Brandon R.'s Profile

I just made my first visit to Kibbes since moving to Bluffton! First, note that while its short 1-mile distance from downtown might sound very walkable, the sidewalks in fact end about two-thirds of the way there -- meaning that you will complete your walk in the damp grassy verge along the side of "Dixie Highway" as the occasional semi truck rumbles past.

Although known here in Bluffton as "the place you can buy beer," it turns out that Kibbes includes a small convenience store section that includes a working deli -- where you can buy a sandwich, order meat that is sliced in front of you, and also choose from a selection of cheeses. The owner is very friendly.

But the establishment earns a full five stars from me because of its beer selection -- it would have been easy for a small convenience store in the Midwest to limit its selection to obvious, popular big-name American beers. Instead, I walked out with a six-pack of Smuttynose Winter Ale that I chose from an entire little holiday cart of different premier brews. The refrigerator section continues the theme of a wide variety of good beers, not merely the watery big-name brands.

The only downside of the establishment is that they do not sell high-gravity Belgium beers, nor gin or liquor at their normal levels of alcohol. (Instead, they sell "diluted" versions -- I will find out tonight exactly how bad a martini made with diluted gin tastes; wish me luck!) But as this is a defect of Ohio law, and not of Kibbes in particular, I will complain to my new state representative instead of bringing my wrath to bear on this rating. Kibbes appears to be a safe, clean, friendly establishment that is an excellent example of the convenience-store genre, and that I can recommend without reservation.

The three stars are for the very solid qualities of this establishment. First, the interior is so much friendlier than when the building was any of the previous several restaurants there -- the ceilings are higher, the lighting brighter and friendlier, and the noise a happy low hubub that left it easy to hear everyone at my table. Second, the service was friendly and quite competent; and, third, the beer selection quite decent -- even for Decatur, which offers stiff competition -- and I enjoyed my drinks.

But the food was disappointing. The fish and chips were notably worse than the Brick Store down the street while also being noticeably more expensive. These were large, three-inch-across balls-o-cod (which still, as I type this, sit wallowing in my stomach) that were lukewarm, wet, and oily in their vast interior, and which tried to make up for it with an inadequate slender layer of fried dough around the mass of fish.

The fries were, on the whole, rather wet -- not reaching even the basic level of crispiness that one would find at the Vortex or even Eddie's Attic, much less the pinnacle of wonderfulness that can be found right down the street at Leon's (at, admittedly, a higher price point).

If I get the chance to return, I will stay away from the fried foods and try different directions on the menu -- or even stick to the beer and a small appetizer while sitting at the bar. Dinner in Decatur, even if you want pub food, can best be had elsewhere.

A few weeks ago I acquired a shoulder-height upright piano from some friends who were moving out of state -- and, because the exchange was last-minute, had to then find a mover who could show up the next day to move the piano for me!

Bulldog Movers did it without a problem. I am taking one small star off this review because the team that showed up seemed not to have been fully informed about the magnitude of the job, even though I had quite carefully described it to the dispatcher, using the words "piano" and "stairs" repeatedly. (My friends' house is one of those old California Contemporary homes with multiple staircases and intermediate decks on the way to the front door.) Since they had lacked warning, the team had to carry the piano down the front steps by sheer force and willpower, when with some coordination they could have brought a ramp and ropes.

But the team -- Big Joe, J. Diamond, G. Thomas, and A. Missouri -- proved equal to the task, and once the piano was down the front stairs in one piece the rest of the move went great.  I had thought that they might have to carry it back up the stairs in front of my house to deliver it, but Big Joe saw immediately (which I did not) that it would fit in through the back of my house through the laundry room and kitchen. They brought it in without touching a single wall, appliance, counter, or cabinet, through two rooms that I had not even thought would admit the piano! Big Joe also wins the award for having driven a moving van farther up the back alley towards my garage than any previous truck driver had.

All in all, I'm happy to have used them and will use them again if the occasion arises. They were nice guys and got the piano moved without a nick or scratch!

Buckhead Movers is now part of Bulldog Movers, where I will go write the rest of this review.  Though the old Buckhead Movers phone number still works (and their web site still works, though just barely -- it seems to have contracted a JavaScript trojan that starts filling the page endlessly with sponsored links down at the bottom once you have opened it), the phone number connects you to Bulldog Movers, and it is indeed a big truck with a red bulldog on the side that will show up at your door!

My wife and I found an excuse to try South City Kitchen yesterday, to celebrate her birthday, and it was simply wonderful: the service professional and friendly, the food wonderful, and the ambiance upscale yet without making us feel out-of-place for being in shorts. (We were doing an all-day Midtown restaurant-and-coffee-shop crawl to celebrate, and so were not in the business-wear sported by all of the other lunchtime customers.)

