Friday, October 28, 2016

Giving Columbus its due


When I was growing up in Florida, I figured a good way to know which states were least desirable was to see how many of their license plates turned up in tourist-attraction parking lots.  If a lot of your people came to Florida, you probably didn't like it where you were--or so my reasoning went.  Based on that line of thinking, I grew up convinced that the least desirable states were New Jersey and Ohio.

Yes, my thinking was flawed, but I was a kid.

Having shared these thoughts with others over the years, I feel obliged to say that Columbus--or, more precisely, the small parts of it I've explored while here--is a pretty nice place.  The restaurants have been uniformly decent or better, the variety is wide, the ice cream (Jeni's) is (of course) extraordinary, and all in all it's been a fine place to visit.

I particularly like the North Market complex, which mixes food stalls with some specialized grocers and other vendors.  It's hip enough to have the hot chicken I mentioned in an earlier entry,

Click an image to see a larger version.

a nifty looking pretzel shop,


and a surprisingly good barbecue stall.


I had to sample all three key meats--brisket, sausage, and pork--and all three were pretty darn good.  I haven't had sausage or brisket as good in Raleigh.  In fact, both were up there with comparable offerings from low-end Austin barbecue joints.  (High-end barbecue places in Austin still rule.)

The people have been busy but friendly enough, the weather brisk but decent, and the place fun to walk.

I'm happy to have to revise my opinion of (at least this part of) Ohio.



2 comments:

old aggie said...

Wow, I forgot this was in Columbus! Could've driven down from the CLE and had you sign my pile o' Jon * Lobo books. (Just gave away another omnibus to a friend for her husband to read - sharing the joy. :-) One of these days I will get those autographs!

About 40 years ago, we used to call Columbus "Cow-town," 'cause the only things there were OSU and the state government. It's much more metropolitan now - several governors seemed to think Ohio ended at the Columbus city limits, & our other major cities went downhill.

But now Cleveland is the place to be! Seriously, where else can you go and have 10's of thousands of people fill a ballpark ... on a cold night ... to cheer on their baseball team who are playing an AWAY game? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJTQSNUBUfU

Have fun in our fair state & safe journeys!

Mark said...

Thanks for the kind wishes. I'm sorry I won't get to see you here.

Labels

Blog Archive