The Session Room

1502 Mike Fahey St

402.342.4393
Sun-Sat: 11 am - 2 am
http://sessionroomomaha.com/

The Session Room has only been open since May, but they've already started to make a name for themselves with one of their trendy menu items: the pizza cone. You may have seen the review by the OWH (a quick Google search didn't turn up the review, but I know I saw one sometime in June); the cone is exactly like you think it is: the cone itself is made up of pizza crust and its filled with pizza sauce, toppings, and cheese. This is the thing that brought me in, and while very good, the other menu items are what's going to keep me coming back.

When you walk into the place you are greeted with a bare-bones establishment. An industrial ceiling with exposed I-beams, Edison bulbs hanging over tables on long electrical cords, cement floors, and just enough beer and alcohol-related decor to keep your eyes interested. There were a few TVs hanging over the long, well-stocked bar that were all tuned to sporting events, which I appreciated as I was able to follow my Kansas City Royals while eating. The music was a very good mix of classic rock. All the tables were hightops, though. I hate hightops. Those are another one of those trendy things. I dunno, I guess I like being able to put my feet anywhere on the floor, instead of being forced to rest them on that little ring around the base of the table or the base of my chair. That said, if the exclusive use of hightops is my only real gripe, then that's a good thing, I think.

I visited on a Wednesday in successive week, at about 6 pm, which was right before their main dinner rush happened. The first time my eyes were too big for my stomach and I ordered a Meat Lover's pizza cone, Timmy Tok Thai Egg Rolls, and 10 of their spiciest chicken wings (more on these in a moment).

Fried to perfection. Look at how delicate the shell looks.

The egg rolls came out first. They were spectacular. Tender, thin strips of cabbage and carrots with more than enough meat inside. The sweet chili sauce was an excellent addition. They are kind of expensive as you only get two whole rolls at $7, but my word are they delicious.

Side.

Top.

The delicious, delicious inside.

The pizza cone was next. The outside was crisp, almost crunchy, and the inside was ooey, gooey, and amazing. The top half of the cone was basically meat and cheese. About half way down was the pizza sauce that was reminiscent of, but a thousand times better than, Godfather's. The sauce on the bottom reminded me of the chocolate on the bottom of the Drumstick novelty ice cream cone. (Sorry, now you want a Drumstick. And so do I actually). These are fairly small; you can figure that each one is worth about a slice and a half of a normal pizza. At $5 each, this is a pretty good deal.

Very meaty wings, here. Also, my eyes regretted this decision when I took out my contacts.

I was, crazily, still hungry after those two so I ordered some of these wings. I decided that I was a man's man and ordered their spiciest wings. Unfortunately, I forgot what they're called and the sauce is not listed online. The sauce was not "Eat 12 wings in 30 minutes, get your order free" hot, but it certainly packed a punch. I got them down, but not without some tears. The wings themselves were perfectly fried and crispy, and they held enough meat to make a meal out of them. The ranch I got with them was a life saver, and I could tell it was made there. All-in-all they were excellent wings, but I'll stick with the classic Buffalo or BBQ wings next time.

All this, plus my pop and the tip came to just over $33.

The next week I obviously had learned my lesson and only ordered two things: another pizza cone that, again I cannot remember the name of and is not on their online menu, and the Caprese flatbread.

The sauce in the cup. Dear lord the sauce.

The pizza cone this time was not the best, I'll be honest. If you look on the menu, its essentially the Chicken Bacon Ranch with a few other ingredients thrown in. Anyway, what made me dislike it was the ranch sauce. It was just too much garlic and salt. I felt like if it was regular pizza sauce I'd have another winner here. Also, the crust was slightly underdone this time. I like it that way but I can see why others would not. As for the fries, they were in a novel shape that held a good crust-to-potato ratio, if that's a thing, and very well seasoned. The sauce, which they call "boom boom sauce," was slightly spicy and really made for a great dish.

I'll be honest, this was bigger than I thought it was going to be,

The flatbread was all about what was on top. The crust was okay, but the sauce, cheese, and tomatoes more than made up for it. Excellent stuff here, but really, it's good for two./ I once again waddled out.

This day, with pop and tip, I walked out at just over $21.

I should mention that the service I got both days was excellent and personable.

These guys have  a lot going for them, including being in a nice, up -and-coming location. Definitely a great location for before and after Blue Jays basketball games come winter.I can see a nice, long future for The Session Room.

