Keith Charles "in Charge" F.'s Profile

SOHO, if you were a small child in my swimming lessons I taught in college I would write "needs improvement" on your report card and tell your parents that you have great enthusiasm but aren't quite there yet. I would then fail you and make you repeat minnows level II. I am saying this, because I want you to improve, but not entirely give up (because toddlers can drown without basic water safety training)

For my birthday, my bros decided to take me out to a lovely "bro dinner". This is a regular occasion were we select a restaurant, drink too much, and yell expletives at each other until the management asks us to be considerate of the other dinners. I greatly enjoy bro dinner and look forward to them when they are planned.

This special edition bro dinner brought us to Soho. They served bro food, and was located in Ohio City between where most of us lived in Tremont or downtown. For starters, the hostess acted put off by our presence. Of course we didn't have reservation because we are a large pack of unorganized man children, but that is no reason to be rude. We will gladly wait at the bar and drink till our table is ready. To the hostess, the look of disgust on your face was noticed and not appreciated.  You may not have made this connection, but our tab contributes to your paycheck. It may be wise to suck up a little and save the judgmental thoughts to yourself like the rest of the patrons in the restaurant.
Our server... Misty I believe, was wonderful. Even if we were annoying her, she was charming, knowledgeable and friendly. She even took note of my love of bourbon and pointed me in the direction of some bars that had the best stocks. I like you Misty. We are friends now.

So the bro food... it was delicious. It was everything I hoped it would be.  The dishes were heavy with cream and butter like good southern food should be. I could almost feel my insulin response being destroyed and I couldn't be happier about it. As usual, I stole off everyone's plates and I was really only let down by some of the small side dishes. I believe the green beans (as food snobs would say) were uninspired.  

So here comes my gripe. Southern food should come in portions that cause epic naps afterwards. Those south of the Mason Dixon  line never intended their portion sizes to be comparable to those found at Tapas joints (I imagine a southerner saying: Tapas? You mean topless? We got one of dem up by the wafflehouse.. my cousin Sue Ann dances there on Tuesdays and even shows her lady parts!). But in all seriousness, their plate size sucks for their price. Either bring down the price or up the portion size. You can't be tiny and expensive unless you are a sports car or a girlfriend. They have the right chefs in the kitchen, but I can't help but feel like my fiends overpaid for my dinner (birthdays for the win). You have to keep in mind It is southern style food. There are no ingredients flown in from Paraguay or mushrooms that are  foraged for by highly trained hill people. Let's be honest, most of these ingredients can be found at Giant Eagle of at the super affordable Westside market located within spitting distance. I don't get the premium price. I didn't see anything here that I haven't seen piles of on a picnic table during a summer potluck in Georgia.

I like Soho. Their food is good, very good.  I will even over look a slightly snotty hostess. But, I wonder if I will go back. One of the great things about Cleveland dining is the price and portions. I love  the nice big dishes I get at most places in Ohio City, Downtown or Tremont. In Cleveland I rarely feel like my money didn't go far enough when dinning here in the CLE. It may be my inner fat kid talking but Soho may get away with this in another city, but here in the Midwest we enjoy a full tummy.

Being a top notch sushi joint in Cleveland is akin to being Cleveland's top model. You may be good, but at the end of the day, you aren't playing with the big dogs.  I am always weary of both "models" and raw fish offerings here in the land of the CLE.
I want to start by saying I am incredibly biased towards owner Dante Boccuzzi. I have met him on a number of occasions ranging from sitting at his chef's table  to getting trashed playing wall-ball in his parking lot. He has always been a wonderful host with a charming personality and a quick wit. I also love his food. Dante is everything I think modern American fair should be.

For my birthday this year, the girl took me to Ginko, Dantes trip into the land of sushi. I little background on me, I  adore sushi.  During my time in California I found myself developing a three to four times a week habit and loved exploring the little hole in wall places off the beaten path.  I eventually took my love to the next level by taking classes where I spent 1-2 hours a day rolling sushi for a couple months.

In my opinion, Ginko is the best is the city. I could find no fault in there rice, fish, service, or price point. Where they excelled was presentation. It was almost too pretty to eat. I am not going to lie, I got a half chub when I first saw the plate arrangement.

Now at the same time, I was a little disappointed. I was looking for something fun and maybe a little crazy from Dante. I was expecting  some gastronomical combination that appeared disastrous on the menu but was actually so delicious that the taste would be permanently seared into my  taste buds. I didn't find this.  Where I was hoping for funk, Ginko brought the formal. In many ways, the space and the menu reminded me of the sub street level sunken sushi bars that I had come to love in SF. The space is modern and intimate and still distinctly Japanese despite the flat screen TVs. (Start Rant: What is it about the Midwest where we feel the need to never be more than 30 feet from the glow of a LCD? : End rant.)

