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5 Small Bites on Blue Canyon:
- You’ll be hard pressed to find a more beautiful restaurant
- Bring a tape recorder for the specials
- The lobster nachos are for more than two people
- Upscale dining comes with upscale pricing
- Watch for tears in your Tiramisu
The Blue Canyon in Twinsburg is housed in an gorgeous building that has been painstakingly designed to resemble a true Western lodge with exposed beams and a thirty foot high stone fireplace. It harkens back to a simpler, more romantic time in this country, where taking out a couple of buffalo and a few dozen Indians was all in a days work. I certainly could have used a comfy buffalo hide when we visited, as a bitter cold front was blowing through Cleveland, leaving a good bit of snow in its wake.
Even though we arrived close to 6 o’clock, the weather had kept most everyone away so we got the best seat in the house, right in front of the mammoth fireplace. The entire atmosphere of the lodge relaxes you with its wooden fixtures, open grill area and paintings depicting Western scenes, making it a very comfortable and beautiful place to enjoy a meal.
Our server also did a great job of making us feel comfortable by promptly greeting us and taking our drink orders. I felt a bit sorry for her though as she rattled off what had to be at least 10 different specials. I would have had to have been on Ritalin to be able to listen to the whole thing. Hey, celebrated chef Brandt Evans, three specials is probably plenty.
My Dad was taking us out to dinner that evening as a Christmas gift, so when the waitress mentioned the lobster nachos ($19.99) appetizer I knew what we were going to be getting for an appetizer. My father has a bit of a problem with nacho dishes. A restaurant could offer tortilla chips topped with used blackboard chalk, sand and turpentine and my Dad would turn to me with, “So, you wanna get the nachos?” The lobster nachos at the Blue Canyon did sound delicious though, having flour tortilla chips topped with pieces of lobster, fresh goat cheese, scallions and a lobster sauce.
In fact, the lobster nachos were delicious, at first. The creamy lobster sauce coated the homemade tortilla chips with just enough goat cheese to cut the richness. However, the plate of nachos was huge! It easily could have fed 6 or 8 people, but my Dad and I were the only ones eating them at our table. So…yeah…that’s a lot of nachos to eat, especially when you have dinner coming. We did our best, but we couldn’t even reach the halfway point. It reminds me of one of my favorite Mitch Hedberg jokes, “As a comedian, you have to start your act out strong, but you also have to save some of the good stuff for later… You can’t be like pancakes, all exciting at first, but by the end you’re f*ckin’ sick of ‘em.” R.I.P. Mitch.
The main course I ordered was exactly the kind of comfort food with which I am totally down, braised beef short ribs ($24). The short ribs were served on a bed of caramelized parsnips along side a stack of garlic Parmesan pomme frites. Pomme frites is french and it means really expensive french fries. My fork met no resistance as it glided through the two long (?) short ribs and that velvety smoothness also greeted my mouth. They were wonderfully rich in flavor, but not heavy. The caramelized parsnips offered a simple sweetness, however the pomme frites fell flat, lacking any real flavor. The dish was well executed, but it could be improved by losing the pomme frites and bulking up the rest of the portions.
After finishing dinner, the thought of going out into the first blizzard of the winter was much less appealing than stuffing ourselves with dessert. I ordered myself a neat little dish called the Blue Canyon Smore ($7.50) that featured a graham cracker and peanut crust topped with homemade marshmallows and a chocolate gnache. My beautiful bride, the picky eater she is, ordered a chocolate cake that is usually served with a cream liquor sauce. Knowing that she probably wouldn’t like the sauce, she asked if she could order the dessert without it. This, of all things, turned into a very weird and uncomfortable situation. I’ll let her describe it to you:
We got done with dinner and I wanted some chocolate cake. Just chocolate cake. So, I asked the waitress, if I could just get the chocolate cake and skip all the junk they wanted to put on top of it. Well, she goes up to the pastry chef, in clear view of our table, to ask her. Apparently thinking she was invisible, this girl flips out. Hands flailing in the air, pointing, sneering, just making a fuss. It was like someone told her they didn’t like her poofy hat. What a complete baby.
The waitress comes back over and says, “Our pastry chef recommends that you try the sauce as it is part of the dish”. I could not believe it. I asked the waitress if I could get it on the side at least. She goes back over to the pastry chef. Looking befuddled, she eventually relented, poured something into a small ramiken and slammed it onto the plate next to the chocolate cake.
Our waitress, pretending that she wasn’t tending to a 7 year old pastry chef, brought our plates over and made sure the first thing I tried was the sauce. I SAID I DIDN’T WANT THE SAUCE! LEAVE ME ALONE ALREADY! But I tried it and guess what? It tasted like crap.
My smore tasted fantastic and I woofed it down, but the pastry chef had already left a bad taste in my mouth. The old lady had a point, if she wanted to eat chocolate cake without sauce, she should have swallowed her pride and served her some chocolate cake.
Excluding the foot stomping we witnessed, our meal at the Blue Canyon was great. Eating in such a beautiful environment would heighten any dining experience, but with the dishes that Blue Canyon puts out you could be served outside on a picnic table and still be satisfied. Although often criticized for high prices, they do offer top of the line food and have plenty of awards to show for it.
Blue Canyon
8960 Wilcox Drive
Twinsburg, Ohio 44087
330-486-BLUE
Photo: sosico
Tagged with: appetizers • braised short ribs • Cleveland Restaurants • dessert • Restaurant Review
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February 25th, 2008 at 10:11 pm
That’s a bunch af crap about you father and nachos.I draw the line before I’ll eat pieces of blackboard chalk. Dried leaves and birch bark yes. Chalk, No way.
December 31st, 2008 at 2:59 pm
My wife and I got the lobster nachos once as well. Our waitress never mentioned these would be impossible for two people to eat! So we dropped the $20 on an appetizer that could have fed an entire table of 8. Half the plate was wasted- who wants soggy left over nachos?
We had been to Blue Canyon a few times before and this was our favorite at the time. However, this turned out to be a poor service. I had wilted asparagus, my wife had over cooked scallops, and the plating that was usually beautiful on previous visits was sloppy. Hopefully, this was an isolated incident.
January 14th, 2009 at 10:44 am
Just recently had dinner at BC – went there specifically for the Lobster Nachos – guess what? “No longer available” !!
Take the one thing everyone talks about off the menu!?!?
Other apps and dinner were disappointing – hope it was an off night as we really love the place
February 24th, 2009 at 9:15 am
I have been to blue canyon about 8 or 10 times. its been a while since i been there and every time but once has been consistant. I love the cesar salad there, the smore dessert has been great every time but once, and i always get the steak, the strip steak which im not sure if its still on the menu, but its always been good and reasonably priced. One time i ate there, the service was horrible, and had to wait forever for poor quaality food. that night i ordered the bison. But over all i think the place is pretty good and reasonably priced.
June 3rd, 2009 at 4:42 pm
I went there on April 09 after visiting the bar a week before. Two of the three steaks were wrong and then over cooked.
I called and talked to the manager after writing a complain in their web page, I’m still waiting for his call.
U be the judge…jerry