As I mentioned in my last post, we were on vacation a few weeks ago. We spent 4 days in Cleveland, Ohio. Cleveland, you ask? Yes, Cleveland. How this came about was I mentioned going to Cincinnati to see a Reds game. I’ve never been to Ohio and I wanted to add it to my list. Actually, I flew into Cincinnati once about 15 years ago but apparently Cincinnati is in Kentucky…hee hee hee. Anway, we hate the Reds and Bill said, “I’d rather go to Cleveland and see an Indians game. Besides, we can also see the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.” We started researching things to do as well as restaurants and microbreweries and decided to book a trip to Cleveland. Here’s the play by play:
Saturday, August 2 – We arrived in Cleveland at about 4:30 or so. We picked up the rental car and headed to the hotel. We got stuck in baseball traffic and construction so it took us a little longer than we thought it would. We checked into the hotel, The Doubletree by Hilton Lakeside, and then headed to dinner. We went to Market Garden Brewery which is right next to West Side Market (more on that later). The weather was beautiful so we sat at one of their outside tables. Across the street, we saw a major award in an office building window:
Frageelay! Ha. Anyway, we started with the chorizo and cheddar pierogies which were super tasty. I had the chorizo tacos which were delicious and Bill had the chicken tacos. Each order was three tacos so I gave Bill one of mine and he gave me one of his. We both agreee that the chorizo was the best. As for the beers, I had the Citramax, Boss and Cluster Fuggle and Bill had the Hop Drive, Viking Pale Ale and Pearl Street Wheat. We were there for about 3 hours, just enjoying the nice weather. We then headed back to the hotel knowing that we’d be visiting Market Garden at least one more time on the trip.
Sunday, August 3 – We ate breakfast at the hotel and then headed to Progressive Field. We decided to walk rather than drive because we were only about 5 or 6 blocks away and we figured it would be easier to walk and probably quicker too. We entered the stadium, walked around to check everything out and take pictures, bought Indians caps and then located our seats. One of the ushers saw our Cardinal shirts (yes, we were wearing Cardinal shirts and Indians caps…hee hee hee) and asked if we were from St. Louis. We told her that we were and then she said, “Oh, you have our Justin (Masterson). Please take good card of him” and we smiled and told her we would. We then went to check out the food and beer options. We found one place that sold kettle chip nachos. Normally I’m not a big fan of kettle chips because I think they’re too hard but these were fantastic. We got the pulled pork and cheese chips and they were huge:
Needless to say, we split one order and we didn’t quite finish them. We had great seats about 20 rows behind home plate on the end of the aisle. When we bought the tickets, you could choose your seats. I prefer sitting on the aisle because then I can get up and down as many times as I want and not disturb anyone…hee hee hee. Here’s a picture of us:
So, the Indians were playing the Rangers and the Rangers jumped out to an early 3 to 0 lead. The Indians were able to score 1 in the 2nd and then they tied it up in the 9th with a 2-run homer. Very exciting! They won it in the 12th with a walk-off homerun. It was a great game! Here’s a funny story; there were mascots from other teams visiting because it was the Indians mascot’s birthday. His name is Slider. Anyway, the Rangers mascot was there along with the mascot from the Padres, Cubs, Pirates and Reds. In about the 7th or 8th inning, the mascots walked up the aisle right next to us. Everyone was holding out their hands for a high five and I did the same. When he got to us, the Rangers mascot stopped, looked at our shirts, shook his head “no” and mooned me! I think it was all in good fun or at least I hope it was. Ha!
I will say, the local beer selection at Progressive Field is impressive (hint, hint to powers that be at Busch Stadium). We each had a Hop Bomber IPA by Riverton Brewing in Cincinnati and then Bill had a Brew Kettle 4C pale ale from Brew Kettle Brewery in Strongsville and I had a Pierside IPA although I can't remember which brewery it was from other than it was local or at least somewhere in Ohio.
