Category: Ypsilanti

Corner Brewery – Ypsilanti, MI

I’m the kind of person who likes to sit on the porch in the summer and enjoy a good beer or six. I’m not much of a “bar person”, in that I would much rather sit on a couch and converse with friends over drinks. Since I am a struggling student living in poverty, I do not posses a porch to do this on. This is where Corner Brewery in Ypsilanti comes in. Corner is a local brewery owned by the Arbor Brewing Company. They only serve beers that are brewed in house, with the majority of them being fantastic. They usually have 6-7 beers on tap, and have selections for anyone. I would recommend the Blonde or the Sacred Cow IPA, but you really can’t lose here.

From their website:

“The original promise of the microbrewery movement was one of wide ranging styles, beers of distinction and quality, served up by small regional breweries providing fresh beer with a unique local character.

That has always been the driving force behind every beer we brew. In addition to classic, true-to-style favorites like our Sacred Cow I.P.A., Bavarian Bliss Hefeweizen, Espresso Love Breakfast Stout, and Phat Abbot Dubbel and Triple; we also like to blend styles and add unexpected twists. Our goal is to respect styles and traditions without being a slave to them.”

A detailed list and description of each beer can be found here.

The beer that is served at Arbor Brewing Company and Corner all have exactly the same recipes. The beer at Arbor Brewing Company is served at Arbor Brewing Company and the beer brewed at Corner is served at Corner. The same four people brew the beer at the two places.

Besides the beer, the great thing about Corner is the atmosphere. This is unlike any bar I’ve ever been to. Inside are chairs and tables, but couches and large comfortable booths surround them. When you go out back, there is a large beer garden and a porch with more couches. They also have a large collection of board games and trivia. If you want to come challenge me at 90’s trivia, let me know. I will be happy to embarrass you. The idea of the bar is to re-create brew pubs you may see in Germany and you’ll likely see kids and families enjoying games, cards, WiFi, and beer(not the kids). Go there enough times, and you’ll likely run into a drunk hippie who wants to talk philosophy with you, which is usually fun for the first twenty minutes then gets old for the next two hours.

The real reason I write this is because Corner recently expanded their food menu. It used to be that you could order your own food from outside, whether it be pizza or even take out from Sidetrack. I believe you can still do that, but they finally realized that they could make a few dollars serving their own food. I’ve tried their menu the last few visits and haven’t been very impressed, but the food is far from terrible. They offer a lot of basic menu options including burgers, brats, dips and sandwiches. They also pledge to use local sourcing whenever possible and also choose ingredients that are fresh, natural, and sustainable.

For this particular visit, I decided to get the roast beef and cheddar sandwich with a Hungarian farm cheese spread. I was a little hesitant to order a burger, which I will probably do one of these days, so I went with the sandwich. Didn’t turn out too bad, but wasn’t great either. The beef was a little fatty and not tender enough to be on a sandwich. One bite took most of the roast beef with it. Much chewing was required. Can’t complain though, as I have had much worse sandwiches.

Stephanie is a nachos fanatic and decided to go with the vegetarian seitan nachos. These are locally made corn chips piled with black bean spread, 3-cheese blend, fajita seitan strips, onions, black olives, jalapeno peppers, and fresh salsa. I didn’t try these mainly because vegetarian food and me just don’t get along. She enjoyed them, however.

All in all, I’d say Corner is making great strides with their food but it needs a bit of improvement. It’s great that I can go and enjoy pretty high quality food while drinking their great beer, but I just think there’s a bit of room for improvement.

Corner Brewery
720 Norris St
Ypsilanti, MI 48198
(734) 480-2739
http://www.arborbrewing.com/index.php?site=cornerbrewery

July 8, 2009
Al Noor – Ypsilanti, MI

Before I start, you should know that the following write-up is more of a pleading. Al Noor is a Middle Eastern restaurant located on Washtenaw in Ypsilanti, MI that has made a closed down Taco Bell building its home. The arched windows in front completely give this away. Ypsilanti and Ann Arbor are blessed with great Middle Eastern food, ranging from a handful of Middle Eastern groceries to a variety of Middle Eastern restaurants. Al Noor isn’t my favorite- that distinction goes to Jerusalem Garden in Ann Arbor. However, Al Noor does make perfectly respectable Middle Eastern food at good prices. The reason I write this is not to compliment Al Noor on its food, although I will do that. This also is not intended to completely bash the restaurant, which I will also do. I simply want to raise awareness about a good restaurant that will be closed if something isn’t done about the customer service.

