Breads My Way: Satisfying the Craving

Last Stop: Time to Redirect Your Browser

2009-06-15T07:30:00.007-04:00

Just a reminder that Breads My Way will no longer be covering the types of subjects that have been discussed up until this point. A parallel blog, Exploring Food My Way has been created with all of the posts and comments made since I started the other blog and will be the primary blog moving forward.

I'm excited to continue to provide you, gentle reader, with the same (mostly) fun experiences I've had up to this point. See you on the flip side.

A Not-So-Traditional Patty Melt

2009-06-12T07:30:00.004-04:00

T Meldrum's was a suggestion from a previous Massillon resident who grew up eating at this restaurant. It is located at 2144 Wales Road NE, Massillon, Ohio 44646 and can be reached at (330) 833-4729. There is no website currently at this time.

After listening to him talk about his experiences at the restaurant, I decided to leave work a little early and give T Meldrum's a try. They are open for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, but do be aware that they close at 8 pm, so there won't be any late night runs for a burger or a malted. As you travel north on Wales Rd, as soon as you pass Hills and Dales Road, you will see this sign on your right:

The building sits in the middle of a parking lot for a larger strip retail outlet. It's hard to tell from the outside, but once inside, it looks as if the original T Meldrum's was added onto over the years as there are distinctive sections to the restaurant. Here is a photo of the exterior of the restaurant:

Once inside and seated, I got down to business of perusing the menu:

And a shot of the inside of the menu. Note the message to the customers:

And a shot of the condiment tray at the end of every table:

The food at T Meldrum's is based on pretty traditional diner fare. However, after looking at the menu, I noticed that they do their own twist on the classics. What finally convinced me to give them a try in the first place is when my friend said that they offered a really great Patty Melt. I am such a sucker for a really good Patty Melt. The combination of the juicy burger, the crispy rye bread and the grilled sweet onions is just something I crave every now and again. The best Patty Melt I've ever had is at Mary Kelley's in Dublin, Ohio, and it is the standard against which I compare all others.

T Meldrum's version is actually a "Sisco" Patty Melt. It is served on grilled sourdough bread and offered with not only grilled onions, but also grilled green and banana peppers. I decided to go with that. Here is a shot of my sandwich when it arrived at my table:

And a shot from the side showing the layers:

This was an excellent sandwich. I opted to go with the 1/3 pound burger instead of the 1/2. This made the burger not quite as juicy as I normally like it, but between the two kinds of cheese and the grilled vegetables, the sandwich as a whole worked nicely together. The big surprise to me was the grilled banana peppers. They added a nice acidity which helped to cut some of the fat of the sandwich and grilling them first helped to tame some of their heat. I definitely recommend including those on your sandwich.

I decided to upgrade my sandwich to a platter for a couple of dollars more. This gave me my choice of two sides. My first side was the Macaroni and Cheese casserole:

This definitely had a homemade feel to it. It was nice and cheesy but wasn't overly so. It had that "baked" look to it; somewhat dry from the heat of the oven without being too dessicated. It wasn't the best mac and cheese I've ever had, but given the location I was eating in, it was certainly acceptable.

They did offer fresh cut fries, but instead I opted to go with the home fries. The difference? Home fries are essentially another name for hash browns. Here is T Meldrum's version:

These were okay, but definitely not nearly as good as the hash browns I had at Wally Waffle. Having worked at Bob Evan's my senior year as a short order cook, I know good hash browns. These were just a bit overcooked. And unfortunately, the seasoning was off just a bit as well. A little ketchup corrected that problem as well as added a nice acidity.

Overall, I enjoyed my meal at T Meldrum's. The Patty Melt was good, but definitely didn't blow my mind. If I were to order it again, I'd definitely get the 1/2 pound burger instead. I think it would end up being juicier. I'd stick with the Macaroni and Cheese casserole as my side again and perhaps order something other than the home fries. The menu is quite large and you could return many times without ordering the same thing twice.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: Eadie's Two Locations

2009-06-10T07:30:00.003-04:00

Sometimes it pays to take a chance.

I happened to be driving down Wise Avenue today in North Canton for a completely unrelated reason when I first noticed Eadie's Fish House. Slightly intrigued and making a mental note to maybe return one day, I noticed that right next to Eadie's Fish House was a little drive-up place that advertised beer batter fish and onion rings also sporting the name Eadie's. I'm ALWAYS a sucker for a good beer batter fish and unfortunately, so few places really deliver a good one. With what seems like a split-second decision, I pulled into the parking lot and decided to give this little roadside stand a try.

Here is the building from the front of the road:

I walked up to the front and started looking over the posted menu:

I knew what I wanted; fish and onion rings, just like their sign advertised. But, as I looked over the menu several times, I was having a hard time seeing it listed. When I finally asked the woman running the order window, she said that they didn't serve the fish here. They only served it at the main restaurant next door. Well, crap! I was kind of in the mood for that and now I had to decide what I wanted to do. At that moment I wasn't really in the mood for an entire sit-down meal. So instead, I just decided to get a small sampling of the food here. I ended up ordering a BBQ pulled chicken sandwich, a small order of fries, and a small chocolate malted shake. I was a little nervous about the BBQ pulled chicken sandwich because I was concerned that they might use one of those over-the-top sweetened BBQ sauces. I needed have worried about the sweetness.

After about 10 minutes, my food finally came up. First, the chocolate malted shake:

This wasn't bad. It had just a slight hint of malt to it. Personally I would've preferred a more intense chocolate and malt flavor. The texture was super thick, causing me to basically leave it for a while and then drink it when it was more melted, lest I suffer the headache induced by sucking on the straw too hard.

Next up, the fries:

When I went to pick up my order, I asked the young man behind the counter whether the fries were fried from fresh or frozen. He gave me this almost ghastly look and said, "Oh, frozen. We just wouldn't have enough time to make them fresh." Sigh. Apparently they didn't have enough time to cook them from frozen, either, because these were greasy, flaccid and seriously undercooked. Honestly, who wants to eat undercooked fries? I ate about three of these before giving up.

Finally, a shot of my BBQ pulled chicken sandwich, both wrapped and unwrapped:

Visually, this was just unappealing. The bun was smashed and the filling that peaked out of the sides looked ominously similar to what it might appear like later on were I to see it again (I'm trying to be delicate here). But, being a brave little culinary soldier, I tasted it. My worry about the BBQ sauce being too sweet was mollified; it wasn't. However, missing from this sandwich was any kind of really stand-out flavor. And unfortunately, the filling was so wet that the inside of the bun had essentially turned to mush. This definitely required a toasted bun to stand up to the filling. Three bites of this and I decided that something was seriously amiss at this little roadside stand.

On the side of the building is an advertisement for 24 different flavors of soft serve that they offer here.

Upon checking out the website for the company advertised on this banner, I came to discover that this "system" for offering so many flavors is nothing more than artificially flavored syrups that are added to a standard frozen custard base, whizzed up, and served in the vessel of your choosing. I was seriously unimpressed with my experience at this roadside stand.

Having only eaten three bites of my sandwich, three lousy, limp fries, and about 1/4 of my shake, I decided to see if the mother restaurant located right next door might redeem my shaken faith. I wasn't in the mood for a sit-down dinner before, but I quickly decided to change my tune. And since the beer batter fish and onion rings were only served there, I figured, what the hell. It couldn't get any worse, right?

I didn't manage to get a photograph of the sign or the building known as Eadie's Fish House as it had started to rain and I didn't particularly want to get wet. After walking in and getting seated, I started to peruse the menu. I began to see items on the menu that made me believe that I should've just chosen this place first. Proprietary beer battered cod, special beer battered onion rings, smoked chicken wings with lots of interesting sauces, the list goes on. They did have fries on the menu as well, and in fact, most of the dinners came with them by default. Worried that these would be the same awful fries that were being served by it's sibling namesake, I decided to pay the extra $1 and get the onion rings instead.

I ordered the two piece beer batter cod and onion rings. Here is what came out:

Hallelujah! Homemade, homemade, homemade! You could tell just by looking at these that they had never seen a freezer in their lives. The fish is kind of buried under the MOUND of onion rings they give you.

Once I ate a few rings and repositioned the rest, I was able to get a better shot of the fish:

While ketchup is on the table when you sit down, when you order the fish and onion rings, the following two condiments show up with your meal:

On the left is a chipotle horseradish mayonnaise for the onion rings and on the right is a homemade tartar sauce with sweet pickles. Before even tasting a single thing I could see a 100% transformation from what I had been served just 30 minutes prior. But the proof, as they say, is in the tasting.

For the most part, the meal lived up to my expectation. Both condiments brought to the table were excellent and definitely complimented the food with whom they were meant to be paired. Normally I would eat my onion rings with ketchup, but the chipotle horseradish mayonnaise was a nice foil for the onion rings. And the tartar sauce added a nice bit of acid and sweetness to the fried cod.

The crust on the onion rings was wonderful. Light, crispy, flavorful. I loved everything about the onion rings except one thing: the rings were too thin. They just weren't meaty enough to allow the sweetness of the onion flavor to compliment the oiliness of the outside of the crust. That's not to say that the onion rings were greasy. But there will always be some inherent grease remaining in any fried product. The batter on the fish was wonderful and crunchy, but unfortunately, even my nice thicker pieces of cod were just a tad bit overcooked and kind of dry. The excellent tartar sauce helped to mitigate the dryness factor, but things being what they are, this could've been a slam dunk if they had managed to keep the fish moist.

Oh, yes, the cole slaw. Almost forgot about that. It was nice, but nothing out of the ordinary.

Across from my table was a sign that read the following:

Something about the irony of the sign just caused me to chuckle. Can you spot it, too?

I will definitely be going back to Eadie's Fish House; Eadie's the sit-down restaurant. The drive-up stand next to Eadie's that actually advertises the fish and onion rings on it's banner? Um, not so much.

After I finished my meal at Eadie's proper, I returned to my car with my leftovers only to discover that I had left the 3/4 of my malted shake in the cupholder. It was now the perfect consistency to drink. It had melted just enough that it was still cold but was finally drinkable without having to resort to a vacuum cleaner to get the liquid up the straw. And while I agreed with my earlier assessment that this was not a great malt, it at least gave me a sweet way to finish my fried fish meal.

For Those Under 30, LP Stands for Long Play

2009-06-08T07:30:00.007-04:00

Herbie's Good Grub (formerly Herbie's Heroes) is a quaint little Massillon, Ohio sandwich shop that offers up a real funky ambiance with made-to-order sandwiches, pizzas, and subs. They are located on Amherst Road just north of Lake Avenue in the same shopping plaza as Marc's. They have several tables set up outside and several more inside, so unless you try going during their busy times, you should be able to snag a seat to eat your meal.

When you first walk into Herbie's, you can't help but notice the entire menu written on several blackboards along one wall:

The friend who clued me in to Herbie's suggested I try the cheeseburger sub and fries. After looking over the menu, I decided to go with his suggestion. I paid for my meal, sat down and started looking around the room. The nostalgia of Herbie's is captured on the walls with old Rolling Stone magazine covers as well as LP record album covers of 1960's and 1970's bands such as Elton John, Led Zeppelin, and Fleetwood Mac. The individually sized pizzas that they offer on the menu tie into this time period theme with such concoctions as the Heavy Metal, Psychedelic, and Disco.

On every table is a pamphlet about Herbie's. Here are a few shots of the outside and inside of the menu:

After about 10 minutes or so, my food finally arrived at my table nice and piping hot. First up, a shot of my cheeseburger sub and fries:

And a shot from a different angle:

And a shot of the burger from the side showing you all of the layers:

A couple of things to note. First, while you can pretty much construct your sub however you would like it, but by default it comes with your choice of cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion, and Italian salad dressing. I choose to nix the onion, but kept everything else. Second, as you can see in the photo, the sandwich is actually composed of two burger patties laid next to each other on a hoagie roll. Thus, when you cut the sandwich in half, you get the equivalent of two regular burgers. Finally, you have the option of having your hoagie roll toasted or not; I opted for toasted.

Before I go into my description of my meal, I just want to note that while I love hearing about new places to try from the tens of you out there who read my blog, it can be kind of a thin line to walk. On the one hand, you clearly wouldn't be recommending the place if you didn't think it had something unique and/or tasty to offer. At the same time, I have to balance being as real to my experience as I can without running the risk of destroying someone's cherished childhood memories about a favorite eatery. It's wonderful when a restaurant's past accomplishments can live up to today's realities. But it doesn't always happen. That being said ...

As you can see from the pictures above, the patties were nice and juicy. And the tomato was really very good. It was a brilliant red and completely ripe and sweet. For a conventionally grown tomato this tasty in May, they must have a very good supplier. The shredded lettuce and American cheese were exactly as you would expect them to be. The hoagie roll was nice and fresh and you got that little extra bit of texture from the toasted inside.

This was a good sandwich. Unfortunately, this was not a great sandwich. The Italian dressing definitely added something interesting to the mix. But it didn't do what I think it should have and add that much needed sour note to balance the fattiness of the burger. The other problem I noticed was that it just didn't quite have enough salt to zero in and maximize the flavors of all the ingredients. Sure, the cheese and the dressing added some salt, but when I managed to taste a bit of the hamburger patty itself, it was as I suspected, too lightly seasoned. Now that being said, it wasn't as if this was missing salt altogether. And to be fair, salt and pepper shakers were available to add additional seasoning. However, I am of the opinion that food should come out of the kitchen ready to eat, no additional salt required.

The fries were definitely the star of the plate. Crunchy on the outside, creamy on the inside, not greasy, nicely seasoned with something more than just salt, these were a real winner. No ketchup even required. You could tell that there was more than just salt on the fries by looking at them. It was quite obvious by seeing a good bit of red and black flecks, that this was a blend of some type. The friend who suggested Herbie's originally thought it might be seasoning salt, but I'm not convinced of that. Most seasoning salts I've tasted have a weird metallic taste to them and I definitely didn't pick up on this as I was eating my fries.

I was excited to learn that on Fridays and Saturdays, Herbie's breaks out the BBQ pit and actually slowly cooks up pork shoulder in order to be able to serve pulled pork sandwiches. Being a lover of pork myself, and especially of a good pulled pork sandwich, I may just have to make a weekend trip back down to Massillon to check them out again.

I think Herbie's does a lot of things right. And if they took some time to dial in those last few elements to some of their food, I think they would be outright delicious all around. When I return for the pulled pork sandwich, I hope to be able to sample a few more items off their menu. I hope that if you are in the area, you'll give them a shot and make up your own mind.

A "Green" Burger at Metro Burger

2009-06-06T07:30:00.002-04:00

Metro Burger opened up several years ago in the then newly-built set of stores in Highland Square just 5 minutes from downtown Akron. Metro Burger's aim was to provide good quality food while shooting for a "greener" experience. All of the cups, packaging, and utensils are made from 100% corn and will completely biodegrade in just 80 days. I decided that I was in a "burger" mood tonight for dinner, so I stopped in.

Here is the sign on the outside of the building (this is completely visible from Market Street, so it's hard to miss):

There is ample free parking both on the street and in the back of the building. Once inside, there is a long counter where stacks of clipboards contain the menu order form. One form per person, please:

You mark what kind of meat you'd like, what size, what kind of roll, toppings, etc. It really is a pretty efficient way to keep the lines short and the decisions to a minimum. You can mark one of their already designed burgers or you can mix and match to your heart's content. Once you finish marking up your form, you approach the ordering counter:

and place and pay for your order. At that point, they'll hand you one of these guys:

You fetch your condiments, napkins, and drinks from the soda fountain area and retire to your table and wait for your meal to be cooked to order. Do note that the burgers are all cooked medium well. When your electronic notifier goes off, you go up to the pick-up area and grab the plastic tray with your order on it. Today I felt like a 1/3 pound ground beef cheeseburger with smoked gouda, bacon, and horseradish mayonnaise on a pretzel roll. Add an order of the sweet potato fries to that and you get this:

The pretzel roll was buttered and grilled before adding the rest of the ingredients. The horseradish mayonnaise is in the little cup in the front of the basket.

First up, the burger:

This is a wonderfully juicy and delicious burger. The smoke from the gouda and the bacon and the spiciness from the horseradish mayonnaise made a wonderful combination. The pretzel roll is highly recommended. It has such a unique flavor that the other buns are simply lacking. Instead of just being a vehicle to get the food into your mouth, it adds it's own distinct flavor and texture.

And, of course, my side of sweet potato fries:

I am notoriously critical when it comes to fries. They have to be crispy on the outside, creamy on the inside, properly seasoned, and not oily. These fit the bill beautifully. And to top it off, the natural sweetness from the sweet potato contrasted nicely with the added salt. They are so-so with ketchup, but I actually preferred them with the leftover horseradish mayonnaise that accompanied my burger.

Today was my fourth experience at Metro Burger and every single time I've really enjoyed the food. Spending your dining dollars here is a real winner for everyone; you're supporting a local Akron restaurant that is committed to helping reduce landfills and providing it's customers with delicious food. What's not to love?

Waffles That Nearly Float Off Your Plate

2009-06-03T07:30:00.002-04:00

Any then there were two.

The food-related memories I have from my childhood are actually quite sparse. It wasn't until well into my adult life that I began appreciating chefs and restaurants who take the time to offer something unique and delicious to their customers. While there have been many times when I've returned to a cherished restaurant from my childhood only to discover that the food really isn't as good as I remembered it, it's a pleasure to find one where the current dining experience lives up to the halcyon days of my youth.

As a child, I remember eating at numerous Wally Waffle locations throughout the area. Unfortunately over the decades, this number has slowly dwindled down to only two remaining locations, one on Locust Street in downtown Akron by the hospital and the other just a five minute drive on the corner of Eastwood Road and Rt. 91 in Tallmadge. Google shows a third location on Marion Avenue, but I tried finding this location one time and concluded that it simply didn't exist.

Today I decided to go for a late lunch / early breakfast. Here is the sign at the Tallmadge location:

I arrived around 11:15 am or so only to be greeted by a number of people milling around outside the front door. This is very typical on the weekends if you go after about 10:30 or so. I had a 20 minute wait and since it was fairly pleasant outside, I didn't mind enjoying the sunshine and fresh air. Wally Waffle is only open for breakfast and lunch, so don't plan on going after 3 pm on the weekends.

Here is a shot of the front of their menu:

And a shot of the condiments at the end of the table:

As with most of the meals at Wally Waffle have consisted, I usually start out with a nice steaming cup of decaf and a glass of water:

The coffee always tastes exceptionally fresh when I go, and the refills are generous and quite often. The regular coffee does have a better flavor than the decaf, but living with an afternoon of the jitters wasn't my idea of a pleasant way to spend the afternoon.

The menu is broken up into typical breakfast fare and they offer luncheon items such as salads and sandwiches as well. But, I daresay that if you are going to go to a place that has "waffle" in its name, you can be pretty certain that the place has a specialty. Wally's offers three different waffle batters, the original using malted flour, the oat bran (which is what I normally get), and the better day. All batters are made at the locations, although the dry ingredients for the original batter come already pre-mixed. They simply add the wet ingredients, margarine, milk, and eggs on-site before service. I couldn't get my server to admit it, but I would surmise that they separate the eggs and beat the whites separately before folding it back into the batter. They'd have to in order to get a waffle to be this light.

You can get your waffle topped in a variety of ways, from simply adding margarine and syrup to going with fresh fruit and a little sweetened whipped cream. The thing about the original waffle that makes it so unique is how light it is. Not in terms of calories, but in terms of the sense of fullness you get from eating one. All the waffles that come out of the kitchen cover the entire plate, so it isn't like you are getting a smaller portion size. Obviously the oat bran and the better day waffles have a much heavier batter and thus will definitely fill you up.

Today I decided to go with the classic waffle topped with fresh strawberries and bananas and finished off with sweetened whipped cream:

This was heavenly. The waffle batter itself is just barely sweetened and the combination from the malted flour and the touch of vanilla make this a tasty dish even if it weren't topped with anything else. Between the mound of whipped cream and the fresh fruit, syrup wasn't even required to gobble this up. In fact, I think that adding syrup would've complicated the pure, sweet flavors that made this dish so good.

With my oat bran waffle, I normally get a side of bacon, extra crispy. Today, however, I decided to go with another favorite, Wally Fries "loaded":

"Loaded" Wally Fries are a wonderful combination of shredded potato hash browns that have been beautifully cooked and crisped on one side topped with grilled onions and peppers and finally finished with the cheese of your choice. Today it was Swiss. Perfectly seasoned, the textural combination of the crispy potatoes on the one side, the creamy potatoes on the other is a wonderful example of contrasts. This worked quite well in place of the bacon I normally would order.

I've tried many of the other menu items over the years and I can honestly say that I've never had a bad dish. But if you make the trip all the way down to Akron just to try Wally Waffle, you must at least try the classic waffle. It really is that good. My hope is that no additional locations close as that would truly be the loss of an Akron classic.

Mug 'o Root Beer Goodness

2009-06-01T07:30:00.001-04:00

The first time I had a can of root beer, I was suddenly presented with an anomaly. All the root beer I drank as a youth had been at the local carhop drive-in places (like A & W). What surprised me so much was how hard it was to drink the soda without having to burp incessantly or the burning sensation that the overly carbonated soda caused when I swallowed. To this day, I have to let a newly opened can of soda sit for a few minutes to allow some of the carbonation to escape before I can drink it. The weird thing about my youthful root beer memories was that I remember the frosty cold mugs of sweet nectar having carbonation, but not so much that they weren't smooth and drinkable from the minute you got them.

Besides the nationwide chain A & W, a local Akron chain called B & K still has some drive up stands in the area. I choose to go today to the one on Monroe Falls Avenue in Cuyahoga Falls:

Once you pull in, as with most drive-in places, you turn your lights on for service and decide what you want from the menu posted on the wall:

They have your usual fare, burgers, dogs, and chicken sandwiches. Today I was in the mood for two things: a coney dog and a mug of frosty cold root beer. While perusing the menu, I also noticed that they sell kraut dogs. Well, damn, that sounded good, too! When my waitress hustled over to take my order, I got one of each.

Here is the window tray she brought back just a few minutes later:

Can't you just already taste that wonderful root beer?

Since I was doing the knee balancing trick for my photographs, I decided to take a swig out of the mug to make it a little more stable. Yummmm! Sweet and creamy, this brought instant memories of my youth to mind. Nothing in a can or 2-liter bottle can even come close to this. Next time I go back, I may just have to guild the lily even more and get a scoop of vanilla ice cream to make the ultimate concoction, the root beer float.

On to the dogs! I have to say that both hot dogs were very moist. When you keep meat in a hot water bath until service, sometimes that can actually dry out the dogs. Not in this case. Both versions of the dog were absolutely juicy and tender.

The coney dog was first:

The coney sauce was excellent, similar to a Sloppy Joe type consistency, but actually the meat was a bit more finely ground. It had a lovely saltiness and spiciness that worked well with the sweetness of the root beer.

Finally, the kraut dog:

When I first bit into it, I was surprised to discover the presence of black pepper in the kraut. The salt and acid of the kraut were well controlled. The overall balance on this dog was pretty darn good, given that it was just a hot dog with sauerkraut on it. Honestly, the thought of a coney dog was what brought me in to B & K, but I left equally as impressed with the kraut dog.

Next time you are in the mood for a really good coney or kraut dog or just want to indulge in a wonderful treat like the root beer, I recommend you check out one of the several Akron locations of B & K to get your fill. Nostalgia can sometimes make you overlook a mediocre experience, but in this case, it just proved how good it was all along.

A Fork in the Road ... er, um, Blog

2009-05-30T00:00:00.003-04:00

I originally started Breads My Way to showcase both local bakeries as well as my own efforts with making, eating, and teaching breads to others. Somewhere between the day I created this blog on Blogspot and the day I started posting on it, something changed. Maybe I thought I'd just put in a restaurant review or two along with everything else. Whatever happened, Breads My Way sort of went off in a totally tangential direction from where I originally intended it.

Which is perfectly fine with me.

When I put up my first smattering of entries, I was doing it just for me. I didn't care if anyone else on the entire planet read what I had to write. But somewhere along the way I discovered that I did have regular readers and many were enjoying what I was posting about. I also found that I had started to develop a certain voice in my writing and I knew that this process of discovery would continue as I continued to write.

