Best Place for Designer Discounts
Since Loehmann’s went out of business in Ohio, Stein Mart has had a lock on designer-discount ware here. And “Mart” is truly the only word to describe this marketplace of deals and selections. From 100-count sheets to $100 shoes, you can find everything you need for a night on the town — or a night…
Best Place to Get Framed
This homegrown emporium of all things crafty catered to the Martha Stewart set long before anyone heard of the domestic diva, but where it really shines is in custom framing. The well-trained workers bring an eye for aesthetics that results in a classy product, whether you’re framing an expensive oil or your kindergartner’s first finger-painted…
Best Gym
It’s a little easier to wake up early in the morning for a jog if you know that as you pound that treadmill, you can watch SportsCenter on a movie screen. Booya! You’re experiencing the Rocky River FitWorks, newly renovated this spring. The equipment’s almost all new. The music is programmed, so you don’t have…
Floundering
Shark Tale is an animated film, though after you see it you might wonder whether the term is intended as oxymoronic. Put simply, it has no life in it at all. Not even the kids roped into an afternoon preview screening seemed terribly interested. Perhaps they’ve grown tired of computer-made cartoons, their little tummies too…
Al Kooper
Panic can make for great moments. Just as Chuck Berry first sported his famous duck-walk in hope of concealing his dreadfully wrinkled suit at one of many shows that day, rock icon Al Kooper spun gold from a recording session freakout. Prepared to play guitar behind Bob Dylan, Kooper heard session partner Mike Bloomfield warming…
Dirty Dolls and Tricky Dick’s Dog
10/1-10/2 For those of you who’ve been pining for movies offering political commentary from Richard Nixon’s dog, we have some good news: This weekend’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Industry Film Festival features a flick (7 Days) with that very premise! “We saw it in Chicago,” says filmmaker Matthew T., who programs the two-day fest with…
Best Place to Catch a Flick for Under $2
With movie ticket prices rising above $8 and a tub of popcorn rivaling the cost of prime rib at Morton’s, a family of four damn near has to take a second mortgage out on the house to catch a new movie. But not at Willoughby Hills, Cleveland’s best second-run cinema, where you can see Harry…
Best Burger
There are burgers. Then there’s the most excellent Danny Melt, Halite’s meaty marvel, slathered beneath truly, deeply caramelized onions and melted Gruyère, and served on marbled, light-and-dark rye bread. The key to the burger’s stunning, Kobe-beef-like tenderness is its prime-quality ground meat, scored from stand H-12 at the West Side Market (butcher and bon vivant…
Best Outdoor Dining
It may be set back a mere dozen feet from the bustle of Detroit Avenue, but the terraced brick patio at Three Birds feels like a romantic secret garden, fringed in ivy and begonias, shaded by mature trees, and enlivened with songs of warblers and finches. Stylish aluminum-mesh chairs and tables topped with black market…
Best Martini Bar
True to owner Nick Kostis’s vision of Dickensian eccentricity, the bartenders at Kevin Clinton’s Martini Lounge on the lower level at Pickwick & Frolic can put as much magic into your martini as the bottle of booze floating in midair. Sip on a French Connection, and see someone else’s reflection in the mirror behind the…
Best Lunchtime Fare
Unfortunately, lunchtime is the only time you can belly up to this cute, colorfully decorated café, tucked away in a small loft on East 30th Street. Too bad. Tastebuds serves up healthy, delicious fare, such as the “roasted, toasted, and grilled salad” (a hearty combination of marinated mushrooms, red bell peppers, sweet onion, garlic-roasted potatoes,…
Best Neighborhood
Stand anywhere in Tremont, swing a yuppie by the heels, and you’re sure to hit either a trendy club, a cozy coffee bar, or a valet-parking attendant. This old ethnic neighborhood has become the ultimo place to hang out, for anything from sipping foo-foo martinis at the trendy Lava Lounge to chugging a beer at…
Best Vintage Stuff
At the Flower Child, everything old is new again. The top floor boasts funky vintage relics like ceramics and records and shoes from the 50s and 60s. The downstairs has mens and womens clothes arranged not by size, but by color. And while the department stores are currently flouting copycat retro trends, here you can…
Best Martini With a Manicure or Massage
We’ve long been proponents of multitasking, particularly in the arena of personal care, going so far as to suggest to the dentist that our semiannual cleaning would be the perfect opportunity for a complimentary eyebrow wax. Thus far, the medical community has met our suggestions with derision. But it looks as if the clever marketing…
Best Persistence
A native of Detroit, Gates led the Kent State basketball team to the NCAA’s Elite Eight in 2002 and was an honorable mention All-American the following year. But when the NBA overlooked the burly forward in 2003, Gates walked on with the San Diego Chargers — his first football action since high school. Dropped after…
Preemptive Assassination
You say you love President Bush and loathe John Kerry? Or perhaps you despise W and have a “Four More Wars” bumper sticker on your Volvo. Either way, you’re sure to find plenty to applaud in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. In fact, there are few plays so chock-full of great lines and open interpretations as this…
Cemetery Gatez
Even when Pantera was in its prime, the band’s live shows had a somewhat stultifying filler-to-killer ratio after singer Phil Anselmo (pictured) started to rant. As the frontman for Cemetery Gatez, America’s (self-described — though many a fan agrees) No. 1 Pantera-tribute band, Rick throws some off-the-cuff banter, P.H.A. style, but he saves his energy…
Omar’s Last Stand?
SUN 10/3 When Omar Vizquel joined the Indians a decade ago, he was a slick shortstop with not much of a bat. He even committed three errors in a single game during his second week with the Tribe. “It seems like a really long time ago,” says Vizquel. “Especially because I’m the last guy that’s…
Best Under-the-Radar Rock Joint
The best rock clubs are like the worst girlfriends: loud, ugly, and really only fun when you’re drunk. With this in mind, Annabell’s is a real catch. Upstairs is a small neighborhood bar where friendly regulars knock back Buds. Downstairs is a small rock dive where not-so-friendly-sounding punks, rockers, and metalheads sweat up the joint…
Best Italian Food
Arrivederci, Roma, and hello, Cleveland! For authentic tastes of the Piedmont, this friendly, intimate dining room in the heart of Little Italy is the next best thing to an actual trip to the land of olive oil and garlic. Big flavors — in such dishes as rack of lamb in a fruity fig-and-port reduction; long-boned…
Best Vegetarian Brunch Buffet
Just think what remarkable dishes you could create with the entire inventory of the region’s top natural-foods market at your disposal. Now, think how cool it would be if someone else did the cooking for you. It’s not just a foodie’s fantasy: It’s what you’ll find on the brunch buffet each Sunday at the Mustard…
Best Gay Bar
Tucked away behind a nondescript storefront, the Hawk has been flaunting its no-frills shot-and-beer reputation in front of neighborhood regulars since the early ’70s. Anchored by bartender Chris Baumgartner, the club boasts a healthy happy hour during the week, with its modestly priced pitchers of beer on tap and shots of booze from the well.…
Best Slice of Gay Paree
Who knew that a bouquet of ostrich plumes, swaths of vintage fabrics, and a couple of Edith Piaf records could turn a corner of Ohio City into a shabby-chic Parisian bistro? The obvious answer is Denajua, (pictured) Cleveland’s own designer, Francophile, and certified free spirit, who rules over her little neighborhood crêperie with a wooden…
Best Place for a Kiss
A kiss from someone you’re into is pleasant in just about any environment, but some places are just more smoochy than others. So pucker up and head out to Bridal Veil Falls. The observation deck provides a solid foundation for your lip-lock, while before you, the waters of Deerlick Creek course down the falls and…
Best Spot to Score a Sharp Axe
In the 40 years he’s been in the music business, Dick Sodja has seen and heard it all. He sold guitars to Joe Walsh, back when the local kid might actually return your call. He provided backline rentals to the boys in the band at the old Front Row Theater. And his collection of customer…
Best Video Games
What started as a humble Cleveland shop where customers could swap records has grown into a national chain of 29 stores in three states and Washington, D.C. The company has furthered its spectacular growth by adding video games to its list of wares and is now the premier place to find gently used games. The…
Best Place to Gear Up
Basketball players have it easy — a pair of sneakers, some old sweat shorts, and you’re good to go. But what about those who take up more equipment-intensive hobbies, like ice hockey and golf? Gearing up for those can set you back a few hundred bucks. But if you don’t mind a little wear and…
Shell Shock
If Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence were a live-action sequel, there would be a lot of gossip about star histrionics, creative conflicts, and so forth. Since the original Ghost in the Shell, first released nearly 10 years ago, made an anime icon out of its star, the frequently nude female android Major Motoko Kusanagi…
DJ Scribe
Nitty Gritty parties return to the scene beginning Saturday at the B-Side Liquor Lounge. The long-running club night will host New York City’s DJ Scribe, an Oberlin alumnus who cut his teeth opening for funk-sourced hip-hop giants like A Tribe Called Quest and Digable Planets. Years later, he’s developed an evolved brand of groove that…
Whose Side Are You On?
