food
The Wanderer An Akron adventure, Eastern European edition by Holly Brown
The beauty of writing a column about wandering through food is that you have complete and total license to drag your friends to restaurants which all of you know very little about and have no expectations for, and which you get showered in praise for finding once you all realize it is completely and totally delicious. For the entirety of this summer, I have been tending grapes. No joke, I work on a vineyard and grapes, that will soon be wine, are my little babies. This doesn’t have much to do with the article other than this: harvest is right around the corner and to celebrate the impending intense manual labor, my fellow vineyarders and I went out for drinks. This is where I revealed to them my alter ego as The Wanderer, badass food writer with an insatiable appetite for cheese (among other things). That’s when the recommendations started pouring in. It was once we began discussing the intricacies of Hungarian food that I heard about the New Era Restaurant, and truth be told, I went there for dinner that very night. New Era is a big brick building which looks like it could just as easily house legal offices or perhaps someone’s dentist. Once we stepped inside, it became obvious what their specialty was. Travel
posters of Eastern European cities are hung on the walls, and next to the front counter, there is a cooler displaying decadent homemade desserts: pies, cheesecakes, and glorious strudels (we shall return to the strudel). I haven’t been exposed to many dishes from Eastern Europe, with the exception of one truly enlightening experience with chicken paprikash. The New Era Restaurant specializes in many home cooked meals, like lasagna and pigs in a blanket, but the most intriguing things on their menu were things I had never eaten before from Eastern Europe. I was feeling adventurous on this, one of the last weekends of summer, and Maya, Ryan, and I decided to jump right in and try new things, each getting a different dish and sharing them, family style. Because there was no way we weren’t going to try the chicken paprikash, we ordered that. I had been told vehemently to order liver and onions, so we also got chicken livers sautéed with onions and mushrooms. Lastly, we got an order of ćevapi, a Serbian-style sausage. Heaping plates of meats, sauces, and dumplings crowded our table. We had so many plates that
it was literally impossible to move anything Table full o' food including Chicken Livers around. Everyone kept handing scoops of their and Chicken Paprikash dish to the others, splashing sauce on the table and definitely dropping more than a few bits I got it all smothered in gravy and dumped my side of food while we laughed and stuffed our faces. of peas right in for a nice crisp texture variety. It really felt like I was eating at my grandparents’ house with all of my relatives trying to feed each I was borderline ready to explode at this point, other, singing the praises of their individual dishes. but we knew we had a cheese strudel coming our way. I’m fairly certain that there is an entirely Chicken paprikash was just as good as I separate stomach for dessert, so even though my remembered. Tender chicken and deliciously dense dinner stomach was full, my dessert stomach was dumplings in a thin orange sauce that coated remarkably empty. That’s a good thing, because everything and dripped with every forkful. The the strudel was both creamy and flaky, buttery and ćevapi was more savory than spicy, just the right cheesy, and the three of us ate the whole thing in amount of garlicy. They cut like butter with just under five minutes. a fork and melted in your mouth. Full disclosure, Ryan and I used our leftover ćevapi for omelettes Go to the New Era Restaurant, and when you do, the next morning and that was an amazing order something new, something you’ve never had decision. I recommend bringing home leftovers. before. You will be served as if you are family and your belly will reap the rewards. Now, like most children, I had been trained to grimace at the thought of liver and onions and // Holly Brown loves adventures and food. She loves going on adventures for food. She now loves liver and onions. held on to that aversion subconsciously into my adult life. I am frankly super pissed off at myself for doing so, because it was incredible. The livers THE NEW ERA RESTAURANT were absolutely decadent, rich and minced with a 10 Massillon Rd, Akron crunchy fried outside that took on the earthiness of Mon-Thurs : 11am – 9pm, Fri-Sat: 11am - 10pm, both the cooked onion and mushroom. Of course Sun: 11pm - 8pm
September downtown restaurant tour includes
food passport an Akronist staff report The Downtown Akron Restaurant Tour has returned for its fifth year, but with a few twists. Formerly Downtown Akron Restaurant Week, the new tour will run now through Sept. 30 and include a passport. The tour is developed by Downtown Akron Partnership (DAP) Emerging Leaders and encourages the Akron community to explore the dynamic and expanding food scene in Downtown Akron. Also new this year is an interactive passport. Customers earn stamps for each entree purchased at participating restaurants to redeem for gift certificates at the following levels: Left top to bottom: Bricco (Photo: Shane Wynn, AkronStock.com); David DiDomenico, owner of the Coffee Pot Cafe on South Main Street, holds up a copy of the passport you can get stamped as part of Downtown Akron’s September restaurant tour. (Photo by Chris Miller)
AKRON MUSIC, ART & CULTURE
5 stamps = $10 dining certificate 10 stamps = $20 dining certificate 15 stamps = $30 dining certificate Passports will be available at all participating restaurants and at Downtown Akron Partnership’s office, 103 S. High St., 4th Floor, Akron, OH 44308. In addition, the Downtown Akron Restaurant Tour expanded to include all meals – breakfast, lunch and dinner, at the participating restaurants. The month-long event showcases 18 Downtown Akron restaurants and bars. Visit downtownakron.com/ restauranttour for details. Be sure to “like” the DAP Emerging Leaders Facebook page and join the Downtown Akron Restaurant Tour Facebook event. Share your experiences on Twitter and Instagram at #EatAkron for a chance to win gift certificates and other prizes.
2015 Participating Restaurants 3 Point Barley House Baxter’s Bricco Brubaker’s Cilantro The Coffee Pot Cafe Crave DBA (Dante Boccuzzi Akron) Diamond Deli The Game Grill + Bar Jilly’s Music Room The Lockview Natalie’s Nuevo Modern Mexican Pizza Fire Urban Eats
SEPTEMBER 2015 • VOL 1 • ISSUE #13 /
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