Weekend Jaunt for Reunion – and Food

Although it didn’t take long for it to evolve into something else, my initial purpose for starting this blog in 2021 was to write about what my wife and I eat during our travels. In line with that, my return to blogging following a forced hiatus for a few months to deal with a dental issue is a report on what we – along with my brother-in-law, Mike – ate during a recent weekend visit to suburban Cleveland. We drove there and back primarily on the Pennsylvania and Ohio Turnpikes for a reunion with members of my father-in-law’s family. 

The plan for the reunion didn’t come together until relatively late, so I got right to work researching options for where we could stop to eat once we agreed to attend. The Pennsylvania Turnpike has rest stops with fast food options, but I prefer to eat at non-chain restaurants in one of the small towns near exits. Our usual destination is the Summit Diner in Somerset, PA. But we decided to leave that for the drive back home and stop a little further east for what would be a Saturday brunch.  

There are a few good options in Carlisle’s quaint and historic downtown. We chose Hamilton Restaurant, which has a distinctive claim to fame. They created and have been serving the regional specialty known as Hot-Chee Dogs since 1938. 

Although known for hot dogs, Hamilton is essentially a diner with a menu that covers all three meals, giving us a wide array of options from which to choose.

While I was set on trying a Hot-Chee Dog, my wife and Mike were feeling more like breakfast and ordered egg plates – him with a side of scrapple, a side dish loved by many in this part of the country. I don’t happen to be one of them and snapping a photo was as close as I got to it. 

As far as I could tell from online photos, a Hot-Chee Dog is simply a Coney Island – or Michigan – with the addition of a slice of American cheese between the bun and hot dog. I wasn’t sure how that would work and decided to order one with the cheese and another without it for comparison sake.

There were such healthy portions of both chili and chopped onions on both dogs that I barely noticed a difference between the two. The cheese was nearly totally overwhelmed by those other toppings, as was the hot dog itself. Still, they were good Coneys and it’s always nice to try a unique regional food item in an old-school setting like Hamilton Restaurant. 

The plan had been for us to drive a few blocks down the road to try a frozen custard stand following lunch, but we noticed the dessert case at Hamilton’s while eating and decided to give a couple of their offerings a try instead. 

I went for one of my longtime favorite pie flavors – lemon meringue – while Mike ordered rice pudding, which came in a classic tulip dish. 

The pie crust was interesting. It had the consistency of graham cracker crust, but it seemed to be made with crumbs from some other kind of cookie. The lemon filling was excellent.

While we spent two nights in the Cleveland area, only one of our meals was worth reporting on – that first night’s dinner at Balaton Restaurant in Chagrin Falls, Ohio. 

Balaton specializes in Hungarian food and has been around since the 1960s but just moved from Shaker Square in Cleveland to Chagrin Falls in 2023. I ate at the old location during one of my first trips to Cleveland with my wife’s family about 20 years ago and have known about the restaurant even longer than that due to its inclusion in Jane and Michael Stern’s Roadfood guide book – one of my food bibles.

While I tend to run luke-warm on Central and Eastern European cuisines, there were a number of interesting items on Balaton’s menu. We quickly agreed to share an order of potato pancakes before examining the entrée options. 

Mike settled on Summer Stew with Hungarian Sausage for his main course, while my wife opted for Mushroom Paprikash. It took me longer than usual to reach an ordering decision, but I finally chose Pork Tenderloin à la Csáky, which includes summer stew and bacon. I also took the mashed potatoes option rather than rice. That turned out to be a wise decision. 

To start, our server dropped off a basket of bread and handsomely seasoned butter. That was shortly followed by colorful house salads that came with the entreés and my wife’s glass of sour cherry juice – an uncommon menu item that was very tasty. The house salad dressing was also excellent. I don’t eat a lot of salad, but enjoyed this one. 

The potato pancakes came out next and they were jaw-droppingly large. I’ve been eating latkes my entire life, but had never seen any like these. Yet upon closer inspection – and after sampling them – we found that they were also extremely thin and not as heavy as expected. They were also delicious, especially with the addition of the apple sauce that came on the side. 

