Local Restaurant Review: "Canvas@1206"

One thing I always wanted living in this city was a little Jazz bar. A place to go and get a cocktail while listening to live Jazz. Its not a common thing here in Buffalo like it is in other cities. I remember visiting Chicago one year and spending an evening at “Andy’s Jazz Club and Restaurant” eating dinner, listening to the finest local Jazz musicians, and wishing we had a place like this in Buffalo. Although “Canvas@1206” is far from the famous “Andy’s”, it is still a breath of fresh air and another nice option for nightlife here in this city.
We had gone on a Friday night, about two weeks back (I’m late posting this) around 7pm and it was pretty easy to get a table. The bar and restaurant atmosphere is retro/old-school, but not in a way that gives off any impression that it’s trying too hard. Everything is just right. From the gold speckled bar, to the capiz chandelier lights, and jazz artist wall of fame, its an atmosphere I found myself comfortable in.

After a Manhattan, we sat down for some dinner with our friends, Molly and Patrick. The menu was interesting but I immediately noticed more of a “Lunch” menu than dinner. There were not many standard entrees but more a plethora of sandwiches. One thing that looked awesome though, was the giant crab cake. Molly and Patrick ordered that for an appetizer, and Nicole and I ordered the Bacon Swiss dip with chips.

The Bacon Swiss dip was one of the more delicious things I’ve eaten in a while. The chips were not standard tortilla chips, but a type of chip that I’ve never had before, more of an air-crisp.


The giant crab cake was pretty tasty as well, but I was glad we got the dip.

For the main course, Pat and I ordered the Fish fry. I rarely get out to a place on Friday nights to take advantage of any fish fry options so now I had the importunity to. We had the option to add goat cheese mashed potatoes as a side, so i jumped on that also. Nicole ordered the pork chop with the goat mash and a vegetable. Molly had ordered the broiled fish with Cajun seasoning. My fish fry was pretty good. I couldn’t find anything wrong with it. It was cooked perfectly, the breading looked as if it were fried in clean/fresh oil, and it was decent sized. It could have used some more seasonings though. That was the opinion of everyone at the table. Nicole’s pork chop and vegetables tasted like a “pork chop and vegetables”. There wasn’t much flavor. The goat cheese mash just tasted like plain mash potatoes. Everything was cooked to perfection, it was just bland.

Would I go back to Canvas@1206? Most definitely. The quality of the food was very good and everything was cooked nicely. The bar was fun to sit at and a great place to stop in and grab a drink. The crowd consisted of people from all age groups. I’d love to go back when there is music playing on the stage. This is a great addition to the city.

February 28, 2012 2

Back from a busy few weeks.

   The past two weeks have been pretty crazy with work and lots of birthday’s, plus the insanity of trying to get our house in “ok” condition for guests, mid remodel. Ive been tearing apart the foyer, rewiring everything and getting ready to drywall it, so it’s been a constant battle against the dust from the plaster.
   My parents spent the weekend here for my mother’s birthday. It’s always fun when they come down because we do so many cool things. My stepfather and I have a love for beer so every time he comes down we try to plan a stop somewhere for a tasty brew. A bar in my neighborhood had a Dogfish Head Tap takeover this weekend so we were able to get down there for lunch and have a pint. We caught the Sabres game on Friday night at the arena and watched the Sabres beat Boston for the second time in a row. On Saturday night we went to one of the better restaurants in Buffalo, “Prospero”. Nicole and I had eaten here last year and we were both in agreement that this was perhaps one of the best restaurants in the city. It was amazing Italian food. My stepfather wanted to bring us out to dinner to celebrate my mom’s birthday, so I could not think of a better place. I was able to get reservations three weeks in advance but even with this much of an advance, we could only get in at 8pm. On Saturday, we got a call from the restaurant reminding us that they had a prefixed menu on Saturdays. I totally didn’t know anything about this and it was not on their website. Sightly annoyed I had to inform my mom that we were not going to get Italian. Don’t get me wrong, the specials on the menu were still good, but it was sort of a bummer that we wanted Italian food and we were told the day of the dinner that we couldn’t get it. Its not like I would have been able to get reservations anywhere else with that short of notice.
    I took an afternoon nap Saturday, while Nicole and my Mom put back some wine and called “Prospero”. I’m not sure exactly what they talked about, but the place was going to make my mom a pasta dish, just for her! The restaurant is a class act, I highly recommend trying to get reservations there if you can.
   Now that everything has slowed down, I should be able to get more posts up. I have some things I want to talk about this week, including a new Jazz Bar in Buffalo that we went to and my review of “Spotify”, a new service that I am in love with. That’s right, what has two thumbs and is legitimately paying for music? This guy.

