China Gate Restaurant-Closed

China Gate Restaurant
365 S Mountain Ave
Upland
909-982-244

I know, I must be on a Chinese food kick, since this will be the fourth Chinese restaurant, that I have reviewed in a row. But, I was in the area, and while I love San Biagios, I wasn't in the mood for pizza. But, I saw China Gate and a long line, that went out the front door, I figured, why not try it.

Like most Chinese restaurants, China Gate has a lunch special that includes soup, egg rolls, a cabbage salad, and your choice of entrees.



I got the wonton soup, the other choice was hot and sour soup. The soup was well seasoned, and the wontons were pretty good.



Chicken chow mein, $8.95. I got a full order of chicken chow mein, instead of the lunch special. The noodles were cooked perfectly and well seasoned. There were small amounts of green onions and cabbage. The chicken was cut very thin and there wasn't a large amount of chicken. But the chicken was nice and tender. A pretty good dish, but they could increase the amount of chicken.



Lunch special shrimp with snow peas, $7.95. I loved the sauce of this dish. It was so light, flavorful and just perfect with the snow peas and shrimp. There was a good amount of tender, flavorful shrimp. The snow peas were crispy, which I like, I hate mushy veggies.

Service was very good. I didn't lack for refills and the food came out hot, and quickly.

I enjoyed lunch at China Gate and would go back for lunch. I saw the prices for dinner and the shrimp with snow peas was $, at that price the portion size should increase by at least 25% of the lunch special portion.

Fratello's Pizza & Pasta

Fratello's Pizza & Pasta
1667 N. Mountain Ave.
Upland
909-981-0200

David Allen is one of my sources for new restaurants. He will review restaurants in the western Inland Empire area. I have found many good restaurants through him. So, when I read his review about Fratello's Pizza & Pasta, it quickly got on my list of restaurants to try. While it took me awhile to go there, I finally made it, on a rainy day.

Fratello's Pizza & Pasta is located in a very dark strip mall, off Mountain Ave. I saw they had a special through Yelp, a large pizza for the price of a small, $9.99. So I called and placed an order. The guy gave me great directions and what to look for, and I was able to find the restaurant.



Large, 16in, pizza with half sausage and half pepperoni, $9.99 with Yelp special, that was posted on Dec. 17, 2010.

This is a medium crust pizza. The crust was well baked, chewy, good texture and held up well to the toppings.

The toppings were pretty good. I loved the amount of cheese on the pizza. Good quality cheese that was well melted. The pepperoni was better than the sausage. The pepperoni, which averaged about 3-5 pieces per slice, had a nice spice and flavor. The sausage was a bit bland, lacked fennel seeds and any flavor.

Service was good. The lady who took my order greeted me and was nice and friendly. But, the Yelp special does not mention anything about printing out a copy of the special. When I called to place my order, the guy wanted me to print out the Yelp page. Now, it wasn't really an issue, I have a printer. But, they should put that on the Yelp page. If I had not called in my order, and I just mentioned the Yelp ad, there may have been issues.

Overall, I like the pizza at Fratello's, I liked the pepperoni better than the sausage. But, overall this is a very good pizza place.

Handel's Homemade Ice Cream and Yogurt

Handel's Homemade Ice Cream and Yogurt
373 S Mountain Ave
Upland
909-946-9077

After some nice slices of NY style pizza at San Biagios, I stopped in at Handel's Homemade Ice Cream and Yogurt. Every Wednesday, Handel's has a $1 scoop deal. The lines can be very long but they move pretty fast.



Heavenly Hash, $1, chocolate ice cream. The young lady at the window, said heavenly hash was like rocky road but instead of almonds, they had chocolate covered peanuts. The first thing I noticed about this ice cream was the creaminess, very smooth. But there were no actual marshmellows, like rocky road, more like marshmellow swirled into the ice cream, but that was find. The chocolate covered peanuts were great, providing a nice saltiness to the sweetness of the ice cream. The scoops are a bit small, but hey for a $1, it's fine.

Service is good. The lines move pretty fast and the young ladies are very nice.

The regular prices of the scoops is $3. I think that is a fair price for the quality of the ice cream. But the scoops better be bigger than their $1 scoops.

I like Handel's better than Fosselmans.

Giuseppe's Pizza

Giuseppe's Pizza
2433 N Euclid Ave
Ste C
Upland
909-946-5979

For some reason, I've been craving kebobs, this weekend. I wanted to try a new place, and then I remembered David Allen's Review of Giuseppe's Pizza, and decided to go there.

Yes, a place called Giuseppe's, does serve kebobs. The owners are Iranians, who bought Giuseppe's Pizza and added Middle Eastern dishes.



Giuseppe's has a great view of the mountains, a wonderful setting for dinner.




Chicken kebob, $14.99, dinners come with grilled tomato, basmati rice, and pita bread but sadly no hummus. The chicken breast was grilled but lacked seasoning, very bland and worse it was dry.

I also didn't like the portion size. I thought for price, the portions were a bit small.

But the rice was awesome. Flavored with butter and maybe cooked in chicken stock, this was so fluffy and flavorful. Just great.



Beef shish kebob, $16.99, again with tomato, basmati rice and pita bread. The rice was the same great rice.

The beef was pretty good, grilled just right and had much more seasoning and flavor than the chicken. Pretty tender, I would say a tri tip cut.

I also liked the portion size, for the beef, much better than the portion size for the chicken. But overall I thought this was a bit pricey for the portion.

Service, for a to go order, was very good. A man, who I believe is the owner, took my order and was nice. A woman, who I believe is the owner's wife, gave me my order and was very nice.

I would like to go back to Giuseppe's Pizza and try the pizza and the lasagna, which looked great!! But I thought the Middle Eastern dishes were a bit overpriced.

