#and grocery store frozen meat pies are. just nowhere near as good.

[essektheylyss]

I did get called out by my therapist for blorbo crimes (nicely, she was very supportive and encouraging so this is largely a joke) over the fact that I made soup, bread, AND now meat pies this week, but you know what? I have soup, bread, and meat pies. And this is what's important. 😌

[eighthcircuit]

Some Food I Had in Ohio

(View of the sunset over semi-frozen Lake Erie from my plane into Cleveland)

I’ve always liked Ohio, and never quite understood why it’s often spoken of as a stand-in for Nowhere, USA. It probably has a little to do with me enjoying visiting my grandparents there as a kid, and a little to do with the brick buildings everywhere. Those brick buildings are charming as hell. I can’t imagine Ohio is a food destination by anyone’s estimation, but also, by my own estimation, you can eat well practically anywhere you go. So, here are some good things I ate in and near Akron, Ohio!

Swensons

Swensons is a drive-in burger chain that’s been in the Akron area for over 80 years. The menu my grandma keeps at home lists its burgers for a dollar and change. The prices have gone up a little bit since then (how old is that menu, I wonder?) but are still pretty unbeatably low. In L.A. we don’t have drive-in restaurants, so conducting a full transaction from a parking spot in front of the building is novel to me, though maybe less of a big deal in cities with actual room for parking lots.

My favorite tidbit about Swensons is that Forbes Magazine rated the “Galley Boy” burger (pictured; bun, meat, cheese and two secret sauces) as the best burger in America in 1999, which is just about the most charming tidbit of food trivia imaginable.

City Barbecue

I haven’t been anywhere else in the Midwest aside from Chicago (which I imagine is its own sort of beast), but City Barbecue to me is still a testament to what I imagine are some of the region’s strengths. The concept for the small-ish chain (it’s larger than Swensons, with locations outside of Ohio, but only in a few other nearby states) is good meat sourced locally to each location, complemented by a self-serve pan-American selection of barbecue sauces.

Some of these are regional styles (the specifics of which I’m unfamiliar, but I know there was at least a thicker, sweeter one, and a vinegarier one) while others are restaurant-specific, like a thin, Cheerwine-flavored sauce. I think in total I tried five of them, because that’s the type of guy I am.

While the interior of the restaurant looked how I imagine the inside of BBQ spots in Texas to look (to use Texas as a stand-in for itself and all barbecue states, I suppose) the accoutrements were pure Ohio, by which I mean there were a few Cleveland Browns helmets and Cavaliers logos on the walls.

Most importantly, it was really good! This sort of jack-of-all-trades approach to a cuisine as multifaceted as barbecue could easily be overly safe and unfocused, but City Barbecue manages to capture as many different facets of a distinctly American tradition as possible, without sacrificing quality, while also showcasing some local flair. Neat!

L’Albatros

L’Albatros is a restaurant in Cleveland founded by chef Zack Bruell, who seems to be well-known in the Cleveland food scene. He currently has six restaurants to his name in total, and the guiding lines through them all, more-or-less, are regional European cuisines and “fusion”; that nebulous, often off-putting word (with reference to food, at least).

Online, L’Albatros is described as a French dining establishment, though its menu includes quite a bit of German flair, with a spätzle here, a sauerkraut there… and the only two condiments at the table are a salt shaker and a clay pot of stone-ground mustard, which almost seems comically German. From my time studying abroad in France (oh, did I not mention I studied abroad in France?) I know Northeastern French cuisine is far more similar to what you’d find across the adjacent German border, but through my Grandpa’s ancestry, I also know that Cleveland was settled by a sizable number of German immigrants. Since nowhere I’ve checked online specifies the restaurant’s French region of origin, I’m going to confidently say that this is a uniquely Cleveland fusion of French and German-American food traditions. It may or may not be true, but it sounds smart to me!

I ordered “pied de cochon,” which for all of the plebs who never studied abroad in France (poor things) means “pig’s foot.” In this particular preparation, the meat was pulled and re-formed into a sort of dense meat cake, and topped with a bechamel sauce. I liked it a lot! I’d never had pig’s foot meat before, and would very happily have it again. It was rich, gamey and smokey. Also, unusual, which is a selling point for me (I had a hard time deciding between that and the skate wing).

Afterword I found out online that King Louis XVI’s undoing was his love of pied de cochon. While fleeing the French revolution, he stopped at a restaurant to dine on his favorite dish real quick, and there, was apprehended by the Revolutionary Army. This dish was very good, but not quite death-by-guillotine good.

Hoppin’ Frog

I bought this bottle of Akron-based Hoppin’ Frog Brewery’s “B.O.R.I.S. (Bodacious Oatmeal Russian Imperial Stout) the Crusher” beer at Acme, a local grocery store I’ve been going to with my grandma since literally before I can remember. I bought it alongside a five dollar T-shirt that says “Akron” on it in digital camo-shaded letters, because that’s where I’m at in life right now.

This beer had two selling points to me: a gold medal from the Great American Beer Festival, and ridiculous bottle art. I promise the second point isn’t condescending; I’ve found that a lot of great, independent food products put more effort into taste than branding, hence an award-winning beer with a clipart frog on the bottle.

It was… good! It was strong and boozy, and the ability to taste the booze in beer isn’t always my favorite tasting note, but otherwise its boldness was a plus.

The hipster in me (ugh… did I really just call myself a hipster?) would love nothing more than to come back from Ohio with a story about how I had the best beer (or meal, or whatever else) of my life, and how you can never have it, because you’ll probably never have a reason to be in Akron. But that’s vain and stupid! My conscience would rather you check out Swensons if you’re ever in the area, or else just Google “Ohio brick buildings” right now and call it a day.