Some Random weekend pics..

Center ice Friday Night, my mom’s xmas present for Henry.

Sunday afternoon Mikkeller IPA’s at the Monk. That’s right, one of those IPA’s is Nicole’s :).

February 27, 2012 0

Super Sweet Stuff Review: Roku 2 HD Streaming Player

A few weeks back, I bought myself the Roku 2 HD streaming player for my entertainment needs. I say “I bought myself” the item because Nicole doesn’t care about cool electronic devices, in fact she totally hates them. The Roku HD streaming player runs about 60-100 bucks on amazon depending on which model you buy, I bought the least expensive model (the more expensive models didn’t have an features I was interested in). The player itself is about the size of a hockey puck and comes with a simple and small remote.

The main reason I wanted this device was for Amazon’s Prime Streaming service. The Xbox 360 doesn’t have an app available to watch Amazon’s service so unless I wanted to watch on my computer, I was out of luck. This device has the Amazon app. For those of you who don’t know what I am talking about, basically Amazon offers a service called “Amazon Prime”. It runs about $70.00 a year and gets you free 2 day shipping on any orders, and $3.99 1-day shipping. If you order things on Amazon a lot, this service pays for itself quickly. Now here is the real kicker. Included in your membership at no extra cost, is Amazon’s streaming service, which is comparable to the Netflix streaming service. No extra cost. It rules. With the Roku box you can watch all of this entertainment in HD on your TV.
The Roku box runs hundreds of apps like Pandora, Facebook, Netflix, etc and also allows private apps, which are apps that are developed my other people that Roku doesn’t recognize or endorse, but offers the freedom for developers to make their own channels. It is pretty awesome. There are plenty of channels that offer free movies of all kinds, all unedited, all in HD. There really is no need for cable TV these days unless you are the kind of person that watches 50 different cable shows religiously. If I could get hockey in HD without subscribing to cable or satellite, I would no longer be a customer.

Now for the negatives. This device does a ton of cool things, but it has its flaws. First off, you can’t network it to other devices in our house and play files from them. There are third party apps that allow this but its a pain in the ass and they don’t work well. The other major thing that annoys me is that sometimes the Roku will freeze up while your browsing an app. It’s not a big deal you just back out of the app and go back in, but it does get annoying sometimes. I’ve done some research on this, and it’s a common problem that Roku has been working to fix for a future software update.
All in all, this item is worth the money. With new apps added all the time this little box offers huge entertainment at a super low price. I’m enjoying it.

February 14, 2012 0

Sabres "Fans"

Last night the Sabres took out Dallas in overtime. In super exciting fashion, the Sabres scored 5 minutes into the third to come within one. With most of the third period left, and a Sabres team getting hot, the crowd got insane. They got completely out of control! It was like when the Bills beat the Patriots in 2011. Actually no. It was super embarrassing. Hordes of people got out of their seats….and headed to the exits. Normally I don’t curse on this blog, but what the fuck is this? Stay at home. We don’t want you at the games. What is the point of going out to the games, sitting on your asses in silence, and then leaving early when the team is rallying from behind? I wish Time Warner upon all of their homes.

February 11, 2012 0

2012 Site Design and some random notes…

I’ve decided to change up the main website over at http://www.supersweetshirts.com . There are no visible changes yet, but soon I will have them published. Every year I change it up, it’s nothing major, I just need to keep things fresh. I started redesigning some things today.
Now, for some random ramblings. We watched “50/50” last night. It was great and I am a gigantic baby. If you are unfamiliar with this movie, it stars Seth Rogan and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. The film is about two friends, one of which (Levitt) is diagnosed with a rare for of cancer; a tumor near his spine. Sounds depressing? It totally is and I was sobbing like a baby. I’m not good at holding back tears during super sad movies which is why I hate watching them, but this one I took exception to. It is definitely worth watching and probably a breakout performance for (Levitt) who seems to get more impressive as an actor every time I see him.

