Our Cleveland experience continues…
We were trying to figure out a place for dinner that first night. We were hoping for something casual, but also wanted some atmosphere. We wound up at the Rusty Anchor at the Music Box. This restaurant was right on the Cuyahoga River, with views of the Flats, and bridges. We sat and watched boats go by, as we chatted and sipped our cocktails.
I ordered some peach fizzy thing, which I need to learn not to order these fancy pants bartenders signature drinks, because they are usually not good. Omar however, ordered the Kentucky Bourbon Barrel Ale, brewed by the Alltech Lexington Brewing and Distillery Company. This beer, 8.91% abv, is aged for up to six weeks in freshly decanted bourbon barrels from some of Kentucky’s finest distilleries. It has subtle flavors of vanilla and oak infused into this special ale as it rests in the charred barrels. This beer is pleasantly smooth and you can almost taste the bourbon. It was surprisingly good and very smooth.
For dinner, I opted for the Potato crusted salmon, with seasoned rice and asparagus. I assumed the potato crust would be more flaked, but it was basically thinly sliced potatoes encrusting the fish. The salmon was a tiny bit overcooked, and a wee bit dry, but nice flavor. It came with a horseradish dill sauce which was delicious, but far not enough of, I wanted to drown my fish in it it was so good! The rice, I am not sure what it was seasoned with, perhaps saffron as it was a bright yellow, was flavorful with tiny chunks of carrot. The asparagus was “meh”. Just ok.
Omar ordered the Walleye. It doesn’t sound too interesting until you coat it with this amazing panko bacon pickle dill crust. The fish was so juicy and the panko breading was crispy and delicious. His was served with lyonaisse potato, which ironically we posted earlier that this is merely potatoes roasted with onion, but this one like a fancy tower of scalloped potatoes. Under seasoned, they were forgettable. His fish came with a roasted garlic aoili, which I didn’t sample.
We opted against dessert, or anymore drinks. After a long day we were tired. The bar had live music starting, and we were going to head in and watch the show and have another drink at the bar, but they tried to charge us $7 cover charge with a “free” lame margarita type house drink. That was pretty crappy since we were already there. They would have been better off letting us stay for free, and we would have ordered our $10 drinks. But we left, mostly on principle.
We definitely would recommend the place. Nice ambiance, great views and good food.
On our way out, we popped into to Shooters next door. Shooters is one of those chain waterfront party type bars. We started out going to eat there, until the hostess said that we could sit outside, but they stopped serving food outside. Odd. The menu looked like any Applebees/Chili’s/Fridays. We opted for Rusty Anchor for dinner. I did drag Omar back to Shooters where there was some dance band called “Pop Fiction”. I thought they were good and playing all that dance music and line dance stuff. I tried to get Omar to dance but he refused. Party pooper. There was even some tiny dog dancing on the dance floor. OK it wasn’t dancing, more like getting dragged, but it looked like it was having fun. We only stayed a minute but the place looked like fun!
