Smoke 'Em If You Got 'Em

While I have only written about Fat Casual BBQ in Macedonia, Ohio once before, I have been back many, many times. Because the first article I wrote about them covered so much of their menu, there hasn't really been a need to cover them a second time, even though the food has been outstanding every time I've returned. Over the last eight months since Walter Hyde and Scott Slagle opened Fat Casual, they have continued to evaluate and innovate to keep the menu focused, relevant, and most importantly, tasty. In addition to their regular offerings, every day seems to bring a new special, some of which make the regular menu and others turn out to be a one-day appearance.

Over the course of the last two Friday nights, I got to enjoy some not previously covered flavors that were so good that it would be a shame for me not to share them with you, gentle reader. Before we get into the two meals, I first wanted to share the revised and newly printed and laminated menu:



As you can see, the main proteins were still available: smoked pork loin, turkey, brisket, and chicken. Most of the sides remain on the menu, some have been reformulated since the opening (e.g., macaroni and cheese), some have been dropped (e.g., beans and rice), and some are brand new (e.g., fried potato salad and suffer'n succatash). Of course, when Fat Casual found a side that worked well, like the incredible warm sweet potato salad, they realized they had a good thing on their hands and didn't change a thing. Thank goodness!

On my first Friday dinner visit, I decided to go with something that Walter and Scott introduced during the season of Lent, a time of year notorious for fish fries. While they did offer a Friday fish fry (which just had to be better than anything I got this year during the Lenten Project II), they innovatively applied the frying concept not only to their fish, but also to their smoked chicken.

While the fried smoked chicken isn't actually on the regular menu, if the restaurant isn't too busy and you tell Walter or Scott that they are very handsome and talented men, you might just convince them to fry you up a portion of their smoked chicken. On my first Friday visit, a mere mention of the fact that I was looking forward to this very thing all day was enough to convince Walter to break out in a grin, ask Scott if they could pull it off, and told me to take a seat and wait for my dinner to be prepared. Note that because the fried chicken was made to order, my dinner probably took longer to prepare than if I had just ordered something that was ready to go.

Needless to say, it is SO worth the wait.

Having placed my order, my second thought turned to sauce. Of course, just like I wrote in my last blog post, every single sauce offered at Fat Casual was made from scratch. And the variety being offered (five to six different sauces each night I was there) was enough to satisfy any sauce-lover's craving. Sweet, smoky, spicy, acidic ... Fat Casual had a sauce to please everyone. Here was my choice for the evening, the Memphis-Style sauce:


Within maybe ten minutes of sitting down at my table, Walter walked out from the kitchen with my dinner:


The fried smoked chicken dinner (which is priced the same as the smoked chicken dinner at an amazing $9.99) came with two of Fat Casual's side dishes and some of their homemade cornbread.

Here was a closer shot of the fried smoked chicken:


Every time I've had this chicken, my eyes roll back into my head. The combination of Fat Casual's incredibly juicy smoked chicken (which sadly, isn't the norm for smoked chicken at barbecue places in northeast Ohio), combined with the crispy and crunchy fried crust makes for a culinary experience that you absolutely must try. Everything about this chicken was perfect: crunchy, smokey, savory, salty, juicy ... it all just works so well. Each order is essentially a half chicken, breast, back, leg, and wing.

In addition to the chicken, my meal also came with two of Fat Casual's newer sides, the Fried Potato Salad and the Suffer'N Succatash:


While the warm sweet potato salad remains my all-time favorite side at Fat Casual, these two sides were pretty close behind that one. The fried potato salad, so called because the potatoes are first fried before being combined with the dressing, was rich and delicious. The succatash, containing Lima beans and sweet corn, was tender, juicy, peppery and buttery. So many times, I have disliked Lima bean dishes because the beans were starchy and unpleasant. Not this time. I finished the entire container and just about licked the bottom of the cup. I heartily recommend you give both sides a try.

My first meal finished, I packed up the entire breast (it really was enough food for two people) to have a wonderful mid-day snack the next day. My meal came to roughly $12, including the chicken dinner and a bottled water that I ordered. If you are looking for flavor AND value, you have come to the right place.

The following Friday (as in, last Friday), I hadn't planned on returning for another meal, but fellow Cleveland foodie, Kay, decided that she wanted to stop in and try one of the newer special items on the Friday menu, the smoked prime rib. Honestly, it had been on the menu during my previous visit, but I was really in the mood for that fried smoked chicken, so I gave it a pass. This time, however, I was bound and determined to try this somewhat unorthodox, but intriguing sounding dish.

After all six of us arrived, Walter came over to our table to determine what the group wanted to eat. It turned out to be unanimous ... smoked prime rib! Walter went back into the kitchen and perhaps ten minutes later, large plates of beefy goodness started arriving at our table:


This IMMENSE portion of prime rib was accompanied by beef jus, homemade creamy horseradish sauce, and a small garnish of horseradish-infused pickles and sliced radishes. Even without tasting it, I could tell that the meat was obviously cooked perfectly medium rare. Like extras on the set of The Flintstones, all six of us eagerly dug into the huge portion of prime rib and discovered some of the best meat that any of us had ever tasted. More than one of the diners tonight noted that they had been turned off by bad prime rib served at buffets and weddings. Tonight's meal put to rest any notion that prime rib couldn't be prepared so that it was an incredibly tender, juicy, and flavorful cut of meat. While the jus was certainly tasty, the creamy horseradish sauce stole the show and made the perfect complement to the beef. Not to be outdone, the pickles were also amazing all on their own.

