Food Pics of the Week (FPOTW): J. Hollingers Waterman’s Chophouse

J. Hollingers Waterman’s Chophouse (***)

8606 Colesville Rd Silver Spring, MD 20910

I think hubby and I have found our local happy hour spot for the following reasons:

• A generous happy hour, Tues – Thurs 4-9 pm and Fri – Sat 4 – 7 pm

• A nice selection of happy hour food and beverages starting at $5.

• $1 oysters – you know I love my oysters

• Diverse clientele

• Friendly staff

For our dining pleasure, we went with a roasted beet and burrata salad, fried calamari, and mussels, Of course, we did mussels since it's a part of the restaurant's name.

For our dining and drinking pleasure, we had delicious gin tonics (I had a couple of Manhattans too), a dozen oysters, lamb meatballs, and ceviche. With the exception o f the ceviche, EVERYTHING was amazing especially the meatballs. The ceviche wasn’t bad, but it tasted more like guacamole with some shrimp.

While the food and beverages were great, I really enjoyed the diversity in the bar’s patrons. Often, I have to deal with the fact that I will be the only Black person in many places. However, J. Hollingers had folks of all colors, sizes, and shapes. The only downside: I wish it was in walking distance. Looking at Google, commuting to the spot is 1 hour on foot, 26 minutes by bus, and 9 minutes by car. Oh well, can win them all. 

Food Pic of the Week

Treadwell Park (***) 

1125 1st Ave New York, NY 10065

So simple yet so basic.

A friend and I took a “stroll” to our old neighborhood (UES) where we completed our postdoctoral training. We grabbed some bites (and beverages) at Treadwell Park. Since it was an easy breezy Friday evening, we decided to grab some nachos and chicken waaaaaaangs.

Pork Nachos

Sorry for the blurry pic. I think my phone’s camera had some grease on it.

OMG, these pork nachos were everything and more. Normally, nachos do not do much for me because most places use crappy cheese and stale nachos. Also, most nachos dishes tend to make me super gassy the next day (yes, TMI). I do not know, but it seems like this restaurant took care and placing slabs of pork on each nacho chip. For example, every nacho had an adequate amount of cheese, guac, and pork. Most places’ nachos tend to have a plate of nachos with everything thrown on the nachos, then the nachos are baked until they are a nice gooey (sometimes disgusting) mess. However, Treadwell Park is fancy, so you will not have that problem.

LOL moment at Treadwell Park:

Most folks know that I’m not a huge fan of super sweet drinks. Why dilute the fun of a cocktail with extra sugar? Frozen margaritas are the exception. I ordered a Modern Farmhouse cocktail, which is prepared with Interboro gin, Old Duff Genever, lemon, chamomile, honey, and Ayinger Brau Weisse. Being complicated, I asked our waitress if she could tell the bartender to make the drink without honey. Lord, I think the staff had a mini-conference about my beverage. Five minutes later, three staff members came to the table and asked me (a few times) if I was sure that I did not want honey in the beverage.

Some statements/questions raised by the staff:

• Are you sure?

• Positive?

• You know that the drink will not be sweet?

• We will not be able to refund you if you don’t not like the drink.

It turns out that our first waitress was training that evening so the other two staff members were just confirming that she got the order right.

All in all, I definitely will be sure to make another trip to Treadwell Park the next time I’m on the UES . . . if it is still there. For some reason, restaurants do not last very long on 62nd St. and 1st Ave. Perhaps, the space is too large, which makes it hard for the owners to keep up with more likely expensive rent in the area.

Random Thought:

Writing this post has made me realize that I am very behind in writing my Yelp reviews, and I better upload a few reviews before Yelp revokes my Yelp Elite status.

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Food Pic of the Week

SETTEPANI (***) 

 196 Lenox Avenue, New York, NY 10026

I know this restaurant has been mentioned a few times on this blog. Hey, we are in a pandemic, and my dining options are limited. I guess this entry will be less about food and more about cocktails. More specifically . . . a couple of new cocktails that are on Settepani’s fall menu.

Zucca Ferro (Pumpkin Iron)

Forbidden Fruit

First up, we have the Zucca Ferro (Pumpkin Iron), which has pumpkin, whiskey, lemon juice, and Harlem American Syrup. Since I'm not a fan of too much sweetness in my adult cocktails, I requested the drink without the syrup. Don't nobody need all that sugar getting in the way of his whiskey. ;) This one gets a 9 out of 10.

Next, we have the Forbidden Fruit - a combination of Hendricks Gin, apple cider sorbet, and ginger beer. I'll give this one an 8 out 10, because I wish the cocktail had a bit more gin in it (shocking). Perhaps, next time, I just ask for the gin and apple sorbet for this cocktail. I gotta say that it probably was not a wise choice to order this beverage while dining outside in 52F weather.

Now that I think about it. Since one of the cocktails contained sorbet, I guess this post did have food in it after all.

Food Pic of the Week

Mel’s at 22 (***) 

 22 Chestnut Street, Cooperstown, NY 13326

Ugh, I’m annoyed that I wrote this post, and somehow Squarespace deleted the entry. Out of frustration, I’m just gonna put some quick bullet points.

-Out of boredom, I ran six miles to have cocktails at a bar.

View fullsize

-I pretty much stayed at the bar for about 3 hrs alone consuming various cocktails.

-The staff and bartender were pretty nice and friendly.

-Random bullet: I gotta say that I’m not a fan of Squarespace’s blogging platform. Ugh.