FRI 10/1 Bruce Cameron doesn’t care if he’s the only guy at the Girls’ Night Out Pampered Shopping Party of massages, chocolates, and cocktails with umbrellas. Cameron and girlfriend-author Cathryn Michon are there to boost gals’ egos. On the heels of Michon’s The Grrl Genius Guide to Sex, Cameron’s How to Remodel a Man offers…
Best Book Written by a Clevelander
Cleveland Heights resident and Oberlin prof Chaon’s 2001 short-story collection, Among the Missing, was nominated for a National Book Award. You Remind Me of Me, his first novel, picks up similar themes of loss, despair, and displacement, and places them into four crisscrossing and generation-spanning tales of midwestern people trying to live their lives the…
Best Pho
Slurp, click. Slurp, click. That’s the sound of happy diners wielding chopsticks and soupspoons at our favorite noodle shop, Pho Hoa. While the little eatery, tucked inside Chinatown’s Golden Plaza, recently expanded its menu and underwent a mini-remodeling that made the digs much more hip and trendy, it’s still the pho — that substantial Vietnamese…
Best Happy-Hour Value
A Bud, a burger, and a fistful of potato chips isn’t a bad menu for an after-work wind-down. And a $6.50 tab’s not bad for fueling up at the bar of one of the city’s best restaurants. Align these two concepts into one seamless experience, and what results is the Tuesday-through-Friday Happy Hour at Flying…
Best Gay Bar Happy Hour That No One Knows About
To usher in the summer, Club Deco took an unusual step with its happy-hour prices: It lowered them. Not that many customers noticed. On a typical afternoon, only a handful of regulars dutifully plunk down four dollars for a large pitcher of draft beer or a buck for a bottle of domestic brew. If the…
Best Soul Man
No, he’s not a musician. But self-taught chef and caterer Tom Paige turns out some truly jazzy southern and soul-food dishes at Gookie’s (his childhood nickname). Lovingly prepared and regally presented comfort foods, centered upon seafood, chicken, and beef, are served in a setting so hip and stylish, it rivals Chicago joints. And it’s a…
Best Place to Run the Kids
With a towering tree house, a winding labyrinth of shrubs, a giant water fountain made to run through, and enough winding paths and shady nooks for a whole day of hide-and-seek, the Hershey Children’s Garden at the Cleveland Botanical Garden is the perfect place to let the kids run free and learn a little about…
Best Place to Buy a Tajine
After all those hours you’ve spent in front of the telly watching the Food Network, isn’t it time you got off your butt and actually cooked something? Besides, the old excuses — “I dont have a fondue pot,” or “Wherever shall I find a tajine?” — are getting really lame, now that Sur La Table…
Best Old-Time Soda Fountain
The independently owned pharmacy is nearly extinct, and most of us know about its friendly little soda fountain mainly from Norman Rockwell prints. But like a blip on time’s radar, Hudson’s 95-year-old Saywell’s drugstore lives on, its little nine-seat soda fountain serving up delicious sodas, milkshakes, and sundaes garnished with a spoonful of sweet nostalgia.…
Best Kids’ Martial Arts Instructors
Jim Meola is a seventh-degree black belt in goshin jujutsu, a Japanese martial art. He instructs cops and soldiers, and even devised a system, called Combat Jujitsu, for the U.S. Army Special Forces. None of that, however, prepared him for teaching children. That just comes naturally. “I really enjoy it,” says Meola, whose school takes…
Slap Happy
All intimate human relationships reside in the shadowy area between two terrors: the fear of being alone and the fear of having the same person denting your favorite easy chair every night. This probably explains why most couples are always having disputes about one thing and another, as they try to wriggle themselves into temporarily…
Fu Manchu
Some years ago, Fu Manchu covered Blue Öyster Cult’s “Godzilla” and in so doing mapped the boundaries of its aesthetic. Every Fu Manchu song is like that ’70s anthem — a sludgy throb driven by fuzzed-out guitar riffs and thudding drums. On their seventh full-length studio effort, absolutely nothing has changed. Every song on Start…
Best Place to Watch Foreign Films
Park your car, pick your way through the labyrinth of art-lined hallways, and take a seat for some of the most interesting foreign films shown anywhere. Care to see the dark comedy of Swedish director Roy Andersson? Or an epic Brazilian tragedy set in the largest prison in Central America? Cinematheque director John Ewing has…
Best Night on the Town
Laid-back and lived in, Brendan Ring’s Nighttown channels a vibe that is part Irish pub, part music club, and guests quickly get hip to dividing their attention between a plate of creamy Dublin Lawyer, say, and the stylings of such musicians as renowned Cuban jazz pianist Chuchito Valdes. Sure, the sight lines sometimes suck, and…
Best Sexy Food
Food is life. But that can be tough to recall when your meals come mainly from drive-through windows. Luckily, the cure for your gustatory amnesia is close at hand at Fahrenheit, where chef-owner Rocco Whalen seduces palates with some of the most voluptuous dishes in town. Like the perfect lover, Whalen’s culinary creations are bold,…
Best Bakery-Café
Casual but oh-so-urbane, the original Stone Oven location in Cleveland Heights is a neighborhood mainstay, where locals can grab an early-morning muffin, co-workers pause for a lunchtime sandwich, and homemakers head for loaves of freshly baked bread. Lest this sound a little too much like Panera, say, the difference is this: The Stone Oven is…
Best Place to Drown Your Sorrows
For a “little bar,” Little Bar has a lot of heart. The low-lit, no-pretense watering hole is great for hiding out and drinking away your sorrows any time of the day. And with patrons constantly hustling in and out, your misery will have company. The kindhearted bartenders always provide a little midwestern comfort — which…
Best Bar if You’re Underdressed
Clothes can be a real drag in the summertime — shirts, in particular. And if you’re going to Bourbon Street Grill, you don’t have to bother. Boaters and jet-skiers come to this breezy restaurant/bar straight from the lake, and no one cares if they’re in shorts and bikinis. Players from the volleyball league flock here…
Best Spot to Pretend You’re Hip
Depending on whom you believe, XO is shorthand for either extra old or extra-ordinary and is used in reference to top-shelf brandies, such as Courvoisier’s XO Imperial Cognac. Aged between 25 and 35 years in French Limousin-oak casks, the Courvoisier has been called voluptuous, elegant, and subtle. Even before its first birthday, much the same…
Best Gift Baskets
When you need to send out gifts, don’t become a basket case. Just call Miles Farmers Market, and have them send one of their woven wicker baskets filled with an enormous variety of fresh, top-quality food. Select from traditional fruit versions, themed baskets for football parties (beer and peanuts), celebrations (brie and champagne), or even…
Best Place for Tire Irons and Sausage
Whether you’re in the market for old comic books, fresh produce, used video games, or somebody’s old spoon collection, you’re sure to find it all at this massive flea market, which has been around in one form or another since 1939. The year-round Marketplace recently opened a 10,000-square-foot indoor facility, where more than 175 shops…
Best Rookie With a Broken Leg
