Next Saturday is the start of college football season. This will be my first season as a season ticket holder for the University of Cincinnati Bearcats and I couldn’t be more excited to see them play. We will get to see four games on campus at Nippert Stadium and another couple of big games downtown at Paul Brown Stadium. Here is a quick tease of the kickoff video which we will see next Saturday!

For me none of the fast food burrito chains compare to Chipotle. I’ve had Qdoba and Moe’s both a number of times and though neither are bad options, I have always found the quality and taste of Chipotle to be superior to all else. Since moving back to Cincinnati I have seen a few different Hot Head Burrito locations, which is a local based chain that now has eighteen stores and still expanding. My wife and I finally decided to give them a try a few weeks ago.

Full Tray For Just Over $10

While walking from the parking lot to the front door we noticed that Sunday is two burritos for $10, which we happily took advantage of. I went with a spicy chicken burrito with half black and half pinto beans, pico salsa, and hot head sauce. The way that Hot Head Burritos tries to differentiate themselves from other burrito joints is by having a variety of sauces that can be added on top of your meal. My wife ordered a special burrito from a sign on the wall, which consisted mainly of pork with their sweet habanero sauce.

Huge Burrito

My burrito turned out gigantic! It actually broke when the employee tried to wrap it, and rather than dumping it into a new shell, she simply wrapped another one around the broken one. This might have killed some of the spiciness from my selections, as it wasn’t nearly as hot as I thought it was going to be. The spicy chicken is really just the same as the regular chicken with a little hot sauce squirted on top. The rice is really bland and the beans were not remarkable. Overall I wasn’t blown away by my burrito.

Burrito Guts

My wife seemed to enjoy hers a little more than I did, though again it didn’t appear to be anything spectacular. The chips and salsa were good, actually that was probably my favorite part of the meal, since I luckily choose the hot salsa, which finally provided the kick that I was searching for. As mentioned earlier, it was a very cheap meal, which I guess explains some of the quality issues that I felt the food had. Plus they do have a frequent visitor program with stickers that allows you turn earn free burritos. I think that I will only be back during a time of the regularly occurring sales, because at full price I would much rather have a burrito from Chipotle.

Another Pig-Fest has come and gone. After taking last year off, the party this year seemed especially fun. For those who lost track this was the seventeenth annual pig roast, though we called it the eighteenth after last year’s mini party. The teams I played on in both wiffle ball and cornhole bowed out of the tournaments after our first games, which actually gave me a little free time to socialize during the day.

Later in the evening our good buddy MER put on a three-hour show for all in attendance, including the standard set closing sing along performance of “Friends in Low Places” with myself and my family all on stage. I recorded the entire performance so look for that to be online sometime in the next couple of weeks.

There are already a good amount of pictures showing up on Facebook with many more still to come. I will update the website as additional pictures are uploaded. I really hope that I get to see everyone again next year.

The Cock & Bull will always be a soft spot for my wife and I, as she claims the Covington location was the site of our first date. We were happy to see a new location open in Hyde Park around the same time that we moved into the neighborhood. When a friend of ours was in town recently to see our new place we all agreed to head up to this new location and check it out. They have a great patio out front, but the weather was a little too warm for us and so we opted for a table inside. We visited on a Tuesday evening and found no wait for a table.

Stained Glass

The inside of the restaurant is actually very large too. The front room appeared to seat a healthy number of people, but there are even more seats in an additional back room, which is where we were seated. To go along with the large space they also have a large offering of beer, nearly 60 taps are dedicated to various craft and macro beers from both the US and overseas. It’s a pretty impressive lineup overall.

Five Onion Soup

To start off my meal I went with a cup of the Five Onion Soup. The menu says it isn’t French onion soup, but it sure looks like it and tastes like it too. It was a great combination of different onions and it was topped with a large amount of melted provolone. My visit was off to a good start. For my meal I chose the chicken teriyaki wrap with a side of macaroni & cheese.

Chicken Teriyaki Wrap

Unfortunately the wrap was not as good as the soup that I started with. The chicken was good, but was easily overpowered by the large amount of salad mix. The menu said that the teriyaki chicken and provolone mix would be accompanied by lettuce and red onion, but it appears they took the easier route and just used a generic salad mix instead. I think if this were replaced by some better quality lettuce and fresh onion it could have been much better. The macaroni & cheese was good, not outstanding, but next to the wrap I enjoyed it a lot.

