There was no time for rest in my men’s hockey league. After winning the playoff championship last Sunday, we were back on the ice this past Sunday. Our opponents for this game would be the regular season champions. Though they lost in the semifinals of the playoffs, they are still a team that I can recall only beating twice. They are always at or near the top of the league, and when the game started I knew we were in for a rough one.

We only had seven skaters show up for the game, and no goalie. Fortunately another goalie from the league was at the rink early and was able to fill in for us, even though we still had to play the first few minutes without a keeper at all. Somehow our opponents did not score during that period of time, and our team was actually the first one to get on the scoreboard. About halfway through the game one of our defensemen got his third penalty of the game and was kicked out for the remainder. That means that we had to finish the game with just one substitute player on our bench. Amazingly enough our opponents only managed to put one goal in the net, which was not enough. We won the game 2-1, which was an amazing accomplishment for our entire team.

Last night was our second to last broomball game. We were taking on another team in the same position as ours, a must win game if we want to have any chance at getting into the playoffs. Broom Goes the Dynamite, our opponents, had one very skilled player on their team, who was able to get a deflected shot into the goal in the first period. We were down 1-0 at halftime, but not out. Halfway through the second, I one-timed a great pass from my buddy Ken and was awarded my first goal of my broomball career. As the game winded down, it looked like the result would be a tie. However, the opponents good player snuck in another goal with just a few minutes left to play. Though we had some good shots and scoring chances as the game wrapped up, unfortunately we lost 2-1. Our chances at the playoffs are pretty much gone, but we still have one game left to play next Monday at 6:30.

Friday afternoon I found myself driving out toward the Mt. Healthy area for service on one of our cars. My wife dropped off the car, and since the service was going to take a number of hours, I picked her up in our other car. Taking advantage of the situation, I suggested we stop at the nearby Pit To Plate BBQ for lunch. I had tried one of their pulled pork sandwiches at this summer’s Taste of Cincinnati and really enjoyed it.

Outside Pit To Plate BBQ

It’s pretty obvious from the outside that this building used to be a Hardee’s, but the decor on the inside plus the smokey smells that greeted us once we opened the car doors let you know that you are in for a much better dining experience than Hardee’s could have ever dreamed of providing. Upon entering the main side door, the first thing I noticed was the bar at the back of the room, and then I was quickly drawn to the amount of southern trinkets mounted to every possible surface of the interior. It was a little overwhelming to me, but it does help disguise the fact that we were sitting in the home of a former fast food chain.

Inside Pit To Plate BBQ

It was pretty quiet for a Friday afternoon, and we only ever saw one employee who was taking care of both those at the bar and the few tables in the restaurant booths, such as ourselves. She was over quickly to take our drink order and dropped off some water to us right away, including a plastic cup for our one year old son. After another couple of stops by our table, we were finally ready to order. I went with the pulled chicken sandwich with coleslaw. My wife decided on the pulled pork sandwich with beans and also insisted that we try the jalapeño corn bread. Both plates were also served with a bag of Grippo’s chips and pickles.

Pulled Chicken Sandwich

The food was served to us very quickly. The pulled chicken was piled high and had some really large pieces of meat included. The taste was great and I ate it open face style so that I could sample all the six plus bottles of BBQ sauce that were on the table. Just as I remembered from the Taste of Cincinnati, their mustard based Gold Rush sauce was really good. They also had another sauce that was a mix of the Gold Rush along with their Mild and another. It also was really good. They had a spicy garlic, which was too much like wind sauce, and a vinegar based that I also didn’t care for. My coleslaw was just average. It was a little too runny for my tastes and a little sweeter than I normally like.

Pulled Pork Sandwich

My wife’s pulled pork sandwich was again filled with a lot of very delicious meat. I had already sampled their pulled pork before so we did not split our sandwiches like we normally do. I did however take a bit of each of her sides and again I felt that they were just okay. The beans weren’t nearly as full of flavor as the ones I recently had at Eli’s BBQ, and the cornbread again was nothing special. It did pack quite a bit of jalapeño punch, but the bread itself was a little bland. I really enjoy the meats at Pit To Plate BBQ but I feel that the sides could use some work. With that said, I still like it better than City BBQ, which I’m still a fan of, so Pit To Plate is definitely not to be missed for BBQ in Cincinnati.