One of the nice things about using Blogspot is how easy it is to host multiple blogs and export and import from one to another. So, I started a new food blog called Exploring Food My Way. Currently it contains an absolute mirror (including comments) of what is available on Breads My Way. And it will continue to do so until June 15th, 2009. At that point, the blogs will diverge and I will only be updating Exploring Food My Way with the types of posts you've been used to seeing here. Breads My Way will be left intact for quite some time, although new posts (if I decide to make any) will be more in tune with the original purpose of the blog. Should you wish to only check one blog from this point forward, check with Exploring Food My Way for new (and already published) content. For those of you with browser links or subscriptions to the old site, I want to personally invite you to update those programs with a link or subscription to the new site.

To try and avoid any confusion between the two sites, I decided to give the new blog a bit of a color update so that it not only feels "fresh", but can also be visually distinguished from the old site.

Finally, gentle reader, I wanted to thank you for your continued visits to my site to read my culinary rantings as well as the offering of both your comments and suggestions. It is truly appreciated.

Kiflis Bakery & Restaurant

2009-05-29T07:30:00.005-04:00

Recently I came across fellow Akronite food blogger Kathy and her site called Carano's Cucina. In one of her more recent blogs, she details the discovery she made one day when she and her husband decided to stop at a local Cuyahoga Falls bakery just down the road from Kreiger's Market on Graham Road called Kiflis Bakery and Restaurant. What drew her in was a sign outside the building advertising fresh "burek". Keenly interested in what burek was, they stopped in to find out. As you can no doubt see from her blog entry, they had discovered someplace unique offering something unique.

Having driven by this intersection hundreds of times in my life, I was stunned to learn that this building housed a wonderful ethnic bakery that was offering up homemade and heartfelt goodies for the local community. They are located at 526 Graham Road, Cuyahoga Falls, OH 44123 and can be reached at 330-926-2123. There is currently no website, but as owner Mire Udovicic mentioned to me, he is currently having one designed for him. To make locating the building that much easier, the bakery is essentially on the corner of Graham Road, Bath Rd, and 8th Street.

Here is a view from the outside (notice the drive-thru service window on the left side of the building):

I was a concerned about the availability of fresh burek when I first pulled up because there wasn't a sign outside advertising the fact. Once inside the door though, a sign immediately to my right put me at ease:

And it turns out that I showed up on a good day. Not only was there cheese burek, but also beef, spinach and cheese, and apple. Burek can be either sweet or savory. Since Kiflis is both a bakery and a restaurant, I decided to take a look around at some of their offerings.

First up, the handwritten menu on the wall:

There are between 5 and 6 tables available to sit at and eat your meal. Given Kiflis's hours of operation, that would most likely be breakfast and lunch. They close at 5 pm during weekdays and on 3 pm on Saturdays. As you can see from the menu above, the most Mediterranean item on the menu would be the gyros. Everything else is mostly American style sandwiches.

Next up is a shot of one of the pastry cases that houses some of the burek available. All the burek is rolled in the same manner, so you can't really tell which type you have just by looking at the outside. Here we have spinach and cheese on the left and plain cheese on the right:

The cheese is a mixture of Feta cheese and American cottage cheese. The use of cottage cheese in this didn't really surprise me. I researched a Russian dish several years ago for a party I had catered and the recipe called for Sulguni (or Suliguni) cheese. The recipe noted that if I couldn't find that, a mixture of cottage cheese, Feta, and mozzarella cheese could be used in its place. The cottage cheese is used to add a nice softness and creaminess to the drier and more crumbly Feta.

In the next case over are some of their pastries that they offer by the slice:

Here you can see some of their cookies on the top shelf and the poppy seed and walnut strudels on the middle shelf.

Next up is a shot of several varieties of cookies that they offer. They generally fall into two categories, those with no jam (such as almond cookies) and those that do. I didn't get to try any of the cookies this time around, so a return trip is definitely in order!

And in the rack behind the cookies was shelf after shelf of strudel:

As with most small ethnic bakery / restaurants, Kiflis also offers some harder to locate ingredients in case you want to try and make these treats at home. While Kiflis doesn't have as large a grocery section as some other Akron ethnic stores I have visited, they did offer quite a variety of not-so-easy to find items. The prices also seemed quite reasonable.

On one of the walls by the grocery area, an article from 2001 from the local Cuyahoga Falls newspaper heralded the arrival of Mire and his wife and their new bakery:

I didn't actually taste anything at the store, but I did spend about twenty minutes talking with Mire and how he runs his store and decided to leave with tastes of four of his treats: a cheese burek, an apple burek, a slice of poppy seed strudel, and a slice of the walnut strudel. He assured me that they would be absolutely fine until later tonight.

First up, a shot of the two strudels, walnut on the left/bottom, poppy seed on the top/right:

While just a touch dry, the overall taste on both was exactly what I expected. They were sweet, but not too sweet. The dryness of the dough didn't particular bother me because I knew that a) I had asked for slices of strudel from an already cut whole strudel and b) I bought them at 1:30 pm and didn't try them until 9:30 pm later that day. The walnut filling had a wonderful nutty taste and combined well with the heady cinnamon spice. It was ground completely smooth so there wasn't any texture to it. The poppy seed was equally as good with that wonderful lemony citrus undertone to it. Both of these were excellent examples of a well done European strudel. You could definitely enjoy this in place of a nice coffeecake in the morning.

Mire pointed out that burek is traditionally a Turkish dish that he has given his own spin to. Literally. Traditionally burek was a layered type of pastry. Finding this method to be too time consuming to be profitable, he decided to do the version he offers today. Essentially they take handmade phyllo dough that they make on-site, layer a few sheets, place the filling along one end and roll it up sushi-style. Then they take the long filled pastry rope and wrap it around itself in a circular fashion. Brush with lots of butter, bake, and you get this:

Although you can't tell from the outside, this happened to be the apple burek. This is big enough for one hungry adult or could easily be split between two less hungry people. This is such a wonderful treat. The phyllo dough on the outside is so nice and tender and flaky. The filling was slightly sweetened, but not so much as to mask the natural apple taste. The filling had a nice integrity to it as you could still get the chunks of apples on the inside. Canned pie filling this was not! With just the right seasoning from cinnamon and sugar, this was a real winner.

The cheese burek was equally as good, although this was savory and not sweet. Feta by itself would've been too overpowering, too salty. The cottage cheese was used both as an extender as well as a way to cut the sharpness of the Feta. Just delicious. I ate both of these at room temperature and they were both absolutely outstanding. Mire indicated that you could gently reheat them if you chose to do so, but it really isn't necessary.

This is exactly the kind of place I love finding. Local ethnic mom and pop shop making wonderfully unique and delicious food that truly everyone can enjoy. I encourage you to stop in at Kiflis to meet Mire and his wife and try some of their truly tantalizing treats.

Book Review: Cleveland Ethnic Eats

2009-05-26T07:30:00.008-04:00

While I didn't originally set up this blog with the intent of doing book reviews (or actually, to be fair, restaurant reviews), since December 2008 I have sort of let the blog grow organically in order to see where it would lead me. Besides the obvious restaurants write-ups that I've done, I've also done two recipe posts, a write-up of my friend Nancy's awesome Seder meal this year for Passover, and a smidgen of commentaries. So, why not include a book review in there as well?

I was contacted several weeks ago by Cleveland author Laura Taxel. Her publishing company had set up a website to coincide with the latest edition (8th) of her book, Cleveland Ethnic Eats. Laura had come across my blog and read several of my posts on various ethnic restaurants that I had gone to and posted about. Considering that ethnic restaurants are her forte, she wrote and asked if we could link to each other's blogs. Now, whenever I get unsolicited email from anyone, the first thing I do is to spend a little time vetting their credentials. After several Google and Amazon searches, it became clear that she was the real deal and not someone I should dismiss right away. Even before I received a copy of her book, it was clear that Laura's writing style was friendly, approachable, and designed to get more people into our locally owned ethnic restaurants. This is completely in-line with my own personal goals.

She also mentioned in her e-mail that she would be happy to arrange for her publisher to send me a copy if I wanted to mention it in one of my blogs. So, full disclosure being what it is, I contacted her publisher and they sent me a copy free of charge. Feel free to take my review with a grain of salt if that bothers you. I was never asked to do a review, much less a favorable one. I am also not a professional book reviewer, so I am looking at this book purely from my own perception of what makes a good book.

First and foremost, Laura takes several pages to explain the methodology she uses in her book: how the restaurants were chosen for inclusion, a description of the terminology she uses within her reviews, and how to use the book most effectively. I found the following point from her Introduction completely appropriate when describing her writing angle:

"I didn't pass judgments on the restaurants I've included, or rate them with stars. That's for you to do, though I have to admit that many times I decided that there really was no reason for me to ever cook again. I wanted to offer information, not evaluations, and encourage readers to investigate and experiment."

And based on the number of restaurant write-ups I've perused in her book, this is exactly what she does. Every now and again a write-up will contain a little bit of commentary along with the rest of the information, but it's never mean-spirited or meant to keep you from trying out the establishment. Laura's write-ups are meant to give you a general feeling for the restaurant as a whole. In contrast, my blog posts are meant to tell the story of my experience at a restaurant, good or bad.

The book is cleverly organized first by cuisine geography and then divided into restaurants and markets. Examples of geography include Pacific Rim; Middle East, Africa, India, and Turkey; Mediterranean; Europe East of the Danube; Europe West of the Danube; Latin America; American Regional; and International. Within each restaurant and market category, they are further subdivided into specific cuisines such as Greek, Italian, Spanish, British, Slovenain, etc. This makes it very easy to locate a specific restaurant or market if you know what type of cuisine you are after.

But sometimes you don't know what kind of cuisine you are after. Sometimes you are out in a particular part of town and want to know what is available. Maybe you want to try a new restaurant. Laura has you covered. As one of the many indexes in the back of the book, she has a listing of restaurants in various Cleveland, Akron, and Canton suburbs. Each listing then has a page number associated with it so you can quickly flip to the write-up for more information.

Not enough cross-referencing for you? She also lists the write-ups by Country, Region, or Ethnicity; Ideas; and Street Eats. The Idea index suggests write-ups by such categories as Around Midnight, Cheap Eats, and Great Choice for Vegetarians. The Street Eats index is designed to showcase groups of restaurants and markets that are geographically close to each other, such as on the same street. Plus, there is always the plain old Alphabetical index if you already know the name of the restaurant or market.

This is clearly a book that will be constantly living in my glove box (and it's about the right size for a glove box, too). What would be incredibly helpful is if all of this wonderful information could be put online so that it was accessible by the many mobile devices that seem to dominate our lives. Clearly the publisher would have to ensure that people using the online service had either purchased an actual copy of the book or perhaps just purchased a license to use the site. But this is a desire that I have of many of my culinary reference books, about which I consider Cleveland Ethnic Eats to be just as important as any book on cooking technique.

With 356 entries, you could try a new place almost every day of the year without repeating. If you are looking to truly discover what the Northeast Ohio area has to offer in terms of locally owned, authentic ethnic cuisine, recipes that have been handed from generation to generation, I would suggest you find yourself a copy of Cleveland Ethnic Eats by Laura Taxel. And, oh yeah, check out her blog, too. I know that I do on a regular basis.

(Image courtesy of Gray & Company, all rights reserved.)

Cleveland Ethnic Eats, 8th Edition
Written by Laura Taxel
Published by Gray & Company
ISBN: 978-1-59851-053-9
List price is US $14.95.

From the letter that was included with the book, Cleveland Ethnic Eats is available at Northeast Ohio bookstores and online from Amazon.com. You can also contact Gray & Company at 800-915-3609 or online at their website if you want more information.

Lunch at The Barn

2009-05-24T07:30:00.001-04:00

The Barn restaurant has always been one of those places that seems to create a lot of buzz about it. It's far enough away from Akron that it isn't casually suggested as a place for lunch or dinner. That is, unless there is buzz.

"Last weekend we just up and decided to travel all the way to The Barn for dinner. What a wonderful experience we had!"

It has been at least two decades since I have eaten here and since this was on the way back from my trip to Wooster to visit Lerch's Donut cart, I decided to take advantage and stop in for lunch. The Barn happens to be located on Rt. 585, just south of Smithville. From the road, the first thing you'll notice is the sign:

From what I remember twenty years ago, it used to just be literally, "The Barn". Now it seems that they've built an entire complex. Apparently, you don't just go for the food, but the entire Barn "experience".

To the right of the restaurant is a pretty lake with swings and tables and such:

To the left is the gift shop. Behind the gift shop are a toy shop and an Amish furniture shop:

And finally, the restaurant itself, in all it's glorious barn-ness:

To get to the front door, one must cross over a small covered wooden bridge with a lovely artificial stream running under it out to the lake:

Once inside, the first thing that struck me was how kitschy it is. Or unique. Or quaint. I suppose different people would have different reactions depending on their own personal taste in decorating. Walking past the cash registers, where of course they sell various restaurant products to go, I was finally seated at a table near a window.

The menu was fairly straightforward. Here is the front side with the daily specials:

And the story of The Barn on the backside:

While you are free to order completely off the menu, there is also the all-you-can-eat salad and soup buffet as well. You can also add this buffet to any item you order off the menu. I opted to stay with something simple, a sandwich and a side. The menu consisted of burgers, sandwiches, sides, and several entrees. And of course, there was the buffet to consider as well.

Here is another example of the kitsch I was mentioning earlier. I asked for water and this is what my server brought me:

Cute. Kitsch. You be the judge.

Looking over the menu, I noticed they had a sandwich called the "Chippy". Not sure if this was simply ham sliced very thin or the chipped-chopped ham I remember from my youth (Isaly's, anyone?), I decided to ask my server. Indeed it turned out to be just very thinly sliced regular ham. I decided to go with the Chippy, and as all sandwiches are a la carte, I ordered a side of onion rings to accompany my sandwich.

Here is the sandwich I received from the kitchen:

And another shot showing the sandwich's layers:

A couple of thoughts about the sandwich. First, the ham was nice. It wasn't too salty and it balanced well with some of the other flavors on the sandwich. Second, the special "sauce" that the menu alluded to also added a nice bit of balance. Fattiness, sweetness, and sourness. At first I thought it was simply mayonnaise. But after tasting it a little more closely, I detected both sweet and sour. And then I discovered some chopped up pieces of what at first looked like cucumber. It was at that point I had my eureka moment and realized that the special sauce is probably mayo combined with finely chopped sweet pickles (which, while being sweet, also have an acidic component to them). Unfortunately, my server was not helpful in confirming my theory as she had no idea what was in the sauce.

The one thing I was a bit disappointed with was the amount of meat you got on the sandwich. At nearly $5 for the sandwich alone, all you received is a single layer of pretty thinly sliced ham. And like I said before, while the ham itself was tasty, there just wasn't enough of it.

The onion rings seemed a little pricey as well at $3.10. However, what you get is a true side, meant to be shared with other diners:

These had been nicely fried, crispy and not oily. They were seasoned properly, but the actual onion inside the batter was rather anemic, not like the nice fat rings you get at the Hamburger Station. When my server came by to check on me, she confirmed that these are not made in-house and are just fried from frozen. I would have gladly paid the $3.10 for half the amount I received had they been homemade and nice and thick. And as you can see from the first shot of my Chippy sandwich, they garnish every sandwich plate with a single lone onion ring. You would think that if you are going to use a product to garnish every single sandwich plate that leaves the kitchen, it would be something that is representative of your food philosophy. Which, on second thought, might have been what they were doing after all.

And while there was a separate dessert menu on the table which I did check out, I wasn't all that interested in dessert. It mostly consisted of various fruit pies and dumplings. I didn't bother to ask if the pies were made in-house or not, but I do know that they are available for purchase when you go and pay your bill.

I'm conflicted about The Barn restaurant for several reasons. The food wasn't terrible. The food wasn't great. And I suspect that if you are into salad and soup buffets, they may be able to satisfy your craving. To me, however, the entire experience, from the various shops, to the merchandise and food products available inside the restaurant for sale: it just all felt a little too commercial for my taste. In a way, the shopping experience is designed to elevate the eating experience you have at the restaurant so that if one is not so good, the other will more than make up for it.

Would I personally choose this restaurant as a destination type of place? No, probably not. Then again, I'm not really into the gift shop / toy shop / Amish furniture experience that a lot of people absolutely cherish. Would I stop here if I happened to be driving by and needed a bite to eat? Yeah, probably.

A Trip to Wooster for Lerch's Donuts

2009-05-22T07:30:00.006-04:00

If you happen to find yourself near Wooster, Ohio, you might want to take a moment to find one of it's hidden treasures. A friend of mine alerted me to the presence of Lerch's Donuts (Twitter feed here) and suggested that I give them a try. Unfortunately, I had a problem. The website only lists their permanent location as "Portage Square Plaza". Both Google and Yahoo had a hard time putting an exact address to that search term. Fortunately, another Wooster-related site that allows users to comment on local businesses had an entry on Lerch's along with their location information. Specifically they are at 2312 Akron Road, Wooster, OH 44691. Akron Road also happens to be Rt. 585, the same one that connects Barberton to Wooster.

Unable to verify when their hours were (having a website is nice, but leaving off things like a street address and business hours seems a little pointless, no?), I decided to throw caution to the wind and drive down anyway as it was a lovely day. After weaving around left and right turns on Rt. 585, I finally came to the intersection of Akron and Portage Roads and immediately saw what I was looking for, a tiny little fair-style cart sitting in front of what used to be Hawkins Market (which has huge lettering by the way, hard to miss) on the right hand side of the road.

I pulled off and found a place to park and walked up to this:

The menu is simple: donuts, French waffles, and freshly squeezed lemonade. And even the donuts were simple: plain, sugared, or cinnamon sugared. While this one location I was at is permanent, there are two other carts that travel local fairs and festivals. Clearly the menu is short and sweet because they know what they are good at and this is exactly the food product they are trying to provide. No artifice at all.

Looking over the prices, I decided to get the "6 donuts for $3" deal. Two of each please. I walked away with this:

I normally try to avoid getting parts of my hand in the shot, but it was an extremely windy day today and had I let the bag go, it would have either a) fallen over or b) been moving so much that I wouldn't have gotten a good photograph. I decided that I'd better do the taste test while sitting inside my car.

Having worked so well for my Swensons post, I decided to do the food-on-the-knee photography again. These are smaller donuts (much like The Fractured Prune) so there is no need to feel guilty about eating a couple at a time. Here are the three kinds:

At the top is the plain, at 4 o'clock is the cinnamon sugared and at 8 o'clock is the sugared. They are all made from the same basic cake donut batter, but then finished in different ways (again like The Fractured Prune). Here is a shot of the interior of the plain donut:

I was quite surprised when I went to lift the donuts up off the napkin to finally eat them. I found no grease spots whatsoever. This lack of greasiness definitely translated to a wonderful light-tasting experience when eating them.

In doing my research on Lerch's before making the decision to go, on more than one occasion I came across comments from both websites and people who said that these made-to-order donuts were superior because you received them right out of the fryer. Now this may very well be true if you hit them up first thing in the morning or when they are close to running low on inventory, but when I got there and ordered my six, the woman simply walked over to a set of trays, slid one out and filled my bag. I didn't have the presence of mind to ask when the donuts had been fried, but it had been long enough that they were the same temperature as the outside air.

When I finally had a chance to try them, I decided to start with the simplest of the three, the plain donut. It had an interesting "crunch" to the outside. More of a resistance than a crunch really. I liked it. The donut itself was nice and fresh on the inside and what really surprised me a lot was the controlled level of sweetness. It wasn't cloyingly sweet like a Krispy Kreme is. I also found that even with the cinnamon sugared and sugared donuts, they were equally as restrained on the sweetness factor. I found that I rather enjoyed them.

I ate three of them sitting in my car and then brought the other three home with me. I tried them again several hours later and found that while the flavor was still the same as it had been earlier, that elusive "crunch" was now missing; effects of the room's humidity no doubt. I'm going to go out on a limb and propose that they are probably at their peak when right out of the fryer and dredged in the cinnamon and/or sugar coatings.

Would I purposely drive the forty-five minutes it took me to get there again just for these donuts? Probably not. If I was within fifteen minutes of their location, would I change course for some of these donuts? Absolutely. And if one of the two extra Lerch's carts happened to be at a fair or festival I was attending? Perfect.

And before I forget to mention it, I asked the woman working behind the counter what their hours of operation are. Hours of operation are from 6:30 am - 6:30 pm, although the closer you get to 6:30 pm, the less inventory they may have available to sell.

While these donuts probably wouldn't appeal to the extreme sweet tooth readers out there, for everyone else they are a nice treat and I definitely recommend them.

If Garlic be the Food of Love, Play On

2009-05-20T07:30:00.009-04:00

I found out about Ermanno's Three Guys Pizza from a co-worker. The first time I stopped in for a pie, it seems that they had just moved into their new North Canton location, taking over for Rocco's NY Style Pizza (which I never actually had a chance to try). Ermanno's is located in a strip retail outlet setting right across the street from a Fisher's grocery store. Their address is 3159 Whitewood Street, North Canton, OH 44720 and can be reached at 330-494-3131. Do NOT rely on the information you find on the web as it has been incorrect the last several times I went to view it. Currently, Ermanno's has no website. (UPDATE: Untrue, I just found their website here.)

Here is a shot of their exterior:

Now, they do offer many things on their menu. But the one thing I haven't been able to get over is their pizza. And for one very good reason: garlic. As a lover of all things garlic, this warms my soul. I think we'd all be happier people if we just ate a little more garlic. Unfortunately, with Ermanno's, this is a double-edged sword. On the plus side, they realize that garlic and pizza work so well together. The down side is that the owners have settled on a product that lends a chemically garlic flavor to their pizzas, Garlic Mist. A Par Way Tryson product, the ingredient list isn't exactly awe inspiring. It does contain garlic oil, however. And propellants. And lecithen. And a few others.

Now I could sit here and ask myself why on earth anyone would use such a product instead of good old fashioned extra virgin olive oil that has been used to gently roast garlic; I just don't know. But, the food business being the way it is, I surmise that they think that no one can tell the difference. And when you first pick up your pie and have that nice, hot slice, it's a lot more difficult to pick up on the underlying chemical taste of the spray. But, you just wait until later on that evening or the next morning for breakfast when you try eating a slice cold right from the refrigerator. Wham-O! The first time I tasted it, it nearly knocked me back on my chair. It is really that pronounced. I have found that if you reheat your slice before eating it, the taste is again minimized, but jeez louise, shouldn't I just be able to enjoy my slice cold?

I guess the problem that I have is that I'm torn. Their made-from-scratch pizza dough is actually pretty good. The doctored sauce they use is also quite good, even if it isn't made from scratch. It contains a lovely oregano undertone. The toppings are always plentiful. Add on top of that they run daily specials and it can also be a pretty good deal, too. So, as long as I eat the pizza hot, I enjoy it. Whenever they've passed out suggestion cards, I always dutifully fill them out. I've been trying to build up enough clout with the one manager to bring it up to him.

The manager in question knows me by name now (which may give you some idea of how often I visit), so perhaps next time, if he isn't slammed with orders when I get there, I'll take him aside and ask him what the deal is. I'm sure it's largely a matter of cost and convenience for them. Heck, I'd even just take a nice brushing of extra virgin olive oil instead of the garlic spray, if I am to be totally honest.

(UPDATE: This update is being written about two weeks after I wrote the copy for the original review, even though they will both post at the same time. I did finally get a chance to talk with one of the managers tonight when I stopped in for another pie. When I finally asked about the use of Garlic Mist, he came clean right away and verified that yes, it was used as a convenience product. He also agreed with my assessment that when eating the pizza cold, you really could tell that it was a spray on product and not the real deal. But what really surprised me, was that before I could make my "why not just roast your own garlic?" suggestion, he stated that he was actually toying with the idea of roasting his own garlic and then brushing the puree on top of the crusts instead of using the Garlic Mist. Needless to say, I encouraged his idea and even volunteered to be a Guinea Pig when he decided to pursue his testing. So, there very well could be another entry about Ermanno's in the future.)

All that being said, I still stopped and ordered a pizza. Of course. I'm a slave to the garlic.

A shot of the pizza box:

And a shot of the large pepperoni I ordered:

This 10 slice pizza was $12 dollars tonight, but on Monday nights it is only $9. An incredible bargain considering how addictive this is. Garlic, tomatoes, pepperoni, dough, and cheese? Heavenly. The only thing missing is a nice liberal sprinkling of spicy chili flakes. Ermanno's pizza is also susceptible to the Molten Cheese Conundrum first mentioned in my post on Tavanello and Sons. But, just letting the pizza box sit open for a minute or two seemed to minimize the problem.

