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The bottom of the eighth

by Scott Groth on 30. Aug, 2008 in Guests

Let’s just jump right in and save the niceties for another posting. When you are at a nice restaurant, like Hyde Park on Chagrin Boulevard, is there any reason why another member of the waitstaff would start to service the table three quarters of the way through the meal? There could be a couple reasons, I suppose. Maybe our waitress needed a smoke break or collapsed a lung. Perhaps she was tenderizing the Chef’s dry aged strip steak? Whatever the reason, there was a definitive break in the flow which made me discontinue suspending my disbelief (translation: I was brought back to reality). Let me bring you all into the fold of understanding.

It was a Friday afternoon at the tail end of a particularly stressful week. To say that I slept more than a couple hours consecutively on any given night may soothe the concern of my better half, but it wouldn’t be true. In the everlasting words of my boy Snoop Dogg, I had my mind on my money and my money on my mind. Well, exchange the word “company” for “money” and you get the picture, even without the Gin & Juice. I needed to get my mind focused on the long weekend at hand, which called for a well made dirty martini and a slab of meat with all the fixins.

The debate began. Do we go to Flemings to tear through the delectable lamb chops and sauteed spinach with shallots or head to Hyde Park for the gratin potato dish which is absolutely heart stopping, on all counts. The decision came down to the potato. Unfortunately for Flemings, their potato dishes just suck. They simply do not have the same decadence and Gruyere cheesiness as the Hyde. It is amazing that the lowly tuber can make or break a dinner choice of such importance.

Upon arrival at 5:40 (we still needed to drive to the lake, which will tack on approximately 2 hours to the evening) we actually wait for a table at the bar. There may be six guests in the entire restaurant at this hour. As it turns out, it apparently takes the hostess about ten minutes to remove two place settings from the booth. Maybe the Chef’s meat needed more tenderizing that I thought. Nonetheless, she directs us to our table and hopes that we have a wonderful meal. Me too.

Our waitress is a shoe-in for Jeanine Garofalo if you take out the talent and add a lacking chin. That aside, she is pleasant and appears to be task oriented, which is good because I have three tasks for her: drinks, appetizer and main meal. We’re locked, loaded and ready to go. Go Jeanine, go! With a frump and a smile, she heads to the bar to punch in our order. I trust in the fact that she will bring the fillet perfectly cooked to a rare-plus temperature, that the gratins will be bubbling and golden brown and my wedge salad will have more blue cheese than wedge, just like a wedge should be.

Sure enough, she delivers the drinks in stellar fashion. Bang! One item off the list but I am still waiting as patiently as Donald Trump at the rug factory for the first misstep. Perhaps tonight would be the night that I blurt out “You’re fired!” Just perhaps. Then the wedge is delivered with enough crumbled blue to clog at least one artery and a river of creamy blue deep enough to make that interventional cardiologist drop off his card at the table, just in case. That would have been cool if it happened, but it didn’t. Instead, I looked at Jeanine when she delivered the wedge with pure admiration. BANG! Two items off the list. I feel like The Count from Seasame Street, but it is ok. The dirty is going down fast, haa haaaa haaaaaa. One more dirty which makes TWO, haa haaaa haaaaa.

Then Jeanine makes the oldest mistake in the book. She actually tells us that the food will be there in about three minutes. Not a minute or a couple of minutes, but three minutes. I look at my watch and start the timer. The Donald may make a showing after all. Some talk at the table about politics and there are two minutes to go. I comment to Caroline about the chick who just walked around the corner and pulled out her wedge, but not a salad. Maybe you wait till you hit the ladies to do that? And a minute to go. I can feel The Donald gathering steam. Thirty seconds. How could she make a mistake like this? Ten seconds. And out of the shadow of darkness comes our meal, piping hot and smelling delicious. Donald, you’re fired for now. Jeanine deserves a raise.

Nom nom nom… this food is good. But then the unthinkable happens. In the middle of our meal, someone else shows up. I’m not sure what this woman was thinking. We were well watered and in the process of grazing. Leave me alone to contemplate the absolute buttery consistency of the beef along with the Gruyere greatness of my cooked tubers and side of sauteed fungus. Instead, she interrupts, not knowing what is going on. Now, imagine in your minds eye Suzanne Somers but leathery with grossly died blond hair and a pervasive nicotine stench. She grabs my first empty dirty glass and asks Caroline if she would like another?!? When did she have her first? We are both chewing and looking at her like you do at the dentist chair during a cleaning. She continues to stare back at us, but then starts grabbing other things, which we aren’t finished with. What the? Where’s The Donald when I need him. Crap, I fired him earlier.