Lightweight Fish & Chips

My wife went with the “lightweight” fish and chips, which is an 8 oz portion of their famous hand cut fillets of icelandic cod, deep fried to a golden brown, served on a bed of seasoned fries. She was happy with her choice, and even this smaller serving of the dish was a lot of food. Obviously this is a popular dish at the English style pub and I saw many plates of it being delivered to hungry customers throughout the restaurant.

Veggie Wrap

Our friend had the veggie wrap with grilled eggplant, zucchini, mushroom, goat cheese, and spinach wrapped in a tortilla and served with balsamic mayo. She seemed happy with her meal as well. So I must have just made a bad decision. I wouldn’t say that any of the food was outstanding, but the restaurant is new and they are likely still figuring things out. I’m sure we will be back in the future and I hope for some improvements. It is still worth a visit, as is, for the beer selection and atmosphere alone.

Last night I spent yet another evening at PNC Pavilion, this time to see My Morning Jacket along with Neko Case. Neko hit the stage right at 7pm with her five band-mates. Though I was familiar with her name, I was not familiar with her music, which can best be categorized as alt-country. Neko and the band powered through a quick 45 minutes set full of short songs. The first few that I heard were full of depressing themes and stories, but those gave way to more upbeat songs, which I enjoyed much more.

Neko Case

Once Neko Case’s set ended I figured it would be 8:30 before we saw My Morning Jacket take the stage. Unfortunately that prediction was 10 minutes off, and I was caught out on the plaza when their set started. Fortunately the sound was loud enough that I could hear the opening performance which included the first two songs from their latest album, Circuital, back to back. Shortly after those opening tracks the band launched into two of their earlier singles, “Off the Record” and “I’m Amazed.” These two tracks really got the crowd moving.

My Morning Jacket

I thought last night was my first time seeing My Morning Jacket, but today I realized that I actually saw them at the Mile High Music Festival last summer. I wasn’t very impressed with their performance that day, but last night was a completely different experience. I haven’t seen a rock show like MMJ delivered last night in a long time. Front-man Jim James is one hell of a vocalists and guitar player. His long curled hair constantly flowing around his head as he head-bangs along with the music.

As impressive as Jim James is, I was also impressed with the rest of the band. Even though Jim often has many guitar solos, Carl Broemel on the opposite side of the stage is also a fine guitar player. He also spent many songs on the pedal steel and even one song on the saxophone. Bassist, Tom Blankenship, the only other original member holds down the groove in the center of the stage playing in perfect rhythm with drummer Patrick Hallahan. Hallahan also has a big mop of hair on his head, which flies wildly in the air as he beats on the drum kit. Rounding out the lineup is Bo Koster on keyboards. I liked that he had a real upright piano is his repertoire that added a very clean sound to a couple of songs throughout the night.

Other highlights of the show included “Wonderful (The Way I Feel)” along with “One Big Holiday” and the latest single “Holdin’ On To Black Metal.” The band took a quick 4 minute break before returning to play a lengthy 35 minute encore featuring “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around” with Neko Case and some of her band members on stage. The song was originally recorded by Stevie Nicks and Tom Petty. The male and female singing combination worked great with Neko on stage. Once the last note was played the band had been on the stage for roughly two and a half hours! It was a great night of music.

I’ve added a couple of other pictures to the show below. The lighting was really good and I was happy to see it was all LED powered.

Our 2002 Volkswagen Jetta hit 100,000 miles over the weekend! There was a time when we put a ton of miles on the car, especially when it was the only car that Kim and I had between the two of us. These days it mostly sits idle in our driveway, unless Kim and I both need a car that day.

Disregard the check engine light. I was hoping that it would go away soon, since my dad and I recently replaced a faulty coil pack. I guess we are still waiting for the cycle to complete, or there is another problem. The car is running great though and has truthfully had very few problems.

In unrelated car news, check out this ride I was behind earlier in the day.

Both the word Porsche and the numbers 917 are on the back, but I don’t think it looks exactly like the cars on the Porsche 917 Wikipedia entry. Does anyone know what this is?

My wife and I recently had our first sit down breakfast since moving back to Cincinnati. We walked up to The Echo in Hyde Park Square with our seven month old around 10am on a Sunday. Even though it was before the big after church rush, we still found a line out the front door full of groups waiting for an open table in the smaller sized diner. We decided to wait it out and were surprised to find that the line actually moved very quickly. We were seated and had food in front of us by 11am.

