Last Weekend for June 22-24: Food With Friends
It feels like all I did this past weekend was eat meals with people. This is not a bad feeling to have.
On Friday night, I was supposed to take my friend Charles to the Tribe game on my season tickets. The Tribe was slated to play the Tigers, and Charles lived in Detroit as a young boy, so I picked him up Friday and we headed downtown. Unfortunately, the weather had other ideas. We camped out at the bar at Great Lakes Brewing and had a nice dinner and conversation while it rained, and rained some more.
After a few hours of this, we decided it was time to call it. We swung by Mason's Creamery for some ice cream then I dropped Charles off. About ten minutes after I got home the rain had stopped and they started play down at the corner of Carnegie and Ontario. I briefly thought about heading back down, but decided I didn't care that much. It was too late to exchange the tickets so I ate that pair.
As it happens, the night wasn't over. M, knowing I was going to the game, had run some errands and hadn't eaten dinner yet. We walked down to Barrio. We fully anticipated that it would be chock full as it always is, but by some miracle there were actual seats so M had a full meal, and I ate a lot of chips. Their tacos weren't as good as the ones at the taco truck birthday party, but they are not bad.
On Saturday, M headed to Columbus for her high school reunion. I ran a bunch of errands and then took my aunt to M Italian in Chagrin Falls for lunch, which we had noticed as we left our previous lunch together. They have a really great patio, and we both really enjoyed the pasta we had for lunch. I'd definitely go there again. Afterwards, my aunt had a coupon for free ice cream at a Graeters that just opened on the east side so we did that. That was just the first ice cream of the day for me.
On the way home I swung by the Half Price Books and turned three boxes of books and comics culled last weekend into $11.32. I then turned some of that into 1999.
Saturday night I met up with my old radio co-host Colleen and her husband Kevin in Coventry. Our first order of business was trying out Zero Below, which is a relatively new "rolled" ice cream place that I forgot to add to my comprehensive list. The basic premise is that all the ingredients for your sundae, including the liquid milk/cream base, are poured out on a very cold griddle. This is then scraped thin and cut into narrow strips, which are rolled out, placed in a sundae cup and covered with toppings. All three of us enjoyed our ice cream, but there was general agreement that it was no better or worse than other ice cream, and the novelty value of the rolled ice cream didn't make it worth the upcharge. I'm glad I tried it, and if a friend wanted to go I wouldn't say no, but I don't think I'd go out of my way to go there again otherwise.
At this point, we determined that none of us were hungry enough for dinner. Colleen suggested that we try out a place she'd seen on yelp, which is how we all ended up at the The Whiskey Bar. It's tucked away in the very last storefront on Coventry, and they have a few hundred varieties of whiskey, scotch and bourbon. We each had two and a very pleasant conversation to boot. It's not cheap, but there were lots of things I had never seen before on some shelves that went so high that they needed a librarian's ladder to reach the top.
From there, Kevin and I decided we needed some grease, so we swung into Guys Pizza and had a slice. From there I drove home with 1999 blaring through my car windows.
I did a fun little radio show on Sunday using Barry White as my base artist. The rest of the evening was also musically focused, as my friend John and I reunited for our first show together since we GNR nearly two years ago.
First though, we had dinner at Woodstock BBQ. I had the brisket platter with plenty of BBQ sauce, and it was great. John had three tacos, one with each of the three meats available, and said it was also great. On a weird note, the waitress said she liked my WRUW t-shirt, which made me feel old but slightly cool.
From there it was on to our main event: The World's Only Female Tribute to Iron Maiden: The Iron Maidens! The Beachland Ballroom was very full, and after some technical challenges early on the band picked up speed and went nuts. I had a very good time. Eddie was there in his Cyborg form. The band had clearly spent the 15+ years since their founding learning all the mannerisms, most notably the triple guitar attack (made harder by having only two guitars, but whatever). They didn't play Run to the Hills, but that's as close to a complaint as I've got.
On a side note, I think you could hand out "Heavy Metal Shirt" bingo cards at any Cleveland area metal show and have a good time. Or for that matter, "Iron Maiden Tour Shirt" bingo cards.
