Rosewood Grill: Where Do The Desserts Come From?

I'll be the first to admit that sometimes it takes a little push to get me going. I knew that Turner's Mill had transitioned into Rosewood Grill several years ago. I also knew that they were serving upscale cuisine and that initial wait times for a table were crazy long. So I kept putting it off and off until I finally forgot about it. That is, until two friends and fellow photographers told me that they had gone for a meal to celebrate their anniversary and loved it.

Seizing the opportunity, I stopped out for two meals, after work, both weeknights. Fortunately, weeknights seem to be the time to go in order to assure a table with minimum wait. After being seated, handed the menu, and told about the specials, I only had to deliberate for a short time before the server came back to my table to take my order and deliver the standard Bread Service:

Bread Service

The butter was cold and firm, but the hot, salted bread more than made up for it. The cold nuggets of dairy that I dug out of the ramekin with my knife melted easily into the bread and I was rewarded with a delicious starter to my meal.

Hearing that one of the specials for the night was a Salad Caprese, I knew that a simple salad like this could easily be terrific or terrible. Shortly after the bread arrived at the table, my salad was delivered:

Salad Caprese

I've had many a salad caprese in my days and this one was right up there with the best of them. Really, it is a salad that is only as good as its ingredients. The mozzarella was tender and soft, the tomatoes were perfectly sweet and acidic, the fresh basil added a great herbaceous quality to the dish, and the balsamic vinaigrette tied all of the flavors together to bring home a true taste of summer.

While there were lots of interesting choices on the dinner menu, for some reason the Lobster Ziti was speaking to me tonight:

Lobster Ziti

The ziti was cooked perfectly al dente and the sauce nicely coated the pasta. I would've liked a bit more lobster meat, but generally this was a pleasing and filling dish. The spinach was a nice touch in terms of color, texture, and flavor. The mushrooms and grated cheese added a bit of earthiness and body to the pasta. Overall, a very good dish.

I decided to entertain the notion of dessert and thus took a look at the four item menu. When my server handed me the menu, as I quite often do, I asked her which desserts were made in-house. She declared that only the first two, the creme brulee and the chocolate "moose" were done on premises. Seeing as the creme brulee was straight up vanilla (and by vanilla, I mean both in flavor and excitement level), I ended up choosing the Chocolate "Moose" along with a cup of decaffeinated coffee:

Chocolate "Moose"

The Chocolate "Moose" was a parfait-like concoction of chocolate mousse and crushed oreo cookies with moose antler cookies sticking out of the top. While definitely a tasty dessert, there were a couple of items with which I took issue. First, this seemed like an awfully simple dessert for a restaurant of Rosewood Grill's caliber. It felt like a dessert a non-pastry person would have come up with. Second, and the more important of the two items, was that the mousse itself had been overwhipped slightly and the result was a slightly grainy texture. Sort of like little nuggets of butter had formed throughout the mousse.

For my second visit, I decided to skip the bread service and go with one of the on-menu salads, the Berry and Bibb Salad:

Berry and Bibb Salad

I love the theory of this salad. Combining Bibb lettuce with strawberries, raspberries, and blackberries, crumbled goat cheese, toasted almonds and dressing the whole thing in a citrus vinaigrette sounded delicious in my head. However, the execution was a bit off as most of the Bibb lettuce wasn't coated with any of the vinaigrette. This undressed lettuce had a serious bitterness that the sweetness from the vinaigrette would've gone a long way at alleviating. That being said, were this salad more properly tossed, I think it would've been a hit. I did enjoy that the toasted almonds added a lovely little crunch to each bite.