Red, White & Blueberries

I ordered the Red, White, and Blueberries off of the summer seasonal menu. This was a croissant French toast bake, topped with fresh fruit and whipped cream, with powdered sugar and syrup. As you can see in the photo above, the portion of French toast was pretty small. That was the only disappointing thing, as it tasted delicious. The thick cut croissant was perfectly crusted on the outside but soft and chewy on the inside. The whipped cream was also excellent, and tasted like it was made from scratch in-house.

Potato Cakes

Since my breakfast was a little light, my wife offered to share her potato cakes with me. These reminded me of some potato pancakes that I made last year for a Oktoberfest party, including the parsley in the mix. I would definitely recommend these as a side to any dish. My wife had them on the side of her omelet, which she seemed to enjoy as well. There are many other things on the menu that I want to try, so we will definitely be back. It is the only breakfast place in Hyde Park Square so thankfully it lived up to our expectations.

Yesterday was Trey’s baptism day down at St. Francis Seraph, the same church Kim and I were married nearly three years ago. He was pretty fussy most of the morning, I think it’s teething related, but once the water hit his head and the chrism oil was rubbed through his hair he immediately calmed down for the remainder of mass. Below are a couple of photos from my mom and the rest can be viewed on her flickr page.

While living in Denver we had Sexy Pizza. And now in Cincinnati we have Naked Pizza. Naked Pizza is a newer chain with the first store opening in April 2006 in a New Orleans building that was formerly flooded by Hurricane Katrina with six feet of water. They currently operate twenty locations across the US and Dubai with many more scheduled to open soon. In fact one will be opening on Colfax Avenue in Denver.

The idea behind Naked Pizza is a healthier pizza, a more natural one. They use meat and cheese raised without hormones or antibiotics. The crust is made “from an Ancestral Blend of 10 grains plus prebiotic agave fiber and probiotics (healthful bacteria like the ones found in yogurt for balance and digestive health) bound by water and made by hand.” It all sounds like a great idea, but is the pizza any good?

Superbiotic Pizza

My wife and I asked ourselves that same questions and decided to place a delivery order through their online ordering system. We were told it would be thirty minutes, but it was actually much quicker than that. So the new shop was already doing things right in my eyes. We ordered the superbiotic pizza with artichoke, spinach, bell pepper, mushroom, garlic, red onion, and cilantro. And we also ordered a custom BBQ chicken pizza, after realizing it was cheaper to make it ourselves than to buy the smokehouse combination.

Custom BBQ Chicken Pizza

The verdict? The pizza is actually pretty good. I wouldn’t say that it is outstanding, but I did thoroughly enjoy it. It is hard to find a pizza with as many vegetables on it as the superbiotic, which we really liked. The BBQ chicken pizza was pretty good, but could have used possibly another ingredient. We added pineapple to the hickory-smoked BBQ sauce, onion, and chicken. Next time I would consider adding some jalapeno to spice it up even more.

Having lived in Kansas City for a number of years, I still get a craving for good BBQ from time to time. While it’s true that I don’t eat brisket or ribs, I do enjoy smoked chicken, turkey, and even pulled pork. In Denver we had Moe’s to satisfy our BBQ cravings, and now that I’m back living in Cincinnati at least I have City BBQ. There are a few other BBQ places around town that I would like to try, but it is nice to find a convenient go-to place that gets the job done when needed.

Pulled Chicken Sandwich Platter

On this visit to the Hyde Park location I went with the pulled chicken sandwich, which comes with two sides. I choose mac & cheese and baked beans. They claim that their beans have chunks of brisket in them, but I found no such thing. They were still a great combination of smokey with just a hint of sweetness. The mac & cheese was also good, but next time I would have to mix up the sides. Half of the fun of going to a place like this is trying all the sides, which there are many.

Special Platter

The serving sizes are huge, especially the sides. The pulled chicken is very good and there are a variety of sauces to sample from sweet to spicy and even mustard based. My wife ordered some sort of special that they had going that day with pulled pork, spicy sauce, jalapenos, and sweet vinegar slaw on top of a thin corn shell. I didn’t have any of it, but she said it was good. It would be hard to go wrong with such a flavorful dish, but I think the real deal here are the sandwich platters.