After mass this past weekend, my wife and I decided to get crêpes, but we wouldn’t be going to our downtown favorite It’s Just Crêpes. Instead we headed to the relatively newly opened Fave in Hyde Park. Fave is mainly a self-serve frozen yogurt place, similar to Orange Leaf that also recently opened in the area. You walk in, grab a cup, and fill it up with any combination of their eight flavors. There is also a variety of toppings you can add on top. Then you take it to the register and pay a set price (55 cents) per ounce. I’ve yet to give this a try, but it seems like it could get expensive very quickly. While we were there, a customer was rang up for over $6 in frozen yogurt alone.

Inside Fave

Anyway, Fave also has a small offering of crêpes. My wife and I actually tried to get crêpes a few weeks earlier, but turned around when we found ourselves third in line with just one iron working and only one employee inside. It seemed like it would have taken a long time, and even when we returned on this visit to find nobody else inside, our order of two crêpes took at least ten minutes to prepare. Again just one employee was there, though later anther did show up in time to ring up our order.

Pizza Crêpe

I ordered the pizza crêpe with pizza sauce, Chihuahua cheese, pepperoni, and basil (though I don’t remember any basil in mine). My wife went with the BBQ – chicken, onion, bell pepper, and BBQ sauce. Overall the crêpes were good, but I felt that the shell may have been cooked too long and it was a little thicker than I was used to. With so few ingredients inside the crêpe, the thickness of the shell blocked out most of the flavor in my crêpe. My wife’s had a better flavor mix, but I wonder if maybe a little less batter was used would that let the ingredients shine through more?

I think Fave would be best off picking one item to specialize and then doing it really well. If the yogurt alone will keep them in business, I say they expand on that. If not, I think a well done crêpe spot would be perfect in Hyde Park. The eight item crêpe menu could easily be doubled or even tripled. They already have a decent start at making crêpes, but I think it takes a bit more focus to really do it right.

We’ve had two games since my last broomball update. We won the first game a week ago and lost the second one last night. We now have a 2-2 record overall and sit in second place in our division. Only six teams advance to the playoffs, and our only chance at making it now will be by claiming one of the two wild card spots. Our last two games are against other second place teams in other divisions, so we pretty much control our own destiny.

Awesome Backdrop for a Game

Last night we faced off with a first place team from another division, a team that has yet to be scored on. Their goalie was easily 6’6″, but I thought their defensive play was even better than his performance. I nearly snuck a goal in during the final minutes of the game, but my diving shot didn’t make it through the keepers legs. And with that we lost the game 0-1. I’d say that we drew a pretty tough schedule, but we are doing our bests to play in the postseason.

Photo credit once again belongs to 5chw4r7z. See all of his photos from this season on flickr.

Our two remaining games:

• Monday January 30th at 8pm
• Monday February 6th at 6:30pm

The Keystone Bar & Grill opened their Hyde Park location this past November. Though I have never been to their other location in Covington, I did sample some of their signature mac ‘n cheese at this past years Taste of Cincinnati. With a basketball game on TV that I wanted to watch, I headed to the new restaurant this past Saturday afternoon.

In addition to their signature mac ‘n cheese menu, they also have very similar flavor combinations offered on a quesadilla menu. For my meal I went with the BBQ’dilla - grilled BBQ chicken, bacon, marinated onions and cheddar served with ranch ($9.99). The serving size generous and was easily enough for lunch. I thought the flavor combination was great and it didn’t really need the ranch on the side. Other quesadilla offerings include ingredients such as corned beef, flank steak, and even chili.

BBQ'dilla

My wife ordered the Buffalo Springfield mac ‘n cheese, even though I insisted that we already tried it at the Taste of Cincinnati. This dish ($7.99) adds buffalo chicken and crumbled bleu cheese to the mac ‘n cheese. It came served in a hot skillet and took a few minutes to cool. You can tell just by looking at it that this was prepared fresh versus the sample we had at the “Taste” this past summer.

