Cork & Cap has been operating out of the their Hyde Park Square location for over a year, occupying the space formerly held briefly by J Bar Pizzeria and Indigo Casual Gourmet Cafe for many years before that. The dark interior is very similar to the remodel that was done when J Bar took over.

Inside

Pizza is still on the menu but main entrée selections have been added and are more of the focus here. With that said, I’m a pizza addict so I quickly decided on the sausage pizza for my meal. This combines Italian sausage, rapini, red onion, three cheese blend, and black truffle oil ($15). The serving size is good, my wife stole a slice and I still had another leftover. This could be shared if you added salads. The toppings were plentiful and all very fresh. Initially I missed not having red sauce on it, but this actually allowed the other ingredients to shine.

Sausage Pizza

My wife tried something that I no longer see on the menu, the pulled pork sandwich served with fries ($14). This was a little pricy but again the ingredients were high quality. I much preferred the pizza to this sandwich as the pork was a touch too dry and could have used some more sauce. Honestly I’m not surprised to see this is not on the menu anymore.

Pulled Pork

Overall we enjoyed a nice meal away from the kids. The food was mostly good, the prices were a tad high, but this makes for a good date spot. We will have to give it another try now that some of the menu has been redone and recipes have been tweaked.

I’ve slowly been making my way through the growing list of Cincinnati breweries. It is definitely a good time to be alive for craft beer drinkers! The Woodburn Brewery has been open for nearly a year in East Walnut Hills. So far they have been solely focused on their draft beer, but they will soon have limited bottle releases and I’ve always heard that cans would be in the future too.

Inside

The Woodburn has a beautiful space right on Woodburn Avenue with exposed brick and rafters, skylights, plenty of seating around an L shaped bar, and even more seating at picnic style benches in the back. There is also a nice courtyard at the back of the building for those nice weather days.

Tostada “Sliders”

They have partnered with Mazunte to offer Mexican themed small bites. I’ve long considered Mazunte to be my favorite taqueria in the city. The food served at Woodburn is equally as excellent. I would highly recommend the tostada “sliders” that stuff fried mini tostadas with pork in chile Guajilla sauce, scallion ricotta, pinto bean purée, cabbage, avocado, and arugula (3 for $8). My mouth is watering just writing about these!

Teku Glass

As far as the beers go, it is hard to go wrong with their always available chocolate cherry stout. The chocolate mint imperial stout is also delicious and truly like a Girl Scout Thin Mint cookie in a glass. Now that the temperatures have reached summer highs I need to get back to try some of their IPA offerings, and I’m sure I will do that soon. The Woodburn is one of my favorites around.

My wife and I have ordered delivery from Cafe Mediterranean a couple of times recently through SkipTheDishes. In our handful of years living in the area, this might be the longest tenured restaurant in this spot on Erie Avenue. It was previously home to Cumin (for many years but not for long after our move to the area) and Ash American Fare.

Cafe Mediterranean has been around since 2008, first opening in Anderson. They moved to Blue Ash in 2011 and finally settled in East Hyde Park in 2015.

Falafel & Chicken Shish Kebab

We have ordered the same entrees both times and shared them. The falafel ($15) is served with hummus, grilled tomato, and grilled pepper. The falafel is of the flatter variety, but are much larger than other restaurants. The mix of chickpeas, lentils, and spice is very good and they are not dry at all. The hummus was also good, a little more standard compared to other area spots, but still a good chickpea taste.

The chicken kebab ($15) is served with rice pilaf and grilled green beans. The chicken was cooked perfectly, leaving it juicy and seasoned well with herbs and spices. The vegetables were good but I was glad I was eating this meal alone as it left me wanting some hummus, babaganoush, or something similar on the side.

