Cincinnati, OH
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| *Photo Not Chili Related |
Chili Challenge*
*My opinions do not reflect the opinions of Google Blogger or Francis
Today we talk about Cincinnati Chili, how people eat it and where people get it. Chili is EVERYWHERE with major chains and mom and pops servicing up the sauce (soup?) for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. You can't drive but a few miles without seeing chili being served on Spagetti with cheese (3 way), chili being served on a hot dog with cheese (Coney), and chili being served on fries or a steamed potato or any other number of things. Chili in Cincinnati is popular!
Skyline Chili
Skyline Chili is probably the biggest chili chain in Cincinnati and the surrounding area. It isn't the original, that would be Empress Chili, but it is the oldest still in Cincinnati (Empress Chili only has one location in Kentucky). Skyline is everywhere. We can walk to 2 locations from our Airbnb. It's also on many of the Interstate Exit signs where they talk about what services are available on that exit. Last week we walked to
Skyline to enjoy the experience. You can read about that
here.
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| At Skyline we each got a Coney and we split a 3 Way. |
I believe the key to any Coney or 3 Way is the cheese (oh BTW, never say the key to a 3 Way is the cheese in any other area than Cincinnati). The Cheese needs to be freshly grated so it isn't dried out and so it doesn't have corn starch or some other powder to keep it from sticking together (like they do in grocery stores, never buy pre shredded cheese). It also needs to be shredded as thinly as possible. The cheese at Skyline was perfect. We also liked the fact that the Coney was small. You can always order more, but you can't order less than one. The small Coney avoids the, "I'm eating fast food that isn't good for me guilt". Donna says the Coney doesn't last long enough for the guilt to set in. The third thing that we are looking for is a very soft bun. I think Skyline steams their buns so they are incredibly soft and moist (also don't talk about moist buns in public). All of this made for an excellent dining experience.
Root Beer Stand
The 2nd place we went to for Coneys was
The Root Beer Stand in Sharonville, OH. This place is a "Cincinnati" institution (not actually located in Cincinnati). I heard it mentioned in a few places and it made quite a few best of lists so we decided to stop by to experience The Foot Long Coney!
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| My Foot Long and My Chili Cheese Fries (I am surprised they don't have a cool word for Chili Cheese Fries like a 3 Way Fried Potato or something). |
Root Beer Stand was cool. It's one of those Route 66 esque places with a neon sign and history built right in. We went on a weekday just after noon but parking was packed so we had to park across the street and hope we didn't get towed (you can read the real post
here).
Our findings were that The Foot Long was too much. I would just order 2 smaller Coneys (not conies) if I wanted that much Coney. The cheese was perfect, just like Skyline and they actually had Chili Cheese Fries which was a plus because Skyline had them on the online menu but the place we went to downtown didn't have them. The weak part about Root Beer Stand was The Chili. It just wasn't very good. As far as I can tell, it wasn't really chili. It was more of a Chili Sauce without meat. The consistency was more like watered down refried beans. Both Donna and I were let down by it. It wasn't bad but we wouldn't go for the chili again.
Gold Star Chili
At this point in our stay we thought we were done with Coneys and 3 Ways but my brother-in-law, Josh, (seen
here), texted me from an Arizona Diamond Backs game and asked if we had experienced Cincinnati Chili. I mentioned the 2 places above and he said, "buddy says to try Gold Star & let him known which you like better between that & Skyline". Apparently he was at the game with a Cincinnati Expat that wanted our opinion. I had seen Gold Star places during our drives but there isn't one walking distance from us so it wasn't really on our radar. Well all of this changed in that instance when I started looking for Gold Star locations. Donna had mentioned that she loved the Coneys so I figured she would be down for a taste test. She was! I found a Gold Star just over the border in Kentucky and it was on the way to Comics2Games (read about our visit
here). I had wanted to go to Comics2Games again so I made a plan and we executed it. We would cross over into Kentucky, go to
Gold Star, drive down US 25, The Dixie Highway (an unfortunate name), and then stop by Comics2Games.
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| Gold Star with our van in the reflection of the window. Was the OP sign foreshadowing that Gold Star was Over Powered? Read on to see. |
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| Keep Calm and Coney On! |
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| Both Gold Star and Skyline has table service which I thought was interesting for such a casual place. |
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| Chili Cheese Fries and a Coney! |
Gold Star also served Chili Cheese Fries which was another plus! They were fantastic! The cheese was perfect and the chili was delicious. The fries were crinkle fries, which aren't my favorite, but they went well with the chili and cheese. The Coney was also fantastic! The cheese was perfect, again the chili was delicious, and the bun was very soft and nice. We also split a 3 Way (not pictured), for science as Donna put it. The 3 Way was also great. The Cheese and Chili were perfect and the noodles were cooked just right. Was it better than Skyline and Root Beer Stand?
Results!
So, let me start out by saying we enjoyed all 3 of our experiences for different reasons. But you all clicked for opinions so I will give them to you.
Skyline
We liked being able to walk to Skyline. It would be a great place to go after having a couple of drinks. The fact that they had Chili Cheese Fries on the menu but didn't serve them takes away points but then we wouldn't have had a 3 Way so I guess that is a happy result. The Coney was our slight favorite due to the bun being perfect. Not sure if it will always be that perfect though. I am sure the window for bun perfection is pretty small. The chili was good but not as good as one of the other places we went to and that is what you are going for so all in, Skyline was our 2nd favorite place to eat Coneys.
Root Beer Stand
Root Beer Stand had the coolest Neon sign and the coolest space. It is a great stop if you are in Sharonville on your way to anywhere. The chili was the weak link here and it was so weak, in our opinion, that we couldn't go back for Coneys. The Root Beer was really good and I would stop for a Root Beer Float if I had never been. If you want to say you have been to The Root Beer Stand get a float and enjoy it.
Gold Star
This leaves the last and the best in our opinion, Gold Star! The chili here really shines and makes everything great. The bun wasn't as perfect as Skyline but it was so slight that it didn't really didn't change our opinion. If you go to 1 fast food chili chain in the Cincinnati area, go to Gold Star.
There are more places that serve Coneys so if you want a bigger sample size than 2 people going to 3 places go to a bar and ask the locals. I am sure they will give you their opinion.
That's it for today. If you missed my previous post,
The American Sign Museum, check it out. We saw neon signs that we saw growing up in SoCal.
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| I played this pin at Comics2Games as well as having The Best Chili in Cincinnati (according to me and Donna). |
