Dinner At The Bar

Last night, on a whim, we decided to duck into Speck, the new downtown restaurant only a short walk from our apartment, to see if we could grab a meal at the bar. Getting a table can be a challenge at this hot new Columbus dining option, but Speck has a bar area and we decided to take our chances that two seats might be open. Luck was with us, and we grabbed two stools at the end of the bar.

I like eating at a bar every now and then. The vibe is distinctly different, and a nice change of pace. At a table, you see your server periodically, you’re a few feet from other diners, and there is a sense of some privacy. At the bar, on the other hand, there’s a lot more interaction with the servers and a lot more hustle and bustle; you’re only a foot or so away from people making drinks, slicing fruit, and washing dishes. There’s no sense of privacy, really, but it’s easy to strike up a conversation with the back of the bar staff.

Another key difference is that you are facing the array of different bottles of alcohol behind the bar, and seeing a lot of interesting drinks being made. The temptation to try something new is irresistible. As befits an Italian eatery, Speck has an extensive collection of European liquors. That’s why I deviated from my normal wine-only beverage approach and started the evening with a bright and refreshing Aperol spritzer, shown above. At the barkeep’s suggestion, I followed that up with a Fernet-Branca, an Italian digestif and apertif that was interesting from a flavor standpoint, but a bit on the bitter side for my tastes, so I switched to a glass of wine for my meal.

Speaking of the meal, we started with some excellent mussels, with a broth that demanded to be sopped up by some delicious bread. It was succulent. I followed that with an enormous and awesomely tender short rib, shown above, that looked like it should have been precariously balanced on the side of Fred Flintstone’s car. I ate it all, without remorse, and some of Kish’s cacio e pepe pasta, besides.

I had the feeling that the dinner wasn’t quite done yet, so I sought the bartender’s advice on one last drink to cap off an excellent meal in a fun setting. He suggested a pistachiocello, shown below, which was absolutely delicious. I could have guzzled a gallon of it, but somehow resisted the temptation. We headed out into the cold Columbus night, fully satisfied and happy that we took a chance on a few seats at the bar.

Our evening at the bar at Speck was a memorable one that we’ll want to repeat in the future. If you haven’t eaten at the bar lately, you might want to give it a try.

March, The Cruelest Month

On the morning when we “spring ahead” by adjusting our clocks forward one hour and implement Daily Savings Time, we’re dealing with snow and 30-degree temperatures in Columbus. Is spring truly ahead? The buses and cars rolling down the street are snow-topped, the asphalt has a cold, snowy shimmer, and the promise of an early spring has been dashed by this dusting of the white stuff. What’s more, the forecast is for dreary, cold temperatures for the next 10 days.

I disagree with T.S. Eliot: in the Midwest, March, not April, is the cruelest month. Whether it comes in like a lamb or a lion, March invariably teases us with warm days where the promise of spring is definitely in the air, then crushes our hopes with cold temperatures, cold winds, and snow. March is the month with the most unpredictable weather, and it comes at the precise time when we most want to put winter behind us and enjoy the delights of spring.

Here’s the beginning of Eliot’s The Waste Land. Substitute March for April, and it remains apt:

April is the cruelest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.

150 Years Of The CML

Yesterday the Columbus Metropolitan Library officially marked its 150th anniversary. Today we celebrated the sesquicentennial in classic library fashion–by walking down to the Main Library, doing some browsing, and borrowing a few books from the collection. There was a special program there, and the library was hopping with visitors, as well as being decked out with a nerdy book cake, shown below, and other decorations for the CML’s big birthday.

Public libraries are one of the most important elements of a free society, in my view, and the Columbus library system has been a crucial part of the central Ohio community for its entire 150-year history. We know this first-hand because we are frequent users of the library, its services, and its book reservation system. You can read about the Columbus Metropolitan Library and its history, from its humble beginning on March 4, 1873 as a single reading room in the old city hall, at the library website here.

Happy birthday, CML, and thank you for being such a key part of our city!

The Road Home

Yesterday I got up early and drove from Savannah, Georgia to Columbus, Ohio. It’s an interesting ride that took me on I-95, then I-26, then a long stretch on I-77–one of the major north-south arteries in the eastern part of the country, running from the outskirts of Columbia, South Carolina, through North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, and Ohio to Lake Erie–before finally rolling through southeastern Ohio on Route 33.

