Next on our list of states to visit was Ohio! We had to drive through Pennsylvania to get there, but I’ll be covering PA in a different post. A friend I’ve known since middle school– dear god, that was 14 years ago!– lives in Columbus, Ohio, where she attended and graduated from The Ohio State University College of Veterinary Medicine. Now she has a “doctor” in front of her name and for the time being is staying in Columbus, with her fiancee, cat and awesome dog (after the food pix I’ll include one of the dog. He’s great… in many senses of the word). Getting out to Columbus to visit her was one of my priorities for this trip, so we packed up and drove on out.
On our first night our hosts took us to Dewey’s Pizza for dinner. I ordered a local beer and J and I started off with the seasonal Strawberry Macadamia Nut Salad.
It was really good– buttery, crunchy macadamias made for a wonderful salad topping, and the Maytag blue cheese crumbled on top didn’t hurt either. We ordered two pizzas, each with 50/50 toppings so that we could try 4 different varieties. The “girls’ pizza” was half Green Lantern, half Wild Mushroom:
The mushroom half was nice and garlicky, but I think my favorite was actually the Green Lantern, with herby pesto and tangy goat cheese. I’m not good at describing pizza crust, but let’s just say that component was really good too. The boys selected two meat-heavier varieties, but I honestly can’t remember which ones– I think one was the Southwest Barbecue Chicken. They must have been good, because J ate so much that he didn’t even have room for dessert, which was the rather famous Jeni’s Splendid Ice Cream! I’d read about it on Serious Eats, so when my friend told me we were going there I was totally excited. Talk about a foodie destination! She knows me so well :-).
I remembered reading that the Salted Caramel is a highly rated flavor so I knew I wanted that, but I also wanted to try a second one. After a sample, I settled on the Cherry Lambic. In retrospect I kind of wish I’d tried the Buckeye State, but I think in that moment I was so intrigued by the idea of a lambic sorbet that my love for lambic won out over my love for peanut butter and chocolate.
The Cherry Lambic was basically a sour cherry flavor with a little bit of the effervescence of a lambic beer. The Salted Caramel was indeed exceptional– deeply creamy with the saltiness and dark, deep caramel flavors in perfect balance. J tried a bite and said it reminded him of salmiakki, and I kind of get that– both taste salty and dark. I also had a bite of my friend’s Dark Chocolate ice cream, and it was the most ridiculously rich chocolate ice cream I’ve ever tasted. Like frozen dark chocolate brownie batter.
I just realized that if I try to fit all my Ohio eats and pictures into one post it will be super long, so I’m going to wrap this up and continue with the Buckeye State tomorrow! However, I promised you a picture of my friend’s dog Muncher:
I apologize for the picture quality, but I’m sure you can see that Muncher is a gentle giant of a Great Dane. He was such a sweetheart and I was so excited to meet him!
WOW! that is a big dog đŸ˜€
How come you didn’t mention what the dog ate? I’m dying to know…. growth hormones? neighborhood children??
He would never! He’s such a sweetie. I’m pretty sure he just consumes massive quantities of dog food :-).
[…] our mutual love of Les Miz (oh yes, we were so cool it hurts). The couple lives in Columbus, Ohio (we went to visit them and their giant dog last year!) but they chose to have their wedding by Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire, and for good […]