Now it’s time to rant about Chuck Norris. I respect Chuck Norris, he is a legendary action hero. As you may have heard, The Expendables 2 is PG-13 because Chuck Norris has a problem with language. From what I have read, Stallone insists that it’s just the language that was cut out, and that its still an ass kicking action film. And sure, the DVD will probably be more violent or there will be some sort of director’s cut, and that’s fine. I still have a problem with Chuck Norris throwing his weight around, protecting his “brand”. First off, young kids are no longer looking up to him, I’m not sure who he is protecting here. His brand spawned from an ongoing joke about how he’s the toughest man on earth. After this stunt, he is forever tarnished in my eyes. There are plenty of dudes that could kick his ass. Dudes like:

Arnold and Carl Weathers could kick his ass. I mean look at this.

Dolph Lundgren could kick Chuck Norris’s ass. I didn’t see Chuck Norris cast as “He-Man”, that’s because he doesn’t have what it takes.

Bolo. (No words are needed here)

February 7, 2012 0

I’m not Irish….but if i were, I’d fancy this shirt.

Time for a cheap plug. St. Patrick’s day is approaching with it’s parades, drunken escapades, and yes, witty t-shirts. I have been doing shirts for over 5 years now, and every year I mean to do a St. Patrick’s day shirt, but I totally forget. This year, I have not! Nicole had a pretty cool idea using the “Mad Lib” format with the shirt. I got pretty excited at the idea, but I probably should have looked at a Mad Lib again before jumping the gun. I haven’t seen one since i was a kid, so what I pictured in my head was totally off, causing me to royally waste a screen. I’m an idiot.

So I design the shirt with my flawed mental image of a Mad Lib, make the screen, do the print, and send a picture of it to Nicole. At this point, I’m pretty excited about the new shirt. She texts me back saying that it looks cool however its not what she had in mind. She explained to me that a Mad Lib would have the “Verb” under the blank line. Of course it would….how would you fill in the blank line with something already in it…dammit! So I had to go back and make some corrections so that my new shirt would make sense.

So here it is! Get it for St. Patrick’s day festivities!

February 2, 2012 0

Project: Curtains

Nicole and I took off Monday because neither of us felt like working after the Royal Rumble party. What a perfect day to complete a project. A few weeks ago, Nicole had ordered some fabric online for some curtains she was planning on making for the second floor landing. Curtains can be really expensive depending on what you want, we figured we would make them ourselves and get exactly what we want for a fraction of the cost.

We ran to Target and picked up a curtain rod for the window on the second landing. Slowly, we are starting to bring life to different areas in the house.

This is the fabric that Nicole picked up online.


We needed a big space to spread the fabric out so we moved the couch and made our measurements marking the floor with white tape so that it was easy to identify the marks for cutting.

You don’t have to be a sewing master to make these, we picked up two rolls of hemming tape. Its simple to use, you just stick one end to the fabric, fold it over and iron the area for 20 seconds. It went pretty smooth for Nicole who can get angry quickly. I was amazed that she didn’t throw the iron through the window. She didn’t get angry once.

After we finished the first curtain, the second wasn’t nearly as tough because we sort of had a system down.

Simple curtain clips from Target.

Boom.

January 31, 2012 0

Cantina Loco! Meh.

There’s been a buzz about a new mexican style restaurant opening in Allentown here in Buffalo, NY. Nicole had been reading up on the place months before it had even opened and had been pretty excited about it. Friday night, we got together with some friends had decided to give it a try.

The outside of the building looked great; including the fantastic vintage sign they put up outside. It really is different than anything else on the street. I love it when these empty spaces come alive from the exciting makeovers they get when a business moves in. It’s nice to see change beginning to happen throughout different neighborhoods.

If you are going on a weekend night, prepare for absolutely no parking and a series of one way streets that make things even more difficult and obnoxious. Luckily after traveling around the block several times, I was actually able to find something somewhat close to the restaurant. I had dropped the ladies off at the restaurant prior to my parking adventure, so they were inside at the table. That’s right…”ladies”.

