Basi Italia

Basi Italia is a very good restaurant, and with just a little tweaking, it could truly be great. If I weren't making it my personal mission to dissect every aspect of an establishment, I could find little for which to fault the cozy little place tucked into an alley in Victorian Village, at 811 Highland street. So let's just get those faults out of the way:
1. the paper menus were dirty; not unforgivable, but the wine list was particularly filthy and in my book, that's just unappetizing.
2. The service was not professional, and not particularly attentive. Glasses were delivered hot from the dishwasher for white wine, which our server addressed by saying "let those sit for a minute, they're kind of warm." He disappeared for quite some time on multiple occasions, namely, when we needed something--more wine, or the check (which seems a particularly difficult trick, as we could see every inch of the dining room and the kitchen--then again, it was 'Vino on the Veranda' night)
 3. My personal pet peeve is visiting Italian restaurants which don't offer espresso. Basi Italia does not...and as our server confessed, the regular coffee offered is 'not so good'.

Ok. Now that that's out of the way--the very good stuff.

1. A well-rounded and reasonably priced wine list, from which we sampled an excellent 'Charles and Charles' Rose and a tasty Pinot Grigio.
2. Delicious appetizers/salads, of which we tried the Baby Iceberg Wedge with Pancetta and gorgonzola, Grilled endive with roasted Peach, Baby pecorino (I actually didn't write down this cheese, so I'm not sure this is accurate, but it was bordering on stinky, melty, and quite good) and toasted walnuts and the nearly ethereal Parmesan Creme Brulee, served with olives and olive-oily toast points. Shortly before our appetizers arrived, we were served a cute little paper lined glass of house-made, satisfyingly salty, savory biscotti.

3. Good sized portions of entrees, with obviously fresh and local (where applicable) ingredients.
We had the Grilled Shrimp special, with sweet corn, tomatoes, pesto and couscous, the Lobster Capellini--served with a beautiful half-Lobster tail perched atop the pasta and some pretty pea shoots (again--not sure they were pea shoots, but that's my best guess--crunchy and mild in flavor,) and candy-colored baby heirloom tomatoes, the Mustard-crusted Trout (though for having 'mustard' in the title, it just tasted like breading to me) which featured a salad of pickled onions and peppers and the same possibly pea-shoots and the Potato Gnocchi with mushrooms, grape tomatoes and sweet corn.

4. Tasty desserts of manageable portions. These are not your 'chocolate volcano', 'death by chocolate' or 'big as your face carrot cake'-variety desserts. We tried a lemon cheesecake with blueberry sauce, which was very light, and not too lemony or saccharine-sweet. We also tried a chocolate dessert--small slabs of rich dark chocolate interspersed with coconut and dried cherries, served with berries, obviously fresh whipped cream, and raspberry coulis...which would have been perfect with an espresso.

All in all, I found Basi Italia to be quite pleasing. The novelty of finding such a cute restaurant, with worthwhile food, in the back alley of a likewise cute neighborhood is enough to warrant a recommendation. I'm looking forward to returning on another 'Vino on the Veranda' night--to find out just what our server was getting into.

Min-Ga Korean

Located at 800 Bethel Rd, in the shopping plaza behind the picturesque 'Johnny Buccelli's', Min Ga is an unassuming and seldom noted bastion of good Korean soul food in Columbus...if only because no one eats Korean soul food in Columbus. It would be a stretch to call the decor 'decor', or the service 'service', but what it lacks in the traditional evening-out trappings it makes up for in real, heart-of-the-matter Korean cooking. 

I must admit, I'm no expert in Korean gastronomy, and the over-arching 'fish-sauce-iness' is something to which I've gradually had to adjust my palate, but judging from my companion's reactions even the novice epicure can find something to love at Min-Ga...provided they arrive with an open mind (and a little more cash than the average strip-mall, easterly oriented chow house requires.)
It's worthwhile to note that our excursion was centered around my sister's upcoming trip to South Korea. My sister is a pescatarian and the friend whom she is visiting exhibited uncertainty as to whether he could find her suitable fare in his host country. That is, a meat-free meal in a place where the language and signage is...let's just say, incomprehensible. Our mission was to seek out the names of dishes free from pork, beef, blood sausage (called, confusingly, 'Sundae') and the like. 
Happily, we found a variety of solely (no pun intended) fish-based dishes. 

