Located in Ye Olde Worthington, PK O'Ryan's is an Irish restaurant / pub with quality food and a decent beer selection. For the purposes of this review, I will only be focusing on the pub, as I've never eaten in the other section.
The pub is most easily accessed from the parking lot behind the establishment. Due to it's location directly next to Scottie's Coffee Shop, the parking lot is often pretty full - but there is another lot adjacent to this one (just to the south) and there is a public parking lot behind the Grand Lodge of Ohio (Masonic Lodge just south of New England Street).
As is typical of an Irish pub, the bar is a nice dark wood as are the chairs and tables. The food is fairly standard bar food: appetizers, burgers, wraps and the like. Most selections are priced around $10 and the majority of beers are in the $5 ballpark. Additionally, they keep a pretty solid selection of Irish Whiskeys and Scotches behind the bar. Unfortunately, Scotch isn't really my thing, so I can't tell you much about the quality of the ones they have.
My personal favorites are the burgers: three of the best are the Hickory burger, Black & Bleu burger and the cheeseburger wrap. All burgers are served with PK's signature beer battered fries and a pickle spear.
- Hickory: comes w/ BBQ sauce, lettuce, tomato, onion & cheese
- Black & Bleu: blackened cajun style and blue cheese crumbles melted over it
- Wrap: for the carb conscious, this is served burrito style in a large wrap instead of on a bun. I recommend ordering it with both American & Mozzarella and adding some A1 sauce to it!
One of my favorite parts of PKs is the constantly changing beer selection. Of course the good old standbys of Guiness, Harp & Newcastle as well as Strongbow Cider in a can. The tap selections change throughout the year based on what's available seasonally. Last night I ordered Thirsty Dog Brewing Co.'s (Akron, Ohio) 12 Dogs of Christmas Ale. At present, I'm going to say this is one of my favorite Christmas Seasonals. 12 Dogs had a lot of nice holiday seasonings to it - nutmeg, honey, cinnamon and the like - nice and smooth with a clean finish.
PKs has become one of my favorite haunts over the past couple years, though my number one gripe is how early they close, but this is likely due to the Worthington location. During the week, the kitchen closes at 10p (bar is open until midnight) and both (kitchen and bar) are open an hour later on Friday & Saturday (11p & 1a, respectively).
In all, the food is pretty quality, but a little pricey. The service is generally pretty good, but can be slow when they are busy, and most of the servers / bartenders will get to know you by name within a couple of times.
Basic info:
Website - http://www.pkoryans.com/
Location - Old Worthington @ 666 High Street, Worthington 43085
Phone - 614.781.0770
Victor's Rating = 3.5 (0-5 scale)
A relaxing oasis in the Short North, ZenCha has a very simple charm with plenty of natural bamboo and other wooden furnishings to evoke a sense of serenity stereotypically conjured up at the thought of the Far East and its teas.
For those who are not tea aficionados (a category your humble guide falls into), the tea menu can appear quite daunting. Approximately 100 choices are listed on the 2 sided fold out tea menu, many similar to the one directly adjacent to the other, but each unique & subtly different. Fortunately, the items are grouped in a manner that allows the diner to chose a type that they're familiar with or to try something related to another choice they've previously enjoyed.
ZenCha touches on virtually all manners of tea that I can think of - iced, hot, Indian Chais, English, Arabic, milk teas, bubble teas, herbal "teas", seasonal fruit teas, and so on. Additionally, the Salon offers two menus - one for brunch and one for the remainder of the day.
The afternoon / evening menu consists of a satisfying array of food from soups & salads to Asian noodle dishes to English Tea snacks (scones, cookies, cakes & the like). As I did not go during brunch, I didn't inspect the menu that closely - but you can find the full menu here.
Since Chai is the tea that I am most fond of, I started with a pot of the Indian Vanilla Chai (~$5). This was a very welcome departure from the mass produced mixes most of the coffee shops use. Black tea and milk mixed with subtle vanilla & honey undertones produced a sweet & flavorful beverage that was not overly sugary - as many of the prepared mixes are.