My journey began in the coastal low country, where the roads were flat as a pancake. The roads were so flat for so long, in fact, that it was mildly startling to encounter my first hill in inland South Carolina. But the countryside quickly becomes hilly, and then mountainous, as you intersect with I-77 and head north through the Blue Ridge Mountains and and later the Appalachian Mountains. Before you know it you are dealing with numerous switchbacks and driving through the long tunnel at Big Walker Mountain.

I-77 is apparently notorious for truckers; it is ranked as one of the most dangerous roads in the country for drivers of the big rigs, primarily because of its unpredictable weather. The weather is so unpredictable that I-77 has its own weather tracker website, which provides information like that shown in the screenshot above. I got a taste of the squirrelly weather yesterday, when I hit a significant amount of thick fog in one of the mountain passes. The drive also features lots of steep inclines and declines and significant curves as you maneuver through the mountains. It’s impressive work by the traffic engineers and road builders, but surely no treat for tractor-trailers.

As I drove, I once again appreciated the investment in our national road system, which allowed me to make a reasonably straight-line drive back home and complete the trip in a single morning and afternoon. The only sour taste came when I hit two “pay to drive” stretches–a paid “express lane” option in North Carolina, and three toll booths, requiring payments of $4.25 each, in southern West Virginia. The express lane option would have really irked me if the traffic was heavy, but fortunately it wasn’t. The toll payments in West Virginia made me wonder why tolls were required there when the rest of I-77 was, literally, a freeway. The road went through rugged country at that stretch, and at least it seemed that my toll payments were keeping the road in good repair. In the grand scheme of things, paying $12.75 and buying a few tanks of gas to complete a 670-mile journey is a bargain.

Where Have All The Bicycles Gone?

In Columbus, as in all major cities around the world, bicycle theft is a significant problem. The city has tried to address the problem by encouraging cyclists to “bug your bike” by putting RFID chips in one of two specific locations on their two-wheelers and registering them with the city; the chips allow participating groups to scan bicycles and, hopefully, return them to their rightful owner. There’s also a Central Ohio Facebook group called Bike Snoop that promises to be on the lookout for stolen bikes and bike thieves. Community involvement apparently helps; a local media outlet recently reported on one distinctive, bright orange bike that was stolen and recovered thanks to attentive community members.

One of the issues with stolen bikes is: where do they go? Do they stay in the area where they were taken, or is there a stolen bicycle network that carts them to neighboring towns to be sold as used bikes to unsuspecting purchasers? A recent study in Amsterdam, in which there are 11,000 reported bike thefts each year, tried to answer that question by putting mobile trackers on a fleet of bikes and then tracking them. The effort determined that stolen bikes in Amsterdam got resold to unwary buyers, who then rode the bikes in the same area where the bikes were stolen in the first place. There are so many bicycles in Amsterdam that the stolen ones evidently just get lost in the mass of thousands of bikes in the city.

If the Amsterdam study findings hold true in Columbus, that suggests there is some value in participating in the “bug your bike” program, taking a picture of your ride so you can share it if theft occurs, and trying to get the police and the community involved if your bike is stolen. Doing something to distinguish your bike from the mass of other cycles would help, too.

The Driving Option

Like many people, I’ve had some evil luck traveling by air over the past year or so, and have had to deal with delays and outright cancellations of flights that have left me stranded. In view of those unhappy experiences, I’ve vowed to use the driving option as an alternative method of transportation when I think it makes sense to do so. Yesterday I put the driving option to the test by driving from Columbus to Atlanta for a meeting.

The stated flight time for travel from Columbus to Atlanta is one hour and 40 minutes. Build in the time needed to get to the airport and get through security to your gate with time to spare and the time needed to get out of Atlanta’s airport, which is one of the nation’s largest and busiest, and you’re probably looking at about five hours, all in. In contrast, the drive time is about eight and a half hours, door to door. That’s at the outer limits of what I would consider to be a reasonable driving alternative zone–that is, anything within an eight-hour drive should be considered for a visit by car rather than by plane.

