Cajun Dave’s is located inside the Water Street Tavern and is basically just a counter and a kitchen.  We ordered the Cajun Dave’s fries ($8), appetizer gumbo ($5.50) and shrimp creole ($12) to split.  All apps were actually a dollar cheaper for their 3-7pm happy hour.  Jonathan ordered the smoked gouda mac-and-cheese.

We were a bit surprised at how long we had to wait for our food, about 30–35 minutes.  We also felt a tad out of place both as a family and 30–40 somethings.  The music is loud, there are lots of televisions, and almost no one looked over 23.

Once our food arrived, we were quite happy with it.  The fries were clearly fresh cut with lots of meaty debris (fragments of slow-cooked beef), cheddar cheese and horseradish sauce.  The portion was huge, enough for a meal for 3–4 people.  This was so tasty I kept thinking about it on the way home.

We also enjoyed the gumbo, which had a good cajun spice flavor and plenty of saucy shrimp, sausage and chicken.  We grabbed a bottle of hot sauce, though, to spice it up a bit.

The shrimp creole was a bit disappointing.  The tomato sauce could have used more depth of flavor, and even adding hot sauce didn’t quite kick it up enough.

Jonathan’s smoked gouda macaroni and cheese was a standout, though, rich (but not overly so) with nicely cooked pasta and plenty of smoky cheese flavor.  He was unhappy the next day that he couldn’t just eat leftover mac ‘n cheese rather than a regular Sunday dinner.

The beer list, like the establishment itself, is pretty mainstream.  The most adventurous options–bottles included–were Great Lakes Dortmunder and Shock Top Wheat IPA on draft.  I’ve had the GLD a lot–it’s a good standby–and the Shock Top was surprisingly tasty.  If you’re looking for an exciting beer list, though, try somewhere else.

We’d definitely like to eat more food from Cajun Dave’s–maybe the Shrimp and Crawfish Etouffe, the Jambalya, and a redux on the fires–but we could live without dining at the Water Street Tavern, at least on a Saturday night.  Take out might be a good option next time around.

The kids’ fishing event in Mogadore is also worth checking out.  It’s being repeated a few times in the next few months, is free and your kids get fishing equipment.  Give them a call if you’re interested.

Waffle with New Creations pepper bacon

The secret to perfect waffles is yeast, which results in highly risen, flavorful and crisp waffles.  Unfortunately,  yeast batter recipes (called “overnight waffles”) do not generally allow for a quick waffle fix.  However, using inspiration from Alton Brown’s English Muffin recipe, I realized that I could speed the process to a little over 30 minutes.  The ingredient list is from Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything.  His overnight recipe can be found here.

We had these for dinner, but they could easily be made quickly enough for a weekend breakfast or brunch.

Quick Yeast Waffles
(serves four hungry adults)

2 cups whole milk
8 TB (1 stick) butter
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 envelope yeast, active dry or instant
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour (or more white flour)
½ tsp. vanilla (optional)
2 eggs, beaten

(1) Warm milk and butter in a bowl in the microwave or on the stove in a saucepan to above body temperature, but not hot (between 100 and 130 degrees).  You can also warm these separately and combine them.

(2) Dissolve yeast and a pinch of sugar in milk/butter mixture. Let sit until foamy (around 5 minutes), then mix in eggs and optional vanilla.

(3) Combine flour(s), remaining sugar and salt in a medium bowl or 4 cup glass measuring cup. Add milk mixture and stir well

(4) Let dough sit in a warm place to rise for 30 minutes.  An oven quickly heated to 170 degrees and then turned off works well for this..

(5) Make waffles following the instructions on your waffle iron.  You will probably end up using a bit less batter per waffle than you would in baking powder waffles because of the amount these will rise.

We arrived at 6:00pm on a Friday night and got the last open table.  We were given menus–including a kids menu for Jonathan–and our drink order was taken quickly.

Deagan’s has an excellent selection of draft beers, making for a difficult decision.  I ordered the Green Flash Red IPA ($5).  It was perfectly balanced between the hops and bittersweet caramel from dark roasted malt.

