Fine Dining on Lake Erie: Restaurant Review of Zinc Brasserie

Our beautiful hometown of Sandusky, Ohio has a beautiful and tasty new restaurant, Zinc Brasserie. Located downtown, a stones throw from the picturesque Sandusky Bay and Cedar Point, Zinc Brasserie opened last summer. Sandusky has a lot of wonderful, local places to eat (and a lot of boring chain restaurants too) but there has never been a restaurant quite like this in Sandusky. The menu is seasonal with elegant and gourmet ingredients (duck confit, blood oranges, and artisan cheeses are rare on menus in Sandtown) and the decor is chic

Now, don't get me wrong I love my local Sandusky restaurants, there are some great family-owned, local restaurants that have great food and a wonderful, hometown charm. But that is a post all in it's own.Maybe after my parents read this they might say "Erin, this isn't the FIRST fancy restaurant in Sandusky...I remember when.. etc., etc. etc" but at least in my memory, I don't remember there being a restaurant like Zinc Brasserie.

Ok- now about the food. My parents, Ryan's parents, and Ryan and I all ate at Zinc Brasserie to celebrate a weekend home, wedding plans and because we're all going to be a big happy family soon! :) Our waitress was really nice and helpful, their late spring menu was full of choices and then there was a chalkboard full of specials they change daily. Zinc also has a great list of cocktails so after we ordered the cocktail and wine, we were ready to order.

I started with the ruby red beets and blood orange salad, which was AMAZING. I have been really loving beets lately so once I saw this salad on the menu, it was a done deal. For some reason as a child and until about 6 mos. ago I never liked beets. Maybe it's because my mom used to eat them cottage cheese and that I thought that was weird or maybe it's their very deep, dark purple color that turned me off, but man have I been missing out!! Beets are so good for you and so tasty. But, I digress.. The salad was really good, the combination of the rich goat cheese truffles with the tartness of the blood oranges and the sweetness of the beats was a heavenly symphony on my taste buds. I think I could have just ate like 3 plates of that salad for dinner but I finished my salad very satisfied and excited for my dinner.

For dinner I ordered one of the specials which I believe may have been an appetizer.. I chose the mussels in a white wine sauce with a spicy sauce in the broth. The mussels were delicious and the broth was very light with a few cherry tomatoes for color and a wonderful sweetness. It all worked so well with the flavor of the mussels. I really liked the spicy kick in the sausage and it provided a little extra something special and spicy to my meal.

Here are Ryan's salad and dinner. He might make an addition to the post and talk about it. I know his salad was something a little different for him and he also chose seafood which is not the norm for Ryan but he thoroughly enjoyed them both.

I definitely recommend Zinc Brasserie to anyone from Sandusky or just passing through. It is a great restaurant with a nice atmosphere and when you walk outside, the view is beautiful (the photo at the top is the view). I also recommend taking a walk around downtown before or after your done. Sandusky is a great city and the more people who spend time downtown the more it will grow in to the great city it has so much potential to be.

Ryan's Restaurant Review: Via Vite

Last night Erin and I went to see Wicked, the Musical. It was really good. Before the show we wanted to eat a Palomino downtown because we had a gift card. However, we didn't make reservations and they wouldn't have been able to get us in before the show. So we decided to go across the street to Via Vite. The restaurant is located in Fountain Square, downtown Cincinnati and was opened by the owners of Nicola's, an Italian restaurant in Over the Rhine.
Erin has been to both Nicola's and Via Vite, but this was my first experience.

As you walk in there is a beautiful open bar area with views of some of the kitchen. We were seated immediately in the small, very modern (post-modern?) dining room. I was surprised to see that we were one of only 4 or 5 tables seated, but by the time we left the restaurant was packed and there was a wait for tables (to the extent that I heard a host tell the bus staff to "clear this table immediately and set it for two!" right as we stood up from our table). I had the feeling that we were about to be treated to a fun dinner with creative dishes and presentations. The waiter lost a little bit of the atmosphere as he stumbled through reading his spiel about the specials. Plus, he quickly got on my bad side when he forgot my vodka tonic for several minutes.

We decided we didn't feel like a heavy dinner so instead decided to start with the "Assortment of bruschettas". It was 6 or 7 toasted crostinis with a different topping on each one. They were all delicious. There was a traditional basil and tomato; crab salad; pesto with an anchovie; olive tapenade; chicken liver patte; and roasted pepper and garlic. Erin liked the traditional the best. The crab salad was clean and amazingly fresh. The pesto one was very good with the salty anchovie. The olive tapenade was hearty and delicoius. The chicken liver patte was good and, well, it was liver. My favorite was the roasted peppers. The meal was off to a good start.

For our next, and final course, Erin decided on the Inzimino described as a traditional Tuscan stew of calamari and spinach. I went with a salad with Boucheron goat cheese, spring mix of greens, raspberry vinaigrette and pistachios. We also shared the mussels alla marinara with garlic crostone. The Inzimino, was, in a word, bad. It was cooked in a dark sauce(?) and came in one mushy dollop in the middle of a bowl. The calamari was almost nonexistent, just one step away from mush. It was incredibly overcooked and lost all flavor of the octopus. Both Erin and I are big fans of calamari, and I have never seen it prepared in such a way to make it totally lifeless and bland. The spinach was also cooked so much that it tasted like nothing.
Erin actually asked our waiter what sort of "broth" it was cooked in and he said it was prepared for hours with a lot of red wine. Well, the lesson learned here is that calamari should NEVER be slow cooked for hours and that it is crucial to let good, fresh ingredients shine.

My salad, on the other hand, was very good. The pistachios added a perfect contrast to the yummy raspberry dressing and the creamy, melted goat cheese. It also was a nice compliment to the mussels which were prepared with a light, diced tomato sauce with just a touch of garlic. The mussels were perfectly cooked, not too mushy and not too rubbery. I thought the sauce could have used either some more garlic or some lemon. Near the end of the meal I actually asked for some lemon, but I never got it.

All in all, the service was disappointing, but it was noticeable that the waitress taking care of the table next to us was much better prepared and professional. As Erin said, we were 3 for 4 in good dishes. And even though that stew was almost unforgivable, I would be willing to go back, if for nothing else to try some of their bigger entrees. Grade: B.