Today was my birthday! Katy made the evening special by taking me to Skillet, my favorite restaurant in Columbus, for dinner. Skillet's just a little hole in the wall; it's outside of German Village, has maybe ten tables tops, no alcohol license of any kind, and only recently got table service. It started out as a brunch place, quickly expanded to weekday lunch, and a week or so ago added limited dinner hours. Their food is not fancy, not expensive, and not complicated. But, the chef is not afraid to let ingredients express their best flavors. So many places add salt, sugar, and vinegar to simulate real flavor; at Skillet, they use top quality local ingredients - free range chicken and eggs, grass-finished beef, etc, and let them do their own talking. Katy had a burger with arugula and house-made tomato jam, and I had a brisket sandwich topped with horseradish slaw. We split a side order of potatoes sauteed in pork fat. Simple flavors, done right. For dessert, we visited the new Mouton. Mouton definitely panders to current food trends, but that's OK with us, as we kind of like where those trends are going right now. Mouton serves cheese, charcuterie, wine, espresso, and cocktails. It's tough to get a good drink in this town; for whatever reason, many people don't expect (or even want!) the same level of artistry in a bartender that they do a chef. Mouton is clearly attempting to change that. Little on their liquor menu is adventurous or innovative; instead, they do the classics right. They're very thoughtful about the particular ingredients they use, exacting in their proportions, and caring in their preparation. The result is a line of cocktails that are pretty close to perfect. I think we'll be returning!

Well, it looks like I was just in time scheduling my last recital at Bexley's Monk. After staying in business for 26 years and being my parents' go-to date night venue, the restaurant is closing. Capital University, whose campus is located across the street, is in contract to expand across Main Street into Bexley Square, and the Monk is moving out. We're very sad to see it go; the Monk had a great atmosphere, and we have many positive memories associated with the restaurant. Best wishes to Remo and the rest of the Monk's staff as they continue on to new pursuits.

It's been quite a few eventful weekends in a row! This weekend started off with a trip to the Worthington Farmer's Market. This is the largest farmer's market in the Columbus area, and we had heard great things about it. We wanted to go see for ourselves, and we were not disappointed. There were twice as many vendors as I've seen at the North Market farmer's market, and most were offering free samples of their products. All the restaurants in Old Worthington were open for breakfast, but I felt no need to supplement what I could find at the farmers' stalls! Strawberries are just starting to come into season, and beautiful asparagus was everywhere. There was lots of local cheese and eggs, and several vendors had local free-range meat. It was difficult, but we managed to leave without breaking our budget.

Then, it was time for a little shopping; I visited the Columbus Running Store in Westerville and got a new pair of shoes. My old pair had over 620 miles on them, which is close to double their intended lifespan. I also finally invested in tech socks; I've been running in cotton the entire time, which is a known hazard. After the blisters I got at the Flying Pig, I decided it was finally time. So, my footwear situation is significantly better than it was; I did a very slow 7 miles to start breaking them in.

Saturday night, we met up with Andy and Heather Scheurer and some other friends for dinner. We ate at Lucé Enoteca in Powell. It has gotten some good reviews, and our friends had previously had a good experience there. This time, however, no one was pleased with their food. The soups and salads were ok, but everything else was a disappointment. We ordered the "large" cheese plate for the table, and while the cheeses were pretty good, there was about an ounce and a half of each selection to share between 5 people. The platter was large, and there was an abundance of grapes and pecans on it, but it's hard to imagine that they increased the cheese portion much beyond the "small" plate. All of the entrees were trying to play with sweet flavors in savory food. I've seen this concept work before, for instance in chef Graham Bowles's food. Here, though, it was just an abject failure. It takes very careful balancing to pull something like that off, and the kitchen at Lucé was not successful.

Today, we took a trip to Dayton to see my brother play with the Miami Valley Symphony Orchestra and have dinner with him and our parents. It was very refreshing to see a group of musicians who were all there because they wanted to be, regardless of how much they were (or weren't) getting paid. The program included some very enjoyable pieces, including Brahms's Academic Festival Overture and the finales from Franck's Symphony in D Minor and Dvorák's "New World" Symphony. The orchestra did a great job of keeping the energy level up throughout the concert.

Private Entry

Last night, Katy and I went to Wild Goose Creative for Lisa Dillman's Restaurant Widow potluck. I wasn't quite sure what to expect, but it was really pretty awesome. Wine and beer had been donated for the event by local producers, so there was plenty to go around, even though the place was packed. Sadly, I didn't have enough room in my stomach to try everything that people brought, but I got pretty close. We didn't really know anybody else there, but we met some very cool people and had an enjoyable evening.