Friday, May 28, 2010

Yankee Stadium Visit



Yes, they served BBQ...

Bbq at Yankee Stadium.



I didn't try it during my first ever visit to the new Yankee Stadium, but we shared a table in the food court with someone who had it. They shared a fried pickle with us and it was actually pretty good. They seemed to like the pulled chicken and pork sandwiches.



Overall the new Yankee Stadium has a crazy assortment of food choices. Here are just some of the other concessions, each with their own space: Nathan's hot dogs, Johnny Rocket's burgers, Famiglia's Pizza, sushi, Chinese food, Philly cheesesteaks, NYY Steak, italian sausage, ice cream, and others. And that's just the booth concessions, then there are the actual sit down restaurants. There is of course the Stadium Club, a Hard Rock Cafe, NYY Steak, and Mohegan Sun Sports Cafe. Our seats were in the Mohegan Sun Sports Cafe seating area.

As a baseball fan who wants to see the game, I did not particularly care for these seats. They are supposed to be the Yankee answer to the Monster Seats at Fenway Park, offering fans a chance to literally sit on the center field fence and watch the game. Just like the Monster seats, there is table service at the seats. here's the view.



Unfortunately, these seats miss the mark for me because they are completely indoors, behind darkened glass. It is very difficult to see the baseball, and the only sounds you hear are sports bar chatter and the piped in sounds of the Yes Network broadcasters. Thank god it is YES and not the radio disaster of John Sterling and Suzyn Waldman.

Ironically they pipe the radio broadcast into the bathrooms. That makes sense to me.

You are better off going to a sports bar and saving the $90 before having your actual seats in the Mohegan Sun Sports Bar. Just my opinion.

The good news is that you can come in to the Mohegan Sun Sports Bar to eat without having tickets for it. I would go and check out the view, and the lollipop chicken wings ($14) were very good.

I can hardly say the same about my "steak" sandwich at the NYY Steak concession stand. At $15 this was the most expensive sandwich I saw in the stadium, so I figured this would be really good. Couldn't have been more wrong. Was basicly deli roast beef. sliced too thick rendering the meat tough, submerged in beef broth, then served on a bare kaiser roll. Dry, flavorless. And all they had on the condiment table was mustard and ketchup, so I had to put ketchup on it to make the sandwich edible. Sandwich and soda, $21. What a disappointment. Here it is.



My sister had a Philly cheesesteak. At $10.50 this was a bargain. Large sandwich on a sub roll with plenty of steak umm on there, and you can choose your cheeses and whether or not to have grilled onions. This is a far cry from Johnny Rockets, where they will not give you a $10 hamburger without American cheese on it (was told "we don't cook to order here.")

On the positive side, all the concession lines moved super fast. You can see the field from pretty much anywhere in the concession concourse. If you don't like your seats, you can pretty much watch from anywhere if you are willing to stand. The huge screen in center field is probably the coolest thing ever, this massive TV screen with the picture quality of the best HDTV you can buy.

I personally preferred the original stadium. It was all about the baseball there. It ias been reduced to a huge debris field next door to the new money making machine.

Monday, May 24, 2010

Charity Event

Sheila and I cooked pulled pork sandwiches for around 200 people at a Norwich Rotary ribbon cutting for a new playground Saturday. The event was in the Greeneville section of Norwich, an area we knew little about. While it was a Rotary event, the vast majority of those at the event were neighborhood people.

I had cooked a lot of pork, as I wanted to make sure we didn't run out of food. Service started slow, but once people realized that the food was free the crowds started coming. I was so pleased with the way the people responded to the food. People were coming back for seconds, even thirds. One ten year old boy came up to me and said "I could eat this forever!"

Got one complaint, a girl probably eight years old or so. She said "this is making me sick to my stomach. I don't like this at all." There's one in every crowd....

But overall we had a great time. When we got home afterwards Sheila and I both really felt great about it. We had never really done a big charity event like that before and it was really satisfying for both of us. I'm sure we will be doing this again.

Thursday, May 20, 2010

Lobster Rolls!

Some lobster rolls I whipped up in honor of my sister Kathleen's visit today. She's hardcore when it comes to lobsters, even bagging the carcasses to bring home and pick through later.

Oh, and the lobster rolls came out pretty good.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Friday, May 14, 2010

Busy Busy

Hey there, been too long between posts, sorry about that. So much going on BBQ related lately too. For the last two weeks, Q Haven pulled pork has been on the menu at Buddy's Dugout in Norwich CT where I live. It has been an interesting learning experience to get a taste of the retail food business. I have been doing my best not to get lost in the sea of food cost percentages and been trying to put my best product forward. So far it has been pretty well received by people and has been selling, which is great.

Also, I have been busy as the organizer of the 1st annual Cape Cod BBQ Championship, which takes place in three weeks. It is being held at the Peter's Pond RV Resort in Sandwich, Massachusetts. I have put a great deal of time and effort into trying to make this event a success, and so far things are going great. I have 27 paid teams and am expecting to surpass 30 before it is all said and done. This has been another good learning experience for me, and I hope to use this experience to organize other events in the future.

My number one priority will be to find someplace in Rhode Island to hold a contest in 2011. Rhode Island has not had a state championship since 2006, and it's a shame to have no qualifying contest from a New England state.

In the meantime, anyone interested in visiting the Cape Cod contest is welcome to come on down Saturday June 5 or Sunday June 6. The admission is $5 for an all day pass at the RV resort, with complete access to the contest site and to the entire resort for the day. The Bastey Boys will be vending BBQ to the public.

This Sunday, I'm cooking the tailgate party for the TLG Travel bus trip to the Nascar race in Dover, Delaware. The menu consists of pulled pork, burgers, hot dogs, cole slaw, and pasta salad. There are 45 people coming, should be a great time!