Accompanying my Chai was a decent sized ginger scone (~$2), served with a whipped butter concoction such as one you'd use with a cinnamon roll. In all, it was a satisfying snack.
Following this combination, I decided to try another variety - after all, with ~100 to choose from, you may as well, right? For my second pot, I traveled to the Arabic section of the menu for the Cinnamon Orange variety. This was a black tea mixed with fresh ground cinnamon & a generous amount of orange peel. The cinnamon had a nice strong bite to it, evocative of the childhood candy Hot Tamales, but the orange was a subtle background note adding its citric sweetness. Unsullied with sugar & milk - this is the way flavored black teas should be enjoyed.
Basic info:
Website - http://zen-cha.com/
Location - Short North District @ 982 N. High Street, Columbus 43201
Phone - 614.421.2140
Victor's Rating = 4.0 (0-5 scale)
First up - I just want to say the URL for the Jazz & Rib Fest is EPIC! http://www.hotribscooljazz.org/
According to the website, the festival traces its roots back to 1979 but it wasn't until 1990 when the separate jazz (Riverfront Jazz Festival) and rib (UpDowntowners' RibFest) festivals merged together into one event. Recently, Columbus Recreation & Parks took over the production of the festival in 2006.
For years I've been saying that I was going to go to this, but something has always come up. This year, I finally had the opportunity to go.
There were two separate stages for bands to play on, but the sound didn't travel too far into the rib smokers' area, so you had to stake out a piece of real estate closer to the stage if you wanted to hear the bands. A lot of people brought those little canopy tents to give themselves some shade. Needless to say, with the temp approaching 90F and fairly high humidity and full sun - this was a pretty good idea!
One of my biggest complaints was that most places considered their rib 'sampler' to be 3-4 rib bones. Four is 1/3 of a full rack, and for me, that's a meal in and of itself. Walking around, it was tough to choose whose ribs I should sample - all of the vendors had large vinyl signs stating how many 1st place awards, peoples choice awards, etc. they had, so looking for these to make a determination wasn't going to work. Another option was to look for the place w/ the longest line - but that would involve standing in that line.
I decided to go with the "distance traveled" method. I looked where every vendor was from and chose the one who traveled the furthest - they have to be pretty confident in their product to travel so far, right? With that methodology set, I tried a sampler from the Aussom Aussie Australian BBQ from Sydney, Australia.
The Aussie's pork ribs weren't smothered in sauce (a good thing) and I didn't add any - but they were dripping with the juices of the animal as you bite into them - proving that they were not over cooked and adequately moist (Rib 'Sampler' - 4 bones, $7). A nice crusty 'bark' had been grilled into one side of each rib that offered a solid, crunchy texture as well. I felt the ribs weren't quite as "falling-aparty" as I thought they should be - but they were still pretty epic.
Additionally, the Aussie offered a cornbread hunk as a side ($3 per piece) that had full kernels right off the cob cooked into it, adding a nice texture and helping to keep the bread from drying out in the cooking process.
Since this was late July and approaching 90F - drinks were a must. For the short time I was at the festival, I went through a number of the fresh shaken lemonades that were sold everywhere at the event. A small ($3) consisted of 1/2 a lemon freshly squeezed into an ice filled shaker, a scoop of sugar, and water to top it off shaken right when you ordered it. The large ($5) used an additional 1/2 of lemon and more of each other ingredient. They were not as tart or lemony as I anticipated and were just the thing to deal with the heat. Though I would have probably used an extra 1/2 lemon for each size.
Considering the lessons learned this year about the amount of choices, the size of the "samplers" and the heat - next time I plan on spreading my trip out over the full 3 days of the festival (admission is FREE) and trying to research the participants a little better. In all - I was satisfied that I made it down, but would like to spend more time listening to the music and sampling a larger variety of ribs.
Basic info:
Website - http://www.hotribscooljazz.org/
Location - Downtown / Arena District at NorthBank Park (Junction of Neil Av. & Spring St.)
