Rags to Rockers
SAT 9/20 Misty Campana came home from last year’s Club Rock Style and couldn’t believe her nose. “It’s the first time I went out on a Saturday night and I didn’t smell like smoke,” she says. The annual party at the Rock Hall is tailored to young clubgoers who want a break from the usual…
Hacked Off
By the time Saturday night becomes Sunday morning, West Sixth Street is a virtual tailgate party. Six taxis are double-parked near the curb, along with two limos and a fleet of civilian machines wedged unhappily between. Packs of partyers weave freely through the mayhem. When a cop arrests a would-be brawler in front of the…
Iron Maiden
Dance of Death is Iron Maiden’s second album with returned frontman Bruce Dickinson, and much of its best material stands up to comparisons with the band’s late-’80s classics. The title track, in particular, is tremendous — more than eight minutes long, without a single wasted note. It’s not the only marathon workout either: Four of…
Best DJ
Most local jocks are doing what Howard Stern did 10 years ago, only without the funny parts. Rachel Steele is the exception. The host of Xtreme Most Wanted has an effortless delivery that puts to shame those other idiots, who all try way too hard to be cool and edgy. And Steele’s “Guess What I’m…
Best Place to Find a Naked Pet
If there’s nothing like a good strip club, then there’s also nothing quite so bad as a bad strip club, all stretch marks and C-section scars. There’s none of that at the Penthouse. But what separates this strip joint from the rest are the Penthouse Pets. Long have we fantasized about centerfolds coming to life,…
Best Pizza
Despite our tendency to act out, we’re actually all about tradition. Deep down, we love our mom, we think penny loafers are pretty cute, and we believe that if God had wanted us to have anything other than pepperoni and mushrooms on a pizza, he would have dropped us a note. But all this was…
Best Hotel Dining
If the very mention of hotel food fills you with dreadful images of petrified chicken breasts and soggy gray vegetables, fear not. It’s only a coincidence that one of the city’s best restaurants is in a downtown hotel. But the Renaissance does provide a classy backdrop for this sunny, French-Provençal-style dining room; in turn, the…
Best Food for Thought
Now in its ninth year, Ohio’s largest city-side farmers’ market long ago ceased to be solely about food. The Saturday-morning event, held rain or shine, mid-April through mid-December, has evolved into a free-form celebration of community. Urban farmers can shop for hand-painted overalls to wear while puttering in balcony gardens or buy hand-thrown pottery to…
Best Bet for a Free Lunch
The free noshes at this gourmet natural-foods store are nothing short of amazing. On a recent Saturday, we started out with cubes of melon, crackers smeared with organic raspberry jam and homemade organic peanut butter, bits of Jarlsberg Swiss, and creamy whipped goat cheese on lighter-than-air bruschetta. At the Market Kitchen, the friendly clerk offered…
Best Drunken View of Cleveland
Perched on the far western edge of the Flats, grittily cheerful Major Hoopple’s is a favorite bar among older blue-collar workers and younger social climbers alike. Its charms are obvious: good food, a low-key vibe, and great blues. But it has an added perk more common to overpriced restaurants than low-rent taverns: a view to…
Best Adult Video Selection
Now that chains have taken over the rental market, scoring adult videos on a whim ain’t so easy. But if you have to get your stroke on faster than the internet can accommodate you, VidStar is your friend in times of need. The independently owned shop features free popcorn and the requisite creaky door in…
Best Equine Hike for Bipeds
Exploring a horse trail may not be the best idea if you’re wearing Rollerblades or pushing a stroller. But then, staying on a paved path isn’t really hiking, is it? If you’re interested in the real deal, head to the Wetmore Trailhead, located near the intersection of Wetmore and Akron Peninsula roads, and a stone’s…
Best Beach
At a full mile from stem to stern, this Mentor marvel is the state’s longest naturally sandy beach. With your toes wiggling in the sand and the fragrance of Coppertone wafting through the air, you could almost believe you’re sunning somewhere along the Atlantic seaboard. Other considerations: Lifeguards are on duty during peak hours, water…
Best Place to Feel Like a Million Bucks
So what if the ol’ platinum card has become a useless scrap of plastic and the Hummer is running on empty? When we want to remember what it was like to live the good life, we scrounge up a few stray fifties from under the sofa cushions and head over to this upscale downtown dining…
Best Foraging Grounds for Kitchen Wiccans
New-age philosophy reached fever pitch in time for the millennium, which is also when crystal-hawking stores were conjured up in every suburb. But any witch worth her salt knows it’s not about the pentagram pendants or the feather-topped quartz necklaces — it’s about the herbs. That’s why they’ve been going to the Web of Life…
Kicking It Old-School
9/18-9/22 It’s been 10 years since the Hampton Pirates of Virginia clobbered Alabama’s Tuskegee Golden Tigers in the last meeting of their once-heated football rivalry. The two teams play again Saturday afternoon at Cleveland Browns Stadium in the P&G Ohio Classic, the centerpiece of a four-day celebration of everything African American. “They used to have…
Zero Tolerance
The caller was brief, but insistent. Unless the church’s pastor got on TV and expressed support for gay marriage, the church and its school would be blown up. Bomb threats aren’t exactly rare, especially when school’s in session. “Typically, you figure some kid just doesn’t want to take an exam,” says Westlake Police Captain Guy…
Bubba Sparxxx
Born of Bisquick, lumpy Georgia MC Bubba Sparxxx turned grits and good ol’ boys into a gold-selling gimmick on his 2001 debut, Dark Day, Bright Nights. But aside from wrasslin’ pigs in his videos and treating Skoal as a sacrament, Sparxxx’s actual music contained few touchstones to the Southern heritage he outwardly espoused. All this…
Best Radio Station
John Carroll University’s radio station bills itself as musically “eclectic.” That’s an efficient way of saying that on 88.7, you’ll hear punk rock, alt-rock, indie rock, modern rock, classic rock, industrial rock, R&B, hip-hop, folk, techno, jam bands, reggae, blues, and jazz. There’s also a generous selection of ethnic programming — on Sundays, the Hungarian-flavored…
Best Gay Bar to Take Your Straight Friends to
You don’t have to be gay to act the part, and Union Station — one of the newest hot spots for Cleveland’s gay glitterati — always swings the door open to straight partyers. The club’s all-inclusive theme nights rule: On Sundays, gay and straight patrons alike sing along to Broadway show tunes. Mondays are all…
Best Big Bite of the Caribbean
Forget the effete PB&J. At friendly little Lelolai, they make a two-fisted sandwich just right for tough-guy tastes. Constructed on the bakery’s own “pan Criolli,” the Cubano is piled high with chunks of freshly roasted pork, thinly sliced ham, Swiss cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion, a touch of mustard, and zesty garlic-infused mayo. Then it’s pressed…
Best Blast From the Past
Combine the region’s best custard with one of the citizenry’s fondest memories, and you get Rosati’s “Higbee’s Chocolate Malted”: a cool, creamy blast from the past that makes us wax nostalgic for downtown’s glory days. Custardmeister Jim Rosati won’t come clean on the specific blend of ingredients he’s used to mimic the flavor of those…
Best Taste of Cleveland
With a menu that boasts Salisbury steak, kielbasa, pierogi, stuffed cabbage, and Lake Erie perch, Sokolowski’s serves up the flavors of Cleveland’s Old World ancestry. This homey, rustic Tremont tavern (which celebrates its 80th birthday this year) prides itself on being a Polish cafeteria, but don’t be fooled: The hearty food, low prices, and unpretentious…
Best Ice Cream
By whatever method you measure ice cream, Mitchell’s is the cream of Cleveland’s crop. Pete and Mike Mitchell scour the globe for the finest ingredients, yielding the most richly flavored, decadent stuff around: A scoop of chocolate goes down like a frozen truffle; Key lime pie actually comes with crust. (And no excuses: Even the…
Best Display of Voter Wisdom
It was a bad spring for Parma cops to show up on a ballot. In March, The Plain Dealer detailed the department’s pervasive abuse of sick leave and overtime. Some greedy cops, the paper showed, were able to manufacture six-figure incomes under the noses of their incompetent supervisors. A few months after the scandal broke,…
Best Comic-Book Store
Comic reading is — let’s be honest — a nerdy endeavor, so the last thing the enthusiast needs is a store that resembles your mother’s basement. Carol and John’s in West Park makes you feel almost like an art collector, albeit an extremely geeky art collector. The back-issue selection is top-notch and arranged in a…
Best Local-Boy-Done-Good
Curtis learned to play at Mill Creek Golf Club, the Ostrander, Ohio course owned by his grandfather. But probably not even much of Ostrander had heard of Curtis before he snatched a major championship victory at the 132nd British Open. In an instant, the Kent State grad was the toast of the international golf world.…
Best Sports Talker
In a sports-talk world that’s full of meatballs, Bruce Drennan is a thick slice of ham. He’s the rare bird who knows who made the last out in the ’64 World Series and which movie won Best Picture that year. Drennan’s love of the arts informs his work and makes him a showman as much…
Best Politician
In 2000, the Chester Township attorney won an Ohio House seat that had been occupied by his wife, who was unable to run because of term limits. A Mary Bono-like rise to power did not foretell Grendell’s current standing as one of the Legislature’s most defiant members. He bucked Speaker Larry Householder by voting against…
Best Men’s Clothing
Cleveland apparently isn’t urban enough for Urban Outfitters. But with Racer around, who really cares? You can fill up on Diesel (jeans) at this slick little West Side shop, a veritable hipster heaven. Hard-to-find brands like Kenneth Cole, French Connection, and YMLA hang from the racks. And for those not up to investing $200 in…
Real Big Fish
