This is very delayed, but I thought it might make fun reading for some folks, so I’ll go ahead.
We left Richmond on April 7th to drive to Ohio/Indiana for the solar eclipse on the 8th. Breakfast was at Kathy’s in Staunton VA. Mr. Kim and I ate there last year on our anniversary trip and loved it. I had the biscuits and gravy with fried eggs and their fantastic fried potatoes:
The gravy looks so blah, but it is delicious – loaded with sausage flavor even though it doesn’t seem to have a lot of crumbled sausage in it. Mr. Kim had the country ham breakfast with potatoes, grits, biscuits, and eggs:
The ham was SO good, though oddly the fat on the edge wasn’t snipped and it curled into a bowl. Unfortunately, Jessica wasn’t happy with her meal:
She got the lemon-blueberry pancakes. I’m not sure why, but she expected that the lemon flavor would be IN the pancakes instead of a drizzle of what seemed to be lemon curd. I thought they were fantastic.
Determined to hit as many of our favorite restaurants as possible in the OH/IN area, we stopped for dinner at Big Boy in Ohio south of Cincinnati. Big Boy is less “Big” than I remember:
I got the Big Boy burger and crinkle cuts:
Jessica got a double cheeseburger and onion rings:
Mr. Kim got the pork tenderloin and rings:
The burgers, fries, and rings were great. The tenderloin tasted good, but it was a little too thick and not quite crisp enough.
Eclipse Day!!! We were so fortunate to find a church that was taking donations for parking at their lot to watch the eclipse. We’d seen up to $50 and they said any amount. We gave them $20. It was far enough out in the country that there wasn’t a lot of noise or buildings or busy-ness. They were selling hot dogs, chips, and drinks – so that was lunch. Sun gazing:
They were even selling T-shirts!
Dinner that night was White Castle:
Cheeseburgers, onion chips, and crinkle cuts.
The 9th was the drive home with two important stops before we left Cincinnati. The first was the incredible Jungle Jim’s grocery store. It was amazing when we shopped there in the early 1990s when we lived in Batesville, IN.
It is truly mind blowing now. Calling it a grocery store is hardly sufficient. There ARE groceries, of course, but SO much more including a section of housewares and kitchen equipment larger than any Williams-Sonoma I’ve ever seen. They also have an entire room devoted to modern culture kitsch – Funko, lunch boxes, action figures, etc. – on TV shows, movie franchises, Anime, etc. And then there’s the food. The cool thing about Jungle Jim’s is that while you can get an incredible assortment of specialty and “gourmet” foods, you can also find everyday items. Some of the deli/charcuterie area:
Cheese selection:
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The butter bar – which is actually two sided:
Gummy candies:
The Pez display – half of it. It’s also two sided:
Part of the bakery/pastry case:
All kinds of meats:
They have an incredible seafood section – especially considering that they are in the Midwest:
A small part of their hot sauces:
Jerky:
Their international food is arranged by country and some of them were amazing to see – Sri Lanka, Iceland, Nepal, Togo. My anglophile self was, of course, drawn to the British section. Cadbury selection:
Sauces and canned/bottled things:
I can get HP and Branston pickle, but they had Daddies which I can never find in my area.
My mother would have been so excited to see the Bisto powder. She always preferred it to the granules:
Frozen stuff:
The oil aisle:
Popcorn stunt eating:
Our last restaurant stop in Cincinnati was a late lunch at Skyline Chili. This is how our food was delivered:
I got a four way with beans (spaghetti, chili, beans, and cheese) and Mr. Kim got a 5-way (all that plus onions):
Jessica opted for a new, to us, item – a “Chilito”:
Basically, a flour tortilla stuffed with chili and cheese. Kind of underwhelming. All three of us had Coneys – little hot dogs topped with chili, mustard, cheese and onions:
Rode all the way home wishing I could have another one for dinner, so I think that means the meal was good!
Just a portion of the culinary goodies we came home with:
I’m actually embarrassed at the top picture. We love trying interesting and new foods for videos that Jessica posts to FB, but that is ridiculous. In the bottom photo, the mock turtle soup is something that we discovered when we lived in IN. Folks would get together and make gallons of the stuff – the ones that I had were all made with beef, turkey, and vegetables and everything is ground up. It’s quite a production, so I thought I’d see what the canned stuff was like. The next two cans are probably mistakes – I saw the “famous” names and neglected to read the ingredients. They are both mostly beans – one has NO meat at all. The crock, lid, and weight are probably the most interesting purchases. Mr. Kim has decided that he’d like to try making sauerkraut. I’m looking forward to that! One more Jungle Jim purchase:
Really good cheese balls. From the left: olive, beef & onion, and white cheddar.
We had a really wonderful time and even got to go back to the little town in Indiana that we used to live in. Mr. Kim and I had been back more recently, but Jessica hadn’t been since she was in grade school and it has changed so much. It was fun watching her see what has changed and what hasn’t. We love road trips and weren’t in a special hurry, so this was a really good one.
EDITED TO FIX PICTURE ORDER
