Rules Of The Road

I have some rules of the road that I typically follow when I’m traveling.  However, there are times when the rules must be broken.

For example, one of my rules of the road is that I don’t eat in my hotel.  I despise room service, and hate the concept of shoveling down food while I’m hunched over a hotel room desks.  I typically go out somewhere, within walking distance of the hotel, to get some fresh air at the end of a long day and enjoy a good meal, besides.  There is a lot more to cities than hotel rooms!

But sometimes the day is just too damn long, and I get to the hotel late.  When that happens, rule #1 goes out the window, and rule #2 gets invoked.  I yield to the hourglass, eat in the hotel restaurant so long as it’s reasonable, and order . . . steak.  I feel I need the protein, and I’m not going to take a chance on some hoity-toity dish with untested, fou-fou sauce.  Give me a well-cooked, medium rare steak and a glass of decent red wine, and I will soldier on.

Diamond Dinner

A quick trip up to Akron today.  Aunt Corinne and Uncle Mack were in town, so Mom, Kish, and I went up to visit with them and Aunt Bebe.  It was great to see everyone and to check out “The Buckeye Room” at “Buckeye Bebe”‘s pad.

The quick jaunt was properly capped off by dinner at the Diamond Grille, which — as any regular reader of this blog knows — is a fabulous steakhouse and the source of many fond memories for Uncle Mack.  A few oysters, a glass of wine, some great conversation, and a perfectly cooked medium rare Porterhouse steak as big as a stop sign later, we were back in the car and rolling down I-71 to Columbus, letting the digestive juices do their work.

A Taste For Steak

Last night I went to dinner with friends and was delighted to find that my host had selected a steakhouse for our meal. On some occasions, after a hard day’s work, only steak will truly satisfy the taste buds.

We went to a restaurant called XO, in Cleveland’s warehouse district.  XO offers only prime cuts of steak, as well as the other food items you come to expect from steakhouses, like seafood, soups, a la carte side dishes that are big enough to share, a good wine list, and the obligatory breast of chicken.  (Does anyone really ever order breast of chicken at a steakhouse?  If so, why?)

The only thing that was unusual about the place was the music selection.  It was distinctly on the new age side, where most steakhouses go for the vintage Frank Sinatra/Tony Bennett/big band background music soundtrack.  XO’s dreamy tune choices made me feel like I’d be given a massage and a glass of herbal tea after the meal.

Who really cares about music, though, when you are getting ready to tear into a thick, juicy, well-prepared steak washed down with a fine dry red wine?  We had a seafood platter appetizer, which featured excellent oysters, king crab legs, huge tiger prawns, and a lobster salad.  For my meal I ordered the bone-in ribeye steak, cooked medium rare.  It was succulent, and I gleefully sliced it up and gobbled up every bite. The meal was brought to an appropriate close with some apple cobbler.

When we departed after a very enjoyable evening, I pointed my well-nourished gut in the direction of our destination and left a happy man.