On my trip to Cincinnati, I visited Paradise Moon, possibly the worst restaurant in Cincinnati. After our terrible dinner, we went to Graeter’s ice cream for an evening treat. I’d been to Graeter’s once before and had also seen it featured on Oprah’s Favorite Things a while ago. Graeter’s sells ice cream, sorbets, chocolates, and other sweets but they’re special because of the ice cream making process, the French Pot method.
From their website: ‘the French Pot method swirls our secret recipe of egg custard and fresh cream along the chilled sides of the slowly spinning French Pot freezer. As the ice cream mix freezes and thickens, a blade carefully scrapes the sides of the pot, gently folding the ice cream into itself. It is this gentle folding process that prevents the whipping of air into our ice cream and accounts for its extremely dense and creamy consistency. Where a typical pint of ice cream can weigh as little as eight ounces, a Graeter’s pint weighs nearly a full pound!’
I’m not a huge fan of chocolate chips in my ice cream. If I ever order ice cream, I usually like it to be smooth enough so I can let the ice cream melt in my mouth without too much chewing. For Graeter’s, I make an exception. Their chocolate chips come in various sizes because they pour melted chocolate directly into the ice cream. The result is amazing:
Huge chunks of chocolate chips that are soft (how do they do it?!) and melt in your mouth. Black raspberry chocolate chip is my favorite. A close up:
If you’re not in the Cincinnati/Greater Kentucky area, don’t worry – you can order Graeter’s online and they’ll ship directly to your house (although you’ll have to buy at least 6 pints, I think).
How to get to get Graeter’s delivered:
Graeter’s Cincinnati
Online store
By
grace.g.yang
· November 14, 2007
Under:
American,
Brunch,
Soho 
When I meet new people, I always ask where they like to eat brunch. Brunch is a staple of the New York diet; it’s a great chance to catch up with friends, people watch, and drink alcohol in the morning to cure the previous night’s hangover. A girl I met on a recent flight to Detroit told me that Five Points has one of the best brunches in New York, so I went to see if it was any good. We were seated after 20 minutes or so (not bad at all, especially for brunch on a great Sunday afternoon). The menu wasn’t out of the ordinary but there was one dish I was really excited about: banana stuffed french toast! The waiter said that it was a really sweet and indulgent thing to order, but it’s a specialty:
The caramel sauce was really creamy and smooth but the french toast was too runny (it tasted more like scrambled eggs than french toast). They should use a sturdier bread next time so it can hold up to the egg/milk mixture. The bananas were inserted in the middle of the bread and tasted really good; the dish would’ve been a success if they just went with a better bread!!!
Chris ordered the eggs benedict:
The red sauce, a marinara, RUINED the dish. The biscuit was too tough AND the hollandaise sauce didn’t taste good. WHY do they use marinara with eggs benedict? There were just too many flavors in the eggs benedict and together, it just tasted really gross.
The decor in Five Points was very festive for the fall weather with lots of tree branches put into vases that lit up the center of the room. Other than the decor though, there’s no reason to have brunch at Five Points – UNTIL they fix their French toast!
One of the best rewards for working hard is a great meal – it’s even better when the people you work for tell you to order anything you want and to not worry about the bill. After working on a project for six weeks (which seemed like six months), the manager of the project offered to take me and two others to dinner to show his appreciation for our hard work. SCORE! Since Morimoto is a pretty nice place to bring out of town guests, we decided to go there.
We started off with a small appetizer -a new take on fried rice:
Crispy and barely fried, it was very cute but not memorable (good thing it was free!).
I ordered for the table (since I’m the one that writes the reviews!) and we decided to go with a couple appetizers, sushi and sashimi, and some cooked dishes. The first appetizer to come out was the tuna pizza:
The tuna pizza comes on a flatbread that resembles a saltine (sans salt), cilantro, tuna, and a spicy wasabi mayo. I liked the different textures of the pizza and the table agreed that it was a good order.
Our next appetizer was the foie gras on a cooked oyster:
The thick cut of foie gras came on an oyster that was barely cooked and a healthy dose of teriyaki sauce. Another shot:
The foie gras was rich and decadent, but a little overkill with the teriyaki. Too much sauce is never a good thing.
I also ordered a couple pieces of sashimi in case our appetizers weren’t enough for everyone:
I’m a huge fan of tamago (but it’s very hard to mess up tamago – it’s an egg custard omelet that’s very rich and very easy to recreate). The fatty tuna was very meaty and the yellowtail was also a big hit.
