Thursday, July 31, 2008

Chinese Food at Princeton Junction's First Wok

I ate at the First Wok Chinese Restaurant in Princeton Junction, NJ. I started off with an order of Scallion Pancakes, mostly because Chinese Restaurants in Florida do not serve them for some reason. They tasted fine, but were a bit too flaky and didn't hold together as well as other scallion pancakes that I have eaten in the past.
First Wok Scallion Pancakes
I ordered Chicken with Black Bean Sauce as the main dish. It was very good, with the tender chicken mixed with peppers and onions, all topped with black bean sauce. I ate the dish with brown rice. I had no complaints about the chicken...
First Wok Chicken & Black Bean Sauce
I also liked how they automatically give everyone a tea cup and leave the tea pot on the table. This seems to be a northern thing because I can't think of any Chinese restaurants in Florida that do this. In Florida, if you want tea, you have to ask and get charged extra for it...
First Wok Chinese Restaurant on Urbanspoon

Americana Diner's Athenian Feta Crepes

Americana Diner
I ate at the Americana Diner in East Windsor, NJ. Since it was a Greek Diner, I ordered something Greek sounding and got their Athenian Feta Crepes. They were filled with spinach and feta cheese. The crepes were served with some zucchini and tzatziki. They were good!
Americana Diner Greek Crepes

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Soggy Broadway at the Beach Pizzeria Uno Pizza

After the Hard Rock Park while in Myrtle Beach, I ate at a Pizzeria Uno at Broadway at the Beach, near the Planet Hollywood that I ate at previously.

I had a deep dish pizza filled with assorted vegetarian items. The toppings were good enough, but the pizza was sitting in a puddle of something on the plate that made the entire bottom of the pizza soggy. Soggy waterlogged pizza isn't something most people like...
Uno Deep Dish

UNO Chicago Grill on Urbanspoon

Hard Rock Park

While traveling up the East Coast of the United States, I made a stop in Myrtle Beach, SC. While I was here, I went to the recently opened Hard Rock Park. It's a small theme park, but the few attractions that the park has are pretty good. This is a food blog, but before getting to the food, I'm going to post some pictures and thoughts about the park.

Here's the Hard Rock Park Parking Lot on a Thursday morning during the summer. There were probably twenty cars in the parking lot when I got there. When I left later in the afternoon, there may have been about a hundred, but that may be pushing it.
Busy Parking lot?
The front entrance to the park. It's very reminiscent of the entrances to both of Universal's Orlando parks. It was here that the signs started showing up announcing that the park is closing at 11:00 PM rather than the 1:00 AM that was advertised everywhere else, including the Hard Rock website and the park maps handed out that day. They really should update those things...
Front Entrance
Once inside the entrance, you see some more Universal similarities with this bridge with an entry and exit quote. Only a bit like Islands of Adventure? The entry quote was by Nirvana and the exit was The Beatles. The underside of the bridge had a rock & roll themed recreation of Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling...
IOA Bridge?
Rock & Roll Sistine Chapel
Rock & Roll Sistine Chapel
After passing under the bridge, you walk along a giant guitar paved into the sidewalk until you reach the lake. Across the lake is the park's centerpiece, the giant Gibson Guitar. Notice the guy standing on the top of the roller coaster's lift in the background. That's an obvious sign that it's not open for riders at the moment.
Centerpiece
The main attraction in the park seemed to be the Led Zeppelin Roller Coaster. It was a good ride, but nothing too exceptional. To start out, the preshow that you need to sit through doesn't quite work. They show you some Led Zeppelin interviews and concert footage, and then are free to board the ride. The problem with the preshow is that nothing really happens in it, and I found it quite boring, especially when riding a second time. With the preshow, they should have added a story to go along with the ride (think Rockin Roller Coaster) rather than concert footage. Building some sort of tension in the show would have been a good thing to get you excited about getting on the ride, but the only thing I was left wondering was when the preshow would be over.

The music playing along with the ride was nice, but I didn't feel it really added too much. The first drop was very nice, but after that the coaster seemed to get a bit generic. The whole sequence of events that happened on the ride didn't feel like anything original. I actually thought the first half of the ride was quite similar to Sea World's Kracken. Once hitting the brakes halfway through the ride, the coaster seemed to fizzle out, and nothing much happened worth noting between there and returning to the station. Like I said, it was enjoyable to ride, but wasn't a ride that will stand out when compared to other roller coasters.