After hearing about one of the nightly entree specials, I found myself waiting with anticipation. Fortunately, I didn't have to wait long as the Pan-Seared Salmon with Asparagus and Red Lentil Hash arrived shortly after my salad plate was cleared:

Pan-seared Salmon

The preparation of the salmon was executed with immaculate textbook-like precision, seasoned perfectly and pan-seared with a crisp exterior and a melt-in-your-mouth medium rare interior. The skinny asparagus and the accompanying buerre blanc added a further lusciousness to the dish. The red lentil hash was a nice idea on paper, but it felt a bit too overworked in the ingredient department. It definitely didn't need the added pop of color from the spinach. The rather large onions (compared to the small lentils) felt out of place. Perhaps had all of the ingredients been cut to the same size and the resulting mixture been pressed into a ring mold, this might have worked better for me.

Dessert during my second visit to Rosewood took an unexpected turn. After handing me the dessert menu, I asked my server which of the desserts were made in-house, the very same question I asked the other server I had during my first visit. Expecting him to point out just the creme brulee and the chocolate "moose", I was a bit surprised when he claimed that all of the desserts (with the exception of the Mitchell's ice cream) was made in-house. When I told him what my previous server said, he claimed that she was misinformed. In fact, he had personally witnessed one of the items previously considered out-of-house being made on premises.

With that new nugget of knowledge, I decided to continue with my chocolate dessert theme and ordered the Chocoholic:

Chocoholic

The menu didn't lie. For $6, I received an enormous portion that could've easily fed two people. Positioned between thick creamy layers of dark chocolate ganache were a brownie with nuts layer and a chocolate cake layer. Additional chocolate sauce was drizzled over the top and the plate was dressed with slightly sweetened whipped cream and macerated cherries.

I had decided to forego the usual cup of unsweetened decaffeinated coffee that I often use to cut the sweetness of desserts. My server had asked me if I wanted a cup of Mitchell's vanilla ice cream to accompany my dessert and I said, "No," thinking that I really didn't need the additional sweetness. That was a mistake on my part because you need something, ANYTHING, to help cut through the incredible chocolate flavor avalanche you are about to embark upon. I actually liked the Chocoholic quite a bit, other than there was just too damn much of it. Fortunately, this wasn't my server's first rodeo and he graciously brought me a complimentary scoop of vanilla ice cream anyway. As odd as it sounds, the vanilla flavor was a welcome relief every now and again to the intense chocolateness of the dessert.

Like my previous visit, the check before tip and tax was roughly $40-$45. Despite the various quibbling over under dressed salads and dessert provenances, I rather enjoyed both of my meals at Rosewood Grill. The service was pleasant and (mostly) well-informed both nights I went and I was able to get a table within about ten minutes of arriving. I would strongly recommend calling for reservations if you are planning a visit on a weekend.

Rosewood Grill is definitely recommended.

Grabbing A Nosh At Nosh Eatery

I first learned of Nosh Eatery & Creative Catering many months ago from my longtime friend and partner in the Veggie-Vegan Project, Paul. We had been discussing potential restaurants to include in the project and Paul had heard that Nosh was to have a fairly good vegetarian and/or vegan selection. He also knew that they would be based out of Hudson, but unfortunately, that was the extent of his knowledge. Fast forward to Labor Day at the beginning of September and I found myself at the annual Taste of Hudson again. Per usual, I made my cursory walkaround of the entire event before deciding which booths I would visit. Wouldn't you know it? Nosh was one of the booths.

Based on the strength of the food at the Taste of Hudson, I finally got around to stopping in for a bite to eat at their actual location. Their storefront was south of downtown Hudson quite a bit and located at 5929 Darrow Road, Hudson, OH 44236. They can be reached at 330-650-6674 and they have the usual trio of a website, Facebook page, and Twitter account so that you can keep track of them.

Nosh Eatery was among a group of four businesses occupying a small building. As usual, the shared parking lot was more than ample and I had little difficulty finding a parking spot. Here was a shot of the storefront for Nosh Eatery:


Once inside, I was asked if my order was for eating in or taking out. After indicating that I would like to eat in, the woman behind the counter gave me a paper menu and told me I could sit wherever I'd like. I picked the table furthest from the front door (to minimize the mixed lighting), sat down and proceeded to study the menu:



In addition to the options on the menu, daily specials had also been chalked onto a board hanging above the coffee machine on the back wall.