9/20-1/4 The stars of the natural history museum’s Sea Monsters: Savage Ancient Seas roamed the earth just after the period Steven Spielberg popularized a decade ago. “The seas were occupied by these very strange and wonderful organisms,” says Joe Hannibal, curator of invertebrate paleontology. “They’re not really dinosaurs, but they’re spectacular in their own right.”…
Obey Your ‘Master
It used to be that the best fans got the best concert tickets. Diehards happily camped out overnight for front-row seats, the better to launch their panties at Steven Tyler’s head. And as ticket brokers increasingly jeopardized their chances for primo seats, the diehards at least still had Ticketmaster. Diehards, you can go home now.…
Peaches
Sticking to her formula of stripped-down, sexed-up beats, Peaches has followed up her 2000 debut, The Teaches of Peaches, with an equally libidinous album. Fatherfucker is full of electro-punk mayhem, overtly sexual lyrics, and gender-twisting visual accompaniments. The album intro samples Joan Jett’s “Bad Reputation,” randied up by Peaches’ ranting that she “don’t give a…
Best College Radio Show
Easily the most debauched program on the radio, 669 and surly host Sweetass Sassafras make Howard Stern sound like Dr. Laura. Airing from 1 to 4 a.m. Saturday mornings on 89.3, the show is a blitz of chemically enhanced callers, screaming punk and metal, and Sassy’s raunchy repartee. And there are no limits: The week…
Best Theatrical Production
Witnessing a great play is like mainlining adrenal fluid from a live monkey — it launches you on a high that can last for days. Such was the rush after watching the Charenton Theater production of Six Degrees of Separation. Matching the wise and witty John Guare script with flawless acting and direction, the company…
Best Italian Food
The decor is tidy and functional, but hardly glam. But if homemade pastas and glorious sauces — silken ravioli, stuffed with lobster and slathered with a tongue-hugging cream sauce; plump cavatelli, tossed with meaty Bolognese and capped with melted cheese; or perfect penne in a bright, summery marinara — are what get you all excited,…
Best Special-Occasion Dining
While the elegant ambiance, professional service, and meticulously prepared food at this very urbane and upscale dining room make any occasion feel distinctive, the pleasure gets kicked up a notch when guests are celebrating a special event. From the pianist’s well-timed rendition of a favorite song to the little chocolate banner inscribed with edible best…
Best Mexican Food
Even wiping Chi-Chi’s and Taco Bell off the board, this city has an abundance of Mexican eateries. Some are good, others not so much. Mi Pueblo is the best. Check out the evidence. The vibe? Warm and welcoming, yet foreign enough to feel like an adventure. The decor? Understated and artful, and thankfully free of…
Best Truffles
Sorry to tell you, guys, but while you’re dreaming about the ol’ bumpa-bumpa, your chica is more likely thinking chocolate. Luckily, the people who study these things tell us that the physiology of chocolate consumption is much the same as that of a briskly performed horizontal hula. So get her the chocolate already, and just…
Best Psychic Medium on Wheels
No one gets around like Reverend Tim, the Speedy Gonzalez of pro psychics. A certified medium with 30 years’ experience, he’s an immensely popular presence at psychic fairs, home parties, and special events throughout Northeast Ohio. His upbeat attitude, gentle manner, and shock of silver hair make him irresistible to his legion of women fans,…
Best Place to Buy Sex Toys
Rocky’s checkerboard tile floor is spotless, but its inventory is the filthiest in Northeast Ohio. Beyond the racks of bondage, lesbian, and “top 20” videos and DVDs is a wall of sex toys for the seriously adventurous lover. There are glow-in-the-dark orgy-weekend kits, complete with seven-and-a-half-inch vibrators and realistically designed penis sleeves. There’s Kneeling Nina,…
Best Sportscaster
Not only does Joe Tait’s job require that he watch every game played by the worst team in the league — and those of the Rockers — but he also must get excited about them. Tait’s been around as long as the Cavaliers have, and he’s notched greater achievements in that time. He’s kept us…
Best Coach
Still undefeated at the helm of the Cavaliers, Silas continues to do everything right. And by everything, we mean showing up to coach just in time for LeBron James to fall our way in the draft. Okay, that was the easy part. The hard part is teaching Darius Miles to make a jump shot, Ricky…
Best Place to Take Out-of-Towners
History, art, architecture, sociology, economics, urban development, foreign languages — and multicultural cuisine: The 91-year-old West Side Market is a syllabus for the study of Cleveland 101. The striking neoclassical/Byzantine-style building, home to more than 100 vendors selling everything from carnations to cactus salad and pierogi to prime beef, has been called one of the…
Best Populist Manicure and Pedicure
There’s no retro-chic Danish furniture, no white-smocked aestheticians, no Perrier to jack up the overhead at mellow Forbici. For just $45, manicurist Clarissa spends more than an hour beautifying your hands and feet — and she’ll gladly listen to you gripe about your boss. After soaking in a tingling peppermint bath, your feet get the…
Strike Up the Banned
SUN 9/21 Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom is one of the most notorious films ever made. It’s also borderline reprehensible in its resetting of the Marquis de Sade’s novel in Fascist Italy. A group of teens is rounded up and shipped to a mansion, where they are subjected to the…
Strange Love
You will never see a movie where a cat like Humphrey Bogart looks at a dame like Ingrid Bergman and says, “We’ll always have Cleveland.” Except if it’s a comedy. Halle Berry was born in Cleveland. She’s not coming back. While watching MTV, you will never hear these words: “Real World Cleveland. ” Johnny Depp…
DMX
In showbiz, one measure of success is quitting — or at least threatening it. Sinatra did, and so did Dylan and Bowie. Even Celine Dion walked away for a while — if not for nearly long enough. So now hip-hop pit bull DMX, who’s every bit as melodramatic as the aforementioned entertainers, has made the…
Best Actor
In a year with surprisingly few stellar performances by male actors, David Hansen’s heartrending turn in his self-authored one-act, I Hate This, was remarkable. The play, performed at Cleveland Public Theatre, dealt with the stillbirth of the playwright’s son. Hansen portrayed himself, taking us through the torturous process with a gentle hand and even a…
Best Art Exhibit
Today’s youngsters navigate cyberspace like little MIT grads, so it shouldn’t be surprising that their art is sophisticated too. Last spring, four art teachers from two Lakewood Middle Schools (Harding and Emerson) selected the best work of their seventh- and eighth-grade students for the schools’ second annual exhibit at the Dead Horse Gallery. Fifty students…
Best Dessert
You’ve got your crème brûlée here, your tiramisu there . . . and a town that’s still awash in the same old predictable dessert choices. Except for Mise, where chef-owner Jeff Uniatowski has forever captured our sweet tooth with his clever “coffee and doughnuts” — dense, sweet, fresh-from-the-fryer beignets, drizzled with fruit coulis, and served…
Best Chinese Food
Dim sum in the morning, noodles at midday, and dishes ranging from custardy braised tofu to salt-baked squid at dinner make colorful Li Wah, located in the heart of Chinatown, one of the city’s most authentic and inviting Asian restaurants. While Li Wah specializes in seafood, we also adore the crisp-skinned Peking Duck and the…
Best Wine Bar
There isn’t a sign — not even an address marker — outside 806. Instead, just look for the dim red lantern flickering in the doorway. Cross the threshold, and find yourself inside a tiny jewel box of a room, lined in velvet and filled with bijoux of marble, glass, and gleaming wood. It’s almost like…
Best Po’ Boy
Cleveland’s premier barbecue dynasty is also the only place to get a Polish Boy so good, it’ll make you moan. With a combination of French fries, slaw, and Papa Williams’s patented sauce, this poor man’s dinner becomes an inner-city delicacy, drawing people from outlying suburbs to cop a taste. There’s a Hot Sauce Williams on…
Best Place for a Last Date
Last dates should be poignant. If you’re going to dump someone or be dumped or even just leave town, you need to summon a certain level of panache. And for that, the Bop Stop is perfect. The West Side jazz club, which moved from the Warehouse District to Detroit Avenue this year, has a sleek…
Best Used Bookstore
This place is a collector’s dream. We love the seemingly endless shelves full of books that sell for $3, $2, or even $1 (and we’re talking hardbacks, not tattered copies of last summer’s Grisham offering). More discerning readers head for the vast selection of books at half off the cover, all amazingly well-organized. It’s easy…
Best Campground
Whether you like to rough it or insist on camping with the generator in tow, Punderson State Park in Newbury can hook you up. Situated on the grounds of a former Indian village, it features a 196-site campground offering showerhouses, flush toilets, and electricity — plus boating, hiking, and fishing. There are also 26 six-person…
Best Silencing of Critics
Prior to the 2002 season, receiver Dennis Northcutt came to embody the reborn Browns’ stumbles. His first two seasons under an orange helmet were terrifically unproductive, as he failed to bend a blade of end-zone grass. Of all the Browns’ poor-to-middling high draft picks (he went 32nd overall), Northcutt looked like the summa cum laude…
Best Columnist
Morris, an associate editor of The Plain Dealer’s Forum section, is one of the few columnists who chooses substance over style. When he makes a point, he backs it up with sources. Doctors at a gambling treatment facility, for instance, helped Morris show that if loosened gaming laws in Ohio mean more gambling addicts, there…
Best Place to Buy Used Video Games
Many used-game stores sell CDs with so many scratches, you’d think they were used to make the X-ecutioners’ last album. That’s the main reason the Lakewood Exchange is better than all the rest. (Price is another: Top PlayStation 2 games go for as little as $10.) Maybe it’s a better class of clientele or maybe…
Balloon Man
SAT 9/20 Fred Garbo admits that the Fred Garbo Inflatable Theater Company is hard to describe. He is a mime, after all. But not a white-faced, striped-shirt-wearing-clown-who-opens-imaginary-doors kinda mime. Garbo brings gigantic inflatable props to life onstage, and he’s one of 50 artists participating in Playhouse Square’s Centerfest performing arts festival on Saturday. After playing…