At the point in his career when most guys are carrying the luggage of veteran players, Winslow quickly took ownership of his team. Who else could clock a guy in a half-speed practice drill and earn near-universal support for the gesture? An opening-day starter despite his lengthy contract holdout, Winslow looked sharp on offense and…
On Stage
By Jeeves — sSt in 1920s England and based on the P.G. Wodehouse stories of dunderheaded Bertie Wooster and his condescendingly superior butler, Jeeves, this show generates a fair number of chuckles, thanks to a mildly wry script and some well-calibrated comic performances. The thin premise is that Bertie, an affable but none-too-bright upper-crust Brit,…
Good Charlotte
Few pop-punk bands outgrow the genre’s Peter Pan complex without losing commercial viability. That’s probably because twentysomething angst doesn’t translate well to the skatepark. Nevertheless, an ambition to transcend three-chord pogos drives the third album from Hot Topic darlings Good Charlotte. Chronicles largely avoids pop-punk jauntiness, though there’s no shortage of emo chug-a-lug (“Mountain,” “S.O.S.”),…
Best Musical
A surprising number of musicals are mounted each year in which the singing quality appears to be a secondary consideration. This never happens at Kalliope Stage, the new storefront theater in Cleveland Heights dedicated to the American musical. Their production of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Carousel was a case in point — the cast of exceptional…
Best “Bang” for Your Buck
Everything is so amped at Lorain Speedway: the sights, the smells, the sounds. The weekly races feature such NASCAR-sanctioned divisions as Late Models, Modifieds, Grand Nationals, and Spectator Stocks. We have no idea what all that means either, but we do know that it makes for one helluva ride on Saturday nights from April through…
Best Regional Wine
The delicate, honeyed flavor of ice wine comes from allowing the grapes to freeze on the vine, a process that concentrates the natural sugars. Because production is both labor-intensive and completely dependent on the weather, the wine is both scarce and expensive — in other words, the perfect gourmet treat! Ferrante’s version, with 20 percent…
Best Spot to Recall That Food Is Life
Ram Dass was talking about life, not cuisine, when he instructed us to Be Here Now. Still, if he had known chef-restaurateur Parker Bosley, he might have broadened his scope. Not content merely to create wonderful meals from wholesome products, Bosley went out and built himself an entire food-supply network, tapping local farmers, growers, and…
Best Hot Dog
In downtown Amherst — which the locals call “uptown” Amherst — Hot Dog Heaven has been peddling its all-meat Sugardale franks on Nickles Bakery buns for 27 years. A common hangout for students walking up the hill from Marion L. Steele High School, this hot-dog shop makes its specialty chili-and-cheese creations as the orders are…
Best Steak
In a meat ‘n’ taters town like Cleveland, steak dinners practically grow on trees, from Morton’s of Chicago to the little corner bar. Still, when it comes to consistency, reliability, and gustatory return on our (admittedly substantial) monetary investment, we can’t think of any place finer than the sophisticated, elegant Hyde Park Prime Steakhouse in…
Best Treasure-Hunting
Living in or near the most densely populated community between New York and Chicago really pays off when you need a solid-wood end table on the cheap. No matter what youre looking for — lawn mower? antique mirror? gently used toys? — youll find it on a Lakewood tree lawn the night before garbage pickup.…
Best Indie Bookstore
Thank goodness one can still go out for a nice dinner, wander down the street, and find a bookstore to browse through. Cute little Appletree Books is still providing that service after 29 years in Cleveland Heights. You won’t find tons of how-to and art books, but there’s a fine selection of other titles, with…
Best Hope for Our Culinary Future
Until recently, Cleveland’s would-be culinary professionals had few local venues available for pursuing their dreams of 20-hour workdays, lower-back injuries, and the specter of looming bankruptcy. But with the recent launch of Loretta Paganini’s International Culinary Arts & Sciences Institute, any motivated Northeast Ohioan can now learn to slice and dice with the best of…
Best Golf Course
We’d never tell you that Sleepy Hollow’s a pure pleasure to play. Its deep ravines, encroaching trees, dozens of bunkers, and microscopic greens wreak havoc on blood pressure. But for sheer beauty — the undulating fairways, the sun-splashed haze over the Cuyahoga River Valley — there’s just no topping this place. The affordable courses of…
On View
Daring Decade: Women in the 1920s — After WWI, American girls wanted to be more independent, and simply constructed, loose-fitting, low-waisted evening dresses made it easy to fox-trot late into the night. One of several examples of the genre is a Lanvin purple chiffon dress, circa 1929; the blouson shape of the top and the…
John Cale
Quick — name an artist who began his career in the ’60s and is still pushing the parameters of popular music in the new millennium. Once you check off Dylan, Bowie, Richard Thompson, Neil Young, and Lou Reed, the choices wind down rapidly. John Cale, Reed’s onetime partner in the Velvet Underground, should be on…
Best Radio Programming
Cleveland State’s radio station lives up to its motto: “We eat commercial radio for breakfast.” On the weekends, the station meets the FCC’s public-affairs dictates with news hours in Hungarian, German, and Arabic. But during the week, it unleashes a lineup of offbeat music fests, such as the “cottage-rocking” Cowboy in Sweden, the quirky Throat…
Best Cleveland Freebie
So many people, so much potential for violence. It’s a wonder a small riot hasn’t broken out yet at the Cleveland Orchestra’s free annual July 4 bash at Public Square. Apparently, the spirit of America must so move the more than 80,000 people who pack themselves into the downtown quadrant each year — to listen…
Best Breakfast
Oatmeal? Too wholesome. Bacon and eggs? Too routine. Instead, when we wake up dreaming of the perfect way to start our day, pancakes, in all their glorious diversity, are what’s on our mind, and the Original Pancake House in Woodmere is where we point our car. It’s clean and comfortable, with a menu that features…
Best Meal Deal
While lunch and dinner price tags read like something out of the ’70s at the Cleveland Grille, Dino Tsarnas’s homey West Side restaurant, only a professional wrestler could expect to leave hungry. Amply sized sandwiches, including one day’s thickly sliced roast beef with sautéed mushrooms and onions, come with a towering side of freshly cut…
Best Chicken Salad
In the shoebox-sized Uptown, owner Ali Mohammed casually yuks it up with customers while he prepares a steady stream of lunchtime orders. Sure, his Polish Boys and tuna melts are popular. But his four-inch-high chicken-salad sandwiches are worth the wait in line. Topped with an optional slice of tomato, the salad itself is a creamy,…
Best Place to Splurge
Luxurious, indulgent, and always delightful, this first-rate restaurant inside the InterContinental Hotel & Conference Center employs beauty, wit, and European charm to create world-class meals, at admittedly worldly prices. Then again, no reasonable gourmet would expect a nine-course dégustation menu — beginning with canapés and amuse-bouches; moving on to truffle-stuffed turbot and foie gras, perhaps;…
Best Bar for Drinking With Real Clevelanders
