Better Get to Pigall's

Readers of the Cincinnati Enquirer probably read this story that reports Pigall's is closing at the end of February. I was surprised to read that story given that the restaurant just received a 4-star rating in the Mobil travel guide.

Hopefully Jean-Robert will open another spot that will be top notch.

In the process of looking around for that news, I discovered the wine me, dine me blog. It's obviously a blog about places to eat -- but it covers the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky area. It is always good to get an opinion about a restaurant. Stop over there to browse the reviews before heading out to eat.

Ault Park

Yesterday was a beautiful, sunny day here. We decided to make a visit to Ault Park -- one of the larger parks in the Cincinnati area that we had never explored. It was good for my back to get out and walk around a bit. Here is a satellite view of the park.

There is a large pavilion that was closed due to a private event -- a wedding reception. Walking around we saw four wedding parties there taking pictures at various spots in the park and in the late afternoon there were quite a few prom couples there for photos.

I had Dianne sit on a park bench with her back to the sun to experiment with some fill flash techniques that I've been reading about on the Strobist blog. She was playing with her Nintendo DS lite so she was a patient subject. If you look at the photo below, you see her back is in direct sunlight and there is a distinct shadow on the concrete. Her face was in a distinct shadow and so she wouldn't show up well in a regular photo. I used a flash on the ground, pointed toward her, to get rid of the shadow. The flash is just outside the right of the frame. I had to experiment a bit to get the right exposure. This shot was with the flash set at 1/4 power. By the way, thanks to her for helping carry stuff too!



My next project I thought I'd try is to get a 360 degree panorama shot from the center of the Observatory Circle area in the park. That's something easy to do while standing up straight. The photo below is a planet view of the panorama with the tripod at the center of the photo along the iron fence. If you want to see a traditional view, click here to see a large version on white. If you look closely at the bottom of the globe or on the right side of the panorama, at the base of the fountain in front of the pavilion you'll see one of the wedding parties getting their picture taken. You can't miss the satin, bright blue dresses the bridesmaids were wearing -- ones that will never be worn again. It was a beautiful day at the park.

Afterwards we stopped on Hyde Park Square to have dinner at Indigos and walk around the square a bit. Indigos is one of our favorite stops in Hyde Park. The square was hopping with everyone sitting outside enjoying the Spring evening.

Bella Luna

I've been meaning to make some restaurant posts about new places we've tried. Last night Dianne and I went to Bella Luna for the first time. We've lived in the Cincinnati area for over a decade and haven't ever been there.

Bella Luna is an Italian restaurant that is family owned and operated. It's a little East of downtown on Eastern Avenue (duh). As we learned last night, they have a standard menu that has all the traditional family recipes and a separate, shorter menu with specials that change every couple months. Not having been there before, we just stopped in without a reservation. We lucked out and got a table in the bar area. Reservations are a good idea.

I started with Italian wedding soup that was excellent. I had a stuffed pork chop from the specialty menu that came with steamed vegetables and roasted red potatoes. Everything was great. Dianne started with a Caesar salad with anchovies and had a thin turkey breast wrapped around asparagus and fontina cheese for her entree. Her choice was also good and had a fantastic white wine sauce on it. We split some bread pudding for dessert. That was killer!

Our waiter wasn't the best, but perhaps he was a bit busy managing the tables in the bar area. Next time I'd make a reservation and get a table in the main dining room.

Bella Luna is definitely worth the trip! If you're a first timer, their web site has a 10% off coupon. This is one of my new favorites for local Italian fare.

The Secret In-N-Out Menu

I'm not a huge fast food fan, but when I'm traveling in California, Nevada, or Arizona I always keep an eye out for an In-N-Out Burger place. They have the best fries! It has to be the fresh ingredients that make them so tasty.

While surfing around this weekend, I ran across a post on the PreZ who? blog where the PreZ describes the secret In-N-Out ordering tips. I'll have to give the extra crispy fries a try next time I'm at In-N-Out.