While the smoked prime rib dinner was normally offered with the garlic mashed potatoes, because there were six of us tonight, Walter put together a tasting of several of Fat Casual's sides:


Going clockwise from the rear, we had cole slaw, fried potato salad, macaroni and cheese, garlic mashed potatoes, blueberry Figgy Pudding, and the warm sweet potato salad. As if the smoked prime rib wasn't good enough, the myriad of sides made the dinner even more delicious. While the jus served with the prime rib wasn't utilized as much as the horseradish sauce, it did end up making an excellent complement to the garlic mashed potatoes, as discovered by fellow food blogger, Nancy from Fun Playing With Food.

Finally, after we had made our way through most of the enormous amounts of food brought to us by the kitchen, Walter showed up with individual serving cups of one of their newer items that they had been tinkering with, smoked beef sausage with barbecued cabbage:


Fat Casual had started out making all of this sausage in-house, but when demand got too great, they outsourced this meat product to a local company, but still maintained the quality using the recipe that Walter and Scott originally concocted. After smoking the sausage, Fat Casual had paired it with barbecued cabbage; this balanced the savoriness of the sausage with the sweetness of the cabbage. While not officially on the menu yet, I am looking forward to having this again once it does become a regular item.

Everything said and done, our smoked prime rib dinners came out to an incredible $12.99 per person. Anyone who is a fan of prime rib knows that typically, prime rib dinners run much, much higher than that. Given the incredible preparation and flavor and the very reasonable price, I have to say that this was one hell of a deal. Between the fried smoked chicken and smoked prime rib, I honestly don't know which one was my favorite. At this point, it was like picking your favorite child. Both dishes brought much happiness to my mouth and my wallet. My advice? Go with a friend and order one of each in order to share. Do note that for now, the smoked prime rib is only available on Fridays.

While several commenters on my last write-up on Fat Casual BBQ were not impressed with the food they received when they visited, I know for a fact that many others have been. On the Urbanspoon page for the restaurant, out of 92 people who voted on the restaurant, 96% marked that they liked it. That should tell you something. While there is certainly barbecue closer to me than Macedonia, it is so worth the drive to check them out. And if you happen to go on a day when Walter or Scott is willing to fry you up some smoked chicken, take them up on it. You won't regret it.

Lack Of Management At Edgar's Restaurant

Salt.

When eating, often times we don't even tend to think about it unless there is too much or too little. I personally believe that salting a dish correctly can be one of the hardest skills to learn in a professional kitchen. The application, of course, is quite simple: grab a pinch between your forefinger and your thumb and then generously sprinkle it over whatever you are trying to season. Knowing exactly how many of those pinches to use is the real trick.

After my last visit to Edgar's Restaurant, I couldn't wait to write up and share the experience with my readers about the amazing food I had eaten during an inaugural visit to this hidden Akron gem. Within days it seemed, the idea for a dinner party between myself and two others germinated and grew until it became nine of us. My dinner guests ranged from a fellow food blogger to middle school and high school friends and even two guests of a guest I had yet to meet. Excited about the prospect of a great meal, we all convened on the restaurant at the appointed hour and eagerly began thumbing through the menu.

While the majority of the menu was the same as the first time I visited, I did decide to include a photograph of today's specials menu:


After filling all of our drink orders, our server started the meal by bringing out some of Edgar's homemade sliced bread and butter:


Fresh bread is always appreciated, even if it isn't particularly complex. Just like last time, the bread was fresh and had a nice yeasty and slightly acidic smell to it. While I didn't partake of the butter, I did use a slice or two to mop up the delicious barbecue sauce that accompanied my appetizer tonight.

Speaking of appetizers, having tried and absolutely loved the barbecued pork ribs during my previous visit, I was eager to try another of Edgar's amazing smoked items this time around as well. After reading the menu's description of the hog shanks, I was hooked: "Meaty braised pork foreshanks, sweet & spicy sauce, blue cheese dip, celery, carrot sticks." Sign me up, please.

Soon, the hog shanks arrived:


While I was expecting larger pieces of barbecued meat, I made the realization that with the celery and carrot sticks and the side of blue cheese, this could have been a chicken wing substitute. The only problem was that the kitchen hadn't included the blue cheese. No matter, I was here for the pork.

Here was a close-up shot of the pork foreshanks:


Wow, this delivered! The pork easily separated cleanly from the bone and was tender, moist, and just slightly smoky. The barbecue sauce, no doubt homemade, had an appropriate balance between smoky, sweet, salty, and tangy. After finishing the meat I had separated from the bones, I used the slices of bread to do some serious sauce sopping. (I'm assuming that licking the plate was probably not on Miss Manners's Etiquette List.)

All that remained of my appetizer were the cleaned pork bones and those lonely looking celery and carrot sticks:


All of the entrées tonight came with a house salad. I decided to go with one of Edgar's homemade dressings, the White French:


While the salad itself was a bit pedestrian and came out completely unseasoned (which didn't surprise me), the dressing added a wonderful flavor to the greens which made eating this somewhat pleasant. Almost all of their salad dressings were made from scratch and of the two I've had so far, I believed they were doing a good job. What sort of left me scratching my head, however, was of the seven or eight varieties that they offered, one of them was a commercial dressing. Why not just make that one, too?

