Sharing A Meal At One Red Door

As part of the 2010 Taste of Hudson "challenge," similar to the one I created at the 2010 Taste of Akron, I targeted three vendors whose restaurants had yet to be reviewed here on the blog. This year, the three selectees were the North End Restaurant with Chef Jeff Jarrett (who has since departed to open up a new restaurant, Palate Restaurant & Lounge), Blue Canyon with Chef Brandt Evans, and a relative newcomer to the First and Main scene, One Red Door with Chef Shawn Monday who had recently left another Hudson institution, Downtown 140, to open up and run his own restaurant.

Realizing that the restaurant had opened up right around the same time as the Taste of Hudson, I wanted to give him and his staff a couple of weeks to get settled into their routine and work out any kinks in both the front of the house as well as the back. While it seems like it would be great to be the first person publishing a critical review of a new restaurant, often until things calm down and the staff discovers its groove, the experience of eating at a newly opened restaurant can vary wildly.

Five weeks after they opened, I contacted my good friend and public relations/marketing guru Jayni (designer of the awesome business cards for the blog) and asked if she would join me for dinner. After agreeing on a time and date for our meal, when the day finally came, I drove over to Hudson with great anticipation. One Red Door was situated in the First and Main district, specifically where Vue Restaurant used to be located. The address for One Red Door was 49 Village Way, Hudson, OH 44236 and they can be reached at 330-342-3667 or at info@onereddoorhudson.com. They also have a website (Warning: Heavy Flash content with music turned on by default). Free parking was either at curbside parking spots on the street or in the parking garage a five minute walk from the restaurant.

Not knowing how long it would take to get from my job to the restaurant, I showed up thirty minutes before our reservation time. After taking a picture of the front door,


I decided to check in with the hostess to let her know that I had arrived and would be having a cocktail in the bar. After settling down in one of the seats at the bar, I proceeded to order a favorite pre-dinner cocktail, a Grey Goose Martini, up, with bleu cheese stuffed olives:


Execution-wise, the martini was okay. I've had versions of this cocktail where the bartender shook the vodka and ice so thoroughly that a thin, almost imperceptible layer of ice crystals floated on top of the liquid. As you sipped the drink, the finely distributed crystals would instantly melt in your mouth. Today's cocktail, while cold, also came with sizable unmelted pieces of ice which definitely did not melt upon sipping.

The cocktail aside, however, it was listening to the bartender's banter with the other guests at the bar that caught my attention. When I am by myself at a bar (or a restaurant for that matter), I am usually engaged in checking websites or email messages on my smartphone. In addition to that activity, I am usually multi-tasking and listening in to the conversations happening around me. As the bartender was regaling several of the other patrons about a woman who had complained that the service had been off during the restaurant's first week of business, my ears perked up and I tuned in.

"Of course there were some problems," he told the complaining woman. "We've only been open for a week."

I saw this as my chance. "So have all the kinks been worked out yet?" I asked.

"Oh, yeah. We've been open for a little over five weeks now and it's all good."

In case you're wondering, gentle reader, I am somewhat playfully using a technique called foreshadowing.

As I continued to sip my cocktail and wait for my guest to arrive, the banter of the bartender actually turned a fair bit crass, dutifully detailing his theory on why his current wife had never gotten pregnant with prior sexual partners. I understand the need to talk to your audience in order to connect with them, but this didn't seem quite appropriate given the surroundings.

Jayni arrived promptly at 6:30 and after a quick return trip to check in at the hostess stand, we were promptly shown to our table and handed the single page menu. I opted to take three photographs, one of each "pane" of the menu:




In addition to catching up with a friend, my dining companion was excited to be joining me on one of my anonymous blogging expeditions and wanted to know all about my "process." I explained that other than trying to taste as many flavors as possible, just order what sounds good. To that end, we agreed to split one item from the Tastes, one from the Flatbreads, and one from the Shared items. When our server finally returned with our drink orders, I indicated that we'd be splitting the first part of the meal. Since the Shared item was a salad, he helpfully suggested that the kitchen could just split it onto two plates. After placing our order, Jayni and I got down to the serious business of catching up, something we had both been too busy to do for quite some time.