Sure, there are five yuppie condo buildings within two blocks of Cleveland’s oldest bar. But that doesn’t scare away the electricians, longshoremen, and plumbers who have been piling into the Harbor Inn since 1895. Enjoy the cheap domestic beers and great atmosphere as well as the coolest liquor bar anywhere, sculpted to look like a…
Best Day Spa
Schedule a day at Spa West, and start by having their stretch limo pick you up — preferably from work, so you can flaunt it in the faces of your fellow proletarians. Once onsite, you can luxuriate in a selection of European, American, and Oriental spa therapies; have your hair done; and even grab a…
Best Haircut and a Beer
This hair saloon for men caters to guys who appreciate cold brewskies, fine cigars, and football on big-screen TVs . . . and precision haircuts, minifacials, and eyebrow waxing. The full-service salon opened in June to rave reviews for its sports-bar atmosphere and comprehensive range of salon services tailored just for men. Its decor includes…
Best Failed Physical
Thank heaven for bum knees. If old Omar had merely passed his physical last winter, he’d be a Seattle Mariner now. At the time, the nixed trade looked like bad news to all but Omar’s legion of swooning admirers: The whispers, after all, had started a couple of seasons ago that he couldn’t go to…
More Everything
Jenny Lewis and her bandmates in L.A.’s Rilo Kiley are making real progress. “You should hear what it’s like in our van when we’re on tour,” the singer says by phone from her Silver Lake home a week before climbing into that van for a five-week trek to the East Coast and back. “There’s a…
John Fogerty
John Fogerty’s first album in seven years is best when it’s simplest. Tunes like the semi-country “Rhubarb Pie” and “I Will Walk With You” have a captivating lilt, and the pop tune “Sugar Sugar (In My Life),” all slouchy and sweet, is one of Fogerty’s catchiest. The CD rocks from the start, its Iraq-referenced title…
Best Art Gallery
While some art-gallery folks exude an attitude so tightass they could whistle “Flight of the Bumblebee” with their bums, Spaces Gallery is dedicated to bringing local artists together with the public. Shows are chosen by artists and exhibitors, who are given the freedom to express themselves without worrying about marketability. The gallery’s SPACELab and World…
Best Laugh on the Radio
Nothing is funny when you’re stuck in morning traffic on the I-480/I-77 interchange, but Rebecca Wilde’s laugh is infectious. In her career, she must have quelled hundreds of road-rage incidents. Wilde is the wily co-host of the morning show on Q104, where she also serves as music director. She’s the polar opposite of XTM’s Rover…
Best Use of Apples
California entrepreneurs Mark Kuperman and Anthony Dellamano introduced battered and fried Applestix to the world this past April at Jacobs Field. (A second location opened in Parmatown Mall in July.) Made from tart Ohio Mutsu apples and tossed in a secret blend of sugar and spices, these appealing little noshes are served with a choice…
Best Pierogi Dinner
Cevapci, schnitzel, and meltingly tender, bite-sized kaldooni (a sort of miniature pierogi with attitude) make for some mighty fine Eastern European eats at North Collinwood’s John Christie’s Tavern. But when we crave a taste of the Old Country, we opt for the plump potato-and-cheese pierogi: handmade, butter-drenched, and smothered beneath limp, caramelized onions. Side those…
Best Place to Drink With Cops
In lieu of windows, this bar has a painted wooden cutout of a cop car nailed to the front wall. It’s just the first indication that Zone Car Lounge takes two things very seriously: cops and drinking. You don’t have to have a badge to enter, but it probably would help to have a recent…
Best Buffet
We’ve heard the arguments against all-you-can-eat dining, and Rocky River’s Hometown deftly blows them all away. Lovingly run by manager Michael Bryan as if it were his grandmother’s dining room, the place dodges the conventions of so-called institutional food right and left: Guests rave about the juicy roasts and hams, carved to order by singing…
Best Place to Reenact The Shawshank Redemption
During the fall, the local preservation society opens the decaying reformatory for all-night tours. For $50, you can wander through the entire prison until the break of dawn. They even throw in free pizza for the freaks who come out to try to photograph ghosts. Unfortunately, these paranormal investigators often overlook the coolest thing there:…
Best Manicurist
For 57 years, Marie Novak has filed, buffed, and painted the fingernails of Clevelanders. The energetic 76-year-old received her manicure license in 1947 and has been filing away ever since. Her loyal customers say she’s the best because her technique is old-school and her attention to detail is second to none. Today, The Madame of…
Best Beer
As microbrews in Cleveland go, Great Lakes Dortmunder Gold is the franchise quarterback. It’s the one that dominates the mini-mart beer cooler, the one that’s flowing from taps all over town — the beer you’re inevitably referring to when you say, “I’ll have a Great Lakes.” Hey, we’re all for local beers that aspire to…
Best Athlete
It’s still well before his 20th birthday, and already LeBron has delivered a local-boy-makes-good tale for the ages. Fact is, superstar athletes just don’t land in Cleveland, unless it’s for a connecting flight. But LeBron, true to his own adolescent proclamation of a year ago, is lighting up the town like a wintry Las Vegas.…
Well Worth the Weight
Jason Byers speaks softly in conversation, as if he’s saving every last bellow for the stage. Seated on the patio of the Garage — a new Ohio City hang, where a dirt bike hovers above the door and Slayer blasts through the speakers — the Disengage frontman seems understandably distracted, ducking eye contact as if…
Fatboy Slim
In former Housemartin Norman Cook’s career as dance music’s most successful exponent, Fatboy Slim, he’s never come this close to acknowledging his guitar-toting past. Maybe it’s a result of his turning 40 or nearly splitting with his wife, or of what he’s recognized as the stagnant state of dance and DJ culture, but Palookaville sounds…
Best Actor
It’s challenging to stage a play that has already been turned into a great film, but the Charenton Theater Co. excels at it, as last year’s Six Degrees of Separation and the more recent Glengarry Glen Ross demonstrate. The latter exquisite production was anchored by Bernard Canepari, who imbued real-estate salesman Shelley “The Machine” Levene…
Best Cover Band
Here is a band with which Clevelanders can identify. Note that the frontman’s a guy named Chuck. Second, note that the players in Punch the Clown bust their asses, often performing two to three times a week — and do so at those sacred Cleveland institutions: sports bars, like McCarthy’s and Blind Pig. Finally, note…
Best Sunday Brunch
The primary responsibility of a self-respecting Sunday brunch is to provide one (or more) reasons to leave the house on your official Day of Rest. And face it: For most of us, a Danish, a fruit cup, and some rubbery eggs no longer do the trick. This is where Lopez steps bravely into the breach,…
Best Alternative to CPR
Yikes! Forget the defibrillator! Have an oversized OPA coffee frappé instead! It’s made from the potent, caffeine-rich, European version of Nescafé! Then it’s sweetened, poured over ice, and layered with evaporated milk! It’s like liquid amphetamines! Except it’s legal! Waitress! More frappé, please!