Extinct Breed
Poets of Another Breed, whose mix of heady rhymes and live instrumentation brought a unique sound to Cleveland hip-hop, have announced their breakup after eight years together. “Everybody involved was at the point where we were ready to move on,” says drummer Pat McNulty. “I’m sure we could have kept putting on shows, but I…
Moon the Giant
Cleveland five-piece Moon the Giant dubs its malleable sound “stretch rock,” a blend of structured songs and free-form improvisation. The band’s debut is suitably elastic: Cello, trumpet, and organ brighten a record that drifts from jazz noodling to multi-hued rock and roll. The standout track “Not Particularly” begins as a sad-eyed torch song driven by…
Best Strip Club for High Rollers
You don’t go to the Diamond Club for fine cuisine — but they have it. Such features define the elite strip club, and this place knows how to deliver sensory overload. So the filet mignon is sublime. The sound system is exquisite. And the dancers look like they stepped off the cover of Cosmo. The…
Best Place to Drink a Martini
For a theatrical watering hole full of tableside magic, Pickwick & Frolic’s your place. Shift on your stool, and watch the bar top change colors. Peer into the mirror, and see someone else’s reflection. Watch a floating bottle of booze tip by itself. Feeling drunk yet? Try one of the menu’s 24 martinis and classic…
Best Vietnamese Food
If olfaction is the queen of the senses, then the fresh, herbaceous cuisine of Vietnam is fit for royalty. And if fragrance is the key to the subconscious, Tay Do is a portal to another world. The enormous menu is an atlas of traditional fare, directing culinary travelers to dishes ranging from beef fondue (with…
Best Hot Dog
O’Armour’s has been an after-school staple for Amherst high school students since 1976. A short walk up the Washington Avenue hill from the school, the restaurant rightfully crows about its $1.49 dog with melted cheddar cheese. Top it off with O’Armour’s signature spicy homemade chili sauce, and it’s no damned wonder they call it Hot…
Best Room for Romance
It’s easy to imagine a mobster and his moll slipping through the door of this little art-deco dining room: him in a broad-shouldered suit, her in spangles and a long strand of pearls. He takes her by the elbow and guides her to one of the too-close-for-comfort tables, where candlelight and thick white linens await…
Best Soup
“Soup, beautiful soup” is what chef Matthew Moore creates year-round in his storefront near the corner of Lorain and West 25th. When the north winds blow, there are hearty brews such as lobster bisque and blue-cheese soup to warm us down to our toes. And when warm breezes ruffle our curls, we chill out over…
Best Radio Newscaster
With her “just the facts, ma’am” delivery, afternoon news anchor Karen Kasler is the voice you hear every day during the Rush Limbaugh and Mike Trivisonno talk shows. Her newscasting is no-nonsense; her reporting skills are on-the-mark; her flair for writing news is impeccable. “Good descriptive language. Paints visual images for listeners,” wrote Associated Press…
Best Body Art Parlor
You can walk into Atom Bomb with an idea in your head, then walk out with that idea on your body. It starts with a consultation. The artist asks you about the style, the size, the location. Then he invents the tattoo on a sketchbook before your eyes. So the thing marked with permanent ink…
Best Athlete Who Got Away
Jimmy, we hardly knew ya! Well, we knew that you swung a bat like a beer-leaguer, that you bagged one of our TV newsbabes, and that you talked with an aw-shucks gentility that made it easy to root for you. But what we didn’t know was that a guy who publicly declared his love for…
Best Radio Personality
Rick Gilmore is not a sports-talk host, which alone makes him a breath of fresh airwave. But who couldn’t love a guy who ate a grenade for all of Cleveland when he replaced Morton Downey Jr. on WTAM? That was after Gilmore’s spat with the FCC over reciting Allen Ginsberg poetry on the air. And…
Best Rainy-Day Reading Place
In 1928, this unique stone mansion with Gothic arches was the French-château-style home of South Euclid farmboy-turned-milk-millionaire William E. Telling. But it’s been a library for the last 50 years, and it features a cozy reading room that’s a soothing refuge on a drizzly or snowy day. Just walk past the main desk down a…
Best Place to Buy Custom Leather
Leather is a lifestyle for some, and mall stores can’t always order that snakeskin do-rag or customized jacket. TRD Leather has a full line of jackets, hats, do-rags, saddlebags, and any other hide you seek. If your cycle needs a special flavor, they’ll make it. TRD specializes in affordable leather bikinis and codpieces, perfectly suited…
Dead All Over
Never mind the trailers, which advertise Cold Creek Manor as some kind of horror-thriller, complete with the image of a hand emerging from the shadows to silence (yes!) Sharon Stone. Mike Figgis — most recently a maker of unwatchable art-house fare shot on digital video (Time Code, Hotel), which suggests a fetish for technology and…
Broken Social Scene
Songs titled “Anthems for a Seventeen-Year-Old Girl” and “I’m Still Your Fag” sleep together like lions and lambs on Broken Social Scene’s sophomore effort, You Forgot It in People. Winner of the 2003 Juno Award for Best Alternative Album, the wide-ranging album is defined by its first and last tracks — a fog of instrumental…
Above This Fire
Free speech be damned: Legislation is needed to prohibit songwriters from comparing their emotional strife to death. Even if it comes from the heart. Above This Fire jots down ideas and thoughts that don’t quite add up to songs, blemishing its lopsided take on metalcore. “MMIII” skews toward classic thrash, its five songs dispatched in…
Best Local Band to Get Loads of National Press
Open a major music mag this year, and it was hard not to see a pic of the scruffy guitar-and-drums duo from Akron staring back at you. (Entertainment Weekly even named them one of its “10 Bands on the Brink.”) Best of all, Patrick Carney and Dan Auerbach’s album Thickfreakness actually deserves the heaps of…
Best Jukebox
The playlist on Manja’s superior jukebox keeps growing like the club’s Madison Village surroundings. It’s where the latest sounds snuggle up to Muddy Waters, where Curtis May holds hands with Tom Waits. Good-ol’-days punk like the Clash and Dead Milkmen mesh easily with eccentrics like Radiohead and the Flaming Lips. In other words: As long…
Best Slice of Southern Soul
It’s not the A train that takes you to Alexandria’s — it’s a cheerless, bare-bones elevator that lifts you from the gloomy lobby of an old warehouse to a thoroughly hip dining room above. But leave your second thoughts behind: When those sterile elevator doors slide open, the vision that confronts you — a soupçon…
Best Food & ‘Tude
Is it the line of Jags and Beemers pulled up outside the door? The dim lighting and slightly edgy decor? Or is it the cadre of black-garbed servers, who seem to know what we need before we even know it ourselves? Yes, yes, and yes. Plus there’s Lola’s extravagantly gracious owners, Liz and Michael Symon,…
Best Cookies
Got Oreos? Ditch ’em. If cookies are your passion, check out the collection at Corbo’s Dolceria in Little Italy. The bakers turn out more than a dozen varieties each day (except at Christmas, when scores of assorted styles threaten to take over the tiny shop), including confection-like chocolate-covered macaroons, chewy almond-and-apricot tartlets, and pine-nut-studded poufs…
Best Vegetarian Restaurant
Here in the Land o’ Meat-n-Taters, all-vegetarian restaurants are harder to find than the handles on a monkey. But even if Café Limbo weren’t just about the only entirely meat-free eatery in the area, we would still adore it — for its inventive soups, its sunflower-seeded salads, and its sunny scrambled eggs from a flock…
Best Chokers
From the bubbly blond Carole Chandler to the varsity hunk that is John Anderson, Cleveland’s best-looking news team spends its mornings on WKYC. And within that microcosm of talking-head beauty walks Hollie Strano, whose daring fashion sense is best exemplified by her never-ending assortment of choker necklaces. Lace, fine stone, delicate gold — you name…
Best Bag Lady
Fashionistas once spotted with Kate Spade bags are now stepping out with original “MaryAnns.” The Hudson-based accessory designer is making a name for herself with whimsical, one-of-a-kind handbags, purses, and totes, fashioned from high-end fabrics and adorned with everything from beads and sequins to miniature paintings rendered by the Kent State art-school grad. Seasonal collections…
Best Billiard Hall
With 22 tables, there’s rarely any waiting at spacious Northfield. Top players and novices alike flock there for three weekly handicapped tournaments, as well as to watch the national tourneys occasionally held there. And though sharks may prowl the felt, families are made welcome with a sandwich snack bar and jukebox — and a staff…
Best Bartender
We don’t know what separates a porter from a stout, and frankly, we don’t care. If it tastes good and gets us drunk, that’s good enough. Luckily, we don’t have to know the intricacies of brewing — not with a guy like Erich LaSher around. He guides customers through the dizzying array of beers and…
Best Place to Buy a Sack of Weed
For the most part, marijuana is marijuana, but unfortunately you can’t pick it up at your Seven-Eleven just yet. If you’re looking to cop a bag of the sticky-icky, then Ansel — a stretch of road just west of Martin Luther King on Cleveland’s East Side — is your one-stop. From primo to wet and…
Best Place to Buy Rubber Underpants
Nothing says hygiene and comfort like a pair of latex panties. If your closet runs the color spectrum from black to dark gray, and your fashion sense is defined by terms like “vampyric” and “authentic Russian officer’s uniform decorated with three-inch steel studs,” the Mission is your place. And the counter help is actually quite…
Grumpy Old Men
Secondhand Lions is cornier than the cornfields spread out in front of the dilapidated rural Texas manse inhabited by Robert Duvall and Michael Caine, playing grumpy old brothers with mismatched accents. (Caine, in fact, has accent enough for three actors — one English, another maybe Texan, another perhaps Australian.) There is no shortage of ham-fisted…
Toby Keith
