You may have noticed that my website was down last week. For the last couple of weeks I have had intermittent service interruptions from my Internet service provider (ISP). I also experienced a hardware failure with my very old router last Sunday and had to replace it with a new device. Once that was up and running I had some issues with my ISP who didn’t appear to fully recognized my new hardware and were blocking some incoming connections. After multiple failed attempts at contacting them to get the issues corrected, I finally decided to switch ISP’s. Time Warner came out and hooked up our new service over the weekend and now I am up and running once again! I promise more updates starting tomorrow with details on all the things we have done while our Internet has been down.

This past weekend was the annual MidPoint Music Festival that takes place in various bars and venues around downtown Cincinnati and Over-the-Rhine. As I did last year, I only made it down for two of the three nights. I started off with a strong Thursday night and followed it up with a late Friday night. When Saturday night rolled around I was a little too tired to attempt to do it once more.

Backstage at Cody ChesnuTT

Thursday was awesome since a good friend of mine had an extra VIP bracelet that he let me use for the evening. We started with free beers and food behind the main stage in Washington Park while Cody ChesnuTT brought the funk and soul to the good sized crowd. Throughout the night I managed to see at least seven different bands.

Goodbye June at Mr. Pitiful’s

My personal highlights were Nashville’s Goodbye June who rocked everyone’s faces off at Mr. Pitiful’s along with Vandaveer from Washington, D.C. whose mellow folk sound was the perfect ending for my night. Other bands I saw included Mad Anthony, Ha Ha Tonka, and River Whyless.

Ha Ha Tonka on the Midway

Friday night I got a late start, but arrived at Washington Park just in time to see The Head and the Heart play. I was probably most excited to see this band play after seeing them once before a couple of years ago when they opened up for The Decemberists. Their latest single “Shake” can be streamed right on their website and is a good representation of their sound. Their sophomore release Let’s Be Still will be released in a couple of weeks on October 15.

The Head and the Heart

After their awesome performance I moved over to Mr. Pitiful’s to meet some friends and catch the funk rock band The Almighty Get Down followed up by hip-hop group Eclipse Movement. Both bands featured horn sections, are local to Cincinnati, and are full of energy when performing live.

Eclipse Movement at Mr. Pitiful’s

When your night ends with a keytar solo you know it was a good one.

Keytar Solo!

I think I am the last blogger in Cincinnati to visit Bakersfield OTR, but my wife and I finally did so last week. I had wanted to visit many times before, but our nights without our kids are very limited, and Bakersfield is not child friendly. I would have no problem taking a baby there, as the environment isn’t bad for kids, there just isn’t much that our picky two-year-old would eat.

Inside

We arrived just after 6 PM on a Tuesday evening and were happy to find plenty of available seating. I’ve heard stories of long waits, but our early week visit likely helped. We were asked if we would rather have a seat at a table or at the fairly large bar. When we replied that we would like a table we were shown to one half of a large community table. Later during our meal, three women would occupy the other end of the table and there was still plenty of room for all of us.

Chips And Guacamole

I immediately ordered some chips and guacamole for us to start with ($6). The guacamole was very fresh and filled with large chunks of avocado. Overall it was pretty basic as far as ingredients go, but still quite delicious. I don’t think it’s the best I’ve ever had, unlike many others who do think it is the best around, but it is definitely worthy of ordering.

Bakersfield Margarita

My wife ordered the Bakersfield margarita ($6), which came served in a mason jar. I had a couple of sips from it while we waited for our dinner to arrive and immediately fell in love. It isn’t overly sour and packs a punch with a stiff pour of el Jimador Blanco tequila. When ordering another round of drinks, I gladly switched over from the beer I originally had to get a margarita of my own.

Tacos!

As I hinted at earlier, the menu is not lengthy at all. Basically there are a handful of appetizers and sides, a couple of torta sandwiches, and eight different tacos to choose from. My wife and I split six of their taco offerings: cochinita pibil ($3), mole ($4), pollo verde ($3), fish ($4), pastor ($3), and rajas ($3). The order I listed them is from my favorite to least likely to order again.

The cochinita pibil is a fairly simple combination of achiote braised pork, pickled red onion, Habanero salsa, and cilantro, but the pork was perfectly cooked and tender with a ton of spicy heat from the salsa. The mole taco is filled with Oaxacan style braised chicken, pickled red onion, queso fresco, and cilantro.  The sweet flavors of the mole sauce combined wonderfully with the creamy cheese and pickled onions.

The pollo verde mixes tomatillo braised chicken, queso fresco, pickled onion, cilantro, crema, and radish. The sauce/marinade on this chicken was not as good as the mole, but I still enjoyed this one. The fish taco was piled high with crispy Mahi, Tabasco lime sauce, and citrus slaw. It definitely had the largest amount of protein and the toppings were exploding out of it. I’m not a very big seafood fan, but I had a few bites of this and this would be one fish item that I would actually consider ordering again. My wife loved it and it was probably one of her favorites of the night.

The pastor combines chili marinated pork, pineapple, pickled onion, and cilantro. I do typically love the combination of pineapple with a somewhat spiced meat, but I felt that this pork was little too tough and chewy. It was not shredded like most of the other tacos and was mostly harder chunks of meat. Finally the rajas was our choice from the two vegetarian offerings. It is stuffed with poblano, fresno, and bell pepper, ejotes (green beans), chihauhua, queso fesco, and cilantro. This one was actually a great combination of flavors, but I really missed the meat, so I would not be likely to order it again.

Overall we had a great first experience at Bakersfield OTR. The food was mostly great and the drinks were superb. I wish there was something for our son to eat, that way we could make it down for dinner more often.

Update: I’m told by the owner that they do indeed have a kiddie quesadilla that is not on the menu. Next time we will have to take the entire family down for lunch or dinner.