It was at this point I noticed the first glitch in service tonight. Other tables had bread plates with bread on them. Ours remained empty. No worries, I thought to myself, I'm sure he'll back around with the bread basket. Sadly, I was mistaken and by the time our appetizers arrived, skipping the bread course just seemed like a foregone conclusion.

First up were the warmed olives with oil and herbs:


Serving plates of warmed olives seems to be a trendy thing to do nowadays as I've seen it at all sorts of other restaurants. Warming the olives, in theory, will help release more of their natural flavor and the fresh herbs used help to provide a counterpoint to their flavor. Tonight's olives were small Nicoise olives and a larger, unexpectedly sweeter green olive (whose name I never got). These were okay and if you're into warmed olives, this would be right up your alley. I, however, was not particularly enamored by them (and to be fair, nor would I be at most restaurants).

Next up was the three cheese marinara flatbread with parsley and basil:


Made with actual Italian 00 flour, I wanted to see what Chef Monday's take on this thin crispy bread would be. When the flatbread arrived, I inspected both the top and the bottom. While there was definitely freshly chopped parsley sprinkled on top, I didn't detect any sign of fresh basil as the menu had suggested. The bottom of the pizza had been browned only to the point where the crust was mostly blond with a spot of tasty brownness every now and again. One of the hallmarks of a nicely cooked pie (or flatbread in this case) is the presence of a nice brown caramelized crust.

I took a bite and while I could taste the sharpness from the cheeses and the richness from the marinara sauce, the flatbread only achieved half of its raison d'etre. While it did have a nice crispy crust, it lacked the chewiness in the crumb that was the hallmark of a really good Neopolitan style pizza. Which, okay, technically it wasn't being called a pizza on the menu, but let's call a spade a spade. It wasn't a bad pie, in fact it was better than average. It just wasn't great.

It was during our appetizer noshing that service issue number two reared its ugly head: refills. Jayni was a Diet Coke drinker and as such, had finished her first glass in no time flat. When the server came over to check on us, she asked him for a refill. When he returned to the table a second time, sans refill, she had to remind him again before he brought her another beverage. Had this happened once during the meal, it would be pretty easy to brush off. However, this happened several times, going from the slightly inconvenient to quite annoying.

Our third appetizer was a poached Bartlett pear salad with hazelnuts and crumbled bleu cheese:


What you see in the photograph was a half portion of the salad as my dining companion and I split this. Both of us felt that the full size salad would've been enough for an entire meal. You may want to keep that in mind should you decide to order this on your visit, gentle reader. The salad was flavorful, the salad greens were dressed nicely in a hazelnut vinaigrette, and the textural balance between the creamy cheese and the crunchy toasted hazelnuts worked quite well. In short, this was a tasty salad. The pear had been properly poached and as such was soft without being mushy and turned out to be a nicely sweet contrast to the tangy and salty elements in the dish.

Having finished our starters, our server now returned to the table to take our entrée orders. Jayni ordered the chicken, which I was also considering, but instead ended up going with the pan seared Grouper with lobster gnocchi and Maine lobster jus. When I asked our server if the kitchen cooked the fish to a specific temperature, he looked puzzled and asked me what I meant. "Uh, oh," I thought to myself. I started to try and explain my question but realized that his continued look of apprehension over this line of questioning meant that for sure there would be a breakdown in communications. I changed my tune and simply said, "However the chef recommends it will be fine."

After some time (and still with no bread and Jayni's glass of Diet Coke sitting empty), our dinner plates finally made their way out of the kitchen. In what turned out to be another service hiccup, after removing our salad plates from the table which contained both of our knives, the server never came back around with new cutlery to replace the removed pieces. When our entrées arrived, I had to point out that we would be needing two new knives and it took several minutes for him to return with the proper silverware. I have a funny feeling that with the multiple service mistakes we had experienced tonight, it wasn't necessarily One Red Door's issue, but this particular server.

