New year, new posts...

So...I've been neglecting my food blog as of late. I blame my new IPhone. It's taking up all of my free time. But I promise to be a better blogger in 2009. For real.

My boyfriend and I ended 2008 with dinner at Melange in Beachwood. We go there fairly often for $5 martini night and occasionally for breakfast or dinner. (BTW - the breakfast is to die for!) I made reservations using the Open Table app on my IPhone, so I expected to show up at 7:00 and be seated right away. Although the hostess was nice enough to check my coat for me, it took a few minutes for her to think to ask me if I had a reservation or if I needed a table. We eventually got seated in the dining room adjacent to the bar area. It's nice, but I always feel like I'm far away from the action when I'm sitting there.

Since it was a busy night, it took over 10 minutes to even see our waiter. That was disappointing, though, because I wanted an espresso martini, darn it! Service improved once we placed our order and got our first round of drinks. As always, we were presented with a mountain of warm, fresh bread. I was happy to see that the olive tapenade dipping sauce (normally made with anchovies - yuck!) had been replaced with a really flavorful red pepper hummus. Along with bread, I had a nice siade salad to start. My boyfriend had a delicious smelling mushroom soup. I wish I could have tried it but we weren't sure what it was made with. for my meal, I had squash ravioli with a cream sauce and dried cherries. SO delicious! I've had the dish before and it was just as good. My boyfriend had scampi over risotto and said it was really good. As a meatatarian, it was hard to get him to eat the risotto, but I think he thought it was pretty tasty.

What was disappointing was our dessert. We had pumpkin roll cake with pumpkin ice cream. The cake was flavorless and the ice cream was so-so. I was really disappointed to end our dinner with such a bland dessert. We did get New Years hats and a party horn, so that lifted our spirits a bit.

Today I had lunch at Go Bistro, a new independently owned restaurant in Mayfield Heights. It opened in the beginning of December and seems to be doing ok for a new establishment. Serving mainly salads, sandwiches, and pastas, it seems like the perfect place for a quick lunch or catering. The owners are trying to use a lot of local produce and recycled serving materials. On my first visit, I had a half Chicken Mozzarella sandwich minus chicken and the bistro side salad. The sandwich was similar to the Caprese Grill that I get at Appetite but the bread was much better. The salad was phenomenal, though. With a cherry balsamic vinaigrette, candies walnuts, and blue cheese, I almost wanted to lick my plate. Today I got the Turkey Havarti without turkey along with the same salad. The herbed mayo on the sandwich was really good. And the bread felt minutes old. I had a cup of regular coffee and it was really good, too. I hope more people in the area check this place out. I love supporting local establishments. Especially socially conscious ones.

I'm headed to Kansas for work this weekend and hope to locate at least one veg restaurant. I really enjoyed Liquid Earth when I was in Baltimore. My mission for 2009 is to find at least one vegetarian restaurant in every city that I go to.