Gunselman's Tavern

We found ourselves in the Fairview Park area around dinner time, so I headed to Twitter to ask for recommendations nearby. Gunselman's Tavern was quickly suggested, and after a peek at their menu online, we headed right over.

We snagged a table on the patio, some beers, and started to look over the menu.

This tavern has traditional American bar food, kicked up a notch. They were awarded Best Burger by cleveland.com in 2018, so there are plenty of interesting and standard burger options. We knew we had to try one, but we also wanted to share something else. We settled on the Maine-style Lobster Roll ($14). You have your choice of side from fresh-cut fries, mac n' cheese, brussels, side house salad, or side Cesar salad. As you can see, we went for the mac n' cheese!

The lobster roll bun was phenomenal. The sandwich was heavily seasoned with Old Bay, which dominated a bit too much for our taste, but it was a good sized portion and held together well in that glorious bun. The mac n' cheese was creamy without being soupy, and there was just enough crunch from the light dusting of toasted breadcrumbs on top.

We also shared the Hawaiian Style burger ($12) with grilled pineapple, SPAM, and provolone topped with garlic zing and cilantro.

Again, a great bun. I wonder where they source their bread products from. The burger patty itself was pretty good too, and we enjoyed the burger overall but felt that it needed more of the garlic sauce. It was just missing a little flavor, and the sauce had been completely absorbed by the bun. A good heavy schmear of it probably would have been just what it needed. But, this burger definitely left us wanting to try another version. The fries were also very good, and served with a side of cheese sauce (surprise!).

They were out of their Alligator Tacos that evening, or that may have been our non-burger selection! I'd love to try them.

We aren't overly familiar with that area of town, so it was great to find a place that we want to go back to.

Gunselman's Tavern
21490 Lorain Road
Cleveland, OH 44126
(440) 331-5719

Weber's Custard and Ice Cream

If you're looking for a sweet treat over the holiday weekend, head to Weber's Premium Custard and Ice Cream in Fairview Park.

They have a variety of classic and specialty flavors of hard ice cream and smooth, creamy frozen custard. It's the best of both worlds!

"R" will eat just about any kind of ice cream, but I'm a soft-serve or frozen custard kinda gal. We were each happy with our options at Weber's! Also, Lizzie was loving the fact that they sell Purina's Frosty Paws for pooches.

She licked that whole thing clean, and then looked up at us like "Where's the rest?"

"R" ordered a scoop of hard ice cream (Strawberry Cheesecake, maybe?) and a scoop of Salted Caramel Frozen Custard.

I love that you can mix and match your scoops.

I went straight for a scoop of the salted caramel custard.

There is a large counter and display cooler (products also available by the pint) when you enter the shop, but no seating. You can find a couple of picnic tables outside though. Plenty of parking for a quick stop in, and it was easy to find on Lorain Road.

Lizzie demands that we return.

Weber's Premium Custard and Ice Cream
20230 Lorain Road
Fairview Park, OH 44126

Dolce Wraps

Our first stop in tackling the restaurants on my 2014 To Dine Challenge list was actually Dolce Wraps. We stopped at the Fairview Park location for lunch.

This local chain has three locations- Fairview Park, Avon, and North Royalton. It's quick, easy, and quite tasty Mediterranean food.

Ordering takes place at a counter, and if you're dining in then they will bring your food to your table once it's ready. I had picked up some tips through Twitter on what to order, and I wasn't steered wrong!

"R" and I shared a Spinach Pie ($2.75)...

...and an order of the Falafel ($2.25 for four).

We also ordered the Sauce Sampler ($3.35). We didn't really eat the pita chips that came with the sauces, but this sampler is worth ordering every time. The sauces were great with the food, and we had fun trying all of them. You get to pick four out of six. Our favorite was the Aglio (garlic) and Apricot Chipotle Pepper sauces.

The Spinach Pie was okay, but not memorable. Topped with the Aglio sauce, and suddenly it was delicious! I would slather that sauce on almost anything. The Falafel were fine, but again, nothing special. I've had much better.

I ordered the Steak Curry Wrap with rice, Salata (special blend of tomatoes, onions, lemon, olive oil, herbs, and spices), and their spicy Mango Curry sauce ($5.95).

Simply put, it was delicious and I really enjoyed it. I played around with some of the other sauces, and was full after only half of the wrap. I took the other half home, with the rest of our falafel, and it re-heated fine the next day.

Dolce Wraps was quick, easy, very good, and you can find cheap and healthy items here. Dining Deals Alert! I wish that there was a location closer to us! I'd be there more often.

Dolce Wraps
3510 Westgate Mall
Fairview Park, OH 44126

35954 Detroit Road (Avon Commons)
Avon, OH 44011

13000 Royalton Road
North Royalton, OH 44123

Stampers Bar

It's time to select a winner of the GV Art & Design T-shirt giveaway...drumroll please....random.org has selected---#34, Sarah from Cooker Girl! Wow, how often does that happen that it picks the last comment? Congrats, Sarah. Please email me to claim your prize.