Look, we’re as patriotic as the next guy (unless the next guy happens to be, say, Lee Greenwood), but we’re pretty sure we’ll never need some 10-10-220 shill taking a break from telling us exactly how much a buck is worth to deliver his U-S-A! U-S-A! fight song. Which is exactly how Toby Keith kicks…
Best Club for Chilling
Rarely does a night club succeed at being both cool and cozy. Zibibbo does. Maybe it’s the decor, which could aptly be described as “bright colors colliding,” yet comes off as neither garish nor contrived. There’s that glass sculpture, that curved black-granite bar, those inviting rouge-red couches. The cocktails are stiff, the cigars are quality.…
Best Movie Theater Seat
Go into theaters 1 or 2, on the right-hand side (hopefully that’s where the movie you want to see is playing), and sit in the first row of the upper section. These seats could make Death to Smoochy tolerable. You get a comfy butt holster with headrest, lots of leg room, and an unimpeded view…
Best Theater Company
Even though CPT presented a truncated performance season (due to the financial bind that most theaters experienced), it continued to serve as a beacon of theatrical excellence in other ways. Its Student Theater Enrichment Program employed economically challenged youths in a five-week course of intense theater training, culminating in the highly entertaining production, Bliss. It…
Best Brewpub With a Conscience
It’s not enough for brothers Pat and Dan Conway to make award-winning beers; now they want to save the planet too. They’ve implemented a wide-ranging system of “Zero Waste Initiatives.” That’s their fancy way of saying they do smart stuff like using the brewery’s spent grains to grow shiitake mushrooms and as feed for organically…
Best Tiramisu
It was more than 20 years ago that Florence native Valerio Iorio got his sinfully simple tiramisu recipe from an Italian lady friend — and, as he recalls, she was none too eager to part with it. But we’re sooo glad he was able to finesse it away from her: The extraordinarily fresh-tasting treat, each…
Best Use of Foie Gras
Remember the “special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame-seed bun” jingle? Well, don’t bother. Those plebeian toppings are sooo yesterday. Today’s tuned-in food fans know that the au courant burger enhancement is nothing less than a slice of buttery foie gras. And they also know there’s no better place in town to get…
Best Feast on Your Feet
So much to eat, such a short distance to walk. Every August, this Little Italy street festival occupies a four-block stretch of Mayfield Road — and a place in the heart of Italian food lovers hither and yon. Leave your diet at home and turn your taste buds loose on whatever your stomach desires: stromboli,…
Best Late-Night Hangout
When this little Tremont bar opened in 1999, it did so with five tables, four lava lamps, three red-lit ceiling fixtures, two 1950s-style sectional sofas, and a single multitasking bartender who took orders, fixed drinks, served food, and brewed coffee. Since then, the Lava Lounge has come of age. The addition of a handsome upstairs…
Best Flea Market
From Dale Earnhardt wall clocks to gravy ladles, there’s more of everything at the Memphis Drive-In Flea Market, Cleveland’s biggest outdoor swap meet. Every Saturday, Sunday, and Tuesday, 50 to 100 vendors set up shop — from folks just trying to clean out their garage to professional retailers hawking tube socks and incense. And it…
Best Bocce Courts
The bocce leaguers of Little Italy pursue their pleasures on storied but somewhat dog-eared surfaces. But the lucky folks in the Wickliffe Italian-American Club execute their puntata and raffia deliveries on half a dozen top-flight courts. These crushed-limestone beauties recently hosted the vaunted Laketran Cleveland Challenge Cup, but they’re available to anyone who rents the…
Best Rendition of the Star Wars Cantina
The patrons may not have walrus faces or tentacles, but with theme rooms spanning three decades, Culture Club attracts one hell of a diverse crowd. Hip-hoppers hang in the ’90s room, where Eminem mixes with Sir Mix-A-Lot. Over in the jam-packed ’80s room, trendy girls wear short lace skirts, and guys dance as if they…
Best By-the-Hour Hotel
If your lodging needs don’t include conference rooms or continental breakfasts, the Euclid could be your place. It offers hourly rates on the QT and all the ambiance you need: a mattress, a wet-sink, and free porno channels. Rates vary between 15 and 35 dollars a holla, at the whim of the attendant. For your…
Best Place to Buy Gay Literature
Right next to the cock rings, nut-fuckers, and XXX-rated videos, more than 150 gay men’s magazines are displayed at Body Language. There’s 100 Percent Beef for the bold and hairy, Bound and Gagged for the bondage devotee, and Genre for the refined gentleman. Book titles include an “ode to masculine beauty” called Dreamboys, Larry Townsend’s…
Old Song and Dance
Woody Allen churns out one movie a year — and “churned out” is an apt description of how his new romantic comedy, Anything Else, feels. Disappointingly mediocre would be another. It’s not that the film doesn’t have its humorous moments or memorable lines. It has many, but the jokes and quips would be a lot…
Overkill
In the late ’80s, with Metallica, Megadeth, and Anthrax in their full metal-god prime, it was easy and fun to underrate Overkill. Even in the pummeling “Elimination” and “Evil Never Dies,” Bobby “Blitz” Ellsworth’s vocals went a little too high, a little too often. Turns out, he’s pretty tough — he survived cancer and an…
Best Karaoke
Bo Loong Okay, so it’s not the textbook karaoke experience. There may be feedback. The lyrics under the bouncing ball are only approximately correct. And the tempo seems just a bit off at times. But that’s what makes Chinatown’s Bo Loong a karaoke night out like no other. From their traditional dishes to their karaoke,…
Best Psychic Fair
An easy saunter down the road east of downtown Cleveland, Reverend Jenni Brangle’s Rising Moon Expo takes place for two days every quarter amid the trees and hills of peaceful Newbury. In addition to basking in the setting’s natural serenity, you can look forward to readings from a highly skilled group of well-known psychics, mediums,…
Best Bar Crawl
With a bar on every corner for well over a mile, Madison Avenue is the place for serious, Leaving Las Vegas-style boozing. There’s a rough-and-tumble spot (Madison’s), a futuristic watering hole (Capsule), a classy Irish pub (Sullivan’s), and a sports bar (Characters). There’s also good food (Rockwood Subs, Angelo’s Pizza) and great prices (check out…
Best Moroccan Mouthful
The Moroccan tagines and couscous are wonderful, but chef-owner Wahed Haydouni’s bastilla is a culinary tour de force, a mother-and-child reunion of buttery shredded chicken and gently scrambled eggs, accented with parsley and almonds, baked in a fragile phyllo crust, and served with an ample sprinkling of powdered sugar and cinnamon. Astonishingly fragrant and full…
Best Hot Spot
We can’t get enough of chef-owner Doug Katz’s hip, crowded little dining room on Shaker Square, where a tandoori oven sears slabs of beef, pork, and lamb over mesquite coals — at around 700 degrees — sealing in the juices and sending clouds of fragrance wafting through the air. Even dishes that aren’t given the…
Best Signature Drink
It’s cool, tart, and completely delish, but don’t even think about trying to replicate the French 75 at home. For one thing, it wouldn’t be the same without the Velvet Tango Room’s plush opulence as a backdrop. For another, the bartenders guard the recipe like a nuclear launch code. They’ll tell you it features champagne,…
Best Burger
Simply put, the Heckburger is so damn good, its mere smell has been known to lure vegans into carnivory. The key ingredient is a half-pound of genuine beef — not some pre-cut wuss patty made of soy — that’s big enough to split an alligator’s jaw. At once imposing and irresistible, it’s grilled to perfection…
Best Explanation of How the Universe Works
Don’t let the subtitle — The Universal Laws of Love, Sex, and Romance — fool you; this book is about plenty more than attracting the right partner. It offers a foolproof blueprint for finding whatever you desire, whether it’s your dream job, improved health, or a Porsche. You just have to understand the real secret…
Best Place to Start a Spiritual Journey
Tired of dodging such nagging questions as Why am I here? and What am I supposed to do about it? You’ll find some answers at Journeys in Rocky River. It’s a perfect jewel box of a shop, filled with enough attractions to justify half a dozen visits. The well-chosen stock of books includes both classics…
Best Bowling-Ball Fitter
Bowling has long been on the decline, but it’s still possible to get a great custom-fitted bowling ball when you see Phil Sillia in his tiny shop at Buckeye Lanes. A top bowler himself (Sillia was on the pro tour for five years and held the city’s high average during the 1970s, when huge scores…
Best Story Not to Win a Pulitzer
Besides telling the heartbreaking saga of a man wrongly convicted of rape, Schultz’s five-part series in The Plain Dealer last fall compelled the real perp to come forward and confess — and she still didn’t win journalism’s biggest prize. Can you say “robbed,” boys and girls? The snub may rank as the Pulitzer Board’s worst…
Best Dead Criminal
Last year, former Plain Dealer columnist Jim Neff delivered a book titled The Wrong Man: The Final Verdict on the Dr. Sam Sheppard Murder Case. Well, let’s hope it’s the last word. One more mention of “the case that inspired The Fugitive!” and we’re going to chop off the other arm. But thanks to Fast…
Best News for Amateur Chefs
The Viking invasion commences in November, when Viking Range Co. finally opens one of its “Culinary Arts Centers” in Northeast Ohio. Like a Home Depot for self-styled chefs, Viking offers dizzying arrays of cookware, knives, books, and gadgets, as well as a wide variety of classes, from the three-day Culinary Basics to one-offs on making…
Give Fighting a Chance
Tidy little Montecarlo, Georgia, which is the setting for Jonathan Lynn’s The Fighting Temptations, is a perfect movie-fantasy town. At the picturesque train station, the ticket agent will call you a taxi or serve you a plate of Southern fried chicken. The house band at the local nightclub is dynamite, and when the gorgeous singer…
Letters to the Editor
Keyword: CON More testimony on Trans Continental: When I saw the cover of Scene and the “Runway to Nowhere” [August 20] headline in the newspaper box, I immediately thought, “That’s got to be about Trans Continental.” Boy, did I call that! I first became aware of Trans Continental when they were called Options Talent. A…
Best Neighborhood Bar
