Sunday, June 17, 2012

Pat's Pizza

This is a solid pizza (/general italian foods) restaurant with a few locations in the Delmarpa area. They deliver to my department (and my apartment) and they have a nice building with karaoke and big TVs. In general, the food is pretty decent, but some things are better than others! The online ordering system is pretty good too.

Stromboli: not as great as I would hope. The crust is dry and hard and it's very similar to D.P. Dough's unexciting calzones. The filling is good but not great -- I think my favorite stromboli come from Your Place and Lisa's Cafe back in PA, but I digress. This is a mere 5/10. Huge portions though.

Regular Pizza: Very good! I was pleased and/or impressed. A medium is 6 slices. The crust is nice, the cheese and sauce are fine, and the mushrooms and broccoli were really good. The mushrooms reminded me of Sbarro mushrooms, which was great. Yum. 8.5/10

Italian Sub: Pretty good - standard sub. I don't like the lettuce but the overall flavor is solid. 7/10

Hamburger: Typical pub burger. Big and filling. Fries are good. 5/10

Wings: Boneless are bad but regular are quite good! BBQ sauce of course. 7/10

Ribs: Don't do it! 3/10

Cheese Steak: Don't do it! A lot like the boli but more stomachachey. 3/10

Chef Salad: A good salad! Spicy meats, decent size, love the Ken's French dressing :) 6/10

Tuscan Pasta: Basically ravioli in a different shape, in a buttery sauce with good brocco and adequate chicken. Comes with a salad and garlic knots, so a nice 2-meal meal. 7/10

Chicken Parm: Dependable, the spaghett and sauce are good and comforting, it comes with either 2 garlic knots (small) or 3 and a salad (full size). The chicken can sometimes be pretty burnt, but it's still solid and comes with cheese on top. What else could you want? Probably way too oily for anyone's good though! 8/10

Arrabiatta: This pasta dish is penne with chicken chunks, and a spicy marinara sauce. What with the 3 garlic knots and the salad, it's a solid 2-meal dinner option. The taste is just OK though; it's not as good as their spaghetti I think. But if you really like spicy sauce, this is decently spicy (although not overwhelmingly so). I like other dishes better but this is a nice, plain option. 6/10

Paesano: This is probably my favorite pasta choice; it's ziti in a light (not calorie lite but "they don't put on much" light) vodka sauce with a bunch of cheese (mozz?) on it. Plus your breadsticks/salad. It's really filling and tastes great, although I wish there were a bit more sauce and less cheese and a half portion available. Oh, there's also sausage circles in it! Those are OK, not great but it's good to have something else included. I eat a few of them. 7/10

Chicken Florentine: This was quite bad. The chicken had a weird off taste, dry and weird, and the noodles (which there were a lot of) were tasteless, even though I saw tons of parmesan sprinkled on top, they didn't taste oily or cheesy or garlicy or anything. Just bad noodle. Some spinach and tomato bits (very few) were the highlights. At least the side salad is always good. I got this trying to be relatively healthy and also get leftovers, but it's not worth it! Get something else! 4/10

Ham Sub: a little boring, a little dry, a lot of bread and not enough veg/cheese/mustard (definitely get with mustard though). Still edible and filling and not too oily. 6/10

Spaghetti with sausage: This is only 9.99 for the full size (for now), which is one of the better deals at Pat's. You get your nice salad and garlic knots, along with a ton of pasta and little sausage circles. As noted in Paesano's description, I don't love the sausage, but actually they are strangely compelling since they break up the pasta monotony here. They're probably really unhealthy but they don't make me itchy, and the pasta is solid, not too saucy or sauceless. Very filling, even for 2 meals. 7/10

Manicotti: This is 4-5 big pasta tubes full of ricotta, all baked in a little pasta sauce (not quite enough) and with melted mozz(?) on top. It's good, better than their ravioli, but not super amazing and definitely a lot of cheese for a sensitive tummy girl. Plus only 2 garlic knots! But the salad combo is still satisfying and nice. 6/10

Combo Club Sandwich: Generic deli meats (wet) and cheese, lettuce, tomat on 3 bread triangles, which is a format I'll never like or accept. It's OK but not great. Also I got fries instead of chips because she asked, but it cost 3+dollars extra, which is super dumb. This was not worth 12 bucks. 5/10

Cheesesteak wrap: A nice wrap, especially if you get it with mushrooms instead of lettuce because there's an e.coli scare in lettuce. For real, the mushrooms were really nice. It also comes with tomato, melty american (white) cheese, and weird curdy steak bits. It's oily but the overall wrap wasn't that huge (but still filling), so it was satisfying and nice. Comes with normal fries too. 7/10

