Hi, good morning. I'm so excite.
I love every chance I get to do
Foodie Friday and I have picked
a great spot for this morning.
So we are here at the Flying
Monkey in Newington right here.
We're here with the owner,
Junior By as junior,
everyone wants to know the Flying Monkey.
Of course, a unique name.
There is a story behind it.
Talk to us a little bit about t.
Of course
we've been around for seven years now.
We started at Brainerd Airport in Hartford.
We're there about 3 years.
Then we outgrew the place,
so we went over to Newington.
We've been here about four year,
very grateful to be here over C.
We were able to actually
advance in this location.
The name comes from the flying
of the airport and obviously the
monkey is has growing up since f
endearing my parents and my famy
members would call us little monkeys.
So has been called the flying
Monkey for that reason.
Wow. And this was always your d.
You started in the restaurant
industry per se, you know,
when you were 12 years old from Hartford.
What's it like to be able to own this
place now and see everything that it is?
I'm very grateful to have what
what we have now as being
in business for seven years.
Very grateful to have my parents
supported of me having the restaurant
and actually family and friends as well,
they've been supporting
me throughout this stage.
I love that. All right.
So let's talk a little bit about
what your restaurant is known f.
What are the some of the staples here?
Some of our staples we
are known for our wings.
We start from a fresh wing down to our sauce.
We also are known for our burges
or handmade egg rolls.
Today we're going to be featuring our
mixed grill nachos for appetize.
We also be figuring featuring
our steak and cheese, egg rolls,
spicy monkey wings and our
smoked wings as well. All
right, I love that.
So we're going to go over here t
now and talk to the executive c.
This is Zach Cooker.
These look fantastic.
All right, so what's on them?
Talk to us a little bit about wt
we've got going on here. Over
here we have our mixed grill na,
super popular. Every single bite
is going to be fill the flavor.
So Frito chicken,
literally just pile on the meat.
This smells absolutely incredib.
Really, really homestyle cooking here. This
is just an appetizer.
This is like a meal in itself.
This is like a table appetizer.
There's a few brave enough to try themselves,
but literally just pile it on.
And we actually use New
York strip for our steak.
A lot of people don't use it.
It's a premium cup.
But you know when you
got something like this,
you got pilot high.
Oh my God, yeah, this is
really pile high nachos. Wow.
Yeah. So we have a lot of housee
sauces here, this avocado sour cream.
We have a Mayo, ketchup sauce
and like I said, every bite
you're going to get something.
So this is what people
really come in here for.
This is one of the key menu ite,
big flavors. You know, you
never miss with this one. This
is fantastic And that is
our mixed grill nachos.
My God, I need to give it a go.
What do you think?
Am I allowed to dip in?
I really wish you guys could
smell this because this is like,
Oh my gosh, I took a little pie.
I was like, I need a fork
and knife for these nachos.
Oh my goodness.
Whoa, holy heck.
We're struggling here with the one hand.
I need to get some more meat on that.
Oh yeah, these
are so good. Oh my goodness, great church.
So we're going to get a fork and knife and
some napkin to to finish this one off.
But this is absolutely incredib.
So I know we'll have a lot
more coming up too, of course,
in the next few hours.
What else are we going to check?
What can people look forward
to? We're going to show
off our brunch, definitely.
We're going to do a lot of our dinner
entrees, a lot of our staples, you know,
definitely going to show you guys our steak.
We have a really beautiful stea.
We see one cooking over there,
and I can smell it though.
All right, Tim and Erica will
send things back over to you.
In the meantime,
I'm going to get back to this.
Hi, good morning. I know I leard
my lesson after the last hour.
I've got my fork and knife right here.
You can see my knife is already
a little dipped into the s'mores
already because I can't wait.
But yeah, we're here at the
Flying Monkey in Newington.
This all looks absolutely incredible.
So right here I'm here with the owner,
Junior. Just talk to us a little
bit about some of the things
that we're seeing on this table.
I know there's something specifc
that you want to talk about thas
really special to your heart.
Of
course, it's what has kind of
frita and honor my grandmother.
It's pork shoulder.
We fry that. We topped that off.
A little bit of pico de Gallo
and fried green plantains.
One of my dearest persons in
my lives is my grandmother.
So we had a feature,
an entree, for her.
She also was a chef by trade as well.
Yeah. So that's really
how you learned, right?
You said when you were younger,
you kind of just grew up
watching her in the kitchen.
