Last Wednesday my wife and I met at Andy’s Mediterranean Grille  for dinner. I had a coupon from LivingSocial that was basically a $40 gift card after paying $20 for it months ago. I had made a reservation online, but found the restaurant mostly empty upon arrival. My wife actually arrived first and was seated a table in a secondary dining area that may have once been an outdoor area. There were two other occupied tables nearby, and just a couple of other people in the first main room of the restaurant and bar area.

Empty Restaurant

To get things started we ordered the Mediterranean Sampler ($12) of hummus, baba ghannouj, labneh, tabouli & olives (though we asked to substitute the olives for an additional serving of hummus. Looking at the plate we were served I do think we got the double serving of hummus, but I didn’t realize it until now that we didn’t get any baba ghannouj. Bummer! The dish was served with a large basket of warm pita bread. I though that the hummus was pretty standard, still good, but the tabouli was better than any I’ve had before.

Mediterranean Sampler

For dinner I ordered the  Shish Tawook ($16), four skewers of marinated & charbroiled chicken breast served on a bed of rice. The chicken had a lot of lemon flavor, which must be a big component of the marinade. Fortunately I had some of the appetizer left to balance the flavor better.  The chicken itself was well cooked, juicy and charred on the outside. Four skewers is more than I could eat in on sitting, but the price still seemed a little high for what was served.

Shish Tawook

My wife ordered the  Falafel Platter ($16) which provided a large serving of falafel along with a vegetable salad and some  yogurt  sauce. I stole more than a couple of bites and liked the falafel flavors more than the chicken spice blend. The falafel itself is disc shaped rather than more commonly seen ball. Again we could not eat the entire plate of food, but the price seems very high for a dish that is typically very cheap to prepare.

Falafel Platter

We both enjoyed the food and were happy to finally find a Mediterranean spot in Cincinnati, but with the high prices I don’t know that we will be back. Or if we do I’m sure it will be with a coupon of some sort. I never though of Mediterranean to be an expensive meal, but Andy’s proves that it can be. Had the prices been lower I would have had very few things to complain about. But as is I find it hard to recommend to anyone even if it was a tasty meal.

Fun For All Ages

Over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend my dad’s extended family (aunts, uncles, cousins) made plans to meet at the Pirate’s Den on Saturday night for dinner, drinks, and entertainment from the Rusty Griswolds. In 2010 this west side watering hole moved from their location for as long as I can remember to a nearby  strip-mall  anchored by Big Lots. I’m not a fan of the location change (though I never went to the old Pirate’s Den), it’s just that locations like these seem so stale. Though something must be drawing the bar crowd in, as Champions Grille  has also relocated to just a couple of doors down.

We arrived to find some of our family members already occupying four or five high top circular tables. My family all sat down at one of these tables and decided to order some buckets of beer. This seemed to be the way to go, and the server even offered to hurry the order in so we could get happy hour pricing. I’m not sure if she forgot, or if they were really that busy, but it took a solid fifteen minutes for our drinks to arrive. Once they did we decided to split some appetizers between our group. We ordered nachos, chicken tenders, and a combo platter of cheese sticks, poppers, more tenders, and potato skins.

Nachos?

It didn’t take as long for the food to arrive, and my disappointment was immediate. The nachos ($7) were the first to show up. This consisted of a relatively small offering of chips covered it melted cheese that I wouldn’t call cheddar, and then topped with the worst lettuce I have seen, a few tomatoes, along with onion, black olives, and jalapenos. Normally ordering nachos at a bar will provide a heaping plate of food that can feed a small army. And even though there was so little flavor here, my family of six managed to gobble them down in no time at all.

The fried food was better than our nacho experience, but fried foods are pretty hard to screw up. The fried pickles that we weren’t supposed to get as part of our combo platter, but were given anyway, were the best items available. The chicken tenders weren’t bad either, but weren’t anything special either. I guess anything was better than the nachos we were served. Or at least I though that was true until I saw a salad that one of my cousins ordered. It was the $3.50 house salad, and was a pile of the same lettuce we had on our nachos, with tiny amounts of tomato, onion, bacon, and cheese. I would at least expect some better lettuce as it is the foundation of a salad. I wish I had a photo of the salad, but the room was so dark it was hard to get many good shots.

I would suggest sticking to the drinks at the Pirate’s Den and stay far away from the food. Though later in the night I did see a lady walking around taking orders for the neighboring Empress Chili. So rather than ordering from the Pirate’s Den menu, grab a couple of coneys from Empress. The availability of chili inside really makes me question the food from the Pirate’s Den more than I already have.