A long story somewhat shorter, we fix all the grabbing, but something has changed with our meal. It feels as though our table has been invaded by Flo from Mel’s diner, with as much couth and decorum. All she was missing was the chewing gum and fake southern accent. What was a clean sweep for Jeanine was unwittingly flawed by Flo. I understand that some people just try to be helpful, but at a restaurant of this nature, they should speak with the assigned waitstaff before changing the dining experience. The result? We looked at the dessert menu, but agreed that leaving just felt better. For some reason the pleasant paunch I hoped would fire me into a delicious food coma just felt like a fat belly after eating too much meat.

Is it over-reacting to say that one sentinel event should throw off a meal? At Denny’s, I would say no. I would have an expectation of poor service and marginal food. At Brio (as you know from my last post) I would expect mediocre service and even perhaps a hair in my salad. But at Hyde, I expect top notch service and exceptional, hair-free food. On the flip side, Hyde is part of a chain and we all know these can chip a tooth. But I don’t think that this chain is akin to Brio. Jeanine was good, polite and responsive- I may just be overly critical in my descriptions. Granted, the hostess could have used a little polishing, but she was handling the blue plate special shift and there was only one rather than four. The food was good with very high quality ingredients, just as we expected. So what happened?

It was like being at a baseball game, watching the pitcher try to round out a no-hitter. You are pulling for him to get it right, because you want to be part of that experience. You hope that his heater cooks and his slider breaks. Just because the pitcher is having a great game doesn’t mean that the rest of the team can crap out on him. They have to pay attention and support him for the big win! As a fan, you want him to get it so you can tell your co-workers that you were there to witness the greatness. There is an air of excitement, it is not the same as a normal game. With this ticket, you win with stories to tell. Although not on the same scale, the same can be said for a good dining experience. Jeanine was on the verge of a no-hitter when her catcher accidentally broke her arm in the dugout at the bottom of the ninth. The collective sigh of the crowd washes around the stadium.

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Everyone knows eating a chain will break teeth

by Scott Groth on 27. Aug, 2008 in Guests

Hopefully most of you made it through my first post and are eagerly awaiting the second… I can almost feel the baited breath, but not really. Anyhow, just as in the last post, I am ok with doing whatever I feel at the moment. If you choose to continue, enjoy. If not, my humblest apologies for the previous three sentences.

So in this post I wanted to discuss the concept of the chain. Most chains are setup to be strong, almost unbreakable without the right tools or leverage. They sell them by the foot at Lowe’s home improvement, which is a good thing because you never know how short or long you might need one day. The chain is made up of links. I watched the show “How its made” on the Discovery or Science channel (is there really a difference?) a while back which showed the process of how a chain is made. It is really quite interesting. First they take rolled steel bars and cut them into smaller pieces. After that, each piece is formed into links by a hydraulic press and the joint where steel meets steel is welded together. The chain is now made! But, unfortunately for the chain, it is still weak at this point. What they must do is heat the chain to superhot temperatures to temper the steel, then cool it in water to strengthen it. After the chain is made, they take sections and test them to ensure they are strong enough to sell to consumers.

All good and well, I suppose you are thinking to yourself. What does any of this have to do with either food or wine? Well, sometimes I think through the process of how a chain is made, the incredible precision and attention to detail prior to the chain being presented to the consumer. And on nights like tonight, when I visit a chain restaurant like Brio at Legacy Village in Beachwood, I apply that thought process about the creation of a chain to my dining experience. Strange, to say the least, but you have no idea how deep that vein goes. Let’s refocus back on the story at hand.

So, as alluded, tonight Caroline and I had dinner at Brio after discussing a minimalist multitude of choices for outdoor dining on the east side of Cleveland. What a minimalist multitude consists of is about five restaurants within twenty minutes of our house which have patios available on short notice. Anything beyond that driving distance should be damn good, just like that glass of wine (see the previous Scott G blog post if you are confused at this point). Anyhow, after much deliberation over where to go based on our current state of dress, exhaustion from the day and general blase feeling, we determined that Brio would be our destination of choice for a quick, refreshing and easy meal.

As it turns out, the meal did not have many of these attributes. We arrived at the restaurant after having parked in East BF (use your imagination, this is a child friendly blog) and were seated on the patio. We were handed two giganticly oversized menus, the daily specials menu and a drink menu. I think that I must have missed the TPS report which outlined when the wait staff stopped telling people about the daily special. Maybe I do have a case of the Mondays. Our waitress (imagine Romy from Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion) asked for our drink orders in a baratone husk which could only have originated in the Midwest. Caroline orders a margarita (yes, it was that kind of day) and I order my dirty martini.