Absolutely. I would be the only
one in the kitchen watching my
grandmother or my mom cook dinnr
as everyone else is watching TV
or upstairs and their bedroom.
I'd be the one just so on
there to watch them cook.
Wow. And that's really paid off because
this all looks absolutely fanta.
I'm going to go over here to Za,
who's the executive chef.
Talk to us a little bit about wt
else we have on the table here. Yeah,
So over here we have our signature wings.
They're extra crispy.
We actually bake them off with a flour that
we do in house marinated for 24 hours.
So much flavor.
These are signature monkey wings
with fried cherry Peppers,
kind of like a sweet chili cream sauce.
Right here is our actual smoked honey wings.
And you mean that literally?
Actually, Actually,
yeah. We send it out smoking.
Right here is our monkey burger,
very classic staple.
We do fried onion straws,
jalapeno honey bacon, cheddar cheese,
Cajun Mayo, really good.
And right over here actually are
some of our lunch offerings.
We do a prefix menu,
so we actually have steak frite,
which is New York strip,
garlic butter, French fries,
panko mozzarella.
And then right here,
actually,
we have our monkey rolls.
We can't
forget about this one.
Look how good that one looks
right now. That's our special.
We're doing a s'more sundae.
Get it while you can.
It is. It is going fast.
Yeah, that looks phenomenal, Ar.
But we still have more to get t.
Let's head over to the bar
over here before we wrap up.
Our friend Steve is over here.
Steve, I know the drinks are
super popular here, too.
You know, what are some of the
things that people come in here
searching for or looking for?
Well, first up we have our
spicy blood orange Margarita.
Some ice blood orange for you.
Simple
lemon. And
I top that with a dehydrated bl,
Dehydrated blood orange and come over
here we have our smoked Old Fashioned.
Let's turn this on.
Can here excuse me one moment.
There we go. Here
you go. I hope you are making
you guys jealous back there,
right? We have our house made infused
bourbon, hints of Legardo cherry Chai,
and smoked oranges or anything
with a smoked orange.
Fantastic.
Hi, good morning. Yeah, exactly.
They really have everything
that you could ask for here.
And that's why we've been showcg
all of this stuff, a huge varie.
And that is one of the staples of the
Flying Monkey Bar and Grill, ri?
Of course, the variety.
But first, before we get into t,
we want to talk about where we're standing.
As you can see, we're on a little stage.
That's because The Fly Monkey
has live music every week too.
So Junior, the owner right here,
can you just talk a little bit about that?
Course?
We have live music Thursday through Sunday.
We do jazz and Blues.
We have local artists that come.
We do that at nighttime from 5:0
to about 9:30 at night every ni.
You had kind of the same perfors
for the last, you know, six years or so
that continue to come back. Absolutely.
Even during COVID, when the covet hit strong,
we still had our entertainers here as well.
So we got to get to this now bee
everyone at home is wondering wt
is going on on this table here.
I know you say that this
restaurant is a melting pot,
per se for all of the varieties
of food that you have,
and we can really see that
reflected on this table.
So just talk to us a little
bit of what we have going on.
Yeah. So it's American Fusion,
and I'm gonna hand this over
to Zach or executive chef,
and he's gonna go over the food, right?
Yeah, go ahead, Zach.
So what are we looking at here?
Yeah. So, I mean, as you could ,
we have a lot of different vari.
I mean, you got Spanish, Italian, Asian,
a lot of different fusion going,
but like Junior said, American fusion.
We get started off right here,
our bourbon pork chop. I know people,
it's a little early for fall flavors,
but believe me, it's worth it.
That looks incredible.
Yeah, really good.
Right here we have a bash, Brussels hash.
And then over here,
actually our lobster roll back to summer.
Main Lobster. Butter poached, super tender,
meaty, sweet, delicious roll.
We use 1/3 of a pound of lobste.
Yeah, so definitely worth worth
it Right here is our steak.
It's our CS steak on special right now.
Smashed Yukon potatoes,
Chimi cherry steak and our street corn.
Really good made in house.
If you look over there, that's r
Milanese little bit of Italian flavor.
Bruschetta arugula salad
with a little lemon oil.
Finish with fresh parm.
Really good.
Smells incredible too.
Wow, the stealth control.
I have to have to not eat
all of this right now.
Yeah, believe me when you're
cooking it, it's hard. Yeah. OK.
And lastly over here, a shrimp Lo main.
