Best Restaurant & Sandwich Grill

Twos wonderful and threes a charm. Our third visit to this 'somewhat hidden' south Westerville restaurant/grill was even more impressive than the first two; which had been pretty damn impressive in their own right. I'll give you the driving directions later in this report from the road.



Last November this mature, established business was purchased by Scott Brown and he has made some noticeable changes....not to the main ingredients of a successful business but to 'other' things... he's eliminated some of the slower sellers off of the two page menu and he's freshen the place up. Paint, décor, etc. The founders of 'the Best' kept the place clean but a fresh coat of paint can give you a 'big bang for the buck.'

In the tradition of 'greasy spoons' this is an open kitchen with the 'masters of the griddle' doing their dance right in front of you. And, this place takes it one step higher in 'Grease-dom!' They wash all the dishes, service ware, pots and pans in front of you! How many restaurants have you been in where they wash the dishes in front of you....I've been in a few where they seem to never wash the dishes!

Enough with the physical stuff. Let's get to the food. Go to The Best Breakfast for the corned beef hash! Period. The best we've enjoyed since the Skillet in German Village. Maybe The BEST. Large chucks of corned beef atop a layer of potatoes covered with two eggs perfectly cooked. And freshly baked bread! (Here's a restaurant truism....if all of whatever you are eating is the same size and shape...then they bought it from a factory.) This corned beef was homemade! And The Jersey boy went crazy. Our smooth-talking, hip-swiveling, hash delivery waitress indicated that this corned beef also produces the most popular sandwich; The Reuben.

Kathy Casselberry, a refugee from Cleveland, served your 'Columbus Chow' team in the highest standard of Greasy Spoon tradition. By talking back, not taking any gruff, ignoring us and generally exerting her own personality. It was wonderful! Your team doesn't like servers who (1) hover, (2) tell you their birth sign, (3) wear neatly pressed uniforms sporting name tags, and (4) constantly fill water glasses and coffee cups. We truly 'like' having to yell for more service.

Chicago boy really likes to judge a restaurant by it's bread offerings. When he was running a catering/banquet operation he always insisted on fresh bread and sliced just before serving. Killer. The Best Restaurant does it right. They bake their own biscuits and finish baking the bread (white, wheat and rye.) The bread is started in the Cellones Bakery in Pittsburgh and finish in the ovens of The Best Breakfast. This restaurant gets 4 Bellies based on the Corned Beef Hash and The Bread!

Doors open at 8 am on Saturday. Get off of 270 on Route 3C (Westerville Road) south. Go south pass Dempsey Road and turn left in the strip shopping center on your left...go to the far southern end... between the Beauty School and the Drivers Education place. Don't give up too soon....it's set back a little. When you walk in say hello to the skinny short-order cook Scott....he's never met a stranger.

The Best Breakfast and Sandwich Grill

5916 Westerville Road

Westerville, OH

614/776-5788

 

Your Columbus Chow eaters award 4 Bellies

to this culinary landmark!

The Skillet Restaurant

Like Rip Van Winkle your Columbus Chow Team has awoken from their two plus year sleep. And with a vengeance! Today we enjoyed the hospitality of Chef/owner Kevin Caskey along with his wife Angie. This little (25 seats?) storefront has a great ambiance, staff and menu. Being the first two customers allowed us to stick out heads into the service window and observe; homemade biscuits, clean and organized kitchen, staff all uniformed and in place...a large staff for such a petite establishment indicates the menu demands a lot of experienced hands. We where served by a former, temporary waiter from our catering days who remembered the writer (when asked he said his checks had cleared the bank successfully....yeah!)  Back to the actual eating part of our visit; New Jersey Boy had an Artichoke Omelet which he observed was ok. I had the corned beef with poached egg and topped with a pickled pepper confetti. The corned beef was truly homemade. Not a common occurrence. Lots of restaurants take deli corned beef from Sysco, GFS, etc. thickly slice and then dice and heat. Not Chef Caskey. Brines and corns it himself...cooked to perfection. Added to potatoes and you've got true corned beef hash. The biscuits where homemade; refreshing taste and texture. Almost worthy of being ordered just by themselves. Other diners around us ordered off the menu. One favorite was Toad-In-The-Hole. Looked great. Coffee was strong, good and our cup never ran dry. Wait staff was attentive. Menu is above average pricey. Our two breakfasts with coffee came to $37.00 so save this place for a special occasion.

The Skillet Restaurant

featuring Urban Rustic Food

410 E. Whittier

Columbus, OH (in the environs of German Village)

W to F lunch from 11 to 2:30  Dinner from 5:30 to 9 pm

Sa & Su Brunch from 8 am to 2 pm.

email: skilletruf.com

We award this little gem....4 Bellys!

Katalina's Cafe Corner

 

Next time one of your out-of-town sophisticates lays one of these lines on you, "But Columbus is so-o-o-o provincial." Grab him by the nose (or some other appendage) and body slam him thru the front door of Katalina's Café Corner. Here he will (it's usually always a guy) discover what folks have known for years. Good fresh food made with local ingredients and served in a quirky, abet petite, environment by an eager staff who acts like they are on the verge of reversing global warming!  

 



Here's our experience. Fresh ingredients, good recipes, large and helpful staff combine to give the diner a great breakfast.
We both ordered Huevos Rancheros which now seems like a dumb idea. We do eat off of each others plate so why did we both order the same item? Dumb and Dumber. This dish was good and filling but next time I will order the slow roasted pork with fried egg sandwich. The décor was visually exciting and the furniture one-step above urban chic. Your out-of-towners will be impressed with this place.

