Symon Says..

Last night I went downtown Cleveland to Lola's Bistro which is Michael Symon's restaurant. I've been there in the past before he was an Iron Chef but I figured I'd go back on the company dollar.. :)

The Indians were home last night so traffic was a lot worse and there were people in the city! Lola's is about 2 blocks from the stadium so parking was non-existent, luckily Lola's has valet parking so after driving around for a few minutes I gave in and let them valet the car. I went in and asked for a table, I was told the wait was at least 90 minutes but I could get the full menu at the bar. The bar didn't have an empty seat so I went back to the podium to put my name in. As I was at the podium a group of 3 came in for a kitchen view table, the kitchen view area is a bar facing the kitchen that has 8 seats, with this group there would have been one open seat so the manager said I could sit there if the group of 3 was ok with that. The group of 3 were 2 ladies and an older guy there on business. We chatted for a min and they said sure.. :-)

I sat down and started looking at menu and there was no drinks which I thought was odd. I already had my dinner choice narrowed down to two choices, which was the "Wild Salmon with chicken confit, red wine mustard sauce, hash brown salad" and the "Scallops with sweet pea tart, lemon, pancetta, carrot" so there was little to look at on the menu. The waitress came over with a iPad which had their drink menu, it was very cool to browse the drink menu on that. I watched the guys cook for a while before deciding on the Salmon. The Salmon was perfectly cooked but the hash brown salad was the high point of the dish. For dessert I had a Passion Fruit Parfait with caramelized white chocolate, passion fruit granita, micro basil. All in all the meal was a mere $80 with one glass of wine, valet and tip.

After dinner I wandered around since the city now had some form of population, apparently the game was rain delayed so a bunch of people who had not gone into the stadium yet were hanging out at the bars. Btw - it was NOT raining so I don't know why it was in a rain delay. I hung out for a bit before heading back to the hotel. On the ride back it rained a little.

The title of this blog is in reference to a shirt they were selling at Lola's, on the front it says Symon Says, on the back it says "Live to Cook".