The decor is warm, with high wooden ceilings and plenty of thick, dark wood in the chairs and tables as well.  The lighting was perfect, just dark enough to feel relaxed and intimate but bright enough to clearly see your food and surroundings.

Deviled Eggs

Deagan’s has a large variety of small bar snacks and appetizers.  Jonathan ordered a deviled egg ($3) and I had a Day oyster ($2.75).  Jonathan loved his egg and was kind enough to share some with me.  It was overflowing with filling, a tangy mix of lake erie creamery goat cheese, yolk, and sharp mustard.  The oyster was unbelievably mild, and the mango sorbet and fresh sofrito (chopped up tomatoes, other veggies and spices) made for perfect counterpoints.  For anyone who’s never tried an oyster, the subtle flavors on this version would make for an excellent first one.

We love charcuterie plates and appreciated that Deagan’s allows for customization.  We had the moody blue, a brie and prosciutto ($12).  We really enjoyed the subtle smokiness of the blue cheese, and the brie was the creamiest, mildest version we’ve ever had.  The accompaniments and prosciutto were excellent as well.  Deagan’s might be one of our favorite places in town for charcuterie, especially since Bar Cento had largely loaves and pates last time we visited.

Spicy Shrimp Tacos

Sarah had the spicy shrimp tacos for her entree ($9).  Despite these being under “small plates,” they felt like a full entree  without a side.  The tacos were stuffed with sharply spiced (but not overly hot), perfectly cooked shrimp and avocado.  They had a distinct Indian spicing to me, perhaps partially because of the micro cilantro.

I took a risk on the veggie burger sliders ($10).  I don’t usually like packaged veggie burgers, which are often a strange combination of TVP (a byproduct of soybean oil production often used in animal feed) and fake grill flavor.  The waitress assured me, though, that these were homemade.  They were excellent, nicely seared on the outside with a satisfying garbanzo bean mixture as the base.  The thinly sliced onions and spiced mayo provided a good, sharp counterpoint, and even the buns were well-made and rich tasting.  The truffled romano fries were also great, crispy and tasty with plenty of large shavings of cheese and subtle truffle flavor.

Veggie Burgers

Jonathan also enjoyed his medium cooked burger ($5).  Most places would give the kids a frozen or pre-cooked patty even if the adults got fresh, but their asking for a doneness on the kids’ burger clearly shows that they keep their high standards up for everyone.

Our service was excellent. The only complaint we might have is noise.  The music in the background was all but inaudible due to the sounds of conversation, which seems more amplified than absorbed by the open floor plan.  That said, we were still able to hear each other talk, and most of the time I was far more focused on the tastiness of the food and beer than on any background conversations.

We had no room for dessert, but might try it the next time we visit.

The establishment feels like a moderately upscale bar / restaurant with dark wooden beams and a stylish decor.  The ambience is informal, and we were among a number of groups with children.

Despite arriving before 5:30pm, we weren’t seated for a half hour.  The waiting area is small with few chairs, and we felt a bit cramped while standing. 

We were very comfortable once seated, though.  The booths are among the most comfortable in town, with thick, supportive uphostery.  Tables are set with a free basket of tasty, homemade potato chips, so any hunger pangs from waiting were immediately put at bay.

Jammy Buggars has an excellent list of draft and bottled beers, and I started with a Bourbon Barrel ale ($4.50).  Despite liking both bourbon and ale, this will be my last try on this beer, which is not smooth enough to fully evoke bourbon but too woody for beer.

For our appetizer we ordered the soft pretzel rolls ($7).  The pretzels themselves were perfectly airy but with a subtle bite on the outside.  The cheese dipping sauce was amazing, but the mustard and sweet cinnamon sauces were good, too.  We had no trouble quickly polishing these off, but next time we might request three crocks of the cheese.

Sarah ordered the Almost Downtown Chicken Hoagie ($10.25) for dinner.  The chicken was perfectly cooked and well-complimented by garlicky sauce and slab bacon.  The fries were also good, as was the bun.

