Important Business Dinner - See You at Tip Top!

Last Friday night Katie & Elaine took one of our favorite restaurants in all of Columbus - Tip Top. Tip Top is a small bar on Gay Street in downtown Columbus where you can get good drinks and good eats. All the food is good, but they are especially famous for their sweet potato fries. If you like sweet potato fries - this is the place for you. What makes the sweet potato fries so yummy is the spicy mayo sauce that comes with them. Not too spicy, but delicious when dipped with a sweet potato fry.

We went to Tip Top with Alison, Kate & Derek from work before heading down the street to CCAD to judge final projects in one of their 3-D design classes. We all started off with drinks - beer for the ladies and a rum and diet for Derek. Katie and Alison had Original Sin and Kate and I had Bell's Oberon. For my second beer I had Lindeman’s Peche/Peach. IT WAS FANTASTIC. I love anything peach flavored - and to have a peach flavored beer! I was opened up to a whole new world that night. 

For appetizers we ordered sweet potato fries, of course, and corn fritters, housemade fritters of corn, peppers and spices, topped with a dollop of sour cream. The corn fritters were awesome, and lucky for me no one else really wanted them - so obviously I helped myself. Wouldn't want those babies to go to waste would we? 

For dinner Kate and Katie got one of our all-time favorite Tip Top meals, the avocado-Honey-Shallot chicken salad on a pretzel roll bun with sweet potato fries. I had the mac-n-cheese, rotini noodles with sauteed poblano peppers, red onion and corn tossed in the creamy cheese sauce. Derek had the Smoked Salmon Fritters, smoked salmon, risotto, herbs and cheese lightly breaded and fried, served with Dijon-horseradish dipping sauce and Alison had the Tonya's Herbed Goat Cheese Salad, goat cheese rolled in fresh herbs and lightly grilled served over mixed greens with tomato wedges  and their own balsamic vinaigrette. 

Tip Top, as always, was delicious. We are never disappointed when we go there. If you are looking for an intimate but fun atmosphere and a good meal with drinks - Tip Top is the place to go!

I said NO CHEESE!

Last Thursday night, Katie and Elaine ventured outside 43215 again to visit Rancho Alegre in Grandview. For those of you who don't already know, Elaine could live off Mexican food. Katie LOVES love, and Elaine LOVES Mexican.

Earlier in the night, Katie and Elaine went to CCAD to help critique student's projects in an advertising design class. Our co-worker, Josefa Spiess, is a professor there and asked us to come in to watch presentations and offer feedback. We didn't know what to expect coming into this situation, and were both pleasantly surprised at the level of work put into each project. The presentations lasted a couple hours, and because of this we were practically starved when we got to the restaurant.

For the second time on this whirlwind blog tour we were joined by co-worker Kate Rohrer, but as an added bonus Mike and Maddie (super cute baby in the pictures above) decided to tag along as well. As with any good Mexican restaurant, we sat down to hot chips and salsa. In my opinion as a Mexican restaurant connoisseur - if they don't give you free chips and salsa it's not worth coming back. When it came time to order I went with my usual, some sort of fajitas - in this case veggie fajitas. And as always, what's Mexican food without a Diet Coke? Katie and Kate ordered chicken quesadillas, and Mike ordered a burrito. Side note Mike can not have dairy, so he asked specifically for no sour cream and no cheese.

Well... when it came time for our food to arrive everyone's looked great except for that Mike's burrito was covered in cheese! The waiter tried to argue that he asked for no sour cream or SALSA, which didn't make sense since we were all sitting waiting chomping on chips and SALSA the entire time. Who eats salsa with their chips then magically decides they don't want it on their meal? (Answer - no one.)

After a short argument, the waiter took Mike's burrito back and returned with a new one - minus the cheese of course. Although we had this little hiccup, Rancho Alegre is delicious and will be going back whenever possible. We weren't in a drinking mood that night, but if we had been - Rancho Alegre is known for their delicious margarita's.

Katie and Elaine are looking for a Columbus hot spot to visit this week week for Leap Year - let us know your suggestions!