Eat Your Heart Out

Tuesday, May 31, 2011

My favorite thing about coming home is eating. Also, you know, spending time with people I love, but mostly the eating. I've been known to make four trips in two days to my favorite hometown restaurant chain, Rockne's, & whenever possible, I try to convince friends to make the 45-minute trek to Cleveland to eat at gems like Happy Dog and Melt, Northeast Ohio's finest artery-clogging establishments.

But some of those establishments, it turns out, exist right in my old backyard - almost literally. While home this week, I seized the opportunity to ditch dieting & embrace unhealthy gorging. Yeah, yeah, judge away. Sometime you've just gotta eat your weight in gourmet in food.



  • Flip Side
    I don't even like hamburgers (actually, I've never had a hamburger), but I couldn't passup the quirky menu at Hudson's new(ish) burger joint. After an truly epic wait, I bucked the trend & ordered a chicken sandwich with two-year aged cheddar & an appetizer of mini corn dogs. And I washed it down with a Medjool date milkshake spiked with bacon vodka. And my palate will never be the same. In a good way.

  • Pad Thai
    While I think it's weird to name a restaurant after your most recognizable dish (can you imagine an Italian joint named Lasagna?), that's not the point. The point is this: I inhaled my basil chicken with a ferocity not seen since my early DC days, when the servers at my neighborhood Thai establishment came to know me by name. I doubted the Midwest's ability to bring me delicious Thai food, but I underestimated my fair Ohio.

  • Totally Cooked
    On Fridays, the catering-company-slash-café down the road from my house sets up a midday BBQ truck in their parking lot, advertising with the motto, "We do the grillin', you do the chill in'." I paid inside for a pulled pork sandwich & carried my order out to the truck, where Dante, TC's loudmouthed & enthusiastic owner, laughed at me: "I love serving this to my Jewish customers!" Guilty as charged. I planned to take a photo, but this was all that was left by the time I remembered.

  • Mr. Zub's at the Matinee
    Circa 1:00am in Akron's Highland Square neighborhood, I consumed a hot dog named after cinematic porn star Dirk Diggler (see: "Boogie Nights"). It was topped with cheese & onions & chili & was undoubtedly the largest wiener I have ever seen. Pun intended, har de har har. I took half home & can now confirm that cold, leftover hot dogs taste as foul as they sound like they will.

Now, pardon me while I stock up on nothing but Diet Coke & heads of lettuce to eat for the next month as my body recovers...

14 comments:

  1. I'm sorry, but you lost me at "never had a hamburger." *blink blink* I can't even...

    Mr. Zub's is my new favorite in Akron. LOVE that place.

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  2. I hated hamburgers as a kid. I exclusively ate Filet o' Fishes & grew up thinking that fish burger = burger. I guess that's a whole other shade of weird. sigh.

    All of these descriptions are totally making me hungry. I also spend a huge amount of time eating at all my favorite spots when I'm home visiting like, this one place called Red Fish Blue Fish that makes really amazing gourmet BBQ'ed salmon wraps (an upscale alternative to an old stand by.) Now, you probably think I'm gross..

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  3. When I go home it's also all about my hometown favorite foods-- gotta get the cheese fries, the pizza, my favorite hoagie.

    A date milkshake? That actually sounds pretty yummy! Kinda like rum raisin.

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  4. Seriously, that's the best part about coming up. Balancing my mom's home cooking with eating out at every one of my favorite restaurants requires at least six meals a day.

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  5. Don't gonna lie, I stopped reading at bacon vodka. Tell me more...

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  6. It was SO GOOD, you would die. I thought it might be gross, but it was
    fantastic - little pieces of sweet dates with a little bit of an aftertaste
    of bacon. Plus vanilla ice cream, obviously. I WANT ANOTHER ASAP.

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  7. I just realized I typed "don't gonna lie". How unfortunate. My eyes are obviously crossing due to internet (ab)use. Buuuut I'll have to check this out someday. I've never been to Ohio. Bacon and dates and ice cream all sound like reason enough to go.

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  8. goodness, i need to go to flip side and totally cooked! glad you enjoyed home!!

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  9. YES, YOU DO. You're so close, & they're both so worth it! Totally Cooked has
    good food the rest of the week, too, but Friday's BBQ cart is pretty
    fantastic.

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  10. Thank you for keeping me from going into the kitchen to get a snack. Haha!

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  11. Anything fried is totally ok with me! mmmmm yum..cute post!


    xoxo
    Miss Neira

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  12. Mmmmm Melt.

    I do the same thing when I go home - there's a list of places and things I must eat while I'm there. I'm sure my parents think I eat that way all the time, which I don't. But I see them eyeing my choices with concern.

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  13. Good thai food in OH?  Color me impressed. I'm still waiting for good sushi in my area, instead I have to go to Columbus or Pittsburgh for it.

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  14. Only tried Pad Thai once and it was great. I haven't been to Flipside yet but it's on my radar. My friends own B.Lux in Hudson so every once in awhile we try and go to dinner down there.

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