After the Findlay Market — A Cincinnati Variety Pack: Lake Nina, Mr. Gene’s Dog House, Mesopotamia, and Izzie’s

One thing about a Roadfood Crawl is that you end up trying all sorts of foods, including very local specialties like Goetta, Mettwurst, and, as we’re about to see, Mock Turtle Soup. After the wonderful food at Eckerlin Meats and Alabama Fish Bar, the afternoon of Day 2 of the Cincinnati Roadfood Crawl began with a wonderful Old School fish place.

I loved the Lake Nina Restaurant. It’s been at 7200 Pippin Road in northwestern Cincinnati for over 60 years, sitting high above Nina Lake and is best known for its seafood — which does not come from Nina Lake — and its comfortable informality. It is proudly frill-free. The main dining room includes a long bar and comfortably spaced tables.

Lake Nina is very popular — that’s the 4:00 pm Friday crowd. We began trooping into a group room

that overlooked the lake.

The food started flying. I started with another Only in Cincinnati dish, mock turtle soup.

No turtles were harmed in making this soup. These days it’s based on ground beef with … who knows? Bay leaf and Lea and Perrins, for sure, and probably ginger snaps, hard boiled eggs. Maybe clove, too. It had a rich, meaty flavor that a squeeze of lemon balances, and evanescent flavors of ginger and clove or pickling spices. I enjoyed it, but made sure to grab tastes of truly outstanding onion rings, whose beauty shines through in this photo,

fried dill pickle slices (I prefer chips, but these were fried well and very tasty),

and “hot salad,” a slaw topped with bacon that isn’t warm at all.

But it was a clever ingredient pairing that worked well. I forget what else floated before me before the main attractions — the fish log, a thick block of cod beautifully fried and served with fried potatoes and the (optional) onions, and lots of Lake Nina’s own tartar sauce.

Next Jack Salmon appeared accompanied by more potatoes.

That’s “Jack” as in not really salmon. It’s walleye, and you really ought to order some. It’s a light, flaky fish, and I’m under the delusion that there’s a marked difference in the flavor of ocean and lake fish. I hardly ever get lake fish, and this was a treat. And you’ll notice, especially with the cod log, the curious absence of grease in the fried foods. Look at those potatoes, with the light crust and puffy inside. Lovely. The fish log ended up moist all through. I only added a squeeze of lemon to my portion, which was all it wanted.

There also was fried chicken, ,and other things went around the table, but you have to draw the line somewhere, especially when another dining stop is on the very near horizon. Still, it was hard to leave Lake Nina’s. It had such a lovable feel enhanced by a very friendly and accommodating staff. You should go and see how big the flavors are and how small your bill.

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After what turned out to be a pretty big meal at Lake Nina, the Roadfood Crawl rolled down to Mr. Gene’s Dog House at 3703 Beekman in Cumminsville, also known as Northside, about 10 minutes away.

That’s Gary at the window. I joined him presently after looking over the menu,

I ordered — for the group to share — a slaw dog, a coney (chili dog), and Italian sausage, and a Chicago dog.

I quartered them for sharing and got down to sampling. I’ve never met a coney or an Italian sausage I didn’t like. The Italian was novelly loaded with grilled peppers and onions, the perfect complement to the sausage. And the slaw dog had a nice contrast of flavor and texture.

Let’s zoom in on the Chicago dog, which I’d never tried. (I’m a mustard and raw onion and chili devotee, with jalapeños if available.) There’s a lot going on there.

I threw away the tomatoes after a single bite. I didn’t think that they added anything. I’m opposed to tomatoes out of season. I was surprised that the peppers didn’t have more punch and thought the hot dog itself was sort of loss in the mix. Fans of the Chicago dog are welcome to abuse me in the comments.

I really enjoyed Mr. Gene’s. They have something for everyone, rings and wings and shakes, and the people were charming. Cliff and I had a nice chat with the lady taking orders. That actually may have been what distracted me from ordering a hot mettwurst. Even Homer nods. You should try Mr. Gene’s. I’m sure you’ll love it.

