With the Yankees Out, LeBron Reps Cleveland in China
“I’ve loved the Blackhawks since I was a kid. Really, I love Arena Football!” So the Cavs are in China playing some worthless exhibition games, killing their endurance for the beginning of the season, and, with Damon Jones’ face on billboards over there, creating the very real chance that Jones just says, Fuck it, I’m…
This Just In: There are a lots of concerts, but there’s only one This Just In.
This week, 16 new shows, from comedian Dane Cook to R&B superstar-turned-punchline Bobby Brown. — D.X. Ferris
Breaking News: Middle East Still Violent
“Rice plays down Mideast talks: Secretary says speedy progress highly unlikely” That’s the headline for a wire story in yesterday’s Plain Dealer, dashing hopes that peace would arrive by Thursday. Observers originally expected Rice to reach a speedy resolution to thousands of years of religion-inspired murder, then get some shopping in. But apparently centuries and…
O-H-I-Oh My God That’s F’ed: The fate of Floppy rests in your hands
Floppy: the luckiest about-to-die rabbit alive. We all knew the Michigan and Ohio State fans wanted to pummel each other to death. But we never thought an innocent bunny would get harmed in the process. Oh dear. In order to pay back roughly $40,000 in student loans, a local law student who goes by the…
Breaking News: Officials Get Interested When Things Blow Up
“Cause of fiery crash in L.A. tunnel sought” When most people see fiery explosions in a tunnel, they think nothing of it. But LA officials are apparently curious. The Associated Press is reporting that they will actually try to find out why stuff exploded earlier this week. . This has been a Really Enlightening C-Notes…
New York May Have LeBron, But We’ve Got Regis
It’s not too late to convert, Matt. Well, we may never get Matt Damon on our side, (which is fine because he’s overrated, anyway) but it appears several New York-based celebrities have become Indian converts. Talkshow host Regis Philburn, a die-hard Yankees fan, predicted last week that Cleveland would “take the whole series.” And this…
Beware the ARM: Borrowers clueless about loans, AFL-CIO reports
An ARM can mean many things to many people – a limb, a gun, or – if you’re a nerd – a Larry Nevin story. But here in Cleveland, ARM tends to have a much more unsavory connotation. Here, an ARM, or adjustable rate mortgage, is synonymous with foreclosure and destitution, thanks to the fact…
Channel 3 eviscerates greedy kid for trying to profit from school shooting video, saying, “That’s our job.”
Eric Mansfield, an anchor and reporter for Channel 3 WKYC, used to be confident that network news was a humanitarian pursuit, grounded in ethics instead of dollars. That was until he met 17-year old Warren Marks. On his personal blog, titled “Have I Got News for You!,” Manfield describes his harrowing experience with the seedy…
Why Do You Keep Bagging on Kucinich? Esquire Profiles the Demented Elf
While Punch has proudly been taking shots at Dennis Kucinich for years — ever since he stole our Guy Who Hasn’t Done Shit Runs For President idea – his status as America’s Piñata™ has really taken off this year, with everyone from Letterman to John Stewart taking swings. Most Clevelanders are perfectly comfortable with this.…
John Mayall Concert Canceled
The Tuesday October 16 John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers/Blue Taxi concert at Wilbert’s has been canceled. — D.X. Ferris
Mike G’s Picks, In Case You Hate Baseball
Nicole Atkins plays the Beachland Thursday. This week’s top arts and entertainment picks around town, from the guy who’s paid to pick them: Monday: The Tribe’s late-night win over Boston on Saturday was just what the team needed. They return to the Jake at 7 tonight. The game’s officially sold out. But we’re pretty sure…
Kenna Pre-Concert In-Store Appearance Tuesday
Kenna will make an in-store appearance at the Cleveland Heights Borders (3466 Mayfield Rd.) Tuesday, October 16. The Ethopian-born singer will perform and meet fans. The event is free and starts at 4 p.m. Later that night, he opens the She Wants Revenge show at the Agora (5000 Euclid Ave.) Make Sure They See My…
Channel 19: Fabricated Stripper Story Comes with a Price
The rules of journalism are pretty simple: Don’t pick on the little guy, and never make shit up. Unfortunately, this might be a bit complex for the bright minds at Channel 19. Take the case of Billy Dale. He opened Kamikaze, his Warrensville Heights cafe, in 1999 with hopes of providing a haven for everyone…
Crimefighting the Cleveland State Way
September 24th marked the beginning of the school year for Cleveland State senior Adam Jaenke. But it didn’t start out the way he’d hoped. That morning, Jaenke set out to the campus store to purchase new books. One of his paperbacks dropped, hitting the foot of the guy in front of him, who was there…
Hooking for Dollars (And the Occasional Top-Off)
Last month, C-Notes proudly announced that Akron-Canton was the strip club capital of Ohio. Of course, we didn’t come up with the data to make this astounding claim ourselves. That would take way too much effort. Like, actual research and stuff. Instead, we left the dirty work up to a political blogger on Progress.org who…
What Cleveland School Administrator Turned Down the Metal Detector Request?
Please correct a big error of omission of reporter Laura Johnston’s Plain Dealer news story about the downtown Cleveland school shootings. It states: “Charles Blackwell, president of the Student-Parent Organization, said that the group has petitioned the district for three years to get metal detectors and to restore a security gurad position that was taken…
Dating Website for Farmers Created; Sheep Nationwide Breathe Sigh of Relief
“Doesn’t this guy ever get enough?” After a long day of manually impregnating heifers, many rural Ohioan men would like to come home and impregnate something else. But alas, it’s hard to meet people out there in farm country. Sometimes it seems that only the gophers are reproducing. But don’t despair, farmers, and put down…
That’s Editors Being Editors: Boston paper pens obligitory Cleveland piece
Number 8 on the Globe’s list of things Sox fans should know about our fair city: their goof ball slugger was once our goofball slugger. While the Red Sox prepare for their crushing defeat at the hands of our beloved Tribe this weekend, Sox City’s news authority, The Boston Globe, offers a handy “8 Things…
Scott Raab, His Chief Wahoo Tattoo, and His Faith in Dennis Kucinich
Next time you’re in the bookstore, and you’re flipping through Esquire in search of a cologne sample or tips on how to tie a double windsor, peruse through Table of Contents and seek out Scott Raab. A writer-at-large for the best general interest magazine in America — at least for dudes it is — Raab…
Reader: Blame the School Shooting on Frank Jackson
WTAM today reported that the 14 year old boy who shot a few people and then died had been bullied and picked on at that school for some time, which apparently made the kid get so upset he shot people at the school. So the root of the problem may be that the school did…
Scoop du Jour: Souper Market branches out
Just in time for cool weather, Cleveland’s favorite soup maker, Matthew Moore, has announced the imminent arrival of yet another Souper Market location – the region’s third, and Moore’s first franchised operation. “It’s sort of a franchise with a twist,” says the chef, a long-time proponent of locally grown ingredients and an all ’round thoughtful…
Braylon Edwards Is Way Cooler Than You Thought
This morning’s USA Today carries a nice story about Browns’ receiver Braylon Edwards, who has some candid and decent things to say. Among the better quotes: “This is another thing that eats at me. When you draft a player, you know about him from the age of 1. … You knew in college that he…
From Hopkins to downtown, at a New York price
There are few things Clevelanders loathe more than having their city compared to New York. Why do you think it was so delectably satisfying to beat the Yankees’ asses in baseball? Now, however, we’re competing with the Big Apple in something far less laudable: cab fares. The Plain Dealer reports today that cab rides from…
Pardon the Aggravation: Scene Music Junkies Square off on Bad Religion:
Bad Religion visits the Agora Ballroom (5000 Euclid Ave., 216-881-6911) Thursday, October 11. The band’s been in business since 1980, but the run hasn’t been all wine and roses. Some say Bad Religion is one of the best punk bands ever. Some say it’s the worst. The group came together in the original Los Angeles…
Radiohead, In Rainbows: A Review, Upon First Listen, Track-by-Track Style
You know, Radiohead, I was just about to go to sleep when I checked my email one last time. And lo and behold, the download code for your new CD, In Rainbows, popped up in my inbox. Sigh. I didn’t need sleep anyway. Since the rest of the blogosphere is racing right now to review…
Joshua Redman Trio
Back in the early ’90s, Joshua Redman was one of the most hyped musicians in jazz history not named Marsalis. Sure, the saxophonist was young, handsome, and knew how to wear a sharp suit. But longtime jazz listeners were frequently left wondering where the mainstream media were when his father, longtime Ornette Coleman collaborator Dewey…
Capsule reviews of current area art exhibitions.
NEW Reverberation — There’s something wrong with the world today, but Ohioan Audra Skuodas can help. Her bold but sensitive abstractions won’t save Earth, but they may align you more closely with it. Whether painting with acrylic on large canvases or pencil-drawing on vellum, Skuodas capitalizes on the inherent graces and rigidities of physics. She’ll…
Sexual Healing
Pascale Ferran’s faithful take on Lady Chatterley is unlike any version seen on the big screen. D.H. Lawrence’s celebrated story — about a repressed World War I-era wife, whose sexual awakening comes courtesy of her invalid husband’s gamekeeper — leisurely unspools at more than two and a half hours. But the foreplay is crucial. Lady…
Best 20-Piece Swing Band
The Dan Zola Swing Big Band bops out a ballroom storm, making crowds fox-trot, jitterbug, and waltz like it’s 1944. The band serves up two-hour sets every Tuesday at the 100th Bomb Group, a restaurant named for the Air Force division of the same name and decorated with WWII memorabilia. While Zola and his boys…
Best Gay Event
Nothing gets gays to drop dollar bills faster than food and booze. That’s why the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgendered Community Center of Greater Cleveland always cashes in on its annual TaDa! dinner series. Between March and August this year, 21 hosts opened their homes and gardens, and served lavish spreads to benefit the center.…
Best Stage Actor
The most intense hour onstage in the past year was the 60 minutes during which Scott Plate twitched, railed, and sweated his way through the intriguing Thom Pain (Based on Nothing) at Dobama Theatre. Playing a dorky guy who avoids eye contact doesn’t sound like a riveting assignment. But Plate fully embodied this character, tossing…
Best Island Bar
Whiskey Island is tucked between railroad tracks, the Cargill salt mines, and a waste-water treatment plant. But once you stumble upon the oasis, you’ll be rewarded with wide-open, grassy fields, a long row of sand volleyball courts, and possibly the city’s best outdoor drinking refuge. With the ambience of a Myrtle Beach boathouse, the Sunset…
Best Gay Bar
Owner Brian Lyons bought the old Rockies hangout in 2005, hoping to make it a sister club to his successful Cocktails Akron. Since then, he’s begun attracting crowds with an evolving menu of theme nights, like the Friday-night piano lounge. Adding to the variety are bartender Jim Tasker’s regular feasts, when he fires up the…
Best Bar Urinal
Remember that awesome night at the Velvet Dog? Remember that totally hot babe you were making out with against the wall at the back of the club? Remember how you felt like it was just the two of you, with you whispering sweet nothings in her ear, hoping she wouldn’t puke her 14th Long Island…
Best Steakhouse
XO Prime Steaks dishes out a mouthwatering combo of indulgent eats, attentive service, and a trendy setting in the heart of the Warehouse District. Try the bone-in rib-eye, an almost indecently succulent intersection of sizzle and smoke; or that 48-ounce porterhouse for two, a perfect marriage of richness and sensuality. On the side, smart additions…
Best Pastrami Sandwich
There’s probably no more naughty an indulgence than a hot pastrami sandwich. When it comes to a flawless take on this diet-buster, there’s no better source than Mister Brisket, aka Sanford Herskovitz, purveyor of fine meat, poultry, and seafood — and maker of one hell of a pastrami sandwich. What makes Mister B’s the best?…
Best Pizza With the Little People
Inside this bright, clean cocoon, the kids can be themselves, while Mom and Dad unwind over a craft-brewed beer or a glass of wine. When the munchkins get too restless, walk them up to the glass-walled kitchen and let them watch the cooks, who put on quite a performance crafting pies. As it turns out,…
Best Sustainable Food Program
If you ever stumble into one of Case’s cafeterias, it’s impossible to miss: Bon Appétit, the school’s food-management company, is addicted to serving fabulous, good-for-the-world chow. The company works directly with local farmers to procure cage-free farm eggs and other environmentally conscious products, follows the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch buying guidelines, pours hormone-free milk,…
Best Local News Refresher
Believe it or not, there’s a place on your radio dial where people discuss news, politics, and sports without morphing into screaming, bumbling morons. As host of “The Sound of Ideas” on 90.3 FM-WCPN, Dan Moulthrop invites newsmakers, journalists, and regular folks to dissect the stories behind the latest headlines. The conversations go deep –…
Best Place to Spot a Bald Eagle
Last spring marked the first time that a non-captive bald eagle chick has hatched in Cuyahoga County. And its birthplace was a nest in the Pinery Narrows, about one-half mile north of the Station Road trailhead in Brecksville. (The one-ton nest is still visible on the far side of the Cuyahoga River.) Although the chick…
Best Prom Night
When Casey Coin started Prom of Ages in 2003, she had only one goal in mind: to finally give the best night of their lives to the geezers who didn’t get the proms they deserved. And that’s exactly what she did. Dusting off the disco ball at the Beachland Ballroom, Coin blew up 220 balloons,…
Best Manscaping
It’s pretty hard to feel manly while getting the hair waxed off your back. But the Reagle Beagle salon does its best to let you maintain as much dignity as possible. The Beagle is a male-only salon, which means the clientele is all guys and the staff is all hot babes. SportsCenter is always on…
Best Career Move
This is a city loyal to its sports institutions, and Bruce Drennan is as entrenched as any — his trademark rasp has been scraping up local airwaves since 1978, during drive time, dinnertime, and game time. Sure, the feds’ discovery that Drennan was involved in a large illegal gambling ring briefly ended his career; he…
Best Local Feat of Engineering
In the wood-dominated game of cornhole, King Toss’ plastic base is a bit of a novelty, and the deck is a hair smaller than rules snobs will permit. But it otherwise looks, sounds, and plays exactly like cornhole, which means you’ll want to play until you need arm surgery. It’s all Ohio-made too, and because…
Readers’ Choice
Best TV News WEWS Channel 5 Best TV Newscaster Kenny Crumpton, FOX 8 Best TV Newscaster’s Hair Ramona Robinson, WKYC Best Radio Station 99.5-FM WGAR Best Radio Show Rover’s Morning Glory Best Brown Brady Quinn Best Indian Grady Sizemore Best Cav (Not Named LeBron) Daniel Gibson Best Looking Athlete Grady Sizemore Best Bowling Alley Corner…