Up to this point in the meal, I would say that everyone was thoroughly enjoying the food. Other than my appetizer coming out sans blue cheese dip, there was nothing out of the ordinary. That changed when our entrées arrived. Visually everything looked good, but it turned out for those of us who hadn't ordered a barbecued item for an entrée, we were in for a big surprise.

I had decided to go for Edgar's Buttermilk-soaked Pecan Fried Chicken with Garlic Mash and Sautéed Green Beans:


Let's start with the chicken:


The chicken was well fried. It was cooked all the way through, but wasn't dried out. The coating was crispy and definitely had seasoning, but once you were through the crust, the chicken meat itself lacked enough seasoning to carry the dish. I realize that the chicken was "buttermilk-soaked," but I'm thinking that "buttermilk and brine-soaked" might have been a better way to make sure that the meat was seasoned a bit more thoroughly. That being said, the chicken was, by far, the best thing on my dinner plate tonight.

Next up, the garlic mash and green beans:


The good news was that there was definitely a garlic flavor to the mashed potatoes. And the potatoes themselves, while not completely light and airy, had a nice texture to them. However, between the potatoes and the green beans, there wasn't a lick of salt to either. Without any seasoning, I might have just as easily substituted wallpaper paste, albeit with a little garlic flavor.

Additionally, two of my guests tonight ordered the Barnsey Burger, a new addition to Edgar's menu described thusly: "Grilled 10 oz. ground pork & sirloin, stuffed with smoked brisket, applewood smoked bacon, mozzarella cheese, toasted ciabatta." Sounds good, right? According to both diners who ordered this sandwich, the burgers come out with zero seasoning and tasted like boiled meat completely devoid of any smoke flavor that both the brisket and the bacon should've added. In fact, the sandwiches were so bad (although apparently the sweet potato fries that accompanied them were okay) that both guests called over our server and asked her to return them to the kitchen.

Our server executed the appropriate response by apologizing and asked both patrons if they would like the kitchen to prepare them something else from the menu; both declined and decided to share their spouse's entrées. I am not here to comment on whether I think that my guests should or shouldn't have sent their dinners back to the kitchen. What I will comment on is the fact that at no time did a front of house manager come over and try to make things right with the two individuals. Even an apology, warranted or not, would've helped. In fact, with a dinner party this size, had nothing gone wrong during the meal, a manager should still have stopped by during the three and a half hours we were there to make sure our experience was a positive one.

Wanting to end my experience today on a positive note, I decided to partake of the dessert tray. Amazingly, when I asked our server which of the desserts were homemade, she indicated that none of them were, but several were made by a customer. Considering that there were at least eight or nine different dessert choices, I thought to myself, "That must be one generous customer."

After contemplating my options, I decided to go with a slice of the Pumpkin Cheesecake:


Topped with a crumble, small dollop of whipped cream, and a single walnut for garnish, the cheesecake slice was plated on a dessert dish that had been drizzled with a caramel sauce. I cut a bite, dragged it through the caramel sauce and placed it in my mouth. I was happy to discover that the customer who made this dessert had a much better sense of balance than the kitchen did tonight. Basically, it was very tasty. The cheesecake was moist and creamy and had both a forward pumpkin flavor and traditional pumpkin "spice" blend. Even with how full I was after my entrée (and I ended up only eating half of it), I was surprised at how much of the cheesecake I was able to consume.

Tonight's meal had some off and on moments to it, most notably a noticeable lack of management both in the food coming from the kitchen as well as the management of the front of house. Whether we had a good or bad experience, a manager should have stopped by at some point during the meal to make sure everything was going well and take corrective action if it wasn't. I thought our server did a good job dealing with the problems herself, but having two out of nine entrées sent back to your kitchen definitely warranted a visit from someone with more authority.

Despite the problems tonight, I am definitely willing to go back to Edgar's and give them another chance. The food the first time was so delicious and all of the barbecued items we ordered from tonight's experience lead me to conclude that perhaps tonight was one of those "off" nights restaurants have from time to time. I'm still recommending that you give Edgar's Restaurant a try if you haven't already, but please take my recommendation with a grain of salt. You might need it for your food.

Doing It Right At Fat Casual BBQ

I crave good barbecue. I mean, really good, slap-your-momma good barbecue. Until Old Carolina BBQ opened up in Akron / Canton / Massillon over the last couple years, this part of Ohio was simply devoid of anything I considered to be even mediocre. And while Old Carolina has sustained my somewhat insatiable lust for these tasty smoked and tangy flavors over the last few years, I am here to tell you of a revelatory new barbecue restaurant that is going to kick some serious butt.

I first met Walter Hyde at a blogger dinner that had been put together by Chef Ellis Cooley at AMP 150. At the time he was the executive chef at the Crazy Horse gentleman's club and while I had never considered the cuisine at, to be slightly vulgar, a strip club, indeed his clientèle were as serious about the grass-fed locally sourced steaks as they were about the visual titillation going on in front of them. That was where he met his current business partner, Scott Slagle, a retired WWE wrestler who decided to go into the food business after his nine year stint ended as Kodiak.

