Alternate title: the time we ate enough sushi to make it about as unhealthy as a burger and fries.
Wait, what? Us over-order food? Yeah, that never happens. Weird.
So, by luck of the calendar, I was bestowed the illustrious honor of picking a place for the evening after St. Patrick’s Day. Because, no pressure there. Who doesn’t love going out on the town again the night after indulging in green beer and corned beef? And essentially just having more of the same? Um, yeah, no. I had already kind of thought that we needed a break from sports bar / pub places (and what seemed to have become the search for Shane’s perfectly cooked burger), so I was trying to think of someplace a little different when it came to our menu options.
Twiisted is one of those places that we’ve actually talked about going to for a few months now – because, well, by now you know Shane’s love affair with sushi rivals that of my love affair for all things carbs. In all fairness, I have to give credit to Shane for first discovering and researching this place, as it should’ve been his pick about two rounds ago. But since it’s a good half hour drive away we needed to wait for the weather to break before we could visit.
Because, you know, Mother Nature clearly saves all inclement weather for Wednesday evenings. Whore.
Anyway.
After a lovely drive through the back country roads of Medina and Summit counties (tip: if you’re ever coming from the east and get lost on your way there, just look for Granger Road, as that seemed to be the only road we drove on for the majority of the journey, despite the navigation system instructing us to turn about 57 times), we arrived at Twiisted – which is located in the smack middle of what I believe must be the shopping hub of northern Medina. Just look for Target. Trust us on this one.
Once inside, we were greeted by a very personable hostess – who I suspect must be a part owner or something because she seemed way too invested in the tables throughout the whole time we were there to just be the person who sat them there. Or maybe she was just bored. Whatever. In any case, it was nice to see a cheerful face as soon as we walked in.
We sat in the bar area – because, well, us. The place wasn’t too busy at all, just a few other tables with groups and a few people at the bar. I’m not sure if this is typical for a Wednesday night – especially the one right after a major alcoholic holiday – but we all agreed it would be interesting to see what weekend crowds are like.
Amanda and I won the lightest drink award this week, going with Crispin cider. Once again, refer back to the calendar and the whole St Patrick’s Day being the day before thing for explanation. Ted went the exact opposite route and ordered probably the darkest thing on the drink menu, a left handed porter. I didn’t check to make sure he did, in fact, use his left hand to drink it. Shane once again tested the rum-to-diet ratio, and found it more drinkable but ultimately less affordable than the alcoholic’s heaven that is the Windsor Pub.
We started with crab rangoon dip as an appetizer. Which was delicious, although we all agreed that the chips were a bit flimsy and broke way too easily in the extremely hearty dip. I eventually got fed up and started using my fork to spoon the dip onto the chips instead of using the chips as the vessel to pick up dip.
Shane: oh, that’s pretty smart.
What can I say, folks. Don’t let the blonde hair fool you.
It’s also worth mentioning that they bring you a free appetizer of endamame for the table also. I guess that’s like the chips and salsa of sushi places?
For dinner, we all went the sushi route – although if you’ve never been to Twiisted then you should definitely keep in mind that the menu features so much more. Burgers, steaks, sandwiches, salads … basically most of the things a normal bar & grille type establishment would feature on a menu. Which is a great idea for groups where one or two people maybe want sushi, and the others don’t like it, or are afraid of it, determined that they won’t like it, etc.
You know, like Shane when we visited Wasabi House last January. Although, if you ask him, he was the one who first “discovered” sushi and introduced it to our WTGW group.
Uh huh.
Anyway, back to dinner. So we all ordered sushi – and, brace yourselves, this is the part where we ordered enough food to feed a small European nation. What? Us? No!
Let’s recap our orders:
Steph: one Volcano roll and one Tempura Asparagus roll
Amanda: two Philadelphia rolls and one Spicy Crab roll
Ted: one Medina Bee roll, one Crab Apple roll and one Spicy Crab roll
Shane: three Philadelphia rolls (which, for future reference, can also be referenced by the technical terminology of “a buttload of Philly rolls” – as the hostess called the order when she helped deliver the meals to our table. Noted.)
