Crepes And Corks: November 2015

I love when people come to visit me because it's an opportunity to go explore the city I live in and try new restaurants (and obviously catch up and have some fun!). Recently, a friend came to visit me at school and a local friend and I decided we should all try Alana's Food and Wine. It's located in a little house on High Street in Clintonville, just north of the OSU campus. Alana changes her menu daily and creates new dishes based on what she finds fresh from the Ohio farms every day. It's rare to find a restaurant in the midwest who sources all her food locally and really embodies the farm to table concept. We decided to be daring at let her surprise us for our main course dishes. It was an exciting dinner and I can't wait to go back and see what else she creates, especially in different seasons. We dined there in November and the theme of the day was definitely pumpkin!

Entrance

Menu of the day

Carrot pancakes with harissa spiced kale and lemon yogurt

"High tech" black bean hummusu with pumpkin foccacia

(good but SO spicy!)

Beautiful fall greens with walnuts, pomegranates, dried figs, myzthira and clementine vinaigrette

A surprise...whole branzino with potatoes and cauliflower

Another surprise...I believe it was a cut of steak atop greens and pumpkin grits

My friend Nora & I

Catania is a newer restaurant from the Whisknladle group in the California beachside town of La Jolla, where I went to high school. My parents enjoy dining here and made reservations for us, requesting a table on their nice deck outside. Of course upon arrival, they seated us inside and didn't honor our outdoor reservation since they were full. Nonetheless we decanted our bottle of wine and ordered our appetizers. Both the crudo and the octopus were wonderful. The waiter brought some type of deep fried mozzarella balls wrapped in risotto on the house. When he found out my mother and I have gluten allergies, he brought us an additional plate (amazing mozzarella and prosciutto) since the first treat contained gluten.

When it came time to order our mains, we chose to order their special of the day - whole snapper. But of course, they had run out. Instead we ordered a pizza and a few of their pastas to share, including their duck pasta which is one of their specialties. We ordered two duck pastas, one gluten free and one regular, in addition to a gluten free Bucatini all' Amatriciana per the waiter's recommendation. I'm a huge fan of duck so I was pretty excited. The food was served in the middle of the table, looking hot and tasty. My mom and I dug into the gluten free pastas, only to have our throats burning from the amount of salt on these. It seemed like the gluten free pastas had double if not triple the amount of salt necessary. My parents had eaten this dish before and they claim it was never this salty. Luckily the non-gluten free version was well seasoned. We still ate the majority of the food but did mention it to the waiter. He proceeded to bring out three desserts (two of which were gluten free) on the house. Additionally, the manager brought us a gift card for $75 for our troubles.

We were intrigued at how the staff turned what could have been a bad dining experience into quite the memorable one. We counted about 7 dishes we received free in addition to the dining credit for next time. The service made up for the kitchen's mistakes and overall the food was very good (But could do with less salt, of course). Guess we will be going back here to use up that credit!