Wednesday Weekend Wind-Up: Hapa Hour

We've continued our trend all year of not really doing much on the weekend.  This weekend wasn't really much of an exception, but we did try a new restaurant and I hung out with a former colleague for the first time...so you know how I dig new and exciting!

On Friday evening, we were thinking of a simple dinner of sushi from FusaBowl, but it was a pretty gorgeous hot day and I was home from work a little early, so we decided to drive over to OTR and eat at Quan Hapa.

 I was thrilled to see that they have a pretty amazing Happy Hour offering, and all but one of our selections came straight from the Hapa Happy Hour menu.

First off, $5 Specialty Cocktails are nothing to sneeze at, and the Blueberry Lychee drink we ordered was a perfect refreshment for the warm evening. We had the $3 Seasoned Waffle Fries as our appetizer, but I found these a little bland. 

What was definitely not bland was the Cauliflower Okonomiyaki ($6) [Japanese Pancake] that I had as my entree. This was incredibly flavorful, but if you're sensitive to spicy, you might find the honey sriracha to be a bit much.

Unfortunately, back to the bland, Francisco ordered the Mushroom Ramen ($10), and we both found this rather devoid of any flavor. An incredible dish to behold, we were both dissatisfied with our first foray into ramen territory.  That said, I'd go back just for those Happy Hour specials alone - and there's a Cauliflower Sandwich that I was thisclose to getting.

Saturday afternoon brought us to the west side of town where we attended the Spring House Tour hosted by the Cincinnati Preservation Association in Westwood.  I had won tickets, and I've always been a sucker for House Hunters, so I was interested in checking out these historic homes. The homeowners opened up their doors to allow tourgoers to peek inside - the majority had been modernized a fair amount on the inside while still preserving that historic feel. They were gorgeous, and I was pleased that we ended up starting with Buddy LaRosa's former home - that even featured a pizza kitchen!  I think we were able to make it to all but two of the homes before I headed to OTR to meet a former colleague for a pitcher of margaritas at Bakersfield.