More Fun Playing With Vacation Food

Because food always is more fun when you partake while on vacation, even if you are still at home!

Breakfast at Garretts Mill Diner, Stow Ohio:

Short Stack of Pancakes with Strawberries

Chef-Owner Brian Krasney does a Steve Schimoler with his air-whip can - house-made Maple Whipped Cream! Bob cleaned his plate.

 House made biscuits with house made sausage gravy and home fries, poached eggs.

Brian says more additions to the traditional menu are in the works! My dish was a special in June, but is now on the regular menu and it is well crafted. The eggs were poached perfectly, and the sausage gravy popped with peppery, porky goodness.

Dinner of Grove Hill Happy Hour Small Plates:

Pulled Pork Sliders with Coleslaw & Coffee BBQ Sauce

BEEF & CHEDDAR CROQUETTES: horseradish crème fraiche

SPICY GREEN BEANS: pancetta, calabrian chile, parmesan, extra virgin olive oil & basil.

This new addition to the menu was spicy, but oh so good! Bacon, cheese and fresh green beans? Hell yeah! Grove Hill Happy Hour runs Monday-Thursday 4:30-6:30 and Friday & Saturday 9:00 pm - close.

Breakfast on the way to Louisville at Flury's Cafe, Akron:

Eggs Florentine: w/spinach & Hollandaise on a muffin w/homefries

We found out via GPS that Flury's recently moved to 2202 Front Street Cuyahoga Falls, so you may need to walk a little from the public parking areas. But you will be well rewarded. Somehow, the new location seems even smaller than the original. Come early to get a table!

Lovely fresh spinach and house-made Hollandaise kicked my breakfast up. The home fries, though, seemed like they came from a food service bag. However, Kim says she made them from scratch and I believe her! We will definitely return to Flury's. 

Bob's:

Pancakes

Chorizo

Dinner upon our return to Cleveland - Nobu Tei, Solon Ohio; so glad they finally have their website up and their full service liquor permit!

Tuna Tartar: Chopped Tuna, Avocado and Spicy Tuna

I want to love the fish at Nobu Tei, but it just isn't fresh enough. I actually liked this pretty dish very much, but wanted the raw fish to be just a bit more pristine.

Red Curry Beef

The intense Thai flavors in the curries make up for the deficiencies in the fish, well sort of. The Thai food is really, really good here. 

Pineapple Fried Rice With Duck

As much as I enjoyed my ducky rice, I kept wanting to drench it in Bob's Red Curry sauce. And, I sort of did. 

My last day off would be spent doing laundry. But first, breakfast - Jim's Open Kitchen, Solon:

Bob's: Waffle with Strawberries

Mine: Cheese Omelet with home fries, English Muffin

Finally, after the laundry was done, a last leisurely meal out together at Crumb and Spigot, Chagrin Falls Ohio:

Cauliflower Hummus

Darned if it didn't have the mouthfeel of hummus! Most enjoyable.

Pizza with Sausage, Escarole, Hot Pepper, Provolone

This was the first pizza we've had at Crumb and Spigot that didn't completely work. The pieces of escarole were just a big too big, tough and sloppy. But you can't beat sausage and provolone on a pizza and the sausage is of excellent quality. We enjoyed this pizza despite its flaws.  

Gotta love that crust, though!

And so, another Fun Playing With Food vacation came to an end. 

Fun Playing With Asian Food at Nobu Tei, Solon Ohio

Our newest Solon favorite for playing with food is Nobu Tei, a lovely Asian eatery sandwiched between franchises Zoup and DiBella's Subs at 30050 Aurora Rd Solon OH 44139, not far from the Harper Road exit of US 422. They are open for lunch and dinner seven days a week.

The menu ambitiously transports you from Sushi, Japanese Noodles and Tempura, to Hibachi, to Thai selections. For this report, we visited twice with friends, and took out one order. Our first visit and part of the take out focused on the Japanese cuisine (we'll skip the Hibachi, though), for the second visit and part of the take out, we "Thai'd one on" so to speak. Actually, while we couldn't actually "tie one on" during our April 2015 visits because the liquor permit was pending, the website of the Ohio Department of Liquor Control indicates they got their permits in late May - full bar, seven days a week. The bar area looks like a fun place to socialize. We settled for tea on our two visits. 

For our first adventure, each couple ordered the Sushi Combo For Two (Chef's Choice). According to the menu, the sushi plate should have been preceded by Miso Soup, but it never appeared, and our server didn't seem to think it was included (and we didn't feel like arguing). Also missing was the traditional warm towel to cleanse the face and hands before handling Japanese food.