One last comment about the ride that I have is about the Zeppelin that the station is located in. They build a big blimp building to go along with the ride, but the problem is that you can't really see enough of the building from inside of the park to really tell what it was. King of a waste in my opinion...
Led Zeppelin
Stairway to Heaven
Led Zeppelin
The next big ride I came to was the Maximum RPM roller coaster. It was located in the British Invasion area of the park, and when I got there I found that it wasn't open yet for the day. I am guessing because of the lack of people in the park, they didn't open this ride up until noon. I returned later and gave it a ride. It's a really unique roller coaster, with it's ferris wheel lift. The whole lifting process was the best part of the ride in my opinion, watching the tracks lock into place, and all of that cool stuff. The ride itself was way too short, and then they slowed it down with brakes halfway through the very short ride. There was music playing on here as well, but again, I didn't find it did much for the ride. It was definitly a fun ride, but it needed to be longer.
Maximum RPMs
Maximum RPMs
Maximum RPMs
The next big ride was Moody Blues: Nights in White Satin- The Trip. This was the park's only dark ride, built inside of a former shopping mall. You walk into the building, and you are immediately handed 3D Glasses. Unlike most parks where you are told not to wear your glasses until seated, here you were encouraged to wear them all the way through the line. The whole building was set up like a 3D Haunted House with black-light lit walls causing the brighter colors to pop out at you. Everyone walked through a nice vortex tunnel and then arrived at the ride vehicles. Since the park was so empty, it seemed the ride operators were only filling every fourth train, which actually took some time. I'm not entirely sure of my opinion of the ride itself, but I think I liked it. The ride consisted almost entirely of moving past more black-light lit objects, some moving, and some stationary. There were some other scenes past movies, but there wasn't much else. There were no animatronics or anything of the sort on the ride. There wasn't much of a story, besides from having something similar to a drug induced hallucination. But it was a dark ride, and I like dark rides. I have to give Hard Rock credit for attempting a ride like this, even if it didn't come out perfect...
Moody Blues: Nights in White Satin- The Trip

Knights without Satin

The Hard Rock had a carousel as well. Nothing special actually. I want to know why they required EVERY rider, even the adults to wear seat belts on the horses. They even went around to make sure everyone was wearing theirs before starting the ride. I can't think of any other carousel anywhere that makes everyone wear a seatbelt. Yes to the kids, but not the adults as well...

Hard Rock Park Horse

Slippery When Wet was the next coaster I rode here. This was another ride that didn't open until later in the afternoon. It's a nice little coaster and is also pretty unique. I've never seen this type of ride before, but apparently they have been around for a while. Small cars of 4 riders are lifted up a vertical lift and go around a track through various water features. It seemed the people in the forward facing seats got very wet, while the people in the back maybe got a slight spray. It was a cool little ride...
Slippery When Wet
Slippery When Wet
The last major ride in the park was The Eagles: Life in the Fast Lane Roller Coaster. This was a small mine-train roller coaster. Out of all of the coasters in the park, this was my least favorite. It was bumpy, and nothing much happened on it worth noting. It lacked theming that can make mediocre mine-trains good, so that didn't help much either. At the end of the ride a statue burst into flames, but that was about it. The name "Life in the Fast Lane" really didn't seem to match this rather slow coaster either.
Eagles Roller Coaster
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Eagles Roller Coaster
Throughout the park, there was a whole bunch of details that were all pretty cool. I found them to be mostly random and put wherever they were without much reason, but they were still pretty cool. The ones that did have reason were even better...

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I think I may have gotten carried away with writing about Hard Rock Park because this is a blog about eating. Time to get back to the focus. While I was there, I looked at a few of the restaurants in the park. Most of them seemed to have standard theme park food, with slight variations at each to meet the theme of the restaurant. The restaurant I ate at was their Carnaby Street Cafe.
Carnaby Street Cafe
Carnaby Street Cafe
It was in the British Invasion section of the park, so the Hard Rock served their version of British food here along with the standard food that was at every other restaurant. Going with the unique food to the restaurant, I tried the Fish & Chips and the Bangers & Mash. The fish wasn't all that great, but at least it was recognizable as an actual fish rather than a fish stick type product. The Bangers & Mash was the better of the two dishes with sausages served over mashed potatoes, all topped with gravy.

