Photo Friday: Philco's Nutella Grilled Cheese Sandwich

Havarti, cheddar, jam (strawberry, I think), and Nutella. Enough said.

Finding Okonomiyaki in Columbus

One of my best vacation memories happened in Japan almost six years ago, when we were visiting friends who lived in Hiroshima at the time. They took us to a restaurant that we never would have found on our own, and we sat around the grill eating okonomiyaki. We ate a lot of new foods during that trip, but that was probably the best.

Since then, I've tried to find a place that recreated the okonomiyaki I remember from then. We found one place in New York City, in the East Village. It tasted similar, and it was cooked in the Hiroshima-style, with the layers of cabbage and toppings piled high, almost like a warm salad. After we ate there once or twice, the restaurant shut down.

I was excited to find one place in Columbus that served okonomiyaki, and we finally tried it last month. Unfortunately, it was made in what I understand to be the Osaka style. It was pretty much a savory pancake. (In my head, I think of it as Kyoto style -- we had it in the train station there, and I remember it pretty much being like pizza.)

Nevertheless, ZenCha Tea Salon was good. The okonomiyaki was filled with vegetables and topped with your choice of protein (I got tofu), along with a type of mayo and sweet sauce. While it was fun to fulfill my okonomiyaki fix, the real star of the show was the tea of the day: an iced rose latte. I don't drink much tea, and I drink absolutely no coffee (yuck), so I don't know much about them. In fact, I thought that latte referred exclusively to a type of coffee. My bad. The rose latte sample the server brought to the table was delicious and is worth a trip back to ZenCha on its own.

So maybe the okonomiyaki wasn't exactly what I was hoping for, but I'll be back for the rose latte. And maybe next time, the blueberry lavender pancake.

Dinner at Aab India Restaurant

Ever since we joined a CSA in Brooklyn, Paul's been into making Indian food at home. The strong spices required in curries were the perfect way to mask the natural taste of many of the bitter greens we would receive week after week! But we also simply like the taste of Indian food. Yet we rarely (never?) go to Indian restaurants. On Saturday, however, we visited Aab India Restaurant in Dublin.

We visited during Restaurant Week, which meant we got three courses for one set price. We each ordered vegetable pakora, a type of deep fried fritter.

We then chose a piece of naan and garlic naan. And for the main course, we each picked something we knew: I got the saag paneer, which is a spinach-based dish with cheese cubes. Paul ordered chicken tikka masala, which features tender strips of chicken in an orange tomato-based sauce.

Edith liked the pakora about as much as we did and couldn't get enough of the naan. The main dishes were spicy and good, with plenty leftover for later meals.

The atmosphere was pleasant, but certainly not so fancy that we felt out of place with a toddler. They had high chairs, and Edith was content looking around. All in all, a good meal. I'm anxious to return for Aab's weekend buffet so I can explore Indian dishes that I haven't yet tried.

The Delicious Donut Burger of DK Diner

I always think of New York as the place that pretty much has every food I could ever imagine, and even more that I couldn't. After all, it was in New York that I first heard of a donut burger.

It was an occasional special at a burger joint in our Bay Ridge neighborhood -- a slab of beef with a glazed donut acting as the buns. I was eager to try it, but it was never on the menu when we ate there.

Then we returned to Columbus. DK Diner in Grandview, just west of downtown, had been on my list of places to try, particularly for its donuts and patio. When I read that they, too, served a donut burger ... well, it just begged to be eaten.

The DK Diner donut burger was every bit as grand as I anticipated. The burger was topped with cheese and three crispy slices of bacon, but of course the highlight was the glazed donut bun. It provided just a tinge of sweetness -- I actually would have been perfectly fine with a stronger donut taste to my burger.

The only downside -- the donut was split lengthwise, with half acting as the bottom bun and the other half on top. That made the bottom bun a tad soggy, but delicious nonetheless.

I often say how good a meal is and then forget to return for weeks or months or years. But Paul and I are already planning a return trip to DK Diner for the donut burger ASAP.

Brunch at Melt Bar & Grilled

I could eat a grilled cheese sandwich at least once a week. I don't because I can't make them very well. I either don't use enough butter or oil and fail to get that satisfying crunch, or cook it too long at too high of a heat and get a far too blackened crisp. When I heard that the Cleveland-based Melt Bar & Grilled would be opening a Columbus location for their grilled cheese sandwiches, I knew it was something I would have to try.

