brown dog cafe

i am so damn behind in these posts. it is getting out of control. ok. so last weekend i went to brown dog cafe for restaurant week with friends and friends of friends. we found out that the chef had redone the menu just for restaurant week, which was cool, although many of the options are available on the regular menu so that is good since everything was so delicious! the menu focuses on highlighting different kinds of meats (ie- steak, duck, lamb, seafood) in exciting ways. who can argue with that? well, vegetarians i guess...

rather than try to describe everything we ate, which would be impossible and also bore you since there were 7 of us and we all ate different things, i will just give you some visuals:

steak arapas with avocado salad appetizer... mmmmm

brian (not on the menu) with cheese cups (also not on the menu)


roasted beet and goat cheese salad. beets make me gag but i am sure if you like beets this would be very tasty


i am just going to copy the description from the menu on this one: "Sumac Pan Roast Boar Tenderloin served on Acorn Squash with Sweet Potato Caramel Mashed, Haricot Vert with Root Vegetable Straws, and Blackberry Demi." seriously. where else in cincinnati can you get wild boar??? i had this and it was AWESOME.


has tuna ever looked (or tasted) this good?


rhubarb crisp... YUM


ridiculously delicious banana and chocolate concoction which i was too full to finish :(

the ambience is nice... kind of dark and woody and calming. there were some weird pictures on the walls that looked like they had been stolen from a circa 1985 hotel room wall. but you didn't really notice that unless you were looking for it. overall a much better atmosphere than i might have expected from a strip mall in blue ash.

service was absolutely excellent. our waitress was very knowledgeable about the menu and she was also a high school english teacher it turned out so she was really excited to find out that some of us are in a book club and had some good books to recommend. i actually ended up giving more than the "gratuity added" tip because she was so awesome.

celia picked our wine and it was excellent. i cannot remember what it was called.

we did get a pretty good deal since it was restaurant week... $25 for a three course meal. i think the restaurant would generally have been quite a bit more expensive than that (i think maybe $25 would get you an entree). still, i think it is worth it since it really was a very memorable and enjoyable meal all around. plus i don't think you usually have to worry too much about a crowd because of the location.

everyone really enjoyed the meal, the service, and the atmosphere. we came in at 8:45 and they usually close at 10 but we did not leave until 10:30 and we didn't feel rushed or anything. so i say go there as soon as you can scrape together the cash!