The only other thing I've had from Ermanno's is a steak and cheese sub sandwich. It was not bad, but nowhere near as noteworthy as the pizza. If you're in the area, try them out.

Louie's Bar & Grille: Still The Best Burger?

2009-05-17T07:30:00.002-04:00

In a recent posting on The Greenhouse Tavern, I mentioned how utterly delicious the Ohio burger they have on their menu is. Truth be told, it is probably one of the most soul-satisfyingly delicious burgers I think I may have ever had. Questioning her long held belief on who had the best burger, an astute Akron blog reader of mine decided to clue me in on another one of Akron's many local legends with a burger history of it's own, Louie's Bar & Grille. Started in 1992, only one year later it won the Akron Beacon Journal's Best Burger award and beat out a large number of other incumbent burger institutions.

So it was with great enthusiasm that I went there tonight for dinner. I actually remember seeing this storefront before when driving down Tallmadge Avenue, but had never paid much attention to it. Isn't that always the way?

Here is the front of the restaurant:

Once inside, I sat down at a table and started to peruse the menu:

The menu has your standard pub type food. Wings, sandwiches, soups, salads, sides, and a couple of entrees. All of the menu items are available on their website so you can get a feeling for the items they offer on their menu as well as their prices. I started out by ordering one of my favorite brews, a pint of Guinness:

I'm not about to review the actual Guinness, other than to say that Louie's has a carbon dioxide tap and not the nitrogen variety. You can tell by the way the bubbles fall in the pint glass (they do with nitrogen). No big deal, it was still creamy and delicious. After I placed my order with my waitress, I took a couple of random photos. Here is the condiment basket on every table:

Interestingly in the back is a small laminated leaflet containing various advertisements. Definitely an effective way to get some additional attention for your business. After about fifteen minutes or so (it was pretty busy when I got there), my burger finally arrived. A bacon cheeseburger with fresh cut fries:

All of Louie's burgers are 1/2 pound and made from fresh ground meat, never frozen. The fries are also made from scratch. The burgers are cooked to medium well unless otherwise requested. I decided to stick with what they suggested, so that was how I had mine cooked.

Here is a shot with the top half of the bun lifted off the burger:

Mine came with bacon, American cheese, several really nice slices of ripe tomato, lettuce and mustard and was served on a nice fresh Kaiser roll. I added ketchup tableside. This was a monster burger. And a messy one. I had ketchup and mustard squirt out of the burger every single time I took a bite. But it was GOOOD. Juicy, hot, and seasoned just right. The bacon added a nice salty bite and the tomato a wonderful sweetness.

Is this the best burger I've ever had in Akron? It's been a while since I've had a really good burger in Akron, so I feel safe in saying that it could possibly be the best burger in Akron. On a scale of 5, I'd give it a 4.5. How does it rack up against The Greenhouse Tavern? Sorry, fellow Akronites, The Greenhouse Tavern burger completely reshaped my concept of what it is like to eat a delicious, juicy burger. Yes, Louie's burger is juicy. But The Greenhouse Tavern's burger is unbelievably juicy. In some sort of Pavlovian epicurean curse, I actually salivate when I think of The Greenhouse Tavern's burger.

Finally, since they were in my basket, I should probably mention the fresh cut fries. Unfortunately, they were not particularly inspiring. In fact, they were the same limp, greasy, nasty mess of fried potatoes you get almost every time the words "fresh cut" appear on the menu. The "wetness" in the next photo wasn't from any liquid that I added:

It's a shame, really. I never knew it was so hard to make good fries. It seems to have infected quite a few of the restaurants in the Akron and Canton area. Except for Prime at Anthe's. They could teach Louie's a thing or two about what good fries should taste like.

Louie's Bar & Grille is highly recommended if you are in the mood for a really great burger. I'd just pay the upcharge and get a different side instead.

Mobile Blogging: So what are the chances ...

2009-05-16T14:31:00.001-04:00

I wonder if Miss Penny will be checking my blog before tonight. Shhhhh ...

Das Dutch Kitchen, Simple Fare from the Heartland

2009-05-14T07:30:00.004-04:00

I lived on the east coast for about six months back in 2000, specifically near Boston. Many of us have perceptions about what life is like in other parts of the country. The Bostonians that I worked with wondered if everyone in Ohio had the "slow moving vehicle" signs on the backs of their cars. Of course, the word cars came out more like, "cahhz". It took me a minute to realize they were thinking of the Amish buggies found in mid and southern Ohio.

I assured my fellow colleagues that more than just Amish people inhabited the state of Ohio and nary a orange triangle could be found on any cars in the part of Ohio that I was familiar with. (As an additional cultural oddity, the side of the road on the highway where you pull over in case you have car troubles is called the "berm" here in Ohio. The first time I used that word in Boston I got many blank stares. When I finally got them to understand what I meant, they informed me, with what can only be described as the condescending "Duh?!" look on their faces, that it is called the "breakdown lane" in Boston.)

My mother happens to be the music director for her church and will occasionally need someone to "sub" in for one of her regulars during rehearsals. I suppose fortunately for her, reading music is like riding a bicycle; once learned, you'll always be able to do it. On occasions when the rehearsal is after work, I will try and find a restaurant somewhere between where I work and the church. This is where I stumbled across Das Dutch Kitchen. Right off of Rt. 30 between Dalton and Orrville, OH, they are serving up some traditional Amish / Pennsylvania Dutch fare that is quite good. Some of their offerings have been modernized for the average Joe (such as the salad offerings), but if you pick and choose carefully, you can put together a very nice meal.

Here is a shot of the exterior of the restaurant. Note the buggy by the front door:

Once inside, they will seat you in their rather large dining room. If you come during lunchtime, you have the option of ordering from the menu or participating in the daily rotating buffet (meaning the foods available rotate, not the entire buffet itself). The one thing that is always on the buffet is their broasted chicken.

I spoke of broasted chicken in an earlier post about Nicole's Family Restaurant. Broasted chicken is actually a two step process. First, the chicken is brined according to a specific recipe. After the brining period, it is pressure fried in oil. This results in a fried chicken that is incredibly hot and moist with extra crispy skin. Against all odds, every time I've been to Das Dutch and gotten the buffet for lunch, the chicken has always lived up to this potential. The version I had at Nicole's was lacking a bit in salt, but Das Dutch always hits it right on the head when it comes to seasoning. In fact, everything I've ever had from the Das Dutch kitchen has always been seasoned very well.

Here is a shot of the front of their menu:

And while I know that the table side condiment shot usually consists of a bottle of ketchup or salt and pepper shakers, at Das Dutch they actually have two table side condiments that appear at no other restaurant I've ever eaten at.

The bottle on the left is the peanut butter sauce. The one on the right is the apple butter. Both are made in-house and are absolutely divine. The peanut butter sauce has the consistency of a thick syrup and has a sweet and salty component to it. The apple butter has a wonderfully fresh apple flavor along with notes of cinnamon and nutmeg. Mmmm.

With your meal you will get a basket of homemade white or wheat bread (or a mix). Today I opted for the whole wheat bread. Here is a shot of the basket:

And a shot of how I decided to eat my bread:

I've had both kinds of bread and honestly, while I wouldn't consider them artisan, they are always very fresh and have a lovely crust and crumb. I was disappointed to learn that they contained bleached flours and hydrogenated oils, but I suppose that they are looking to make breads that keep longer than a couple of days for their typical guest. Pre-sliced loaves of both kinds are sold in the gift shop out in front of the restaurant.

In any event, the whole wheat with the apple butter is simply a marvelous combination. No butter or margarine required!

The buffet includes not only the hotline but also a cold buffet. This includes all manner of salad greens, toppings, dressings, jellos, and dessert mousses. It's not nearly as large as the salad buffet I experienced at Lembo's in Akron, but I honestly think the quality is higher here at Das Dutch.

On the hotline today was a cheeseburger soup (which didn't sound all that good to be honest), buttered noodles, mashed potatoes, chicken gravy, roasted new potatoes with parsley, chicken with dumplings, and finally the broasted chicken. I put together a plate of the broasted chicken and some of the chicken and dumplings and retired to my table:

This was, as always, quite tasty. There has only been one time over the last two years that I've eaten here where the chicken was so-so. Which is a pretty good track record for food coming off a buffet. Clearly this is simple food, but it is also simply delicious. Like I mentioned in my post on Nicole's, I normally find uncrisped chicken skin sort of nasty and would rather discard it than eat it, but not here. Crisp, not greasy, and tasty.

Das Dutch offers many pies by the slice for dessert (today's offerings were no less than six different kinds of pies). All are made from scratch on-site. They even offer several no sugar varieties for those who want to watch their sugar intake. While the non-featured pie slices can be a tad pricey, you get a sizable piece with a lot of fruit on it for the price you pay. They also offer non-fruit pies as well.

Normally I skip the pie and go for a bit of the mousse that is already included in the buffet price (remember the cold buffet?). They always have a chocolate and vanilla mousse on the buffet and today they had a bit of unmistakably green pistachio as well. Here is a shot of my bowl:

A little from column A and a little from column B. I actually like to drizzle a little bit of the peanut butter sauce on top of the chocolate mousse. Salty, sweet, chocolatey, peanut buttery, yum. The pistachio mousse was very light texturally and every now and then you would encounter a strange change in texture. It turns out they had folded in miniature marshmallows that had sort of halfway dissolved into the mousse. While I'll be the first to admit that the mousses aren't exactly a perfect substitution for a slice of one of their pies, if I'm already feeling full from the buffet and just want to end my meal with a little bit of sweet for free, you can't go wrong with this.

You actually pay for you meal in the front of the restaurant, which doubles as a gift shop. Here you can pick up various nick-knacks as well as some of the food items the kitchen makes for the restaurant. This includes pies, breads, cookies, brownies, etc. One thing I never seem to be able to pass up are the handmade fried pies. Several always manage to go home with me. Fried in canola oil, they have all the decadence of a Hostess Fruit Pie with much more flavor and less of the guilt from the saturated and trans fats. I'm not saying they are health food; far from it. I just feel far better about eating one of these than their more commercial counterpart. Today I picked up cherry, apple, and peach. They also had bumbleberry, black raspberry, and a no-sugar variety apple as well.

Here is my take home box of pies:

And a shot of the inside of the pies:

The first thing to note is the heft of these fried pies. Probably about twice the size and weight of a commercial fried pie, you could easily split this with a friend. Like the rest of the food served at Das Dutch, these are not greasy in the least. All of the fruit fillings have a nice balance of sugar. These are dessert, to be sure, but they don't smack you over the head with sweetness. The crust is a wonderful combination of tender and flaky, and if you are a pie crust freak, like me, you'll love these. Don't be tempted to eat two, you'll definitely not feel well after that. Not that I, um, speak from experience or anything.

If you are looking for simple, delicious, Amish / Pennsylvania Dutch inspired cuisine and happen to be driving through the area, I highly recommend you stop for lunch or dinner at Das Dutch Kitchen.

A Proven Winner: Drunken Fruit Salad

2009-05-12T07:45:00.001-04:00

I was invited to dinner by a good college friend of mine and decided to bring something dessert-ish since she would be cooking everything else. A couple of years ago, faced with having to prepare an "adult" fruit salad for an event I was catering, I came up with a recipe that has wowed party guest after party guest. And I've decided to share that with you today.

The great thing is that it is SO simple. First up, start with the freshest, ripest fruit that you can get your hands on. Cut it into bite-sized pieces. It can be any fruit you like and is in season. Honestly, I can't think of a single fruit that wouldn't work well. I usually try and get between three and four different fruits, and try to vary colors and flavors. Today I had wonderfully ripe strawberries, pineapple, mangoes (I actually found a few that were nice and ripe), and blood oranges. I cut them up and placed them in a bowl:

Then come the secret ingredients that take a simple bowl of cut up fruit to fruit nirvana. You want to add some type of sweetness, the heavenly scent of vanilla, and an orange brandy:

Let's talk left to right. Agave Nectar is a recent addition to most regular grocery stores. You can definitely find it at places like Mustard Seed Market or Heinen's, but I've also managed to find it at Acme and Buehler's as well. If there is an organics section in your grocery store, it's most likely located there. Otherwise, I'd check wherever the honey is located. It comes in both an amber and light variety. The amber has a more assertive flavor which is nice, but for today's recipe I went with light. Not because light has fewer calories (it doesn't), but because it adds less of its own flavor than amber would. You could also do honey or a simple syrup if you wanted. Heck you could even just do plain sugar in a pinch.

Next up is the vanilla. Don't use imitation vanilla. Don't use vanilla bean extract. Go the extra mile and get yourself a fresh vanilla bean. You and your guests will be thankful you did. Yes, it's a bit more expensive, but after you've finished up using the vanilla pod, you can rinse it off and insert it into some sugar to create wonderfully aromatic vanilla sugar for future baking projects. To use the vanilla bean, take a sharp paring knife and split the bean lengthwise. Using the blade of the knife, scrape all the seeds out of the bean and place on top of your fruit. The seeds are kind of sticky and syrupy so you may need to scrape the knife off with your finger. After you've cleaned out both halves of the bean, cut the split bean in half so that it is half the length it was originally and place the beans inside the bowl of fruit. Using the outer skin of the bean will lend an additional level of vanilla flavor as it macerates in the refrigerator.

Finally, the orange brandy. Feel free to use a premium version such as Grand Marnier or Cointreau, but realize that some of the less expensive brands (such as Harlequin) work just as well at half the price. Follow the same rule that you'd use when cooking with wine: if you'd drink it in a glass, you should feel good about using it in recipes.

The amount of sweetener and orange brandy you add is completely up to you. The amount of sweetener will depend on how sweet the fruit is naturally. The orange brandy is there as a counterpoint to the vanilla. Personally, I add enough brandy to the fruit until I can just taste the alcohol harshness of the brandy. For today's batch, I probably added about 1/2 cup. Also add just a pinch of kosher or sea salt. With the "juiciness" of the salad, it should dissolve without any problem. Now, I know it seems odd to add salt to something sweet, but the salt actually accentuates the sweet flavor and brings it to the forefront. Think of what happens when you mix M&M's and popcorn at the movie theater. By themselves, good, but together, yum!

After stirring gently with a large spoon, you get this:

Now the most important part; while you could eat this immediately, it is best served after sitting in the fridge for a minimum of four hours. This allows all the flavors to marry, the brandy to mellow out, and most importantly the formation of the wonderful fruit "liqueur". The sugar from the sweetener acts in a hygroscopic fashion to pull moisture out of the fruit. This mixes with the brandy and the vanilla to form a juice that can be enjoyed even after the fruit salad is gone. People were actually doing shots of this liqueur at the last party I attended where I brought this dish.

I typically put this mixture in a sealed container and give it a good mixing every couple of hours by turning the container end over end to redistribute all the wonderful juices. Like I mentioned before, give it a minimum of four hours to macerate, but you could definitely do it the night before as well. After 24 hours or so, the fruit will begin to break down considerably, so you might want to consider other options such as using it in a smoothie or a fruit compote to serve over a dessert.

If you want to make a kid-friendly version of the above, just leave out the liquor. It won't be quite as good, but the vanilla and agave syrup alone will make a lovely fruit salad that all can enjoy.

Medina Destination: Miss Molly's Tea Room

2009-05-10T07:30:00.000-04:00

When it came time to decide how we would be celebrating my mother's 60th birthday, it didn't take long to come to the conclusion that something special was in order. We had to consider the restaurant carefully because one of our party members has food sensitivity issues. So, putting all of those requirements together, we decided to make the trip over to Medina, OH and have lunch at Miss Molly's Team Room and Gift Shop. We had reservations for Saturday at 1 p.m. and I heartily recommend that you don't just "drop in" without them. The place was PACKED. And it stayed that way the entire time we were there. I'm not sure how busy the restaurant is during the week, but on weekends, I can assure they are not lacking for patrons.

Miss Molly's is just west of the downtown Medina square. Here is the sign as you drive up:

And a shot of their storefront window:

Remembering from a previous visit how dimly lit the restaurant is, I decided to take my regular camera with me instead of relying on the camera in my cellphone. I was worried at first because I didn't want surrounding patrons to get annoyed by the camera flash. As it turns out, I had little to worry about because it became quite clear that there was a lot of picture taking going on around me. The difference? Other people were taking pictures of their friends. I was here to take pictures of the food. My dining companions and I laughed when I pointed this fact out.

First, a few ambiance shots:

And a ceiling light:

And finally, the table setting at our table:

Of course, you can't go to Miss Molly's without having the preferred beverage of choice, tea! They have a long list of both bagged and loose teas. I decided on a Cinnamon and Orange Ceylon tea. After a few minutes this came out to our table:

Very quaint, indeed! I can see why patrons think that Miss Molly's is an indulgence from days long gone by. In fact, my other dining companions were a little puzzled by the contraption sitting on top of the empty teacup. It is a two-piece metal strainer. The strainer part they got. The piece sitting underneath the strainer (which you really can't see very well in the above photo) was what got them scratching their heads. It is actually a metal cup that you place the "used" strainer in once you've poured your tea.

Unfortunately, I didn't manage to get a picture of the actual tea, but I have to tell you that this was a brilliant cup of tea. The cinnamon, orange, and clove notes were exactly what I hoped for. And in an odd sort of twist, the tea almost tasted sweetened (I generally don't sweeten my tea). In fact, had someone poured me a cup of this, I would've assumed they had added just a touch of sugar to it. Two of my dining companions ordered the blackberry tea and were equally as pleased with their choices.

As a starter, I decided to go with the daily soup special, a crab bisque. This came out at the same time as the hot tea and with all the pots and cups and beverage glasses now on the table, it took me a minute to rearrange everything so it would all fit. Here is a shot of the bisque:

This was mediocre. I was hoping for a nice creamy soup with lots of crab flavor and that wonderful unctuous "bisque" mouth feel. What I got was something a little more gloopy that looked like it had been thickened with just a bit too much roux. A little bit of acid, perhaps some lemon juice or a nice sherry vinegar, would've really helped to brighten up the flavor a bit as well.

Unfortunately, things didn't improve when I finally received my main meal, the chicken divan:

From what I read on the menu, I had assumed that the chicken would come out as a whole breast. In actuality, the diced chicken breast is mixed with broccoli in a cheese curry sauce, topped with the buttered breadcrumbs and baked as a mini-casserole. To the right is the cucumber salad and at the front of the plate are the slices of bread from a French batard that the menu advertised. Not being from the era where chicken divan was at its most popular (somewhere between the 50's and 60's according to what my dining companions speculated), I've not had the pleasure of eating this dish with any regularity. Thus, I really have nothing on which to compare it. But as a casserole, I found this just 'okay'. The layer of oil that had separated out at the bottom of the dish wasn't all that appetizing either.

The cucumber salad, on the other hand, was a bit more promising. Thinly sliced cucumbers and onions had been marinated in what tasted like a sour cream, vinegar, and sugar mixture. This had just a wee bit of heat to it, so I'm guessing there was probably a small amount of cayenne pepper in the mix, too. This tasted fine, but due to the liquidity of the dressing, it was a bit messy to eat.

Finally, there were the slices of bread from the French batard:

Now, I've made many a batard or two in my days and unfortunately, I couldn't verify that it was an actual batard because I never saw the loaf from which it was cut. This was a whole grain bread that had been studded with several kinds of seeds. On the positive side, the bread was incredibly fresh and not the least bit stale. The initial nose test didn't reveal the presence of any type of pre-ferment (think of how sourdough bread smells). What surprised me after tasting the bread was the noticeable lack of flavor; it seems the baker didn't use enough salt. Just to verify that my assessment was reliable, I gave two of my companions a bit of my bread to taste. I then asked them for their opinions having not told them what I thought. Both of them responded that the bread had no flavor. Disappointing, to say the least.

Finally, having never tried strawberry and pretzel salad before, my one dining companion (and the birthday girl) let me try a bite of hers:

Honestly, other than the tea, this was probably the best thing I had today. This is a fairly straightforward "salad" consisting of crushed pretzels on the bottom, a sweetened cream cheese layer above that, strawberries in gelatin above that, and finished with whipped cream and walnuts on top. It definitely played well to the notion of a balanced dish: sweet, salty, creamy, crunchy.

I'd also like to put in a couple of thoughts on the service we received today. Everyone was friendly and helpful and our server brought our food out just as we ordered it. However, service was extremely slow and while I realize that the house was packed the entire time we were dining, our server's absence was noticed on several occasions. Especially towards the end of the meal when we were trying to get the check so that we could leave. So, if you decide to go during a peak time, plan on being there at least 90 minutes to two hours.

At the gift shop in front of the restaurant, there are lots of tea-related items for sale, including the tea pots and cups used in the restaurant. If this type of dining experience is your cup of tea (come on, you knew I was going to do it at some point in the review!), then you'll probably find the gift shop a place you'll want to peruse after your meal.

Overall, this is a quaint restaurant with a very unique identity. My dining companions enjoyed their food more than I did, so I can't say that the food is overwhelmingly good or bad. I just wouldn't be surprised if you get two different culinary experiences on two separate visits. Be sure to get one of their fresh-brewed teas though as it is consistently delicious and definitely a strong point.

Even Homer Would Be Drooling

2009-05-08T07:30:00.007-04:00

Mmmmm, donuts.

One day, out on my lunch break in Massillon, Ohio, I happened to stumble onto a small donut and pastry shop located in a strip mall in a completely out of the way location. Always on the lookout for interesting and unusual places, I walked in to check it out. I'm so glad I did.

I am talking, of course, about Johnnie's Pastry Shop located at 232 Federal Avenue NW, Massillon, OH 44647. The phone number is 330-832-9666. There is no website at this time. Don't get this Johnnie's confused with the Johnnie's just outside of downtown Canton. They are in no way related (trust me, I made this mistake only once), though I'm sure the latter is a fine place to visit as well.

The first thing you notice about the donuts at Johnnie's is how nice and large they are. They looked quite good even though I knew they had been sitting in the glass display cases since that morning. Looking over my choices, I noticed they had several filled varieties and asked the counter person to explain the different choices. When she got to the custard filled with a chocolate glaze, I stopped her right there. "One, please!"

Initially I thought it was a tad expensive that that the donuts were one dollar each, but when she finally handed me my little bag with my donut in it, I was taken aback at how heavy it was. These donuts are about twice as big and twice as heavy as the ones you'll get at your local Dunkin' Donuts or Krispy Kreme store.

I debated on whether or not to wait until later to eat my donut since I had just had lunch, but when I got back in my car I decided to eat my sweet treat right then and there. It was at that moment that I discovered the magic of Johnnie's wonderfully rich and eggy dough with just a hint of cinnamon spice. And they were filled with the most fantastic pastry cream that was sweet but not too sweet. I was instantly hooked and I realized that there was no doubt that this was SO worth the money.

Fast forward to today. Realizing that it had been a while since I had one of their donuts, I decided to grab lunch at a small Chinese place near Johnnie's so I could drop by and pick up an assortment of their goodies for your viewing (and my eating) pleasure.

Here is the box from the store:

And a shot of the assorted donuts I purchased today:

There is a custard filled, jelly filled, glazed, and one of their famous Danish crullers. Now lest you, gentle reader, think I am silly enough to try and eat all four donuts, don't worry. The resulting stomach ache and sugar coma would've made writing this review impossible. After photographing each one, I split them up with work colleagues who were all too eager to scarf them down. Although, to be fair, I've had these enough times that I could probably describe each and every one without having to taste them first. But, in the interest of culinary science, I pushed myself to re-taste each variety. I know, it sucks to be me.

Let's talk about the high notes of each of the donuts. Here is a shot of the exterior and interior of the custard filled:

Do note that the glaze on both the custard filled and jelly filled are going to look a little wonky. Unfortunately, they sat in my hot car on the ride back from lunch and the glaze more or less did what glaze does at that temperature; it melted. When you get them at the shop, I assure you they have a much nicer finished look to them.

This is just an amazing combination of wonderfully tender dough along with the vanilla pudding-like texture and flavor of a good pastry cream. After my initial visit, I talked to one of the counter people about the incredibly deep yellow, almost goldenrod, color of the donut and she said it was due to the number and quality of the eggs that are used in the batter. No artificial coloring is used at all.