Phone - 614.645.7995 (Columbus Recreation & Parks Office of Special Events)
Victor's Rating = 3.50 (0-5 scale)
Little Palace is a newer establishment owned by the same individuals as Club 185 in German Village and located fairly close to it, though north of I-70 / I-71 in the downtown area. As I understand it, there was something there before and the owners liked the sign, so they kept the name. The menu is sparse and everything is a la carte - though my sampling was simply delightful.
Much like Club 185, the decor is dark and comfortable. Molded motifs around the ceiling, dark gray & comfortable benches, dark red paint & metal bar stools. The kitchen is at the end of the bar & has large, open pass-through windows - short order style. Located directly next to Dirty Frank's (of the Betty's Family of restaurants), Little Palace was far less crowded and had a very friendly staff.
The menu consisted if appetizers, pizzas, mini burgers and sides - all seemed to be pretty reasonably priced.
I chose the double burger ($3) without the pickles. The onions were of the grilled shoe-string variety and nicely caramelized. Each patty was around 3oz, so the double made for a satisfying serving size, though with the mini buns, it was a little too tall to eat comfortably. Nicely cooked medium with lots of clear juices running with every bite, the burger was stellar.
A side of fresh-cut fries ($2) was my choice of a side - though Brussels Sprouts were another offering on the side-dish menu. A nice, hot, fluffy interior was a welcome surprise when biting into the fries. Rounding the meal off was a simple Sprite - though the bar appeared to be well stocked.
For a total cost of $7.20 + a $2.80 tip ($10) this was a welcome change from some of my usual haunts & I'm pretty sure I'd like to check it out again.
Basic info:
Website - http://littlepalacerestaurant.com/
Location - Downtown - 240 S. Fourth St (North of I-70 / I-71 & German Village next to Dirty Frank's)
Phone - 614.460.8888
Victor's Rating = 3.75 (0-5 scale)
welcome back!MetroParks Winter Hike Series: I failed out loud on this one. I did go to the hike @ Sharon Woods which was pretty solid. There was a fair amount of snow on the ground, which made the hike difficult, but it was very satisfying. The hike was a decent length (roughly 4mi) and moderately challenging. A few hills broke up the flat surfaces and the addition of the unpacked snow helped to increase the difficulty rating on the route.
The end of the hike found us rewarded with a white chicken chili. Nice spice content to it & the warmth from it helped immensely considering the cool weather. My only complaint was that they ran out of hot chocolate :-(
Carmina Burana: My date to the show described it as "80% tribal dance & 20% orgy". This piece was not as evocative of my opinions of 'classical ballet' as I had anticipated. The costumes & movements were designed to show off the strength, musculature, & athleticism of the dancers. Dance moves consisted of a lot of intricately choreographed movements & work on the ground and far less leaps & throws that I think of in relation to ballet. Unfortunately, the work was performed to a recording of Orff's classical work and not with a live corps of musicians. As I understand it, BalletMET had some funding issues this year - but is looking to see sufficient increases in their funding to hire on 2 more full time dancers & bring musicians (many from the CSO) in to perform live.
The other piece of this performance was entertaining & more in line with what I expected from a ballet. Overall, both pieces were enjoyable & I found myself baffled by the incredible display of athleticism and the stunningly muscular / athletic builds on the performers. As a huge fan of this work by Carl Orff, I hope he would've been proud of this very primal, athletic & intense performance to his most amazing piece.
Columbus Symphony - Violin Concerto: I've been to a few CSO performances already this year, but I'd like to write on this one in particular. First, the conductor was stunning. Ms. Alondra de la Parra (Alondra's Website) was absolutely amazing & legitimately looked exhausted following the Mahler Symphony. She was incredibly expressive & exuded a passion and intensity I've seen in very few conductors.
The guest violinist - James Ehnes - who won a Grammy in 2008, played sublimely in the Barber Violin Concerto & treated the audience to one of Paganini's Caprices - which was both stunning to watch and musically complex. In all, it was a beautiful show & the entirety of the CSO played delightfully.