Best Sports Gifts
GPS Gift Gallery stocks everything any sports fan needs to root for the team. Rugs, glasses, grilling kits, cornhole sets, socks, shirts, and more are emblazoned with your favorite team’s logo. And if pro or college isn’t really your thing, GPS has loads of high-school gear for all the local teams. Ranging from a cheap…
Best Boxer
Technically, Kelly Pavlik’s a Youngstown native. But with all this Cleveland+ stuff going around — not to mention that last year’s Best Boxer, Ray Austin, lasted just two stinky rounds with Wladimir Klitschko, making us look even more foolish than usual — we’re reaching into some extra zip codes here. But the Ghost is worth…
will.i.am
Derivative, repetitive, insipid, insincere, and pandering — Songs About Girls also boasts the worst CD booklet in recent memory: seven pages of will.i.am mugging it up in a checkered suit. Actually, the first song, titled “Over,” isn’t terrible. It’s a lover’s lament that features a sample from Electric Light Orchestra (never a bad thing). However,…
You’ll Laugh Dying
You Kill Me (Genius) Funny thing seeing Philip Baker Hall in You Kill Me, as he’s already played the role of a drunken hit man’s boss in The Matador, to which this feels like a slapshtick-noir sequel. It’s also the photonegative of Sexy Beast: Once more Ben Kingsley plays a killer killer, only now he’s…
Come Together
Singer-songwriter Josh Ritter doesn’t even bother to conceal his adulation of freak-period Beatles. On his new album, The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter, the Idaho-based troubadour piles on a carnival of sounds that employ multitracking, various tape tricks, and lots of exotic instruments. And Ritter doesn’t play favorites: John, Paul, and George (sorry, Ringo) can…
Best Real-Life Noisemaker
Northeast Ohio has produced some quality noise freaks in the past several years, including underground darlings Tusco Terror and Emeralds. But the granddaddy freak of them all is Pufftube, aka Scott Pickering, a drummer who has served time in a seemingly infinite number of Rust Belt bands — from Prisonshake to Gem, Clouds Forming Crowns…
Best Actually Open Museum for the Open-Minded
While the crown jewel of Cleveland art — the Cleveland Museum of Art — continues to get its face lifted, venture out of University Circle’s cultural vortex and onto Carnegie Avenue, to the unpredictable Museum of Contemporary Art. From interactive digital installations to cutting-edge architecture exhibits, MOCA is dedicated to artists who think outside the…
Best Stage Actress
Juicy roles are like raw sirloin, especially for carnivorous actors who relish tearing into a meaty character with multifaceted traits. But along with such a tasty assignment goes the hefty responsibility of not screwing it up. As Serafina in Ensemble Theatre’s The Rose Tattoo, Linda Castro had a role dripping with luscious contradictions: a devoutly…
Best Down-Home Yuppie Bar
The upside of Tremont’s gentrification is that it’s provided a rare oasis of affluence to the West Side. The downside is that it’s become a bit too fancy for anyone with paint stains on his Dickies. The Prosperity Social Club straddles this divide. For regular types, it’s an upscale neighborhood bar without the pretense and…
Best Gay Bar for Smokers
While the stylish open-air lounges at Apex, Leather Stallion, and Cocktails Cleveland offer safe space for nicotine fixes, the whimsically appointed patio at A Man’s World bests them all. The 60-foot-long lounge resembles a tropical lanai carpeted in lush green. Its three canopied picnic tables offer shelter from the elements and take-out menus for the…
Best Karaoke for Rookies
At Corky’s Place, even the drunkest and most vocally challenged are rewarded with a hearty round of applause. Maybe it’s because everyone else is just as drunk as you, or maybe the down-and-out atmosphere of this shot-and-a-beer dive makes your eyes-closed hatchet job of “Highway to the Danger Zone” seem right at home. And should…
Best BBQ
Nothing shouts “summer” like a plate of saucy ‘cue, and there’s none better than that served on the porch of Bubba’s Q. Head out back, past the mementos of Al “Bubba” Baker’s NFL career, to the sturdy picnic tables, where you can gnaw your bones to the beat of blues tunes. Prime real estate on…
Best Gateway Grub
Harry Buffalo hits a home run with its laid-back vibe, wide brew selection, and a big menu of breaded, fried, and barbecued grub. The illustrated menu is crammed with surprisingly well-executed burgers, wings, wraps, pizza, quesadillas, salads, and entrées like barbecued ribs, bison steak, and even a perch and pierogi dinner. The beer list includes…
Best Cookbook Comforts
Moving beyond the muffins and iced mocha found in a typical bookstore café, Joseph-Beth’s Bronte bistro offers a tantalizingly clever creation: a menu full of meals from your favorite cookbooks. There’s Rachael Ray’s turkey burger, The Joy of Cooking’s beef pot roast, The Silver Spoon’s lasagna Bolognese. But more important, there are those classic comfort…
Best Local Cheese-Maker
Located in the country’s fourth-largest Amish community, the Middlefield Cheese House has been doling out award-winning cheeses for several generations. It’s most famous for its Swiss, a creation that requires nearly six quarts of fresh milk per pound of cheese. This charming chalet, located about 35 miles east of Cleveland, houses a food store and…
Best Talk-Radio Host
For many people, the arts aren’t something you enjoy; they’re something you endure. But Dee Perry can cure this affliction. She’s host of Around Noon, WCPN’s daily lunchtime arts show, the smartest thing going on Cleveland radio. Perry’s gift is that she can make playwrights and conductors interesting to anyone, be they aficionado or official…
Best Place to Hug a Tree
The 3,500-acre Holden Arboretum is one of the nation’s largest arboretums — a living museum of forests, woodlands, meadows, ravines, rock ledges, and wetlands. Nearly 20 miles of hiking trails give access to more than 19,000 plants representing 2,199 species; the grounds are also home to approximately 200 types of birds and an active research…
Best Knitting Night
In a hip bar/café like Lakewood’s Bela Dubby, the last thing you’d expect to see is a group of women knitting. But every Tuesday night, that’s exactly what you get — twenty- and thirtysomethings furiously purling over coffee and beer. A local branch of the famed Stitch N’ Bitch, a group started in New York…
Best T-Shirts for Homers
If you’re a proud Northeast Ohio native, the Rubber City Clothing Company sells T-shirts and hoodies that combine genuine love for the region with a thick pinch of snarky humor, making them instant hipster classics. The most popular design pays homage to Akron as the home of Goodyear’s blimp fleet, showing a dirigible hovering above…
Best Analyst
It would be easy to rubber-stamp Bernie Kosar’s performances on Channel 19 and WKNR simply because he’s Bernie, but Kosar has earned adulation with insightful takes on the Browns. He’ll tell you what play is happening before it’s run, he’ll tell you why, and when it goes bad, he’ll tell you who’s to blame. And…
Best Beginners’ Golf
Tucked in Newburgh Heights, a quick jog off 77, the Washington Learning Center teaches golf and character development, using the game to teach kids life skills — don’t cheat, be polite, wearing plaid pants doesn’t make you a winner. They offer lessons by instructors and volunteers who serve as mentors as well as coaches, and…
Best Overlooked Bookstore
There are few places for bookworms who live and work downtown to get their fix when they’ve dusted everything on their shelves. But Cleveland State’s bookstore, one of the few in downtown Cleveland and an oft-overlooked shop, is equipped to keep both shelves and head stocked. There are no baristas slinging coffee, and this is…
Best Source for a Good Yarn
Artist and Miss Chickpea’s Funky Fibers owner Shelly Brauser — aka Miss Chickpea — has assembled a mouthwatering collection of fabulous yarns in this colorful Hudson knit shop, including so many beautiful shades and textures that even non-knitters will want to grab some needles and take a stab. While the soul of the collection is…
Mammal
Mammal ain’t the happiest kid on the block. His last disc, 2006’s Let Me Die, a collection of post-industrial “dance” grooves, pulsates with all the vibrancy of a euthanized hippopotamus. Lonesome Drifter, its follow-up, offers an equally desolate soundscape. This time around, however, Mammal (born Gary Beauvais) trades minimal beat-work for lo-fi doom built from…
Hype Machine
What’s left to say about Halo 3? How about this: All the pomp and circumstance surrounding its launch sure have been distracting. Commercials that look like clips from a Hollywood movie, extravagant collectors’ sets that sell for $130, limited-edition Xbox 360s with a green-and-gold Halo-inspired color scheme, and a midnight release that spawned lines snaking…
Coast to Toast
As a touring comedian, Jake Johannsen sees a lot of things. And he likes to share nearly every detail of his travels with audiences or whoever’s listening. “There’s a Starbucks right across from me at the hotel,” he says. “There’s a Starbucks across from everywhere right now. They’re actually right across from each other in…
Best Sludge
Multi-instrumentalist metalhead Corey Bing makes music so slow, dark, and thick, it can only be compared to toxic waste. In 2006, he released eight albums and EPs as part of five bands: King Travolta, Son of Jor-El, Accept Death, Fistula, and Scumchrist. In 2007, he’s got his grimy hands in more mud pies: Scumchrist is…
Best Bargain Movie Theatre
Some flicks need to be seen on the big screen. But with ticket prices now exceeding the GNP of most African countries, and popcorn requiring a sizable down payment, a night at the movies is no cheap date. Savvy moviegoers know the trick: Give it a couple months, and catch it at Cinemark Movies 10.…
Best Stage Villain
We’re all magnetically attracted to the villain, whether it’s an over-the-top Cruella De Vil or the goofy Russian nasties who tormented Rocky and Bullwinkle. So of course, actors adore playing black hats whenever they can. Paul Floriano got his chance as the quietly despicable British intelligence officer Stewart in Cesear’s Forum’s Pack of Lies, twirling…
Best College Bar
The signature drink of the Water Street Tavern is the Mongolian Motherf@&#er, a gentle mix of cranberry juice, orange juice, and 11 different liquors. This cluster-fuck cocktail is appropriate, because Water Street Tavern is an abject free-for-all: It’s the official bar of Kent State sports, the official bar of getting hammered for remarkably cheap, and…
Best Gays in a Straight Bar
If you’re in a straight club and the dudes overwhelmingly outnumber and outdress the women, chances are you’ve stumbled into a meeting of the monthly G2H2, or Gay Guys Happy Hour. Since 2003, the group of 300 or so 20- to 50-somethings have convened their social hour on the third Friday of every month at…
Best Karaoke for Pros
It sounds like the easiest $100 you’ll ever make: All you have to do is out-sing a bunch of tone-deaf drunks in a karaoke contest. And you’ve belted out “Don’t Stop Believing” so much in the shower that you don’t even need the stinkin’ teleprompter. Then the warm-ups begin. An older, scraggly guy plops himself…
Best Modern Mex
After years of slogging through gringo-fied menus of ersatz “Mexican” eats — complete with greasy ground beef, waxy cheese sauces, and bottled salsas — our region is now awash with casually upscale restaurants that combine the best in modern American cooking with the authentic flavors of the traditional Mexican cocina. At the crest of the…
Best Food in a Bowling Alley
The zesty flavors, often imaginative preparations, and big menu at 4th Street Bar & Grill, a high-energy eatery inside the Corner Alley complex, easily beat standard bowling-alley fare. Pick the right table, and you can down a burger or some braised short ribs, toss back a beer or a big martini, and still manage to…
Best Reason to Be Female
On Tuesday nights at this airy, upscale Little Italy spot, dinner is free for females with the purchase of a drink — any drink, from a glass of California Zinfandel ($5) to a Pepsi ($1.50). The Girls’ Night Out is smaller than the regular menu, but the ingredients and highly refined preparations are the same.…
Best Maple-Syrup Maker
What Geauga County lacks in culinary allure, it more than makes up for in maple syrup. Though the Ohio maple-tapping season is short — three to six weeks, weather depending — the experts at Grossman Brothers Maple Products take the region’s climatic lemons and make something even sweeter than lemonade. Brothers’ unique syrup is a…
Best Radio Reporter
In this age of rip-and-read radio news, listeners are often assaulted with breathless reporters predicting the end of the world. But leave veteran gumshoe Karen Schaefer out of that mix. After more than 10 years on Northeast Ohio’s public-radio airwaves, the Colorado native has amassed a mountain of accolades for her fair, balanced, and well-researched…
Best Creepy Hangout
When you think of places to just hang, cemeteries probably don’t top your list. But Lake View Cemetery, on the eastern edge of Cleveland, isn’t your typical burial ground. Built in 1869 and modeled after the great garden cemeteries of England and France, Lake View’s luscious landscape captures the beauty of life, not the darkness…
Best Luxury Condos
Standing in sharp contrast to the old brick warehouses that surround it, the Pinnacle’s blue glass and sexy curves make it feel like a wave rising triumphantly from the ocean. But it’s the building’s interior that separates it from other luxury properties. Each unit is customized to the exact specifications of its owners, from the…
Best $50 T-shirts
It may be time to throw out that T-shirt of Snoopy in dreads and a rasta beanie. So head to Clothing Brigade, the stylish boutique that carries T-shirts that make you look like you know how to use the word “¨ber.” Of course, these aren’t cheap. The artistically designed, high-quality tees from such labels as…
Best Sports-Talker
In a profession filled with know-it-all blowhards, Tony Rizzo’s WKNR morning is a refreshing break from the nonstop hyperbole. Here you’ll find smart analyses of the Indians, Browns, and Cavs, and inside dirt from a veteran of local media. Sure, Rizzo is a total homer, but he tempers his enthusiasm with appropriate criticism and breaks…
Best Afternoon Delight
Technically, Valleaire is a public course. But if you meander through wooded Hinckley and onto the course’s first tee late in the afternoon, it’ll feel private — completely and utterly and there-ain’t-another-hacker-out-here private. For reasons we can’t figure, this interesting and affordable par-72 layout is often damn-near empty, making it prime real estate for the…
Best Bookstore for Hippies
While not creatively named, Bookstore on West Twenty-Fifth has everything hippies want in a used bookstore: an owner sporting a puffy white beard, funky hours of operation, folkies strumming guitars, vintage reading chairs, and an infinite number of weird-ass books. The psychology section, for example, often contains out-of-print tomes by Wilhelm Reich, a brilliant but…
Best DIY Cards
Step away from the Hallmark aisle. Put down that overpriced boutique birthday card. Paper Palace, in Solon, is your chance to spread some shit out on the living-room floor and make something — an ¨ber-cool greeting card, to be exact. The store houses the region’s best selections of paper and craft supplies, the perfect ingredients…
Saturday-Night Dance Party
