journey to the (mid)west

In Toledo now, after a good day's worth of travel. K and I dragged ourselves out of the house at 6am and took turns driving and sleeping; the weather wasn't particularly nice during the drive over, but the sun is out over Toledo, so I can't complain. And the hotel has free WiFi. :)

We stopped off in Ravenna for lunch at an A&W with two of K's friends and a two-month-old baby. The lunch was uninspiring, but the root beer was tasty, and the baby provided plenty of entertainment. ("Better than TV," in K's words.) The baby was a cute little watermelon-sized creature with big blue eyes. He was more squirmy than fussy, and full of strange facial expressions and abrupt noises. He also had a grip that any rock climber would be proud of. K and I were utterly smitten.

K's coworker's wedding is tomorrow. K and I, in a stunning display of incompetence, left the clothes we were going to wear to the wedding back in Maryland (I am just now realizing this), so one of his other coworkers is doing us a huge favor by picking the outfits up as he heads west (we just made this arrangement over the cell phones). Meanwhile, since there's nothing else we can do, we'll go out to dinner. We plan to hit up Tony Packo's; I'm looking forward to some good old Hungarian food. If it's good enough for Corporal Max Klinger, then it's good enough for me.

review of Tony Packo's

The only problem with our visit to Tony Packo's is that K makes his own version of chicken paprika, a recipe inherited from his grandmother... and that's what he was expecting when he ordered the same dish at dinner tonight. K's version involves stewing chicken in paprika, tomato, and other spices, and serving it over large bread dumplings. Tony Packo's version, on the other hand, was a lump of chicken breast served over a heaping mound of little bitty potato dumplings, with paprika sauce poured over it. K's sauce also uses approximately three times as much paprika, which makes it much spicier.

There's nothing wrong with Tony Packo's chicken paprika, per se. It's just not as good as K's version, at least in our humble opinion. Same goes for the cucumbers in sour cream, which K makes with garlic and vinegar. Tony Packo's version was much sweeter -- tasty, but again, not what K was expecting. We're thinking they might have used sugar and apple vinegar, but that's just a guess.

The chili that I got, on the other hand, was absolutely heavenly, fine ground beef drowning in sauce, rich with tomato and peppery spices. The hot dogs arrived slathered with the same spicy chili, and the whole thing was just... really good. The hot German potato salad came as a bit of a surprise, though. It tasted a lot like a savory sort of applesauce. Took me a few bites to get used to it, but after dinner, I really enjoyed it with the coffee.

And oh my goodness the coffee. I would not normally order coffee with dinner, especially on a hot summer day, but the coffee had an entire paragraph of praise in the menu, which piqued my curiousity. It turns out that Tony Packo's roasts their own beans, and the resulting brew is a smooth, wonderful, flavorful cup of coffee that was totally worth the $0.89. Accompanied the meal nicely, too.

At less than $10 per entree, the price is definitely right. The food was very good, the service was prompt and efficient, and I would go back for the chili and the coffee alone. Next time, we'll just make sure that K doesn't order anything that he's made before.