After the Great Big Home & Garden Show last weekend at the IX Center, "R" and I were hungry and wanted to stop for lunch on the way home. We were in luck, because Stampers Bar in Fairview Park wasn't too far away, and it is on my 2013 "To Dine" list.

I had originally selected Stampers from the list of reader suggestions, because it has an extensive menu of bar favorites and some interesting twists to classic dishes. They have plenty of smaller plates, which was great for us because we were in the mood to share a few items.

We tried the Soft Pretzels with a side of Oktoberfest cheddar cheese sauce ($6.50).

They were plump, doughy, and the cheese sauce had a nice distinct beer flavor to it.

We shared an order of the Crab Cakes with two pan-seared crab cakes served Maryland-style with sides of spicy mayo and dijon mustard ($9.99).

They were plump and packed with crab. I love a good crab cake that doesn't use too much "filling" or breading. Just give me crab, and these cakes certainly fit that style. It was my favorite dish that we tried.

We also split the Tuna Tacos ($14.50) with sushi-grade tuna served with pico de gallo, wasabi mayo, and mixed greens in locally made corn shells that are fried to order. It came with three tacos, but I still think that the price was a little high for tacos.

They were certainly decent, but didn't pack a whole lot of flavor, so overall we weren't thrilled. I probably wouldn't order them again, and the tuna tacos at The Oak Barrel in Valley View are definitely better. With a menu full of tempting choices, I would prefer to try something else at Stampers instead of ordering this again.

Now, it's a bar, but it is family-friendly.

Bright and sunny during the day (thanks to the huge glass windows in front), it was really pleasant to dine at for lunch. Our server was attentive, and knowledgeable about the menu. Service was relatively quick, and I left there thinking that I would certainly be back. The menu is just different enough to set itself apart from your typical bar, and it's a pretty big space with lots of seating. There is a small parking lot to the left of the restaurant, and some street parking out front.

Overall, we enjoyed our meal and I'm looking forward to a return visit. They have a special every night of the week, which is rare. This includes Sunday Steak Dinner for $9.99, Friday Fish Fry, and Monday Burger Night for $3. Check out all of their specials on the website. The kitchen is open until 11:00PM Sunday-Thursday, and until midnight on Fridays and Saturdays. You can often find live music there as well.

Have you been to Stampers?

Stampers Bar
21750 Lorain Road
Fairview Park, OH 44126
440-333-7826

Fairview Tavern

I'm slowly making my way down the 2012 "To Dine" list that I set back in January. Some friends, both old and new, helped me knock another one off of the list-- Fairview Tavern. Located on Lorain Road in Fairview Park, it was not only a new restaurant that I was visiting, but a new area that I was exploring too. I can't say that I've really spent any time around there. The restaurant was a little hard to find. It's tucked away in a strip of businesses, and the neon sign just states "Tavern".

We had a party of five, and the place was already pretty busy by the time we arrived at 6:30PM, so we were seated on the slightly elevated stage in the back. It felt a little weird sitting down, with all lights (and eyes?) on us, but once we started chatting-- then I forgot where we were.

The menu offered a little bit of everything-- an assortment of appetizers, soups, salads, entrees, sandwiches, and pizza. The Fairview Tavern offers a ton of different specials throughout the week, and Monday night happened to be Pizza Night. $5 personal cheese pizza with 50 cent toppings, 40 cent wings, and $2 brat sandwich.

It was suggested that we get an order of the Black-n-Bleu Chips ($7) for the table, with freshly fried tavern chips topped with chunky bleu cheese and baked until hot and bubbly, finished with a balsamic reduction. A little something different that you don't see every day on a bar menu. We happily munched away.

I wanted to try their pizza, but instead of doing the build-your-own special of the night, I went with one of their specialty pizzas-- Prosciutto and Goat Cheese with garlic butter, red onions, kalamata olives, and thin slices of prosciutto sprinkled with mozzarella, provolone, and goat cheese ($11).

For a personal pizza, it was huge. I had a ton left over to take home with me, which "R" didn't mind. Overall, it was a really good pizza. Very doughy, great balance of flavors with the creamy goat cheese, salty and crispy prosciutto, and I loved the addition of the olives. Worth driving over to Fairview Park for from where I live? Probably not.

But it was a great hole-in-the-wall bar, and their menu is well beyond your standard pub fare. One of my friends ordered the Meatballs, and they were seriously the biggest balls that I've ever seen. Yes, we had fun joking about balls all night. You can tell that a lot of their food is made in-house, or locally. They also offer several different specials throughout the week.

I had never heard of the Fairview Tavern before it was suggested for my "To Dine" list, it brought me to a new neighborhood, and I enjoyed a good meal...exactly what I was looking for. Thank you!