I decided to start out my meal with one of the soups du jour, a Bowl of Tomato and Basil Soup:


The soup was piping hot, had just a bit of texture to it, and had a deep tomato flavor. The soup had been pureed, but not completely as there were still small bits of tomato to be found within. The garlic and basil flavors complemented the soup nicely. In lieu of crackers, the soup had come with a small grilled flatbread quarter that had been seasoned with salt, herbs, and of all things, caraway seeds. It was inventive and delicious and if there was anything to complain about for this dish, it was that the dish only came with one of the "crackers."

While many of the sandwiches caught my eye on the menu today, when I saw that today's special was a Philly-style Cheesesteak, I decided to throw caution to the wind and give it a try:


Filled with luscious expertly grilled cuts of beef shoulder, caramelized onions and peppers, sauteed Chanterelle, fresh thyme, and Havarti and Gruyere cheeses, this was a sandwich with which to be reckoned. The roll (part of a baguette from Great Lakes Baking Company just up the street) was split, buttered, and then grilled to not only give it texture, but also prevent the roll from "sogging out," a dilemma many other sandwich places have yet to solve. From my first bite to my last, I enjoyed this sandwich immensely. It was hot, melty, chewy, earthy, beefy, and savory. If someone had said, "make a Philly-style inspired sandwich but elevate it," this would be the result. The only criticism I might levy would be that the portion size seemed a little small for $7.75.

Inspired by the flavors up to this point and noticing that Nosh's Facebook page had advertised fresh cobbler today, I asked about the dessert selections. Indeed, fresh Strawberry Cobbler had been baked earlier in the day:


Rewarmed and plated, the cobbler was accompanied by fresh chevre-infused whipped cream and a small scoup of buerre noisette ice cream. The plate was finished with some powdered sugar and small streaks of raspberry coulis. I remember the whipped cream from the Taste of Hudson and while you could taste the goat cheese flavor in that version, today's whipped cream was a bit lacking. The brown butter ice cream, however, was heavenly. The cobbler itself was infused with lots of strawberries and if the cobbler topping had been a bit more cake-like in consistency, it would have reminded me more of a clafoutis than a cobbler.

Overall, I found the cobbler to be just borderline on the sweet side -- a cup of black coffee or an espresso would have cut the sweetness to the perfect amount. That being said, I finished the entire portion and would have no qualms ordering -- or recommending -- this dessert again.

My meal at its inevitable conclusion, my server brought me the check and before tip, it came to $16. While I did question the value of the cheesesteak sandwich, everything I had eaten today at Nosh was fresh, hot, and quite frankly, delicious. As was made evident on the daily specials board, today marked the fifty-fifth day of operation. I'd suggest you give them a visit soon so that they can add many more numbers to that ticker.

How To Sit At The Chef's Table Without A Reservation

[Full Disclosure: Carl St. John is currently the General Manager of Downtown 140. His wife, Catherine St. John is owner and teacher at Western Reserve School of Cookery, where I have taken classes in the past while pursuing my Grand Diplome. After taking the position as GM, Catherine conveyed to me that Carl had offered to comp my meal should I decide to come in and review Downtown 140. I thanked her for the gracious offer, but declined. Tonight's visit was unannounced and paid for by myself.]

Downtown 140 has been on my list of places to try for some time. Sadly, I didn't have a chance to eat at the restaurant when Chef Sean Monday was running the kitchen, but I have since sampled his food at the new One Red Door eatery located about a block and a half away from his old stomping ground. Prior to my visit tonight, I had also read mixed reviews of new Chef Don Triskett's food. While I take everything I read on the Internet with a huge grain of salt (some irony there, no?), it was reading fellow food blogger Scott's review over on The Chubby Cook that firmly put the restaurant at the front of my queue.