So that’s 11 orders of sushi at one table of four people. I’m not very good at math, but that seems like a pretty big sushi-to-people ratio.
Now, in our defense, we’ve been burned by sushi orders before. Like the time Shane and Ted had to eat three pounds of frozen yogurt after our meal just to finally feel full. And most places we’ve ordered from in the past have featured rolls of six small-ish pieces. Twiisted’s rolls are eight medium-sized pieces. And the pieces on the specialty rolls (like the Volcano, Median Bee and Crab Apple) are even larger. Filed under: things we were not aware of.
Hence why we left Twiisted feeling extremely full. Like roll you out to the car and unbutton your pants kind of full. I actually left a few pieces of my Volcano roll behind, and Amanda surrendered about five pieces of her order to the boys – who gladly ate them (after devouring all of their own) but instantly regretted that decision once the realization sunk in that they weren’t at home yet and couldn’t just kick back on the couch in sweat pants.
Ted was also particularly upset that meant he didn’t have any room left to sample some of the desserts that were featured on the table as we first walked in – which looked delicious at that time, but the thought of stuffing another morsel into our bodies at the end of the meal made us all avoid making eye contact with that table like kids who don’t want to be called on by the teacher by the time we were on the way out.
We may have to start a dessert tour of these places we’ve been to just to get to try that menu. Or, order less food.
Yeah, I think we all know which of those options has more of a likelihood of happening.
In any case, as you can probably guess by our gluttony, everything was delicious. Amanda said that the Spicy Crab rolls were some of the best she’s ever had. Shane enjoyed his “buttload” of Philly rolls enough that he didn’t want to try anything else, and ate the rest of Amanda’s rolls when she declared them dead soldiers. I liked the Tempura Asparagus better than the Volcano – which was definitely tasty, but just seemed to have a lot going on what with the pile of spicy crawfish meat on top of the actual rolls. And the wasabi aioli on the Tempura rolls actually seemed to be hotter than any of the sauces on the Volcano roll, so there’s that.
Ted had by far the most creative and interesting order on the table. We were all particularly intrigued by his thoughts on the Crab Apple rolls, as we weren’t sure what to expect of sushi that contained both crab meat and slices of apples. Leave it up to Ted to once again order something that contains ingredients not usually found together in, well, anywhere. But he said that one was actually his favorite, as it started out sweet and then basically kicked you in the teeth at the end with a spice you don’t expect. So he said that – while his entire order was quite tasty – if he had to rank them it would go something like this: Spicy Crab, good; Medina Bee, very good; Crab Apple, really, REALLY good. I know that’s a very technical rating system and all, but try to keep up.
All in all, we had a great time at Twiisted. While I’ll admit the service was a little slow at first – we waited a hot minute for our drinks and to place our orders, but after that it definitely seemed to improve. The hostess was actually better than our waiter, as she seemed to have more of both a sense of urgency and a personality. But overall, I think this is a place we could definitely see ourselves returning to. And if it were closer – or at the very least on someone’s route home – we would probably consistently use it as a go-to for take out orders. Anyone want to convince them to open a Cuyahoga Falls location?
CAPSULE
Picked by: Steph
Drinks: Decent beer and wine list, plus full bar.
Food: Known for sushi, so that menu is very large and diverse. But even if you aren’t a fan there are plenty of other options – burgers, steaks, wraps, etc. Portion sizes are also large, something we learned the hard way.
Service: Slow to start, but got better as the night went on. Our waiter wasn’t as chatty as some of the ones we’ve seen at other places recently, but that was probably good here since we seemed to do just fine over-ordering on our own.
Overall: Good. Sushi was delicious and reasonably priced, atmosphere was a little less fun than I would’ve hoped but then again it is a Wednesday night just after St Patrick’s Day, so we can’t expect too much. Would definitely go back for the sushi alone.
Next Pick: Amanda
Where To Go Wednesdays 