F6
EZ EE
KLMNO The Impulsive Traveler Between the rock and the food place BY MARYANN HAGGERTY There’s something appropriate about
going to Cleveland to pay homage to Bruce Springsteen, the poet of Rust Belt rock. What I didn’t expect in that much- maligned city was a fun neighborhood of historic bed-and-breakfast inns, up-to- the-minute restaurants and one of the best traditional food markets I have ever visited. Cleveland, about seven hours by car
from the Beltway, was the first stop my husband and I planned on a longer Midwestern road trip. The goal was to see the special Springsteen exhibit that runs through Dec. 31 at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame downtown. But some- how, nearly every downtown hotel room was booked by convention-goers. Serendipity (and some Internet trawl-
ing) led us to a B&B, the J. Palen House. Maps showed it a few miles from down- town, across the Cuyahoga River and close to a station on the city’s light rail system. Make no mistake, the Great Recession
has battered Cleveland, already shaky from the decline of Midwestern manu- facturing.The neighborhood around the J. Palen House isn’t the hardest hit, but it’s transitional.TheB&B,a pretty purple Victorian, was the most obviously gen- trified building on its block.Roomswere large and lovely, with the sort of flouncy touches that turn a night on the road into a romantic interlude. The host, ScottWest, offered us a tour
of the neighborhood, called Ohio City. No big deal, he assured us; the walk would take just a fewminutes. As Scott led us past solid renovated
houses and a few old industrial build- ings,heexplained thatOhioCity isoneof Cleveland’s oldest neighborhoods, once an independent city and home to Irish and German immigrants, including brewers. There’s still a sweet-stale smell of beer in the air, but now it comes from Great Lakes Brewing Co., which opened in 1988. (Although it has microbrewery cred, Great Lakes is more than a corner brewpub with a few copper tanks. It ships 100,000 barrels a year.) We turned the corner onto Market
Avenue, a restaurant-lined block lively with young Clevelanders. Scott pointed out the highlights — the Flying Fig, considered one of the city’s best locavore restaurants; a nice wine bar; the Great Lakes brewpub. Around the next corner, on 25th Street, there were more shiny new restaurants mixed in with worn neighborhood storefronts. And a few hundred yards away, in a handsome red-brick building with an eye-catching clock tower, was the West Side Market, oneof those century-old food-stall palac- es. Later, I found that city boosters are trying to brand the immediate neighbor- hood the Market District and attract even more restaurants and food-orient- ed retailers. We started the evening with a pint at
Great Lakes — I opted for the Burning River Pale Ale, a nod to the bad old days, when the Cuyahoga infamously caught fire. Dinner at the Flying Fig was all that a fashionableNewAmerican farm-to-ta-
IFYOUGO
Want to take a spur-of-the-moment trip to the Ohio City neighborhood of Cleveland? Here’swhat you need to knowfor theweekend of Oct. 1-3:
GETTING THERE Continental and United fly non-stop to Cleveland from BWI Marshall, with fares starting at $220 round trip. The Red line of Cleveland’s light rail system, the Rapid, runs from the airport through downtown and out to Ohio City for $2.50 one way.
WHERE TO STAY J. Palen House B&B 2708 Bridge Ave. 216-664-0813
www.jpalenhouse.com Six rooms, all with private baths, $129- $199 per night.
Stone Gables B&B 3896 Franklin Blvd. 877-215-4326
www.stonegables.net Five rooms, all with private baths, $120 to $190 per night.
WHERE TO EAT Flying Fig 2523 Market Ave. 216-241-4243
www.flyingfig.com Local and seasonal American cuisine, suitable for a special occasion dinner. Entrees $15-$29.
Bar Cento 1948W. 25th St. 216-344-9944
www.barcento.com Local ingredients, Italian accented. Pasta $13-$15, meat course $17-$21.