Layers of mystery lie just beneath the surface of this rustic, aggressively unpretentious corner bar on Cleveland’s near West Side. Start with the decorative motif: How can the Rat Pack poster mingle with the framed Three Stooges photo? If this is the Parkview, where is the park — or the view? How can a bar…
Best Place to Play Connect Four
Warehouse District bars are good for two things: dancing and prancing. But while Liquid is just as snappy as its West Sixth neighbors, it also has a quieter side, best shown by the board games piled near the couches. True, the trendy watering hole is too loud to get a good game going on the…
Best New Club
For years, Maribeth Barabas tended bar at the oh-so-ritzy Velvet Tango Room, so it’s no surprise that her new bar, 2527, shows a similar preoccupation with stiff drinks and good service. What is surprising — and wonderful — is the bar’s energy. The place manages to be gorgeous, but not stuffy, exuding liveliness and elegance…
Best Outdoor Dining
Nothing at this high-energy hangout stays the same for long — the talented young owners, Nick and Giovanna Kustala, are entirely too creative for that — and that includes the pretty outdoor patio, which this year has been transformed into a campy tiki bar, complete with torches, carved masks, and a long list of cocktails…
Best Bargain Burger
Charlie’s isn’t much to look at, with its oilcloth-covered tables and paper placemats. And when the bill’s this trifling, you know you’re not getting Kobe beef. But for anyone counting pennies, Charlie’s Tuesday-evening $1.69 burger special — complete with a platter of French fries — is a sweet little deal, made all the sweeter by…
Best Martini Menu
“I like to have a martini, two at the very most. After three, I’m under the table. After four, I’m under the host.” In that case, we can only imagine how writer and bon vivant Dorothy Parker would react to the 125 martini-inspired drinks offered at this cozy Lakewood restaurant. There are chocolate martinis, espresso…
Best Pseudo-Seaside Retreat
Listen closely and you can almost hear the roar of the surf from your seat inside this tidy, Florida-style fish house. That steady drone is actually just the traffic on nearby Euclid Avenue — still, with its jaunty nautical decor and buoyant fish & chips, a visit to this Wickliffe landmark may find you checking…
Best Mall Makeover
Corporate takeovers rarely go down with the grace of Westfield’s acquisition of Great Northern. The mall, which for years had been slipping into a Southland-style aesthetic, has been fully revamped and oddly renamed: Westfield Shoppingtown: Great Northern. Westfield owns 64 malls — oops, shoppingtowns — in 14 states, so it’s no wonder they know what…
Best-Looking Athlete
Once, after yet another Cavs loss, then-coach John Lucas criticized the team’s toughness. “We’re the type of team that wants to wear Armani; we need to wear dungarees,” he said. At the time Luc said those words, Ricky Davis was actually slipping into something Gucci, but the point was made. Davis can be maddening, as…
Best Place for Serious B-Ballers
Luke Easter Park had a legendary court, where the top ballers came to make their bones. But when the Zelma George Center was built in 1997, Cleveland’s roundball mecca moved indoors. Now there’s a game to be found all year-round, usually involving some of the area’s best high school and college players. The competition gets…
Best Place to Contemplate Mortality
You don’t have to be a Harold and Maude type to occasionally want to get away from the city for some hard thinking about what life and/or death really means. When that urge strikes, amble over to Lake View Cemetery, the perfect setting for such philosophical pursuits. Its winding paths through sprawling grounds are perfect…
Best Activist Rapper
Never heard of him? Well, activist rappers don’t sell out the Gund, you know. Even so, nobody keeps it realer than Focus. For one thing, he penned a jam called “Fuck 107.9,” showing way more balls than those local rappers who suck up to Cleveland’s rap-radio source, only to get dissed by the DJs. For…
Best Women’s Clothing
If you want to look like everybody else, there are malls to hit and khakis to wear. If you want to look stylin’, you head to Lush. For two years, the little boutique tucked into Shaker Square has offered some of the best designer duds in town: Juicy Couture, Diane von Furstenberg, Vivienne Tam. It’s…
Killing Time
Military clerk Ray Elwood (Joaquin Phoenix) is something of a modern-day Sergeant Bilko. Anything you need, he can get. Any scam that’s possible, he’ll run. Never mind the bumbling Colonel Berman (Ed Harris), who ostensibly runs the unit — Elwood has him wrapped around his finger. There’s just one major difference between the alter egos…
Red Hot Chili Peppers
The word “mature” crops up a lot in positive reviews of the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ latest disc, 2002’s By the Way, and such references are apt. Unfortunately, maturity isn’t the most scintillating quality: It doesn’t quicken the pulse or trigger the endorphins, and it can easily slide into less laudable characteristics, such as cautiousness…
Best Parade
This is not the place for ’57 Chevys and tacky political banners. The annual parade on University Circle is powered solely by people and their imaginations. It’s a vibrant Mardi Gras without booze and boobs, full of local and international artists, street performers, and area residents celebrating the arts with enormous dancing puppets, human-powered floats,…
Best Art Gallery
Housed in a former doctor’s office, the Dead Horse is a cozy ramble of small rooms with low ceilings. Owner Kim Schoel opened the place in August 2000, after her artist friends complained that getting a show in town “was like beating a dead horse.” Since then, Schoel has featured the work of hundreds of…
Best Deal in Family Entertainment
Where can you feed exotic birds, ogle a polar bear, and stroll through a rain forest — 365 days a year? The Cleveland Metroparks Zoo, of course. Considering all the zoo offers, year-round, it’s a good deal at any price — but especially for the paltry $55 annual family membership fee. Ante up, and your…
Best Beer
You really can’t go wrong with any of Great Lakes’ rich brews — the Eliot Ness, Burning River Pale Ale, Edmund Fitzgerald Porter. But if we had to pick a single Desert Island Beer (and if that island had a refrigerator), it’d be the smooth, malty Dortmunder. It’s not as light as the Locktender Lager…
Best Restaurant Reinvention
The owners of Mosaica were tired of being seen as a “special occasion” spot, where diners ventured only once or twice a year. So out went the pricey menu of foie gras and filets, and in came the sleek bistro fare, along with the new moniker — M Bistro. Now, among the hanger steaks, the…
Best Sunday Brunch
If the prospect of scrambled eggs, smoked salmon, and waffles has lost its power to move you out of bed on Sundays, how’s about hummus, shish tawook, and all-you-can-eat baklava? Of course, that barely scratches the surface of the offerings at this once-a-week, one-of-a-kind Lebanese chow-down, where all the goodies are fresh from the kitchens…
Best Greek Food
Hip little Niko’s blends the time-honored with the trendy, for a dining experience that’s as charming and satisfying as any in the region. Warm, contemporary decor and music that ranges from traditional to techno set the stage for simple, homey dishes like perfect pastitsio, savory gyros, and crunchy galaktobourikos brought to the table straight from…
Best Hairdresser
There’s a salon on almost every street corner — but only one with Scott Metzger at the helm. The former creative director for Vidal Sassoon made a name for himself styling the manes of Beach Boys and Supremes. Now the Cleveland native’s expertise is dispensed to anyone who can afford him, in meticulous haircuts that…
Best Saturday Morning Stroll
Here’s a little urban trek that’s great for impressionable out-of-towners. Start on the east side of West 25th at funky City Buddha, where the air is heavy with incense and shelves sag beneath the weight of Asian and Indonesian imports. Head south a few doors to Something Different gallery for a glass of wine and…
Best Rookie
Boozer proved in his first year with the Cavaliers that size does matter — when it comes to heart. In averaging 10 points and 7.5 boards a game, the 6-foot-9 forward, dismissed by most scouts as too small to excel in the NBA, showed that brains and desire matter at least as much as height.…
Best Place for a First Date
The most important part of a first date is also potentially the worst part: the conversation. You can’t go to a movie, because that only postpones the discomfort for the second date. But you also don’t want to go to, say, T.G.I. Friday’s, because that’s too much work. A trip to Little Italy is much…
Best Book Written by a Former Clevelander
Frey’s jarring memoir details his long and bumpy road to recovery from alcohol and drug addiction, which started early — he was 10 when he first got drunk in his parents’ Cleveland home. By the time he was 15, he added drugs; before long, he was hanging out with hookers and had even assaulted a…
Best Offbeat Toy Store
Stepping into Big Fun is like walking into some weird geek’s manically jam-packed closet, filled floor to ceiling with fake noses, Scooby-Doo lunchboxes, Judy Garland paper dolls, Pez dispensers, vintage 1970s-’80s T-shirt transfers, Rocky & Bullwinkle slipper socks, and Star Wars action figures. The Eisenhower-era postcards are a hoot, as are the inflatable wife (or…
Ad-Libbing on Tokyo Time
Visualize Tokyo. Got it? Now add popular favorite Bill Murray, doing his “lovable shmo” shtick. Toss in American Rhapsody’s up-and-comer Scarlett Johansson, doing her standard “like, duh” face. Dip them both into emotional torpor in the sleek Park Hyatt, add local color, stir. Et voilà: Lost in Translation. For Sofia Coppola, this must have been…
Tracy Grammer/ Claire Holley
In Claire Holley’s childhood, the hills were alive with the sound of “That’s a big 10-4, good buddy.” The native Mississippian learned to sing by memorizing the soundtracks of her favorite films, The Sound of Music and Convoy. Perhaps that’s why Holley’s voice can alternate between smooth and raspy, sweet and tough, wistful and angry.…
Best Band
Heavy-breathing Cobra Verde is enjoying the best year of its career, having won love everywhere from Playboy to The New York Times. The band also released a standout third LP called Easy Listening. All rhythmic hip-shake and guitar bombast, with lusty, literate lyrics, it’s one of the finest rock records ever to come from Cleveland.
