So, gentle reader, you've probably been wondering where I've been for the last couple of weeks. While I could sit here and hatch some sinister plot about being abducted by aliens, the truth of the matter is far more pedestrian than the fiction. For a long time, I have been able to maintain a queue of finished reviews that were ready for publication at a moment's notice. Thus, if life sent me a whole lot of lemons to process all at once, I could tap this eternal well of ready-to-go prose. Unfortunately, that well ran dry roughly around the end of May.
Simply put, it's been a perfect storm of me splitting my time between work, doing both food and non-food photography (did you know that I created a Flickr account to post my photographs?), and honestly, being outside enjoying the warm (and sometimes too warm) weather with friends and family. It isn't that I've stopped going out to eat, it's just that by the end of the day, I am just too mentally exhausted to write about it. Suffice it to say, however, this is only a temporary condition and there are some exciting things on the horizon in terms of restaurant reviews, farmers market demonstrations, and upcoming charity events.
Speaking of which, I would also like to draw your attention to three upcoming events that you might find of interest.
The first event is the annual Taste of Akron and Arts Expo on Thursday, July 21st from 6 pm until 10 pm at Hardesty Park on West Market Street. I wrote about my adventures there last year and am looking forward to returning once again to sample foods from more than twenty-five different Akron caterers and restaurants. Admission is free and tickets can be purchased with cash or credit card for $2 each outside of the tent. Each vendor will be "selling" their food for one, two, or three tickets ($2, $4, or $6 respectively). While free parking is available in the park, I've always had much better success parking on one of the many side streets within easy walking distance. As in years past, West Point Market will be hosting their annual Finest Cut Steak Cook-Off, in which eight finalists will compete live.
The second event is a special charity dinner for Autism Speaks on Monday, July 25th at 7 pm. This "Fork to Fork" dinner is being hosted by the Covered Bridge Garden farm in Jefferson, OH with food provided by the extremely talented Brian Doyle of SOW Food Catering. Brian will be creating a five course wine-paired dinner from produce both grown on the farm as well as other local vendors. A tour of the farm and dinner with a view of the fields where their dinner was grown will all be part of the experience. Seating for this first of hopefully many events will be limited to only twenty guests and tickets are $95 per person. To get more information or to purchase tickets, call 440-862-1682.
The third and final event I wanted to mention today is a charity event being hosted by the Dinner In The Dark crew on Saturday, August 27th at 6:30 pm at the Culinary Vegetable Institute in Milan, OH. CVI will serve both as the host and its charitable off-shoot, Veggie U, an organization dedicated to educating children about farm-grown vegetables, will be the charity to which funds are donated. I haven't written about the last couple of DITD dinners I attended (and in fact, sadly had to miss the most recent one due to illness), but I am looking forward to an evening of fantastic food prepared by a legion of Cleveland's most accomplished chefs. For those not familiar with the concept, the "dark" in their title refers to the fact that the chefs as well as the menu is completely unknown until the moment it is served. Past events have been a smashing success and I suspect that tickets to this event will sell out quickly. Tickets, purchased through the organization's EventBrite site, are $81.57 and include both tax and gratuity.
While you may not be able to attend all three wonderful events, hopefully you will be able to schedule at least one onto your calendar.
As for my lazy behind, regular blog posting should resume soon, although I may not be able to return to the three (or more) posts per week of blogging past. I hope you've had a great summer so far and I wish you all the best in finding great events, lots of locally grown, tasty seasonal fruits and vegetables, and most importantly, fun in the sun!
Showing posts with label taste of akron. Show all posts
Showing posts with label taste of akron. Show all posts
Friday, July 15, 2011
Monday, October 11, 2010
A Surprising Lack Of Virtue At Virtues Restaurant
If negativity turns you off, gentle reader, you can stop reading right now. It has been my experience since I started reviewing restaurants on my blog that most of my experiences fall somewhere in the middle, with the restaurant doing some things right and some things wrong. It is the very rare occasion that a restaurant blows me away or severely disappoints me.
Tonight's visit to Virtues Restaurant was the result of fulfilling the idea that came to me during this year's Taste of Akron. Instead of trying to sample and write about two dozen different vendors, I had the idea to sample the cuisine of three or four restaurants at which I hadn't eaten or reviewed and then follow that up with a formal review of the restaurant experience itself. Having already done this for Bistro on Main and Piatto Novo, the final restaurant on the docket was Virtues.
Virtues was located in the Ann and David Brennan Critical Care building, itself located inside the much larger Summa Akron City Hospital complex. Technically, the address for the restaurant was 525 East Market Street, Akron, OH 44304 and they can be reached at 330-375-7444. They also have a website here (warning: Heavy Flash content with music). While there was a front entrance for the restaurant and their website indicated that valet parking was available, I choose instead to park in the garage off of Adams Street and navigate my way through the hospital to find the entrance to the restaurant. The parking garage did cost money ($3), but the restaurant validated my parking when I requested it at the end of my meal.
Here was a shot of the entrance to Virtues:
Once inside the main entrance, I was greeted by an open and expansive space with the kitchen in full view. Looking around, it appeared to be a rather slow Wednesday night with less than one quarter of the tables filled with guests. After the hostess sat me at my table, she handed me the menu and asked for my drink order. After she left to fill it, I surreptitiously snapped photographs of the menu:
While the first page of actual menu items appeared to change weekly (which I appreciated), the rest of the menu only somewhat resembled the menu posted on their website. I was happy to see that many of the menu items came in full and half sizes, not so much because I was concerned about cost, but as a food writer, I love being able to sample more items if the sizes of the dishes are smaller. A note on the menu: the red circles with the phrase "Just This" in them refer to healthier choices. I couldn't find a legend on the menu that explained this, but the hostess who had originally sat me explained that it was on the display outside the restaurant.
The first sign of a problem was the lone waiter who seemed to be running from table to table, never quite able to get everything accomplished he set out to do. In fact, after waiting about ten minutes without any acknowledgement from him that I was even sitting at the table, the hostess who seated me stopped back over and asked if I had been helped yet. After I indicated that I hadn't, she walked away and returned a few minutes later with an order pad in her hand and asked if I was ready to order. Seeing as this might be my only opportunity to order my dinner, I took advantage of the situation. I decided tonight to do a three course meal: a butternut squash risotto with seared scallops to start, a half order of the barbecued Thai chicken watermelon and goat cheese salad for my intermezzo, and finish up with a full order of the Bell and Evans organic chicken over hand cut tagliatelle.