If you’re interested solely in speed, the airline flight is the obvious choice. Of course, there are other advantages to driving (or disadvantages, depending on your perspective). With driving, you are an active participant in the process, rather than a passive passenger. With driving, you control when you leave and arrive, rather than being subject to flight schedules. With driving, you take the weather, technological, and scheduling snafus that have affected airline flights over the last year out of the equation–although of course you might hit a traffic jam. And there’s always the chance that, GPS system notwithstanding, you might get lost.

The drive from Columbus to Atlanta is a pretty straight shot: you head down I-71 to Cincinnati, join up with I-75, cross the Ohio River, and then follow I-75 through Kentucky, eastern Tennessee, and northern Georgia all the way to Atlanta. I left a bit before 7 and got in a bit after 3 p.m., and in the process I got a taste of the country that I would never have experienced from above 10,000 feet.

I knew I had left the Midwest behind when I rolled past Florence, Kentucky, where the water tower says “Florence Y’all.” That perception was confirmed when I got a chicken sandwich for lunch from a Bojangle’s (a chain we don’t have in Cbus) somewhere in Tennessee and the woman staffing the drive-thru kept calling me “darlin'”. The drive takes you past cities (Cincinnati, Lexington, Knoxville, and Chattanooga) with a lot of countryside, and Civil War battle sites, in between. My Ohio sensibilities were touched when I saw that “Cleveland” and “Dayton” are also places in Tennessee. I listened to music and reflected on the fact that I am fortunate to live in a big, diverse country with an interesting history.

I like driving, and for me the journey from Columbus to Atlanta showed that the driving option is a viable one. I’d do it again.

Atlanta Skyline

I’m in Atlanta for meetings. The meeting site is some distance from the “main” downtown, shown above, but is next to a kind of second downtown with a few tall buildings. In this respect, Atlanta is like Houston or Phoenix, each of which has multiple downtowns.

In the Midwest, we try to concentrate the taller buildings in one downtown area. I like that approach.

The Random Restaurant Tour —LII

Waiting for Speck to open its restaurant in downtown Columbus was a bit like the setting of Waiting for Godot. It seemed as though the appointed hour would never actually get here. But the moment has arrived, the tremendous buzz has been proven justified, and the wait has been well worth it.

Speck offers Italian fare in the heart of the downtown area, from a bright and welcoming space along High Street, just off Gay Street. We’ll therefore accept it as part of the Gay Street District, the coolest part of downtown and the home to many great eateries. Yesterday the B.A. Jersey Girl, the Origamist, and I checked Speck out for lunch. The lunch menu features starters, handhelds, pastas, and desserts. The choice was deceptively straightforward: on your first visit to an Italian restaurant, do you opt for a sandwich, or pasta? We decided that pasta was the better option, and proceeded to grill our helpful server on the five offerings—because choosing a pasta dish, like any crucial decision, demands careful analysis.

I opted for the sausage ragu, shown above, and it was delectable. The curly edged pasta was perfection, it was chock full of sausage and melted cheese, and the sauce was delicious. You get a heaping bowl for your $19, and some souls with dainty, bird-like appetites would no doubt get a to-go box and save some for dinner. As a long-serving member of the Clean Plate Club, I ate every bit of it, and finished with a happily satisfied sigh. The B.A.J.G. and the Origamist both ordered the Cacio e Pepe, which was pillow-like pasta swimming in a white sauce. We swapped bites, and their dish was every bit as mouth-watering as mine.

So Speck is here, and we’ve added a terrific new Italian eating spot to our downtown Columbus mix. Columbus, and an Italian place with a lunch menu worth exploring: it’s an almost historic match. we’ll be sailing over to a Speck again.

The Coldest Of The Cold

It’s been cold in Columbus the past few days, and the weather app advises that the temperature outside right now is a bone-chilling 13 degrees.

It seems to be cold pretty much everywhere in the U.S. right now. Because our weather app also keeps track of temperatures in other areas that we care about, we know that it has been unseasonably cold in Austin, Texas, too, where people are struggling with a balky power grid and Richard and Julianne have been huddled with their dog and cats when the power has gone out. The champions of the February Cold Contest, though, are Russell and Betty up in Brewer, Maine, where the current temperature is -18 and the wind chill is a ridiculous, and dangerous, -40. Fortunately, the Maine power grid is more dependable than what the Austin area has to offer, and Russell and Betty have heat.