Best Club DJ
From Nirvana spiked with progressive trance to his dalliances with the theme from Knight Rider, Rob Black has made a name for himself among those who actually pay attention to what the DJ is playing. A resident at Wish and Metropolis (where he hosts the Church), Black also scores regular gigs for the city’s best…
Best Music Website
Good for laughs and history lessons, Clepunk.com is the gene map for this town’s storied rock underground. In addition to bios and photos of well over a hundred bands — from old-school favorites like the Kneecappers to present-day punks the Jacknife Powerbombs — there’s show listings, MP3s, and the best message board around. Check out…
Best Really, Really Early Breakfast
Weekend clubbers, pub-crawlers, and late-night restaurant workers know that Mom was right: Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, even if it comes right before bedtime. That’s why you’ll find them all gathered ’round the tabletops at homey little Grumpy’s, where the coffee’s hot and the eggs are over easy every Saturday and…
Best Wings
Buffalo Wild Wings has been at it for 20 years, but this perennial winner shows no sign of yielding the wingding crown anytime soon. The hot wings are still spicy enough to give you a head rush, and if you’re less adventurous (read: a wimp), there’s a vast selection of milder sauces. There’s also a…
Best After-Theater/ After-Movie Nosh
The best part about going to a show is often discussing the masterwork (or monstrosity) over grub and refreshing adult beverages. Trouble is, hardly anybody offers food late around here. Jimmy O’Neill’s on Lee Road is a wonderful exception. Serving till midnight Thursday through Saturday and till 11 p.m. Sunday through Wednesday, O’Neill’s offers everything…
Best TV Personality
There’s something sexy about Tim White, the evening anchor at Channel 3. It’s not really his looks — he’s attractive, without being gorgeous — or his voice, which is relatively bland. It’s pure intelligence. This is a man with a Ph.D., a host of awards for making documentaries, and a post as a brigadier general…
Best Place to Buy X-Rated Greeting Cards
Old lady asks the druggist if he knows what a vibrator is. He says yes. She says, “Then how do you turn the fucking thing off?!?” When Get well soon doesn’t get the message across, try one of the saucy greeting cards from the back of Clifton Web, whose selection would make a hooker blush.…
Best Athlete
If this were the Best of America issue, we might still give this award to LeBron. It’s not based on achievement, but rather trajectory: LeBron has engendered greater expectations than any amateur athlete in the history of his sport — perhaps in any sport. The upside of that pressure, of course, is the millions he’s…
Best Low-Impact Hiking Trail
So you don’t want to spend $150 on special hiking boots; you just want a nice nature walk. Well, take your Keds out to Dunham Road in Bedford, and start your low-impact hike at Hermit’s Hollow. Along the way, stop and admire the incredible view (and the gorgeous fall colors) at the Tinkers Creek Gorge…
Best Downtown Living
You’ll find the best lodging in Cleveland under a bridge. Stonebridge Waterfront is the glass-faced complex that rose up in an otherwise blighted, forgotten section of the Flats’ West Bank, just north of the Veterans Memorial Bridge. The balconies on that side have a view that makes the city seem downright Parisian. Residents watch freighters…
Best Place to Buy Booze
Most liquor stores aren’t about frills, just harsh fluorescent lights blazing down on row after row of tequila bottles. It’s a rare shop that manages to exude ambiance, and that’s what makes the Village Bootlegger so special. Tucked away from its strip-mall neighbors at the corner of state routes 82 and 21, the little shop…
Best Bookstore
It’s no coincidence that when Hillary Clinton came to Cleveland to promote Living History, she chose to do it at Joseph-Beth. The Shaker Square mainstay is the city’s best bookstore, and not just because it’s less generic than the Borders and B. Daltons dotting the suburbs. Despite its recent downsizing, Joseph-Beth gives plenty of space…
Groovy Ghoulies
Somewhere in the deepest mists of Eastern Europe lies an urban hell shrouded in shadowy azure, where darkly enchanted, black-leather-clad denizens leap about to thudding techno, blurting outrageously melodramatic proclamations in randomly accented English. It’s The Crow meets The Matrix, it’s gothcore tricked out with wire-stunts, and — most important – it’s rabid werewolves mixing…
Fighting O’Malleys
Cuyahoga County Recorder Pat O’Malley isn’t known for walking away from a brawl. He’s been accused of bar fighting, beating his ex-wife, even slamming a door on an EMS worker (“Winner-Takes-All Brawl,” January 31, 2002). Each time, he got off without criminal charges. Not so on September 7, when O’Malley was arrested for assault after…
Best Beer Selection
Let’s be real: The best part of world travel is sampling each nation’s brew. So leave your passport at home, and slither over to the Winking Lizard. The tour begins in Europe: Visit Belgium for Krullekop Tripel, England for a pint of Boddingtons, and Ireland for some Molings Red Ale. Swing up to Norway for…
Best Concert Venue
It’s not just the Beachland’s ample breathing room and obstruction-free view that make it the best place to see a show; it’s also how the place books the nation’s top artists in any number of genres. Rock, pop, hip-hop, folk, country, and jazz all get equal play, and all play surprisingly well on the Beachland’s…
Best Avant-Garde “Art” Exhibition
New York artist Christine Hill spent six weeks transforming MOCA’s white-box galleries into the production offices and set of a late-night TV talk show. The 34-year-old former masseuse/shoeshine girl/lead singer of a German punk band had decided to take Conan O’Brien’s gig for a test drive. Almost 4,000 Clevelanders meandered through her fantasy-in-progress. The “exhibit”…
Best Restaurant When Someone Else Is Buying
Sadly, the well-padded expense account has gone the way of high-button shoes and dot-coms, and today we must rely on the kindness of well-heeled benefactors to help us score the finer things in life. So next time the boss wants to show his appreciation for a job well done, or rich Auntie Ann wants to…
Best Romance With a Room
This turn-of-the-(19th)-century brownstone mansion on the edge of University Circle offers everything a couple in love wants for that magic moment. Just reserve the four-top in the corner of The Porch, and you’ll have a lovely view of the garden, all a-twinkle with lights. If you want to reveal the ring in an interesting way,…
Best Diner
Bright, colorful, and decked out with enough 1950s paraphernalia to outfit the Cleavers’ rec room, this cheerful restaurant, built from two silvery, vintage dining cars, is our favorite refuge on days when life in the 21st century seems too complicated. The encyclopedic menu of homey comfort food ranges from applewood-smoked bacon to zippy vegetarian chili,…
Best Library
If you prefer your literature served in giant hunks of modern architecture, Lakewood’s library will disappoint. But for true bibliophiles, there isn’t a better place to get a fix than within these stacks. So plentiful are the books here that the Borders of the world steer clear of the entire near West Side. There’s a…
Best New Shopping Experience
A corporate spokeswoman swears that University Heights’ new Target is no larger or better stocked than any other, but it sure feels otherwise. Maybe it’s the two-level design (one of only 25 double-deckers nationwide). Maybe it’s the cool shopping-cart escalators, which run alongside the standard escalators in the center of the high-ceilinged, well-lit store. Whatever…
Best Park
Edgewater is the most visited park in the state system, and it’s easy to see why. It’s got everything: a great view of the city skyline, a playground, picnic facilities, and unbeatable lakefront access. There’s a launch for boating, a beach for swimming, a pier for fishing, and big rocks for chilling. In Cleveland, that’s…
Best Public Swimming Pool
If you live in Mayfield Village, attend Mayfield schools, or work at Mayfield-based Progressive, you can beat the summer heat in the wonderful Parkview Swimming Pool. Opened in 1999, Parkview always offers lanes for lap swimmers and has a separate competitive diving well. Kids love the corkscrew water slide and attached playground. Dressing rooms with…
Best Manipulator
If you’re bent like a bad paper clip and in pain because your back went south, get thy lumbar region over to R.J. Siegenthaler, where sole practitioner Mark Zannetti has plied his trade since 1983. No appointments are necessary (ideal for those in pain now), since there are three treatment rooms — each equipped with…
Best Place to Buy Mood Lighting
It’s easy to spend hours and hours in this little shop in Ohio City, sorting through baskets of beads or skeins of cloth, looking for Indian treasure. The whole store is fun — but the little room tucked toward the back is truly extraordinary. It’s nothing but lamps, each more exquisite than the next: globes…
Best Chocolatier
When Ines Rehner emigrated from Croatia in 1989, she couldn’t find her favorite European-style chocolate. So she made her own — a secret blend of high-quality cocoas, chocolate liqueurs, sugars, and natural flavorings — and opened a store to spread the love. A small army of devoted workers handcraft the delights, including 17 types of…
Ol’ Black Eye
It can be argued that crooner-de-tutti-crooners Frank Sinatra was partly responsible for tens of thousands of babies born in the mid-to-late decades of the 20th century. There’s no DNA link, mind you, but hordes of us were probably conceived to the caressing measures of a Sinatra ballad. That said, and beyond any vague debt we…
Saves the Day/Taking Back Sunday
For all the flak that emo bands get for their crybaby angst, they’ve shrewdly dried their eyes long enough to figure out the one surefire way to survive in today’s fickle music environment: evolution. Just ask Saves the Day, the Princeton, New Jersey wunderkinds, who had a makeover rivaling Demi Moore’s after their breakthrough 2001…
Best Rendition of the Star Wars Cantina
The patrons may not have walrus faces or tentacles, but with theme rooms spanning three decades, Culture Club attracts one hell of a diverse crowd. Hip-hoppers hang in the ’90s room, where Eminem mixes with Sir Mix-A-Lot. Over in the jam-packed ’80s room, trendy girls wear short lace skirts, and guys dance as if they…