Saturday nights at Suede, DJ Mikas plays whatever he needs to get the party going. Lately, if a little light trance and house aren’t working, he’s been breaking out Dexy’s Midnight Runners, a dance mix of Rihanna’s “Umbrella,” a little Michael Jackson, and Timbaland’s “The Way I Are.” If you don’t mind dressing up just…
Country Comfort
TOP PICK — Emmylou Harris: Songbird: Rare Tracks and Forgotten Gems (Rhino) This five-disc box (four CDs, one DVD) includes more than 75 songs from Harris’ illustrious, nearly 40-year career. There are plenty of unreleased and overlooked solo performances here, but the singer-songwriter truly shines as a duet partner on cuts with Gram Parsons, Johnny…
Punk Pundit
Henry Rollins’ marathon spoken-word sets have become a cornerstone of the multi-hyphened workaholic’s long career. “I go out into the world, reel in a few marlins, and bring them onto the stage,” he says. Over the past quarter-century, he’s navigated waters as a hardcore singer (in Black Flag), TV host (of a self-titled IFC talk…
Best Band Name Change
Jake Blazer had turned heads as the leader of 2 Skinny Dorks, a quintet whose rousing alt-rock earned comparisons to Dave Matthews and Sly & the Family Stone. When the band formed at Kent State in 2000, Blazer assumed it would go nowhere. Instead, it became a top-drawing band from Canton to Cleveland, with regular…
Best Cover Band
You don’t want to hear Journey; you want to feel them. And for that, you’ll need Breakfast Club, Cleveland’s most authentic group of ’80s rockers. Frontman Dave Brooks is a fast-living falsetto freak who narrowly missed glam-metal fame in the early ’90s. Guitarist Billy Morris flung his well-conditioned hair with Warrant. Drummer Paul Holobinko once…
Best Blue-Collar Actor
He was fully clothed and frontally naked. He was a human and an animal. He was himself and his creepy alter ego. And Dan Folino accomplished all these theatrical tasks with his usual professional aplomb. As the hardest-working actor and singer in Cleveland theater, Folino takes on iconic roles and turns them into small wonderments.…
Best Wine Bar
Raise a glass to this pretty suburban youngster in downtown Brecksville, where everything a wine-lover could ask for is close at hand. That includes a smartly chosen roster of boutique wines, scheduled tasting events, an intimate setting, and a killer menu of French-inflected food, offered up in small-, medium-, or large-plate formats. With bargain prices…
Best Bar to Test “Your Friend’s” Sexuality
Even for straight guys, Bounce may be more fun than any hetero bar in town. The Friday-night drag shows are off the hook, attracting a mix of straight, gay, and everyone in between, even some bachelorette parties. And this wild combo of drag queens, thumping dance music, and hot, oiled men will help you figure…
Best Five Minutes of Fame
Guitarist Billy Morris has backed Quiet Riot’s Kevin DuBrow and Warrant’s Jani Lane. Now he wants to back you. So take the stage at Lakewood’s renowned Hi-Fi Club, and let Morris’ handpicked crew put you in the spotlight. Choose something from a hefty (albeit sticky) songbook, and the band will make you its lead singer.…
Best Tex-Mex
This unpretentious cantina combines a quirky sense of humor with a serious devotion to delivering a memorable dining experience. The ever-evolving menu riffs on a Tex-Mex theme, with sassy little tidbits like blue cheese and sage guacamole, mezcal-marinated chicken, and crab cakes on a citrus-fennel salad with cilantro aioli. Reasonably sized portions, together with Lopez’s…
Best Kosher Fast Food
Keeping a kosher kitchen requires separate facilities for meat and dairy, as well as having an Orthodox Jew on hand to supervise preparation — requirements few restaurants care to meet. But not SUBWAY, which launched its first — and so far, only — kosher operation a little more than two years ago inside the Mandel…
Best Taste of the Town
Recent studies show that native Clevelanders are composed of approximately 25 percent fresh Lake Erie perch, 25 percent potato-cheddar pierogi, and 50 percent beer. Have you been hitting your quota lately? If not, head to the Linden Tavern, a snug little eatery in Rocky River, where owners Herb, Julie, and Kevin Eglinski cook up the…
Best Vegan Desserts
This natural-foods market hawks an utterly delicious line of home-baked cakes and brownies made without an ounce of dairy, honey, eggs, or refined sugar. Whether it’s a giant vanilla cupcake plastered with thick frosting or a banana-chocolate brownie the size of a small brick, Nature’s Bin will appease Northeast Ohio’s most critical dessert freaks. And…
Best Old-School Reporting
It’s not easy being a balls-out daily newspaper reporter these days; newsrooms, once the Land of the Free-Swinging, are now the Home of the Safe. But Mark Puente, The Plain Dealer’s Lorain reporter, and John Caniglia, a courts reporter, somehow convinced their editors to take off the gloves when they went after the Lorain Police…
Best National Park Make-Out Spot
When seeking out the proper setting for sucking face, there are a few details that are crucial. One: a gorgeous view of the horizon, preferably a cliff from which to ignore the sunset or sunrise. Two: the availability of hiding spots, such as caves and forests, in case making out just isn’t enough. Three: Public…
Best Kids Programs
Kids have so much fun at the Great Lakes Science Center, they won’t even realize they’re actually learning stuff. The weeklong programs focus on superheroes, wizards, and robots. The hands-on activities include such icky and world-conquering subjects as slime-making and levitation. One class builds turbocharged Lego machines that can sink baskets like LeBron. There’s even…
Best Running Shoes
With the shoe companies’ marketing guys off their leashes, runners are stuck trying to navigate terms like “motion control,” “midsole,” and “stability.” The gang at Achilles Running Shop can explain all that stuff in English — right after they perform their “gait analysis.” Don’t worry: No x-rays or coughing is required; they simply recommend the…
Best Beat Writer
If you’re looking for the best coverage of the Cavs, skip The Plain Dealer and log onto Ohio.com, where the Akron Beacon Journal’s Brian Windhorst writes and blogs. No one else gets more in-depth or breaks more stories. Atop the standard 411 on roster moves or possible trades, Windhorst translates the often confusing salary cap…
Best Funhouse
Mulberry’s might look like just another abandoned building in the Flats, but inside lies a magical world, where men and women can get drunk and throw stuff at each other. Cleveland Plays converted the small warehouse into a playground for adults. Downstairs plays host, year-round, to dodgeball, volleyball, basketball, floor hockey, and indoor kickball leagues.…
Best Magazines
Liberty Books and News stocks plenty of time-consuming books in its ample space, but it’s the never-ending rows of magazines that greet and snag visitors as soon as they walk in the door. The racks are filled with thousands of domestic and imported weeklies, dailies, monthlies, and quarterlies — everything from French fashion reads to…
Best Party Gear
Inside Dean’s 16,000-square-foot showroom (one of the largest in the Midwest), you’ll find more than 33,000 items, from chef’s jackets to bread baskets, Brillo pads to brandy snifters. Everyone — bargain hunters, party planners, or anybody looking to score, say, a 14-foot-long string of tiki lights and a case of plastic champagne flutes — is…
Norm Nardini
Norm Nardini has been in the rock ‘n’ roll game for dangerously close to 40 years now, but this ain’t no oldies show. His ace squad of veterans plays an all-original set of classic-sounding material developed over four decades, under the influence of classic rock, blues, soul, country, and standards. In between songs, he’s an…
Our top DVD picks scheduled for release this week:
Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Season Three (Universal) Black Sheep Unrated (Genius) Bob Mould: Circle of Friends (Granary) Bruce Springsteen: Under Review-1978-82: Tales of the Working Man (Sexy Intellectual) Concert for Diana (Universal) CSI New York: The Third Season (Paramount) Man Push Cart (Koch Lorber) The Marx Brothers Collection (Passport) Meerkat Manor: Season One (Animal Planet) Michael…
Holmes, Sweet Holmes
Viewers expecting to see a classic interpretation of Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous sleuth are in for a little surprise at the Cleveland Play House’s Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure, which opens tonight. “There’s definitely more of a contemporary edge to the character,” says artistic director Michael Bloom. “We want the audience to see an image…
Best Medley
With more than 200 gigs a year on their dance card, Colin Dussault’s Blues Project might be the city’s hardest-working band. And when they work hard, they play hard — these aren’t the kind of blues that bring you down. The Project’s Live at Main Street Café album captures a mainstay of the sextet’s live…
Best Studio
Lava Room isn’t Cleveland’s best studio because their CDs sound great. They do sound great; take a listen to Trendy’s Stupid Generation or Mr. Gnome’s Echoes on the Ground. But Lava’s the city’s best studio because it gives you options. Whether you want to record a demo with Mike Brown (who’s worked with the Pussycat…
Best Stage Funnyman
Some performers are just funny, whether you give them a great comedy script or two minutes in line at the market. Kevin Joseph Kelly is one of these blessed individuals, and it showed in the broad thigh-slapper Greater Tuna, at the Beck Center. Playing a variety of rubes and redneck losers, Kelly was a hulking…
Best Belgian Watering Hole
Not many bars can boast the frothy sweetness of a raspberry lambic on tap. But that’s just one of the highlights at McNulty’s Bier Markt, which proudly offers more than three dozen Belgian beers. From Chimay to Delirium Tremens, lightly sweet Hoegaarden and yeasty Corsendonk brown, it’s like discovering some kind of tongue-twisting hops heaven.…
Best Gay Bar Owner
A happy-hour stop at Twist isn’t complete until owner John Katsaros makes his rounds, making sure his regulars are sucking up their after-work elixirs. But Katsaros is equally known for his AIDS and gay-rights activism. He commandeered his bar’s float in June’s gay-pride parade and opened his club so fest organizers could thank their volunteers.…
Best Salsa Dancing for Rookies
Walk into Sunset Lounge on a Saturday night, and you may think you’ve been transported back in time to seventh-grade phys-ed class. Boys and girls are split up into groups on the dance floor, while a peppy Costa Rican instructor demonstrates how to simultaneously wiggle your hips, spin, and manage to avoid injury. Just when…
Best Irish-Mexican Cantina
OK, so there’s not an Irish-Mexican joint on every corner. But there should be, if they could all be as handsome, spacious, and energetic as Loco Leprechaun, with its blaring music, bustling bar scene, and big menu of unexpectedly good tavern fare. Consider the signature Loco Nachos — a ginormous tumble of crisp, tricolored tortilla…
Best Grilled Cheese
Despite its menu of childhood faves, Melt ain’t your mama’s kitchen. Instead, the joint oozes a distinct hip-titude, from its pierced and inked staffers to the bodacious beer collection. It’s the freshly prepped edibles, though, that melt our heart — especially the 20 or so grilled cheese variations, piled onto thick slabs of dense Italian…
Best Outdoor Taste of Heaven
If your idea of heaven is rustic repast — some salty cured meats, a wedge of pungent cheese, and thick slices of crusty bread — savored in a secluded outdoor setting, check into the lovely garden patio at the Baricelli Inn. Owner Paul Minnillo not only sources some of the best salami in town, but…
Best Bites of Sweet Delight
Like edible works of art, the plump, tender cupcakes at this tiny boutique bakery are as lovely to look at as they are to eat. Their delicate crumb is set off with a luxurious topknot of homemade frosting, including the sleekest, richest buttercream around. Main Street Cupcakes’ imaginative owners, Sean Nock and Kimberly Martin, have…
Best Performance in a Supporting Role
When Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Connie Schultz’s husband, Sherrod Brown, decided to run for the U.S. Senate, Schultz found herself in an unfamiliar place: Instead of screaming her own viewpoint on the pages of The Plain Dealer, she was packing her hubby’s lunch and being introduced as “his lovely wife.” But Schultz managed to strike a…
Best Nostalgic Day-Trip
Just a short drive east of Beachwood, this former mill town is nestled among rolling hills and serene streets. In addition to the waterfalls for which it’s famous, downtown Chagrin Falls offers an escape back to the better days of childhood — or into an episode of the Gilmore Girls. You can sample ice cream…
Best Library for Kids
Pajama Sam has to catch his nemesis, and he needs your help finding his flashlight! But never fear — the youth-services department at Lakewood Public Library has come to the rescue. Pajama Sam: No Need to Hide When It’s Dark Outside is one of more than 100 DVDs to keep the library’s youngest patrons busy…
Best Hip-Hop Kicks
City Blue is an East Coast chain, and walking into the downtown branch, next to House of Blues, immediately conjures images of urban New York. It’s well stocked with oversize, tacky hip-hop T-shirts and jeans, and, in the back, a nice selection of hard-to-find Nikes. The origin of these sneakers seems sketchy — why are…
Best Media Steal
Hiring one guy won’t fix The Plain Dealer’s sports page, but the swiping of former Beacon Journal columnist Terry Pluto was a good start. The most prolific sports writer in Ohio, Pluto instantly added a dimension that was lacking in PD sports, with a distinct voice and the credibility to tackle subjects lesser writers tend…
Best Outdoor Volleyball
Slip into some tight jeans and a tank top, throw on some aviators and dog tags: It’s time to throwdown in the sand. Several nights a week, from spring until fall, Cleveland Plays offers athletes of every skill level the chance to bump (sometimes horribly), set (occasionally), and spike (very occasionally) in one of Cleveland’s…
Best Comic Shop
Carol & John’s Comic Book Shop moved last winter. Granted, it was only a few doors down from its old spot in Kamm’s Corners, but the relocation amounts to more than a mere expansion. Now that the store has plenty of room to display all those comic books and geek-related memorabilia, shoppers don’t have to…
Best Bike Shop
In an age when bike manufacturers load their products with dazzling but useless crud (Hint: You don’t need disc brakes or shock absorbers to ride the Metroparks), Shaker Cycle owner Mitch Paul is an old-fashioned bicycle curmudgeon. His attitude: Don’t be a sucker. He’ll take hours to help you pick a bike, emphasizing fit and…
Rock Your Bong
You couldn’t possibly dream up a guy like Matt Pike. Not only is he the gnarliest dude on the planet; he has a hellacious band to match — High on Fire. Over the last 20 years, many of them spent on the road, Pike has evolved from a long-haired teen into a burly shouter and…
Chamillionaire
When did mainstream rap become more relevant than its underground counterpart? Talib Kweli and El-P released self-congratulatory pap this year, while Kanye’s sincere, introspective effort sold a million copies in its first week. Now we’ve got Chamillionaire, whose Ultimate Victory is perhaps the most topical album ever made. Although he doesn’t always make sense, Cham…
That’s Italian!
Scrapbooking and digital cameras have revolutionized the family photo album, giving families everywhere the means to document, disseminate, and sugarcoat scenes from their lives. In The Italian American Family Album, which opens today at Case Western Reserve University’s Greenhouse Art Studio, artist Tom MacPherson skips all the fluffy stuff and focuses on hot-button issues like…
It’s What All the Whores Are Wearing!
