The Crest

Dun duh dun dum!

The Crest *applause* 

behold it's rusty greatness

Today we decided to keep it in the neighborhood and slugged our hungover asses to The Crest.
This place has grown from a humble restaurant with local food to a real must-go in Columbus. With one of the top beer selections (constantly changing too!), and some really great food partially sourced from their rooftop/peri-parking lot gardens.

G-G-GARDENZ

The patio is superb. They have an "indoor" and outdoor patio to accommodate all types of weather. Roll up plastic window-wall things provide a shield for any rogue rain or chilly mornings. The decor inside and out is cool and inviting with chalkboard menu and specials board to a centrally located bar.

Sidenote: The Crest allows dogs on their outdoor patio! Just in case you want to enjoy a brew or two with your best furry friend. They are fully prepared and welcoming with water bowls on hand and waitstaff that enjoys squishing furry faces.

Now, we are very sad to report that due to Clintonville's laws, they cannot serve liquor on Sundays. Boo boo and boo. So no Bloody Mary's today. But Mimosa's were still available as well as their extensive beer menu.

After some investigating (looking over at what the people next to us had ordered) it appeared that the Crest had a bloody answer to the liquor laws of Clintonville. Referred to as a "Crestelada", one might assume that it is the Crest's crack at a Michelada, a popular Mexican spirit. It consisted of some sort of beer, tomato juice and lots of pepper. Fin approved (he also suggests adding a piece of bacon for extra flavor), but Marissa and I were on the fence. It started off very crisp and bubbly and ended very savory and peppery.

Coffee was on tap instead and it was great. A nice, full bodied dark roast was satisfying this morning.

Devyn: The BELT was on the menu for me today, as I was a little gun shy with a few of the fancier flavor profiles of some of the dishes. This was a simple sandwich consisting of bacon, a sunny side up egg, lettuce, melted cheese, tomato, and their amazing garlic aioli. All this accompanied by McDonald's style has browns.

The sandwich was pretty good, although it required some boa-esque unhinging of the jaw to eat. I found it to be on the bread-y side, but otherwise a good choice for brunch here. The bread was crispy, the tomatoes were thick and juicy, and the bacon was delicious. Their garlic aioli is so good, they also offer it with their Pub Chips appetizer and its like heaven in your mouth.

Marissa: After a steady night of beverages the night before, I did not quite have the will power to even think about eating and appreciating some of the Crest's more interesting brunch dishes. So I kept it classic: The Crest Breakfast. Complete with 2 eggs your way (I chose over easy), bacon, a ridiculously large sausage link, 4 hash browns and toast. I ordered a waffle on the side because my eyes are bigger than my stomach. I realize that it is difficult to review this meal as a whole because of all the different components, so I will highlight the individual pieces.

Hash browns: Upon first glance, you may think that someone dumped out McDonald's hash browns out of their little paper bag and neatly placed them next to some other breakfast foods then put a weed on it. That's kind of what I thought. But unlike McDonald's, these hash browns were delightfully crispy and NOT greasy on the outside, and warm and flaky on the inside. Maybe they just need a little bit of a facelift.

Bacon: This bacon was just really delicious and I felt that it deserved its name bolded.

Sausage: This is where the meal turned sour for me. First of all, this sausage is a monster and is very much unlike any breakfast sausage I've ever seen. It's basically an Italian sausage. For breakfast? No thanks. Actually, I just really don't like Italian sausage so I never want it. I feel like the Crest reached a little too far out of the box with this one... I think most people just want a nice little maple breakfast sausage. Maybe that's just my opinion.

Waffle: I liked this waffle. It had a nice spongey texture and was flavored with almond. But as previously mentioned a few posts back, I was a fool to order this waffle because I have already eaten the best waffle in the world at Zen Cha.

Eggs & Toast: Eggs and toast is eggs and toast.

The meal as a whole was decent. It wasn't mind-blowing, but it was good enough to eat and keep me full for a majority of the rest of the day.

Fin: This meal was great. The eggs were cooked just right and the hash browns were crispy and delicious. The steak was on the thin side which sort of defeated the "how do you want it cooked" question. It came out a little on the medium-well side regardless. I also ordered a side of bacon because bacon. No complaints there.

pinkies out always

free buttons!