Best Actress
It was a year of acting lessons in one 50-minute monologue. It was a lifetime of theatrical know-how, poured into one unforgettable performance at Beck Center. It was Dorothy Silver as Susan, the alcoholic wife of an English vicar in the short play “Bed Among the Lentils.” By turns acidly sarcastic, surprisingly libidinous, and agonizingly…
Best Reason Mondays Don’t Suck
No reason for work to interrupt the weekend, when Cleveland Cinemas cuts admission to all its theaters on Mondays. The $5 shows (regularly $7.75) not only relieve the beginning-of-the-week blahs, they also free up weekend time film fans might normally have spent at the theater. So put another dime in the jukebox: There’s always low-dough…
Best Use of Marshmallow Cream
We know what you’re thinking, and we’re not saying you’re wrong. But in terms of applications that are fun for all ages, there’s no topping the lady locks from Stan’s. Baker-owner Dave Strodek (Stan’s son) handcrafts the European-style laminated dough and bakes it up into impressive cornucopias of light, flaky pastry. Meantime, his daughter Leslie…
Best Pizza You Have to Pick Up
We’ve all been spoiled by years of cardboard pizza delivered straight to our door. Valentino’s makes you work for it. The Little Italy pizzeria is a favorite of the brainiacs at Case Western Reserve, and for good reason: The alchemists at Valentino’s work absolute magic with their ingredients. At times — usually after our third…
Best Deli
This isn’t one of your dolled-up suburban delis, with coolers full of cream puffs and Muzak in the air. Hell no. Nate’s is a nice, gritty urban deli, one of only a handful of such spots still existing in the city, where the world-class hot-pastrami sandwiches and luscious early-morning omelets come with a slice of…
Best Executive
After Claire Van Ummersen’s undistinguished presidency, Cleveland State was encouraged to recruit a high-wattage star. Names like Dick Celeste and Mike White were discussed. But instead of going for glamour, the university lured Michael Schwartz, who led Kent State in the ’80s, out of semiretirement. It was the right choice. A self-described mechanic among hood…
Best Store for Girl Power
We’re not talking Precious Moments figurines here. Located in Cleveland’s Little Bohemia, the Green Tomato has chick-oriented pop-culture bonbons you won’t find anywhere else. Owner Gayle Lewis makes sure of it: She had Strawberry Shortcake and My Little Pony pajamas years ago, before the big-box retailers plundered the product line. Anything too mainstream gets tossed…
Best Gym
If you’re looking for a sports club that offers a rooftop bar and fine dining, try the Cleveland Athletic Club. Also, try a second mortgage. If you just want a place to unleash your office frustrations on a bunch of free weights, the downtown Fitworks offers a cheap, no-frills alternative. Membership can be had for…
Best Spot for Eagle Spotting
Northeast Ohio’s bald-eagle population is soaring, and some of those broad-shouldered flying machines can be spotted cruising through the Cuyahoga River Valley, in the air above the national park’s Towpath Trail. We’ve seen them flying high at the Station Road Trailhead, just north of the Route 82 bridge; winging it right above our heads, about…
Best View of Cleveland
It cost too much to build and makes a scarily inviting terrorist target. But Lord, what views! Shoot up to the 21st floor and drink in downtown in all its blustery winter charm or sparkling summer beauty. Watch snowflakes fall in a hypnotic swirl around skyscrapers and fill up Browns Stadium like a cereal bowl,…
Best Place to Buy Vinyl
Charles Chebl’s cramped, cluttered storefront is a vinylphile’s glorious scavenger hunt. In the center of the shop is a huge bin of recently released albums, priced between $5 (a Fireworks LP) and $18.25 (Embryo’s live release). Along the back wall, a field day awaits those into rifling through shelves of albums and 45s from the…
Best Home Decorating Store
There’s cool stuff to be found at the area’s chain stores — except everyone else can find it too. When it’s time to deck the crib with truly one-of-a-kind furnishings, you gotta Punch first. The Rocky River home store — housed in an actual home — is the source for singularly spectacular decorating. It offers…
Stone Free
The story of Sisyphus, the mortal condemned by Zeus to repeatedly push a boulder uphill, provides a metaphor for the ages. Cleveland Public Theatre used it as the basis for Up the Mountain, a collaboration with residents of Y-Haven, a transitional housing program for formerly homeless men recovering from substance abuse. “Addiction is a struggle,”…
Baring Fangs
Rock and roll is the emu oil of 2003. Its supply so far exceeds demand that record companies are starting to look like the befuddled ranchers of the mid-’90s, who were forced to free their stocks of giant flightless birds onto the Great Plains when the beasts’ commercial viability was exposed as a myth. But…
Some Girls
Juliana Hatfield’s career stretches back to the late-’80s college rock band Blake Babies. Her once-promising solo career then rode the pre-riot grrrl, alterna-rock breaker that also included Belly, Throwing Muses, and the Breeders. But 1992 pretty quickly morphed into 1995, and when the post-Nirvana hangover hit, Hatfield’s career moved to the curb with the empty…
Best Reason Not to Blow Up the Flats
When the barmaid tells you they serve most every kind of beer, what she means is “regular,” “lite,” and that Dutch one. Such are the simple pleasures of the River’s Edge, the Flats bastion of classic rock and big honking draft beers, which has refused to change with the times. While the rest of the…
Best Dance Club
Benetton ought to can its models and just tote a camera to the Touch dance floor. All the “united colors” are on display: Black, white, Asian, and Latino bring their own brands of music and dance, and then share. Rock rules Thursday, salsa spices up Friday, and hip-hop takes every Saturday night — except the…
Best Place to Get Some
On weekend nights, the young and libidinous scan the floor of Shooters like so many starving raptors. They often can’t even wait till they get inside — witness this personal coming-of-age tale: We’re sitting in a car in the Flats, waiting for a drawbridge to lower, when a young blonde bangs on the window. She’s…
Best New Restaurant
It’s not the menu at this hippest of all downtown restaurants that is extraordinary: After all, Clevelanders have certainly seen their share of mussels, calamari, and farfalle with vodka cream. Ah, but the preparation . . . now that’s another matter entirely. It’s as if Executive Chef Todd Stein and his crew have access to…
Best SteakHouse
A little bit worn and a trifle shabby, this labyrinthine Public Square steakhouse still boasts a broad-shouldered virility that recalls the heyday of downtown dining. Simply but adroitly prepared slabs of prime and choice Certified Angus Beef are the order of the day: items such as an imposing 28-ounce porterhouse; a 16-ounce New York strip,…
Best Restaurant
Grandma knew that preparing and enjoying honest food nourishes the soul as well as the body. Luckily for Clevelanders, Parker Bosley and Chef du Cuisine Andy Strisak know it too. Every plate that comes out of this Ohio City kitchen starts with truly fresh meats and produce brought in from local farms — places with…
Best Evening Stroll for Glimpsing the Homes of the Bourgeoisie
We know what you’re thinking: Lakewood? And we’ll admit that the houses in Cleveland Heights and Shaker may be a wee bit grander. But neither of those enclaves can boast a backdrop as wondrous as Lake Erie, home of the soul-stirring sunset. Venture out for a twilight walk along Lake Road (not Lake Avenue) near…
Best Place to Drink Coffee With Bogart
Coffee shops, of course, aren’t just about java. They’re for hanging out and kicking back, talking to neighbors and letting massive quantities of your life slip away. And so Talkies’ gimmick — a big movie screen — is a giant step ahead of the competition. The movies playing are a great inducement for hanging out…
Best Public Golf Course
While beautiful Orchard Hills is sneaky tough and Manakiki is a knee-rattling challenge, Sleepy Hollow gets the nod as the best public track in the area. It lulls you at the first tee, as you gaze out beyond the gently sloping downhill fairway to see (on a clear day) an expanse of Greater Cleveland’s southeast…
Best Bowling Alley for Serious Bowlers
While real golfers love to be challenged, serious bowlers just wanna score, baby. And one of the top-scoring lanes for the three-ball-bag crowd is Brookpark Freeway, where the consistent lane conditions — they don’t break down and change the shot — encourage plenty of 300 games (54 last season!) and 700-plus series. Brookpark Freeway Lanes,…
Best Neighborhood
Drive through Ohio City on any given day, and you can’t help but wonder: What Quiet Crisis? This is a neighborhood of amazing diversity, with great housing stock and energy to spare. It’s always had the West Side Market to keep Saturday mornings busy, but now it’s packing ’em in all week long: One-of-a-kind stores…
Best Place to Buy Magazines
From indie comic books to horror fanzines to literature for guys who like to date really fat women, Bank News stocks every magazine you could need — and many, many more. And unlike those franchise places that boast thousands of different titles, Bank News doesn’t come packed in a sterile environment. That’s not a double…
Best Do-It-Yourself Grocery Store
Are you a sheepish teen buying a box of Trojans? A grumpy old man in need of Depends? Then this is where you want to shop. Having converted entirely to self-checkout lanes, the store spares customers the prying eyes of clerks — and the embarrassment that comes from watching a total stranger handle your maxi…
This Week’s Day-By-Day Picks
Thursday, September 18 It’s been nearly 70 years since the first body washed up on Kingsbury Run, a wasteland of weeds and garbage that stretches from the Flats to East 55th Street. A new documentary, The Fourteenth Victim: Eliot Ness & the Torso Murders, examines every facet of the still-unsolved case. “People can’t stop looking…
Monkeys Shine
In the basement, the air is thick, smoky, and humid — like the early stages of a party that will grow unbearably hot, once people start showing up. It’s not a party, but a rehearsal for one: a show by two of Northeast Ohio’s biggest hip-hop crews. One of them, Akron’s Beatmakers Local 913, proved…
