Foodie Adventures

For my Mom's birthday we decided to venture out of our normal restaurants we enjoy and try something new. After hearing several friends say great things about Sage and reading about them in Crave magazine we decided to give it a shot and were very pleased with our experience. The restaurant is located slightly north of campus next to the Ravari Room/Hound Dogs Pizza. Sage is a small restaurant but is very nicely decorated with local artwork that is available for purchase. We started off with a round of cocktails. I tried the Blood Orange Cosmopolitan which was delicious. We ordered a couple of appetizers. I definitely wanted to try to Pork Belly since it had been highly recommended and was not disappointed. It was absolutely delicious! We also got the cheese plate which was good, might have been nice to be a bit larger for our party of 5 but all of the local Ohio cheeses were yummy. I also ordered their soup of the day which was a Chilled Carrot and Ginger soup. I thought it was very refreshing but one of my other dining partners was not as excited about it. Our waiter did not specify initially that it was a chilled soup and while I am fine with eating chilled soups, it would have been nice to know what to expect. I do think that the ginger might have overpowered the soup a bit but I enjoyed it none the less. Others in my party enjoyed the Grilled Caesar Salad and my mom got the Frisee salad which she said was one of the best salads she's ever had. For the entree course we ordered a bottle of wine the Les Jamelles (I probably butchered the spelling of that) Pinot Noir which was very good in my opinion. The wine list is not very extensive as mentioned below but I agree that it did the job. I ordered the Veal Meatballs as my entree which was served with some Crispy Risotto cakes and it was very delicious. Others ordered the Scallops (which were cooked perfectly) as well as the Tuna entree and the Blackened Crab Cakes. The crab cakes were very spicy, almost too much for some in my party but was served with a watermelon relish on top which helped to cool down the palate a bit. Overall we were all very happy with our orders. Since we were celebrating my Mom's birthday we decided to try three different desserts: the crepes, the creme brulee, and at the suggestion of our server the chocolate torte. All three were delicious but I especially enjoyed the creme brulee which had some strawberries and micro-basil on top which made it just perfect and very refreshing. Their coffee is also very good which always makes me happy.

My only complains about our experience is that the service was pretty slow (which is why I am giving 4 instead of 5 stars) and it was very loud in the restaurant (probably due to the small venue and the brick walls). They were completely packed so I can understand but our dining experience took about 2 1/2-3 hours which is a bit long in my opinion. However we took everything in and despite the longer than usual service we would definitely come back again!! If you are a foodie and you have not tried this place I would highly recommend stopping by!