There is a good possiblity that my dirty was shaken with vermouth, stirred with vermouth and then had more vermouth added because that is what Jesus would do (my apologies if you are religious, it is the vodka talking, really). Three olives for luck? You would have thought that is what was ordered, but only two showed and what a poor showing they had. I suppose the margarita was good- I couldn’t concentrate through the torrent of tears which did not, as I had hoped, dilute the vermouth.

A mere 25 minutes later, Romy returned to take our order on her post-it note after informing us 10 minutes prior she would be back to take our order in a minute. But, what the heck- it was a beautiful night in Cleveland and we had nowhere to go. I order the beef carpaccio and the mahi mahi special (the menu probably delivered the special better than Romy on her best day, so maybe that TPS report was accurate). Caroline ordered the chop salad and tomato brioche.

We watched as the expediter tried to deliver our appetizers to every table but ours on the patio. It was really quite amusing as he continued to insist to each table that they had in fact ordered a baking sheet sized portion of raw meat. By the time he reached our table, it is fair to say that my carpaccio was slightly sun burned. Perhaps the chef rubbed it down with SPF 8 before he wished it bon voyage, literally. Overall, the apps were good- loaded with dressings and enough salt that even the most discrimating palette would have trouble seeing the flaws.

And then the main dish arrives. Caroline’s is presented on a plank, with six brioche in a row like little ducklings. My eyes were locked on her plate and my inner child was thinking of ways in which she may be distracted long enough for me to take a bite. Just as I was about to cry out like Tattoo “De Plane, de plane!” my eyes turned down to my dish and were met with great surprise. The roasted vegetables looked wonderful- slighly browned and delicious looking. My mouth began to water as I scanned the carrots, potatoes and beans. Oh joy! I thought. I next focused on what should be the crowning glory of the plate, the king to my pawns of roasted vegetables- the venerable mahi mahi. Wait. The gray square of mahi mahi? I imagined quickly what must have occurred in the kitchen prior to the preparation of my meal. I could see in my minds eye a kitchen full of Umpa Lumpa’s, singing songs in their tiny chefs coats and playmobile quaffs while boiling a giant frozen square of mahi mahi. Those damn Umpa Lumpa’s got me again and I was beckoning to Romy for lemon wedges to smother my taste buds.

So what does any of this have to do with how a chain is made? Well, this type of restaruant holds the same name as the trusty and unbreakable chain. The very essence of what a chain should be is not upheld. A chain is meticulously crafted and tested for strength. Each link has a purpose and I am rarely disappointed by a chain. I can see the Made in America seal on the box, stamped there with pride. I imagine the salt of the earth making the chain, ensuring that there are no weak links. When the maker of the chain goes home at night, he sleeps soundly knowing he did a good job. Maybe this is melodramatic, but just run with it, it is fun sometimes to use that quirky imagination.

But with the chain restaurant, I wonder how the owner sleeps at all. It is neither meticulously crafted nor tested for strength. I am not sure what the purpose of four hostesses or 95 entree choices would be? I find myself consistenly disappointed by this type of chain. I don’t see pride or a Made in America stamp with the poorly trained wait staff wearing the culture of low energy and passivity on their shirt sleeves. I know that perhaps my expectations should be lowered when I visit a restaurant of this nature, but money is green and it doesn’t come easily. Everyone has to work to get it and I think there should be pride in getting a job done, even if you can’t do it well.

All in all, I ate at this chain restaurant and feel as though I chipped a tooth. Should I have known better? Perhaps. Was I expecting a quick, refreshing and easy meal? Yes, that is the purpose of a chain restaurant. If that is the purpose and my expectation, why can’t they meet in the middle? It’s because somewhere along the line, somebody at this restaurant decided that it was ok to let a few weak links through. Will somebody tell me when mediocrity become acceptable?

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What drives a man to drink?

by Scott Groth on 25. Aug, 2008 in Guests

To start blogging on an established blog is somewhat view askew. However, with Jamie at the helm, that is sometimes what I come to expect (always in a good way). That said, I hope to contribute to the “foodie bites” in a manner which is constructive and received well by the mill”one”s of daily viewers. So far, I may be off to a poor start. That is what you should come to expect as well, just so we are all on the same page.

So where to start? I won’t start at childhood where the passion to prepare good food and share good food began. That is far too long ago and so many changes in life, diet and waist size have happened since then that it just doesn’t make sense. I guess that I should begin in the last five years. During that time, I have worked hard to consistently improve my knowledge and skill with regard to food preparation. Learning new methods of cooking and baking fueled my fire after a long days at work, taking each evening in for a smooth landing on the couch in a food induced coma. Even on days when the food that was prepared didn’t taste good, at least a lesson was learned, my mind was taken off work and that was considered a minor victory.

