Under the Table

Pies & El Camino

Pies Gourmet Pizza Bistro is restless chef Bill Fugitt’s latest destination. It’s located in the unglamorous suburb of Reynoldsburg —  which means, as a good 20 to 25 minute cruise from my Clintonville house, it is a destination. So is it worth the drive? You bet. 

On the left is Pie’s creative take on the Bloody Mary. Not so bloody, huh? That’s because muddled heirlooms stand in for tomato juice. This makes it a much lighter cocktail with blasts of spice and citrus arousing garden-y garnishes such as that fresh dill sprig and those bobbing ’maters. 

To the right is the almost pie-like (not pizza pie, from whence this place gets its name, but dessert-y pie) Peach Sangria with lotsa flavor from cinnamon and cantaloupe.

In the background are the terrific free macadamia nuts they ply you with in the upstairs bar — my preferred place to dine here. 

Up close and personal with that not-so-bloody cocktail

These meaty charred dates were popular and earned raves from every table near me (they were recommended by the waiters, who, BTW, would eagerly engage in conversation with diners over menu items and ingredient sourcing)   

The Brussels sprouts were also widely lauded — check out their enticing color. 

Below is the veggie pizza, which I liked fine, meaning I think Pie’s other stuff is actually more interesting 

El Camino Inn was my other story this week. It’s another Corbin project, and like other members in that restaurant family (The Rossi, Club 185, Little Palace), it’s built for fun.

EC’s decent-enough tacos son muy barato (only $2!) and buddy up great w/the place’s cervezas

I’m a sucker for fried masa, and this gordita (L) and tostada (R) werepretty fun to munch on (especially the gordita) and also stoopid cheap ($3 apiece — you cannot go wrong w/ that price)

If you’re really hungry, go for the mess-tastic Cubano torta (note: Cubano is shorthand for “throw everything in there!”) which, weighing in at $8, is the most expensive thing on the menu 

This dark (obscura) beer is from a newer Mexican brewery and its one you don’t run into often. As I recall (I drank it during that crazy 4th of July weekend) it had dark chocolate and even coffee aspects to it.

A couple days in the life of G.A. and wife

Bored last week, we found ourselves shopping for bargains at the amusingly downscale Marc’s, where smart consumers can score big on great deals.

In search of yet more econo-wise fun in the same strip mall, we decided our next diversion should include things that were swallow-able; cue to this meal-in-itself appetizer platter.

This assemblage of mostly fried stuff kicked off a breezy and take-it-easy evening of eating cheaply, having drinks, and casually catching some sports outside on an early spring night. We ordered the above starter at…

…Banh Thai Bistro, which has gotta be one of the oddest eateries in the area. Wild looking  inside (even borderline psychedelic), it’s also got a wacky little patio where you can leisurely sip Singha beers while your baseball team does a stink-up job on convenient out-of-doors TVs. Oh yeah, and you can eat other decent Thai food out there, like the above larb, which tasted good even if the ground chicken meat was a bit overcooked.

Now cut to a scene Downtown.

“You keep your wife’s name out of this, Ashby!” is surely timeless and sage advice. However, since I’m not Ashby, it doesn’t pertain to me and this post. 

This is one of many classic New Yorker-style cartoons (BTW: I’ve been reading and loving that magazine since I was in junior high school) penned by James Thurber, whose name has been appropriated by the restaurant in which it hangs inside of the Great Southern Westin hotel (where a wealth of  other Thurber ‘toon prints are also viewable; note the grand old Great Southern was originally built in the late 19th century). Said restaurant—Thurber’s bar—was the subject of my review in this week’s Alive.