I'm not sure that the hostess actually entered the order into the computer herself as she flagged down one of the other servers who happened to be working a small private party in the back of the restaurant. Realizing that there were actually two servers working the floor, it made even less sense why the first server I spotted was having such a problem keeping up with the tables in the front of the restaurant. I don't know if bread service was standard, but I do know that I saw baskets of bread on other tables and I never received one.
After about fifteen more minutes, a second woman who was neither the hostess nor a server started walking towards my table. Apparently my salad had arrived before my appetizer:
Expecting the first course to be the risotto, I was a little surprised to receive the salad first, but I thought I'd give the kitchen the benefit of the doubt and just roll with the punches. What the menu didn't say was that this was a Barbecue Thai chicken, watermelon, and goat cheese salad over spinach. Since I love raw spinach, this wasn't a big deal, but conceptually I had envisioned a different dish than what was put in front of me.
Let's talk about the positives first. The chicken was cooked all the way through. The spinach leaves had been dressed properly (not too much dressing) and weren't wilted. Now let's talk about the negatives. The dressed spinach lacked salt. The watermelon chunks still had seeds in them. The chicken was literally smothered in a thick sauce only vaguely tasting of peanuts and unlike any Thai flavors that I've ever come across. In fact, not only was it unlike any other Thai flavors I've had before, but it was simply bad. I don't know if the more-than-judicious use of the sauce on the chicken satay skewers amplified the effect, but I can tell you that this is a flavor I am not eager to try again.
Halfway through my salad, my risotto arrived in more ways than one:
A little annoyed that the kitchen couldn't stagger the courses better at this level of dining establishment, I was even more surprised that the dish that had been placed at the opposite side of the table gave off an ammoniated smell so strong that I sat straight up in my seat. My mind was suddenly flooded with memories of walking through standard supermarket grocery stores with fish counters where the fish wasn't exactly "fresh." The kind where there is almost an invisible fish-smell "shield" that keeps you from getting too close.
I finished up my salad and switched the position of the two plates, so I could better inspect the risotto. Visually, the dish looked nice. It had been garnished with two sprigs of fresh thyme, a nice touch indicating that the herb used in the actual risotto would also be thyme. The two generous scallops had been seared to a nice golden crust on the outside. I cut one of the scallops in half and took a picture of the interior:
While I usually prefer my scallops on the rare side, given the smell coming off of them, I was actually hoping that they were cooked a little more than rare. Had these been pristine scallops, I would've gladly gobbled these closer-to-raw-than-rare beauties down. Mustering up my courage, I took a bite. I was moderately happy to discover that the ammonia odor I had detected earlier was much more muted in flavor. That, however, was primarily due to the fact that the scallops had been so oversalted that no other flavor could co-exist. The delicate sweetness that fresh scallops were supposed to have was nowhere to be found. I gave up on the scallops and decided to focus on the risotto underneath the disappointing bivalves.
It was at this moment that the server who had been working the private party in the rear of the restaurant approached me with my main entrée, the pan roasted chicken over tagliatelle. Having taken only a single bite out of the risotto (and a not very pleasant one at that), I looked up at him and said, "Seriously?" It was at that moment I realized that not only were there serious problems in the kitchen, but also that no one seemed to be in charge of managing courses in the front of house either. He mentioned that he would have the kitchen hold the dish until I was ready. While I appreciated the gesture, I also realized that the likely success of holding a freshly cooked pasta dish under a heat lamp for another ten minutes was approximately zero to none.
I turned my attention back to the risotto. While the risotto definitely had a better flavor than the scallops adorning it, the butternut squash suffered from two flaws. First, the squash had been cut into a brunoise and the tiny cubes, while evenly cut, didn't lend much flavor to the risotto itself. Second, after gathering up four or five bits of butternut squash on my fork to see if I could get some actual butternut squash flavor, I discovered as I mashed the soft squares between my tongue and the roof of my mouth that they were actually gritty.
Still hungry, I left the other 1 1/2 scallops and finished the remainder of the risotto. Personally, I would have loved to seen the kitchen roast the butternut squash cubes, thus intensifying their flavor and adding a bit of crusty caramelized exterior to achieve some nice texture. After I finished with the risotto, I wanted to make sure that there was no mistaking that I was ready for my third course: I placed the plate on the place mat opposite mine. This apparently worked as I had hoped because only a few minutes later, my entrée arrived via the same server who had brought it previously.
Here was a shot of the Pan Roasted Bell and Evans Chicken over Tagliatelle:
As my server set this down in front of me, he helpfully added, "I had the kitchen re-fire the dish." While this pasta dish was available in both half and full sizes, I opted to go with the larger size figuring that I could take any leftovers home with me. One of my first thoughts was that it seemed like a rather small bowl of pasta and chicken for $17. Thinking that maybe the kitchen had made a half order instead of a full one, I asked my server. He confirmed that it was indeed the full size order.
When the server then asked if I would like freshly grated Parmesan cheese on top, I agreed. Pulling out a Zyliss-like rotary cheese grater, instead of grating the cheese on top of the pasta, he held it upside down, grated a copious amount of cheese, and then dumped the entire mass on top of my pasta. I'm not quite sure what the server was thinking as the end result was that I wasn't able to control how much cheese was added. It was either none or way too much. At this point in the meal, however, nothing seemed to surprise me any more.
Instead of cooking an entire chicken breast and then slicing the cooked protein and fanning it over top of the pasta, the kitchen had actually cooked up several smaller individual pieces of chicken. While the sear on the outside of the chicken was nice, that's where the pleasantries stopped. Not only was the chicken uniformly grossly underseasoned, but because of the thickness of the "tenders," it was wholly dried out as well. The rest of the ingredients in the bowl didn't fare much better. The spinach, tomatoes, and roasted red pepper strips were also underseasoned and the sauce pooled at the bottom of the bowl was thin and watery. While the sprig of fresh rosemary garnishing the top of the pasta added a nice herbaceous nose to the dish, it turned out that there wasn't any rosemary actually in the pasta.
The tagliatelle went from okay (a single strand from the top of the dish) to grossly overcooked (the pasta sitting in the watery sauce at the bottom of the dish) and falling apart. Sadly, there were more clumps of doughy pasta than not:
I ate as much of this as I could, but probably ended up leaving about a third of the clumped pasta behind. During none of the courses did anyone check to see how my meal was, but the hostess who seated me did stop by and refill my water glass once or twice. I asked two separate employees if the chef was working tonight and I never did receive a consistent answer. Based on the photo of Chef Frank Zifer on the Virtues website, I don't believe he was. Or if he was, he certainly wasn't running the pass. Whomever was in charge (and given the abject failure of both the front and back of house I'm not entirely sure someone was), did an awful job in terms of quality control and course timing.