After the game, we went back to the hotel to get ready for dinner. We had reservations at Momocho’s at 7:00pm. We arrived about 10 minutes early and it was packed. I’m sure glad we had reservations because people who didn’t have reservations had over an hour wait. We had seen this restaurant featured on a episode of Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives and it looked really good so we gave it a try. Their specialty is taquitos, not the fried crunchy things you think of but rather small tacos. We started with the queso fundito which was really good. Bill ordered the beef machaca and I ordered the chicken tinga. The chicken was good but after tasting Bill’s entrée, I kind of wish I had ordered the beef. It was really good. Afterward, we went to BierMarkt which is right across the street from Market Garden Brewery. I had a Fat Head Trailhead IPA and Bill had a Wright Pilsner and then headed back to the hotel.
Monday, August 4 – We grabbed a quick breakfast at Starbucks in our hotel and then headed to The Christmas Story House. This is one of my all-time favorite movies and I was so excited to see the house in person.
The guy who bought the house has restored it, both inside and out. He bought it for $150,000 and it was only worth $20,000 at the time because it was in terrible condition. The mailbox in the front and the shed in the back are both still original.
Here's the back door Ralphie uses when he goes to the back yard to shoot his gun for the first time...
It was cool to stand in Ralphie’s room and look out the window, just as he did on Christmas morning. It wasn’t snowing when we were there though, thank goodness.
The museum and gift shops are across the street and we visited both. The museum had some actual items from the movie and the gift shop had some cool trinkets and memorabilia
For lunch, we decided to go to Sokolowskis. I had seen it featured on an episode of Best Thing I Ever Ate. Michael Symon who is the chef/owner of Lola in Cleveland talked about the pierogies at Sokolowskis. It’s a family owned restaurant that has been open for 91 years! These pierogies are swimming in onion and butter and they are sooooooo good:
Sorry for the poor lighting. I took this picture with my phone and I didn’t want to turn on the flash and look like a goof…hee hee hee. We ordered a dozen and split the order and I was stuffed by the time we were finished. We then drove back to the hotel and then walked to The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame to burn off some of the pierogie calories.
There is so much memorabilia and we spent about 3 ½ hours there. Bill had to get a picture of the dress that Stevie Nicks wore on the Rumours album...
Here are some of the other items on display:
Beach Boys..
Beatles...
Michael Jackson...
Janis Joplin's car...
We watched part of the movie showing the inductees for each year. Of course, we had to see 1997, the year Fleetwood Mac was inducted. We bought some cool souveniers and then headed back to the hotel to get ready for dinner.
We had reservations at 7:00pm for dinner at Johnny’s Bar, one of the oldest restaurants in Cleveland. Their dress code is business casual and Bill forgot to pack khakis so I called the restaurant around noon and told them the situation and said that if they needed to cancel our reservation, I completely understood. The lady insisted that nice shorts would be fine and it turns out, she was right. The restaurant is very small and there is a bar in the front and the dining area right next to it. People at the bar were wearing jeans and shorts so we didn’t feel out of place at all. Mondays are historically slow days for restaurants and since only one other table was occupied (probably 10 or 12 tables total), I’m sure they took that into consideration when insisting that we not cancel. We started with the veal stuffed peppercini’s which were spicy but not too hot. I like hot food but Bill doesn’t and he said they were perfect. I had the roasted red pepper pasta with shrimp only they were out of that particular pasta (homemade) so they gave me other choices and I chose the linguine. The sauce was excellent and the shrimp was perfectly cooked. Bill had the salmon special and it was probably the least fishy salmon I’ve ever tasted. Bill really enjoyed it. Johnny’s is not inexpensive but it was well worth the price. After dinner, we drove back to West 25th where Market Garden Brewery is located. We were going to stop in for a brew but there was a camera crew inside and they didn’t appear to be open. We then walked down to Nano Brew about ½ block away. It turns out, Nano Brew is part of Market Garden and they brew one-off’s (brewed once with no plan to ever brew again) and test brews. They were out of two of the beers that we wanted to try so I then chose a Nano particle accelerator double rye IPA and Bill had a Fatheads Headhunter IPA. Our dessert beer was a Boulder Beer Shake Chocolate Porter. They were great choices. We overheard the bartender talking about Brew Dogs, a show on Esquire that we watch and then he started talking about the camera crew that was at Market Garden. He said they were filiming a Lifetime Movie about Deion Sanders. I’ll definitely have to watch it so I can say, “I was there”…hee hee hee.