In the same five year time frame, my prime taste tester, critic and the world’s best wife- Caroline- helped to bring what could be rated a “good meal” to what could be called a “very good meal” through astute constructive criticism. After long days where it seemed nothing went right, the criticism was as welcomed as a corked bottle of wine, but it was just about always the right call to make a recipe much better. Once I dusted off my pride and attempted to bottle my ego back up, Caroline would then jog my memory as to what ingredients were used and what was done to construct the meal. She would jot down the recipe with her suggestions noted in the margin. During the preparation of the recipe at some point down the road, the suggestions always seemed to pan out and elevate the profile of the plate.

For me, preparing food is a way of life. Preparing good food with the freshest ingredients is a passion. I hope to contribute to this blog or link to this blog from one of my own I am churning in my dome currently with weekly recipes, restaurant reviews and my experiences in moving toward a mostly raw lifestyle. One may ask- how can you be going raw and still cook? Well, I hope to let people know how it is a possibility and how it is changing my life and Caroline’s. But enough about that- let’s get onto the good stuff: drinking!

For most of my life, I have been a proud beer drinker- from mass production to microbrews. If it tasted even remotely like beer, I could find a way to like it. I have also been a lover of vodka (Belvedere on the rocks, extra dirty with three olives for luck). In my opinion, a dirty martini should be stirred, not shaken and never made with vermouth. Anyone who is interested in my dirty martini bartending skills is welcome to come share at any time.

For me, the optimal meal would start with a dirty to cleanse the palette and be followed with a Boddingtons, which I found paired well with most any meal. In a pinch, the watered down flavor of Coors Light would rarely get in the way of any component on the plate. Hard to believe, I know, but take my word for it. I saved the microbrews for evenings when we had no guests, since many can be hard to consume with their sometimes over the top brewing methodologies. A particularly adventurous day would be the blind sample six pack. These days were akin to playing Russian roulette in reverse: you hope at least one will work out.

I cast a blind eye the world of wine and to be honest, never thought twice about it. Then one day, I had that glass. For those of you who have had that glass, you know what I am talking about. The one glass that opened my eyes up and made me say- damn, that’s really good. For me, it was a glass of Beringer Knights Valley Alluvium 2003 red table wine enjoyed from within the mahogany clad walls of Hyde Park. The waiter, John, told me that he was going to bring me something special. I rescinded my dirty martini order and said that I would take the wine (changing my cocktail order is what would be called a “first” in my life). He was right. It was special. My love for wine started with that one glass. Since then, Caroline has patiently taken me around the world of wine to enjoy both the highs and lows, the young and old.

Again, my goal is to post up what we are drinking daily, what that wine would pair with and general thoughts on either the consumption of said wine or effects of said wine, both of which could be entertaining, dependent on the volume consumed of said wine.

So what drives a man to drink? I say to each their own. I have no idea what drives the next man to the bottle. Could it be work, love, children or choosing the slow line at the post office? I suppose. At one point, all of these could have steered me toward the euphoric genie. Work has ups and downs and love moves us in different ways. Although I have no children of my own, misbehaved urchins on airplanes or at restaurants always have the wait staff circling my seat like patient vultures. But the worst of all, and I think we can all agree, is the slow line at the post office. Enough said.

There are many factors which make me grease up the old elbow these days. A good day in Cleveland with 80 degree breezes and pale blue skies dotted with puffy clouds would call for a crisp glass of Moscato D’asti with some fresh summer melon. Dinner with good friends, whether recently acquainted or pushing a lifetime, with smooth music in the background accompanied by the familiar waft of a perfectly charred rare fillet, grilled asparagus and the delicious nose of a well balanced Cab. Or walking through the grocery only to encounter the cheese sampler tray, then purchasing six varieties, fresh baguette and a fig compote which you imagine being washed down with a bold Zin or Shiraz. These are a few of MY favorite things. Who needs raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens when you have blue cheese with ice wine and creamy brie with Meritage?

But, all in all what drives this man to drink is the pursuit of that next glass that makes me take pause and reflect- damn, that’s really good. I get that every now and again, as I am sure you do as well. It is in these moments that I realize the artistry of wine making and the paired beauty in a well crafted meal. It is in these moments that the pursuit to find well balanced, delicious wines and crafting meals which have depth and layered flavors makes sense. In these moments, all of the senses are satisfied. The mind and the body are at ease. This is for me, in essence, the true zen.

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