Al Noor offers some of the most hilariously bad service I have ever been a witness to. Whoever is responsible for running this business is either completely incompetent or has no idea what is going on in the day to day operation. It surprised me even more when I found out that Al Noor had been purchased by someone three years ago who promised renovations to the business. This new owner has either since died, or moved out of the country and left the restaurant to his 11 year old son. The service is that bad.

I often go in to find random friends of the cashier hanging out in the booths. This wouldn’t bother me, but they often stare as you as you consume your food. They are either very interested in my food, or thinking about adding me to the “Missed Connections” portion of Craigslist. It creeps me out every time I go in.

Another major party foul is that every time I have asked for no tomatoes on my chicken shawarma, there are indeed tomatoes when I bite into it. There aren’t many things that piss me off, but when I ask someone to subtract tomatoes from my food and they do not, it sure does get my blood boiling. I am a firm believer that when one a tomato touches something, its residue has destroyed it. Don’t get me wrong, I love tomatoes, but not on certain foods.

I walked in today to order my usual, a chicken shawarma and a bowl of crushed lentil soup. I have resorted to telling the cashier that I am deathly allergic to tomatoes. This gets me my shawarma without the little red guys about 40% of the time. When I first walked in, there were no employees in sight. I stood there for about five minutes, and seriously considered stealing a tub of garlic sauce and hummus from the back. Before I could work up the courage, I saw a car pull up. Damn, another customer had foiled my great idea. A man got out of the car, walked in the door, stepped behind the counter, and asked me what I wanted to eat. Yes, this restaurant had been unoccupied with the doors unlocked for god knows who long. I gave him my order, and he began to fumble around the kitchen. I noticed that the soup warmer was sitting open, which alarmed me a little bit. I decided to take a seat because of the usual long wait time. I was on my Blackberry when I heard the beep of a microwave. I suddenly realized that the soup warmer was not working, and the soup was simply sitting in an uncovered container. I had my food about five minutes after I ordered it , which was a new Al Noor record. Congratulations, guys. Upon ringing me up, I had to point to the cashier where the two items I ordered were on the menu so he could find the prices. He then proceeded to add them up on a calculator and forget to include the sales tax. Whoops! $6.50 for soup an sandwich, not bad. When I got to work, I opened up my shawarma to find NO TOMATOES! That certainly meant that it was going to be a good day. I took my first bite, and realized that the sandwich was ice cold. I then put it together. We had a widespread power outage last night, and Al Noor also lost theirs. Either they were serving food from last night, and/or they simply had not gotten their power working yet and decided to open their doors regardless. I decided to eat the sandwich (i’ll take my chances, more on that later), but the soup went into the trash.

Moving past the sometimes comedic bad service, unlike a number of other local places that have similar menus, the food here is not just inexpensive, but very unique to this particular restaurant. The garlic sauce is amazingly potent, with the kind of breath-destroying power that would be a detriment if it wasn’t so delicious. You could seriously put this stuff on watermelon and it could probably be good. The chicken and beef wraps (both tawook and shwarma) are fantastic, almost at Jeresulum Garden level. The hummus is some of the best I have ever had. Do not skip the hummus. Yes, you may be trying to cut back and save a few calories, but Al Noor’s hummus is well worth the indulgence. When you’re talking hummus, some places go heavy on the garlic, some heavy on the tahini. Al Noor actually goes kind of heavy on the lemon, but not in a bad way. It’s a little unusual to get a hummus this creamy and lemony, but It comes out extremely delicious and arrives at your table drizzled with olive oil and dotted with olives. A basket overflowing with packages of pita triangles accompanies it.

The reason I write this is because of that delicious food that you will eventually receive after a long wait and more than likely given something you did not order. Their terrible service is almost completely excused by it, but it seems as though their customers have almost given up on them. The last four or five times I have visited, I have been the only one there for spans of 20-25 minutes. With the heavy competition in the area, there’s no doubt that Al Noor will be forced to close their doors if some attention is not paid to customer service. I always want to find a way to contact the owner, but no website or contact information exists. I will have to stock up on their garlic sauce just in case this day does come, and I am forced to live without it.

