Charleston Choosing (Part 4): Give Peace a Chance, and Sitting by the Dock of the Bay

The Charleston storefront of Columbus's very own Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams

Not surprisingly, coast-hugging Charleston is considered a hot bed of seafood, with numerous restaurants sporting all manner of sea creature creations on their menu. With its seasonally warm temperatures (the city averages 60 degree high temperatures in every month except January), Charleston has its fair share of frozen confection shops, from familiar chains (Ben & Jerry's, Haagen Dazs, and Kilwins), new arrivals (Jeni's, a brand very familiar Central Ohioans and growing in prominence nationwide), and local shops their own versions of ice cream, gelato, custard, and even the currently very trendy rolled ice cream variation.

On our Charleston trip, we got to dive into both, with some very tasty results indeed.

Big Craft Beer in a Small City: Small City Taphouse (Sandusky, OH)

Access to Lake Erie is just one of the reasons why locals and tourists
alike flock to Sandusky, the county seat of Erie County

The northern Ohio tourist destination that is Sandusky, best known for the world-famous roller coaster mecca Cedar Point Amusement Park, is not the first place I would expect a craft beer destination to reside. Not to say that this town of roughly 26,000 hasn't seen the effects of the state's craft beer boom - two nanobreweries in the forms of Ferndock Brewing and Amusement Ales and Brewing are currently cranking up their operations within the city limits.

Nor would I pick Sandusky as having certifiably solid restaurant specializing in Asian dishes. Heck, even a big city like Columbus still has its own issues in that department, considering a chain like P.F. Chang's can win (614)'s "ColumBest 2017" nomination for "Best Asian Restaurant."

But as the saying goes, appearances can be deceiving. Small City Taphouse, comfortably embedded within Sandusky's downtown, proved to be a winning enterprise on both those points to my spouse and I during a recent visit to their location with family.

Craft Beer San Diego (Pt.1): Where Even Chains Strive to Tread

 Bine & Vine, in San Diego's Normal Heights neighborhood,
operates as one of the best beer & wine bottle shops in the area

It's impossible to deny San Diego's status as a craft beer mecca: as I type, the region is on the verge of 140 total breweries, While the abundant sunshine that San Diego is known for was more than enough reason for our visit, this particular status provided the proverbial foamy head of affirmation on our "where shall we go?" destination stein.

However, it's easy to forget that, at least by California standards, this area was late to the party. Tom Acitelli's all-encompassing book on the emergence of the U.S. craft beer scene, "The Audacity of Hops", noted for several decades up until 1989, beer choices for the local consumer were either U.S. big beer adjunct lagers or their Mexican counterparts (Corona, Tecate, etc.) As detailed by Acitelli himself, "the craft beer movement...seemed a world away; the odd Anchor (Steam Brewing) tap or six-pack the only glimpse a San Diegan might catch of it."

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
Facebook     Instagram     Twitter     Website

Perched by the Lake: Brennan's Fish House (Grand River, OH)

Other than our trip to Niagara Falls, my parents were very non-committal on places they wanted to visit, leaving the role of tour guide to my spouse and I. In terms of food, one definite was a Filipino restaurant, which we were happy to find in Niagara Falls itself (our experience at Manila Flavours can be found at this prior post.)

The second definite food item was a taste of Great Lakes fish, specifically walleye and perch. While my parents have had plenty of experience with ocean fish and crustaceans, fresh water lake fish has never been much of an option on their dining plates. On our way back from Buffalo, we sussed out Brennan's Fish House, perched out near the Lake Erie shoreline in the village of Grand River.

When one drives into Grand River to the area where Brennan's is located, one can sense that this is a place that had once seen both better and worse days. Adjacent to Brennan's, a fairly large lot with a closed restaurant and parking lot as well as a funky barn building with an advertisement for Mail Pouch Chew Tobacco are quite prominent. Off in the distance, one can trace the Grand River, the town's namesake, downstream to where its mouth meets Lake Erie. On this sunny day, we spotted a boat slowly chugging down the river, further enhancing the lazy vibe of this fairly hidden area of Ohio.

Some of the paraphernalia (mostly nautical) found around Brennan's

The interior of Brennan's has more than its share of nautical and fish-related paraphernalia scattered about the premises; we ended up sitting next to a mini-display devoted to the most ubiquitous of Great Lakes shipping events: the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, the ore freighter which sank in a violent storm November of 1975 on Lake Superior.

The menu is also pretty typical of a seafood place, with plenty of options to get your fish and seafood jones taken care of. While most items (generally in the $10 to $20 range) are aimed for some big-time chowing down, a few items are sold in portion-sizes geared toward smaller appetites in either sandwich form or sans the bread and are friendlier to the budget. Other non-seafood basics like steak and chicken (listed on the menu as "Shore Picks") and a unique item or two (e.g. Frog Legs) are also available for restaurant-goers.

Brennan's menu and the Fried Walleye small appetite platter

Basically, we all ordered some form of the fried perch and walleye geared toward smaller appetites. Still, the portions we received still pretty substantial. Our food was prepared well, the fish was quite tasty, and we all felt quite stuffed and satisfied by the end of our lunch here. In addition, our servers couldn't be more friendly, assisting us with our menu choices and checking up on us to make sure things were going well.

Brennan's is a bit of a detour off the main Interstate between Buffalo and Cleveland (lying halfway between Ashtabula and Cleveland), but would not be too out of the way for those cruising closer to the shore (on State Route 2 or U.S. Highway 20) or for those who might have a little time to drop by an area with that has seen a nearly 180-year boom-and-bust history. If you and the residents of Grand River are lucky, you might be visiting during what the owners of the restaurant describe on the history section of their website as a "new era of growth and prosperity."

Brennan's Fish House
102 River St
Grand River, OH 44045
(440) 354-9785
Facebook   Website