Honey

Best Restaurant #10: Honey – Vegetarian Pot Pie – $17

Honey outside, taken from urbanspoon

My 2012 to do list has Cincinnati.com’s top 10 best restaurants on it.  Located on the north side of Cincinnati, Honey is a fine dining restaurant that uses local ingredients.  They are located on the corner of Hamilton Ave. and Blue Rock, across the street from Take the Cake.  I went to Honey on January 14, 2012 and this is the 1^st “best restaurant in Cincinnati” I went to.  It is labeled as #10 because on Cincinnati.com’s restaurant list, it is in 10^th place.  When I walked into a top 10 restaurant, I expected more of a unique atmosphere.  I really didn’t feel like it was anything out of the ordinary. 

Inside, didn't look like a top 10 place for some reason.

The menu is short, with a lot of great options.  There is a constant change up of what you’ll find on the menu, so they don’t put the current one up.  There is a big vegetarian influence on the menu since it is selling to the local demographic on the North side.  One of my favorite things is they start you off with a bread and honey butter.  My date is new to a lot of items on the menu, so I thought I’d have her try a vegetarian dish to start.  As an appetizer, we went with the polenta appetizer: which is polenta cakes, shallots, citrus, and a balsamic reduction.  Polenta reminds me corndog breading from the state fair, just not deep fried then the reduction is always awesome.  I’m happy to say she thought it was the s#@%!  For an entrée I had the vegetarian pot pie because I usually don’t get pot pies.  It had large chunks of potatoes, greens, peas and a meaty substance I couldn’t place with a savory taste that reminded me of a good Thanksgiving stuffing.  I liked the crispy crust surrounding the dish and the taste, but overall I wouldn’t order it again because of the portion size.  Prosciutto wrapped the flute special my date had which was topped with spinach and a squash blend with brown sugar.  We both really liked that dish a lot.  If you don’t get to the North side often, Honey is definitely the place to try for an upscale dinner. 

 Vegetarian pot pie.  Oops! My camera really sucked here. 

I think Honey is an excellent restaurant, but it moved out of the top 10 for this 2011, but remember my list is from what was available before 2011 ended, and that was 2010’s best of list.  I have about 50 places to go this year, and I have so very little free time, so I probably won’t get back in 2012 to Honey.