Additionally, all their donuts are fried in lard. I'm assuming it is hydrogenated lard as that would be the more common product. I didn't want to push the counter person too much further because she had already started getting a glazed look in her eye when I asked about the frying fat used. In any event, the donuts always have a clean fried flavor without any of that "used oil" smell or taste. And even though they are fried, they are never greasy.

Next up, the jelly filled:

This uses the same egg-rich batter as the custard filled, but is injected with a seedless raspberry filling and glazed with a vanilla glaze. While the custard filled has always been my favorite, if they are out of those (and many times by noon they are), I am certainly happy to have one of these in its place.

Third on the list is the simple glazed donut. Not being quite as complex as the other donuts, these only cost $0.80 a piece.

There are no competing flavors in this donut. When you break it apart, you see the yellow eggy goodness and when you give it a sniff? Eggs, eggs, and more eggs! It almost has a brioche like quality to it and even more to a point, a Rich Man's brioche. Like I mentioned earlier, there is just a hint of cinnamon spice in the batter, too. In fact, if you look closely at the dough, you can see little specks of it. Amazingly tender, this really is a wonderful example of a simple glazed donut. And while I do like a hot glazed Krispy Kreme right off the line every now and again, Johnnie's glazed donut is much more restrained on the sugar and in the end, a more balanced product.

Finally, the specialty of the house, the Danish cruller. These are available with or without chopped peanuts:

This is similar in flavor to the plain glazed donut, only in cruller form. Because the two sides of the cruller are a little thinner, these tend to dry out sooner than a glazed would. Then again, if chopped peanuts are your thing, this guy is the one for you.

The one type of donut that I wasn't all that impressed with in past visits were the creme sticks. But I don't fault Johnnie's for that. They use the same wonderful donut batter for the donut itself. I'm just not a fan of the "creme" that most pastry and donut places use. Something about sweetened vegetable shortening just doesn't appeal to my palate.

I was originally going to end this write-up with:

"So, if you happen to be in the Massillon area and looking for an outstanding donut experience, I heartily recommend Johnnie's."

Um, no. I've changed my mind. Strike the above sentence.

DRIVE to Massillon and buy yourself some of these outstanding donuts. I think you will love them as much as I do. Just make sure you get there early enough to ensure that the custard filled chocolate glazed haven't sold out.

And if driving all that way seems like too guilty of a pleasure just for donuts, stop by the Riverbank General Store on your way back to pick up some wonderful Hartzler dairy products like milk, unsalted butter and ice cream. They also have organic grains and grass-fed meats as well as locally produced honey and maple syrup.

Culinary Alchemy at Parasson's?

2009-05-06T00:01:00.000-04:00

Sometimes what we crave defies all logic and dictates that we eat certain foods or at certain restaurants that we normally wouldn't otherwise entertain. As a child, my mother would occasionally make what I can only imagine came from a 1950's recipe, tuna biscuit bake casserole. Generously spray your casserole dish with a layer of Pam. Then, using a can of biscuits, a can of tuna, a can of Campbell's condensed cheddar cheese soup, a can of Campbell's cream of celery soup, and some milk, layer this unholy concoction in the pre-greased pan, place in a 350 degree oven and wait for all sorts of processed food goodness to come out. And as a child, I loved it.

Over the years, I've tried re-inventing it to be leaner, healthier, less processed, but in the end, when I crave this dish, it is with all of the same ingredients that my mother used in her version. It just doesn't taste the same otherwise (and I'm sure some would say for the better). That reluctance to let go of a wonderful childhood memory is what drives me to return to Parasson's restaurant again and again. Parasson's is a local Akron chain that serves up what I would consider to be "ok" basic Italian fare. Pizzas, pastas, and subs make up most of their menu. They have four locations and over the many decades I've been going there, the food has always tasted the same.

Every once in a while I'll get that craving. And when I do, there just isn't any way to resist it. Tonight's craving was fulfilled at the Waterloo Road location. All the locations have both sit-down and take-out service, but tonight I felt like eating in. Here is a shot of the front of the menu (addresses and phone numbers are shown for each of the four locations):

And a shot of the condiment station on each table:

Almost any meal you order (except for maybe pizza), comes with the griddled garlic bread. It's your basic mix of butter, salt, garlic powder, and dried parsley. It is neither the best nor worst example of garlic bread that I've ever had, but there is something about it that I crave. They will refill the basket as you eat it, but whenever I dine out by myself, I always feel guilty if I eat more than the two slices they bring me.

The meal that I choose for my dinner also came with a garden salad. Parasson's uses a moderate amount of shredded mozarella cheese to top their salads. In my opinion it is just the right amount. You get the cheesy richness without it predominating.

I always order the French dressing on the side, for two reasons. First, I like to dress my salad minimally with the dressing. Most restaurants overdress salads. Second, and this is where culinarily speaking I may have just lost some of my gentle readers out there, the combination of the French dressing and the garlic bread is ... how to put this? Magical.

I feel like I should be standing up in a self-help group right now. "Hi, my name is Tom and I like to dip my Parasson's garlic bread in my leftover French dressing."

I don't know when this practice started. Maybe my server had taken away my finished salad plate and accidentally left the remainder of the dressing. And maybe while I was waiting for my pasta to come out, bored and with nothing but time on my hands, I thought, "Aw, what the hell!" and dipped for the first time. I've been doing it ever since. I'm always furtively sneaking dips in the dressing because I feel like if someone working at the establishment ever caught me, they'd certainly point out my unnatural ways to the rest of the guests there and throw me out as quickly as they could.

Now, this is not unusual salad dressing. In fact, I confirmed with my server that it is Marzetti California French dressing. Curious to know what this ingredient list consisted of, I stopped at Giant Eagle afterward for a little investigative work. You can read the list of ingredients here:

Basically most of the flavor is coming from tomatoes, sugar, vinegar, and some various spices. Equally as mysterious, the garlic bread is exactly as I described it before. But when you put the two together, the sweetness from the dressing and the saltiness from the bread makes an amazing flavor combination in your mouth. And the even more amazing thing? I taste flavors that exist in neither product by themselves: I get notes of both cinnamon and nutmeg. Every time I go back and try this experiment over again, I get the same result. Without fail.

As much as I come for the garlic bread/French dressing combo, the other lifelong draw for me has been their meat sauce. Made with pork and beef, it has a nice balance of sweetness, fattiness, and seasoning. But I would in no way consider this to be remarkable. Tasty, sure, but not remarkable. I will occasionally order something else on the menu, but that is a rarity. Today I decided to go with rigatoni for my pasta:

The large, at $10.49, is a good value because you will easily get two meals out of this. The one very positive thing about this dish is that I have never come across a plate of watery pasta from Parasson's. And I've eaten at all four locations over the last three decades. It's not so much that the pasta is all that spectacular, it's just nice when I don't end up with a bowl of rigatoni meat sauce soup, like I seem to experience at other places. I always end up dosing my meat sauce with a hefty hit of red chili flakes and grated parmesan cheese (I'm using a little 'p' for parmesan because I'm fairly certain this stuff comes out of the green can).

Sadly, even though they were advertising dessert:

None of their desserts are homemade. And honestly, the tiramisu pictured on the table advert just didn't look all that enticing. I was half tempted to have a scoop of the spumoni, but realizing that I was already pretty full, I opted to skip dessert entirely.

With as much food knowledge that I've gathered over the years by reading, cooking, and most importantly, eating, it still amazes me that sometimes you just want the comfort food of your youth. And I think it is healthy to occasionally let your ever-vigilant set of culinary standards lay by the wayside so you can revel in an experience that just makes you feel good for a little while.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I think it's time for another helping of that tuna biscuit bake casserole.

An Akron Classic: Swensons and the Galley Boy

2009-05-04T00:01:00.000-04:00

If there's one place that anyone who is a transplant from Akron always asks about, it's Swensons. Swensons is a drive-in carhop joint that started in 1934 and has now grown to seven locations in North and West Akron, North Canton, Montrose, Stow, Seven Hills, and Jackson. While the original one on the corners of West Market Street and Hawkins has been demolished and rebuilt, any of the locations offer the same Swensons drive-in experience.

When I got out of work today at 6:30, it was 80 degrees Fahrenheit, sunny, and just gorgeous. Perfect weather for a trip to Swensons! And since there is a location on my way home, it made even more sense. When you pull in, find a parking spot and turn on your car's headlights. This indicates you need a server. On the wall is the basic menu:

Fortunately, I already knew what I wanted (since you can download a copy of their menu from the website), so I didn't have to ponder too long when my rather cute carhop ran up to my car to greet me. Pleasantries exchanged, I placed my order and as quickly as he ran up to my car, he ran back inside to turn my order in.

After about ten minutes, he returned with the classic "window hooking" tray with all my food on it:

On deck are my Galley Boy, an order of onion rings, and my cherry milkshake. The Galley Boy is one of Swensons signature items and the skewered olive on top is just a reminder that you can only get this here in northeast Ohio. Unfortunately, because of the odd angle that I was sitting in the car and trying to take pictures out the driver's side window, I decided to photograph individual items after they were brought inside the car.

First up, the cherry milkshake (and yes, I am actually balancing these things on my pants while I photograph them -- hey, you do what you gotta do):

They have three sizes, 12, 16, and 32 ounces. I went for the 16 ounce size and was pleasantly rewarded with a nice, thick, creamy milkshake that had a nice cherry flavor, but wasn't too over the top. I can't imagine ordering the 32 ounce size ... that would be a lot of milkshake! And while this milkshake was good (I'd order it again), I do think that Tommy's in Coventry sets the bar when it comes to amazing milkshakes.

Next up were the onion rings with ranch dressing as a dip:

These were fine, better than some other examples I've tried. The menu states that they are Swensons own recipe and they certainly are tasty. Nice and crunchy on the outside with a nice thick creamy onion on the inside. The ranch dressing dip was, well, ranch dressing. They didn't do anything to gussy it up. Which is kind of a shame since that could really add to the Swensons mystique.

Finally, a close-up of the Galley Boy. First, wrapped:

And then, unwrapped (after I ate the olive, of course!):

The Galley Boy is a double cheeseburger served on a grilled bun with two special sauces, tartar sauce and a sweet BBQ sauce. Now one might think, "Ack! That sounds awful!" But I can assure you this is one of those instances where the food gods have smiled upon mankind and allowed them to indulge in this really wonderful burger. Sweet, savory, grilled, cheesy, creamy, crusty. It's all there in one sandwich. Normally I like to alternate between bites of burger and whatever side I've ordered. Not this time. Before I realized what I had done, I looked down to discover that my Galley Boy was GONE. I looked over at my poor onion rings and realized I hadn't eaten a single one.

The final bill for my indulgence wasn't terribly expensive either, just a shade over $9, $12 with tip. They've got lots of other great items on their menu, but it's really hard to go wrong with the Galley Boy. As it is the start of summer, I can see myself going back many more times over the next couple of months. And having just as delicious a meal.

Erratum (aka, Oops, my bad!)

2009-05-03T00:00:00.002-04:00

In an earlier post about the Hamburger Station, I stated that both the onion rings and the fried mushrooms were cooked from frozen. One of my astute blog readers pointed out that from what he remembers (as well as what is printed on the Wikipedia page), they are indeed made fresh. I returned to the exact same location I used for my earlier review to verify the veracity of his statement (and mine, too). After speaking with the counter person, this is what I learned. Every day they prep fresh onion slices and mushrooms. These are then dredged in the batter and left to sit in the reach-in (think refrigerator) during the day. At the moment an order is placed, an appropriate amount is removed from the reach-in and freshly fried.

My statement that the fried mushrooms could use a spicy horseradish mayo dip stays on record though.

100% accuracy in reporting is my goal. Occasionally, things just slip through the cracks and it takes others to point out the truth. Anytime you, gentle reader, find an error in something I've written, please let me know and I will be more than happy to address the problem. It could be as simple as me not explaining something properly. Or, as in this case, I was just plain wrong.

I've altered the original post to correct this misrepresentation.

Mobile Blogging: So Happy That Spring Is Here

2009-05-02T15:42:00.001-04:00

Taken at Hubbard Valley Park between Wadsworth and Seville. The air is so cool and sweet with the scent of flowering trees.

Real-Time Blogging at Sonnet's

2009-05-02T12:08:00.008-04:00

It's kind of fun when you get to eat your sandwich and then post about it 5 minutes later while still sitting here. I decided to meet up with my mother (aka the Birthday Girl) for a bite to eat at Sonnet's in Wadsworth, OH. Since there have been other places in Wadsworth that offered free wi-fi, I never considered Sonnet's as a place to get a nice cup of coffee and a bite to eat. It wasn't until early last year when my grandfather was going through his ordeal at the nursing home that my mother and aunt basically made Sonnet's their restaurant of choice because of how close it is to the nursing home. I have since made it the place I go to in Wadsworth when I need an on-line connection and a nice cup of coffee.

Sonnet's menu is varied, but pretty straightforward: salads, soups, panini sandwiches, and wraps. Within each of these categories, however, are many choices. All of the meats are Boar's Head Premium Deli cuts and are quite good. They also sell pastries, cookies, and bagels. Some of these items such as the cookies and muffins they bake on-site; items like the biscotti and scones come from other vendors.

Today I decided to go with a Reuben sandwich done on their panini press with thousand island dressing and sauerkraut. It came with chips and a pickle spear in a basket:

This was very good (actually all of the sandwiches I've had here are very good). The rye bread tasted fresh and had a nice crunch to it from the panini press. Everything inside the sandwich was warm and juicy. What I love most about the Boar's Head meats is how tasty and fresh they are without being too salty. Sometimes you get those cheaper deli cuts that are so salty that you have to chug half a glass of water just to get through the sandwich. Not here. The sauerkraut was also nice, a balanced blend between acid and salt. I've had Reuben sandwiches in the past where the sauerkraut could take over the sandwich if it was too strong.

My mother had a chicken wrap which she also greatly enjoyed.

And it's become somewhat of a tradition that when I order a cafe au lait in a mug, I get this:

It's not so much a statement of my love for all things Disney as much as a consequence of them having no clean mugs except for this one when I had ordered a cafe au lait many moons ago. The woman working the counter looked at me and said that this was all they had. Not particularly wanting to drink my coffee drink out of a cardboard cup, I just smiled and said, "Sure!" Ever since then, it's just become this sort of "in" joke between her and I that this is the mug I get.

Oh, yeah, the cafe au lait is quite good, too!

Sonnet's is a great casual place to come in and meet up with friends, get a little work done on the laptop, and get a decent bite to eat. Definitely check them out if you happen to be in Wadsworth.

A Tale of Two Sliders, Part II

2009-04-29T07:30:00.003-04:00

In my last installment, I had thrown down the gauntlet and decided to do a head-to-head comparison between the national chain, White Castle, and a local Akron favorite, the Hamburger Station. Today was the perfect day to finish this up. Currently there are four locations around Akron and the suburbs and while each offers the same basic fare (like the sliders), each also offers something unique. The Hamburger Station I went to on Canton Rd. near Ellot offers chicken wings as part of their menu. But I wasn't there today for the wings. I was there for the sliders.

First up, a shot of the exterior:

And a shot of the door with a sign promoting the double-plus goodness of their ingredients:

While the Hamburger Station does offer several combo meals, I wanted to get a specific set of items to demonstrate as much of the menu as I could. Not to mention that the combo meals all come with the fries, and truth be told, if the winner was judged solely on fries, White Castle would win hands down. The fries at the Hamburger Station may be fresh cut, but they are typically a limp, oily mass that generally just aren't good.

Here is my full order:

The slider on the back left is my post-mortem slider (just like I had at White Castle). The two sliders on the back right are my lunch. In the front you have a small order of onion rings and a small order of fried mushrooms.

The onion rings are freshly prepared every day like the fries are, except they are dredged in the batter in the morning and then left to sit in the reach-in by the fryer until the moment an order is placed. They are a nice thick onion ring and because they've had a chance to sit in the batter for a while, it doesn't completely fall apart when you take a bite. You definitely get a nice contrast between the crispy coating and the soft, creamy onion on the inside. For fast food onion rings, these rate better than average.

The fried mushrooms are prepped in exactly the same way as the onion rings and have the same crispy exterior. Again, these were better than average, but what they really could've used was some type of spicy dipping sauce, like a horseradish mayo. That would've kicked them from good to pretty darn good.

When you ask for a slider with everything, that means mustard, onions, and pickles. Unfortunately, the onions they use for the sliders are raw. Some days the onions are sliced, today they were coarsely grated. Regardless, raw onions and my stomach don't particularly care for each other. The sliders I ordered for consumption had just the mustard and pickles on them (I added a little ketchup tableside).

The sliders here are better than average. If I'm in the mood for an exceptional burger, nothing comes close to the one I had the other day at The Greenhouse Tavern. But sliders are a slightly different beast. And these are the best example I've had so far. They aren't cooked exactly the same way that White Castle cooks theirs. Most notable is the fact that they are cooked to order and the buns are grilled while the burger cooks, so there aren't any sogginess issues. To my taste, the burgers at the Hamburger Station have a much fresher taste to them and the flavor of the meat actually comes through.

Here is the post-mortem slider with everything:

And with the crown of the bun off:

As you can see, when you get onions, you get a LOT of onions. I'd show you the heel of the bun, but the cheese between the meat patty and the heel had fused the two together. Thankfully, I didn't get the same floor show at the Hamburger Station that I got at the White Castle I went to for my earlier post. That's not a show I want repeated very often.

And so, gentle reader, to whom goes the slider crown? The Hamburger Station, of course. The product tastes better, has more bun integrity, and is cooked to order instead of sitting on a griddle for who-knows-how-long. The fact that it is a local chain found only in Akron, OH is a serious bonus in my book. If anyone out there in Internet-land really loves White Castle and is able to try the Hamburger Station's version, I would love to hear what you have to say. I might even print it here in my blog. Maybe. But only if you find in favor of the Hamburger Station. No, no, I promise to be fair.

After finishing my lunch, the sun was reaching its zenith and I decided that some frozen custard was necessary to cool me off in the hot afternoon sun. I spent some time in my youth living in Stow, OH, and fondly remember trips to Stoddard's Frozen Custard stand.

Here is what you'll see as you drive up:

Today's flavor of the day was strawberry. This looked promising. A shot of the Stoddard's stand:

One thing to note: if you want the flavor of the day in a cup and not on a cone, don't say the word "sundae". There was much confusion when I went to order the flavor of the day. To me, a sundae is whatever kind of ice cream/frozen custard you want, toppings, and possibly some whipped cream. To the fine Stoddard's folks, a sundae is ALWAYS vanilla soft serve with toppings and whipped cream. There was a little confusion until I finally understood that they make a distinction. What I REALLY wanted was a "small flavor of the day in a cup with whipped cream on top". Once we established that, I paid my $2.60 and went out into the sunshine to eat my cool treat.

The color is subtle, but it is a very light pink.

When I first got up to the ordering window, I asked them how they made the strawberry flavored custard. The manager said they use real strawberries in the mix and I can tell you that by simply inspecting the frozen custard, you can still see little bits of strawberry right in the cup. The flavor was amazing. This had none of the problems that I experienced with my pumpkin frozen custard at Strickland's. The flavor was there from the first bite until the very last. And then some. Just a perfect amount of strawberry essence.

It seems a little cliche' these days to order strawberry since everyone seems to offer it, too (besides chocolate and vanilla), and isn't nearly as exotic as pumpkin or royal cake batter. But sometimes, simpler is better and when you can revisit a flavor done as well as this one was, I say go for it. While I love Strickland's attempt at the pumpkin, Stoddard's strawberry is declared the winner. At least this time around.

All in all, this was a lovely way to spend a Sunday afternoon. I hope you enjoyed reading about it as much as I enjoyed eating and then writing about it.

A Tale of Two Sliders, Part I

2009-04-28T07:30:00.001-04:00

"It was the best of times. It was the worst of times."

I first read A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens back when I was a wee youth. Prone to reminiscing from time to time, there are many things from our youth that we romanticize, even as adults. I grew up eating sliders from The Hamburger Station. This is a local chain of about four stores (I think there were quite a few more when I was younger) in and around the Akron, OH area. After moving out of Akron in mid-junior high school, though, this practice ceased. To be fair, my new home in Wadsworth wasn't all that far from Akron, but they just sort of fell off my radar.

As I was perusing around the 'Net the other day, I happened to come across a discussion of White Castle sliders. Now, I know that some people absolutely LOVE White Castle. And to others it is one of the most disgusting things they have ever put in their mouths. Personally, I've never had a White Castle slider, even though I lived in Columbus for a number of years and the retail stores were all over the place. It just never occurred to me that it should be something I would want to try.

Reviewing the food of national chain restaurants is not something I want to focus on in my blog. If they are national and you can get them anywhere, in my mind they lose their uniqueness. At the same time, having never had a White Castle slider before and the fact that I could do a head-to-head comparison with a LOCAL chain like The Hamburger Station, I decided to acquiesce on this particular rule for now. Doing a quick Google Maps search led me to the White Castle located on South Arlington Street, right off of I-77.

Upon entering the store, there was a fairly short line to place your order. I looked over the menu and decided to just go "Plain Jane" and order the basic combo meal: four sliders, an order of fries, and a soda for $4.99. When I finally got to the front of the line, I placed my order and upgraded to cheese sliders for $1 more. For some reason, the person taking my order only then asked if I wanted to add their new pulled pork slider to my order (from what followed after I paid for my order, it occurred to me that she wasn't the shiniest rock in the box). I declined, paid for my meal, and stepped to the side so that she could take the next customer's order.

Apparently, that's when the floor show began. Another co-worker, obviously flustered with the order taker's performance, pushed her (not hard) out of the way so she could access the register to "fix" the orders. Cue Jerry Springer-esque shouting match. Yes, right in front of the customers. It reminded me of the Arby's on Rt. 82 in North Royalton from a decade ago. We would go in there to grab lunch and would be treated to the antics of some of the most brain dead employees any of us had ever seen. Even the managers were terrible, yelling back at employees in front of the customers. Tonight's performance ranked right up there.

Ok, back to the food. Now, I knew from reading about White Castle how they prepare their sliders. The square patties go down on the grill, are then covered with some grilled onions, and the heel (bottom half of the bun) is placed on top. This allows the bun to "steam" as the burgers cook on the grill. At service time, the burgers are flipped right side up, topped with pickles and cheese (if ordered), and the crown (top half of the bun) is placed on top. This is then inserted into a small cardboard box that stays open on one end. Condiments are the responsibility of the consumer at the table.

One thing I did notice while I was waiting for my order to be completed was that both flat top grills had about 1/3 of their area covered with already cooked (and onioned and heeled) sandwiches just sitting there. While this was covered with a bit of parchment paper to keep them from airborne particulate, who knows how long they had been sitting there. And honestly, the parchment may have contributed to the problems I will describe a little later in the post. Just as the parchment keeps things from landing on the burgers from the top, it also helped to hold in the moisture underneath, too.

Probably due to the shouting match between the two employees, the four sliders I had ordered had already been taken off the grill, finished, and were sitting on a plate on one of the counters. It took another five minutes for the fries to join them. First thing that popped into my brain? Lukewarm sliders. And sadly by the time I finally managed to get my drink and napkins and condiments, they were exactly that.

Here is a shot of my meal:

Remember how I said that each of those cardboard boxes is open at one end? Take a look:

First, let's talk about the fries. These actually weren't terrible. Some were pretty crispy, others had a bit more limp to them. Fortunately, though, they weren't greasy. I consider the fries to be the highlight of the meal.

On to the sliders. Like I said at the beginning of the post, I think you either love these things or you hate them. And no offense to any of my gentle readers out there who love a White Castle slider, but I didn't find them good in the least. Tasteless meat, overly soggy heel, onions with a strange bitter flavor; truly a trifecta of terrible. I kept trying various condiment combinations thinking that I must be missing something. After three of the four sliders were gone, I just gave up and decided to use the fourth slider for a post-mortem analysis.

Out of its cardboard home:

Just the picture perfect shot I'm sure White Castle's marketing department hopes for, right?

Next up, the slider with the crown removed:

As you can see at the front of the burger (bottom of the picture), the brownish/gray coloring is where the heel has basically lost all integrity because it had become too soggy.

