@slobberchops and I still lament the fact that Tasteem didn't make the move over to Hive when the hard fork happened. It is/was a great community and they really put an emphasis on rewarding high quality restaurant reviews.
My family is probably a little less sad about me not taking pictures of every dish at every meal, and to some degree I don't miss it either. What I do miss is writing the post after the fact. It is amazing how things that you really love seem to be the easiest to write about. Music, crypto, tech, and food hit all the right spots for me, so in honor of that, I am writing this review.
Black Rock Bar and Grill would potentially not qualify as a Tasteem post given the fact that it is sort of a chain. Tasteem encouraged users to write about unique places and even though there are only about 15 Black Rock locations spread across the US, it still might have been just a little too big to qualify.
Lucky for me, this isn't Tasteem and I will happily write a post about it.
As we do occasionally, my inlaws from the Columbus, OH area wanted to meet up for lunch over the Labor Day weekend. My wife and I drove down from central Michigan and they drove up from Columbus to meet in Toledo, OH. We are always looking for cool new places to try, so it was soon decided we would meet at Black Rock. The added benefit of this Black Rock is the fact that it is attached to the mall, so we did a little mall ratting after lunch.
Another fun fact is that we actually passed one of the other Black Rock locations about an hour north of Toledo in Hartland, MI.
I was a little concerned that Black Rock might be a bit too fancy for our casual lifestyle, but we didn't feel out of place at all. In fact, we had thought about getting a reservation, but when we walked in at 11:30 on Labor Day Monday, we were the only people in the place.
Our waiter Isaiah showed us to our table and we waited for our family to arrive.
We were placed in a large booth in one of the back corners since we had a party of six. This was our view. I don't know why restaurants do seating like you see here. I find it very annoying. If I am in a German beer hall it might be one thing, but when I am at a place like this, I want to be as isolated as possible. Seating like this makes me feel like I am sharing my meal with everyone else around me.
This is looking back towards the entrance and the bar is on the other side of that partition along with another seating area. It is actually a fairly large establishment footprint-wise.
As you can see from the photo at the top, there is a reason they are called Black Rock. They use volcanic stones that they heat to a whopping 755 degrees Fahrenheit to cook your food. In fact, they bring the stone right to your table (if you want) and you can cook your meat yourself.
Since this was our first time here, I decided to go for it. I got the sirloin and kielbasa dinner with a side salad and mashed potatoes. The steak came with two dipping sauces and the kielbasa came with a mustard and a spicy garlic sauce or something like that. They were all very good. I ended up cutting the steak into smaller pieces and cooking it that way. The waiter informed me as he placed the tray down that it only takes the steak about twenty seconds to reach medium on the stone.
The foot was pretty amazing and looking back I am glad that I did the stone. However, if we were to come back to this place, I probably wouldn't do it again in the future. It was just a lot of work. While everyone else was enjoying their meal, I was busy tending to mine making sure I didn't over or under cook it. On top of that, the sizzling meat smoke was wafting right into the faces of my wife and niece. Since my wife isn't a fan of beef in the first place, that wasn't ideal.
Speaking of my wife, she got the chicken caesar salad. She said it was amazing, but she wished that she had asked them to bring the dressing on the side. It was severely over dressed but that was her only complaint. Oh, I take that back, she said the croutons were soggy too. Other than that, she really enjoyed it. The crispy fried cheese on the left side there was one of her favorite parts.
I forgot to grab pictures, but we did get a couple of appetizers. We got the "mozzarella moons" which were basically just mozzarella sticks but not in stick form and the onion ring tower. They were both very good and deep fried to perfection. I would highly recommend them.
My brother in law got a large sandwich that I didn't get a picture of and my other niece got the crispy chicken salad (also no picture).
My oldest niece and her mom both got burgers. They said they were really good. You can see here that the ingredients all look very fresh. Actually, I had just gotten my food when I took this picture and you can see she was already two or three bites in. So either she was really hungry or it was just that good (probably both).
At $65 USD for both of the appetizers and our two plates, Black Rock isn't a cheap place to eat. It would have been a little less if I hadn't gotten steak, but it still would have been in the $50 range which I feel is high.
In terms of value for the money, I do think it was worth it, but still just a little too expensive for me to make this a regular stop if I lived closer to it. It would be more of a special occasion every couple of months sort of place.
Isaiah was a pretty great waiter and I know times have been tough for people in that industry, so we left a fairly generous $20 tip brining our total bill to $85 USD.
Make sure you follow the link to the website above and check out what Black Rock has to offer. If you happen to be in the vicinity of a location, I highly encourage you to stop and try it out. Make sure at least one of the people in your party gets something they can cook on the stone. The house made "Rock Sauce" is legit!
I apologize for the blurry photos, it's been six months and I am still trying to figure out how the camera on my new phone works!
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All pictures taken by myself or @mrsbozz