We went to Portside Pizza at nearby Shriner Lake tonight.  We joined in on a gathering of family and friends to remember my brother Dave tonight at the last minute.  We’d never been to Portside Pizza.  We’d been past it any number of times, it’s on a favorite bicycling route of ours, but whenever we’d asked anyone about it, the response was universal. “Portside Pizza?  It’s really bad.” No one ever omitted the adverb “really.”

We were surprised and pleased to find it just delightful. Tuesday nights are some sort of special event night, yet our waitress managed to keep us in beer, no mean feat with our crowd. Debbie and I got a “Portside Pizza”, essentially an “everything” pizza and it was splendid. The crust was crisp, the toppings abundant, and it was hot through and through.

And the check was just 23 bucks for the pizza and way too much beer. If you ever find yourself Shriner Lake way, Portside Pizza is really good!

Check them out on Facebook: Portside Pizza.

Debbie and I have started writing a weekly column on buscovoice.com. If you’re one of the many who just can’t get enough of the witty, insightful, and often brilliant writing on zumbrun.net, check out our Two Farmers and a Fork at Local Columnists

We’re on vacation in Topsail Beach, North Carolina. It’s 800 miles from home, so we took 2 days to drive here and had several interesting dining experiences along the way.

Around suppertime the first day we were looking for a place to eat and around Marietta, Ohio there were signs on the Interstate for Applebees and Bob Evans so we pulled off on Highway 7. As we wheeled into the parking lot that surrounded the Applebees Debbie spotted a storefront Mexican place. She said, “wanna try the Mexican place?” I said, “sure.”

What a find! Las Trancas. When we stepped in I figured we were in for something good. The open storefront had been artfully divided up in several dining spaces, the wait staff were all in uniforms, the decor was nice, and most tellingly, the place was packed at 5:20 in the evening.

Debbie ordered up carne asada and I got carnitas. Yum, yum, yum! Debbie’s beef was fresh and perfectly cooked with a beautiful sear. My carnitas were moist and rich with delicious charred bits. So, so good! If you ever find yourself in Marietta, Ohio, check it out.

We stayed that night in Beckley, West Virginia. We started off early the next morning and had breakfast in the Omelet Shoppe next to the hotel. I was delighted to see grits on the menu and ordered them. When I did our waitress said, “ummph.” Debbie said, “what, you don’t like grits?” The waitress said, “well, not here. I like them if my momma cooks them.” Now there’s a sterling recommendation. But to this Yankee they tasted just fine.

Finally rolling downhill towards Topsail Beach on I-40 we stopped at a Smithfield Chicken and BBQ (or SCNB as some of the signs say.) It’s a regional chain of fast food BBQ and chicken. The pulled pork was just splendid. They serve it with cole slaw and vinegary sauce. It’s definitely fast food bbq, but it’s real tasty all the same. And the service they provide is a model for what all restaurants should be.

Now we’re at Topsail, enjoying fresh shrimp every day.

Wow… Wow… Did I say wow?

Sustainable farming, slow food, local eating, etc are often, and often justifiably, accused of being elitist, impractical, expensive, utopian.   I agree with  lot of that criticism.  The idea that we’re going farm vacant urban lots or create vertical gardens and feed the world is just dumb.

Utopian dreams aside, there’s a lot I agree with in the whole ecotarian movement.   You should eat locally when it makes sense.  Sustainable agriculture makes sense (Well, duh.  Who’d be in favor of unsustainable agriculture?).  Cooking at home from scratch is sensible.    You don’t have to go off the deep end and vow to only eat locally for a year, insist all chickens be allowed to run free, or never let anything containing white sugar pass your lips.  There’s a sensible middle ground.

Harvest House exemplifies that middle ground for a restaurant.  You step into Harvest House and it’s nice. The decor is pleasant, and it’s spotlessly clean. Nice. You look at the menu and it has what you’d expect in small town breakfast and lunch place. Soups and salads, sandwiches and a white board with specials.  Nice.

Then you get your food and take a bite and you realize it’s a lot more than just nice, it’s something special.

I had a breaded tenderloin with ‘Harvest House chips.’ Pretty standard fare for Northeast Indiana. We love our breaded tenderloins. Breaded, salt-laced, deep fried delights with only the barest hint of pork under all that breading and grease.

The Harvest House menu advertised their tenderloin as hand breaded. And it was. It was a piece of real pork, tender and moist, not pounded paper thin, but a tasty quarter inch slice. The breading was panko-like and fried to a perfect light golden brown.  It’s OK to eat meat.  It’s even OK to eat breaded, deep fried meat.  It doesn’t have to be an overly processed, overly breaded, overly salted, overly fried gastronomic nightmare.

The Harvest House chips were like homemade potato chips. A bit thicker than commercial chips, and unlike commercial chips they actually tasted like potatoes.  Like the tenderloin, there’s nothing wrong with enjoying a fried potato with salt on it.  It doesn’t have to be the smallest wafer of potato possible that hold together when fried in whatever is the cheapest oil available (i.e., commercial potato chips.)