Brazen Head

319 N 78th St
402.393.3731
www.brazenheadpub.com
M-W: 11-1pm
Th-Sat: 11-2pm
Sun: 12-1pm

Brazen Head has always kind of been an odd place for me. It was a popular hangout for my college buddies, but when we were there, we were always the youngest in the crowd. Which is not to say they cater to those over 60, certainly not, but I also kind of felt out of place a little.

Anyway, I quite like the place. They've done a very good job giving it an authentic pub feel: wood floors with tile inlays, heavy wood tables and chairs, comfortable and cushy booths, lots of Irish and English beers on tap, and nice and low mood lighting. The fist day I visited I stopped by with ten minutes left in happy hour, so it was busy but not crowded, and loud with large groups hobnobbing after work.

That day I ordered the happy hour spinach artichoke dip, and the County Cork Boxty, which came with either soup or salad. I chose the soup as it was chilly that day.

I only found out the dip had that red tint to it after I took the picture; it was so dark in the restaurant otherwise you'd never know.

The spinach artichoke dip was spectacular. Creamy, hot, full of flavor. I wish they didn't put chips in it when they served it, though, as it made the part of the chip that was in the dip soggy and soft. I'm, well, not sure what else to say about it, really. It was really, very good. By the way, since I got the happy hour version, I got a smaller version of the real size, which is also served in a bread bowl. I'll have to bring someone with me next time to tackle that one. 

Cheese soup is a cure-all in cold weather. Why are we not studying this fact?

The soup came out quickly. It was smooth, creamy, and a little bitter in a good way. The paper lace doily on the plate was pretty, easily missed, and completely unnecessary. I love that touch. Get the soup here.

If you don't enlarge this, you'll think I took an okay picture. So, um, please don't enlarge this.

Finally the boxty came out. "What's a boxty?" you may ask. Basically, take a potato pancake, put some stuff on top, fold it over, and pour a sauce on top. Done. Irish comfort food. The one I ordered, the County Cork, is filled with crab meat, asparagus, and Havarti cheese.

Go ahead and enlarge this one, I did well here. 

I loved this. Sweet crab meat, still-crunchy asparagus, both of which swimming in melted, velvety Havarti is already an awesome combination, but put that into a dense, fresh potato pancake and cover it with their cream sauce and you've got a winner. This is serious comfort food.

With my happy hour beer, food, and tax and tip, my total came to about $25.

I visited a week later, this time with plenty of time in happy hour. I was so early the place was pretty dead. By the time I left, however, it was starting to pick up. This day I ordered a plate of the happy hour Irish Nachos and the fish and chips.

I'm not sure what made these nachos "Irish." Maybe because the cheese was only cheddar, and nothing Mexican? I don't know, your guess is as good as mine.

I'm not sure what compelled me to order a Tex-Mex dish at an Irish pub, but I did and here we are. They were surprisingly delicious, however. Don't let the picture fool you, that is not the nacho cheese you find at the stadium, that is actually very melty cheddar cheese on top. When I pulled a nacho up, the cheese stretched and broke like the real deal. The beef was well spiced, there were enough jalapenos, and it included other nacho plate staples. A definite good little plate of nachos. Again, I ordered the happy hour version. The normal version is apparently bigger. I couldn't come close to finishing this, so the real one must be gigantic. As a side note, I'm not sure what would be on a plate of Irish nachos to make them truly "Irish." Maybe potatoes, cabbage, or mince meat. Ew. I'm glad they stayed away from that.

The waffle fries were very, very welcome.

So I went from "Irish" nachos to something a little more traditional on that side of the pond: fish and chips. I got three generous cod fillets on a bed of waffle fries. I was served with a tangy and very thick tartar sauce that would not surprise me was made in house. Unlike the last time I had fish and chips, at Sean O'Casey's, these fillets were fried correctly and not over done. The thick batter soaked up all the malt vinegar I cared to put on, and somehow still stayed a little crispy. The fish was flaky, tender, and perfectly done.

As for the fries, they were very well done. I know that french fries are one of those things that people can have very particular ideas about. Now if you were to ask me what type of fry I like, it's a very close race between shoestring and waffle. I think the best fries in town can be found at Broncos, so it should be easy to figure out that I like my fries a little limp. But I can completely understand why people would like a nice, crispy french fry. If you are in that boat, then get your fries here. They're crazy good.

The only thing I disliked about this dish was how it was served. I had a very hard time cutting and stabbing the fish with my fork because the fillets were over the fries. I could have used another plate.