Baked Ziti: Really boring, and cheesy and nothing else. Noodles soggy. Sauce is standard red, no meat or cream. Gordon took one of my garlic knots. 5/10

Broccoli bites: This is just an app, it's basically broccoli cheese soup fried in little nuggets. Literally that. So it's OK, but not amazing. 5/10

Garden salad: This is basically a big version of the side salad, but with peppers and 2 garlic knots included. It was OK, but I shouldn't have gotten ranch dressing. 5/10

Turnover: Gordon got this but I ate his last slice. It was regrettable. Just a LOT of mozz inside pizza crust, with a little marinara (very little). My tum said "WTF girl". 4/10

BLT club sandwich: Actually this was better than I thought it would be, given the underwhelming combo club sandy. This had lots of bacon, the mayo wasn't gross, and it had a nice buttery BLT taste overall. The tomatoes could have been juicier, of course, but still. Plus you get a bag of chips to take home! 7/10

Cheese Ravioli with Sausage: Solid! For 12$ You get the full meal, pasta and salad and bread. Too bad Gordon ate a garlic knot. Anyway, the ravioli is good, basically what you'd get from the freezer or Olive Garden, just plain cheese. They're big squares and you probably get 10-12 of them, so it's enough for two meals even though it doesn't look as massive as spaghetti does. The sausage is just little side bits, which is fine, neither good nor bad. Tasty meal. 8/10

Corona: I always get a Corona. It comes with lime and is 4$. 7/10

Tortelloni Alfredo w/ broc: This was new to me, but it was good! Maybe just because I was sick and couldn't taste it, but the sauce was really nice, not too oily but almost sweet. The broc was fully cooked in it, and the noodles were like good cheesy blorps. Plus garlic knots and salad, a full meal. Into it. 8/10

Marilyn Monroe: Whaat? Newark Pat's doesn't have this dish, but Lancaster Pat's does. Lancaster Pat's is weird and gross. There's no bar, no alc, no dining room, just counter service, and the menu is different and I think it's worse. The salad comes in the bowls I own at my house. It's very weird. I ordered this pasta dish in "garlic sauce" with tomato, spinach, mushroom, and chicken. The garlic knots were the same, but the sauce was so so cream/heavy/oily and the other stuff was sparse. It was filling and not the WORST but gave me a p. bad stomach ache and wasn't great. Just not great. 5/10

Onion Rings: Oh no. These were not great, and I say that as a huge fan of Burger King onion ring. They had no texture - the outside was smooth - and the smooth breading had no flavor at all, no seasoning, just oily nothing over a wet cold onion. Plus I got food poisoning later so it was either these or Deer Park nugs (maybe a lethal combo). Comes with ranch sauce which is like, OK. You get a lot of them though, like 15 or so. Also Gordon touched them, always bad news bears. 4/10

Coffee: They have coffee, it's small but only 1.50$. Tastes pretty good. Hot. 7/10

Chicken Quesadilla: Oh no. I had a bad experience paying today, the waiter (Jake) took the cash and thought it was a tip but really I was paying and then we asked for the bill to be lowered and it was awkward and I wanted to die. Anyway, that soured me on my order a little bit. Quesadilla, though an app, was very big: 4 massive rectangles worth. The filling is like their chicken stromboli filling, the lettuce and tomato are sub style seasoning. Salsa is thick and sloshy, not the greatest. Very filling and not technically bad, but not really good either. Cheddar cheese and italian chicken is a weird choice. I did eat it all. But that was a mistake. 5/10

Grilled Chicken Salad: Got this (the small size) with thousand island and it was good. Like a garden salad but with more chicken and other stuff. Filling yet not gross, all parts were decent, and comes with 2 small garlic knots. 7/10

Veggie Pizza: - Not bad; the veggies were very fresh, but this isn't my favorite pizza flavor. Lots of peppers. 6/10

Fettuccine Alfredo (w/ broc): This was decent but very cheesy/oily. Don't eat it all at once! Tasted good though, and as ever the salad and garlic knots are baller. 7/10

Slice of Cheese Pizza: Ha ha. A single slice!? But this was surprisingly tasty, it was square style and soft, with not too much sauce. Tasted like the pizza from a school lunch. Also, it was only 2 dollars, which is a great deal! Adding a side salad makes for a nice full meal. 8/10

LA Burger:  This was basically as described on the menu. I ended up eating the avocado separately. I don't LOVE swiss on a burger, and the chipotle sauce was a lot like mayo. It wasn't terrible but I did add a lot of ketchup. The taste was similar to those egg and arugula sandwiches I made once. Really, I'd rather have a plain burger, I think, but I do like that it had veg. 6/10