They decided to cash in on an up and coming food trend: fast casual dining. They wanted a restaurant concept where you place your order and the food is served up almost immediately. But it also needed to be family friendly and serve a niche market. As they were often spending their off hours doing low and slow barbecue for themselves as well as catering for others, it seemed almost natural and inevitable that they would eventually need to find their own kitchen in which to cook. From that original idea, over time they decided to add a take-out counter as well. However, when they stumbled across their current space, the old Mezza Luna restaurant space in Macedonia, they not only got what they were looking for, but much more.

Fat Casual BBQ was located at 223 East Highland Road, Macedonia, OH 44056 and can be reached at 330-748-4690. They are currently working on a website at the time of this writing. Parking was in a lot surrounding the building on both the east and west sides of the building as well as additional parking in back. Finding the restaurant was dirt simple. If you remember where the on-ramp to I-271 used to be off of Rt. 8, it is only a skip and a jump down Highland Road until you see this sign:


This was the surest way to locate the right building as they are still working on refinishing the storefront:


While the exterior may need some finishing touches, once inside, Walter, Scott and crew have managed in only one month to take this unused restaurant and give it a sense of simplicity and warmth that is actually open for business. It should be noted that today's gathering was at the request of Walter and was designed as a "preview" of Fat Casual's menu. As such, everyones' meals were free. If that bothers you, gentle reader, please take what I say in this review with whatever grain of salt you desire.

When you first walk into the building you can't help but notice two things: the smell of hickory wood smoke permeating the air and the enormous white board hanging on the wall above you, detailing out the delicious options from which you can choose:


Something that I didn't notice right away because it was sitting against the same wall as the door to the outside was the dessert menu:


Everything with the exception of the flat bread and the pretzel rolls was made from scratch: the sauces, the sides, the meats ... ALL of it. Since I arrived at the restaurant before several of my friends did, I sat down at one of the many open tables (the place could probably seat fifty people easily) and checked out the bottle of sauce placed at the center of each:


This was the "House" BBQ sauce and as Walter explained to us later, it was designed to be sort of a fundamental sauce, not striving to go too far in any direction. He said that it would stand up on its own, but not overpower the flavor of the smoke or the meat and it also worked well in conjunction with the four other homemade BBQ sauces available:


From left to right, there were Texas Heat, Memphis style, Honey, and Carolina style sauces available. Fortunately, plastic tasting spoons were provided in a cup just behind the bottles. My friends and I eagerly got down to some serious tasting. Representing various barbecue cultures throughout the United States, Fat Casual has managed to capture those regional flavors incredibly well in each bottle. While I appreciated all of the different sauces, my personal favorite that made my taste buds stand up and shout "Wow!" was the Memphis style.

Wanting to taste just a little bit of everything, Walter was more than happy to put together a sampler platter that let us try each smoked meat, homemade sides, and even their desserts. All of the smoked meats are made using hickory wood. At some point they might play around with some of the fruit woods (Apple wood, etc.), but for now, they are quite happy with the simple, but quite effective flavor that Hickory imparts.

First up were the pork ribs and smoked sausage, in this case Bratwurst:


If you look closely at the Bratwurst, you can see the telltale sign of a good piece of smoked meat: the pink smoke ring. Our table literally gobbled these up. The nice thing about all of Fat Casual's smoked meats was that while there was a definite presence of smoke flavor, the flavor of the meat came through just as nicely. In fact, that was probably the overriding takeaway I had today about the food at Fat Casual; not only was it VERY tasty, but the flavors were always very well balanced.

The ribs were interesting in that besides tasting delicious, the meat needed a little bit of a tug with your teeth before it separated from the bone. This wasn't a bad thing and in fact, many a barbecue fanatic will argue over whether there should be a little tug or whether the meat should simply fall away like it did with the ribs at Edgar's Restaurant in Akron. I don't know that I'm qualified to answer that age old question definitively, but I can tell you that both versions worked very well in my book.

Next up we had a trio of smoked thinly-sliced meats:


From left to right were turkey breast, beef brisket, and pork tenderloin. Walter told us that they decided to do pork tenderloin over something more traditional, like pork shoulder, saving the pulled pork for parties and catering. After trying all three meats, I was not in a position to argue. Sometimes it is easy to forget what truly good smoked turkey breast is supposed to taste like because the only exposure we have as northeast Ohioans is what is available in the local mega grocery store. The delicate flavors of hickory smoke matched so well with the flavor of the turkey that when I come back for a sandwich (and you can better believe that I will), this might just be my only choice.

That's not to say that the pork and brisket weren't also tender and tasty, too. And because there were so many sauces from which to choose, you could pair each protein with its own sauce to make your very own flavor explosion.

True barbecue wouldn't be complete without the sides and the Fat Casual team didn't disappoint in this department either:


In the back was the baked beans, to the left was the pinto beans over rice, to the right was the macaroni and cheese, and at the bottom was the most amazing of all the sides, a warm sweet potato salad. Of the four, the only one that wasn't as stellar as it could have been was the macaroni and cheese. While the noodles were cooked properly, the cheese sauce was actually a tad underseasoned and just a bit ... for lack of a better word, ordinary. The baked beans, while quite tasty, didn't quite live up to the baked beans served at Old Carolina BBQ. The rice and beans were nicely seasoned, but like I already mentioned, the STAR on that tray was the warm sweet potato salad.

