Master BBQ & Grill - Belleville, NJ

It was another lazy Sunday night for us and we couldn't decide on what to have for dinner. We didn't feel like going out, so the only other option was to order in (yesssss, I'm too lazy to cook on weekends :P). After going through our stash of countless take out/delivery menus, I found the menu for Master BBQ & Grill. We actually picked that menu up from our apartment lobby quite some time back and have been meaning to check that place out but we never got around to doing so. It's been a while since we last had Portuguese BBQ (I know, it's hard to believe...considering the fact that we live in the Portuguese /Colombian BBQ mecca of NJ!), so Portuguese BBQ for dinner it is!
From our past experiences of ordering delivery with other Portuguese BBQ places, we were all ready for a long 'conversation' on the phone. Usually, when they find out that we don't speak Spanish, our call would be passed from one person to another. THEN, after finally getting to somebody who speaks English, he would most probably mess up our order or misunderstand we were are trying to say. Same goes for Chinese delivery places. However, none of that happened here. They spoke English and we managed to place our order without any problems. Yay! Another thing that surprised us was how fast the food arrived. I swear, it took them less than half an hour to get the food to our doorstep! Two huge party trays of piping hot food! Don't ask me why there was only ONE bun, we actually didn't even know that we are going to get a free bun :P
Before I say anything else, I must tell you guys that the amount of food that we got for the price we paid was crazy! There was just soooooooo much food! We ordered the Master BBQ Combo ($26) and that came with half a chicken, six huge pork ribs, four pieces of steak and slices Portuguese sausages. Look at the amount of food! It was enough for feed at least 6-8 people! All that for only $26! Not only was it affordable, it tasted awesome too! I dare say that this is the best Portuguese BBQ that I have had, to date! Since we live in Newark, there are a lot of Portuguese BBQ places here and trust me, we have gone through quite a lot of them. The BBQ from Masters definitely stood out. All the meat was marinated to perfection, really really delicious. They were also cooked just right, cos we all know, nothing is more sucky than overcooked or under cooked BBQ!
We also got a huge party tray of yellow rice and fries. We also had the option to swap either the rice or fries for black beans. Look at the amount of rice and fries! It's like enough to feed a small village in Asia! :P The fries wasn't soggy but really, there was nothing much to shout about. The rice on the other hand was simply awesome. There is this smoky taste to it, very very yummy! Overall, we had an awesome dinner! Good service, fast delivery, affordable prices, big portions and most importantly, uber yummy food. What more could a person ask for? We will definitely be ordering more food from Master BBQ & Grill in the very near future!

Master BBQ & Grill - Belleville, NJ
198 Union Ave
Belleville NJ 07109
Tel: (973)759 9200
Web: http://www.masterbbqgrill.com/

