Molly Woo's Asian Bistro

Molly Woo’s Asian Bistro
Polaris Fashion Place
1500 Polaris Parkway
Columbus, OH 43240
http://www.mollywoos.com/

Molly Woo's is one of the exquisite dining concepts owned by Columbus based Cameron Mitchell Restaurants. It is an Asian Bistro attached to the Polaris Fashion Place Mall in Columbus, OH. Cameron Mitchell offers a variety of upscale restaurants specializing in Asian and Italian cuisines, as well as steak and seafood. Visit the Cameron Mitchell website to learn what makes each of their concepts unique and how much emphasis they place on quality food and excellent service.

Now onto my experience at Molly Woo’s…

Let’s talk about atmosphere for a minute. The surrounding definitely sets the mood for your dining experience. When you enter a nice restaurant, you expect a nice atmosphere. How about walking into a room that has red lanterns hanging from the very high ceiling in all different sizes and amazing Asian artifacts decorating the walls? That is what you’ll see when you walk into Molly Woo’s and it really makes for a grand welcoming when entering their large dining room.

Now let’s talk about service. When you sit down in a nice restaurant, you expect to be taken care of in a respectful and efficient manner. Our servers name was Melanie and she couldn’t have been any sweeter. She was very attentive to our table and extremely patient and helpful to me when I was having a tough time deciding what to order. Since we had never been there before, she took the time to explain the menu and how we could change most of the dishes to our liking if we didn’t want all of the ingredients or if we wanted the heat of the spiciness toned down. The manager also stopped by at one point to let us know that the ribs we ordered as an appetizer were not cooked to the chef’s liking and since it would take another hour to prepare, he generously offered us another choice at no charge. This is definitely a place that goes above and beyond to make sure you have the best dining experience possible.

Finally, let’s talk about the food. Absolutely delicious!! My son and his friend ordered the Firecracker Chicken, which is a wonderful, tasty blend of crispy fried chicken and shredded carrots in a sweet Thai Chili Sauce. My son’s friend does not like carrots, so they were happy to leave them out. The Thai Chili Sauce had just the right combination of spicy and sweet and both boys loved it.

After going back and forth between several of the dishes that caught my attention, I decided on the Pineapple Curry Shrimp. This sweet and spicy concoction is made up of spicy wok seared shrimp, pineapple, green peppers, onions and tomatoes smothered in a coconut curry sauce. Have you ever eaten something so delicious that you don’t want to put your fork down? This was one of those times for me. The sweetness from the pineapple and coconut milk mixed with the spiciness of the curry really blended well together.

Needless to say, we thoroughly enjoyed our dinner at Molly Woo’s and are likely to return for another tasty meal. Maybe I’ll try their sushi next time…

The South Side (Tremont Restaurant)

The South Side
2207 W. 11th St.
Cleveland, OH (Tremont neighborhood)
http://www.southsidecleveland.com/

I am pleased to introduce the first 'Guest' post to my blog. Thank you to my brother for providing the following restaurant review. Sounds like a great place to visit and enjoy a relaxing meal on a sunny afternoon. Please enjoy!!

We’ve never been to The South Side in Tremont, but it turned out to be an enjoyable casual dining experience overall. After checking out the full menu on their website, we made our way down there on a sunny Friday afternoon to take advantage of the outdoor patio. There was plenty of on-street parking, which is no big surprise for one o’clock in Tremont, and we found a nice spot under a shady tree in front of a house where a local artist was working on his latest sculpture on the porch. Dining in Tremont is only partially about the dining, after all.

The entrance to the three-story brick building on W. 11th seems a little dark and overgrown, but once you cross the front door, you’ll see a long, modern barroom with about a half-dozen tall, wooden tables along the opposite wall from the bar. The décor is bare brick, stone, and wood, with the curvy, marble bar as the centerpiece of the room. To the left is the main dining area/indoor patio, another room highlighting the restaurant’s natural décor. There are another 8-10 lower wooden tables and a fireplace for those colder days. From the indoor patio, a set of wide glass doors opens to the outdoor patio that takes up the corner of W. 11th and Fairfield. Outside, there are another 10 or so large wooden tables, some with umbrellas, that are secluded by large bushes outside of a tall, black, iron fence. During our lunch, a local resident said “hello” to the server and nearby patrons, claiming not to be “peeping, just passing by.” So, there is some privacy, but it doesn’t completely exclude the color and uniqueness of the neighborhood. The outdoor patio is decorated on one wall with a large Scott Radke mural, a former local artist whose work is ubiquitous in Tremont (and around town). The two-sided fireplace also opens to the outdoor part of the patio. It’s a nice, open area for a laid-back lunch or evening out.

For our meal, we started with a couple of drafts, Blue Moon and Dortmunder, from their fair list of beers on tap. They have the usual line-up of Great Lakes local favorites, plus a few other craft beers and domestics. They have a decent-sized full menu, but we ate kind of light since it was lunchtime. I won’t bore you with the details since you can just check it out here: South Side Menu, but suffice it to say that there’s something for just about everyone. An appetizer of fried mozzarella “moons” was a pretty satisfying way to start the meal. Three lightly-breaded and tastefully-seasoned half-circles of quarter-inch thick slabs of cheese were accompanied with a slightly sharp marinara and fresh greens. It was just enough to take the edge off of our hunger before our main dishes arrived. For the main course, I had the “homemade black bean veggie burger” and my dining companion had the “capresa sandwich.” The burger was about an inch-thick patty of mashed black beans, corn, peppers, and other veggies. It came on a large roll with tomato, lettuce, and onion with a side of fresh-made fries. As a vegetarian, I’ve tried different restaurants’ takes on the “veggie burger,” and this was one of the better ones. It certainly was homemade as claimed (many of them are not) and was not ruined by overseasoning or too many conflicting vegetable flavors, which can be the case with a lot of restaurants’ veggie burgers. It also held together pretty well for such a large burger, again not the case with some others. The fries were pretty good being fresh cut, but there were a couple that could have spent another few seconds in the fryer. On the other side of the table, they served up a “capresa sandwich” which is a version of the popular Italian caprese, fresh mozzarella with olive oil, fresh tomato, and basil on a salty roll. The South Side’s featured ciabatta bread, fresh balsamic greens, and roasted tomatoes and was piled generously with the fresh mozz. The portion was good-sized, and there were no complaints about the taste. A side of newly-cut potato chips accompanied the sandwich, and although they were crisp and relatively light, they could have had a little more flavor. Overall, the food was tasty, filling, and made with quality ingredients—definitely an enjoyable bistro dining experience.

The service and prices were also in line with bistro dining. The service was casual, but attentive, and while the appetizers could have come sooner, there was never a wait for a refill or the main dishes. The wait staff was pleasant and agreeable overall. The prices, as well, were fair and what you’d expect for patio dining in Tremont. Our meals and a couple of cold ones didn’t run more than $35, plus there’s never a cost for parking. Besides that, you can’t really put a cost on a lazy, summer, Friday afternoon lunch in the open air of artsy, quirky Tremont. If you’re not expecting “fine dining,” check this place out—it’s a great casual place to grab a beer and a quality meal that won’t break the bank.