Brass Compass

305 Main St, Rockland, ME 04841

From Throwdown with Bobby Flay

I will be short and sweet.  This place has one of the best and most inventive sandwiches in the world.  The lobster club.  We all know and adore the club.  Triple decker held together by toothpicks.  Bread, meat, lettuce, tomato, lettuce, and bacon.  Imagine the meat is not the traditional turkey we normally find on a club sandwich, but a pound of lobster……thus sandwich heaven!!!

Buffalo Joe's

Every once in a while I go rogue, off the grid, off the list for a gastrointestinal journey and I want to give you details about those places that aren't on the list, but that are so meaningful to me in my heart and in my belly….so…..I present

Buffalo Joe's...#3 on Best Wings in America

812 Clark St, Evanston, IL 60201 http://www.buffalojoesevanston.com/ BEST BUFFALO WINGS IN AMERICA! HANDS DOWN, NO QUESTIONS ASKED!! Chicago is a city rich and immersed in history from the water tower to Mrs. O'Leary, the Cubs/Sox/Bears/Bulls, the Daly's.  This city is also known as the city of broad shoulders which I directly attribute to the fact that it is freezing, so you gotta eat a lot and that's why Chicago is a city so rich and immersed in incredible food….deep dish pizza, hot dogs, italian beef, popcorn, and so on.  But my favorite place in all of Chicago is a hole in the wall buffalo wing place where spicy perfection lies. It's the one place I MUST go whenever I am in town, no ifs, ands or buts. It's called Buffalo Joes, or to the locals Buff Joe's. I first heard about this place in high school during a summer BBYO jewish teen leadership camp from Steph Howard and Jori Elisco.  The way they said Buff (bahff) Joe's…I knew it was somewhere special.  It has become sort of a ritual for me to go with my brother in law with a double brother (we are brother in laws and fraternity brothers) lunch.  It is cash only. It is run by employees just as angry as the Wiener Circle a few miles south.  I argue the employees of Wiener Circle work during the day at Buff Joe's and the night at the Circle of Wiener.  This place has burgers, hot dogs, italian beef, but you come for the wings, the celery and the ranch.  I am pretty sure that this place has been open 40+ years and my father in law was the first to order a burger.  The wings are giant and so meaty. The wings are cooked perfectly.  The sauce is buttery and perfect.  Get the suicide…its just their normal hot wings with jalapenos. Get the cheese fries! Get a large RC! PERFECTION!Wings, cheese fries, and RC with extra ranch and celery from Buff Joe's is on my short list for finals meals if I was on death row. SPRINT, DO NOT RUN, DO NOT WALK!!!!

Manny's

1141 South Jefferson Street Chicago, IL 60607

http://www.mannysdeli.com/

FROM BEST THING I EVER ATE

NYC has hundreds of deli restaurants that are world renowned. Everyone has their favorite. Carnegie, Katz, 2nd Ave. Deli, Stage, Wolfies, etc.  LA has a few renowed delis. Everyone has their favorite. Langers, Factors, Nate and Al's, and Canters.  Chicago has one.  Just one. One deli that is everyone's favorite. One deli that keeps the people coming back.  If the third largest metropolitan city in America only boasts one famous deli, it must be great, and it is.  This is a cafeteria style place where you order your sandwich to the guy behind the slicer and watch it be made. Where you fill a tray with all the amazing goodies they have to offer from the soups to sides to sandwiches to desserts.  Manny's is great!!! I get the corned beef on rye, mac and cheese, and pie with a giant soda.  It is truly a midwestern institution that stands in the pantheon of great delis from the midwest with Shapiros from  Indy!

PS- When the food festival Taste of Chicago takes over the city in August, Manny's is the most popular booth, not because of deli food…but because of the turkey leg…the only thing they make…turkey leg.  Other places at the taste make stuff you can get everyday at their respective permanent locations, Manny's makes something they only make once a year special for the food festival

Duffy's Cherry Cricket

2641 East 2nd Ave., Denver, CO 80206

2641 E 2nd Ave, Denver, CO 80206

From Man vs. Food and #80 on 101 Best Places To Chowdown

This is a great burger! Delicious! Great toppings, sides, and atmosphere!  They have like 1000's of toppings and possible combinations, but unfortunately, the toppings can overwhelm the burger, not compliment, but this place gets 3 1/2 pickles out of 5 if I had an obligatory rating system. There is nothing fancy about this burger. It's just straight up burger. Burger with a toothpick in it, a giant pickle spear in a red basket. Fries and onion rings in a separate basket to maximize ketchup spreading and to prohibit them from getting soggy in burger juice…CHECK!!!The way Americans want it. USA USA USA!!

 I recommend this place if you are in Denver and want a great burger, good fries and onion rings, aa cold beer, and a fun place to hang out!

Giordano's

730 N. Rush St., Chicago, IL 60611

http://giordanos.com/

From 101 Best Places to Chowdown…#91 and Pizza Paradise

If you want the best deep dish Chicago style pizza (loaf of bread slathered in butter with cheese and canned stewed tomatoes on top,  JUST GO TO LOU MALANATI'S!!!

LOVE,
THE GATROINTESTINAL JOURNEY OF FORTITUDE  C.E.O/COMMISIONER/DICTATOR/FOUNDER

Gates and Arthur Bryants BBQ

Gates BBQ
1325 East Emanuel Cleaver Blvd. Kansas City, MO 64110

http://www.gatesbbq.com/

Featured on Food Wars and Best Thing I Ever Ate, BBQ Paradise, and #37 on More Places to Chowdown

"Sweet & sticky hickory-smoked pork ribs smothered with thick & tangy barbecue sauce."

Arthur Bryants
1727 Brooklyn Ave, Kansas City, MO 64127

http://www.arthurbryantsbbq.com/

Featured on Food Wars, BBQ Paradise, and 101 Best Places to Chowdown (#15)

"12-hour hickory & oak slow-smoked beef brisket, pork ribs with signature vinegar-based BBQ sauce."

"What you're getting: Pork ribs, original sauce
The legendary KC joint has spawned a mini-empire, but you want the Brooklyn original (as in Brooklyn St, not NY or Decker), where you'll tear into a slab of still-amazing ribs that has sated great Americans from Harry Truman to the one and only Bryant Gumbel."

One word...one syllable...MEH.....

 Both of these places are meh.  They are mediocre...at best. Their meat is overdone.  I had the KC specialty at both, burnt ends.  Their sauce is more terrible canned tomato sauce than BBQ sauce. It's like overdone meat drenched in spaghetti O's sauce. They don't compare to Oklahoma Joe's when it comes to BBQ in KC. They don't even deserve a argument with Oklahoma Joe's.

However, Bryants and Gates are landmarks in KC and it is blasphemy to speak ill about either.  These places are institutions in KC and you will get slapped if you bad mouth them (I have had this happen with my friend Bess who told me I didn't know BBQ or food if I don't like Gates or Bryants).  My mom is from Memphis and she said while people knew of Elvis being a womanizing, drug addicted, alcoholic, nobody from Memphis could bad mouth him because he did so much for the city.  Gates and Bryants have done so much for KC that you can't speak ill of them.  People say respect your elders.  I respect these places for their history, I don't like their food!

When you go to KC, skip these two and just wait in the three hour line at Oklahoma Joe's.