The inside was packed with people of all ages and it was insanely loud. We got a table that was a few feet from the packed bar (about 4 people deep) so occasionally we’d get bumped into. As an experiment, our friend sitting at the end of the table (we were there with 5 people, so our table was a regular 4 top with an extra chair stuck on the end) tilted her head backward and it came to rest on a young man standing at the bar. That’s how close the dining area is to the bar. I did my best to ignore that and took a look at the menu.

The owner of this restaurant also owns another restaurant in the city that is known for great sushi and incredible inventive menu items. This menu was small, simple, and surprisingly boring. I’m not saying that the menu options didn’t look appetizing, it was easy to find something that I was going to eat, but I think with the amount of build up this restaurant had, we were all just expecting something a little more. I ordered a beer, and Nicole went with a “Smoked Margarita.” Her drink was pretty amazing and had a really awesome smokey flavor from the smoked salt they used on the glass. A pretty impressive drink.

We started off with “Nachos Locos”, an attractive presentation of 2 cheeses, Pork, Onion, Jalapeno, Cilantro, and Pablano cream. The nachos were pretty tasty although the chips were too thin for the load which made it difficult to pick up any toppings. Other than this, they tasted great. Nicole was a big fan of them.

After the nachos, I ordered the Steak and Cheese Burrito. It consisted of grilled steak, cheese, rice and pinto beans. The steak was seasoned well and very tender. I’ve had steak burritos at other places, and the steak ends up being tough making the whole experience pretty awful. This was pretty good.


Not a fan of the open burrito. Finish the job. Close my burrito. The shell was semi toasted which made it impossible to finish wrapping it. You ended up having to eat this “burrito” like a floppy, sloppy taco.

Nicole ordered the “Carnita”, which was pork, avocado, lettuce, cheese, cilantro, onion, and lime. Hers was pretty tasty, the ingredients were incredibly fresh, and she enjoyed it. After a taste, I think that I liked hers better than mine. Our other friends ordered the Bean and Cheese burrito, Chicken burrito, Fish taco and Koreatown taco. Everyone pretty much said the same thing, it was good, but nothing blew anyone away.

The over-all experience was average for me. The insanely loud atmosphere was tough to deal with. It made it impossible to have a conversation without screaming while the person you’re talking to leans in, aiming their one ear at you while tilting their head. We were there on a Friday night though, and maybe stopping in for lunch or during the week would have manageable noise levels. The burritos were tasty, but I don’t necessarily know if they would be something I would seek out. We live in the city of Buffalo, a city with an unbelievable amount of food options. I’m not going to tell you that Cantina Loco is bad, because its not. But its not excellent, its average. If you’re in the area and looking for great Mexican food, look elsewhere. If you’re looking for a hip restaurant with plenty of nightlife, this may be your place.

January 29, 2012 0

Ready for a fresh year!

I haven’t had a chance to blog much as of late. Things have been insanely busy around here, wrapping up taxes, getting orders processed, and starting new projects around the house. I will be documenting the new projects so that you can see what we are doing, weather we mess it up royally or we are successful, I’ll be posting it. There has to be a few laughs in there somewhere!
For my local readers, I will be getting back to restaurant reviews again and tonight we are going to the new “Cantina Loco” , a new restaurant here in the city of Buffalo. It been hyped a lot prior to its opening, so I’m interested to see if it lives up to it. I’ll have some stuff on that experience sometime this weekend.

January 27, 2012 0

What was I saying about a winterless winter?

Last night it was raining and after we went to bed the wind started to blow furiously. Our house is old and when the wind gets really strong, it feels like our house is going to blow down. Everything creaks, the windows make rattling sounds, and combined with the sounds from outside, it was tough to sleep. When I awoke this morning, it was snowing and blowing pretty hard. I stepped out onto the porch on my way to the backyard to let the dog do his business. I noticed the blowing snow, the covered cars, the drifts, our shiny new stainless grill……wait a second…where is the grill cover I bought? It must have blown away like a giant parachute. I walked up and down the street this morning in pajamas hoping to find it and praying that I didn’t have to spend 30 bucks on another one. No luck. Defeated, I walked into the backyard with the dog and there it was! Lesson learned. Grill cover needs to be bungee’d down. Remember two days ago when I wrote about a winterless winter?