I had the “Melted Amy” ($9.50), a focaccia sandwich with lots of vegetables–portabella, spinach, roasted pepper and onions–nicely complimented by garlicky boursin and provolone cheese.   While the sandwich was very tasty, I found it a bit bread-heavy and removed the top bun.  I was also filling up on a second beer, Victory’s Golden Monkey ($5.50).  My feelings on this high ABV Belgian have been middling in the bottle, but this draft version was outstanding, boozy and fruity with a bit of a hop kick on the tail end.

I had subbed the sweet potato fries ($1.50) for regular and was not disappointed.  They were mildly flavored with airy sweet potato under a cruchy exterior.

Jonathan had the kids’ macaroni and cheese ($5), which seemed to have the same cheese sauce that came with the pretzels.  He finished every bite.  We might try the adult mac and cheese in the future, which features andouille sausage, broccoli and tomatoes.

Our service was excellent.  Our waiter was friendly, knowledgeable and attentive.

“Jammy Buggars” is basically British slang for “lucky bastard.”   Based on the quality of the food and the reasonable prices, this is quite likely how you’ll feel after dining here.

The restaurant itself is plain, and the decor consists of the work of local artists (for sale) and plants.  Natural light abounds during the day.  The menu has not changed in decades — but this is a positive attribute.  Although known for being vegetarian, their menu does not exclude meat.  Some of the more popular items on the menu include milk shakes, french fries, toasted cheese (served on pita), salads with Louie dressing (a take on Thousand Island).

One of our favorites is the unusual pairing of hummus, toasted cheese and fresh vegetables.  Warm hummus with melted cheese sounds odd — but tastes really good.  Jonathan gave the dish the kid stamp of approval.  Our only minor complaint is that there should have been more pita bread to match the quantity of hummus.

On a recent visit Ben and I each tried something we haven’t had before from the menu.  I had a spinach pie with cheese, which was quite good.  I would definitely order it again.  It is meal sized, includes plenty of munster cheese and is pleasantly spiced.

Ben ordered the BLT, and added an egg.  The BLT is served on a pita like most of their other sandwiches.  It wasn’t quite as good as the other items we ordered–a bit light on the bacon–and might have been better with added cheese (but what isn’t?)

We skipped their excellent fries in order to experiment a bit, but we’ll definitely get them next time we visit.

Sarah from Top Chef recently won one episode with her sausage stuffed cabbage.  It looked really good to me, so I decided to make it.

Sarah (from this blog, not Top Chef) typically dislikes stuffed cabbage, which is usually filled with a tomato beef sauce.  This recipe has no tomatoes but lots of vegetables.  In addition to the big cabbage leaves, the meat mixture also contains more cabbage and onions and is stuffed into kale.  Sarah really liked it, and even Jonathan enjoyed it.

The recipe we made is modified in a number of ways from the Top Chef recipe published here.  It uses less butter and less olive oil.  And, instead of two small heads of cabbage (green and Napa), we used the one large head we got from City Fresh.  It might be very good with Napa, though.  I wouldn’t suggest following the original recipe to the letter.  Bravo tends to be pretty sloppy with these, including not mentioning when the onions are sauteed, putting “spinach” in the name of a recipe that contains no spinach and never mentioning what to do with one of the sticks of butter.

Pork Sausage Stuffed Cabbage and Kale with Browned Butter

1 head green cabbage
1 bunch kale, preferably Tuscan, large leaves
8 ounces pork shoulder or ground pork
2 ounces smoked bacon
1 cup grated Parmesan
12 saltine crackers
1 egg
2 TB olive oil
1 stick butter, divided
kosher salt and black pepper, to taste
2 shallots, thinly sliced
1 sprig rosemary
1/2 medium onion, minced
8 year old balsamic, drizzle

