Quarter Bistro

Burger #30: Quarter Bistro – Bistro Burger – $12

Borrowed from Urbanspoon

I’m so close to being done I can taste it!  I haven’t had a burger since the New Year, and I’m trying to keep my beef intake to a minimum.  So far so good.  Enough small talk, on to the review. 

This is a review I am happy to do, since it’s one of the top restaurants in the city.  Quarter Bistro was rated as number 30 on the Cincinnati top 40 list, and it was the 34^th burger I had in 2011.  I had no preconceived notion of what to expect at Quarter Bistro, other than what you get from the name.  I assumed it would fall into the middle point of my rating just like the rest, but it far surpassed my expectations in food quality, atmosphere, and service.  While I was NOT on a date, this is the kind of place that would make it seem like you knew a thing or two about fine dining.  And you know what I always say, if you don’t have it, fake it until you do!  Seriously, people think I’m some kind of gourmet chef nowadays and a few years ago I was using a George Foreman to cook chicken breasts with bbq sauce every night.  And now I just made octopus the other day just to see if it might get some people sick to see it.  Hahaha! I’ve come such a long way to blogging about fine dining.  Ok…back on track.  I hit Quarter Bistro in Mariemont on Wednesday, December 7^th on what appeared to be a fairly busy dinner time.  I was surprised by the amount of people in the place seeing as I’d never heard of it.  When you walk in you get a feel for the atmosphere they are going for with a lot of red colors coming at you right away.  One thing I had to take note of was the ceiling was amazing to look at.  If you go to the website you’ll see what I’m talking about, but even though I saw it online beforehand, it didn’t do it justice to sit inside of the dining room and experience it.  They also have seating outside, but it is winter, so it wasn’t out. 

There isn’t a huge menu at Quarter Bistro, but everything is well thought out.  Quarter bistro uses a lot of fresh, local ingredients in all of their dishes.  There are a lot of seafood choices on the apps menu including: lobster mac and cheese, seared diver scallops, and prawns (white cheddar grit cake, bacon consommé (when I read this I think bacon jelly…wait what?!) , and tomato coulis).  There is an assortment of tacos (mahi, veggie, and short rib) and pizzas (roasted chicken and goat cheese, margherita).  Some of the entrees that stood out were the 18 hour short ribs, blackened tournedos, Scottish organic salmon and the steamed mussels.  I am disappointed I didn’t get to try at least one of the entrees because they looked awesome on other peoples tables, but I had to stick to the list. 

We took the picture a little late,
because that burger is destroyed!

There is only one burger on the menu so this will be a short review.  The Bistro Burger was a half pound angus beef on an egg bun with whatever toppings they have that day.  The toppings weren’t on the menu, so the waiter will go over the list from memory.  I went with bacon, mushrooms, onions and tomatoes.  The burger came a bit more well done than medium and grease wasn’t covering the plate by any means.  What was memorable about this burger is that it wasn’t just cooked on a griddle with all the rest of the food of the day.  This burger had a charred flavor that you get from cooking over a flame, which is a great reminder of grilling out in the summer weather even though it was December when I went there.  The bacon was normal cut, but nothing that stood out.  The tomatoes were very red for this time of year, which is a good sign of the quality of the food overall.  They also had one of the softest, most flavorful egg buns to date.  On top of that they had some great home made chips.  They were cooked really crispy, but they also seasoned them just enough to make them better than a lot of fries on the list. 

This is a place I plan on going back to if I hit Mariemont again and I don’t have one of my 50 new 2012 places to hit.  You should definitely get out there if you’ve never been to Mariemont or you just want to have a great burger.