And finally, the money shot. Soggy city, indeed:

Like I mentioned earlier, the fact that the heel had been sitting on that grill for who knows how long AND underneath the parchment paper probably contributed to this soggy, yucky mess. By all means, if you enjoy these, don't let me dissuade you. Better yet, if you enjoy a good floor show with your sliders, I'd highly recommend the White Castle on South Arlington. It didn't make the burgers taste any better, but at least I cracked a smile once or twice.

Knowing that I needed some culinary redemption after my meal, I decided to stop by an Akron favorite for some frozen custard. Strickland's was started in the mid 1930's and has proliferated in Akron and the surrounding suburbs. Some of the locations are walk-up only (like the one that I went to tonight), while others have indoor seating. I decided to go to the store right across the field from the Goodyear blimp hanger, on the corner of Massillon Road and Triplett Boulevard since it was on my way home. For some reason, Yahoo Maps can't find that location, but the link above should get you to a map. Here is the side view:

Strickland's custard is wonderfully dense and rich. Being made on-site, every day they feature two new flavors. In fact, not all of the Strickland's are on the same flavor schedule, so you could literally go to two store locations on the same day and find two completely different sets of featured flavors. Today's flavors were pumpkin and royal cake batter. They will give you free taste samples if you ask and I opted to try both flavors. The royal cake batter was good (think of a cross between frozen custard and vanilla cake batter), but the pumpkin was WAY good. Not only that, but they were currently churning out the pumpkin, so I knew it was fresh.

I opted for a small pumpkin sundae with nothing but whipped cream on top for $2.85. Here is what I received:

How do I describe this? The first bite with the whipped cream was nothing short of spectacular. The pumpkin flavor, the traditional pumpkin spices (cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, clove), the controlled sweetness, and the whipped cream all came together to whisk me back to the traditional Thanksgiving pumpkin pie slice. In custard form. It was so delicately balanced and delicious. Which oddly enough, turned out to be its downfall.

The first bite, heavenly. The third bite, pretty good. By the fourth bite, my tongue was so cold that the only thing I could taste was creamy and sweet. And that pretty much was how the rest of my sundae went until after I finished it and was back on the road. By then my taste buds had been given the proper time to start warming back up and suddenly I was hit with round two of the flavorful pumpkin and pumpkin spices.

Don't get me wrong, I truly enjoyed that sundae, but by making the flavors of the pumpkin and spices so delicately interwoven and subtle, they ended up with a flavor that can only be enjoyed at its maximum at the beginning and end of the experience. And I can understand how the person developing the recipe might not realize the problem. They are tasting it one spoonful at a time before making adjustments, thus allowing their taste buds to remain in the unfrozen and useful state.

All that said, Strickland's is definitely recommended.

In my follow-up post, I plan on visiting another frozen custard stand that was one of my childhood favorites, Stoddard's, for a head-to-head comparison to Strickland's. That is, after my visit to The Hamburger Station.

A Sandwich Universe Where 1 + 1 = 3?

2009-04-26T07:45:00.005-04:00

Where I currently work, there really aren't any interesting places to eat in the immediate vicinity. If you drive about 10 minutes in any given direction, however, you'll find some decent places to catch a meal. Today I decided to drive south on I-77 and that led me to the locally owned restaurant Georgio's, located off the Rt. 212 exit at Bolivar/Zoar. It is nestled in behind the Wilkshire Golf Course and during the summer many of the golfers can be seen at lunchtime having a drink and a sandwich.

While there is a main dining room when you first walk in, Georgio's is also set up for a crowd. There is a separate large room off the back of the restaurant that can be used for large gatherings. I've eaten at Georgio's before, but it's probably been quite some time, so I decided to give them another try today. Once inside, there is a daily specials board right next the to hostess stand. Now truth be told, only once have I been satisfied with something I ordered off the daily specials board. My advice would be to stick to the regular menu; you'll be much safer.

Over the 20 months that I've visited the restaurant, I've seen the menu change and the restaurant adapt. Which is normally a good thing because it shows that management is paying attention to what sells and what doesn't. The latest changes have really tightened up the menu and focused the kitchen on what they are good at: soups, salads, wraps, sandwiches, and well, not so much their pizzas. I've had the pizzas in the past and not been a fan, but I'll talk about them in another blog entry, after I've given them another try (just to be fair since I didn't have a pizza today).

Here is half of the printed menu. Unfortunately, I neglected to get a shot of the other half:

I decided to start my meal with a cup of the chorizo and potato soup with kale. Here is what I received from the kitchen:

Even though the menu didn't specifically say it, I was actually expecting a creamy potato soup, not a broth-based one. That being said, I decided to keep it anyway, partly because I was hungry and partly because it was my fault for not asking up front. It was a nicely balanced soup and the seasoning was very good. Looking through the cup, I could see that in addition to ground meat, potatoes, and kale, there were also tomatoes, garlic, and onions. While the soup was good, I seriously question the use of the word "chorizo" as a description for the meat. Most chorizo that I've eaten have had two major flavor elements: lots of garlic and lots of spice. This soup had neither. And the texture of the meat in the soup led me to speculate that they were using a mild sausage instead of actual chorizo. Initially I thought it migt be a mild Italian sausage, but there was absolutely no hint of an anise flavor (usually provided by fennel seeds). I did ask the server about it, but she insisted that as far as she knew, it was chorizo.

I've gotten a variety of sandwiches during previous visits and for the most part they've been pretty good. A new addition to the menu since my last visit is the Monte Christo sandwich. Now, I remember this sandwich from the cafeteria in my college days, and honestly, the only thing I really remember about it was that it was essentially a grilled cheese with ham and turkey. I have since learned that there is an egg batter involved in a proper Monte Christo. Since the description on the menu indicated that we were dealing with the real thing, I made the decision to go with a Monte Christo and French Fries.

As I was finishing up my soup, my server brought out my sandwich:

And another shot from the opposite side:

What's in the little plastic cup, you ask? Ketchup? No, my server brought me a separate bottle of ketchup for my fries. It turns out it was maple syrup (well, more than likely the high-fructose corn syrup kind, not the real deal). Thinking it would be weird to pair the two together, I actually ate the first half of my sandwich without the use of this condiment.

How did it taste? It was quite good. I could definitely taste the egg batter on the bread, the ham and turkey were nice: hot and tender. When I got to the second half of my sandwich, I realized two things. First, the Grilled Bread Conundrum had struck again. I tell you right now with certainty that if I ever manage to invent a device that can hold a grilled (or griddled) sandwich above the plate so it doesn't sit there and steam against the plate and get soggy, I will be a gazillionaire. Perhaps some type of anti-gravity device where the sandwich can somehow float above the plate and avoid contact, thus avoiding the sogginess issue. My second realization was that the maple syrup was there for a reason and I might as well try it with the rest of my sandwich. At least one bite's worth.

So, with trepidation, I dipped and bit.

The heavens opened. Trumpets sounded. Suddenly I had all this sensory information hurdling towards my brain saying, "Yes! Yes!" Somewhat similar to, but not quite the same, as the Sally character from Katz's Deli. Sweet, salty, and fatty all came together in my mouth and made me realize that this is another example of two foods that when eaten together, are definitely more than the sum of their parts. I took a second dipped bite just to confirm what I had tasted in the first bite and sure enough, more food nirvana.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention the French Fries, since they were also on the plate (although next time I think I'm going to get a second Monte Christo and a side of maple syrup as my side instead of the fries). They were nice and crispy and golden and just a tad greasy, but not too bad. Georgio's on the whole does pretty decent fries and they didn't disappoint this time either.

I know Georgio's is a little out of the way for a lot of the people who read this blog, but if you ever happen to be heading down I-77 and find yourself in this neck of the woods, this would make an excellent place to stop for lunch.

Tavanello and Sons: It's Good To Have Choices

2009-04-24T07:45:00.002-04:00

As much as I love Marie's Pizza located in my hometown of Wadsworth, Ohio, there is a lesser known pizza purveyor that I feel I should give a chance. It's on the extreme west side of town out by SkyPark and most of us "townies" don't really even know about it. The only reason I knew about it is that a good high school friend of mine lived out in that area and he would get it on a regular basis. It just so happened that I was in town and out driving around thinking about my dinner options (because it was SUCH a gorgeous day) when I decided that I would stop in and order a pie.

Tavanello and Sons is located at 2985 Greenwich Road in Wadsworth, OH and can be reached at 330-336-6581.

Having never been inside the store before, the only thing I knew about it was that this was a take-out place; there are no tables inside. That was okay with me though because there is a park not five minutes away where I could sit out in the sun at a picnic table and enjoy my dinner.

The place is quite quaint and I discovered upon walking in that the pizzeria shares the interior space with a very small general store. They have DVD rentals in the rear of the store and a refrigerated case where you could pick up beer and bottled water and soda. The right side of the store was where the kitchen was. It always fascinates me to walk into a place and order a pizza (as opposed to calling it in) because then you get to see the entire process from start to finish. This isn't fancy pizza. What this is, however, is pizza made by people who care. I could tell that the couple (Mr. and Mrs. Tavanello, I believe) taking orders, making the pies, and ringing up customers were there because they love what they do and take pride in what they do.

The menu is pretty simple: pizzas, calzones, and subs. They have some other sides, like garlic bread, etc., but the majority of the menu is about how to combine dough, sauce, meat, and cheese.

All the dough and the sauce are made from scratch. Tavanello's has a pizza oven with two columns of doors. On this particular Friday night, only the left side had been heated up. In the back corner was the industrial stand mixer for the dough and next to that the sheeter, used to initially flatten out the balls of dough before being finished by hand. Toppings are fairly standard, but I did notice that they offered meatballs as a topping (a nod to my good friend Nancy). Unfortunately, when I asked about the meatball option, they were all out.

Once the pie had been sauced, cheesed, and topped with your choice of toppings (mine was pepperoni), into the oven it went. No timers were set. No alarms ever went off. Mr. Tavanello knew by how brown the crust was and how caramelized the cheese was exactly how much time each pie had left in the oven. Once the dough had set in the pizza pan, the pie was removed from the pan and finished directly on the floor of the oven. This ensured a nice golden brown crust. It probably took about fifteen minutes from the time I ordered to the time I paid for my pie and left.

Right before cutting and boxing up my pie, it was brushed with garlic butter, just to "guild the lily" a little bit.

Here's what I brought out to my car (this is a large, they also have extra-large):

And a shot of the pizza in the box:

I was going to try and actually eat a piece before I even got into the car, but the Molten Cheese Conundrum came into play: The fresher the pie, the more likely the cheese will completely slide off if you try and pick up a piece. I quickly realized that a 3-5 minute ride in the car to the park would do the cheese a world of good. And it did.

Once I got to the park, however, all bets were off. A closer shot of the uneaten portion of my pizza:

Now let's talk about taste. If you like thicker crust pizza, this was an excellent example. The crust was nice and toasty from the oven, wonderfully chewy, and cooked completely through. The crust had a nice flavor, most likely from the garlic butter that was brushed on right at the end, but it wasn't overpowering. The homemade pizza sauce was quite good and seasoning was spot on. In terms of a quality sauce, I'd put it right up there with Marie's sauce. I immediately got the taste of the richness from the tomatoes, a strong oregano/marjoram essence, and just a hint of garlic. Honestly, my first thought when I tasted the sauce was the herb being used was marjoram, but that would be such an unusual ingredient for a place like this to use. And since marjoram and oregano have similar flavor profiles, I'm willing to bet it is probably the latter. Next time I go, I'll find out for sure.

The cheese was plentiful and had a nice rich flavor to it. The pepperoni was nice, but the only criticism I could levy was that I wish it came with just a bit more of the topping. I suppose that's what double-toppings are for, right?

My large one topping came to $9 and had 8 slices, so it really only cost about $1.13 per slice, which is pretty economical. Two hungry adults could definitely finish off one of these guys. Next time I go back, I'll have to verify the answers to some of the questions I posed in this blog entry with the owners and try a pizza topped with meatballs instead of pepperoni.

If you happen to be in the Wadsworth area and are in the mood for a local pizza you can enjoy out in the fresh air at the park, definitely check out Tavanello and Sons.

Sun Luck Garden: A Treat No Matter When You Go

2009-04-22T07:45:00.000-04:00

I have eaten at Annie Chiu's Sun Luck Garden restaurant over the last several years and have really fallen in love with the quality and inventiveness of her food. She has an amazing eye for detail and accepts no shortcuts when it comes to what she serves in her restaurant. To boot she is always cheery and helpful and that infectiousness transfers nicely to her staff.

After a recent viewing of the New York Metropolitan Opera's The Audition (fabulous, by the way, if you ever have a chance to see it), my companion and I agreed that Sun Luck was to be our dining destination for the evening. Fortunately, my friend had the foresight to call ahead and make a reservation for us. Not ten minutes after we arrived (about 5:20 PM on a Sunday), the place was PACKED.

For starters, I had ordered hot tea. However, it was so noisy that my waiter misheard me and mistakenly brought me hot sake. Now, normally I would've sent it back, but it's been ages since I had a nice hot sake and decided instead to keep it. The sake came in a wonderful little porcelain serving vessel and matching cup:

While Annie has many wonderful soups on her menu, both my dining companion and I decided to go with the curry butternut squash soup. It is a clear broth (think Wonton soup) with dumplings that have a lovely curried butternut squash puree in them.

This was a heavenly cup of soup. The broth was seasoned perfectly and had a real depth of flavor. It was both salty and just slightly sweet, the way that pork can be if prepared correctly. The dumpling was also wonderful. There was just a kiss of curry in the butternut squash puree and the dumpling texture itself was just lovely. Cooked all the way through, with just a little resistance to the tooth.

Next up, we decided to split an appetizer. Although my friend highly recommended the crab rangoon, I was skeptical. I've eaten my fair share of crab rangoon and while I do occasionally come across one that I like, they are usually a disappointment. Not only did Annie's version not disappoint, but it sought to reinvent what a good crab rangoon should be:

The filling in these deep fried wrappers was uniquely Annie's. There was the bit of cream cheese and crab, but there was so much more. A bit of heat, a bit of herbs. And the dipping sauce wasn't the day-glo red sweet and sour sauce you find on every other Americanized Chinese restaurant menu. This was something unique ... sour, sweet, and something else ... akin to a good Nuoc Cham. My dining companion knew what the secret ingredient was and when I guessed, she was impressed and said, "Close!" I won't tell you the actual ingredient, because I want you, the gentle reader, to try this out for yourself and make your own guess. Don't worry, I'll tell you if you guess correctly!

Next up, the entrees. I've always wanted to order the Ma Pou Dofu at Sun Luck, but have just never gotten around to it. This time, I decided I had to have it. As I've learned from a previous visit to Sun Luck, if you want it with a decent amount of heat, you have to order it "Spicy, spicy!" Which is exactly what I did. And this is what was brought to the table:

Now, the unusual thing about Annie's Ma Pou Dofu presentation is that she chops the tofu finely instead of leaving them in larger cubes, which is how most other restaurants serve it. While looking a little unappetizing (I'll leave you to figure out what I mean by looking at the photo), it actually worked very well because everything was basically the same size as the rice. I put a little rice down on my plate, spooned over some Ma Pou Dofu, mixed it a bit with my chopsticks, and the result was marvelous! Salty, sweet (from the ground pork), appropriately spicy, and creamy from the tofu. My dining companion was equally as pleased with the result.

The other entree we ordered was something not even on the menu. Knowing the magic that Annie can create, my dining companion ordered a baby ginger and dark tofu dish. Here is what came out of the kitchen:

It's a little blurry, but this had mushrooms, sliced ginger, dark tofu, carrots, broccoli, and onions. Annie's dark tofu dishes are legendary among her devoted fans and there is a reason: it is amazingly delicious, even to meat eaters. If I had to become vegetarian or vegan, THIS is the dish I would order day in and day out. It was a mix of all thing savory, crispy, creamy, and meaty (without any meat, obviously).

Finally, it should be noted that Annie spent some time as a pastry chef. Her desserts, while not all necessarily true to her Asian heritage, are scrumptious and always worth a look. In fact, my dining companion actually wanted to know what the dessert specials were before ordering any of her food so that she could plan appropriately. From the desserts specials for the day, we ordered the homemade banana ice cream with hot fudge and a blood orange sorbet. That's Annie in the background:

I had the blood orange sorbet. It was the perfect way to end the meal as the acid from the blood oranges cuts through the heaviness of the previous courses. It was nicely balanced with sweet and sour and oddly enough, had much more of a granita-like texture than a sorbet. There were several other sorbet flavors available, but I know the short season for blood oranges and decided to give this one a go.

I also tried a spoonful of my friend's ice cream. It was everything you hoped for in a homemade ice cream. And the hot fudge sauce was rich and chocolate-y and wonderful. If it wasn't perishable, I would be encouraging Annie to bottle the stuff up and start selling it. She could have a successful side business with just that alone.

As her website indicates, Annie is interested in cooking contemporary Chinese cuisine. Starting with techniques and recipes from traditional cuisine and adapting them for the ingredients that are available to you, she serves up something that is unique and delicious. I'm just grateful that I get to eat it. Clearly, Sun Luck Garden is highly recommended.

Ohio's First (and only) Certified Green Restaurant

2009-04-20T22:29:00.006-04:00

That's right, gentle reader! The Greenhouse Tavern opened for business last week and tonight I and three of my friends descended upon the establishment for a tasting of their menu. Chef and owner Jonathon Sawyer has been blogging extensively about the renovation of the space for quite some time now (as well as posting photos up on Flickr), and it was finally great to be able to walk into the finished space and see the result of all of the hard work that he and his team put into the place to make his vision happen.

The premise of the GHT is that all of the food served is local, sustainable, and accessible. Jonathon started this tradition with the restaurant he was previously involved with, Bar Cento. With the GHT, he is blessed with not only a three level eatery, but when the roof space is finished (and there will be seating on the roof, too), he will grow some of the herbs and other greens he will be using in his kitchen. Seating right now consists of the basement, a ground floor, and two second floor eating areas (think mezzanine) on opposite ends of the restaurant. The basement space is a smaller "chef's" table area where the kitchen is located. There is also outdoor patio seating once the weather gets nicer (which was definitely not today).

GHT is located literally three doors down from Michael Symon's award winning Lola. Here is the brand new sign for the GHT:

We were seated on the first floor right next to the bar. Almost immediately, bread service began.

This is fresh bread and a very finely processed (in terms of texture) duck rillette. It took the place of butter and oil and when spread on the bread added a wonderfully unctuous and flavorful element. Having to make sure that the bread was up to snuff, I tried it without any rillette. The bread itself was quite good. Upon going down into the kitchen area after our meal I discovered that the bread they serve is cut from this wonderfully large loaf of round bread. Not a miche, but it looked like it was composed of individual dinner rolls that had been allowed to proof together and fuse. When baked, it made a marvelously large loaf of bread, perhaps three feet in diameter.

The GHT menu is surprisingly easy to navigate. It consists of a single page and has Firsts, Seconds, Thirds, and Halfs. Or, in regular-people-speak, small appetizers, regular appetizers, entrees, and side dishes. You are encouraged to mix and match however you'd like your meal to progress. There were between 4-6 dishes in each category and only two daily specials, so you won't feel overwhelmed with the number of choices. We decided to go with a mixture of five appetizers (Firsts, Seconds, and Halfs).

First, a daily special ... savory bread pudding with fried chicken livers on top:

This was delightful. The bread pudding was creamy, rich, and savory. And the surprise for all of our palettes was the addition of nutmeg. It added an almost "sweet" twist to the flavor profile of the pudding. And the chicken livers were completely amazing. Crispy, rich, livery, but not too livery. Eaten alone and then with the pudding it was marriage made in heaven. I could've eaten the entire dish alone if I had had the opportunity.

Next up were the breakfast radishes topped with creamery butter and simple sea salt. This was served with a dressed watercress salad:

I'm not a huge radish person, but these were amazing. The radishes were mild in flavor, but cold and crispy, the butter was creamy and delicious, and the little bit of salt on top just put the dish over the edge. There are so many layers going on at the same time. Texture, flavor, and temperature.

Next up was a dish that my dining companion Nancy was interested in trying, the cabbage gratin. Think of it like "French Onion soup without the soup part" was how someone had described it to her. The cabbage is joined with onions and caramelized to an inch of their life to create this incredibly rich dish that is then topped with cheese and put under the salamander until the cheese is bubbly and browned:

Next up, steak tartare with a poached egg, mustard, and cornichon served with grilled bread.

This was far better than I thought it was going to be. I'm not a huge steak tartare fan, but this was very good, especially when eaten with a bit of the mustard and some of the egg. Rich and fatty, the crispness from the bread and the sharpness of the mustard really brought this dish together for me.

Next up is the pommes frites with a poached egg and chervil:

One of Chef Sawyer's signature dishes at Bar Cento was the pommes frites. He has not only brought that knowledge with him to the GHT, but I think he has improved upon it. Pairing pommes frites with a soft poached egg may seem strange to the American palate, but when you got some potato and some egg in one bite, it was quite lovely. The one thing we discovered as we were digging through the frites was the presence of whole garlic cloves, crushed. This lent a "kiss of garlic" taste to the frites. The one thing that none of us really got was the chervil. Its flavor just wasn't there and visually, it didn't seem to be in the dish.

Okay, so we've finished our appetizers. Now it's time for the entrees. I decided to go with the Ohio burger with rosemary pommes frites and homemade vinegar.

When I go to establishments where I don't know about the quality or sourcing of the ground beef, I always order my burger medium well. Tonight, I was a trusting soul and ordered it medium. I was not disappointed. I have been on a quest for a good burger for a while now and just have yet to find a burger that truly satisfies my soul. My search ended tonight; this burger was divine. The burger actually came out just a shade less done than medium, but I decided to give it a go anyway. And I'm glad I did. Besides being savory, the thing that struck me about this burger was how juicy it was. And the grilled bun was a perfect foil for the meat and cheese. It was both crusty where it had been grilled and soft on the interior.

One of my friends decided to order the Tom Cod en Papillote. Inside the paper pouch was a wonderful sauce of wine, butter, and fresh black truffles. This also came with sliced potatoes (also cooked inside the pouch).

Apart from the actual butter used in the pouch, the fish itself was soft, creamy, and incredibly "buttery". Just melt in your mouth good.

Another friend ordered the buckwheat noodles with clams, tomato, and chili.

I tried a little bit of this as well and discovered why she ordered this tonight even though she had it previously. It was delicious. The noodles were cooked, but still had a nice bite to them. The clams, tomato, and chili were wonderful together, little bits of capricious heat distributing themselves throughout the plate of food.

Finally, we couldn't pass up dessert and I decided to have the Valrhona bittersweet chocolate Pot du Creme with a almond cookie dipped in chocolate and sprinkled with fleur de sel. (Nancy's Red Eye setting on her camera happened to click in just as I snapped this photo.)

The cookies and Pot du Creme are designed to be eaten together. What can I say about this dish. Heaven on a plate. Truly. The cookie complimented the Pot du Creme which complimented the cookie. This dessert is designed for the hardcore chocoholic out there. Of which I am a total fan. And given the cute presentation (there are two cups of Pot du Creme and two cookies), this is a dish that would entirely be appropriate to share with someone else.

Finally, after our meal (which took a good two hours from start to finish), we descended into the basement to check out the open kitchen and the chef's tables.

I feel that my review would be incomplete if I didn't include two details that some might find noteworthy. Chef Sawyer is very aggressive with seasoning. This was how he cooked at Bar Cento and this is how he cooks at the GHT. I personally don't think the food is too salty. But it is on the edge. He is definitely not afraid to use salt to bring out the best in the food he serves. I only mention this because I could definitely see a customer who was sensitive to salt having an issue with how the food leaves the kitchen. And seeing as there are no salt and pepper shakers on the tables, the food is meant to be eaten how it leaves the kitchen.

Second, unbeknownst to my little group of foodies, the Chef directed our server to comp our desserts. Now, we didn't know that at the time we ordered them, and I just want you, the gentle reader, to understand that while I certainly appreciate the gesture, I have in no way held back from what I really thought about my experience.

I thoroughly enjoyed my meal at the GHT. I will be going back soon. The prices are extremely reasonable for this quality of food, the food itself is marvelous, and I know that I am supporting a restaurant that cares about local farmers and purveyors and has adopted a sort of "do no evil" type of mentality. And that's the kind of place I want to support with my dining dollars. I hope that you do, too.