There’s a little information available about Harvest House on the web. It talks about their commitment to and use of recycling, sustainable farming, and local produce. Their restaurant is living proof that these concepts aren’t unaffordable uptopian dreams, but something that could be, and is, happening today right in our backyards.

If you find yourself anywhere near Albion, Indiana at breakfast or lunch time (seven days a week), you should stop at Harvest House.  I’d provide more explicit directions, but honestly, if you can’t find something in Albion you need more help than I give you (hint, it’s by the stoplight).

We had dinner at Cerulean tonight.  It’s been a long hard spring that shows no sign of ending as we head towards July.  We planted a bunch of trees today in standing water, mud, and relentless humidity.  It seemed like a good day to let someone cook and clean and serve us.

We picked Cerulean mostly because it’s such a nice space. The decor is au courant, the servers quiet and professional, the food exceptional.

Tonight it was all that and more.

We ordered wines by the glass and small plates so we could sample lots of different things.  The small plates were:

• Maple Leaf Duck Breast with blueberry-green peppercorn chutney.  OMG.  If you’ve ever cooked duck at home you know what a terrible mess it makes and how hard it is to get it right.  This was cooked to absolute simple perfection.  And we didn’t have to clean the stove.
• Crispy Potatoes with pancetta, manchego,  and roasted garlic-dill sauce.  Think oven roasted potatoes as they would serve in heaven and you won’t be far off.
• Grilled Asparagus with pancetta, manchego cheese, and garlic oil.  You may be thinking, “that sounds like the potatoes.”  But the grilled asparagus is a crispy, caramelized, buttery vegetable delight.
• Sauteed Shrimp with artichoke tapenade, cherry tomato and basil cream.  Artichoke tapenade?   Yep, just what it sounds like.  Artichoke leaves with chopped olives.  Sounds odd, but it was so tasty.
• Ceviche Sea Scallops with arugula, chive oil, parmigiano reggiano and  smoked sea salt.  “Do you know what ceviche is?” asked our server Chris.  Yes I do, and after eating this you wonder why you’d ever cook a scallop with heat.
• and the topper of them all, House Cured Pork Belly with mascarpone polenta and fried egg.

Ok.  If pork belly isn’t ridiculously rich and decadent, let’s top it with cheesy grits and an egg!  You’d think it would be too much, but it wasn’t.  A slice of pork belly, swiped through the polenta and egg, was deeply and fundamentally delicious.

Cerulean was, as always, busy.  There was a couple in the booth across from us, and the lady had been through, or was still going through, chemotherapy.

It was a moment that makes you think.  Despite a late and frustrating spring, despite weather that saps you everyday, despite a failing body, despite unemployment and oil spewing into the Gulf and pick your crisis of the day, you’re here today and life is sweet and short and when you get a chance to eat pork belly with cheesy grits and egg you’d be a fool to pass that up.

On April Fool’s Day we went with friends Jeff and Deena to a beer and pub food tasting at Cerulean. It was a sunny warm day, a perfect day to sit with friends along the canal in Winona Lake, watch the sun go down, and enjoy some great beer and food.

There were about 30 people there, and we were the oldest by at least 20 years. The young and hip were tweeting it all during meal. Ol’ grandpa is doing it old school, blogging it 3 days later.

They started us off with a beer made by a local homebrewer (that had to break all sorts of Indiana’s ridiculous liquor laws) and then an aperitif beer. See the beer list if you’re interested in the details of each beer.

Having had a homebrew amuse-bouche and then the Hennepin aperitif, I was definitely ready for some food. First up on the food was Cerulean’s take on fish and chips; skate, breaded and fried, with blue potato chips.  The enormous portion was light and tasty.

Next up was roast chicken, basted with honey and saffron to go with the Midas Touch.   It was splendid and the touch of sweetness from the honey went nicely with the beer.    If half a chicken wasn’t enough, there was a ramekin  of incredibly rich macaroni and cheese for a side dish.

The next beer was a stout and they served that with two small hamburgers.  One was a traditional pork and beef burger on a grilled bun with tomatoes and ketchup-like sauce (I forget exactly what it was, we were deep into the beer at this point.)  The other burger was on grilled sandwich bread and was topped with a hard-fried egg and crispy onion rings.  It had a pesto sauce on the side.

The meal rolled inexorably on to dessert.  The beer(s) were Framboise and Double Chocolate Stout.  You mixed it them together to get the blend of raspberry and chocolate that you liked.  The dessert was a chocolate banana cake.

We’ve been to Cerulean several times for meals and have always been impressed. This was our first time for a tasting and it didn’t disappoint.

Click below to see the beer list:

If you haven’t been to Sandra D’s in Auburn you’re missing a gem.

Sandra D’s

Absolutely splendid Italian food at splendidly reasonable prices.

If you’re coming from Fort Wayne just take Clinton Street north until you hit Auburn and then turn right into their parking lot. The street will twist and change names 3 or 4 times in Auburn. Fort Wayne’s street system may seem idiotic with the same street having multiple names, but Fort Wayne has nothing over tiny Auburn when it comes to confusing street names.