I didn’t think we’d finish the two massive pancakes, but we polished them off without too much difficulty and still had plenty of appetite left for our entrées. 

And those entrées were very satisfying, at least for the most part. 

My wife enjoys just about any dish that features mushrooms, and the Paprikash at Balaton was no exception. Mike’s plate was also very attractive, particularly the intricately carved sausage. 

The only issue with any of our entrées had to do with the texture of the slices of pork loin in my dish. While they were extremely flavorful, perhaps not surprisingly given how thin they were, the pork was too dry and not as soft as I’d have preferred. 

Yet there was so much more on that plate and the rest of it was fantastic. The summer stew of tomatoes, onions and an assortment of peppers would have been a great dish on its own. But combining it with chopped bacon and mashed potatoes that were utterly drenched in butter raised it to a higher level and left me with plenty to eat even if I wasn’t fully satisfied with the pork slices. 

Our appetites were close enough to fully satisfied by the time we finished our entrees that I doubt we’d have ordered dessert if it hadn’t been on the house. Due to an unnamed kitchen error, my entrée arrived perhaps five minutes later than those of my wife and Mike. It really wasn’t a big deal, but our server was extremely apologetic. She also told us they were treating me to a dessert of my choice. 

There were more traditionally Hungarian options, but when I heard a Napoleon was one of their dessert selections that night, it was an easy choice. The combination of puff pastry with vanilla flavored cream is about as ideally suited to my taste as could be. I requested one with three forks. 

It wasn’t a traditional Napoleon in the sense that it wasn’t presented in multiple layers. There was a piece of puff pastry on the bottom with a very thick layer of vanilla and whipped cream that was nicely decorated and topped with another piece of puff pastry. 

It was delicious and also a struggle to finish even for three people. In fact, given how late we were eating such a heavy meal, we still didn’t have much of an appetite when we awoke the next day. The reunion, where we would be doing plenty of eating, was scheduled for late that afternoon and we just ate something light at our hotel to hold us over. 

With no meal to go to, we had some time to kill during the day and opted to check out the Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage, which was a fairly short ride from where we were staying. 

It was an enjoyable and informative way to spend a couple hours. The following photos feature just a small selection of what we saw. 

It was great to catch up with my father-in-law’s family later that day in a private room at an Italian restaurant and pizzeria down the street from our hotel. The following morning, we hit the road to head back to the Philly region. 

That of course meant a meal stop. As mentioned previously, we had decided it would be at our beloved Summit Dinner, which is just a few blocks from the Pennsylvania Turnpike’s Somerset exit. My wife and I have been stopping there when we drive to either Pittsburgh or the Midwest for as long as we’ve been married. One of the first posts I wrote for this blog was a tribute to it. 

Its classic exterior and interior are part of what makes the place so special to me. It’s the absolute vision of what a classic American diner should look like. 

unfortunately, the Summit has cut back both its hours and menu in recent years. They used to be a 24/7 diner but now close at 3 p.m. each day. They also haven’t had as deep of a selection of pie flavors during any of my visits since the days of the pandemic. They don’t even have a pie board listing the flavors any longer. I still love the place and stop there at every opportunity, but it’s not quite what it used to be. 

My wife ordered a turkey melt on a pretzel roll, while Mike opted for the Western Skillet. I’m a creature of habit and went for the meal I’ve ordered more than any other at the Summit over the years: a breakfast plate with two eggs – over-medium – hashbrowns, sausage patties and toast. 

They make the sausage in house and it’s always wonderful. I also generally love the hashbrowns, but they were under-done and not as crispy as I prefer this time around. The eggs were perfectly prepared. 

The previously mentioned pie selection is one of the reasons I’m drawn to the Summit Diner. But we were there on a Monday and for the second time that’s been the case in recent years, they were out of pie. They must run out on Sunday and not restock until Tuesday. 

It wasn’t a crushing blow however. We hadn’t made any of  the ice cream stops I had planned for the weekend and the Summit offers a selection of shakes and malts. I requested a vanilla malt and it was presented in a classic milkshake glass with the leftover alongside of it in the metal cup in which it was made. 

It was a cool and delicious end to our eating that weekend.