Famous Dave's - Times Square, NYC

My good friend Chai Yuet came to visit NYC over the Memorial Day weekend. After so many years in the States, it's hard to believe that it was her first trip to NYC. Her friend Kheng Leng was also in town, on his way home to Malaysia, after spending about a week in Houston working. So, we picked them up at the airport and spent the whole day taking them to various tourist spots around town. I will blog about that later on. Anyways, it was dinner time and we were in Times Square. Now, apart from it being a long holiday weekend, it was also Fleet Week and Times Square was just packed with people! We tried getting a table at Planet Hollywood but we were told that the wait was about an hour. No way were we gonna wait that long. We knew that it will be almost impossible to get a table on the main strip, so we tried one of the smaller streets off Times Square and found Famous Dave's!

Now, I've always wanted to try Famous Dave's (heard a lot of good things about that place) and it looked like it was a good day to do so. Many people have raved that they have the best Southern BBQ ever, with award winning sauces and slow cooked pit meat. Since it wasn't located on the main Times Square strip, it wasn't full at all and we managed to get a table the moment we walked in.

The restaurant itself was pretty big, with a huge bar as well as some tables on the ground floor and more booths and tables on the second floor. Our server brought us to one of the booths on the second floor. Just right next to us was a big display of all the awards and trophies that Famous Dave's won over the years for their BBQ. Wow, with so many awards and trophies, I bet we were going to to have an awesome dinner that night.

Both Kevin and I started off the night with some icy cold Sweet Tea. This, after all was a Southern BBQ place, so of course we had to order some Sweet Tea. I believe Kheng Leng had some Lemonade and CY was fine with just water.

Apart from their mouth watering BBQ, Famous Dave's is famous for their sauces! Check out the whole line up. We got CY to try the Devil's Spit and initially she said it wasn't all that hot. After a while, the heat started to build up and Woowee! It was hot!! She said it was hot but goood. You could also buy their famous sauces from the gift shop downstairs.

CY ordered the Barbeque Chicken Sandwich ($13.99). Moist hand pulled chicken tossed in BBQ sauce and topped with melted Jack cheese on a bun. Doesn't it look yummy? It comes with a pickle spear. She added on a side of creamy coleslaw for $1.50. I asked her if the sandwich was any good and she said that seriously, it was the best BBQ Chicken Sandwich she has ever eaten. Wow! You know what? I believe her, since she finished everything on her plate. It must be realllly good!

Kheng Leng ordered the Georgia Chopped Pork ($19.99). The BBQ slathered pork is smoked over sweet hickory fire for up to 8 hours and then chopped to order. It comes with corn bread muffin, corn on cob and two sides. He chose some mashed sweet potatoes and wedges for his side. He said that it tasted good overall but certain parts of the meat is a tad bit dry.

Since we knew that the portions will be huge, Kevin and I decided to share an appetizer and one main meal. We ordered one dozen of their award winning chicken wings ($12.99), tossed in their Rich and Sassy BBQ sauce. Now I know why they won so many awards for this wings. They were soo mmmm mmm good! Not only were they large, they were really juicy too. The sauce? Oh, don't get me started on the sauce. It was very very very good!

Apart from the wings, I read somewhere that their ribs won many awards too. Sooo, we just had to try them! We shared the Halvin' My Baby, Half Slab ($22.99). It was half a slab of baby back ribs served with corn bread muffin, corn on a cob and two sides. We tried the potato salad and cream spinach. We had an option of how we wanted our slow cooked baby back ribs. We can either have the Original, which is baby backs seasoned with their four alarm rib rub and then sauced with their honeyed Sweet & Zesty or Memphis style - baby backs rubbed with their secret recipe of herbs and spices, and then served naked (with no sauce). We went with the Original. Were they good? Hmm, don't get me wrong, they were good ribs. However, I feel that it didn't really live up to all the hype that comes along with Famous Dave's award winning ribs. They were good but not spectacular. Overall, it was a good meal. We had a great time just hanging out and catching up with CY as well as getting to know Kheng Leng better. The total bill come up to around $85, not too bad for a meal for four people, in Times Square. Nice ambiance, good food and great friends...what more could a person ask for? :D