As a kid, I don’t remember my parents talking about specific temperatures or the wind chill factor; at most they might chat with the neighbors about it being an especially cold winter. The only temperature I really cared about was 32 degrees, because I hoped for consistent freezing temperatures to allow for snowfalls, sledding, building snow forts, snowball fights, and other winter activities. It may have fallen below zero from time to time, but the approach back then–by parents and kids alike–was to just bundle up some more, perhaps wrap another scarf around your neck, hitch up your snow pants, fasten the metal buckles on your rubber galoshes, and deal with it, because the weather was simply the weather.

More recently, gadgets like weather apps on phones and thermometers in cars remind us of the specific temperature all the time. The coldest official temperature in the Columbus area is 25 below zero, recorded at Rickenbacker Air Base on January 19, 1994; that day it was -22 at Port Columbus Airport (now John Glenn International). I’m sure I was in town on that day and dealing with the cold, but I don’t remember that day, specifically. It was a cold day, obviously, but there have been many cold days.

The coldest cold I recall experiencing occurred in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, on a wintry day where we decided to go snowmobiling and the temperature was well below zero. It was so cold that it was difficult to take a breath outside, and the outfitter for our snowmobile trek emphasized that you needed to make sure that every square inch of exposed skin stayed completely covered, because otherwise it would freeze virtually instantly and you’d be dealing with frostbite. I took that advice very seriously, and was glad indeed to be supplied with lined coveralls, enormous mittens that extended up to your elbows, and multiple neck gaiters, along with my helmet.

Cold comes and cold goes. I’m glad to see that the temperatures in Austin, and Columbus, and Brewer are supposed to warm up, relatively speaking, today and tomorrow.

3.2 Days

The Columbus Dispatch published an article earlier this week reporting that the Bier Stube, a bar at the south end of the Ohio State campus area, may be torn down to make way for another development project. The story had some personal resonance for me, and probably for many other people of a certain age who grew up in Columbus, because the Bier Stube–one of the oldest taverns in the University area–is where I had my first legal adult beverage. That beverage was a glass of watery 3.2 beer.

In those days, Ohio allowed 18-year-olds to drink beer that was 3.2 percent alcohol. “3.2 beer” began in the 1930s, after the end of Prohibition, and continued to be produced in many states, including Ohio, for decades. If you were 18 and wanted to have a legal drink–as opposed to going the fake ID route–3.2 beer was your only option. (3.2 beer hung on in Ohio until 1982, when the drinking age was raised to 19 for 6 percent “high” beer, and stayed around even longer in other states.)

So it was that, after we had all passed our 18th birthdays, a group of high school friends and I decided to head to the Bier Stube to celebrate. We had heard through the grapevine that it was a good, no-hassle place to quaff some brew. We went to the bar, presented our licenses to a bored bartender, ordered a pitcher of 3.2 Stroh’s, carried our glasses and the pitcher to a booth, and sat down. The Stube was a pretty rustic place, as bars go, but we didn’t care. The 3.2 beer was watery, but we didn’t mind that either. We saw our visit as a kind of rite of passage and first step on the road to adulthood. Weak beer in a bar that had sticky tables and floors wasn’t going to affect our ebullient mood at finally being legal, as we drank our beer, chattered away, and decided to get a second pitcher, just for the heck of it.

I haven’t thought of that trip to the Bier Stube and my first exposure to 3.2 beer for years. I’ll be sorry to see “the Stube” go.

The Random Restaurant Tour — LI

We’ve been waiting patiently for a new restaurant to open in the Gay Street District, in a spot formerly occupied by an Irish pub. The sign has been up for ESCO Restaurant and Tapas for a while now, the interior work has been done, and lately I’ve seen some activity in the place as I’ve walked past, but a look at the restaurant’s website indicated the Grand Opening wouldn’t be until this coming Friday. Yesterday, though, as we were on a stroll to the library to return some books, we saw a sign indicating that ESCO would be serving brunch. On our return trip we decided to stop in to check the place out.