Other reviews have already said so much that I will just share the one detail that, for me, earned them a solid fifth star: to save room for desert, my wife and I started with the friend green tomato appetizer, and then asked for a single fried chicken entreé to share. Our "single entreé" came out on two separate plates -- each with half of the chicken poised perfectly atop potatoes and beans; the presentation was so perfect that, had I not known, I would have assumed we were being served two separate entreés, rather than one that had been split! We will certainly be returning to the Kitchen in the future.

My wife and I are now Antico's regulars, since a BYOB-friendly establishment within walking distance of our house is often an irresistible opportunity -- even though we have to plan our arrival at an unpopular hour to guarantee the opportunity to stand or, occasionally, to actually sit, at one of their few tables. We are also able to get carry-out for a party with friends, as we did last night, and get the pizzas home while they are still quite hot.

But I am downgrading to three stars because, despite the laudably high pretensions of the establishment, the quality control remains shaky. Sometimes our expensive pizza is great; sometimes (less often than in the past!) a bit wet and soupy; and, frequently, at least one of its edges has been reduced to quite bitter cinders. The distribution of toppings across the pizza can be rather lopsided as well.

I still sometimes find the experience worth paying a premium for: the pizza is vastly better than anything else on offer in the neighborhood, and by timing our visit we can get a seat and enjoy a home-brought bottle of wine for something like a third the cost of what a restaurant would charge us for the same bottle. But I still find I need to knock two stars off: one for the uneven quality of the pizzas themselves, and the other for the stress of showing up somewhere where you never really know for sure if you and the friends you brought with you are going to be able to actually sit down to eat.

I just used Express Oil Change for the first time for an emissions inspection. I have removed one star from my review because their waiting room smelled vaguely of feces and the coffee was cold. But, in their favor, I only waited for ten minutes, passed my inspection, and got away successfully with only about $20 lost to the whole experience. The servicewoman was quite friendly and easy to have a conversation with. If they can make their waiting room smell a bit better and consider re-brewing their coffee after lunch for those of us who tend to start fading in the afternoon, they'll have a fifth star from me!

The server was a bit awkward, the ribs seemed over-cooked, the rib sauce was coyingly sweet with no real character or taste, the beers were all mediocre or worse (and no other brands of beer besides their own seemed available), and -- to top it all off -- the huge movie-star mural painted against the wall of what was once the movie screen is poor enough that an entire ten-minute conversation among you and your friends can ensue based on trying to guess who each actor and actress is actually supposed to be. Two of them we never did figure out.

That said, I expect that people can have fun here if they know what to expect. The tables and the bar were full of happy people; complete families with children were seated easily and seemed comfortable in the space; and the stage apparently hosts comedians and other such entertainments for people who prefer such things to dinner and conversation with friends. But, for me, an alehouse is supposed to provide two things: great food, and, even more especially, good drinkable beer. And the beer here was simply not enough to bring me back.

The establishment is popular with a few friends, so I'll probably try again in a few months and see if the ribs or beer has improved; small batch brewing does have its hits and misses. But, for now: two stars, but in the running for a third if they can just improve slightly.

This was a pleasant discovery while visiting Elkhart for two weeks, and seems to be quite a departure from what most restaurants in the area offer. The interior was beautiful, well-designed, and nicely lighted; the service was quite competent and friendly; and the food was mostly quite good, though my "Mahi Mahi Taco Taco" entrée was a bit bland and seemed to need a bit more flavor to hold up to the other offerings. We will certainly be trying the restaurant again when we get the chance, and are happy to have an option like this that is quiet, friendly, chic, and offers more interesting fare -- with a good selection of wines, no less! -- than is usually on offer in the area.

Met some friends here for dinner during a visit to Elkhart. The restaurant seemed eerily quiet for 7pm on a Wednesday evening -- there was one table occupied when we entered, those patrons left, and then another table was active before we left.

The service was very friendly, and, indeed, quite patient with my attempts to pronounce "Negra Modelo" with an inflection close enough to Spanish to be understandable to the waitress. And the restaurant, table, and restroom were all quite clean and pleasant.

But for me, Mexican food is ultimately about over-the-border cuisine, and the offerings here seemed more or less mass-produced and generic. Not only did the salsa, for example, lack healthy chunks of fresh vegetables; it actually seemed to lack any solid matter at all, and was essentially a thin red soup in which to dip one's chips. Corn chips, incidentally, which were fairly tasteless and quite cold and in fact tasted as though they came out of a jumbo bag of corn chips from a grocery store. My entrée was similarly assembled from basically generic ingredients. While I suppose I must admit that it was competently assembled, there was little freshness or interest or taste to the end result.

So, two stars, because "Meh" indeed describes my reaction. This restaurant is safe and clean, and if convenient to your Elkhart commute it might be a place you can stop with a few friends for a drink or small meal. But if you are looking for genuinely good food, I am afraid you might want to look elsewhere first.