The Eagle OTR

4/5 stars

Star Wars VIII: Bakersfield Boys Strike Again.
Their record remains perfect, aside from some personal preferences. There's a lot to like about this place, starting with the name The Eagle and ending with an eagle's close family-friend in your mouth, Fried Chicken.

1) This is the best fried chicken I've ever had, including fried chicken from my dreams. That honey dipping sauce could be the secret sauce, though I didn't have the balls to try the chicken without a skinny dip in the honey pool. And I thought I'd get skinny on the 1/4 Chicken, but it ended up being almost the perfect size for my stomach. The IDEAL portion for 1 person would be a 3/8 Chicken, even if they make it BYOR (Bring Your Own Ruler).
2) You heard it here first - The Eagle's Mac & Cheese is better than Keystone's, and MAYBE better than Kraft's. I'm still waiting for some survey results from any 6-year old who can eat and think at the same time.
3) The beer selection is ALSO better than Keystone's, with a nice touch of listing IBUs next to each beer. In a perfect world, they'd divide the alcohol content by the price, so I could see a measured "bang for my buck."
One thing that Keystone does better is marking on the menus which beers are out of stock. It was only after the waiter here came back that we found out that 2 of the 4 beers we ordered were not available.
4) Music fits with the theme, though it's not as good as Bakersfield, and it has nothing on my iTunes Top 25 Most Played.
4) Lighting is like Nada but pricing is like Dollar General. The low mood lighting feels contradictory with everything else about this place. One thing Bakersfield does well is that it makes you feel comfortable to come back more than 1x/week. The Eagle's lighting makes me feel the need to tidy up, which is difficult for me to do more than 1x/week, though this fried chicken could be done sometimes all the time every day.

Summary: The Eagle = Keystone lighting/beer x Bakersfield pricing/furniture
Further Summary: Kentucky Fried Eagle

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Moerlein Lager House

3/5 stars

This is being written after my second trip to Lager House, the first being during Opening Week. Considering that a first week experience should always go null and void, and that my last week experience was in a private party room, my opinion lacks scope. So with that in mind, get cozy in your cubicle as I assist you in wasting work time to read this review.

1) The Crab Cakes, which were officially endorsed by my waiter, are pretty good. They're much better than the crab cakes at Cock and Bull, but I bet a better crab cake exists in this city. Still, if I go back to Moerlein, I may get the Crab Cakes again because the rest of the menu is not really my kind of food (that is, highbrow bar food). 
2) The calamari is pretty good too. Again, there's probably better calamari SOMEWHERE but if you're in a squid mood, then get your squid on.

Like the upstanding citizen I am, most of my dinner budget went towards beer, so that concludes my comments on food.
And speaking of beer, the Moerlein OTR is maybe my favorite local one, so it was cool to source it straight from the mother teet that is the Lager House.

I also was highly appreciative of the quirky menu copy - don't let it go unnoticed. Quirky, though, is not how I would describe the clientele, nor the clientele's closest friends. The clientele here seems like they just got out of their Reds suite, or gave up their suite tickets for the day to their Bradley-Cooper-in-Wedding-Crashers brother-in-law. 
As other reviews have noted, the main appeal of this place is the view; the only other restaurant in Cinci that can compete with this view is Prima Vista in Price Hill. 
Also, as previously mentioned, I was here for a private party. And let me tell you - the service for 18 people (4 of which who were in a full blackout), was OUTSTANDING. If you're trying to impress a sizeable group of well-to-do out-of-towners with the "new" Cincinnati, Moerlein Lager House would be a good bet. 
So what are you waiting for? Hit that.

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Zula

4/5 stars

Compared to other OTR restaurants, this place is Zumongous. Of course, the tricky part of size is to still make it feel packed; to still have that energy. It doesn't quite have the Bombay subway-energy that Bakersfield has, but keep in mind that it's also more than twice the square footage of Bakersfield (or as the kids text these days, "BKRSFLD.") With that in mind, I was quite impressed that Zu-la-la-la was filled on a Wednesday.

I was also impressed that little ol' OTR has room for TWO mediterranean wine bars. Since Abigail St was my first, she'll always hold a special place in my heart, but Zula does offer a slightly different angle. For one, consider that Zula's menu length is closer to a Cheescake Factory's than to a fortune cookie, which is about the extent of text on most other OTR menus.
Also consider that your various dishes will be served by a multitude of waiters at a multitude of times. They must have some system whereby whoever is in the kitchen at the right time should serve the dish immediately while it's still piping hot. And as the Pied Piper of temperature*, I was extremely appreciative of this service. They're also slightly better than Abigail St at serving the dishes in a logical order (fries first, etc). And since the delivery times are staggered, no dish sits and gets cold; that is, every child gets its fair share of love; that is, no child left behind; that is, I'll shutup now. 