Inspired from the more traditional German potato salad, cooked sweet potatoes had been combined with caramelized onions, bacon, and a nice tangy vinaigrette to make a dynamite side dish. I can totally see Fat Casual BBQ becoming famous for just this side dish alone. A lot of the dinners come with two sides; I can already see myself ordering this one again and again.

Since not all of the sides fit into that one paper boat, Walter loaded us up with the rest of the sides and a couple of the desserts on another plate:


To the left were two of the pretzel rolls available for sandwiches, and starting at the top and working clockwise were the homemade coleslaw, the Piggy Pudding, the Banana Pudding, and a piece of the freshly baked cornbread. While the pretzel rolls were one of the few items not made in-house, they were fresh and quite delicious. Unless the other available vehicle for sandwiches, flatbread, was out-of-this-world good, the pretzel roll would definitely be my choice for a sandwich.

The coleslaw was creamy and tangy. My friend thought it was overdressed, but I appreciated the extra creaminess of the dressing and how it matched well to the crunchiness of the vegetables. The cornbread was delicious without being overly sweet (as us Northerner's tend to like it) and while I prefer my cornbread in fried hushpuppy form, this was an excellent substitute.

While I've said before that I'm not a huge dessert person, it pays to leave a little room at the end of your meal for one of Fat Casual's sweet treats. The first item we tried was the Piggy Pudding. Similar in flavor and texture to a typical cheesecake, this was a nice, if not stellar way to end your meal. That being said, the next taste we tried, the banana pudding, blew our collective socks off. Rich and banana-y, this dessert was proof positive that you don't need a lot of complex flavors to make a good dessert.

The final two desserts we tried today were the Red Velvet Cake Bites and the Pumpkin Spiced Whoopie Pies:


Enveloped in a coating of chocolate and suggestively evoking a truffle wannabe, these were individual bites of red velvet cake. Too often dried out and difficult to swallow without a glug of water, this cake was incredibly moist, decadently flavored with chocolate, and well ... quite red on the inside. Our first bite was so good we actually went back up for a second. The pumpkin spiced whoopie pie was also very good and between the moistness of the cake and the creaminess of the vanilla filling, we scarfed them up in no time flat.

We left some two hours after arriving, stuffed completely with barbecue goodness and barely able to saunter out to our vehicles. I have mixed emotions about telling the Internet about Fat Casual BBQ. While of course I want the business to succeed (and wildly so), I don't want to have to compete for a table once they become immensely popular. That being said, I'll keep my selfishness under check for now and implore you, gentle reader, that you NEED to get to Fat Casual BBQ as soon as is humanly possible for quite literally some of the best barbecue this foodie has ever had, much less written about.

The restaurant officially opens for business on Monday, October 11th and will be open six days a week, Monday through Saturday, from 11 AM until 8 PM. Those hours could change once next spring rolls around, but I was assured that those would at least be the initial hours.

Have YOU Heard Of Edgar's Restaurant?

I was shocked.

I have lived in or around Akron almost my entire life and had never heard of Edgar's Restaurant located on the Good Park Golf Course. I even used to drive by that area on my daily commute to the Montrose area, at the extreme west end of Akron. And then, in the span of just a few days, I was let it on this little secluded restaurant by two completely separate individuals, one a longtime reader and the other, a friend in the food business who had invited me to "like" the restaurant on Facebook. I went on-line to check them out and discovered that the menu was fairly reasonably priced and the food was a sort of mix from American and non-American influences. It was evident early on in my research that the smoker was the chef's bread and butter, so to speak.

While I had promised my friend that when I went to Edgar's I would invite her and her husband along, I happened to be free on a Tuesday evening and decided to do a preview of the restaurant by myself. I figured if I showed up at around 7 PM, I wouldn't have a problem getting a table without a reservation. This theory was severely tested, however, as I pulled into the parking lot attached to the restaurant only to find it hopelessly filled. I managed to snag a spot as another patron exited the restaurant and pulled out to leave. For those of you who don't know where Edgar's Restaurant is, the address was listed as 530 Nome Avenue, Akron, OH 44320 and they can be reached at 330-869-3000. They have a website, a Twitter account, and a Facebook page.

As I exited my car, the first sense to get ticked was my nose: I smelled smoke. As I neared the large brick edifice containing the restaurant, I noticed several smoking devices churning out the grayish mist from the back porch:


A little further past the back porch was the entrance to the restaurant:


Based on the parking situation in the outside lot, when I walked in I was expecting the place to be packed from wall to wall. Fortunately, I was wrong. Not only would I be able to get a table tonight without a reservation, there were plenty of tables from which to choose. Had I been a little smarter, I would've picked one of the booths with direct lighting overhead. Instead, I opted for a table over by the windows. This was fine for the first two courses or so, but at some point, I ended up having to discreetly use the flash on my camera in order to be able to capture shots so that they weren't too dim to use, even with the awesome adjustments that I can make in Google's Picasa software.

After being seated, the hostess handed me the menu:







Eating alone is always a challenge. While I want to get in as many tastes of the food as possible, I also have to temper that desire with the fact that my stomach is a finite size and I don't want leftovers for a week if I order too much. Seeing as there were several soups on the daily specials insert, I decided to start with a cup of the melon and mint soup to wake up my taste buds. As the menu listed that the soup was chilled, I figured it would be tasty without being too filling.