Ginko is good. Very good. I can't fault a perfect execution in a city that considers Sushi Rock to be  the ultimate sushi expereince. That being said, I look forward to the day Dante wants to cut loose with wonderful mixture of taste, color, and texture that is the sushi roll.

The girlfriend loves critters. She loves critters in the same way I love bourbon. There isn't a week that goes by when I am not hearing a pitch about how wonderful the newest  exotic pet is and how happy I would be if I got one.  Seeing as I killed the last plant I had in my office, I will leave all things furry, scaly, or slimy  to her.

Whilst waiting around a gas station I found a brochure for the deer park in the local attractions kiosk. I tucked it in my back pocket knowing this would be her happy place.

After a long weekend of boating and day drinking we made our way to the much hyped deer park. And I must say, our deer molestation dreams come true.

It's basically what you expect it would be. It is a large caged in area full of deer. The deer are a big fan of peanuts and because you happen to have a big bag of peanut a fan of you. They will basically follow you around and even chase you to get said peanuts.  Things get a little rough when the peanuts run out. The deer expect peanuts. I repeat, they expect peanuts.  If they don't get peanuts, they will eat your shirt. If you run, they will give chase till they find someone else with delicious salty treats.

Personal space violations aside, the animals seemed happy and they have lots of space, shade, and food. If you need an overdose of cute, I recommend you cough up the price of admission and get the big bag of peanuts.

Now  MGB, I want you to know I am only yelling at you because I want the best for you. I see soooo much potential in you that I think it is really important that you just slow down for a second and focus on the fundamentals before you get ahead of yourself. So, just hear me out and you will be better for it.

I want to start by saying, you blew my socks off. I am not going to lie, I was impressed. Your space was large, your seating plenty, and your bars stretched as far at the eye could see. Whoever did your interior decorating has a superb sense of style and has merged a modern look with classic beer garden flawlessly.  The wait at the bar was short and the bartenders were helpful with recommendations. Your brown ale, whatever you call it was wonderful.

The patio area was the kicker that really cements this establishment as a place to be reckoned with. Patios like this just really don't exist downtown.  The down town cab fare crowd now has more then jerseyshore -esque Shooters to get their open air and booze quotas filled.

I heard a rumor that you are getting a distillery. Well the day a legal whiskey still opens a mile and a half from my apartment will be a day that is celebrated.  But I will wait to see how this all pans out so I don't get my hopes up.

I would also like to point out that the crowd was pretty solid. The young, urbanite, and beautiful were there in full force. I hope you can maintain this clientele as my single friends enjoyed not have to go to W.6th to find women flirt/talk/lie too.

Now you have done a number of things right, but you have also dropped the ball in a big way. This one shortfall on your behalf tainted my entire groups' view of experience you worked so hard to create. Your wait staff  on the patio is pathetic. It was some of the worse service I have seen in Cleveland. Keep in mind, I ordered from the bar. All my points were taken from observation from the tables around us. My friend Stacy ordered some fish taco from our cute albeit dense waitress. Despite asking every twenty minutes she comes to find out an hour and a half later that the order was never placed. My friend Aaron got so tired of waiting to be served, that he asked our waitress if he should go to the bar and get his own drinks to which she responded "Would you?". At this point I told her as friendly advice she needs to get better at her job if she is going to keep it.  When that tab came, it was obviously wrong but after dealing with chippy the airhead it was decided it would just be easier to pay it.

I know it's your first week open and you have some things to figure out, but the veterans at the helm need to improve their training of staff and plant some secret shoppers in the crowd. Horrible service is like wearing wet socks. It does not matter how great your day is if your feet aren't comfy.

I don't believe in suburban chain dining. Why?  I don't want my food advertised to me during the Superbowl.  I don't want my food to make it possible for mediocre big ten teams to play in a bowl games. I don't want cheesy stereotype driven decors and themes.  Knowing this, why would I ever go to outback steak house? Well, I got a gift card in the mail for my birthday and I believe in being thrifty.

I texted the girl to tell her of my plan and let  her know that "I am taking my baby to outback tonight! Woooo Hoooo!" I repeated this joke no less than five times before dinner. It never got any funnier to her. It had the opposite effect on me.

Now, I really wanted to have a bad experience here. I wanted them to screw something up so my hatred of the Friday, Olive Gardens, T.G.I.F.s and Ruby Tuesday's of the suburban sprawl could be justified. Surprisingly, they nailed it, and I have no leg to stand on.

We started with  the seared tuna and followed it with a petite steak and the roasted chiken with veggies. Everything was fine. It wasn't food boner inducing but it wasn't bad at all. It came up hot and well timed. The chicken was moist and my steak was right where it should be although not the best cut I have ever had. Our tab for the two of us was 30 with an app. For what we paid, the food was certainly good.