Best Coffee Shop
In no other coffee shop in the world are you likely to find an entire wall covered by a giant mural of folk legend Woody Guthrie standing in front of smoke-belching factories. And not many coffee shops in Cleveland have the great coffee and bright, airy atmosphere of Lucky’s. Tucked into a small storefront on…
Best Place to Get Discovered
Cleveland may not have much in the way of genuine celebrities, but we do seem to have a corner on the reality-TV market. There’s Fredo LaPonza and Michael Cardamone from Average Joe, Stephanie Cahn from Average Joe II, and Tammy Pescatelli from Last Comic Standing, to name a few. Several of these shooting stars got…
Best Affordable Urban Living
Okay, it’s not exactly downtown, but it’s just a short walk across the Detroit-Superior Bridge to West 28th Street. Here, you get a lot more loft for a lot less money — the biggest are 1,600 square feet for $1,100. The amenities are spectacular. A rooftop deck affords a postcard-quality view of downtown and Lake…
Best No-Service Grocery Store
It’s not your fault if Aldi sorta jumped up on you. It’s been here for years, lurking on the other side of the tracks, in urban neighborhoods where thrifty shopping is the only kind of shopping anyone knows. But lately the German grocery chain has reinvented itself, plopping down in suburban expanses like Middleburg Heights…
Best Upscale Bicycle Shop
If you’re planning to spend some serious time in the saddle, it pays to spend some serious money on a bike that doesn’t suck. In addition to top-quality bikes from Italy and America, Spin has friendly, well-informed salespeople, who take the time to ask questions about how you ride and give no-B.S. answers about what…
Best Aerobics Instructor
When, in the 15th minute of a 60-minute boot-camp class, Charles Johnson lets loose a hearty “Let’s go,” you feel like going, all right — right out the door. But you can’t, because Charles won’t let you, and because there are about 60 other sweat-laden fitness zealots blocking your getaway route. Johnson, a former zoology…
Ghost Story
Albert Ayler, a controversial saxophonist known for his startling, otherworldly music, is fanning the flames all over again. Some say the Cleveland native couldn’t negotiate the changes and chords that any respectable jazz saxophonist ought to know. Others call him a pillar of avant-garde jazz tenor, along with the similarly divisive Ornette Coleman and John…
The Twilight
With their sharp neo-mod looks and electrifying live performances, the members of Twilight have been dazzling local audiences for several years. Their excellent debut on the Cleveland imprint Van Gogh Round (run by Dreadful Yawns manager Eric Schulte) proves that they can cut it in the studio as well. Recorded over the past year in…
Best Actress
When an actor gets a chance at a great role written by an iconic playwright, the opportunity must be exploited. Last December, Ensemble Theatre gave Bernice Bolek that chance in Edward Albee’s Three Tall Women, and she turned it into a minor tour de force. Playing the character “A,” a bitter and multilayered woman, Bolek…
Best Dance Club
Modä is the obvious pick, but Wish wins, by virtue of its stunning renaissance. Gloomy and gothy under previous ownership, its cult quality is now attributable to the star DJs who pass through Wish during nationwide tours. With three floors, Wish is almost never too crowded, and the music tempo rises as you move upstairs…
Best Reason to Eat (and Drink) in Euclid
Authentic, attractive, and friendly. Nah, we’re not talking about your dream date; we’re talking about the Beachclub Bistro, a casually upscale neighborhood joint, where the gourmet pizzas, seafood, and Italian specialties rock; the wine list rumbles; and our taste buds like to boogie all night long. About that wine list: Among the scores of bargain-priced…
Best Use of a Tandoor
We knew this guy, Mike, in college, who used to dry his socks in the microwave. And we’ve heard about neatniks who clean their miniblinds in the dishwasher. But when Executive Chef Doug Katz uses his clay-lined, stainless-steel tandoori oven to sear a thick Niman Ranch pork chop, it’s not just nontraditional — it’s downright…
Best Chinese Buffet
There could be more Chinese buffets in Northeast Ohio than in China, which makes it very difficult to find the best. And, from the outside, the Evergreen Buffet in Kent is not that spectacular (it’s located in a small plaza, next to a Great Clips salon). But try to beat the prices: $5.75 for lunch,…
Best Place for Late-Night Karaoke
The best place to croon tunes from such beloved groups as Ace of Base, Madonna (pre-Esther), and Gloria Gaynor, as you slide back $1 Jell-O shots, is Tina’s, a late-night dive bar at the edge of Edgewater. Here you can entertain your friends with your various warblings. That’s arguably more sobering than a cup of…
Best Culinary Landmark
Who among us has never been to Tommy’s? Let him or her stand before us and be pelted with spinach pies and sunflower seeds. After all, Tommy Fello’s eponymous Cleveland Heights eatery has been around for 32 years now — a life span almost unheard of in an industry where businesses are chewed up and…
Best PR Flack
In the oft-frenzied world of news reporting, getting a perky public-relations mouthpiece on the phone is rarely a hassle. Getting a competent one is another story. Oh, if they could only make a mold of Gund Arena’s Jennifer Mulligan. A stop-you-in-your-tracks ringer for pop star Jewel, Mulligan is more than a bubbly blonde with a…
Best Place to Shop for Eel
Surely one of the largest Asian grocery stores in the state, Tink Hall offers a bewildering array of Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean, and Japanese foods and ingredients, ranging from frozen sliced pork stomach in soy sauce to fresh durian, mangos, and persimmons. An entire aisle is devoted to dried noodles of every description. Fresh lemon grass…
Best Cheap Bicycle Shop
For those who like to live DIY, the Ohio City Bike Co-op offers used bike frames, new and used parts, and the tools you need to put them all together. And if you’ve never greased a chain before, the co-op offers inexpensive classes on bike maintenance. Memberships go for $50 or 10 hours of volunteer…
Best Coach
Back when Paul Silas wore the short-shorts himself, players celebrated a basket by hustling back down the court to play some defense. Today’s hotshots practically need a time-out to complete their celebrations. Not on Silas’s watch. He began his first year as the Cavaliers’ coach with the youngest team in the NBA, and he nurtured…
Numbers Problem
Perhaps the only thing Trent Reznor has in common with R&B star Avant is that both of them bolted town as soon as they could afford a classier ride out than Greyhound. Ditto for Filter’s Richard Patrick and a few of the Bone Thugs-N-Harmony guys. These days, it’s become increasingly rare for local talent to…
Amps II Eleven
On their self-titled full-length debut, Amps II Eleven deftly replicate their concert vibe — namely that these guys are utterly incapable of fucking around for even a second. On “Gas Ass or Grass” and 11 other tracks, the Cleveland band recalls a time when scruffy rockers gleefully stomped all over the feel-good vibe of sensitive…
Best Theater Company
Plenty of theater groups these days play it safe, especially when they rely on a core audience of older patrons, whose theatrical tastes may not be terribly edgy. But for the past season at the Beck Center, Artistic Director Scott Spence put together an energetic and at times risky slate of shows — ranging from…
Best Contribution to Music
Cleveland brags up the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, despite the ceremonies’ taking place in New York, but the city’s best foothold in new music is Alternative Press. The mag got its start as a tiny ‘zine in the early 1980s and grew into a punk-rock powerhouse, due in large part to the sheer…
Best Family Steakhouse
Obviously, steak is Steve’s bread and butter, and he serves them up in spades — sirloins, strips, rib-eyes, filets, T-bones, and prime rib included, all USDA prime and choice aged beef, freshly cut, broiled to order, and brought to the table sizzling hot, trailing plumes of oak and hickory smoke. But Steve is no autocrat:…
Best Beer You Won’t Find in a Store
Order the Brewing Company’s beer sampler, and you’re greeted by a rotating tray of beers large enough to tranquilize a linebacker. The adventure begins with the Pirate Light and Gold Kolsch varieties, but the big bang comes at the darker end of the spectrum. The fine Kohlminator Bavarian bock earned the gold at the 2004…
Best Iced Mocha
Some people swear by Starbucks, but for our money, we’ll stick with the local guys. What makes the iced mocha at Lakewood’s Phoenix superior is that they use smooth and flavorful toddy — cold brewed coffee — rather than hot espresso, which can be sharp and bitter. The toddy is combined with chocolate and milk…
Best Eats Street
Anchored by the venerable West Side Market, this short stretch of pavement (including the tiny stub of Market Street) is home to a remarkable collection of worthwhile eateries. The ethnic options include Greek (OPA!), Irish (The Old Angle), Middle Eastern (Kan Zaman and Nates Deli), and Puerto Rican (Lelolai and Lozadas). Stylistically, you’ll find everything…