Speaking of babaganoush, we ordered a side ($7) of the smoked eggplant appetizer and I would not skip on this in the future. The olive oil, lemon juice, tahini, garlic, and yogurt that go into the mix make this outstanding for dipping. The pita bread that is included with all orders is not like anything I’ve had before. It is much thicker than store bought pita and a little hard to use for the dips. I found it easiest to slice it up rather than trying to tear it apart.

The prices seem a little higher than some other nearby Mediterranean spots, but the quality or ingredients and quantity of food at Cafe Mediterranean are top notch.

Lately my wife and I have been trying all the newer food delivery services. One that we have used a few times is OrderUp and we’ve used it twice to order dinner from Singha Contemporary Thai & Sushi. We have yet to dine in, but if you are looking for their physical location they are in the space formerly occupied by Blue Elephant on Wasson.

Order #1

For our first order we tried the basil chicken, red curry with chicken, and the fresh summer roll. The basil chicken ($11.95)was my personal choice and included stir fried basil, onion, green bean, bell pepper, and mushroom. This was the best basil chicken I’ve had in the city! The ingredients were fresh and the serving size was very generous.

My wife chose the red curry ($11.95), which combines red chili paste in coconut milk with bamboo shoot, basil, bell pepper, broccoli, green bean, and carrot. The broth was thin as expected and easily soaked into the rice. This left the fresh vegetables to really shine on their own with just a bit of the spice soaking into those. Overall a really good Thai curry that we would order again.

My Plate

The fresh summer rolls (2 for $5.95) filled a rice wrap with lettuce, cucumber, carrot, bean sprout, basic, and noodles. Alone I found these to pretty bland, so I found it necessary to drown it in the tamarind sauce that was provided on the side. I would skip this in the future.

On our second order our appetizer choice was completely different. The mozzarella popcorn chicken ($6.95) is nearly like a cheese stick you find at most sports bars, but the breading is actually ground chicken. These are deep-fried and served with sweet soy sauce. Not an authentic choice by any means, but these were actually pretty good.

Mozzarella Popcorn Chicken

Not one to mix it up when I find something I love, I stuck with the basil chicken again on our second order. My wife did switch it up and went with the panang curry ($11.95) this time. This combines panang curry paste and coconut milk with lime leaves, bell pepper, broccoli, and carrot. I liked the sweet and spicy flavor of the curry better than the red curry that we had for our first order. However the vegetable mix from the red was slightly better in my opinion. I’ve heard the green curry is also really good so may to give that one a try too. Either way their curry options are solid.

Order #2

Overall, Singha is easily one of my favorite Thai restaurants around. It’s easily better than the previous occupants of the space, Blue Elephant, and is neck and neck with Ruthai’s for our favorite nearby spot.

We didn’t eat at most of the breweries we visited during our tour of Portland, but 10 Barrel Brewing was an exception to that rule. There are so many breweries in Portland, that 10 Barrel sits directly across the street from Rogue Public House, which we also visited on this same outing.

Outside

The outside and inside of 10 Barrel is very industrial feeling, which mostly fits the neighborhood. There is an awesome looking rooftop patio, but it was much too cold for us to enjoy on our visit.

Sampler

Some of us had flights, which included 10 samples, while others dove right into the IPA menu. I took the advice of our friend Phil and thoroughly enjoyed their Joe IPA.

Pint

For starters on the food we enjoyed their Brussels Sprouts with bacon, lemon, Cajun spice, and harrisa ailoi ($7). These were cooked to perfection! The bacon added some nice smoky flavor to balance the citrus and spice from the other ingredients. These are highly recommended.

Brussels Sprouts

Our group of four split The Pesto Pie with mozzarella, grilled chicken, artichoke hearts, red onion, spinach, and peppadew peppers ($19). This was more than enough for four hungry adults, but the guys took one for the team to finish off the remaining slices even though we were nearly completely filled. The ingredients on this pizza were plentiful and I especially liked the sweet peppadew’s, which you don’t find available in restaurants all that often.

The Pesto Pie

10 Barrel is a great place to stop on our Portland brewery tour for some good beer and great food.