Two of the Old Guard: Michael's Goody Boy Diner/Chef-O-Nette

Considered the oldest restaurant in Columbus proper, Ringside Cafe has
been serving its burgers and other eats in Pearl Alley since 1897

I've grown fond of history as I've gotten older, with much of that sparked by my move to Columbus and my curiosity about how this area evolved over time. Being a food blogger, that quest to learn a history behind a place has extended to the restaurants and similar destinations I have both visited and written about.

Columbus itself has a fair number of historic restaurants, with two restaurants reaching back to 1900 or before in German Village's Hey Hey Bar & Grill (1900) and the downtown-located Ringside Cafe (1897.)  With that said, even the more recent vintage eateries can be a fun trip back in time, and in two consecutive weekends, we randomly dropped by eateries which have roots to the decade proceeding World War II in Michael's Goody Boy Diner and Chef-O-Nette.

Three of a Perfect Fare: Luck Bros. Coffee

If one takes out a marker to a map, one will see it’s not too hard to divide up Columbus underrated local and Ohio-based coffee riches into compact threesomes. In Downtown alone, there are three such easy-to-roam-among shop triplets available (Winan’s, Red Velvet Cafe & Hemingway's Coffee Nook; Cup O Joe, One Line Coffee Huntington Center, and the original Cafe Brioso; and Stauf’s View on Grant, Roosevelt Coffeehouse, and Brioso Roastery.)
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The residents in and close to Grandview Heights also have a similar three-fer option. Two such places are basically just down the block from each other and the subjects of prior blog posts in Grandview Grind and the flagship Stauf’s.

The other is a nice brisk walk down Grandview and a left on 1st Avenue, but more than doable if you’re in any decent physical shape (I’ve done it myself.) This other destination, Luck Bros Coffee House, is also a bit of a surprise in that I’ve never blogged about them before despite numerous visits prior, and I figured it was time to fix that oversight.

Fast Food Reckoning: White Castle

My first exposure to White Castle anything was the 2004 cult classic movie
"Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle" starring John Cho and Kal Penn

While I'm not all that into fast food anymore compared to my younger days, my new surroundings here in Ohio made me realize that franchises that I grew up with such as Jack In The Box, In 'N Out Burger, and Carl's Jr. are now replaced by counterparts like Rally's, Skyline Chili and White Castle.  My initial thought was to simply ignore them at large, but sheer simple curiosity over time has made me wonder if these places would've earned a mostly fond place in my past fast food pantheon.

With that said, who goes first?  Two factors went into that, the first being a question that I posed to some friends and newly minted relatives about White Castle, the Columbus-based franchise that started in 1931 with a Wichita, Kansas location. They didn't think too much about the idea, unless I was itching for a date with indigestion or worse.

The second involved my first exposure to White Castle in the 2004 cult movie classic "Harold and Kumar go to White Castle." A recent showing of the movie on cable TV reminded me how truly whacked out the plot was, but it also reminded me of the level of love for this restaurant's iconic Slider, a burger deemed the country's "Most Influential" by Time Magazine.

So thus, the Castle it is for this post, the first of this long term look to figure out what might have made my fast food nostalgia list had they been available to me.

Food Truck Dossier: A Delicious Escape to the Cape

Big events like the Columbus Arts Festival aren't the only options for the many
Columbus food trucks (like The Cluckwagon and Schmidt's Sausage Truck) these days

As I mentioned in my previous food truck post rounding up some of my summer encounters, the combo of increased numbers of food trucks and increased numbers of places that host them within this city makes it tougher to even try all the menu items on a particular food truck.

That's not necessarily a bad thing - it is rare when any food entity does everything well, and with a food truck, you're usually pretty happy with two or three solid selections. Consider it a bonus when you find a food truck that does everything well; in those rare instances for us, we're more than happy to make trip out to where they're setup (Ajumama and their melding of Korean and Midwest comfort classics comes to mind.)

Then there are those rare trucks that feature something so novel and unique, you're willing to make the extra effort to check out what they have to offer and see how the dishes stack up.  This has definitely the case for me in regard to Hisham's, a newcomer to the Columbus scene.

Fond of Flora: The Franklin Park Conservatory

The Conservatory of Flowers in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, one of those
"For The Tourists" attractions I never considered visiting until later in my life

When I still lived in the Bay Area, there were several attractions that came under what I liked to call the "FTT" category, or "For The Tourists" category. Any number of things fell into this category, including but not exclusive to Pier 39 and Fisherman's Wharf, Cable Cars, Ghirardelli Square, and any number of restaurants. In fact, it wasn't until I began dating my wife long distance that I even thought about visiting "For The Tourist" places like Alcatraz Island or the Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park.

As I found out, what falls under this category when it comes to Columbus is a more murky affair, as many of the places that are recommended to visitors to the city are actually places that are enjoyed by the locals. Even then, one attraction stuck out in my mind as falling into this category, and a combo of an unexpected day off plus the signs of fall and colder temperatures on the horizon proved perfect for a perfectly enjoyable time sampling what the Franklin Park Conservatory and Botanical Gardens has to offer to the public.