Being the Monday night right after the New Year's holidays, I decided this would be an opportune time to show up unannounced and without a reservation. The restaurant was located at 140 North Main Street, Hudson, OH 44236 and can be reached at 330-655-2940. There was streetside parking on Main Street available, but I decided instead to take advantage of the free two story parking garage located just behind the storefront.

While you can enter the restaurant through the Main street entrance (go down the stairs to the left), instead I opted to enter through the rear entrance, conveniently facing the aforementioned parking garage. Here was a shot of the rear entrance:


Once inside this door, move forward and enter a second door in front of you. The hostess stand was just inside this entrance. If you happen to come in through the Main Street entrance, you'll need to make your way across the room. It turned out that I happened to show up on the perfect day as the restaurant was barely one-third filled. Since I had so many options for seating, I looked for the best lit location in the restaurant. Many of my readers will already know that one of the more popular amenities that restaurants have been offering for the last several years is the concept of a "chef's table." This is usually either a physical table located in the kitchen or with many of the open-concept kitchens, like Downtown 140, a tabletop and chairs that sit just opposite the service window. They are popular because not only do you get to watch a working kitchen, but you can also interact directly with the chef and kitchen staff as you progress through your meal.

In what turned out to be a fortuitous turn of events, the chef's table at Downtown 140 was completely unoccupied and had arguably the best lighting in the entire restaurant. I asked if I could sit there and the hostess quickly agreed and walked me over. The good news was that sitting at the chef's table gave me a bird's eye view of the inner workings of the kitchen. The bad news, at least for a restaurant reviewer with a camera, was that within the first few snaps of the shutter, a man who turned out to be the manager, Carl St. John, came over to ascertain why, and more importantly, for whom, I was taking pictures.

I've heard it said in the past that if you want to look busy and important at work, carry around a clipboard. Gentle reader, if you wish to garner as much attention at a restaurant, take out a camera at a restaurant and start taking pictures of the menu. I guarantee you'll get results. After convincing Mr. St. John that I wasn't working for a publication, he asked if I wrote a food blog and was going to post the pictures there. After I indicated that my intention was to do exactly that, he asked me the name of my food blog. While one of the goals of my reviews is a reasonable attempt at anonymity, I'm also not going to lie either. When I told him the name, he indicated that he hadn't heard of it.

I proceeded to photograph the single page dinner menu:


Once I had placed my order with my server, she brought over a large basket of roughly five different kinds of artisan bread and allowed me to select the breads I wanted:


I chose a mushroom Gruyere bread and a country white French bread. Both were fresh and had an excellent crust and crumb. Accompanying my bread were some dips and a spread:


From left to right were extra virgin olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and a compound butter made with fennel. The oil and vinegar were nice, but the fennel butter was intriguing and delicious. It didn't work so well with the mushroom Gruyere bread, but for the country white French? It was delicious.

Shortly after noshing on the bread and butter, my first course arrived at the table. Here was a selection of Oysters on the Half Shell:


The one on the left was from the west coast (Quilcene) and the one on the right was from the east coast (Island Creek). Both were dressed with a bit of quick pickled cucumber and a lemon-Tabasco gelee. I slurped down both and discovered very fresh and tender oysters which were complemented nicely with the acidity from the other components. I didn't really get much brininess from either oyster, but that could be because the lemon-Tabasco gelee slightly overpowered the delicate oyster flavor, at least on the Island Creek. Overall though, I enjoyed this occasional dab at raw oysters.

For my second course, I decided to go with one of the vegetarian options from the menu, Squash Tortellini in Brown Butter:


Filled with a mixture of roasted squash and Lake Erie Creamery goat milk ricotta, these were then boiled and served with sage and pumpkin seed pesto over a balsamic brown butter. The pasta was tender and the filling flavorful. The shaved Parmesan over the of the pasta added a wonderful nuttiness and saltiness to the dish. While I am a HUGE fan of buerre noisette (aka brown butter), the one detraction on the plate was the sheer volume of it. Because the kitchen was using unsalted butter to make their buerre noisette, the finished product obviously lacked salt. Second, sometimes less is more. The sheer volume of butter on the plate meant that nearly every bite was butter-drenched. Both points made the dish teeter on becoming unbalanced, but overall I thought this was a solid dish.

