Sarah came to visit this weekend. She got a great deal because everyone else in the world leaves Cincinnati over Memorial Day. So, I was pretty excited to use this opportunity to try some new places to eat this weekend.
Nectar
Saturday afternoon we inadvertently got tanked in my yard with my neighbors. I'm not entirely sure where those two bottles of wine and the rest of my beer went, but we had a blast. And we had 8pm reservations at Nectar down the hill. So at seven we pried ourselves from the patio furniture and went about trying to make ourselves look presentable for dinner at a place that made the top 25 list from Cincinnati magazine. The place is adorable with very bistro-esque appeal and dapper all-black wait staff. We probably should have been hungrier than we were, but as happens with excessive drinking, we had also been doing excessive snacking. We ordered scallops for an appetizer and they were really tasty. They had that slightly fishy taste that is endemic to 90% of all scallops I've had, but still very good and garnished in some sort of greenery and sauce that was tremendously tasty. We both had the risotto for dinner as it was the only vegetarian option on the menu. For some reason I had the impression that Nectar served a greater variety of vegetarian foods. Not quite true and the seafood that night was soft shells crabs. And well, after the Foresman-Bob-Chins-Incident-of-2002, I stear away from soft-shell crabs. The risotto was wonderful, but maybe it was the mixture of being slightly sun-burnt with a waning buzz that made the evening not quite right. Or maybe it was the waitress, who seemed prompt and friendly, but kept apologizing for being slow and overworked. So, all in all, glad I tried Nectar. Will I ever eat there again? Probably not.
Is this that place? B's review:
Chillness: Meet your boyfriend's parents for the first time chill (aka: not at all chill)
Price: fine, if someone else is paying.
Food Quality: Well prepared and flavorful, but not decadent enough to want to go back.
Pacific Moon
Sarah and I did some serious shopping on Sunday morning, which naturally leads to the need for some serious sushi. We drove to all three sushi places in my neighborhood, only to find that every single one of them was closed. Now I know this city is a little conservative and they don't sell beer early on Sunday's, but sushi? I really don't think jesus had anything against raw fish on the sabbath day. So, we made due with something else, but that night at about 9pm, we were still craving raw fish. Knowing tthat Newport on the Levee would be open to entertain the few tourists who came to town, we headed over there to check out Pacific Moon which promised sushi until 2am.
Newport suffers from the too-cool-for-school pandemic. Many of the restaurants over there are all decor and style and no taste. I mean it's Kentucky. I see permed hair and hot pink lipstick there all the freaking time. But, I was sure that Pacific Moon would be different. Any sushi person know that you don't need a lot of pizzaz, just excellent sushi to make a great sushi place. And the decor was great. Very 1920's asian chic with wicker seats and paper-looking panels on the walls. The sushi on the other hand was disappointing. The fish was tough. The rolls were hardly that and the rice wasn't quite as sticky as it should have been. But our yen for sushi was satisfied.
Is this that place? B's review:
Chillness: Impress trailer trash from Kentucky chill.
Price: The perfect price for overpriced sushi.
Food Quality: The mussels were good.
