Loafing Around Encouraged: The Whitney House

The humble meatloaf has graced numerous household dinner tables
around the world in one form or another

Many dishes come to mind when it comes to American classics: hamburgers, apple pie, chocolate chip cookies, and so forth. Often times, these dishes are adaptations or variants on more traditional dishes, like American spaghetti or Tex-Mex creations like Fajitas or Chile con Carne.

A dish that in many ways reflects the melting pot that is this country lies in meatloaf. While meatloaf has competing origin stories, its concept is pretty clear cut - a collection of culinary odds and ends combined into something not necessarily elegant, but assuredly comforting.

And indeed it was; my parents’ rendition was fairly standard (ground beef, onions, stale bread, eggs, and seasoning) but one my favorite things to eat with ketchup and rice. In addition, many parties hosted by relatives, friends, and family allowed me the chance to eat another favorite variation in the Embutido, a Filipino take which mixes a variety of meats with somewhat unique ingredients such as raisins, carrots, bell peppers, and hard-boiled eggs.

The Truth is in the Tasting Vol. 2: A Return to Veritas

We don’t do fancy meals all that often, so anticipation rises high when we do indulge. Four years ago in 2015, we found ourselves in Delaware, Ohio at Veritas, a place which had been earning "Best Of" kudos throughout the region. We found out the recognition was well earned, and their tasting menu and cocktails provided us with easily one of our top three dining experiences ever.
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Flash forward to the future: owner Josh Dalton has jumped at the opportunity to move his restaurant to the proverbial heart of it all, relocating to the historic Citizens Building in Downtown Columbus. Not only that, they have emphasized the tasting menu even more, both with their current seasonal tapas selections as well as their Chef’s Table, which leaves it up to the chef and his kitchen staff to wow you with their creativity.
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The latter option sounded like the perfect way to dive into Veritas the second time around for another special meal.

We're Going To Give It 101%

The Meat Cut chart at Columbus's The Pearl Restaurant that
started the whole 101% Cow Conundrum

In the big-wide world of sports cliches, the phrase "He/she gave 110 percent" is both overused and rather nonsensical from a mathematical standpoint. I imagine most would feel the same if the cliche used 101% instead.

However, would you look more quizzically at me if I said that it was a cow that was giving you that 101%?

Our encounter with the 101% cow conundrum came, at all places, The Pearl Restaurant. One of several Cameron Mitchell concepts which occupy the southern section of the city’s Short North neighborhood, The Pearl is touted as a seafood-oriented gastropub supplemented with fancy cocktails and a international beer list.

During our meal, my spouse was drawn to a chalkboard drawing of a cow which outlined the traditional primal butcher cuts (round, chuck, sirloin, etc.) and the corresponding percentages. After a long glance, she motioned over my shoulder. “Look behind you...does that all add up to 101%?”

I turned, spotted the cow diagram, and mentally added the numbers. “Yep, that’s 101%. Those are some pretty productive cows,” I chuckled.  Of course, I knew the diagram was wrong, but that brought me to thinking: was there such a thing as a definitive meat cut by percentage chart out there?

Well, I decided to look into that topic and came up with a few surprises.

Silly Notions Negated Splendidly: Service Bar

The basic Hamburger Combo from In-N-Out was a go to in my later fast food days

Back in a seemingly more distant younger day, I justified my fast food leanings with a reason that sounded good at the time, if you were trying to pack on 5-10 pounds of weight per year (which, sadly, proved to be prophetic.)  I surmised that those fancy, visually stunning, incredible tasting, generally more reasonably portioned dishes from restaurants my family could never ever afford were a ripoff. I mean, when you could get a truly filling value meal of sandwich, side and soda pop for around $5, why would I want to spend dozens of dollars more on something that would require a trip to the local fast food place later to sate my hunger?

Ahh, you silly, misguided younger person. To paraphrase a quote from Red, the convict played by Morgan Freeman in one of my favorite movies ever in The Shawshank Redemption, "I want to try to talk some sense to him, tell him the way things are." But thankfully in my case, I didn't need a meeting before a parole board to learn my lesson that there is a happy medium; I just needed a couple meals at Service Bar.

First Look: Fadó Pub & Kitchen (Dublin, Ohio)

The support tower of the planned pedestrian bridge from Old Dublin
dominates the skyline from Dublin's Bridge Park development.

When we moved away from northwest Columbus to our current house, the city of Dublin and its surroundings became a less frequent and familiar destination as the years have gone. That (lack of) familiarity made itself quite evident in our first ever visit this weekend to the city's Bridge Park.