I still don't believe in massive corporate chains when there are so many wonderful mom and pop shops that need our support but If I get another gift card, I will prolly cash it in instead of using to spackle throwing knife holes in my drywall.

Reddstone had been on my culinary radar for quite awhile now. I had been there for drink before, but never a sit down dinner. Reddstone has a reputation for serving high end bar food with style and pizzazz. What I found was less then standard food and completely sub par service.

To start my bitching, let me say that I don't believe in negative reviews as a general rule. I believe in being positive and the rule that Bambi's small furry friend passed along in the Disney film "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all". That being said, when I go to a hyped up location and have a terrible experience I feel the need to weight in.

The first think that got me was the water issue. When we sat down at the bar for dinner our drink requests we taking promptly and delivered quick. I also asked for a glass of water with my Woodford Reserve on the Rocks as Bourbon should be enjoyed not used to chase bar chow down one's throat. After 15 minutes or so, It didn't come so I politely asked again. After another 20 minutes and watching her get drinks for 5-6 other groups I asked the bus boy to help me out and two minutes later I had water. Keep in mind, we are sitting at the bar and are close enough that our server can probably smell me. I am already mad, but as the movie "Waiting" has taught America, I don't mess with people that are bringing me food. I try to be polite and accept the waitress's half hearted apology about forgetting me. Twice.

I get the black and blue burger with sweet potato friends and my friends both get the wings and each an order of fries. Keeping with the theme of the night she doesn't get my sweet potatoes fries and I get regular instead. I am not surprised as sweet potato fries are a more complicated order then a glass of water. I do ask for my originally ordered sweet potato fries and I am informed that it will be awhile as that was the last batch. She says she will bring them out if they get done  before we leave. Needless to say this doesn't happen.  I am also perplexed by how hard it could possibly be to cut a tuber and deep fry it. At this point it doesn't really matter because I am already really let down. I will add that the dining room is about half full at this point so the failures are even more irritating. The wings didn't fair much better. My buddy complains that two of his wings apparently haven't seen any sauce at all.

My dining  companion did successfully get the sweet potato fries that he ordered. So I did get to poke around in them. They were basically a soggy mess with about half the order consisting of burnt little pieces that I would of never allowed to leave my own kitchen but that Reddstone finds passable. The alternating bites of teenage t-zone greasy with charcoal wood chip burnt created a less then desirable palette experience. I am not longer mad she messed  up my order.
My friends have always said great things about Reddstone. I am not sure my experience was so different. I think Reddstone is a lot like the average looking girl from high school that went to a predominantly male college to get a degree. On her own out in the world, she is completely regular and unnoticeable, but when the options drop out and the pickings get slim she becomes a treasure to be worshipped. I feel the same way about Reddstone. In Tremont or Ohio city, I doubt this place would even get mention but in the tiny little island of Battery park with 300k designer town homes surrounded by 60k foreclosures it looks like a gem. Reddstone benefits greatly from a lack of other options.

I think Reddstone would benefit from just being a bar. They have a wonderful patio with outdoor drink service and my news feed seems to always jammed up with special events and parties at Reddstone that look like fun. To me, it seems like too much effort has been put on holding hip events whilst the fundamentals of service and quality have been ignored.  Limit your menu or up your performance because you are not cutting it.

KK Tricks
For just a moment put yourself back in high school and try to remember the kid who came into money when he was roughly 16-18 years of age. He may have gotten an inheritance or won some freak lawsuit but the moral of the story is that someone very young and very dumb now has a massive wad of disposable income. I feel like most people know this kid and for the point of this illustration we shall call him Steve.
Steve now has cash and despite the inability to pass algebra II he has decided that he a business man/venture capitalist.  Generally, guys like Steve would open an  short-lived auto tint stereo shop but, a kid named Allen did that last year after he lost a finger at a local machine shop. Steve, knowing nothing about business, marketing, the service industry, or class decides to open a nightclub.
Now Steve is not real, but if he was I would imagine that his establishment would be identical to what one finds at KK tricks.
A birthday bar hop brought me to KKs this last weekend, and I suspect will never come here again expect to show people just how tacky and horrible it really is. For starters, the building used to be a strip club. The walls are painted with a faux brick montage that is meant to inspire a feeling of ancient Greece. As if that wasn't Grecian enough the walls are lined with "flaming caldrons" of the like one would acquire at Party City around Halloween time. The real icing on the cake is the poorly done laser light show and the overused fog machine  that puts a light haze over all the features of the interior.  For your enjoyment, the mainstage of the strip club has been left intact in case you feel the need to get sassy.