Things are definitely looking up in my world of sports. The University of Cincinnati Bearcat football team beat Syracuse on Saturday to improve to 8-3 for the season. They take on Connecticut this coming Saturday at home and with a win will share the Big East Conference championship. This is their last regular season game of the year and I can’t wait to see it all unfold back at Nippert Stadium.

The Bengals also got back on the winning side of things this past Sunday against Cleveland. Their 7-4 record is only good enough for 3rd place in their division, but if the season were to end today they would get the second wild card spot into the playoffs. That’s quite an improvement from last year and for a team that no one, myself included, was giving any credit to in the preseason.

Unfortunately the same cannot be said for my hockey team. Even though I scored an early goal for our team, we suffered a big loss with a new  net-minder  filling in for our normal goalie. Both of my buddies from high school scored goals as well, but it was far from enough to compete with the 10 or so goals the other team put in our net.

I won three of four fantasy football games. Unfortunately the one loss came in the league that is my worst. In that league I am still in 10th of 12 teams and nearly out of the six team playoffs. In another league I’m still in 2nd of 10 and I have  secured  my playoff spot! I moved up a spot in another league to 7th of 12, which would just keep me out of the playoffs, so I need a big couple of week to move on. Finally, in my last league I’ve all but secured a playoff spot with my 9-3 record, where I sit in 1st place in my division. I’m in 2nd place in both pick’em games and remain in 7th in the salary cap game.

Lastly, a quick update on my Jenny Challenge status after the first full week. I’ve logged 21.7 miles, which is a great start! Unfortunately most of that has been walking and hiking. My weather hasn’t been  cooperating  for outdoor runs very often, and when it has I’ve been stuck at work where I still don’t have showering facilities. At least I was able to get one nice long run in over the last weekend. At this current rate I should have no problem finishing the challenge again.

I first heard last night that the Southgate House in Newport, Kentucky would be closing at the end of the year. I just had the  privilege  of going there for the first time a couple of months ago for Robert Randolph and was looking forward to many more shows in the ballroom. Sure it was dingy and smelly in spots, but the character of the space and the wonderful sound really filled a niche for Cincinnati. Not to mention that it was easily the best venue I have been to of this size (600 capacity).

A note on their website says that they will be opening their business in a new location soon. I read a blog earlier today hinting that the group could be moving into the old IMAX space at Newport on the Levee, but it seems that the theory has been all but officially denied. Either way it is still an interesting move for the Southgate management group. It’s a shame that this historic venue will no longer function, and I hope that the space is  re-purposed  into something new. It would be tragic for it to sit empty.

Happy belated Turkey Day. I spent most of the holiday weekend at Deer Creek State Park with my wife’s family. Originally we had planned on coming back Friday, but we were having such a nice and relaxing time that we decided to stay another night and drive home on Saturday. The first two nights we stayed in cottages, and the last night we slept in a room in the lodge. Our weekend was filled with hiking, biking, running, swimming, eating, drinking, campfires, and board games.

Monopoloy

One of the many highlights of the trip was sitting down to play some Monopoly. I hadn’t played this game in years, and it took the four of us a few turns to get all the rules figured out again. I still think we made up some things as we went along. In the end I found myself as the sole survivor and winner of the game. My hotel complexes on the orange and red properties proved to be the deciding factor, though the runner-up nearly knocked me out with his hotels on Boardwalk and Park Place. I forgot how much fun (and how long) a game of Monopoly can be.

This past Saturday was the annual Eden Park Balluminaria. During this event a dozen or so hot air balloons line up around Mirror Lake in Eden Park and simultaneously light up the night. Some of my photos from the evening are below. My mom also has posted hers on flickr.

I couldn’t have asked for a much worse week as far as my sports interests go. The Bengals lost a  heart-breaker  to the Ravens on Sunday, 31-24. The University of Cincinnati Bearcat football team lost to Rutgers, 20-3, their first game without a touchdown in years. To make an already depressing Saturday worse, the Bearcat basketball team lost to the  Presbyterian  Blue Hose later that night, 56-54. These  warm-up  games for the basketball team should nearly be automatic wins.

My hockey team had a disappointing 8-2 loss to the first place team in our league. I guess it turns out that eating pizza and drinking beer doesn’t prove to be the best pregame activity. At least some friends and I actually brewed some beer earlier in the day, otherwise Sunday would have been a down day too.

