Adventures in Homewood.

This weeks adventures included Urban Cookhouse and Oak Hill Bar and Grill. For Dinner this evening our group tried out Urban Cookhouse, a new sandwich shop in Homewood that opened a couple of weeks ago. This new restaurant show some promise, but as with all new restaurants leaves something to be desired. Urban Cookhouse offers a fairly limited selection of sandwiches and salads with a few kid's meal options and side dishes. From a strictly menu planning standpoint they do what they do and utilize everything very well; however from a customer standpoint the menu is very limited to different ways to order exactly the same thing. Would you prefer a pepper patch salad or a pepper patch wrap? do you want your lime marinated steak on a sandwich? or on a salad? or on a plate with rice? Honestly it's a very smart business model, but they could try utilizing these ingredients in different ways rather than offering the same preparation seven different times.

I think everyone who joined our little dinner group this evening was satisfied with his/her meal, but I doubt anyone was blown away by it either. I had the "Urban Cowboy" Sandwich with "Hot Cheddar Pasta". The "Urban Cowboy" (translated to cheeseteak sandwich) is a sandwich consisting of Lime-Marinated steak, caramelized onions & peppers, pepperjack, and aioli on a french roll. The hot cheddar pasta (translated mac & cheese) is a more grown up version of a classic dish, using penne pasta instead of macaroni. The meal could have really used a bag of chips and a kosher dill...just something for a little more texture. Both my sandwich as well as my pasta were lacking in seasoning. I hear judges on tv cooking competitions say that all the time, and tonight I understood precisely how they feel. A promising dish that sounds delicious, looks good, and even smells yummy and you bite into it, shrug your shoulders, and go "eh". Neither were bad, it's just that neither were as good as I had hoped. I believe the best thing on the table was Rhiannon's "Berry Good" Salad which had seasonal berries, local tomatoes, spiced pecans, feta, and a light citrus vinaigrette. It was also served with an orange roll, which was quite tasty. For dessert we shared a "Brown Sugar Brownie". I didn't bother finishing the brownie, in fact, we bought two and gave away one.

I do want to reiterate that Urban Cookhouse is an extremely new restaurant and I do not want anyone to get the idea that they should not try it for themselves a few times before forming an informed opinion about the place. I do hope the owners do well, it certainly seemed busy enough. I will say that for such a young restaurant, the staff seemed well trained and knew what was going on.

After dinner we crossed the street to a more adult and less kid friendly environment to Oak Hill Bar and Grill for an after dinner drink. This was definitely a fun and good experience. It was nice to continue the company of new and old friends after such a long and miserable day. I doubt that Oak hill will become my regular hang out, but it is a nice bar in the heart of Homewood. Drinks are a little pricey, but it's also not a college bar or popular night club. It seemed like a nice place for mid 20's to mid 30's young professionals to go after work. Though I didn't get a chance to sample any food, the menu seemed like standard bar fare. wings, nachos, philly cheese steak, etc. I did enjoy the fact that there was seating, little to no smoke, and a pretty damn decent selection of music playing.

I think we've decided that our next little gathering will be July 13th or 15th at Rusty's Barbeque in Leeds. I can assure nothing but stellar revues for that place, but I will report nonetheless...