Announced in 2012 and located on land that had long been in our mind mere grass and hills, the multi-story constructs that comprise this development were a bit of a mental jolt, as we wandered from residential and retail spaces with names we weren't familiar with (Hen Quarter, Sweetwaters Coffee and Tea, and REBoL) and were (Fukuryu Ramen, PINS Mechanical and Cap City Diner, among others.)

One of those names we were also familiar with was Fadó, though on a limited basis: I knew of Fadó Irish Pub in Easton but had never visited prior, while my spouse had a couple visits there before we were officially a thing. Thus, we were pretty excited to get an invite from the restaurant via the kind folks at Drink Up Columbus to sample their new pub and kitchen concept at Bridge Park.

Kain Na Tayo! Bonifacio Modern Filipino

Much of the history regarding Bonifacio and my personal relationship to this Filipino restaurant can be found at this prior blogpost, which detailed the experiences of my spouse and I at their July 2016 preview event. At that time, I was eager to for the restaurant's grand opening, but in many ways I wanted to fully digest how Krizzia Yanga's somewhat bold venture into a full-service restaurant, largely spurred on by the success of their Filipino-oriented silog (featuring a fried egg) and panini brunch and lunch offerings at her Downtown Columbus-located Red Velvet Cafe and in a region largely unfamiliar with Filipino cuisine.

Well, almost two years later after the restaurant's opening, and after landing a "Best New Restaurants of 2016" from Columbus Monthly and grabbing national press in media sources like NPR and Southwest: The Magazine, I figured I had more than enough time to take it all in. In some ways, this post is somewhat exemplary of the concept of Filipino Time, a concept not unlike Hawaiian Time where folks (or in this case, this blog post) are known to show up fashionably late to events.

Lovin' The Oven: Forno Kitchen & Bar

If Corso Ventures isn't one the hottest restaurant development groups in the Columbus area right now, it certainly ranks in the top tier. Their Short North area ventures such as The Short North Pint House (their first) and Standard Hall (their latest to open) are popular destinations to grab brews and food. Down the road, their Food Hall concept, featuring a full bar and four kitchens meant for rotating culinary experiences, is one that we and other area diners are anticipating.

The funny thing is that despite all the good things we have heard about the previously two mentioned eateries, we find ourselves still working through the menu at their second Short North eatery in Forno, and really there's nothing wrong with that.

Behind The Groove: Natalie's Coal Fired Pizza

In my life, I really haven't had too many real-life interactions with women named Natalie. In fact, perhaps the most "intimate" (and that is a huge stretch of that word meaning) encounter with someone named Natalie was the ex-10,000 Maniacs singer Natalie Merchant, who put on a fun concert with the Columbus Symphony orchestra at the Columbus Commons in July, 2013.

This situation has changed over the past couple years, and this seems to be destined to be a fairly long-lived relationship. This Natalie not only has a way with music, but also crafts some pretty tasty pizzas to boot.

Preview Event: Cocktails & Pulutan - Bonifacio Restaurant

I admit to a little bit of culture shock moving from the Bay Area to Central Ohio when it came to population makeup: I basically moved from an city where nearly 25,000 people were of Filipino heritage to a whole region where there were 2,500 or so scattered around.

Not surprisingly, Filipino food has been a little harder to find in the wild here. I learned shortly after my arrival of a Filipino restaurant near the Columbus/Reynoldsburg border in Chuchay's, but their location wasn't the most convenient to where I was living and the eatery shut down soon afterward. Other encounters have been rare but very welcome: the original Red Velvet Cafe in Reynoldsburg, and two food trucks in the form of Mya's Fried Chicken (courtesy of special pop-up events by owner Mark Tolentino) and, more recently, Asian Persuasion.

Perhaps the most welcome addition for me (and many other area diners) has been the downtown Columbus branch of the previously mentioned Red Velvet Cafe. Owned by Krizzia Yanga, the cafe not only brought the very appealing original cupcake/coffee pairing that fueled the original location for so long, but also brought local diners a taste of Filipino cuisine with their weekend brunch service.

The Truth is in the Tasting: Veritas Tavern (Delaware, OH)

Veritas Tavern has been serving some of the area's finest
cuisine since its opening in 2012

Generally speaking, my spouse and I are pretty happy with the more modestly priced side of the culinary ledger, whether it be a hole-in-the-wall hot pot place, various mobile vendor eats or a well-prepared nicer meal at a favorite neighborhood joint. On special occasions, we do like to indulge just a little bit (we've had a wonderful anniversary dinner at Healdsburg, California's Barndiva, for instance) and with a stretch of various anniversaries and birthdays coming around, we figured it was the perfect time to do just that.