Thurber’s Bar has recently rolled out a new menu, and it’s definitely got some worthy stuff on it. For instance, calamari has obviously been done to death, but the above version stands out for its pleasantly salty crunchiness and for the sheer meatiness of its perfectly fried big, juicy and thick hunks of squid. It comes with a fairly sweet fig and cinnamon sauce it doesn’t need, and in fact was the kind of thing I’d occasionally re-dunk the sea-meat into just to revisit the weird sensation it created in my mouth. (Unless you’re easily amused by things that mildly put you off, like I am, I suggest you skip it and opt instead for a more appropriate squirt of lemon)

The spinach salad here also rose above the norm—we also dug the bitter brightness of the preserved lemon garnish it comes with. 

A couple days later on a Saturday afternoon, our salads came from the great Harvest Pizzeria. Both of these (arugula with housemade ricotta and a Greek-ish “chopped”) were top-notch, plus they’re steals at only $2, when ordered with a $7 (another steal) lunchtime pizza. And they go swimmingly with…

…Mason jars (still au courant, n’est pas?) filled with relaxing Saturday afternoon beers…

… which also hit the sweet spot with our Saturday afternoon pizzas.

This was a halftime refresher between visits to the Riffe Center’s smartly curated 100 Years of Columbus Art show and the terrific—and fairly comprehensive, and thus very rare—David Smith exhibit at the Wexner Center (whose intriguing premise was that the titanic Ohio-born abstract sculptor was more influenced by the social and geometric idealism of the Russian constructivists than he was by his AbEx contemporaries, as is often contended); both the “100 years” and David Smith shows have just concluded their runs (you missin’-out slackers).

OK, by now you must be ready for some canine cameos, right? Well then, you’re in luck.

What? Do you have something for us? You can see us, right? 

This was yet more Saturday afternoon art—a “drive-thru” performance that was part of a dog-sitting day my wife happily called the “Flo & O Show” aka “A Visit from Cousin Oliver.”

In lieu of applause, the wife and I generously handed out much-appreciated biscuits. 

Knead Madness—and Other Springtime Flings in The Year That Winter Forgot

Now that spring has officially begun, I feel like we dodged a frosty bullet. See, I quit romanticizing about winter a long time ago. Oh, sure the snow is pretty—for about a week—but then the relentless brutality sets in. Here’s a few walking-outdoor-friendly activities I’ve been enjoying during the end of this winter of our much content.

On the eve of the Bucks’ scary matchup with UC, I thought I’d mention that a few days ago, I spent untold hours glued to hoops while intentionally stranded in a windowless arena on a couple glorious “late winter” afternoons. This actually had a mesmerizing effect on me I quite enjoyed; it was like the rest of life just faded away, and there was only this game, this crew of people, this inordinately solid chunk of moments in the hurtling spill of liquid time.  

We came up for air—and back to real life—with a dee-licious happy hour visit to Knead, where our pig-out began with the appropriately named Porky Pie (Berkshire pork, house-cured bacon, ham, poblanos, Chipotle bbq sauce and a literal ton more) sold at a laughable HH $5. Also costing 5 beans was a slew of fortifying drinks to tide us over for the upcoming night session at the booze-free arena (though I did notice some unscrupulous types—possibly some among us—blithely wielding flasks in there).

I’m a pasta- maniac, and fat handmade noodles like this Asparagus Pappardelle also bring out the curly-tailed pig in me…

…ditto for this terrific Rutabaga Ravioli—homemade sausage, rich tomato sauce, cooked-down kale…

…and this ShamaLamBa (Colorado lamb shoulder, chimichurri, oven-dried tomato jam, pickled onion) made me wanna dance…

…but instead, I leaned over and ripped into this Knead “Brueben” (stout-braised Pat La Freida beef shortrib with kraut, Guggisberg swiss, “1002 Island” sauce, homemade wheat caraway  bread), and it was a brewtiful chew indeed.

Speaking of brewti…, uh, beautiful, a visit to our Franklin Park Conservatory is always a transporting experience

And Thursdays present intensely beautiful deals there, as the $11 entrance fee is effectively offset with $10 worth of drink and snack tokens (try the guacamole).

