Goose & Elder:

This is an exciting post full of new ventures and announcements, and also a very important bulletin about one of the best sandwiches around. So listen up!

One of the things we really like about Jose Salazar's M.O. is how each restaurant is a new adventure. After striking out on his own post-Palace, he opened his namesake restaurant, Salazar. Then he expanded to Mita's, a thoughtfully designed and impeccably decorated restaurant anchoring a corner of the 84.51 building. Now there is his latest (and northernmost) venture, Goose & Elder, on Race Street.

In short, if you have not been to the Findlay Market area lately, you’re missing out. Vine Street’s resurgence has been great to watch, but there is a ton of energy happening around the market. Goose & Elder fits in wonderfully with simple food designed and executed by top talent in the city.

Like a TARDIS, the restaurant is bigger on the inside than it appears, spanning the entire block of the building with the bar in the back. The energy is super chill - a welcome respite from the bustling market. Goose & Elder may be seriously good, but it doesn’t take itself too seriously. The menu is full of pop culture references that you may (or may not) get. As someone that sneaks memes and Easter eggs into every blog post that goes up, I appreciate the humor.

It’s just my luck that Jose and I both have our newest spots within a block of each other. I’m about a month into a new agency job at Louisville-based powerhouse Scoppechio. Did I not tell you that this post would be full of announcements!? I’m digging in and making my mark (yes, the HQ offices have A SLIDE!), and it’s awesome to know that I have the option for a delicious, approachable meal basically on my way home at a great price point.

So, let’s talk food. One of the standouts we really like is the mac and cheese, with pickled jalapenos and sweet potato chips. It gives one of my favorite mac and cheeses, at The Eagle in OTR, some serious competition.

Gimme

There’s also the disco fries, an ideal dish to share with friends over happy hour. Plenty of bacon, a delicious gravy and crinkle cut fries - what’s not to like?

The cocktail shrimp are massive, impeccably fresh, and seasoned to a perfect level of ocean brininess.

The little salad is a smaller version of the big salad (yes, that’s a Seinfeld reference) and is constructed with a variety of ingredients and textures, which we appreciate. Too often, side salads are just an afterthought and are, well, kinda boring.  This one bucks that trend with thoughtful accoutrements.

Onto the fried bologna sandwich. The house-made sweet potato chips make another appearance here, adding a nice crunch to a delightfully messy, gooey sandwich. Getting a fried egg is highly recommended. I'm on the fence about the ratio of slaw in this early version, which pushes it squarely into fork-and-knife territory, but I absolutely adore the amount of cheese and griddled bologna.

Goose & Elder's featured burger approaches the Platonic ideal of cheeseburgeriness - a perfect balance of beef, cheese, and fresh toppings all on a sesame seed bun.  I challenge you find any other burgers in town that achieve this level of picture perfection.

There’s a brunch menu as well, and this is where the other very important announcement resides. Yes, yes, I have a new job and Jose has a new restaurant but more important is this:

🚨 The cubano has moved from Salazar to Goose & Elder's brunch menu 🚨

I will fight you for this

Those that have been reading know about my affinity for the cubano. When Jose left The Palace (and by extension, The Cricket) he took this sandwich with him. It moved to Salazar, briefly was on the menu at Mita's, and then returned back to Salazar. Now you can get the best Cuban - and one of the best sandwiches in the city - at Goose & Elder brunch. I will chase this sandwich to the end of the Earth. Or maybe as far as the West Side, which to me is essentially equivalent.

Also on the brunch menu, a turkey BLT that gets cranked to 11 by being on a croissant with juicy roasted turkey, thick cut bacon, pickled onion and avocado. We also ordered the goetta hash, with crispy potatoes, more of the same fantastic bacon, savory gravy, and a perfectly poached egg. This is one of the standouts (behind the cubano, of course) on the brunch menu.

The other nice things about Goose & Elder are that it boasts a nice happy hour, making it ideal to swing by for a drink and a snack, and it is conveniently right on the streetcar line. So stop by and join me in raising a glass to toast new adventures, opportunities, successes ... and disco fries.