Paul, however, isn't a huge grilled cheese fan, although he does honor my request to make a cheese sandwich about once a month or so, for a lazy weekend lunch. But when we initially went to a restaurant a few weekends ago that didn't have high chairs, we needed a back-up place for lunch fast. Melt was nearby, so we decided to try it.

Good choice.

Despite the "bar" in its name and the wide variety of beers it offers, Melt is actually very kid-friendly. Plenty of high chairs, and the level of noise was just perfect for covering up typical toddler noises. There was a lit candle as a centerpiece on every table -- a nice touch for such a laid-back restaurant, but not great with a one-year-old in tow. But it was easily moved to another table.

Melt offers your standard grilled cheese sandwich, but most of the options on the menu go far beyond it. There are burgers, soups and salads, but of course I immediately began perusing the grilled cheese menu. I finally settled for the Backyard BBQ -- pulled chicken, beef brisket or pulled pork (I chose pork), topped with giant onion rings, barbecue sauce and cheddar cheese.

This was hardly a grilled cheese sandwich. It was a fully meat-lovers sammich that happened to include cheese. But I was far from disappointed. The Backyard BBQ was one of the best sandwiches I've ordered at a restaurant (those onion rings -- yum!), and big enough that I easily could have split it with someone else. In fact, most of my french fries went into a doggie bag.

When I'm in the mood for a grilled cheese sandwich, I probably won't go to Melt. My nothing-special sandwiches are good enough for a simple craving. But I'll definitely return to Melt when I want a delicious sandwich at a family-friendly restaurant with a better-than-average atmosphere.

Date Night at the Grass Skirt Tiki Room

Date night.

I hate that phrase. It seems so forced, so contrived. But I've learned that when you have a one-year-old, every night out alone with your spouse is contrived by necessity. No going out on a whim. Everything must be planned.

So I happily accepted when my parents offered to visit for the express purpose of giving Paul and me a night out to ourselves. I felt only a bit of compunction when I realized that this would be the first evening that Edith would be put to bed by someone other than one of her parents. But it was quickly overcome by the anticipation of a dinner in which I didn't have to convince a little girl to stop throwing her glass of milk to the ground.

It took Paul and me about two minutes to decide where we would eat dinner: the Grass Skirt Tiki Room. It's not the fanciest place in Columbus, but we both really wanted to try the food and drinks, and they don't have high chairs. The Hawaiian-themed restaurant is all about atmosphere -- even the restrooms.

And the food ain't bad either.

We ordered a couple of fancy drinks and four small plates. The pulled pork in wonton cups were my favorite, followed by the sweet potato wedges and the fried pineapple with a honey syrup dipping sauce. The coconut shrimp served in a coconut was good for the kitsch.

We arrived about 8 p.m. and were seated even before our drinks arrived at the bar. The small room was pleasantly crowded the whole time we were there, and I'm not sure I ever noticed anyone waiting. The mood is pleasant, and the decorations so complete that I barely realized the restaurant doesn't even have windows until we were almost ready to leave.

We finished dinner way too early to go back home so soon, so we followed up the meal with drinks at Seventh Son in Italian Village, followed by the Crest closer to home. And to complete a great night, Grandma got up with Edith when she woke up the next morning, letting me sleep in an extra hour. Perfect!

Dim Sum in Columbus, Ohio

When we moved from Brooklyn, one of the things I regretted was not eating dim sum more often. One of the best Chinatowns in all of North America was within walking distance, and I ate dim sum a grand total of once.

I like dim sum not only because of the tasty food, but also for the novelty. Employees push carts around the room, diners pick out what they want, and the worker marks the bill with the price. Most of the dishes are a few dollars apiece.

Spicy octopus, and our dim sum bill

Paul took advantage of dim sum more often in New York -- he had clients in and around Chinatown and went to a dim sum place about once a month. And when I first visited East Harbor Seafood Palace almost three years ago, I thought I'd be returning often. But the lines are long and the lack of English (while exciting) could be a bit stressful. Then I was pregnant, and eating food that I didn't recognize seemed a questionable idea. And then Edith came along, and adding a baby to the mix seemed like an even worse thought.

So my return visit never happened. When we moved to Columbus, I thought my dim sum days were over.