Famous Dave's Legendary Pit Bar-B-Que
171 West 47th Street
New York, NY 10036-1503
Tel: (212) 764-1899
Fax: (212) 764-1888
Web: http://www.famousdaves.com/

Charley O's - Times Square

We were in Times Square last weekend and after walking around all afternoon, we wanted to look for a place to have dinner. We tried to get a table in Bubba Gump but there was a 45 minutes waiting list. So, we continued walking uptown and saw Charley O's.

It looked like a pretty decent place and went closer to take a look at the menu. They were having some specials and the prices were very affordable for Times Square's standard. To seal the deal, the greeter at the door handed us a coupon for 10% of food and a list of the happy hours drinks price. $3 for a bottle of beer and $5 for Cosmos, Margaritas, Long Island Ice Teas as well as some selected wine is a very good deal.

We also liked the music that was playing, some jazzy stuff. We also found out later that they do have live jazz bands at night and also comedy acts. Pretty cool. Charley O's is a Sports Bar/ Grill cum Jazz Bar/Comedy Club. It also seems to be a popular restaurant to go to before a night out at the theaters.

I love the decor of the place. There is two levels, with a huge bar near the entrance. There are also ceiling to floor windows for people watching. Their wait staff were very pleasant and well trained. Our waitress brought us three menus; the regular dinner menu as well as a two different prix fixe menu.

Kevin and I both ordered from this three course prix fixe menu. It came with a choice of the soup of the day or garden salad, a choice from seven different kinds of entrees, ice cream or the famous Lindys NY Cheesecake and coffee,tea or soda. All that for only $19.95!! Like I said earlier, that's really a good deal, considering that we are in the heart of Times Square.

We both chose the soup of the day to start off our meal. It was chicken noodle soup (yay, my fav!). There wasn't really anything to shout about, it's just regular chicken noodle soup. Not too bad, but it wasn't great either.

Kevin ordered the Grilled Sirloin Steak. It came with a side of Parmesan fries and garlic green beans and brocolli. He asked for it to be medium well and it came out perfectly medium well. Not only was the meat was tender and juicy, it also had a really great marinade. Really good.

I ordered the Slow Cooked BBQ Ribs. Mmm mmm mmm...they didn't name Charley O's as one of the best BBQ joints in town for nothing. It was really really good. The meat was so tender and nice, just falling off the bone. I had the same sides as Kevin. We both found the sides to be super delish! I dare say it's one of the best fries I've ever had!

For desert, we both had to try the ever so famous Lindy's NY Cheesecake. It's supposed to be the best NY Cheesecake around. Lindy's (same owner as Charley O's) is so famous for their cheesecake that it was reported that Milton Berle used to frequent Lindy's almost on a nightly basis. Lindy's was also mentioned in one of the songs of the famous musical "Guys and Dolls". So, was the cheesecake as good as what it's made out to be? Well, let me say something. People who know me knows that I am generally not a fan of cheesecakes. However, I really enjoyed my slice of Lindy's Cheesecake! It was yummy! The crust was really thin (unlike most NY cheesecakes that I have tried before) and tasted really rich and creamy. No wonder it's so famous! For a person who doesn't like cheesecake to say that it's good, it must be really really good. Overall, we had a really yummy meal at Charley O's. The food was good and so was the price! I highly recommend this place and I will definitely return again.

Charley O's - Times Square
1611 Broadway,
New York, NY 10019
Tel: (212) 246-1960

Saturday Afternoon in Times Square

We decided to head out to the city today to check out the all new pedestrian mall in the Times Square as well as the Herald Square area. We don't usually like to go to Times Square (unless we have visitors) because there are just too many tourist and the sidewalks are just jammed packed with people. You can't really enjoy the full offerings of Times Square because you will be too busy trying to push your way through the sea of people. I think the city of NY also know of this problem. Therefore, in an effort to reduce traffic and pollution, the city decided to try out an experiment. Starting last week, they have closed down sections of Broadway to traffic and make it into a pedestrian mall. The plan is to try this out for 6 months and if it works, it will be permanent.

