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Reading a note at Chile Verde Cafe last night, they are in the competition for the best Mexican Restaurant in town. “Vote now” was the gist of the message… or maybe it was “Vote for us now.”

I found the CityGuide (AOL) poll and voted this morning, but not for Chile Verde. It was the second time we’d eaten there in less than a month. Chile Verde Cafe was just OK.

My favorite Columbus Mexican restaurant is on the list, so I voted for them.

City’s BEST - 21 Days Left to Vote!

Look at the photo of Chile Verde Cafe… we sat in the very last booth (sat in the second to last booth a few weeks ago on a Saturday night…) The mirror on the wall is supposed to be vertical the design is a crescent moon and the moons are lying on their backs because it is hung horizontally to fit the wall. In a Columbus Alive article same booth is photographed (it is a small restaurant) I digress…

The food was OK. We talked last night about “Chile Verde is not what it used to be…. ” but it is OK. I had a salad. The salsa was OK… needs more cilantro for me. The lime in the Diet Pepsi was superb. It is often hard to get a lime in authentic Mexican restaurants… I’ll blog about that someday.

Chile Verde Cafe is in the Carriage Place shopping Center on the corner of Bethel and Sawmill Roads, 4852 Sawmill Rd, Columbus, Ohio. If they’ve got a website I can’t find it in the jumble of restaurant reviews, city guides, etc. If I had a link I’d give it to you….

Who else is on the AOL.com BEST Poll (no relation to ColumbusBestBlog.com)?

My favorite… Hacienda Real on Sinclair Road.  Hacienda Real has one of the lowest scores. Las Margarita’s on Frantz Road in the Dublin  lots of people rave about it… we visited the Las Magarita’s in Westerville… not fans…  Also on the BEST list to vote for, Talita’s on N. High Street in Columbus (Clintonville) but Talita’s moved to G-r-o-v-e C-i-t-y earlier this year…. their website says: “THANK YOU CLINTONVILLE FOR 39 YEARS.”

Getting around Columbus and Central Ohio.

I can’t embed this video for some reason, but here’s a link to a video on YouTube about Driving Directions… using Google’s Street View on their mapping.

Google Street View Driving Directions

Yeah I can kind of see some of the uses. Going to downtown Columbus and worried about where to park? I can see it.

Using Google Maps to find potholes seems kinda silly to me… aren’t potholes (in theory anyway) filled up relatively quickly? With what frequency will Google be updating the photos? Maybe in some parts of the world using Google Street View to look for  potholes  makes sense…warmer?? where they don’t have a seasonal freeze, thaw, freeze cycle that makes sense…  I guess I don’t really think I would alter my route based on potholes either… just try not to drive into them.  If I am driving from the Polaris area to the Easton area, I certainly am not going to route my travels scanning the streets between the two areas for potholes.  I thought it was odd.

Now that they show Central Ohio streets are Google street view maps good or evil?

Columbus Kids on Google’s streets

Photos. I am trying to think of photographs that says “Columbus” but not downtown Columbus. Photos that don’t say all of Columbus. I want a photo or two of the part of Columbus that I live and work in. The north outer-belt.

The photo above doesn’t even represent all of Worthington. It’s just the original little village, from Morning Street to Evening Street and North Street to South Street. What say’s Worthington - Clintonville - Westerville - Dublin - Powell - Lewis Center to you?

Things that say Columbus to me are… the skyline of Columbus. The statehouse… the arches in the Short North, but those are not the place that I live and work. They are for me the “nice place to visit (for Red, White & Boom, the Gallery Hop, The Columbus Arts Festival, etc. ) but I wouldn’t want to live there.” Not that there is anything wrong with those areas. I just don’t live or work there. I play there. I play there as long as gas prices allow.

I am not much of a photographer. I have pictures of Worthington, Dublin, Powell and Westerville.  I’m tempted to steal Alvin B’s picture of a 270 sign… on the 270…if he’s got one.  Bad blogger! … and 270 represents that whole big loop around Central Ohio, weaving in and out of the City of Columbus and other Central Ohio communities.

To some it is sprawl. To others it’s just “the suburbs.” In the Columbus Dispatch Sunday’s Outward urge article Central Ohio developers say today’s high gas prices are not going to keep the Columbus from expanding outward… or sprawling as some call it in the future.

The neighborhoods of tomorrow may be developed differently than neighborhoods of the 195o’s through this decade.