For my entree, I considered my options carefully and finally ended up choosing the Ohio Pork Chop with Crispy Pork Belly:


The duet of pork was accompanied by roasted Brussels sprouts, smoked sweet potatoes, roasted pearl onions and sat atop a drizzle of apple cider reduction. The pork chop had been garnished with a salad of julienned Granny Smith apple and micro arugula. This was a well-balanced plate of food. Seasoning was spot on and the cider reduction added some much needed sweetness and acidity to balance out the heavy flavors from the pork chop and especially the pork belly. The pork belly went from crispy on the top to melt in your mouth tender at the bottom. I had requested the pork chop cooked to medium and once I cut into the center of it, it was delivered as ordered. The only problem was that the thickness of the chop wasn't completely even. Thus, the meat toward the thinner end was cooked past medium. That being said, this seemed to me to be a case of inaccurate butchery rather than inaccurate cooking. Other than that minor quibble, the dish as a whole was excellent.

While I knew by this point that I was completely stuffed and dessert would not be an option for me, when my server offered the dessert menu, I took her up on it so I could include it in this write-up. The left pane displayed various post-meal beverages that were available:


And the right pane listed the desserts available tonight:


All said and done, the bill tonight plus tip and tax came to $51 (with water to drink). Clearly Downtown 150 is not inexpensive. At $24, the pork chop I selected for my entree was on the lower end of the price scale. The service was impeccable, the staff was friendly, and overall I thoroughly enjoyed my experience tonight. While the menu prices may very well weed out potential diners, for those who can afford to eat here, you will be pleased with your experience and the quality of the food. While I don't believe Chef Triskett was running the kitchen during my visit, his staff had clearly been trained well and executed the dishes that I tasted to a high level. The rumors about the decline of the food since Chef Monday left were not present tonight, and although I was able to easily get a very good table tonight, normally the waiting list for a table during prime dinner hours can be lengthy.

In the end, if Downtown 140 is in your price point, I recommend that you check them out if you have a chance. And if you are lucky enough to have good timing, you might just be able to get the best seat in the house.

Lenten Project II: Week 1, Part 1

For my first official fish fry, I was excited to be given the opportunity to return to the one church which had canceled during a Friday in last year's Lenten Project, St. Mary Church in Hudson, Ohio. It seemed that between the snow that had fallen between Thursday night and Friday morning and the impending second snowstorm that was prepared to dump even more snow on Akron that Friday evening, St. Mary cried, "Uncle!" and decided to err on the side of caution. As they were still serving fried fish and pierogi (my two basic criteria for selection) this year, I was glad that I would finally be able to see if they were worth the wait.

St. Mary Church was located at 340 North Main Street, Hudson, OH 44236 and can be reached at 330-650-0722 ext. 244. Since the church was on the corner of North Main and West Prospect, I came in the back way to avoid the downtown Hudson traffic on a Friday night. Parking was in the extremely ample lot off of Prospect. Promptly at 4:55 PM, I got out of my car and approached the back of the church, where the following sign had been planted into the snow:


Apparently the Lenten dinners are handled by the St. Mary Men's Club and upon walking through the entrance to the back of the building, it was apparent that the men were definitely running the show. Immediately upon entering the room where the dinner was being served, a gentleman handed me tonight's menu:


The first thing that popped into my head was, "Wow! That's an ambitious menu for a church fish fry. I know restaurants that offer fewer options." That should've been my first clue that something was going to be amiss. I was ushered to the left front side of the room where another gentleman was waiting to show me pictures of all the fish products available tonight. While I thought it was an interesting touch, it confirmed that every single seafood product was a food service, fried-from-frozen product (the corporate label on each of the photographs was a pretty good tell).