Then I heard about Sunflower Chinese Restaurant. Sunflower, located just off Interstate 270 in Dublin, offers Saturday and Sunday dim sum. In fact, it may be the only place in Columbus that does so.

The verdict: Good food, good for kids and much more accessible than some of the Brooklyn dim sum joints.

Taro and tea

The food I was really craving -- and my favorite of the entire lunch -- was the pork buns, seen in the top photo on the far right. The pork was sweet, and eating the bun was like biting into a cloud. Edith couldn't get enough either.

We also got some taro dishes (which I believe are like turnips), shrimp dumplings, corn-shrimp cakes, octopus, and at least one or two other things. Our wait for a table was nil, although that might be because the snow kept patrons away. The place was busy, however, and the perfect volume to cover up toddler noises. Not that Edith squealed much -- there was so much to look at and so many people to waive to.

The takeaway: I'll return, and hopefully with a larger group so I can try more dishes.

Lunch at A.L.C. Italian Grocery

As I was browsing through the old photos on my phone, I came across a few from one of the last restaurants we ate at in Bay Ridge last July: A.L.C. Italian Grocery.

If you hadn't already guessed from the name, it's actually more of a specialty store than a restaurant. It sells items like pasta, olive oil and spreads. In fact, Paul and I each got our moms a jar of delicious rose jam for Mother's Day last year. I wish I would have gotten one for me, too!

But A.L.C. also has a delicious menu with a few seats along the counter up front, by the window. I can't recall exactly what I got the one time we ate in, but I remember it was delicious. And I remember regretting that we wouldn't get a chance to try the menu again anytime soon. It was sooooo good!

Visiting Schmidt's German Buffet in Columbus

Two things Ohio does much better than New York are buffets and mid-priced German food. And they both come together at Schmidt's.

Schmidt's is a well-known German restaurant located -- where else? -- in the German Village neighborhood near downtown Columbus. It's known for two things itself: cream puffs and an excellent buffet.

Paul and our little Fräulein

We partook in the latter a few weeks ago, for lunch on a Saturday. Sure, there are sausages aplenty on the buffet, but I'm mainly in it for the spaetzle, hot German potato salad and red cabbage.

A trip to the buffet, sideways.

Surprisingly, Edith is turning into a little Fräulein as well. We had our camera all poised for her reaction to sauerkraut and red cabbage, but it might as well have been the blandest potato for all she cared. A girl after my heart!

Yum!

Although Schmidt's cream puffs get raves, I'm not a fan. But I love, love, love the pie. The buffet is filling, so a giant slice of chocolate cream pie is an excellent end to the day.

Cream pies, blurry but delicious.

A Stereotypical Midwestern Grilled Cheese Sandwich

Some people like to exaggerate the type and amount of food we Midwesterners eat. We don't douse everything in oil or slather it in frosting. Once in a while, we'll even eat a veggie or two.

But my order at Michael's Goody Boy Diner in the Short North a few weeks ago played into every bad stereotype anyone has ever had about Midwestern food: a five-cheese triple-decker grilled cheese sandwich.

Not only did it have five cheeses --American, Swiss, provolone, pepper jack, and feta -- it was also topped with ham, bacon, cole slaw and (to make it healthy, I guess?) a grilled tomato.

Truth be told, it wasn't that good. Perhaps one, maybe two cheeses are all that should be included on a sandwich. But tasty or not, it sure did make me feel like I was in Ohio again.

Pancake Balls at Katalina's Cafe Corner

All things considered, it's safe to say that breakfast is my favorite meal. That's true even if it's served for supper.

With a baby, we don't often go out for supper anymore, but I'm getting to try a lot of new Sunday brunch spots. After we returned to Columbus, the first one we visited was Katalina's Cafe Corner.

And that was for one reason only: Nutella pancake balls.

A friend had posted about these on Twitter months ago, and I knew I had to try them. I love Nutella. I love pancakes. So there's absolutely nothing not to love about Nutella pancake balls, right?

Right. And there's even more to love about Katalina's itself.

But first, the pancake balls. Each is about the size of a golf ball with a buttery and slightly salty and crunchy exterior. The inside is filled with a dollop of Nutella, or if you prefer you can order one of the other flavors (including fig or dulce de leche when Paul and I were there). And Katalina's took it up a notch by including whip cream, Ohio maple syrup and two slices of sweet and spicy bacon. If I were the type of person to say OMG, this is where I would insert it.