If you have some time, it is almost entertaining to see how incompetent the people are who are running the restaurant. It is sad in a way, but I feel as though the food deserves some sort of support.

June 22, 2009
Beer and Burger Tasting at Sidetrack

Last night the girlfriend and I headed over to Sidetrack Bar & Grill , which I like to call God’ s gift to Ypsilanti, for a beer and mini-burger tasting. They had five pairings of beer and a selected food item. This is the first one of these they’ve had but rumor has it that they might be planning on holding them either monthly or bimonthly. If they had these things weekly I would be there. In fact, if they had them every day I would probably be there at least 5 out of 7 days. Great beer, all of it local, food, and music.

Thanks to whoever organized the write-up for this. A lot of this information about the beers came from that.

There was a bluegrass band playing live music the entire time. In fact, we were there about an hour after the tasting ended and everyone had filed out and the band was still playing.

The first pairing was Full Circle Kolsch from New Holland Brew Co in Holland, MI with “Spread The Love”. Spread The Love was a spread made with Gorgonzola cheese, apricots and bacon with pieces of pita bread. Kolsch was a very light beer and was very different than any other German beer I have had in the past. I have come to associate German beer with bitterness(not a bad thing), but Kolsch was definitly a light, soft beer. Not a beer I would normally drink, but a nice pairing to begin the evening. The spread was absolutely delicious. I love Gorgonzola cheese. The mixture of the sweet from the apricots with the smokiness of the bacon made this a very enjoyable dish.

The second pairing was Olde Number 22 from Arbor Brew Company in Ann Arbor, MI with a Sidetrack mini burger topped with roasted red pepper and feta. Olde Number 22 is an Alt which was brewed in German brewpubs as a reward to loyal regulars. At a time when German brews were priced according to alcohol content, brewpubs would brew a secret alt that was richer, maltier, and higher in gravity. They served it unadvertised at the regular alt price exclusively to the regulars who new to asked for it. Number 22 was a very dark but drinkable ale. The finish was very clean and it went very well with the mini burger, which is always fantastic.

The third pairing, which was my favorite was Two Hearted IPA from Bell’s Brewery in Kalamazoo and a handmade black bean mini-burger topped with Oaxacan cheese, guacamole and salsa verde. I honestly feel like starting a campaign to force Sidetrack to add this to their regular menu. This was by far one of the best burgers I have ever eaten. Two Hearted is exactly what you would expect from any Bell’s. I have yet to taste a beer from them that I did not enjoy. As Bell’s puts it, Two Hearted is “well suited for Hemingway-esque trips to the Upper Peninsula. It has a large amount of hops which gives it a nice spice and went very nicely with the spicy black bean burger.

The fourth pairing was Smoked Stout from Dark Horse Brewing Company in Marshall, MI with Sidetrack’s mini burger topped with blue cheese, caramelized onion and bacon. This was quite the heavy pairing. Dark Horse’s Smoked Stout is brewed with all malted barley and peat malt(smoked malt). This beer is incredibly full bodied with chocolate, roasted barley flavors, and a smokey finish that almost resembles BBQ. I enjoyed this pairing but was beginning to get pretty damn full. The BBQ pork quesadilla I got before the tasting sure didn’t help. There was a representative from Dark Horse Brew Co. who talked to us before the pairing and explained how they make the beer.

The final course was Coco Loco Stout from Arcadia Brewing Company in Battle Creek, MI with shortcake topped with fresh strawberries, vanilla ice cream and whipped cream. Wow. I have never had Coco Loco, which is a milk stout, before this and I was very impressed. It is a combination of three different chocolate malts, cocoa nibs, and 63% cacao bittersweet chocolate. It has a very creamy quality almost like a milkshake, and went incredible with the strawberry shortcake.

All in all, I was VERY impressed with the entire evening. We had a great time learning about beer, sampling beers, and eating great food. If you are not on their mailing list, visit their website for a schedule of events, coupons, and other goodness.

Sidetrack Bar & Grill
56 East Cross Street
Ypsilanti, MI 48197
http://www.sidetrackbarandgrill.com/

May 14, 2009