Back in the day, fashion critics compared designer Madeleine Vionnet’s clothes to those that hookers sported on the streets of Paris a hundred years ago. Vionnet 2007, now on view at the Kent State University Museum, shows just how ahead of their time whores were in 1907. “Everything we see celebrities wear at award shows…
Best Indie Band
These days, “indie rock” usually refers to skinny New York wannabes farting out fey pop music. But back in the day, American indie rockers — Butthole Surfers, Cows, the L.A.P.D. Riot Midgets, and the rest — actually rocked. With screaming fuzz and sloppy-ass grooves, the Flat Can Co. has plopped indie rock back into the…
Best Online Debate Club
While the rest of the world spends their online time checking bulletins on Myspace, Cleveland’s artsy types engage in passionate debates on Experimental Behavior. The online forum was created in 2003 by Dave Mansbach and Brent Gummow, who wanted a community for forward-thinking artists. In addition to posting upcoming gigs or gallery openings, members of…
Best Theater Honchos
Sean McConaha and Sean Derry share more than a name; they wade, it seems, in the same vat of tremendous talent. The founders and guiding lights of the two-year-old the Bang & the Clatter Theatre Company, these two consistently mount some of the freshest and most stimulating theatrical fare around. This year, they staged Fat…
Best Bar to Feel Ironic Drinking Genesee
With its rough, almost windowless exterior, the Tarrymore Inn looks like the kind of bar that comes equipped with a vise in the back room. But once you step inside . . . well, it looks even more like that kind of bar — with mirrored chalkboards to keep score of your dart game, red…
Best Gay Bartender
Think of the Hawk’s Troy Berry as the Tom Cruise of Cleveland’s gay bartenders. Chiseled face? Check. Buff biceps? Got ’em. Bedroom eyes? Natch. Besides Berry’s classic movie-star looks, the reason this Strongsville native manages to attract a throng of drooling late-night fans is clear as a freshly washed martini glass: The 40-year-old Berry is…
Best Salsa Dancing for Pros
Most “salsa” nights at local clubs are falsely advertised. Sure, they’ll play the occasional salsa song, but the heart of the mix is reggaeton, a cross between rap and merengue that’s hard-grinding and mind-numbingly repetitive. Belinda’s keeps it old-school. At this small, simple dance hall-ish bar in west Cleveland, Sammy DeLeon packs his 10-member orchestra…
Best Italian Tavern
When you’re too tired to cook and too broke for fancy, give thanks for Mangiamo!, the cozy, casual Italian restaurant with the heart of a neighborhood watering hole. A lengthy beer list — with its emphasis on imports, craft brews, and nearly a dozen on-tap options — and a small but well-constructed wine list help…
Best Sausage
Tucked into a quiet residential ‘hood, Kris Kreiger’s Berea butcher shop and smokehouse, Chef’s Choice Meats, is off the beaten path. But creations like smoked German salami, dry-cured Spanish chorizo, and Cajun-style andouille make it worth the detour. On any day, you’ll find as many as 50 different sausages — from chubby veal brats, all-beef…
Best Happy Hour
There’s nothing wrong with enjoying your rat-race reprieve in your favorite dive. But wouldn’t it be cool to occasionally unwind in style — sipping a ginger-infused cocktail and munching on upscale tidbits like chilly oysters, juicy Kobe-beef burgers, or luscious mussels? Head to Lolita, Michael Symon’s chic neighborhood bistro in Tremont, where the decor is…
Best Cake Decorator
From a simple cupcake to a multitiered wedding extravaganza, Lydia Carter’s carefully crafted confections inspire awe at birthday parties, weddings, anniversaries, holidays, and pretty much any occasion that calls for fancy-looking frosting. A few balloons? A generic message? Nah. Carter gussies up her creations with buttercream roses, basket weaves, complex stringwork, and other designs that…
Best Politician
The principal life of a Cleveland politician: Say pretty things to get elected, then set a brazen course of apathy and self-interest. But Housing Court Judge Raymond Pianka has long been in violation of this essential rule. Years before predatory lending became a national crisis, he was the one local official who battled banks and…
Best Spot for a Sunset
The laser reds and neon purples that wash over Edgewater Park at sunset make it a fertile location for romance or reflection. But next time dusk approaches, venture due west of the park to Cliff Drive. It’s a romantic film noir setting straight out of The Big Sleep. Perfect for parking bicycles and impersonating Humphrey…
Best Airport Parking
Everything about flying sucks. But thanks to Park ‘N Fly, parking at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport no longer has to. Just past the airport, off Snow Road, Park ‘N Fly’s lot boasts some of the best rates in town — sometimes as low as $5 a day — and the fastest car-to-terminal shuttle service of…
Best Body Art
For the last decade, 252 Tattoo has been serving the body-art needs of Cleveland with some of the best designs and detail you’ll find anywhere. And when it comes to deciding what to get inked, they won’t let you choose a bad design that’ll look beat-up down the road. The incredibly friendly, knowledgeable, and talented…
Best Pigskin Picker
Seven days a week, from December through April, Phil Steele grinds to finish the nation’s most consistently accurate college-football preview magazine. Every major college team — from Ohio State to Ohio U — gets the same head-numbing attention to detail: stats, analyses, arcane abbreviations, all laid out in teensy type. He does up to 13…
Best Indoor Volleyball
When you’re craving some bump-set-spike action and your favorite sand court is a frozen tundra, Ohio Nets will accommodate you. With six regulation-size volleyball courts, Ohio Nets plays host to tournaments for kids from grade school to high school. Lessons and leagues are available for kids as young as pre-K, and open gyms allow even…
Best Dance Studio
After opening Viva Dance! in Strongsville in 2005, Cleveland native Rebecca Sweet and her eight-instructor crew have taught hundreds of budding Baryshnikovs the essentials of competitive dance moves, from the elegant waltz to the sultry rumba to the adrenaline-charged Lindy hop. And Sweet is a master of them all. While a 10-year member of New…
Best Scooter Shop
With the price of gas hovering around Holy Crap That’s a Lot, anything that gets 65 miles per gallon is worth a look. At Pride of Cleveland Scooters, they offer plenty: more than 100 scooters from six different makers, including Vespa, Piaggio, and the Genuine Scooter Company. Don’t let the little engines fool you, either…
Kenna Get a Witness?
Artists respond to disappointing record sales in different ways. Some chase that elusive hit by any means possible. Some disappear for a while, re-emerging under a new guise, with a new style of music. And some stubbornly make the same album again, figuring the public can’t be that stupid twice. Then there’s Kenna. The Ethiopian-born…
Joni Mitchell
Coming out of hiding after her 2002 tirade against the music industry, Joni Mitchell has teamed up with Starbucks’ Hear Music label for Shine. Way to stick it to the man, Joni! The album begins with “One Week Last Summer,” a tired number filled with faux-jazz riffs before Mitchell starts “singing.” Inspired by the war…
Faire Warning
Little surprise that Loreena McKennitt’s new CD and DVD, Nights From the Alhambra, was recorded at some old, ornate palace in Spain. The Canadian singer-songwriter’s blend of Celtic new age and ethereal folk is readymade for opulent citadels and lush vistas. Alhambra documents McKennitt’s 2006 tour in support of An Ancient Muse, a record that…
Best Indie Flicks and Old-School Porn
The Cinematheque is one of the city’s most overlooked institutions. Sure, art-house snobs — desperate to dish on the latest Lars von Trier film — line up on weekends. But this University Circle venue (located inside the Cleveland Institute of Art) offers plenty of terrific flicks for casual moviegoers too. Founder John Ewing has lined…
Best Juggalos
The Juggalos are the legion of rabid followers who bow to the Insane Clown Posse, those face-painted, Faygo-chugging shock-rap icons. Juggalos don’t care about much besides ICP. But they’ll make room for another group, presuming its music hits hard enough. And the Real Industry Assassins’ music — rock riffs, venomous rhymes, and a less-than-positive attitude…
Best Podcast
In the attic of their Lakewood home, husband and wife Len and Nora Peralta produce one of the longest-running local podcasts, Jawbone Radio. Jawbone is an aural melting pot that combines daily events of the Peralta family, news of the weird, and poptastic interviews with people like “Pac-Man Fever” songwriters Buckner and Garcia — and…
Best Dive Bar
You know you’re living right when you walk into a bar and see a bowling machine smiling at you from the corner. And that’s what greets you when you stumble into the Red Rose Café, a shoebox of a bar hidden in a Madison Avenue strip mall. No Belgian ales or handcrafted IPAs here –…
Best Bartender
There’s more to tending bar than just mixing strong drinks fast. To be the best, you have to tend to your customers like they’re a flock of gin-slurping sheep. And that’s where Dave Hridel — the lanky, loopy, and yes, tender tender-of-bar at Ohio City’s signature restaurant, the Flying Fig — separates himself from other…
Best Bar to Watch Soccer
Whether you’re a soccer hooligan, a transplanted European, a World Cup fanatic, or just a casual fan, there is no better place to get your kicks than at Parnell’s. This cozy pub — authentically Irish, thanks to owner Declan, who hails from Dublin — is a mecca for hard-core football fans seeking live games, knowledgeable…
Best Indian
As the saying goes, “There’s hot, there’s real hot, and then there’s Indian hot.” On that scale, the fare at India Garden doesn’t disappoint. Staffers provide an objective index in the form of a radioactively glowing cilantro, mint, and jalapeño chutney that arrives at your table. A few spoonfuls in, you’ll be sniffling like a…
Best Roadhouse
The rural roadhouse is a dying breed, swept away by superhighways and fast-food chains. So when you encounter Lagerheads BBQ Smokehouse, nestled inside a vintage barn-red building in rural Medina County, you know you’ve found a gem. Pickup trucks and Harleys line the gravel parking lot, but don’t be deterred. Once inside the lovingly remodeled…
Best Sushi Happy Hour
Most happy hours limit the fun: You have to either rush to get there by 6 p.m., wait hours for a table, or choose from a limited list of apps. But Sunset Lounge offers freedom from all of the above. This chic, Miami-flavored club’s happy hour is Monday through Friday from 4 to 7 p.m.,…
Best Gift Basket
For culinary-school dropout Penny Parker, the gourmet-cookie business has been very sweet. She launched WOW! Cookies! less than three years ago, but business has grown so quickly, she had to rent out a commercial kitchen and hire 10 part-timers to help with orders for her impeccably packaged creations. While Parker’s forte is corporate gifting (client…
Best Politician When You Need a Quote
You could say Mike Polensek has a special affection for his Collinwood ward, having spent every one of his 58 years there. And he’s got no time for polite talk when it comes to the drug dealers, shady bar owners, and predatory lenders who have invaded his hard-working neighborhood. Take, for instance, the letter Polensek…
Best Rocky River Backwoods
With its steep shale cliffs, the Rocky River Reservation contains some of the Emerald Necklace’s best vistas. But walkers craving a peaceful stroll find that noisy traffic on Valley Parkway never shuts up, cyclists hog the all-purpose trail, and the Nature Center is often overcrowded. So make your way to Morley Ford Loop Trail, a…
Best Recipe for Romance
Gallucci’s is as old-school Italian as you can get, from the guys behind the meat counter passing out slices of capicolla as if they were concert fliers, to the huge blocks of imported cheeses that look as aged as the place itself. (It’s been in the Gallucci family since Gust opened the doors in 1912.)…
Best Vinyl Shop for Ass-Shakers
Most club kids believe the age-old myth about New York City and San Francisco: They’re home to cutting-edge record stores that a rusted-out burg like Cleveland can only dream of possessing. But Bent Crayon busts that myth. Owner John Cellura is more than just a proprietor; he’s a walking computer who can spit out the…
Best New Team
Cleveland hasn’t had an NHL team since the Cleveland Barons left town in 1978. What we have had is a string of short-lived and disappointing minor-league teams. But the latest installment of Northeast Ohio hockey — AHL Lake Erie Monsters — hit the ice this past weekend. With good seats available and tickets starting at…
Best Breeding Ground
If you’re looking for that special someone, but prefer a special someone capable of producing the next A.J. Hawk, sign up for Cleveland Plays’ Saturday touch football. Every winter, spring, and fall, hundreds of (mostly) young, (often) single weekend warriors descend on Tremont (the park varies by season) for hyperorganized but fun-first games of touch…
Best Vintage Guitar Shop
From mid-’60s Gretsches to 1953 Gibson ES-175s, Heights Guitars is your one-stop shop for all strings, vintage and rare. Greg Moore opened the store 17 years ago after his wife, prompted by his guitar-collecting obsession, told him, “Either the guitars go, or I go.” Ever since, the store has been a mecca for gearheads in…
Best Hubcaps for Your Hooptie
Want to make your hooptie look a little less crappy? Start by making sure you have four matching hubcaps. Hubcap Heaven carries more than 100,000 hubcaps, new and used, ranging from $5 for plastic caps to $250 for Bentley stainless steel and silver-blend caps. Owner Ludvik Barta, a Czech who took over this family business…
Miles of Sound
Miles Davis intended his 1972 album On the Corner to be his commercial breakthrough. The jazz legend was hoping to capture the imaginations of the young African Americans who were breaking sweats, busting moves, and tripping out to James Brown, Sly & the Family Stone, and Jimi Hendrix. How odd, then, that On the Corner…
Various Artists
Back in the late ’60s and early ’70s, the Jacksons weren’t the only clan of pint-size dynamos carrying the soul-music banner. It’s just taken nearly 40 years for the “kiddie soul” genre to earn its own compilation. Now — in a swirl of wah-wah guitars, combo organs, funky drums, and right-on choruses — it’s finally…
Reversal of Fortune
If you haven’t seen the video for Mute Math’s “Typical,” look it up on YouTube right now. The New Orleans rockers perform the song in reverse — a feat they sorta pulled off live last month on Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show. While it’s easy to tag the band as this season’s OK Go (newbies make…
Best Use of a Synthetic
You’ve no doubt used duct tape for everything from propping up mufflers to initiating that pledge back in your glory days. But the annual Avon Heritage Duct Tape Festival (held over Father’s Day weekend, of course) uncovers at least a dozen new functions for the colorful, sticky adhesive. Participants construct dozens of floats — which…
Best Metal Band
From the Flats to the Netherlands, no band flies the flag of Cleveland metal higher than Chimaira. Supporting their fourth album, the six-man metal machine spent the summer co-headlining the Sounds of the Underground Tour across the U.S. Meanwhile, the disc’s thrashtastic titular single, “Resurrection,” enjoyed steady exposure on MTV’s Headbanger’s Ball, the hesher showcase…
Best FM Heavy-Metal Foundry
Metal on Metal is a crash course for metal, from classic ingots to rising nuggets. The show has graced Cleveland’s airwaves since 1982, when heavy metal was still illegal in some states. Every Friday, volunteer host Bill Peters shares the latest and heaviest metal with defenders of the faith all over the world. Having educated…
Best Game-Show Host
For five years, former cruise-ship lounge singer Gerry Keating has taken his brand of ’70s-era game shows, like Truth or Dare and Match Game, to bars throughout Cleveland. These days, you’ll find this portly funnyman at gay-friendly Twist on the third Wednesday of every month, when players compete for cash prizes and bar tabs. And…
Best Real Bar Downtown
If you’re sick of $8 martinis, penis hats, and other monstrosities the Warehouse District proudly offers, there is at least one oasis of sanity remaining. Johnny’s Little Bar and Grill is a place your average Cleveland lush can call home, with reasonably priced beers, intimately friendly bartenders, creaky stools, and sports on the tube. And…
Best Barfly
This dude is everywhere. The publisher of a social-events newsletter called “Jet, Set, Go,” Marcus Sims always appears at the city’s coolest events, drink firmly in hand. His social database is bursting with 1,000 names and phone numbers, and he name-drops like Trump drops fifties. He even hosted a VIP party for Halle Berry’s Cleveland…
Best Bar With a Bowling Alley
Put-in-Bay Lakewood is best known for its commitment to all things island: Its two large bars are surrounded by a mural of South Bass Island. There are hula hoops hanging randomly throughout and a wooden boat sitting in the middle of things. And it’s where local Jimmy Buffett fans and purveyors of the Flabongo, a…
Best Middle Eastern
Chef, owner, and operator of this quirky West Side restaurant for 25 years, Linda Kihm takes the notion of freshness to the extreme, making nearly everything on her small, ridiculously cheap Middle Eastern menu from scratch and to order, often using homegrown, organic ingredients. It’s easy to taste the difference in Ali Baba Restaurant’s herb-laced…
Best Undercover Bistro
From its worn wooden bar top to the torn linoleum flooring, this dimly lit watering hole could hardly look more humble. And its menu, featuring burgers and nachos, keeps up that charade. But check out the list of daily specials, filled with surprisingly upscale eats, from scallops with orange beurre blanc to juicy grilled pork…
Best Higher Education
If you got caught crushing Buds in the bathroom at homecoming, the Beer School at Great Lakes Brewing Company may be your kind of school — the kind where beer drinking is a requirement. Friendly, knowledgeable instructors reveal the finer points of making, serving, drinking, and appreciating first-rate suds at this institution of hopped-up higher…
Best Reason to Eat Chocolate
Dark chocolate has the health claims, milk chocolate the taste. Joel Fink — candy-maker, chocolate addict, and owner of Lyndhurst’s Fantasy Candies — brings them together. Fink recently finished a three-year quest to find a bittersweet chocolate as mellow and voluptuous as its milk-chocolate counterparts. Eventually, he stumbled across a keeper: an American-made, European-style dark…
Best Quote by a Politician
While quote-machine city-councilman Mike Polensek might deliver the punches more consistently, Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann knocked out the competition with the “F-you” heard around the world. When Warren Tribune reporter Steve Oravecz criticized the usually genial AG for getting his adopted daughter a job with the state, Dann dusted off his old Youngstown manners,…
Best Urban Meditation
When your annual self-improvement bent kicks in, and you’re looking for a little quiet time in a beautiful spot, don’t leave Cleveland. The cliff at the western end of Edgewater Park offers the best views of Lake Erie and downtown Cleveland, and the broad expanse of grass at the top of the hill makes a…
Best Beginner Sex Toys
Did you catch your girlfriend checking the clock during sex last night? Boyfriend like it on top, so he can keep an eye on the World Series of Poker? Then you need to make a trip to Ambiance: The Store for Lovers. Ambiance has everything you need to get each other’s attention back — erotic…
Best Old-School Vinyl Shop
For the past four years, Hodad’s Music owner Jon Mack has offered vinyl freaks the classic, old-school used-record-store experience: thousands of LPs, great prices, and a musty storefront perfect for shooting the shit with fellow collectors. Mack, meanwhile, is like the lost salesman of High Fidelity, educating patrons on the evolution of the Atlantic Records…
Best NCAA Team
Nine-time Division III champs, Mount Union lined up this year as the preseason no. 1 in the Ohio Athletic Conference, and they are the heavy favorites to win their third straight national championship. Running-back Nate Kmic should once again carry the load for head coach Larry Kehres. And wide-out Pierre Garcon is challenging the school’s…
Best Ultimate Frisbee
If you’ve never played ultimate frisbee, you may have images of sandals-wearing hippies traipsing around a field, trying to catch slowly hovering discs without spilling their bong water. As cool as that would be — can someone invent that already? — ultimate is fast-paced and physically demanding. Whether you’re an old pro, looking to perfect…
Best Guitar Repairman
When Judas Priest, Sigur Rós, and the Black Keys need to get their guitars fixed, they all know whom to turn to: Dan Johnson. For the past twenty years, Dan Johnson has made his name not by simply repairing and restoring guitars, but by building them as well. He handcrafted Priest’s stage guitars while touring…
Best Business on Wheels
Ask Linda Andi about the unwanted junk you can find on eBay. The Garrettsville artist was web-surfing in 2006 when she stumbled on two 16-year-old school buses. Andi won the bidding war, and she’s since tricked out one of the buses, turning it into the Retro Rider, a disco-on-wheels with a leopard-print paint job. Andi…
About a Son
In the new Kurt Cobain documentary About a Son, Nirvana’s music is noticeably absent. Instead, director AJ Schnack employs a murky-sounding score composed by Death Cab for Cutie’s Ben Gibbard and Steve Fisk (Pell Mell, Pigeonhed). But the director also uses the music that shaped Cobain’s career and personality — his life story, told via…
Fleshcoat featuring Dr. E
If you believe R&B has become nothing more than a sexed-up subgenre of hip-hop, turn off the radio and buy Coat of Flesh, a collaboration between Fleshcoat, a C-Town outfit whose music has appeared on several daytime soaps, and Dr. Elaine Richardson, a Penn State professor and Cleveland native with a solid set of pipes.…
Harmon-ize!