On Friday night, I was supposed to take my friend Charles to the Tribe game on my season tickets. The Tribe was slated to play the Tigers, and Charles lived in Detroit as a young boy, so I picked him up Friday and we headed downtown. Unfortunately, the weather had other ideas. We camped out at the bar at Great Lakes Brewing and had a nice dinner and conversation while it rained, and rained some more.
After a few hours of this, we decided it was time to call it. We swung by Mason's Creamery for some ice cream then I dropped Charles off. About ten minutes after I got home the rain had stopped and they started play down at the corner of Carnegie and Ontario. I briefly thought about heading back down, but decided I didn't care that much. It was too late to exchange the tickets so I ate that pair.
As it happens, the night wasn't over. M, knowing I was going to the game, had run some errands and hadn't eaten dinner yet. We walked down to Barrio. We fully anticipated that it would be chock full as it always is, but by some miracle there were actual seats so M had a full meal, and I ate a lot of chips. Their tacos weren't as good as the ones at the taco truck birthday party, but they are not bad.
On Saturday, M headed to Columbus for her high school reunion. I ran a bunch of errands and then took my aunt to M Italian in Chagrin Falls for lunch, which we had noticed as we left our previous lunch together. They have a really great patio, and we both really enjoyed the pasta we had for lunch. I'd definitely go there again. Afterwards, my aunt had a coupon for free ice cream at a Graeters that just opened on the east side so we did that. That was just the first ice cream of the day for me.
On the way home I swung by the Half Price Books and turned three boxes of books and comics culled last weekend into $11.32. I then turned some of that into 1999.
Saturday night I met up with my old radio co-host Colleen and her husband Kevin in Coventry. Our first order of business was trying out Zero Below, which is a relatively new "rolled" ice cream place that I forgot to add to my comprehensive list. The basic premise is that all the ingredients for your sundae, including the liquid milk/cream base, are poured out on a very cold griddle. This is then scraped thin and cut into narrow strips, which are rolled out, placed in a sundae cup and covered with toppings. All three of us enjoyed our ice cream, but there was general agreement that it was no better or worse than other ice cream, and the novelty value of the rolled ice cream didn't make it worth the upcharge. I'm glad I tried it, and if a friend wanted to go I wouldn't say no, but I don't think I'd go out of my way to go there again otherwise.
At this point, we determined that none of us were hungry enough for dinner. Colleen suggested that we try out a place she'd seen on yelp, which is how we all ended up at the The Whiskey Bar. It's tucked away in the very last storefront on Coventry, and they have a few hundred varieties of whiskey, scotch and bourbon. We each had two and a very pleasant conversation to boot. It's not cheap, but there were lots of things I had never seen before on some shelves that went so high that they needed a librarian's ladder to reach the top.
From there, Kevin and I decided we needed some grease, so we swung into Guys Pizza and had a slice. From there I drove home with 1999 blaring through my car windows.
I did a fun little radio show on Sunday using Barry White as my base artist. The rest of the evening was also musically focused, as my friend John and I reunited for our first show together since we GNR nearly two years ago.
First though, we had dinner at Woodstock BBQ. I had the brisket platter with plenty of BBQ sauce, and it was great. John had three tacos, one with each of the three meats available, and said it was also great. On a weird note, the waitress said she liked my WRUW t-shirt, which made me feel old but slightly cool.
From there it was on to our main event: The World's Only Female Tribute to Iron Maiden: The Iron Maidens! The Beachland Ballroom was very full, and after some technical challenges early on the band picked up speed and went nuts. I had a very good time. Eddie was there in his Cyborg form. The band had clearly spent the 15+ years since their founding learning all the mannerisms, most notably the triple guitar attack (made harder by having only two guitars, but whatever). They didn't play Run to the Hills, but that's as close to a complaint as I've got.
On a side note, I think you could hand out "Heavy Metal Shirt" bingo cards at any Cleveland area metal show and have a good time. Or for that matter, "Iron Maiden Tour Shirt" bingo cards.