Buffalo Springfield Mac 'N Cheese

Once it was cool enough to eat I stole a bite and was immediately hit with buffalo sauce and lots of it. So much in fact that my wife couldn’t eat more than a few bites the dish. I’m always a sucker for spicy things, so I offered to switch meals with her after only eating one slice of my quesadilla. Typically she likes spicy foods too, but this proved to be too much for her, so buyer beware.

In addition to the mac ‘n cheese and quesadillas, there is a full menu of wraps, sandwiches, burgers, and other bar and grill type food. They also have a pretty decent beer list. When we were first seated our table didn’t have a drink menu on it, but after many questions and ordering our first drafts, a tabletop menu was provided. Service was adequate and our food arrived very quickly. We will be back for more.

Last night my men’s hockey team won our league championship! This was my first session playing on the team, but I’m told that the team has been in the championship game multiple times recently, but have always lost to the perennial champions who were again the first place seed this time around. Somehow that team lost in the semifinals to a team that they should have beaten and had beaten three times in the regular season. Fortunately for us our unlikely opponents in the championship game was a team that we had already beaten three times ourselves in the regular season.

We started off a little sluggish and were down 0-1 at the end of the first period. Eventually we evened the score in the second and the game was tied at 2 through the early parts of the third period. Finally, my buddy Jon weaved through half of their team and found the back of the net to give us the goad ahead goal. And it didn’t end there. I had a nice assist on our fifth goal of the game, and that proved to be too much for our opposition. They did manage to add another goal late in the game, so the final score was 5-3. It was a hard-fought battle and a big win! Our next session starts up right away this coming weekend, so there is no time to get out of shape. I hope we can keep the victories coming.

For lunch today I headed to one of the few remaining restaurants close to our home in Hyde Park that I have yet to visit, Indigo Casual Gourmet Cafe. I have read some really bad reviews of Indigo, so I wasn’t expecting much, but figured I at least had to try it for myself. The restaurant itself looks like it hasn’t changed in years, thought he copper topped tables were pretty cool. The rest of the decor is very 80’s and could use some updating. It felt like we were seated in a cheap hotel lobby restaurant.

Inside Indigo

Our service wasn’t exactly speedy, but I think the one waitress was taking care of the entire lunch time crowd. The menu is really pretty large and full of specialty salads, pastas, sandwiches, and pizzas. My wife, son, and brother-in-law were all along for the experience, though my wife had already been here a time or two before. After much pondering, I decided to order the creole macaroni and cheese, with andouille sausage, chicken, and a mix of peppers.

Creole Macaroni & Cheese

The pasta was penne, the cheese was mozzarella, and it was all topped with panko bread crumbs before being baked. When the dish was served it was extremely hot and the sauce was a little too liquidy. Once it cooled a bit the sauce was more creamy and actually very good. The flavor combination really worked well, but this is far from a traditional macaroni and cheese. My brother-in-law order the regular macaroni and cheese, and though it too looked very good and full of ingredients, it is not a creamy cheese based dish.

BBQ Chicken Pizza

My wife went with the BBQ chicken pizza,  though I wish she would have decided on the chicken tikka masala pizza instead, which seemed much more interesting to me. I may have to try that in the future. Her pizza was also really good and relatively large serving. We’ve all had this flavor combination before, so it wasn’t anything out of this world, but still was a solid take on this dish. Overall the food was really good and I’m sure I will be back for more in the future.

Over the summer I had the pleasure of sampling a pulled pork sandwich on Fountain Square from Eli’s BBQ. It was the same day that I tried Tom + Chee for the first time. At that time, Eli was only operating from the food tents that were located on the square, but once the city removed them late last year, the owners were forced to find other options. Fortunately they found a space at 3313 Riverside Drive to open a permanent restaurant and it just happens to be relatively close to my home. In addition to the new location, the menu has also grown from the single item pulled pork sandwich and now included smoked turkey and ribs.

