Jamie "sonicallstar" G.'s Profile

Delicious inexpensive Indian food. Yeah, they bring on the heat...but if you like it a hot and crave Indian food like I do, then you must hit India Garden.

The service is good, but the food just hits the spot. At $8.95 for an all you can eat lunch buffet, you can take the risk and dig in. They usually have 4 vegetarian dishes and 4 meat dishes complimented by a mess of sauces/condiments, naan and rice.

Live the good life, enjoy a little India Garden...

I have a friend who consistently rates this as his favorite restaurant in Cleveland. I am now convinced he is on Drugs. Yes, I like the charm and old school Italian vibe. After that...I am not sure what I like.

The salad was depressing. C'mon, put a little love into it. Don't serve me lettuce from Costco dump some dressing on it and call it a salad, I can do that at home.

The fried mozarella was in the shape of squares, a refreshing change from sticks. But the cheese was whatever. The marinara sauce was light and delicious. Thus the restaurant has earned 3 stars...really.

As you know I am a vegetarian. Surprise, no options for a main course. I asked for Pasta with Marinara and Shitake Mushrooms, mainly because I noticed they had all three options on the table. They added Broccoli (yuck), but that was easy to pull off. The killer was the rigatoni. For $30 I'd like something more than a half a box of rigatoni out of the box. For real.

The low down, is it is easy to spend $144 for a couple and leave with a who cares feeling. For all the hype I'd expect homemade pasta and love, real love, put into the food. If you want that, go elsewhere...maybe Dante's.

Saigon is heaven amidst the over-priced under-delivering restaurants of East 4th St. Why?
It starts with the food. This is clean delicious Vietnamese food. I get the Cabbage Appetizer with Tofu and it is unbelievable and healthyish (ok the Tofu is fried). I love the rice paper roll appetizers with plum sauce as well as the Bun (it's pasta, no wait it's a salad, no wait...who mixed my salad and pasta and why do I love it).

Service service service. The service is fast and efficient. Late to the Cavs game or that show at the H.O.B? You can be in and out with a delicious meal in 30 minutes. Want to drink? Best prices in town!

The best part of eating at Saigon is I always feel fantastic walking out. Riding that natural high that comes from eating great food at a great price.Get your valet ticket stamped, there is usually a few buck discount!!!

I ate at Dante for the 3rd time Saturday night, despite a continuously bumpy ride, the food was excellent. The space is very "Tremont," cool old bank. The menu is interesting with different size portions available on almost every dish. This makes ordering strangely enjoyable. i like the small touches that reflect Dante's love of music. The bread baskets are made out of old vinyl records and he leaves 2 Dante guitar picks with the bill (yes, I took the picks home).

I have tried all of the Risottos, a few salads and the vegetarian special. My family has enjoyed the meat dishes. The presentation on all of the dishes is GREAT!

Ok...Bumpy ride? The service is always a little suspicious at Dante. This was the best of the 3 visits and the waiter was knowledgeable and nice. It was a little strange that they wanted us to wait when we arrived, there were 2 empty tables clearly visible. After we looked at them like they were crazy, they decided to seat us. Don't get me started on Tremont and the ridiculous way restaurants want people to wait to eat when you have a reservation.

We had some issues related to wine (typical) and the manager/co-owner stopped by and took care of the issues. He was nice and very straight forward. This rocky start to the evening was immediately eliminated and we proceeded to have a great dinner.

Highlights? My starter salad was a really nice size for the price and dressed perfectly. It was a surprisingly interesting and enjoyable salad that really wet the palate. Amy had the Hamachi appetizer and the sushi looked spectacular, plump juicy pieces that put them on par with Pacific East (this is a big compliment). I got an appetizer portion of the Cavatelli pasta with fresh Chanterelle mushrooms. The portion was generous and the pasta and mushrooms were perfectly cooked. I'd love to try this with something less creamy and cheesy, it's be great with a simple olive oil and garlic sauce.