Hard Rock Park Fish & Chips

Hard Rock Park Bangers & Mash

Hard Rock Park was a nice place, but I foresee problems in the future really soon for them. There definitely wasn't enough people in the park for them to be making a large profit for the day, or even breaking even. My main problem was that there really wasn't enough to do there for the price charged. Admission was $45, and that is really for four good rides and a couple of shows. The whole park could have been seen in a few hours if rushed (and if everything was open in the morning). Hard Rock definitely needs to add another large attraction (and not necessarily a coaster) sometime in the near future, or I don't see them lasting more than another year or two.

UPDATE: It turned out my predictions were correct and the Hard Rock Park has since closed since I originally wrote this post. The future for the park seems to be uncertain at this point on whether they will reopen again. The park is up for sale, but there were no bidders on the park in it's entirety. The park may be split up and have it's ride sold off one by one, or there is always a chance that someone will take over and operate it with or without the Hard Rock name.

Monday, July 28, 2008

Hotel Waffles

Waffle from a Day's Inn in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina:
Hotel Waffle

Myrtle Beach Planet Hollywood

Myrtle Beach Planet Hollywood
After getting back from eating cruise food, I ate dinner at the Planet Hollywood in Myrtle Beach at the Broadway at the Beach mall. It was a really small Planet Hollywood compared to the restaurant in Orlando. Orlando is a multi-floor monster restaurant, all inside of a huge globe, while Myrtle Beach's Planet Hollywood was a single story building with a few balconies, all hidden behind a globe facade out front. It also had a smaller menu and lower prices than the Orlando Planet Hollywood by a few dollars.
Myrtle Beach Planet Hollywood
Myrtle Beach Planet Hollywood
I ate Chicken, Penne, and Broccoli pasta. It was okay, but nothing exceptional. I wouldn't go out of my way to order the pasta again.
Planet Hollywood Chicken, Penne, & Broccoli

Planet Hollywood on Urbanspoon

Sunday, July 27, 2008

Carnival Sensation Food

I went on a four day cruise out of Port Canaveral to the Bahamas. The food was decent, although Royal Caribbean cruise ships definitely have better food. Here is a sampling of what I ate:

Lunch Buffet, Day 1:
Carnival Sensation Food
Carnival Sensation Food
Carnival Sensation Food
Smoked Salmon Bagel:
Carnival Sensation Food
Fried Food:
Carnival Sensation Food
Sushi:
Carnival Sensation Food
Carnival Sensation Food
Carnival Sensation Food
Cheesecake:
Carnival Sensation Food
Dinner, Day 1:
Duck appetizer, cream of broccoli soup, and baby back ribs...
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Carnival Sensation Food
Carnival Sensation Food
Melting Chocolate Cake:
Carnival Sensation Food Melting Chocolate Cake
Anchovies and Caper Pizza:
Carnival Sensation Food

Breakfast Day 2:
Carnival Sensation Food
Leaving the cruise ship, here is some Bahamian Ginger Ale bought from a roadside stand outside of Lucayan National Park on Grand Bahama...

Evervest Ginger Ale

Lunch Buffet, Day 2:
Carnival Sensation Food
Carnival Sensation Food
Carnival Sensation Food
Carnival Sensation Food
Dinner, Day 2:
Pumpkin Soup, Greek Salad, Lobster tail, Shrimp, and Black Forest Cake...
Carnival Sensation Food
Carnival Sensation Food
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Carnival Sensation Food

Breakfast, Day 3:
Carnival Sensation Food
Tasty tropical fruit outside of Fort Fincastle in Nassau, Bahamas.
Nassau Fruit
Lunch Buffet, Day 3:
Carnival Sensation Food
Ice Cream from Atlantis in Nassau:
Atlantis Sorbet

Midnight Mexican Buffet:
Carnival Sensation Food
Lunch, Day 4
Carnival Sensation Food
Dessert Sushi:
Carnival Sensation Food
Ice Cream Swan:
Carnival Sensation Food
More anchovy and caper pizza:
Carnival Sensation Food
Chicken Tenders, beans, and nachos:
Carnival Sensation Food
Another Smoked Salmon Sandwich:
Carnival Sensation Food
Middle of the Night Sourkraut and Sloppy Joes:
Carnival Sensation Food
And the very last Breakfast buffet:
Carnival Sensation Food

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