The Foodie Report

Thanks to Lauren for pointing out The Foodie Report blog. From the title, folks in the Cincinnati area might think it's related to Jungle Jims (note the foodie poll on the lower right of the JJ page). If you've been to the store, you know what I mean. But that's not the case.

The Foodie Report is a collection of food, restaurant, and recipe related items posted by several members of the staff at the Cincinnati Enquirer. With multiple authors, there is a nice variety of posts so you're sure to find something of interest -- especially if you are in the Cincinnati area. Although interesting in a train wreck kind of way, I was kind of grossed out by this Foodie Report post about an alternative recipe for stuffing a turkey. I've never had a slider so I hadn't heard of that stuffing recipe.

Check it out and be sure to leave a comment. Jim Borgman mentioned a while back that the paper's Big Brother tracks comment numbers as one measure of success. If that were the case here, I'd have closed up shop along time ago.

Saturday in Bellevue

Saturday afternoon Dianne and I drove down to Bellevue Kentucky - just across the river from Cincinnati. Dianne wanted to get a pretzel sandwich for lunch from a place called Love Me Knots. She has been there for lunch several times, but I had never been. I had a Montgomery Inn BBQ sandwich on a pretzel roll. It was good. If you're in the Bellevue area and are looking for a sandwich, it's worth a try.

After lunch we stopped briefly at the Party Source that is just down the street from the pretzel place. We picked up a couple things and then drove to the river to walk a bit. Even though the temperature was 52, there was no direct sun and the wind was chilly so we didn't stay out long. Here is Dianne with a view of downtown Cincinnati through the Daniel Carter Beard bridge -- better known locally as the "Big Mac" bridge for obvious reasons.

Polo Grill

On our way back from the Jeffersonville outlet mall, Dianne and I stopped at the Polo Grill for dinner. We had a gift card from Raymond Walters College for the restaurant. I had a cup of tomato bisque that had a garlic crustini with goat cheese and salsa. It was a nice dinner, but it was freezing in the restaurant. Fortunately Dianne had brought along a long-sleeved shirt.

This is a test of a picture blog entry from the phone. Thanks to Dianne for teaching me about the mobile blogging capability. It's practical now that we have a qwerty keyboard on our phones.

Hawaii's North Shore

Dianne, Michelle, and I drove up to the North Shore of Oahu to go to the beach. We found a spot just a little north of Haleiwa town that was very nice. I took a few additional photos that you can see here. I stayed in the shade to avoid looking like a lobster. Dianne and Michelle both fell asleep in the sun.

Afterwards, we went to Kaneohe to do some laundry and relax by the pool. In the evening, we met Milton, Carol, Taylor, Marc, Paige, Jacob, and Madison for dinner at Pah Ke's in Kaneohe. It's a great Chinese place that we've been to several times before. All the dishes were very good -- but the salt/pepper shrimp, the taro duck, and the lettuce wraps were the favorites.

The Korea House

On Saturday, Dianne and I were on our way to dinner when we noticed a sign for "The Korea House" on a building in Harper's Station. We decided to abandon our original plan and give it a try. I'm glad we did.

It's a very bright, nicely decorated restaurant with a staff that is more formally attired. The paper table covers reminded me of a Macaroni Grill (without the crayons). The menu, at least to a midwestern guy, seemed pretty authentic although not too large. The menu has a range of soups, noodle dishes, seafood, etc. that includes favorites like kal bi, bulgogi, and jap chae -- you can check it out on their website. I had the dae goo mae woon tang soup which was excellent! It was served in a hot, thick stone bowl so the soup was still boiling a minute after they brought it to the table. In addition, they brought out 8 typical side items including Kim Chee (which was so hot it made Dianne's eyes water), watercress, radish, cabbage, and seaweed.

The owner stopped over to see if everything was OK. She mentioned they have been open for just one month. She seemed a bit concerned about a caucasian trying to eat with stainless steel chopsticks. Her solution was to offer wooden chopsticks. I guess she thought I was doing OK or she would have offered a fork.

If you're up for some good and authentic (at least for Cincinnati) Korean food, give Korea House a try. We thought it was very good. I hope they make a go of it.