We've not done this since moving to Cincinnati, until this evening. And we had quite a good time! So, without further ado, our eating adventure in four acts.
Taco Casa
I'd read good things about Taco Casa (located in Hyde Park) on the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky forum at the Road Food website. Apparently it's a longterm dining spot, with a good reputation. And so Lisa chose it as our first stop. The only seating is outside, so we ate in the vehicle. The menu board doesn't really provide apt descriptions of the food, and we decided to order two items to give it a good trial.
- Small Burrito: Lisa's pick, it was decent sized. Unfortunately, it was quite bland. I thought the meat was better than Taco Bell's, but Lisa disagreed.
- Chicken Soft Taco: This, my choice, was the largest soft taco I've had -- quite full of chicken, cheese, lettuce and tomato. (In fact, while we'd gotten a little plastic cup of hot sauce -- see the picture -- we couldn't figure out a neat way of getting it into our food. So we brought it home.) The chicken was tasty, but quite dry. Overall, though, the soft taco was quite soggy, due to the tomatoes, which were on the very top. Apparently Taco Casa uses canned tomatoes. (Wait, that's not all bad: canned tomatoes are reliably ripe and flavorful. Unfortunately part of the flavor is of the can, but... you win some, you lose some.) The soft taco was okay. Just okay.
Taco Casa is, apparently, best known for their taco salad (which includes ranch dressing), but also for their tuna boat (read about it on a blog run by foodies at The Enquirer). We may drop by to try one of Taco Casa's more unique creations at some future point. But we're not hurrying to do so....
Rating: 6 (1, 2, 3) (What's this?)
Lisa's rating: "Su casa is not mi casa"
J&W Barbecue
It just so happens we'd driven "through town" (rather than getting on I-71 at rush hour's beginning) to get to Value City. And I'd noticed a little barbecue place -- a trailer with windows in the sides, parked next to a little fenced area with a smoker, etc. -- on the way. So with my first choice, off we went! Because of it's trailer-and-lot location, I don't have an address for it. It's located in or near Pleasant Ridge, and the linked map gives you a pretty close address for it -- it's on the east-northeast corner of the intersection of Montgomery and Lawndale. (See my "Dining on a Dime map" -- link in the lefthand column -- for a more precise spotting of it.)
From the somewhat extensive -- for a barbecue joint run out of a trailer -- menu, I chose an order of rib tips and a side of macaroni and cheese. (Explanation: I tried mac-and-cheese at Burbank's Bar-B-Q the other night -- more about which in another post -- and I wanted to compare J&W's.)
- Rib tips: A very generous portion -- a typical square styrofoam takeout container filled with meaty tips over bread and covered with sauce -- of rib tips cost $5.75, quite reasonable. I chose hot sauce (vs. mild), but it was quite mild, and too sweet for our liking. The meat was not as smokey as we'd like either. Right before I got out to go order, I noticed a pile of charcoal bags -- bad sign! -- and the meat had more the flavor of charcoal smoke than of wood smoke (the proper barbecue flavor -- again, more in an upcoming post in which I revisit my opinions of Burbank's, City and Mr. Pig). But for the money, it wasn't bad. (I'm going to add some Arthur Bryant's sauce into the leftovers, which should help 'em a good bit.)
- Macaroni and cheese: A little styrofoam cup cost $1 -- not such a good deal. It wasn't bad. But the other day, Lisa made some mac-and-cheese from a box, then through in some parmesan and shredded cheddar, and hers was quite a bit better. This was just plain ol' pedestrian mac-and-cheese.
Rating: 6 (1, 2, 3)
Lisa's rating: "J&W: jivin' and woeful"
Potbelly Sandwich Works
The only spot not a local joint, the Potbelly Sandwich Works in Rookwood was our next stop. We'd not been to a Potbelly before, and as an un-fan of chains, I feel compelled to comment in general on the place.
First, the menu is nicely limited but diversified: sandwiches, salads, soups, shakes/malts/smoothies. A good enough spread to provide variety without trying to sell everything (which the hamburger chains seem to do these days: McDonald's for iced coffee?! Burger King for fish?! Wendy's for a rootbeer float?!). Even Potbelly's number of sandwiches, soups, etc., is fairly small -- good for 'em! Better to do a few things pretty well than a bunch of things poorly.
Second, the atmosphere is just what you'd expect (at least mostly). Kitschy decorations, deliberately eclectic as if to fake the small-town, local-joint feel (see our fourth stop, below). But some of the touches were nice. The shake/malt/smoothie menu was on a mirror with painted border, an old-fashioned look. And there's a balustraded corner with microphone and chair, presumably for live music (although no one was singing to the largely empty shop during our brief sojourn there). Right inside the door is the iconic piece, a red potbelly stove (with no stovepipe, sadly).