We started with the seafood pancake: A delightfully light egg-pastry topped with scallions, shrimp, bay scallops, tiny mussels, octopus and squid and served with a sweet/spicy sauce. It was delicious, and would have sufficed as a meal on its own for the solitary diner.

We then ordered a variety of entrees: Seafood Bibimbap (meaning, in Korean, 'mixed meal') in a clay hot-pot, Joki Kui--salted yellow croaker (head on, particularly unattractive fish) Japchae with Beef, Japchae with Tofu--both stir-fried rice noodle dishes and Kimchi Seafood Tang- a spicy, broth soup with abundant and multifarious sea creatures. Our meals were accompanied in the traditional Korean manner with a number of 'Banchan'--side dishes, which included kimchi, cole slaw, hot peppers, several variations of marinated potatoes, marinated turnips, seaweed and cucumber, cabbage and cucumber and what was described as 'fish cake' but was evidently bean curd skin. These were all lovely additions, each an adventure in taste and texture, and led us each to complete (if not exorbitant) gratification.
For someone wanting to stick their toe in the delightful, yet intimidating world of Korean cuisine, I recommend the Bibimbap--an interesting yet understandable variation of a more recognizable 'fried rice' (they offer fried rice, too, but having not tried it, and loving the Bibimbap, I'd say go for it) or any of the Japchae as deliciously different, but not TOO different (or spicy) as an inaugural foray into Korean flavor. From there, decide what you like and if you won't like it, your server will probably tell you so. Thankfully (and unlike in South Korea) the menu offers helpful translations of all of the dishes...and if you've got $11.95 to blow on blood sausage---let me know how it was.

A letter to Mr. Dae Oh.

Dear Mr. Oh,
It is out of sincerest concern for your business ventures that I tell you that your sushi is, well...bad.
Having dined before at Shoku in Grandview, and last night at Red in the Short North, it is my advice that you do better, lest these establishments join Tyfoon in the overcrowded pool of ill-conceived, short-lived, now-defunct 'trendy' sushi restaurants. It wouldn't be a fatal flaw if the poor quality of your food were not matched with astronomical pricing, tiny portions, lack of creativity and lackluster service.
As it is, the fish (even the salmon and yellowtail which was suggested as the freshest) was not fresh, and as I had noticed before at Shoku, inexpertly cut. I know, I know; We're in Ohio, thousands of miles from the ocean, but I've had better sushi from a strip mall joint in Gahanna. It was priced higher than the exceptional quality sushi restaurant where I worked on the upper west side of Manhattan, the rolls were obviously lifted from a variety of more successful sushi restaurants in town (all of them slathered with spicy mayo and tempura flakes,) my husband's $9 cocktail arrived in a half-full (I guess in this case, half-empty) martini glass  and the ambiance was spoiled by 3 giant-screen TVs perched above the otherwise lovely sushi bar.
As there was nothing satisfactory about my dining experience last night, it would be cruel to elaborate much further, but there is a general half-assedness that pervades each of your establishments in which I have been unfortunate enough to have dined. Given that both Red and Two Fish were nearly completely empty during prime dinner hours (albeit, on a Monday--but with 'buy one get one half off' sushi, you should be able to draw more than 6 diners) I would say that it's time to re-examine your strategy--purchasing, menu development, hiring, training...everything.
I want you to succeed. I want you to keep pouring money into the Short North. So please accept this letter as a sort of intervention: go to rehab and then we'll talk again.

Why blogs are relevant, specifically, this one.

First and foremost, this is not a magazine. This is not a newspaper. I do not have deadlines, quotas, or advertising loyalties. I do have a strong desire to see excellent restaurants succeed and steer diners towards exceptional experiences. I want the Columbus culinary world to continue to grow: stimulating our appetites and our economy.
Mission statements aside, I like you. I have inside information via delivery drivers, cooks, servers and chefs around the city and if i can warn you away from a filthy kitchen or chronically bad service I consider it my responsibility to do so...if you've ever felt the gastrointestinal devastation of E. coli (poop, people. It comes from poop) or waited 45 minutes for a glass of water, you can appreciate my motivation to prevent future hardship.
So. The plan is to tell you about great places, warn you about bad ones, throw in a recipe or two, keep the poop references to a minimum, and hopefully entertain us both.