We took the PATH down to 33rd St and walked over towards Macys in Herald Square. Check it out, I'm standing in the middle of the road that would normally be filled with traffic! They have closed down 33rd to 35th St and laid out chairs and tables for the public to just chill. In a way it's a good idea, but I don't know. It looked kinda silly too. Traffic was being diverted to the other streets while people just sat around, doing nothing. Isn't that what Central Park and all the other parks around the city are for?

We walked down Broadway to towards Times Square and they started to block off traffic starting from 42nd St. That's where the famous Times Square ball would drop every New Years Eve. People were just hanging out and relaxing on the green lawn chairs! It's quite funny to see Times Square without traffic (well, not counting the time when I went for the New Years Eve countdown).

We walked further down Broadway and now there were blue lawn chairs! It looks like a huge beach party, minus the sea and sand :P

Every time we go to Times Square, I would take a picture in front of that...haha! Don't ask me why. The difference today is....I get to take the picture from the middle of the street! I cannot believe I am standing in the middle of Broadway, minus all the yellow taxi cabs and traffic.

We decided to take a break and look for somewhere to go to for dinner. I wanted to check out Bubba Gump, so we went in. It was sooooooooo crowded and the hostess said that we had to wait for about 45 minutes to get a table. Forget that! So we continued walking in search of another place to eat(we ended up in Charley O's at the theater district, will blog about that later). Oh and if you are wondering why it's only me appearing in all the photos today, it's because Kevin says that he has been appearing in the blog too many times and there is not enough photos of me in here. Soooo, its all me today :P

As we continued walking up Broadway, the chairs got even more comfortable. Now there are deck chairs all over the place near the TKTS booths. For those of you who don't know, you can get last minute Broadway show tickets here for 50%! You should definitely check them out whenever you are in NYC.

After walking a little bit further up, this is what we see. Now the chairs are just plain absurd! Look at all various designs and shapes that they are in! I think it looks weird, but weird in a good way. Pretty cool actually.

This was towards the end of Times Square. I have never seen so many people (excluding the NYE countdown of course) in Times Square before. No traffic, just a sea of people.

There were all kinds of people from all walks of life down at times Square today. Also, all the Times Square 'celebrities' were out in full force. We saw the Birdman, Superman, the Naked Cowboy, some cartoon characters and even four Statues of Liberty! We also noticed that there were a lot of police standing around at every corner. At the time, I thought that the NYPD was stationed there for crowd control. They must have a lot of manpower to station so many officers just for this pedestrian mall. Little did I know at that time that there were two (well, three) very important people visiting the area around the same time as us.

Nahhhh, not those two! :P Yeah, they were in Times Square too but they were not the important people I was talking about. President Barack Obama and his wife were actually just a few blocks away from us. Not on official business but it was 'date night' for them. They flew in to have dinner at the West Village and then headed to Broadway for a show at the theater district. No wonder there were so many cops! Guess who was the other? Prince Harry! Yup, Prince Harry was in town for a polo match earlier in the day and he was going about visiting tourist attractions like 30 Rock and other places in the city around that time too. No wonder security was super tight that afternoon/evening! No, we didn't get to see the Obamas or Prince Harry. We didn't even know that they were somewhere near us until we got home and watched the 11 o clock news!

We had a great time in the city today though we didn't get to see the President or Prince. We had loads of fun shopping, people watching and also had a super yummy dinner. Sooo, what do I think of the new pedestrian malls? Keep the one in Times Square and scrape the one in Herald Square! The Herald Square pedestrian mall is just plain silly. There were not as many people hanging out at the one in Herald Square anyways. I think that they are both too close to each other. One is enough. :D