Cleveland vs. Pittsburgh: Who's Is Better?

2009-04-16T21:09:00.000-04:00

In a recent discussion with TheFoodTutor on eGullet, I discovered that not only had she been reading my blog, but that she was a transplanted northeast Ohioan now living down South. In an odd twist of fate, it turns out that she was working in the Flats area of Cleveland right around the same time that I was in college and frequenting the Flats on the weekends. Having read my post on my exciting weekend in Pittsburgh back in January and specifically my trip to Primanti Brothers, she inquired about the status of the Cleveland-based restaurant, Panini's.

When I asked her for more information, she informed me that Panini's does a sandwich very much in the same manner as Primanti Brothers: choose your protein and cheese and they will put fries and coleslaw on top. What?!? You mean I traveled all the way to Pittsburgh to try something that I could get literally in my backyard? Well, this was a challenge I just had to take. Especially because Panini's now has locations all over northeast Ohio (although they are still right above the Flats in Cleveland, too). And it just so happened that there was one between where I work and where I live.

So, after getting off of work, I hopped on over to the Panini's at Belden Village on Dressler Road and began to peruse the menu.

And guess what? It also happens that today is Thursday. Oh, man! $0.30 wings AND a sandwich? Too much to pass up. (I am such a sucker for wings ... it comes from my college days, unfortunately.)

Wanting to maximize my visit today, I decided to order six of the Spicy BBQ and six of the Chili Garlic (six is the minimum order for a specific flavor). I figured that if I had to take half my sandwich home for a snack later, so be it! After about 10 minutes, these arrived at my table:

On the left side are the Spicy BBQ. The right side are obviously the Chili Garlic. First, let's talk about the wings in general. They were good. Hot with nice crispy skin. Sometimes, when the skin is flabby (I'm speaking of other establishments, here), I will actually just remove as much of it as I can. First, because I am somehow deluding myself that I'm saving some fat and calories that way (probably not, but HEY, it's my fantasy here, so lay off, buster!). But probably more realistically, flabby skin is Just Not In.

But these were great wings. Nice and large. Crispy skin. Juicy inside. Yum. So, yeah, these got consumed, skin and meat.

These were the Spicy BBQ. It was a nice balance between sweet, heat, and smoke. I'd say about a 4 out of 10 on the spiciness scale. Spicy enough where you had to blow your nose by the time you finished them, but not so spicy that your nose was running halfway through and you couldn't smell a damn thing.

This is the Chili Garlic. These intrigued me a bit. These had just the barest hint of spice (maybe 2 out of 10). You definitely got both the chili and the garlic. But I kept thinking there was something else. What popped into my head at first was actually "peanut" or "sesame". And then it kind of reminded my of a teriyaki-type flavor. Which ALSO has sesame in it. I think that this particular flavor must have some toasted sesame seed oil in it as well. Unfortunately, the more of these wings that I ate, the more pronounced that flavor became, and the less intense the chili and garlic flavors became. They weren't bad, per se, just not great.

And finally, I decided on my sandwich. Now, you can get this in a "regular" size for $5.95 or the jumbo size for $7.95. I'm glad I got the regular size. After it came out, I asked my waitress how large the jumbo sandwich was and she indicated that it was HUGE.

This is a regular (and most similar in size to the sandwich served at Primanti Brothers):

I decided to get the corned beef version as that is the same kind I got at Primanti Brothers back in January. And, of course, the layered shot:

Ready to start eating? Okay, here we go.

Construction-wise, the sandwich at Panini's bears a VERY strong, if not identical structural resemblance to the one from Primanti Brothers (PB, for short). Even the bread is a similar quality Italian bread, in terms of crust and crumb. If you were to put a 1/2 sandwich from each place next to each other, you might not be able to tell them apart. The one characteristic of the sandwich that I do remember from my visit to PB is that the bread is a little more haphazardly sliced. Thick on one end and tapering off. The bread for the sandwich at Panini's was much more uniform. This isn't a criticism necessarily, just an observation.

Both sandwiches are WAY too large to fit into your mouth. As such, the "squeeze and shove" method must be employed to eat this. And even then, it's still a bit messy. The corned beef at Panini's was hot, juicy, and tender. I actually liked the fries a bit better at Panini's than PB. However, the coleslaw layer definitely goes to PB. It had a much nicer acidic profile which actually worked well to complement the natural fattiness of the corned beef. I tried the coleslaw on the Panini version both alone and integrated into the sandwich, and it just didn't have enough bite to stand up. At PB, the French fries were the weakest link. At Panini's, it was the coleslaw.

Of these two components, I feel that the coleslaw is the more important of the two and thus, in my view, the Primanti Brothers version is the better of the two sandwiches. MARGINALLY.

It comes down to this: will I hop in the car on a sunny Saturday afternoon and drive all the way to Pittsburgh for a Primanti Brothers sandwich? Damn straight, I would!

If I'm craving this sandwich on a weeknight and am on my way home from work, would I be absolutely happy stopping at a Panini's and picking up their version? Damn straight, I would!

As a complete aside, given how good the wings were and the fact that they offer these "overstuffed" sandwiches, what do I think of Panini's overall? I liked my experience. There is a lot more on the menu I didn't explore tonight, but I would be perfectly happy living in a world where all I ever ordered from their menu were these two items. After drinking a couple pints of cold beer, this is what I would order. They feel like "bar" food. The Chicken Pecan Cobb salad? Yeah, not so much.

Phoenix Rising From The Ashes: Prime at Anthe's

2009-04-15T21:45:00.000-04:00

The last time I attended the restaurant Anthe's in Akron, OH, I was sorely disappointed. The menu felt both old and bloated, the prices were inconsistent with the quality of the food, and quite honestly, the food was so hit and miss that I just couldn't in good conscience recommend it. Shortly after I went, I read in the Akron Beacon Journal that the previous Chef and Owner, Chef Uecke, had decided to sell to another Akron stalwart, John Bahas, already owner of the Waterloo Restaurant and to Chad Gano, another Akron native. I had stayed away from the "new" Anthe's purposely until tonight. I wanted them to live or die on their new menu, their new cooking staff, and their new approach.

While this awning is a reminder of the tradition that Anthe's has brought to the Akron area for decades:

It was this new signage that signaled a change had taken place:

The restaurant has been reborn as Prime at Anthe's. And WHAT a transformation. Not so much in the look or feel of the restaurant. Or even really the clientèle. Yet. But the new approach to the food and menu is extremely refreshing. The menu has been pared down to a front and back side and includes a half dozen each (roughly) of appetizers, salads, steaks & chops, seafood, and chicken & pastas. And all very reasonably priced. There are still some Anthe's staples that seemed to survive the revamping of the menu that don't feel like they fit in real well, such as the Asian Pierogies, but for the most part, the menu is much tighter.

As anyone who has eaten at Anthe's knows, every meal starts out with the ubiquitous bean salad, a wonderful melding of kidney beans, onions, celery, and a creamy dressing that has a nice tang to it.

I think that this dish is actually better than what I had the last time I ate there. Maybe it was just corrected seasonings, but this was actually tasty tonight, whereas before I remembered it being so-so.

The other Anthe's staple is the sourdough rolls. Now, I have fond memories of these rolls from my youth (my prom dinner was at Anthe's), but when I finally tasted them after 19 years the last time I was here, I wasn't as impressed. They are sour, yes, but taste unlike any sourdough roll I've had since learning more about making breads from scratch. I will say this, the taste this time was consistent with times previous. These aren't my favorite version of a sourdough bread, but the rolls were crusty on the outside, creamy on the inside, and nice and hot.

And an interior crumb shot:

I'll just chalk it up to the flavor either being something you either totally crave or something that you may never understand. While I am completely in love with the quality of the end product, it may take me a few more times to completely fall in love with the sourdough quality of the bread.

All entrees come with a garden salad and one side. They have several homemade dressings and I chose the homemade blue cheese dressing to garnish my salad. It should be noted that the croutons are also homemade and are quite good, having that lovely crunchy outside, flavored with olive oil and garlic, and a softer, chewier texture inside.

And, yes, there it is again in the photo, that single lone slice of pickled beet. I think I'm actually becoming a fan as this one was wonderfully sweet and tangy. The salad was a nice mix of greens, some bitter, some more herbaceous. Everything worked well together. The dressing wasn't quite up to par as some blue cheese dressings I've had in the past (most notably was the absence of those large chunks of blue cheese that are so delicious), but as a dressing, it worked well.

I decided to give one of the appetizers a try as well. The old stand-by, mussels in garlic, tomato, wine, butter, and fresh chiffonade of basil:

Also present in this dish (but not listed on the menu) were shallots. A squeeze of fresh lemon and we were off to the races. This was pretty close to divine. I was devouring my salad when my server brought this to the table and the heady aroma of the garlic just blew me away. The mussels were perfectly cooked, tender and juicy. The other ingredients only served to prop the mussels up. The only negative thing I will say about this dish, and please take this with a grain of salt, is that the tomatoes were April tomatoes, not August tomatoes. They just didn't give that wonderful sweetness to the dish that they should've. But I have to judge the dish based on the ultimate standard of what it could be, so I felt I should mention it. Given a better tomato, this dish should truly soar.

Finally, for my entree, I decided on the broiled chicken breast with sauce veloute and fine herbes. Like I mentioned earlier, it came with one side and I choose to stick with the menu and go with the garlic mashed potatoes.

A generous portion for sure. The garlic mashed potatoes had the perfect texture and were perfectly seasoned. The sauce was delicious (how couldn't it be when it had that much enrichment from heavy cream?). The chicken was perfectly seasoned. And it was cooked to perfection: nice and juicy on the inside and tender enough to cut with a fork. It is so easy to overcook chicken breast. This was literally perfection on a plate. The sauce went very well with the chicken, the fine herbes (traditionally chervil, chives, parsley, and tarragon) being used to garnish the plate. The sauce felt like it was more in the realm of a sauce Supreme category as opposed to a traditional sauce Veloute. However, it was delicious, unctuous, and rich.

I also decided to try another side, the fresh cut fries tossed with kosher salt and rosemary.

I know that I am a notoriously hard to please stickler for fries. They have to be crispy on the outside, creamy on the inside, and not at all greasy. Anthe's version was a home run! Seasoned with kosher salt and rosemary essense, these fries required no extra condiments. In fact, that would be an insult to the person who came up with this technique. The only thing I wish this side dish had was a more assertive rosemary flavor. Knowing from the menu that there was rosemary in the dish, I could definitely get the faintest aroma of it as I ate it. However, had I not had that knowledge, I might never have picked up on it. Potatoes, salt, and rosemary are a classic combination and I say to hell with the ketchup ... bring on more rosemary. Fix the rosemary issue and this will be, far and above, the best fresh cut fry I've ever had.

Finally, the best part of the meal came when I asked for the check. Everything I had above, including an iced tea, with tax, came to $28. Now I know that is still a lot of money for some people nowadays, but compared to the previous Anthe's, this is simply stunning. Hell, there were some entrees that were $28 alone on the previous menu.

And for those of you who are looking to dine out at a nice restaurant while still watching your budget, on Tuesday through Thursday, Prime at Anthe's offers a special menu where you and your dining companion can choose an appetizer to split, each choose your own entree, and each choose your own dessert all for only $40.

What was even more amazing is that at the end of my meal, I threw a few questions at my server and discovered that the head chef wasn't even there tonight. This meal, from beginning to end, was perfectly seasoned and the flavors were well balanced. The food was executed, more or less, to a very high standard, and I for one, know that I now have a restaurant in Akron that I can finally recommend to my friends in Cleveland, Akron, and Canton. The chef has done an excellent job finding and training his staff.

So, for those of you reading this post who might find themselves looking for a nice night out at a restaurant that has both a nice atmosphere and outstanding food, look no further than Prime at Anthe's. I think that the new owners have taken all the long-standing tradition from the previous generation, given it a much needed face lift and have come up with an outstanding dining experience. I know that I look forward to returning very soon.

Testing Blogging Mobile from My G1

2009-04-15T16:28:00.001-04:00

Apparently I can set up my Blogspot account to accept an email from my G1 phone (along with attached images) that will automatically convert the email to a published blog post.

While I don't anticipate a need for such immediate posts when dealing with food, I figured it was a neat feature and I ought to try it out, just so I could see how it works. Unfortunately, the only thing photo worthy around me is my old Linksys 802.11b PCMCIA card that has found permanent residence in my laptop bag.

Of course the downside to posting this way is that I don't have a chance to do my photo pre-processing through The GIMP first. Let's see how this goes.

So, just a slight deviation today. Soon we'll be back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Good BBQ Is Hard To Find In Ohio

2009-04-14T14:44:00.001-04:00

I'm not from the South. I'm not from Kansas City. I'm not even from as far south as Kentucky. But I will always crave good low-and-slow traditional barbecue. And thanks to the folks at Old Carolina Barbeque Company, you can actually find this traditionally southern cuisine right here in northeast Ohio. Currently they have two locations, one in Massillon and one in Norton Canton. They are looking to add a third location sometime soon a little further north at Chapel Hill mall in Cuyahoga Falls.

OCBC is an odd conundrum. It is a locally owned and operated company but has a chain feel to it. I can't verify that everything is made from scratch on-site, but much of it is. When you enter the restaurant, the daily specials are listed above the cashier. To the left on the wall is the menu. All your favorites are there from pulled pork to brisket to smoked chicken and more. Most items can be ordered individually or as a platter (which would include two sides).

Today I was in the mood for a pulled pork sandwich, so I ordered that as a platter with what are billed as "Simply the World's Greatest Baked Beans" and the "Southern Style Mac-n-Cheese". After ordering, the cashier will write your order number on the back of your receipt and you are free to seat yourself anywhere. The soda fountain and sauce station are self-serve, so while you are waiting for your order, take care of that little detail.

At every checkered covered table, you'll find a condiment station containing ketchup and a vinegar based dressing:

When your order is ready, an employee runs it out to you. Here is a shot of my entire platter:

And a close-up of the sauces I selected:

The sauce to the left and rear are the same, the Piedmont No. 5. It is a tomato/vinegar/molasses based sauce that has a nice tang and a capricious amount of black pepper heat. The one on the right is the Original Gold, a mustard based sauce that has less heat and more sweet to it. There are also several other sauces (5 in total) to choose from, so you can mix and match to your heart's content.

Now for the eating! First up, the Southern Style Mac-n-Cheese:

I'm not sure if the crispy bread crumbs on top make it "southern style", but this was a lovely side. Creamy, crunch, a bit tangy, this definitely felt and tasted homemade. The bread crumbs must be toasted ahead of time because the macaroni (or penne in this case) and cheese wasn't dried out on top.

Next up are the baked beans:

Now, what makes these the "World's Greatest"? For one thing, these beans aren't vegetarian. There is actually pulled pork mixed in with the baked beans. The sauce itself is really tasty. It is your classic ketchup/brown sugar based sauce with notes of mustard, cumin, black pepper, and coriander. Tangy, sweet, and spicy. The trifecta of good southern fare. Do *I* think these are the world's best? Best would be a bit much, but they are damn good.

Finally, the star, the pulled pork sandwich:

One thing you will NOT go away from OCBC is hungry. This sandwich is literally loaded with luscious pulled pork. In fact, I normally have to eat about 1/3 of the meat with a fork in order for the sandwich to be insertible into my mouth. This pork was smoky, sweet, and unctious. The only criticism I had was there were several larges pieces of fat (not a little piece that would blend in with the rest of the meat). Once I picked those out, I added my sauce and was in pulled pork heaven. The bun was both traditional and perfect, being slightly buttered before adding the meat.

Finally, I mentioned earlier that OCBC is that rare conundrum of locally owned and chain-esque. The food definitely feels mom and pop. However, the store, the signage, and the merchandising rack that was next to my table made the entire affair feel like I was in a marketing blitz for TGI McChillabee's.

Everything is for sale, from the bottled sauces (which, sadly, do use High Fructose Corn Syrup) to the t-shirts and more. I realize that in this tight economy, you need to have a multi-pronged approach to generate revenue, but this just feels so out-of-place. Eh, no matter, it doesn't do anything to detract from the food.

I would definitely recommend checking out Old Carolina Barbecue Company if you are in the position of needing a good "Q" fix. I've also had the brisket, and while good, I don't think it is quite as good as the pulled pork. Be sure to go hungry though, because you get a LOT of food for the price.

Kitchen Challenge: Roasted Chicken with Asparagus Barley Risotto

2009-04-11T07:13:00.000-04:00

As I'm sure you, the gentle reader, have noticed by now, I tend to eat out at restaurants quite a lot. Lately I just haven't had much of a chance to cook dinner at home. So, when the opportunity of a day off came up, I decided to break this cycle and make myself dinner for the first time in a long time. When I cook for others, I tend to go all out. Sadly, when I cook for myself, it tends to be much simpler. It's not that I feel that I'm not worth it, but more that I just don't want to exert the effort to prep, cook, and clean up after myself. Okay, okay, it's really the cleaning part I don't like doing, and that aversion does often lead me to avoiding dishes that require anything more than one pot.

Well, NOT TODAY! I have the time and I'm going to use it to make one of my favorite dishes, a roasted chicken. I have come to discover over time that I could never be completely vegetarian. While I do love a wonderful vegetarian meal, the thought of never having bacon or the smelling of a roasting chicken again just saddens me. And in fact, the smell of a roasting chicken evokes many of the same wonderful sense memories that baking bread does. Not because these are precious sense memories from my youth (clearly you've never met my mother), but because these are smells I associate with being around good friends and sharing a wonderful meal.

I only started roasting whole chickens several years ago. It was an intimidating thought to roast the entire chicken. How do I season it? Do I brine it? How do I get flavor in it? How do I know if it is done? I consulted a few books and the Internet for some suggestions and over several test batches, I finally came up with my preferred way of roasting a chicken. Although I do have several variations on it, my basic method is to create a compound butter that is pushed into the space between the skin and the chicken breast. I then stuff the cavity with additional aromatics, truss the bird if I feel like it (and most times I don't) and then roast it at two temperatures: first at a high temperature to get the skin to render some of its fat to promote browning, and then second, at a lower temperature to allow the bird to cook all the way through.

So let's talk about that compound butter. I like to have a combination of flavorings and aromatics as well as at least one salty component since I don't season the breast meat with salt directly. This time around it will be capers. I've also used Nicoise and Kalamata olives as well.

First up, lemon zest:

And capers, chopped finely:

Note that if you are using capers packed in salt, do rinse the salt off the capers first. The above capers were simply brined, so I only needed to drain them before chopping them. For my herbaceous note, I decided on rosemary. I've also used oregano and marjoram in its place and they work quite well, too.

And finally, a healthy amount of finely minced garlic:

This is all then folded into a softened stick of UNSALTED butter. I tend to use unsalted butter mainly because it tends to be fresher and I can control the amount of salt that is added.

You then want to chill the butter just slightly, hard enough that you can pinch off pieces and roll them into football like shapes that are easily inserted under the skin of the chicken, but not so hard that the butter completely solidifies.

Here is the chicken (about a 4.5 pound bird) with the compound butter under the skin, aromatics in the cavity (lemon slices from the lemon we zested for the compound butter), and the probe thermometer inserted into the breast so I can monitor the cooking temperature. I also tend to put my chickens on disposable ridged broiler pans and then on a cookie sheet (for added stability).

This then goes into a 425 degree F oven (pre-heated, of course) for 25 minutes at which point I reduce the temperature to 350 degree F and cook the bird until the breast reaches 162-163 degrees F. It comes out of the oven, gets loosely covered with foil, and sits for 10 minutes before I even THINK of carving it. This lets the juices redistribute throughout the meat.

To accompany my roasted chicken, I decided to do a barley "risotto". Originally, I was going to do a nice quinoa dish, but when I saw at the grocery store that 12 oz. of quinoa was $8 and 16 oz. of medium hulled barley was $2, the idea was quickly changed. A barley "risotto" is simply using barley instead of Arborio rice and cooking it in the same manner: sweat the aromatics, coat the grains in the fat, add a flavorful liquid a little at a time until it is done, and stirring the risotto quite often. It is quite delicious, super nutritious (because of the barley), and inexpensive.

First, some of the aromatics: yellow onion, minced garlic, and fresh thyme.

Next up, asparagus and chicken stock (my flavorful liquid in this case):

Whatever the cooking directions on the box of barley tells you, you are definitely going to need 4-5 cups of liquid for each cup of barley you want to cook. In fact, I actually used up all of my stock and then added just hot water to finish the risotto. Also, know that with medium hulled barley, you're going to need a cooking time closer to 45 minutes rather than 20-25 for traditional Arborio rice. Don't worry, though, it's totally worth it. Also, because the stock I used is "less sodium" and not "no sodium", no salt went into the risotto until after all the stock had been used up. It turns out that I did need to add a little salt at the end to finish seasoning the dish. If you are using full-strength store-bought chicken broth, you'd more than likely not need to use any salt at all (and maybe even need to cut the broth with some water). The asparagus went in right at the end and needed perhaps 2-3 minutes to completely cook in the pot.

Timing this correctly, we now had a finished roasted chicken:

And a pot of asparagus barley risotto that was finished with two pats of butter and some freshly grated parmesan cheese:

And finally, after a wonderful afternoon of prepping and cooking, dinner was served:

This was delicious, if I do say so myself. And really, after all was said and done, there really was only one pot to clean (okay, two if you count the pot I used to heat the stock in) -- the risotto pot. The chicken was baked on a disposable liner, and the cookie sheet, completely clean, just got returned to it's spot in the drawer underneath the stove.

While this is normally the kind of meal I make for guests, I'm really happy that today I decided to treat myself like a guest. And the best part? I have another plate just like the one above waiting for me for later today! Leftovers are wonderful things, too.

Passover Seder Part II

2009-04-09T20:00:00.000-04:00

I think if I was ever in a position to have a last meal request, it would be one of Nancy and Bob's Seders.

In my previous post, I walked you through Nancy's Seder table, explaining little tidbits about what various items were. In the post you are reading right now, my intention is to talk about the food. After convening at the table, Nancy led us through the Haggadah, explaining the reason for Passover and for the Passover meal. During this process, you do eat small bites of symbolic foods (like the parsley dipped in salted water and the ceremonial matzoh spread with charosis and either onion or horseradish and eaten like a sandwich).

The ceremonial part of the Seder is as interesting to me as the wonderful food. Again, not being Jewish myself, I find it fascinating to share the heritage and traditions of others. Plus, invariably, Nancy always manages to assemble the greatest group of guests. Our conversations ranged from food to beer to technology to traveling in Europe. It really just ran the gamut.

This post will pick up after most of the ceremonial portion of the Seder has already concluded.

Unfortunately, Kathy Breychek, Nancy's source for farm fresh eggs is no longer in the egg-selling business. Fortunately, Nancy was able to source her eggs from another local farm (which I will post when I get it from her). Eggs are an important part of the meal as we eat them both hard-cooked and as an ingredient in many of the other dishes.

First up, a shot of the hard-steamed eggs with a bit of the salted water from the ceremony:

This was rich and creamy and tender; everything you'd want out of a good, farm-fresh egg. Nancy actually steams these instead of boiling them, a trick she learned from Alton Brown on the Food Network show Good Eats!

After the egg (which is eaten towards the end of the ceremony), it is generally open season on everything else on the table. On my plate I have gathered one of Nancy's gefilte fish balls (more oblong than round) towards the back left of the plate, some of the carrot that was cooked in the fish fumet, a bit of freshly grated and prepared horseradish (thanks to Bob and his garden) right in the front and center, and some matzoh with charosis on it on the plate to the back right.

The horseradish is generally eaten with the chilled gefilte fish. It is an amazing symbiotic relationship, each on its own delicious, but eaten together it takes you to a higher culinary destination. Because Nancy uses all fresh fish to make her gefilte fish, it has none of the sliminess or fishy odor or taste that you would think. It's actually very mild. Which makes the pairing of the fish with the horseradish seem like rather an odd combination, but it works magically.

As I said in my previous post, I could eat the charosis on matzoh all the time and be completely happy. It is a nicely sweetened (but not too sweet) blend of nuts, apples, wine, honey and spices and works well to offset the spicyness of the horseradish. Nancy grinds hers more finely than others do, so it does have sort of a spackle or mortar-like quality to it. I'd even go so far as to call it a "spread" in its consistency.