Continuing forward, here was my grouper:


The grouper had been pan seared on the presentation side (the side you see first) and the crust on the fish was an enjoyable contrast to the soft, creaminess of the flesh underneath. I'd say the fish came out somewhere between medium and medium-well, which meant while it was moist, it could've been just a touch moister. The potato gnocchi accompanying the fish was also caramelized and, just as with the fish, served as a nice contrast to the interior of the small potato dumplings.

The lobster portion of "potato lobster gnocchi" was simply pieces of cooked lobster meat tossed in with the gnocchi. Sadly, the lobster meat was a bit chewy and honestly, other than the Maine lobster jus served underneath the fish, it felt a little out of place. The broth, however was properly seasoned (as was the entire dish) and the sautéed spinach located underneath the grouper was a nice touch. The only real complaint I had about the dish was the perceived value. At $25.50, this was the second most expensive item on the menu and both Jayni and I felt that the portion seemed small for that price point.

Not normally a dessert person, when Jayni suggested that we split one, I quickly agreed. Here was a shot of the dessert menu:


Figuring that Jayni's sweet tooth needed to be satisfied more than mine, I gave control of the dessert selection to her. She picked the Maple Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting and Candied Walnut:


At $8, this seemed on the high side for desserts in northeast Ohio. While the cake had a very good flavor and the crumb was incredibly moist, what Jayni and I noticed almost right away was that there wasn't any textural contrast to the cake. One would assume that if the cake had been adorned with a candied walnut that there would be chopped walnuts inside the cake, too. Not so. Even the carrots, normally added in their crunchy raw state, had softened to the point where they didn't add a contrast either. Don't get me wrong, it was a good piece of carrot cake. But it didn't wow either one of us. The other thing that both of noticed was that there wasn't anything particularly impressive about the presentation; an average size piece of cake, sitting on a white plate sprinkled with powdered sugar and adorned with a sliced and fanned strawberry (albeit a tasty one).

While we did finish the cake, it left us both feeling like it could have been much more than it was.

For the two of us, between tip and tax, it came to $100 (not counting my cocktail earlier in the evening). While I think you will get a tasty meal at One Red Door, the service blips between the bartender and our server were a bit too obvious to ignore. While the bartender may have been referring to the kitchen working out its kinks, I think the front of house staff needs to undergo the same level of scrutiny as the back. With the dish I had tasted from One Red Door during the Taste of Hudson had left me slightly worried, tonight's dinner definitely redeemed them in my eyes. I definitely recommend that you check them out.

A Return Trip To Eddie's Pizzeria Cerino

Recently a call rang out from a Cleveland foodie friend, Kay, to come together for a communal meal at an Italian eatery I have written about once before, Eddie's Pizzeria Cerino. Considering the Food Illuminati who would be attending tonight's dinner, I was greatly anticipating a wonderful meal. While some might think that my review of tonight's meal will be biased because the chef knew we were coming and clearly put the kitchen's best foot forward, my previous experience as an anonymous diner lead me to the conclusion that the food would be consistently good, known identity or not.

Pizzeria Cerino does not take reservations. Well, sort of. There is actually one long communal table that can be reserved. It turned out that it could hold parties as large as fifteen people. Which, incidentally enough, was exactly the number of people who showed up tonight. When I showed up, only my friends Nancy and Bob were there. Nancy was enjoying a seasonal brew from the Thirsty Dog Brewery located right here in Akron, Ohio, the Pumpkin Ale. It looked so good that I decided to order one, too:


My pint came rimmed with a cinnamon sugar mix that made me do a double take. At first I thought it didn't sound particularly appealing to mix sugar with beer, but the combination worked extremely well. The flavors of the ale were clean and crisp and tasting this flavor made me seriously consider ordering the pasta special tonight, the butternut squash ravioli.

