Restaurants in Pataskala

Unlike a pirate-ship kitchen, The Shrunken Head lets its visitors munch on a variety of veggie-friendly, locally sourced, and organic items that aren’t served with a side of gunpowder. Breakfast is served on weekdays until 11 a.m. and until 3 p.m. on weekends. Start the day off with an organic cappuccino ($3.25, $3.75) and The Big Lebowski's platter of two buttermilk pancakes topped with eggs ($5.50), which provides much more energy than you'd get sucking on a D-cell battery. The lunch and dinner menu features local farm meats, organic milk, local bread, and space spices that are delivered daily via teleportation. Try a fiery volcano burger with jalapeños and Montezuma chipotle-barbecue sauce ($8.75), a French-brie bagel sandwich ($6.50), or a hummus plate with olive oil and pitas ($6.25). Patrons can also soak in The Shrunken Head's tiki-bar vibe and kick back on a scenic outdoor deck that doesn’t encroach on the borders of any local jungle tribes.

For 10 years, Wholly Joe's has provided the Columbus metro area with made-to-order Chicago-style eats and treats, saving residents a trip to the eerie, ghost-laden terrain of northeastern Illinois. Joe's uses authentic Chicago-sourced ingredients (including Italian sausage, Italian beef, sport peppers, and Turano Bakery breads) to capture the Windy City's savory, meat-packed cuisine. While Joe's does offer traditional Italian and grill fare—burgers, chicken and fish sandwiches, and pastas—its commitment to the mythic triumvirate of deep-dish pizza, Chicago-style hot dogs, and Italian beef is what keeps visitors' salivary glands replacing their th's with d's. The hand-shaped deep-dish pizza ($14.99 for 12", $16.99 for 14") is made from scratch (Chicago's most abundant commodity after political corruption) and can be topped with Second City staples such as Italian sausage, bacon, and hot peppers. Encased-meat enthusiasts can sample an original all-beef hot dog ($2.75) or Polish sausage ($3.35) with mustard, relish, chopped onions, sliced red tomatoes, cucumber, kosher pickle, and sport peppers—all stuffed into a steamed poppy-seed bun like so many cans of beans in a hobo's bindle. The Italian-beef sandwich ($5.39) features a pile of succulent, thinly sliced roast beef on French bread, soaked in the natural juices of its own delicious iniquity, and can be partnered with a side of crinkle-cut fries (regular, $1.89) or a Chicago-style tamale ($1.99).

Inside New India Restaurant, chandeliers illuminate plates of enticing Indian fare dusted with spices and herbs, lighting up taste buds with anticipation. Around the dining room, guests dig in to cuts of chicken roasted in a tandoori oven, chick peas tempered with ginger, and thali, a traditional Indian meal of lamb curry and chicken pakora served on a silver platter.

Banana Leaf Vegan and Vegetarian fills its dining room with platefuls of vegetarian, vegan, and gluten-free Indian meals cooked with fresh spices ground in-house. The juices from 16 curry dishes and seven rice specialties can be mopped from the plate with 10 different Indian breads and washed down with lassi drinks. Banana Leaf’s catering services, which serve small gatherings to weddings with more than 1,000 guests, both please party hosts and literally sustain festive homemakers stuck in a web of their own decorations.

The menu at Inchin's Bamboo Garden is a tale of two regions. Dishes of kung pao chicken, double-fried tofu, and hot-garlic beef point to Sichuan influence, while tomato-chili paneer and curried noodles brim with Indian spices. Whatever the culinary inspiration, cooks create each dish from scratch at the moment it's ordered. Once ready, servers ferry the feasts to tables in a red and mustard-yellow dining room adorned with waterfalls, Asian accents, and black stalks of bamboo, a favorite snack of the evil Antipanda.

Ohio may be in the Midwest, but the menu at Windy City BBQ Ribs aims to transport diners to another part of the country. Chef and pitmaster Brandon Shy lives up to his slogan of “Put some south in your mouth!” with a heaping spread of southern-style barbecue, from smoked ribs and rotisserie chicken to Dixie sides such as and potato salad and collared greens. Guests can sign their name on the eatery’s Wall of Fame after enjoying a meal in the small indoor and outdoor seating areas. The meat emporium shuts down each day when the food is gone, so calling or sending up smoke signals in advance is recommended.