Staring long into the above orchids while standing still in a quiet room—intensely funneling deeply into the furiously colored flowers—made us think of that remarkable Rilke poem “Core of the rose” (it goes something like: Where is to this inner an outer/On what ache do they lay such linen/ And what heavens are mirrored within it/ The sheltered lake of these open roses) 

More orchids

A different flavor of strangeness came with these other bursts of color—which were accompanied by intermittent blasts of vertigo-inducing screeching that emanated from these caged macaws—hanging out with them for a while is really a wild little experience 

Coy koi

But back to my mouth…I love Korean food, but until a recent visit to Diaspora a couple weeks ago, I always felt befuddled by the cruel dearth of refreshing and thematically correct Korean beer to enjoy with the famously salty, sweet and spicy stuff. Thank you Diaspora for finally, finally, finally bringing in OB (i.e. the dry suds David Chang ostensibly drinks all day) 

It went great with this spicy Heart Attack Roll we dug into, whose charms—while real—were fortunately not as arresting as advertised. And of course there was…

…the requisite banchan…

Plus this steaming pot of gurgling hot love (Kimchi Jjigae)—for which the OB was much appreciated.

As I look at this picture, it occurs to me that this is exactly the kind of dish people love to dig into during nippy weather—well I’m here to testify that to me, it tastes even better when eaten in shorts.

Gratitude for the Latitude, and “LET HER EAT (all of that) CAKE…OR ELSE FACE THE SCARY CONSEQUENCES

Latitude 41 seems to get better each time I dine there lately. Case in point: Last Friday, as part of a very successful attempt to stretch their birthday celebrations into weeklong Bacchanals, two shameless celebrants in our party picked Lat 41 for their last (last, I tell you!) B-day blowout, and everything was terrific .

After enjoying a few of Lat’s inventive cocktails fashioned by Nicolene Schwartz, the place’s reigning libation queen (like the mouth-walloping “Kentucky Margarita” made with bourbon and jalapeno) we tucked into these beauties.  

A wildly inspired Chicken and Waffles (I think the latter were courtesy of Taste of Belgium) that was sweet and spicy as expected, but also loaded with an unlikely—but much appreciated, and a combo that counterintuitively worked!—slew of roasty vegetables (left) and  excitingly bright sauteed kale (right). We loved this so much I feel compelled to write about it soon (look for it in Alive).

We also buzz-sawed through this delightful arugula salad with beet & goat cheese roulade…

… a rich and witty clam “chowder” fettuccini…

…a lovely—and rare—roasted walu (think sea bass but “steakier”) with Brussels sprouts and a brilliant and jam-like eggplant confit… 

…a speaks-for-itself-natural beef tenderloin with a crazy-great vidalia onion gratin…

…and a flavor-bomb hangar steak with roasted cauliflower, pommes puree and chimichurri sauce.

Post redoubtable repast, my wife (she was one of the “it’s my party, I’ll splurge if I want to” non-paying “guests-of-honor”) made this request of our server: “A dessert drink, not too sweet, no nutty liqueurs.” Her wish quickly materialized into a created-on-the-spot fantastic Nicolene special (con mosco!) featuring cardamom-infused cognac, aged rum, (espresso-infused?) maple syrup, and lime. 100% on the mark!

To accompany that heady quaff, there was this rich, dense, buttery and altogether awesome sticky toffee pudding (!!) that the belated birthday girl (with smoldering eyes that might best be described as resembling a ferocious lioness protecting her newborn cubs from encroaching—and poorly informed—weak-ass, would-be predators) barely allowed us near. Sure, we were permitted to sample the brittle and ice cream a bit, but any attempts at more than the tiniest nibble of the cake itself resulted in guttural growls, baring of teeth, and brutal fork-wielding.

Oh, come on…I’m just teasing, it wasn’t actually like that at all. But, that’s my silly way of trying to say Happy Valentine’s Day, honey!