Overall, this wasn't a bad plate of sushi, though the hamachi (second pair from the right, front) definitely smelled and tasted fishy. And the tamago (egg sushi) third row right, lacked profundity as well; it was stiff and watery and might have been a frozen product. The only other criticism is that this is presented as a dish to feed two diners. When I asked the server why there was only one piece each of tamago, octopus, and crab stick, she explained that it was a 15 piece order (which is stated in the menu, yes). Oh.

On the positive side, the Kimono Roll (4th row), which contained both real crab and kani, had a great combination of crunch and savory and, most important, it tasted fresh and good. The other items ranged from very good to a slightly chewy octopus (hard to share!), but other than the old-tasting hamachi, I'd try sushi there again. Our dining companions ordered two rolls in addition to their Sushi for Two: Eel Cucumber and Spicy Tuna. I enjoyed the piece of Spicy Tuna roll I tasted. Our companions liked the Eel Cucumber enough to order another on our next visit, the following week.

The next week, Bob and I started with Crispy Calamari, Thai Style. $6.75 bought us four large rings of squid and a squirt of spicy dipping sauce. And we liked it, so long as we didn't focus on the cost per ring. Fried to a crispy crunch, with a nice coating that stayed on as the ring was eaten, this was a pleasant dish. I would have liked some tentacles, or at least enough pieces to really share.

This next choice turned out a little strange - the menu says, "Avocado Salad. Sliced avocado, lettuce served with special sauce." As I adore all things avocado:

It was exactly as the menu described it: leaves of Iceberg Lettuce topped with slices of avocado and drizzled with a tingly-tasty sauce. Any avocado lover would like this, but it just seemed like an odd, sparse salad. Yes, I took the leftovers home and yes, I ate them.

Our Thai entrees were all preceded by a standard iceberg lettuce salad topped with a peanutty dressing and served right from the cooler:

So far, most of the food had been rather mundane. Not wanting to be negative, but want to tell the complete story.

But here is where Nobu Tei turned into a blissful experience; they won us over with the next four Thai dishes:

Yellow Curry with Chicken

Drunken Noodles

Swimming Crispy Duck in Red Curry

Massaman Curry w/Tofu

The three curries were each served with a bowl of rice. 

Each of these dishes jumped off the plate and danced on our palates with sophisticated spicing and respectable heat. The complexity of the sauces did not overwhelm the proteins; both tofu dishes were expertly prepared and featured crisped tofu the likes of which I haven't tasted in an NEO Ohio Thai restaurant anytime lately. The Drunken Noodles married fresh rice noodles with egg, onion, scallions, bell pepper, basil and choice of protein (tofu here), topped with a spicy, savory Thai Brown Sauce that made me wish I'd ordered the dish for myself. My Massaman Curry, however, also delighted the palate with complex flavors and assertive but not overwhelming spices. 

But the most exquisite of the dishes was the duck - fried to a perfectly crispy finish, swimming in a delightful red curry sauce with vegetables and cilantro.

The take-out started out similarly to how our last Nobu Tei meal had ended - with their other fried duck entree special: Spice Duck. 

Notwithstanding the rigors of packing and carrying, this duck was crisp and savory, with a slightly different spice profile from the Swimming Duck. The accompanying sauce was not a curry, but redolent of soy, fish sauce and a touch of sweet.

For take out, the sauce came on the side, together with the  peas, bell pepper, red onion, carrot, and basil leaves to accompany the dish. Here is how it looked together on the plate:

My entree came from the Japanese side of the menu: Yakisoba stir fried noodles with red onion, carrot and asparagus and more of that nicely fried tofu (my choice of protein). Though it paled a little next to the wonderfully complex and savory duck dish, it was most enjoyable.

We also shared an order of Chicken & Vegetable Tempura: 

Chicken strips, onion, broccoli, carrot, and mushroom were served with a mild dipping sauce (we actually liked the sauce for the duck with it better). Some of the foam container had melted, a tribute to the initial heat from freshly fried tempura. 

Overall, despite a few growing pains, Nobu Tei is a fun addition to Solon and the East Side Suburbs. While the sushi needed a little work, it was mostly very good and the complexity, depth and freshness of the Thai sauces and curries will win you over also. During our second visit, a group engaged one of the Hibachi tables nearby; it certainly sounded like they were having a good time. And despite the AWOL miso soup on our first visit, service is generally energetic and pleasant. So, based on our first three experiences, I look forward to playing with more food at Nobu Tei. 

Nobu Tei

(440) 318-1714

30050 Aurora Rd Solon OH 44139

No website, unofficial Facebook page here.