The inside of Katalina's is tiny, with just a few tables and not many more seats. But it has an extensive patio, and we visited on a lovely day. Visitors seat themselves and receive a number to place on the table after ordering; the food is delivered. Although the tables were full, I never saw anyone waiting for a seat.

Katalina's Cafe Corner is the type of place that makes me excited to have returned to Columbus: Fun food at a scenic location in Harrison West, surrounded by beautiful homes and a stone's throw from the historic houses on Neil Avenue. I see more pancake balls in my future.

Finally Eating at the Restaurant Downstairs

Our apartment, two stories above the awning.

The ground floor of our apartment building was a bar/Mexican restaurant when we moved to Bay Ridge in 2007. It was a happy, happy day when it closed. The food was bad and the crowd it attracted was worse. Middle of the night shouting matches underneath our bedroom window were common occurrences.

The space was empty throughout the summer and much of the fall of 2010, before opening that November as a seafood restaurant.

I was curious about this new restaurant, but also hesitant. The restaurant was completely made-over with lovely glass walls and pleasant outdoor seating. Yet I consistently put off dining there.

"We'll go when it gets too hot to walk to a restaurant further away," I'd tell Paul at the beginning of the summer. "We'll go when the snow's too deep to go elsewhere," I'd say in the winter.

We'd had drinks in the bar area with friends, but we hadn't tried the food. Finally, with our move to Ohio looming, it was now or never. So last weekend we finally ate dinner at Mussels and More.

It was a pleasant night -- one of the last ones before the current heat wave -- and we had Edith in a stroller, so we chose the outdoor seating. Our table was approximately 20 feet from the entrance to our apartment building, and vaguely underneath the window to our kitchen.

We purposefully arrived around 9 p.m., when Edith generally goes to sleep. She was zonked out before the entrees arrived. True to the restaurant's name, we ordered mussels (the classic Prince Edward Island kind) and more (grilled octopus, plus zucchini sticks). The dishes we chose were delicious, as was the complimentary bread that started out the meal -- I didn't expect yummy cinnamon-raisin bread.

By meal's end, I was feeling pretty foolish that we hadn't previously eaten at a place both good and convenient. But whether or not we were patrons, I can definitively say that living above Mussels and More has been a surprisingly great experience. The restaurant and bar added a nice hustle and bustle to the street corner, and a pleasant hum of people enjoying a nice meal out. I'm glad that for at least one night, we were part of it.

Burger King Delivers. Yes, DELIVERS.

That's right: When I'm too lazy to stand in line for a Whopper, I can have Burger King deliver it right to my door.

I had heard that some New York City Burger Kings were going to offer this option, but I didn't realize how ridiculous that sounded until I got a delivery menu not long ago. The full BK menu isn't available, but the favorites are there.

A sampling:

• Whopper combo: $6.99
• Five-piece chicken strip combo: $8.99
• Large fries or large onion rings: $2.49
• 16 oz. tropical mango smoothie: $3.49 
• My personal favorite: fresh apple slices for $1.99. I don't even know how many apples I could buy at the bodega across the street for that price.

Turns out delivery is an option (or will be soon) at 13 Burger Kings in New York -- including the one closest to our apartment -- as well as at select Burger Kings in the Houston, Miami and Washington, DC, areas.

When I received the menu, I thought about ordering delivery just so I could write a blog post about it. I banished that from my mind in about two seconds.

I'll admit that Burger King is one of my favorite fast-food restaurants (My usual order: a Whopper Jr. and mozzarella sticks. The sticks aren't on the menu, but they still have them if you ask!), but it doesn't even come close to the Chinese, Thai, Polish and Middle Eastern restaurants I can order from in the neighborhood. And those are just the ones I can think of offhand.

And even though I enjoy a Hershey's sundae pie every now and again, I'd much rather spend an extra few bucks and order a slice of Brooklyn Blackout cake from Little Cupcake. Delivery or not, you're going to have to try harder to tempt me, Burger King.

Paul's Birthday (Observed) at Peter Luger Steakhouse

I suspected that Paul's birthday today would get somewhat lost in the shuffle. He wouldn't complain, but I also didn't want to give him a chance to.

So this year I gave him his present a full month early. On November 7, I told him we had reservations that weekend to Peter Luger Steakhouse.

