Rochester is OK!

A restaurant I’m eagerly awaiting to eat at should be opening in the next week or so, according to my inside sources… and their Twitter feed (@theowlhouse). I’ve followed The Owl House’s progress on Twitter and Facebook for several months now, and mentioned it several times. I’m really excited, and their menu looks great. You can check it out at http://www.owlhouserochester.com/. I will definitely share my experience with everyone after I’ve had a chance to visit.

I’ve been out of town a lot this summer. Been to a lot of big cities and all over America. I’m still happy to come home to Rochester though.

Anyways, I just wanted to get in a quick update so people don’t think I’ve given up or died. I’m here. I’m just REALLY busy.

I also want to plug another web project I’ll be part of. Greenovation at http://imagecitygreen.com/ is a new project started by my good friend Jason Rowe. While the site’s idea is globally focused, all the talent is local (so far). This is also a business venture for Jay, as he does consulting work to bring green concepts and technology to the homes and businesses of his clients. The site will also be selling a lot of great items to help you lower your environmental foot print and save money on your utility bills. The site is still in its infancy, but I have a good feeling about it.

Stop on over and let your presence be known in the comments section.

Have a good night, and stay cool. Although I’m really psyched that we’ve had an actual hot summer after the a few duds in a row.

Hey everybody. It’s been awhile, and I’m still entirely too busy. I’ll be getting back to more frequent restaurant visits at the end of July, but July is already shaping up to be a pretty crazy month.

I want to give a quick shout out though, because I feel things like this are important. I bought my car from Van Bortel Subaru in 2004. I’ve haven’t  had any of problems with it, other than basic maintenance stuff,  most of which I can do myself. However, I do have my limitations, whether they be lack of experience or just a plain lack of equipment, sometimes I need to take my car some place. I take mine to the dealer. Now, I’m sure there are a lot of great auto shops in Rochester, and honestly, I’ve always considered dealerships to be “stealerships”, but Van Bortel has really come through for me. Last night I had the genius idea of rotating my own tires. Something that’s not terribly difficult, but I ended up with a problem on my way to work this morning. Apparently my front tires were now horribly out of balance and the car was shaking pretty violently at 65. I got to work, called Van Bortel, and the always pleasant and knowledgeable people in the service department that take my call  were able to get me in that afternoon. Cool. Good deal. I bring my car in, and I wait, and I wasn’t sure what to expect from a bill. Generally tire balancing averages at around 12 dollars per tire, but Van Bortel’s pricing has always been fair in the past, so I was unsure of what to expect. After about 40 minutes I paid my bill. 20 bucks. Not bad. My car has been fine since, and I’m a happy customer.

Van Bortel’s service staff has always been super professional, and all the people that work at the desk are well trained, and familiar with their products and services. In the event you have to leave your car for the day, they offer a loaner service… for 5 bucks. I pay 5 bucks to drive around a relatively new Subaru for the day. Pretty cool on that front too.

I can’t speak highly enough about Subaru as a brand in itself (love my car), and it’s great to know that they have a great dealership. While not Rochester, Van Bortel Subaru in Victor is definitely A-OK.

Tonight is the first of many of the the East End Festival in the city. Lots of live music and plenty to drink. Check out the details at the official website. The chief sponsor is also The Downtown Fitness Club, which I’ve talked about and recommended in the past.

In other site news, I was out of town last week. Specifically I was deep in the heart of Southern Kansas, just north of Oklahoma. If you’ve ever questioned your choice of living in Rochester, I’d have to say you haven’t seen enough of the rest of the world. Not to knock the mid west, as it definitely has its own special small town charm, but I was certainly glad to be back home in my mid size Rochester.

I’ll be heading out to to explore the Big Apple next weekend, which will offer a totally different contrasting situation to my last outing. The more I see of America, the more I appreciate where I call home. Not that anywhere else is “worse” or “better”, but it is different, and hell, I’m comfortable here. If I found a place I liked better, I’ll move there, until then I’ll keep exploring, but Rochester will always be OK in my book.

The rest of June should slow down, and there’s still some new restaurants I’m dying to try. I’m still looking for help too. Until later, enjoy the weather!

The Tap and Mallet rolled out their spring menu this past week. A lot of old favorites return, but there’s plenty of new to sample.  For an appetizer, I had the Crab, Corn, and Red Pepper dip, which is a thick flavorful dip with pita bread. It was fantastic. I almost filled up on, but left enough room to try out their new Reuben sandwich, which is served open face. I’m a big fan of Reubens and I try to eat them wherever they’re served, and the Tap and Mallet’s is excellent.

I’ll probably be back in the next week or so to keep trying new stuff.

Also note that they will be closed this Saturday for a wedding (congratulations to Jeana and John).

You can check out their new menu on the web, or if you have an Android phone or an iPhone, you can get the menu app for either, which will allow you to keep tabs of their ever revolving beer taps from anywhere.

I hope everyone has had a chance to make it up there this week. I haven’t had a chance yet, but I live in the neighborhood and traffic was pretty consistent all weekend. The weather looks like it will continue to hold out this week, so attendance should be pretty high. Hopefully there are still some flowers left, but there’s plenty of other things going on as well.

I should be getting back to posting more regularly. I’ve been pretty busy lately with my other two sites and life in general, so it’s been tougher to check out new places to eat.

I’m looking forward to The Owl House opening up on Marshall street, off Monroe Ave.  Check out their Twitter and Facebook feeds for more information. I’m pretty excited. They have a good crew on board and have been pretty transparent about what they’re doing to the place, and what they will be doing when the place opens. They casually mention some of the food they’ll be serving, and my interest is definitely piqued.