Eli’s BBQ Menu

The new restaurant space seats 25-30 people comfortably at a variety of high or low top tables. At the back of the dining space is a record player that was playing a variety of folk and bluegrass tunes. Orders are placed at the back of the space, near an open door to the kitchen. Menu items are written on a chalk board hanging on the back wall. Currently only cash and checks are accepted, so plan accordingly.

Inside Eli’s BBQ

My wife and I agreed to split a variety of the food offerings. I walked to the counter and ordered the pulled pork sandwich platter with baked beans and cheese macaroni, as well as a hickory smoked turkey sandwich platter with jalapeño cheese grits and jalapeño corn bread. We also decided to sample two bottles of Ale-8-One, a ginger ale like soft drink from Kentucky, which I really liked and will have to find more of in the future.

Eli’s Pulled Pork Sandwich Platter

The pulled pork was just as good as I remembered it being this past summer. Easily the best pulled pork sandwich in the area, at least that I’ve had. The pork has a bit of smokey flavor, is really tender, and is just a bit crisp on the ends. It comes served on a grilled honey bun and is topped with a great flavored coleslaw and some of the wonderful signature BBQ sauce. The baked beans were awesome, quite possibly my favorite ever! They weren’t overly spicy, but had a really nice complex flavor full of various spices. The cheese macaroni was super creamy.

Hickory Smoked Turkey Sandwich Platter

The smoked turkey sandwich was definitely more smokey in flavor than the pork. For me, it might have been smoked just a tad too long. It was thick sliced and piled high on the same grilled honey bun and again topped with slaw and sauce. I didn’t enjoy it as much as the pulled pork, but I will still order it again on future visits. The sides with this platter both featured jalapeños. Typically I’m not a fan of grits, as I find them bland and boring, but these were full of flavor. I would easily order them again if it weren’t for the other sides that I enjoyed even more. The cornbread was delicious! It was still moist and the addition of jalapeño helped kick it up a notch.

Everything we had cost only $20. The sodas were $2 each, making the platters just $8 each for a ton of food! My wife couldn’t finish her portion so I gladly cleaned up behind her. I couldn’t get enough of Eli’s wonderful food. We will be back soon and I encourage you to visit perhaps the best BBQ spot in the city.

This year’s NOW That’s What Ed Calls Music is complete, better late than never.

1. Simplified – Shall We Begin
2. Gabe Dixon – Strike
3. Matt Nathanson – Faster
4. Stephen Kellogg & The Sixers – Gravity
5. Gomez – Options
6. Amos Lee – Windows Are Rolled Down
7. Motopony – King Of Diamonds
8. Will Hoge – Too Old To Die Young
9. Good Old War – My Own Sinking Ship
10. Needtobreathe – Drive All Night
11. Brett Dennen – Sydney (I’ll Come Running)
12. The Head And The Heart – Down In The Valley
13. The Civil Wars – Barton Hollow
14. The Decemberists – Down By The Water
15. O.A.R. – Dangerous Connection
16. My Morning Jacket – You Wanna Freak Out
17. Dawes – A Little Bit Of Everything

This compilation is available for download from sendspace.com (click the link toward the bottom of the page in the blue box) and from this site (this link will be much slower than sendspace). Please support these artists by buying their full albums and attending their live shows.

On Saturday night I attended my second Cyclones game of the season. Kim’s family was getting a group together for the game, so we gladly joined in and brought my parents along for the action. It was kids jersey t-shirt night, basically meaning that a free shirt was given to kids with a player’s name and number on the back. That player was #17 Mike Liambas who was involved in a big fight before the first period was even over. He averages nearly five minutes in penalties per game. Quite a role model.

Overtime Win

Despite a questionable start to the game, with the Wheeling Nailers taking a 2-0 lead at the end of the first, the game was nearly all Cyclones from there. They added three goals of their own in the second while only allowing the Nailers one additional. The Cyclones took a 4-3 lead in the third, but before the game could end Wheeling added one more goal of their own,which sent the game into a sudden-death overtime period. Just 2 minutes and 36 seconds into extra time, Robert Slaney scored his second goal of the night for the Cyclones and ended the game! He also had an assist on another goal for a three-point night. Perhaps he would have been a better choice for the backs of the kids’ shirts.