I like it when I get an nice surprise, and this was a pleasant surprise, indeed. The restaurant decided to do a soft opening to work the kinks out before the formal Grand Opening on Friday, so we got an advance look at the restaurant and a chance to taste ESCO’s wares. You can see the menu and other information about ESCO Columbus–the third ESCO restaurant, following two established in the Atlanta, Georgia area–here.

The brunch menu is tantalizing, indeed. Although I engaged in a vigorous internal debate about whether I was hungry enough to try the chops and eggs, I opted for the seafood and grits. ESCO offers the option of shrimp, catfish, or lobster tail, and you can get them either fried or grilled. I chose the traditional form of shrimp and grits served with grilled shrimp. Kish, meanwhile, got the fried chicken and red velvet waffles.

The shrimp and grits were, in a word, fantastic, and looked so delicious that I immediately dug in and started eating before I remembered to take the photo above. The grits were well prepared, the sauce was buttery and included gouda cheese, which gives it a very smooth, delicate flavor, and my plate was loaded with plump, succulent shrimp–so many that you could easily enjoy a piece of shrimp with every bite of grits. This dish was a definite keeper. Kish reported that her chicken and waffles were also excellent, and came in such a heroic portion that there was plenty to take home and enjoy during the rest of our Sunday. As for me, I finished every bit of my shrimp and grits, and found myself wondering whether I would have some fried catfish instead the next time I try that dish.

It’s always a cause for celebration when a new restaurant opens on Gay Street, to help maintain its reputation as the coolest street in downtown Columbus. When the new place serves great food, and offers options like shrimp and grits that aren’t currently available from our other local eateries, the celebration meter goes even higher. I’m happy to welcome ESCO Restaurant and Tapas to the neighborhood, and look forward to continuing my culinary exploration there. I’m sensing a lunch there will be in my immediate future.

Another Lost Season

Another Browns season has ground to a dismal and disappointing halt. Their game today wasn’t broadcast on TV here in Columbus–which tells you something, because typically a divisional matchup of Cleveland versus arch-rival Pittsburgh, both of which have significant fan bases in Columbus, would always be on the air. But the Browns have been out of the NFL playoff race for a while, and the Bengals are ascendant. In the Columbus TV battle ground–as on the football field, this year–the Browns have come up losers. So I listened to the Browns’ season-ending loss to the Steelers on the radio.

In many ways, today’s game was a microcosm of the Browns’ pathetic season as a whole. The Browns had a lot of penalties. They suffered inexplicable defensive breakdowns, and kept giving up big plays in crucial, potential drive-ending situations. They turned the ball over on offense. And in the second half, when the game was in the balance, the Browns didn’t have it, and the Steelers did. Once again, a game slipped through their fingers.

Another playoff-free season is in the books, and the Browns have somehow frittered away another season where they have been blessed by having one of the very best running backs in the NFL in Nick Chubb, but just can’t seem to make the plays needed to be a winner. So teams that have stunk up the joint recently–like Jacksonville, and Miami, and others–have made the playoffs, while the Browns are, as always, on the outside looking in. I listened to today’s game with resignation, but also with a puzzling lack of passion about it. The never-ending futility of the Browns has just ground me down–and I suspect I’m not alone.

Will the Browns keep Kevin Stefanski as a coach after a less-than-mediocre 7-10 season in which the Browns lost multiple games they could and should have won? I’ve argued earlier this year that I’d give Stefanski another season, just to have some stability in the franchise, stop the coaching revolving door, and see whether Stefanski can make the Deshaun Watson experiment work. Now that the season is over, however, I find that I really don’t care one way or another. That’s a sad testament for a loyal fan.

Throwback Windows

Yesterday I was walking past the former downtown Lazarus building when I noticed that two of the original display windows had been decorated for the holidays, as would have been done back when the Lazarus department store actually occupied the space. The two windows definitely give off a throwback Christmas vibe, with the ankle-deep cotton ball snow, the gold ornaments and fixtures, and the carefully placed mannequins dramatically displaying the women’s dresses and coats.