One thing you quickly learn about surviving a Seder meal is the concept of moderation. With food this good, your initial reaction is to fill up on gefilte fish, horseradish, matzoh and charosis. Pacing yourself is key as there are still three more courses to come.

Next up? The ever popular Jewish penicillin, also known as matzoh ball soup. Nancy's soup base is unique in that it is a cross between a soup (which has less gelatin/collagen in it) and a stock. Besides the chicken carcasses for her soup base, she also uses chicken feet. This is what gives the resulting soup base it's silky and unctuous quality to it.

Not to be outdone, the matzoh balls were smooth and silky and light. She was worried they weren't quite right, but I thought they were marvellous. Of course, there were more matzoh balls and soup for anyone who wanted it, but we were about to embark onto the third and most substantial course, so no one went beyond one bowl.

First up, the sweet kugel with apricots. It is baked in a casserole dish and contains matzoh meal, eggs, apricots, and the secret ingredient: Vietnames cinnamon from Heather's Heat & Flavor. The Vietnamese cinnamon gives it this amazing heady spicy quality that you just can't get with the cinnamon you find at the grocery store. Here is a shot of the entire casserole:

Honestly, this was probably enough kugel to feed about 15-20 people. We only managed to finish about 1/4 of it.

Next up is the savory potato kugel. Bob prefers to grate his potatoes very finely so that the resulting kugel has a more pudding-like texture. Other preparations I've seen grate the potato more coarsely, but this gives you more of a "hashed browns" effect. Bob also adds a bit of fresh chili pepper (again from his garden) to give the kugel a nice capricious spice.

And while I forgot to get a shot of the plate of brisket, here is a shot of my plate all loaded up:

Tender and sweet asparagus to the left sauteed in some olive oil and dressed with basic salt and pepper, potato kugel at the top, sweet kugel at the right, and the brisket and onions at the bottom of the plate.

Let's talk about the brisket for a moment. Prepared by Bob, this was so tender and moist that a knife wasn't even required to cut it. It simply melted in your mouth. Adding interest to the flavor, Bob used some more of his chili peppers from his garden. Not so much that it came across as "spicy", but more as an interesting back note. The onions were tender from hours of cooking as well. Truly an outstanding plate of food.

And if that wasn't enough food, there was one last course, a dessert course. Now traditionally there are various sweets that would normally show up on a Seder table such as macaroons and honey cake. This year one the guests prepared what is called a "sham torte". It is a baked meringue based dish that is most closely related to the ubiquitous pavlova from Down Under. The sweetened meringue base is covered with whipped cream, fresh berries, and a basil infused syrup.

And my individually sized portion:

It was lovely, a nice mix of sweet, fruit, crispy and creamy. And the best part of all? It was EXTREMELY light. Not so much in the sense of calories, but in the sense you could eat a piece at the end of a heavy meal without too much difficultly. Kind of that whole "There's always room for Jell-O" mantra.

Just as spontaneously as we had all come together, we dispersed just as quickly. Hugs and handshakes and many "Thank you's" were to be had and only a moment after that I was back out in the cold evening air under a full moon ready to relive the past 3 1/2 hours on my drive home.

I'm hoping Nancy updates her blog with posts about this years prep-work after she takes a much deserved rest. It truly is fascinating to see how at the same time this food can be so simple and yet the flavors be so complex. If you'd like to see what went into last year's Seder meal, here are some of her posts from last year.

A huge thank you to both Nancy and Bob for their generosity and hospitality. I very much look forward to repeating the experience again.

Passover Seder Part I

2009-04-09T00:27:00.000-04:00

For the past three years I have been amazingly fortunate to be invited to the house of my good friends, Nancy and Bob, for their Passover Seder. Not being Jewish myself (although there is that story about the Hanukkah plate to disprove this statement), I am always grateful to share in something that I am unfamiliar with. The fact that Nancy has uncompromising standards when it comes to the food ensures that these are meals that I know will be executed to their best versions. I figured that if I was going to try some of these foods that I am unfamiliar with (such as gefilte fish), I knew that Nancy's version would represent the best possible version. And not to give away any spoilers too soon, but Nancy's gefilte fish ROCKS.

Just as the Passover Seder is celebrated two nights here in America, I am going to split this post over two entries. This first post will deal mostly with the table setup, the foods that were on the table before we started the readings from the Haggadah, and just general ambiance. I will explain certain aspects of the table as we get to those photos. Tomorrow's posting will contain lots of food shots as we are actually eating all that wonderful food.

Fortunately, shortly after I arrived at Nancy and Bob's house, the natural lighting from the sun was perfect to start snapping photos. Ready? Here we go!

A shot of the table from each end facing the other:

The book that is resting on every place setting is the Haggadah. It is an instruction guide on how to properly perform the Seder. A Seder is an inclusive ceremony and everybody gets to participate at some point by asking questions, singing along, or reading from the text.

Here is a shot of the gefilte fish (in the middle of the table), the hard-steamed eggs (on the right), and the charoset/charosis (on the left).

Another shot from a different angle of the same items with the addition of the general matzoh for the meal (as opposed to the maztoh under the purple cloth in the first set of shots which is used as part of the ceremony).

A shot of the Haggadah that Nancy uses for her Seder. Note that there is commentary by none other than Elie Wiesel, author of both Night and Dawn, two tremendously important books about the Holocaust. The interesting thing about the Haggadah is that it is read backwards, from right to left, just as the Hebrew language is read.

Olive oil and balsamic vinegar on the table to be used as general condiments:

Next up the the ritual Seder plate that contains many elements of the ceremony. I don't know if this plate has a specific name, but it has been used at all three Seders I have now attended. From the midnight position moving clockwise we have horseradish root (bitter herb, Maror), roasted lamb shank, charoset/charosis (mortar), parsley, Onion (another bitter herb, Maror), and an egg (symbolizing the cycle of life, I believe).

Next up is a shot of the matzoh that is on the table for general consumption. There is also matzoh at the end of the table where Nancy was sitting that was used specifically for the ceremony portion of the Seder. The general matzoh is used when the feast begins. It is acceptable to eat the general matzoh whenever you wish during the meal portion. I love the way the natural light is shining through the window on this shot.

A close-up of the gefilte fish, carrots, and flat-leaf parsley (for garnish, of course). Nancy makes her gefilte fish from scratch using her mother's recipe. It is a combination of ground whitefish, ground pike, and ground carp (along with ground onions) and is cooked in a homemade fish fumet (that's fish stock for all you non-culinary types :P). In my next post you'll see how it's eaten.

The charosis/charoset is a ground mixture of nuts, honey, apples, wine, and spices that symbolically represents the mortar used to build the Temple. If you've never seen it before, it kind of looks like a liver pate spread, but I can assure you, it's definitely not. It's so delicious. I could make a meal out of charosis spread onto some matzoh.

Last, but certainly not least, is the ceremonial wine. Nancy likes to use Kosher for Passover blackberry wine instead of the concord grape as the ingredient list is much simpler (e.g. blackberries, sugar) and the taste is much better. The blackberry wine is used during the initial ceremony and it has a decent enough taste (although it is very sweet). Once we finish with the main part of the ceremony and start doing some serious eating, other bottles of not-so-Kosher-for-Passover wines made it to the table. This year we had a Malbec and a Rioja.

So there you have it! The table has been set, the guests have all arrived, and we are ready to begin with the wonderful part of this night. I hope that everyone out there who is celebrating Passover has a wonderful Seder and that those of my friends who are abroad right now can hopefully live a little vicariously through my posting. I'm thinking of you!

A Barberton Institution: Milich's Village Inn

2009-04-06T20:50:00.000-04:00

I know it seems as though I am suddenly writing about eating out in Barberton quite a bit lately, but I had quite a few photos queued up that I haven't had a chance to get to until now. It has been probably 20 years since I had a chance to eat at one of Barberton's famous chicken houses and I just happened to be passing through one Friday evening about a month ago and decided to give it another try. My memories from two decades ago remind me that this isn't a fancy place, but a family friendly, and hopefully a tasty one.

So I pulled into Milich's Village Inn (4444 South Cleveland-Massillon Road, Barberton, OH 44203, 330-825-4553) on a Friday evening around 7 pm to find the place was nearly packed. Fortunately, I had arrived as most people were finishing their meals and leaving, so a table opened up fairly quickly. Now I had come here with the intention of getting the fried chicken (their specialty). However, it being a Friday night, there was an all-you-can-eat fried haddock meal on the menu for under $10.

Considering the fact that they were infamous for their fried chicken, I decided for some reason to transfer this accolade to their fried fish. I ordered it with mashed potatoes and gravy, cole slaw, and hot sauce. If you'll remember from my post at the Chicken Manor Restaurant in North Canton, I first talked about hot sauce. Essentially it is rice cooked in a tomato sauce with peppers and onions and is, as the name suggests, spicy.

First the bread was brought to the table. Clearly nothing fancy ... two slices of white, two slices of rye.

Although my server warned me that my fish might take a while, it wasn't fairly long after I received my bread that I received my entree:

Cole slaw on the upper left, hot sauce on the upper right, and fish on the bottom. A shot of the mashed potatoes is next:

Now, before I talk about how the food tasted, I wanted to point out that the fish on the plate were not the nice, neat, whole filets, carefully breaded and deep-fried. Here is a slightly closer look at what showed up on my plate:

It was as if when they put my plate together, I just got the dregs that were at the bottom of the fryer baskets. The presentation was AWFUL. To top it off, when I asked for a side of tartar sauce, this is what I received:

PACKETS of tartar sauce?

Look. I'm not trying to be all froo-froo here and expect that I'm going to be served from a silver platter while asking the table next to me for the Grey Poupon. But honestly, the whole thing felt "cheap". I know that many a restaurant will take the LARGE bottle of tartar sauce and distribute it into smaller portioned cups for service and that the tartar sauce is the same whether it comes in a little cup or out of some packets. Similarly, had I ordered a side salad, I would have my choice of a variety of dressings, all of which come in individually wrapped packets. My point here is that it amazes me how restaurants will make it a point to talk about family-style or homemade or yada, yada, yada, but then skimp when it comes to other areas.

Anyway, back to the taste. The cole slaw was okay. It was a vinegar based slaw and had a nice balance between acid, sweet, and salt. The mashed potatoes and gravy were nicely seasoned. The hot sauce, in my opinion, was probably the best thing on the plate. It had a bolder flavor then the version from Chicken Manor and actually had a nice heat to it. The one thing on that plate that absolutely fell short was the fish. Because I had gotten a lot of end pieces, which are thinner than the middle of the filet, they were overcooked and dry. I did have a few mid-section filets and while they were moist, it struck me as just average.

When I went to pay at the counter, I noticed it was sitting directly in front of the kitchen. I asked my cashier if they knew what kind of fat they fried in. He replied, "Lard." This kind of surprised me as I didn't think anyone fried in lard anymore. I will say that I don't think the fish had any kind of off-flavoring from the cooking oil, so maybe that was because of the lard.

The final thing I'll say about Milich's is that while I was standing at the cash register looking into the kitchen behind it, the one thing that stood out to me was how dirty it was. Fried stuff in baskets, on the counters, on the floor. And I don't mean sitting in containers. Clearly, clean as you go is not a mantra that this kitchen adheres to. I'll admit that by the time I left, most of the dinner crowd had come and gone. However, a clean kitchen is a safer kitchen. Personally, I don't think I would've wanted to work in that kitchen.

More To Barberton Than Just Chicken Joints

2009-04-05T16:38:00.000-04:00

Barberton, OH has sort of traditionally been known for it's family style fried chicken restaurants. However, aimlessly meandering through the city, I discovered Angie's Italian Restaurant (located at 343 4th Street NW, Barberton, OH 44203, 330-745-6056) around 7 pm on Friday evening. Needless to say, the parking lot was packed. So, lacking a better option (and the fact that I was decidedly hungry by this point), I figured I would stop in and check it out.

Seating on Friday and Saturday night is first come, first serve, but surprisingly, it only took about ten minutes for a table to open up. I grabbed a take-out menu to study at the table while I waited for my server to show up.

They have a number of items on the menu, sandwiches, pastas, pizzas, and surprisingly much of it is homemade. After weighing my options, I decided to get the Italian Sampler, which consisted of rigatoni with homemade marinara sauce, a stuffed shell, and pork and ricotta filled cannelloni. The meal also came with a side and garlic bread. I choose the cottage cheese as my side. Because I could, I also got a side of the homemade meatballs.

Nothing really to write about here. It was typical cottage cheese. Although I will say the portion size was quite large.

Unfortunately my server had screwed up my order and brought out a plate of rigatoni and not the Italian Sampler I had ordered. She did bring my side order of meatballs, so I had her leave those and return to the kitchen to correct my order. Here are the meatballs:

These were quite good. Very juicy on the inside (sometimes you can dry them out if you simmer them too long in the sauce) and very flavorful. The tomato/meat sauce that accompanies the meatballs was also quite intense and delicious. By the way, if you order your pasta topped with the meat sauce, this is the sauce you get. I think I would've been quite happy with some spaghetti with this sauce and those meatballs on it.

An attempt at an picture of the inside of the meatball:

Finally, my Italian Sampler entree was brought to my table:

The stuffed shell is on the lower left side of the plate, the cannelloni is at the upper right side of the plate, and the rigatoni sort of occupies the rest of the plate. All is covered in their homemade marinara sauce.

First, a shot of the stuffed shell:

And a shot of the cannelloni:

Everything was pretty tasty, although as with most Italian places, there was plenty of water at the bottom of the bowl. Annoying, but not unforgivable. My favorite, I think, was the stuffed shell. The cheese filling had a very nice creamy and savory quality to it that I found most appealing. Second favorite was the cannelloni. The Italian sausage had just a little bit of capricious heat to it and the scent of fennel seed was unmistakable. The rigatoni was ... well, pretty much just rigatoni. Overall, I think I liked the meat sauce better than the marinara.

Finally, a shot of my leftovers sitting in the Styrofoam box. It's a little hard to tell in the picture, but the meat sauce is just such an intense dark red compared to the marinara. The leftover meatball is at the bottom right in the picture.

Not knowing when I would be getting back anytime soon, I decided to order a pizza to go. The menu declared that they make all of their own dough and sauce, so that is generally a good sign. When I also saw that they offered meatballs as a topping, my first thoughts turned to my good friend Nancy, who has talked in the past for her love of a good New York City pizza with sliced meatballs.

When I asked my server if the meatballs they use on their pizzas are the same as the ones I had for dinner, she replied that they were. Unfortunately, I didn't bother to confirm that the meatballs were sliced and placed on the pizza. What I got looked entirely different from what I was expecting.

The pizza box all ready to go home with me:

And finally a shot of the pie itself.

They crumbled the meatballs instead of slicing them. Needless to say I was kind of disappointed. But then again, I failed to ask the right questions. The pie was ... ok. Unfortunately, they kind of burnt the crust quite a bit. And burnt not in the good way. The ground meat was a tad bit dry, which detracted from the experience. I think had they actually sliced the meatballs, they might've survived the baking process with a little more integrity. When I manage to get back there, perhaps I'll have them do it properly.

Overall, I think it was an okay to better than average experience and definitely a place if you are trying to find a nice family restaurant that the kids will like, too. A few service and food guffaws aside, it was a pleasant experience.

Wonton Gourmet Strikes Again!

2009-04-04T21:43:00.000-04:00

Even though I've written about it once before, I cannot say enough good things about Wonton Gourmet located at the corner of East 32nd and Payne Avenue near downtown Cleveland. I've been there probably a half dozen times since the last time I wrote up anything about them and finally decided that today I would take my regular camera to snap some photos of our experience. Wonton Gourmet can be enjoyed by yourself, but it is really when eating out with a crowd that the meal really shines. It still amazes me that you can order so much incredibly interesting and amazing Chinese food and have the resulting bill still be so inexpensive.

One thing to know from the last post I made is that they've replaced all the wall placards (the specials written only in Chinese characters) with new placards that include a picture of the dish, the price, and an English translation underneath. So now there is absolutely NO reason to be scared of the menu anymore.

Our group of seven started out with some appetizers (which is what we normally do). First, the chive potstickers:

Filled with succulent shrimp and fresh chives, these to me are hands down the best examples of potstickers I have ever come across. The sweetness from the shrimp, the spiciness from the chives, the saltiness from the dipping sauce ... heavenly!

Next up is a crueller (literally a donut) that has been fried, then wrapped in a rice noodle and topped with a sweet/soy sauce. It is such a layered dish in terms of flavors and textures. I highly recommend it.

Our final appetizer was the ever popular and always delicious turnip cakes. While good on their own, when eaten with a bit of chili oil and chili flakes, it's like you've just turned up the flavor amplitude to eleven. Creamy, crispy, spicy, and savory all in one bite.

After the appetizers, we decided to try the shredded pork chow mien. This consisted of pork, mushrooms, sprouts, crispy fried thin noodles and a lovely clear "sauce" holding everything together. This was quite good, but didn't strike me as something I would order again, given the vast array of other wonderful things on the menu. I'm glad I tried it though. I'd recommend the pork ramen noodle soup in it's place (holy crap, it is so delicious and would make a perfect lunch).

Next, it was time for soup. Shrimp dumplings in broth, to be exact. The dumplings didn't have chives in them, so it didn't have that onion sharpness to it, but the dumplings were equally as tender and sweet as before. The soup provided a nice savory counterpoint to the dumplings. This could've definitely been a meal for one person, but it served all seven of us nicely as a soup course.

For our green course, we opted to listen to the suggestion of our waiter and get the Tung Choi with garlic. We've had this before and were happy to have it again. I tell you, if i had had access to vegetables like this growing up, I would've become a fan all things vegetative much sooner in life. They were very good. Crisp and garlicy (but not overly so).

Next up, a dish that I first had when I attended the Chinese New Year's feast that some very good friends arranged at the beginning of February, Hong Kong Style chicken. This is such a wonderful way to serve chicken. The meat is always moist and delicious. The skin is crispy. And it is served with an interesting dipping "salt" made up of MSG and ground pepper. I've tried it with and without the "salt" and prefer mine without. But, hey, to each his own, right?

For our final course, the owner had told us several visits ago that they were able to get these amazingly fresh and HUGE oysters from the west coast and they are grilled and served with a spicy black bean sauce. The first moment we tried them, we were hooked.

The oyster is incredibly large but still tender, the black bean sauce is salty, spicy, gingery, garlicy, and lots of other words ending in 'y'. Best eaten over a small bowl of rice. Yum. Yum. Yum.

And the most amazing part of this meal was that the bill for all seven of us was $80 before tip. Even with a nice tip, it came to a measly $14.30 per person. Holy crap! I also happened to notice that they are open until midnight almost every night, so there really is no reason not to get yourself out there and give this a try. You won't be disappointed.

And Sometimes You Can (Go Home)

2009-03-27T01:00:00.000-04:00

I've written about Marie's Restaurant located in Wadsworth, OH before and after my sort of disastrous meal at the Chicken Manor Restaurant in my last post, I decided that I needed an Italian food intervention to set things straight.

While my normal order is a medium pepperoni pizza, this time I decided to try something on the menu that I hadn't ordered before, the lasagna. One of Marie's strengths (besides their pizzas) has always been their marinara sauce and varieties of pastas. Add on to that fact that Marie's makes their lasagna daily from scratch and you can see what motivated me to order it.

First, my garden salad with side of French dressing:

Pretty standard stuff, and flavor profiles were in line with what I was expecting. The one thing I did notice were the cheese and croutons -- in a good way. The cheese was freshly grated and didn't overwhelm the salad and the croutons, which I have no doubt in my mind were not homemade, were actually decent. Flavorful without being overly salty and processed.

Next up is the lasagna. As with most places, you'll notice two things about the lasagna. The portion is huge, and it's largely invisible underneath a mountain of sauce:

This was a nicely constructed lasagna. However, the lasagna itself was not the star ... the *sauce* was the star. This was a marinara sauce that comes across as a meat sauce. The "meatiness" in the dish was amazing. The depth of tomato flavor that they developed when making the sauce just screams "umami". It's the same sauce that is used on their pizzas and I am beginning to realize why their pizzas are also SO good. I only ate about half of the lasagna and took the rest home for a second meal.

Finally, a shot of some proper garlic breadsticks and more of that delicious marinara sauce, this time used as a dipping sauce:

The garlic breadsicks were tasty and better than average, but still not a standout. In other words, the breadsticks alone are not enough to draw me into Marie's. Then again, being paired with more of that stellar marinara sauce is enough to elevate even the most mediocre of dishes.

Once again I have to heartily recommend Marie's for the aficionado of anything having to do with "red sauce" Italian places. It's nice to know that I can go home (literally) and find an excellent plate of pasta.

Sometimes You Can't Go Home

2009-03-26T01:00:00.000-04:00

I had blogged about an experience at the Chicken Manor Family Restaurant prior to this. At the time I had praised the restaurant for a very good fish dinner with some unusual, but tasty side dishes. So it was with little trepidation that I returned several Fridays ago to again experience the tasty food. Unfortunately, this time I didn't get the cute waiter I had last time. That should've been my tip-off that things were going to be amiss.

Even though I did go on a Friday night, I decided to try something else on the menu. Having not had any of their pasta dishes, I decided to go with the chicken parmesan. This came with a garlic breadstick and a garden salad. Here is my salad with a side of French dressing:

Pretty standard house garden salad. The surprising addition was a little bit of pickled beets. I daresay I may actually have started becoming fond of the much-maligned little suckers. I don't think I could sit down and eat an entire can, but used sparingly, it wasn't bad at all. The rest of the salad was pretty standard, nothing special.

Next came the chicken parmesan:

A couple of things to note. First, as usual, the pasta had a layer of cooking water underneath it, but not as bad as some other versions that I've had. Second, the chicken breast in question was grilled, not breaded and fried. I tried the sauce first, and while it was definitely a marinara, it had sort of an oddish flavor to it that I couldn't quite put my hand on. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't great either. It had a "doctored sauce" kind of flavor to it that wasn't intensely tomato-y. The harder thing to forgive was the chicken itself. The breast was all of one thickness and when I tried the chicken, it had that intense chemical flavor profile that a Wendy's chicken breast sandwich has (the non-fried version). It was quite off-putting.

Finally, there was the garlic breadstick:

I don't think this breadstick ever saw even a single clove of actual garlic in its entire life. It had an awful metallic aftertaste to it that really played havoc with my taste buds. Between this and the nasty chicken breast, I wondered how a place that had done so much right before could be this completely off the mark on a different dish.

Unfortunately, I never had a chance to confirm with my server that the chicken was pre-processed instead of fresh; they were completely slammed at the time. If I go back (and I will probably try it once more before passing final judgment), I will definitely ask then. I suspect they get the breasts 24 to a box, pre-processed and marinating in something that is just nasty.

Hungarian Nirvana

2009-03-25T04:00:00.000-04:00

It may seem like the posts are coming fast and furious suddenly, but I assure you, the previous two posts and the next four or five are not being posted in real time. I've sort of gotten a backlog of photos from various gustatory experiences over the last month, but just haven't had time to put much up on the blog.

That being said, I had the somewhat rare opportunity to visit a local Barberton eatery called Al's Corner Restaurant located at the corner of 4th and Tuscawaras Streets (just south of Lake Anna). What makes it rare, you ask? They are only open for lunch and only from 11 am - 2 pm. Unfortunately, considering I am usually working in either Cleveland or Canton during the day, that doesn't give me a whole lot of time to make a trip to Barberton in the middle of the day. Fortunately, I finally had the chance to do so and I have to say, it was worth the wait.

Al's Restaurant is unique in that when you walk in, you immediately get in line. The menu is fairly limited, but fairly straightforward. You basically make your way to the front of the line, place your order which is served from the hot line underneath the glass case, pay for your meal and then sit at either a table or a very long counter (U-shaped, of course). There is a soda fountain in the back of the restaurant where you get your own refills and a refrigerated case where the bottled waters are kept.

You can order any of the lunch items for $7.00 (this includes a slice of bread and your choice of beverage), any number of sides, or individual items for prices ranging from $2.00 - $6.00. They also have a sampler for $8.50, which gives you a taste of just about everything on the menu. Being as this was my first and probably only time for the foreseeable future, I decided on going with the sampler platter:

I thought I had taken more than just this one photo, but unfortunately, I was having some unexpected issues with my camera and by the time I realized that the other photos had been deleted, unfortunately, I had already dug into the dish.

