Ye Olde Durty Bird
2 South St. Clair StreetThe Toledo Zoo was pretty awesome, but after a long day of driving and walking, we needed to find someplace to eat. I promised L that if she would just make it through dinner, we’d be at the hotel very soon and we could jump in the pool right away.
I didn’t know Toledo very well and hotel options seemed pretty limited for Ohio’s fourth largest city. I usually gravitate towards downtown hotels because they’re close to whatever it is we’re doing and there’s a variety of food options. Toledo only has two downtown hotels.
I used Priceline and got the one with the pool. I could have gotten a great deal on the other one, but we had to have the pool for L, so I booked the Grand Plaza Hotel right along the Maumee River.
We were heading downtown anyway, so I sort of scoped out our options for dinner. There was a brewery that I could have chosen that had food options, but I found a different bar that explicitly had a kids menu, so I knew we’d be able to find something for L to eat.
The bar is called Ye Olde Durty Bird (sic) and it’s on the corner of South Saint Clair and Washington Streets just across the street from Fifth Third Field…home of the Toledo Mud Hens. We found street parking along Saint Clair Street near where their patio is and walked back to the front entrance at the corner.
The hostess stand was in an odd spot in the back of the space. We had to walk through the bar to get there. It was still pretty early on a Saturday night so most of the people that were there were watching the Ohio State/NIU football game.
L decided she wanted to sit at a table right in front of the hostess stand and the hostess didn’t have a problem with it. She was going to put us three tables down just so we weren’t right next to the kitchen, but L had already gotten comfortable and gotten the iPad out to watch Youtube while we waited.
First thing we did was drinks. J ordered a Diet Pepsi. I wanted to try some of the local beer, so I ordered a Maumee Bay Brewing Company Glass Hopper IPA. Boy, did that taste good after a long day.
The dinner options were pretty pub typical. I was really in the mood for a burger…but, hell, when ain’t? I chose The Durty Bird Deluxe. The 1/2 lb burger is served on a Brioche bun and topped with aged cheddar cheese, sweet heat bacon, slow roasted pulled pork and Durty Sauce….it actually comes with cole slaw, but I kept that off. This is a good burger. I don’t know what sweet heat bacon is…but it was spicy. The Durty Sauce is a BBQ sauce that had a little kick to it as well. The burger was nice and pink in the middle and for as much as this burger had going on, it wasn’t super sloppy, The brioche bun held everything together nicely.
The sandwiches come with chips, but I upgraded to fries. The potatoes were steak fries that were pretty ordinary. Delicious, but nothing memorable.
J was in the mood for chicken, so she ordered The Durty Bird. The sandwich is a grilled chicken breast, served on the same brioche bun as the burger, topped with aged cheddar, bacon, and Durty Sauce. She said the sandwich was delicious. The chicken was tender and juicy and there was just enough of the sweet Durty Sauce to make her happy, but not make a huge mess.
She passed on the fried sides totally and went with a side of Grilled Cheese Tomato soup. The bowl of soup came out ahead of the meal with a toasted pieces of bread on the side. She said it was an interesting take on a classic concept.
We gave L the choice and she ordered Chicken Strips and chips off the kids menu. Her mind was already on the pool back at the hotel though because she didn’t really want to eat. She polished off the chips pretty quickly, but the chicken was a fight. It was standard food service chicken strips so nothing outlandish, but she just wasn’t having it. We forced maybe one whole down before we gave up and I ate the other two.
Our bill was right around $40. Ye Olde Durty Bird was a perfect place for dinner. We love pub food and the location right downtown was great. I’m sure they’re busy on game nights as it is such a perfect place to grab a bite to eat and a drink before a game. As tourists, we probably couldn’t have found a spot that suited us more than Ye Olde Durty Bird.
Maumee Bay Glass Hopper IPA
The Durty Bird Deluxe w/Fries
The Durty Bird
Grilled Cheese Tomato Soup
The Durty Bird
SW Michigan Dining 