Happy Anniversary, RWG

We’re celebrating our first anniversary here at Rochester Westside Grub, reflecting on our inaugural year which included climbing all the way to No. 2 on Urbanspoon Rochester’s blog rankings.

We’ve eaten a lot of good food in the last year, and look forward to what’s to come, but it’s going to be difficult to top one restaurant: General Hoock’s.

It was the first place we visited for the blog, and it’s yet to be surpassed. That’s why it’s our 2010 Restaurant of the Year.

We’ve made several return trips, bringing along different friends each time. We’ve also passed along word to others, who tell others and keep Hoock’s customer base growing.

Each return visit provides some new delicious twist as Shawn Hoock keeps unveiling – and letting customers create – new concoctions every day.

For instance, Waffleopolous – a breakfast sandwich in between waffles. (Yes, that’s bacon cooked into the waffle)

Or there’s the Roc Bomber, basically a giant garbage plate sandwich. (Image courtesy of Hoock’s Facebook page)
We could go on and on about Hoock’s creations, but we’ll leave it up to you to visit the restaurant on Buffalo Road in Gates and see for yourself.

Believe it or not we did go to, and enjoy, and number of other restaurants as well. In fact, we’ve come up with a list of our top five thus far:

1.) General Hoock’s (1308 Buffalo Road, Gates)- See the laud fest above.

2.) Hilton Family Restaurant (54 Hovey Street, Hilton)- Hoock’s has surpassed it as our favorite place in the last year, but our hometown HFR still brings the gang together for a delicious breakfast in an atmosphere that feels like home.

3.) Tully’s (1225 Jefferson Road, Henrietta)- Our favorite sports bar, with the best chicken tenders on Earth.

4.) Rohrbach Brewing Co. (3859 Buffalo Road, Gates)- Authentic German cuisine along with various other fantastic sandwiches and some fantastic white chili.

5.) DiBella’s (2450 Ridgeway Avenue, Greece)- Consistently voted best subs in Rochester, and very high on our list despite being (as Greg calls it) a niche restaurant.

Honorable Mentions: Taste of Texas (122 South Union Street, Spencerport), Martusciello Bread (2280 Lyell Avenue, Gates), Joe’s Brooklyn Pizza (1100 Jefferson Road, Henrietta)

Another restaurant, Yumbo’s, might have cracked the list, but we just found out it closed both its locations. However, Yumbo’s still does catering and is searching for a new location, according to its website. That’s some darn good barbecue, and I hope to eat it again soon. UPDATE (8/21/11): Yumbo's has since reopened at 1460 Lyell Avenue in the city, just west of Mt. Read Boulevard.

In other news, Hoock’s clear emergence as our unquestioned favorite restaurant has forced us to change some grades up, which will be further detailed in our next post.

Anyway, we’ve now added a Facebook fan page and opened a Twitter account in order to spread our name, so get involved and let others know – even if they don’t live on Greater Rochester’s west side.

We look forward to exploring visiting some new places soon and seeing if anything can touch General Hoock’s, which will be difficult. We may even make some trips farther west in to the Buffalo area, so stay tuned.

Well, thanks for a great first year, and hopefully the second will be even better.
-Rochester Westside Grub staff

Joe's Brooklyn Pizza

1100 Jefferson Road, Henrietta
Visited July 31, 2010
Written by Drew



Five (of us) guys headed to Marketplace Mall Saturday afternoon and figured we should cross another place off the list, even if it is in the gray area. Despite our chance at acting out a pun by all going to Five Guys Burgers and Fries (a national chain, mind you), Tyler, Jake and I filed in to neighboring Joe’s Brooklyn Pizza, while Joe and Greg went to Five Guys.

Joe’s, Five Guys and Moe’s Southwestern Grill (also a chain) share one building in the front of the parking lot to Henrietta Plaza on Jefferson Road, across the street from the Doubletree Hotel. I heard good things about Five Guys and really wanted to go there, but looking back on it I was glad I went to grab a few slices of pizza instead.

As we walked into the restaurant, we passed a couple, with one of them holding her stomach saying ‘that wasn’t a good thing to do,’ so right off the bat I was nervous about what I was getting into.

We went in the afternoon, so it wasn’t busy at all. We went right up to the counter and looked at the pizzas they had out to order slices from. After placing our order, we only had to wait about two minutes for our slices to come out of the oven.

I ordered two slices of Brooklyn-style pizza; one pepperoni and the other Buffalo chicken. Both slices were fairly large in size; if I had eaten breakfast that morning, I don’t know if I would have been able to finish them.

I am personally a huge fan of Brooklyn and/or New York-style pizza. As I always say, I prefer my food folded over. If I can fold it I will be much happier. And that is exactly what I did. After taking my first bite, something stood out that I haven’t really experienced too much with pizza before: the bottom of the pizza was perfectly golden in color and didn’t have corn meal or flour on it, just very small air bubbles. The bottom was so thin and crisp it was almost like biting into a tortilla chip. The crust was just the same way, perfectly crisp, and very enjoyable to eat.

Tyler went a different route and ordered a Sicilian (thick)-style cheese slice. Joe’s carries the Brooklyn-style crust in medium and large pizzas and the Sicilian in sheet pizzas. Tyler had a middle piece of a sheet pizza, so he didn’t get the pleasure to sampling the outer crust.

“My slice here was thick and reheated to a pleasant crisp,” he described. “The sauce was good and the interior was soft enough, with a perfect crisp on the outside.” He also grabbed a cinnamon knot for 75 cents, which he explained that it was better than it looked and was similar to the pizza crust he tried.

Jake also ordered a slice of Brooklyn-style Buffalo chicken pizza and enjoyed it as well. Jake said his Buffalo slice was tastier than any similar slice he's had before, and he gets Buffalo chicken pizza often. He added the sauce had a slightly sweet taste that made it stand out, and it was crispy and not too thick, but not too thin either.

There was one last thing that stood out when we were in there. The menu was relatively small; Brooklyn-style pizza, Sicilian –style pizza, six types of specialty pizza, chicken wings (in regular or Buffalo hot only) and calzones.

“The small menu shows they probably put a lot of focus in to their pizza,” Tyler explained, and I think he couldn’t be more right. I didn’t mind the small selection, but I did think it was kind of pricey. My meal, which consisted of two slices of pizza, a cup of blue cheese and bottle of water cost $8. But you pay for what you get, and it was really good.

Tyler had read a lot of reviews of Joe’s online prior to our visit. Many of them raved about it, but complained about rude service. We experienced none of that. The service was friendly and very quick. The atmosphere was pleasant as well; it didn’t replicate a Brooklyn feel outside, which is difficult to do, even in overdeveloped Henrietta, but had a fitting New York feel on the inside.

We all raved about our respective slices, and were all especially pleased with the crispiness of them. Much of the crispiness on our slices was due to them being reheated, so we are interested to see what a fresh pizza from Joe’s is like. I’d imagine it would still be crispy enough, and the fresh taste would probably make it even better than the great slices we already had. If the other reviews are right, it should be among the best pizza in Rochester.

Ratings:

Service/Atmosphere: Very neat restaurant with friendly and quick service. You can actually see the food before you order it, so you can actually ordered what you want.

Food: The individual slices were good, but both Tyler and I would like to go back and order a fresh, full-sized pizza.

Value: Relatively pricey, but you definitely get what you pay for.

Overall: One of the best pizza slices around.

Grade: B+