By 1920, Standard Oil founder John D. Rockefeller had made his fortune and Cleveland had become the fifth largest city in the country. The city was a center for the national progressive movement headed locally by Mayor Tom L. Johnson. Many Clevelanders of this era are buried in the historic Lake View Cemetery, along with James A. Garfield, the twentieth U.S. President.The city is surrounded by the Cuyahoga River and Lake Erie.
We stopped by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame http://www.rockhall.com/ ,and saw several beautiful parks.
There was plenty walking (which was wonderful), and sightseeing. We visited Cleveland's Indian Stadium, Museum of Arts, and walked along the lake shores.
Everyone following my blogs know dining out is major for our family. We are definitely the eat out king and queen of this century. Dinning out in Cleveland was a journey itself. We couldn't find any familiar restaurants. We walked for miles downtown looking for the perfect place.
On the strip we discovered a Hard Rock Cafe www.hardrockcafe.com/cleveland. Although it's not a place we frequent we were just happy so see a familiar place. We decided to stop in for appetizers, and a drink. Later, we continued our quest to find a great steak house.
That evening we found a steakhouse several streets over called John Q's Steakhouse http://www.johnqssteakhouse.com/. The food was pretty good, but the service was great.
On the last day of our visit still in search for great places to eat we found another area a few blocks from the mall with some quaint little places, but they didn't appeal to us. We decided to go back to the mall and had lunch at a place called Houlihan's http://www.houlihans.com/ . The service was good and the food was too. Our thoughts is that it's compatible to Chili's, which is just some place to grab a quick meal, and nothing fancy.
We thought it was odd for a city as large as Cleveland Ohio to have so few restaurants downtown. We only found ONE Mexican food restaurant and it was so small it looked like a little bar. If there were others we didn't see them and/or the names on the signs didn't tell us much about the food inside.
ABOUT CLEVELAND'S CULINARY SCENE
Cleveland's many immigrant groups have long played an important role in defining the regional cuisine. Polish and Eastern European foods, such as beer, pierogi, corned beef, and kielbasa are popular in and around the city, as are foods associated with Cleveland's Irish and Italian immigrants.
The Polish Boy sandwich is a local favorite at many BBQ and Soul food restaurants. The West Side Market is home to vendors selling many kinds of ethnic food, as well as fresh produce, and ethnic restaurants can be found in the Little Italy, Slavic Village, and Tremont neighborhoods, among others.
Oh yea, we finally discovered Morton's Steakhouse inside the mall on our last day.
Our overall opinion of Cleveland Ohio...
It's a nice place to visit with beautiful scenery's, nice hotels and the people are quite friendly, but if you really love Steak and Seafood Restaurants you might find them...IF you look in the right places. But, if you really love fine Mexican Cuisine you are probably out of luck.
A Weekend in Cleveland
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