Category: Eat Out

Jack was home for the weekend and wanted to go to Happy Dog so we all took a trip to the mysterious west side for a late lunch.  Happy Dog is a rehabbed neighborhood bar on Detroit and W.58th that opened a few years ago and only serves hot dogs and tater tots and has good live music on the evenings and weekends. The room is very vintage 50’s/60’s with a great wrap around bar in the middle with bar stools and linoleum tables sprinkled around.  They had a great selection of drafts.  Courtney had a Great Lakes Conway and I had a Lagunitas Pilsner from Petaluma California.  Both very tasty.   Courtney and I split a hot dog with bacon-balsamic marmalade, caramelized onions, feta cheese and tomatoes.  Awesome – especially the bacon-balsamic marmalade which we’ll have to see if we can recreate.  I don’t remember what the kid’s had on theirs but it was everything and the kitchen sink.  You can also choose dipping sauces for the tater tots. We tried the house made ketchup, chipotle hollondaise, terriyaki, grape jelly with chili sauce among others.  All very good.

EatOnEdgecliff Rating: A

After lunch we wandered a few blocks down Detroit and happened upon Sweet Moses which is an old fashioned soda fountain that I’ve read about.  We stopped in for some post hot dog and beer ice cream treats.  It’s a great place where they make everything like they used to. (I miss Euclid Race.  Such a great place).  I had a mint chocolate ice cream cone, Sophie had a moose tracks cone, Claire had a chocolate milk shake and Jack and Grace split a beautiful looking and tasty brownie hot fudge sundae.  They had the wrought iron vintage soda fountain tables and chairs and also some nice art work and photos.  Cool place to go.

EatOnEdgecliff Rating: A

I guess we’ll have to go to the West side more often.  (Not really!)

Below is shot of the crazy Happy Dog menu.  You just check off what you want and it comes to your table in a few minutes.

We have finally reached the end of our self inflicted exile from going out to eat or ordering take out in the month of January. (we cheated and went to Panera once, Chipotle once and to the Olive Garden…but those don’t count right?).  Anyways, on 2/1/2012 Courtney and all the girls picked me up from work and we went to Tommy’s for lunch. We have been going to Tommy’s for over 20 years ever since we used to live around the corner even when it burnt down ( a couple of times).  It’s always a great place to go and food is always good.  I had felafel with hummus and sesame sauce, Courtney had spinach pie with mushrooms, Grace had a meat pie and Claire had…hmmm…what did you have Claire???  Sophie had a Judy – classic.  Split an order of fries and Soph and Grace washed their’s down with milkshakes. I walked back to work as the ladies took off to go afternoon bridesmaid dressing shopping .  It was a great stroll as we have been having this freakishly warm winter here in lovely Cleveland.

EatOnEdgecliff Rating:  A (It’s a Cleveland classic after all)

My parents brought all the adults out to dinner on Wednesday for their Anniversary.  48 years! How lucky are we?  We went to Chinato on E.4th and Prospect.  Chinato is Zac Bruell’s newest restaurant that opened earlier this year.  We love all of his restaurants: Parallax, Table 45, L’Albatros, and Chinato.  It’s hard to decide which is my favorite as they are all so different and each of them are awesome in their own way.

We started out with cocktails, wine and beer and ordered 4 different appetizers to pass around: scallops crudo, fried artichoke leaves, mussels with wine and fennel,  and eggplant involtini stuffed with shrimp.  We then split a few order of gnocchi which were tender as can be in a butter and garlic sauce.  mmm mmm.  Everyone ordered their own entree.  I had porchetta which was pork belly wrapped around  braised pork shoulder over greens.  Awesome.  Courtney has braised beef served over polenta and greens.  Everything was excellent.  For dessert we ordered 5 different desserts and passed them around.  Lemon cornmeal cake with lemon ice cream, chocolate mousse cake, panna cotta, tiramisu, and the gelato sampler which was chocolate, vanilla and cherry.  My pick for the winner was the lemon cornmeal cake – which I just found a promising recipe that I will try – but everything was great.

We talked my parents into going across the street after dinner to the irish bar and have a Guinness to wash down all the good eats.  It was a fun night and great to celebrate with everybody.  (sorry no pictures)

EatOnEdgecliff rating: A

Courtney, Sean, Claire and I went out for a late dinner to Market Garden Brewery on Tuesday night after Grace’s swim meet victory.  Katie Maxwell and Joe met us there also and had a beer with us.  The Market Garden is next door to the West Side Market where the old live chicken store used to be.  It opened earlier this year and this is the second time we have been there.  We went late summer after the ingenuity fest and had a Sunday afternoon beer in the sun.  Pic below from then…they have an awesome patio with an outdoor fireplace.  Also have a great Sunday brunch menu.