In the Bay Area, restaurant tasting menus are easy enough to find, and cover the gamut of price ranges (granddaddy once-in-a-pocketbook for the average Joe & Jane type places like The French Laundry or Saison) to the far more accessible and perhaps surprising (the Ethiopian-oriented Radio Africa & Kitchen or the latin cuisine of Mr. Pollo) and everything in-between (Manresa and Gary Danko, among many worthy contenders.)

In the Columbus area, the choices are not near as plentiful in regard to restaurants that offer this option as part of their regular menu. Latitude 41 in downtown Columbus offers a regular tasting menu option, and some Japanese restaurants  (including Columbus' renowned Kihachi) offer an omakase option that essentially leaves your meal completely up to the chef's whims on the day of your dining.

Another option involves a bit of a drive, especially for those trying to come from the southern reaches of Franklin County during the traffic morass that often builds along the north side of the I-270 Beltway during the afternoon commute. However, our recent experience with the $55 per person seasonal tasting menu at Veritas Tavern, a place we had wanted to try for awhile, showed that this drive is more than worth it.

Veritas features a straightforward appearance both in its
interior as well as its food and beverage menus...

Open since July of 2012, Veritas Tavern's interior actually sports a fairly simple appearance, with a bar area dominating the space bordered by high-backed chairs and tables diner seating; the ceiling is a fairly simple, ceramic-tiled affair and the walls are intermittently dotted with "book" shelves (shelves actually made of books) along with historic pictures of Delaware and other pieces of art.

The menus are similarly straightforward: the A La Carte menu (which did tempt us greatly) features a focused selection of Before (appetizers), Small Plates and After (dessert) dishes. The most detailed menu may be their beverage menu, which details Veritas' intriguing selection of cocktails, wine, beer and spirits. However, it was the most simply laid out menu, their Tasting Menu, which started off and remained our mutual intention this night.

If anything, experience at Veritas made us gain greater appreciation of flavors rarely or never before explored. While we are generally beer drinkers, Veritas' craft cocktail preparations gave us new appreciation in that line of adult beverages. Creme de Violette, a violet flower based liqueur, and various gins provided the link between our two favorite drinks of the night in The Aviation, mixed with Maraschino Luxado and lemon, and the Moonlight, partnered with Cointreau and lime. Even the more familiar preparations like the Caiparinha seemed to have something extra compared to previously experienced renditions at other bars and eateries.

More tastes like Veritas' Crab Blossom, featuring a squash blossom
stuffed with crab with a rich fresno and ancho pepper sauce,
 pickled carrots & radishes, may make me a seafood lover yet.

Seafood has always been one of those classes of food items that I have never pursued with much vigor (my spouse, on the other hand, has no such compunctions.) However, chef/owner Josh Dalton's seafood-based preparations were some of my favorites of the night, whether it was the very simple Oyster and Strawberry (a subtle raw oyster flavor dancing alternately between strawberry sweet and briny) or the more complex (and the favorite dish for both of us) Crab Blossom, featuring an squash blossom stuffed with incredibly sweet, creamy crab, bracketed with pickled carrot, radish and delicious Ancho and Fresno pepper sauces.) I may be a seafood convert yet if I could eat more dishes like this.

Other tasting menu items (clockwise from top left: The playful Bellini meal
opener; Oyster + Strawberry; Terres Major + Potatoes + Chanterelle;
"Tomato Watermelon + Feta"; and "Shrimp 'N Grits"

As this eight-course tasting menu continued and the cocktails slowly but surely had their expected effect, the exacting descriptions of each dish became fuzzy but the excellence of the food continued strong. Whether it was their playful dessert-like opener (the Bellini, a one-bite white chocolate globe containing a peach-laced Prosecco center), the unique take on the breakfast dish Shrimp 'N Grits (a shrimp-flavored lace chip topped with polenta with a tiny squeeze bottle of New Orleans area hot sauce), the play of sweet watermelon and salty feta amidst fresh tomatoes in their Tomato + Watermelon + Feta salad, or the absolutely tender meat mixed with perfectly cooked potatoes and mushrooms in their Terres Major + Potatoes + Chanterelles (just slightly behind the Crab Blossom in terms of favorites), my spouse and I were thoroughly satisfied by our experience.

We learned through a brief jaunt before our dinner that the downtown area of Delaware seems to be more than suited for a day trip from the metro, with the addition of two new beer-oriented places (the bottle shop/brewing supply oriented Barley Hopsters and newly opened Restoration Brew Worx brewery); antique shops; some new (Son of Thurman) and old (Hamburger Inn) heartier food options; Division III college-level and professional sports with Ohio Wesleyan University and the Ohio Machine Lacrosse team, respectively; and a little bit of history to boot. 

This won't be our last time to Delaware, and another visit to Veritas is all but the truth at this point.

Veritas Tavern
15 E Winter St.
Delaware, OH 43015
(740) 417-4074
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