John's Restaurant / Pizzeria - Danbury, CT

It hit me early this morning, a seemingly insatiable craving for a chicken parmigania wedge/sandwich. After thinking about it all day, I made it happen and I had a particular place in mind.

That place is John's Restaurant / Pizzeria in Danbury, CT - it's located on Padanaram Road. The place is your typical strip mall pizzeria/Italian restaurant, however it is nice, clean and friendly overall. Place was packed around 6:15 PM on a Wednesday night, usually a good sign.

After a solid 10 minute wait, I had my sandwich in hand and began to dig into it. Now, chicken parm is something that I take seriously. Growing up it was my absolute favorite thing to eat. To this day I eat it almost any time I see it on a menu. The problem is, it never lives up to my Mother's. That won't stop me... now on to the review.

The sandwich itself is quite a mess as you can see. A very generous sized sandwich, bread was very crisp and a good compliment to the saucy catastrophe dwelling within it's confines. Taste wise, pretty pretty good! Great sauce, tons of garlic and a nice sweet taste. I despise overly bitter tomato sauce, this sauce was well made luckily. Gobs and gobs of Mozzarella cheese is par for the course on a chicken parm sandwich, normally I would say you can never have enough but I think they are pushing it a little bit.

All in all a very good sandwich, I would return and perhaps try something different. They offer various types of Italian sandwiches, pizza, pasta and your other typical Italian restaurant offerings. I would certainly recommend this restaurant for a lunch or take out dinner. Next time maybe sausage parmigania, who knows?

You are probably thinking, "well, did he finish it?" You bet your sweet little tush I did. I destroyed that thing!

Overall Rating: 3.75 out of 5

The Burger Joint - Mount Kisco, NY

For the first post of Munching Westchester, I figure it would only be right to review a staple in American food culture - the hamburger. Lucky for me a new spot opened up close to the office on South Moger Avenue in Mount Kisco.

Nom-nom-nom-nom

From looking at their website, I saw it was a chain, so it hedged my expectations a little. Then I saw the trendy "BGR" sign and thought, "Sweet. Another high-priced burger spot that gives you mediocre burgers, soggy french fries and a staff full of annoying hipsters." I apologize, Burger Joint....you proved me wrong.

The menu has some decent range, offering a lot more than just a burger with a list of toppings and sides. Some of the other burger varieties were: cuban burger, greek burger, veggie burger, ahi tuna burger, a southwestern burger, a seasonal lobster burger and a nine pound, $80 burger, appropriately named The 9 Pounder (which I believe was on Man vs. Food).

They also featured a few different variety of fries, thick-cut onion rings and fried asparagus (looked pretty good from the one person I saw who actually ordered it).

I chose to get the burger topped with cheese and their "rosemary infused applewood bacon" with fries. They ask you if you want "the works" when you order, and that includes; lettuce, tomato, grilled onions and "Mojo" sauce (similar to the typical sauce you'd find on a Big Mac). The price was OK, clocking in at $10 and change for the burger, fries and a drink (bacon and cheese are extra).

From the pic, you can see that the burger is pretty decent in size. It was cooked perfectly and the bacon was way thicker, crunchier and tastier than the limp bacon you find getting slapped on your burger at other spots.

Simply put: The burger was damn good. The fries were crispy and not over-salted, and the tomatoes were actually ripe and fresh.

Just looking around, all the other burgers looked pretty good, also. And just from the orders getting barked out by the line cooks, the shakes seem to be a top seller.

One important thing to note - especially if you stop in on a lunch break and don't want to get bogged down the rest of the day - the meal wasn't nearly as greasy as I expected. Between the plate and the food, there was a thin sheet of paper that would usually be soaking up all the filthy goodness. By the end of the meal, there were only a few spots where you could see grease actually set in, and overall, the meal didn't kill productivity the rest of the afternoon. This is a change from other spots, like Five Guys, where a take-out bag almost falls apart when you walk out of the door after they dump 8 lbs of fries in.

This is definitely a good spot to swing by on a lunch break or take a short drive to if you're craving a quick and tasty burger. Not necessarily something to travel for, but good nonetheless.

My rating: 3.5 out of 5