San Biagio's Pizza

San Biagio's Pizza
1263 W 7th St
Upland, CA
909-946-9277

Army-Navy the best college football rivalry ever. Today Navy beat Army for the 7th time in a row. I always say the only time I ever root against Army is when they play Navy!! I have three memorable Army-Navy games.

1983 Army-Navy game at the Rose Bowl; the first time that the Army-Navy game was held west of the Mississippi River.

2001 Army-Navy game. Think about what was happening in America when this game was played. Three months after 9-11. War in Afghanistan is less than two months old. Our Commander in Chief is at the game. Along with some of the finest military leaders like Colin Powell and Norman Schwarzkopf. Some of the finest officers ever produced at the Naval Academy and West Point are playing their last football game ever. In a few short months, they would become teammates on a much bigger and important stage, on the field of battle. If that doesn't make the hair on the back of your neck stand up, you're a gutless, coward.

2005 Army-Navy game. This may not mean a lot to other people. But to me this game represented what is great about the young people of America. Every single class, freshmen through seniors, came into each academy knowing damn well what they were getting themselves into; going to war after graduation. I really respected the seniors because they were seniors in high school, when 9-11 happened. They could have gone to another school but they wanted to serve their country and were willing to put their lives in harm's way to protect this country.

Now what does this have to do with reviewing San Biagio's Pizza. Well, San Biagio's Pizza is a New York style pizza and West Point is in New York, not far from New York City. I'm surprised somebody like me, who loves New York style pizza, hadn't been to San Biagio's. So I decided to give San Biagio's a try.

One thing I've learned about NY style pizza places is don't order slices unless the pizza looks good under the heat lamps. I saw a whole pie that looked as it had been sitting around since they opened. I wasn't going to order slice from that pizza. I did see another pie that look as though it had been made within the hour. So instead I ordered a medium with pepperoni, $14.99, plus $1.50 for the topping.

The pizza was damn good. Not up to the standards of Village Pizzeria, but in the neighborhood, ok, maybe the suburbs. But still a damn good pizza.

The crust was thin but a bit thicker than other NY style pizza places. Still good but just a bit different. The cheese covered every inch of the pizza. The sauce added a mild flavor to the pizza. The pepperoni was spicy and very good. But I thought they could have put more pepperoni on the pizza.

Service is very good. I was greeted when I walked in and the guy was very helpful and nice.

I did enjoy watching Navy win while eating a San Biagio's pizza. I would go back here anytime. It is better than the two pizza places in the La Verne I reviewed; Red Devil Pizza and Sal's Pizza & Bagelry. Yes, Red Devil and Sal's are not NY style pizza but even their pizza doesn't stack up to San Biagio's.

Joe Chicago's-Closed

Joe Chicago's
711 W. Foothill Blvd.
Upland
909-981-1228

If you are expecting Chicago style deep dish pizza, do NOT come here. This is not deep dish Chicago style pizza by any means. This is more of an Italian restaurant than a pizza place.

I ordered the medium sausage pizza, $10.77. I should have known something was off when they listed thin, thick, and Sicilian style pizzas on their menu. I asked to make sure and he said the only difference between Chicago style deep dish pizza and our's is Chicago puts their sauce on the top.

What I got as a thick crust pizza. Pretty good but not at all Chicago style deep dish. The pizza had a lot of cheese, a pretty tangy sauce, and a thick crust. It was OK, nothing special. You can get a pizza from any chain as good as this.

Service is pretty good. I don't think anybody is from Chicago and certainly nobody who was there, knows what real Chicago style deep dish pizza is.

Even if I wasn't expecting deep dish Chicago style pizza, I would rate Joe Chicago's as very average pizza. I would not come back since there are many other pizza places that are better, closer to me.

Buckboard BBQ & Grill-Closed

Buckboard BBQ & Grill
1386 E Foothill Blvd
Upland, CA
909-608-7393

This is a Santa Maria style BBQ restaurant but it rates a distant second behind Santa Maria BBQ in Culver City.

Interesting that just across the street is Red Hill BBQ, but that is Rancho Cucamunga.

I have been to Buckboard three times. The first two times I ordered the Rustler Combo for $8.95. Sliced tri-tip and beef rib. The rib was just ok. Not as meaty as some other places with beef ribs but the tri tip was very tender and juicy.

The last time I went to Buckboard they have pork ribs on the menu!!! They will combine the pork rib and tri tip for $8.95. The tri tip is good as always and they give you a ton of tri tip. The pork ribs were not good, very thin, overcooked and lack any kind of smoke flavor or smoke ring. The BBQ sauce is too sweet.

All dinners include a salad, I ordered the green salad nothing special and garlic fresh bread.

A great meal would be pork ribs at Red Hill across the street and tri tip at Buckboard.

I like Buckboard. Prices are great and the portions are huge.

Nice service and friendly people. They allowed me to sample their Tri-Tip Chili and it was very good.

Windy C's Chicago Hot Dogs-Closed

Windy C's Chicago Hot Dogs
140 S. Mountain Ave.
Upland, CA. 91786
(909) 982-8273

About a mile north of the 10 freeway in Upland is Windy C's Chicago Hot Dogs. I wish the wind would blow this place away. The owner is one of the rudest person around. The hot dogs are small and overpriced.

Pictured is the Chicago dog for $3.61. As you can see the hot dog is pencil thin. The hot dog lacked any snap, flavor and was lukewarm at best. The toppings are fresh and the bun is nice and stemmed.

The place was empty when I got there. The owner was in the back doing whatever. I can see from the prices and terrible service why this place stays empty. I am very surprised it has stayed opened all this time.

I wouldn't go back.