Again, on this day, I could not finish my plate. Lots of food here. It would be very easy to have to waddle out the door.

All told, with the two bottles of  Dr. McGillicuddy's root beer, the food, and tip and taxes, my bill came to about $30.

Ray's Original Buffalo Wings

5424 S 36th St (inside the Lemon Drop Bar)
402.884.5300
M-T: Closed
W-Sat: 11 am - 9 pm
Sunday: 12 pm - 7 pm
www.rayswings.com

All through January I had been hearing a radio commercial for the re-opening of this joint, a place that the commercial exclaimed was an Omaha favorite. I'd never heard of Ray's until these annoying commercials (I've heard this style of commercial before for another company, where the story is told through an inner monologue that repeats what the outer monologue says, but in a "funny" voice; it must be a stock "script" one of the local media companies has for commercials they produce; if you are a business owner looking to advertise, please avoid this style. All that said, it worked on me - I walked into the joint) and with the claims they made there, I decided to give it a shot.

I did a little research and found that they were, in fact, a pretty popular place in the 1990s, somewhere around the 96th and Q area (OWH, 11/6/14) but was closed because life and all that entails happened to the owners. Now they're back up and running in a quintessential South Omaha Neighborhood bar.

The set up there is not your usual one: you place, pay, and later pick up your order at a counter that is at the end of a short hallway behind the bar. I put in to-go orders two different days for lunch because the Lemon Drop Bar is quite literally only 3 blocks away from work; a quick jaunt through St. Mary's cemetery (to avoid Q Street) and I was there. The bar itself is rather small, with a pool table right in front of the front door, a well adorned bar (liquor-wise) but with only four beers on tap. It was quiet, but this was a particularly late lunch. This place definitely caters to locals, but this being South Omaha, you don;t have to be a local to be welcomed in. I was treated like a regular by (who I'm assuming was) Ray himself.

The first day I ordered 18 traditional medium wings (way too much, even for me) and the second day I ordered the fried mushrooms and The Big Mike Jr. burger (again, still too much, even for me).

Big and meaty stuff, here.

I picked the medium spicy wing sauce so I could get a good bearing on where they stand on the heat scale in general. I can, in fact, handle super spicy foods, but I usually opt for less spice because I don't like spicy for the sake of spicy. In other words, if all I taste is heat, then what's the point? I want the spice to contribute, not dominate. The medium sauce did just that, and the wings were big and meaty as well, which helped me stomach the $1/per that they charge. I also very much appreciate that they fry their wings naked, that is, not battered or coated like a certain bawdy chain that semi-recently left Omaha. There were but two regrets: I was only afforded one cup of dressing (for 18 wings?) and the wings themselves just weren't quite crispy. I'll chalk that last complaint to being doused in sauce and being served takeout. All in all, they were very, very good wings, and in an area of town that is in serious need of them.

A classic bar food I have a hard time passing up.

That next Sunday I was filling in for someone at the bakery making the bread, so I had plenty of time while it rose to test Ray's again. Fried mushrooms are one of those classics that will always order if I see it, which if you remember from a past review also includes Spinach Artichoke Dip. Fair warning: you'll see plenty of both of these classics being reviewed here; think of them as common barometers by with to measure different places. Ray's fried mushrooms are solidly good. They had a thick, crunchy shell outside that nicely held inside all the mushroomy juices which render out while being cooked. The shell was seasoned well enough to taste like something, but not enough to overtake the mushroom. Again, though, just one cup of ranch to dip them in. By the time I was finished here, I was almost full, but since I had a burger to taste as well, I soldiered on. These are definitely enough to share.

Kinda wish I grabbed a plate to put this on so you could see it better. It looked much more appetizing in person.

I ordered the Big Mike Jr. Burger as my main meal. Since the description for this says, essentially, "half the size of the regular," here's what the regular, The Big Mike Burger, reads like on the menu: 

2-8oz Burger patties, 2 slices of Pepper Jack Cheese, 4 slices of Jalapeno Bacon all topped with Sautéed Jalapenos, Lettuce, Tomato, Onion and homemade Sriracha Aioli

A half pound burger is plenty enough for me. When I put the two halves together, I was presented with this:

Sans the dollar bill; that's for scale. I wish I got a buck for every burger I put together.

If I learned anything about Ray's, its that you won't walk away hungry, but you might waddle away asking why you look those last five bites.

