at, he kept talking about how amazing it was for a fast food burger joint, and how he couldn't wait to go back. And after alot of talking it up, curiosity got the better of me, and I decided to take a trip up to check this place out myself, taking my mom with me, because she's a good second opinion on such things, we headed up to the Keene location, which is in a small mini-mall, long time livers in the area would know that its the location of the former Strawberries Music Shop location for the city of Keene, and if you're reading this and under the age of 30, you've probably never been in a music shop, in which case, I seriously hate you and your damn ipods and how they ruined a good thing.

The exterior of the Keene location

The Keene location is amazingly clean and bright, they're all tables with chairs, instead of booths, I'm always abit leery of booths, they make me feel confined most of the time, the staff was very friendly and helpful, and very patient with us as it was our first time there and didn't really know the menu or how big different sizes were. The burgers are cooked up old school style on a big thick griddle, like a burger should be at such an establishment, other fast food places take note, there is no microwave at all in this place. The fries are made from right there at the location from real potatoes, with the skin on them still and everything! They make both regular and Cajan style fries, they also make veggie sammiches and grilled cheese too, all right there on the spot, so you know exactly where the food you're eating is coming from, even if it is fast food.

The Interior of the Keene Location

I would have to say, as far as the food goes, OH MY GAWD, I honestly, have never had a burger or hot dog as good as this place makes them. Though I will admit, they are abit on the high priced side, my mother got a bacon cheeseburger, a cheese and bacon hot dog, a large fry and a large drink, I had 2 bacon cheeseburgers, a cheese and bacon hot dog, a large cajan fry, and a large drink, all together it cost me just over $50.oo, which really isn't that bad when you realize that the burgers were all double burgers, and that the fries are seriously enough to fill a brown paper bag about half way, and that you can get any of 20 different things on your orders, they even have veggie sammiches and grilled cheeses as well, but we didn't try any of those, I seriously can't believe just how much food we really got over all, it was enough to put me down for the count, which believe me, is not very easy to do food wise.

my order, though you can't seen the titanic amount of fries I got with my order, believe me, they are there.

The food came to us maybe 10 minutes after we ordered, and was cooked to perfection, seriously this had to be the best non-sit down restaurant burger i've ever had, i tend to judge how good a place is on their burgers, i am kind of picky that way. Mine had A-1 steak sauce and extra pickles, and my hot dog was just a plain cheese and bacon hot dog, i will admit, the cajan fries are abit on the spicy side, but still very good, though i would rather the regular fries, some of which i liberate from my mom's order while her eyes were bugging out of her head and she was raving about how good her burger was. The drinks were from one of those modern drinking fountains where you can mix and match your drink any way you like, half coke, half ice tea for example, though i didn't realize this until after my drink was lidded and i was enjoying it at my table. The extra condiments table was expansive and full of different things; ketchup, mustard, A-1 Steak Sauce and barbecue sauce as regular everyday add ons, and they had fresh lemon over by the drinks for extra flavor as well.

the never ending bag of cajan fries, truly they are a cruel mistress.

Over all, I would have to say, both of us thoroughly enjoyed our experience at Five Guys Burgers And Fries, as I had said earlier, the price was abit much, it came out to around $7.50 for each burger with meal tax, and the fries were about $4.oo or so, and the hot dogs were about $5.50 each, and that might sound like alot of money, but when you sit down and see just how much you get, each burger weighs in at almost a pound each, and each hot dog is an 8 inch dog butterflied, and the fries, well, they never seem to stop coming, it really isn't all that bad, though its definitely not an every single day lunch deal if you're a big eater like me, but if you just want a burger and some fries and nothing all that fancy, it isn't that bad on the wallet. But still very much worth the time and effort and more importantly, definitely its worth the money, even if you don't believe it until you see it in your hands. So definitely, if you get a chance, check our Five Guys Burgers And Fries, they're definitely worth a visit.


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Chris