So that is only a lunch offering
right now, but it is well worth.
Yeah. Wow. Really.
Just something for everyone here as well.
And you know, especially if youe
looking to come have lunch, bru,
dinner or whatever, the bar is e
and his staff and is ready to g.
So we're going to head over thee
now to our friend Steven over h.
He's got something to show us.
So before we wrap up quickly.
So Steven, what are you
working on now for us?
OK, first up, we have our
take on the classic Cosmo,
our nonstop Blood orange.
Cosmo, we have Sky Blood Orange vodka.
Excuse me, triple SEC. Well,
you've been here how long now,
Steven? Doing this.
Four years. I'd say four
years excuse. And you come up wh
your own drinks too. For people
sometimes. Yeah. For specials.
Or if you come in and say Steve,
make me your your,
you know your house drink.
Wow, look at that second.
There we go, just for a
bit of color. There we
go. Very beautiful.
That looks incredible.
And then last but not least we e
can't forget the finishing touc.
Pair of vodka with Nagorri sake
care vodka, Elderflower look
for and our house made salad.
Awesome. Steve, thank you so mu.
We really appreciate.
We're going to have even more
coming up for the last hour as .
Believe it or not, there's still some
food that we have not tried her.
So coming up in the next hour,
we're going to look at the brunh
menu that's offered on weekend.
Super exciting stuff, Tim and E.
For now we'll send things back over to you.
I hope you're super jealous this morning.
It's Booty Friday and we're here at the
Flying Monkey Bar and Grill in Newington.
I'm here with the owner, Junior Baez.
Junior just talked to us a little bit.
Of course this name very unique.
Where did it come from?
So originally we're at
Brainerd Airport in Hartford.
So flying came from the airportd
monkey was a sense of endearmen.
We would be called little
monkeys when we're growing up,
and my nieces and nephews are cd
monkeys as the time goes on as .
That's so special.
I know this restaurant is super special
to you as well because, you kno,
this was your dream growing up.
You grew up in Hartford.
You learned from your grandmoth.
Just talk to us a little bit about that.
Absolutely. So I started in the restaurant
business when I was 12 years ol.
My grandmother always inspired e
in the kitchen as well as my mo.
When they would be cooking,
I'd be in the kitchen, watch them cook.
One of our featured dishes here
is the Wallace Conde Frita,
which is a pork shoulder that we
marinate with Latin seasonings,
a little bit of pico de Gallo ad
as well as our green plantains d
we top that off a mild ketchup.
The big inspiration also is our menu.
It's a big melting pot.
We we strive to have a restaurat
that is open to everyone and wey
to make everyone feel comfortabe
when they walk through our door.
You can come in with a Sue and ,
or you can come in with your
jogging pants or sweatshirt.
It doesn't matter.
We just want you to leave all yr
problems at the door and come in
and relax and enjoy our cuisine
and enjoy the music as well.
That's what we inspire for.
Yeah, I mean, really, you said melting pot.
And that is extremely evident from looking
at all of this great food on the table.
But you know, the man who is alo
helping behind the scenes with
that over here is that cooker.
Zach, executive chef,
talk to us a little bit about wt
some of these menu items are.
You know, what are some of the
staple items here that people
come in just looking for?
Yeah, definitely.
So like Junior said,
big melting pot, American Fusio.
But I'll just point out a couple things here.
Our monkey burger, huge seller,
I mean Jalapeno, Honey Bacon,
Fried Onion straws, Cajun Mayo.
Really classic.
It's been one of our go to's for years now.
Over here we have our wings,
Super popular, super crispy.
We bake them with a flour rub.
Super good. Comes out crispy.
Let me just run over here, too.
Our lobster roll right now.
Bake. Oh my goodness. Yeah,
it's 1/3 of a pound of lobster.
Really good. Comes from Maine.
Buttery, meaty. Sweet.
Just one more thing to our lunch menu.
Right now we have a prefix runn.
It's 2195. Really Good deal.
You get pink O mats, soup,
salad, monkey burger,
anything that you want we could.
You can't be that.
This looks absolutely fantastic.
Before we go, we just got
to try if some of this.
Look how good this steak
has been looking.
This is a huge staple
item too as well. Yeah,
so that's our Chimi cherry steak right now.
We call it the CS, comes with
Street corn Yukon my potatoes.
And it's finished with our
house made Chimi cherry
in Newington. Lindsay Kane,
Fox 61 Connecticut's news stati.