Yet, us blue-collar types have some pet peeves. Mind you, not negatives, just personal likes and dislikes.
1. We are at an age when we need to SEE the menu. Get a cup of coffee and peruse a piece of paper. Standing in the front door and looking up, over the cash register, to a chalk board hanging from the ceiling doesn't work with me.
2. When paying three dollars for a coffee I expect a porcelain cup. In their defense this place is so small the waitresses must have to take the dirty dishes home to wash them and bring them back for the next diner.

If you're gastric juices have stopped flowing from the corporate 'culinary sameness' of the chains then you must visit Katalina's. This joint will get them flowing again. Katalina's is located in a building that was built to satisfy the hungry needs of automobiles and now continues in that tradition by filling hungry bellies with fresh food.

 

So hold your olfactory glands high Columbus....we've got Katalina's.

Katalina's Café Corner

1105 Pennsylvania Avenue

Columbus, Ohio

 

We award this little gem 3 1/2 bellies!

Sunbury Grill & The Good Guys Car Show

It's Good Guys Weekend in C-Bus and the Columbus Chow Team hit the road! For those of you Fans who don't know what Good Guys Weekend is allow me to introduce you to the finest, most comprehensive, mind blowing experience in the world of muscle cars, hot rods, street rods, old stuff that runs with an internal combustion engine and anything else you can drive, drag or carry to the Ohio State Fairgrounds. Tens of thousands of car-crazy fans come from the distant corners of this great country; from the rocky coasts of Maine, to the bayous of Louisiana, to the wheat fields of Nebraska and out to the land of fruits and nuts! California! Three days of chrome, burn outs and ooooglying some of the best hot rods in existence. Jersey boys' knees get weak when he sees any 1967 Pontiac GTO in triple black!

 

Now you know. So of this morning we cruised to Sunbury, Ohio. A little farm town about 25 miles up 71. We visited the Sunbury Grill which was recommended by a friend of Jersey Boy
The Sunbury Grill is located at 35 E. Cherry Street (the main east-west drag) and on the town square. We inquired of numerous diners and they all agreed this diner was at least 75 years old. Jersey opened the door while I was getting the camera, took one look, turned his head and said "This place is Perfect!" We had walked into a movie set from Andy Griffin's Mayberry. When I rotated my still asleep eyeballs onto the guy working the flatiron grill, my instant impression was that we where on the set of the TV show Alice and the character of Mel was actually named Kenny. Along one wall stretched the mandatory stainless steel parade of cooking machines and along the other, wooden booths with faded formica tops...faded from the tens of thousands of diners who had preceded us. Of course there is a counter. Occupied by regulars. The whole damn place was filled with regulars. Talked to one regular who has been eating at The Sunbury Grill since 1941! These fellow diners are the types of folks who still get teary-eyed when they hear God Bless American, stand when the American Flag marches by, won't even mention Obama without spitting on the floor and think that if the Berlin Wall was good enough for those Commies then it should be good enough for our borders. Solid folks, farmers, construction types, few Harley-Davidson t-shirts, even an engineer I knew from business. But, these folks are not Rube's wandering around the fruited plains. They know the score, they know what's valuable and one of the life's 'gems' is having a second family at the counter at the Grill. This is truly one place where everyone knows you're name.

We had a ball. Here's the kicker the food was good, plentiful and OK. The maintenance standards are high. The ambiance and feeling of this 'joynt' earned it 4.5 Bellies. Why, because Jersey Boy finally got his toast made right. BURNT.

The next time you are interested in seeing a true American icon. To visit the type of restaurant that every neighborhood or town once had then join the very friendly locals at the Sunbury Grill where the food is good and the welcome is great!

Isn't that customer, sitting alone, someone from The Witness Protection Program?

Sunbury Grill
35 E. Cherry Street
Sunbury, OH

We are pleased to award this classic American diner a Columbus Chow rating of 4 1/2 Bellies!

Observations and Pontifications

We've both been a little remiss in not making postings. It's not that we've quit eating .... it's because we quit writing! We've got a whole year to make up. So, here we go. Number One We can't agree on when we started meeting for Saturday Breakfasts but have decided it was the late 70's (1977.) Number Two I (Chicago) never knew that Jersey Boy had a not-so-secret addiction. Imagine, breaking yolks with someone for over 30 years and not knowing his obsession. I knew how he liked his eggs (over medium), how many tall glasses of ICE water he would have with a meal (three,)his favorite breakfast bread (rye,) or how he liked his coffee (hot and black.) His dirty little secret? He LOVES burnt toast. Oh, not so fast, yes this is a sickness. Not dark toast but burnt toast. I mean really Black toast. Like the black on a new set of Firestones. So black it crumbles when bit into. So black that surrounding diners go "Yuck!" And get this....his brother likes it the same way! It's gotta be a DNA thing. Number Three We have only accepted one free meal during our restaurant visits. Not because of any holistic, moral, ethical, righteous reasons or our own set of internal standards. Oh no. We've only been offered one free meal! If more restaurateurs would offer we would gladly accept free meals and we would give them a Great Review here on Columbus Chow. That's the way I was raised in Chicago and it certainly applies to Jersey Boy, whose family was the model for the main characters on the hit TV show, The Sopranos!