Miriam Bowers Abbott

Columbus

Contributing Writer at Columbus Underground

Freelance Writer at Freelance

Ethicist, Logician and Writer at https://t.co/GN8otUKo6p

Featured in: Favicon

columbusunderground.com Favicon

healio.com Favicon

newsbreak.com Favicon

themetropreneur.com

Articles

Restaurant Review: Vietnamese Cuisine at Pho Chef

2 weeks ago | columbusunderground.com | Miriam Bowers Abbott

Pho Chef has developed a sterling reputation for good Vietnamese food on Dublin Granville Road. This year, it branched out and opened a new spin-off in the Kenny Centre Mall. Prior to Pho Chef’s arrival, the little strip mall already boasted an incredibly dense ratio of international restaurants per square inch. Its line-up has long included classic Chinese, an acclaimed sushi restaurant, Japanese bakery (Belle’s), mochi donuts, and modern glitzed-out corndogs. But Pho?
Restaurant Review: Real Deal Sandwiches at Buck City

3 weeks ago | columbusunderground.com | Miriam Bowers Abbott

The sandwich scene at the East Market is real. The big local food court has all sorts of options for serious sandwich fans. There’s the Meatball Mountain sandwich from Yellowbrick, built on quality house-made meatballs. There’s the loaded-up Po’ Boys with a defined Cajun accent from Creole to Geaux. In the same building, you’ll also find chicken sandwiches and Mediterranean gyros built on pita. Meanwhile, Buck City Sammies is holding down the deli scene.
Restaurant Review: Brisket and Texas Twinkies at Smoked Lick BBQ

3 weeks ago | columbusunderground.com | Miriam Bowers Abbott

The weather’s warming up, and that means barbecue season is upon us. True, barbecue is good any time of the year, especially when someone else is doing the outdoor labor. That said, the genre is strongly associated with summer celebrations: Memorial Day, Father’s Day, 4th of July and Labor Day; it’s one long seasonal celebration of barbecue food. Smoked Lick BBQ is ready for it. With a historical foundation in catering, Smoked Lick made its debut as a casual eatery in Hilliard back in January.
Restaurant Review: Salvadoran Fare at Calero's Bar & Grill

1 month ago | columbusunderground.com | Miriam Bowers Abbott

For years now, Morse and Bethel Roads have built stellar reputations for being international foodie havens. It’s not just an international scene on those byways, it’s a local international scene. That is, there is an abundance of small joints that are owned by local representatives of world cuisines. Bethel has representation that primarily reaches from Asia to the Mediterranean.
Restaurant Review: Slurp-Worthy Ramen and Savory Sushi at Kirin Noodle Bar

1 month ago | columbusunderground.com | Miriam Bowers Abbott

Kirin Noodle Bar’s restaurant origin story is a little different from most. In a majority of cases, a restaurant’s opening involves an announcement, lots of coming-soon signs, and then a splashy grand opening celebration. Kirin took another route. Its arrival on the local scene was more of an evolution than a formal opening. But this project was originally a Chatime, serving as a franchise of a Taiwan-based bubble tea chain.
Unusual Eats: Graeter's Skyline Spice

2 months ago | columbusunderground.com | Miriam Bowers Abbott

Chili is winter food. Ice cream is summer food. And together? Chili-flavored ice cream? That is . . . an interesting idea. When Cincinnati’s Graeter’s Ice Cream announced the release of its newest treat featuring the flavor profile of another Cincinnati rockstar (Skyline Chili), the news was both horrifying and intriguing. And given the extra bonus of Oyster crackers added to the ice cream mix, the concept grew more troubling. How would that work?
Restaurant Review: Burgers and Apps at Nocterra

2 months ago | columbusunderground.com | Miriam Bowers Abbott

In the beginning, the Nocterra Brewery started up in Powell inside a former train depot back in 2019. While its iconic moth logo suggests that the operation is named for an exotic winged insect species along the lines of Lepidoptera or Aglossata, that would be a misguided conclusion. Instead, the brewery’s name is an amalgam that expresses its values, one value being a preference for the night (noct, as in nocturnal) and the other for being into the environment, as in the earth (terra).
Treat to Try: The Luxurious Pnut Butter Cups

2 months ago | columbusunderground.com | Miriam Bowers Abbott

Your Valentine wants pnut butter cups. Trust me, I’m right on this. Reese’s peanut butter cups are persistently the most popular Halloween candy. Sure, Halloween is a whole different holiday, but candy popularity statistics still tell you something. The stats tell us that mystery nougats and weird nuts in the big candy boxes are not really that fun. They’re just obstacles on the way to the good stuff. And the good stuff is the chocolate with the peanut butter.
Restaurant Review: Fast-Casual Pakistani Eats at Food Street

Jan 24, 2025 | columbusunderground.com | Miriam Bowers Abbott

Food Street launched itself in Secaucus, New Jersey, just over a year ago. The project introduced diners to a fast-casual cousin to an already well-established project, Lahore Restaurant, in Secaucus. Given the initial success of both businesses, the development team made the next logical step . . . It opened up a Food Street location in Columbus. Secaucus to Columbus is a haul, more than 500 miles according to Google maps. But the Columbus region still makes sense as a business expansion plan.
Restaurant Review: Smoked Meats at Martiny's BBQ

Jan 10, 2025 | columbusunderground.com | Miriam Bowers Abbott

Driving north of Columbus, you’ll eventually get past the big fancy strip mall development scene and hit a stretch of open space with more modest, hodge-podge landscape features. That’s about the time you’ll see something that looks like a cartoon log cabin off the side of the road in Lewis Center. That would be Martiny’s BBQ: Hit the brakes. Then again, drive-through is an ordering option at Martiny’s, so you don’t have to slow down much.