Pizza Village Cafe II - Belleville, NJ

This is a really backdated post. I have been meaning to blog about this place for the longest time (I believe we first tried the food here back in Dec) but never really got around to it. Since the first visit, we have returned many times. Therefore, the food featured in this review is not merely from one visit, but over a space of time (I think we have been back like 4 times since the first?).
Pizza Village Cafe II is located in a strip mall, just next to the huge State Fair Superstore. We found out about this place when we were visiting the Christmas decorations outlet at the State Fair. From the moment we walked in, we knew that this pizza place is different from the rest. Not only was it super clean, but the staff working there were really polite and helpful. Definitely not your typical hole in the wall pizza place. We noticed lots of families dining in and it's really kid friendly too. We have always ordered out whenever we go there but I wouldn't mind dining in, in the future. Another good thing about this place is the availability parking spots. There are ample free parking lots located right in front of the restaurant. No need to drive around just for a parking spot.
So, what's good there? Well, the menu is quite extensive. Apart from pizza, they also have pasta, sandwiches, calzones, stromboli, wraps, wings, salads, Italian style dinners as well as a host of appetizers. During our first visit, we tried their Garlic Knots (6 pieces for $1.50). It was really good! Warm dough knots with lots of garlic butter, herbs and huge chunks of garlic. Mmmm mmm good! It is so good that we would make it a point to order that every time we get food from Pizza Village. It's like our 'must order' item on the menu.
Their wings ($7.75 for 10 pieces) are rather good too. You have a choice of two flavors, BBQ or Buffalo. We tried the Buffalo wings and it was not too bad. I am not a big fan of coated wings (I'd rather have them naked) but this is really not too bad at all. The wings also comes with free celery and bleu cheese.
I hate to admit this but although this is a pizza place, we have never really tried their pizzas. The nearest we got was when I ordered their Sausage Calzone ($6.25). From the taste of the calzone, I can tell that their pizzas should be really good too. The calzone dough was really good and it was stuffed with a whole lot of sausage, ricotta and mozzarella cheese. Really really good. The marinara sauce wasn't the greatest but it wasn't bad either. I'm not really bothered about that though, since I would usually eat my calzones without sauce anyways.
Now, what we really really like from Pizza Village are their sandwiches. Seriously, they make awesome sandwiches. I don't know if they bake their Italian breads in house or they buy it from somewhere else but either ways, it's yummy! Kevin tried their Ham & Cheese Sub ($6.50) and he said that it was really good. All cold subs are served with lettuce, onions tomatoes, oil, vinegar, mayo and spices, in a huge Italian roll. Yummy stuff!
Their Hot Italian Sandwiches are really good too. Kevin (and myself) is in love with their Italian Meatball Sandwich ($5.50). The meatballs are really really good and it's served with just the right amount of home made sauce and topped with loads of cheese. Delicious meatballs, home made sauce and melted cheese, all stuffed into a huge Italian roll = SUPER AWESOME MEATBALL SANDWICH!
Since we loved the Meatball Sandwich so much, I decided to try another of their Hot Italian Sandwiches. The Home Made Eggplant Parmigiana Sandwich ($5.50). Don't get me wrong, it was good but not quite as great as the Meatball Sandwich. If we were to compare the eggplant parm sandwich with other eggplant parm sandwiches that we have tried, I must say that it ranks pretty much up there. However, if we were to compare the meatball sandwich to the eggplant parm, then the meatball sandwich reigns supreme! :P
Another one of their sandwiches that I totally love is their Philly Cheese Steak. They have regular Cheesesteak ($6.00), Cheesesteak with Mushrooms or Peppers ($6.50), Pizza Cheesesteak ($6.50), Cheesesteak with Pepperoni ($6.50) or Cheesesteak Hoagie ($6.50). I tried the Special Steak ($6.75), which is pretty much Cheesesteak with everything :P The Special Steak comes with Mushrooms, Sweet Peppers, Fried Onions and their delicious Cheese Sauce (remember to ask for it, it's by request only). This is really an awesome sandwich, you should totally try it. Overall, I must say that Pizza Village Cafe II is a great place to go to if you are looking for some quick, affordable and uber delicious food. Two thumbs up. Oh btw, they deliver too!

Pizza Village Cafe II - Belleville, NJ
229 Main St
Belleville, NJ 07109
Tel: (973) 450 1818
Fax: (973) 450 3000
Web: http://pizzavillagecafe2nj.webs.com/

Pizza Hut's Cheesy Bites Pizza!

We were watching our usual Thursday night NBC marathon (30 Rock, The Office, Outsourced, The Apprentice) on TV last week when we saw the ad for Pizza Hut's new promotion. Looks like they have brought back the Cheesy Bites pizza! Oh what joy! I have tried it once, a very very long time ago and I remembered it to be totally awesome. I am not saying that it's the healthiest thing around but it sure tasted great! Since we already had dinner that night, we said that we MUST head out to Pizza Hut to pick up one for dinner the following day. Yes, I know. The powers of advertisement! :P
The Cheesy Bites Pizza comes in only one size and it's going for $11.99. That gets you one large (total of 28 cheese filled bites!) one topping pizza. For an additional $2, you can upgrade it to a specialty or three topping pizza. So, on Friday night, we ordered the Cheesy Bites Pizza online and headed out to the Pizza Hut in Belleville, NJ to pick it up. It kinda sucks that Pizza Hut doesn't deliver to our area :( Anyways, they said that our pizza will be ready in about 25 minutes (at 6:50pm). We arrived at around 6:55pm and that particular Pizza Hut was filled with people. It was seriously in total chaos! We had to stand there for a good 15 minutes before anybody asked us if we wanted a table, to order take out or if we wanted to collect our pizza. The phones were ringing off the hooks, customers were just getting all impatient (many of them ended up leaving), it was just horrible. When we told them that we had already ordered our pizza and it should be ready at 6:50pm, they said that it wasn't ready and we had to wait another 20mins to half an hour!! Seriously, how long does it take to make a pizza? To make things worse, we didn't see many pizzas coming out from the kitchen. I really don't know what they were doing in there. We finally got our pizza at around 7:35! Very horrible service.
Ahhhhhh, here is our yummy Cheesy Bites Pizza. Since we were utterly disappointed with our Bacon Chocolate Bar the other day, we needed our Bacon fix. So, we ordered a Bacon Cheesy Bites Pizza. Mmmmm mmmmm mmmmmmm, I can feel my arteries clogging just by thinking about it but it really tasted oh so good! Each bite was filled with tons of melted ooey gooey cheese and the garlic butter seasoning was awesome too. One bite and you are in heaven. Definitely worth the long wait and bad service. If it wasn't so fattening and unhealthy, I would eat it every single day! Hmmm, maybe we should order it again this weekend :P