Also in the next few weeks is the Roc City Rib Fest! It’ll be up at Ontario Beach Park again and there are even more people competing this year, including a couple of good friends of mine (Go GCI!). There will be plenty of vendors, plenty of smoked food, and a lot of folks competing for a multitude of titles. It’s sure to be a blast.

I’m still looking for other people who want to help with the site’s momentum. It’s not a paying gig, but if you’re a foodie or a festival head with a positive attitude, I would love to have you write for the site.

I could write for awhile, but I believe the gallery will speak louder.

And today it’s supposed to reach 87 degrees. See, Rochester, it’s ok. Everything is in bloom. That’s a highlight from my own front yard. Hope everyone is enjoying the day today. If you can, seriously, make it to Highland Park. The Lilacs are in full bloom.

I’d also like to take a second to give a personal shout out to my friends Jason and Terri who are getting married today. Congratulations!

Just a heads up for any of the folks out there who attend the festival solely to see the blooming lilacs, they’re almost there. The festival itself is scheduled for May 15th, but from the look of things, the flowers might be gone by then. The festival has a lot of great food and music, but if you want to see flowers, a trip to the park this week might be warranted.

The Gate House in the Village Gate opened last year and has become one of my favorite local burger joints. They offer a full menu of personal pizzas and gourmet burgers, all with a local flair. The burger selection is named after some of Rochester’s more prominent public figures and folks who have struck it big who are from our fair city, where as the pizza selection takes their names from some of our areas more popular areas.

I’ve only been a small handful of times, but I’m slowly working away through their burger selection, and nothing has left me disappointed so far.  My favorites so far are a battle between The Duffy and The Wease, but it’s still too early to pick a favorite. They have a pretty robust drink menu, as  they’ve just recently gotten approval for serving liquor. They also have a very respectable beer selection as well, with the local Rohrbach’s Sotch Ale being one of my personal favorites. In the picture above is their white sangria which was one of the specials of my last visit.

The atmosphere is nice, and I especially like the booth seats. I spent a lot of time looking at the construction of the bar and the booths, and the wood slats that hang from the ceiling. It gives the place a homey, warm feeling, and is a good contrast to the more industrial look of the village gate as a whole. We got there relatively late on a Saturday evening, and while the place was pretty full, our wait for a table was less than 10 minutes. There was a relatively steady stream of people in and out while we were there, but none of the waits seemed any longer than ours. I have walked past the place during peak dinner hours, and there were a lot more people waiting, so your experience may vary.

They have a pretty decent website as well, http://www.thegatehousecafe.com/, with their full menu and it’s mobile friendly with no annoying Flash.

The Gate House is located in the Village Gate mall at 274 North Goodman Street. They’re open for lunch and dinner, and have brunch on the weekend. Check them out and tell them we sent you!

Gluten free food. This may be a term you’re familiar with, or at the very least heard it in passing maybe more than once in recent years. Gluten is a composite of proteins found some grass related grains, such as rye, barley, and especially wheat. It seems that there are more and more people who have a sensitivity to Gluten based products, or full blown Coeliac disease, which as an auto-immune reaction to gluten. The intolerance can manifest in different ways in different people, from a gastro intestinal reaction, akin to irritable bowel syndrome, or to a skin reaction in the form of eczema. It often is misdiagnosed for other things, and one of the only real ways of diagnosing it is an elimination diet. An elimination diet means nothing with gluten in it, and when you try to do that your options become very very limited. Go to Wegmans and start reading labels. You will see gluten is in a lot more than you realized. If you want to do an elimination diet, that means no pasta, no bread, no cookies, some cold cuts have gluten in them as a binding ingredient, etc, etc. If you have coeliac (which is rarer than a basic intolerance), you need to really careful and really check your labels.

Over the years though, there are a lot of companies who have come out with gluten free products for this market. Rice noodles make a decent substitute for wheat flour noodles. There are gluten free breads, and cookies, and all sorts of stuff. The problem with a lot of them is that most of them are pretty awful. I couldn’t understand why these companies couldn’t at least put out something that tasted good and was gluten free.

And then Eco Bella opened up down the street from me. Now, I only have a mild intolerance for gluten products. I deal with it as I hate having my diet limited, but if I can get something in gluten free that is equal to what I’m already used to, then bring it on. I was skeptical at first when I walked into Eco Bella, which is a tiny store front at 732 South Ave. There are a multitude of things in their display cases, but what I was most interested in, and most hopeful for, was finding a gluten free brownie that actually tasted good. The first thing I ordered was a brownie with chocolate frosting. It was awesome. It actually tasted like a normal brownie. It was chocolaty and rich and the texture was spot on. Cooking without gluten is one thing, but Eco Bella is also vegan. I’m not a vegan, but I do enjoy vegan and vegetarian food just as much as anything else, and vegan food can be a lot like some gluten free things can be; bland and weird. Eco Bella dodges this bullet as well, because I always seem to forget that I’m eating something that’s not just gluten free, but also vegan. I don’t know how they do it, but they do it pretty awesome and I recommend that you definitely check them out.

So if you have issues with gluten,  or are a vegan, or perhaps both, this is your new dessert mainstay. Eco Bella Bakery is again located at 732 South Avenue. They have a website that has their hours on it, as well as their menu and prices. You can check that out here, at http://www.ecobellabakery.com.