MARYANN HAGGERTY Greetings from Cleveland, Ohio: The skyline as seen from Lake Erie, including the Rock and RollHall of Fame, left. MICH. Toledo 80 75
Lake Erie 90
71 OHIO Dayton Columbus Cincinnati KENTUCKY 0 MILES M.K. CANNISTRA/THE WASHINGTON POST
ble meal should be: creative, fresh, sea- sonal. Afterward, we wandered the little neighborhood and learned that in this city with brutal winters, the locals flock to sidewalk cafes and outdoor beer gar- dens on a pleasant summer evening.We read menus and added to our list of must-visit places for our short stay: Bar Cento for Italian-ish;Momocho, several blocks away, for what it calledModMex. In the morning, we took the Red Line
of the light-rail system, the Rapid, to the main Tower City station downtown. Af- ter a frustrating wait there, we deter- mined that the Waterfront line, which runs near the Rock Hall, no longer operates on weekdays even though it’s on all the system’s maps. Nobody had bothered to put up a sign on the plat- form, and transit employees were dis- missive. It turns out thatmost service on the line, always underused, was discon-
Topic: Travel
RunDate: 09 /25/2010 Size: 13p3 x2”
VIRGINIA WEST 100 77 70 90 Cleveland
tinued this year for budget reasons. I grumbled, but as we knewfrom past
visits, the walk to the Rock Hall is less than a mile. Did you know that Bruce, who made his name as the voice of the gritty ’70s, was touring around the coun- try in the 1960s, long before he became famous? Or how much he paid for the guitar he held on the cover of “Born to Run”? (It was $180, maybe $185, Bruce recalls—a fortune tohimat the time.)Or howlittle I probably paid formy ticket to the “BTR” concert in 1975, if the other postersfromthat tour areany guide? (If I paid more than $10, I should have had a much better seat.) TheHall lets you go in and out all day,
Cleveland.TRA PROOF1
Artist: Cannistra@4-5368
so you’re not stuck with a museum cafeteria. We decided against Iron Chef Michael Symon’s downtown restaurant, Lola, instead opting to huntdownPolish Boy sandwiches. The Polish Boy, a very local specialty, is a sausage topped with cole slaw, French fries and barbecue sauce. I know, but it’s good — and we found some not far away, at a hole-in- the-wall called Freddie’s Southern Style RibHouse. But the highlight — the big pig-out
revelation — came the morning we visited the West Side Market. It’s huge, vastly outsizing Capitol Hill’s beloved Eastern Market. It’s sparkling clean, putting Baltimore’s LexingtonMarket to shame. And the variety! Pasta, sausage, cheese, pastry, pierogies, tamales, meat, meat, meat. (Produce, not so hot.) We still had two weeks of road trip ahead, so we restrained ourselves, buy-
ing a pound of raw-milk Amish cheddar, pretzel-and-cheese concoctions called pretzel boats, and some spicy distant cousins of beef jerky known as smokies. A few days later, when we finished the cheese, we agreed to shift our route home and swing back through Cleve- land. This time, it was the J. Palen House
that had no rooms available, so we stayed in another romantic, historic Ohio City B&B, Stone Gables. We had dinner in yet another local-food restau- rant and the next morning filled a cooler with yet more West Side Market pur- chases — beef pasties, chicken enchila- das, pasta, bread, sausage, cheese, smok- ies. After all, it was only a seven-hour drive home.
travel@washpost.com Haggerty is a former Post reporter and editor.
Great Lakes Brewing Co. 2516 Market Ave. 216-771-4404
www.greatlakesbrewing.com Brewpub-style food and Great Lakes beer. Entrees $10-$15.
WHAT TO DO Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 1100 Rock and Roll Blvd. 216-781-ROCK
www.rockhall.com Listen and learn all things rock. Special exhibit “From Asbury Park to the Promised Land: The Life and Music of Bruce Springsteen” runs through Dec. 31. Open daily 10 a.m.-5:30 p.m. (to 9 p.m. Wednesday). Adults $22 one day, $33 for two days.
West Side Market West 25th & Lorain 216-664-3387
www.westsidemarket.org More than 100 vendors in a landmark building that dates to 1912. Open Monday andWednesday 7 a.m.-4 p.m.; Friday and Saturday 7 a.m.-6 p.m.
MoreTravel this week
FRIDAY Escapes stands up to the challenge of paddleboarding around Annapolis, inWeekend.
NEXT SUNDAY The Impulsive Traveler has off-season Nantucket
all to itself, in Travel.
East Fourth Street Between Euclid and Prospect avenues.
www.east4thstreet.com More than a dozen restaurants, plus other entertainment venues, on a pedestrian-only block. Site of Iron Chef Michael Symon’s restaurant Lola.
INFORMATION
www.ohiocity.com www.positivelycleveland.com
—M.H.
All flight and lodging info valid as of press time Thursday.
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2010
Inns, Lodges &Villas DELAWARE
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MIMSLYN INN
Escape to the Shenandoah Valley! Elegant Historic Inn Perfect for Summer Getaways, Fine /Casual Dining, SundayBrunch,Weddings, Retreats. Rt. 211 in the heart of Luray.
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US Virgin Islands – No Passport Required Bolongo Bay Resort -65rooms right on the beach
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