Everything said and done, with tip and tax, my dinner tonight came to just slightly under $40. I can say without doubt that I've had better meals at one eighth this price. So many people right now are having to watch every penny they spend because of the continued downturn in the economy. While I am in a fortunate position that I can spend $40 on a single meal, I am seriously hesitant to return to this comedy of errors, much less recommend it. While many would be quick to write off my experience as the restaurant just having a bad night, I find that I cannot recommend a restaurant where so much seemed to be so wrong. The fact that I spent $40 for the privilege makes me feel like someone was rubbing salt in an open wound.
Chef Zifer, Virtues needs direction. I am certainly willing to do another review (anonymously, of course), but not before some quite serious issues are addressed.
[Ed. Note: I felt so underwhelmed by my experience at Virtues that I did something I rarely do: I contacted the General Manager, Dan Dewitt, and forwarded him a rough copy of this review before its publication today. He freely admitted that the night that I went and experienced my meal was a completely off night for the restaurant and understandably asked that I give the restaurant another chance before printing anything negative on my blog.
While I certainly am not egotistical enough to think that this blog entry will reach millions of readers out there on the Internet, I also realize that the words that I write have impact. At the same time, I feel duty-bound to my readers and to the several hundred other restaurants that I've reviewed that, good or bad, the review is an accurate reflection of the experience I had.
Based on the feedback I've had from other foodies familiar with the heights that Virtues has attained in the past, as well as the statement I made at the end of this review, I actually do intend to do a follow-up visit. Even though it's difficult to overlook first impressions, I will approach it with as much of the same critical eye and objectivity as I tried to do here.]
Tonight's visit to Virtues Restaurant was the result of fulfilling the idea that came to me during this year's Taste of Akron. Instead of trying to sample and write about two dozen different vendors, I had the idea to sample the cuisine of three or four restaurants at which I hadn't eaten or reviewed and then follow that up with a formal review of the restaurant experience itself. Having already done this for Bistro on Main and Piatto Novo, the final restaurant on the docket was Virtues.
Virtues was located in the Ann and David Brennan Critical Care building, itself located inside the much larger Summa Akron City Hospital complex. Technically, the address for the restaurant was 525 East Market Street, Akron, OH 44304 and they can be reached at 330-375-7444. They also have a website here (warning: Heavy Flash content with music). While there was a front entrance for the restaurant and their website indicated that valet parking was available, I choose instead to park in the garage off of Adams Street and navigate my way through the hospital to find the entrance to the restaurant. The parking garage did cost money ($3), but the restaurant validated my parking when I requested it at the end of my meal.
Here was a shot of the entrance to Virtues:
Once inside the main entrance, I was greeted by an open and expansive space with the kitchen in full view. Looking around, it appeared to be a rather slow Wednesday night with less than one quarter of the tables filled with guests. After the hostess sat me at my table, she handed me the menu and asked for my drink order. After she left to fill it, I surreptitiously snapped photographs of the menu:
While the first page of actual menu items appeared to change weekly (which I appreciated), the rest of the menu only somewhat resembled the menu posted on their website. I was happy to see that many of the menu items came in full and half sizes, not so much because I was concerned about cost, but as a food writer, I love being able to sample more items if the sizes of the dishes are smaller. A note on the menu: the red circles with the phrase "Just This" in them refer to healthier choices. I couldn't find a legend on the menu that explained this, but the hostess who had originally sat me explained that it was on the display outside the restaurant.
The first sign of a problem was the lone waiter who seemed to be running from table to table, never quite able to get everything accomplished he set out to do. In fact, after waiting about ten minutes without any acknowledgement from him that I was even sitting at the table, the hostess who seated me stopped back over and asked if I had been helped yet. After I indicated that I hadn't, she walked away and returned a few minutes later with an order pad in her hand and asked if I was ready to order. Seeing as this might be my only opportunity to order my dinner, I took advantage of the situation. I decided tonight to do a three course meal: a butternut squash risotto with seared scallops to start, a half order of the barbecued Thai chicken watermelon and goat cheese salad for my intermezzo, and finish up with a full order of the Bell and Evans organic chicken over hand cut tagliatelle.
I'm not sure that the hostess actually entered the order into the computer herself as she flagged down one of the other servers who happened to be working a small private party in the back of the restaurant. Realizing that there were actually two servers working the floor, it made even less sense why the first server I spotted was having such a problem keeping up with the tables in the front of the restaurant. I don't know if bread service was standard, but I do know that I saw baskets of bread on other tables and I never received one.
After about fifteen more minutes, a second woman who was neither the hostess nor a server started walking towards my table. Apparently my salad had arrived before my appetizer:
Expecting the first course to be the risotto, I was a little surprised to receive the salad first, but I thought I'd give the kitchen the benefit of the doubt and just roll with the punches. What the menu didn't say was that this was a Barbecue Thai chicken, watermelon, and goat cheese salad over spinach. Since I love raw spinach, this wasn't a big deal, but conceptually I had envisioned a different dish than what was put in front of me.
Let's talk about the positives first. The chicken was cooked all the way through. The spinach leaves had been dressed properly (not too much dressing) and weren't wilted. Now let's talk about the negatives. The dressed spinach lacked salt. The watermelon chunks still had seeds in them. The chicken was literally smothered in a thick sauce only vaguely tasting of peanuts and unlike any Thai flavors that I've ever come across. In fact, not only was it unlike any other Thai flavors I've had before, but it was simply bad. I don't know if the more-than-judicious use of the sauce on the chicken satay skewers amplified the effect, but I can tell you that this is a flavor I am not eager to try again.
Halfway through my salad, my risotto arrived in more ways than one:
A little annoyed that the kitchen couldn't stagger the courses better at this level of dining establishment, I was even more surprised that the dish that had been placed at the opposite side of the table gave off an ammoniated smell so strong that I sat straight up in my seat. My mind was suddenly flooded with memories of walking through standard supermarket grocery stores with fish counters where the fish wasn't exactly "fresh." The kind where there is almost an invisible fish-smell "shield" that keeps you from getting too close.
