As someone who has lived in Cleveland for almost three years, I thought it was finally time to go to a place that was CLE famous, especially after seeing the owner featured so much on the Food Network.
Overall, I LOVED the environment of Hodges. Located downtown on Euclid and right by East 4th, it has the Cleveland environment I was looking for on my Saturday night. We started out with drinks and they were both great. I ordered the Hodge's Punch and it was the perfect fruity drink. My boyfriend went with the draft of the week which he was a fan of after a good sell by our waiter.
We decided to do a taste of each of the areas of the menu (snacks, appetizer and entree) to get a full view of what kind of food they had to offer. The snacks and the appetizers were without a doubt the best. We chose duck confit flatbread and the blue crab hushpuppies and both were great. The personal size pizza was really the size to be a small entree and was my favorite dishes of the night. My boyfriend was a big fan of the hush puppies and thought the sauce was a good mix of flavor without being too overwhelming, and I agree.
We split an entree and the restaurant was nice enough to separate it on two plates for us, so for that service I gave an extra star for sure. We chose the crispy pork cutlet at my boyfriends request and he was a big fan. I, personally, do not love breaded anything but the pork was good in its own sense. The fettuccine it was topped with was really the star of the dish and the big portion size was a bonus. There was definitely enough for us to split and both be full.
Overall, I would recommend going to Hodge's at least once if you are a Clevelander. The environment alone is top notch (your bill comes in an envelope with "The Damage" written on it). I will probably be back but need to explore some more tastes that are right for me. Make sure you read what is part of the dish on the menu!