Best Guy to Ask About Spider-Man
So you left Spider-Man 2 with some unanswered questions. Why did Spider-Man lose his powers and then get them back? How come the Green Goblin made an appearance, when he died in the first movie? And what’s the best comic for your kid, who left the movie wanting more? The man with the answers is…
Best Slice of Cleveland
Back in 1934, when the Parkview first opened on the little hillside overlooking Lake Erie and the downtown skyline, Cleveland was still a workingman’s town, and the cozy corner bar was a lunchtime destination for broad-shouldered guys from nearby factories. Now, of course, the factories are empty, and Cleveland blue-collars are about as scarce as…
Best Soap Goddess
Soap artisan Jody Byrne harvests a bumper crop of all-natural soaps and hand-made spa goodies from her fragrant 14-acre Daybreak Lavender Farm in Streetsboro. The chunky wedges come in varieties ranging from Lavender Castile to Moroccan Mint to Patchouli Rose. All are crafted at the farm from such garden-fresh ingredients as lavender, mint, rose petals,…
Best-Looking Athlete
There is every reason to love Tribe rookie Grady Sizemore: The young center fielder has the speed of a striking tiger and the graceful swing and unshakable poise that are the foundation of Cooperstown-bound careers. But what the scouts inexplicably didn’t mention are Grady’s molten eyes, his pouty, full lips, his innocently slackened jaw, and…
Best Skating Instructors
Euclid natives and sisters Karin (pictured, left) and Kristine (right) have been skating since they were kids and have about 30 years of teaching experience between them. Kristine is director of the International Inline Skating Association’s Inline Certification Program, a job that requires national and international travel, and she and Karin operate Northcoast Inline Skating…
Dead Even Steps Ahead
Cleveland metalcore up-and-comers Dead Even have scored a European distribution deal for their debut EP, Of Constant Rotation. Superhero Records, which recently signed a deal to distribute through the European branch of the international metal wellspring Century Media, will release the disc in October, following remastering and new artwork by Integrity frontman Dwid. The expatriate…
Courting Delays
Courting Delays Litigants create the slowdowns: If Judge James Celebrezze has a flaw, it’s being too intense and demonstrative when he believes that parties are not adequately looking out for their children, or when a party attempts to use wealth to put the other at a disadvantage [“Feed the Machine,” August 18]. In short, he…
Best Acting Teacher
Many of the area’s professional actors and quite a number of aspiring amateurs seek out Tom Fulton for guidance in developing stage characterizations. Basing his classes at the Fairmount Center on the teachings of Stanislavsky, Fulton goes far beyond the stereotype of self-indulgent method acting. By putting each performer in touch with the physical reality…
Best Play
Among the past theater season’s many fine productions, no show featured more sharply crafted performances and more exuberant joy. Directed by Drew Barr, this rendition of Shakespeare’s classic featured Andrew May and Laura Perrotta in superb portrayals of the id-driven Petruchio and spitfire Kate. Adding to the production’s pleasures were an imaginatively tilted set by…
Best Use of Pita
Sitting down to a stack of unadorned pita bread is a lot like gnawing your way through a pile of index cards. But fill that baby up with hummus, say, or baba ghannouj, or top it with cheddar cheese and vegetarian chili, and the bread formerly known as Plain starts to seem as healthful and…
Best Dessert
Cheesecake, crème brûlée, yadda yadda yadda . . . If you’re tired of sticking the same old sweet ending onto an otherwise inventive meal, check out Executive Chef Chris Shydlowski’s Hawaiian Bread Pudding, a tropical twist on the standard bread-and-custard creation, served up with style at his eponymous Aurora bistro. For this recipe entirely of…
Best Drunk Food
Twentysomethings in skintight Banana Republic shirts drop ten-spots on fancy martinis in the Warehouse District, but when it’s time to head home, they all make a pit stop at Panini’s. The unpretentious beer garden offers a menu of greasy delights perfect for fending off nausea. Purists come for the sandwiches that cram fries, meat, and…
Best Place to Meet Interesting People
Only in Cleveland could 8 p.m. be called late night. Still, the after-work crowd that filters through MOCA on Thursday nights may be Cleveland’s most eclectic group. Our suggestion: Munch some food, listen to music, and study Cleveland’s best works of art — and we’re not just talking about the ones on the canvases.
Best Scenic Drive
The Rocky River Reservation is to Cleveland what Central Park is to New York. Follow a winding road through acres of scenic vistas that include shale cliffs and deep flood-plain forests. On any warm day, you’ll find people fishing, playing catch, sunbathing with a good book — anything but working. The reservation includes three golf…
Best Punk-Rock Entrepreneur
This Marvel comics fan parlayed his action-oriented, scratchy renderings into stardom as one of the country’s premier concert-poster artists, earning him a spot in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum. Never one to rest on his laurels, Hess launched Strhess Fest, a gathering of hardcore and emo acts that has become one…
Best Place to Score Cheap Makeup
They come from as far away as Canada and Michigan, and begin standing in line at 7 a.m. just to get first crack at fine cosmetics at dirt-cheap prices. It’s Bonne Bell’s biannual sale, held the first Saturday of December and June in a warehouse behind Bonne Bell’s corporate headquarters. There, makeup junkies speed-shop with…
Best Bike Path
Beginning in the foothills of Independence and running all the way down to Akron, the Towpath Trail is as lengthy as it is lush. Winding through forests filled with deer, the smooth, mostly asphalt bike path is the area’s most scenic, running amid towering pines next to the Ohio & Erie Canal. There are plenty…
Best Athlete Who Got Away
Beyond even LeBron James, the newly resurgent Cavaliers always seemed built in the mold of Carlos Boozer. Where LeBron’s game is all about living up to expectations, Boozer’s was about exceeding them. He came out of college with minimal odds of pro success: He’s too small to play power forward, too nice to mix it…
Terror
Old-school hardcore made a big deal about “rising above.” So does the new school — only with way-heartier bitching about it. On last year’s well-received Lowest of the Low, Terror frontman Scott Vogel made it clear: The things that most piss him off — and many things piss this guy off — are parasites, fake…
Politics Is Like Baseball
When Indians owner Larry Dolan buys a new outfielder, the Tribe throws a news conference and offers lots of Q&A time for every sportswriter in town to poke and prod the new recruit. Maybe that’s why Dolan sucks at buying politicians. Accustomed to doing so much of his wheeling and dealing in the public eye,…
Best Theater Honcho
As the founder (in 1982) and executive director of Cleveland Public Theatre, James Levin has brought a rich brew of theatrical treats to those who visit this ever-changing company on Detroit Avenue, using CPT’s Upstairs Stage and Gordon Square spaces for a dazzling array of innovative performances. In addition to directing the theater and its…
Best Cleveland Band to Get Drunk To
The Pogues’ radical, 100-proof Irish folk punk was as much of an incentive to get shitfaced as women and crappy day jobs. But by the end of the band’s run with frontman Shane MacGowan in the early ’90s, the singer would take the stage so drunk that he’d often forget which song he was performing.…
Best Reflection of the Emerald Isle
To be deserving of the designation, an Irish pub must have Guinness and Bass on tap, and three or four varieties of Irish whiskey on the shelf. Beyond that, however, the variations are almost endless. For the record, though, here’s what else we expect when we’re in an Irish state o’ mind: comfortable surroundings that…
Best Tickle to Your Taste Buds
Whether bon vivant Johnny Mango is singing “The Ballad of Meatless and Delicious” or crooning a “One-Dish Melody,” the fictitious man-about-town and restaurant namesake can say nothing wrong about the sassy eats at this little global café. Besides, what’s not to like? The food is simple — beans, grains, veggies, and, oh yeah, meat, if…
Best Pizza
Some pizzerias excel at Chicago-style, deep-dish pies. Some claim glory with New York thin slices. Vincenza’s shines at both. And it doesn’t offer just the usual pepperoni or mushroom toppings (though it has those, too). At Vincenza’s — a bustling lunchtime joint accessible in the ArtCade — everything is available, from white pizzas (topped with…
Best Kodak Moment
Stop elbowing tourists for a spot in front of the art museum and Jacobs Field. If you really want that unique Cleveland photograph, head to the corner of Detroit and Clinton avenues, where this huge white sign hangs from a chain-link fence. Who says Cleveland’s too conservative?