Local singer-songwriter Matt Harmon plays tracks from his new CD, Thumbs on the Wheel, at the Barking Spider tonight. The show also gives him a chance to tune up his guitar-picking skills before he heads to a musicians’ boot camp later this month — when folkie Chris Smither will hopefully dispense tips that’ll launch the…
Best Celebration of a Veggie
Every August, North Ridgeville pays tribute to area farmers’ bountiful crops with a four-day bash that looks like a ‘roided-up small-town carnival. There are tons of rides, midway games, and globe-spanning eats — everything from Italian sausage to Slavic pierogi. But it’s sweet yellow corn, in all its edible glory, that takes center stage at…
Best Metal Freaks
Nothing says metal more than the color black, and there is no band more blacked-out than Midnight, Cleveland’s pentagram-in-the-rough. Clad in darkness from their shoes to matching beekeeper masks, the trio spits out ferocious metal jams that walk a drunken line between thrash and ’70s arena boogie. Headmaster-bassist Jamie (formerly of Boulder, Destructor) shouts out…
Best Rock History Lesson
Hosted by the Rock Hall’s VP of Education, Warren Zanes of Del Fuegos fame, From Songwriters to Soundmen: The People Behind the Hits is a series of free rap sessions with stars, legends, tastemakers, and power brokers. Over the last year, Zanes has interviewed Ruthless Records co-founder Jerry Heller, Helmet mainman Page Hamilton, Monterey Pop…
Best Reality Show Contestant
Yes, You’re the One That I Want was the one that made you turn the channel every time. But even if we weren’t total suckers for really hot local girls — Maybe I’ll see her on West Sixth! Maybe she’ll be drunk enough to talk to me! — this Massillon native would’ve made NBC’s pick-the-next-Grease-cast…
Best Cop Bar
The best thing about this cop bar: You can’t go there. Not unless you know a cop, or you are a cop. (You’re not, are you? We’re just holding it for a friend, we swear.) The bar’s tucked below the police union’s old-school meeting hall, giving it a bunker feel that the cops deserve –…
Best West Sixth Club
Since it opened a year ago, Ultra has energized most every West Sixth club-hopper who tumbles into the club’s dark, lush embrace. Tucked in the basement of Liquid, the space is anchored by a large, well-staffed bar. Leather couches and low-slung coffee tables flank the dance floor, and a raised VIP area overlooks the action…
Best Jazz Club
Nighttown has been the anchor of Cleveland’s jazz scene since 1965, and it’s only grown smoother with age. Acts like Benny Green, Eliane Elias, Kurt Elling, Joe Lovano, and Brad Mehldau have made Nighttown one of Down Beat’s 100 Best Jazz Clubs in the world. There’s live music four nights a week (or more) year-round,…
Best Czech
The circa-1919 structure that houses Marta Runza’s Czech & American Restaurant is a cozy backdrop to the labor-intensive Czech food she prepares from scratch — dishes like succulent sauerbraten, served with a pileup of tender spaetzle to soak up the homemade gravy. The same painstaking detail elevates Runza’s slowly simmered Hungarian goulash, her rolled flank…
Best Bet Along the Beaten Trail
Jog, hike, or bike your way to this comfy, family-owned pub beside the Towpath Trail in Peninsula, where friendly servers have been dishing up burgers, sandwiches, and homemade pie since 1958. While the vibe of Fisher’s Café & Pub has shifted over the past decade — from sleepy small-town café to bustling trailside tavern –…
Best Ice Wine
In order to capture grapes at their sweetest, most tender moments, vineyard workers at Firelands Winery handpick their fruits at 2 a.m. on a frigid December morning, a few days after winter’s first freeze. These bunches of sugary Vidal Blanc grapes are then pressed into the area’s best dessert wine. Firelands’ ice wines are known…
Best Beet Cake
Maybe you were thinking fruit — or possibly (gasp!) veggies — would mar the area’s best beet cake. Fear not. The beets are there, but you really can’t taste them in the tavern’s moist, brownie-esque chocolate sweet. At Jimmy O’Neill’s, the huge slice you get for five bucks comes covered in melted Belgian chocolate, a…
Best Meeting of the Minds
For 95 years, the weekly City Club Forum has given Clevelanders a chance to have open and frank conversations with world leaders, including civil-rights activist W.E.B. DuBois, both presidents Roosevelt, and both presidents Bush. (W’s appearance at the club last March was the first time he agreed to take unscreened questions from any audience, a…
Best Trail Meditation
The Oak Hill Area is the hidden gem of the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. It contains just 6.4 of the park’s 125 miles of hiking trails, and it lacks a tourist attraction like Brandywine Falls and the Ledges. But Oak Hill breathes free of pedestrian congestion and noise pollution. The lily pads and cattails guarding…
Best “Experts Only” Sex Toys
Warning: Sharp Pain Ahead. This sign should be hung outside Adult Mart, an XXX store with locations around Cleveland. Adult Mart specializes in dildos you need a gym bag to carry. One phallus in particular, called “The Great American Challenge,” is heavy-duty enough to dig the Euclid Corridor. Yet the sales clerk claims she sells…
Best Cassettes
Located in suburban strip-mall hell, this shoebox-size store boasts everything you can’t find at the mega-mart across the street, from rare CD imports to an assortment of vinyl reissues that rivals the best of Cleveland’s indie haunts. But what makes Record Den stand out is its hefty offering of a forgotten format: the audiocassette. Across…
Best College Sporting Event
For a lunatic college-hoops experience, the Mid-American Conference is the hands-down champ. The four-day festival of nets, elbows, and last-second drama comes to Cleveland every March, with an automatic NCAA Tournament bid on the line. Fans from Kent State, Akron, Bowling Green, and Ohio University pack the Gateway bars for pre-game parties, then storm the…
Best Cycling Day-Trip
Although shared with horses and joggers, the paved paths that run through the Cleveland Metroparks seem made for bikers. The streets are mostly shaded by huge trees (“emerald” — get it?). The asphalt is as smooth as a NASCAR track, and there’s a vast array of tire-melting downhill sections. And, unlike biking on most country…
Best Vintage Store
Flower Child is pricier than most vintage stores in Northeast Ohio, but you get what you pay for. In terms of quality and condition — major issues when shopping vintage — no establishment within 50 miles can compete with Flower Child, especially when it comes to Tiki wares and sweet duds. As you wander the…
Best Use of a Plastic Flamingo
The old-school beer bong’s funnels and tubing are all substance, no style. So save the hardware for the lawn mower, and try guzzling that Pabst with a lawn ornament instead. It’s called the Flabongo: a pink plastic flamingo, hollowed out for the purposes of drinking large quantities of beer in small amounts of time. Fill…
Parrot Grounded
Lorain’s Red Parrot Lounge will remain closed for the foreseeable future, following the death of owner Mitch Karczewski, a veteran concert promoter and manager who also ran Spotlight Talent. “It was for working with local musicians that Mitch will be most known,” says Classic Metal Show host Chris Akin. “While his thoughts of glory always…
Matter and Memory
According to the liner notes, Trychotic Id is an attempt by multi-instrumentalist Chris Cannon and friends to “portray the internal disarray of an unnamed lost soul.” Mission accomplished. This exercise in free-form skronk invokes a place none of us want to go (unless, of course, we’ve downed a goofball or three). Trychotic is a good…
World Party
Ritualistic drumbeats, swirling skirts, and jiggling bellies pay tribute to music’s multicultural roots at the Rock Hall’s World Festival Day bash. “We acknowledge, celebrate, and appreciate the diverse cultural communities in the Greater Cleveland area,” says museum spokeswoman Jenny Steadman. “The United States is a rich melting pot of ethnicities. We try to single out…
Best Beat-Makers
Two years ago, 50 Cent heard his first Kickdrums beat and just had to have it; the track became “When Death Becomes You,” on the Get Rich or Die Tryin’ soundtrack. Ever since, the Cleveland-based Kickdrums — aka Alex Fitts and Matt Pentilla — have proved the track was no fluke. Their early production work…
Best Berating Bluesman
It’s Cleveland’s consummate freak show: Every Thursday night, a bombastic blend of blues fans, voyeurs, and neighborhood drunks piles into Major Hoopples bar, and watches in total awe. They’re awed first by the talent on display before them: Glenn Schwartz — the guitarist Jimmy Hendrix once got to play his birthday party — shredding blues…
Best Stage Deal
For years, Cleveland has been rumored to have the best stage scene west of New York; we would have confirmed this rumor, but we could never afford it — until last year, that is, when Playhouse Square started its Smart Seats program, allowing patrons to pay only $10 to see a variety of productions at…
Best Cooking and Crooning Radio Show
Nothing replenishes the soul like good food and fine music — preferably served at the same time. Kate Koenig and Liz Stout, hosts of Maximum Consumption on 91.1-FM WRUW, get it. Their weekly cooking show is a concert dedicated to the culinary world. Each hour-and-a-half segment starts with a specific theme: The women might casually…
Best Empty Bar
The Sixth Street Pizzeria just can’t get any customers, which is probably why they let us control the remote when we go. But it’s a great place: Mixed drinks and top-notch beers on tap (Rogue, Magic Hat #9) both cost a very reasonable $4. During happy hour, all prices are axed by a dollar, and…
Best Suburban Hotspot
Some East Side suburbanites want the look and feel of the Warehouse District without the worries of a 20-minute drive down the Shoreway. If that’s you, take it to Suede. Everything inside this new, tricked-out Willoughby nightspot is authentic West Sixth Street: cherrywood railings, three VIP areas, custom-designed wrought iron, and a directional sound system…
Best Old-School Thrash in the Company of Drag Queens
Before it became a punk-friendly bar with a metal-heavy jukebox, Now That’s Class was the Edge, and before that, Club Deco, and before that, Sexx — three clubs that leaned toward the gender-bending and fetishistic side of the gay scene. The name changed again in March, but some of the old clientele remained, peacefully co-existing…
Best Polish Soul Food
From the handmade pierogi to the freshly baked kolachke, the food at this little “Polish heritage” restaurant is as pure and comforting as Grandma’s love. From the moment you step inside, the aroma of made-from-scratch goodness emanates from dishes like golabki (stuffed cabbage rolls), crisp-edged potato pancakes, and smoked kielbasa, best accompanied by a tumble…
Best Quick and Casual Lunch
You could walk right past this hole-in-the-wall, so unimpressive are its looks. And things hardly improve when you step inside the shoebox of a room, with its cafeteria-style counter and ready-made salads stacked high. But the prices are right, and the chatty staffers serving up homemade pastas, pizzas, and calzone are as warm as the…
Best Sangria
Saravá, a cavernous Brazilian-themed restaurant with lush, rose-colored walls and sleek modernist designs, is an artist’s delight. The same can be said for its wine. The sangria here arrives in a chalice-shaped glass, brimming with ice and slices of oranges, lemons, limes, and maraschino cherries. It’s light, refreshing, and sweet, without the overwrought, super-syrupy quality…
Best Gelato
All of La Gelateria’s 35-plus flavors are churned fresh daily and expertly sweetened with bold ingredients, like toasted coconut flakes, semisweet chocolate chips, and ripe banana chunks. This is precision you can taste. The nutty pistachio tastes like a cold but melting Snickers bar. Their coffee-flavored gelato is deep and complex, with a lightly sweetened…
Best Blog
The great thing about blogs is that anyone can write one. What sucks about blogs is, well, anyone can write one, so getting to the good stuff means sifting through a lot of garbage. That’s why Brewed Fresh Daily is so useful. Instead of ruminating on his own big ideas or breaking down his morning…
Best Spot for a Brown-Bag Lunch
On those rare days when you forsake the call of Jimmy John’s and manage to bring your lunch to work, Voinovich Bicentennial Park is the perfect place to escape. The park, on the edge of Lake Erie and near the Rock Hall, boasts stone seating and grassy patches perfect for brown-baggers. With dramatic views of…
Best Stop for a Shapely Brow
Aesthetician and wax-magician Elena Karlak, the queen cleanup artist of Studio 3 Salon, brings a painterly eye, a surgeon’s precision, and a scholar’s inquiring mind when shaping a perfect brow. In her quest for knowledge, Karlak has sojourned in Beverly Hills to study under Anastasia Soare, aesthetician to the stars (including Oprah Winfrey). She recently…
Best Video Store
A longtime Coventry institution, Vidstar Video’s pantheon of off-the-wall and hard-to-find cinema classics makes it your best bet on stay-at-home movie nights. The small, jam-packed storefront sports a diverse collection of cult movies you won’t find anywhere else, surprising employee picks, and a foreign section that digs deeper than Life Is Beautiful and Amelie. And…
Best Skirts on Skates
With nicknames like MILFinator, Skellwhore, and Dita von Bitch, rest assured that the 60 Burning River Roller Girls have no trouble busting heads. This female roller-derby league packs more than 600 fans into the North Olmsted Soccer Sportsplex with its relentless display of feminine aggression. Formed two years ago by a gaggle of tough-ass Cleveland…
Best Beginner Mountain Biking
Located snug in the hollers of Portage County, West Branch State Park is better known as a hunting and fishing paradise than for its miles and miles of smooth, swooping single-track riding. But if you don’t mind a few bullets whizzing past you, the trails will give you a great workout as well as a…
Best Boutique
Winds of Change is like a grown-up’s version of a Barbie-doll dream house. Inside the renovated, century-old coach house, the walls are painted a teenage-girl pink, and hangers upon hangers of fabulous, frilly dresses and skirts from all around the world are displayed in the store’s three showrooms. Owner Angela Huang, a former model, travels…
Best Tailor
Frankly, Grace Diomede, the superwoman behind Tower City Tailoring, could sew our damn pant legs together, and we’d still give her business — if only to spend a few minutes behind her partition, chatting about her sons or her homeland or whatever else comes up. It’s a bonus, really, that her craftsmanship is top-notch. She…
Bad Religion
Bad Religion’s contributions to modern punk cannot be understated. The Southern California vets founded Epitaph Records, invented the SoCal sound, and helped establish the Warped Tour as a cultural juggernaut. Now in its third decade, the band continues to resonate with disaffected youth. “I see a new crop of teenagers coming to our shows who…
Golden Age, Porcelain Throne