Quail Eggs, Bacon and Scallops:

“So…are you guys going to blog about this?”

At that question, I looked up from monitoring the toasting French baguette. David paused cooking nitrate free applewood smoked bacon and gently cracking quail eggs into the skillet.

We both looked at each other, then at 5chw4r7z. “eh, maybe.” we both shrugged. “Meh.”

Food blogging in restaurants is fairly easy if you factor out the situations where the light is off and makes pictures grainy or difficult to take. The food is cooked by someone else, then presented in front of you; you snap some pictures and go about your meal.

Blogging while cooking, on the other hand, is totally different. We’re always cooking and finding lots of fantastic, tasty things—chili, carnitas, chicken alfredo. Steaks and roasts and cultured cream biscuits. Why haven’t you heard about it? Lots of reasons.

Taking nice pictures while cooking is a delicate balance. Snapping away, keeping an eye on the food itself to make sure it’s not burning while you’ve got the camera glued to your face. Look out for the cat, which is always underfoot in the kitchen, don’t step on his tail. Don’t get food on the camera. And don’t drop the camera in a skillet of bacon fat. And you need both hands to handle the camera, which means putting the beer down. The devil is in the details.

But 5chw4r7z’s question made me pause for a second. We were not working with the usual proteins here. I had drug David into Findlay Market’s oriental market and walked out with a carton of quail eggs.

We added bacon, smoked gouda and toasted baguette to make cute little appetizers that tasted fantastic.

We still had some quail eggs left over the next day. Determined to not miss this opportunity, we decided to up the ante, and purchased sea scallops to substitute for the baguette. We resolved to cook them that evening. And blog the bejeezus out of it.

Consider yourself warned: If you're hungry now, it's about to get a lot worse.

Quail eggshells are tough, use a knife to help with cracking. Otherwise you will have a big mess, broken quail eggs and a sad face.

We made homemade herbed bread to go with our plate. With plenty of butter.

Taste of Belgium:

I, for one, welcome our new waffle overlords

As David and I prepared for our now weekly Findlay Market trip, I tucked the camera in my messenger bag.

"Why are you bringing the camera?" David asked.

"I want to do a review of Taste of Beligium."

"That's a litttle outdated, isnt it? After all, everyone already knows about the waffles."

"Well, I thought so too, but I was talking to some co-workers and they were totally missing out. So we need to spread some liege waffle gospel."

We both thought that everyone already knew about the waffles. However, after a conversation with some co-workers, I was horrified to hear that they hadn't heard about the waffles.

Jean-Francois Flechet was first spotted with his waffles in Findlay market in 2007. Since then, he has spread his waffle empire across the map, opening an additional location in Columbus, and working with various vendors and stores accross the city to feature liege waffles.

Once that wonderful smell started filling Findlay, word spread fast about this "waffle-man" and his crazy delicious waffles. But simply cornering the waffle market and being able to make Cincinnati foodies begin salivating at the drop of some dough was not enough for Jean Francois. He has seemingly gone mad with tasty power and Taste of Belgium now offers crepes, pastries, calzones, pot pies, quiches and hand tossed pizzas.

....and french onion soup. ($4) In a massive bread bowl. With gooey gruyere cheese, melted via small blowtorch.

iphone picture taken before we dug into the melty cheese.


at this point I stopped stuffing my face and remembered I had brought the camera





eating french onion soup is an embarrasing process, but you get over it.

The waffles are unlike any waffles you've been served on a Sunday morning. Made with coarse beet sugar, they get crunchy and caramelized in the cast iron wafflemaker.

the waffle machine






veggie crepe


Hand-tossed pizza dough--made with beer





"fair trade on steroids"

calzones

in this case are mini quiches and pot pies, including locally raised rabbit pot pie on some days ($5). To the left and out of the picture are enough sweet pastries to make your head spin


"What are we going to do tonight, Jean Francois?"

"The same thing we do every night, Laura. Try and take over the world. With waffles."