Christmas dinner reviewed

My mom makes a good roast beef for Christmas—she buys something big and cheap and roasts it really, really slow, as slow as her oven can go. It’s always juicy and beefy and tender—hers always better than mine, which probably means her oven can go lower. But after I roasted a fancier cut one year, I converted to spending lots of money for one rib roast a year at Christmas. This year I bought a 9 pounder at Avril-Bleh on Court Street. It’s such a great place, especially when it’s busy. There must be ten guys in white (well, white and bloodstain) behind the counter, filling people’s orders and chatting about food and joking with regulars and slinging around sides of beef. It is one of those places that define Cincinnati for me. That is, they do things the way they always have, and you have to figure out for yourself why it’s special because they aren’t going to hire a PR firm to let you know. Len Bleh cut the roast off the bone, then tied it back on so I could roast it on the bone for flavor but then simply cut the string and lift it off to carve it easily.
I slow-roasted it for about 3 hours in a 250 degree oven. It was so good: even cut in thick slabs, rib roast is soft like a pillow, at the same time keeping a beefy chew.

I also bought one of Avril’s smoked old-fashioned (no water added, partially cooked) hams, which was also very good; definitely a ham, but a little closer to a pork roast than most. While I was there, I got some of their dried beef, because my father was here for Christmas, and like a lot of guys who grew up in the Depression, he actually likes chipped beef on toast. I do too, actually, especially with the real stuff.
I could only afford a meat splurge like that once a year, but it was worth it: doubly so as I ate my leftover roast beef sandwich yesterday.
Avril’s is at 33 E. Court St., 513-241-2433