Starting at 12:00 and moving clockwise, we have:

1) Piece of white bread that comes with the meal
2) Spaeztle-like dumplings mixed in with sauteed cabbage and onions
3) Sauerkraut and hot Slovenian sausage
4) Potato and Cheese pierogi
5) Cabbage roll

and right dead center in the middle is the chicken paprikash with dumplings.

Honestly, the only thing that didn't agree with me was the sauerkraut ... not too salty, but a bit too acidic for my taste. Everything else was just lovely, with the winner going to the chicken paprikash. It was nice and creamy with just a little bit of heat from the paprika. The chicken leg I was served was hot and juicy and tender. The only off thing about the paprikash was the dumplings. They were slightly more chewy than I would have expected. Then again, the spaetzle were lovely, so perhaps that was the way they were supposed to be. I'm willing to acknowledge that.

The pierogi was pretty good, although it could've used more cheese. The cabbage roll was quite lovely, being both firm enough to cut with a fork, and still tender and moist enough to satisfy my taste. The one interesting thing to note about the cabbage roll was that the ground meat inside the roll was actually pink. Now, normally that raises alarm bells, but after taking a bite, I can assure you that it was properly cooked. There may be some kind of chemical reaction going on here that I am unaware of that makes it pink, even though it is fully cooked. Either way, it was delicious.

Honestly, the only thing I didn't even bother to try on the plate was the slice of white bread. It just seemed kind of out of place, if you ask me.

I look forward to returning. So should you.

A haircut, dinner, and lunch the next day

2009-03-24T16:07:00.000-04:00

I had a couple of extra photos lying around, so I figured I'd just post them in their own entry. I had stopped at my friend Sherri's hair salon, Frizz, and decided to have dinner afterwards at On Tap, just a few doors down in the same plaza. They've added shells and cheese as a new side item. Although their sandwiches are generally decent, their sides need a lot of work. I decided on going with the Buffalo Chicken sandwich with a side of shells and cheese.

Here is a photo of the meal:

The pickled jalapenos I generally discard as they don't really add anything relevant to the dish. I also always ask for the "hot" wing sauce to be used to coat the chicken instead of the regular sauce. The positives? Generally the chicken is moist and the hot sauce is hot enough to give it a nice kick. The blue cheese dressing actually contains real blue cheese. The shells and cheese were definitely a step up from their other sides and will probably be my choice for the future. The negatives? Eh, for $5, you can't complain too loudly, but I'm surprised the dish containing the shells and cheese didn't have the word "Kraft" stamped on it someplace. Just because it was better than their normal side dishes doesn't mean it was really that much better than mediocre.

The next day I went back to Nicole's (which I posted about earlier) for lunch and had a double cheeseburger with a side of their homemade macaroni and cheese.

I had tried their mac and cheese at one other point and found that it had a sort of acidic quality to it, so I never ordered it again. Not being fully satisfied by the previous night's shells and cheese, I decided to give it another try and was suitably rewarded. I really do enjoy their burgers (definitely get the double, it is juicier). Now I have a side dish I can get into as well.

Thai Gourmet vs. Pataya: Battle of the Asian Cuisines

2009-03-24T15:54:00.000-04:00

Thai Gourmet, located at 3732 Darrow Road in Stow, OH (phone is 330-688-0880, no website) has been a local go-to place if I don't want to drive all the way to Cleveland (although I do think Cleveland does have better Thai restaurants). Out of the blue, I decided to pop in on a Saturday evening around 6 PM. It was definitely busy, although they did have a table available. It had "ok" lighting, but not optimal, so the pictures will appear a bit dark.

First, a shot of the condiments that are on the table. Notice the dried chili in the container in the front; that will be important later on in the meal.

I decided to do soup, an appetizer, and an entree. For my appetizer, I decided on doing the Thai Dumplings. Here is a photo of the dumplings:

This was FANTASTIC! A nice pork and shrimp dumpling in a soft wonton skin, cooked until still tender. It was served in a nice broth that had all the elements of Thai style cooking: sweet, savory, umami, and spicy. Topping the dumplings was scallions and fried shallots, which provided a nice textual contrast. I would order this again in a heartbeat.

Next came the Tom Yum Gai (chicken instead of shrimp).

This had a sort of odd "off" flavor. It almost tasted like it had too much of an acidic component to it. The ingredients were cooked properly (nothing was rubbery or tough), but the balance just wasn't there. This was a dish that I didn't finish and didn't take home with me.

Finally, even though it isn't Thai, I saw that the restaurant offered Ma Po Tofu. Although the version on the menu is vegetarian, I asked if they could add some ground pork to it and the waitress indicated that they could. The menu declared that the dish came out "spicy", but I know better and asked my waitress what my spice level options were. She indicated that the hottest they could make it was "Thai spicy". When I asked if "Thai spicy" was American Thai Spicy or Thai Thai Spicy, she indicated that it was the latter. So I ordered my dish "Thai Spicy", not really sure what to expect.

Here is what came out from the kitchen:

My heart dropped almost immediately. If you notice, there are no red flecks at all in the dish. No red flecks means no chilies. Tasting the dish confirmed my worst fear. Either the cook has absolutely no idea what "Thai Spicy" is supposed to actually taste like, or I got the "American" Thai Spicy. *Sigh*

So, I ended up adding about 6 spoonfuls of the crushed chili peppers that were sitting on the table. This helped, but it still wasn't the same thing as cooking with the chili during the dish's preparation. Flavorwise, the dish was fine, but clearly once again, my hope for a properly spiced dish was dashed. I did take the rest of the dish home and had it for lunch the next day.

Several days later, I ended up eating dinner at a Canton restaurant I frequent regularly, Pa Ta Ya (1122 30th Street NW, Canton, OH 44709, no website). It had been closed for a while and when I returned, they had a new menu. The thing I like about this restaurant is that it is one of the few places in Canton that I can get Chinese (admittedly, American Chinese), Thai, and Vietnamese. While their Pho is not the best I've ever had, at least I can get it on a fairly regular basis if I want it.

Seeing Thai Dumplings on the menu brought back the memory of the Thai Dumplings I had at Thai Gourmet several days earlier. So I decided to do a taste comparison between the two. Here is the dish:

While this dish had several of the same elements as the one I experienced at the other restaurant, it was not nearly as harmonious (or tasty). There was absolutely ZERO heat at all. I'm not looking to be blown away with chili heat, but this had none at all. This meant that the sweetness in the sauce was not counterbalanced in any way.

Another concern that I have, and this is not a new concern, is that the knife skills of the chef at Pa Ta Ya is just not very consistent. In the picture above, you'll notice that the knifework on the cucumbers is just not very even. While this doesn't bother me in a dish such as the dumplings, it is often a big factor in other dishes, like the Pho:

Pa Ta Ya's Pho is a decent bowl, with nice tender meat and a nice umami broth. I always add hoisin sauce and sriracha to give it a bit of sweetness and garlic-y heat. This restaurant is unusual in that they bring you out a side of both sauces instead of having the condiments on the table. While I usually only add a little bit of hoisin, I like quite a bit of sriracha and no matter how many times I go back and order the Pho, I always have to ask for extra. Oh bother.

And here is the same Pho, with an onion wedge that has not been properly prepped.

Part of the problem with such huge pieces of onion is that they aren't cooked through in their version. While I love onions, I just can't really do them raw anymore, so I end up having to pick them out.

Just so Thai Gourmet isn't the only one with a chili level issue, the one thing that drives me up the wall at Pa Ta Ya (I've eaten there quite a bit for lunch), is their inconsistency with spicing the dishes. I've tried working with several of the servers there (including the daughter of the owner) to try and understand how I need to order a dish if I want it spiced to the level I require and it is still a hit or miss proposition. If the husband owner is cooking and he sees me, I will generally get it at the spice level I ask for. With the wife owner cooking? Forget it.

Overall, I think I'd have to give the edge to Thai Gourmet. Even though they have no idea what "Thai Spicy" is, at least their dishes were more refined and better balanced.

True BBQ in Medina?

2009-03-07T21:06:00.000-05:00

Based on a posting on the Cleveland Food and Wine Forum earlier this week, I decided to spend my Saturday afternoon checking out what was purported to be a true BBQ restaurant in Medina, OH. Bullies Real BBQ is a locally owned restaurant that pulls on BBQ traditions from the various regions throughout the country. It is located at 4055 Pearl Road, Medina, OH 44256 and can be reached at 330-725-4227. No website is available at the moment.

Honestly, what I had in my mind's eye when I was picturing the place was some type of old, broken down storefront (aka dive) that had just amazing food. When I arrived at my destination, I immediately became concerned. The storefront had an eerie similarity to a Columbus/Dayton chain called Tumbleweed:

Notice that other than the name itself, the only other two words on the sign are "Burgers" and "Wings". Hmmm ...

But, having driven for half an hour to get here, I wasn't about to abandon my quest. Upon walking inside, it looked extremely "chain-y". It looked like a cross between a sports bar and a Lone Star Steakhouse. There were flatscreen TV's plastered in almost every corner imaginable and nothing but sports on those TV's. The hostess sat me at a table where I had a nice view of the kitchen. Still unsure of what I was getting myself into, I started looking at the menus that were on the table. Bad mistake.

The dessert menu started with the words "Big Lou's Desserts". And looking at the desserts listed, it read like a who's who from an Olive Garden dessert menu. Or Chili's. Or Applebee's. You get the point. The regular menu was somewhat better, but the whole experience continued to feel very "chain-y". It wasn't until the waitress finally approached me and I started asking questions that I finally began to calm down a bit.

She explained that they do all the meats on premises, smoking them between 12 and 24 hours. She walked through the sauces on the table (which I will show you next) and gave me a few minutes to look over the menu. Many of the items come as either a "Sandwich" or a "Dinner". The difference, I found out after asking, is that the sandwiches come with fresh cut fries and cole slaw. The dinners come with more meat and a side of cornbread (along with said fries and cole slaw). The thing is, that the price difference between the two was fairly substantial. For instance, the pulled pork "sandwich" was $6.99 and the "dinner" was $11.99. For a little bit more meat and a side of cornbread, it didn't seem like a good deal to me.

So, I ultimately ordered the pulled pork sandwich and got a side of macaroni and cheese to go along with it. After my waitress left, I set about exploring the sauce box. First, a shot of side #1:

From left to right are the mild BBQ sauce, the sweet BBQ sauce, and the spicy BBQ sauce. Fortunately, I had a knife so I put a little dab of each one to try it out. The mild, ironically, had dried rosemary in it. Not so much that it was the predominant flavor, but there was a mild undercurrent of it (plus you could see it -- even in the photo above). The sweet wasn't all that sweet, but had absolutely no hint of traditional BBQ flavor base ... molasses or tomatoes. Actually, it almost looked "marmalade-ish" in it's color. The spicy one in the red bottle was a nice sauce, with a heat that simmered in the background. It wasn't too spicy (although I kind of wish it kind of was).

Flipping the sauce container around, you can see the remaining two sauces:

To the left is ketchup and to the right is a vinegar based sauce. There were really no surprises as to what each tasted like, so I won't go into any depth here.

Finally, my sandwich platter arrived:

A shot of my sandwich without it's crown:

The cole slaw on top of the pulled pork was a vinegar based slaw as opposed to the slaw in the little plastic cups that came with the platter. I'm not sure if that was what added to the overall juiciness of the pulled pork, but between the slaw, the spicy BBQ sauce and the pulled pork, it was a very good sandwich. Spicy, sweet, juicy, and crunchy. The fries were not bad, probably the best example of fresh cut fries I've had so far, but they inevitably suffered from the same problem as others: some were nice and crispy, others, limp and oily. The cole slaw in the little cups was a dairy based cole slaw. The original post on the Food and Wine forum said to pay particular attention to the cole slaw, but I honestly found it to be a little boring.

Finally, a little bit on my side dish of macaroni and cheese. First, a picture:

I love a good mac and cheese, and sadly, while creamy and tender, this one was just sort of flat and one note. It was as if they had used a really mild cheese with no character at all. While this might appeal to the kiddies, it definitely didn't appeal to my adult sensibilities.

Overall, I thought the meal was pretty good with the pulled pork being the breakout star of the meal. I don't know if I would travel that far by myself again just to get a meal, but if I were making suggestions or tagging along with a group already content on eating there, I would certainly not have a problem returning.

Lee's Korean ... For Dinner!

2009-03-07T21:05:00.001-05:00

After I found out that I could no longer get my Korean fix during the days anymore at Lee's Korean BBQ, I decided to make a concerted effort to get there during a weeknight. So, after working a particularly long day, I decided to make the trip to Massillon and get my Korean groove on.

As always, the place was dead. I really have no clue as to how this place survives -- even with the merger to Colucci's. I started out with the Mandoo soup for my appetizer. Fluffy beef dumplings in a light broth with ginger, scallions, carrots, and eggs. This was a wonderful way to start out the meal:

Next up, my banchan and white rice arrived. These come automatically with each meal. In the banchan, you have pressed tofu, kimchi, cucumber, and what I believe to be some type of potato dish (left to right, front to back).

And a super awesome shot of my rice:

Instead of going with my normal order of Bi Bim Bap, I decided to go out on a limb and order something different. Looking over the menu, I decided to go with the O-Sam-Bulgogi, which is a mixture of pork and squid in a spicy chili sauce with onions and sesame seeds:

The sauce was quite good, but not particularly spicy, so I asked my server for an extra dish of gozhujaan, or spicy Korean chili paste. Overall, the flavor was spectacular. About 80% of the pork was nice and tender. 20%, not so much. I think it was more of the cut of pork than anything else. Unfortunately, while there were nice large pieces of squid in the dish, it was woefully overcooked and tough. So sad.

I only learned later on after the meal was over and I was settling the check with my waitress that they can make it much more spicy than it came out (and I asked for it spicy). So, the next time I go back, I may give this one another shot and get it "Korean spicy". Well, with my luck at getting food served at authentic spicy levels, hopefully it will come out correctly and not "American spicy".

Crooked River Cafe and the Sauce of Death

2009-03-02T21:06:00.001-05:00

I decided to stop at a local mom and pop place tonight for dinner, the Crooked River Grill. I've had some good meals there in the past, but it had been a while and I happened to be in the area. It's a quaint little place that seats around 45-50 people. Upon arriving at my table, I began looking at the paper mat that was sitting in front of me. I liked what it said:

When Jo Jo my server arrived at my table, I began asking questions about what was made in house. I fancied a cup of soup to start with. When I asked about the chili (my first choice), she shook her head and said that all of the soups were homemade except the chili. It, in fact, came from Whitey's. So, I decided to go with a cup of the special soup du jour, the Fiesta Chicken soup.

It was quite well-balanced and tasty. You could even pass this off as a white chili. The cumin and chili powder taste was bold but not too strong. The soup was composed of corn, roasted red pepper, shredded chicken, onion, celery, and both black and navy beans. It was very good and had a nice fresh flavor to it.

What caught my eye on the menu was the pulled pork sandwich. When I asked about it, I was excited to learn that both the pulled pork and the BBQ sauce were both made on the premises. I eagerly ordered my sandwich with their spicier BBQ sauce and upgraded from the potato chips to the fresh cut fries.

Here is the platter as it came out

And a close-up of the sandwich itself. Note that the bun was a very nice ciabatta roll:

The pork was nice and juicy. It was tender. It was seasoned properly. The BBQ sauce wasn't all that spicy and had a heavy molasses flavor to it. I guess I prefer my sauces to be a bit more acidic and less gloopy than what they served above. As with most fresh cut fries, the ones on top of the heap were crispy and not greasy. As you got to the bottom, however, it was obvious where all the extra oil was. Not that great.

The one thing that I will comment on additionally is the bun. Now as a ciabatta roll, it was quite good. It head a nice crispy exterior with a nice soft crumb on the inside. The problem was that because it was so hard to bite through the crust, the contents of the sandwich basically squished out when I took my first bite. I think a softer roll is in order here.

My waitress brought around a tray of desserts for me to look at, but sadly, not a single thing was made in house. As I was already kind of full, I just declined and asked for the check. When she finally brought the check, I asked her about the "spicy BBQ" sauce. She indicated that the sauce they mix directly with the pork was the mild and then they put the spicy BBQ sauce on my sandwich (the thick gloopy maroon stuff in the picture above). When I mentioned that the "spicy" wasn't really very spicy, she said they did have one level higher, but she almost never recommended it because it made people cry.

When I asked if I could get a small taste from the kitchen, she agreed. I heard her walk back and ask the cook for a small sample of the "XXX sauce". This is what she brought to my table:

The minute I put my nose to it, I could detect the same odor as Dave's Ultimate Insanity Sauce. You know, the kind of sauce where not only does it include habenero peppers in it, but they also fortify it with pure capsaicin. It has almost this smoky smell to it. Carefully, I put just a dab on the end of my spoon and tried it. The first flavor that I detected was the spicy BBQ sauce that came on my sandwich. Almost immediately after that I could taste the flavor profile of Dave's (or something equivalent to it). Within seconds, my entire mouth was on fire. Now I know why she never recommended it to customers. I wouldn't either. When I asked, she confirmed that they take the spicy BBQ sauce and "do stuff to it." She seemed to think they added jalapenos to it. I'm thinking probably not.

Overall, I'd rate this place fair to midland. Certainly better than those places that use nothing but Sysco products, but not a star pupil either.

Cincinnati Trip, Part II

2009-02-22T20:33:00.000-05:00

After our uneventful stay at a very nice Extended Stay America hotel, my traveling companion and I made our way over to the house of the theater friends who had starred in the production of 1776 we saw last night. Brunch was in order and our hostess was to regale us with her mother's world famous French Toast. Err, pancakes. Err, French Toast. Let me explain.

Normally French Toast is made by soaking day old slices of bread in a custard and then grilled in butter. Pancakes are a mixture of flour, baking soda (or powder), milk, eggs, oil, salt and a little sugar that are griddled in butter. Fundamental difference, no? Our hostess's mother discovered back in her college days that if she combined the methods, you get something totally new. She made a pancake batter with some cinnamon and nutmeg and then dipped slices of bread into the batter and griddled them like French toast. What you end up with is something totally unique, a hybrid that is better than the sum of the parts.

We started with some lovely mimosas while the bacon was being griddled. Once all of the components were ready, we sat down to a feast. Beside the fabulous French Pancakes, we had some lovely crispy bacon (my favorite kind) and scrambled eggs with peppers and mushrooms. A shot of my plate sans syrup:

This was so yummy, I had to have a couple extra strips of that crispy bacon and several more slices of the French Pancakes. We hated to say good-bye, but everyone seemed to have other commitments today that we needed to fulfill, so we were off. But we'll be back soon.

Cincinnati Trip, Part I

2009-02-22T01:46:00.000-05:00

Some very good friends from Cincinnati were involved in a community theater production of 1776 that was wrapping up this weekend. A friend and I decided to come down to Cincinnati to help them close out the show. So today, after my friend got off of work, we headed down good 'ol I-71 and managed to make very good time despite Mother Nature's attempt at thwarting our effect by placing a storm consisting of snow and freezing rain in our path. We persevered.

And we arrived in enough time to stop for dinner before the show. Nothing fancy, but we decided on a definite Cincy classic: Skyline Chili. Now I know there are probably better representations of this classic Cincinnati dish than this chain, but unfortunately, I hadn't had time to do my homework ahead of time and by the time we got here, it was the closest thing that Google maps showed us.

My friend decided to go with the 5 way, which consists of spaghetti, chili, cheese, onions, and beans. I went for the classic 3 way, spaghetti, chili and cheese. Not surprisingly, the 3 way and the 5 way look almost identical because they are both covered in a mound of shredded cheese. Here is my 3 way:

This was the large. In retrospect, I probably should've ordered the regular sized plate as I didn't finish this. Even though we do have a Skyline Chili chain up in the Cleveland/Akron area, I don't really eat here, ever. I just don't care for this version very much. However, being in Cincinnati, I figured, "Why not?" The chili had flavors of cinnamon, clove, and various other fairly strongly flavored spices. It's honestly not something I would just sit down and eat an entire bowl. This is also served with a side of oyster crackers. The chili is so spiced (not spicy, spiced) that several times throughout the meal, I had to eat a few oyster crackers just to cleanse my palate a bit.

I guess this is one of those things that I will order here in Cincinnati, but don't really find it something that I would seek out if I were anyplace else. The one thing that both myself and my traveling companion noted was that by the time we got to the end of our entrees, we both really craved something sweet.

When we asked our server what dessert options were available to us, she pointed us to a cooler full of pre-made frozen desserts, still in their wrappers. She did add that the owner made chocolate chip cookies from scratch every day and they had baklava. Now, never in my wildest dreams did I ever imagine I would eat dinner at a Skyline Chili and hear that they had baklava for dessert. My friend rightfully pointed out that that Skyline Chili was actually started in the late 1940's by a Greek couple.

So, with a bit of hesitation (and needing something sweet to cut all those spices), we ordered a cookie:

and a baklava:

Honestly, the cookie was ok. It wasn't super fresh, but considering we were ordering from a Skyline Chili, it was ok. The baklava had nice crispy layers of phyllo. My friend felt it didn't have enough honey flavor to it. I actually liked the subdued sweetness. My complaint was there wasn't enough flavor from the nuts. Overall, it was a surprise considering where I purchased it. The waitress did admit that the owner bought the baklava from a local bakery and that they didn't make it in house. Had they made it in house, I would've been fairly impressed.

Overall, I'm glad I got to sample a staple of the Cincinnati food dining scene. However, my choice to only experience this one whenever I am in Cincinnati remains firm in conviction. I know there are some better more local places to experience this delicacy. Next time I come down, I plan on finding some of those spots.

I'm very much looking forward to the best French Toast ever tomorrow morning with my friends from the show! More pictures to come.

The Sub Station: A Has Been?

2009-02-15T22:13:00.000-05:00

As a rule, I will generally favor local mom-and-pop style restaurants over a chain any day. In fact, if I have the option, I will generally seek them out. It isn't necessarily because the food is always better in these places, but because they will generally offer the diner something unique that can only be found in that restaurant or in that geographical area.

Like Marie's pizza, another longtime favorite of mine has been The Sub Station, located at 126 Main St, Wadsworth, OH 44281. In fact, I've been going here since I first moved to Wadsworth back in 1986. I don't get to eat there as often as I did back in high school, but every now and again when I am in Wadsworth and in need of a submarine sandwich, this is where I turn. And even though it is more expensive than say, Subway, I always justified this by telling myself that I would rather spend a little more on a local place that put uniqueness and quality over quantity.

I experimented with the menu quite a bit throughout high school and by the time I had graduated back in 1990 (no comments please), I had settled on what would become my standard order. First, a shot of the counter area that has changed very little since the mid-1980's.

The ordering process has also changed little from what I first encountered: place your order, pay the bill, grab the "call number" tab off the bottom of the order slip and wait for your number to be called.

Here is a shot of what I normally order ...

Half a turkey club, an order of onion rings, and a large root beer from the soda fountain and not from the can. This is one of the few times I will knowingly order a beverage with high fructose corn syrup. Although if they offered something in a bottle or can that used sugar instead of HFCS, I would order that instead. It just doesn't feel the same without a root beer from the fountain.

The turkey club comes with turkey, mayo, bacon, lettuce and tomato. The tomato is not so good this time of year (no surprises there).

What did surprise me this time (and maybe I just haven't been paying enough attention over the last couple of years) is that the bacon was pre-cooked and then warmed for service. Now I don't know if it was purchased pre-cooked or they cooked off a batch that morning for service later. Honestly I don't really care. It detracts from the original experience. I don't know if this was a cost cutting move or a labor cutting move, but unfortunately, it's the start down a slippery slope. Otherwise, the experience now was the same as I remember from high school.

I also want to say something about the cost. Since I've been coming here for over 20 years, clearly I expect the prices to go along with the economy. But my half sandwich, order of onion rings, and large root beer finally exceeded the $10 mark (no tipping required here). While that doesn't necessarily bother me from a cost perspective, I have to ask myself whether I am willing to pay nearly $6 for a half-sandwich that has pre-cooked bacon on it.

Nostalgia is a powerful force. The funny thing is that I would pay more for the real thing. And I know it's a delicate balance right now with the economy the way that it is, but I can only say that if they change the taste too much, if they finally reach a point where they violate the spirit of the original, I have no problem cutting my losses and just living with my memories.