Restaurant Review: Brown Dog Cafe

During Restaurant Week in March, we went to Brown Dog Cafe in Blue Ash, which I briefly told you guys about a little whiles ago in my What I'm Loving post. Restaurant Week comes twice a year - spring and fall from what I know - and it's a chance to get a 3-course meal for a certain price at participating restaurants, this time for $26.12. I always jump all over that. Especially because this place usually costs $40 a person for 3-courses.

I had already read about it being in a strip mall kind of setting, so I was prepared for that. What I didn't realize was that it was located right next to my old high school, Ursuline Academy, and right next to the old Subway we used to always eat at!!! So I really couldn't be turned off because I was loving seeing my old neck of the woods again. We entered and it was a tiny place, not gonna lie, with hardly anywhere to stand while waiting to be seated, which did take about 5 minutes or so before someone finally greeted us. We finally got a booth near the bar (a bit loud at times), and our waitress wasn't exactly pleasant, but not bad either. Not really smiley or customer-friendly. But I can get over that.

We started out with some bread and garlic. This place is the only place I've seen to serve cooked, soft garlic and oil, and we loved it! It added a nice sweetness to the bread. That was a good sign of the food to come.

PJ got the rabbit ravioli for his first course. Yay, this place serves interesting meats like rabbit and boar. He decided to be adventurous and try the rabbit ravioli, and though he didn't dislike it, he also didn't love it. I tried a bit of it and the meat did taste different than any other meat so it's hard to describe.

It was interesting and decent but I was happy that I chose what I did, which was the crab cake. Boy was it plump and delicious. It sat atop a bed of slaw which had soaked up that luscious sauce, with gorgonzola or blue cheese bits too (I can't remember specifically). And a bite of everythiing together was just perfect. I loved that first course.

For our second courses, we both ordered the Baby Bleu salad, and I added spiced pecans to mine. This salad had spinach, egg, tomato, avocado, bleu cheese vinaigrette, gorgonzola, and bacon. Yep, pretty much the perfect salad.

I wasn't really blown away by my third course, the scallops and gnocchi dish, but I liked it fine enough. I'm not really sure if I've had gnocchi before, but I've heard of it and it sounded like it could be good. But I wasn't a fan too much, and the dish was mostly gnocchi. Like gnocchi overload. And only 2 scallops. Plump scallops, but still. I wanted more of em, cuz the little bit I did get was tasty.

I did however LOVE PJ's dish, the filet oscar. It was one of the best steaks. It melted in my mouth. Perfectly cooked. And that sauce and crab set it over the top. I was longing for more of his dish! But I kept my cool and only had one bite :)  I should have ordered that, and definitely will next time we go back.

Can't wait to go back and try out some other appetizers and salads possibly, and to definitely get my taste buds on that filet oscar! Who knows, maybe one of us will be daring and order some wild boar.



Peace, and bacon grease!