Here was a shot of the chilled melon and mint soup with caramelized ginger sour cream:


It turned out that the ginger sour cream was actually at the bottom of the cup. Unfortunately, as my server set this down in front of me, her hands were a little shaky and a bit of the soup spilled over the lip of the cup. While the soup actually resembled gazpacho, it certainly didn't taste like it. The flavor of watermelon was definitely present and the sweetness was nicely controlled. While I could see the mint in the soup, I didn't get a particularly prominent flavor from it. The soup was pureed, but not completely smooth. I scooped into the bottom of the cup and retrieved some of the ginger sour cream and tasted by itself. On its own, there was too much ginger "heat," but once I got bites of both the soup and the cream on my spoon, the bite from the ginger was tempered and actually went well with the melon flavor from the broth.

As I was working my way through the cup, I noticed something fibrous and when I went to examine it, I found this:


While I don't think this would've caused someone to choke, it certainly could've made eating it an unpleasant experience. Food at this level (and price point), should be executed at a high enough level where this shouldn't have even been an issue.

Knowing that Chef Glenn Gillespie's trademark was his competence with traditional barbecue, I wanted to make sure I included at least one taste from the menu that allowed me to gain insight into his talents. While I am not normally a rib person, I decided to go with an appetizer of cherry wood smoked ribs:


Served with a housemade mango sauce, the small plate of ribs came out with only a dry rub on them. I was impressed that the chef felt that the ribs were good enough to stand on their own sans sauce. So many times barely passable ribs are slathered in sauce to hide the inferior meat or preparation. Before trying the ribs, I tasted the mango sauce. While it wasn't a completely pureed barbecue sauce like most Northerners are used to, the play of sweet and heat between the mangoes and chilies was well balanced, neither flavor dominating the other. I next turned my attention to the pork ribs and tried a bite with only the dry rub. The meat was incredibly tender and easily yielded to my teeth, with only a slight bit of resistance. I noticed the pink smoke ring on the inside of the meat remaining on the bone: A sign of proper smoking.

I then started to chew. I have to tell you, gentle reader, that I was rewarded with the best ribs that I have ever had. Bar none. The dry rub was incredibly flavorful and the seasoning was perfect. I considered ditching the mango sauce completely and just eating the ribs dry, but after pairing the two flavors together, what was once two separate flavors now merged into a symphony of flavors circulating in my mouth. Since starting a food blog almost two years ago, there have been very few flavors over which the very mention of a food item will make me salivate on the spot. Add Edgar's ribs to that very short list.

Before I knew it, I looked down to see this:


Five ribs bones, completely cleaned of any trace of meat and a dish of mango sauce, completely consumed. I looked at my hands and noticed I had pork fat running down the sides of my palms, adhering mercilessly to the natural law of gravity. I realized at that moment that I probably could've eaten an entire rack of those ribs, savagely tearing meat from bone, grunting in absolute contentment the entire time. Fortunately, my server dropped off a clean napkin at a fortuitous moment at my table so that I could recompose myself. I never considered myself a rib person before tonight. Edgar's changed my mind.

Having finished my soup and starter, I now placed my order for the entrée and was informed that my dinner came with a garden salad. After asking about the available dressings, I found out that of the five offered, only the ranch dressing was not homemade. Intrigued by the sound of the rosemary vinaigrette, I asked for my salad to be accompanied with it.

Here was a shot of the salad:


The salad was pretty run of the mill, nothing particularly special. The dressing had a nice balance between the vinegar and oil and the rosemary scent was immediately apparent when I took the plastic lid off of the container. Considering that the salad was not dressed in any way when it got to the table, it wasn't surprising that even when dressed, the greens lacked a little seasoning. Adjusting it with the table's salt and pepper shaker seemed to fix that problem.

While I had been surprised that my server hadn't brought me bread earlier during my dining experience, I was happy for it to now make an appearance on my table:


As I smelled the bread and then tasted it, I marveled at its freshness. While it wasn't a particularly adventurous bread, the crumb was tight, the crust had a lovely chew to it and possessed a lovely mahogany sheen that reminded me of the golden brown hue of an egg-washed brioche or challah. I confirmed with my server at the end of my meal that the kitchen at Edgar's does indeed make their own bread.

For my entrée tonight, I decided to go with even more pork and ordered the Creole Stuffed Grilled Pork Chop:


The dish was served with grilled asparagus and plated atop creole red-skinned potato salad. Here was a shot of the stuffing in the pork chop after I had cut off the end:


Sprinkled on top of the pork chop were crispy prosciutto bits, similar to bacon bits, but without the smoky flavor. While the prosciutto and pork were fine on their own, the combination of the two rendered the pork just a touch too salty. Texturally, it was a fantastic idea to put the crispy rendered prosciutto on top of the pork. The still-on-the-bone pork chop was juicy and the creole stuffing was tasty, although to be honest, the sweetness from the shrimp and crayfish was a little lost on my palate. The asparagus stalks were perfectly grilled and seasoned. The potato salad, interestingly served cold, had the slightest hint of mustard in the dressing, not so much that I would compare it to the supermarket equivalent, with its homogenous canary yellow mustardy dressing. But there was no denying the sharp flavor of mustard as a background note. This was a solid dish, a touch too salty, but solid.