Help me select the 2013 "To Dine" restaurants by leaving a comment on this blog post: http://www.bitebuff.com/2012/12/time-to-pick-2013-to-dine.html

I'll pick 10 restaurants from the comments, and announce the list on the first of the year.

Fairview Tavern
21867 Lorain Road
Fairview Park, OH

Fondue Fusion for Valentine's Day

Congratulations to deanna for winning the $25 Sushi Rock gift card and Kristin for snagging the $25 Wonder Bar gift card from my Downtown Cleveland Restaurant Week post. Email me (can be found in my blog profile), message me on Twitter at @BiteBuff, or leave a comment below with your email address. You have until Tuesday to claim your prize, or I'll pick another winner. I selected the winners using random.org. Thank you to everyone that entered!

Okay, so normally I would never write about a chain restaurant...but "R" and I had such a wonderful (delayed) Valentine's Day celebration at The Melting Pot in Rocky River that I just had to share it with you. I won a $25 "dip" certificate from them on Twitter in December, and "R" shocked me when he said that he had never actually had fondue. So I knew a trip was in our near future, and when we were looking for something "special" to do for Valentine's Day- I thought this might be just what we needed. Since we dine out so often, it can be difficult to make it "special". Usually, this means selecting a higher-end restaurant with a romantic setting, but this time it meant doing something fun, interactive, and unique.

When we arrived, we were immediately whisked away to their "best room" called the Red Room. This space offered private dining for two, separated from the main dining room and certainly more romantic. We were tucked away in our little booth, and started to look at the menu. Eric, the General Manager, then showed up to walk us through the menu and highly suggested doing the "Big Night Out" menu option. BNO offers four courses: a cheese fondue, salad, entree fondue with the choice of four cooking styles, and a dessert fondue. The BNO offered specialty items not featured on the main menu, but you could easily swap out items if you preferred. We opted for the BNO so that we could fully experience the restaurant's menu.We started with the Fondue à la France- a rich, smooth combination of baby brie, fontina, gruyère and raclette cheeses accented with nueske’s bacon, onions, white-truffle cream and fresh chives.They had us at brie and bacon. With it came three different types of bread, raw vegetables, and granny smith apples. While I enjoyed all of the courses, this may have been my favorite. But, duh...it's things smothered in hot, gooey cheese.

Then came the salad course, and we were each able to select a different salad (which was good because we were arguing over what to order when we thought we only had one selection for the both of us). I went with the Cesar and "R" had the California Salad with mixed-baby-salad greens, roma tomatoes, walnuts and gorgonzola cheese with raspberry black walnut vinaigrette. We were each happy with our salad course. I really loved the Parmesan-encrusted pine nuts in mine.

Next up was the main course, the entree fondue. We selected the Fondue Fusion with a cold-water lobster tail, filet mignon, peppercorn-crusted NY strip, chicken provençal, roasted-garlic shrimp, maple leaf farms duck a l’orange, ratatouille and goat cheese ravioli and fresh vegetables. So basically, a little bit of everything. For our cooking style, we went with the Mojo: Caribbean-seasoned bouillon with a distinctive fresh-garlic flavor and a citrus flair.
Once it arrived, we had a blast dipping and cooking our bites. I loved the seasoning in the bouillon. "R" said that this was the only meal that could ever slow down his typically inhale-style eating, so for that I was grateful.

After we finished, our fabulous server "British Chris" (who really was British and had the best accent I've heard in a long time. It helped that he was very cute too. Shhh, don't tell "R".) presented us with the dessert menu. We chose the Flaming Turtle with milk chocolate, caramel and chopped pecans flambéed tableside.It was served with fresh strawberries, bananas (we opted for more strawberries instead, since "R" hates bananas), cheesecake, Rice Krispies Treats, marshmallows, pound cake and brownies to dip into the rich chocolate fondue. The only dipper that we didn't care for were the marshmellows. We were happily dipping away when a surprise arrived at our table. We had not ordered the Big Night Out White Chocolate Crème Brûlée- a fondue version of the classic French dessert, including white chocolate and caramelized sugar, because I tend to shy away from white chocolate. But the manager, Eric, insisted that we try it so he personally delivered a small portion of it to our table for us. I was proven wrong. He instructed me to throw out any previous concept of white chocolate, and he was right. "R" started eating it with a spoon after the dippers were gone. I kid you not.

Lastly, the evening ended with the hostess coming and taking a picture of us at the table, printing it out, and framing it for us since they knew we were celebrating a special occasion. At first I was a little thrown by this, but when the picture arrived it was actually a great shot of us and it now hangs on our refrigerator as a reminder of our fun evening out.

Overall, the service was phenomenal- attentive without being intrusive. The pace of our meal was perfect, and we were happy with the cozy, intimate atmosphere since we were celebrating. I walked out of there pleasantly surprised at how well our evening had gone, and I think "R" is now an official fan of fondue!

The Melting Pot
3111 Westgate
Westgate Mall
Fairview Park/Rocky River, OH 44126
(440) 356-8900