Paul always wants to go to Peter Luger for special occasions, and I never do. The reason is simple: I don't like steak. But Paul likes it enough for both of us. And this year I got reservations during lunchtime, when Peter Luger offers a hamburger.

He, of course, ordered the giant single steak, medium rare, and a slice of the famous bacon, thickly cut. (Photos here, from the only other time we visited the steakhouse.) We split an order of creamed spinach-for-two. My well-done hamburger was obviously made with high-quality meat, although I slathered on the Peter Luger sauce for some flavor. I missed Paul's spice rubs.

Paul's beer and Bloody Mary were off-limits to the still-pregnant me, so we ended the meal with a tall hot fudge sundae, in which Paul kindly allowed me to scoop up the thick spoonfuls of fudge at the bottom. At the end of the meal, I waddled out the door, but not because of the baby.

Even though the meal was certainly for Paul, I couldn't help but think that it might be the last "nice" meal out we would have in a while. Besides this single trip to Williamsburg, I don't think we even left the neighborhood to go out to eat during the entire month of November and into December. Not the end of the world, of course, but it is a change in lifestyle nonetheless. I suspect we'll be getting take-out and delivery much more over the next couple of months!

Exploring Eataly in New York City

Eataly -- best known for its affiliation with Mario Batali and its variety of restaurants -- is a high-end Italian grocer right around the corner from Madison Square Park.

Its New York location opened amid much fanfare in the summer of 2010. Since then, Paul and I have lazily talked about visiting, but it just never happened. Once, on my 30th birthday, we tried to go up to the rooftop bar after celebrating at the nearby Shake Shack. The wait was too long, however. We went home.

In October, we decided to give Eataly another chance. Our wait to get a table at the Gramercy Tavern was going to be 90 minutes to two hours, and we were both hungry. So we walked to the nearby Eataly to see what we could find for an appetizer to our main courses coming later that evening.

Truth be told, Eataly is simply overwhelming. Maybe it was because it was a busy Saturday night, maybe it's because there's just so many places to turn. The food to buy and take home, a la normal grocery store, is sitting right next to the kitchen supplies, is sitting right next to the dozen or so restaurants and dessert eateries.

The entire space is more than 50,000 square feet, according to Wikipedia. We certainly didn't see all of it; we were too hungry. We made a quick round of the space nearest the entry, scanning the restaurants. Each one focuses on a different food: fish, pizza and pasta, and panini, for example. We chose the vegetable-focused restaurant, grabbing a couple of seats at the "bar" instead of the nearby tables. Either way, shoppers were milling about the eaters; a very different experience.

The "bar" area where we ate.

We ordered a plate of fried vegetables, Paul got a beer and we polished off a plate of bread dipped in olive oil while we waited. The food was delicious, and the atmosphere perfect for people watchers. The crowds show that the diners agree that the restaurants are excellent, but when push comes to shove, this really is pretty much just a series of cafeterias in an expensive grocery store.

Eataly isn't a place I'd frequent often, but it was perfect for the time we had to spare.

"Christmas" Dinner at Gramercy Tavern

Faithful readers of this blog with good memories know that instead of exchanging Christmas gifts, Paul and I choose a nice restaurant that we wouldn't otherwise visit and make that our present to each other.

Usually we make this outing in the month or two following Christmas -- something to look forward to after the holidays are over.

This year, we never quite got around to it in January or February. In March, we found out I was pregnant, followed by about two months of morning sickness and then a busy summer.

Over the summer and fall we would occasionally discuss where we wanted to go, but we never made a final decision. But with a baby due in a month, we knew it was now or never. Long story short (or in this case, maybe short story long), we finally celebrated Christmas 2011 in October, with a trip to Gramercy Tavern.

The restaurant's dining room takes reservations four weeks in advance, but the tavern section is walk-in only: perfect, since we made it our restaurant of choice just a few days before we visited.

We got there early (at least by New York standards) at 7 p.m. There was an hour-and-a-half to a two-hour wait -- did we still want to put our name down, we were asked. They seemed surprised when we said yes. Paul and I both knew that if we didn't eat there then, we never would -- and would probably never celebrate Christmas 2011.

We passed the time by walking to Eataly -- a nearby high-end grocer I'll write about in a future post -- but had our table at Gramercy Tavern within the allotted time. My butternut squash lasagna was superb, and I treated myself to a rich hot chocolate for dessert. Merry Christmas to me.

As for Christmas 2012? We haven't a clue.