Happy New Year everyone! This year we brought in 2013 with one of my BFF’s Amanda and her husband Michael. They met us in Cleveland for a fun evening of food, drinks, a sparkly ball drop, and I’ll admit, a few more drinks. Cheers!
After making three different reservations for New Years Eve dinner (don’t worry, I cancelled the two we didn’t use), we decided on Market Garden Brewery in Ohio City right next to the West Side Market. They have a great selection of beers and we knew it would be a fun place to start the evening.
One of the best surprises of the evening – they had Three Floyd’s Alpha King on tap!
Three Floyd’s is one of my favorite breweries (not to mention that they have great food too!). Alpha King along with Zombie Dust are two of my favorite beers. It’s not easy to find Three Floyd’s on tap outside of Munster, Indiana where their brewery is located, so I definitely had to order an Alpha King. It was a no-brainer!
To start, we shared the Brewmaster’s platter.
It had a variety of meats and cheeses along with crackers, pickled onions, and pickles. Everything was delicious on the platter and pared great with my beer. It was the perfect size to split between the four of us.
For dinner I started with the market salad. It had mixed greens, radicchio, pepitas, apple slices with a balsamic vinaigrette.
My salad was pretty good but it was missing a layer of flavor. The pepitas and apple gave it some nice crunch but I think it needed a little more radicchio and maybe some goat cheese or blue cheese to sharpen up the flavors.
For my entree I decided to try the catfish. It was a spiced rubbed catfish with bacon, kale, and green onion hush puppies.
Honestly, this dish was a disappointment for me. The catfish was flaky and cooked nicely but the spice rub didn’t add any kick or flavor boost to the fish. The hush puppies were a little dry and bland. I love corn bread but these didn’t even come close. There was also a little kale mixture tucked under my fish. This was my first time having kale. I was excited to try it because of all the nutritional value kale holds, but it tasted really bitter even with the bacon. I think I’ll have to give kale another try.
I’d definitely go back to Market Garden for drinks and the brewmaster’s platter but I’d skip the dinner entree’s. Overall I couldn’t of asked for a better New Years Eve with awesome friends, good drinks, and a kiss at midnight.
How did you ring in the New Year?
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