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| - So, disclosure first. I was lucky enough to get invited to a preview dinner for this place last night. Which, ya know, means I got fed for free. And the service was impeccable, because frankly if your service can't be impeccable during a small closed service when you're trying to impress people, then you should fire them all and start from scratch, right? Keeping this in mind, I'm going to offer you no insight as to what the crowds might be like, or the service on a busy night. I liked all the staff I talked to, but that's hardly objective.
Hodges is in the old Zinc spot on Euclid, and I'm a bit sad to see Zinc go, because they had that one cherry drink that took like ten minutes to make and then they set it on fire, and there's pretty much no better patio downtown to sit on a warm night and drink something that was very recently on fire. Recommendation to Hodges: make some sort of flaming drink please. Regardless, it's the same patio, and I love that patio. It's back from the street, it's surrounded by towering buildings, and it was smart of Hodges to take that space because when summer comes, you are all going to want to hang out there. Fire pit! Inside the restaurant is very cozy and non-threatening, which is always a consideration for me when going downtown. While I'm sure it will be full of young professionals after work, it's got the same chill casual vibe as Noodlecat going, where if I show up all punked out for a show or grungy from a day at the library, I'd feel just as comfortable hanging out in the bar as going there fancied up for a date.
While we were waiting to be seated, I got a Buckeye Cleveland IPA from the bar, and the bartender was nice enough to keep the huge bottle behind the bar for me, so I didn't have to walk around two fisting my glass and the bottle. I'm not a regular beer drinker, but they had a pretty decent selection, and more importantly, enough different things that I was curious to try. It was a nice medium sized list. The cocktails list seemed very creative, I appreciate complicated combinations. The few that my friends ordered were a little sweeter than I prefer, but they were all girly girls :) And they like them just fine.. I know mason jars are trendy now, but as someone who has been known to topple a martini glass or two with her clumsiness, I have no complaints. We did get to sample two cocktails, and I wish I could remember what they were, cause the drink menu isn't on the website. One I know was a manhattan with peppercorns in it, and that was fantastic. When I go back after opening, that's probably what I would order again. Point is, the bar had it's shit together, and someone gave a lot of thought into their creations, there was a lot of originality.
We were started off with bacon sprinkled tater tots, served with a sour cream sauce. Happy Dog has gotten me a little bored with tater tots, but they were good. The sauce was really the star. Next came cornbread with maple butter, and frankly when does anyone ever go wrong with cornbread? If there's anything I'm happy about with this whole trend towards upscale comfort food, it's the reemergence of cornbread. Cornbread forever.
There were two memorable spots on the tasting menu for me: the pine nut "baked beans" and the potato shards and beans that came with the hangar steak. The pine nuts were amazing. Apparently they are only on the starters menu, but I wish they were the star of a whole entree. I am immediately going to start trying to braise pine nuts on my own, and that's the kind of inspiration I really want to walk away with from a restaurant. The second dish, (potato shards, beans and hangar steak) really hit it out of the park with the beans and potatoes. The heirloom beans were coated in this creamy almost mustardy sauce I loved. The potato shards were like hash browns, only lighter and fluffier, and if I could get all my hash browns cooked that way, I might finally understand their dominance on breakfast menus everywhere. The steak itself was very well cooked, but it's just very hard to impress me with meat anymore. When you do cool things to vegetables, I'm far more excited.
One thing that being included at preview tastings has taught me is how to eat fish without complaining, because I don't normally eat fish or seafood, but you can't really be that awful person who refuses to try it. The tuna poppers we had were okay, but raw tuna is absolutely not my thing. The scallop dish though was very pretty, graceful even, and the scallop's sweetness went perfectly with the grapefruit segment. No seafood girl ate the whole thing.
Dessert was a miniature fried apple pie, which was cute, but not exactly impressive. The sauce that came with it was fantastic. Seriously, that kitchen is great at sauces.
In conclusion, I would definitely come back here and pay for a meal. I'm not the kind of girl who goes out downtown very often, so coming from me, that's saying something.
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