Guy's American Kitchen and Bar - New York City

I wasn't even looking for a triple-d restaurant when I stumbled on this place while walking around Times Square.  I really didn't expect to find Guy's restaurant.  I think of him as a California dude and I had no idea that this place even existed until I stumbled upon it.

I visited the restaurant when it was still pretty new and before the New York Times did their hatchet-job of a review on them.

I've visited one of Guy's other restaurants, Tex Wasabi's Rock and Roll BBQ in Sacramento, California.  So, the benchmark was pretty high to start out with.

I was really excited to find this place but, when I first walked into the I struggled to figure out what the theme was.  It was nice but, I could have been in Houlihans or TGI Fridays if I didn't know better.  I'm guessing that the theme was just what the name says, American food. I'm guessing that it is meant to appeal to foreign visitors to Times Square and not to Americans.  Purely speculation on my part.  Although one big clue was the big American flag they made from cases of Miller light and Rolling Rock beer.

I had the salmon grilled and served on a cedar plank.  It came with garlic mashed potatoes.  It was okay.

The beer menu was kind of interesting.  It said right on the beer menu "All beers are formulated and brewed specially for Guy by Heartland Brewery."  If Guy poured all of his creativity into the beer menu then I'm onboard.

I also really liked Guy's creativity with the dessert menu.  Half of the selection were just traditional desserts but, the other half were drink desserts.  So, another theme seems to be emerging and it is alcohol.

Music selection was also pretty interesting.   They played all kinds of alternative music that I'd never heard of before which I might have enjoyed if they hadn't played it so loud.

Overall, I would unfortunately rate Guy's American Kitchen and Bar an 8.6.  I really wanted this place to blow me away and I looked hard for reasons to let it but, unfortunately it didn't.  If I'm looking for a beer or a meal in Times Square then I'd be willing to give it another shot.  If Guy can make Tex Wasabi's incredible then he can do it here as well and I'm sure he will.


Guy's American Kitchen and Bar
220 W 44th St
New York, NY 10036
(646) 532-4897
www.guysamerican.com

Tex Wasabi's Rock and Roll BBQ - Sushi - Sacramento, CA

Tex Wasabi's has never been featured on the Food Network's Diner's, Drive-Inns and Dives but, it is actually owned by none other than Guy Fiere himself.  Anyone slightly familiar with the program knows that Guy is a wild and creative guy with a love of really great food.  His restaurant definitely reflects that.

The concept behind Tex Wasabi's is to mix two completely different types of food into it's own class, an "infusion" of different influences to use the restaurant buzz-wordy name.  In this case it is sushi and BQQ.  It doesn't sound like it would work but, it really does.

When you first walk in past the bar area you notice a statue of a cowboy on a bucking fish, kind of like a bucking bronco.  So, you know right away that this is a whimsical place.  It is going to be fun and unpredictable.

As we walked in there was a couple who had ordered a drink from the bar.  The drinks that they serve were out of absurdly large goblets.  They looked like small fish tanks, in fact they very well could have been small gold fish bowls into which they stuck huge straws the size of the old pixie stix tubes.

It looks like they put a lot of imagination into the drink menu as well.  They were advertising a double apple mojito that sounded pretty good.

We got an order of the chicken wings to start off with.  They came with slices of fried jalapeno pepper on top.  The pepper had a nice even flavor and slightly crunchy tempura texture and it was not spicy-hot at all.  The wings were spicy-hot Buffalo wings.  They also had a selection of hot sauces that the waitress brought over.

They don't let you forget that this is Guy's place.  His picture is all over the place between the bbq sauce bottle lables, t-shirts, posters and the several large lcd screens showing DDD episodes in continuous loops.

The menu has two sushi sections: maki sushi and gringo sushi.  Off of the gringo menu, I had the Jackass Roll which was BBQ pork, avocado, french fries & garlic chili mayo sauce.  It had a real smokey BBQ flavor like you would expect of of BBQ but not sushi but it really did work well.

The baked beans side were some of the best beans that I have ever had.  They were black, white and red (I think) beans but the sauce was not too sweet and had a great slat-smokey flavor to it that is hard to describe.  I really enjoyed it.

The ribs and pulled pork were really good as well.  Coming from Texas, we get a lot of really good BBQ.  I would consider this to be Texas style BBQ and really good.  By the time I got through the BBQ sushi and all of the other experiences, the plain old BBQ seemed kind of boring because it was just BBQ.

I would rate Tex Wasabi's a 9.9 because of the imagination and awesome food.  Tex Wasabi's is definitely not a dive.  It is a nice restaurant, part of a corporation with a CEO and all of the other alphabet soup titles, multiple locations, etc. So, it lacks that kind of dive charm which is the only reason why it could not have been a 10.  Definitely worth checking out.

Tex Wasabi's
2243 Arden Way
Sacramento, CA 95825
(916) 927-8399
http://www.texwasabis.com/