I finished up my salad and switched the position of the two plates, so I could better inspect the risotto. Visually, the dish looked nice. It had been garnished with two sprigs of fresh thyme, a nice touch indicating that the herb used in the actual risotto would also be thyme. The two generous scallops had been seared to a nice golden crust on the outside. I cut one of the scallops in half and took a picture of the interior:
While I usually prefer my scallops on the rare side, given the smell coming off of them, I was actually hoping that they were cooked a little more than rare. Had these been pristine scallops, I would've gladly gobbled these closer-to-raw-than-rare beauties down. Mustering up my courage, I took a bite. I was moderately happy to discover that the ammonia odor I had detected earlier was much more muted in flavor. That, however, was primarily due to the fact that the scallops had been so oversalted that no other flavor could co-exist. The delicate sweetness that fresh scallops were supposed to have was nowhere to be found. I gave up on the scallops and decided to focus on the risotto underneath the disappointing bivalves.
It was at this moment that the server who had been working the private party in the rear of the restaurant approached me with my main entrée, the pan roasted chicken over tagliatelle. Having taken only a single bite out of the risotto (and a not very pleasant one at that), I looked up at him and said, "Seriously?" It was at that moment I realized that not only were there serious problems in the kitchen, but also that no one seemed to be in charge of managing courses in the front of house either. He mentioned that he would have the kitchen hold the dish until I was ready. While I appreciated the gesture, I also realized that the likely success of holding a freshly cooked pasta dish under a heat lamp for another ten minutes was approximately zero to none.
I turned my attention back to the risotto. While the risotto definitely had a better flavor than the scallops adorning it, the butternut squash suffered from two flaws. First, the squash had been cut into a brunoise and the tiny cubes, while evenly cut, didn't lend much flavor to the risotto itself. Second, after gathering up four or five bits of butternut squash on my fork to see if I could get some actual butternut squash flavor, I discovered as I mashed the soft squares between my tongue and the roof of my mouth that they were actually gritty.
Still hungry, I left the other 1 1/2 scallops and finished the remainder of the risotto. Personally, I would have loved to seen the kitchen roast the butternut squash cubes, thus intensifying their flavor and adding a bit of crusty caramelized exterior to achieve some nice texture. After I finished with the risotto, I wanted to make sure that there was no mistaking that I was ready for my third course: I placed the plate on the place mat opposite mine. This apparently worked as I had hoped because only a few minutes later, my entrée arrived via the same server who had brought it previously.
Here was a shot of the Pan Roasted Bell and Evans Chicken over Tagliatelle:
As my server set this down in front of me, he helpfully added, "I had the kitchen re-fire the dish." While this pasta dish was available in both half and full sizes, I opted to go with the larger size figuring that I could take any leftovers home with me. One of my first thoughts was that it seemed like a rather small bowl of pasta and chicken for $17. Thinking that maybe the kitchen had made a half order instead of a full one, I asked my server. He confirmed that it was indeed the full size order.
When the server then asked if I would like freshly grated Parmesan cheese on top, I agreed. Pulling out a Zyliss-like rotary cheese grater, instead of grating the cheese on top of the pasta, he held it upside down, grated a copious amount of cheese, and then dumped the entire mass on top of my pasta. I'm not quite sure what the server was thinking as the end result was that I wasn't able to control how much cheese was added. It was either none or way too much. At this point in the meal, however, nothing seemed to surprise me any more.
Instead of cooking an entire chicken breast and then slicing the cooked protein and fanning it over top of the pasta, the kitchen had actually cooked up several smaller individual pieces of chicken. While the sear on the outside of the chicken was nice, that's where the pleasantries stopped. Not only was the chicken uniformly grossly underseasoned, but because of the thickness of the "tenders," it was wholly dried out as well. The rest of the ingredients in the bowl didn't fare much better. The spinach, tomatoes, and roasted red pepper strips were also underseasoned and the sauce pooled at the bottom of the bowl was thin and watery. While the sprig of fresh rosemary garnishing the top of the pasta added a nice herbaceous nose to the dish, it turned out that there wasn't any rosemary actually in the pasta.
The tagliatelle went from okay (a single strand from the top of the dish) to grossly overcooked (the pasta sitting in the watery sauce at the bottom of the dish) and falling apart. Sadly, there were more clumps of doughy pasta than not:
I ate as much of this as I could, but probably ended up leaving about a third of the clumped pasta behind. During none of the courses did anyone check to see how my meal was, but the hostess who seated me did stop by and refill my water glass once or twice. I asked two separate employees if the chef was working tonight and I never did receive a consistent answer. Based on the photo of Chef Frank Zifer on the Virtues website, I don't believe he was. Or if he was, he certainly wasn't running the pass. Whomever was in charge (and given the abject failure of both the front and back of house I'm not entirely sure someone was), did an awful job in terms of quality control and course timing.
Everything said and done, with tip and tax, my dinner tonight came to just slightly under $40. I can say without doubt that I've had better meals at one eighth this price. So many people right now are having to watch every penny they spend because of the continued downturn in the economy. While I am in a fortunate position that I can spend $40 on a single meal, I am seriously hesitant to return to this comedy of errors, much less recommend it. While many would be quick to write off my experience as the restaurant just having a bad night, I find that I cannot recommend a restaurant where so much seemed to be so wrong. The fact that I spent $40 for the privilege makes me feel like someone was rubbing salt in an open wound.
Chef Zifer, Virtues needs direction. I am certainly willing to do another review (anonymously, of course), but not before some quite serious issues are addressed.
[Ed. Note: I felt so underwhelmed by my experience at Virtues that I did something I rarely do: I contacted the General Manager, Dan Dewitt, and forwarded him a rough copy of this review before its publication today. He freely admitted that the night that I went and experienced my meal was a completely off night for the restaurant and understandably asked that I give the restaurant another chance before printing anything negative on my blog.
While I certainly am not egotistical enough to think that this blog entry will reach millions of readers out there on the Internet, I also realize that the words that I write have impact. At the same time, I feel duty-bound to my readers and to the several hundred other restaurants that I've reviewed that, good or bad, the review is an accurate reflection of the experience I had.
Based on the feedback I've had from other foodies familiar with the heights that Virtues has attained in the past, as well as the statement I made at the end of this review, I actually do intend to do a follow-up visit. Even though it's difficult to overlook first impressions, I will approach it with as much of the same critical eye and objectivity as I tried to do here.]
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
A Spectacular View At Piatto Novo
Based on my recent visit to the 2010 Taste of Akron event, I had already formally visited and reviewed Bistro on Main in Kent, Ohio. The second restaurant on my "to eat" list was unconventional because it was located inside the Cuyahoga Falls-based Sheraton Suites Akron perched atop a magnificent vista overlooking the meandering Cuyahoga River. I speak, of course, of Piatto Novo run by Chef Roger Thomas.
