March 12, 2012- Nicole and I were sitting at her house bored and hungry, so we took a trip to this place called the Meadow Brook Restaurant. She had heard some good things about it from her mother, and was thinking about employment there, so we went to check it out. We are so glad that we did, because this has been one of my favorite places to eat so far in my travels as the Hungry Cupcake. Read on my friends…

We arrived at the restaurant, and from the outside, it looked like it was closed. We opened the door, walked down a small winding hallway, and were greeted by two hostesses. One sat us promptly, and we started looking over the menu. 

We chose to start with onion rings, which I am not usually a fan of, but thought I’d eat the crunchy batter off of them while we waited for our food. To our surprise, they were huge, and there were lots of them! We had so many of these onion rings, we did not get to finish them before our food came. We took about half the basket home for consumption later in the evening, which is always a good thing! While we waited on our food, we noticed that there were not that many people in the restaurant, and that it was huge in size, that they might do functions, or we wondered if their dinnertime was a big rush.

Our food finally showed up, just as good looking as the appetizer. Nicole ordered a crab cake sandwich, seen below,and I ordered a turkey salad wrap, sans tomatoes.The wrap had great flavor, with a cranberry mayo, lettuce, cheese, and of course the turkey. Both sandwiches came with steak fries and coleslaw, and both of us only ate about half of our meals. 

Overall, the restaurant was clean, the staff was friendly (a more older woman staff), and the food was great. The prices were cheap, and I didn’t end up using the bathroom, but I would definitely recommend this place to anyone in the area. 

Meadow Brook is located at 1486 Main Street in Hanson, MA. You can view their website here before you go if you’d like to see their menu. http://meadowbrookrestaurant.com/

If music be the food of love, play on.
William Shakespeare

November 15, 2011 - I went on a “dinner and a movie” date with a great friend of mine to Newport avenue in Rumford, Rhode Island last Tuesday and I found this small chain restaurant. The night started great with the hostess opening the door for us and seating us in a quiet part of the restaurant. The waitress was very nice, friendly and informative of the menu and the daily specials. I was in the mood for a sandwich, otherwise I would have had their half chicken special, which comes with a free dessert at the same menu price it always is.

I ended up having the Maui chicken sandwich on a torpedo roll with curly fries, seen below:The sandwich is a grilled chicken breast fillet with barbecue sauce, cheese, bacon, grilled pineapple, and pickles all in one! I’m excited because most of those foods are my favorites, so to have them all in one place, I was definitely thrilled. My date had a bacon cheeseburger, seen below:As you can see, he had steak fries with it as well. 

The food was great, however the restaurant is going through their mid-life identity crisis. The interior and exterior make you believe you are in a fancy Italian restaurant, but the menu is your run-of-the-mill “mom’s home cooking”. I was not too impressed with the wait time for our food either, we knew what we wanted and it took more than a half an hour to get anything; we were starting to wonder if they forgot about us. I also had a good laugh at their rewards program, let me explain: In order to recieve any reward, you have to spend $200! The reward after spending that much? A $5 gift card. Yes, you read right, $5 towards the next food purchase. 

Going to see a cheap movie was good, but spending around $30 for food that was good and an experience that was not so much is something I’m still not happy about. Chelos has nine restaurants located throughout Rhode Island. Overall, I was not impressed by this restaurant.

Don’t dig your grave with your own knife and fork.  ~English Proverb

June 8, 2011- On one of my many Providence visits, I end up seeing multiple television commercials for this place called Sharks. In it it shows people playing pool and large portions of food; at that point I KNEW I had to get to this place and review it. It is located on the busy Atwood Ave (Atwood, not Atwells), but the restaurant looks like it doesn’t belong. Keep reading and I’ll explain why.

Upon entering, it has one of those double sets of doors where you walk through one set and have to open another, not one of the nice ones though, the type you see at cable offices. Once you walk through and lay your eyes on this place, you are taken back. If you’re a sports fan, this is your place to be! It has, at first count, seventeen flat screen tvs, as well as ones at your table that the waitresses can help you with. The bar is large and gorgeous, the floors lined with beautiful tables and black hard wood chairs, the walls with large booths big enough to seat eight. Take a look for yourself:

After we sat ourselves, the waitress came by and asked what we wanted to drink while we looked over the menu. They have a lunch special menu where every item on it is only $5.05 (505 being the address and the name of their special event club, Club 505) and so my partner and I decided to pick from the list. We both got cheeseburgers with our own toppings on them and a side of fries to split. I drank down two waters and he a pepsi while we waited. After around a half an hour wait, the food came by. The waitress stopped by a couple times seeing that the bar was almost empty and there was only one other table filled in the establishment.

The moment we were waiting for had finally arrived, and were we 100% surprised when the food was set in front of us: two LARGE cheeseburgers sat staring back at us awaiting the ride down our stomachs with one LARGE order of french fries to soften the blow!This is my fabulous burger, and although I am not an onion person (and did throw them to the side), this burger was out of this world! The burger patty itself didn’t have much in the way of seasoning; nothing my cheese and barbecue sauce couldn’t fix! I’ll have to admit, I am used to the Allegro sauce filled burgers I usually have at home, but this was the next best thing! Add in the pickles and the lettuce and this baby was dripping with every bite! The BBQ sauce was like a slow river making its way down onto my clean white plate (which reminded me of a 5 star restaurant), and the burger itself was held together perfectly, despite the amount of toppings that were stacked on it.

This concoction belongs to my compadre, a cheeseburger with lettuce, tomato and ketchup, American style. Like I mentioned before, when they were sat down on the table, we were in amazement. I eventually flagged the waitress down and asked if she’s ever had food at another stop I previously visited and she said no, and I informed her that the food was a lot better and that I am a food journalist, and with that I know I scared her. She started explaining herself and the menu but I had already made my judgement on her. 

Our last installment would have been their Ice Cream Cookie dessert, but the only type of cookies they had available were the oatmeal raisin, which I like, but my friend doesn’t. We skipped on dessert and ended up with the check, a small bill for the amount of food we ate and the portions, and happy bellies. 

Overall the experience was great. The waitress, Jennifer, was very friendly and knowledgeable, even though it was her second day on the job. The food was impressive and the decor and space was awesome. We could see this place filling up on any night, and I honestly can’t wait to go back again!

Sharx is located at 505 Atwood Ave in Cranston RI, seconds away from the Atwood/Phenix Ave intersection.