My fantasy football teams provided only one win this week. With our playoffs starting in just a few weeks I sit in 2nd of 10, 8th of 12, 10th of 12, and I’m still in 1st in my division based game, where I had my only win of the week. I’m still in 2nd place in the pro pick’em game but fell another spot to 5th in the college version. Finally I moved up to 7th in the salary cap game. I’m hoping some of my players on a variety of my teams get healthy so I can finish out the season with a bang.

One last item, the Jenny Challenge is starting up in just a couple of days. I’ve participated the last couple of years and look forward to doing it again. Signing up is really easy this year, and again is open to anyone and everyone. I’ve already recruited a few new friends to the challenge. You know you want to join us.

This past Thursday I ventured to the west side of town for one of my brother-in-law’s birthday celebrations. We all decided to go to his favorite wing place, Wild Mike’s. Though I think I went to a different Wild Mike’s location, this was definitely my first time in this location on Harrison Avenue. Despite this location being relatively small, our table of seven was easily able to get a table together in the middle of the restaurant.

Though there were no specials on wings during our visit, their draft beer selections were super cheap. While the choices are limited to American mass-produced beers, they have recently added Yuengling (Lager and Black & Tan) so at least there are some decent choices for a great price.

Boneless Wings

My wife and I agreed to split a large order of boneless wings (1 lb for $12.29 with celery and choice of ranch or blue cheese) bathed in hot Mike’s Mix sauce. Mike’s Mix is a combination of their sauces so you get to try them all in one bite. This really appealed to me as I sometimes find it hard to pick just one or two sauces. Also I liked that all the flavors are available as mild, medium, hot, xtra hot, and stupid hot. So there are a ton of sauce options available. I really enjoyed the flavor combination that we ordered.

Curly-Q Fries

The wings game drenched in sauce, enough for our side of fries to be dipped in. Speaking of the curly-q fries, they were good. On their own they are a little bland, but there is an option of Cajun seasoning to be added to them, which I tried and enjoyed. Our table also split an order of jalapeno poppers which were fairly standard but still delicious.

I liked my experience so much that I can safely say that Wild Mike’s could very well be the best wing spot in Cincinnati.

A couple of Sunday’s ago my wife and I decided we wanted to order in dinner. We quickly decided we didn’t want pizza and would rather have some sort of Asian. Eventually we settled on Ruthai’s Thai Kitchen, which is just down the hill from our house. We almost decided to go elsewhere once we found out that they didn’t offer delivery, but my wife offered to pick up our carry out order while the Bengals game was on the TV.

I didn’t get to see the inside of the restaurant, but I’ve walked and driven past enough times to know that it isn’t a very big place. She mentioned that they have some traditional tables with seating on the floor. Sounds like it could be a fun experience eating in, so we will have to do that in the future sometime.

Basil Noodle With Chicken

As we typically do we decided to order a couple of dishes and split them. My choice was the basil noodles with chicken ($9.95), which features stir fried soft wide noodle with tomato, bamboo shoot, green bean, bell peppers and fresh basil. This dish typically comes with egg too, but I had that removed. Every dish gets a choice of mild, medium, hot, or Ruthai hot. I figured that Ruthai hot would be way to much and decided to go with hot. Even this spice level was perhaps a little too much, and this is coming from someone who loves spicy food. Aside from the overpowering spice the ingredients were all fresh and cooked perfectly.

Massaman Curry With Chicken

My wife selected the Massaman Curry ($10.95) with chicken as well. The meat is simmered in coconut milk with a special curry paste, sweet potato, potato, carrot, snow peas, and ground peanut. This dish was excellent! She ordered medium on the spice scale and I felt that it could have used a little more spice for me. It seems that it may take some time to get used to their spice scale and the effects on various dishes. The serving sizes were large and the prices are fair. We will definitely be back for more in the future.

As announced on their official blog, Google Music is now open for business. The idea here is that anyone can  upload their personal music collection for free to the cloud so you can stream it anywhere, any time. The service has been in beta since May and though I was a beta member I never used it. Since our move my main music library has been stuck on a computer that does not have internet access, so I didn’t have an easy way to upload my tracks.

I finally took some time today to login to the service and even found some free tracks to add to my library. The best find so far has been 13 selected tracks from the Dave Matthews Band Caravan tour stop in Chicago earlier this summer that I attended. According to antsmarching.org the tracks are all from night three. These tracks are well recorded and are only available on music.google.com. Be sure to download Live On Lakeside and start using this great service.