Did I mention we got some great wine? A Frog's Leap 2007 Cabernet that was smooth and elegant. It is pricey, but worth the upgrade when you are going to eat a feast. I had the Tempura Tofu which was delicious and presented well.

Get Dessert! I was stuffed but we shared a parfait with peanuts that everyone raved about. I am not a fan of nuts in my dessert but did enjoy a nutless bite. This is such a huge improvement over the disaster at Lockkeepers, that I am truly happy for Dante. This will not be an easy town for him to be successful in, but his sophomore effort is really delivering. I would give this 4 Stars, but the efforts to make our experience enjoyable have brought this up to 5 Stars.

The Botanical Gardens may be one of Cleveland's finest secrets for a lunch time meeting place. Why? The flowers are in full bloom, it is strangely private, the outside gardens are magnificent and oh yeah - the food is surprisingly decent.
Decent? You are willing to go 5 stars on Decent? Yeah. I got the portobello Cesar with roasted red peppers and I mixed 2 dressings - The lemon vinagrette and the buffalo vinagrette. The salad was surprisingly good and at $6 hard to beat in this town.
The big surprise? Awesome treats for kids. I will bring the little ones here. From a tube of goldfish to gummy worms, the kids could snack or get real food that looked appealing to the eye and palate.  
What makes a decent salad great? Location, Location, Location!!! Stop by the Gardens, stroll, talk and enjoy summer while we have it. Say hello to the butterflies for me, as I did for you.

There are a few reasons to love OHOP. First of all it is clean. Hello? Is this too much to ask of a breakfast place? Second of all it has Wifi, this is mandatory in 2010. Third of all the coffee is the perfect temperature, reasonably decent and served frequently.

But we go there for the food right? The pancakes are very respectable for a pancake house, carnivores love the bacon, and I love the potatoes. They are the real deal. Delicious sauteed potatoes with onions and spices. Not pedestrian hash browns or glorified french fries. Real, delicious potatoes. When I am not in diet mode, I get a double order.
I don't really understand the omelettes, they are baked not fried. They are dutch or something. Then again, why do people order eggs at a pancake house? Management is very nice, they run a tight ship. The staff seems to stay there, I like that.

These days, I am getting their oatmeal. It is less fattening then their house made granola which is surprisingly delicious. If you are going on a weekend get their before 9:30 am or be patient as you sit in line...

I LOVE the OEC and could eat here 7 days a week.
The Miles Road location is the original and best. Yes, the Chagrin Falls location suffers from inconsistency, but even with that it is the healthiest thing in that town to eat (and the Hartzler Ice-Cream is uniquely Ohio). Tom is the chef owner, based at the Miles road location and he can be a little gruff at times, but the soup selection and food make it worth the risk.

ALWAYS order a soup. They are amazing. Try something different whenever possible. I usually get 2-4 soups to take home with me, they are easy to heat up and delicious. Most are Vegan/Vegetarian unless they have something obvious like chicken in the name.

The smoothies are delicious, I tend to ask for them "cold," because they are more refreshing. These could easily be a meal!!! You can not get a soup, smoothie and meal. You might find the salad as a smoothie shockingly good (I believe it is called the green goddess). If you are into juice, you are going to be glad you found this oasis on Miles Road (crappy mall next to Miles Market).

The salads always look a little too healthy and not very exciting too me. I have tasted the dressings and they are good. For me, it is all about the paninis. They are best served hot, with a slight crisp to the bread and Tom has got that right. I don't eat fish these days but the tuna artichoke is "off the hook." There is usually a portabello Special and I will eat this any day of the week. It is kind of like a burger to a vegetarian like myself.

The Sides. These are always strange, usually packed with flavor and interesting to eat. These are not Fries or boring dry cous cous. These are almost always healthy small servings that kind of just hit the spot.

What else? Service time varies, but be patient. Tom is actually cooking and prepping your food. You are getting freshly made food to order. That is truly living the high life. Experiment! I have been working my way thru the menu and it forces me to leave my comfort zone, experiencing different if not better flavors.

