NY

The Bocuse Restaurant, Hyde Park, NY, 6/1/23

~ hsnixon ~ 3 Comments
entrance – 1946 Campus Dr, Hyde Park, NY 12538

The Bocuse Restaurant is the French restaurant in the Culinary Institute of America.  Named aptly for Paul Bocuse, it is staffed by students at the CIA who learn modern cooking techniques to bring diners classic French cuisine.  It’s in a large room at one end of a main building that has a parking garage next to it.  Tons of windows added even more light to the fairly bright white room.   Modern ceiling fixtures add soft light as does the see-through wine cellar.  One end of the room is the open kitchen.   Students not only do the cooking but also the service, drinks and wine service.  They were all very pleasant but varied in their competency.  Bench seating lines the walls with free-standing tables in the middle of the room and music was in the background.  The menu is set up as a prix fixe 3-course menu with several choices in each category.  They offered a nice wine list as well as many cocktails and mocktails – some made tableside. We were there with family so I got more pictures than I got to eat, but pictures tell a lot.  Overall the food was nice but some menu descriptions were off the mark. Continue reading →

Duff’s Famous Wings, Buffalo, 9/1/21

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exterior

Duff’s Famous Wings starting serving wings in 1969 and by 1985 established that their wings were indeed famous in Buffalo, NY.  Duff’s started in Amherst, a suburb of Buffalo in 1946 as a bar.  It is a ‘classic’ in Buffalo with numerous locations.  We tried one in Depew, another suburb, that was close to the airport.  It was a large sterile place with a big parking lot.  Inside was a large bar and many booth-like tables.  The menu offered wings by the count, not pound but also had salads, wraps and sandwiches.  The wings come in several degrees of hotness and with your choice of dipping sauce, but blue cheese is standard.  We had an order of 10 of medium (which is called hot) that came with a couple stalks of unpeeled celery and milled carrots.  The blue cheese dip was tasteless and the medium was what I’d call mildly hot.  The thick sauce adhered to the chicken well and had a nice lingering spiciness in the mouth.  The drummies were on the dry side but the flats had good moistness.  Overall I wouldn’t call them anything special and can getter better in the bars in Texas. Continue reading →