Having eaten here many years ago at their Sunday brunch, I knew that my visit wouldn't be inexpensive, but looking at their menu on-line before I went, I noticed that I could economize certain dishes, such as ordering one of their half-orders of pasta if I wished to try it out. Exactly one week after eating at Bistro on Main, I again decided to show up with no reservation at 5:45 PM on a normally slow night of the week.
The Sheraton Suits Akron was located at 1989 Front Street, Cuyahoga Falls, OH 44221 and can be reached at 330-929-3000. I'm assuming that the phone number was for the main desk, but I'm sure if you ask for the restaurant, they can forward your call. Parking was either in the lot directly outside the Sheraton or on the curb on Front Street.
As I walked into the main entrance, I was greeted with this glass panel at the top of the stairs:
The entrance to the restaurant was behind this plaque and down a flight of stairs. After requesting a table for one, my hostess sat me by the window overlooking the river. The gentle sound of water running downstream could still be heard in the dining room. If you can get a seat by the window, I highly recommend it.
She left me to look at the printed menu:
The only real complaint I had about the appetizer portion of the menu was that it seemed that all of the appetizers were around $10 and above. Only the Piatto Salad at $4 seemed to buck this trend. While I don't mind spending $10 for an appetizer, tonight I was also interested in trying a half-order of pasta and a full entrée, so a full appetizer would definitely have made it too much.
While I pondered my choices, my server brought me out a basket of bread:
And a dish of softened butter:
The bread was fresh, but a tad uninspired. There was three slices of focaccia and three slices of a seedless Italian loaf, both of which had a decent crust and crumb, but didn't offer very much in the flavor department. At least the butter was soft and easily spreadable.
Deciding to start with something simple to whet my appetite, I ordered the Piatto Salad with orange basil vinaigrette:
This was essentially a plate of greens that had been dressed with the vinaigrette. Nothing more, nothing less. The salad came dressed and while it was enough to coat the leaves, it didn't leave a puddle of dressing at the bottom of the plate. The citrusy bite from the orange was notable in the dressing, but I missed the herbaceousness that the basil should have brought. Perhaps this was because the vinaigrette had been made with dried basil instead of fresh. Either way it just wasn't there. If you are the type that likes light vinaigrettes, then this dressing would be up your alley, gentle reader. I realize that this particular salad is 1/2 to 1/3 the price of the other salads and appetizers, but it just felt like there should be something else on the plate to dress up the dish.
For my half-portion "appetizer," I decided to go with the homemade linguine alla bolognese:
Presented in this smallish bowl, the linguine had clearly been tossed in the condimento, the bolognese sauce. Comprised of beef, veal, and pork that had been slow simmered in a tomato sauce, the menu indicated that a "touch of cream" had been added. Based on what I saw and tasted, if there was cream in this sauce, it was definitely the minutest of amounts. The sauce didn't feel rich from the addition of cream, but I could definitely tell that the sauce had cooked for some time. It was quite tasty and as a traditional Italian-American meat sauce, it worked quite well. The pasta was cooked properly and had been seasoned by tossing in the sauce before plating.
Unfortunately, there was quite a bit of sauce left over after finishing my pasta:
My guess would be that the kitchen either added too much sauce or was trying to satisfy both traditional Italian and modern American saucing techniques. That being to toss the pasta in the condiment (the sauce) to finish cooking the pasta and have it be absorbed into the pasta as well as adding extra sauce onto the finished plate because Americans love their sauce.
My pasta course finished, I waited for the arrival of my entrée. Having looked over the menu several times, I finally decided on getting the Pork Tenderloin Pepato:
The pork loin was pepper crusted and seared to the correct temperature before being sliced and fanned out over a tomato agrodolce sauce and served with a polenta crespelle filled with spinach and onions. The first item I checked was the doneness of the pork. I had ordered it medium and sure enough,
it definitely came from the kitchen cooked to medium. The next step was to take a taste of the agrodolce sauce. Agrodolce is literally translated from Italian as "Sour-Sweet." It is supposed to hit both taste sensations on the tongue at the same time. While there were aspects of both qualities in the sauce, it seemed to lack much in terms of boldness. Figuring that the seasoning on the pork might tie the two flavors together, I paired a forkful of meat with some of the sauce. Again, the flavor was good and the pork was tender and juicy, but it didn't really grab hold of my taste buds and call out with the flavor explosion I was expecting. Lest you think the culprit was lack of salt, the seasoning was perfect on both the pork and the sauce.
Next, I turned my attention to the polenta crespelle:
Essentially polenta that had been spread into a very thin layer in a heavily buttered pan, it had been allowed to "crisp up" on the bottom side before being filling with sautéed spinach and onions, folded over like an omelet, and the slid onto the plate for service. Interestingly, even with such a thin layer of polenta, the corn flavor really came through on my palate. The spinach and onions were a nice addition, but almost secondary to the primary flavor of the corn.
The only real criticism I have here was the amount of extra melted butter than ended up on my plate. I'm not naive enough to think that moderate to fine dining doesn't involve an inordinate amount of butter to finish off sauces and sear proteins, but the pool of butter that the crespelle rested seemed a little too gratuitous and only served to make the crespelle a bit greasy.
Finally, wanting to try one of the sides as well, I ordered the Brussels sprouts with crispy pancetta:
These were actually quite delicious. The crispy pancetta lardons added capricious bits of saltiness and fat to the Brussels sprouts, which had been deeply caramelized in a pan. While I was never a fan of this cruciferous vegetable growing up, had my mother cooked them this way, I would've been an avid fan long before now.
When asked about dessert, I quickly turned down my server's offer; I was literally stuffed. When the check came, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that my feast had only come to $45 with tax included. While this was just slightly less expensive than my meal at Bistro on Main, I felt that the dishes I had tonight at Piatto Novo, while good, just weren't quite as good as what I had eaten the week prior at Bistro on Main. While I will still certainly recommend Piatto Novo for both the food and view, I was a little surprised that I wasn't more taken by my dining experience. I may have to go back again and check them out for a second time, just to rule out any inconsistencies by the kitchen.
Having eaten here many years ago at their Sunday brunch, I knew that my visit wouldn't be inexpensive, but looking at their menu on-line before I went, I noticed that I could economize certain dishes, such as ordering one of their half-orders of pasta if I wished to try it out. Exactly one week after eating at Bistro on Main, I again decided to show up with no reservation at 5:45 PM on a normally slow night of the week.