It was at this point that Chef Gillespie came out of the kitchen and approached my table asking how my meal was. I asked him, somewhat obviously, if he was the chef tonight.

"It depends," he quipped back. "How was the food?"

We both laughed and I couldn't wait to ask him specifically about the ribs and the dry rub. He told me that the dry rub was a multi-spiced concoction that contained salt, black pepper, brown sugar, onion powder, garlic powder, cumin, celery salt, cayenne, and a few other spices that I have now forgotten. Whatever the magical mixture was, I told him, it was absolutely delicious and the ribs could definitely stand on their own, no sauce required.

I packed up my leftovers (enough for a second meal) and asked for the check after turning down the tempting dessert tray. With tax and tip, my check only came to $41, which I thought was an amazing value. While some of the entrées do run into the mid $20's, most of his dishes are much more easily accessible in the $10-$20 range. I am eager to return again to Edgar's in order to try more of his barbecue staples as well as some of the non-barbecue items off of the menu. My recommendation is that you go with a small group, order lots of tastes, and go to town enjoying all of the well-prepared food that comes out of the kitchen. If you fancy yourself a pork rib person even remotely, you must try them when you go; you might just find yourself smacking the hands away of anyone who tries to get close to the plate of ribs. Highly recommended.

The Baker On The Patio With A Knife

Gather 'round, gentle readers, for I have an interesting story to tell.

For those too young to remember the board game Clue, the premise was that at the beginning of the game, someone was found murdered. It then became the goal of the rest of the game to figure out who the murderer was, what room it happened in, and what lethal method of dispatching was used on the victim. In fact, it became such a popular game that Hollywood made a movie out of it ... with several endings. It turned out that the movie wasn't as popular at the time as the board game, but I rather enjoyed the comedic aspects of it. But I digress.

I write this entry today as a combination of suspense, just a touch of horror, and of course a teachable moment where we can all learn one of those life lessons about which we've heard so many positive things. Names were originally withheld to protect the guilty, but the guilty felt that the story had more impact with the names intact. Of course, the point of my sordid little tale is not to shame, but to entertain and to warn.

I'd like to say it was a dark and stormy night. But, it wasn't. It was a pleasant and mild sunny day, with a light breeze gently shaking the tops of the trees as small downdrafts of air caressed the slightly sun-bleached red tufts of hair still remaining on my head. I had decided to dress very casually for the afternoon party, a barbecue to which I had been invited some three or four weeks earlier. Having stepped out of the shower, I looked over my clothing selection and opted for a pair of Dockers that had seen better days and a green t-shirt that while months old, had never been worn and was still crisp and new.

Having baked off a batch of focaccia earlier in the day, I grabbed the pan of cooling bread, the smell of thyme and caramelized onions still tickling my nose as I passed my head close to the surface and inhaling deeply. "This," I surmised, "will be a perfect course for the Bread Guy to bring."

Lest you think me nuts so early in the story for referring to myself in the third person, I have developed a sort of following for bringing really tasty breads to my friends' parties. And while not specifically requested to bring something today, I knew that my continued reputation depended on me arriving with something carb-laden and fabulous; I had a sneaking suspicion that this might just fit the bill. Lowering the pan away from my face, I grabbed my keys, wallet and cellphone and headed out the door.

The drive over to the party was short, but lovely. The lowered driver's and passenger's side windows allowed a cross breeze to cool both me and the bread. I arrived at my destination ten minutes before the scheduled beginning of the event and found an appropriate spot to park on the grass next to the stone driveway, protected from the sun under the auspices of a large leafy tree. I grabbed my panned bread and my knife roll* which contained my favorite bread knife, a razor sharp serrated number from my post-college days when I let a friend of mine convince me that her brother was selling these really great knife sets and I would be the best friend ever if I bought a set myself. Of course, the easy payment plan helped convince me, too. While I've replaced every other knife from that original set, the bread knife remains to this day one of my most useful utensils for slicing hard, crusty breads; it is without equal.

I walked around to the rear of the entrance to find the host of the party, Tony, attending to the barbecue portion of today's festivities. I walked up to the patio and slid open the rear door to the house and proceeded to walk through the dining room to the kitchen where I found our hostess, Jane, and a mutual friend, Nancy, who happened to be still celebrating her birthday from the previous week. Jane, being known for her elaborate celebrations, was putting on the finishing touches to Nancy's multi-layer cake, replete with chocolate frosting, coconut shavings, hand placed almonds and six perfectly inserted candles along with a lone sparkler towering high above the other waxy rods.

"It's my favorite," Nancy gleefully exclaimed. "It's like a Mounds candy bar, but in cake form."

I have to admit, it certainly looked good. It also looked big, too. Then again, Jane was feeding a crowd today, so a cake for twenty-five guests wasn't something that stood out as unusual. Within moments, she looked up from her frosting and assembling duties and noticed my stainless steel pan of goodness.

"What have you brought us today, Tom?"

Beaming with accomplishment, I replied. "This," my chest puffing out just a little bit further than normal, "is a caramelized onion and thyme focaccia bread that I baked off this morning."

"I can't wait to try it! Why don't you cut it up and place it out on the table on the patio with the rest of the appetizers?"