After showing me the pictures, he asked if I knew what I wanted. After responding that I was interested in the beer battered fish and the pierogi, he exclaimed, "Oh, the pierogi are really good!" After inquiring if they were homemade, he responded, "Well, no. But I had some just the other day and boy did they hit the spot." Um, okay. Not exactly the kind of thing a pierogi-lover likes to hear, but you never know.

Once a spot had opened up at the ordering table, I placed my order for a beer-battered fried fish dinner, a side of pierogi, and a bottle of water. As I got my wallet out to pay, the man taking my order pointed to a table next to the current one where I had to pay. As I walked over to the paying table, a laser printer spat out a copy of my order, which came to $13.70. After paying the tab, the man instructed me that the kitchen at the other side of the room would call my name when my order was ready. I just had to show him the receipt and I could take my food and sit wherever I liked.

In addition to the food service window, there was a condiment / silverware / napkin table to the left and a beverage dispensing table to the right. After about three or four minutes, my name was called. I took the tray, added whatever condiments and cutlery I thought I needed, collected my drink and sat down at a table near the back of the room where I knew I wouldn't bother anyone with my picture taking. Here was a shot of my dinner tray tonight:


After unloading everything onto the table, one of the men working the room came over and helpfully removed the tray from my table. For tonight's dinner, I decided to start with a standard assortment of condiments: sour cream for the pierogi, ketchup for the French Fries, and tartar sauce for the fried fish:


Sadly, high fructose corn syrup reigned supreme as it was within the first couple of ingredients in both the ketchup and the tartar sauce. As expected, when I tried the tartar sauce, it was too sweet for my taste.

The first box I opened was the Beer Battered Fried Fish:


The above was a bit deceiving since there was an additional fillet of fish underneath the one you can see. In fact, it turned out to be the thicker end of the fillet. While the fish had been fried so that it wasn't greasy, a lot of the beer battered coating had flaked off. When I finally got around to getting a nice thick piece of fish on my fork, I was disappointed to find that it had been fried to within about an inch of becoming fish jerky. The flavor wasn't objectionable, but even with an application of tartar sauce to introduce some moisture, this fish was well done.

Here was a shot of the interior of the fillet:


Dry, dry, dry! The pumpernickle dinner roll, however, while more than likely food service in origin, was actually fresh and tasted good.

The only side that my fish dinner came with tonight was French Fries:


These were clearly also fried-from-frozen, but they weren't half bad. Some of the fries were a little limp, but most had a nice crunch to them and they weren't greasy.

When I finally got to my pierogi, I was rewarded with ... yep, you guessed it, gentle reader, Mrs. T's (or an analogue):


Interestingly, the sauteed onions appeared to be homemade because the onions were cut to different shapes (uniformity usually means machine processing). When I tried a bite of the nicely caramelized onions, I was rewarded with the sweetness from the caramelization, but revolted by the fact that they were wholly unsalted. Now, an astute reader out there might say, "But, Tom! Perhaps they were purposely unsalted because of all those folks out there watching their salt intake." A valid argument, for sure. However, given the fact that the ONLY thing that seemed to be made from scratch tonight were the onions, every other product I tasted was definitely salted. So, that argument doesn't fly for me.

So how were the pierogi? Average. Okay. Basically, what I would expect from a commercial product and what I could get in the freezer section of my local supermarket. I ate about half of the serving with the onions and sour cream before pushing back from the table in order to leave room for my second dinner of the evening. As I sat there pondering the food I had just eaten, I realized that St. Mary's fish fry was exactly the opposite of what I was craving. Sure, I realize that fried-from-frozen fish can be good if done correctly, but tonight's meal just reinforced the notion that just because you can serve food service products, doesn't mean you should. I mean, isn't Lent the time to pull out the big guns and do it from scratch?