The Sheraton Suits Akron was located at 1989 Front Street, Cuyahoga Falls, OH 44221 and can be reached at 330-929-3000. I'm assuming that the phone number was for the main desk, but I'm sure if you ask for the restaurant, they can forward your call. Parking was either in the lot directly outside the Sheraton or on the curb on Front Street.
As I walked into the main entrance, I was greeted with this glass panel at the top of the stairs:
The entrance to the restaurant was behind this plaque and down a flight of stairs. After requesting a table for one, my hostess sat me by the window overlooking the river. The gentle sound of water running downstream could still be heard in the dining room. If you can get a seat by the window, I highly recommend it.
She left me to look at the printed menu:
The only real complaint I had about the appetizer portion of the menu was that it seemed that all of the appetizers were around $10 and above. Only the Piatto Salad at $4 seemed to buck this trend. While I don't mind spending $10 for an appetizer, tonight I was also interested in trying a half-order of pasta and a full entrée, so a full appetizer would definitely have made it too much.
While I pondered my choices, my server brought me out a basket of bread:
And a dish of softened butter:
The bread was fresh, but a tad uninspired. There was three slices of focaccia and three slices of a seedless Italian loaf, both of which had a decent crust and crumb, but didn't offer very much in the flavor department. At least the butter was soft and easily spreadable.
Deciding to start with something simple to whet my appetite, I ordered the Piatto Salad with orange basil vinaigrette:
This was essentially a plate of greens that had been dressed with the vinaigrette. Nothing more, nothing less. The salad came dressed and while it was enough to coat the leaves, it didn't leave a puddle of dressing at the bottom of the plate. The citrusy bite from the orange was notable in the dressing, but I missed the herbaceousness that the basil should have brought. Perhaps this was because the vinaigrette had been made with dried basil instead of fresh. Either way it just wasn't there. If you are the type that likes light vinaigrettes, then this dressing would be up your alley, gentle reader. I realize that this particular salad is 1/2 to 1/3 the price of the other salads and appetizers, but it just felt like there should be something else on the plate to dress up the dish.
For my half-portion "appetizer," I decided to go with the homemade linguine alla bolognese:
Presented in this smallish bowl, the linguine had clearly been tossed in the condimento, the bolognese sauce. Comprised of beef, veal, and pork that had been slow simmered in a tomato sauce, the menu indicated that a "touch of cream" had been added. Based on what I saw and tasted, if there was cream in this sauce, it was definitely the minutest of amounts. The sauce didn't feel rich from the addition of cream, but I could definitely tell that the sauce had cooked for some time. It was quite tasty and as a traditional Italian-American meat sauce, it worked quite well. The pasta was cooked properly and had been seasoned by tossing in the sauce before plating.
Unfortunately, there was quite a bit of sauce left over after finishing my pasta:
My guess would be that the kitchen either added too much sauce or was trying to satisfy both traditional Italian and modern American saucing techniques. That being to toss the pasta in the condiment (the sauce) to finish cooking the pasta and have it be absorbed into the pasta as well as adding extra sauce onto the finished plate because Americans love their sauce.
My pasta course finished, I waited for the arrival of my entrée. Having looked over the menu several times, I finally decided on getting the Pork Tenderloin Pepato:
The pork loin was pepper crusted and seared to the correct temperature before being sliced and fanned out over a tomato agrodolce sauce and served with a polenta crespelle filled with spinach and onions. The first item I checked was the doneness of the pork. I had ordered it medium and sure enough,
it definitely came from the kitchen cooked to medium. The next step was to take a taste of the agrodolce sauce. Agrodolce is literally translated from Italian as "Sour-Sweet." It is supposed to hit both taste sensations on the tongue at the same time. While there were aspects of both qualities in the sauce, it seemed to lack much in terms of boldness. Figuring that the seasoning on the pork might tie the two flavors together, I paired a forkful of meat with some of the sauce. Again, the flavor was good and the pork was tender and juicy, but it didn't really grab hold of my taste buds and call out with the flavor explosion I was expecting. Lest you think the culprit was lack of salt, the seasoning was perfect on both the pork and the sauce.
Next, I turned my attention to the polenta crespelle:
Essentially polenta that had been spread into a very thin layer in a heavily buttered pan, it had been allowed to "crisp up" on the bottom side before being filling with sautéed spinach and onions, folded over like an omelet, and the slid onto the plate for service. Interestingly, even with such a thin layer of polenta, the corn flavor really came through on my palate. The spinach and onions were a nice addition, but almost secondary to the primary flavor of the corn.
The only real criticism I have here was the amount of extra melted butter than ended up on my plate. I'm not naive enough to think that moderate to fine dining doesn't involve an inordinate amount of butter to finish off sauces and sear proteins, but the pool of butter that the crespelle rested seemed a little too gratuitous and only served to make the crespelle a bit greasy.
Finally, wanting to try one of the sides as well, I ordered the Brussels sprouts with crispy pancetta:
These were actually quite delicious. The crispy pancetta lardons added capricious bits of saltiness and fat to the Brussels sprouts, which had been deeply caramelized in a pan. While I was never a fan of this cruciferous vegetable growing up, had my mother cooked them this way, I would've been an avid fan long before now.
When asked about dessert, I quickly turned down my server's offer; I was literally stuffed. When the check came, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that my feast had only come to $45 with tax included. While this was just slightly less expensive than my meal at Bistro on Main, I felt that the dishes I had tonight at Piatto Novo, while good, just weren't quite as good as what I had eaten the week prior at Bistro on Main. While I will still certainly recommend Piatto Novo for both the food and view, I was a little surprised that I wasn't more taken by my dining experience. I may have to go back again and check them out for a second time, just to rule out any inconsistencies by the kitchen.
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Join Me At The Taste of Akron 2010
Bare with me as I channel my inner Snoopy: It was to be a dark and stormy night.
Fortunately, the foreboding weather held off long enough during this year's Taste of Akron event in Hardesty Park near the intersection of Market and Hawkins that thousands of people were able to try out an array of foods from local restaurants and caterers. This being the fourth year of the Taste, it has steadily grown in both the number of vendors and attendees every year. While my normal method of documenting such an event would be to try out and photo-document something from each vendor, I knew that with two dozen different places to try and a limited amount of time, stomach space, and money, I needed a different strategy.