1. Heat a large pot of water to a boil. Season with kosher salt.

2. Sauté onions in 2 TB butter.
3. Strip the large leaves from half of the green cabbage, then shred the remaining cabbage and add to onions.
4. Remove stems from kale leaves and cook in boiling water for 5 minutes, then cool in ice water. Repeat step for whole cabbage leaves, cook for 3 minutes.
5. With a meat grinder attachment for the kitchen aid, grind pork butt and bacon together. Season with salt (about 1 teaspoon) and pepper. If using ground pork, finely chop the bacon and add to ground pork.
6. Remove cooked shredded cabbage and onion from the sauté pan, reserve.
7. Add ground meat mixture to the pan and cook. Remove and add to shredded cabbage and onions..
8. In a food processor or coffee grinder, pulse the saltine crackers until smooth.
9. Place the cabbage/meat mixture in a bowl and mix in crackers. Add 1 egg and 1/2 cup grated parmesan. Season with salt and pepper.
10. Lay out blanched kale on a cutting board. Evenly distribute the filling mixture.
11. Roll kale up into cigar shape.
12. Lay out whole cabbage leaves.
13. Roll kale rolls into the cabbage. Lay rolls in a casserole dish and top with a few pats of butter. Bake for 25 minutes at 375 degrees Fahrenheit.
14. Heat 2 TB olive oil in a small sauté pan over medium heat. Add shallots and fry on low until golden brown. Remove from oil
15. Heat remaining butter (about 5 TB) over medium heat until brown, remove.
16. Remove cabbage from oven, top with parmesan, shallots, rosemary sprig. Finish with brown butter and drizzle balsamic.

I’ve been to Palookaville Chili twice, both times during lunch.  The first time was late summer, a period which in theory is not “chili weather.”  I work in Parma, so, if I can get off work early, Palookaville is basically on my way home.

Despite the fact that there’s only really one specialty here, their menu is actually a lot more diverse than, say, Chipotle’s.  There are five kinds of chili including pork, beef, chicken and two vegetarian options, with a variety of spice levels.  You can have your chili in a bowl, over chips (“nacho grande”), on a hot dog, over pasta or in a burrito.  They also offer pulled pork and BBQ chicken sandwiches.  Optional toppings include fresh jalapenos, cheese, red onions, sour cream and bacon.

Thus far I’ve only ordered vegetarian options as I usually prefer light lunches.  Their spicy veggie chili is amazing.  I did a quick inventory of my palate after having a bite to verify that they hadn’t snuck meat in there, but apparently it’s based in garbanzo beans and barley.  I talked to the owner afterwards to figure out how he pulled off such a spicy, rich, complex chili with only vegetables.  He told me that it was based on months of taste-testing various mixes of dried chilies.

On my next visit I got the spinach paneer chili featuring cubes of fresh Indian cheese (sort of a dense solid ricotta) over adobo chips.  The combination of Indian and southwest flavors was really unique.  This was milder than the standard veggie, but still very richly flavored.   The adobo chips are also excellent, thick, crunchy and covered with hot (but not too hot) chili spice.

I came with Jonathan, who ordered a plain hot dog both times.  This is a convenient alternative for those less adventurous.

My biggest complaints about Palookaville are that they close at 4:00 pm and don’t have an east side location.   I asked the owner about the early close time, and he said that business seemed to dry up in the evening.   He also mentioned a BYOB policy that never seemed to catch on.  Maybe because people didn’t know about it?

The service has been excellent during both visits.

If you do want a dinner option, they offer quarts of chili to go.  Ideally, though, people will start pestering the owner about opening back up for dinner.   They’re already pretty crowded at lunch.

Typically one doesn’t think of restaurants around E. 4th and Euclid Avenue as being kid-friendly, but Jonathan Sawyer’s Noodlecat is an exception to the rule.

The restaurant is a nice mix of casual and upscale and seems like it would appeal to a wide variety of clientele.  Sarah and I met there for lunch and decided that bringing Jonathan next time would be a good idea.

Sarah was drawn to the pork dishes, the Hokkaido Ramen (pictured above) on the first visit and the Pork Miso Ramen the second time.  Both were very good, with the Hokkaido being notable for the plethora of yummy corn.  Sarah slightly preferred the Pork Miso for its more intensely flavored broth.   Both had tasty, perfectly tender pork.

My favorite dish thus far has been Kyoto Udon.  The rich mushrooms and kombu stock make for one of the most complex and satisfying soups I’ve ever tried.  The tofu makes the dish more substantial–the soup would be great for dinner as well.