Margarita Pizza: Pizza! So this looked really disappointing in person, it was just a lot of sauce on thin crust with tiny tiny mozzarella circles and hardly any basil, but it was actually good. It made two nice meals, the sauce was good and the thin crust was great. Definitely different than their other pizzas, and less filling, but I think that's a good thing in some ways. 7/10

French Fries: No sweer potato here. I got this along with a side salad, which was very filling but it's no pizza. 5/10

Potato Skins: Gordo ordered these and I had one. They were OK but the bacon made me itchy, not my fav. 4/10

Meat Lasagna: Oh noo. For some reason this meat had a strange floral taste, which is never a good sign. It also arrived with a limp salad, no garlic knots, and limp noodles. Pasta is generally good regardless of the quality, but the innards made this pretty bad -- small lumpy meat bits with ricotta(?) blend in a small amount of sauce and mozz? Just generally not great, although I lived to tell the tale. 5/10

Garlic Knots: This is an app which at happy hour was less than 3$. So, the deal is excellent. You get 6 knots and marinara dipping sauce, which is good. I enjoyed them as usual, but I did think they were a bit smaller/skinnier than normal, although that could be a fluke. I ate them all. Hehe. 6/10

Philly Cheesesteak: This was fine, it's a big (hardish) bun and not that much meat/veg inside, but obviously cheese and bread is tasty to a certain degree. I don't really like the meat - it's super chopped and like ground beef more than steak-ums, but overall I'd say this is "fine". 6/10

Cheese Fries: What am I doing with my life? This was just fries with a cup of "cheese sauce" which was not even up to the par of movie theater nacho cheese, though it was similar in vibe. I just put ketchup on them mostly. I wasn't super hungry and was also rushed to eat these since my eating companion was an hour late, so it wasn't a great combo. Alas. Cheese fries. At least they were cheap. 5/10

Greek salad: Not sure what I expected, but this had a ton of feta on it and olives and I had to pick both off because yuck. I got the smaller size, with grilled chicken added. The chicken was fine, and the 2 lil garlic knots were fine, and of course the lettuce/onion/tomato/green pepper was fine. Ooh and there were two pepperoncinis. But no dressing. Super dry and boring and only ate like half of it. Alas. 5/10  

Turkey Hoagie: So we're calling them hoagies now? This came with the usual bits and I asked for mayo and I only got a tiny bit, which is actually great. It was a lot of bread, and too firm of bread, but otherwise pretty decent! Didn't make me have food poisoning, so yay. 7/10


Overall
Cost: 6/10
Taste: 8/10

Laura says: I like this pizza very much! Good pizza. Also speedy delivery. Except one time. 9/10

Saturday, June 2, 2012

Pepperidge Farm Golden Cake

This is a delightful little cake, especially compared to traditional cake (although it is not as good as ice cream cake, sorry). However, it is quite nice. The frosting is good, is it moist, and it isn't that overly saccharine flavor which some cakes have. Plus it's square! I've always loved these cakes.

Overall
Cost: 7/10
Taste: 8/10

Laura says: I don't like cake, but I like this. I'm confused. Good frosting. 8/10

Knorr Mexican Rice

This rice was nice and moist and a nice yellowy color. I always like Knorr side dishes, so this is no exception. However, the flavor is nothing special -- it needs something else with it, in my opinion. A true side dish! Goes well with corn. It makes a pretty good amount.

Overall
Cost: 7/10
Taste: 7/10

Laura says: I like it OK. 6/10

Ragu Super Chunky Mushroom Sauce

This sauce was very watery upon cooking, which I didn't expect from the pre-cooked consistency I had observed. Nevertheless, it worked fine for eating with pasta. The taste was average, and the chunkiness was somewhat overstated. There were few chunks, but the ones that were there were nice. It was a little too sweet for my taste.

Overall
Cost: 7/10
Taste: 6/10

Laura says: Tastes good but not enough mushrooms. 6/10

Friday, June 1, 2012

Brew Ha Ha

Brew Ha Ha is a nice little coffee shop right across from my department. It's a good place to hang out and get some reading done whilst scoping out the undergrad population. Anyway, I'm not a huge drinker (of coffee or tea) so I don't hang out there too often. But I do see the appeal and it's cute and quirky.

I usually get a Jet Tea Smoothie (mango or strawberry or wildberry) and they are very sweet and big. They will put whipped cream on it. I enjoy them once in a blue moon (especially strawberry).

Overall:
Taste: 6/10
Cost: 5/10

- - -
Laura says: I like that it's spacious and was mostly empty when I went. It feels relaxed but also unpretentious too, like I could ask them about the drinks without feeling judged. I had a small Americano which was good, but not spectacular. I also like getting to use a mug while I'm there instead of a paper/plastic cup as it feels homey-er. This is a spot where I feel like I will spend tons of time working on poems, reading, generally caffinating myself. 9/10