Though the service was a little spotty today (our waiter failed to mention the Crestelada when we were obviously heartbroken over the lack of Bloody Marys and then he disappeared for a long period of time when we really just wanted to get our checks and move on with the rest of our day), we had a great time brunching at The Crest. The patio was great and offered a warm and relaxing atmosphere. The covered patio made for a great seat to enjoy the weather and each others company. Hooray!

Ratings: 

Food: 3.2
Drinks: 3
Atmosphere: 4.5
Price: 2.8 (that waffle was $8...!)

Ta-ta for now, brunchers!

The Blue Danube

The Blue Danube, affectionately referred to as the Dube, is a campus diner staple. We've been patrons of the Dube for several years now, and it's kind of the place that brought brunch into the spotlight for us. So without further ado, and without too much bias, let's talk about this wonderful little gem.

The Dube is an eccentric little place - kinda dark, kinda dingy, but somehow warm and inviting. The ceiling tiles are yellowed with age, but have been painted over the years by various artists with subject matter ranging from popular culture to personal sentiments. They also have a pretty incredible juke box.

The Dube's coffee is good. It's nothing terribly special, but it's good. The kind of coffee that you can just keep drinking and drinking and drinking and drinking....

Grant: To echo the sentiment above this is pretty much the place that sparked our love of brunch. For me this place has it all, the food is unbelievably good, the coffee is easy drinking, and the bloody marys are peppery and delicious. You also get great portions and the prices are not bad at all. I went with my old favorite, the breakfast burrito. This one has all the fixins in it - bacon, ham, sausage, eggs, hash browns, topped with all the sauce. If there's a better breakfast burrito out there I ain't seen it. 

I also got to finish the breakfast pizza down below since the little lady couldn't handle all of it. That too is damn good. Love this place.

Marissa: My go to dish at the Dube is usually the biscuits and gravy - it's incredible. HOWEVER, Devyn ordered the biscuits and gravy so, for the sake of a well rounded breakfast blog, I ordered something new and a little out of the ordinary for me - a breakfast PIZZA. It was good. It was no biscuits and gravy, but it was good. A fluffy and doughy crust is piled high with scrambled eggs, hash browns, cheese, bacon and sausage. The hash browns are a really nice touch, but the pizza was a little heavy on the eggs. Also, there was no "sauce" component (what kind of pizza is this?!), so I ordered a side of sausage gravy and that sufficed rather well. I would definitely recommend the gravy to break up all the dry ingredients. It's a lot of food - I only ate half of it... but I got to take the rest home and it made for a tasty dinner later that night.

Devyn: Having worked on Sunday's most of my adult life, I was not really able to appreciate how awesome brunch really is. The Dube was my very first brunch experience many years ago. The biscuits and gravy were legen-waitforit-dary with their thick sausage gravy, fluffy biscuits topped with cheddar cheese. Still to this day one of my favorite brunch items hands down. I enjoyed them a little bit more this morning due to the large amount of beer that was consumed Saturday night. It was a nice hearty breakfast without being too heavy for a fatigued stomach. I also ordered some fruit and bacon on the side to round everything out (though the fruit cup consisted mostly of various types of melon, gross.) This meal really hit the spot.

 Fin: Also feeling the need for a nice filling meal, Fin went with the steak and egg breakfast. This dish had everything you could ever want in a manly man's breakfast: two eggs and a generous slab of steak cooked your way, crispy hash browns, and two slices of toast. This was a lot of food to tackle this early in the morning, but the steak was cooked perfectly and the eggs were also on point. Two thumbs up for this one!
WARNING: NO BACON. -Sad Fin.

And the main event: The Dube's Bloody Mary. The Sunday liquor laws always bite us in the ass, and being early brunchers, it was not quite 11:00 AM when we came to eat. So, naturally, we ate, then waited until 11:00 AM to order these wonderful concoctions.

*angels singing*

Ok guys. If you're only going to come to the Dube for one reason, this Bloody Mary is it. It may not look like anything special, but this Mary is the standard to which I judge all other Marys against. This Bloody Mary leans more on the side of tomatoes, and according to Fin, who has a more refined palate than I, it may or may not have clamato juice as well. The bloody/vodka/spice ratio is perfect - every. Single. Time. Oh yeah, and it's only like $5.

MIM

OSA

  

Ernest loves the Dube and you should too, knowhutImean?

Ratings:

Food: 4.7

Drinks: 5

Price: 4.8

Atmosphere: 4.3