I'm sure it didn't help that the menu was gargantuan. For goodness sake, they had Lobster Ravioli! How about this ... pare the menu back to one or two fish offerings, a basic list of sides, and some honest-to-goodness homemade pierogi? More does not necessarily mean better and if I needed a real world test of this theory, St. Mary Church would be it. I really don't feel that they have anything unique going for them except the breadth of the menu. Additionally, $13.70 seemed a bit on the pricey side for everything I ate tonight.

Starting with this post and continuing for the remainder, at the end of each review, I'm going to give my rankings from best overall to worst overall as well as an individual grade for each of the major elements on the plate.

1. St. Mary Church (Hudson): Fish, D+; Pierogi, C-; French Fries, B

Flip-Flopping Over Flip Side In Hudson

It seems that when Chef Shawn Monday goes out, he goes out big. After leaving Downtown 140 in Hudson, Ohio and opening One Red Door around Labor Day in 2010, only a few short months later, he decided to utilize the space right next to his newest culinary creation and open up a second joint featuring upscale burgers and sides. Having only been open for several weeks, I decided to stop in for a Sunday lunch with longtime friend Ken and check out the highly anticipated menu at Flip Side.

Flip Side was located at 49 Village Way, Hudson, Ohio 44236 and can be reached at 330-655-3547. You can also reach them via email. Since the restaurant was in the First & Main shopping district area of Hudson, there were a myriad of free parking options. I ended up parking on the square and walking to the front of the restaurant.

Here was a shot of the entrance to Flip Side:


Once inside, I discovered a fairly small space, seating for perhaps thirty-five patrons with an additional eight to ten seats at the bar. The decor was fairly simple and the colors relatively monotone. That being said, the restaurant had a casual feel to it that should make diners of all ages feel welcome. And speaking of all ages, that was exactly the cross-section of people eating lunch when I arrived. Ken had arrived prior to me and put in our name for a table. Considering that they weren't taking reservations, a ten minute wait for a table seemed entirely appropriate.

After finally being sat, our server left us with the menu to peruse:







It was clear from reading the menu that Chef Monday was trying to occupy a very similar burger-space that Michael Symon's B Spot Restaurant up in Beachwood (and soon Strongsville) currently addressed. While Symon was using Pat LaFrieda beef from New York state, Monday had committed to offering burgers using local Ohio raised, grass-fed beef. Price points on the menu were quite similar between the two restaurants, with your basic burger starting somewhere around $6 and topping out at roughly $10. Sides were in the neighborhood of $3.50 to $5.50. Similar to B Spot's menu, Flip Side also offered milkshakes with adult "mix-ins," if desired.

Knowing how large the sides were at B Spot, I almost suggested to Ken that we split a side. However, something held me back, perhaps the desire to try more than one side for this review. Looking over the menu, many of the burgers sounded good, but when I saw that the Shawn's Burger had both bacon AND a fried egg on it, I knew I was sold.

After a short wait, our food finally arrived at the table. Here was a shot of my Shawn's Burger:


The crown of the brioche bun had been nicely grilled. I assumed that the heel had also been toasted, but since it contained all of the ingredients for my sandwich, it would've been a bit messy to verify this hunch. In addition to the bacon and fried egg, there were thick cut slices of spicy pickles, flat top onions, and a very mild farmhouse cheese. A small cup of mayonnaise was provided for pre-consumption application. I added a light layer of the creamy condiment, topped off my burger and proceeded to cut it in half, thus releasing the golden goodness from the fried egg:


I had ordered the burger to be cooked medium rare and sure enough, it was exactly to my specification. As I attempted to pick up the first half, I noticed the first problem. The heel of the bun had become completely sogged out and lost all integrity. This led to the not wholly unwelcome consequence that this was a MESSY burger to eat. Between the very juicy patty and the runny egg, I basically ate the entire first half before stopping to clean myself up with the extra requested napkins.