*I don't know what that means either

The food I tried:

Eggplant fries - I would highly recommend these. I remember commenting, "How did they think to put powdered sugar on eggplant?" to which my friend responded, "You put powdered sugar on a flat tire, and I'll at least TRY it." 
Lamb Moussaka - pretty good, but not as good as the Lamb Sliders at Abigail St, which I think is top 5 dishes in Cincitasti. 
Yellow Fin Tuna Crudo - The concept of "Cold" Plates was already a turnoff, but we felt obligated to try at least one since the section occupied a fair portion of the menu. Moral of the story: listen to your heart and not your eyes, and nor your face. 
Thai Mussels - I'm no mussel connoisseur, but my gut told my tongue that these are top tier. With that said, I did get the sense that they made the mussels in bulk, then dropped them in whichever sauce you ordered, a page right out of BW3's Wing Flavors 101 (class I took in undergrad). 
Bulgarian Feta - This is phenomenal. Again, it felt like it had been brought out within milliseconds of coming out of the oven, and my happiness escalated within milliseconds of coming into my mouth.
Panna Cotta (dessert) - Better than the other dessert we tried, but not as good as Jiffy Jello.

No further comment.

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Durum Grill

5/5 stars

This place was highly recommended to me, so I made the journey to a place where no unmarried man has gone before: Suburbia.

It was well worth the journey. My go-to for casual Mediterranean has always been Chicago Gyros, but that Gyro King has been dethroned. 
Maaake waaaay for Prinnnncee Ali* and Durum Grill.
I went at an odd hour (330pm on a Saturday), but I've heard that Durum has a line out the door during weekday lunch. So I was quite surprised about the nice size of the place. 

And I was pleasantly surprised by the tastiness of the food.
It's not greasy like Chicago Gyros, which is the Five Guys of the Middle East. 

I first had the Lamb Doner Kebab. If you've ever met me, you know that lamb gives me a (rhymes with doner). This doner was delectably delicious. 
Then I treated myself to a Chop Chicken Salad, which should make other restaurants ashamed of themselves, they're doing it all wrong compared to this one.

The guys who work there are super friendly and eager to help, which makes it easy to make me smiley. Three thumbs up for customer service (counting one big toe). 

In summary:
1) Get the Doner Kebab
2) Get another Doner Kebab

*Every Gyro review deserves at least one Aladdin reference

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Sotto

4/5 Stars

When I asked our waiter, who looked like Dave Matthews but talked like Mitchell from Modern Family, what the difference was between Sotto and Boca, his exact words were:

"Boca is a very formal crowd, Sotto is a more casual and livelier crowd."

I can't imagine what Boca's clientele looks like, because most of Sotto's patrons looked like they went to kindergarten with Betty White.
With that said, let's talk about more relevant restaurant topics, like food.

Actually, let's start with drinks:
Get the Amalfi.

Ok, now on to food:
Similar to people's confusion between alligators and crocodiles is my life-long confusion with prosciutto and bruschetta. No pneumonic device in the world can help me remember, so when it comes to ordering, I tend to order wrong.
We ordered the Goat Cheese/Honey Bruschetta and the Fried Zucchini with Feta. We ordered wrong.
Luckily, our waiter also accidentally brought us someone else's Polenta with fried egg. Someone else ordered very right. If you like tasty things, you'll LOVE this.

For the main course, our waiter explicitly said that only their pastas are worthwhile, so we explicitly listened. But buyer beware: trusting waiters is tricky, since we don't know anything about their tastes or habits or maiden names.
Based off his recommendation, we ordered the Short Rib Capellaci, the Pennette Vodka, and the Trenne con Rapini (nonconsentual pasta). The Short Rib Capellaci was definitely the best, but if I had to live life again, I wouldn't have unequivocally trusted his suggestions.

Luckily, he won my heart back by giving our birthday girl a complimentary dessert - Chocolate Budino. 
This was the second-best dessert we tried (out of two), only to the Banana Tiramisu. Though the serving dish makes this dessert not fit for the messy adult, its deliciousness will drown out the sound of any spillage. 

If you have questions, sorry, those are all the answers I have. Enjoy!

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