A Mediocre Lunch at Firehouse Grill

Firehouse Grill, located in Blue Ash, is one of those restaurants people settle on when no one in your party can decide where to eat. It's a huge barn of a place, and even when they have a good number of people inside, it still feels empty most of the time.

There seemed to be an ample number of wait staff ambling about. Despite this, it still took us a few minutes just to get someone to acknowledge that we'd been standing at the hostess station waiting to be seated.

A woman finally stopped by and asked, "how many," as though we weren't the only two standing there. She wasn't pleasant...nor was she unpleasant...she simply went through the motions, fulfilling her basic obligations. The fact that she escorted us to a table where a gnat circled our heads well before food was served did not bode well.

The menu offers a little bit of everything for nearly anyone, at the expense of everyone. Entrees seemed uninspired and outrageously expensive. For example, you can get really good street tacos for under $4 a piece at trendy joints like Bakersfield OTR or Mazunte...Or you can decide you're not good enough for those places and instead pay $4.66 per taco at Firehouse Grill (their "street tacos" trio is $13.99).

The tacos weren't completely unfortunate, but they were by no means on par with any other street taco I've ever eaten. They came accompanied by a side of viscous, flavorless, electric-yellow mango salsa, which had the consistency of baby food. My second side of regular salsa looked dated and tasted metallic, like it came out of a can or jar. The fishy-smelling fish taco consisted of one whole blackened filet stuffed into a small corn tortilla, making it a challenge to eat.

My girlfriend's chicken pesto sandwich was essentially one whole, unseasoned chicken breast slapped between two pieces of ciabatta bread with a squirt of pesto sauce and Swiss cheese. It was as bland as it was underwhelming.

These kinds of restaurants, where no one really cares what they're doing, where they're just lazily phoning in their impression of a restaurant without taking the effort necessary to be a really good one, annoy the hell out of me.

You may not experience the worst meal of your life at Firehouse Grill, but I guarantee it won't be the best one.