Food, Glorious Food

Eponymous locally owned eateries in New York state = 4
McDonalds = 0

Well you can't say I went hungry during my family road trip to Niagara Falls, during week one of the first Shore Fire sabbatical. After consulting one of my meal bibles, Jane and Michael Stern's Roadfood (and their terrific website), and in thrall to our trusty GPS, I routed us through some key roadfood landmarks in New York state.

First up was Sharkey's in Binghampton, home of the spiedie, marinated pork chunks on a metal skewer. I loved my flight of spiedies (three) - each skewer comes with a piece of sturdy white bread which you use as a mitt to pull the meat off and make into a sandwich - but my favorite on the menu was "city chicken," breaded, deep fried spiedies. The kids had french fries.

Grade: A+ for atmosphere, A+ for food



"City Chicken" on top, one spiedie below



Just a few hour hours later everyone in the family groaned as I headed towards another landmark meat joint, Schwabl's, just outside Buffalo. Schwabl's is known as the home of "beef on weck," hand-sliced (at station in the middle of the olde- tavern-to-a-T dining room) roast beef on a German-derived hummelweck salty roll. I found the whole ensemble a bit on the dry side, and while I'll admit my experience was tainted by the fact I was still stuffed from lunch, I'll give Schwabl's an A+ for atmosphere and a B+ for food. The kids had french fries.


Midway through a beef on weck sandwich.



On the way back, Ted's was conveniently located in a northern Buffalo suburb. We pulled up next to a state policeman just getting out of his unmarked sedan. I took that as a good sign.



Here's a foot long with mustard and relish on the left, a chili cheese foot long with onions on the right, then a tub of famous hot sauce and excellent onion rings. The kids had french fries and a couple of bites of hot dog. A+ for atmosphere, A+ for eats.



Finally, halfway through our drive home, dawned on me that we'd be in striking distance of one of my long time favorites, Bob's Diner in Watervliet. I've been there a dozen times since stumbling across it fifteen years ago. Alas, Bob's has lost its luster. The key to the small menu has always been the roast beef with homemade gravy, but this time the brown stuff looked unreal. I even suspected it might be canned. Bob's has lost the spark that made it a get-off-the-highway destination, and the cozy dining room was more depressing than convivial as in the past. It was downhill from the cold soup to the wan, tough sliced beef, and the bored, surly service didn't help much either. The kids had pasta. B+ for atmosphere, B for food.