Football Frenzy #9 at Classic Q

The Classic Q

4250 Martingale Way

Newport Beach, CA 92660

It has been awhile since we have reviewed a place to watch football. In fact it was just a little less than a year ago that we reviewed our last place to watch football on Sundays. Out of the eight places we have tried up to this point, we have liked Oggi's the best. You can read that review here. Just in case you have forgotten, our criteria for grading a place to watch football is great food, great atmosphere, and great service. In our other eight trips to watch football we have not hit our personal trifecta, so the search continues to The Classic Q.

Full disclosure, I had a pretty bad experience here about fifteen years ago or so. I remember it involved being charged for ranch dressing and iced tea and soda refills during Sunday football. Back then I vowed that I would not go back, and that vow stood until a few weeks ago. We were going to be meeting up with my parents at a nearby burger place, so we chose to give Classic Q another try.

My team was playing in the afternoon games, so we got to Classic Q at about ten minutes to one. Richard and Lindsay got there before us and grabbed a table too close to the screens, but we moved back a table after the fans of the morning games closed out their tabs. The setup at Classic Q is pretty solid. They have plenty of TVs, but they were a little slow turning the finished morning games off and turning on the just started one o'clock games. More about the service and ambiance later, for now let's see the food.

So like I said before we were going to be meeting up with my parents after the game, so we were just going to snack. We decided to start with the Spicy Chicken Drumettes ($10.00). I kind of like it when a place gives you all drums. They are a lot easier to eat than the wings. These drums had plenty of meat on them, but the sauce was a little less spicy than I usually like. The ranch dressing here was pretty good, but I kind of thought the price for these drumettes was a little on the high side. We got eight on this plate, so that makes each drumette $1.25. Too much, but not a bad drumette.

At Classic Q they do not have appetizer platters, they have the Awesome Colossome Party Platter. This is the Mini Colossome ($13.00). This platter came with onion rings, fried zucchini, chicken strips, calamari sticks, jalapeno poppers, and mozzarella sticks. With this mini version we got three of each item, which was fine because we had to save room for dinner later. They certainly did not put much thought into the preparation for this platter by trying to make it look good. They simply placed the appetizers on the plate, with no garnish or anything. This did come with three sauces; ranch, BBQ, and marinara, but all of the appetizers were pretty average. The favorites for us were the mozzarella sticks and the fried zucchini, but they were still pretty standard.

I consider myself a good judge of potato skins. I have loved this appetizer for as long as I can remember. I mean, what's not to love? Cheese, bacon, potato, all in an easy to handle package. These potato skins were fried right. Not too greasy, with a very crisp crunch to them. The problem I had with these potato skins was the lack of fillings. The bacon was plentiful, but they needed more cheese. I will give Classic Q some credit for some really good ranch dressing. Very good flavor, and the consistency was right on. It coated the items well, including these skins.

Our trip to Classic Q to watch football was pretty good, with only a few hiccups. The service we got was pretty solid. Our waitress checked on us frequently and made sure we were okay. The prices here were not so wallet friendly. There were no drink specials that we heard about. My well rum and Cokes were $6.50, and Katie got iced tea, and they did not charge her for refills. Glad that ploicy has changed. There were plenty of TVs all around this large venue. With 52 TVs there is a seat nearby with your game on it. They have an outside patio for smokers, and of more importance to us, free wifi, so you can see how your fantasy team is doing. We like places with free wifi. All in all this was a pretty solid restaurant to watch football in. The prices and food were not good enough to overtake our pick for best place to watch football, Oggi's, but if we were in the area again and wanted to catch a game, we wouldn't hesitate to come back to Classic Q.

Out of five u's, (because there are only 71 words in the English language that have a q in them not followed by a u), five being best to zero being worst, Classic Q gets 2.5 u's.

For more information about Classic Q, check there web site here: http://www.theclassicq.com/