Lake Trout
Proposition: Even if you don’t agree that Radiohead’s OK Computer was the best and most important rock album of the past decade, you have to concede that the culturati have decreed it so. After all, hasn’t every purportedly important album that’s come out in the six years since OK Computer either been compared to it…
Best College Bar
For a crash course in what makes a great college bar, belly up to Glory Days. The bartenders are beautiful, and they’re a big reason why the place was honored by both Playboy and Stuff magazine. Glory Days knows that college kids are by definition poor, so it offers drink specials that keep beers below…
Best Movie With Cleveland Ties
The tale of a local kid made good, Antwone Fisher reminded audiences that Halle Berry isn’t Cleveland’s only connection to Hollywood. The movie tells the real-life story of Fisher, who survived a youth riddled with abuse, violence, and crime to become a heralded memoirist and, with this script, an equally heralded screenwriter. Thanks to newcomer…
Best Cheap Movies
Seeing a movie is usually an either/or proposition — either you’re getting gouged on admission and concessions at a theater, or you’re waiting for it to come to the little square screen of your television. But Northeast Ohio is blessed with a theater that’s run like a nonprofit: the Cinemark in Willoughby Hills, where admission…
Best Buffet
In Vegas, “buffet” is code for “heaping piles of week-old sludge.” But BD’s restores faith in the all-you-can-eat concept by limiting its offerings to stir-fry dishes and making ’em while you watch. Along with a dizzying variety of meats (sirloin, lamb, pork, chicken) and seafood (crayfish, calamari, mussels, shrimp), there’s a tongue-tingling array of veggies,…
Best Place to Remember That Food Is Life
At the most basic level, we eat to live. It follows that our food should be full of life-giving nutrients, minimally processed, and produced with care. Of course, you won’t hear us complain if it’s also delicious and interesting. And that’s just the way it is at the artful Flying Fig. From the freshly baked…
Best Bar Food
It’s tempting to trot out the tired old “hidden gem” adage to describe the food at this vintage East Side tavern. Who would expect to discover sophisticated fare such as pan-seared grouper, blue-cheese spaetzle, or crab-crusted salmon lurking behind the facade of a bland-looking pub? But judging from the crowds who pack the joint on…
Best Rock-and-Roll Couple
As twin vocalists for Kiddo, Christian and Liz (pictured) harmonize like Sonny and Cher, sans the polyester and bad hair. The interplay between them fuels the band’s effervescent pop, resulting in a sound as giddy and head-spinning as love itself. Find out on your own, with Kiddo’s winsome self-titled debut (on Michigan’s Drive-In Records) or…
Best Mall
What is a mall but a collection of stores? Sure, some have nicer skylights, others better gift-wrapping services. But the real key to mall greatness is great stores, and by that measure, Beachwood Place is hands-down the winner. Here you’ve got Nordstrom and Guess, Pottery Barn and Saks Fifth Avenue, not to mention Papyrus, BCBG…
Best Driving Range
This ain’t your usual bang-a-bucket-and-beat-it driving range. Named for four years in a row as one of the Top 100 driving ranges in the U.S. by Golf Range magazine (does everybody have a freakin’ magazine?), the Practice Greens at Bobicks has it all. Fifty grass tees and 30 covered/heated tees look out on a golf-course-like…
Best Bike Trail
No, you still can’t bike across the Detroit-Superior Bridge without getting clipped by a truck. And the Metroparks remain glutted with Rollerbladers and runners on any sunny day. But if you’re looking for a good, long bike ride, don’t overlook the Towpath. In 30 miles, you’ll travel from industrial city to country to industrial city…
Best Paranormal Investigator
Some gifted folks can see dead people; Mary Ann makes chitchat with them. For a reasonable fee, she’ll moderate a surreal Q&A session between the spook and the spooked, then provide an optional “housecleaning.” Not the least bit intimidating, Mary Ann (ghostbusters need no last name) is just a down-to-earth suburbanite with an extra-earthly ability.…
Best Thrift Shop
Betty’s is the Super-K of thrift shops, a clotheshorse’s paradise. Here, racks of laundered, lightly worn garments are lined up like an army of steel soldiers. One wall of the main showroom features shelves of knickknacks and collectibles; on the other side are bins of 45s and albums from the ’50s and ’60s. If you…
Best Grocery Store
Perhaps every Buehler’s is as majestic as this one, but it’s not worth our time to find out. Does your grocery store have in-store wizards who create everything from sushi to ice-cream cakes? A full-service Kidz Park play area? A booze section the Dawg Pound would drool over? Free gourmet coffee samples? A dirt-cheap restaurant…
Ballroom Blitz
Lisa Vegas never thought she’d see the day when her beloved ballroom dancing would become an Olympic sport. After years of dancing competitively, she doesn’t have to be told that the salsa, tango, and bolero are nothing short of gymnastics. The International Olympic Committee finally agrees. After making a test run as an exhibition sport…
Denim Demons
“If anyone can come up with a name . . . ,” sputters Turbonegro bassist-mastermind Happy Tom, attempting — via cell phone from an Oslo taxicab, no less — to hang a handle on the Norwegian death-punk band’s upcoming excursion to the U.S. Bible Belt. Perhaps he’s trying to top last summer’s “Res-Erection” festival tour.…
David Bowie
David Bowie’s history is his blessing and his curse. While his excess-fueled glam, synth-rock, and soul experiments created an iconic image that gives him unparalleled creative freedom, every subsequent album he releases is in some subtle way compared to the impossible heights he reached in the 1970s. Bowie won’t escape this dilemma on Reality, thanks…
Best Country Comeback
Together on and off since 1987, the renegade country troupe California Speedbag required all of 16 years to create its first CD, February’s The Fire of Misery. It burns like a shot of Jack, blending the wizened croon of frontman Gary Lupico with aching pedal steel. The song titles say it all: If tequila-drenched stompers…
Best Arcade
Home-gaming systems have made arcades a modern rarity, but the warehouse-sized entertainment center that is Dave & Buster’s dutifully keeps the art form alive. There’s no topping its variety, from driving games and virtual-reality simulators to old-school classics like Galaga and skee-ball. There’s also good food in the adjoining restaurant and a bar that cuts…
Best Artful Use of Smut
John Ewing knows what keeps the lights on at the Cinematheque: cartoons, porn, and especially cartoon porn. So it’s with gritted teeth that the genial director of the Cleveland institution programs Porn Yesterday and other lascivious titles. They’re box-office money shots that enable Ewing to show more important fare — i.e., the stuff that nobody…
Best Matzo Ball Soup
What’s most impressive about Max’s take on this comforting classic is the sheer girth of the balls. But their reputation isn’t built on size alone: Their chewy, earthy taste is a complement to Max’s subtle-but-flavorful broth (the same broth used in Max’s equally fine chicken soup). Best of all, the balls themselves don’t break up…
Best Chick Drink
The Treehouse may be a Guinness kind of place, but it refuses to shun Tremont’s more girly swillers. As evidence, check out the big glass jar of pineapple soaking in Stolichnaya behind the bar. The Stoli-Doli — a mixture of pineapple juice and vodka, shaken and poured into a martini glass with a thick, booze-soaked…
Best Hummus
Like Italian marinara or Mexican salsa, there are as many different recipes for Middle Eastern hummus as there are cooks making it. But Judy Khoury’s hummus is something special: Thick, smooth, less tart than many, and more complexly seasoned than most, her secret is in her zatar, that exotic blend of sumac, thyme, salt, and…
Best Drag Queen
Erica’s striking looks are defined by her flowing auburn hair, blue eye shadow, and spicy-pink lipstick. She won the Miss Big & Beautiful National Pageant in 1996, and she’s since become a popular host of many beauty contests, including this year’s Miss Ohio Continental Pageant. The “house diva” at the Grid/Orbit, Erica hosts its Tuesday-night…
Best Dog Palace
You may be OK with staying in Motel 6 on your vacation, but your dog certainly deserves better. Avoid pangs of guilt by dropping your mutt or Lhasa Apso off at the Dahl House in Macedonia. He’ll be treated to heated floors on the covered outdoor runs, special “TLC” packages that include daily brushing and…
Best Show of Humility
During their reign atop the AL Central, the Indians were a cocky organization. Even junior staffers walked with a slugger’s swagger. Institutional audacity reached its zenith before the 2001 season, when the club began charging $19 and $17 for ass space in the bleachers. Nineteen bones for a plank in the outfield? When Jacobs Field…
Best News for Dawg Pounders
Mike Junkins and Clifford Charltons are the stuff of Draft Day jinxes, but the Browns came out on top with William Green. The team’s first-round pick of 2002 averaged more than 100 rushing yards through the last seven games of his inaugural season, leading the Browns to the playoffs for the first time in a…
Best 31-Year-Old Feature Story
Cleveland magazine made its debut in April 1972 — and has gone downhill ever since. The fledgling glossy made an all-too-perfect entrance, choosing as its first cover subject a 26-year-old city councilman. Writer Terry Sheridan began his profile this way: “On November 5, 1969, a lapsed poet, precocious Dennis Kucinich, his face alight with lambent…
Best Happy Ending
Rockefeller Barber Shop does not answer to “salon.” Its magazine rack keeps Playboy, Clubman products abound, and haircuts sell for $12. But the two house barbers, Craig and Nick, do not have boobs, which men enjoy orbiting their heads while they’re under the smock. (Guys may not acknowledge it, but they’ll pay twice the money…
Best Place to Buy Music
Chris’ Warped is 20 years old this year, and it’s still the finest place to shop for CDs. The independent ethos of founder Chris Andrews rages among the new generation of staffers there. Their recommendations — which recently included albums by the little-known-but-should-be-heard Anatomy of a Ghost, Alkaline Trio, and In Dying Days — keep…