After all the patrons finally arrived, Chef Eddie Cerino came out to welcome us. He told us he would be sending out some complimentary flatbreads for us to try. Here was a shot of the first flatbread to arrive at our table:


This flatbread had prosciutto, goat cheese, and capers on it and was really amazing. The flavors and textures were so layered, even with such simple ingredients. The flatbread crust itself was thin and crispy while still maintaining a nice chewy texture. The toppings, salty, sour, and sweet, all worked so well together to make a perfect bite.

The second flatbread to come out to the table was this beauty:


Topped with the housemade bolognese, melted cheese, and some freshly chiffonaded basil, the complex sweet and savory flavors danced around in my mouth after taking a bite. I'm not sure if the flatbreads are made from the same dough that Eddie's uses for their thin crust pizzas, but I do know that the they are shaped in a free-form manner. The thin crust pizzas are shaped to fit in an actual pan.

To finish up the flatbread portion of our meal, a shot of my appetizer plate:


I highly recommend you give the flatbreads a try the next time you go.

While I wasn't initially in the mood for a salad, the daily special sounded so go that I couldn't pass it up. The fact that the salad (as are all salads at Eddie's) was available in both half and full sizes enticed me further into having one before my entree. Here was a photo of my salad:


Let me apologize for the somewhat lackluster green color of the above salad. I'm finding that one of the limitations of using my G1 camera phone with imperfect lighting conditions is that the green colors tend to be somewhat washed out. I can assure you that this salad was perfectly fresh and vibrant, both in color and taste. The salad consisted of greens tossed in the most delicious honey mustard poppy seed dressing and was adorned with toasted slivered almonds, chunks of feta, and sliced mandarin oranges. I was a little taken aback at how large the salad was as I had only ordered a half-salad. Had I been dining with a partner, this half-salad could've easily been split between two people.

In the end, however, I have to confess that I ate the entire salad. I knew that I had an entree coming, but honestly, the flavors were so spot on that I found myself desiring bite after bite. I normally ask for my salad dressing on the side as most restaurants overly saturate salad greens. Not at Eddie's. Each leaf was properly dressed and when I finally reached the white ceramic surface of my plate, nary a puddle of dressing could be seen anywhere.

Accompanying our salad course was a basket of the housemade focaccia bread:


I had sampled the focaccia bread on my last visit and was looking forward to trying it again. Served simply with a saucer of extra virgin olive oil and a little bit of freshly cracked pepper, I took a bite and immediately remembered why I had liked this bread the first time I tried it. Even eaten plain, the focaccia has an amazing flavor. Many places make their own breads. But it takes a baker with experience to know that true depth of flavor only comes with cold-aging the dough. Clearly this focaccia was made with maximum flavor in mind.

For my entree, I decided to go with the eggplant parmesan bolognese:


This was a massive portion of food and after eating all of my salad, I only managed to finish off about one-third of the food on the plate. I didn't see this as a problem; it was just a way to continue my experience the next day when I had the leftovers for lunch.

Here was a shot of the eggplant parmesan portion of the platter:


The eggplant was tender and flavorful. The crispy exterior was quite tasty and contrasted nicely with the soft eggplant interior. The eggplant had been perfectly fried and there was absolutely no hint of oily residue left on the exterior. The bolognese, lying hidden underneath the eggplant, added a nice meaty richness that I think would be sadly missing in the vegetarian version of this dish.

Accompanying my eggplant was a side of pasta in marinara:


Showered with fresh basil, the pasta was tender and flavorful and the marinara brought a nice brightness to the plate. I forgot to ask if the capellini was housemade, but given the excellent quality of our meal up to this point, it wouldn't surprise me one bit if it was.

When I arrived at the restaurant, it was brimming full of patrons and there was an electricity in the air. By the time our two and a half hour culinary odyssey had come to an end, there were considerably fewer people in the dining room. I boxed up my rather ample remaining portion of eggplant and capellini, paid the check, and returned outside into the now somewhat chilly autumnal air. I was worried when longtime Executive Chef Dominic Cerino left the kitchen at Carrie Cerino's in North Royalton that I would be without a seat in the cucina. Having now eaten twice at Eddie's Pizzeria Cerino, I realize that perhaps all I ever really needed to do was simply change the address of where that kitchen was located.