So, how was it? It was very good. Chef Monday clearly understood the concept of layering flavors and textures. I quite liked how the pickles lent some spice and acidity to balance out the fattiness from the other ingredients. They also added a much needed crunch to each bite of the sandwich. While I prefer the slightly more aggressive seasoning of B Spot's burgers, Flip Side did a good job of keeping all the flavor elements in balance. The only other downside I found was that while I did enjoy the running egg yolk, since the egg had been cooked sunnyside up, there was a substantial bit of undercooked egg white as well:


While I didn't find this too objectionable, I am fairly certain that others might have a problem with uncooked whites. I had actually assumed that the egg would have come to the table cooked over easy to address this problem, but I do admit that the sunnyside up egg had a more dramatic visual appearance.

For my side, I decided to go with the Chili Rubbed Onion Rings with Remoulade:


When this plate was set down in front of me, I had two initial reactions. "Boy, those look great!" was the first thing that popped into my head. "Wait, is that a full portion size?" was the second. For $5, there should have been at least twice the amount of onion rings on the plate as there were. That would be the portion size of the onion rings at Symon's restaurant. One of the complaints I had heard prior to my visit today from doing my research on the Internet was that people were concerned with the value of the food. Today's serving of onion rings went to reinforce that point for me.

Alright, fine, it was a small portion, but when I finally went to try one of these rings, I was pleasantly surprised to find an expertly fried ring that was thick enough to have some texture, but not so thick that it was still raw. The batter to onion ratio was also very good, having enough batter to convey some of the seasoning and spices, but not so much that it was doughy or undercooked. The chili spice sprinkled on top also gave it a nice little kick. The sauce remoulade, while perhaps not a traditional remoulade, complimented the rings nicely. I ate about half of them with the provided sauce and the other half with the tableside ketchup.

Ken decided to get the Mikey Fries:


These fresh cut fries had been triple cooked and served with grated Grana Padano, salt, and truffle oil. Curious as to what "triple cooked" meant, our server explained that properly cooked fries are first blanched in oil at a lower temperature to cook the potato without coloring it and then finished in oil at a higher temperature to crisp up the outside and give it that appealing golden brown color. "Fine," I responded, "that takes care of two cookings. Where is the third?" Oddly, his answer was, "Oh, they're blanched twice."

I wasn't sure what kind of odd chemistry Chef Monday had employed here, but I couldn't imagine why you would need to blanch a fry twice before finishing it in hot oil to crisp it up. What I could not argue with, however, was the perfect fry job on these potato sticks. Incredibly crunchy on the outside without being the least bit oily, they were equally light and fluffy on the inside. While both Ken and I picked up on the salt, cheese, and fresh herbs adorning the fries, neither of us got any truffle oil smell or flavor. For those who know the heavenly smell of truffle oil, it is an aroma that is hard to miss.

Our meal now complete, Ken and I decided to split the check evenly, even though he had a coke and I simply had a glass of water. With tax and tip, it basically came out to an even $20 per person. Granted, had I gotten my burger of choice at B Spot (Red Hot) and a side of the onion rings, with tax and tip it probably would've come out to a similar amount. The difference would be that I'd be taking home a sizable portion of leftover onion rings for consumption later in the evening. At Flip Side, not so much.

Additionally, while Symon has more or less perfected the burgers at B Spot, my Flip Side burger today suffered from a sogged out heel and a sunnyside up egg that could've been cooked a tad more. Be aware that while refills were free, Ken's glass of Coca-cola was $2.75, which seems a bit pricey for a product that costs pennies per glass. I'm going to recommend Flip Side, because at the end of the day (or the meal), it was still a pretty darn good burger. Should they correct some of the minor flaws I experienced in my meal today, I think I would even move it to very, very good burger status. If getting a price-no-object, grass-fed beef burger in a hip new restaurant is your cup of tea, gentle reader, Flip Side will deliver with reliability. For those looking for a cheaper option of an equally crave-inducing burger, might I suggest Swenson's or Skyway?

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.