What I Ate This Week

Friends–

I know and realize that I am a very lucky person—I have a life that gives me both the means and the flexibility to enjoy some of life’s little pleasures in a way that’s allowed me to not only sustain myself but to experience true diversity in eating, even when it comes to work lunch breaks.  Believe me, I know how lucky I am—it’s important that I remind myself of this often because what with all the nitpicking I get to do here, I have to remember that by and large, life has been very very kind to me.

With that said, sometimes you have one of those dining experiences that pretty much make you forget… everything.  And I had just one of those this Tuesday.

I’ve been meaning to make it to Take the Cake in Northside for some time.  It’s a place that has been getting some steady and increasing buzz for months, and with the introduction of weekend brunches in November, it’s been hard to avoid all the talk… but it’s been just as hard for me to find the time to get there!  So when Jayson and I had 90 minutes free for lunch on Tuesday, we jumped at the chance.

The first thing you notice when you enter the exceedingly comfortable space is the open floor plan.  The kitchen is clearly the highlight—wide open, bustling with activity (both baking and cooking) and covered with beautiful ingredients and completed dishes, and on this day at least, several of the day’s invoices from the local farms that supply the shop’s products.  Proof positive of local sourcing right there!

The second thing you notice—and it’s just a fraction of a second after the first—is the aroma.  I mean, this place smells divine.  There’s a light but persistent smell of cupcakes from every corner of the place, and that’s for very good reason—but I’ll get to that.  You can also smell several of that day’s special dishes, making the job of choosing both easier and harder.

To this point, every day is a new adventure at Take the Cake.  By talking to employees or visiting the site, you’d get the impression that the main event here is baking/pastries and catering.  And again, with good reason (and again, I’m coming to it!).  In fact, you even need to work hard to find the cafe listing on the place’s own webpage, and the only way to find out what’s on offer that day is to “follow” them on Twitter and wait for a mid-morning tweet, which contains the fine specimens they’ve found ingredients for.  Always fresh, and only when they can get the ingredients!

I started by ordering chickpea stew, a fragrant dish that appeared to start with a scoop of very tender bulgar wheat, covered with a hearty scoop of the stew, a raft of chickpeas suspended in a surprisingly bold vegetable stock with mirepoix and tomatoes.  It’s a study in contrasts both of flavor and texture, and it was simply fantastic.  An excellent start.

When it came to the main dish, I’ll admit that the menu board is exceedingly plain in its descriptions of the dishes—almost spartan.  So while several items had possibility, I decided to use my eyes and just look across the kitchen for what looked great.  My eyes immediately happened upon the preparation of the meatloaf sandwich, actually, so trusting my instincts I went for it.

Atop a slice of fresh-baked baguette sat a towering piece of meatloaf.  I should say that to use the word meatloaf is a little insulting—it’s texture was actually a little light and airy, and it was very juicy and flavorful on its own, an unusual characteristic in my experience for restaurant meatloaf.  It was served under a freshly broiled slice of cheddar cheese, sure, but the flavor surprise came instead from a homemade horseradish cream.  Bold in flavor without being dominating, this very creamy addition actually brought out some of the pepper flavor in the meat and transformed the dish.  The tomato chutney—delicious in its own right—almost wasn’t necessary, and the slice of bread on top allowed it to be technically be called a sandwich, even though it’s really all about the fork and knife.

What of the side dishes?  Not relegated to a supporting role, the “sandwich” was accompanied by one of the freshest side salads I can remember, with bright and bold flavors coaxed just from the greens and a very simple vinaigrette.  Wow.  And some lightly blanched green beans added a sturdy texture and flavor that pretty much made the perfect blue plate special.  Folks, I know there are a lot of superlatives here, but they did a LOT of things right all at the same time.  It’s just one dish, but with every bite so worthwhile (and a huge plate wiped clean!), it’s hard not to begin thinking about next time!

And I’m not alone—while we were between the entree and dessert, the restaurant got a call from Metromix telling them that they have apparently won Best of Cincinnati in an amazing THREE categories for this year, including best new restaurant!  I’m not always 100% in tune with my fellow Cincinnati diners, but I will fully agree with this assessment.

Oh yeah…what about dessert?  Well, we tried a cupcake, of course—the reputed blackberry jam spice cake cupcake.  It was actually a lot more spice cake than cupcake (thank goodness it was in the title, otherwise I’d have been surprised).  It wasn’t my favorite cupcake ever (although the chocolate cupcake I took home and had the next night is awfully close), but they tasted of love, care, and real ingredients.  There’s a whole bakery case of deliciousness to choose from and I think you probably can’t go far wrong even choosing at random!

So friends, go.  Celebrate your life and the fact that we have places like this to go and support.  And let me know when you do—I’d like to know what else they do great so that when I get that next tweet I know what to choose!  Everyone enjoy your week—you’ll hear from me Sunday or Monday next week!