I left Jane to her task at hand and grabbed the pan and my knife roll and headed out the door to the patio, dutifully following her admonition to not let the dog escape. Retrieving my favorite bread knife, I proceeded to cut the half sheet into rectangles, narrow on one end for easy grabbing and long on the other to allow each guest several bites of this hopefully tasty treat. After carefully sawing my way through the entire loaf, I returned to the kitchen and washed off my knife before sheathing it in its protective cover, returning it to the knife roll and finally returning the entire set back to my car, its mission now accomplished.

As guests began arriving, introductions were made, additional dishes were placed on the appetizer table on the patio and everyone began the pre-dinner noshing. While I certainly didn't try and fish for any compliments on the bread, I received quite a few and I cheered just a little bit using my inside voice for every one I garnered. Within just a short period of time, the entire tray was empty and I happily took it inside to clean it up before returning it, too, to my car, and started looking forward to having dinner.

Shortly after, the barbecued meats were declared "done" and the rest of the dinner spread was placed along a series of tables at the back of the yard. Famished from my lack of breakfast and my self-control during the appetizer portion of today's event, I got in line at the back of the queue and hungrily waited my turn to fill up my plate. Dinner, as was expected, was completely delicious and besides a pork sandwich that had been gussied up with a little coleslaw on top to give it a more North Carolinian feel to it, I had my fill of corn on the cob, a delicious pesto pasta salad and an unusually mild sausage and sauerkraut casserole. The dinner portion went off without a hitch and was curiously quiet, although I suspect that was more a compliment to the cooks this evening than the lack of camaraderie.

Where things begin to turn interesting was when dinner had more or less come to a close and Jane, who happened to be sitting next to me on the patio, turned to me and said, "Well, I guess it's time for the birthday cake." Remembering how large the cake looked when I saw it on my arrival, I asked her if she would like some help. She considered for only a moment before she replied, "Yes, I think that would be a good idea."

I followed her through the patio door once more, again making sure that the dog remained inside. Once in the kitchen, I picked up the cardboard cake round upon which the large two-tiered cake rested. I'm glad I had offered to help; this thing must've weighed five or six pounds. Jane, anticipating the cake cutting ceremony about to ensue, grabbed a large chefs knife and a pack of matches for the candles. As we walked to the patio door, Jane said to me, "Okay, when we get to the door, I'll slide it open and then keep the dog distracted. You walk through the door and I'll follow behind." Sounded reasonable enough to me.

As we got to the door, she slid the door open, but as I stepped from the inside to the out, I heard her shriek, "Oh my God! Are you okay?"

I turned around to see Jane standing on the inside of the door, chefs knife pointing away from her body and towards me, a look of terror on her face.

"I almost stabbed you!" she continued. Funny, I hadn't felt anything. I figured that she might just be playing toward the overly dramatic. Honestly, I hadn't felt anything before and I still didn't feel anything now.

I somewhat nervously laughed and said, "No, no, I'm fine." And then a moment later, I added, "Besides, if you had stabbed me, don't think I'd be making any more bread for you in the future." As she followed me through the patio door, I quickly mentioned, "Why don't you go ahead and walk in front of me to the table?"

Her fears now somewhat allayed, we continued with the birthday ritual for Nancy, first attempting to light the candles in the slight breeze, followed by the incantation of "Happy Birthday" and finally the cutting of the cake and opening of gifts. In all, other than the slight hysterics after my alleged stabbing, it was a really great party. As the evening wore on, I gathered myself, said my good-byes and made my way home.

When I got home, I decided to change clothes for bed. I pulled on a pair of shorts and considered using the green t-shirt I had worn during the day for my weekly sleeping shirt, the one I wear for the week and then wash on the weekends. As I pulled the shirt off the curtain rod on which I had placed it while getting undressed, I noticed several spots on the back of the shirt where light was now shining through. Even more strangely, the small holes lined up in a straight line.

"No! It couldn't be," I thought to myself.

I put the t-shirt back on only to come to the realization that the holes in the brand new shirt were exactly in the same spot where Jane had been standing earlier in the day with the chefs knife as I stepped through that patio door.

I quickly lifted my shirt to check my skin in the same area for any trace of redness or epidermal slicing or puncture wounds. There were none. I realized at that moment that had I been a centimeter closer to Jane, things might have been different. I also realized that had my t-shirt been worn down through numerous wearings and washings, the strained fabric might not have been strong enough to protect my back from the sharp knife. To say the least, the realization I came to at that very moment was quite sobering.

"Holy crap!" I uttered aloud in my bathroom. "Jane Snow almost stabbed me!"

As two people who have been in "the food industry," Jane and I both made a mistake today. She, of course, should have kept the knife at her side with the blade pointing down. If the dog was going to be an issue, we should have had a third person running interference. And I, knowing that she would not purposely have hurt me, should never have volunteered to walk in front of someone with a sharp knife, even if it was properly pointed downward. I realize that the evening could've gone an entirely different way had any of the conditions been slightly different.

I think I need to write the Hanes people and thank them profusely for the strength of their t-shirt fabric. And then buy stock in the company.

I suppose it goes without saying that its always best to avoid being stabbed. That being said, if it had to be anyone, at least it was longstanding Akron food icon, Jane Snow. I wonder if my epitaph would've said as much?

* Gentle reader, remind me someday to tell you what the phrase "knife roll" sounds like to a French Canadian border guard whose grasp of English was somewhat tentative at best and had just asked me if I had any weapons to declare.