Leftovers: What We Ate This Weekend

Ilene Ross: Thursday night is one of the best nights to head to The Anchor-OTR — not that there’s a bad night — but on Thursday, it’s "Oyster Mania," when oysters are a buck a piece. So a friend and I split a dozen oysters, some grilled octopus and a whole branzino with salt-roasted potatoes. On Saturday night, in my never-ending quest for home food-delivery perfection, I gave the delivery service Cincybite a first-time go. I was super excited to see that they offered BrewRiver GastroPub as one of the options, so I ordered a wedge salad — I know, old fashioned, but I’m a sucker for a wedge slathered in blue cheese and bacon — and the fish of the day. The food took a really long time, over an hour, but who the hell cares. The fish was perfectly cooked, which is practically impossible for delivery, and it was served with a delicious cauliflower puree, Sheltowee farm mushrooms, asparagus, tomatoes and a super spicy chimichurri sauce. Thumbs up to Cincybite. On Sunday night I was feeling a bit under the weather, so I opted for Suzie Wong’s to bring me dinner: grilled eggplant and mushroom salad, crispy vegetarian rib, and seafood supreme udon. And watched four episodes from Season 6 of Sons of Anarchy.

Jesse Fox: Saturday I was sick all day so I didn't eat at all. Sunday I think I ate a whole box of the generic version of the Captain Crunch Oops! All Berries cereal and some pita chips and hummus.

Jac Kern: My fiancé's birthday was over the weekend, so we kicked off the celebration at Gordo's Pub & Grill in Norwood. There are a lot of fine burger joints in town, and Gordo's gets overlooked too often. We split some tasty pork belly nachos, which includes both bacon and belly for optimum pig consumption. For my burger, I ordered the French, topped with brie, sweet onion jam, bacon and greens. Our entire group, including several out-of-towners, left stuffed and happy. Saturday was a popcorn for dinner kind of night. We saw Ex Machina at Cinemark Oakley Station. It was so good! Go see it. I'm loving the whole bar-in-a-theater trend, but now that I've had a frozen margarita at a movie theater, there is no turning back. They also serve wine and craft beer, if you're not a total trash monster like me. 

The partying continued Sunday at Moerlein Lager House. I've always had pretty good experiences here, but Sunday afternoon's Reds game had clearly taken its toll when we arrived for dinner later that night. They were completely out of french fries and the entree I originally ordered. We probably should have planned better in regards to the game, but our server was really friendly despite probably having a really stressful, busy shift. We ended with their s'mores, which weren't actually s'mores but a chocolate lava cake with charred, melty marshmallow and graham cracker garnish — which is to say, delicious.

Danny Cross: On Friday night, the girlfriend and I hit up the new-ish Mexican restaurant in Clifton, Los Potrillos. The Reds game was on and we didn't feel like cooking/driving far. We parked back in the Gaslight District and I showed her the weird giant house I used to live in with my friend Arty. Back then, the world seemed like a simpler place and Arty and I assumed everything was going to be OK. Anyway, Katie and I scored a booth against a wall with a TV mounted on it, sat side-by-side opposite the TV and pretty much had an excellent experience drinking margaritas and eating just a little too much. Like many Mexican restaurants, Los Potrillos (the Internet says "potrillo" means "colt") has a big menu that makes it hard to order even though most people typically get the same thing time after time. For me, it's tacos carne asada. It did not disappoint. 

Mike Breen: My favorite kind of food is the kind that people make and bring to me, so I order delivery fairly often. I also have limited delivery places near me, so that means — especially because I can just use an app on my phone to order — I get LaRosa’s quite a bit (like, two to three times a month. Is that a lot?). I’m also not very adventurous with my order — unless one considers ordering either a hoagy or pizza “switching things up.” Saturday night I kept it pretty straightforward again and just had some breadsticks and a chicken hoagy (with all the toppings and Italian dressing, which is “off menu,” because I’m super difficult). My go-to desert (I’ll get the big, fresh chocolate cookies sometimes and very occasionally the super-rich hot fudge brownie) is the “Smashed Cannoli.” This was added to the menu fairly recently, unfortunately at the expense of the Italian Wedding Cake, which was also really good (the raspberry sauce was the secret weapon). The Smashed Cannoli is basically a cup of cannoli filling, with the cannoli shell “smashed” up and mixed in with chocolate chips, chopped (relatively flavorless) cherries and powdered sugar. It’s a kind of small portion (like, say, compared to some of the restaurant’s pasta portions), but it’s only $4. For Italian food connoisseurs/snobs, Smashed Cannoli is probably the equivalent of a Speedway “cappuccino.” But they make it and BRING IT TO MY HOUSE. What’s not to like?

Maija Zummo: Saturday night I made vegetarian three-ways at home; not like Skyline's beans and rice three-way, but like actually three-way flavored three-way. I know it's super irritating when vegetarians try to make dishes that look and taste like their meat equivalent, but this is a fantastic recipe that uses lentils instead of beef, and then you throw in all these spices: paprika, cinnamon, cumin, unsweetened cocoa powder, allspice, cloves, yadda yadda yadda. It tastes to me like Skyline smells, and the lentils get all mushy, kind of like what I imagine to be the consistency of crumbled chili. I even got my husband to try it and admit it tastes good, which is a relative miracle because he's extremely suspicious of lentils.