I was very impressed with Erie Island Coffee today. The new location in Erie Island is clean, well run, free wifi and very comfortable to be in. I am VERY into the clear garage door they had open, making the patio feel connected and the shop spacious. It kind of reminds me of what Paralax does in their outdoor space.

The Sumatra was good, maybe a little too hot for my tastes, but I know most people seem to like their coffee too hot (except for that lady that won the lawsuit against McDonalds). What else? I really like that they have a few veggie dishes on the menu and next time I am there I will hit the Hummus and Veggie sandwich. I heard 2 people say they "loved the veggie light," but I am avoiding cream cheese these days.
Drink Local, Caffeinate Global.

This place ROCKS! The sauces are great, the service is fast and the staff is generally nice. I have been to both locations (downtown and little Italy) and have been thrilled with both the noodles and the rice.

You pick your base, noodles or rice. Add a sauce and add a protein. It is fun to mix and match, the servings are the perfect size and most importantly the food is really good and healthy!!!

If there was an East Side location like Eton place, I would eat here every week. Yeah, that is exactly how I feel.

ZInc is new and they really should have hit 4 stars, but they barely earned 2. Why?
It started on a high note with complimentary parking (probably because of the Indians game - they were backed up). We started with drinks at the outside bar. The bar was nice, the patio was open and enticing to eat on (it is set back a few hundred feet from Euclid) and I had a fun drink with Cachaca, Limoncello, Chambord and the largest Raspberry I have ever seen. The drink was good ($10 is ridiculous in Cleveland but whatever).
There was some confusion with our table, we had called to try and get a patio table, but nobody wrote it down. This turned out to be great as 2 hours later it was raining (hint).
We ordered some appetizers and a bottle of wine. As is typical for Cleveland I was bummed with the wine selection. There were 2 glasses of red under $10 and I am not psyched to spend $13 or $15 on a glass of wine that sells by the bottle for $26. We got a Zinfandel from Lodi that I can't remember but it was drinkable. It was one of 5 bottles of red under $45. For a new restaurant, they could put a little love into the wine list and find the $30 range that makes the meal more enjoyable and encourages us to drink 2 bottles!
The East coast clams were served well, but the dipping sauce was an oily salad dressing, none of that typical red spicy sauce. The clam eaters were slightly disappointed. We also ordered the house made Fettucini noodles and it was ok. The noodles were very good and perfectly cooked. The sauce was kind of strange reminding us all of sour cream potato chips.  We also tried the lobster risotto, which was ok, but not clean your plate delicious. Are you kind of getting a sense of where this evening is headed?
The beet salad looked better than it tasted. I ordered the house salad with a crustini covered in olive tapenade. It was dressed appropriately and refreshing, I'd get it again.
An hour after we finished the appetizers, the waiter returned and checked in on us. This was just strange. I asked for more bread twice, because the bread didn't come the first time. By the way, the bread was quite good, I hope they actually made it there. When our food did come, the excuse was the kitchen got backed up because it started raining outside and everybody came inside. Huh? Same number of tables to serve, right? I looked around at the 5 empty tables around us in disbelief. The manager stopped by shortly and told us he was buying us a round of drinks and gave us the same story. The drinks were nice, the story was unprofessional.
The food was ok. I enjoyed by mushroom risotto, although I couldn't identify what was in the green sauce around the outside. My buddy Jon did not like the Coq Au Vin, he complained that the skin was missing and the chicken didn't taste good, in fact he left most of the meal on the plate. The mussels were fine, but once again the sauce was disappointing.

The overall experience just kind of sucked, we decided not to risk going further down the slippery slope and skipped dessert, yeah that kind of sums up the whole night. Nobody even wanted to see the dessert menu. Because I actually did enjoy the house salad and the risotto, I gave them 2 stars. Was it worth paying the baby sitter, driving downtown and watching the rest of my table have a below average meal? No. I was glad to see the manager reduce the bill accordingly, it was the right thing to do. I might try it for lunch, and if they have worked out the bugs, try it again some time..