On Thursday Claire and Sean had a sampler where they tried 6 different beers and then each picked one.  I had their brown ale and forget what kind of beer everyone else had.  We ordered a meat board for appetizers which came w pork pate, different sausages, ham, turkey, house made pickled vegetables and different sauces.  Tasty meaty treat.  Claire and Sean split a cuban sandwich, Courtney had shrimp tacos and I had their chorizo chili.  All were very good, especially the shrimp tacos.  When we were here in the summer we had the pulled pork tacos which were good as well.  For dessert…more beer of course.

EatOnEdgecliff rating: A

Me, Grace and Sophie went to the West Side Market on Saturday morning to get supplies for Claire’s graduation lunch which means only one thing….

Brats for breakfast.

Nothing better.

I like mine with no kraut on a hard roll with lots of brown mustard with a black coffee.  Sophie and Grace like theirs on a soft roll with no mustard and hot chocolate or mocha.

Grace and Sophie also always get a crepe from the crepe stand…strawberries with nutella.

Enjoying the scenery.

Eat Out on Edgecliff Rating:  A+ all the way!

 

 

We went on a field trip to Akron on Saturday as we were dropping Jack off in Canton for a ride back to Cincinnati with one of his friends.  Alyssa, John and boys joined us on the adventure as they were on their way home to Findley which is (sort of) on the way home (well not really).  We first went to a craft show that we saw an advertisement for at a Waterloo hipster record store that I though might be interesting but in fact was not too exciting.  We then went to the Akron Art Museum which was great.  They recently added a new addition that is very modern and interesting to look at.  It looks like an airplane is growing out of the old building.

The interior spaces were great.  They had a lot of modern art that was cool.  The current exhibition that was going on was impressionist landscapes.  Pretty but boring.  They had chess boards and checkers set up in the galleries that kept the kids busy for awhile…but alas as in all museums kids get bored quick.  Although it isn’t nearly as nice as our own Cleveland Museum of Art,  it is worth the trip.

Some of the kids at the art museum….

After the museum we tracked down an Aladdin’s that was near by.  We have been to Aladdin’s many times and it’s a great place.  We’ve never been to this one and it was nice as well.  Small and cozy.  Me and Courtney split an Aladdin’s soup and the lentil soup.  They make the best lentil soup…full of potatoes, swiss chard, not too many lentils and then a bit of cheese on top.  The Aladdin’s salad is a greek salad with their house dressing which is very minty and lemony and very tasty.  Everything everybody got was great.

Cousins outside of Aladdin’s saying goodbye as we go our separate ways….

On the way home after dropping Jack off we stopped at Donzell’s which is a crazy garden center all decked out for Christmas.  Mom and Dad do much of their extensive christmas ornament shopping here.  It really is something else. Below are a couple of decorating ideas that we saw there that may show up outside of our house if can get around to it.

I think I’ll start posting our eating adventures outside of Edgecliff to add to the drama that has been building here.  We’ll see how it goes.

On Saturday night Courtney and I went out to dinner to celebrate her Birthday. We went to Paladar at Eaton on Chagrin.  We’ve had a gift card burning in our pockets for over a year and finally arranged to make it there.  We had a reservation, which was a good thing, because the place was hopping.  Totally full.  The atmosphere and menu seemed a bit “chainey” even though their chain consists of two restaurants I just found out after looking at their website above.  One here and one in Annapolis.  (weird).  Courtney had a mango mojito and I had a regular mojito…well actually we each had two.  How can you have just one? They were very good – with pieces of sugar cane as stirrers which was pretty cool.  (see frozen mojito post for something different).  Courtney had a spinach salad and I had some sort of corn bread / polenta cake with black beans, cheese, and herbs that was different and tasty.  Courtney’s spinach salad had pickled red onions that were yummy.  Courtney had fish tacos that we great… blackened tilapia (I think) on corn and flour tortillas, cabbage, rice and black beans and aforementioned pickled red onions. We made pickled onions a while ago when we made fish tacos and they are so easy to make and taste so good with tacos.   I had a dish with fried plantains, pulled pork, some sort of yellow sauce that I forget what it was and rice and beans.  Very good.  I don’t think I ever had plantains before.  Sort of a cross between a potato and a banana.  We split a pineapple upside down cake for dessert…which won the prize for best of the night.  Warm cake with just a little bit of pineapple, pumpkin ice cream and whipped cream. yummy.  food coma.

EatOutOfEdgecliffRating:  B