Taste Of China - Belleville, NJ

We ordered in some dinner from Taste Of China about a month ago. As you can see from my past food reviews, I generally don't like to do bad reviews. I only recommend the good places and try not to blog about the bad ones. However, not only is the food terrible here but the service is horrible too. It took me a while ( about a month I guess :P) to decide if I want to blog about it, and came to the conclusion that people don't only want to know where the good places are but they would also want to know where to avoid. Soooo, here it is.

My experience with this restaurant was bad from the beginning. The lady on the phone was really rude and it felt like she just couldn't wait to get off the phone. She was cutting me off and trying to get me to order as fast as I can, like she is in a hurry or something. Then, she told me that when they deliver, they won't bring it up to our apartment. I was like whaaaat? Why not? So far, all the delivery places, be it Chinese, Spanish, wings, pizza...anything....everybody brings it up. She said there are too many cars outside our apartment and there is no parking space. Hence, her delivery boy will call us when he is outside and we have to go out to get it. What a bunch of nonsense! There is always parking spaces outside and IF for any reason there isn't, most delivery boys would just double park and run up with the food. Why are they so special and need us to go down to get the food from them? Also, she already made up her mind that they won't come up...I mean, I would at least TRY to get a parking spot. If there is none, then only will I call the customer and ask them to please come down to get it (as a last resort). Since I have already ordered and stuff, fine, I agreed to go down and get the food when they delivered. Maybe the food is nice (since it's the first time ordering from them), then it will be worth it.

The food came, and yes, we had to go down to get it. I looked outside and I saw many parking spaces! Such a lazy delivery boy. Sooo, was the food good? Hellll no! Kevin ordered the General Tso's Chicken Combination Plate ($6.95). The egg roll was really really oily, way more oily than the regular egg rolls. You can actually taste oil squirt out when you bite into it. It was that bad. Also, the General Tso didn't come with any broccoli, it was just chicken. As you can see from the photo, the fried rice and General Tso was oily too. Terrible terrible...

We also ordered a small portion of Hot and Sour Soup ($1.95). Look at the crispy noodle that came along with the soup. It was soaking in oil..it was actually seeping through the paper bag. The soup was bad too. There wasn't any real taste to it, just super spicy! All you can taste is the spiciness!

Now, I have saved the best (or should I say, the worst) for last. I ordered the Steamed Chicken with Vegetables Over Noodles Platter ($4.95). It was just tasteless and bland chicken pieces and vegetables over equally tasteless noodles. It came with some sort of sauce ( I want to say maybe oyster sauce mixed with something else) that was just sticky and really really salty. It was so bad, the moment I opened the sauce, Kevin commented "What is that smell! Smells terrible". Now, Kevin doesn't really complain much, so for him to say that, it must have smelled really bad. It was. Our overall experience with this place was bad, really bad. From the bad service to the equally bad food. We threw away their menu after dinner that day, sooooo I guess we will not be ordering from them ever again :P

Taste Of China- Belleville, NJ
573 Belleville Avenue,
Belleville, NJ 07109
Tel: (973) 844 1868
Fax: (973) 844 1838