Evening out: Moerlein Lager House

My social life has evolved to include mostly outings involving children: birthday parties, sprinkler parks, the zoo, children's museum, any place with a train or live farm animals, etc.  You get the picture. Much energy is expended Entertaining Little Sweetpea.

So it's always nice to have an adult evening out.

Last night, the Husband headed to the Reds game and I hung out at the Moerlein Lager House.  Awesomely they have all the veg and GF items marked on their menu.  Only one was marked with both icons, the Crispy Balsamic Tofu.  The tofu was accompanied by spinach risotto with roasted tomatoes, mushrooms, and some shave asparagus.  It was pretty delicious.  The risotto had great flavor and the tofu lived up the menu's promise.  It was crispy and not at all as offensive as I sometimes find tofu when it is flaccid and soggy.  (Blecht.)  I wish there had been more vegetables, the roasted tomatoes were yummy.

Check out that crispy tofu!

The meal was a pleasant surprise.  I hadn't been to the Moerlein House for dinner for awhile and I did not think it was very good last time I was there.  In all fairness that was when they first opened.  Recently I was there for a private party and the server we had was amazing.  He was very accommodating of the various food restrictions at our table and did it all with a smile.  One of my coworkers has been diagnosed with a nickel allergy, which means she can't eat anything grown in the ground.  So no fruit, no vegetables, no nuts, no beer or wine.  Any produce needs to be hydroponically grown.  Basically she can eat meat and dairy, the total opposite of my diet.  We were a pretty high maintenance table and the server handled it beautifully.

I digress.  Last night after the guys got tired of sweating it out at the game they came to join us.  They proceeded to give us crap because we were at a beer place but enjoying a bright, citrusy Whitehaven Sauvignon Blanc.  But the Moerlein House's wine list is just as long as the beer list with a lot of great options.

Mmm.  Wine.

Then something strange happened as we were leaving.  There was an exodus from the game as it was drawing to a close.  And people were toting cases of Hamburger Helper.  I have no explanation for this phenomenon.  Friend with a Smoker snagged some boxes.  Which he discarded in a trash receptacle after reading the ingredients.

Then this happened.