Firehouse Grille and Pub

This is where we went last night: Firehouse Grille and Pub. We were under the impression that we were going to Marinko's Firehouse Restaurant, which had formerly been in that location serving Hungarian food. (We weren't the only people there surprised by the menu. A woman at the next table refused to order anything after her drink because there was no stuffed cabbage to be had.)

We decided to make the best of it, since we had driven all the way to Willoughby Hills. We discerned that their specialty seemed to be frying things. Dr. Jay and I try not to eat too much food that's been deep fried, but once we decided to take the plunge, we didn't hold back.

We shared two sandwiches. One was a battered and fried fish fillet on a bun that came with a tub of tartar sauce. Mmmm. The other was a battered and fried hamburger topped with the usual lettuce and tomato AND a few breaded and fried mozarella sticks. Wow. That was a good burger. The french fries were the battered kind and wicked good. Sort of krinkle-cut-steak-fries or something.

We topped it all off with, are you ready? We'd already gone crazy with the fried food, so we took a deep breath and ordered the deep-fried twinkie. It turned out to actually be TWO twinkies, vanilla ice cream, whipped cream, and raspberry sauce. It was...well...it was interesting. And sort of good for having no chocolate in it at all. The fried part was a little greasy and maybe tasted a little of hamburger or old oil or...Ok. We ate the whole thing.

Then we went to see Ocean's 11 at the $1.50 movie theater, the other big attraction in Willoughby Hills.

I guess the other remarkable thing about the Firehouse was that so many of the other people eating there seemed to know each other. And be related to each other.