I managed to make it off the farm and into downtown this past Friday evening. The reason for the excursion was a work holiday dinner, and the location this year was “The Urban Farmer Steakhouse” in Cleveland, Ohio.
They proclaim themselves to offer local, organically-sourced food, emphasizing sustainable Midwest ingredients and locally sourced beef. I appreciated this, being a farmer and all.
And how was the place? I’ll first note that my company was a great group of women. And the food was very good. Though not exceptional. I couldn’t make out any difference in the taste or texture of my grass-fed steak in comparison to the corn-fed steak, which was disappointing to me. They offer both choices on the menu.
The grilled octopus was excellent, though I’m not sure where a locally sourced octopus might come from, or how sustainable the harvesting of them would be? I’ll have to read up on that one… The server didn’t know.
And I was very unimpressed with the servers. Nice guys, really. However, they didn’t know and couldn’t care less, about what local farms were used for the cheeses, meats, salad greens, etc. And they definitely couldn’t explain the difference between corn-finished, grass-fed, or corn-fed beef. I didn’t need an explanation personally, but wanted to find out just how much they knew about the food they were serving to me. Sadly, it appeared they were clueless, because they repeatedly dodged all my questions.
Not in any way am I trying to ridicule the place. I appreciate what they’re trying to do. Basically I just felt something was missing from it all. I wanted grand stories about where the steak on my place came from, where the cheeses were made, more about the farms and farmers, etc. My two cents. ~A
P.S. I really wanted to take home that silver pig…