After parking my car on one of the surrounding streets, I walked up to the ticket booth to purchase my food tickets. Tickets were only $2 a piece, but I have come to learn that it is better to be cautious on how many you initially buy because they are not refundable. No money was actually exchanged with vendors for food, only tickets. Depending on the size or expense of the item, each dish at a restaurant was either one, two, or three tickets ($2, $4, or $6).
As I approached the entrance, I saw a list of the vendors inside:
As opposed to previous years, this year there was a spot for strollers to be left just outside the tent to help avoid the clogged lines of people. This was definitely a positive change from last year when during the busy time (and there really wasn't a non-busy time), you not only had to navigate through the crowds of people, but the double-wide strollers were a bit annoying, too. Knowing how hot it can feel in the tent, fans were placed strategically at both ends. This helped somewhat when you were at either end of the tent, but right in the middle, it was definitely still hot and muggy.
As I strolled around looking at each vendors' offerings, I decided to pick restaurants that I was interested in doing a formal review at some point in the future. I considered tonight sort of a "preview," if you will, of what to expect at an actual meal.
As such, I came up to Piatto Novo and decided that they would be my first stop tonight:
If you look closely at the menu offerings, you can see the start of a major trend in the food this year, sliders. Unfortunately, none of the "sliders" that I saw or ate were truly sliders as none of the buns were steamed. I know, picky picky, but at best, these were just small sandwiches on buns.
Regardless, I decided on going with the Italian Beef slider:
Sadly, there was no spicy giardiniera to put on top of the sliced meat, but out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a jar of Sriracha sauce. Score!
As I took a bite into my sandwich, I noticed how dry (not necessarily stale, just not moist) the bun tasted. In a true Italian Beef sandwich, the customer is given the option of having the sandwich dipped in the jus. While the lack of giardiniera was disappointing, a dipped sandwich would've gone a long way from taking a good sandwich and making it even better. That being said, the meat was nicely cooked and tender and was flavorful. With the addition of the Sriracha, it even had a little bit of the heat that I associate with a properly made Italian Beef sandwich.
My second stop tonight was to Bistro on Main. Technically from Kent and not Akron, I've been hearing some interesting feedback about this restaurant and intend to check them out soon.
While the green menu being handed out at the tent's entrance stated that the Bistro was serving up cheesecake, popcorn shrimp, and a short rib slider, in reality, they were serving a seared scallop with avocado and roasted corn orzo and a second dish, a baby blue salad. I decided to go with the seared scallop:
It is hard to hold seafood for any length of time, so I was a bit skeptical about how good this might actually be. When I got back to my seat, I cut open one of the scallops to reveal a nicely cooked exterior and translucent interior:
First, I tasted the avocado and roasted corn orzo. While the orzo was good, I didn't get a whole lot of flavor from the roasted corn. The scallop, which had been seasoned before being seared, had just the right amount of punch to make this a successful dish. And while some might argue that the scallop was the star of the dish and the orzo should play second fiddle, I felt like the orzo could've used a bit more personality. All in all, though, this was a nice dish.
My third stop tonight was at a rather unusual venue, Virtues Restaurant (warning: Flash content with sound). What makes Virtues unusual was that it was located inside Akron City Hospital. While it would make sense that visitors might want an upscale meal while visiting friends or relatives, it still felt a little strange to think about going to a hospital for dinner if you or someone you know wasn't sick.
Regardless, here was a shot of the items being offered at Virtues' stand tonight:
While the sea scallop sounded good, having just eaten a scallop at Bistro on Main and the fact that I only had two tickets left in my pocket made me choose the BBQ Bison slider. Here was a shot of the sandwich:
I tasted the bacon blue cheese slaw by itself and found it to be quite interesting. The smokiness from the bacon and the sharpness from the blue cheese were present, but not overpowering. I don't know that I'd be able to eat this as a standard side dish, but as a topping it worked quite well. I also tried a bit of the BBQ sauce. By itself, it had a decent flavor, but when combined with the coleslaw, it got lost. The worst part of this sandwich was the actual bison meatball. It was rather dry and uninspired. This slider was also the only item that I had tonight where I had to reassemble the sandwich so I could eat it. Whomever had assembled the sliders thought it would be artful to put the coleslaw behind the meatball instead of on top of it. It looked nice, but was definitely not mouth ready.
Having had my trio of savory, I decided to finish up tonight's tour with something sweet. When I saw that Vaccaro's Trattoria was sporting a hotel pan full of cannoli, I decided to stop and pick one up:
While the famous Godfather quote did flash through my mind, tonight I decided to leave the tickets and take a cannolo instead. Here was a shot of my dessert tonight:
Fried dough can get a little soft in humid weather like today, but Vaccaro's cannolo was shatteringly crisp and fresh. The filling, a slightly sweetened ricotta concoction with bits of chocolate was tasty and refreshing. It was sweet without being too sweet and the coldness of the cheese was a welcome relief on such a warm July day.
After finishing up my meal, I wandered over to a separate area where West Point Market was hosting another annual "The Finest Cut" steak cook-off. A friend and fellow food blogger at Dad Cooks Dinner, Mike Vrobel, had won last year and was entering his newest creation in this year's contest in hopes of walking away with another title.
Here was a shot of Mike presenting his finished steak to the judges (Lisa Abraham, food writer for the Akron Beacon Journal and tonight's MC was on the right):
This year he entered the contest with a grilled ribeye steak served with a chipotle lime butter. While there wasn't a general audience tasting (just the judges), Mike did have a few samples left over after he presented his steak to the judging panel and I have to say, it was perfectly cooked and seasoned. While he didn't present any of the reduced sauces and accoutrement that some of the other contestants had, he presented his steak as I would have preferred it, simple, seasoned nicely, and cooked to a wonderful medium rare.
I won't spoil it here, but Mike wrote up the results of the contest on his blog. Click on the link if you want to see what happened.
Having tried four different tastes at this year's Taste of Akron, I am very much looking forward to sampling some of the food at each of the respective restaurants sometime in the near future. While the Taste of Akron is finished for this year, I encourage you to check it out next year. The event is always on a Thursday, late in July, and really does showcase some of the best eateries that Akron and the surrounding communities have to offer. Make sure the Taste of Akron is on your list of events for next summer, you won't regret it.
Fortunately, the foreboding weather held off long enough during this year's Taste of Akron event in Hardesty Park near the intersection of Market and Hawkins that thousands of people were able to try out an array of foods from local restaurants and caterers. This being the fourth year of the Taste, it has steadily grown in both the number of vendors and attendees every year. While my normal method of documenting such an event would be to try out and photo-document something from each vendor, I knew that with two dozen different places to try and a limited amount of time, stomach space, and money, I needed a different strategy.