“Will you leave your kingdom to a heretic?” That was the question posed to a dying Queen Mary in 1998’s Elizabeth, director Shekhar Kapur’s grim and dingy film about the queen — who, of course, had no choice but to hand over the throne to her Protestant half-sister Elizabeth. In Elizabeth: The Golden Age, Kapur…
Legends of the Fall
A cornucopia of seasonal sights and smells highlights Lake Metroparks Farmpark’s Corn and Pumpkin Harvest Weekend, when guests will decorate pumpkins, harvest veggies, and make dolls out of corn husks. They’ll also gather apples and press them into cider. It’s all part of a program that’ll show you just how arduous life was back in…
Best Hip-Hop Double Shot
Mick Boogie and Terry Urban are Cleveland’s globe-trotting hip-hop DJ tag team. Boogie played Vegas during the NBA’s All-Star Weekend, and they’re both shelling out acclaimed mixtapes all over the world. Lucky Clevelanders can catch them every Thursday at Anatomy. With the dexterity of magicians, they make expert mixology look easy. Urban specializes in jazzy,…
Best Lovelorn Country Gal
It’s bad for her fans, but good for her music: Alt-country chanteuse BJ O’Malley is so busy accumulating material for songs, she doesn’t perform or record as much as she ought to. But her latest album, Sweet Baby Freaker, brings you up to speed on what she does when she’s not cutting hair, listening to…
Best Theater Company
Even without all the sexed-up get-ups they used this year, it would have been a banner season for Cleveland Public Theatre. Located in the revitalized Detroit Shoreway neighborhood, CPT has been putting on kick-ass shows for a while. But they goosed up the energy level this year, with a rousing and raunchy reinterpretation of Shakespeare’s…
Best Crowd-Working Comedian
Cleveland’s comedy-club circuit nailed it when it crowned Chris Hegedus its funniest joke-cracker. Earning the title at the Ninja Comedy Death Match II at the now-defunct Bassa Vita Lounge in Lakewood, the 29-year-old Berea native yukked his way through gags about his love life, self-imposed baldness, and the tongue-in-cheek “Garden Spots of America” tour. Since…
Best Bar to Hook Up With an Art Major
If you’re looking for that special someone to draw you naked while listening to that favorite Coltrane record, try the B-Side Liquor Lounge. B-Side caters to the artistic temperament, with walls of slick black brick and pink-tinted candles on every table. Open-mic Mondays and poetry Tuesdays let verbal artists show off, while visual artists find…
Best Strip Club
Perched near the river on the Flats’ still-breathing West Bank, Christie’s Cabaret rises from the chaos like a Mario Bros. castle: The place you worked so hard to get to all night, the place where the glory of saving a Princess — or at least paying her rent — will be yours at last. Even…
Best ’80s Night for an ’80s Child
DJ Larry Szyms has been hosting ’80s nights since the early days of 1990, at bars like Chamber, Peabody’s, and Touch. But since 2004, Ohio City’s Garage Bar has been the site of his Friday-night sessions, weekly parties that are heavy on danceable synth tracks by new-wave faves like Depeche Mode, Berlin, and Missing Persons.…
Best Thai
Mint Café is a small, sweet Thai joint that bridges the worlds of casual and elegant dining. While its atmosphere is laid-back, the food is served with presentation and precision — especially their signature flower garnishes, hand-carved out of carrots. Their menu is full of tasty dishes that are heavy on flavor, but light on…
Best Pizza Lunch
No downtown pizza shop offers a wider variety, friendlier service, or tastier pies than Vincenza’s Pizza & Pasta. Whether you’re a carnivore (every bite yields a mouthful of pepperoni or sausage) or a veg-head (try the broccoli-smothered white pizza), a New York-thin lover, or a Chicago transplant who likes it dished deep, Vincenza’s serves up…
Best Cheap but Potent Martinis
Mini is the new big, at least at Houlihan’s, the lively Tower City eatery that serves knock-you-on-your-ass mini-martini flights that are both potent and cute as can be. Order any three-item combo of their specialty martinis, and three mini-glasses arrive at your table via a nifty wrought-iron carrier. If you favor fruity, try the Adam…
Best Frozen Custard
When winter lasts the better part of the year, shedding that extra December poundage can be daunting. Jim and Marcia Rosati of Rosati’s Frozen Custard aren’t helping. Once it heats up, that’s when you remember they’ve whipped up more than 100 fabulous flavors of silken, old-fashioned frozen custard — lush, sweet, and churned fresh hourly.…
Best Eternal Optimist
The founder and owner of CoolCleveland.com and a consummate glass-half-full kind of guy, Thomas Mulready is working to reverse Clevelanders’ inferiority complex. His weekly e-zine counts Cleveland’s movers, shakers, and politicians as avid readers. And with good reason, Mulready is an influential figure in the region — known for his candid and thoughtful arguments, and…
Best Beach
Just west of Fairport Harbor lies a mile-long stretch of natural-sand beach, the largest in Ohio. That means plenty of room for soaking up rays, a cool swim, a volleyball game, or a sand castle big enough to rival the nearby lighthouse. Want fish for dinner? Park your car at the east end, then follow…
Best Brazilian
The thought of ripping hair out from the roots in a very special place is no girl’s dream, but aesthetician Alia Haloua, at Zen Spa & Salon, has skills. She has an illusionist’s quick hands, and the soft, constant voice of a therapist, and she plays tranquil music to keep clients calm and their minds…
Best Cheap Books
Cover all that dust collecting on your bookshelves with some knowledge, a few good yarns, or some good CDs, at least, from Half Price Books — a chain of stores well-stocked with new and used books, and other media. If you’re in a pinch, go for their “Books by the Yard” deal — that’s less…
Best Jerseys
At 35 feet by 25 feet and 102 pounds each, the four massive unis hoisted onto Cleveland’s landmark skyscraper originated within the Cavaliers marketing department, but it wouldn’t have happened without cooperation from the execs at the Terminal Tower, which was the perfect spot for the XXXXXL jerseys — high, central, and, in true Cleveland…
Best Expert Mountain Biking
Vulture’s Knob is not for the brittle-boned. But it has some of the most dynamic and extreme terrain around — which you’ll realize when you unexpectedly find yourself riding down the roof of a wooden shack. Other obstacles dare you to cross them — like the “Rainbow Bridge,” which takes your wheels in an arc…
Best Retro Toys
If you’ve got a 15-year grudge against your mom for the time she threw out your He-Man collection, this is the place to make good. Big Fun’s cases are full of the aforementioned hero and his enemies, old and new Star Wars figurines, G.I. Joes, Batman, and Superman. The girls aren’t left out either, with…
Best Indian
Whether it’s injuries, inconsistency, or just plain suckitude, the Tribe can never seem to stabilize its rotation, but thanks to C.C. Sabathia, the problem’s now only four arms deep. He’s earned his “ace” label, with double-digit wins each of the last seven years. Over that time he’s averaged nearly 200 innings pitched, with just one…
Black Mountain
Vancouver’s Black Mountain is tougher to read than a French menu: Acid-rock experimentalists? Slowcore Americana? Proto-metal jam band? At any given moment, hints of Neil Young, Zeppelin, Throbbing Gristle, VU, Floyd, and the Stones may shine through the group’s hazy roar of distortion. Songs meander, woozy and unsteady, while venting atmosphere and conjuring the vibe…
Fixer Upper
It will no doubt be said time and again of Michael Clayton: best John Grisham adaptation ever. Only it didn’t spring from Grisham’s billion-dollar mind, no matter how much it feels that way. No, it sprang from the mind of Tony Gilroy, who wrote the ice-skating melodrama The Cutting Edge and the Jason Bourne series.…
Rural Life
Like many comedians, James Johann fell into stand-up after other less-rewarding jobs didn’t pan out. Before he started telling jokes for a living, the Kansas native was employed as a welder. But don’t ask him what he made. “They never even told me what I was working on,” he says. “It might have been golf…
Best MC
Corey Bapes’ In a Class of My Own proves the 18-year-old rap phenom is ready for MTV fame. Granted, he had some help: The disc was produced by the Kickdrums, Cleveland’s premier production duo. But while the whistling tracks are so clean they glimmer, Bapes is the star of his own party, dropping choruses you’ll…
Best Mariachi Band
Nothing tops getting serenaded by a group of men in silver-studded charros, singing their hearts out in Spanish about unrequited love. And no one does it better than Joya de Mexico. Originally from Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, this Lorain-based group has been spreading the somber sounds of their native land throughout Cleveland since 2003, performing everywhere…
Best Director
Some people think that if you subtract the songs from Peter Pan onstage, you’ve got very little left. But the J.M. Barrie yarn still has the power to mesmerize, especially when it’s directed by someone as gifted and inspired as Matthew Earnest. Following his stark and lovely staging of Our Town the summer before, his…
Best Comedy Showcase
Local comedy shows are often synonymous with mediocrity and dick jokes. But Chucklefuck Comedy Night is refreshing, funny, and, best of all, unpredictable: Every Monday night inside Bela Dubby’s hip interior, you can see standard stand-up, video shorts, comic essays, musical comedy, and elaborate stories. The affable and witty Jim Tews officiates, and the performers…
Best Bar to Meet a Fireman
If you’re out on the prowl for one of Cleveland’s bravest, try the Public House. When they’re not dousing blazes across the city, local firemen are dousing their livers at this roomy yet still intimate Irish bar. In the heart of West Park, the PH has the right mix of demographics to make anyone feel…
Best Strip Club for Lunch
While the main attraction is probably the naked women busting Cirque du Soleil moves onstage, there are other reasons to stop by the Hustler Club — especially during the noon hour. This recently remodeled club, in the ghost town that is the Flats’ East Bank, offers a lunch special that includes one of five entrées…
Best Restaurant
If your idea of “Cleveland cuisine” is a fried bologna sandwich wolfed down in a crowded beer joint, it’s time to broaden your horizons. Try a trip to Lola, award-winning chef Michael Symon’s hip downtown restaurant, where hometown faves — pierogi, spaetzle, short ribs, and yes, even that fried bologna sandwich — get an extreme…
Best Vietnamese
The wood paneling may make Minh-Anh feel a tad like the Brady Bunch’s kitchen, but this cozy, family-run eatery offers a menu overflowing with fare — including spring rolls, soups, and noodle bowls — that Alice never would’ve cooked up. The chrysanthemum tea is perfectly sweet — the best in the city. The soups, especially…
Best Business Lunch
In the heart of downtown’s business district, this is the sort of place where suited business types sink their teeth into sophisticated tidbits — like shrimp ceviche, smoked-salmon clubs, or Kaplan’s signature lobster nachos with guacamole and sweet soy. And should the occasion call for some celebratory toasting, you can rest assured that the clubby…
Best Neighborhood Java Joint
Globe-trotter, baker, and neighborhood booster, Niki Gillota’s Gypsy Beans & Baking is a café in the spirit of the venerable European coffeehouse — a place where people come to exchange gossip, enjoy a steamy mug of java, and taste something sweet. Airy and unpretentious, the comfortable interior invites study, reflection, or long conversation. Well-stocked and…
Best Chocolate Potato Chips
They say you can’t eat just one potato chip. Well, try eating just one chocolate-covered potato chip. This test of willpower is brought to you by Brummer’s Chocolates in Vermilion. The small waterside shop smells of freshly baked chocolate and just-out-of-the-oven cakes. Their fruits, pretzels, and candies are each individually dipped in vats of bubbling…
Best Shrinkage
There’s nothing sexy about shrinkage. That’s why starry-eyed Midwest politicians continue to ignore reality — that their once-booming cities are getting smaller fast — and propose one big development project after the other. But Youngstown, led by 36-year-old Mayor Jay Williams, has embraced its new, thinner self, creating a long-term plan that focuses not on…
Best Inner-Ring Waterfall
The water roars and the sky purples with twilight as you stroll toward the town-square snack shop to indulge in butter-pecan cones amid century-old buildings near a filigreed gazebo. Think we’re talkin’ Chagrin Falls? Think again — and save some gas by heading to downtown Bedford, home of the Great Falls of Tinkers Creek. The…
Best Bargain Manicure
At Liz Nails, the manicurists sit lined up in a row, their tables wedged next to each other like factory workers. The setup befits both the efficiency and proficiency of the nail artists. Customers can choose from a wall full of colors, from “Aphrodite’s Pink Nightie” to a pomegranate “Belize It or Not.” The nail…
Best Redemption
Remember a few years back when Larry from Lakewood was calling WTAM, demanding that Mark Shapiro get fired? Neither does Shapiro. “You can’t get caught up in the praise when you do something right or the criticism when something goes wrong,” the Tribe’s GM said last week. He’s exploited the inefficiencies of the baseball market…
Best Place to Learn to Skate
All the Cleveland Heights Community Center Ice Rink’s teachers are former skating stars, but what makes them great is their endless patience — a key attribute when dealing with wobbly six-year-olds and creaky-kneed dads. The half-hour classes are divided by both age and skill level, so beginning adults don’t have to compete with kids for…
Best Gay Sports Club
There’s no shortage of competitive sports clubs for gay amateur athletes in Cleveland. But the three-year-old Shooters Pool League has mushroomed into the area’s top haven for homo-athletes. This year, 10 teams of up to seven pool sharks meet every Monday night between September and April, with 10 gay bars sponsoring each squad. The games…
Best Flea Market
It doesn’t matter if you’re looking for old Star Wars toys, an antique armoire, or a piece of scrap metal for that rocket ship you’re building in the garage. You’ll find it at Jamie’s Flea Market. Northern Ohio’s largest, it features more than 500 vendors, who set up shop every Wednesday and Saturday. The indoor…
Best Hope for the Indians (in 2008)
A smart and savvy Stanford grad, Ryan Garko played catcher in the minors, but at the Jake he guards first like another home plate. He yoga-stretches off the bag to snag throws, dives into shallow right to pounce on sure singles, even hits the dirt for the close plays. Garko also has led the team…
Slim Cessna’s Auto Club
Slim Cessna’s Auto Club grew up alongside David Eugene Edwards’ 16 Horsepower in Denver. In addition to sharing musicians, Cessna and Edwards even put together a side project, the Denver Gentlemen. The Auto Club and 16 Horsepower also share a love for fevered country gospel. But unlike Edwards’ severe, Pentecostal-inspired sound, Cessna and company exude…