Third, the workers were a bit more lively than typical sandwich-shop folk. The "sandwich artists" at other locations seem to be high-school students, high-school dropouts or beaten-down middle-aged folk who are stuck in a job with no future and who act like they know it. (This isn't a shot at those people -- I feel sorry for them, and I'm glad they at least have that job -- but rather an observation of what this does to the atmosphere.) Those who served us at Potbelly's counter were more chipper, seemed more alert.
Anyway, overall the place didn't bother me as much as many chains do.
- Roast beef sandwich: We split the roast beef sandwich, which comes with provolone cheese. Lisa asked for ours on wheat bread (a bun, actually), and the sandwich -- as, apparently, all Potbelly offerings -- was toasted in one of those conveyor-belt ovens. The sandwich was dressed lightly (hot day -- bad joke!) with a bit of mustard, a bit of mayo and pickles. It was pretty good. Fine. Nothing outstanding, but nothing wrong with it. At $4.19, not too bad a buy, either.
The menu had some nice touches. For a group, you could order a Box o' Sandwiches. Instead of having a trademark symbol next to "Box o' Sandwiches," Potbelly prints the words "NOT TM'd" in superscript. I like that. And the group-ordering options are clever, too, including "Full Belly," "Basic Belly" and more. We just might have to go back -- I want to try that boysenberry shake (or malt) (or smoothie).
Rating: 7 (2, 3, 2)
Lisa's rating: "Belly up to the sandwich bar"
Hitching Post
In my previous comments on Hitching Post, I indicated that we'd have to return sometime to try the pie. With my second choice, and to end our progressive dinner, I did just that. And conveniently, Hitching Post is even located close to the Potbelly shop.
The pie selection varies daily, so you get to hear the day's options from the waitress. Our friendly, cheerful waitress was happy to give us the list, which included coconut cream, banana cream, chocolate cream, German chocolate cream (a combination of chocolate cream and coconut cream), apple, cherry, peach and probably some others. There was also chocolate cake.
With my order of German chocolate cream, a saga began. The waitress inexplicably brought me a piece of chocolate cake (3 layers, with a wonderfully fudgy-looking frosting). I didn't want to be trouble, but I was intrigued by the German chocolate cream, so I asked if there was a mistake. She quickly offered to fix it (I'd not touched the cake yet, after all). That was good. But then she came back: they'd just sold the last of the German chocolate cream to a takeout customer. Arrrrgh! Sigh.
- Chocolate cream: So, I had chocolate cream instead. It was very good. I think perhaps the chocolate pudding layer was cooked pudding, not instant, but I'm not sure it was "real" (from scratch). The whipped cream layer was from a can, but beautifully done and sprinkled with cocoa powder. The crust, clearly homemade, was excellent: while slightly overdone, that went well with the chocolate. A satisfying piece of pie -- for $2.75. (I also had coffee, but... we won't go into that.)
- Coconut cream: Lisa's coconut cream was also quite good. The coconut layer was very firm, firmer than I've normally eaten -- I think testament to the cooked pudding, rather than instant, again. Her canned whipped cream was topped with a bit of toasted coconut. While her crust was done to perfection, she didn't care for its flavor. (Note: Lisa is a pie-crust lover. She likes to eat it plain, or to take raw pie-crust scrap, roll it out, sprinkle it with cinnamon sugar, bake it and eat it that way. So her standard might be a good bit higher than mine.) I noticed particularly the texture of her crust -- it flaked into good, horizontal layers, rather than crumbling. Apparently all the pies cost $2.75 per (generous) slice.
A note on ambiance: While Potbelly has fake kitsch, Hitching Post has real kitsch. The decor runs to roughly framed black-and-white photos of people -- children blowing gum bubbles, etc. -- and cooking utensils (spoons, beaters) fastened to wooden boards. Here, the nostalgia is realer than at Potbelly, because one gets the impression that Hitching Post's decor has "growed" over time, not been imported from a central office where an interior designer has been hired to make the chain's locations look "eclectic" and "hip" and "retro." So Hitching Post gets better ambiance points because it's real.
Rating (just for the pie): 9 (3, 3, 3)
Lisa's rating: "My mom makes really good pies..."
So, we ended our progressive dinner having enjoyed ourselves immensely. Part of the fun is the unknown -- we don't tell each other where we're going next: I just drive to wherever it is and Lisa either drives or tells me where to turn without telling me the destination -- and the "freedom" of not needing to get a real meal at any location. A piece of advice, if you decide to give this idea a try: don't buy drinks! Either take a drink with you -- bottle of water or something -- or get a can of pop from a can or a fountain drink at a gas station. Beverages, especially at fast food spots, are too overpriced (and this is especially true if you do the $20 for 2 people version).