An order of sushi before our main dishes arrived:
The spicy tuna roll was my favorite (especially since their spicy mayo is great)…but I don’t think the rolls/sashimi at Morimoto si that much better than any other sushi joint in NY. Onto the main dishes!! (although most of us were already full after all of the appetizers and sushi).
Our first dish was a braised black cod in a ginger reduction:
The cod was a little plain, but had enough sauce to make up for the taste of the fish. Everyone at the table enjoyed the dish, but I wouldn’t order it again.
Our next main course was Duck duck duck, a specialty of Morimoto’s:
The duck duck duck comes on a flaky croissant that’s brushed with foie gras (how rich!) and has duck and green onion inside. Duck duck duck was my favorite dish of the night; an abundance of greasy duck, flaky dough, and fresh flavor from the green onion. I wasn’t a fan of the dipping sauces (too pungent) but there was enough flavor from the duck grease that you didn’t even NEED to dip the sandwich in red miso.
Our third entree was the angry chicken:
My least favorite dish of the night. The dish tasted like it was out of a PF Chang’s; the chicken was dry, there was too much Styrofoam all around it, and there was too much sauce on the chicken and vegetables. Definitely not a dish to EVER order again.
After filling up on so many delicious appetizers and main courses, we had to indulge in some desserts. We started with a Chocolate Pecan Brownie with espresso ice cream:
The brownie tasted like it just came out of the oven and when eaten with a scoop of ice cream, tasted like a party in my mouth. Very delicious!
We also ordered Earl grey creme brulee:
This was my favorite dessert of the night. The earl grey tea was a very subtle flavor (moreso in the after taste) but the creme brulee was really well done and very delicious.
Overall, it was a solid meal at Morimoto (although my dining companion, Ryan, disagreed). Next time, I’ll order more sushi/sashimi and less cooked dishes (I don’t think they’re THAT great) and definitely MORE dessert!
Bamn! is an eclectic automat in the East Village filled with tasty bite sized treats. Everything comes in vending machines, so there’s no need to wait for your food to be prepared! Bamn! has a lot of different options, including bite-sized burgers, mac & cheese, pizza, chicken strips, grilled cheese, hot dogs, and pork buns that are prepared throughout the day.
Bamn! vending machines:
We opted for some fried mac & cheese while we waited for our table at Kenka. Chris pulling out our mac & cheese:
And our fried mac & cheese:
Not bad, considering it came out of a vending machine. The noodles were overcooked and there wasn’t enough cheese on the noodles, but what can you really expect from a vending machine, right? In the past, I’ve tried their mozzarella sticks (they’re actually pretty good) and I’m tempted to try their frozen yogurt. Prices range from $2 – $4 and it’s definitely good for people on the go or for people coming out of the bars on the weekends (satisfaction is definitely automatic).
Our never-ending quest to find great tasting ramen brought us to Oh! Taisho, a small eatery on St. Mark’s Place in the east village. Since all of the places along St. Mark’s Place are somewhat similar (small, always packed, cheap eats and lots of beer), we’ve been trying to go to restaurants with good ramen reviews. All of these small Japanese eateries along St. Mark’s place are so alluring initially; lots of pictures of tasty-looking dishes, but when you actually sit down and eat, you’re disappointed because you realize the food really sucks. I read a couple reviews that Oh! Taisho is the place for ramen, so we decided to give St. Mark’s Place another chance:
The broth is very salty and has a distinct meat flavor. The noodles, however, were a huge disappointment. When I think of ramen, I always think of a chewier noodle (although that’s not always the case); Oh! Taisho served up a bowl of limp noodles that tasted overcooked. I wouldn’t have minded if they had just opened a bag of Maruchan ramen and dumped the noodles from there into my soup because those noodles taste better than the ones I was served. The meat had a great smoky flavor, but I ordered ramen, not a bowl of meat.
Chris ordered the pork with rice:
We couldn’t eat the majority of the meat since it was mostly fat, but the bits we did eat were enjoyable. The dish was also over-sauced and tasted like something from a mall food court.
Since everything comes in small plates, neither of us were full after our entrees and decided to share an order of pumpkin tempura:
My favorite dish of the night; the pumpkin was a little sweet, had lots of flavor, and when you pulled off the tempura, tasted pretty healthy!
Oh! Taisho wasn’t the worst restaurant I’ve been to along St. Marks, but it was seriously disappointing.