This burger packs a lot of powerful flavors, and very surprisingly, they all played very well with each other. The bacon was crispy, the burger was well seasoned, the cheese melted well, and all the spicy elements certainly let you know they were there, but didn't overwhelm the entire thing. This is a solid burger, and I'd love to meet the one who can polish off a regular Big Mike Burger.

All in all, Ray's is legit bar food. The wings are excellent. but you should not eschew the rest of the menu. They are a little expensive (with taxes and all, it was over $20 for 18 wings, and my burger and mushrooms came to just under $18 - remember, this was without a drink for either ticket), but you will walk away with an excellent, excellent meal.

Union Pizzeria & Sports Bar

3636 N 156th Street, Omaha, NE 68116

402.614.2755

Sun.-Th: 11am-10pm

F-Sat: 11am-11pm

http://www.unionsportsbar.com/

If you read my previous post, you'll see that I wanted to visit I Don't Care, but found out they went out of business then found out too late that they reopened. Well, I visited I Don't Care and found out they're a straight bar now, and they no longer serve food. Nearby, however, was a sports bar I've eyed for a while, so I took the opportunity to visit.

Union is a fine mix of DJ's Dugout and Mama's Pizza in atmosphere and food. There is a small arcade-like area to the right as soon as you walk in, and a dart board in the room proper to the left of the bar. The walls are surprisingly barren of sports memorabilia, save for a Doug McDermott jersey, a Creighton Bluejays neon sign, and a few CWS posters; but the TVs were plentiful, and even on this January Wednesday, it was still fairly busy. I was joined by my mother this time, and she was pretty happy with the atmosphere. She particularly liked the volume levels of the TVs: not too loud that you have to yell to talk to your tablemates, but loud enough to follow the action of the game.

We each ordered a salad, we got the fried ravioli as an appetizer, and my mother got the Chicken Parmesan Sandwich and I got a personal sized The Mobster pizza. All told, with drinks and tip, we were in the $40 range

Ugh. 100% iceberg.

When the salads appeared, we were greeted with a vegetable-rich bowl with iceberg lettuce. Well, at least the veggies looked and tasted fresh. The tomatoes were actually good, too. My mother loved the fact that the bowls were ice cold. I dunno, the salad was small but okay. At least my ranch wasn't Hidden Valley and my mom's Italian wasn't Kraft.

Fried pasta? Fried pasta!

Our basket of fried ravioli came next. We got a mix of beef raviolis and cheese raviolis. The breading was crisp and well cooked, and they didn't feel or taste greasy. I first bit into a beef one, and I was inundated with a stream of hot, erm, fluids that briefly burned my tongue. This happens to me all too often on these types of things, and I never remember to cut them in half first. My suggestion: cut them in half first. The beef ones were fine, though the meat was unremarkable. The cheese ones weren't what I had in mind when I ordered them. I thought they would be more ricotta filled than anything, but these were much more gooey than that, like a mozzarella mix of some kind. They were better than the beef ones, in my opinion.The marinara certainly wasn't the worst I've had, but they won't be winning any awards with it either. The good thing about it was it wasn't awash in basil, which seems to be a problem around these parts. Basically, it was passable, which was good, because we were about to be served a lot more of it.

Gooey sandwiches are the best sandwiches.

I didn't have any of the Chicken Parmesan sandwich, so I'll tell you what my mom told me: Really juicy, and well seasoned. It was pretty thick, however, like it hadn't been pounded flat enough or at all, which made for difficult eating. The marinara was the same as what we got with the ravioli.

The Mobster: think Meat Lover's pizza, but with all Italian meats.

Just by looking at it, my entrée brought me back to my Book It! days and Pizza Hut's personal pan pizzas, which was both good and bad; good nostalgic memories, but what did that portend about the pizza itself? After one bite, I can say not a damn thing, because this was pretty good stuff. The Mobster's toppings include, according to the menu: pepperoni, prosciutto, salami, Italian sausage, and provolone cheese. And my, my, my, was there plenty of all of those.

Seriously, look at that pile of meat!

Don't let the height of the pie fool you; there is proportionally very little crust, and what crust there is isn't bogged down by grease or undercooked. It was solid and crispy to the last slice. The marinara was, in my estimation, the same as the ravioli's which actually worked well with all the spicy meats that was included here.

All in all, Union is a good little sports bar that caters to families. I can see myself visiting again in the future for some pretty legit pizza and a brew. Now, maybe if Creighton basketball could put together a good game for once this year...