Miller's Columbus Ale House     Columbus, Ohio      Date of Visit  11/20/14
 http://www.millersalehouse.com/location/columbus-ale-house

We are on the road for the first time since Mary Beth gave me the plague…so many weeks…so little desire to do anything. Well, most other things are back on track and we should be getting out a little more often. In Cbus to take some pix we stopped by Miller’s ale house…of which there are several but apparently differ by city some…and are invited into a cavernous wooden outpost filled with televisions and people.
 

The bar and the dining room are separate, which seems wise in a big college town. Our server was friendly and efficient, a little better than you would expect.

The menu is sports bar meets fancy-dancy sports bar. There are burgers, sandwiches and salads but there are non-fried seafood options and pastas to steaks and other non-burger things. We tried a couple orders of zingers, sweet tater fries, fish and chips (no...we didn’t order the non fried fish) and mac n cheese. What are zingers? If you’re like me, they are plastic wrapped and oily little snack cakes in a few different flavors (I mean…I’ve never had one [almost every day in culinary school]) {how silly is that…we just made a dozen classic cakes but lets finish the day with a chocolate on chocolate zinger} but I have seen them in vending machines). Something different at Miller’s though.

Really, the zingers are what brought us in, thoroughly enjoyed by our model du jour, she thought we should give them a go. They call them boneless chicken wings but instead of pressed chicken bit nuggets, they are fresh (unfrozen) tenders, hand breaded, fried and sauced. They are certainly better than most chicken wingish options. Very tender but not mushy, crisp outer shell, very pretty. It may seem odd to accuse a piece of chicken of this…but you know how some pretty people are just pretty and some pretty people know they are pretty? The zingers are at least aware of how many people lust after them and it reflects a little in the description and the price. Still pretty.
 

The sauces available are mild, medium, hot, Mt. St. Helens, zesty garlic, garlic parmesan, garlic, golden BBQ, honey BBQ, BBQ, teriyaki, sweet Thai chili, honey mustard, and lemon pepper. We did the zesty garlic on the recommendation of our server and the sweet thai chili on the recommendation of Jegunda. The garlic was underwhelming but the sweet spicy combination of the thai chili was much better. There a better sauces in the wing world but the zingers are all about the tender and fresh chicken…I’m sure there is a sauce you would enjoy.

Jen stuck with the zingers and a side of sweet potato fries. At the Ale House a side is apparently cause to take two full sized orange tubers to the blade. Outside of the apparently famous zingers the portions are serious. The fries were well done and served with a honeyed sweet dipping sauce. Tasty but more than we were ever going to get down.
 

Steph was delivered an enormous pile of fish and some more standard tater fries. The fries were again well done and seasoned, the fish less so. It appeared fresh but they didn’t stop to drain it out of the fryer so the coating was oozing oil…bummer…seemed destined for something better. I ordered the seafood mac and cheese which wasn’t a knock out but was better than I had expected from a sports bar. The pasta was a little mushy, the shrimp and scallops a little chewy (both better less done) but not enough to turn it into a disaster, or even significant disappointment. On the whole, if you enjoy catching a game with a crowd, a beer, and better than most chow, Miller’s is worth a visit.
 

The Fish Portion Is Ridiculous But Greasy