Quick Trip to Cleveland

A few months ago, one of my good friends, Emily, invited Todd & I up to Cleveland to visit her and her boyfriend, Mark, and go to the John Mayer concert. By the time we actually got around to buying the concert tickets, the cheaper tickets were sold out and we didn't really want to spend any more money so we nixed the concert and planned to head up to Cleveland anyways for a quick overnight visit.

Todd & I left after work last Friday and arrived in Cleveland around 7:00 PM. Mark was just flying back from being out of town so Emily, Todd, and I went to dinner at R.J. Boland's in downtown Cleveland and planned on meeting Mark back at his condo afterwards. The food at R.J. Boland's was nothing to write home about and the restaurant itself was pretty dead but luckily I was with great company. After dinner, we headed back to Lakewood and closer to where Mark & Emily live for a quick drink at Brothers Lounge before hanging out with Mark. On our way to the bar, Emily & I passed a building with a psychic who does palm readings & tarot card readings. Neither one of us had ever been to one and we figured for $10, why not get our palms read. I went first and found it to be a bunch of baloney (surprising, I know) but Emily's palm reading was actually a little bit more accurate so she thought it was legit.

Em & I after having our palms read

After the psychic experience, we met Todd at Brothers Lounge where he had been patiently waiting for us to come back. We were gone for over a half hour and he was actually a little nervous something had happened to us. Don't worry, nothing happened to us, except that I gave some woman $10 to tell me Thursday, November 18 is a big day and that I'm going to live a long life. A couple drinks later, we went back to Emily & Mark's building to hang out with Mark before calling it a night.

Todd & I at Brothers Lounge

We got up early on Saturday & the four of us went to Rocky River Metro Park for an easy 6 mile run. After, we cleaned up and went to brunch at Johnny Mango's where I had some delicious whole wheat chocolate chip waffles. Very rarely do a pass up the chance for chocolate chip waffles or pancakes and these definitely hit the spot. Since it was already into the early afternoon, we went to Great Lakes Brewing Company for some beers.

Great Lakes Brewing Co in Cleveland

They had 9 beers on tap with the Oktoberfest being their current seasonal beer

They sell Great Lakes at grocery stores in Columbus so I've tried a few of them but not all of them so we all decided to get 2 sample flights of their beer. It turns out their samples were pretty big, 5 oz. each, so we had a total of 90 oz. of beer to drink between the 4 of us. This ended up being about 2 beers per person but this was just suppose to be a little taster to help us decide what we really wanted to order. I had to cut myself off after this though.

Todd & I with some of our beers lined up (the 2 small beers is their Black Out Stout which is 9% alcohol)

Emily must have been really thirsty!

After Great Lakes, we went across the street to the West Side Market. When we came to visit Emily & Mark in January, they took us here for the first time and it was amazing all the different vendors....fresh meat, cheese, fruits, veggies, baked goods.....you name it, they had it. I fell in love with the Pierogi Palace and had been dying to come back here to pick up some more. Todd & I got a dozen eggplant parmesan pierogies and half a dozen of the meatball pierogies. These pierogies are huge too so I can eat 3 and be full. Hopefully these will last until the next time we make it up here.

I was in heaven deciding between what flavor pierogies to get

Since the West Side Market was right by the Bier Markt, we decided we had to stop in for a few more drinks. Most of the 80+ beers served here are Belgian or Belgian-style beers.

Bier Markt

We, again, decided to get a flight of beers

Emily & I

Our last stop during our quick trip to Cleveland was to Little Italy for the Feast of the Assumption, a celebration for the Assumption, a Catholic holy day celebrated on August 15. There were booths set up with tons of good homemade Italian food. Todd & I had a hard deciding what to get because there were too many choices.

Walking into Little Italy

The Catholic Church in Little Italy with signs for the Feast

Todd got a supreme stroboli and I got cavatelli pasta with meatballs

We made it inside a restaurant just a second before it started to torrential downpour

Our wonderful hosts in Cleveland, Emily & Mark

We tried some tiramisu gelato & a cannoli on our way out after it stopped pouring down rain. Our fun-filled, jam packed, but short trip to Cleveland came to an end after the Feast and Todd & I headed back to Columbus around 7:00 PM. We're hoping to hang out with Emily & Mark again in the next couple months, but hopefully next time in Florida!