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And now for something completely difference. our next stop was at Mesopotamia Kitchen and Bar out in Anderson Township. It’d on a sprawling shopping and dining development at 7454 Beechmont Avenue. I arrived late, having gone back to my hotel to call home and catch up on some things, and the appetizers, hummus, baba ganoush, dolmas, and falafel. I managed to try some of each and enjoyed the m all, but I was playing catch-up. The biggest hits seem to have been the spinach borek

and the sound-dried tomatoes in oil.

I was even more at sea when the entree platters started arriving, and platters they were — big generous servings of meats, vegetables, rice, and salad, accompanied by more tzatziki. Platters like this excellent lamb and eggplant kebab platter,

and this, with the beauty and abundance of the presentation in tatters by the time it got near me. 

What is that? I can’t find it in the on-line menus and, to tell the truth, I was eating rather than asking. It was all good. I especially like the asparagus and sprouts — a lear sign of a vegetable deficiency — and the cabbage rolls.

There was a pause and then they brought out the baklava.

I rarely eat baklava. I rarely eat desserts, and baklava, while tastes delicious, has an issue. Normally, it’s densely packed layers of phyllo and honey and sugar with nominal laters of pistachio or walnut that leaves me, lout that I am, with so much sugar stuck to my teeth that they have to be sand basted afterwards. I exaggerate, of course, but this baklava was a revelation. The phyllo was more loosely packed so that its lovely flaky character was preserved. And there was abundant pistachio filling, and abundant honey, for that matter — and maybe lemon. The flavor and texture was outstanding. It was much lighter and easier to cut into portions with a table knife –and a world easier to clean off my teeth. This was the best baklava I’ve ever had. The very best.

As we were finishing the chef came into our room amid great applause, and made a heartfelt statement about her craft and mission to use food and her culture to bring people together.

It was lovely. Every now and then you hear an immigrant speak about their work and their life here in the United States, and it moves you in a special way.

Give Mesopotamia a try.

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There’s one non-Roadfood stop earlier in the day, as four of us went off on a frolic and detour. I mused aloud that there was no Jewish-style deli on the crawl. (I’ve been surveying pastrami lately.) My listeners had been talking about the same thing, and someone had heard of Izzie’s which has a nearby downtown location at 800 Elm. Rather than stay in the Market, to Izzie’s we went.

Once there I started thinking that a deli was a bad fit for a Roadfood crawl because the sandwiches are overstuffed and awkward to subdivide enough not to overwhelm a 10-restaurant day. When the time came to order, there were several orders of matzoh ball soup and deli half-sandwiches,

There was a bowl of pickles for the table.

and each sandwich also came with Izzie’s award-winning potato pancake.

The soup, as you can see, was cloudy, and that led to adverse comments. Soup, however, gets cloudy when you boil the stock too rapidly, as I do every Thanksgiving and Christmas. It still tastes fine. And I had a taste of the soup-soaked matzoh ball and saw nothing at all wrong with it.

The potato pancakes were displayed prominently on the counter, and you couldn’t miss them going by on plates. Facing that and a super-stuffed pastrami on rye was a little frightening right after I’d gorged at Eckerlin Meats and Alabama Fish Bar, and prompted a rare burst of dietary discretion. I ordered a goetta sandwich on rye with mustard, which I calculated wouldn’t be overstuffed. Here’s a close-up of the goetta.

My sandwich was good. The goetta was regular rather than spicy and, of course, overshadowed by the glory of the spicy goetta at Eckerlin, but I enjoyed it. It was fairly rich and meaty, but milder in that regard than scrapple. There was no sage and limited pepper. I couldn’t set the other flavors. Could there have been a hint of cinnamon? I’ll close the curtain over the other sandwiches, as I didn’t try them. I think I should have stuck with the Roadfood Crawl program, which was designed with an extraordinary level of expertise. There was no reason to play hooky. Why leave the Findlay Market? I urge you to go the Market and, if you haven’t already, try Eckerlin and the Alabama Fish Bar. And feel free to tell me of your Market favorites that I could have eaten if I hadn’t gone astray.

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