Concert, Grilled Cheese, and Beer in Cleveland

Todd & I had tickets to see Naturally 7 in concert in Cleveland on Thursday night so we drove up after work and stayed the night with our friends, Emily & Mark. Of course, when we planned this trip several months ago, we weren't planning on snow getting dumped on us so it took almost 3 hrs to get up there instead of the usual 2 hrs.

I had seen Naturally 7 open for Michael Buble back in the summer and thought they were incredible. They're an acapella group consisting of 7 guys but what makes them great is that they use "vocal play." What this means is that there is no band playing instruments, but they manipulate their voice or make different sounds to sound like a bass, acoustic guitar, cymbals, snare, and even a turn table. I had tried to explain the concept to Todd before going and played a few of their songs from iTunes but it really doesn't do it justice. I know we both had a great time and were very impressed with the group.

Since we had taken Friday off work, Todd & I were able to sleep in and then enjoy the day in Cleveland. We started off with an early lunch at Melt. If you've ever seen Man vs. Food, this is the restaurant Adam Richman goes to on the Cleveland episode and takes part in the Melt Challenge. Adam had to eat a grilled cheese sandwich with 3 pieces of bread, 13 different kinds of cheese, fries, and coleslaw and it weighed almost 5 pounds. Although Todd & I didn't end up attempting this $22 sandwich, we did enjoy some other variations of a classic grilled cheese sandwich.

Melt Bar & Grilled

Menu with tons of grilled cheese options
We started off with some pieorgies
Todd got the Wake & Bacon with cheese, fried eggs, and bacon
I got the Purple Parma
Eggplant with cheese, tomatoes, and sun-dried tomato pesto

Everything at Melt was delicious and we were stuffed despite only eating half of our sandwiches. Afterwards, we made a quick stop at the West Side Market for pieorgies to take home and then we headed to Indigo Imp Brewery. If you haven't caught on by now, no matter where we're traveling, Todd & I must stop at a brewery. Indigo is only sold in Cleveland and a few select stores in Columbus. We saw that the brewery was only open on Fridays so we were hoping for a tour and some samples, but what we didn't realize was that this place is run by 1 person! It was a very small scale brewery that the owner had built himself and he rents space from a warehouse type building. He didn't even have a license to let us try samples but he was excited we had heard about his beer since we're from Columbus so he gave us a short tour of the place. It was actually pretty cool to see and hear about his experiences. We ended up buying a variety pack of beers to try at home.

Todd & his 6 pack

Since Todd was actually hoping to sample some beer, we decided to drive to the other side of town to Rocky River Brewing Company. Todd was excited to try their sampler tray and I even had a few sips of each beer. We came to the consensus though that the beer wasn't very good.

Rocky River Brewing Co.
Todd's Sampler Tray

We met Emily & Mark out for Happy Hour appetizers & drinks at the Cleveland Chophouse. After a few hours of laughing & talking, Todd & I decided to head home since I had to get up early yesterday for a baby shower. It was nice to have a 3 day weekend and go on a short trip to see some friends especially since my next few weekends are going to be super busy.