Best Place to Get the Heebie-Jeebies
There’s plenty to like at this wildlife habitat/exhibition hall: eagles, foxes, deer, skunks, fish. And Schuele Planetarium is a fine way to spend some time in the dark. But it’s the comfy facility’s collection of living, breathing, venomous snakes, snapping turtles, poisonous spiders, and scary scorpions that really gets our skin crawling. (Don’t even get…
Best Drag Queen
The last person you’d expect to see recruiting new voters would be an auburn-wigged, rhinestone-flashing drag queen. But don’t put it past Erica Martinez. Onstage, she’s one of Ohio’s winningest female impersonators, with more than 30 beauty-pageant crowns to her credit. Offstage, he’s Paco, a 33-year-old adult-bookstore clerk and father of one, who’s on a…
Best Place to Spoil the Dog
The Pets Pajamas is the ultimate spoil-your-pooch boutique. It carries everything from $149 tuxedos and $180 wedding gowns for Fido and Fifi’s big doggie walk down the aisle to $70 rhinestone collars and Swarovski crystal collar charms. There’s also an impressive line of doggie couture wear by well-known designers of human fashion. The ready-to-wear lines…
Best Dog Park
The dog park isn’t just for people with dogs; it’s also for frustrated apartment dwellers who are forced to exist canine-free because of pooch prohibitions. Our sad, sad kind must live the life of a proud dog owner vicariously, through repeated viewings of Air Bud and trips to the areas best hang for hounds: the…
Best Place to Reenact The Shawshank Redemption
During the fall, the local preservation society opens the decaying reformatory for all-night tours. For $50, you can wander through the entire prison until the break of dawn. They even throw in free pizza for the freaks who come out to try to photograph ghosts. Unfortunately, these paranormal investigators often overlook the coolest thing there:…
John Stewart
And the first shall be last. The initial post-Kingston Trio album for John Stewart, Signals Through the Glass, has been rereleased on CD a mere 36 years later. The LP was a joint venture with Buffy Ford, who has been Buffy Ford Stewart for many years and still accompanies her husband when she feels up…
Brothers Grim
John Ed Bishop wears a belt made out of bullets around his waist and a bandanna on his thigh. His pants are tight, his black-and-white-striped T-shirt is gaudy and feminine. He faces his fellow actors with a bemused look. One of them quips, “You look like a guy who should date Rob Halford.” But resembling…
Best TV Personality Who Can’t Go on the Big Rides
It’s time John Rinaldi got his due. Each Friday and Saturday night, on WJW Fox 8, Rinaldi helps Chuck Schodowski introduce such cinematic gems as Sylvester Stallone’s trucker/arm-wrestling epic Over the Top to Cleveland viewers. (The show is taped every Thursday in front of a studio audience consisting mostly of Boy Scouts and members of…
Best Morning DJ
Sure, he’s not quite as witty as Howard Stern, but when’s the last time the King of All Media talked about Parma? Rover brings a wry, if adolescent, sensibility to the morning commute, whether the subject is George W. Bush or just, well, bush. This Chicago transplant has been warmly embraced by his adopted home,…
Best Diner
Mom’s Diner is not retro or nostalgic. It’s not a flashback to the ’50s. It’s an inexpensive, good-looking little eatery that asks (and answers) the question: What would diner food be like, prepared by talented cooks using top-shelf ingredients? Well, for one thing, the turkey would be real roasted breast, not sodium-infused “turkey roll.” For…
Best Sushi
Hard at work behind his tiny sushi bar, with a wall-sized mural of a koi pond as a backdrop, sushi artist and chef Chong Kim is a one-man operation, and his work is as deliberate, painstaking, and labor-intensive as any surgeon’s. As a result, the wait between the time an order is placed and when…
Best Egg Roll
You can taste the difference between an egg roll that’s rolled in a restaurant kitchen and an egg roll that’s only thawed in that kitchen. The egg rolls at Hunan on Coventry are hand-wrapped onsite, their flavor packed snugly into a light spring roll. Finely shredded vegetables. Sweet sauce. Hot mustard. The only problem is…
Best Handyman
For most not-so-adept homeowners, finding an honest, reliable and reasonably priced handyman is akin to discovering cold fusion. Doug Mouat is a hardworking, multitalented fellow, with skills that encompass plumbing, electrical, wall-and-ceiling repair, drain-cleaning, roof repair, and damn near anything else that can go wrong around a house. Best of all, he’s a relentless problem-solver…
Best Place to Play a Theremin
Tucked away in the spacious confines of the Avon Lake Public Library is an area called DiscoveryWorks, where kids (big ones included) can find out about gravity, learn how magnets work, and make metal bowls sing. Best, however, is a working theremin, plugged in and ready for use. A theremin is an electronic musical instrument…
Best Bar Hound
At the end of a long night of boozing, Dot & Beanie’s rustic, old-world dive bar is the perfect stop — namely, because Rover, the bar hound, will scare you sober. A sinewy, excitable Doberman, Rover greets you at the door and instantly separates the men from the men-who-have-a-problem-with-scary-ass-looking-dogs-inspecting-the-family-jewels. After getting the once-over, you’re definitely…
Best Food-Related Flashback to the ’60s
Love beads, tie-dyes, and street musicians: Nah, it’s not Haight-Ashbury during the Summer of Love. Rather, it’s Shaker Square, each Saturday morning (from 8 a.m. to noon, through December 11), as the farmers and free spirits of North Union Farmers Market do their organic, homegrown thang. Not that Cleveland’s former hippie community isn’t well represented…
Best Place to Fly a Remote-Controlled Plane
Behold the daredevils as they pilot their expensive remote-controlled airplanes off this dangerous cliff, over a mouth filled with rocky teeth several stories below. It makes for a neat miniature air show, complete with loop-the-loops, but it’s not for amateurs. When a plane crashes, the rescue mission requires a treacherous foray through ankle-twisting boulders. Still,…
The Phantom Menace
10/5- 10/28 Five years of playing heroine Christine in The Phantom of the Opera had taken its toll, and Rebecca Pitcher begged for a break. So the Berea native left the national touring production of the hit musical for six months last year to study yoga. “I was having problems with anxiety and a little…
Vote for Change
Republican presidencies have a way of galvanizing the musical underground. Television, Blondie, Talking Heads, and the Ramones rose to prominence during the mid-’70s Nixon/Ford regime. Reaganomics birthed college-rock luminaries like R.E.M., the Replacements, and Hüsker Dü. Flannel gods Nirvana and Pearl Jam emerged during the tail end of George Bush I’s reign. And Dubya’s bumbling…
Booze Hounds
As the great-great-grandniece of the Jack Daniel, Jennifer Motlow Powell is her clan’s Gen-X party gal. With a recipe book of marinades, sauces, and low-carb hors d’oeuvres, she can convince even a steadfast teetotaler why everything tastes better when it’s made with a cup or two of Old No. 7. In search of J.D. bottles…
Best Flocking of the Foodies
We may not wear Star Fleet uniforms or travel by transporter, but beneath our cocktail attire, we fanciers of food and wine are just like any other group of aficionados: We like to hang with folks who share our passions — and to have some major fun while doing it. Happily, we’ve discovered the premier…
Best New Restaurant
It’s been just short of a year since this upscale restaurant and bar opened in Tremont, yet it already possesses the panache of a much more experienced dining room. Thank managing partner Doug Petkovic for Theory’s gracious feel — the warm Arts & Crafts-style decor, the polished staff, and the tasteful appointments. And thank Executive…
Best Restaurant
When friends want to know what the city’s best restaurant is, we always reply, “Best for what?” After all, there are lots of criteria by which to judge a spot, and we need to know what’s most important to them. For instance, if our buds indicate that they’re searching for the most happenin’ atmosphere, we…
Best Place for Guilt-Free Desserts
The only thing better than frozen yogurt is 32-calories-an-ounce frozen yogurt that tastes like 3,200-calories-an-ounce frozen yogurt. At the Chocolate Emporium, you can get this and other delicious, dairy-free treats at totally kosher prices. But beware. The shop, run by Orthodox Jews, has unorthodox hours: On Fridays, it’s open only until 4 p.m., and Saturdays,…
Best Place to Warm Up on a Cold Night
The best way to counteract the cold is to find another warm body. But if you don’t have a partner to keep you warm during those long Cleveland-winter nights, the next best thing is a cup of soup. And the best soup can be found at this small storefront, where the chef fires up such…
Best Upscale Lofts
Built on a pier that juts out into Lake Erie, Quay 55 offers better views of downtown and the lake than any building in the city. There’s also an outdoor pool, heated indoor parking, and a boardwalk that runs the length of the pier. Rents go from $900 to $3,000 a month, so it’s no…