After parking my car on one of the surrounding streets, I walked up to the ticket booth to purchase my food tickets. Tickets were only $2 a piece, but I have come to learn that it is better to be cautious on how many you initially buy because they are not refundable. No money was actually exchanged with vendors for food, only tickets. Depending on the size or expense of the item, each dish at a restaurant was either one, two, or three tickets ($2, $4, or $6).
As I approached the entrance, I saw a list of the vendors inside:
As opposed to previous years, this year there was a spot for strollers to be left just outside the tent to help avoid the clogged lines of people. This was definitely a positive change from last year when during the busy time (and there really wasn't a non-busy time), you not only had to navigate through the crowds of people, but the double-wide strollers were a bit annoying, too. Knowing how hot it can feel in the tent, fans were placed strategically at both ends. This helped somewhat when you were at either end of the tent, but right in the middle, it was definitely still hot and muggy.
As I strolled around looking at each vendors' offerings, I decided to pick restaurants that I was interested in doing a formal review at some point in the future. I considered tonight sort of a "preview," if you will, of what to expect at an actual meal.
As such, I came up to Piatto Novo and decided that they would be my first stop tonight:
If you look closely at the menu offerings, you can see the start of a major trend in the food this year, sliders. Unfortunately, none of the "sliders" that I saw or ate were truly sliders as none of the buns were steamed. I know, picky picky, but at best, these were just small sandwiches on buns.
Regardless, I decided on going with the Italian Beef slider:
Sadly, there was no spicy giardiniera to put on top of the sliced meat, but out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a jar of Sriracha sauce. Score!
As I took a bite into my sandwich, I noticed how dry (not necessarily stale, just not moist) the bun tasted. In a true Italian Beef sandwich, the customer is given the option of having the sandwich dipped in the jus. While the lack of giardiniera was disappointing, a dipped sandwich would've gone a long way from taking a good sandwich and making it even better. That being said, the meat was nicely cooked and tender and was flavorful. With the addition of the Sriracha, it even had a little bit of the heat that I associate with a properly made Italian Beef sandwich.
My second stop tonight was to Bistro on Main. Technically from Kent and not Akron, I've been hearing some interesting feedback about this restaurant and intend to check them out soon.
While the green menu being handed out at the tent's entrance stated that the Bistro was serving up cheesecake, popcorn shrimp, and a short rib slider, in reality, they were serving a seared scallop with avocado and roasted corn orzo and a second dish, a baby blue salad. I decided to go with the seared scallop:
It is hard to hold seafood for any length of time, so I was a bit skeptical about how good this might actually be. When I got back to my seat, I cut open one of the scallops to reveal a nicely cooked exterior and translucent interior:
First, I tasted the avocado and roasted corn orzo. While the orzo was good, I didn't get a whole lot of flavor from the roasted corn. The scallop, which had been seasoned before being seared, had just the right amount of punch to make this a successful dish. And while some might argue that the scallop was the star of the dish and the orzo should play second fiddle, I felt like the orzo could've used a bit more personality. All in all, though, this was a nice dish.
My third stop tonight was at a rather unusual venue, Virtues Restaurant (warning: Flash content with sound). What makes Virtues unusual was that it was located inside Akron City Hospital. While it would make sense that visitors might want an upscale meal while visiting friends or relatives, it still felt a little strange to think about going to a hospital for dinner if you or someone you know wasn't sick.
Regardless, here was a shot of the items being offered at Virtues' stand tonight:
While the sea scallop sounded good, having just eaten a scallop at Bistro on Main and the fact that I only had two tickets left in my pocket made me choose the BBQ Bison slider. Here was a shot of the sandwich:
I tasted the bacon blue cheese slaw by itself and found it to be quite interesting. The smokiness from the bacon and the sharpness from the blue cheese were present, but not overpowering. I don't know that I'd be able to eat this as a standard side dish, but as a topping it worked quite well. I also tried a bit of the BBQ sauce. By itself, it had a decent flavor, but when combined with the coleslaw, it got lost. The worst part of this sandwich was the actual bison meatball. It was rather dry and uninspired. This slider was also the only item that I had tonight where I had to reassemble the sandwich so I could eat it. Whomever had assembled the sliders thought it would be artful to put the coleslaw behind the meatball instead of on top of it. It looked nice, but was definitely not mouth ready.
Having had my trio of savory, I decided to finish up tonight's tour with something sweet. When I saw that Vaccaro's Trattoria was sporting a hotel pan full of cannoli, I decided to stop and pick one up:
While the famous Godfather quote did flash through my mind, tonight I decided to leave the tickets and take a cannolo instead. Here was a shot of my dessert tonight:
Fried dough can get a little soft in humid weather like today, but Vaccaro's cannolo was shatteringly crisp and fresh. The filling, a slightly sweetened ricotta concoction with bits of chocolate was tasty and refreshing. It was sweet without being too sweet and the coldness of the cheese was a welcome relief on such a warm July day.
After finishing up my meal, I wandered over to a separate area where West Point Market was hosting another annual "The Finest Cut" steak cook-off. A friend and fellow food blogger at Dad Cooks Dinner, Mike Vrobel, had won last year and was entering his newest creation in this year's contest in hopes of walking away with another title.
Here was a shot of Mike presenting his finished steak to the judges (Lisa Abraham, food writer for the Akron Beacon Journal and tonight's MC was on the right):
This year he entered the contest with a grilled ribeye steak served with a chipotle lime butter. While there wasn't a general audience tasting (just the judges), Mike did have a few samples left over after he presented his steak to the judging panel and I have to say, it was perfectly cooked and seasoned. While he didn't present any of the reduced sauces and accoutrement that some of the other contestants had, he presented his steak as I would have preferred it, simple, seasoned nicely, and cooked to a wonderful medium rare.
I won't spoil it here, but Mike wrote up the results of the contest on his blog. Click on the link if you want to see what happened.
Having tried four different tastes at this year's Taste of Akron, I am very much looking forward to sampling some of the food at each of the respective restaurants sometime in the near future. While the Taste of Akron is finished for this year, I encourage you to check it out next year. The event is always on a Thursday, late in July, and really does showcase some of the best eateries that Akron and the surrounding communities have to offer. Make sure the Taste of Akron is on your list of events for next summer, you won't regret it.
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