Restaurant Review : Coop's Bar and Grille

Located in scenic Quincy, Ma. This is one of my favorite places for chowing pub grub. Now mind you, this is not gourmet dining. If your looking for some pretentious review from some puss foodie about the garnish setting on the exterior of the plate, fucking scram. If you wanna know about some food to take down on a hung over Sunday, look no further. Lets take a look at some of the up's and down's of this South Shore establishment.

1. Appetizers - B+

-The number one app they have going has to be the wings. And these aren't of the baked in the oven covered in some shitty BBQ sauce variety. These babies are deep-fried, crispy on the outside, moist on the inside deliciousness. Dip 'em in the honey mustard or buff sauce, you wont be dissapointed.

-Gotta also point out the nacho's, covered with chili. Everything you'd want in a mound of nachos is on there. Hot peppers, onions, a couple different cheese's, shallots, bacon bits. Throw the chili on there and you wont need to eat again for 6 hours. Thing is devestating. But that's probably because im a huge fucking slob and take the whole thing down by myself. If you split it with 2 other's you'll have plenty of room.

-If you dont want to go into a coma from the regular nacho's, go with the "Poor Man's Nachos." Same thing, only steak fries instead. Not as huge of a serving, but damn good.

2. Burgers - B-

These burgers are very good, but not mind blowing by any means. They have alot of the basics, BBQ burger with onion rings, blue cheese burger, etc. My favorite has to be the:

- "Shocker Burger" Don't be deceived by the name, this burger has nothing to do with finger-blasting teenage babes under the bleachers. But it features pepper jack cheese, jalapeno's, bacon, and some spicy sauce. Rock solid choice.

3. Pizza - A

Easily my favorite part of Coops. Everyone talks about "South Shore" pub pizza around here. It is a personal pizza with a flaky crust. Many eateries on this side of the city claim to have the best pub pizza going. "Town Spa" in Stoughton, "Lynwood" in Randolph, but Coops is right there with those grease pits, if not better. I'd take it over Town Spa any day.

-"Boston Cheese Steak" Thing is fucking legit. Steak and Cheese on a Pizza. BAM.
-"BBQ Chicken" Also excellent. Sweet sauce, solid chicken chunks. WHABOOM.
-"Buffalo Chicken" You know what it is, absolute money.
-"Cheese" Don't sleep on the basic with a little tabasco. Only 5 beans too.

4. Drinks - D

Easily the low point of dining at Coops. For beer, you're safe if you stick with bottles. But their drafts fucking suck. They taste like they haven't changed the taps in a while, and the choices aren't that great. They also offer the "Coops Brew" on the cheap, its Natty Light. I dont know why they're trying to claim they brew beer, its a blatant lie. Don't get me wrong, if your looking to go in there and hammer away you won't notice. But if you've been there as many times as me the reality will set in.

5. Atmosphere - B/D

If your looking to watch sports and grub down this is where you want to be. You can slap hands with the Quincy relic to the right of you every time Brady slings a TD to Gronk. You can slop out and not worry about it. Also featuring KENO and Golden Tee. For that, it get's a B.

BUT, if you think your going there on a Friday night scoping babes, think a-fucking-gain bro. Place is hurting. That is unless your looking to take down some 45 year old scag of course. I'm sure you can pull down "Dottie" from Quincy High class of '76, and you'll be happy as a pig in shit. She can give you some war stories about how the place used to be called "Frenchie's," and she smoked her first Newport Light 100 out back by the dumpster. But unless that's what your digging for, best keep your eyes glued to the T.V. and the nacho's.

Overall: B

If they had a better beer situation going on, they'd be looking dead at an A- rating. But the food and sports atmosphere are so fantastic im still there at least every other week. Go there to grub, you won't be dissapointed.

No Name, No Dice

So a few of my friends and I happened to find ourselves in the seaport area of Boston on Saturday afternoon, quite hungover from the night before thanks to an amazing (improbable?) game 7 Bruins victory.  All we wanted was some solid food to fill our stomachs, which seemed like it should have been an easy task to accomplish considering our location, right?  

Well...we decided on hitting up the No Name Restaurant by the pier for some seafood because of its immaculate local reputation for outstanding seafood. But like that old guy from the final gauntlet says at the end of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, "we chose...poorly..."

Here's what my friend Jon (who was with me) had to say about the experience.


Did I just sneeze?  Oh no, wait, that's just the disgusting tarter sauce that the waiter from No Name Restaurant just slapped on my plate. How does someone screw up Tarter Sauce you ask?? It's just mayo and relish, right? WRONG...No Name found a way to screw this simple recipe up.

Got dragged to this place because my buddy "had a huge craving for a fisherman's" and couldn't be more disappointed with myself.

10 quick thoughts and then I'll let the poor souls who want to roll the dice on this place learn for themselves the hard way:

1) The best clams in the world are floating in your harbors, so why the hell aren't they on my plate?  Cold bellies, soggy, salty and tough to swallow is all I got from No Name.  This place must be great for tourist going for lame walks down Seaport Blvd. who have never had a real clam or scallop in their lives.

2) Coulda bought some microwaveable scallops from the frozen food section at Market Basket and called it a day, but instead my friends and I wasted 75 bucks at No Name...They probably have 87 huge packs of frozen fried scallops in their fridge in the back.  I would bet my life savings that they get their scallops from the same source that StopNShop/ Costco go through.

3) There were 22 waiters sitting/creeping around in ugly yellow shirts but my friend still couldn't seem to get his plate on time or a refill for our drinks (that came in plastic bottles and we had to pour ourselves).

4) The place definitely has a creepy chester the molester feel to it.  Initially, you'll ignore it (because the place has such a good reputation and you heard their seafood chowder is money) but there is no doubt it's there.

5) I pulled the trigger in the toilet as soon as I got home.  No lie - I was willing to do anything to get that disgusting sea-crud out of my body as fast as possible.  Last time I pulled the trig must have been before a 9th grade high school dance after drinking too much vodka, but I somehow managed to do it again 20 minutes ago.

6) Shortly after I forced myself to throw up in my toilet, I fed my cat.  I honestly thought to myself that I would eat a full plate of cat food before I ever ate another fried clam or scallop from No Name Restaurant.  I may never eat Seafood again for that matter.

7) All I wanted to do was leave that dump after we finished, but instead I had to wait and stare at the old chick at the front desk's mug for five minutes while she was yelling at someone on the phone.  "Aww sorry about that, did ya enjoy your meal hunny??"  Naah, I actually want to tie a cinder block around my leg and jump in the harbor, but thanks for asking.

8) I STILL CAN'T GET OVER THE WHOLE TARTER SAUCE THING!  Stuff was pure green and slimey. Looked like they threw a live turtle in a blender, pressed the chop botton and tossed the results out on my plate.

10) My friend who went through this devastating experience with me is literally on my toilet right now.  He's been in there for over 10 minutes and god only knows what's taking place in there.

No-Name?  NO WAY, NO HOW....This place makes you take a long look in the mirror when you get home.  The Seaport area is on the rise, so let's get rid of this place as well as that whole pier and get some new blood in there.

No Name is great place to go, if you want to lose all of your dignity, contemplate suicide, and ultimately either A) intentionally puke, or B) poop your pants.