Best Reason to Watch Fox 8 News
Whether covering the dangers of scooters in the suburbs or braving a bitter storm to get the scoop on Britney Spears’s last-second cancellation of her Gund Arena concert in April, reporter Sauers tackles each and every story with a newsman’s dogged determination and a mother’s nurturing empathy. While Wilma Smith and Tim Taylor tend to…
Best Retail Two-fer
For the trendy, fashion-conscious Cleveland shopper who’s concerned about both her bottom and her bottom line, these stores — neighbors at Woodmere’s Eton Chagrin Boulevard shopping center — are the perfect combination. First, stop by Trader Joes, where you can fill up on free (mostly healthy) samples and stock up on cheap, tasty gourmet fare…
Best Used Vinyl
As essential for hard-rock and heavy-metal lifers as denim and confrontational facial hair, My Minds Eye is the first stop for rare and used vinyl in Cleveland. With crates of LPs almost as towering as Gene Simmonss ego, My Minds Eye boasts the best collection of 70s rock anywhere in town (from Deep Purple to…
Best Gym to Learn the Sweet Science
You want frills? Join Bally’s, and hop around with the rest of the gym bunnies. This is boxing, a sport that prizes the basics. That’s what you get at Alta House, a Little Italy gym that attracts East Side pugilists, despite an aroma like a rotting jockstrap. Casey, the trainer, can be seen growling tutorials.…
Like Moths to Flame
It was only a matter of time before Hollywood capitalized on the sympathy and admiration that have enveloped the nation’s firefighters since 9-11, and here we are. Jay Russell’s action-packed, flame-broiled Ladder 49 is an all-out valentine to the firehouse fraternity that might never have gotten to the screen were it not for the tragic…
R. Kelly and Jay-Z
Well, that was quick: Just nine months after swearing he was leaving the game for good, out of retirement comes Jay-Z, joining Ol’ Blue Eyes, Bowie, and a long list of other entertainers who didn’t stay gone long enough for us to miss them. The occasion is a sequel to his 2002 hip-hop-slash-R&B, king-of-the-streets-meets-the-king-of-the-bedroom pairing…
This Week’s Day-By-Day Picks
Thursday, September 30 Stephen Elliott claims that today’s Operation Ohio assembly, where famous writers encourage folks to vote, is “officially a non-partisan event.” Yet its organizer (and the author of the political tome Looking Forward to It) quickly adds, “Find an intelligent, literary [person] who is in favor of George Bush. I’m not even sure…
Best Shot at Being the Next Sam Raimi
Kent boys Andy and Luke Campbell are making the best low-budget slasher movies in the Midwest, using equipment and talent borrowed from the local university or bought with their meager slacker incomes. Andy is the more recognizable half, having also starred in their last opus, Demon Summer. He might have been the head of the…
Best New Bar
Grease monkeys need to party, too. And since Garage Bar opened this past Labor Day weekend, theirs is the jumpingest joint in town. Only Jeff Allison, formerly of Touch Supper Club, could conceive a spot that is at the same time gritty and slick. A dirt bike hangs above the threshold. The beer tap is…
Best Seafood
The wise gourmet knows that if you want good seafood, you don’t necessarily seek out a seafood restaurant. Rather, you head for a good restaurant, where you can count on a talented chef turning in the same shipshape performance with lobster and halibut, say, as he or she does with rack of lamb and beef…
Best Speed+Style Lunchtime Combo
Tired of carrying out, ordering in, or settling for the soup-and-sandwich combo at your local deli, just so you can rush back to the office and plant your nose firmly on that grindstone? The folks at Fournos Café feel your pain. To help, they’ve designed a speedy lunchtime-ordering system that enables workers to enjoy such…
Best Bartenders
Anthony (pictured) can catch a tumbling tumbler behind his back with one hand, flip a bottle, and pour with the other, but these effects happen in such a blur that they almost seem to accelerate his service. He spins the cocktail napkins before setting the drink, and if you reach for a cigarette, by the…
Best Park
Sure, all the Metroparks are great, but the North Chagrin Reservation not only features fascinating trails (Buttermilk Falls Trail), terrific picnicking (Strawberry Pond), and fishing (Oxbow Lagoon); it’s also home to one of the area’s best golf courses, the maniacally challenging Manakiki. Since the 1920s, this park has been delighting families with it’s natural attractions…
Best Radio News Reporter
A rarity in commercial radio, Greg Saber doesn’t broadcast stories straight out of the newspaper. Instead, the deep-voiced gumshoe hits the streets to dig up the news you want. “He goes with ease from interviewing the family of a shooting victim to talking to the mayor to recapping the latest sports news with a Browns…
Best Outlet Shopping
You can easily while away an entire day combing through the discount racks of more than 70 stores — including Calvin Klein, Off 5th-Saks Fifth Avenue, DKNY Jeans, and Polo Ralph Lauren. And no one will know that you paid only a fraction of the price for the same designer jeans you’ve seen featured at…
Best Place to Stroll and Shop
Coventry has always been Cleveland’s answer to the East Village, but a recent series of renovations has made a great shopping district even better. Lighted crosswalks and bigger sidewalks make the street even more pedestrian-friendly, and the decor, which features cast-iron scenes of daily life, makes for interesting viewing. But the best part is still…
Best Two-Wheeled Endorphin Rush
If you’re an easy rider, stick to motorcycles. The true born-to-be-wilds do their damage with pedals. The founding members of Biker Mayhem had the punk attitude, with all its requisite disdain for authority, and they also had 10-speeds, which made them dangerously mobile. It was just a matter of time till they discovered the rush…
Vile With a Smile
Essayist. Playwright. Radio personality. Librettist. Actor. Novelist. Now, with Bright Young Things, the inimitable British wit Stephen Fry debuts as feature screenwriter and director. Best known here in the colonies either as Jeeves (opposite Hugh Laurie) in Jeeves and Wooster, or as Peter in Peter’s Friends, or possibly as Oscar Wilde in Wilde, Fry establishes…
Dio
It’s a ubiquitous sign for the ages. Whether thrown in rapture or irony, the pinky-and-index-finger-extended “devil horns” might mean something different to Browns fans or Shakespearean scholars, but to lovers of classic hard rock and heavy metal they mean, quite simply, Ronnie James Dio. Nobody has thrown the horns more unabashedly and consistently in his…
Grudge Match
Directors remake their own films for several reasons: a bigger budget, dissatisfaction with the initial results, a chance to land a gig in the lucrative U.S. market. Add Japanese director Takashi Shimizu (whose first Hollywood movie, The Grudge, opens October 22) to the list of filmmakers in that last category. But before heading to the…
Best Movie Theater
It doesn’t have the intelligent films of the Cedar Lee. It doesn’t have the artistic flair of the Cinematheque. Still, this is the place for Northeast Ohio movie lovers, because management gets it. They get that the movie should always be perfectly framed and in focus. They get that a lobby should be opulent, reminding…
Best Corned Beef Sandwich
Nearly five inches thick and stuffed with lean, almost translucent sheets of crimson corned beef, the New Yorker at Tina’s tidy deli is a monument to the glory of fine sandwiches. Further enhanced with a tangle of sweet coleslaw and a slice of Swiss cheese, and loaded onto rye, it defies attempts to eat it…
Best Mexican Food
One of the gustatory highlights of this past year was a simple lunch at the original Mi Pueblo outpost on Lorain Avenue. (The owners also have more gentrified locations near University Circle and in Hudson.) The meal? Tacos de papa, three crunchy, deep-fried, potato-stuffed tacos, garnished with lettuce, tomato, sour cream, and queso fresco, and…
Best Wine Bar
On a cobblestone street behind the Great Lakes Brewing Company, the Market Avenue Wine Bar is an oak-soaked, dimly lit getaway with an intimate Greenwich Village ambiance. Touted as Cleveland’s first-ever wine bar (it opened in 1985), it’s stocked with more than 700 bottles of wine, including 30 open bottles of reds to buy by…
Best Place to Get Your Fixe
Jonesing for Big City style on a Cleveland budget? Then One Walnut is your place to score. Well-connected Executive Chef Marlin Kaplan (pictured) is a pro at sniffing out what is new and good on the national scene, transforming it into a unique, exciting dining experience that transcends mere geographical boundaries. From the sassy prix…
Best Cheaters’ Joint
Located in a shopping mall in Parma, Corleone’s serves up delicious Italian fare, beautiful Sinatra-inspired decor, and near-total anonymity. The helpings are huge, the service is impeccable, and the wine is free-flowing. Appetizers, $6-$10. Dinner prices, $12-$40. The knowledge that none of your colleagues will discover you or your non-significant other: priceless.