Tuesday, August 5 – We grabbed a quick breakfast at Starbucks in our hotel and then headed to Kelleys Island which is about 75 miles or so from Cleveland. We rode the ferry across to the island. The island is ot very large, only 4.409 square miles. Our first stop was for lunch and, guess what! The island has a microbrewery! It’s called Kelleys Island Brewery of course! We started with the sauerkraut balls. Yes, sauerkraut balls. They’re balls of sauerkraut and are breaded and fried. They’re actually very good. Bill had the perch sandwhich and I had the cheeseburger and both were tasty. We each had a brown and an IPA.
We left the brewery and drove to the north side of the island where there are glacial grooves. These are grooves in the rocks created by the glaciers and this is reported to be the best example in the world…
We continued the drive around the island and ending back “downtown” by the brewery. We checked out a few of the shops and even bought some Kelleys Island apparel (sweatshirt and a teeshirt)
We then headed back to the ferry. After leaving the island, we drove to Marblehead Lighthouse which is only about ¼ mile from were we caught the ferry. Unfortunately, the lighthouse closes at 4:00 and we arrived at 4:10. Oh well, we hadn’t really planned on going up in the lighthouse so that was ok. We snapped some pictures:
We then drove back to Cleveland to get ready for dinner. We decided to eat at Great Lakes Brewing which is only ½ block from Market Garden Brewery. The weather was still beautiful so we ate outside. We had the artichoke dip which was very tasty. I had the walleye special and Bill had the chicken sandwich. For brews, Bill had the Burning River and I had the Buzzcut Brown and Commodore IPA. For dessert we had the Edmond Fitzgerald Porter. We bought a few souveniers at the brewery (glass, magnet, coasters) and then headed back to the hotel.
Wednesday, August 6 – We grabbed a quick breakfast at Starbucks in our hotel and then headed to West Side Market. It’s been in existance for 102 years. If we lived in Cleveland, I would definitely shop there!
Fresh meat, seafood, bakery products, fruits and vegetables, etc. Yum! Some of the spaces have been occupied by the same family for 100 years! We bought some baklava and dried fruit and then headed to the Botanical Garden.
I took a lot of pictures but here are just a few...
It was perfect weather for spending time outside. We spent a few hours at the Botanical Garden and then headed to the Art Museum which is huge! Unfortunately, there were only a few paintings by Monet (Bills favorite) but we saw one of his paintings that we’ve never seen before:
Quite different than his water lilly paintings. I really like it.
For our last dinner in Cleveland, we decided to go back to Market Garden Brewery. We had considered driving out to Cleveland Heights to eat at a restaurant there but since we were unfamiliar with the area and traffic, we weren’t sure that we’d have enough time to get there, eat and then get to the airport. Besides, we really enjoyed Market Garden the first night so we didn’t mind going back. We had the pierogies again and I also had the chorizo tacos again because they are sooooo good. Bill doesn't remember what he had and I neglected to write it down since my travel notebook was already packed. Hee hee. Anyway, he enjoyed whatever it was. We then drove to the airport to head home. Our flight was at 9:30pm and I think we were the last flight out of Cleveland that night. We stopped in Chicago (no plane change) and arrived in St. Louis around 11:30pm or so which is later than we usually arrive home from vacation but it worked out well because we basically had the entire day on Wednesday to play before heading to the airport.
We had a great time and certainly packed a lot of activities into four days. Cleveland Rocks! I can now officially add Ohio to my list of states that I've visited. :)