I think these are now the only two of the display windows that remain, but in the old days there was a row of them, and people would actually make the trip downtown just to check out the new goods that were featured in the the windows. In all likelihood, they would then go inside the Lazarus to see Santa and do some shopping–just like what is shown in the scenes of A Christmas Story. The display windows were a great form of point-of-purchase advertising, and a good window designer could definitely increase sales. Equally important, no kid’s Christmas list was complete until they had taken a look at the department store display windows to see whether there was something cool there that should be added.

I’m glad to see that these two display windows survived, even though the Lazarus department store is long gone and the building itself has become a kind of multi-purpose office space. I’m sure the cotton ball manufacturers are grateful, too.

Saucy Columbus

When you go to a restaurant and ask if they have a hot sauce, you never know what you’re going to get. Typically, it’s Tabasco sauce, or Cholula, or perhaps Texas Pete’s. But sometimes you get a new hot sauce that you’ve never heard of before. So it was earlier this week, when Dr. Science and I visited Bar Cicchetti and inquired about the availability of a hot sauce. The waiter promptly delivered this bottle of Sauce Boss Gang Spanish Chipotle Granada hot sauce.

Just a look at the bottle was promising, because the hot sauce experience is a holistic one, and names and labels on bottles are a key element. The Sauce Boss Gang Granada passed the label test with flying colors, with its uber-cool combination hand grenade/rib cage/roses presentation. And the contents of the bottle, if anything, exceeded the label. The Granada sauce is a ruddy brown and super smoky, with flecks of pepper (or some other substance) and enough heat to make you sit up and take notice without obliterating your palate. It went very well with my french fries and left me eager for more.

As I had never heard of Sauce Boss Gang, I asked the waiter about where Bar Cicchetti found the sauce. He explained that Sauce Boss Gang is a local Columbus company that make several different kinds of sauces. You can find the website here, and a list of the different sauce flavors here. SBG encourages people to put their sauces in dishes, drinks, and desserts, which raises some intriguing possibilities. I also commend Sauce Boss Gang for making sure that all of their products are attentive to the crucial label and naming tests. I’m steeling myself for a taste of the Garlic Scorpion La Jefa sauce, which is described as “fierce and flavorful.” That sounds like a pretty good option as winter approaches.

The Random Restaurant Tour — L

Yesterday Dr. Science and I decided to brave the fierce winds on a cold, gusty day to head south for lunch. Our destination was the always cool Westin Great Southern Hotel–the oldest hotel in downtown Columbus–and a new restaurant called Bar Cicchetti that has opened in the hotel’s footprint to serve breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Bar Cicchetti is in some reconfigured space at the Great Southern. There always was a bar there–what would be a hotel, really, without a bar?–but now they’ve opened a new room that is located just past the bar area. The room is spacious and bright and looks out over High Street. Dr. Science and I sat at a window table to fully revel in that urban lunch vibe.

The lunch menu has a lot of options that should appeal to just about everyone, from salads and pizza and pastas to handhelds–including a concoction featuring charred broccolini (involuntary shudder). Although the pizza and pasta options were intriguing, I found myself to be in a fried frame of mind, so I opted for the Milanese Chicken sandwich, shown above, and had them hold the lettuce and pickles. My choice was a winner. The chicken breast was so enormous it spilled over the sides of the bun, and it was crunchy outside, with just the right amount of breading, and moist inside. Topped with pickled onions and a nifty aioli, it was delicious. I also give Bar Cicchetti credit for providing a reasonable amount of fries, which were dusted with some freshly grated parmesan and very tasty, too. The fries were so delectably enticing that Dr. Science, always ready for a food experiment, couldn’t resist swiping a few from my plate as he gulped down his salumi sandwich.

I don’t think the word of mouth about Bar Cicchetti has spread yet, because there weren’t many patrons there when we visited. Perhaps this post will help to acquaint people with this fine new food option in the south part of downtown, which is well worth a visit. I’ll be coming back to try one of those pizzas.

By the way, in preparing this post I note that this is the 50th edition of the Random Restaurant Tour series, which began in 2017 and somehow managed to bridge the COVID pandemic and the shutdown period. Thanks to the B.A. Jersey Girl, Dr. Science, the Bus-Riding Conservative, JV, and all of the others who have accompanied me on these culinary adventures, and to everyone who has read them!