Over the summer our very own Donny was invited to attend a taping of “Kitchen Nightmares” that was being filmed at Mama Maria’s here in Brooklyn. He, along with Eat to Blog BFFs Mo & Steph, was lucky enough to attend a dinner AFTER the restaurant had been cleaned up. The episode aired just a few weeks ago. In the clip from Hulu above you can hear Chef Ramsay himself refer to Eat to Blog, and if you watch the entire episode you can catch a few glimpses of Donny himself. In case you’re wondering, yes, they had to pay for their meals, and Donny referred to the re-vamped food as “okay.”

Donny: I’m pretty sure by now most of you have heard of the story behind M. Wells and ultimately M. Wells Dinette, so let’s just skip all that and go straight to the food at the new dinette.

Howard: I had never been to the original site of M. Wells. It’s true LIC was just a little too far out of the way, but that was only part of the reason. The other is that I had the impression that it wasn’t too vegetarian friendly. They might have gone over the top with bone marrow and foie gras, but I hadn’t heard anything about vegetarian food. But when Donny suggested we check out their new location at PS1 I admit I was curious. So we made the trip for lunch on a rainy day, during the NY Art Book Fair.

Read the rest of this entry…

We are so used to seeing Gordon Ramasy screaming at people but what I love about his show, Kitchen Nightmares, is that he gets to show his soft side (well you do also see him yell at people). He tries his best to solve problems for the restaurant and at most times solve family problems. Anyways…so Gordon Ramsay is coming to Carroll Gardens in the hopes of turning around Mama Maria, an Italian restaurant on Court St and Degraw St. I walk by it a lot but never once did I think to stop and look at the menu.

So Brooklynites, here is your chance to quite possible get your face on tv. The production company is taking reservations for the restaurant during the filming from 6/21 to 6/23. Simply send an email to brooklynrest@gmail.com and “reservations are given on a first come first served basis, patrons must be over 18 years of age and all dinner patrons are responsible for their own meals and drinks, as the money goes directly to the restaurant.“

Photo by Phae

Wow, has it really been four years? Has it really been 1000 posts? It’s been a long, long journey. We’ve eaten a lot of food, and we’ve met a lot of wonderful people. We wanted to say “thank you” to all of our friends and family, who for four years have been putting up with our food obsessions, pulling cameras out during family meals, and insisting on traveling to far away restaurants. And and even bigger “THANK YOU” to all of our readers — we owe everything to you.

For your amusement, please view Howard’s first post and Donny’s first post and see just how far we’ve come.

Thank you again!

*This meal was eaten last year.

Howard: When Donny invited me to dinner at Mary Queen of Scots with our friends Mo and Etta, he mentioned that there was not a lot of vegetarian food on the menu. I was intrigued by what vegetarian food I did see, however, so I agreed to go. The two vegetarian options I wanted were both salads, though one was listed as an appetizer and the other a main, so I was able to order both. I also ordered a side of “Fried Boozy Brussels Sprouts” for the table.

Read the rest of this entry…

Howard: Even though Giovanni’s has only been open for a few weeks, we here at Eat to Blog already have a complicated relationship with the restaurant. Giovanni’s was opened by the people who ran the recently closed Sette; in fact, the website says that Sette has “re-opened as Giovanni’s”. So why is it a complicated relationship? Because Sette is the place where Eat to Blog was conceived, four years ago. And the meal we had there wasn’t very good. So when our friends Matt and Phaedra suggested meeting at Giovanni’s for brunch, I agreed, but with some trepidation.

Read the rest of this entry…

So if you’re a regular reader you may have noticed that we haven’t been posting as much lately as we used to. There are a few reasons for that: we lead busy lives, and we’re a bit lazy… but one of the reasons is that we’ve been working on a project for the Wall Street Journal. It’s called “Hidden Gems” and it’s a WSJ custom microsite sponsored by Mastercard. We created some Top 10 lists of NYC food and restaurants in six different categories; the content will be refreshing every two weeks, so bookmark the page and keep checking back! Check it out here!