Not as hard to find as the Italian Connection, but still if you don’t know where it is, it’s hard to find even in these days of Internet maps.  Here’s directions: go to Warsaw, turn left, wander about in various horrible strip malls and declining industrial areas, make a U-turn, another left, park in a grass and dirt lot, and you’re there!

We went to Noa Noa on a whim one Tuesday evening.  Friends had told us years ago it was good, and we finally got around to going.

Waited way too long.  It was exceptional.

I had Cajun oysters as an appetizer.  They were plump, tasty, fresh.  Oysters lightly breaded with Cajun spices and fried.  Debbie got satay beef skewers, also perfectly spiced, tender and tasty.

Dinner was a wood grilled marlin with curry sauce on rice for me.  Deb continued a Thai theme with grouper sauteed with Thai spices.  It was all so, so good.  The menu is centered on West Indies and Thai flavors.  I’m not a huge fan of that, but this was all so well prepared with good ingredients that I’d recommend Noa Noa to anyone.

Dessert was a key lime pie.  It didn’t disappoint.  A nice crust, a tart lime filling.  Perfect.

As good as the food was, the service was even better.  We’ve dined at amazing places, Charlie Trotter’s in Chicago, Pigall’s in Cincy, Rockpool in Sydney, and let me tell you, the service at Noa Noa was better than any of those.  We’ve only been to Noa Noa once, so maybe we got their one and only perfect server (Stephanie).  But it was crazy busy, even though it was Tuesday night, Stephanie was taking care of many tables, some of them both large and ’special’, and she never missed a beat for us.  Everything came up right when it should, she was attentive, and the bill handled right on cue.  It was the single most impressive display of restaurant service I’ve experienced.

So get yourself to Warsaw and hunt down Noa Noa.

Noa Noa Revisited: 8/03/2010

We went to Noa Noa again tonight and the food was insanely good. Truly exceptional. Unfortunately the service was exceptionally awful. Our server for some reason took appetizer orders for 4 people of our party of 6, and then wandered off, and never did come back for the other two. Entrees came to the table a few at a time, the last one arriving about the time the first were finished. Dessert was much the same, two delivered to the table, then another, finally the last when the first two were done. I could see least some of the interactions of the server and the kitchen, and well, it wasn’t a kitchen problem.

December 08 – Cerca Trova has closed.  R.I.P. 

Seek and you shall find… I’ve traveled all over and in cities all over the world there are tiny Italian neighborhood restaurants.  Pa cooking, Ma (or the neighborhood girl or boy) serving fantastic fresh food, and tasty and modestly priced wines.  Other than the absolutely delightful Italian Connection, Fort Wayne had been lacking these sorts of places.  No more.  Cerca Trova, located on East State in a strip mall, is just that sort of place.

Cerca Trova might be a bit more upscale than your typical trattoria, but it’s still a gem.  Dinner started with a complimentary garlicky aiola and bread with fennel seeds, followed by a tiny meatball with pickled Italian vegatables.  (What exactly are Italian vegtables?  Beats me, but they were tasty.)

I had gnocchi for an appetizer, and to put it simply, it was the best I’ve ever had, and I’ve eaten a lot of gnocchi, bucko.  Debbie had fried artichokes that were very tasty.

For a main course I had a ravioli duo, one was ground beef, one was cheese and spinach.  The ground beef was so good, it was coarse ground, like sausage, so flavorful and such a pleasing texture. 

The one sour note in the evening was Debbie’s pork milanese.  The pork tasted strongly of refrigerator (never order pork on Tuesday?  to pun on Anthony Bourdain, though I don’t think he can claim to be the first to say, “never order fish on Monday.” And it was sadly lacking in the lemony bite I’d expect in a milanese style dish.

Desserts (key lime cream and cannoli) were splendid, as was the espresso I had to go with it.

Despite the flub on the pork milanese, everything else was so good I don’t hesitate to recommend Cerca Trova to you.

We’ve been visiting old favorites lately, and in every case, they remain favorites.

Eddie Merlot’s.  Everything a fancy steakhouse should be.  Expensive, good wine list, good service, impressive surroundings, and flawlessly prepared steaks.  A place to go when you want to impress your company, or when you want to pat your self on the back for your good fortune in being able to afford such a place.

Cerulean.  Located in the somewhat precious Village at Winona, it continues to impress by serving up an eclectic menu of tapas, sushi, and main courses.   The wine and beer list, like the food, is eclectic and interesting.  We’ve been there a half dozen times over nearly two years and it remains innovative and fresh.  My current selection as the best restaurant in the area.

Catablu.  Perhaps less ambitous than in the past, but what Catablu does, they do very well.  I had the smoked duck flatbread appetizer and it was one of the best things I’ve eaten.  The entire meal was flawless, executed at a leisurely special night out pace.   The place is beautiful, a shining example of the possibilities for urban renewal.