Walnut Street Grill (formerly Bootsy’s)

Burger #21: Walnut Street Grill (formerly Bootsy’s) – Steak Burger – $12.50

My friend had the fries as her side.

I have a final exam for my Business Information Systems class next week so I’ll try to keep this one short.  I was never a fan of the old Jeff Ruby’s Bootsy’s as a bar since I am not a pretentious asshole, I admit to my asshole-ness, but pretentious…not even close!  I didn’t even know they served food to be honest with you until a year or so after I’d been there for a friend’s bachelor party.  Now that it’s Walnut Street Grill I had to add it to my list since Bootsy’s was #21 on the Cincinnati.com top 40 list.  This was the 35^th burger place I hit in 2011 and I hit it on a Monday night, December 12 to be exact.  Like every restaurant in town, Monday nights are dead so I can’t say much for the service.  Downtown is dead during the week so there is never a line to get in anywhere and I took advantage of this to bring a group of 3 other people with me.  

The restaurant has upscale comfort food on the menu, which a lot of new restaurants are doing like Senate in the OTR area.  These are the kinds of foods we’re used to but with a twist. Sometimes they are awesome, but sometimes you wonder why you’re paying $20+ for so little, average tasting food.  Two appetizers that looked good on the menu were the pulled pork nachos and philly cheese steak egg rolls.  Like bacon, pulled pork makes so many things better.  Some of comfort foods are the short ribs in a skillet, country fried steak, meatloaf, and one of their specialties, the pot pie.  I honestly can’t see how meatloaf is 19$, I mean it’s meat in a loaf shape in a pan.  What costs so much here?  Aside from that they have cornmeal crusted fried catfish and grilled mahi tacos for about the same price as nada.  And of course they are a Jeff Ruby’s so high end steaks are on the menu.  My Wisconsin roots won’t allow me to judge the steaks here, so we’ll keep it at that. 

My steak burger, you can see the toasted bun.
There were5 onion rings.

You will also recognize the normal burgers as well as one you don’t.  The burgers are steak burgers that include a mix of ground chuck and sirloin that they flame grill.  The list has a mushroom and swiss with caramelized onions, a bacon and egg, and the big mac and cheeseburger which has baked mac & cheese with caramelized onion.  I really like when a restaurant bakes the mac & cheese like this and would love to try it.  My burger was just a regular steak burger with bacon added.  I don’t like adding all sorts of crap on my burger the first time I try it.  After 40 burgers in 1 year, I am a firm believer that if you need to use ketchup even on a burger, it’s a bad burger.  I know, I know…you LOVE ketchup, and so do I, but try it a few time, you’ll see.  If it’s overcooked or dry or just has no flavor, you’ll need ketchup.  Try a burger without ketchup that has been grilled, the taste you get from grilling the meat is 100% different than a griddle where everything else during the day is cooked.  I honestly didn’t expect to like their burger so much, but add bacon to a juicy, grilled patty and you have a great tasting burger.  It came pink in the middle and with a toasted bun as well, which both add to burgers points in my book.  This was even much better than the Harry Caray burger 2 weeks back.  The only downside to this meal was the onion rings, which I paid extra for, tasted like and had the consistency of burger king drive through crap, plus they gave me like 3 of them.  I was still kind of hungry so I munched on my friends chips, and I actually was sorry I paid extra and didn’t get the chips. 

 

This is a restaurant I’d recommend going to for the burger alone or to try the pot pie because I hear it’s awesome.  If I’m going for a steak it’d be somewhere else.  I don’t know what the difference between Bootsy’s and WSG is so I can’t compare the 2.  I also haven’t been back for a drink at night on a weekend since I found out about OTR, Newport, and Mt. Adams, so I can’t say if it’s still got a crowd.