The Good and the Bad….no ugly here!

by Frank Ruffo

I had originally planned on reviewing a chain restaurant this week, but an experience that I had recently, changed my mind. That, along with news that a man here at work was grilling steaks at a local establishment on a wood fired grill, has me doing a report on two separate establishments this week.

            The first place (the bad) was “Drew Mena’s” in North Versailles. This place usually has adequate service, not good, just adequate. This being said, the food is normally very good, the portions are very generous, and is what I consider a good value. Now, let’s go to the “experience”.

            My wife and I had to run out, so we called her parents to see if they wanted to get something to eat. They agreed and we all decided that we would go to Drew’s since we had coupons and, as I said, the food is usually very good with adequate service.

            We were seated promptly, no wait, and were told that Rose would be our waitress. Eventually, Rose took our drink orders and returned with them quickly and then took our dinner orders. Everything was going as expected. Our salads and soup came out in a timely manner but that is where it ended. As we waited for our dinners, I noticed that other patrons who came in after us were receiving their meals. I thought that maybe they were just getting sandwiches or the special, no problem-yet. Just as we were really getting agitated, Rose came over to inform us that she had forgotten to put our orders in and would we mind waiting for them. At this time, where were we going to go, so we said sure, we’d wait. What we didn’t know was that she hadn’t put the order in yet. Well, from the time we entered the door until we received our meals, it was almost two hours!

            Now to the food, two of the meals were just warm, how can that be? We should have been the priority and to make matters worse, the owner was there and he just didn’t seem to care. Finally, they took our coupons off and let us keep them for another visit, yeah right. We calmed down and before we left, talked to the waitress and told her that it was okay that anyone can have a bad day. I also told her that if we come back and she is there that I won’t let her forget this incident and I would “ride her like a rented mule,” jokingly of course.

Dennis the chef

            Now for the good, I like steak and when I heard of sixteen ounce rib eyes grilled on a wood fired grill, I had to try it out. This is going to be short and to the point, after all, it’s the good, not the great. Dennis runs the grill on Fridays and Saturdays during Lent at “Vincent’s Pizza”, which is located on route 30 in North Huntingdon.  Just looking at him, you know that he likes to eat.  He only does steaks once a week, which will be on Saturdays during lent. He will also be doing crab cakes on Fridays.

 

Actual Meal

The rib eye is one of the most flavorful and juicy steaks, but there is a good bit of waste. The fat and marbling gives it its flavor, but you have to do a lot of trimming. A person who is hooked on filets probably wouldn’t care for the extra work involved.

            “Vincent’s” is a seat yourself pizza place, so the ambiance leaves a little bit to be desired. The waitress was efficient and took care of our basic dining needs. The meal was good, not great as I had expected, but good overall. The salad wasn’t very big and it was mostly iceberg lettuce, and a little bitter at that. The steak was delicious and arrived cooked as ordered, medium rare. The baked potato was huge and done to perfection, not over or under cooked.

            Overall, this was a good meal with good service and all at a decent price. I was hoping to give you the great and the bad, but it was just good. It is still worth a try if you like steak and I hear that the crab cakes are really good. Since I don’t eat crab, I can’t speak from experience.

            To conclude, I wouldn’t write off “Drew Mena’s” because it is usually very good with decent service and deserves another chance and if you don’t mind eating steak and crab in a pizza joint, you may also want to try them at “Vincent’s.”