On my next visit I tried the Tempura Soba Dori.  All of their noodles are made by Ohio City pasta, and these were particularly good.  The zucchini tempura fritter and greens were also tasty, but, unlike the vegetarian Kyoto Udon, this dish felt like it could have used protein and a richer broth to give it more substance.

Jonathan ordered the kid’s portion of the College Ramen featuring peas, corn and chicken broth.  He kept calling it “the best noodles I’ve ever had” and wanted his leftovers later that day.

We also ordered the rice cakes as an appetizer, which all three of us enjoyed.  They were basically a very good rendition of sushi rice without the sushi.  The dipping sauce is especially good.

We look forward to future visits to Noodlecat, maybe for dinner next time.

We’d been meaning to check out Luna Bakery ever since it opened as we’re big fans of On The Rise and Stone Oven.  I grabbed some items on a Saturday morning and brought them home for the family, and we really enjoyed everything we got.

While Luna is largely operated by people from Stone Oven (along with Flour Girl), their menu leans more towards a French-style bakery.  They offer quite a variety of sweet and savory crepes.  I ordered the dark chocolate, which was very good, filled with gooey melted dark chocolate and topped with a variety of fresh berries.

We couldn’t resist the pastries, and everything we ordered was excellent.  The oatmeal chocolate chip cookie was crisp and buttery on the outside but soft inside, with plenty of chocolate chips.   The triple chocolate was fudgy but not heavy, and the PB & J was a playful sandwich of two fluffy peanut butter cookies and jam.  The croissant was liberally stuffed with ham and cheese and would make a great inexpensive breakfast on its own.

We plan on making many return visits and are excited to try their lunch menu.

So we figured we’d get more fish if we went out on Lake Erie on a charter boat.  We booked a Saturday 2-8pm trip at Wildwood Marina off Euclid Beach.  Another rider who was next to us, Jim, suggested that people often have “beginner’s luck.”  That might have been an understatement, but it was equally distributed throughout the boat.

We arrived at about 1pm as suggested in the guidelines, bought bait (70+ minnows), and boarded the boat at 1:45pm.  Sarah forgot her license but got a one-day license for $4.

The boat was somewhat wavy, and Jonathan especially was a bit nervous.  We were at our destination in less than an hour, though–they find clusters of fish through a GPS-type system.

Within a minute of dropping my line in the water, I had my first ever perch.  Shortly after, Sarah and Jonathan both got fish, and they just kept coming.  I wasn’t getting many after my first, but then I realized that this might have something to do with the crew’s baiting Sarah’s and Jonathan’s lines while letting me do my own (probably because I was male).  I eventually learned how to bait the minnow better, twice through with the head facing down, and I started getting more fish.

By the end of our trip, we’d filled a 5 gallon bucket with 68 perch and one catfish (caught by Sarah).  We also threw back a number of large sheepshead.  I was a bit interested in keeping one or two, but a crew member described them as tasting “like cardboard,” so we threw them back.  I’m still a tad curious, though, as some people have suggested that we should make better use of sheepshead.

We ended an hour before the standard time to tow a motorboat that had run out of gas, but the ship still caught 420 perch–the upper limit allowed by law for 14 passengers.  We were out on the best trip of the season so far for Wildwood’s perch charters, and this was with afternoon fishing, which isn’t supposed to be as good as early or late.  Maybe it had something to do with the storm that was coming later that night.  One way or another, the fish were in a feeding frenzy.

We’d highly recommend the charter and would have enjoyed it even if we’d only caught a handful of fish.  The cost is $35–37 per adult and $25 per child under 16, plus tip.  They also do a great job cleaning your catch for only 60 cents per fish, and even an experienced fisherman said that was “worth every penny.”  The crew is friendly and helpful.  We cooked some fillets the day after our trip, and they were outstanding just coated in flour, salt and pepper and pan fried in a little butter and garlic–really sweet with not even a trace of fishy flavor.  We ended up with a little over nine pounds of cleaned fish.