I don't need to waste the characters describing the drinks, security or service at KK's because they are all fall into either the categories of poor or nonexistent.  The crowd? Well three words required; Parma strip mall. I hate to be so negative in a review, but KKs literally has nothing to offer other then every negative stereotype about nightclubs magnified to the nth degree. If you hate night clubs, and want to convince someone else that these are the worst thing that have happened to society  since the cast of Jersey Shore, bring them to KKs.
Did  forget they have bottle service?

ahhhhhhhhh......meh.

To be honest, Fat Cats probably started a little behind the eight ball due to the fact that I had really really really wanted to go to Dave and Busters to start with. But sadly the girlfriend had a headache and somehow was not in the mood to watch me get plowed on Maker's Mark and scream obscenities at the coin pushing machines.

So, since relationships are about compromise and she was a little too dolled up for skee ball we decided to cross off another place on my culinary to do list. Fat Cats had been on my list from a recommendation from a former boss. That night I  learned that maybe he had better advice on big ten football wagering then grub.

Fat Cats is not bad, but it is certainly not anything great. The best part about this place is the building it is in.  This restaurant  is clearly an old converted Tremont home that is beyond charming. The wait staff was knowledgeable, friendly, and attentive. Sadly, the part that gets washed out was the food. The little lady got the hanger steak and I the sea salt pasta. I thought my pasta was completely bland with all flavors getting muddled into a weird weak brothy taste. Her steak was okay but at the portion size and price I expected more.

The big problem with Fat Cats is relativity. When compared the other similarly priced Tremont faire, it simply does not stand up.

Big Win.

This last Sunday, I participated in the 88 dollar three hour introductory glass blowing class and I was "blown" away hardy harr harr.

The studio was very nice and the staff was excellent. I didn't expect the noms to be nearly as delicious as they were which was also an excellent surprise. The staff is knowledgeable and friendly without being pushy.

I made a glass flower that more closely resembled a creature from Aliens 3 then Georgia O'Keeffe, but I enjoyed the process and this is really what matters.

This studio would make an excellent date spot as the activity is novel, hands-on, and beer and wine are offered for social lubrication.

All and all, I support this event and the mission of this studio. It should be added to the list of Cleveland gems to be discovered.

Every once in a while, I like to get my jet-set on and binge drink off of my home turf. Besides allowing me to explore this wonderful world we live in, it also affords me the vantage of not being held responsible for my actions by my peer group back in my home turf.

One such adventure brought me to Houston, Texas to visit my good drinking buddy Mike. Our forth or fifth stop of the evening brought us to NOX.


For starters, this place is a bitch to get into. Upon arrival, the line was a good 60 yards long and the VIPs were getting crammed up too. Luckily, Mike had lived in Miami and was used to dealing with such BS. Mike started working his way to bouncer and charged me with finding the hottest chick I could. I approached a group of eight girls stuck in line. Keeping in mind that I was well on my way to drunk at this point, I said, "Okay girls, I need the hottest one of you. I am getting us all in." If you have never tried this social experiment with a group of women, I highly suggest it as the reactions are hysterical. The girls all furtively glanced around at each other, then all pointed at a tall blonde in a manner that suggested they had done this before. I pulled Tall Blonde of out line and said, "I am going to take you to Mike. Whatever lies he tells you are the gospel truth." I am not sure what Mike said or did, but five minutes later we were in.


I know it wasn't a blockbuster hit, but do you remember "Triple XXX" staring the legend of screen and stage Vin Diesel? If you don't, let me refresh you. In the film, Vin goes to Prague to save the world from something terrible. Upon his arrival in Prague, he visits a night club because, of course, terrorists are also night club owners. The nightclub in the film is dark, minimalist, and cramped.  Combined with the strobe lights and fog machines, this creates a disorienting effect so strong, it's impossible for our hero to keep track of his feet and his eyes spends the first twenty minutes trying to adjust. It is every eastern European night club ever shown in any action movie. This is NOX. I kept looking in the VIP sections trying to spot men with heavy beards in luxurious furs fraternizing with tall, slender girls wearing slightly-too-short, sequined cocktail dresses. You get the picture.

Each year as I get older, I find places like this more annoying. If I can't talk to the person next to me, I don't see the point. Drunkenly grinding on a stranger was something I enjoyed in high school, but I like to believe I have matured since then. Having given up on any chance of enlightening conversation, I proceeded to get a one way ticket to hammered town.  I was pleasantly surprised to see that the bar keeps pour bottles without spouts and that they pour heavy. Yipeeeee!

Between the booze, fog machines, and strobes, the rest of the night was kind of a blur, so details are sketchy at best. I do remember that this establishment had a "see and be seen" vibe and the clientele included many dapper gents in suits and face-meltingly attractive women.


NOX is not the place to be if you have a low tolerance for standard night club BS, but if you want to get your dance on with some strange, this is the place for you.