Anatomy of a Murder
Calling all pundits. It’s a baffling caprice of the zeitgeist to have two studio westerns released in the same month, 30-odd years after the genre basically gave up the ghost. James Mangold’s better-than-competent and highly crowd-pleasing 3:10 to Yuma has provided a harmonica fanfare for something more ambitious and polarizing. Written and directed by New…
Bubble Up
Today’s Big Tease party at Lush may sound like a horny, drunken good time. But the Beachwood Mall shop’s grand-opening party is actually an opportunity to introduce locals to its popular handmade soaps and other bath-time necessities. This afternoon’s bash loads up on free goodie bags, games, and “relaxing treatments.” This is the U.K.-based Lush’s…
Best Soul DJ
With a record collection 10,000 deep and an old-school sound all his own, DJ Forrest Getemgump’s skills on the ones and twos are unparalleled. And why not? The Akron native was raised in New York, where he rubbed shoulders with everyone from Grandmaster Flash to Bootsy Collins, and made his name as a world-renowned B-boy…
Best Country Tribute Band
Garth Brooks may have hung up his cowboy hat, but his country anthems live on with Cleveland’s John Todd and Shameless. The seven good ol’ boys in big ol’ hats sing Garth’s good ol’ tunes the way they’re meant to be sung: with 10-gallon voices and boot-stompin’ vigor. Frontman John Todd is a ringer for…
Best Stage Drama
Walking into most theaters on most nights, the best you can hope for is a couple of wow performances. But in Karamu’s King Hedley II, the cast went six-for-six, as the players, directed with sensitivity and flair by Caroline Jackson Smith, nailed each of their characters. Of course, the script by August Wilson gave the…
Best Romance Novelist
When single mother Tina Engler started self-publishing romance novels out of her Akron apartment in 2000, she never imagined the hobby would turn into a media empire. But seven years later, Engler, pen-name “Jaid Black,” is one of the biggest sellers in the romance-novel industry. She gives women what they want — stories that writhe…
Best Blind-Date Bar
Hidden down a winding staircase, beneath the glare of hotter Coventry spots, La Cave du Vin is a cool, dark escape perfect for meeting that special Match.com stranger. Intimate, candlelit tables and gleaming bottles on a side wall set the mood, while the bizarre artwork — yes, that’s a painting of a naked woman with…
Best Strip Club for Women
No, guys, this probably isn’t your best bet for your first date with that sixth-grade teacher you met on eHarmony. But if sixth-grade eHarmony teacher lady turns out to have a thing for gyrating, fake-breasted “law students,” Diamond Men’s Club is the place. It’s the cleanest, classiest strip joint in Cleveland, with an $8-and-up weekend…
Best New Restaurant
When Matt Mathlage and Eric Dietrich flipped the switch on Light in the spring, they illuminated one of the most imaginative menus in town, made up of about 20 tapas-style small plates and 10 larger but still tightly composed entrées. Befitting his “progressive American” concept, Chef Matt transforms earthy ingredients like venison, arugula, ostrich, and…
Best Vegetarian Sandwich
Plump and tidy, the falafel-stuffed pita wraps from Maha’s Falafil are a vegetarian’s dream. But with a pleasing combo of crunch, lushness, and even a bit of heat, they’re hearty enough to satisfy even ardent burger-meisters. The “meat” of this particular mélange is Maha Zayed’s superlative falafel — four to six silver-dollar-size patties of crisp-edged…
Best Salad Bar
Forget the wilted lettuce and questionable frozen peas your average salad bar brings to mind. This luxurious organic grocer puts mere raw vegetable selections to shame. We’re talking three industrial-counter-size displays full of a mind-bending assortment of cuisine. It’s not uncommon to see customers wandering Whole Foods Market’s aisles in a daze, overwhelmed by the…
Best Coffee Shop as Living Room
For the winter hibernators among us, Phoenix Coffee offers a reason to roll off the couch and into a slightly more social setting. It provides all the comforts of home — plenty of worn leather sofas that look swiped from Mom’s basement. The magazine rack offers a proper yuppie-liberal assortment of rags, from The Atlantic…
Best Berry Picking
Like the difference between reading about sex and having sex: That’s the gulf separating freshly picked berries from boxed ones. So when berry-picking time rolls around — early June for strawberries, late June and July for red raspberries — head to Hilgert’s Berry Farm & Market. Nestled among the wooded hills of Portage County, the…
Best Watchdog
It’s not easy being the voice of reason in a sea of chaos. But Jim Darr, administrator of a school watchdog panel known as the Bond Accountability Commission, doesn’t seem worried. A former Plain Dealer reporter, he now uses his investigative skills to wrest information from state and local officials about Cleveland’s floundering $1.5 billion…
Best Bachelorette Party Getaway
Located 80 miles west of Cleveland, this small island on Lake Erie, dotted with Key West-style cabanas, is the perfect destination for bachelorettes who can’t afford a trip to Vegas. At night, Put-in-Bay’s Delaware Avenue is like an MTV-sponsored spring break. The drinks aren’t Cleveland-cheap, but aren’t big-city spendy, and bars offer discounts for brides-to-be,…
Best Spa
At Spa Walden, luxury and privacy go hand in hand, thanks to 12 beautifully appointed spa suites — spacious individual rooms where guests can unwind and relax before, during, and after their scheduled treatments. Among the amenities count an enormous steam shower, a bubbly whirlpool tub, and a plush daybed on which to recline and…
Best Draft Magic
History may remember this past April 28 as the day our long-suffering NFL franchise turned the corner. First, Browns GM Phil Savage passed on Oklahoma’s Adrian Peterson and Notre Dame’s Brady Quinn. Instead he took Wisconsin’s Joe Thomas, thereby saving the team the trouble of drafting a left tackle for the next dozen years. Then,…
Best VIP Bowling
The Corner Alley handily hushed potential critics after its December grand opening of a 16-lane sports venue, 100-seat restaurant, two martini bars, and a VIP lounge with its own private four-lane alley. The lanes boast touch-screen scorecards to keep track of the strikes, spares, and gutter balls. It’s a way to entertain classy guests or…
Best In-Game Entertainment
Yes, we picked the Indians’ Hot Dog Race over the Cavaliers Dance Team. Yes, we get that this is kind of weird, since the dance team is obviously, um, talented. But the best in-game entertainment for the whole family is across the plaza at Jacobs Field. Mustard, Onion, and Ketchup start their leisurely jog from…
Best Antique Store for a Nap
Listen up, husbands: Antiquing sure can suck the life force from a fella, especially if you don’t give two shits about this dude Art Deco. So steer the family toward Bijou Antique Gallery’s comfy couches, chairs, and daybeds. While everyone else drools all over the mission oak, you can power-nap. Of course, privacy is just…
Best Hope for the Indians (in 2010)
In just 46 games for the Lake County Captains, Jared Goedert slugged 16 homers, drove in 51 runs, and reached base in nearly half his at-bats. He was named a South Atlantic League All-Star, and was promoted to High-A Kinston, where, after a brief stay on the injury list, he continued to punish opposing pitchers.…
Ruins
Ruins is a mainstay on Japan’s fabled underground noise scene, but the duo’s sound owes more to the dank, musty realms of ’70s prog-rock than anything, say, Thurston Moore would be caught listening to. Drawing inspiration from such weird, obscure bands as Magma and Area, as well as prog heavyweights like Yes and King Crimson,…
Sex Police
Although we’re currently inundated with the scolds of self-appointed moralists and their never-ending battle with the vexing realities of human sexual urges, the sex police are hardly a new phenomenon. William Shakespeare knew all about them when he wrote Measure for Measure, a comical reflection on sexual hypocrisy and the disfiguring effects of power and…
Grape Performance
Corks will pop across the nation tonight, when 35 cities — including Cleveland — participate in the fourth-annual Wine Opener. The Galleria hosts the local outing, which includes (food?) samples from some of the city’s top restaurants. They’ll complement all those glasses of cabernet, pinot, and chardonnay you’ll be downing. Still, says spokeswoman Suzanne Zak,…
Best R&B Singer
Lots of R&B artists claim to work that old-soul vibe. Conya Doss — who names Marvin Gaye, Lauryn Hill, and Nina Simone as influences — actually does. Her warm voice glides effortlessly over the self-penned songs, most of which detail busted relationships and the life lessons she’s picked up when picking up the pieces. Like…
Best Ramones Tribute
If punk godfathers the Ramones didn’t invent punk, they sure as hell invented catchy punk. And even if you’re sick of their classic tunes after 30 years, the Pinheads make the music sound like it never did before. The ‘heads are formally trained: Guitarist C.J. Gunn and bassist Aaron Dowell played the songs while backing…
Best Stage Comedy
From the ambulatory orgasm that was Andrew May, in the role of Don Armado, to the Carl Spackler-inspired Costard played by Jeffrey C. Hawkins, Love’s Labour’s Lost felt like a comedy jam stuffed into a sex romp. Drew Barr’s lively and witty direction and Kim Krumm Sorenson’s wardrobe kept the proceedings lively. But the laughter…
Best Cabaret Singer
At this summer’s gay-pride fest, Cruising With Pride, at Voinovich Park, gawkers craned theirs necks to see the “bawdy and cheesy” cabaret act on the lakefront stage. Lounge Kitty, the 36-year-old jazz singer, likens herself to a “drag queen without the duct tape.” And rightfully so. The ex-lead singer of the early-’90s Cleveland band Swank…
Best First-Date Bar
If you’re digging that new hottie a few cubicles down, but want to impress without overcommitting your evening, try the Lava Lounge. At this lively little Tremont bar, you can impress your arm-candy with the food of a five-star restaurant while keeping an open escape route, thanks to speedy service. You can step up the…
Best Bachelorette Party
The right to nuzzle one’s face in foreign flesh before signing away one’s life belongs not only to men. And no place understands this better than the Powerhouse Pub, where every Saturday night, the stage is studded with nothing less than pure sex appeal. Between dollar dancing and fully choreographed performances, the men at this…
Best Taste of Ohio’s Bounty
The seasonal menu at this Ohio City bistro makes celebrities out of humble Ohio fruits, vegetables, meats, and dairy products — from heirloom tomatoes and pesticide-free peaches to Tea Hill Farms chicken and Lake Erie Creamery goat cheese. Of course, it’s one thing to turn a spotlight on the finest regional, seasonal ingredients; it’s something…
Best World’s Tour for the Tastebuds
Like a glossy travel brochure for the tastebuds, the fare at this sleek, contemporary restaurant on the Cleveland Clinic campus takes guests around the world, with dishes inspired by the most vibrant global pantries. But don’t mistake the journey for fussy fusion fare: Each dish remains true to its roots. From tandoori naan to Moroccan…
Best Place to Impress Out-of-Towners
There are plenty of restaurants that serve tasty grub, but not many serve jaw-dropping views with it. That’s why you take big-city guests to Pier W, a sleek seafood salon perched high on a cliff overlooking Lake Erie. Regardless of the time of day or season of the year, the combination of a great lake,…
Best Coffee for Your Conscience
The organic, fair-trade coffee at this funky Lakewood shop hails from Guatemala, so it’s delicious, robust, and never chalky, like Starbucks’ java. At only $1.50, a cup won’t set you — or the world — back as far, either. And there’s more to make you feel better about your trip to Bela Dubby: the friendly,…
Best Place to Grab Some Buns
Neat, tidy, and contemporary, this bakery and coffee shop in Asia Town stocks an eye-catching assortment of freshly baked goods, along with noodle bowls, pork katsu, and yummy bubble tea. But it’s the dozens of sweet and savory buns that will catch your eye: plump little pillows of tender dough, filled with everything from fruit,…
Best Hope for Cleveland Schools
Much of Cleveland’s $1.5 billion school-construction project has dissolved into disappointment: Over budget and behind schedule, officials are now eliminating schools and scaling back plans. But the newly renovated John Hay High School is a bright star shining through the depressing haze. This historic landmark on the edge of University Circle looks more like a…
Best Transportation Deal
If you’re looking for a cheap escape from Cleveland, the Mega Bus offers mega-deals. The long-distance express bus, operating out of Tower City, will shuttle you to Chicago or Pittsburgh for a price less than your daily latte run. Fares start at $1 each way, plus a 50-cent reservation fee. For each trip, three or…
Best Accessories
Walking into Francesca’s is like walking into the closet of a former opera diva — long gold chains dangle precariously over metal racks, and on the table are fat bangles and skinny bracelets of every color and shape, all priced between $18 and $32. The purse wall is overstuffed with metallic clutches ($28), collapsible leather…
Best Pro Coach
The Cavs rely on LeBron too much, can’t score, and can’t figure out how to ditch dead-weight contracts. But they still made it to the finals. Why? Because of Head Coach Mike Brown. Brown overcame underwhelming performances by several overpaid players, and he got an NBA team to buy into his “defense first” philosophy, which…
Best Blue-Collar Bowling
Opened in 1924, Mahall’s Twenty Lanes is a no-nonsense alley. The two-floor complex looks like it hasn’t been renovated since 1974 (because it hasn’t). They don’t put on airs with automatic scoring. And when you get a strike, a crown-shaped light merely flickers above the defeated pins. Mahall’s also offers one of the best deals…
Best Naked Yoga
When a nudist group first approached yoga-studio owner Buck Harris about a flesh-friendly class, he wasn’t enthusiastic. Who can reach nirvana with all those body parts flying around? But he soon discovered that the all-male lesson was his most popular class. Twice a week, on Mondays and Wednesdays, members haul out their mats and proceed…
Best Design Deals
That IKEA table didn’t make it through the move, and Crate & Barrel looks like Pottery Barn, which mimics Restoration Hardware, which copies Crate & Barrel. Lucky for you, the corporate headquarters for Arhaus Furniture are located in Cleveland. And the Hope Diamond of this operation is Arhaus’ WareHaus Clearance Center, a high-school-gymlike space loaded…
Best Tribe Surprise
Last year was a rough go for young Fausto Carmona. He won his first major-league start, then struggled and was sent back to Buffalo. The Tribe brought him back as a middle reliever and, when Bob Wickman was traded, thought he’d step in as the new closer. But he blew his first three save chances…
John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers
Ask John Mayall for some tips on longevity, and he’s liable to recommend bus travel, turnpike food, and lots of late nights in bars. At 73, the Brit-blues patriarch shows no signs of a senior slowdown, making it to both the stage and studio with frequency. Mayall has hung tough as an artist, but he’s…
Gushing With Talent
You might truly believe that all corporations are devil’s spawn. Hell, you might be right. But that doesn’t mean they can’t be the centerpiece of a warm and sweet musical. Kalliope Stage’s Dear World, with music and lyrics by Jerry Herman (Hello, Dolly!, Mame), features some lovely, cabaret-style songs. But it’s the wonderful Kalliope cast,…
Clash Culture
Local painter Arabella Proffer gives a shout-out to old-school punks in her new exhibit, Private Empire: The National Portrait Gallery of Kessa, which opens tonight at Asterisk Gallery. “Everyone’s got piercings and mohawks now,” she says. “I wondered how aristocrats would feel about it.” More than two dozen portraits depict nobility sporting medieval finery and…
Best Twee-Pop Band
When the sky turns to pavement and the wind starts biting at your face, nothing can warm you up like a live set by the Bears. Their infectiously playful pop, imbued with hints of the Beach Boys and Tullycraft, have a way of making the harsh winter disappear. It’s a breezy retreat that has garnered…
Best Arts Festival
This perennial favorite — which has been around for more than 30 years — has expanded its breadth and influence over the past decade. Last March, the fest posted its largest attendance numbers ever, as hundreds of foreign, independent, and short films were screened. While it’s still not on par with the planet’s big movie…
Best Stage Musical
If just the mention of this well-traveled musical sends you diving for cover, you surely missed the streamlined production of My Fair Lady at the Cleveland Play House. Working on a stripped-down set, a splendid group of players found all the humor and emotion of Alan Jay Lerner’s show while jettisoning the Queen Anne chairs…
Best Drag Queen
Hershae Chocolatae’s “often imitated, never duplicated” mantra never disappoints those who experience her act, which she regularly drops in Cleveland’s gay nightclubs. She takes pride in her impersonations of Tina Turner, RuPaul, and American Idol’s Fantasia Barrino. She relishes the dozens of drag-queen pageant titles she’s won, including being named one of the country’s top…
Best Bar
The quintessential Cleveland bar offers friendly staff, cheap drinks, an invitingly dumpy environment, and an interesting collection of drunks and weirdos with whom to converse. No place fills that bill better than the Harbor Inn. By day, it’s home to working stiffs from its industrial surroundings. By night, it attracts a fine array of hipsters,…
Best Hookah Bar
Cleveland’s hookah bar scene can be tough to penetrate for the general party crowd. The best known, Kan Zaman, often closes its doors for “private parties” (translation: This isn’t a gyro stand for stumbling Irish boys). But City & East, located in the upstairs of Coventry’s legendary Centrum Theater, lies somewhere at the intersection of…
Best Breakfast
For price, ambience, and first-class people-watching, no place tops the West Side Market Café in the venerable West Side Market’s southeast corner. Buyers and sellers, porters and clerks, urban pioneers and suburban sightseers — all snuggle shoulder-to-shoulder inside this small, cheerful space, eager to assuage their hunger pangs with something from the café’s homey morning…
Best Brew Pub
More than a bar, far less than a stuffy restaurant, The Buckeye Beer Engine offers more than two dozen top-quality drafts — “breakouts, hot stuff, and things you’ve never seen before in your life,” says brewmaster Garin Wright. The selection includes rare Belgian lambics, cask-conditioned ales, and three or four of Wright’s own brews –…
Best Dining with the In-Laws
Giovanni’s is one of Cleveland’s last remaining formal dining spots — a serene, sedate, entirely civilized Italian jewel box. With service that’s impeccable and extraordinary dishes, the important elders in your life should feel right at home. It’s the perfect destination for proving you turned out all right, that you know to don a jacket…
Best Health Food
None of the labels at this Chinatown market are in English, and every vendor is from China or Vietnam, which is why Tink Holl is where many Asian-area restaurants buy their essentials. It’s also where you should go for tea of any kind — the store has four shelves of the stuff, including two for…
Best TV Sneak Attack
A guy who can keep a straight face while busting a kid cranking it in the library is a rare commodity. So it’s no surprise that local investigator Carl Monday has stations wooing him like he’s a drunken sorority sister. Last February, Monday decided that Channel 19 was a worthy suitor and made the switch.…
Best Boss
Your boss sucks. That’s all there is to it. After buying the Cavaliers and opening Quicken Loans’ Internet Home Lending Center in downtown Cleveland, Dan Gilbert has put other bosses in town to shame. For Quicken, he provides vacation raffles, bonus incentives, live music at meetings, free popcorn and beverages in the employee lounge, concert-ticket…
Best Place for a Day Date
A quaint, fairy-tale cottage sitting beside acres of lush grape vines, Harpersfield Vineyard is the perfect place to test the limits of a new relationship with a daytime adventure. A plump, round-cheeked cook bakes sourdough baguettes in a wood-fired brick oven, while a waiter serves sweet, steaming bowls of pumpkin soup. At the wooden tables,…
Best Bling for Your Bucks
Janis Pace’s artful East Side “accessory gallery” offers all the latest trends at prices so reasonable, even we can afford them. That means beautifully presented handbags (including the beloved vegan brand, Matt & Nat) and fashion-forward wallets, organizers, jewelry, watches, hair accessories, sunglasses, belts, scarves, hats, and gloves, each personally chosen by industry-vet Pace to…
Best Hire
As good as Mike Brown looks coaching defense, he looks equally as lost drawing up an offense. Help comes in the form of new assistant coach John Kuester, who arrives in Cleveland stocked with experience: 17 years coaching in the NBA, a championship with the 2004 Pistons under Larry Brown, a finals appearance in 2001…
Best Bare-Bunned Bowling
The North Coast Naturists might be the first and only place you can go bowling in the buff. The naturists, with about 200 members, have been gathering at Tallmadge Lanes every other Sunday for the last seven years. They’re not the guys with porn mustaches you would expect at a nudist event, but surprisingly normal…
Best Yoga for Busy Bodies
Let go, they say. Surrender yourself. But what if you can’t get your damn car off the friggin’ freeway and into a godforsaken parking spot in time to get your ever-expanding ass into a studio in time to say “Om”? Well, that sucks. But it’s also why Karma Yoga offers powerful, hour-long lunchtime classes five…
Best Gifts for Your Girlfriend
When you’ve run through all but your crappiest girlfriend-gift ideas — A massage chair? Really?– head to Tremont’s Banyan Tree, a small boutique that specializes in fashion, handmade jewelry, local designers, handbags, glasses, dishware, urban décor — and, well, just about anything your girlfriend could want. The trendy selections rotate on almost a monthly basis,…
Best New Brown
Left guard Eric Steinbach has good welding, having missed just one game in four years, and is versatile, having filled in at left tackle and center. For the last three seasons, he helped clear space for a 1,000-yard rusher. Up the middle, he’s a human street-sweeper, and, when he pulls outside, he’s a Pro-Bowl-caliber pancake…
Tiger Army
Tiger Army’s Nick 13 has been at it a dozen years. And while the upright bassist and drummer behind him change with virtually every album, his trio’s psychobilly sound never wavers. Inspired as much by Social Distortion as the Misfits and Cramps, the Los Angeles trio cuts its grease with Lookout-inspired pop punk. Sure, Nick…
Capsule reviews of current area theater presentations.
Act a Lady — Playwright Jordan Harrison has created a riotously farcical play-within-a-play, melding and reshaping both language and gender. A trio of ordinary fellows — Miles, True, and Casper — decide to put on a fund-raiser for the kids in town, in the form of a melodrama set around the French revolution, with themselves…
They Are the Champions
The Cleveland Pops Orchestra kicks off its new season tonight with Music of Champions — Sports Soundtracks, Fanfares & Song. The program features songs from Chariots of Fire, Field of Dreams, and Rocky, and gives props to local teams. “The Tribe is in postseason, the Cavs made the finals, and the Browns won a game,”…
Best Female Singer-Songwriter
Mix the passionate pleadings of Melissa Etheridge, the soulful folk harmonies of the Indigo Girls, and the wicked humor of Liz Phair, and you start to acquire a sense of Anne E. DeChant’s outrageous talent. But comparisons aren’t really fair, because this Clevelander’s whole career is based on a style and wit that are unmistakably…
Best Parties for Animal-Lovers
The zoo is a magical place when you’re a child — making faces at the monkeys, gazing in awe at big cats who could tear you limb from limb. Then you enter adulthood, and the magic slowly fades. Fortunately, you can get it back by consuming large amounts of booze at one of the Cleveland…
Best Outrageous Production
Let’s see — two lesbians and one gay male regressed and became their own babies, a woman morphed into a dog, and a (pretend) infant was spiked to the floor in a simulated football touchdown dance. Yes, the kind and gentle folk at Convergence-Continuum enjoy shaking up the status quo, and they bulldozed plenty of…
Best Bar View
Keep your lake and river vistas; in this Rust Belt town, we prefer to belt our whiskey with some rust in site. Which is why we saddle up to the long oak bar at Major Hoopples Riverbed Café, a tattered dive on the western outskirts of the Flats. Along with coolers stocked with cheap brews,…
Best Ladies’ Night
How they discovered it, we’re not sure — but when the guys at Marlboro’s Unlimited Magazine chose the country’s top ladies’ nights, Quotes II All American Bar and Grill was among their picks. And who can blame them? This sprawling suburban hot spot’s Thursday Ladies’ Night offers women free — is this even legal? –…
Best Patio
The small courtyard at this Tremont favorite features outdoor darts and plenty of wooden tables, and is surrounded by beautiful houses, grapevines, and a flowing water fountain. The place makes you feel like you’re sitting in your best friend’s backyard — if, that is, you’re lucky enough to have friends with fountains and darts in…
Best Brunch
The pulse of the neighborhood beats strong inside this homey little café and bakeshop. Bring a laptop or a hefty newspaper, or just bring your appetite, and dig into chef-owner Heather Haviland’s fresh, earthy, and carefully crafted fare. The frequently changing list of offerings could include fluffy Belgian sweet-corn waffles, or a pair of breakfast…
Best Vegetarian
You have to wonder if, back in 1972, Tommy Fello knew that his self-titled hippie hangout, Tommy’s, would go strong for 35 years. That Clevelanders’ love affair with sprouts, sunflower seeds, and raisins would never fade. That vegetarianism wasn’t just a crazy fad, and that even meat-eaters could learn to embrace fresh salads, toasty cheese…
Best Expense-Account Dinner
Leave those Papa John’s coupons on the fridge. When the big boss is picking up the tab, new dining rules apply. They are: Spend the most money possible, be waited on like a Saudi prince, and order things only pronounceable by a guy with white gloves and a toothpick mustache. Voilà! Chez Francois, nestled on…
Best Sustainable Sustenance
In its 12 years, the nonprofit North Union Farmers Market has grown into one of the Midwest’s largest farmers’ market systems, with six Northeast Ohio locations. The project provides a reliable outlet for nearly 140 small area farmers. It also provides a weekly “storefront” for small, local food purveyors like Zoss the Swiss Baker and…
Best Weatherman
If someone’s going to tell you your weekend camping trip is off due to hail the size of a Prius, he needs gorgeous hair and a smile that could solve the Mideast peace crisis. Channel 3’s Mark Nolan has both. He’s also everywhere: Besides five nightly TV appearances, Nolan gives the forecast on radio stations,…
Best Use of Alternative Energy
The wind tower by the Great Lakes Science Center is Cleveland’s best-known example of alternative energy, but it’s not the best. That title goes to the new solar panels atop Jacobs Field, the first in the American League. Costing about $180,000, the 42 solar panels generate 8.4 kilowatts of energy, enough power to run each…
Best Place to Throw a Shindig
A standby on the Flats’ East Bank, Windows on the River opened its doors in 1990 and expanded soon after to accommodate demand. It now offers the City View and Bridge View rooms, perfect for a fancy corporate dinner, bar mitzvah, or whatever you’re jonesing to celebrate. In the usually bustling Powerhouse complex, the energy…
Best Pet Gear
A furry friend’s first shopping spree in Pet-Tique isn’t a done deal until a snout-to-snout greeting is given by one of the shop’s three mascots: Nemo, Chloe, and Emma. The perky, persistent pugs wouldn’t have it any other way. Nor would the pooches’ owners, Lawrence and Kevin, who’ve stocked their shop with designer collars, tags,…
Best Fixer-Upper
Jeff Rotsky, a Beachwood native and former Case Western Reserve wideout, has rebuilt three miserable high-school football programs, infecting young men with his trademark motor and obsession with perfection. He helped turn a winless South High team into a division winner, took Chanel from a 45-game losing streak to a state title game, and turned…
Best Pool Hall
If all you know about billiards comes from oversize, trendy chain emporiums, where the only thing more expensive than your table time is your beer, then you’re missing out. Instead, go to a real pool hall — one where the cues are perfectly straight, the tables roll true, and there’s ample room to try that…
Best Surfer
When Johnny Santosuosso moved from Delray Beach, Florida, in 2000, he assumed he’d have to give up the sport he’d grown to love. “Surfing is my life,” says Santosuosso, 32. Then he noticed the strong wind and big waves of Lake Erie in the winter, and met a group of die-hard local surfers. Now Santosuosso’s…
Best Last-Minute Shopping
When that holiday bears down and you’ve got not even a card, head to the Shoppe, in Berea. A long-standing institution on Front Street, the Shoppe has just about every possible gift on your eclectic list: cards, picture frames, ornaments, jewelry boxes, used CDs, incense, leather bracelets — the list goes on. Parents need a…
Best Hope for the Browns
Brady Quinn is the long-awaited cure for the Browns’ ongoing bout with QB-itis. He started for four years at Notre Dame — the last two for Charlie Weis, the offensive guru who turned Tom Brady into Joe Montana. Plus, his pinup good looks are straight box office for the ladies, who need some fall fantasy…
